Everyone’s making lists. It’s the end of the year; it’s the end of the decade; it’s time for a good list. I used to love making year-end album lists. I’d spend time pouring through my iTunes library, finding all the albums that I loved from that year. The obvious, the less obvious. I’d keep a running list of candidates during the year. And ten? How could I narrow it down to just ten albums. There would need to be a bunch of runners up. Ones that just barely missed the cut.

No more.

Somewhere along the way I stopped wanting to force everything into this form. Sure, a list of my Top 10 albums of 2006 may be a good historical checkpoint for what I was listening to at the time, but not for much else. Do I even listen to half of them anymore? Lately I’ve been more drawn to fewer works that I really love. Ones that five or ten years from now I’ll still be excited to hear. I’d rather look back at 2009 and remember a handful of music that stuck with me, than see a list of albums that I haven’t listened to in ages.¹

This all became crystalized for me when I starting thinking about it in the same way that I’ve been thinking about photography lately. I take a lot of photos over the course of a year. Not nearly as many as some, but more than the average. Whenever I’m taking photos—whether it’s a concert, or a trip, or a walk through the woods—I may take hundreds at a time. I spend a lot of time reviewing them, and editing them, and thinking about them. And you know what? If I take a few hundred photos wandering around the streets of New York and I’m left with one that I’m really happy with, I’m good with that. Shit, if I really like the photo I’m thrilled.

I store all of my photos sorted by month, with individual project folders for each event during that month. When I’m in the middle of July and running around and filling up project after project with images it’s hard to have perspective on anything outside of what’s in front of me. But when I go back in December and flip though those same photos, I don’t care about the fifty photos of the bird on the beach. Hopefully there’s one or two that stand out. I’ll walk away with those.

I always hope that (almost) any photo I post online evokes some sort of response. Not necessarily words or feelings, but something. I want it to grab me first in some way, and if it does for someone else, great. If not, it probably means something to me anyways. If I can look back at the end of the year and see a few things that say something, that carries me. That lasts.

That’s where I’m at with music these days. I listen to a lot of music. It’s all around me all the time, and a lot of it’s very good. But at the end of the day, at the end of the year, at the end of the decade, if I’m left with a handful of music that really means something to me—that really grabs me—that’s what I’m going to take away.

It’s easy to take a lot of photos and it’s easy to listen to a lot of good music, but it’s hard to find something that really grabs you. But I keep listening, and I keep shooting.

¹ All of this is no knock on anyone else. I read, and get a lot of enjoyment out of, a lot of other people’s wrap-ups. It’s more a reflection on a shift that I’m personally going through than anything else.

I was in New York last week and had the chance to attend the opening of the new Nike Soccer Shop.  I grew up playing a lot of soccer, and while I don’t play as much anymore, I’m always excited by the opportunity to check out new gear and keep up with what’s going on in that world.

Located within the massive 57th Street Niketown, the Nike Soccer Shop is a new space dedicated to both the competitive player looking to get fine-tuned equipment, and the casual fan looking for the latest colors to support their team.  An entire section of the second floor has been rebuilt in the style of a classic soccer locker room, with wooden benches, and jerseys hanging in each locker.  Because the store gets so much international traffic (not to mention the rise in popularity of European club soccer in the past few years), there are individual lockers dedicated to every club team that Nike sponsors. (Side note: I asked one of the staff what the best selling jersey was—Barcelona, by far.) In addition to all the licensed gear, the Soccer Shop serves as a location where players of all skill levels can have a pair of custom boots designed just for them.

To highlight this, Landon Donovan (the all-time leading US goal-scorer and active cap leader) was on hand to demonstrate the design process.  While a score of press looked on, Donovan and a trained Nike staffer walked through having a custom boot created. He ended up with an old-school black-on-black look that I appreciated.  Personally, being able to see Donovan talk about soccer—a few hours before the World Cup draw no less—will add an extra level of excitement to the World Cup this summer.

After watching Donovan walk through the customization process, I was invited into the Nike ID lab to run through the design process myself.  It was an eye-opening experience. With the guidance of a Nike specialist, I was able to build a shoe that wasn’t just for wet grass or indoor, but could be tweaked down to the material on the instep, which is adjusted based on where on the field you play, the likelihood of taking shots on goal, etc.  And that doesn’t even touch on the cosmetic options.  Everything, down to the color of the stitching, could be changed to build a unique shoe.

I know that Nike ID has been around for a while, and the concept of building a custom shoe isn’t brand-new , but sitting there I couldn’t help but think back to when I was playing soccer as a kid.  The idea of a wet-grass removable cleat versus a standard molded rubber cleat was foreign to almost everyone.  They literally had to be mail-ordered (and good luck getting replacement screws).

I grew up a few hours outside New York City, and I’m fairly certain that if something like the Nike Soccer Shop existed back in the day, I would have been dragging my ass into NYC once a year before the season started for some custom goodness.

Last summer Lance Armstrong and Nike presented the STAGES art exhibition in Paris. The exhibition brought together over twenty world-renowned artists who donated pieces inspired by Lance, and his LIVESTRONG fight against cancer.

Last week the STAGES show opened a three-week stay at the Deitch Projects gallery in New York. I had a chance to attend the opening and take a closer look at some of the pieces. In addition to the works of KAWS, Ed Ruscha, Shepard Fairey and more, New York street-art legend Futura also had a piece that joined the exhibition in New York.

The scene was an interesting mix of art and sport, with everyone from local New York art scenesters to kids on skateboards to Nike executives in attendance. Many of the artists were on hand to discuss their work as well. It was hard to miss when Lance himself showed up about halfway through the event. While soft-spoken and understated, he was still the man everyone wanted to say hello to, or catch a glimpse of. There was a buzz in the room as he made his way through chatting with friends, having photos taken, and generally seeming to enjoy himself.

I spent a lot of time walking around looking at all the various pieces. There was a nice mix of paintings, photos, and sculptures. One piece that I kept coming back to was Tom Sachs’ object-art piece “Lance’s Tequila Bike For Girls.” It was a mixture of creativity, humor, and ingenuity that I loved. The bike was prominently displayed in the middle of the floor, so that you could walk around it on all sides and enjoy every little detail. Every time I walked by I seemed to notice something else.

At one point later in the evening a crowd gathering around the tequila bike. Tom Sachs and Lance had decided to put it through its paces. Everything that was needed for a good old-fashioned round of shooters—from the limes, to the knife, to the salt shaker and shot glasses—was contained within the bike. Suddenly Sachs was slicing limes and Lance was filling shot glasses with the motorized tequila pump. Everyone cheered as they threw down the shots. You’d be hard-pressed to find a more practical piece of modern art for the tequila connoisseur.

As much fun as it was taking in the scene and getting to see some amazing works of art, the cause that brought everyone there was never far from my mind. Throughout the night, the whole room seemed to be bathed in various shades of yellow, which has become so synonymous with the LIVESTRONG cause. It’s a testament to Lance, Nike, and the work of his foundation that the art world and the sport world can combine for something as unique as STAGES.

STAGES will be open to the public in New York: October 31 through November 21, 2009. The show will move to Miami during Art Basel Miami Beach in early December.

I was taking a train from New York to back to Boston recently, and—as I usually do when I am coming home from a trip—I started flicking through the photos that I had taken on my iPhone.  I’ve never stopped to give it a lot of thought, but this had become common procedure for me.  Suddenly I realized that with all of the SLRs and Point & Shoots and Flips that I tend to carry around, the images on my iPhone actually tell the truest story of what I’ve been doing.  Thumbing through my iPhone cameraroll is an accurate re-telling of what’s been happening in my life on a day-to-day basis.

I’ve always liked the camera in the iPhone, and have been relatively happy with the results that you can get from it, but I hadn’t stopped to think much about the role it was playing.  I enjoy taking photos, and I have a lot of fun doing so.  Still, with an SLR, and even a Point & Shoot, I spend more time thinking about the shot—how it’s framed, are the settings correct, etc.  With the iPhone camera you take the shot.  Maybe it comes out, maybe it doesn’t.  There’s a charm to that.

It also leads to a lot of shots that you may not stop to take with another camera: a sign at the airport, the cup of coffee you just ordered, a funny bumper sticker.  I used to keep boxes of old ticket stubs from concerts and movies, but now I take a photo of the movie poster as I’m walking into the theater, or the marquee outside of a show.  It makes a nice timeline.  I also takes tons of photos of food.  I probably have a photo of every meal I’ve eaten in a decent restaurant in the past year (much to my wife’s delight).

And it’s not just photos, it’s screenshots too.  A funny text or Twitter.  Something cool I see online.  A map of a trip.  It all gets dumped into the photoroll without much thought, but afterwards they become pieces of a puzzle that are easy to put back together.

You don’t have to read a lot about photography to see the oft-repeated phrase “The best camera is the one that’s with you.” While this has always been true, when I stop to think about it with regards to the iPhone, it’s incredible.  In the roughly two years that I’ve had this phone, I don’t think it’s ever been more than 30 seconds away from me. Seriously.  It’s usually in my pocket.  Sometimes it may be upstairs when I’m downstairs, but that’s about it.  I don’t go out of the house without it.  I don’t leave it home when I go somewhere.  It’s literally with me everywhere, and as result, I have photos of things that I may have never captured with a regular camera.

I’ve never kept a journal.  I have a website/blog/Tumblr dealy.  I have a Flickr photostream.  I have this column.  These are all outlets for sharing specific information that I choose.  I put at least a small amount of thought into everything I post on these sites.  I take a certain amount of pride in it all.

And yet I can sit, as I often do, and look at all the photos on my phone and feel like I’m watching the story of my own life.  As mundane as it sometimes is, I never get tired of it.

I made a quick run down to New York last weekend  to see the fine gents of You Look Nice Today perform one of their first shows on the East Coast.  The YLNT podcast, a self-proclaimed “Journal of emotional hygiene,” is one of my favorite things to listen to.

I gave up on explaining what I was going to see pretty quickly.

“You’re going to see a podcast?”
“Well, no…  I mean, I know them from the podcast, but it’s a normal comedy show.”
“Where do they normally play?”
“It’s on the Internet.  A podcast. But they do some live shows too.”
“What’s it about?”

My wife came along with me, being the good sport that she is.  I tried to play her some of the episodes in the car during the week leading up to the show, but every time I put it on, I got a puzzled look. “I don’t get it,” she said  “What are they talking about?”  I hoped she’d just figure it out as it went along.

Having never been to the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, we got there a bit early.  We quickly found some decent seats in the small basement theater.  Shortly after, the ukulele refrain of the YLNT theme played through the PA and Messrs. Sandwich, Simpson, and Mann made their way to the three spotlighted chairs in the front of the room.

It’s an interesting experience to see something like YLNT live, having only really heard it in pre-recorded form.  The best part of the show is never knowing where it’s going to go (I don’t think they know either¹).  The non-sequiturs are absurd and brillant.

Watching live, you can see some of  this happening.  A glance in one direction.  A nod of the head.  You can actually watch some of it unfold.  There’s also a few awkward pauses, and a touch of nervousness—things that can be edited out for a podcast.  It was really fun to see how much these guys make each other laugh too.  You get a full picture.

I don’t listen to a lot of comedians, and I have only been to a few comedy clubs in my life.  I can’t really say how this compared to anything else.  I know it made me laugh a lot, and I know it made my wife laugh too.

Driving home after the show we played an old episode, and suddenly it made more sense to my wife.

“Who’s that?”
“Was he the one in the middle or on the side?”
“Why do they call him Sandwich?”

I’ll take that as a win.

¹ I have no idea how the show is put together, but I always imagine it similar to Curb Your Enthusiasm: a rough outline to get from Point A to Point B, and in between, anything can happen.

Earlier this month the famed Boston radio station WBCN went off the air.  WBCN was one of those things that was just always there, and I never stopped to think too much about it.  Over the last few days that they were broadcasting, people started to pay more attention in a “I can’t believe this is really happening way.”

I think the first time I really became aware of WBCN was when I was in high school, and living in Connecticut.  I had started to become intrigued by this band from Burlington, VT that I was hearing a lot about—Phish.  Back then, in order to get news updates and tour dates, you had to call into an telephone hotline, which was basically just an answering machine where they would read off the latest info.  I found out that Phish would soon be playing a radio show for the “Rock Of Boston, WBCN.”  I talked my parents into driving me and a friend up for the night and we saw the show.  I remember thinking that if Phish was playing a show for them, they must be pretty cool.  WBCN was now on my radar.

Within a few years I was living in Boston and going to school.  WBCN became an immediate pre-set on my car radio.  You just knew they were a big deal.  You’d pass Fenway Park and see the old, black building out on the far side with the huge, white WBCN logo scrawled across the front.  It was part of the fabric of the area.

When I was in college, I started taking a bunch of classes on writing, and American literature; The Beats and the Vietnam War—your basic liberal arts education.  One of my favorite professors was a life-long Boston resident.  She’d tell us tales of what Boston was like in the heady times of the late Sixties and Seventies.  She talked about how WBCN was always on—an ever-present soundtrack to that bygone era that was so easy for me to romanticize.  And I could still go home, tune the radio to 104.1 and, in a way, tie into that history.

Towards the end of college I started interning for the local radio rep at the Boston Virgin Records office (a position that, incidentally, lead to the job I have today, in a roundabout way).  I have tons of great memories of this time, but I’ll never forget the feeling of excitement when my old boss Howard would stick his head out the door of his office and announce something like “‘BCN added Lenny!”  The whole office would cheer.  It was a big deal.  A big fish in a pretty big pond.

Years later, back in the music business after a few detours, I stood in the BCN studio near Fenway and had one of my all-time musical idols hand me a glass of champagne that had just been poured from a bottle presented to him as a gift from Oedipus, a local legend in his own right.  In hindsight, it made some sort of cosmic sense that that was where we were.  I still have the cork from that bottle.

Over the past few years WBCN changed a lot.  Like a lot of stations, they constantly tweaked the format of music they played.  They seemed to lose a bit of identity, and along the way my listening faded.  Still, I work in the music industry, and even with all the ups and downs, ‘BCN was still ‘BCN.  Having a single added there was still a big deal.

So a few weeks ago, on the night that they were to sign off for good, I knew I had to listen for one last time.  I sat at my computer and listened to them play one last set of great music, and share stories.  Something else cool happened as well.  I started looking on Facebook (a site that I’ve had more negative feelings towards than positive of late), and it seemed like everyone I knew that had any connection whatsoever to Boston was talking about ‘BCN going off of the air.  It was a nice moment, and it reminded me that I’m happy to have a central place to share those thoughts.  The internet may have diluted the community effect that radio has these days, but it also brought a diverse group of people together to share their thoughts on it.

I sat there with my headphones on, listening to them play Pink Floyd’s “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” one last time.  As the song ended, they played a montage of highlights from the long and wild life of the station.  As it ended, the call letters of the new station were spoken, and then it cut to static.  I listened to that static for a long time without even realizing it.  WBCN going off the air was never a “my life will never be the same” moment.  It wasn’t something I thought about on a regular basis.  But sitting there, listening to that static, gave a me a chance to reflect on that thread that has been woven through all my years living in Boston.  It’s strange to think that it’s gone.

Take a listen for yourself:

When I was in high school I played soccer.  For a small town in Connecticut, we had a good team.  I loved playing, but I hated training; especially running the hills behind our field—a punishment that I avoided as much as possible.

Last weekend I got the chance to go to Ohio for the launch of LeBron James’ newest Nike signature shoe.  The actual launch took place at the local Akron community center where James played basketball in when he was growing up.  It was an Event: Keenan Thompson from SNL was the MC; Nike webcast the event globally; national ESPN reporters were filing reports on location.  And of course, James himself was there to answer questions.

The trip, however, wasn’t all about flashing the newest shoes for the camera.  It was, as much as anything, a chance to see the Akron in which LeBron James grew up, and the community that nurtured him and allowed him to become the superstar that he is today.

Over the course of two days, we travelled around the area and met a number of people that had an impact on James’ career.  I had never been to Akron before this, so I had no frame of reference—only the impressions I was left with.

We visited the Summit Lake Community Center, where James first learned to play basketball when he was six or seven years old.   Walking into the entrance, it felt like any other well-worn community center, except on the wall next to the gym entrance, and above the old trophy case, was a large collage of cut-out magazine covers and newspaper articles featuring James.  There was a handwritten note saying “We Love You LeBron”—the type of note you’d expect to see attached to an All-Conference announcement at another school.

Coach Frank Walker walked us through the same gym where he’d coached kids for 20 years, including James.  The temperature inside the old gym was noticeably hotter.  The air was thick.  The polyurethane coating underneath the backboards was worn away from years and years of use.

We visited St. Vincent-St. Mary high school where James and his core group of basketball playing friends—The “Fab 5″— attended.  The school at which they won the National Championship in 2003.

As I walked through the main entrance of SVSM I noticed a sign above the door, donated by the 1983 Student Council.  It read “Through These Doors Walks A Winner.” This type of sign probably adorns some wall of most high schools around the country.  I bet students walk underneath it everyday and give it no thought at all.  I’m sure there are some that couldn’t tell you what it says if you asked them.  That sign was hanging above the door for a decade before LeBron James walked underneath it as a student.

I couldn’t help but wonder, do people look at it differently now?  Did LeBron notice it when he was there?

Today, SVSM is the high school “where LeBron James played.”  You can’t escape it. What does it mean for the young kids of Akron?  Are they more inspired having that story right in front of them?  By contrast, there used to be rumors that someone in our high school league could dunk—though I never saw it myself. That’s quite a difference.

I don’t know what impact going to the same school as LeBron James has on the people that come after him. I don’t know if you play any harder because you’re practicing on the same worn-down wooden floors that he played on.  I’d guess that a lot of it is subtle and subconscious.

If I wanted to point to one sign though, it’s what I saw as we were leaving the school. SVSM has a steep hill that runs out behind it.  As our bus circled  to leave, I saw two kids—maybe seven or eight years old—running up and down the hill behind the school.  They were laughing, but they were working; training.  I used to hate running hills when I played sports in high school, and this hill was a hell of a lot steeper.

On a Friday afternoon in the late summer these two kids chose to go and run hills together.  As I watched them run up the hill behind the school where he saw such levels of success, I couldn’t help but wonder: would they have been doing it they didn’t have his story somewhere in the back of their minds?

There’s no shortage of ways to find new music.  There’s the old traditional standbys of TV and radio and banners ads on the internet.  Then there’s services like Pandora and the like—things that diagnose the elements of various music that you select, and give you recommendations based on similar sound patterns, etc.  While something like this is fun, new music by algorithm has never sat quite right with me.  I hate math.

I’m more inclined to give something a good listen based on the recommendation of someone I trust or respect.

One of my favorite albums I’ve bought recently is When I Pretend To Fall by The Long Winters.  I don’t really like to play music critic, so I won’t.  I’ll just say it’s good, smart, melodic Indie pop.  Every time I listen to the album I think two things: 1) how damn good it is straight through, and 2) I remember how I found it.

I’m a fan of The Decemberists, and I’ve followed lead singer Colin Meloy on Twitter for a while.  One of the things I like most about Twitter is that you can easily find new and interesting people, especially when paying attention to other people you “follow.”  One night Colin Meloy made a reference to John Roderick.  I clicked through saw he was the guy from The Long Winters.  Now look, The Long Winters were part of that big group of Indie bands that somewhere in the back of my head I had heard good things about, but had never listened to (if I should have recognized Roderick’s name immediately, or have a copy of his albums somewhere on my hard drive already, I didn’t).

So I make my way to The Long Winter’s site and start poking around.  Soon I discovered that they have a whole zip file of songs that you could download for free.  An instant sampler pack.  Not a “fill out this big form and when you’re done you’ll get one track” type of deal.  No, this was one click, and you had a folder of MP3s on your desktop—easy.  It was late at night, and I started listening to them.  I really liked what I heard.  I must have listened to those MP3s three or four times in a row sitting there messing around.  I was a fan.  The mp3 worked.  Next thing I knew, I was on iTunes at 2am buying When I Pretend To Fall.

What’s the big deal about that?  Nothing really. It’s just how it’s supposed to work, or how—I imagine—that you hope it does. John Roderick is on Twitter.  Seems like a funny dude.  He’s the type of musician I enjoy the most in a format like that.  Just there to shoot the shit and interact with people, not to necessarily pimp his own stuff.  I’ll tell you what though, there’s a pretty direct line from me seeing him on Twitter→going to his website→sampling the free mp3s→buying his album.  Sure I’m one guy, one album purchase, etc. etc. but something about the process sits well with me.  It may have started with CNN’s favorite buzzword social media tool of the moment, but the end result was me making a purchase that felt authentic, and memorable.  On some level, it makes me like the album even more.  There’s a story there.

Postscript

Lately I’ve had this phrase running through my mind: “the internet is small place.”  I couldn’t help but laugh when a few weeks after going through this process and listening to the album a bunch, I’m reading a long and excellent essay by Merlin Mann (who fits neatly into my other main area of interest—the Apple/web/tech nerdery world) when three-quarters of the way through the piece I click on one of his links, and see who he’s interviewing.  Small place indeed.

The Beatles are probably my earliest musical memory.  I had a little Fisher Price record player and I remember listening to “Penny Lane” over and over again (I loved the piccolo trumpet, though I didn’t know what it was at the time.)  The Beatles came from my parents, from my Mom—this was her music passed on to me.

I don’t remember where Thriller came from, but it felt like my own.  I know that being a kid in the early eighties you couldn’t miss it.  Biggest album in the world with no exaggeration.  I just remember it being there, everywhere.  And I couldn’t get enough.  I listened to that tape over and over and over.  ”Billie Jean,” “Thriller,” “Beat It,” those were my songs.  Over and over again.  Especially “Beat It.”  I didn’t know what “pop” music was. I was too young to draw any lines between Michael Jackson, or The Beatles, or the Elvis songs my Dad played in the car.  It was all just music. I liked some of it more than others, and for a big chunk of time the only thing I wanted to listen to was Thriller.

My family jokes to this day about some charity party thing we went to, and of course the DJ was playing Thriller songs all night.  Shit, I was probably requesting them non-stop. The details are fuzzy, but he had a fake white MJ glove and I ended up with it.  I begged him for it (in hindsight my father probably slipped him $20 to get it).  Whatever.  I absolutely loved the thing and ran around with it at all times.  What an image image—a little blond six year old kid from Connecticut running around with a Michael Jackson glove.  I wish I had a picture.

Fast forward a whole bunch of years to when I’m in college.  I had just driven all night from a Phish show in New Jersey to another show in upstate New York.  We’re exhausted.  The sun in coming up as we’re pulling into the campgrounds to park for the weekend.  Everyone is asleep and out of it.  Suddenly “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” comes on the radio and we roll down the windows and fucking crank it.  Everyone’s looking at us, but people are into it.  That song has a goddamn groove.  I’m half delirious running on fumes and Mountain Dew and this song was a jolt right through everyone’s spin.  I will never listen to this song again and not think of that exact moment.

So Michael Jackson died today.  Music has been an enormous influence on my life, and Michael Jackson had an enormous influence on how I know music.

Have you ever had an old album pop up out of nowhere and demand that you listen to again?  That’s what happened to me back in the fall.  The album was Elliott Smith’s Figure 8, an album that I’d owned for years, but which felt like I’d never really heard.  It’s funny how that sometimes happens with certain albums; how for some reason the time is right for an album to be re-discovered.

The end of 2008 was a roller coaster ride. On one hand a once-in-a-generation financial meltdown that left everyone feeling like the world as we knew it could crumble with the next ATM withdrawal.  Enormous companies disappearing in the blink of an eye.  Junk Bond Trader indeed.

On the other hand there was a wave of hope and optimism like none I had ever seen in my life.  It was hard to stay level.

With this as the backdrop, I couldn’t stop listening to Figure 8. Even though it was written a decade earlier, it seemed to fit perfectly. It was my soundtrack to an uneven and emotionally turbulent ride that I never bought a ticket for.

Maybe it’s wrong to project my own emotional connections onto someone else’s work, especially someone as haunted as Elliott Smith. But maybe being able to do so is what makes us connect with great music, even if just on a subconscious level. It’s a comforting thought.

Last week I was in Los Angeles for the first time in a few years. I made sure I headed over to Silverlake and spent a few minutes at 4334 Sunset.  I thought about the past year, the ups and downs; the good and the bad.  There were messages written out all over the wall, and I shied my eyes away from reading them.  They weren’t for me, but I understood the connection.  I was glad my wife was there with me.  I still can’t stop listening to the album.  It’s fused to that period of time in my brain, but it still makes me think about the future.  For me, for us.  I’m glad the time was right.