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My top whatevers of 2010

Koven — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 21:38:14 +0000

I’ve never done a year-end wrap-up post here at kovenjsmith.com before, but this seems better than doing real work, so here we are. A few things that I liked (or at least noted) in 2010:

Most important conversation I had in 2010: At Museums and the Web in Denver in April this year, Bruce Wyman had a long conversation that began with him saying, “you should really consider applying for the Director of Technology job at the Denver Art Museum.” And here we are!
- Honorable Mention: The conversation I had with Madelyn five minutes after that, in which she said, somewhat tentatively, “yeah, I might consider moving to Colorado.”
Best Concert: Tune-Yards at the Bell House in Brooklyn. Holy crap! She blew us all away with just a uke, a floor tom, her voice, and a bad-ass bass player.
- Honorable Mention: Pearl and the Beard at Union Pool for the Farm to Folks fest. If you haven’t seen these peeps yet, you need to do that right now.
- Honorable Mention Runner Up: The True Love Always reunion show at the Rock Shop. Seeing John Lindaman on stage always makes me smile.
Best Moment With Madelyn: After driving three days (in separate vehicles stuffed with luggage and cats) out to Colorado, we stopped at the overlook on the Denver/Boulder Turnpike at Mile 42 to see Boulder Valley all lit up, just before driving to our new house for the first time. Yeah, that was the shit.
Best Catfish Po-Boy Purchased From a Truck: This would be the catfish po-boy purchased while Nate Solas and I were on our way to see the bats fly out from under the Congress Bridge in Austin. The bats were somewhat underwhelming, but the po-boy was effing amazing.
Favorite New Record of 2010: Riposte, by Buke and Gass. Goddamn. I just started laughing the first time I listened to this; I can’t remember just straight-up enjoying a record this much in quite some time.
Favorite Record from 1969 that wasn’t released until 2010: That would be U.F.O., by Jim Sullivan. One of those rare re-discoveries latently touted as a “masterpiece” that might actually be just that. I love, love, love this record. There’s a fascinating backstory to this album as well (involving U.F.O.s and Jim Sullivan’s sudden unexplained disappearance); there’s a great interview with Light In the Attic’s Matt Sullivan on NPR about it here.
Most Improbable Concert of 2010 that I actually saw in 2009: The inexplicable Jawbox reunion on the Jimmy Fallon show. My old bandmates and friends Mason and Megan somehow were able to swing tickets to the morning rehearsal, in which Jawbox rocked “Savory,” FF=66,”"Chinese Fork Tie,” and my all-time-favorite Jawbox song, “68.” Victor Samra ditched his duties at MoMA for the morning and walked a few blocks over to the studio to see the show with us. Trust me, you’ve never seen DC post-punk properly until you’ve seen it seated in a freezing-cold television studio.
Strangest concert experience also involving Victor Samra: This would be the Iron Maiden/Dream Theater show at Madison Square Garden. Victor called me early the day of the concert offering an extra ticket. I am not, nor have I ever been, an Iron Maiden fan (though I admit a certain begrudging respect for the technical facilities of my fellow Berklee alums Dream Theater), but when Victor Samra calls, you’ve gotta accept the charges. We ended up in MSG’s own private box, drinking Heinekens and eating risotto with people we didn’t know while watching the show. I have officially now eaten risotto at an Iron Maiden show. How many of you fools out there can say that?
- Honorable Mention: The Medications show in Brooklyn that ended with the sound guy attempting to turn off power to the stage mid-set, and Devin Ocampo almost killing said sound guy with his guitar. Punk rock! Sorta!
Best Birthday Present: Madelyn gave me a bike for my birthday; it’s the first one I’ve owned (or ridden) since I was 12 years old. Now it is a vital component of my morning commute. Vroom.
Best Quote I Totally Agree With While Recognizing That Doing So Makes Me Realize That I’m Officially Old(er): That would be this quote from former NEA Chairman Bill Ivey, on the “Hide/Seek” controversy at the Smithsonian: “A sense of proportion is required as it is not a good idea to convert every small offense into a fight over principles.” Ivey summed up in just a few words what it took me an entire post to express. These are words to live by in 2011, kids.
Best Book I Read in 2010: Philip Jenkins’ Decade of Nightmares. Jenkins examines the decade 1975-1985 and looks at trends leading up to and following that decade, and manages to show how so much of what’s happening currently in America had its genesis in that decade. An excellent read.
- Honorable Mention: Rick Perlstein’s Nixonland, for much the same reasons as above.
Best Technology That Changed My Damn Life: Rdio, hands down! I got tired of waiting for Spotify to make its way to our shores, and opted for the music-streaming service Rdio instead. Jeffrey Inscho has a great post about Rdio that expresses why it works. I’ve discovered so much amazing music thanks to this service, particularly since Rdio has made big strides to license all sorts of independent music and make it available. The entire Now Again, Light In the Attic, Warp, Teenbeat, and Merge catalogs available for one low monthly price? Yes! Rdio has also caused me to stop purchasing CDs entirely, and to start purchasing LPs again–the record-as-physical-artifact has real meaning thanks to Rdio.
Best Moment In Which I Almost Peed In My Pants: That would be my best friend Don Undeen’s sudden emergence, complete with Mexican wrestling mask, as “El Museo” the day before Halloween at MCN 2010 in Austin. I wish that I had taken a picture of the force of nature that was El Museo; I haven’t laughed that hard in a loooong time.

Awright, I guess about wraps it up, y’all. Happy New Year–see you in 2011!

The obligatory Michael Jackson post

Koven — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:23:56 +0000

Well, what can I say? Shock. Distinctly remembering multiple birthday parties in fourth grade in which Thriller was the only album we played; once we got to the end of a given side, we’d just flip that rekkid over and listen all over again.

My favorite moment of yesterday, though, came at the end of the Femi Kuti concert at the Prospect Park bandshell. As everyone began filing out, the sound guy had the bright idea to play “I’ll Be There” over the soundsystem. Several thousand people suddenly stopped in their tracks, and started singing together:

Download audio file (beThere.mp3)

It was a beautiful moment, and one that sent actual chills down my spine. I wish you could hear the singing better in the recorded excerpt above, but you get the idea.

Levi Stubbs, June 6, 1936 â€“ October 17, 2008

Koven — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 20:43:56 +0000

I just learned this morning that Levi Stubbs, lead singer of the Four Tops and easily my all-time favorite Motown vocalist, passed away on Friday at the age of 72. Levi was just the absolute fucking best. It’s really easy to take the Four Tops for granted, given their ubiquity on oldies radio and the fact that, in many ways, they exemplified the sound of the Motown production machine more than somewhat more idiosyncratic acts like Marvin Gaye or Smokey Robinson. But goddamn, you listen to Levi on prime Tops tracks like “Bernadette,” “Shake Me Wake Me (When It’s Over),” or even late-period inconsequentialities like “Are You Man Enough” (from the soundtrack to Shaft In Africa), and you realize the man just sang with absolutely everything he had all the time. Nobody sounds more real, more heartbreaking, than Levi Stubbs. I miss him.

An album for every year you’ve been alive

Koven — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 23:12:28 +0000

Image via WikipediaSo this is an internet meme that’s been out there for a while, but I’m only just now finally getting my contribution in (how typical). I first discovered this on the excellent music blog Idolator; the idea is that you choose one, and only one, album for every single year you’ve been alive. I’m not at all sure why, but this proved to be an utterly riveting exercise rather than an exhausting one. It’s strange what limiting you to only one album per year does–it forced me to choose Outlandos d’Amour, my least favorite Police album, because 1978 didn’t have nearly the competition for slots that 1982, the year of my favorite Police album (Ghost In the Machine), did. Certain years were particularly painful to do (2003 and 2006 were especially heartbreaking), with four or five amazing albums gunning for the top slot, while some years were so thin with competitors that a wild card like Weird Al’s Dare to be Stupid could make it in. Anywayz, here’s my list. Derisive comments, as always, are welcome.

1975 – Miles Davis, Pangaea
1976 – Joni Mitchell, Hejira
1977 – Fela, Zombie
1978 – The Police, Outlandos d’Amour
1979 – Gang of Four, Entertainment!
1980 – XTC, Black Sea
1981 – Mission of Burma, Signals, Calls, & Marches
1982 – Michael Jackson, Thriller
1983 – Men at Work, Cargo
1984 – Talking Heads, Stop Making Sense
1985 – Weird Al Yankovic, Dare to be Stupid
1986 – Paul Simon, Graceland
1987 – John Adams, Nixon In China
1988 – Public Enemy, It Takes a Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back
1989 – Tone Loc, Loc’ed After Dark
1990 – Living Colour, Time’s Up
1991 – Red Hot Chili Peppers, Blood Sugar Sex Magik
1992 – PJ Harvey, Dry
1993 – Sting, Ten Summoner’s Tales
1994 – Jawbox, For Your Own Special Sweetheart
1995 – Pie, Strictly Seance
1996 – DJ Shadow, Endtroducing…
1997 – Stereolab, Dots and Loops
1998 – Fugazi, End Hits
1999 – The Dismemberment Plan, Emergency & I
2000 – Faraquet, The View From This Tower
2001 – Bjork, Vespertine
2002 – Wilco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
2003 – Jay-Z, The Black Album
2004 – The Bad Plus, Give
2005 – The Books, Lost and Safe
2006 – Matmos, The Rose Has Teeth In the Mouth of the Beast
2007 – Caribou, Andorra

Music cognition

Koven — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 17:56:32 +0000

Image via WikipediaI’ve of late become a regular reader of “Music Matters“, an excellent blog on music cognition written by Henkjan Honing, an Associate Professor in Music Cognition at the University of Amsterdam (that’s him on the right in the picture). The blog is utterly fascinating, as it focuses on the search for answers that most musicians (myself included) have only begun to ask about why do we, as humans, process music the way we do. You should go there yourself and check it out, but there’s also an excellent introduction to the study of music cognition and Honing’s approach to it in the form of a 10-minute episode of the University of Amsterdam’s series The Fascination (De Fascinatie). Really, really interesting stuff. Enjoy!

Music TV goodness

Koven — Fri, 09 May 2008 03:11:43 +0000

Image via WikipediaThis is one of those things that’s such a fine idea that it’s hard to imagine that no one has done it before. A magical being named Tim Bormans has created a YouTube/Last.fm mashup that creates a streaming video channel based on your Last.fm artist list. Last.fm, for those of you who aren’t yet hanging, is a nice service that keeps track of your listening habits and allows you to do all sorts of interesting things with that information (Last.fm powers the “recently listened to” playlist and the radio station in the sidebar on the right of this page). Anyway, the mashup is pretty cool. In just the first few moments of playing with it, I’ve discovered some sweet Tortoise rehearsal footage, an old Stan Kenton performance, and a from-the-audience video of Unwound performing in 1999. Awesome. Here’s my channel: http://tv.timbormans.com/user/fiveeasypieces/

Have a good weekend, everybody!

That’s what friends are for

Koven — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 17:22:30 +0000

I can’t say any more about this than it already says on its own.

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Listening to: The Beach Boys – Fall Breaks And Back To Winter
via FoxyTunes

Mountains come out of the sky, they stand there

Koven — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 19:19:34 +0000

Oh, snap! It’s a high-school marching band performing “Roundabout.”

Download audio file (365-Days-Project-02-10-leland-stanford-junior-university-marching-band-roundabout-1977.mp3)
I love the 365 Days Project. I love it I love it I love it.

After my first posting about it, my friend and fellow closet-Claus-Ogerman-appreciator Rob G. pointed out that he was, in fact, a contributor to the original 2003 list. Here’s his amazing submission, “Stainy Heavy Needles / The Every Days Way Down to the Suburbs” by Staff Carpenborg And The Electric Corona (which, incidentally, includes some really hot handclaps):

Download audio file (365-Days-Project-11-19-staff-carpenborg-and-the-electric-corona.mp3)

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Listening to: Life Without Buildings – IS IS & the IRS
via FoxyTunes

Star Wars (The Saul Bass Version)

Koven — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 03:47:06 +0000

Oh, man, this is my new favorite thing. Some super-excellent dude, as a school project, did the opening credits for “Star Wars” as if they’d been created by Saul Bass, the legendary art director behind the credit sequences of those great Otto Preminger movies like “Anatomy of a Murder” and “The Man With the Golden Arm.” Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. Enjoy:

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Now playing: Toots & The Maytals – Sweet And Dandy

365 Days

Koven — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 00:45:13 +0000

Firstly, much love to those of you beautiful souls that came out to the Ukulele Cabaret last night. It was a stirring evening as always; Sonic Uke managed three costume changes during a set that lasted only about 15 minutes, and Michael (Chappy) Wagner was amazing as always. I’m hoping that Matt Chandler, who took some action photos during Sonic Uke’s set, will post some of those photos soon–I’ll put them up here as well as soon as they’re in my hands.

In the meantime, however, I’d like to just post some music that’s been freaking blowing my mind over the last couple of days, courtesy of WFMU’s completely wonderful “365 Days Project.”Â If you have not been to this site (as I hadn’t been until just a few days ago), go there now.Â You will not be disappointed.Â Here I offer just a small sampler of what you might find there.

The Fairfax High School Marimba Band – “Popcorn”:Â Download audio file (028_05_The_Fairfax_High_School_Marimba_Band_-_Popcorn.mp3)

Michael Mills – “Hidden Satanic Messages In Rock Music”: Download audio file (365-Days-Project-01-12-mills-michael-hidden-satanic-messages-in-rock-music-1981.mp3)

National Fuel Gas Distribution Corporation – “Rappin’ With Gas”:Â Download audio file (012_Rappin_With_Gas.mp3)