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Pop Rock Nation

Author: Joelle Renstrom

  • Who Stole Thievery?

    Who Stole Thievery?

    No one doesn’t like Thievery Corporation. They’re funky, they’re groovy, they’re just plain cool. They flip basslines to the sitar, they trade the traditional drumset for bongos and wood blocks, and their sexy lounge rhythms could form the soundtrack of a jewel heist movie. They’re on my “top ten favorite bands of all time” list.

    It’s a sweet moment when you find out that a group you absolutely love is playing in your town. Especially if it’s Thievery. Even the long wait until showtime is sweet.

    They opened the sold out show with Lebanese Blonde, which they pretty much had to do given how many people saw Garden State. Even though it’s their most well-known song, it’s a legitimately great song – that sitar charms you like a snake.

    Thievery Corporation doesn’t just play a concert – they put on a real show. For the first fifteen minutes, I was literally agape at the sheer awesomeness of the spectacle: the slinky-scarved Persian dancer; the woman in what looked like a cross between a fairy costume and a French maid outfit; the guy jamming on the sitar; the block player; the bongo guy; the deadpan and afroed horn section; the bass player who danced and slid around in his socks; the DJ on an elevated stage behind them, at the top of the pyramid, lit from behind by a screen panel that dimmed until he looked like a god, illuminated and conducting this enormous orchestra. That was all sweet as hell.

    Then they started playing songs off their latest album, Radio Retaliation, and they lost me. This is by far my least favorite of their cds – Mirror Conspiracy is my favorite, with DJ Kicks and Richest Man in Babylon not far behind. Radio Retaliation marks the shift from groovy lo-fi to full on reggae.

    Thievery has been dabbling in reggae sounds for a while – some of the songs on the aforementioned wonderful albums explore Rasta sounds and slants, and they work because the voices and beats add layers to the grooves rather than hijacking them.

    It’s not bad music – I don’t think Thievery is capable of that. Objectively, it’s decent reggae/dub, complete with laudable anti-war, anti-Bush themes. The guys who performed these songs dressed in white pressed pants and navy blue overcoats. They’ve got dreadlocks and damn, can they move. The problem is that they sounded more like Fela Kuti than Thievery. They sounded almost ordinary.

    Regardless of their song choices, Thievery has an amazing energy that vibed really well with the crowd at the House of Blues.

    So hey, the Boston House of Blues is open! It moved from Cambridge to Fenway, where Avalon used to be. It’s bigger than Avalon – apparently it can hold about 3,000 people (it didn’t seem like there were that many people, but the third level of the place is reserved, so I have no idea how many people can fit up there. I hear there’s bleacher seating).

    I hung out on the second level, where the Aztec and black and white paintings make it feel like a museum. Water costs $4. The bathrooms are big and clean. The sound system thumps and envelops without ever reaching a cringe-inducing volume, and the lighting verges on psychedelic. The floor was so jammed that people had to settle for collectively swaying, but a little dance party up on the balcony wing. An impressive venue, all things considered.

    The line up is impressive too. George Clinton played the night after Thievery, and there are dozens of other big names in rock, blues, and alternative music on the calendar. The downside is that HOB is owned by a subsidiary of Clear Channel, which makes me feel like a sellout, but I figure that selling out in the name of experiencing great live music is sometimes necessary and always forgivable. Right?

    Thievery put on nothing short of a fantastic show. I just miss the old days when they went to town with a sitar, some horns, and a block of wood, and showed us all what it meant to get down and funky.

  • Dear Radiohead: You’re Fucking Awesome

    Dear Radiohead: you’re fucking awesome.

    That wasn’t so hard. In fact, it feels good to finally say it.

    I can’t remember why I resisted Radiohead. I bought The Bends in high school and liked it. Fake Plastic Trees hurt me good, and I realized the sad limitations of my voice by trying to sing High and Dry in the car. Then I gave the CD away like it was one of those promotional demos you get for spending an hour in a music store.

    A few years ago I told, and then immediately regretted telling, my new boyfriend that I didn’t like Radiohead. I think I was just being snotty, then. Perhaps I was afraid that if I joined the Radiohead machine, I would compromise my unending mission to unearth good, if somewhat bizarre, music. It’s particularly ironic that I was bent on avoiding the bandwagon given that I spent a good number of those years in the deepest love with U2. Perhaps they were my one concession, or perhaps I rejected Radiohead to remain faithful to them. Either way, I was misguided.

    I’ve been a Radiohead convert for a couple years now – I’ve just never said anything about it. Being an obsessive downloader of music, I’ve owned all of Radiohead’s LPs for a while, and once they worked into the iPod rotation, it didn’t take long for me to fall for them. What I’ve since realized is that I was more than wrong about them. They’re not just good – they’re utterly brilliant. They’re the James Joyce of music, except that they’re as accessible as they are dumbfounding.

    A few minutes ago, I sat down to work on an article about Sarajevo. Then Let Down shuffled onto my iPod. Good god. When was the last time you listened to that song? I suggest you listen to it right now, just to make sure. That questioning guitar in the beginning divides like a cell into strums and picks and then layers into Yorke’s voice. The song becomes this intricate weave, bending and poking itself in all these different directions and angles at once. And despite the lyrics, the song is so goddamn earnest. Unlike many of their other songs, there’s a distinct lack of defeat.

    I got so caught up in Let Down that I lost my motivation to write. I didn’t want to do anything except be inside of that song. So I played Paranoid Android, which you should listen to right now, I’m not kidding. Thom Yorke’s voice is tin foil, I’m chewing on it, and it makes me cringe. What’s this? It’s such a complicated song, like the score for a sectioned orchestra with Yorke’s voice the leading violin. The song has at least two movements, maybe three. In its second half, the song morphs – a costume change – and the dial’s been cranked to the frequency of pain. Yorke’s wails layer over themselves like fireworks. As you listen you feel like you’re going to topple over.

    Radiohead first did this to me on a 25-mile bike ride not long after my dad died. I got all tangled up in the songs (this is really happening), physically riding through them as I worked down the trail, feeling every beat and pulse in my legs. I sped up when they sped up, I stood and raced and breathed like a freight train when Yorke’s voice shook like a thinning atmosphere. Sometimes it felt like I was powering the songs, changing their intensity with my pedalstrokes, as though the music would stop if I did. Radiohead linked my body to my soul and provided the perfect catharsis. Every now and then, they managed to offer a reedy ray of hope.

    After I shake myself out of the radiohold, I think about how many people not just love Radiohead, but react to them this way. For whom is there not at least one Radiohead song that delivers that suckerpunched feeling? This suggests the existence of a collective unconscious whose emotions Radiohead has learned to tap. But how? What does Radiohead know? Whatever it is, what amazes me most is that the music they forge from it sometimes makes me forget how to breathe. In a good way.

    Now it’s official: Radiohead, I’m sorry I’m so late to the party. But I brought some really good beer and an even better playlist.