Smoota - funk + soul + gospel = “hyper-sexed, sensual alt-soul grooves"!

Smoota

How many licks does it take to get to the center of Smoota? He's not telling, but he welcomes you to find out. Most tales of love portray the first glance, the first laugh, the first kiss. But they trail off when the lights go out. Smoota sings love songs that tell the whole story — from first glance to first spank to last sigh. Nothing is out of bounds if it's true.

Smoota's music has been described as “hyper-sexed, sensual alt-soul grooves" (Time Out New York) and "an excellent example of how the libido sounds" (San Diego Reader).

Other Music in NYC praised Smoota's debut LP FETISHES (2013, Body To Body Records): “Combines the slinky DIY funk grooves of Shuggie Otis with the offbeat, trippy psychedelic stoner charm of James Pants, all topped off with a sly pervy streak that winks toward Serge Gainsbourg and the P-Funk mob….Smooth, laidback soul and funk that's slightly gritty at the edges; he's a skilled musician with the chops to pull this off."

Smoota plays with acclaimed art rock band TV on the Radio.

Smoota performed with Sufjan Stevens on his trombone-heavy Age of Adz tour (2010-11) and has played and/or recorded with Run The Jewels, Spoon, Miike Snow, Elvis Costello, El-P, Pretty Lights, Deer Tick, MNDR, Pharaoh Monche, Gordan Gano of the Violent Femmes, Akron/Family, Bebel Gilberto, Angelique Kidjo, The Bogmen, Red Baraat, Steve Arrington, Cee-Lo, Antibalas, Chin Chin and many others.

Smoota also played trombone and keyboards in Fela!, the Broadway musical directed by choreographer Bill T. Jones about the life of Nigerian Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti. Halloween 2009, he joined Sharon Jones and members of the Dap-Kings to help Phish cover the Rolling Stones album Exile on Main Street, documented in the 2010 film Phish 3D. And in 2010, Smoota played trombone and acted in a stage opera version of Melvin Van Peebles' proto-blaxploitation flick Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, directed by Van Peebles himself and featuring music from Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber, the cosmic freak soul group led by Greg Tate (co-founder of the Black Rock Coalition with Living Colour's Vernon Reid).

Smoota can usually be found on Monday nights playing at Union Pool in Williamsburg, Brooklyn with local dirty gospel R&B institution Rev. Vince Anderson and the Love Choir.

Smoota grew up near Boston and studied Film and Literature at Harvard University, where he made 16mm films under the tutelage of Yugoslavian maverick filmmaker Dusan Makavejev.

A taste of SMOOTA'S NIGHTSTAND

Averages  People (mostly virgins and idiots) say there is no such thing as bad sex or bad pizza.  More accurate is to say that average sex and average pizza are both satisfying,  especially when you're in Italy. Perhaps inspired by this idea, Chicago artist Jason Salavon found the average look of  Playboy Centerfolds for the 1960s, 70s, 80s, and 90s by digitally averaging the images.  The result, Every Playboy Centerfold, The Decades (normalized), from 2002, is below.  It's a cool idea, and the results are beautiful, but apart from the gradual slimming of the  body and the use of brighter lighting over the decades, there is not much to conclude  other than that, on average, centerfolds have great posture. The 1960s--->70s--->80s--->90s Perhaps more relevant is Salavon's 2001 piece 76 Blowjobs, his averaging of 76 "found"  fellatio photos. It's a great representation of how even though you may never forget your  first time, by the 76th, it all becomes a blur. Plus, of course, that an average BJ is better  than no BJ at all. Smoota Euro Softcore Tour Photos (Feb/March 2014)  Johannes Kahrs and the erotics of framing  In most still-photo erotica, as exemplified by the Playboy centerfold, the composition is  well-balanced. The sexual object is perfectly framed. The face, the torso, the crotch are  centered. The object of desire is laid bare - there is no obscurity in what the viewer sees. One reason erotica is so important is to give us this unobscured view of bodies -  a view we so rarely get in real life. Even with a fully-nude lover, lights are often dim. But this perfectionism to much erotica is what makes it so often seem clinical and unerotic.  Unless you're a gynecologist or a bodybuilder, you rarely see bodies so well lit and  well-framed in all their glory. It's the dim light, the obscured view, the accidental glance,  the quick flash that arouses us in real life. German painter Johannes Kahrs shows how the unbalanced frame creates more sexual  tension than the centerfold. It's the combination of what we can and can't see that drives  us wild. This is why the peeping tom has more fun than the gynecologist.   Smoota North American Fetishes Tour  Smoota - California Edition  Man Ray's Mr and Mrs. Woodman  It is always enlightening to analyze human sexual behavior through another form  (e.g., Fritz the Cat and other R. Crumb comix), so I'm grateful to my friend Margaux for  telling me about these strange wooden sculptures by the great Man Ray, one of the most  sensual of all 20th Century artists. Made in 1947, these figurines give new meaning to the  term sex toys, and like the most effective sex toys, these are simple and elegant and  innocent enough to not be recognized for what they are by your grandmother. Keep in mind these figurines are married - Man Ray named them Mr. And Mrs. Woodman. The male gaze  Putting a woman on a pedestal is never the best strategy for winning her long-lasting  devotion, but gazing at her often as if she belongs on a pedestal is rarely a wasted act. For guidance, check the gaze of this man in Larry Fink's 1977 photo inside New York  City's Club Cornish.