Raidiohead “In Rainbows” review

Ah, writing about Radiohead. It’s the right of passage for any wannabe internet journalist or music message board poster.

Forget about the “innovative” download release method. That whole thing was a gigantic cock tease, since people couldn’t even hear the album in it’s intended full sound quality unless they waited for the CD. The download scheme was pure marketing, and it created the media shitstorm they needed, since they no longer had a major label promotion budget. Now that I have the CD in hand, I’m glad to forget the whole thing ever happened.

So, this is the new Radiohead album. After 10 months, I finally feel I’ve had time to digest it and recognize some of it’s true character. Radiohead inevitably takes time to sink in for anybody. A listener’s affair with the band may initially start with rejection due to distaste for the surface elements of a given album, whether it be the schizo black mood clang and clatter of Amnesiac, the spectral hypnotics and swamp gas of Kid A, the wailing walls of OK Computer’s drama, or the subdued flavor and repetitive guitar chords of In Rainbows. No matter, the fascination will always remain, desire to solve the mystery of the band’s appeal churning below the surface.

Fans of the band, when describing their musical effect, often use powerful and evocative imagery such as “Oh, yeah! I like Radiohead! I definitely dig their…sound! They’re just so…so…I don’t know! I hear they’re AMAZING live!”. I’m not sure I can do any better.

When the In Rainbows download was released in October 2007 (followed by the CD in January), it had been four and a half years since Hail To The Thief was released, their longest development period between albums. People thought 3 years was a long time to wait between OK Computer and Kid A, this was an even more unbearable stretch. Unlike that recording timeframe, though, this new one did not result in experimentation or the destruction and reconceptualization of the band’s sound. In Rainbows is, more or less, ten rock songs with light interwoven electronic elements.

Instead of the sprawling, wildly inconsistent Hail To The Thief, this is streamlined and efficient, traveling in a perfect straight line. This isn’t the band that succeeded in bursting open rock music from within. The dust has settled, only the bare open spaces and empty frames of houses remain.

At first, it doesn’t sound like enough. I couldn’t tell if they were purposely holding back more than they revealed, or if they lost sight of their trajectory and landed on Earth to settle down. Eventually, one starts to see arcing lines connecting between the songs, hanging them on display, changing their meaning by spatial relation to each other. It starts out seemingly unfinished, until the blank half of the canvas is filled in mentally. The abstract is, by design, the only way to accurately describe or perceive Radiohead.

It’s just barely enough. The first half is far superior, with 15 step, All I Need, Weird Fishes/Arpeggi, and Nude supplying the real emotional fix. The rest of the songs feel like they just want to have a lovely chat, not pour out their hearts.

“Videotape” is an exception, standing alone from the rest, with small digital pops and taps playing tricks on themselves and chasing behind their own rhythm until they collapse and roll down the hill. It’s the most startling composition of the lot, and serves to recontextualize the entire album. Maybe there was more to this than I thought, you’ll want to say. The song sounds like it wants to spiral out forever, but it’s cut short just as the leap over the abyss is taken. Is “In Rainbows” about being happy with what you have, not what could be?

(The limited $75 deluxe version included an 8-song, 27 minute long bonus disc of songs left off the main album. Just torrent it, since theres no other option except E-Bay.)

If you play the discs back to back in their intended order, the chords of Videotape fade into the pleasantly atmospheric puff piece of Mk1. That becomes “Down Is The New Up”, another “1984″ slogan of a song, no doubt clipped from the In Rainbows running order because it’s subject matter resembles “2+2=5″ from Hail To The Thief. Radiohead are notoriously consistent in their practice of cutting good songs from a new album because it resembles their past style in some way. The first example of this is the Bends b-sides on the My Iron Lung EP; they represented a bridge in style and songwriting between The Bends and Pablo Honey.

The rest of this disc consists of the mournful piano and minor shades the band has always specialized in, presented here in more straightforward and instantly gripping form.

The blunt prickly jangle of “Bangers And Mash” is potent as well. It could have been In Rainbows’ “Electioneering”, whether or not that’s a good thing depends on the day of the week. It’s the most prominent song on the bonus disc, making frequent concert and live video appearances.

Overall, this bonus disc has the same weight of substance as the “Airbag/How Am I Driving?” EP, with a similar trcklist structure as well. A few songs, taken individually, are even stronger than much of “In Rainbows”, though they would have shaken the album’s fragile balance if included. Radiohead didn’t want anything to distract from the primary mission of “In Rainbows”, which is…well, I have no idea. If I did, this wouldn’t be Radiohead. Now, to compulsively listen to the album a few more times to decide if I really like it or not.

Newport Folk Festival- Part 1

An experience like the Newport Folk Festival is difficult to quantify. It’s a collision of tourists, logistical nightmares, gorgeous weather, live music of wildly varying quality, and the lawns of historical landmark Fort Adams. Despite being a Newport resident for years, circumstance and work schedules have conspired to keep me from attending until this year. Was it fate, or something far more sinister that called me to the water’s edge this day?

Let’s start with the general setup of the festival. Sunday had 16 bands, spread across 3 simultaneous stages. Depending on how you managed your time, you would experience between 3 and 4 1/2 hours of music for your 90$. Out of all of Sunday’s artists, I believe only Jimmy Buffet could command over 30$ for a ticket. Any way you divide it up, you are paying a hefty Festival Tax.

As for the “worth” of the ticket, I came away satisfied, having seen Over The Rhine in my hometown in a gorgeous relaxed setting. I was also surprised by an unexpectedly great Gillian Welch set, so I discovered a new musical love as well. In the end, I left more full with musical spirit than when I had arrived. If anything is worth $90 , that is.

Unfortunately, there’s a rather large drawback to the entire experience. Every band except Jimmy Buffet had only an hour to perform. For a festival that runs from 12:30PM to 7:15PM, this is nothing short of ridiculous. The whole concept of an afternoon festival with this many bands is inevitably self defeating.

Extending the festival by 90-120 minutes would have given each band (except the OurStage contest winners that began at 12:30) time for a full 90 minute set, instead of a 60 minute one. After 60 minutes, most bands are just beginning to settle into a comfortable groove. Additional time is essential for the build and flow of a set, and to tie the whole experience together. Why bring all these bands out here, then cut their time just short of what’s needed to make a full impression? A set isn’t just something you can chop up and squeeze into a schedule, it needs room to breath, to make it’s purpose known, to sink in.

The sun sets at about 8pm this time of year in Newport. Having the festival end an hour before is a huge missed opportunity. The afternoon was beautiful and clear blue, but it would have been an amazing sight as the clouds turned colors above the high stone walls of Fort Adams. The true potential of this mixture of atmosphere and music was unfulfilled.

How was the atmosphere? What was the crowd like? If I didn’t know better, I’d think I was at the beach. Every inch of the main stage lawn was completely overtaken by the time I arrived at 1pm. Beach blankets, lawn chairs, screaming babies. A thousand indifferent faces blankly gazing out towards the stage as if it was just the tide rolling in.

The harbor at the edge of the lawn was swarmed with yachts, sailboats, and dudes in inner tubes. They floated expectantly, bellies bloated with Budweiser. They cared not what they saw and heard, for all intents and purposes, they were in self induced comas until the 6pm headliner set. It was going to be a hell of a long wait for Jimmy Buffet, but they were ready. My only question is (If I were among the Lei Legion), if I started drinking Dark n’ Stormys at noon, will I still be awake when the Margarita Messiah shines his light upon me?

This being a “festival”, there were a hundred booths selling Sally’s Shitty Seashell Jewelry and dijuridos. For food, the choice was binary. Fried dough or Ben n’ Jerry’s? I opted for the hidden third choice: the whiskey my friend smuggled in.

The portable toilets were not magical portals to another world, as I had been led to believe, but I did encounter a creature of sorts. Upon entering the cramped dank dark blue plastic closet, I was surprised to find it was already occupied by a Jewish Mud Golem sleeping in a dirty little hole. Any illusions I may have had about the progress of modern human society were promptly shattered. We all still shit together in the same hole. It’s not a very deep hole, either, so get ready to become intimately familiar with your neighbor’s insides.

These massive public gatherings tend to bring out the animal side in all of us. Everyone’s sticky stinking and sweaty, stranded away from the comforts of home, equipped only with what items you can carry. The beach towel is laid out to mark lawn territory. Unfortunately, I didn’t see anyone pissing on their spot to ward off marauders.

No crazy characters were encountered, only a few mildly eccentric hippies doing some kind of terrifying unidentifiable 60s dance. In fact, as seemingly one of the only people there that had come to rock out to some music, I felt like the big weirdo. I mean, I am a big weirdo by normal standards, but at a music festival I expect to be humbled by an array of jesters, jerks, and grotesque delights. Nope, just baby boomers here.

(Next: Newport Folk Festival impressions part deux: Over The Rhine)

Unpaid Hunter S. Thompson

Besides the summer being shitty heat-wise, it’s been shitty music-wise. This is partially my own fault. I could have put more work in to investigating all the bands I’d never heard of playing at The Living Room. I could have worked up the motivation for another psycho public transportation trek from Providence to Boston. The last time I tried that, though, I ended up having to leave behind the awe-inspiring fury and flailing chaos of the Dillinger Escape Plan after 10 minutes. The last train to Providence was at midnight, and I just barely made it.

There’s a lot I’ll do to see a good show, but wandering around the streets of Boston all night alone in December isn’t one of them. One of my friends suggested I should have just “met some girls and gone back to their place”. I suppose it’s theoretically possible that could have happened. I have my charms, but I’m no Jude Law. If I was Jude Law, I could just say “Fuck the MBTA commuter rail! I can pick meself up a couple birds on any street corner in Boston! And they’d have a posh flat, too!”.

I suppose I could work on that “learning to drive” thing. That would clear up a lot of logistics issues, and I would have a million new ways to die.

Anyways, that’s the past. It’s time to bring in the new. The point of this post is, I AM going to make it to some good shows, they’ve just all been compressed together into the first week of August. It will be murder on my ears, but that’s the price we pay. All 3 shows will demand the full unfiltered no-earplugs experience.

First up is Day 2 of the Newport Folk Festival, on Sunday August 3rd. Yup, just the 2nd day. If I was officially “on assignment”, I’d be glad to sit through the whole nightmare, but as you can see by the title of this post, I’m working for myself. My “expense account” is filled at the register jockey rate of 9 dollars an hour. Oh, but I get to “publish” whatever I want without editorial approval! Ah, sweet journalistic freedom.

I’m going for one reason: Over The Rhine. They have an hour and 5 minutes to play, and if some fucking ukelele jockey steps on a single minute of their timeslot I am going to rampage. More on them after the show, and I’ll probably do a compare and contrast with the show I saw last October in Boston.

Next is Nine Inch Nails, on Friday August 8th at the DCU Center in Worcester. Their 2006 show in Mansfield was one of the best I’ve ever been to, reducing an entire arena to nothing but noise and adrenaline. They have released 3 albums since then (Year Zero, Ghosts I-IV, and The Slip), so I’m looking forward to a very different setlist and overall experience. Hurt me more, Trent, please.

August 13th brings Radiohead. I like their last 2 albums a lot, but I’m not crazy in love like I was with the OK Computer/ Kid A/ Amnesiac period. So, I’m not as pumped to see them as I would have been before Hail To The Thief came out, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the show will be any worse. I’m cautiously hoping to be blown away.

Hopefully, after all that, I’ll still be able to hear things other than that high pitched whine that never goes away. According to that scene in Children Of Men, that high pitched noise is the frequency that you’ll never be able to hear again. As long as it’s because I just experienced the ultimate manifestation of that frequency, accompanied by a totally rad light show, I’m ok with that.

Sweat

It’s been a shitty summer. This summer, in particular, has been a very different genus of shitty, being my first Providence, Rhode Island summer.

It was not until this June that I realized how hypersensitive my body is to the elements. If I were to step out of my air conditioned room (the only tolerable room in the house), within 5 minutes I would become afflicted. I had heard of this “Sun Sickness” befalling roofers in Florida and Texas, but it’s reach goes far and wide, all the way to my apartment kitchen.

It starts with a vaguely nagging itching sensation on my upper back, or forehead. This is the first sign. If there are no freezers nearby for me to crawl into and enter the fetal position, it is already too late. Next comes the sweat. No, not “sweet” like candy. Theres an “a” after the first “e”. Sweat. Stinky, salty, pore vomit: overall, pretty fucking disgusting.

I’m of Irish and French descent. I don’t know where that places me on the global spectrum of natural perfumes, but it’s pretty gross. It’s nothing like the peculiar “tang” a Greek friend of mine possessed. It doesn’t quite have the tart edge of my other buddy who might have once been Italian in a previous life. No, my scent begs for the clean clear waters of a misty Irish Spring to wash it away. And yet, there’s also a little something about it that says “Fuck you, I’m French. I’ll shower when it’s not such a long walk to the laundromat.”. It’s a scent of contrast and contradiction.

When it gets really bad, like when I have to go outside my room for more than 10 minutes, my pits form their own environment. It’s almost exactly like that underground cave tour I once took in Texas. Instead of stalagmite/tites, there are ragged pit hairs clumped together by white deodorant crust. How long has that stuff been stuck up in there, anyways?

Then there’s the claustrophobic, inescapable moisture, hanging stagnant in the air with such tactile thickness, it begs the question “Am I in hell? Is this the Hell of the Eternal Stink, or is it the same as everybody else’s hell? Can they all smell me?”. It drip drip drips down your pits, then rises back up again by some kind of magical self sustaining hydroponic ecosystem. I probably wouldn’t last too long on Dune.

So yeah, I hate summer more than ever now. I grew up with the sea breeze at my doorstep. Now it’s like I live in the fucking Burger King kitchen. I say bring on the mild New England winter.

This is the first time in my life I’ve ever looked forward to September. Before, it carried the dread associated with the beginning of a new school year. Now that I’m done with that shit, I’m gaining a whole new perspective on the changing seasons. An old person perspective. I’m actually longing for “dat crisp fawl aiyuh” (that crisp fall air).

Another day closer to death!

“Are you alright, dude?”

“Are you alright, dude?”

Was the question mocking, or out of serious concern? I stood among the tall weeds (where a sidewalk should be) waiting, always waiting (?) to cross the road. The questioner that vexed me was the operator of one of these vehicles. I’d be a lot more alright if his car wasn’t driving along the road during the precise moment that I should have been walking across it. If I could go back in time and get a quick word in with God during his Course Of Events development meeting, I would’ve suggested never creating Mr.Dude?, or at least not filling his head with superfluous questions of inscrutable tone. Instead, I would replace the questions with ping pong balls, ricocheting around in his skull. My day would have been far peachier, way more “alright”, if this guy had driven by and asked me “Ping pong, ping pong?” instead.

Short answer, yes. I’m alright. You could say I’m doing just fine, peachy, hangin’ low, gettin’ by. I’m okay.

Put whatever spin on that or hang any connotations you feel would make this more interesting, or more like you, or someone you despise.

This is turning into a standup routine, where I tell all about the funny stuff that happened today and let the
audience look at it through my crazy colorful kaleidoscope lense. Or maybe it’s not a kaleidoscope, but a piece of septic piping rimmed in shit. Or maybe it’s a ring shape formed by my index finger and thumb, and it looks just as mundane to you as it does to me.

Regardless, here it is. It’s mandatory. I’m sorry, you don’t have a choice. Pretend you’re trapped in the side
room at the party with me, in the loser room. So, um, hehe, great party, huh? Nah, nah I was being sarcastic
actually. Do you know John? Nah, me neither.