Rays win brings two more weeks of that 'Feel the Heat' song
Pop & Hiss is allowed one obligatory baseball-related post per week, even during the off-season, and it is as follows:
The failure of the Angels-defeating Boston Red Sox to pull out a Game 7 win against the Tampa Bay Rays last night will have some pop-culture implications, at least for the next week and a half.
One, undoubtedly, will be continued rotation of the Rays' theme song, "Feel the Heat Rays," which proves that encouraging thousands of fans to insistently clank cowbells or wave stuffed monkeys is not the most obnoxious thing a Major League Baseball franchise can do. Cued after each Ray home run -- elegantly by a bullhorn -- Tropicana Field blasts 30 seconds or so of "Feel the Heat Rays" while the bases are circled.
It's hard to miss. The song's low-end, stomp-and-grind guitars cut right through the chatter of TBS announcers all during the ALCS (a snippet is below). Lyrically, the name of the song is all you need to know, as it's not so much a chorus as it as a cheerleading routine (the Rays appear to have those too). In detailed notes to the song, which composer Darren Moore describes as "contagious," it becomes clear that "Feel the Heat Rays" was designed with enough space to allow for the fans to go nuts with their cowbells.
It'd be cheap -- and unfair -- to really take the song to task, especially because a little Internet digging reveals that Moore has a burgenoing sports-anthem empire in the making.
Also recording under the name Living Under Venus, Moore has crafted a little ditty for the Toronto Blue Jays, this one entitled "Feel That Way Again." You can sample it on his MySpace page. It's a bit slower; the song's sleazy, bar-band guitars aching to go "back in time to '92" (expansion teams are so adorable).
But Moore has a slight self-deprecating streak that I admire, noting that he has "accidentally fallen into the sports anthem realm, with a figure skating theme for Cathy Taylor's routine and other instrumental pieces." Figure skating! Here's hoping that's the Living Under Venus ballad entitled "Break the Ice."
Living Under Venus probably is not going to replace Bon Jovi as Major League Baseball's musical spokesman of choice anytime soon. But after having crafted themes for two of MLB's 30 teams, is this a sign of things to come?
Press play. But warning, you might suddenly feel compelled to root for the Phillies.
-- Todd Martens
Photo: EPA
