Wednesday « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

Wednesday

After a long time, it got here quickly

My mind wanders better when I ride my bike on the road, as opposed to when my bike is mounted on the trainer indoors. I don’t know why that is. It seems like the opposite should be true. Indoors, I am in a small 8 x 10 light-blue room. There are a few windows showing the backyard, which is quite nice, but it remains a static condition. Lately 90 minutes is the extent of time I want to stay in that unchanging way, but the only thing my wanders to then is, “How much longer?” Where does my mind go the first 75 or 80 minutes?

It is an honest mystery, one that hasn’t occurred to me until after today’s hard-easy bike ride on roads and under sunny skies. Today, I spent about an hour pondering the nature of suddenness. It was 61 degrees and the world felt big with possibilities. This is finals week. Young people are graduating. Graduating? Already? Can that really be the case? So suddenly? People are saying so long, or see you next fall.

How did we get here so suddenly? This feels rapid.

Coming to realize that this is May — that the term is ending, that summer will soon begin, that my schedule can simplify itself, that the weather is maybe finally growing consistently nice, that these are things to be enjoyed and savored, and they are here before me, now — is a small elation. Remember the feeling, as a kid, you had when you thought you were getting away with something? It feels like that kind of giddy.

And how can that be the case? Why, just the other day was spring break, and that felt exactly the same way. Where did this semester, this year, the last three of them, go?

You almost don’t even notice the little voice saying, “Finally … :

I thought on this for most of my ride, but came up with no real answers. You’d think, riding on open roads, you’d spend time concentrating on other things. The wind, your lungs, the sound of your tires on asphalt, how that black Audi deliberately executed a dangerous close pass. But, no, it was the nature of the notion of time. Except for the places where I was riding through curves and turns, and passed that one farm that was a little light on the fragrance of nature, today. Does the livestock know what time of year it is?

Anyway, shadow selfie.

And, later in the evening, having realized how my conscious wandering mind acts on the road versus on the trainer, I have to wonder why. I asked the shadow. He was characteristically zen about the whole thing. Maybe that’s by design, too.

Time to dive back into the music for the Re-Listening project. It’s all of my old CDs, in their order of acquisition. And this is one I listened to twice before I started writing about it here, because there are no rules or expectations here, and I like this record. We journey back to the early fall of 1998 and the third major label release by Better Than Ezra, “How Does Your Garden Grow?” They got dropped by their label right after this record, where they parked two songs in the top 40, again proving the ridiculousness of the music industry.

“At the Stars” made it to 17 on the Modern Rock chart. If you had time for another 1,500 words on this, I’d argue it’s a part of a long-running trilogy-plus arc throughout the band’s catalog. Or you could just imagine all the rom-coms this could have featured in, or the dates it played a part of in 1998 and 1999.

Tom Drummond was experimenting, a lot, with his bass guitars, and the sounds were peppy and eclectic throughout.

Kevin Griffin, in addition to fronting this band for three-plus decades now, has a prolific second career as a songwriter for other acts. I like to think this was the song where he figured out he’d do that.

There’s a line in there, after the bridge, that I told a girl when she broke up with me the next year. It was a direct ripoff, sure, but it also applied. She caught the reference, but not its meaning.

If you had time for a further 2,000-3,000 words on this, I could make a convincing argument that if the producer got really selective, they could re-release the greatest concept EP of all time from just a few of the tracks on this record.

They re-released this record a few years ago in 5.1 stereo. YouTube’s compressions aren’t an improvement on the original mix by any means. But I wonder …

Griffin said:

It’s our most sonically adventurous album. At that time there was some great music happening — not just alternative rock, but an explosion of electronic music like Chemical Brothers, DJ Shadow and the experimental Björk albums, like Post, and Radiohead’s OK Computer. So we made this grand sweeping album with a lot of electronic flourishes and a big orchestral string section. We really went for it and the original recordings had a great sonic character, but got a very compressed, late ’90s mix. So a lot of the textures and nuances were lost in the original stereo release. Richard LaBonté [of Music Valet, the 5.1 remix specialty label that spearheaded the project] was the catalyst for the remix. When he approached us, we were thrilled. The album was initially unappreciated. It probably got us dropped from Elektra Records, because we’d made two very commercial albums before that, and then went down the rabbit hole creatively. But it’s our fans’ favorite album.

Should I start buying things in Dolby 5.1 now? Would I notice the difference?

Anyway, the last time I saw BTE was in 2018. They were celebrating the 25th anniversary of their major label debut that year, on the road with Barenaked Ladies who were, themselves, celebrating a 30th anniversary that same year. These are the acts I like now, I guess. It was inevitable as it was obvious, I suppose. Better Than Ezra is apparently close to releasing a new album — possibly this year. And they’re doing limited dates this summer, though none of those shows are close by where I’ll be. If they were, though, I would be there.

The next album in the Re-Listening project is “Appetite for Destruction.” I bought it as part of a bulk deal. I never had it in another format, and picking this up was really just feeling a need to acknowledge something that was important to rock ‘n’ roll from 1987-1989. The singles, except “Nightrain” all hold up. The rest is just kinda … there, but that’s likely just because I have no strong association with the CD. Plus, after 30 million units sold, it’s challenging to write anything new here. And, these days, it is impossible to listen to this and not picture Slash in a Capital One commercial. The first single is about heroin addiction, and now there’s banking spots. We’re mere days away from reverse mortgage promos and Muzak at this point. I guess i just don’t have … an appetite for it.

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26
Apr 23

These stories, let me tell you …

I dropped my car off at the mechanic this evening, but let me back up. A weekend or two ago, on a day when it was actually, you know, warm in April like Mother Nature was paying attention to the calendar, the A/C in my car was not … what’s the word I want here … conditioning the air. Oh, it’d blow and blow, but it could not cool and cool.

So, freon, I figured. Then the weather turned wimpy again and I promptly forgot about the problem. But this week I remembered! Not because it was warm, I just remembered. So I googled. The place I get my oil changed does air recharging. I drove there Tuesday morning, to inquire about their services. The guy told me, in some detail, that they don’t do that anymore. Which is odd because it is right there, on the website.

I drove to our local mechanic. They’re about two miles away, but the trip takes forever because of the bad drivers and the guy who had clearly never towed a boat before. And also the geese and their goslings that were waddling about. You put a roundabout near a pond and they just think they run the place. And the guy with the boat trailer doesn’t know how to make a gentle curve to his left.

Finally I made it to the mechanic. Having diagnosed the problem myself, professional that I am, I simply asked the guy when we could get the car into their rotation. Let’s make this convenient for everyone, I said. He was more than happy to make that happen, but only after he mentally rebuilt an air conditioning system aloud there at the desk.

We’re gonna drain it. And then fill it. And then we’ll inject it with dye. And then see if there are leaks. It went on like this for some time.

Great. Here’s the thing: when I can I drop it off? I just want to get it in and out as quickly as possible, so as to not inconvenience my wife.

So we resolved to drop it off Wednesday night. And now I have no car until tomorrow, probably.

And I told you that because it was either the car story, or the apple story. My lovely bride is thoughtful enough to pick up apples for me at the grocery store. Last year I decided the Cosmic Crisp was the best offering in the produce section, and now they are always in the fruit crisper.

She gets them every week. Five a week. I have one for each day at the office. Peanut butter sandwich and an apple, that’s me.

Except, this week — and believe me, this is the short version of the story — I didn’t pack a lunch yesterday, so I did not eat an apple. (Sometimes a guy just wants Chipotle.) That means I had an extra apple.

And today I ate two apples.

Neither of these stories are good, I am aware.

Hey! Look! A new banner! Now I just have to go back in time and update a lot of graphics.

Anyway, after we dropped off the car, I went on a bike ride on Zwift. It was just warm enough to go outside, but I’m still on this self-imposed Zwift mission.

Today it was Muir and the Mountain, a 24 mile ride in Watopia. There are … gulp … dinosaurs.

I wonder how programmed or how free formed these things are. I’m sure there are better industry terms. Maybe I should ask one of the game designers at work. All of these background creatures are moving, but does everyone see the same pterodactyl in the same curve? Does that big plant eater always sit right there, or can it choose another tree?

At one point, there’s a tyrannosaurus rex, or something of that sort, striding alongside the road. But what if he veered to the right, leaned over and took a snap at me?

This route has the Epic KOM, no longer the biggest mountain in the game, but plenty stiff. It’s 5.9 miles of climbing, where you gain 1,364 feet. When you get to the top, there’s an ibex. On some routes that feature the Epic KOM, you are immediately gifted an extra climb. They call it a “bonus climb,” but this is a horrible name. I’d been going slowly enough, but after a half hour pointed upward, now I have to go uphill for another three-quarters of a mile? And the gradient pitches up to average 14 percent?

That’s pretty steep, and it’s a horrible little climb.

Strava tells me I’ve gone up the bonus climb four times. I was slow today everywhere, this was my third slowest time.

The 2023 Zwift route tracker 101 routes down, 28 to go.

Back to the Re-Listening project, where we can now catch up … until we are behind again. If you’ve forgotten: I’m listening to all of my old CDs in the car, in the order that I acquired them. These aren’t reviews, but a glance back and a happy glimpse of memory. This is an excuse to fill the page with words and drop in some YouTube embeds. It’s about whimsy, as most music should be.

It is guilty pleasure time. Even at the time it seemed like a guilty pleasure. And it does now, too. But I still like it. Today we’re discussing Train’s debut album. (They’d released it independently in 1996, but that doesn’t count here.) We’re in 1998 here, I bought this in the late spring, probably. I saw them at a small venue that summer. They were still something of a California act at the time, so most of the people at that particular show didn’t know them yet, but that changed soon enough. They produced this record for pennies, but it went platinum on the strength of the three singles that you’re currently trying to banish from your head.

This is was always one of my favorite songs on the disc.

I saw them in concert several other times. And I caught a recorded show on TV early during the stay-at-home part of Covid. They never grew out of the live party band vibe. Never needed to. They were always fun in the nineties and in the oughts. I wonder if they’ll ever change that up as they, and their devoted fans, age.

Speaking of devoted fans. I don’t remember who all the people were, but I was in a car with a college buddy and we were driving two girls he knew from here to there and Widespread Panic came on the radio and she scoffed at that. Widespread — she pronounced with the air of haughtiness that can only be mustered by someone who clearly knows what they’re talking about — had sold out. They were not, she said, like Train.

I thought my buddy, a proper musical snob, was going to crash the car. I was driving the car.

For a debut album, this always struck me as well produced, and rich with deep cuts.

And here’s their end-of-the-night ballad.

One of the best things about listening to the old CDs are the hidden tracks. Do I remember which discs have them? (Usually.) Do I remember how many? (Mostly.) Do I remember what the songs will be? (Almost always.) What will I do to fill the time before they begin playing? I usually fast forward. And I wonder what brought about this little element of music. I wonder how long they pondered over the circumstances and the timing. And I wonder if anyone, back then, actually overlooked the hidden tracks. Surely someone did.

Egg on their face, no?

There are two hidden tracks on this CD. I don’t know why this didn’t get put right up front.

A few years after this CD came out I ran into these guys in a pancake shop one morning. They were playing a set of weekend gigs in town and they were … almost running on their own power that morning. For some reason I have forever associated how they looked that day with how they might have recorded this second hidden track.

Train has become one of those bands with a rotating set of players. Pat Monahan, the lead singer, remains the only constant. But, the band has 11 studio albums (I do not have them all — should I?) and three Grammy awards. And they’re touring right now, they have 50 more dates in the United States this year.

Next in the Re-Listening project, we’ll go from a California pop-rock band to a Georgia singer-songwriter.

It all makes sense if you were listening to the radio in 1998

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19
Apr 23

Two days until spring

It was cloudy and 66 today. This is, apparently, the perfect seasonal average for the day according to the National Weather Service’s almanac. So we’re continuing apace to the official beginning of the locally recognized spring, the Little 500 bike races on Friday and Saturday. Tomorrow it will be much warmer, and sunny. Friday, it will be chilly, with rain all day. Saturday will be more of that.

This spring-at-the-race theory is something I seized on during our first “spring” in Bloomington. At the women’s bike race, that Friday, I took a rain coat to meet the forecast, but the rain stayed away. There was a moment during the Saturday race that I realized spring showed up. It was as demonstrable a moment as pleasant weather can offer, and it was discernible.

Every year since — the bike race was canceled in 2020, and thus not included in these observations, meteorologically speaking — the Little 500 bike races have marked the arrival of spring. This year looks to be the exception that proves the rule.

In a few weeks, Evan will graduate from IU. He’s been at IUSTV the whole of his four years on campus.

Most students come in quietly. It’s a lot: an organization that has its own rhythms, juniors and seniors to look up to, and what do all of these buttons do, anyway?

Before the end of his freshman year, everyone knew about Evan’s energy. Everyone understand the passion he carries. And we all quickly learned how infectious that was.

In those early years he worked his way through the ranks as a beat reporter, and ultimately became a co-director of the sports division as a junior and senior. He cheered on his peers and, as he advanced, he helped the younger students. It’s the way we’ve designed this model to work and, in many ways, Evan has personified that. He’s one of those people at the front of the room, one of those people with the loud, encouraging voice, one of those people with the sort of positive attitude you want to work alongside.

During the spring term of his sophomore year, he also began hosting the sports talk show, The Toss Up, which had been one of his longterm goals. He signed off this week after his 50th episode, his last time to sit in the big chair.

Evan and I recently had a great conversation in the studio. He laughed and pointed to another part of the room and said, “Three or four years ago, we stood right over there and talked about these same things.” That, too, is how we’ve designed this model, so that people who want to go into broadcasting can come through here, practice what they’re learning in class, sharpen their skills and go out and get the high quality internships and, ultimately, great jobs.

He will soon join KNWA-TV and Fox 24 News in Fayetteville, and also appear on KARK 4 in Little Rock, as a sports reporter and anchor. Those are great markets; viewers in The Natural State are getting an extremely talented young man full of great potential. I am excited to see him working in the SEC, and I can’t wait to watch him call the Hogs.

He will work hard, smile a lot, and he’ll soon become a pro’s pro. My friend Evan Kamikow will always be a big, big part of what we’re doing at IUSTV, and I’m incredibly proud to see him continue to grow.

As will these ladies. Between them, Brianna Ballog, Samantha Condra and Audrey Hausberger have covered just about every sport under the sun here, often in multiple capacities, in multiple outlets at IU. Most importantly, they’ve done no less than help create a lasting culture at IUSTV Sports.

They’re all graduating this term. They’ve all got broadcast jobs — not all of which have been publicly discussed yet, so let us stay circumspect for now — and I’ve no doubt that over the course of their careers they’re going to do more for women in sports media than I can possibly imagine. No doubt.

And then there’s Griffin Epstein, one of the hardest working, quietly humble people you could have the pleasure to work with. His achievements around here could, like the women above, go on for quite a while. He’s been the sports director at the radio station. He’s been a beat reporter, a member of the production crew and a longtime panelist at IUSTV. He’s calling one of the big bike races this weekend. He’s about ready to start his play-by-play career. We’re building out a pipeline for that, too.

Which brings me to Jack Edwards, seen here still getting taller than me. He probably walked onto campus as the expert in global soccer, and in four years no one has even come close to threatening him for the crown. He started for IUSTV as a beat reporter for soccer. In his college career, he’s risen through the ranks of all of the sports media outlets here.

Jack will soon be headed down to Florida to call soccer games, a full-time play-by-play man. It’s a perfect place for him to begin, and it’s just the beginning.

Two others are going to be graduating soon, too. One in the summer, a brilliant and kind young woman who will be much in demand for her incredible production skills, and a young man who will probably have a job about 15 minutes after an incredible vacation he’s presently planning.

I’m not sure what I’m more jealous of, the great futures ahead of all of them, or that vacation — it’s a great one. But, then, so are the talents and potential of all of these graduating seniors. They’re all bound for great things. That’s what we produce now, not sports or news or experiential opportunities, but people bound for great things.

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12
Apr 23

If I jot down enough notes, I will most surely be correct

I’ve been working on my trauma interview syllabus. I have a small stack of books and, so far, a half dozen pages of notes and ideas, this first part all about the considerate efforts one should undertake in the interview approach and process, and it is all quite fascinating,.

There are a few industry pros holding workshops with their peers on this sort of thing now. Anyone that’s had to do enough interviews following death notifications, or asked by their editors or producers to sit down with abuse or attack survivors has the beginning of this insight. Right now, though, it is hard-won experience handed down from people who are, most often, not practiced in psychology.

I can almost quote, verbatim, what I was taught about this in J-school, because it was quite brief. A professor said. “You’ll be told to interview someone who’s just lost a loved one. Ask the family members politely if they’d be willing to talk to you. Some people will want to talk with you. Some people will think you’re horrible. Accept whichever response you get, and know it isn’t personal.”

And that was it. It was the nineties.

There’s a lot more to this, a lot more particulars that students should understand. (There was never anything said, nothing at all, about the trauma reporters face and self-care.) If you think of the stories that reporters chase. Think of the places they often find themselves, this stuff will come up for them, and in a hurry.

That’s why I’m cobbling notes and dreaming up a syllabus. It could be useful, and so I look forward to pitching it. I hope I get to teach it one day.

Anyway, the office all day. The studio all night. Sports night there, so there was a lot of baseball talk. It’s the changing of the guard portion of the year. The seniors are getting ready to fly the coop, and the younger students are getting all the heavy lifting. What’s always amazing to me is how, each year, the rising seniors are all just that much better prepared, just that much more comfortable, for their new, bigger roles than the people that came before them.

And while those graduating seniors are now going over details of their contracts or are engaged in in-depth interviews, we’ve got rising sophomores who are ready to take on the world, to say nothing of some rising juniors who are industry ready, right now.

The day-to-day stuff is fine enough, but watching and charting that progress of students, following them as their skills, and their confidence, grows, that’s gratifying stuff.

I always feel like this in the springtime, the bloom of pride in the observation of self-recognition. It’s probably something to do with the flowers.

I suppose it could be the pollen.

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5
Apr 23

The changing weather and such

Today started last night, at 10:55, because I checked my email at 11:32 p.m. And then the day began anew just before 8 a.m. with what had to be the loudest clap of thunder not recorded directly below a lightning bolt. A bit later, I drove past a duplex that was fully ablaze. First, I saw a big plume of smoke, around a curve. When I drove by, a quarter-mile or so later, the police had just arrived. The roof of the building was already gone.

The local paper tells us that the residents were evacuated and no one was hurt. But it was a substantial fire, taking the BFD about three hours to put it out.

At work, work stuff, and the view was this:

A perfect day for more jazz!

At this prolific rate of the Re-Listening project, we are now only three CDs behind, and as I’m working my way through this in the order of acquisition, I know we are somewhere in 1998 right now. Acquisition is an important term here, because this is one of those that I impulsively picked up from a giveaway table. It is a sampler, and I can find no reference to this compilation on the web which is … weird.

So, look out the window, stare at the rain drops or the sunshine or the stuff in between, and press play. Or, if you don’t have exceptional peripheral vision, press play, and then stare out the window.

Tony Gil has one of those voices that makes you wonder why you haven’t heard of him. And after 10 minutes of searching, I wonder why I can’t find out much about him. I can tell you this song appears on the Felix Grant tribute record, which won The Washington Area Music Association’s album of the year. No small feat there, as it is an organization that represents the whole area.

Paula West has been singing for three-plus decades at this point, she’s still singing across the country and the record on which “Peel Me A Grape” appeared recently got a retrospective review from The New Yorker.

I’ve confessed to my inability to properly appreciate or express anything about jazz music. But when I think of what a jazz singer should sound like, I always hear Cleve Douglass in my head. If there was nothing else on this sampler, there would be that.

But there’s a lot more! There’s Mark Rosier. On the record that spawned this song, an independent release, he played all of the guitars, all of the piano, all of the keyboards and some of the percussion. Born in New York, he found himself in Texas by way of Florida, and then charmed the locals and the tourists with his music across the White Mountains in New Hampshire and in clubs in Maine. He died in 2020, after a long bout with cancer.

Everything on this CD is worth a listen, and I wish I could share the whole thing with you. But, instead, here’s the track listing. Pick out some of these things and dig for them.

Tony Gil – I’m Old Fashioned
Maua – Devil May Care
Pam Bricker – Long As You’re Lookin’ Good
Paula West – Peel Me A Grape
Cleve Douglass – Woman
Hinda Hoffman – I Just Found Out About Love
Donna Smith & The Vintage Jazz Quartet – Get it Straight
Valucha – Voce
Sally Richards – Old Devil Moon
Jass Street Station – El Ritmo de Amour
Fred Sokolow Jazz Quarter – Delilah
Karen Moore – What a Little Moonlight Can Do
Tony Gil – No Me Platiques Mas
Suzy Nelson – Am I Blue
Rose Russo – Uptown Baby
Mark Rosier – I’m Just a Memory
Steve Bulmer’s Kinetic Jazz Band – Just Friends

I was on that last track, from Steve Bulmer — who, today, teaches bass at UConn — and wondering if people have spent the time and effort to create some of universally accepted spectrum of jazz. You know, ranging from the deeply important things I’ve never heard of all the way across to the stuff you might hear at a grocery store, or on hold music. There have to be lists like this, and most of them not at all derivative. And where, I wondered, would I place some of these songs, because they are just different enough. The originals, the covers, the playful stuff, the smooth and easy and the best representations of the art form, all of it. Or most of it anyway. And where would I slot in this song or that song? Then I heard the jazz violin, and now I have a new rabbit hole to explore.

The rain moved out late in the afternoon and the clouds, which hung around for a few hours, thinned. Suddenly, the light went from diffuse to directly sunny, and then it was time to go into the studio. On the third of four late days this week, I left just in time to catch a bit of the sunset.

The timestamp on that photo is 8:25. Tomorrow, another late night in the studio, but I’ll be out of the office by 7:30. The long days of the coming season are always preceded by some long nights of the present.