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Image via WikipediaAwright, so my new online/virtual/cyber m(i/u)xtape o-sphere is now up, meaning that all five of you who read this can collectively exhale and begin enjoying your lives again, free of the anxiety borne out of anticipation. Koven understands your needs. Also your wants. And occasionally, your desires. I finally went ahead and moved the mixtape widget over into the right hand column over there (seriously, look to your right–it’s right there!), so that it would be permanently available. It replaces the little-loved “Favorite Tracks from Last.fm” widget, which was cool, but relied too much on Last.fm’s occasionally questionable library of tracks (most painful was listening to my own “favorite tracks” and hearing an 80’s re-recording of Sam & Dave’s classic “You Got Me Hummin’” in place of the original). Anyway, I’m still using the Last.fm recent track list, for those of you who require up-to-the-second information on what I’m listening to. So here’s a list of what we’ve got this week, along with helpful/meaningless commentary inserted at random:

1. The Frames – “In the Deep Shade”
2. The Shins – “Sea Legs”
3. King Geedorah – “The Next Level”
4. Joao Donato – “A Ra” : we might be playing this jam at next week’s Latin Hustle show at Spike Hill in Brook-a-lyn. See the “Events” page fer more info.
5. Lee Hazlewood – “Hey Cowboy” : Great tune that I discovered thanks to the excellent “Joe de Vivre” mp3 blog. Lee Hazlewood is a new thing for me, and I’m definitely digging his stuff. That trumpet intro really, really sounds like Burt Bacharach to me.
6. Fleet Foxes – “Blue Ridge Mountains” : found myself surprised at how excellent this record is, given that the band is being advertised in Starbucks.
7. Enon – “Raisin Heart”
8. Deerhoof – “My Purple Past”
9. The Four Tops – “Are You Man Enough” : Just a last tribute to the great Levi Stubbs. This is one of my fave Four Tops tracks, from the Shaft In Africa soundtrack.
10. Daedelus – “Drummery Jam” : Oh man, how do I love Daedelus. He was responsible for one of the greatest concerts I’ve ever seen, as part of the “Sound Art” concert series curated by my friend Jennifer Stock. Daedelus just blew everyone’s mind.
11. Stars of the Lid – “A Meaningful Moment Through a Meaning(less) Process”

That’s it for now, kids. I hope you’re all well.

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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.

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