Radiohead- OK Computer Revisited

It's a little strange that I don't own OK Computer on vinyl, since I make it a point to get copies of all of my Favorite Albums Ever on vinyl. While I don't have all of them yet (due to rarity or price or their not having ever been pressed on vinyl) I do find something about the permanence of the format comforting. For instance, I have my Mom's vintage copy of The White Album and it still sounds great almost 45 years later. OK Computer is definitely the sort of thing I want any future daughters and/or sons to get from me as hand-me-downs, largely because it meant a lot to me in my youth but isn't as monolithic to me these days.

That isn't to say that I like OK Computer any less than I did when I first fell in love with it a few months after its release. If anything, I appreciate it even more now from a hardcore, knowledgeable music fan's standpoint because I'm intimately familiar with many of the record's acknowledged influences, like Can, Miles Davis's electric fusion era, and DJ Shadow. Sure, it doesn't sound as groundbreaking and fresh as when all its tricks and mysterious textures were mindblowing to my high school ears, but it's reached the stature and iconic status of many Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and Pink Floyd albums. They always show up on lists of “best albums ever”, they have lots of great stories about the recording sessions (often collected in books), they have famous cover art, and seemingly as soon as they came out, you began to see all sorts of bands being accused of ripping them off.

The final quality they share in common is that they're all simultaneously overrated and underrated at the same time. I believe I saw this idea on Allmusic.com, but the basic gist is that a band like the Beatles is so beloved by the masses, so already covered to death, and so praised that they're kind of overrated. I mean, lots of other greats bands and music out there, folks! Yet that doesn't diminish either the impact they had during their release or their enduring influence and listenability.

Depending on your familiarity with music, you may take a few spins to warm up to OK Computer. I wouldn't say it's a matter of someone being too young or too old, or of the album being still-too-ahead-of-its-time. Moreso that not every song is rocking and/or catchy, by which I mean, I think it's fair to call OK Computer an art rock album. It sometimes rocks and it mostly arts. I don't think it's quite the instant classic, immediate favorite for most people like your Dark Side Of The Moon's or Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band's. You may take to it right away, or you may...take...to...it...eventually. My point is, by the time you're on the 300th or so listen, as I probably am by this point, you'll still find it a treat to listen to. 'Paranoid Android' may just be my most played song ever (the video is certainly my most watched video ever), and I love the way 'Subterranean Homesick Alien' pulls off the trick of using psychedelic sounds without seeming cheesy or dated.

Hmm, so what else? Well, imagine you found out Pink Floyd released an EP shortly after Dark Side Of The Moon, and it had b-sides and outtake material that was arguably as good as the album itself. Wouldn't that be awesome? Hey presto, Radiohead did just that with the Airbag EP. I think it's actually referred to as a “mini-album” on the U.S. version, but that isn't fair since it's not strictly new material and it includes a song from OK Computer. In fact it's the first song on both releases, so it's a little jarring when you listen to the EP and there isn't that little computer beep that segues into 'Paranoid Android' as on the album.

Lastly, any hardcore Radiohead fans out there who haven't watched the OK Computer-era documentary, Meeting People Is Easy, owe it to themselves to track down a copy. I have a well worn VHS tape of it that I paid way too much money for at Media Play (RIP) in 1999. I enjoy popping it in every now and then to remind myself of that desperate time period I spent listening to everything I could find by them, random website MP3s and sketchy Napster downloads my only sources, waiting for the next release. This was the time between the Airbag EP and Kid A's release in late 2000, which was only two years at the most but felt like eternity to an obsessive fan.

Where that obsessive fan went, I can't really say. Allow this, then: I still dig OK Computer. I wish I had it on vinyl. Or wax cylinder.

Breakfast Of Champions

Kurt Vonnegut's writing always had an informal, conversational tone to it, as if he were a wise Grandfather dispensing bittersweet lessons about life instead of a legendary professional novelist. With Breakfast Of Champions, he made the leap to full on meta-fictional conceits, inserting himself as a character and making crude-yet-charming drawings to accompany the text. It wasn't enough that he talk directly to the reader; in Champions there's a scene where he, as narrator/writer, and he, as a character in the novel, worry together about whether or not they'll commit suicide like his Mother did.

So, it's an uplifting book.

Though the aforementioned drawings are perhaps better known than the book itself, especially the simplistic asterisk-looking asshole (see below) which inspired the Red Hot Chili Peppers' logo, it's important to point out how they complement the often emotionless and literal descriptions Vonnegut gives of things in the world. It reveals how ridiculous and arbitrary they are while also showing that we take a lot of things for granted and don't question them. The bits about penis sizes and women's measurements read like scientific reports, as if to say that it's meaningless data and not something to fixate on. Likewise, the bits about how Vonnegut-esque writer Kilgore Trout refers to mirrors as "leaks" and how people name things what they do because they "like the sound of it" still ring true in this era of slang terms and ridiculous names for companies and products.

Written during a mid-life crisis, Breakfast Of Champions is as bleak and self-reflexive as Vonnegut ever got. With poignant passages undercut by his severe depression and characters borrowed from his other works, the novel is in many ways the most quintessential book Vonnegut ever wrote. One could also make the case that it has the most contrived, meandering, and plot-less premise of any book Vonnegut ever wrote...though that's by necessity. Many scenes seem thrown in just so he can hold forth on this or that subject, but then again, that was often the appeal of Vonnegut's style: that thrilling sense of an uncle or Grandpa telling you dirty jokes and irreverently mocking American society.

It's rare that fiction writers put so much of themselves into a novel without things crossing over into parody or pretension. It speaks both to his personable prose, full of repeated phrases and concepts, and to his disregard for telling a story in a linear order that the silly moments or matter-of-fact plot contrivances feel more like a whimsical god toying with his or her creations than they do self-parody or artsy fartsy, post-modern nonsense.

Hunter S. Thompson's Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas was published a couple years before Breakfast Of Champions and I think of them as parallel commentaries on American society during the early 70s. Yes, I think of both as being timeless works, too, but they also perfectly capture that time when the hippie movement was dying out and the self-centered cynicism of the full-on 70s was just beginning. Where Thompson sought escape and revelation in drugs and the counter-culture lifestyle, taking swipes at mainstream society and bemoaning the death of the 60s dream, Vonnegut came from the perspective of neither the hippies nor the 'silent majority' that Nixon spoke to. His problem was that bag drugs already existed in his mind, and the revelation that bad chemicals could make people do horrible things beyond their control seemed to bother him tremendously. He implies, to some extent, that we are like the robots who lack free will in the short story that sets off the main action of the plot.

Still, Breakfast Of Champions works not because it has anything concrete to say about the nature of man, free will, or American society. It works because it feels so personal and so raw. Vonnegut doesn't hold back and goes even further than Thompson, demonstrating that all of society was rotten to the core, that mankind was a blight on the Earth, and so on. It's odd to think that this was his follow-up to the beloved classic Slaughterhouse-Five, since bleak ruminations on suicide and lists of the precise measurements of different character's body parts and sex organs are not exactly the kind of material that holds a newly won audience. However, it would be difficult to imagine him as the cantankerous old cult hero he went on to become without books like Breakfast Of Champions.

Reconsidering Trouble In Dreams

"The message from the critical reception of Dreams was quite clear: we will not be listening to you any further. Of course some tension is created. Cosmonaut in a bread line, et cetera."---'Grief Point' off the Archer On The Beach/Grief Point EP


"I was on the outs for awhile but now things are alright."---'Blue Flower, Blue Flame' off the Trouble In Dreams album

Dan Bejar went through a period of creative turmoil about the time between the release of Trouble In Dreams and before he released Kaputt, whereupon he came back to us, creatively and otherwise. Following the difficult recording of Trouble In Dreams, he seemed to doubt music altogether, as on the above quoted EP he declares "I have lost interest in music. It is horrible." It could be I am misreading or misinterpreting some lyrics and interview comments from this era, but I don't think so.


Anyway, you may recall that I reviewed this album a few years ago. I still think that review is well written but Trouble In Dreams has been one of those albums that has persisted and grown with me since said writing...and I've been meaning to make it a regular thing for my blog where I go back to things I've written about before...and I've been meaning to start posting on this blog again after a long absence.

So here we are.

I've indeed grown to love Trouble In Dreams since 2008, though this is largely because it's since been contextualized by Dan Bejar's subsequent work with Destroyer and his other projects. It's perfectly acceptable to me now that this record isn't so much a follow-up or progression from Destroyer's Rubies as it is Dan Bejar's version of a relaxed, underrated, not-quite-triumph Destroyer album, kind of like his version of Bob Dylan's New Morning. Like that record, there's some definite career highlights and hidden gems ('Plaza Trinidad', 'The State'), but there's also some failed songwriting experiments (the overlong, unsatisfying 'My Favorite Year') and lazy bunts to pad out the runtime ('Blue Flower, Blue Flame' and 'Libby's First Sunrise'). More importantly, though, Trouble In Dreams didn't turn out to be the troubling (pun unintended) begin of a slide into laziness and mediocrity which my old review vaguely predicts. So why my change in opinion? Well, it's just that sometimes laziness and mediocrity are the product of a relaxed artist at the height of his powers turning in work that doesn't sound as inventive, committed, and fresh as it used to.

Anyway.

Just as Dylan made many albums better than New Morning, Dan Bejar has done better work than Trouble In Dreams many times over. Yet there remains a ragged appeal to both records partially because they aren't as ubiquitous as other works by the artists. 'Like A Rolling Stone' is still a groundbreaking song, but it's more enjoyable to hear 'One More Weekend' in some ways because you don't have it memorized or forced upon you by classic rock radio. Likewise I suspect the apocalyptic epic 'Shooting Rockets (From The Desk Of Night's Ape)' will be a novel, experimental thrill for Destroyer fans well versed in the 'European Oils'- and 'Kaputt'-style better known, accessible tracks he's done over the years. But I digress. Trouble In Dreams remains one of Destroyer's lesser works and I still wouldn't rewrite history to put it on my list of best albums of 2008, but there is something to be said for albums that stick with you and grow on you, and this one did.

On a side note, yes: Whiskey Pie is officially back from the wilderness.

The Walkmen- Heaven

You know, in the same way that the comparisons made about Wolf Parade and Destroyer to David Bowie never ring true, I never really saw the U2 influence on The Walkmen. Sure, both bands made music that had a big sense of drama and emotion to it, but only U2 could really be called anthemic.

Until now. Heaven, the new album from The Walkmen, is anthemic...but does it sound like a Walkmen album? Does it matter?

Heaven is the first time The Walkmen have allowed themselves to be so obvious about who they're working with. Meaning that the bright, full sound of producer Phil Ek and the vocal contributions from Robin Pecknold of the Fleet Foxes are as clear as day. Odd to think this was the same band who blended the vocals of the otherwise grating guy from Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! so well into one of their songs on their last record that I don't think many people even noticed him. But I digress. The clear-as-day Fleet Foxes influence, aside from the times when Pecknold is singing, is in the way Hamilton Leithauser is approaching vocals this time out. When I saw The Walkmen open for Fleet Foxes last year, he seemed to be trying out a new more powerful style, belting out lyrics and holding onto notes until your heart shook with the full sound of it. This is definitely fully realized on tracks like 'Heaven' and 'The One You Love', and it's hard not to get swept up in their energy and pull. Leithauser's singing may have been rough, and a sticking point for some, in the band's past but on Heaven he sings his heart out.

While The Walkmen may not always sound like The Walkmen on Heaven, the attempts to simultaneously grow and mature their sound are all successes. Song for song, it'd be tough to find a record in the band's discography that can match Heaven. Lisbon comes close though its surf and ethnic flourishes felt self conscious, whereas the variety on display here—from the claustrophobic-and-yet-anthemic 'The Witch', to the solo acoustic ballad 'Southern Heart', to the charging arena rock guitar slashes and clap-a-long drum beat of 'Heartbreaker'--is dizzying even as it all manages to cohere.

In tipping their hat to their classic rock and contemporary influences, The Walkmen have stumbled on a way to make a mature, dad-rock/contented-family-life record just as thrilling and richly rewarding as their previous albums with the aforementioned flourishes and stripped down production style. It may not perhaps grab you as closely and emotionally as their other albums, but like a surprisingly stylish hand-me-down suit from a Grandfather, you know someday you'll grow into it. 

Destroyer- Thief

Dan Bejar has always been gifted when it comes to lyrics, but an appropriate musical backing for his early Destroyer records seemed like an afterthought. The City Of Daughters album is held back by short grating instrumentals and the overall sense he's being obtuse and clever just to be obtuse and clever; his albums before that were rough and forgettable things, semi-obscure and best left that way. Streethawk: A Seduction, then, is considered his first true success, a rich record with purposeful and catchy songwriting, though I think this praise also belongs to Thief. Released the same year as the breakthrough debut of The New Pornographers, Destroyer's Thief can't help but sound like a reaction to that band. Perhaps it merely inspired Bejar to care more about melodies and hooks. Either way, sprinkling some classic rock and singer/songwriter influences on his music produced a record that contained songwriting and melodies as beguiling and original as the lyrical voice always had been.

What promise was hinted at on City Of Daughters and earlier is, here, finally achieved. Some have suggested that Thief is also a reaction to Bejar's lack of success, but it's be hard to tell if he's serious or not with his criticisms and witty abstractions on tracks like 'Destroyer's The Temple' and the Pink Floyd nodding 'To The Heart Of The Sun, On The Back Of The Vulture I'll Go.' I always get the feeling Bejar is more interested in how words sound together and the kind of feelings and imagery they can evoke, so any meaning in his songs is up to the listener. Yet there's enough commentary and witticisms about the music business, cryptic as they might be, that he must be attempting to say something, a goal few or none of his other releases share, making Thief a bit of a unique bird for that reason alone.

If there's a chief weakness to Thief, it's that whenever the band gets up to roaring energy on rockers like 'Canadian Lover/Falcon's Escape' and the surf-pop sounding 'City Of Daughters', they always merely smolder when they should burn. I'm not sure if this is the same band used on the Destroyer's Rubies and Trouble In Dreams albums, but by that point the Destroyer band was capable of burning with the best. Thief, on the other hand, feels detached and half-committed: are these songs of sincerity and energy, or irony and apathy?

It could be that this question doesn't matter when applied to Destroyer, yet there's a nagging notion in the back of my head that knows, as much as I like Thief, it's a dress rehearsal for Streethawk: A Seduction, an album superior in every way because it's more relaxed and fun. Bejar has something to prove on it, whereas on Thief he merely has something to say. This could explain the album's weak second half, the anti-climactic title track, and overall lack of focus (those pointless instrumentals and experimental tracks from City Of Daughters still rear their heads), yet I'll still stick up for Thief as the first wholly enjoyable Destroyer album, one that has something to say and says it well more often than not.

Beach House- Bloom

Dream-pop is a genre label that I find overly vague and yet also dead-on. Even as it applies to a wide array of bands, it paradoxically fits them all, too. Beach House's music, for instance, seems perfectly encapsulated by the term: it's dream-like, to be sure, suffused with spacious atmospheres and a floating feeling, and it's pop-y, too, because the songs are pretty and catchy.

Bloom is not as immediate and catchy as Teen Dream, but in terms of sheer dreamy atmosphere, no other record they've done matches it. Bloom seems patent-made to be treasured forever with its ancestors, like The Cocteau Twins' Treasure, by people who enjoy gray, rainy afternoons and spend a lot of time alone. The atmosphere and feeling of Bloom is what I imagine Zoloft or cough syrup highs are like, a sort of half-awake reverie; a physical sensation of floating in mid-air as if in a pool of water.

I've had a tricky time falling for this record, chiefly because I think the band are just on a plateau after Teen Dream and have let some of the sharp hooks and melodies slide in favor of the aforementioned atmosphere. However, I have to say, while this band's albums may require more patience than usual, they always pay off. The first few times I listened to Bloom, I thought it was half-finished and lazy. The songs are all longer than four minutes (the shortest one, 'The Hours', is one of the better songs, by the by) and the whole thing required a conscious commitment to listen to on my part instead of the endless replay-ability of Teen Dream and Devotion.

Now, though, the slow burn of tracks like 'Lazuli' and 'Other People' sound less like lazy coasting and more like a confident band maturing further in how they write and structure songs, easing into effortless songwriting style that takes a few listens to reveal itself. This is the level The Walkmen reached with the underrated You & Me, and The National hit with the (slightly) overrated High Violet. Not to mention, there is a lot to be said for basking in the intoxicating glow this band offers. If Bloom isn't as impressive and immediate as Teen Dream, it's still damn impressive, and nearly as good. It just takes some time to, uhm, bloom.

Bill Doss (1968-2012)

My first reaction when I read that Bill Doss had died was to text a friend with the news, mentioning that I hoped the band had finished their new album already, or that they would at least go on to finish it without him. A new Olivia Tremor Control record is long overdue, seeing as how they've been 'reunited' for a few years and their last true album was in 1999, but I was still a little bothered that my main concern seemed to be the music and not the man.

However, I think that's how Bill Doss would want it. He and most of his generation, comprising the indie/underground scene of the 90s, were all about the mystery and anonymity of bands. I want to mourn the man but I don't really know him, so it's a strange mixture of feelings. I feel sad but for what, exactly? Well, I suppose I'm sad because this must mean the end of Olivia Tremor Control. It's hard to imagine the band going on with only one creative leader.

Bill Doss and Will Cullen Hart, in fact, were the perfect musical foils. Doss favored the poppier end of the spectrum, and the music he made with The Sunshine Fix and The Apples (In Stereo) is a testament to this. Hart, on the other hand, was into the psychedelic and experimental end, making most or all of the tape collages and weird sonic elements in the band's sound. Sure, there was always a host of other musicians and friends involved, but Olivia Tremor Control was, at its core, Doss and Hart.

The band usually sounded like two record store employees fixated on the late 60s/early 70s psychedelic/pop scene, but their music never conformed to slavish devotion and imitation. If Music From The Unrealized Film Script: Dusk At Cubist Castle sounded like the best lost album of 1968 that never existed, it also sounded like the best lost album of 2008 that never existed, too. Indeed, it's easier to hear newer psychedelic/60s influenced bands  as being more influenced by the groundwork of Olivia Tremor Control than the actual bands of the past. I recently discovered Campfires, for example, whose music is a lot closer to the early lo-fi days of OTC than anything Pink Floyd or Cream ever did.

OTC's music was often about dreams and surreal situations, so much so that I assume Doss was purposefully focusing on things that transcended death and reality. Oddly, Will Cullen Hart announced he had MS a few years ago, so you might assume it was he who wanted to do transcend, or even, as I briefly thought, that it was he who had died. It's easy to explain my confusion since we know so little about the two, it's easy to confuse them. And since we know so little about their personal lives, it's impossible to know what the cause of Doss's death was.

And so I suppose without the explanation for the end of his story, and indeed without any part of story of the man besides the music he left behind, Bill Doss's music must stand in eternity for him.