Tag: radiohead

Old

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“Do not complain about growing old. It is a privilege denied to many.”

Yeah, I get it, Mark Twain, but wow, I’d be so much happier if my left calf muscle didn’t shred like a wet tissue at the first sign of any vaguely rapid movement.

That never used to happen when I was younger.

And yet… guess what?

So it’s back to walking and weights, avoiding any strain on the calf, because obviously, a week (which would have been fine to have fixed it a few years back) clearly wasn’t enough to fix it this time around. Nothing major, just grumpy and a bit painful. (The calf muscle, not me.) (Although…)

And I know I’m getting on a bit now because 6Music put out an ad for a series of shows they’re doing on Friday to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of OK Computer.
“Twenty-fifth”, indeed! I think you’ll find that OK Computer was actually released in 1997, and that was only… oh… oh my dear god…

A quarter of a century. Wow.

Living in Oxford at the time, and Radiohead coming from Oxford (pre-OKC, you’d regularly see Thom Yorke wandering down St Aldates, but I guess things went a bit mainstream celebrity after that), we stayed up ever so late on that Tuesday (I think?) evening and went into town for the special midnight release at the HMV on Cornmarket Street. Free poster, free sticker, a whole pound off the CD.

And it’s fair to say that, despite all the hype – even the local hype – the album was (and still is) something very special. I wonder how you deal with anything and everything you produce after something like that being measured against it and always falling short.

I’m sure the massive royalties help with the continual disappointment.

Day 47 – A moment of clarity

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As one day blends into the next, into the next, into the next, it’s sometimes hard to work out when exactly we are right now. (No, that’s not a typo: I’m well aware of where I am, thank you very much.)
And so I’m just getting on with things: trying to keep the household going while listening to the radio.

And it was while doing these two exact things yesterday that I had a moment of clarity. Or whatever it is called when you have a moment which you immediately know you will remember for ages afterward. I’m not sure google would help me with that sort of query.

Anyway, mine was doing the ironing while listening to Karma Police by Radiohead. I dd quite a lot of ironing and listening to quite a lot of music yesterday, but most of it was understandably forgettable.

This moment though – a black and white check teacloth being flattened and Thom Yorke belting out some lovely lyrics from the speaker on the chest of drawers while the world unravelled outside – will always remain with me.

And I have no idea why.

Man of War

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Not me, obviously. Personally, I avoid all sorts of violence unless I’m absolutely sure that I’m going to come out both victorious and unscathed. And those conditions are so rarely guaranteed that I’m basically deeply into self-pacifism these days.

No, I’m referring to the new Radiohead video, of course. From the ever so good new album, which I have really been enjoying, and is already in my top 4 albums for 2017*.

There seems to be some confusion as to what exactly this video is meant to be telling us. No-one seems very sure and everyone is taking a different message from it.
I am also confused as to what exactly is going on. Some sort of descent into anxiety, paranoia and madness? And when he falls over on the railway tracks [spoiler – he falls over on some railway tracks, by the way] is that him taking his medication, with calming, but transient results?

Or is it merely a reminder that otherwise apparently normal places can get much, much spookier when night falls, just like Bergvliet does (especially on Fridays)?

Yes. “Bergvliet is flippin’ terrifying in the dark”. I think that’s actually the message they are trying to get across here.

 

* Current other three contenders at this point (in no particular order):
Elbow – Little Fictions
Future Islands – The Far Field
a-ha – As yet untitled acoustic release, Nov/Dec

20 years of OK Computer

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It’s twenty years to the day since Oxford band Radiohead released OK Computer.

I lived in Oxford back then, and the local HMV on Cornmarket Street opened at midnight for Radiohead fans to buy the album before anyone else in the UK got the chance – no mp3s or downloads back in those days, remember.

And yes, I was looking forward to the release, but wasn’t a HUGE fan, so I wasn’t planning on heading into town. But then, finding myself still awake at the witching hour, thought “why not?”, jumped on a bike and hit the High Street.
I was only just in time. The crowds (such as they were) had gone (it doesn’t take long for 50 people to each buy a CD), and the staff were about to close up, but a friendly guy let me in just before locking the door, and I got my CD and my free poster (woo!).

The album was definitely one of the best releases of the 1990s and has aged really well. And yes, the CD is still somewhere safely boxed up in my loft. The poster never made it out of the damp Cowley Road flat we lived in though, and even the branch of HMV succumbed to the pressures of the modern retail environment and closed in 2014.

Favourite track? I liked all of it, but the slower stuff hit home more for me – No Surprises, Exit Music (For A Film) and of course Karma Police, as mentioned here.

Burn The Witch

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Trumpton and Camberwick Green vibes for Radiohead’s latest, dark offering.

I watched this several times, loving the sinister events apparently passed off as normal by the town official.

Some stark messages for the modern society there, with lines like:

Loose talk around tables
Abandon all reason
Avoid all eye contact
Do not react
Shoot the messenger

Blimey. It’s serious stuff.

Tenuous a-ha link: This chilling video and messages in the song frightened The Living Daylights out of me?