| The Indie's Turn Merge Records is one of the mothers of the 1990s indie scene: home of label founders Superchunk, as well as Lambchop, The Arcade Fire, and The Magnetic Fields. |
| Battle of the "Experts" This month, we float by as Brighid and Aaron (viciously, maliciously, and mercilessly!) face off on lucid dreaming in music & film. |
| Getting To Know... Brighid Mooney offers some advice to those wanting to discover the music of Elvis Costello. |
| Globetrotting Ah, home sweet home. This month we look at Toronto, home of a large fraction of Being There's staff. |
| Been There Russell Bartholomee reflects on his first glimpse of Radiohead in 1995. Opening for R.E.M., the band was still young. |
| Watching the Music This month - Canadian rock band Sloan's rarely seen "She Says What She Means". |
| Whatever Happened To... Shelley Duvall was the only actress to ever be cast by Altman, Kubrick, and Allen. Whatever happened to her? |
| Oops! In a new column focusing on some of the biggest slips in music and film, we look at Garth Brooks' bizarre career move: Chris Gaines. |
| 9 x 5 Our contributors pick five things they're digging this month. |
The Moment: "Just" makes me a Radiohead fan. Reunion Arena, Dallas, Texas, September 19, 1995; Starplex Amphitheatre, Dallas, Texas, September 20, 1995.
I was finally going to get to see my favorite band—REM—play live. This is about seeing Radiohead, I promise, but you’ll need a little context because I didn’t actually want to see Radiohead. I wanted to see REM and was, in fact, quite disappointed that Radiohead had been picked as an opening act. REM had been touring with Grant Lee Buffalo, whom I absolutely adored and had never seen live. For that matter, I had never seen REM live either, so getting to see them with Grant Lee Buffalo would have been so great. Instead, I was going to have to sit through 45 minutes of what I was sure would be schlock before REM would take the stage.
I had heard “Creep” and seen the video and just wasn’t that impressed. I thought they sounded like U2, only moodier and less interesting. I had not heard much of the rest of Pablo Honey, but what I had heard struck me as really dull. The bargain bins were soon chock-full o’ Radiohead, surely a sign of future one hit wonder status. I was surprised they’d even been asked to make a second record. Of course that second record, The Bends was brilliant, but I hadn’t given it a listen yet. I was too busy being bummed about missing Grant Lee Buffalo.
I had tickets for two shows in a row, the first at a basketball arena, and the other in an open-air amphitheatre. The acoustics in the arena were terrible all night; Radiohead sounded awful, but so did REM. Sound bounced off the walls and ceiling. The lyrics were unintelligible. And one of Radiohead’s guitarists kept frantically fiddling with knobs and switches, which I wrongly assumed was behind the bad sound. It was a bombastic nightmare. And they didn’t even play “Creep,” the one song I knew at all.
On the next night, in the amphitheatre, everything was different. I could finally hear what Radiohead was trying to do, and it was stunning. It took a few songs to really sink in. They played “The Bends” and “Nice Dream,” followed by “High and Dry.” These songs were much more sophisticated than I had expected them to be. I turned to my friend and commented that I might actually give their new album a listen, but I still was only mildly impressed.
Then they launched into “Just,” which turned me into a Radiohead fan in four minutes. After the opening jangle of the guitar, the sudden burst of beautiful noise in the intro knocked the metaphoric wind out of me. And when the frantic guitar work faded into the gorgeous melody of the first verse, I felt hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Thom Yorke’s vocals were clear and piercing; his spastic movements providing a syncopated counterpoint to the majestic interplay of Ed O’Brien’s guitar, Colin Greenwood’s bass, and Phil Selway’s drums—now delicate and inviting, now bursting with frenetic energy—moving from one to the other with unsettling precision. But I have to say it was Jonny Greenwood’s contribution to the evening, and especially to that song, that made me a true believer. The knob-turning and switch-flipping I had mistaken for incompetence the night before revealed themselves to be an essential component to the genius of Radiohead’s live performances. What I could finally see was that Johnny Greenwood was not only playing lead guitar with amazing adroitness, he was also at the same time nimbly adjusting effects processors and pedals—playing them as instruments in and of themselves—that added multiple layers to Radiohead’s otherworldly soundscapes. I was mesmerized by the whole performance, especially the guitar work at the song’s climactic end. A roar went up from the crowd that let me know I was not alone in my thinking.
The deal was sealed when Radiohead responded to the adulation of the crown by playing “Creep.” It’s not because I love the song; rather it’s because they introduced the song as “Crap,” adding that they were sorry for how lame the first record was and that they had grown a lot since then. That was the first time I experienced that boldness (both musically and in terms of artistic integrity) from Radiohead. It was intoxicating, and it’s what has kept me coming back again and again to their work.
REM was really great, too.
