COVER STORY .

Dave Smolen

Experimental musician / Projectionist at Ritz at the Bourse


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Published: Aug 19, 2009

Neal Santos

For Dave Smolen, having a day job is all about time. Because he has less of it, he's becoming a better, more focused musician.

To the untrained ear, Smolen's work may not seem focused at all. His chosen genre is experimental, which he describes as "basically complex electronic music arrangements with a computer, with manual controls." Smolen doesn't play live nearly as much as he used to. "When you play four or five times a year, it just means a little bit more," he says. Last fall, Smolen booked, but didn't play in, a show at Ritz at the Bourse. After the night's final screening, a band played to about 50 people while images were projected onto the screen behind them. "It's really the only venue I'm interested in booking," Smolen says. It helps that he works there.

Smolen, 26, spends most of his in the Ritz at the Bourse projection room, where he screens movies for arthouse crowds. He started on the floor staff at the Ritz East — one of the bow-tied guys — but left to tour and work at AKA Music. After he was fired from AKA, Smolen says he lost the motivation to do much of anything, including write music. Short on cash, Smolen inquired about any opening at his old haunt — the Ritz. He doesn't watch the movies he screens. To help him pass the time between reels, he just bought a Simon handheld memory game, and he's pretty pumped about it.

Smolen's in the process of completing his undergrad at Temple, where he's studying history after aborted attempts at majors like music therapy. The structure of work and school means he is forced to schedule his music-making; while he's released tapes and CD-Rs, he's currently working on his first major LP and hopes to have it out by early 2010. "Work gives me a good schedule," says Smolen. "It's good for my lifestyle."