Idolator
Today's New York Times has a piece on the painstaking process some restaurants go through in order to match their music to their food; while Muzak is the order of the day at even higher-end restaurants, the Times interviews one DJ who comes up with musical blends for NYC hotspots and charges a few thousand dollars for an "off the rack" version of his mix. (Note to any restaurateurs out there: We can mix for you, too, if you get in touch.) And then, there's ruddy-cheeked Food Network star Mario Batali, who can't get enough of his BFF, Michael Stipe:
Sometimes it's a solo show: regulars at Babbo are accustomed to having plates of black spaghetti with rock shrimp served with an audible side of whatever Mario Batali likes, as loud as he likes, whenever he likes. (These days his iPod is more likely to be dishing up the plaintive croon of Michael Stipe than the mix of Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix that dominated the restaurant's dining room in its early years.)
It's the latest chapter in the Stipe-Batali lovefest, which includes Stipe blurbing the restaurateur with phrases like "If food could rule the world, Mario Batali would be Emperor," late-night canoodling, and a mutual tongue-bath that aired on the Sundance Channel last year. We just hope that Batali isn't so blinded by his buddy-buddyness that he winds up subjecting diners to Around The Sun on endless repeat.
Comments
A few thousand dollars? I'd make a mix for any restaurant in the Mountain or Pacific time zones for a free meal next time I was in town.
But, unlike Jeremy Abrams, I don't pose for photos cradling my iPod, so maybe I don't have the same credibility.
Two posts in a row (sorry), but this paragraph sounds like it belongs in the Onion:
"His basic strategy might include "a little jazzy after work music" for the cocktail hour and late-night montages in which he will slip samples of Jack Kerouac reading from "On the Road" between cuts of pygmy music."
when i went to babbo the one thing that stood out (besides the food, which was excellent) was how bad the music was!
Before spotting the Idolator post, that NYT article made up today's "five minutes I won't ever get back" moment during lunch. How exactly is silence "the most radical soundtrack of all" without at least a sideways name-check of 4'33" and John Cage?
And what's next for the "Dining and Music" beat -- a three-month study of corner bar jukeboxes to learn that "Brown-Eyed Girl" is the lowest common denominator in contemporary society?
That Batali-Stipe edition of Iconoclasts was one of the most sickening things I've ever seen. (Parts of it, at least.) I literally had to walk out of the room a couple times... like when they flew in a private jet just to see U2 and Molto was loudly singing along to "With or Without You." I do like Batali's restaurants, though, even if he isn't really in the kitchen much anymore.
I'm pretty sure there's a punchline in here somewhere involving Michael Stipe's adoration and the less-than-molto sausage Gawker claims Mario is packing...
I'm gonna go be all shiny and happy and think about it for a while.
like when they flew in a private jet just to see U2
A WASTE OF FOSSIL FUELS BEYOND COMPARE.
I have a lot of respect for any restaurant that doesn't try to please everyone with their music, and just puts on what the guy in charge likes. One of my favorite places is Avec, where it's not unusual for their iPod to just be on shuffle by album and a long meal will take you through some early Cure, the Smiths, and the Rolling Stones (as an example based on an evening I spent there). I probably love that place so much because they have the same taste in music as me and they play it LOUD.
Mario's Stipe-lovefest somehow manages to be even more cringeworthy than his actual affair w/Courtney Love.
would you have as much respect for them if they played music you hate?
As a former employee of The Spotted Pig, another Battali affiliated restaurant that employees a music somelier, I can tell you that the number one requirement for that job is to be willing to ocasionally boink owner Ken Friedman.
slutsguts -
Yes, but it would be a grudging sort of respect.
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