Curation # 1 - Sebastian Pardo b. 1984

Growing up I wasn't really into film, or even the arts all that much.

I would draw Ninja Turtles, and some Anime stuff my friends and I were into, but I was relatively unaware of the film world, or music. I would listen to stray Beatles and Doors cassettes, which eventually led to a solid education in late 60's early 70's rock/pop music.

Film wise, repeating viewings of the Star Wars trilogy pretty much occupied my TV time.

But throughout my life the thing I spent the most time, patiently doing was designing sports uniforms. Mostly Soccer uniforms, and cleats. (For me, it was about maintaing the identity of both the team, and the company who made the uniform that was the most creatively stimulating. Which I believe is from the same part of my brain that loves cover songs, and film remakes.)

By 1998 Soccer had pretty much taken over my life, mostly as a diversion from the awkward and scary social reordering of middle school.

For me France 1998 was the formative sports event. I knew every player, every game, and more importantly every uniform, and what company each big player wore. I remember Zidane as one of my first real sports heros. (Which made his fall from grace in the 2006 World Cup all that much more painful.)(For the record I still wanted Brazil to win the cup.)

However I would say the very first thing that made inroads towards "the arts" was ... Beck's 1996 music video "Where It's At". (Youtube won't let me embed.) I remember in the mornings before school I would lay in bed too tired to get up, and not late enough that I had too, and watch music videos on MTV. This video was really the first time I was really excited, I memorized it along with the rest of "Odelay". It tapped into the growing revival of 60's and 70's aesthetics, (which surprisingly is still going strong) and just hit me, its combination of humor, references to things over my head, and just sounds stuck with me.

(Fond Memories: Fugees - Killing me Softly (1996) To this day is still what movie theaters in movies look like to me for some reason.)

A couple months ago NPR did a "Sound of a Generation" where they hosted a round table discussion attempting to figure out the sound of our generation, in the intro to the podcast/broadcast were the opening notes of "Where It's At"... and I got chills, and even tears in my eyes a little, it was that strong reaction that led me to choose. Beck's Where It's At. (First video to play on MTV2 on August 1, 1996.)

Runners Up:

Strokes - Last Nite (I already wrote about this.)

Hives - Hate to Say But I Told You So

Buffalo' 66 (Probably the biggest influence on me film wise.)

The Royal Tenembaums (Blew me away, but has since become an almost derogatory reference.)

All pretty standard choices... no deep cuts... I'm a nerd.. but I have to be honest.. this is what did it.