Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

Radiohead

2001 Tastes Rebutted, or Thom Wins Out In the End

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I have finally broken down and accepted that i really do – in regretable faux-hipster fashion – love Radiohead.

I’m not really sure how it happened. I definitely hated them actively in 2000, and was rather bored with them in 2001. I think the love was the combination of buying OK Computer and The Bends, and then really liking a lot of Hail to the Thief, and then finally being amazed by what they can do in concert. Bonnaroo only served to prove the point.

I feel like such a punk for liking them so much now, but it can’t be helped. I’ve got b-sides and everything. Much to the chagrin of Peter2001, I have to concede that some music is better if you give it a chance to sink in.

As a note, At Ease is the most terrific Radiohead site you could ever want, especially due to a fantastically comprehensive discography, songlist, and tour tracking.

(I’m thinking of incorporating a Radiohead song or two into my repetoire (though, their lyrics are so freaking hard to remember). “There There” is a favorite of mine, but i’d almost prefer to adapt something a little more obscure, but not quite John Mayer “Kid A” (which, incidentally, i can’t find anywhere, but i did find the highly useful The Hype Machine, an audio/MP3 blog aggregator)

Your suggestions welcomed. I have half the official sheet music, and the other half will arrive sooner than later.)

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On Monday Aim invited me to join her at a Radiohead concert. The concept of it nearly rolled my eyes back into my head; an arena of young urban hipsters as or more obsessed with their band as I am with Tori Amos, all with overt political or stylistic agendas, all of whom would undoubtably frown at me for having bought the new Michelle Branch album.

It sounded like a challenge, not to mention a good time.

Poured into my tightest blue jeans and snuggest brown t-shirt, as we walked to our seats i scanned the crowd of trendy young men and realized that i have resorted to co-opting a slightly queer style of dress and carriage because it just works for me … i am small-framed and relatively slim and no longer trying desperately to attract strange women wherever i go. If pressed i could not explain it; it’s just my need to feel wanted, i suppose. I’m not sure what stops me from showing up in cargo pants and a stained flannel shirt. Maybe it’s that i spent the 90’s wearing that, or maybe it’s that i like to approximate an accurate interior self-image so that i feel as though i actually stand out in a crowd as me.

Ultimately, all eyes were on the stage and none on my inanely logoed tee or my inordinately tight ass-hugging pants. I have rarely seen such a polite audience held in rapt attention at such a huge rock show. I am not good with Radiohead’s titles – ever since hearing Kid A their albums pass by me like symphonies – but some songs still stuck out just by virtue of how they were achieved. A hypnotic electronic piano version of “Like Spinning Plates,” a spastic and brittle “Idioteque,” chiming xylophone and the faint singing of the lawn section on “No Surprises,” and “Everything In It’s Right Place” prefaced as “this is a song about the good old days.”

As it echoed back at me from Thom, and then the effects pedals on the stage, i just thought … Yes.

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2003/08/106140294589227633/