JACkory's Listening Room

Well, hello there.
Welcome to my listening room.
This is my second attempt at a blog...The first one was a lot of fun to do, but I didn't have time to really give it the attention that it demanded, seeing as how I had a job at a CD store and a family to monopolize my time. I still have the family (thank God for small miracles), but alas, the CD store job is history. I should be depressed about that, but I'm not, and if you knew the gory details of the reasons WHY I no longer work there, you would likely empathize. I certainly won't bore you with them here.
The downside: I'm living in abject poverty, having not yet found a job to replace the income lost by leaving the last one. Who knows, I may not be able to continue this blog due to having no internet service if things don't turn around pretty soon.
The upside: I have too much time on my hands and it's nothing to waste some of it in the construction of this "Listening Room".
So, do you like music?
I like music a little TOO much.
Just out of high school I decided I wanted to be a professional musician, but coming from a poor family it was very difficult procuring the adequate equipment to embark upon such a venture, and besides, my father had a way of making me feel guilty for even THINKING about moving out-of-state to pursue what he considered to be an unrealistic pipe-dream of professional music-making. I live in Oklahoma, and anyone who has ever attempted to make a living from playing music in this state would most likely tell you that my dad was dead-on right about the profitability (or lack thereof) of being a full-time musician, at least as far as doing it within the borders of this state is concerned.
Oh, I eventually got some decent gear, several years after God blessed me with the talent I have, and I DID make some money doing what I wanted to do... Just enough to scrape by, at times, and as for the last couple of years, not even that. And so it was that I found myself working in that CD store I mentioned earlier.
Not that I'm complaining about that job. Far from it. Truth is, I LOVED it, almost as much as I loved playing music. It gave me the opportunity to hear LOTS of different kinds of music and the employee discount helped me push my CD collection over the 1,000 mark. I met many interesting people, some of whom I consider to be true friends, even if I don't get to see them anymore, having moved so far from where I used to work.
Still, if it weren't for my increasingly bothersome ringing-of-the-ear, I would dearly love to get back into professional music... Of course, it would help if there were some like-minded musicians within 25 miles of where I reside who knew of my existance...
But you didn't drop by my Listening Room to listen to me harp on and on about myself, did you?
Let's throw on a CD and see what happens. How about...
Radiohead Kid A
Ahhh...the opening strains of "Everything In It's Right Place" sure take me back. That processed Fender Rhodes and Thom Yorke's hushed chanting of "Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon" conjure up a sort of deja vu feeling of the first 20 times I heard this album...all 20 occuring within the first 24 hours after I purchased it. I probably listened to it 100 times in it's first week of release, so it should come as no surprise that I burned out on it within a month, and even to this day I know it so well within the fibres of my memory banks that I rarely break it out for a spin anymore.
That's a testament, in my opinion, to the greatness of this album, which I still think is the most original and intriguing work Radiohead has ever done. It's follow-up, Amnesiac, contains some wonderful songs, but I had still not recovered from the brilliance of Kid A when it was released only 6 months later.
I even had the nerve to place the band, on the strength of this record, on the same plateau as The Beatles, as evidenced by this letter I sent to Rolling Stone, which they published:
"Four stars for Radiohead's Kid A (RS 851)? If any album deserves the full five stars, it is Kid A. This record is the the twenty-first century what Sgt. Pepper was to the sixties---except Radiohead are ushering in a new decade, while the Beatles forged the landscape upon which bands like Radiohead have sculpted out their sonic memorials."
Looking back at the outright fanaticism of that letter (not to mention it's shaky syntax), I often wonder if the Stone published it as a joke. In the middle they even inserted one of those little cartoons by, oh, I don't know his name, you know the one.
Today it seems a bit far-fetched to place Kid A on the same pedestal as the Fab Four, but that's sure not how it felt when the album was brand-spanking new.
I know there are many Radiohead fans who think Kid A is a letdown from it's predecessor, OK Computer, just as there are those who prefer Amnesiac, with it's more liberal use of guitars on most tracks. Even though I'm not as enthusiastic about the album as I was when it was still brand new, it is still my favorite Radiohead album.
That said, I must confess that upon learning that Autechre and Sigur Ros were huge influences on the music of Kid A, I checked out both of those bands and eventually became more enamored of their music than I am of Radiohead's. Yes, it's true. I like Autechre and Sigur Ros much more than I like Radiohead, and even though I'm sure to catch a lot of flack from hardcore RH fans for it, I must admit that it is the truth.
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Okay, I've wasted enough time tonight and didn't even come close to what I'd hoped to do, inasmuch as my ramblings about Kid A are not a good example of the type of reviewing I want to do with this blog. Bookmark the blog, if you would, and when you check back in perhaps I'll have posted some ramblings that are more in keeping with the description I've given to it.
Until then, if you would like to correspond directly with me, please feel free to e-mail me at
jamesarthur69@hotmail.com
See you next time...
JACkory