Rise Against and Chess

You don't think chess is in the mainstream? Well, think again!

For those of you out of the loop, this bombshell came out a while ago, but I have been waiting for the rest of the International Chess News Corp to pick up on it. I figured this would have been a huge story! I guess I'll just have to report it myself...

The popular rock band, Rise Against, released their fifth studio album in October of last year. The name of the album is "Appeal to Reason" and it premiered at #3 on the Billboard 200. The album was immediately embraced as a critical and commercial success.

While this is all well and good, people seem to have overlooked the real importance of this album. It employs major chess imagery. Watch out Wu Tang! There's a new band on the block for chess players to desperately look to for validation on the musical landscape.

So without any further ado, I present what I am calling "See? It told you chess is cool #47 "...

What's that? You don't see anything? Well, look a little closer...

My high school years have been officially vindicated! I knew I was cool...I fucking knew it! I just didn't know I was ahead of my time. Here we have a successful band (but not too successful...we don't want to lose street cred) showing some heavy chess love.

So why does Rise Against have a bishop on their album cover?

No. I'm asking you, "Why does Rise Against have a bishop on their album cover?" Because I don't know. I have messaged them on Myspace, but haven't heard anything back. I'll let you know if there are any late breaking developments, but right now I need to go set the record straight with a few girls from high school that didn't understand what a visionary I was...

By the way, both the band and this album are great. And although it lacks the chess imagery, their previous album "The Sufferer and The Witness" is a favorite of mine.

Chess and Lit

A customer of Endgame Clothing sent me the following quote...

"If alterna-rock were a chess game, Lit would control the all-important mid-board squares, where the diagonals of cutting force intersect with the horizontals and verticals of straightforward pop-melodic appeal."

Talk about an amazing coincidence! This is from an article written in the LA Times back in 1999. Fast forward 10 years and a few million albums later and the guitar player, Jeremy Popoff, is wearing one Endgame's chess t-shirts. Awesome!!

By the way, if you do not own Lit's "A Place in the Sun," you have to get it. It is simply one of the best pop/punk albums ever.

The full article with the above quote can be found here.

Play well,

John.