Sporting Madness

Apologies for the delay in this Link Train post; I was planning to run it last night as per usual, but life got in the way and prevented me from finishing it until now. I should hopefully have another one ready at the normal time tonight, and perhaps even a piece of my own before then if all goes well. As always, leave links for upcoming editions in the comments, or send them to me via Twitter , Facebook or e-mail . Video Of The Day: Deep Purple - Highway Star One of the all-time great driving songs, this song also was one of the first real hits in the hard rock/heavy metal vein (along with Led Zeppelin's Communication Breakdown and Black Sabbath's Paranoid). It's the first track from Deep Purple's seminal 1972 album Machine Head, one of the most influential hard rock albums out there. Moreover, it shows off Jon Lord 's incredible use of the Hammond organ. If anyone ever tells you the organ has no place in rock, make them listen to Deep Purple for a while. My Lin...

So, I've added another site to the long list of places I write for. This one, The Phoenix Pub , is imagined as a sports hangout open to all, full of comedy pieces, analytical pieces and pretty much anything else you can think of. There's already a great cast of writers and editors on board, including Sculptor , the Avoiding the Drop gang and First Derivative of The Red Carders . My initial piece for them is one of the nightly Last Call series (open-thread commenting; you can find the full schedule over there as well), featuring booze, a Big Dirty Band music video and also an analysis of some of the reasons why the NFL has become the dominant professional sports league in North America. Check it out !