Awards Shows Suck

I haven't watched or cared about the Grammys, um, pretty much ever, and I know plenty of people who feel the same way. So clearly the folks running the show knew what they were doing when they booked Radiohead... with the USC marching band. Made me watch.

Wrapping Up

As I’ve been sitting at my computer finishing up my Christmas shopping, I set up a playlist in iTunes for all the albums I own from this past year, and what I’ve discovered in retrospect is this: As musical years go, this one didn’t blow me away. I saw a lot of great live shows*, but as for album releases, meh. I’ve been looking over other folks’ year-end lists, which range from the tragically hip to the simply tragic, but barring one album, there’s nothing that screams “classic”. That said, I didn’t have much trouble coming up with a top ten for ’07. Here’s 2 through 10 in no particular order:

Wilco, Sky Blue Sky

Modest Mouse, We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank

The Shins, Wincing The Night Away

Bloc Party, A Weekend in the City

Aesop Rock, None Shall Pass

Andrew Bird, Armchair Apocrypha

Galactic, From the Corner To The Block

The National, Boxer

Kings of Leon, Because of the Times

And the easiest decision? The hands-down, no-contest, numero uno? I’m probably one of the few people who paid for it, and it’s been worth every penny.

Radiohead, In Rainbows

A few more Honorable Mentions:

Cabin, I Was Here EP
Ted Leo & Pharmacists, Living With The Living
Neil Young, Chrome Dreams II
Band of Horses, Cease to Begin
Dinosaur Jr., Beyond
Elliott Smith, New Moon

*Of all the shows I saw this year, Neil Young was my favorite, simply because I had waited so long to see him and it was still an amazing show. Bloc Party and Wilco were also highlights. What follows is an in-order list of every artist I saw live in 2007: Elvis Perkins > My Morning Jacket > Béla Fleck & the Flecktones > Adem > Badly Drawn Boy > The Noisettes > Bloc Party > Hot Hot Heat > Snow Patrol > Rush > Wilco > Everything Absent Or Distorted > The Broken West > Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band > Clap Your Hands Say Yeah > Das EFX > Kings of Leon > Editors > The Decemberists, > Black Rebel Motorcycle Club > Cake > Nina Storey > Little Ones > Meese > Margot & The Nuclear So and So’s > Ian Ball > Lords of the Underground > Art Brut > Spoon > The Flaming Lips > The Awkward Stage > Lavender Diamond > The New Pornographers > Crown City Rockers > Blackalicious, > Pegi Young > Neil Young > Jason Collett > Feist. Whew.

Rainbow Bright

Radiohead have made a masterpiece. Radiohead have changed the face of music. Radiohead have betrayed their fans. Radiohead have made their best album since OK Computer. Radiohead have lost it. This album is amazing. This album sucks. This album puts me to sleep. This album is so good, it makes me want to cry.

All of that comes from reading hundreds of initial comments on Stereogum this morning. The first impressions are pretty sharply divided on Radiohead’s new album, In Rainbows, released today as a digital download. But you know what? It makes me really happy that everyone has different opinions, and that they are all just as new as the music. Radiohead only announced that this album would be available ten days ago, so we haven’t had time to be innundated by 273 reviews, the band on the cover of every music and pop culture magazine out there, and scores of reviewers, columnists and bloggers telling us what a massive success/disappointment this album was going to be. In the absence of a push by the marketing machine, I got to come to the album fresh and form my own opinion, free of outside influences, and that was a pretty nice feeling.

So what is my opinion? Brilliant. I’m currently on my fifth listen, and what I’ve found is a gorgeously textured album, definitely worthy of being placed alongside OK Computer and The Bends as one of my favorite Radiohead albums. This disc finds the band in excellent form, creating a more organic and mature rock sound—the experimental electronic beats and squawking guitars of Kid A and Amnesiac have been toned down by acoustic guitars, piano and strings, and the result is a surprising marriage of styles that, in some places, veer dangerously close to pop songs. Some tracks even have a bit of an upbeat feel, which for Radiohead makes them the equivalent of bright and sunny. Is this a kinder, gentler Thom Yorke and Co.? If so, I like it. “15 Step”, “All I Need”, “Reckoner”, and “Jigsaw Falling Into Place” are all highlights for me, but my favorite song is “Faust Arp”, a beautiful string-laden ballad that is reminiscent of both the Beatles and singer-songwriters like Nick Drake or Elliott Smith.

As for the whole “changing the face of music” mess, check out this business plan. Radiohead is not signed to a label, so they released the album today as a digital download, only available through their own website. You could begin pre-ordering as of October 1, and get this: each buyer got to choose how much they wanted to pay for the download. There was a blank field in the shopping cart on the website, and you could type anything in... even a zero. (I paid about $12—actually 6 pounds, because they’re English—because I like Radiohead and I figure I would have paid that much in the store for a CD.) At the same time, the band also made available a special edition box set with a second disc of music for 40 pounds (about $81). If you pre-ordered the box set, the cost of accessing the download today was included. And finally, the band plans to do a traditional CD release sometime early next year. So basically, Radiohead may have figured out a way to work around the inevitable leaking of their album (or at least make a little money off it) by doing it themselves. Sure, plenty of people probably paid nothing to download it today. But there are also probably a lot of people like me who felt comfortable giving money to a band they know they enjoy in exchange for new music (huh, how about that?). And with no record label and no distribution structure to support, whatever people do pay goes straight into Radiohead’s pockets. It’s interesting to see a band that has taken a strong anti-consumerism stance in the past now work the system so deftly. By setting it up to get the music out to as many people as possible early on (and ensuring it’s a superior product), eventually, enough of those people will cough up money for the CD or special edition after hearing a digital version that the album will make money. Or at least, that’s the idea. We’ll see if it works, but if the rumblings that other bands (Nine Inch Nails and Oasis, for starters) are looking into trying the same thing are true, there must be something to it.

The Seventh Sign

Radiohead for babies. Seriously? Seriously. Expect the drug companies to introduce depression drugs for infants any day now. I mean, listen to the mp3 sample. Are these people out of their gourds? Anyone who remembers one day of their own childhood knows that xylophones + minor key songs = creepy as shit. As if Radiohead's not disturbing enough already. Although personally, I think it sounds kinda cool. But I'm sure not subjecting any newborns to it.

This would have been so much cooler if Radiohead had made an album of lullabies under an assumed name. "Babyohead", anyone?

WORDS
A History of the World in 6 Glasses, Tom Standage

Road Trip

So, after spending my last few days of work feeling like a graduating senior, I continued that analogy and did what every kid headed on to the next phase of their life does... ignored all my responsibilities and took off on a road trip. In this case, AB and I headed down to meet my brothers and their girlfriends at the Bonnaroo Festival in Manchester, TN. We arrived Thursday night around 8pm and left Sunday around 7pm, and in that amount of time saw at least part of the performances by all of these artists: Andrew Bird, Ben Folds, Nickel Creek, Oysterhead, Death Cab for Cutie, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (who brought out Stevie Nicks for a couple of songs), My Morning Jacket, Rusted Root, Beck, Radiohead, Abigail Washburn (with Béla Fleck), Soulive, Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, Son Volt, Matisyahu, and Béla Fleck again. I also managed to see the US-Italy travesty... I mean, game, on Saturday in a tent with 850 people. Highlights for me were Andrew Bird, Nickel Creek, and seeing Béla perform 3 times on Sunday. The lowlight was getting some kind of flu/food poisoning thing that took me out of commission for most of Saturday, including having to leave Radiohead's show about halfway through because I felt so crappy. To understate enormously, that sucked. Otherwise, the weather was hot, dry, and dusty, but I had a really good time. That many bands in three days is pretty amazing. I figured my tolerance for live music would run short pretty quickly, but it never did. Lots of good energy there, both in the crowd and coming from the bands. Also, lots and lots of hippies. Check out some photos from throughout the festival.

Now back to real life. Three days of packing, then I'm off to Denver.

SOUNDS
Song of the Traveling Daughter, Abigail Washburn
The Sparrow Quartet EP, Abigail Washburn
Get Behind Me Satan, The White Stripes
Thelonious Monk With John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk With John Coltrane

Entertain me

Got the Super Bowl on in the background as I write this. The commericals seem pretty lame this year. And am I the only one who thought the Stones looked like a bunch of old men pretending to be rock stars? I mean, Mick can still move, but Keith and Ronnie shaking their hips just makes me feel sad. Charlie Watts still appears to be the coolest man alive, though. I don't think I've ever seen that dude break a sweat. Anyway, in between Big Ben's turnovers, I'll catch y'all up on a few things that I've been enjoying lately.

Fables
OK, this may be a little tough to explain, but I'll give it a shot. Fables is an absolutely genius comic book created by a guy named Bill Willingham. The basic idea is that all the fairy tales that we know and love exist. Any fairy tale kingdom from the Brothers Grimm, Mother Goose, or any story that's ever been made into a Disney movie is out there somewhere (sort of like Shrek in a way, but much darker and sexier). But some as-yet-unknown-to-me evil force called The Adversary gathered armies of all the fairy tale monsters and started conquering all these kingdoms. So the characters became refugees, and fled to the real world, where they established a hidden community called Fabletown in New York City for the human "Fables", and a farm in upstate New York for the non-humans. The series mainly follows the exploits of Bigby Wolf (of Red Riding Hood fame—get it? Big B[ad] Wolf?), now Sheriff of Fabletown, and Snow White, the deputy mayor, as they try to keep the communities together under the constant threat of invasion by The Adversary. It's such a fresh idea, and with an almost unlimited supply of characters and backstory to mine, it's easy for Willingham to continually provide an interesting twist on well-known folklore. There are currently 6 paperback collections of the ongoing series, and I just finished #4 this afternoon. I can't wait to read #'s 5 and 6.

Brokeback Mountain
Strip away all the hype and controversy around this movie, and you have a very familiar story: two people in love who have a lot of obstacles keeping them apart. The only reason it's any different this time is that the two people in love are both guys. But this film proves itself worthy of the hype, and what makes it worthwhile is two things. One, it's superbly acted, all the more so considering there were probably 1,000 total words of dialogue in the movie. Incredible performances from a lot of actors, but Heath Ledger was undoubtedly the standout. And two, as with all Ang Lee movies, Brokeback is visually stunning. Montana has probably never looked so beautiful, but Lee is even able to find the beauty in a dingy apartment kitchen. Regardless of the gender of the romantic leads, it's totally deserving of its Oscar noms.

Andrew Bird, Andrew Bird & The Mysterious Production Of Eggs.
Gorgeous, catchy alt rock from a classically trained violinist who's into jazz and European folk, and has also performed with alt-swing outfit Squirrel Nut Zippers. How's that for a resumé? My brother Jeff gave me this album around Thanksgiving, but I'm just coming to appreciate it now. It's been on heavy rotation this past week. There's a definite Radiohead influence here, and some songs owe a debt to Cake as well, but Bird makes it a distinct sound of his own, and he certainly can turn a lyrical phrase. Perfect music for a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Well, as a fellow Miami alum, it's nice to see Ben get a ring. But, man, what a yawner of a game.

Three-part Harmony

Tonight: band #2 in my current stretch of 5 concerts in 15 days: Nickel Creek. (Actually, it's 17 days, but that just doesn't have the same ring to it.) Anyway, this was my third time seeing Nickel Creek, and the first time they've been a true headliner. Openers were the Ditty Bops, who I'd seen once before on an ill-fated night when I came to hate their fans. Tonight was much better. They've really got this weird 1920's lesbian/flapper girl thing going for them, and it seems to work. Although, both times, I've come away with the impression that Tim Burton needs to use them on a soundtrack.

Then on to Nickel Creek. I've seen them in support of each of their three albums, and it's been an interesting process for me to watch them grow up with their music. Their current album, Why Should the Fire Die?, is the most mature collection of songs they've produced, and their show is beginning to show some of that maturity. NC has always been a literate band, (in the past, I've heard them cover everything from Beck to Bob Dylan to Bach) and tonight was no exception, as we heard The Band's "Cripple Creek", Kings of Leon's "Milk", and a crowd-pleasing cover of Britney Spears' "Toxic". Yes, you read that right. It's amazing what someone who can actually sing can do with that song.

And with that, I come to my point. The initial appeal of the group was that they were these three young virtuoso instrumentalists making bluegrass music beyond their years. But as they got older, (ha! they're in their 20's) their music began to change, mixing rock, pop and jazz into their repertoire. As they've experimented, they've figured out that their voices are instruments as well, and used them as such, building layers of vocals into the songs that carry just as much weight as their fiddle, mandolin, and guitar. Tonight's set leaned pretty heavily on songs from the new album, and it really allowed them to showcase how they've begun to rethink singing together. And that, to me, shows their maturation as performers more than anything else. Very, very satisfying.

Oh yeah, and Sara Watkins is still wicked hot.

If you're interested in hearing some Nickel Creek as they currently sound, check out this group of songs from Reg's Coffee House, including a cover of Radiohead's "Nice Dream" from The Bends. Again with the cover songs. (Click on the Nickel Creek photo on the right side of the site to bring up the music player.)

Elbow Room

Man, I am slipping. One of my favorite Brit bands, Elbow, has had a new disc available on iTunes since September 27th, and I just discovered it today. Granted, the physical CDs won't be released in the U.S. until October 18th, so technically, I haven't really missed the release date, but the fact that I didn't even know they had something new in the pipeline worries me. Am I slipping in my old age? Luckily, I was clued in today by two things: an ad in the latest Paste magazine, and a glowing review from Frank at Chromewaves. Since he and I seem to have similar taste in music, I downloaded Leaders of the Free World right away. I haven't gotten through much yet, so the jury's still out on whether Frank's effusive praise was warranted, but so far so good. One thing I agree with right away: the Peter Gabriel influence is front and center on this disc, especially on the third track, "Picky Bugger." With a little reworking of the backing instrumentation, it would fit right in on a number of Gabriel solo albums.

Frank's Radiohead comparison also prompted me to do something I've been thinking about for a while: complete my Radiohead collection, which meant finally purchasing Kid A, Amnesiac, and the live disc, I Might Be Wrong. All three discs have some good songs, but mostly listening reminded me why I was so happy to hear Radiohead's compass point swing back towards a more traditional rock sound on Hail to the Thief. I still maintain that had Radiohead combined Kid A and Amnesiac, they could have produced one great album and had some solid B-sides left over.

A two-goal lead is the most dangerous score in soccer.

Don't ask me why, but this has been the prevailing wisdom among coaches since before I started playing futbol all the way back in 1978. Apparently, teams tend to mentally relax and give up soft goals, and it happens often enough that the idea keeps kicking around (yes, pun intended). DC United did a good job of proving this nugget of wisdom this evening in the second game of their home-and-home series against Universidad Católica in the Copa Sudamericana, South America's club tournament. United is the first MLS team ever to participate (but not the first North American team; Mexican League teams have been involved before). United and Catolica tied 1-1 in the first match in DC, and because these series are decided by aggregate scoring, a win tonight would have put DC through to the next round. If they tied, the score needed to be at least 1-1, because goals scored away from home are the first tiebreaker. After 20 minutes of rather shaky soccer, United got off to a dream start, with Christian Gomez (above) scoring two quick goals to give them what seemed to be a comfortable margin. But Catolica pulled one goal back before halftime, and DC spent the entire 2nd half fighting against an erratic referee, hard fouls, injuries, cramps, and a general lack of defensive shape before finally surrendering two late goals that ended their run in the tournament. I'm not making excuses for them, because they deserved to lose this game. The players are probably relieved, because these matches happen to fall right during the MLS playoff push, so the timing couldn't have been much worse. But no matter what the situation, watching the Black and Red give up a lead like that is always painful, especially in a game where they had something to prove.

I bought some new music from the iTunes store tonight, and in both cases donated to charity at the same time. All the proceeds from Coldplay's Fix You EP are being donated to Hurricane Katrina relief funds, and Help: A Day in the Life supports the War Child charity, which works towards improving conditions for children in war-ravaged countries. It's great collections of songs from some of my favorite British artists. Radiohead, Coldplay, Keane, Elbow, Bloc Party, and the Magic Numbers are just a few of the contributors.