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Day 3: Kid A

Kid A (2000)

Welcome to the cold forest, the frightening landscape that is Radiohead paranoia. Gone are the typical sounds of guitars and drums and keyboards. Gone, even, is the voice of Thom. Everything is modified, contorted in an electronic, haunting manner. With images reminiscent of The Pied Piper, the imagery of the lyrics suggests a ghoulish figure leading all your children out of town and into the black anything.

Notable lyric: Rats and children follow me out of town / rats and children follow me out of their homes / come on, kids

listen here

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Day 2: High and Dry

The Bends (1995)

The thing about Radiohead’s singer, Thom Yorke, is that he has a great voice. What I find most impressive is his range, especially in the upper register. This is a song that shows off that higher pitch, the falsetto, that he can reach. I also love the pseudo-acoustic sound to the guitars. For an album marked by it’s rock, this one stands out as being more stripped down and honest.

Notable lyric: Drying up in conversation / you will be the one you cannot talk / All your insides fall to pieces / you just sit there wishing you could still make love

listen here

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Day 1: Karma Police

Ok Computer (1997)

This was the first Radiohead song I ever heard. It was on a Now This Is What I Call Music compilation that I borrowed from Jen Dietman. I listened to it a couple times, and I enjoyed the sound of it, but then I had this moment where I listened to the lyrics. It was like this epiphany. There was this dark quality, this understated violence and animosity to the song that I latched on to. It wasn’t scream-goth-metal, but it had that same aggression to it. Mind-blowing.

Notable lyrics: This is what you get / this is what you get / when you mess with us.

listen here

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? Days of Radiohead

Per request (!), I’m going to do an undetermined number of days of Radiohead. Back in October, Radiohead released their latest album, In Rainbows, straight to the internet. You could pay whatever you wanted for the digital download, or you could pay for a DISCBOX, which would include the physical album, plus another disc, plus two vinyls, plus a book, and so on. I debated the point for a while, but I finally decided to buy it. I got my digital download, and I loved it.

The DISCBOX wasn’t set to ship until December 3rd. So, I’m going to start on December 1, and I’m going to do a Radiohead song a day until my DISCBOX arrives, and maybe a little beyond that.

Enjoy!

UPDATE: I forgot to link to the ordering page for In Rainbows. To buy the digital download, just add it to your basket, and then when you view basket, you get two text boxes. It is there that you can type in the amount you wish to pay, in British pounds. I believe the minimum is 79 cents, or something, for credit card transaction costs.

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Tag; You’re It

I was sort-of tagged by Candlestring.

1. Do you promote your blog?

This one, not so much. I do, however, promote the heck out of Newsbleep.com, Stay in the know, now, with Newsbleep.

2. How often do you check hits?

Every once in a while. I have a plugin called “Reports” that analyzes my Google Analytics reports so I can get a sense of traffic to my site. It also tells me a little information about people who subscribe to the feed.

3. Do you stick to one topic?

No. I cover music, movies, TV, and just about anything else. I once did 25 posts of Bright Eyes songs. It was really popular. ^_^

4. Who knows that you have a blog?

Pretty much everyone. I may not be very self-promoting of my personal site, but it tends to come up in conversation.

5. How many blogs do you read?

Google Reader tells me I subscribe to 197 feeds. I currently have 980 unread posts, and I’ve shared 62 items.

6. Are you a fast reader?

I used to be a faster reader than I am now. When I’m immersed into a book, that’s when I seem to take off.

7. Do you customize your blog or do anything technical?

Yes. I actually run a number of widgets that I have written especially to fit my blog. I also designed the style that runs on the blog, though I did not write the theme.

8. Do you blog anonymously?

Yes.

9. To what extent do you censor yourself?

I try to keep my content at a PG-13/TV-14 rating. It’s really more for myself than for others (like parents or parents-in-law) as I find vulgar language to usually be unnecessary and crude. If I find the need to swear, I typically use the * as a replacement for more offensive letters. I do the same thing in video with the bleep sound. But, mostly, I just find that funny.

10. The best thing about blogging?

Blogging is a form of writing that has the benefit of putting you at finger tips’ reach of an audience. We all write for an audience, but, on the internet, that audience can respond to what you’re doing in either a positive or negative fashion.

I tag: Holli, David, Tony, Bryce, Chris, Dan, Tyler, Paula, Fellows, Britt, Sue, and Kelsey.

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The Bright Eyes Concert

Also known as, The Last Bright Eyes post for a while.

My first thought, walking into the airplane hangar, was “Can a God fit on something so small?” It was a little tongue-in-cheek, but I got out my miniature notebook and made the first of many marks in the difficult darkness.

Dave Rawlings Machine

The opener was the Dave Rawlings Machine. They were good. Dave Rawlings, we found out, was traveling with Bright Eyes, playing guitar for them, and opening Thursday night. Little to his surprise, it would seem. But he played an awesome set. He’s a ferocious guitar player, and he sings and plays with expressions that border on ecstasy and constipation. It was humorous but great. He played a spectacular song called Joey by Bob Dylan that I haven’t been able to get out of my head since.

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Then there was Simon Joyner. I’m sure that he’s a very talented musician, but he brought down the tempo, which was a dangerous move. The crowd started getting restless. He sang with a sneer. He did play a rousing version of Short Stack, a song from an earlier release of his. I liked that song.

Bright Eyes

Then it was Bright Eyes. And it. was. awesome.

Set List
– – – – – –
1. I Must Belong Somewhere
2. Four Winds
3. Poison Oak
4. Method Acting
5. Arc of Time (Time Code)
6. Spring Cleaning
7. Lover I Don’t Have To Love
8. You Will? You. Will? You. Will?
9. Classic Cars (for California)
10. Lua (with Gillian Welch)
11. Another Travelin’ Song (for Dave Rawlings)
12. Hit the Switch
13. Old Soul Song (For The New World Order) (for New York City)
– – – – –
14. Man Named Truth (new song, unofficial title)
15. Walls (Circus) (Tom Petty cover)
16. Roosevelt Room (new song, unofficial title)

Dave Rawlings joined the band, taking the place, temporarily, of Mike Mogis. I was sad to not get to see Mike Mogis, but Dave Rawlings was really, really good. It added a fire-breathing, laser-guided heat missle of a guitar solo to the already fabulous Bright Eyes songs.

Also, in drunken-related news, Jeff got pretty violently accosted by a woman who had been drinking. She really wanted him to dance, which he did a little bit after the initial confrontation, but then she left. I had a drunk close encounter myself. Instead, this guy, who was scary drunk (head down, shifty eyes, swagger), had fallen over. Hard. Another guy, who also seemed to be pretty tipsy, helped him up. The guy stood next to me for a short while, then he faded into the crowd behind me. Not cool, creepy drunk guy.

All-in-all, it was a fabulous concert. It was awesome getting to hang out with Jeff, which we haven’t done in a while, and it was even better to experience such great music.

Okay, that’s it about Bright Eyes for a while. I promise.

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Day 25: Road To Joy

From I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning (2005)

Notable lyric: I could have been a famous singer / if I had someone else’s voice / But failure’s always sounded better / Let’s f*** it up boys, make some noise!

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Day 24: We Are Free Men

There Is No Beginning to The Story (2002)

This song features one of the rare male voice duets in the Bright Eyes catalog. The two “free men” take turns doing a couple lines each, which builds with the repeated line of “now you’re body’s gone” and culminates in the explosive “angel, you will live!”. It’s an EP track that could have been on an album, and to get the visibility it deserves it should have been.

Notable lyric: we will be lifted / up from all of this, yeah, we will transcend / the insignificance of our existence / Yeah, your body’s gone, but, angel, you will live!