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dmait

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    Radiohead- In Rainbows

    in Someone Else's Song

    Posted

    >MHD was running "Radiohead - From The Basement" the other day. They did most of their new songs and threw in a couple from Kid A/Amnesiac. I always love hearing 'Optimistic'. Looked superb in HD.

     

    Both the audio and video are up on Dime.

    I found an 14-year-old mix tape

    in Someone Else's Song

    Posted

    >I have tapes going back to 1977 - that I use to make by taping songs off the radio

     

    I made a few of those, and to this day, all these years later, I can still hear the dj introducing some of the songs. "The Who. . . You Better . . . You Better . . . You . . . Bet."

    Radiohead- In Rainbows

    in Someone Else's Song

    Posted

    The opening show of the tour got a glowing review in today's Wall Street Journal:

     

    A Band of Prowess and Ingenuity

    By JIM FUSILLI

    May 7, 2008; Page D9

    West Palm Beach, Fla.

     

    It doesn't get much better in modern rock than when Radiohead kicked off their tour at the Cruzan Amphitheatre here on Monday. Playing with passion, intensity and a joy their often-stoic demeanor conceals, they offered two-dozen wonderfully textured songs with daring musicianship and vivid invention. The show wasn't perfect, as befits an opening night. But it was brilliant.

    The quintet of multi-instrumentalists, led by vocalist and lyricist Thom Yorke, relied heavily on their new album, "In Rainbows," opening and closing the first set with the ballads "All I Need" and "Videotape," respectively. If you need a demonstration of a band's level of confidence, book-ending a set with ballads, rather than raging rockers, is a pretty good one. They finished the evening with a controlled reading of "Street Spirit (Fade Out)", the lovely finale of their 1995 album "The Bends," offering it after a quietly intense rendition of "House of Cards" from "In Rainbows" that seemed to dissipate in the night air.

    By now the band has developed an overarching sound that incorporates all phases of its 16-year recording career, including the grand rock ballads of "The Bends" and "OK Computer" and the experimental electronica of "Kid A." It's a blend that worked well on 2003's "Hail to the Thief," extraordinarily well on "In Rainbows" and in concert here. Songs like "Where I End and You Begin (The Sky Is Falling In)" from "Hail" and "Morning Bell" and "Everything in Its Right Place" from "Kid A" -- the latter perhaps the best performance of the night -- were part of a whole, rather than nods to different periods in a career. Throughout, Mr. Yorke's voice was wrapped in sheets of guitar sounds and electronic whirlwinds that approximated eerie, ethereal strings.

    Radiohead's songs are built on the stuff of great rock: a killer rhythm section, with Phil Selway on drums and Colin Greenwood on bass. While Mr. Selway laid down crisp, complex patterns without changing posture or expression, Mr. Greenwood played with deceptive facility, often in the upper register, then beamed happily or nodded in knowing approval as the songs ended. Rhythm is the bedrock for Radiohead: On "There There (The Boney King of Nowhere)," Jonny Greenwood, Colin's younger brother, and Ed O'Brien put aside their guitars to accompany Mr. Selway by pounding tom-toms with mallets -- Mr. O'Brien tossed his to the eager crowd at the song's end. Later, Mr. Yorke played a second drum kit during "Bangers and Mash."

    More often than not, Radiohead led with a three-guitar attack as Jonny Greenwood or Mr. Yorke introduces a musical figure the other guitarists toyed with by adding unexpected accents and harmonic colors. Guitars are a part of the orchestral sound: It wasn't until the evening's 19th song, "Just," that they deployed anything like a traditional rock guitar solo, and Mr. Greenwood cut it short after four bars. For most of the night, he joined in the rhythmic guitar attack, then retreated to multilayered parts on a variety of keyboards, his guitar in his lap for easy access.

    Like the Beatles -- the only band with whom Radiohead can be compared for the arc of their career and their willingness to challenge their own legacy to an excellent result -- Radiohead has evolved to a point where their only influence is themselves and their quest to be exceptional. But Radiohead does what the Beatles couldn't during the late stages of their career -- they play their complex songs live, reproducing them to a degree, yet going beyond the recordings. From a distance, the band seems deliberately enigmatic -- rock is filled with such poseurs -- but in concert, they are deep within the music of the moment, as if wrapped in an invisible bubble of creativity. Thus, at times Radiohead seemed oblivious to the audience. But they were never off-putting toward their fans, who sang along and clapped rhythmic patterns from the recordings. Because they were reinventing the familiar, the band needed a subtle nod from Mr. Yorke or a cue from Jonny Greenwood, whose back is to his colleagues when he plays the ondes Martenot or other exotic electronic keyboards, to tell the other musicians to move on. When they brought a song to a new standard, such as they did here with a gorgeous "Bullet Proof. . . I Wish I Was," the young men glowed with muted pride.

    Reinvention revealed the integrity of their compositions, particularly their melodies. Mr. Greenwood and Mr. Yorke performed "Faust Arp" on acoustic guitars, leaving behind the strings on the recorded version. "Exit Music (For a Film)," an anthem-like ballad from "OK Computer," rode on Mr. Yorke's self-control, his voice soaring within the maelstrom that built around him.

    Even when they hit a rough patch, Radiohead revealed its character. During "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi," they lost their way and the song, in which electric guitars finger-pick three distinct patterns under a snappy rhythm, threatened to fall apart. By settling back into the groove, they managed to complete it. But Mr. Yorke wasn't satisfied. At the song's end, the diminutive singer ran to each band member and they agreed to do it again. The second time it was perfect. "We obviously didn't practice this enough," Mr. Yorke joked as the capacity crowd applauded wildly.

    Throughout the evening, Mr. Yorke proved an agreeable host -- none of the other band members spoke to the audience. He's a charming, self-depreciating front man, which comes as a surprise after watching him seethe in one song, disappear into a dark lyric in the next and then spin wildly like a dancer at a rave in the next. "This one is kind of 'oldish,'" he said when introducing "Optimistic" from "Kid A." He made a quip about Miami that the audience here enjoyed, but he mostly stuck to the business at hand, which is leading the best rock band at work today through an incredible display of its prowess and ingenuity.

    Mr. Fusilli is the Journal's rock and pop music critic. Write to him at jfusilli@wsj.com4.

    the office

    in Tongue-Tied Lightning

    Posted

    >I now believe this show jumped the shark with the whole Jim-Pam thing.

     

    I'm tending to agree. I'm sure it won't be long before they break up and a Rebecca character will be introduced to play off of their Sam and Diane. How bad was Cheers when everything was roses for Sam and Diane? It was best when they hated each other with underlying longing. That pending post-break-up vitriol would take the Office in a different direction than the former unrequited love and present relationship.

    Two Stirratt articles

    in Just A Fan

    Posted

    http://www.csindy.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A24945 (Colorado Springs Independent)

     

    >With the elegiac "Impossible Germany" and the R&B-influenced "Side with the Seeds" able to stand proudly alongside Wilco favorites like "Jesus Etc.," the album has a generally more relaxed and organic feel that Stirrat says reflects its making.

    "We just wanted to sort of sit in a circle and jam and see what would happen, not really get into too much of an overdub or postproduction mindset," he recalls. "It was a really cool, musical, civilized way to make a record, sitting around arguing about passing chords or just, you know, major seventh chords sounding too wimpy or whatever. It was really great."

     

     

     

    http://winnipegsun.com/Entertainment/AandE...pf-5438156.html (Winnipeg Sun)

     

    >While Tweedy continues to be the band's primary songwriter, Stirratt says that egalitarian approach extends into the rehearsal hall and the recording studio -- two places the band will be spending a lot of time soon as they gear up for their seventh studio album, the followup to last year's Sky Blue Sky.

    "We're in the beginning stages right now," he says. "We're writing for it. We haven't really gotten together and recorded anything yet, but songs and ideas are switching hands."

    Based on what he's heard so far, he suspects the album could be "louder or more rocking" than the mellower and more melodic Sky.

    Whiskeytown - Strangers Almanac [Deluxe Edition]

    in Someone Else's Song

    Posted

    >this is one of my all-time favorite records (from the alt-country movement that is)

    Mine, too, from any genre.

     

     

    >[Radio City Music Hall]. The Strokes and White Stripes (amazing show)

     

    I caught that show. That was when the Strokes were the "it" band, and I remember thinking how much better and more interesting the White Stripes' opener was.

    Jackson Browne Wallingford ,Ct. 4/6

    in After The Show

    Posted

    http://www.variety.com/article/VR111798400...d=2857&cs=1

     

    An hour onstage with Jackson Browne

    Adding transparency to the critical process

    By PHIL GALLO

    Apr. 14, 2008

     

    Give musicians a bit of annuity by including their names in the music publishing, says Jackson Browne, who is looking for a new vehicle to financially reward band members who make crucial contributions to recordings.

    Arrangers from the decades prior to Browne's arrival would have loved to heard that way of thinking, too: Then as now, studio wizards get paid by the job and don't share in the wealth generated when a record becomes a hit. Browne was sharing thoughts on composing, collaborators, revisiting the past and the effects of technology on albums during an interview at ASCAP's I Create Music conference in Hollywood. I was the lucky journalist interviewing him.

    I say lucky and honestly mean it: my high school years were filled with endless playings of Bob Dylan's "Blood on the Tracks," Neil Young's "Zuma," Bruce Springsteen's "The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle" and Browne's "Late for the Sky." Those albums felt like novels alerting me to adulthood; tough to understand as a 15-year-old, "Late for the Sky" was obviously the most personal and yet it felt simultaneously the most universal. For that reason alone, I felt honored to be the one nervously asking the questions in front of several hundred people.

    By focusing on the questions, I didn't get to concentrate on scribbling the answers. And Jackson was great at answering everything and anything in an open and frank manner.

    One honest admission: The learning curve involved in becoming a producer meant some of his records - especially those from the 1980s - now sound dated and it can to something as simple as the way the drum is recorded. His piano style, especially on "Doctor My Eyes," is so rudimentary that when a trained pianist attempts to perform it, they find it difficult to re-create the mistakes and absence of learned technique. The studio is foremost a workshop and he has never started an album with completed songs. Of all of the people has tossed around ideas on songwriting with, he seems to be most affected by the influence of the late Lowell George of Little Feat, who was great at guiding a songwriter as they crafted a song, but the composer had to be willing to let George interrupt and toss out ideas when they came to him. ( He said he asks other songwriters how they work and has found that the arrive-fully-prepared methods of Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen will not work for him).

    The good side of technology - specifically when Nakamichi invented a high quality cassette recorder in the late '70s - spawned the ideas that would manifest themselves in "Running on Empty," his one mega-hit. Technology, too, allows him to easily record his solo acoustic shows - he has released two volumes to date - and rather than just re-visit the popular songs, he has included numbers that were released as recently as 2002 on "The Naked Ride Home," a superb album that he says nobody heard.

    The solo shows - tour winds up with two Northern California dates this week - are done with no set list, no written introductions to the songs and a risk that shouted requests will piss him off. At their core, he says, the shows are "about revealing the architecture of a song."

    A new album with his band is being recorded, which has him thinking about how to get musicians such as keyboardist Jeff Young compensated down the road. He calls it a "classic American rock sound - like the way Dylan or Booker T. & the MG's would make a record in the '60s" - with just guitar, keyboards, bass and drums.

    Two things I didn't get to say - and maybe it's better that way. Proof of bias at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which does not care for artists from the early '70s nor non-New Yorkers: The number of Southern California singer-songwriter inductees who were never in a band is two, Browne and Ricky Nelson.

    On a more personal note, during my college days, I played bass - an upright formerly owned by L.A.'s finest, Lee Sklar - in a Delta blues duo that specialized in the songs of Rev. Gary Davis and Mississippi John Hurt. Naturally, some of our versions were third-hand - we did "Death Don't Have No Mercy" Hot Tuna-style and regularly referenced Dave Van Ronk and Doc Watson. When Browne released his acoustic version of "Cocaine" we naively thought, "hey with Jackson exposing people to this music, maybe we'll get some better bookings." Yea right. All it meant was that during every gig someone would yell "Play 'Cocaine'." I understand why he doesn't like song titles being shouted at him.

    Radiohead

    in Someone Else's Song

    Posted

    >The April 1 gig for BBC Radio 2 will be held at the BBC Radio Theatre, Broadcasting House in central London.

     

    The evening show is up on Dime right now. I think it was captured from digital radio. Sounds great.

    The latest Ryan Adams thread

    in Someone Else's Song

    Posted

    >The guy is fairly damaged and comes off as trying too hard when interviewed or live.

     

    As much as I enjoy almost all of his music, that has been my problem with him in his post-Gold days. He seemed more innocent pre-Gold. Now he comes off to me as trying so hard to be a rock star, rather than just being himself. It's like he's applying principles from Rockstar for Dummies. That being said, at least he more than backs up his schtick with unlimited great music, for which I more than give him the benefit of the doubt.

     

    >the Cardinals kill Whiskeytown as far as I'm concerned.

     

    (Sound of falling off chair.)

    Now Reading

    in Tongue-Tied Lightning

    Posted

    >Great read, though. I think it's great because it reads as fiction even though it's non-fiction, which plays into the story even a non-history buff can appreciate.

     

    That's true. It reads like fiction. It's unusual for this type of book to be a pageturner.

     

    >When you finish it get the companion book (I checked it out from the library) to check out some of the landmarks described in the book. It's a coffee table-type picture book and I forget the name of it. Pretty nice companion piece.

     

    Great idea. It would also be interesting to visit some of the places mentioned. On a similar note, Lincoln died in a boardinghouse across the street from Ford Theater. Within hours after he was removed to the White House, the room in which he'd been staying with various doctors was rented to a tenant who slept in the bed with Lincoln's bloody sheets. Amazing.

    Now Reading

    in Tongue-Tied Lightning

    Posted

    I just finished Krakauer's Into the Wild. While interesting, I'm glad I read it on vacation, where I finished it in three days. If I'd read my typical 10-20 pages a night before bed, I likely would have stopped reading after about 100 pages.

     

    I'm now 135 or so pages into Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer, by James L. Swanson. It's a fast and gripping read. Even a non-history buff would like it. It would make for a great movie, with Johnnie Depp as John Wilkes Booth.

    Make a Recommendation

    in Someone Else's Song

    Posted

    Great thread. There was a somewhat similar thread in December or January where people posted their top 10 songs of the 2007. I thought that was a great way of discovering other bands that Wilco fans liked. When I streamed those lists, I found that most of the songs posted were from newer bands like Carribou, The National, Band of Horses, Grizzly Bear, Animal Collective, etc. It occurred to me that while I came to Wilco from a classic rock, Grateful Dead, The Band, Americana, alt-country, jazz perspective, many VCers came to Wilco from much more modern music. It's interesting that Wilco is a "meeting point" for such divergent tastes.

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