Mr. Shovel Weaves His Magic on a New City of Night

It was three years ago, to the day that Mark Sovel, Indie 103.1’s illustrious music director (aka Mr. Shovel) had his last airshift on Indie. The next day, for all intents and purposes, Indie died.

It continued on (and continues on to this day, a shell of its former self) in Internet-only format. Which would be great if the powers that program it really knew what to do with it. And, of course, if Mr. Shovel was still there.

I remember it well. I turned on my radio (yes, I actually had a box sitting by my window that had FM stations, though the only one it was tuned to was Indie 103.1, of course). I turned on TK’s program in the morning, and everyone was talking about how great the station had been. Like using past tense about it.

Soon enough, with one final My Way (not the Frank Sinatra version), Indie was gone.

I sobbed at my radio that day, I sobbed all the way up to Sundance (driving, that’s a whole lotta sobbing). In many ways, I’m sobbing still. It hurts when the best radio station that ever existed goes away.

And what has been my music repast in the intervening three years? Well, being a digital girl, I’m big on Internet radio. I keep hoping someone somewhere will develop actual radio on the Internet. Like a Huffington Post for radio. (Well, except that pays people. Ok, bad example.)

I never really got into Pandora or Slacker, though I have friends who swear by both. I have friends who seek out all kinds of stations on the Internet. One cool one that played 60s music from Paris really intrigued me for awhile.

But after the wealth of musical treasure that was Indie, nothing really sufficed. There were people from Indie who left to develop other things. Kurt St. Thomas went off to develop Houndstooth Radio (www.houndstoothradio.com ), which I admit, I listen to more than anything.

Chuck P. and Henry Rollins ended up over at KCRW.

Chris Morris still puts out a great show on the Scion Network:

http://scionav.com/radio17/12/Watusi-Rodeo

And a whole passel of ex-Indie-ites migrated over to Moheak Radio. Trouble is, every time I try to listen to it, it either pushes a bunch of annoying ads at me, or I have technological problems receiving it. Every time. So I don’t.

There are still some good tunes on Indie dot com, but the heart and soul (aka Mark Sovel) is gone. As he said when he left, “it’s like someone’s just playing their iPod for you.” (There are a couple of good shows here or there. I particularly like Bob Forrest’s Wednesday night show, “All Up in the Interweb,” which airs at 8 pm PST. Native Wayne’s show is fun too. My friend still listens to Retrograde, and wins tickets from them.

But pretty much, for me, there is nothing there worth listening to anymore. Nothing that made Indie Indie. (This is true of Moheak, too, btw, no matter how many ex-Indieites are there.)

Cause what made Indie “one of the best stations in the country,” according to Rolling Stone magazine, was quite simply its music director, Mark Sovel.

And he has been very quiet on the music front in that three years. Giving us bits of his genius with an amazing LobsterFest regularly, and other concerts curated here or there. But on the radio scene, he’s been silent.

Until now.

Mark Sovel’s first air show in three years (other than filling in for folks occasionally) aired Saturday, Jan. 14. Three years to the day of his last one.

It’s called “City of Night,” and it airs on college radio station KCSN (88.5 on your terrestrial radio dial, also available online and with a cool iPhone app that will record shows for you. LOVE that.). From 8 – 11 pm every Saturday.

One can’t help but wonder what’s up with this college station, KCSN. Sovel thanked the program director, Sky Daniels, by saying that he “made him want to get into radio.” He wasn’t kidding either. Hm.

In addition to Mr. Shovel, Daniels also brought on Sat Bisla, who has been airing Passport Approved on every station that’ll have him, it seems; and Terry Nunn, of Berlin fame. He had already brought on KCRW’s Nic Harcourt to do a show and Julie Slater. Radio heavyweights, to be sure. Hm.

The rest of the program schedule is an odd mix, a local blues maven called “Ann the Raven” has a show on Sundays. So does Robert Hilburn, the writer. There’s some Dylan, some roots music, some Americana and some bluegrass. And opera. Mr. Daniels, it seems has no problem with specialty shows.

Well, I don’t know about all that. Not sure if I’ll be checking out all those other choices. I do know this.

Mr. Shovel is on Saturday nights. His first show was like manna in the desert. Such great music played, and all over the musical spectrum. Some things you would expect: a number of local bands, some OMD, some Jam. Many things you wouldn’t expect.

He kicked it all off with the Rolling Stones’ “On with the Show.” Perfect. Not long after, some Pink Floyd. You heard me. Pink Floyd. And Zepplin, as in Led. One song from Indie’s regular rotation: Depeche Mode’s “Get the Balance Right,” and boy DID HE!

As usual with a Shovel show, it was all perfectly timed. Like puzzle pieces falling into place. The Kinks, for heaven’s sake. Followed by local band, Saint Motel, who enlivened Tar Fest this fall (Shovel curated part of it).

A song I can’t get enough of: Split Endz’ “Six Months in a Leaky Boat.” And another (I love it so much) Neutral Milk Hotel’s “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.” It just makes me happy to hear that song.

Gil Scott-Heron. Jimi Hendrix. Wow. LA band The Blood Arm from their “Berlin period” (aka now). Brand-new Giant Drag, and Sharkey’s Night, for gosh sakes (with William S. Burroughs).

And, if you’ll recall, Mr. Shovel is the one who spots the hot bands before anyone else does. His recommendation from this show? Electric Guest. Watch that name. You heard it here first (I promise you).

I could go on and on, but if you want to know where Indie went, you could look to that whole passel of people who talk about it incessantly, or you could simply look at this playlist for a minute.

http://www.mrshovel.com/2012/01/15/city-of-night-playlist-january-14-2012/


That Dylan song he played made me cry. Followed up by some cuts from local bands from a Dylan tribute album, which is a fundraiser for Amnesty International called “Chimes of Freedom.” Airborne Toxic Event doing “Boots of Spanish Leather.” Silversun Pickups doing “Not Dark Yet.” Cage the Elephant (ok, they’re not from LA, but the song was great) doing “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll.”

I was literally so overwhelmed after all this good music after his show, it took me several hours to calm down. Oh, Mr. Shovel how we’ve missed you!

Tune in to the next City of Night next week at 8 pm. And pray really hard that they get podcasts sometime.

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New Noise conference overview

October 8-10, 2009

The first annual New Noise conference took place in lovely Santa Barbara this past week (October 8-10). I was lucky enough to win all-access passes (thank you, Twitter and @lalawag!) so I went to everything on the schedule that I could squeeze in. This meant conferences by day, lots and lots of bands by night.

The wondrous Michael Franti and Spearhead kicked off the festivities on Thursday night, but I didn't arrive until Friday morning. Sadly, this meant I also missed Murs.

Let's address each part separately, and I'll give you an overview, in case you weren't there, or hadn't even heard about it, and wonder why you should go next year. Basically, because SXSW has become a zoo, and for those of us in California, is far away anyway. New Noise is sort of like a mini version of the music portion of SXSW.

The biggest highlight was the caliber of speakers: people top in their field, capped by the keynote from Pandora founder, Tim Westergren. It was pretty universally looked upon as the best session of the two days.

But along the way, we were treated to people from all aspects of the music industry: A&R execs, suits from labels, people working with greening the musical landscape, musicians, software developers, lawyers, managers, and Internet entrepreneuers. All of them provided their take on where we are at during this moment in music history.

Essentially, the gist of the conference sessions was this: The big four music companies are overly bureaucratic and useless; smaller niche music publishers are the hot item of the day; terrestrial radio is dead, but Internet radio is alive and thriving.

The ones with the power now, in case no one had noticed: the consumers and the musicians themselves. Musicians are now compelled to become even greater musical marketers than ever before, and if they do, they will be hugely compensated (as long as they are good).

The old routines of being a band, playing in clubs, getting noticed by someone, getting groomed and signed to a label, having the label package and promote you (and take nearly all of your royalties, thank you very much) have happily gone. The labels would then push your product to targeted radio stations, who would play it into nauseating boredom (OK, that last editorialism was mine), and you would have a fantastic hit on your hands.

The new model is to promote your band everywhere: MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, cyberspace at large. If you attract the attention of an A&R rep (yes, they exist and are seeking talent), you might get directed to a label which specializes in your type of music. Or they might counsel you to stay on your own. (Having your music on iTunes is a good thing, but having it, even for free, on your own website is better, because you get to keep the email of the customer and retarget them.)

In music, as in many areas of entertainment, it's about putting together, packaging and marketing your "brand." Building a customer fan base, who tends to be fiercely loyal and loves to give you money, and keeping those fans happy.

You can seek out "airplay" anywhere you choose: of course, Internet radio is still popular, but there are also podcasts, UStream, YouTube, fan sites, etc. The niche areas have taken the place of radio as far as breaking artists, according to panelists, including some who worked at major stations in major markets.

The "new DJ" has become the music supervisor at a TV production company. If you get your song on one of those shows, you can make bank. In fact, the music jackpot today is no longer getting on a major radio station in a major market, but rather, getting "an iTunes commercial and at the end of Grey's Anatomy." I hear The Submarines (who've had both) out there smiling, somewhere.

In short, the future looks great for pretty much everyone, except the major labels and terrestrial radio. The artists are reaching more fans more directly. The A&R people are signing more people they are excited about. The consumers get many more choices in as many ways as they can handle them. And lots of people are thinking of ways to get that new music to you more enticingly (hopefully with ads attached somehow).

What does the future look like? Well, no one knows really. The people on the two Green panels (promoters on one, musicians on another) believe that working a low-carbon footprint into every concert is very much on the horizon (apparently R&B and hip hop artists are dragging their feet the most). Some would like to see recycling worked into every aspect of a concert tour, as the norm, rather than the exception. Many on the panels see this as doable in the near future.

"Every artist when given a choice: do you want to recycle? will say yes," said Chris Baumgartner of MusicMatters.

One person stated that they thought at least one of the four majors would also die within the next year. Another stated that they thought Billboard magazine would go out of business by year's end (probably an easy call too). One person stated it most succinctly: "The [majors] were so busy looking for the 'next big thing,' they neglected the one that came along: the Internet. They were blindsided by it. They didn't expect that at all. They are still trying to catch up, but it's too late." One called them "dinosaurs." Another said that bureaucratic music labels move to slowly (in this age of Now) to be effective at all.

The genie's out of the bottle, in short. Consumers now have the power, and they like it. Musicians have more money, and they like it. Radio's structured playlist system, where the real DJs don't even get to pick the music, is dead. It has been replaced by choice-filled Internet radio: both former terrestrial versions gone Internet and up-and-comers with spiffy software like Pandora, Blip and last.fm. What is not to like about all these things?

All of these are things that most of us knew, but still, it was good to hear it over and over from so many different aspects of the business. And if you were a musician, you might have walked in there, thinking that the best path would be to try to get signed to a major and get your music into the hands of a radio DJ. You would've walked out of there realizing that instead you need to fine tune your message, your method of reaching fans, even giving music away to do so, and that getting signed anywhere might not be the best way for you to make money, unless it's with a specialty label who features your type of band. As always, the most important thing is to be a great musician with something to say, and an innovative way to say it. Good luck!

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