Radiohead and I go way back. First I heard of them was at the HMV in Square One, Mississauga back in… early 1993? In typical 17 year-old adolescent fashion, I was struck by the lyrics and how perfectly they encapsulated how I felt. The song was “Creep”… typical, eh? I bought Pablo Honey on cassette and pretty much wore it out over the next couple years. Come first year university, and Radiohead hadn’t been heard from in a while – they were seriously flirting with one-hit wonder status. Then came the curious move of releasing an EP domestically with My Iron Lung in the Fall of 1994, which I bought in the campus record store and which utterly blew me away. I’d always thought that Radiohead had potential beyond Pablo Honey, but I didn’t expect the six-song revelation that came next. I waited anxiously for The Bends‘ release in Winter 95 and with that record, I pretty much had a new favorite band. I went the whole nine yards – buying cassette bootlegs, getting friends to buy me t-shirts at concerts I couldn’t get to, amassing a collection of magazines with Thom Yorke’s squinting visage on the covers (now that is dedication!). In 1997, with the release of OK Computer, they were pretty much the biggest band on the planet but I still felt that connection of a long-time fan. It was a bond that seemed unbreakable.

Then a funny thing happened on the way to the new millenium. To say that I didn’t like their new direction and wanted them to keep doing what they had always been doing is unfair – I am as big a proponent for artistic growth as anyone, even if it means a difficult transition for the listener. And Kid A was pretty difficult listening. It took a good long while, but after a while I figured I finally ‘got it’. I had penetrated their musical cipher and understood what their muse was saying. But the thing was, I didn’t want to listen to it anymore. I found myself playing Kid A more out of a sense of obligation than genuine desire. Weird. Amnesiac was more of the same, though I had less urge to make excuses for that record. To me, it sounded like what it was – a collection of cast-offs and tracks that didn’t fit on Kid A. While its predecessor had a definite unified ‘album’ feel, I found Amnesiac disjointed and lacking cohesion. There were some great tracks, but as an album, I thought it was lacking – and I still do.
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Here’s something worth hunting down – Palm Pictures has started something called Directors Label, which is issuing DVDs compiling the works of groundbreaking and influential music video directors. The first three salute Spike Jonze, Chris Cunningham and Michel Gondry and will be out on October 28. In addition to DVDs chock full of their work, documentaries and commentaries, they come with a 52-page book of storyboards, photos and interviews. If the names of these directors aren’t immediately familiar, there are previews of their work on the Driectors Label website. Read a review of the first three releases here. A brilliant idea.

This week, The Onion has a chat with Paul Westerberg.

I’ve been going through my CD collection picking out the ones that I would think are more sonically interesting for the purpose of sitting on my couch in the dark listening to my stereo at higher than normal sound levels. I hadn’t really realized before just how much lo-fi sorta stuff I had. Yeah, sorta lame, but it keeps me off the streets.

Bill Maher offers a rather pointed commentary on Rush Limbaugh and the ‘War On Drugs’. Bill’s blog is a good read.

Radiohead tonight.

np – The Flaming Lips / Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots

Busy busy day of running around and buying stuff. The details of which are uninteresting and unimportant, but the upshot is, my ‘home theatre’ system is now in place with two glorious channels of stereo sound! Yes, I am on the cutting edge of 1960s phonographic technology. Now I just need to look into this ‘quadrophonic’ sound the kids are talking about.

But seriously, I got some speaker stands and a stereo stand and got everything hooked up around my telelvision and it’s working pretty well. The absence of a remote for my amplifier is a hassle, as there’s a lot of input switching and volume adjustment whenever I go from television to DVD to CD, but what can you do… except maybe look at new amplifiers? Or speakers? My latent interest in audio equipment is stirring. Dangerous thoughts, those. Dangerous.

But CDs are much louder than DVDs. That’s interesting.

I’m still trying to quantify how the use of proper stands has affected the sound of my speakers. While there’s always a danger of Emperor’s New Clothes syndrome, I’d say that the detail and imaging of the speakers has improved, but the bass response has been reduced, maybe made a little tighter. Probably on account of them not being coupled with large bookshelves anymore. Okay, this is shit that is of no interest to anyone, so I’ll stop.

I watched The Score to inaugurate my new set up. A pretty standard heist flick made remarkable by the cast – Robert DeNiro, Edward Norton and Marlon Brando – it’s the story of a thief (DeNiro) looking to get out of the business with one last job for his long-time fence (Brando) with the assistance of a cocky newcomer (Norton). There are some parallels to be drawn to their acting careers, don’t you think? They’re all effective by doing what they do best, so the rather generic story isn’t really a problem. It’s all in the execution. It was nice to see a film set in Montreal, as well. Lovely city.

np – The Postal Service / Give Up

The Jayhawks/Lucinda Williams show tonight was my first time at Massey Hall for a non-Icelandic space-rock band. I was especially excited about the Jayhawks, having been a fan for a good long time but never gotten to see them live, and that’s a damn shame because they were amazing. A lot of old-school fans abandoned the band after Mark Olson left, but after hearing drummer Tim O’Reagan cover the harmonies on the older material as well as lead vocals on his own songs, I’ll play the role of blasphemer and say the Jayhawks are just as strong a band as when Olson was in the band. Seriously, O’Reagan was a revelation – I didn’t realize he was behind a number of my favorite Jayhawks tunes. That’ll teach me to read liner notes. A pity they only played for 45 minutes – from the response they got from the audience, I’d say it’s a safe bet that they could headline a very successful show of their own in this town. Right after their set, the merch table was nearly sold out of their CDs. And Gary Louris is a very tall man.

Lucinda Williams and band had a tough act to follow, and I can’t say they were entirely up to the task. They started the show with Lucinda on her own with acoustic guitar doing “Passionate Kisses”, which may have seemed like a good idea, but they either didn’t have the PA adjusted properly yet, or her voice wasn’t warmed up, or more likely both, because it sounded over-loud and harsh – certainly not the treatment the song deserved. It got better after her band joined her and they played a few more numbers, but still not the best first impression. The band was ultra-relaxed onstage, almost to the point of it working against them as there were extended gaps of silence between songs as they sorted something or other out, Lucinda chatted with the crowd in her slow Texan drawl or leafed through her lyric book for the words to the next number. Things were terrific when they started playing – these guys were pros, no mistake about it – but the pacing of the affair could have been better. The peak of the show came when Louris joined them onstage for “Essence”, first to do harmonies and then to take over guitar duties from Lucinda. For the encore, they acquiesed to do some requests, first with “Blue” and then “Sweet Side”. I questioned their decision to close with “American Dream”, which in my opinion is one of the weakest songs off the new album and an anti-climactic way to end off the show. Overall, a pretty solid show with disappointing bookends, but when Lucinda had the country-blues-soul mojo working, it was terrific.

The Washington Post talks to Beulah about the long road to Yoko and where they go from here.

Coming as no surprise to anyone, Wheat’s Per Second Per Second Per Second Every Second has been pushed back another week to November 4, due to “some delays finalizing the artwork”. This artwork, here. The Aware store has it for preorder now. Bah, humbug.

Slightly more cheerful news – volume 3 of the Amos House benefit albums finally has a street date – November 18. A stellar lineup on this one, including Wilco, Spoon, Elf Power and Wheat. You can preorder from Wishing Tree Records starting Wednesday.

np – The Jayhawks / Rainy Day Music

Things that should have occurred to me: if I have today off on account of it being a holiday, it stands to reason that other folks like, say, supermarket workers, would also have the day off. It would have been more useful if I’d realized this yesterday, when the stores were open, than today, when the stores were already closed. Anyway, I managed to scrounge up the basics I needed for dinner tonight from the 7-11 and corner vegetable stand, so I’m okay.

As with many others today, I bid Miss Modernage a fond farewell from blog-land. Thank goodness Whatevs.org has stepped up and volunteered to be the new source of all things prurient and Britney.

Here’s an bit of news that I haven’t seen picked up anywhere else – Gillian Gilbert has left New Order. The band is recording their new album with an unspecified guest guitarist and according to a source, “It is much more like Joy Division again”. Interesting interesting.

There are some official shots available of Keanu Reeves in character as John Constantine. Lisa Gerrard of Dead Can Dance is contributing to the soundtrack. Gavin Rossdale of Bush has been cast as a character called “Balthazar”. None of this does anything to sway me from my initial opinion that this will be a truly awful film.

Nostalgia – Sugar’s File Under: Easy Listening was the first album I bought in university. I think I picked it up during frosh week. That was almost ten years ago. TEN YEARS. Holy friggaroo.

Happy Thanksgiving!

np – New Order / Substance