In the brilliant Greenpeace video for the Save The Artic campaign, the message is simple and the images are powerful but are the energy companies listening?
Tag Archive: Radiohead
Piazza Maggiore, Bologna
There was an announcement today that “due to the recent earthquakes in the area”, the venue for Radiohead’s show in Bologna on 3rd July has changed from the Piazza Maggiore in the city centre to Parco Nord in the suburbs.
The reaction to this news by ticket holders is a combination of disbelief and anger.
The threat of more earthquakes seems like a convenient excuse to avoid the major security + health & safety hazards associated with holding such a big show in a relatively small space.
As many have pointed out, forthcoming shows in July by Bon Iver and Paul Weller in Ferrara, a city also affected by the quakes, have not been cancelled or relocated.
Also a large Gay Pride march in Bologna on 9th June went ahead as planned and open air film screenings on 23-30th June are still scheduled to take place in the same Piazza where the Radiohead gig was to have been held.
More tickets are now available for those wanting to see Thom Yorke & Co in a less scenic location which is better news for the concert promoters than for the fans.
I won’t be applying.
The high quality of Thom Yorke’s song writing for Radiohead tempts many artists to try their own versions but more often than not these fail to capture the magic of the original.
Peter Gabriel’s orchestral guitar-free revamp of Street Spirit (Fade Out) on his Scratch My Back album last year is practically unrecognisable from the stirring anthem-esque version on The Bends. It’s as if he is acknowledging the impossibility of the task and a few plaintive moans don’t carry the emotional weight he strives for. A brave attempt but a failure in my book.
Two covers that do work are both interpretations that translate the indie-rock into the genre of acoustic folk.
The stripped back makeover of Black Star performed live in 2005 by Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings does what any great cover song should and makes you rethink the original completely. I hadn’t really fully appreciated the lyrics to this song about a relationship hitting crisis point before I heard this, but Gillian Welch delivers “the troubled words of a troubled mind” with a precision that captures the mood of quiet desperation perfectly.
Not quite in the same league, but impressive in its own way is Patrick Joseph and Lucas Martinez’ bold beats-free remodelling of Idioteque, one of the standout tracks from Kid A. Joseph is a young singer songwriter from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania now based in LA, who has just self-released his debut album Antiques. Martinez is a guitarist from Pasadena, California. The track has not yet been released but according to Martinez’ Life Tracked In Sound blog, it will be out on an EP called Stranger’s Shoes this summer.
The new Thriller it isn’t!
Whatever else you might have expected from a video tie-in for the new album -The King of Limbs – few would have imagined we’d be seeing a mad solo dance by Thom Yorke.
Radiohead could have commissioned a moody piece to go with this song (Lotus Flower) to make them look cool. Instead I really like how they continually strive to wrong-foot the public’s preconceptions about the band. Continue reading
My teenage daughter’s musical education has its ups and downs.
While I have been able to turn her on to noise bands like Yellow Swans and the Warped techno/electro of Aphex Twin she’ll still wind me up by putting on a CD of Coldplay for the school run and yesterday she was smitten by the song ‘Sing’ by Travis.
My work is not complete!
I had to confess that I too, in a moment of weakness (and swayed by rave reviews) I bought a CD of The Man Who (which precedes Sing) soon after it was released in 1999.
I have always maintained that Coldplay are the poor man’s Radiohead (which probably makes Travis the poor man’s Coldplay). Still, out of curiosity I was moved to listen to the album again to see if I had mellowed with age and was able to appreciate the serene grace and haunting melodies other humans seem able to detect.
Needless to say, it still struck me as a vapid set of tunes with the same brain numbing effect that hits me whenever I enter a large DIY store. But there is one exception.
But a few minutes after the final chords of the closing track (Slide Show) have faded into oblivion comes a hidden track with a fierce energy and fire conspicuous by its absence in the rest of their material. After the lame tracks that precede it, this track (Blue Flashing Light) is a breath of fresh air.
See what you think:
Do you know any great tracks (hidden or otherwise) by bands you generally hate?
