The Smiths "How Soon Is Now"

Riffing on the last two posts . . . Here's another band that I should like more, to be cool, but I don't.

I always felt like their music was whiny UK-BS, too.

Years later, I started hearing large chunks of the instrumental parts of this song, being used as music beds, and I realized that I actually LOVE Johnny Marr. I just am totally turned off by Morrissey.


Hear the song on Youtube.

Radiohead "Just"

As I mentioned yesterday, I'm not a huge fan of Radiohead.

I thought "Creep" and "Fake Plastic Trees" were whiny UK-BS.

And later, as I said, I just didn't follow them down "The Paranoid Android" road.

But in between, I did end up getting sucked into "The Bends" right after seeing this video.

I guess I'm just a straightforward rock guy, who likes a little ironic mind-f***ery in his videos.


See the video on Youtube.

The Punch Brothers "Movement And Location"

I'm sure, no matter what job you do, the work invades your subconscious in weird ways.

I was excited to check out this new Punch Brothers track from the up-and-coming "Who's Feeling Young Now?" release.

I was pretty struck by how much a "bluegrass" band (in quotes, because they are so much more than bluegrass) can absorb Radiohead's sound.

Check out "Movement And Location":


Hear the song on Youtube.

They also do a cover of "Kid A" on the new album.

So I had Radiohead on the brain.

Now let me admit something that I know lowers any semblance of Cool that I might possess---I'm just not that into Radiohead.

It's a terribly unhip thing to say, I know.

And in some circles, I am surely a Philistine.

But I just didn't go with them down "The Paranoid Android" road, into chorus-less songs, droning stylistics, deep atmospherics.

I can't say that I think of Radiohead that often, but they must've been rattling around in the attic up there, because that night . . .

We were on stage in a small theatre, like a high school auditorium, but smaller. Tighter. With the audience practically on top of us. Thom Yorke was nodding at me, encouragingly. I had an acoustic guitar in my hand, but one quick strum revealed that the pickups were run through several distortion pedals, producing a loud, clanging sound.

I don't know how to play guitar.

But that didn't matter. Radiohead needed me.

Instead of this being some kind of anxiety dream, it turned out to be some kind of Rock N Roll wish fulfillment. Because what I was playing, randomly banging on the guitar, producing feedback and atonal noise, sounded fucking great!

The band was doing the real work, of course, creating an actual song. But I was helping build the sonic palette, and the crowd loved it.

It was like a dream come true!

Well, it was like a dream, anyway.

But hey, I like Radiohead much better since they invited me to join the band.

Thom Yorke "2 Minute Silence"

Call it the Emperor's New Single.

Thom Yorke is collaborating with Bryan Ferry, Mark Ronson and even Prime Minister David Cameron for a new song.

The catch: The title of the song is the content.

And it'd be obnoxious, if it weren't for the fact that it's a charity single, for England's Remembrance Day, honoring the sacrifice of soldiers.

The best part is, there's a campaign to get this song up the UK Charts, maybe even to Number 1. Which means The BCC will be playing it. Two minutes of no sound.

Though the song is not actually out until November 7th, if you put your ear to the air right now and stay very still, you might just hear this new Thom Yorke tune.

The Section Quartet “Paranoid Android”

In an earlier post, I was talking about how I kept a Kevin Bacon song on my hard drive, not because I listened to it or even liked it, but more for the show and tell factor.

So if someone says in conversation, “What would some great modern rock songs sound like if they were rendered by a classical outfit?” I can point them to the Section Quartet.

Radiohead’s “Paranoid Android” was perhaps the most unlikely radio/MTV success of the last 20 years. No chorus, no hook, indecipherable lyrics. It just wasn’t made for Pop consumption. But in spite of/because of its breathtaking, adventurous musicianship, it did achieve a level of mass popularity. And more so, it’s become a musician’s musician song.

One of the great, unposted outtakes from the mvyradio Archives is the band Moe taking on this song, acoustically. They did a tremendous job, and I sat slack-jawed in a crowded Louisville On-The-Road hotel room, as I watched them work through the twists and turns of the piece. And when it was over, one of the guys in the band said, “Well that sucked.” So we never got to use it.

On the album “Fuzzbox” The Section Quarter covers Led Zeppelin, Soundgarden, and even The Postal Service. But this Radiohead track is the one that really lends itself to the violin-viola-cello instrumentation and the classical precision necessary to pull it off.

Hear The Section Quartet “Paranoid Android”

See the band, in the studio, creating the song, here