Author: Dylan

At Ease recently reported that Meeting People is Easy, Grant Gee’s documentary about Radiohead, was finally going to be released in Australia by EMI in place of the cancelled “Punch Up” single. As you know, most DVDs are assigned regional codes, which only allow them to be played in DVD players assigned to the same region (or ones that are region-free, quite a worthwhile purchase). MPIE has long since been available on DVD in regions 1 & 2 (1= USA, Canada, and 2= Europe, Arabia, and Japan).
With this region 4 release, Australians aren’t the only ones who will be able to see MPIE on DVD for the first time. Region 4 also encompasses New Zealand, Mexico, the Carribean, and all of South America. You will have to watch out for the PAL/NTSC question, as some countries within the region use one and some use the other, but as I understand it, most DVD players and TVs (outside of region 1) can read both.
You can preorder MPIE over at Ezy Dvd.

This month’s Filter has an interview with Jonny. He discusses his Bodysong score, what kinds of movies and scores he loves this most, and a few interesting sentences about the new album.
Here’s an excerpt-
Has a film ever ruined a piece of music for you? Or made the music better?
I can remember soundtracks that you just can?t separate from the film?it?s just so intertwined, so important. Like the Hitchcock ones where they kind of inform each other and become this larger thing as a result. That?s magical when it happens. There?s the soundtrack to The French Connection II?I think it?s my favorite soundtrack. It hasn?t been released. I actually had to go and get the film and just make a recording of it to get the music.
I?ve always just assumed the second one wasn?t as good as the first, so I skipped it.
Oh, it?s great! It?s really good. It?s set in Marseilles and they get Gene Hackman hooked on heroin. It?s really good and dark. You?ll love it.
What are some of your other favorite films?
Mostly Woody Allen. I think he?s sort of still underrated, actually. He?s just such a great storyteller. People kind of complain about the repetition of character and forget what?s great about his films. They?re like modern fairy tales. I just saw Crimes & Misdemeanors again the other night and it just struck me that it?s just dealing with such big ideas, but done with such a lightness of touch. He?s amazing. What can I tell you? He?s a treasure, really. So, probably those and maybe the Coen Brothers films.
The subject matter of the film Bodysong got me to thinking if things like art, sex, or maybe even just getting drunk are about the closest we tiny humans can come to big galactic things. Or, maybe good music and art is just good and I?m trying too hard to make it something else.
[Long pause] I think when [music?s] good and it?s really affecting, then it?s stupid to be embarrassed about it?about how good it is. You know, there?s a certain Tom Waits song that whenever I hear it I, you know, it just?it makes me talk in this inarticulate way that I?m using now, it?s so good. It seems to me quite disingenuous to be embarrassed about it. I think it should be ambitious and good music does deal with life and art and all these wonderful things. I used to be ashamed talking about it, but now I just think it?s fraudulent to pretend otherwise. I don?t even know what I?m trying to say. You just sound like you?re being passionate about it and I agree with you. I don?t know how else to put it into words. You?re the journalist, you should know. I?ll leave it to you. If you could hash that out by tomorrow, that?d be great.
Are you giving me homework?
Yeah, keep it short?200 words. By tomorrow, please.
You can go read the whole thing over at Filter.
(Thanks to At Ease.)

Joseph Tate (whom most of you know as webmaster of Pulk-Pull), has announced that his long-in-the-works book, The Music and Art of Radiohead, will see official release from Ashgate Publishing in early 2005.
Here is the official description of the book, as seen on Pulk-Pull-
The Music and Art of Radiohead includes compelling close readings of the English band’s music, lyrics, album cover art and music videos as well as critical commentary on interviews, reviews and the documentary film Meeting People is Easy. Established and emerging academic scholars engage Radiohead’s music and art via concerns of broader implication to contemporary cultural studies. Topics range from the band’s various musical and multivalent social contexts to their contested situation within a global market economy; from asking the question, ‘how free is art?’ to considering the band’s musical influences and radical sonic explorations. Together, the essays form a comprehensive discussion of Radiohead’s entire oeuvre, from Pablo Honey to Hail to the Thief, with a special focus on the critically acclaimed best-selling albums Kid A and Amnesiac.
You can preorder the hardback or paperback versions directly from Ashgate.

The previously reported “Punchup At a Wedding” Australian tour EP has been cancelled by EMI. They were unable to get permission to release the EP exclusively in Australia. However, they will be attaching the Com Lag EP to the back of HTTT, and will likely be selling it by itself.
(Belated thanks to At Ease!)

Highly-regarded publisher and author Curtis White (whose Memories of My Father Watching TV is one of the best books I’ve not quite finished yet) has written an amazing essay about Kid A. He makes everal interesting points about culture, Radiohead, and reviews, but has a particular thing for knocking fellow author Nick Hornby (High Fidelity down a notch for his New Yorker review. Here’s an excerpt-

Consider the instance of Radiohead and its recent and controversial album Kid A. The music of Kid A and its public reception make explicit the drama implicit in the relationship between an autonomous art (or, at least, an art with the desire for autonomy) and an administered culture. Take, for example, the review of Kid A, written by novelist Nick Hornby (“Beyond the Pale,” New Yorker, October 30, 2000).

Hornby’s review is not an objective evaluation of an artwork. It is the reassertion of a familiar, grim and very repressive aesthetic. Hornby begins his review with the obligatory homage to Ray Charles and Elvis Presley, thus establishing his orthodoxy, his faithfulness to the one true Church of the Commodified Vernacular. Hornby can then begin to lay out the aesthetic grounds for Radiohead’s heresy to what Hornby calls “the old-fashioned dynamics of rock.”

“Kid A demands the patience of the devoted; both patience and devotion become scarcer commodities once you start picking up a paycheck.”

Could he be any plainer? Art is about exchange. We give the artist our hard-earned money and the artist . . . what? Doesn’t try our patience?

Hornby gives more content to what it is we expect in return for that which we’ve given from our paycheck. Hornby argues that Radiohead’s previous album, OK Computer, had “some extraordinarily lovely tracks,” and in Kid A’s best moments “something gorgeous floats past.” So, in the World of Art according to Nick Hornby, the first and highest principle is that it should be a fair exchange, you should “get your money’s worth” (as his mother probably told him), and aesthetic tenet #2 is that the art should be “gorgeous” and also maybe a little bit “lovely.” Now, beyond the obvious fact that this is an old romantic tautology and Hornby has no idea what he’s talking about, it does reveal that the fundamental premise of Hornby’s aesthetic insistence is pleasure. My money is well spent if I “enjoy” the album/movie/sitcom/football game.

You can go read the whole thing over at the Center for Book Culture.
(Thanks to Bill, who was very patient even though his email got caught in the spam filter.)

The current darlings of the Brooklyn indie scene are a group of fellas called TV On the Radio. Their new album, Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes, is just now hitting the scene, after the (quite good) Young Liars EP made a big splash last year. However, before both, they apparently self-released a disc entitled OK Calculator, and they recently discussed it with the Washington Post.
An excerpt-

Back before TV on the Radio galvanized the indie-rock community with last year’s “Young Liars” EP, the New York band self-released a collection of lo-fi demos and experiments titled “OK Calculator” (a cheeky reference to Radiohead’s “OK Computer”). The disc mostly collected singer Tunde Adebimpe’s home recordings, tracks he performed primarily a cappella, ingeniously using his voice to mimic drums and overdub mock guitar strums. “OK Calculator” was something of a one-man-band goof, but the impressive “Young Liars” showed what happened when Adebimpe and his friends got serious.
Go read the whole article here.