Sep
28
Last Tuesday night I got to see a performer I’ve been waiting a long time to see again … Lance Odegard.
I don’t know how many times I’ve listened through his 2005 disc, Renovation, and I’ve given one of his latest, Here, a decent amount of air time, too. I’ve found Lance’s songs come back and nudge at me at various moments in life, each one packed full of spiritual truth, meat and vitality. I’ve always thought of Lance as a poet as much as a singer, and Tuesday night proved me right.
[singlepic id=20 w=320 h=240 float=left] I was able to pick up a book by Lance filled with poems about adjustments to the big city in Vancouver, and to the transit system specifically. It seems the transit experience is fairly universal, as the sights and sounds and smells of his poetry painted not only a vivid, but also a closely familiar picture, in my mind. The business of life and the longing for relationship in the empty spaces between breaths and beats. The simultaneous disdain and empathy for the other rats in the race. The snap judgments proven wrong and the desire to be found right. All of this is nestled in the hold of Lance’s words, and I can’t wait to read more of them.
The real surprise for the night though wasn’t just finding a poetry book to compliment my Odegard collection, but discovering Sherree Plett and her husband, who plays with the band Eisenhaur. Both were excellent musicians and songwriters who shared the stage in a three-way split on Tuesday. I’ll be hunting for both of them on eMusic soon. It was a treat to hear their three styles and voices in harmony on the backyard deck, lit up crimson while the sun’s heat stayed to listen. All of our bodies close in community, not needing to be for warmth’s sake, listening in for a common humanity.
And we heard it, especially in the instrumental passages where Plett would play clarinet and Odegard would bring out his trombone. I’ve fallen in love with the trombone’s lilt, drawing in and out like a sigh. When the three played Neighborhoods, Odegard’s ode to Hobema and his own brokenness, the words “love covers … a multitude of sin” hung in the air, and our hearts all reached for them in that backyard twilight.
It was a good, good evening, and I wish our falls were full of them. But I’ll be grateful for what I can get.
Art and community. My heart beats. [nggallery id=2]
Tags: eisenhaur, Lance Odegard, sheree plett
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Oct
12
With all the talk about the distribution model of Radiohead’s new album, I haven’t heard much about the music itself, which is a risk you take when you do something as attention-grabbing as they have.
If you haven’t heard yet, Radiohead has given the music industry a bit of a shake by offering their album up, sans label, on their website as a digital download. And the price? Pay what you like. “It’s up to you”. No really, I’m listening to it right now 
One interesting part of this is that you don’t get album art either. But that hasn’t stopped fans from making their own. 
You can see some really great work on this blog (the examples above are from this source).
So, we could perhaps chat about the distribution model under the comments here, but I’d love to talk a bit about the album itself.
I have to admit I may not be the most true-blue Radiohead fan these days. I was so enamored with OK Computer – in my mind the perfect fusion of old and new, technology and music. At the time, I didn’t even get the whole theme of the album, portraying a soulless world wearing a computer generated psuedo-smile. OK Computer, my friends, was brilliant.
And then out came the next one. Kid A I believe? And I sampled it. And I was shocked. 5 minutes of one or two single tones on a keyboard comprises a song now? Where is the structure?! WHERE IS THE STRUCTURE!?
Okay, I was young. But call me crazy, I still, to this day, like my songs to be, well, songs. Blame it on the 80′s, blame it on pop. I just love it when something can lodge itself in my musical memory. This “new Radiohead”, while I admired it for it’s innovation, just didn’t “do it” for me. And I was getting a bit cheaper with buying music all at the same time. So I never did buy Kid A.
And I never did buy Amnesiac. And I never did buy Hail To
The Theif (though I did like it a lot on my first and only listen).
So, when I heard about In Rainbows a week ago, I was excited (more so because I could listen to it for free, legally). But I didn’t expect what I was about to hear.
Listening to In Rainbows this week for the first time, I was surprised. And pleasantly so. To me, this album harkens back to an earlier Radiodhead. The songs are singable. The lyrics connect with me. I could cover this stuff. And I just keep listening to it. It seems to me that In Rainbows could have fit nicely after OK Computer, and though still not as strong an album in my opinion, fits well as an evolution from it.
In Rainbows explores a lot of territory. The jazzy, liquid guitar that drenched “Just” returns here for tunes like “Nude” and “House of Cards”. Accoustic makes it’s way back into “Faust Arp”, a tune that reminds me a bit of “Street Spirit”. And the breakbeats of “15 Step” and “Reckoner” are phenomenal. This is what Radiohead is to me – brooding beats that draw me into a world of film noir, creative inspiration – dark alleys and detectives. Night flights over grand cities. Underwater secrets. Spies and car chases. Bursting light and speed. All these images are conjured up for me afresh as I take in “In Rainbows”.
Needless to say, I am loving the album. And like any Radiohead album (including I am sure the ones I have yet to buy), it grows on you.
Aside from a return to a more conventional musical structure, I didn’t expect the kind of upbeat attitude that “In Rainbows” suggests. If anything, the title would be laced with cynicism, I thought. And, perpaps in some places, it is. But in this album I actually find a lot of hope. Certainly moreso then on Hail To The Theif (“walk into the jaws of hell …”). Here, it feels like the band has fallen in love, or discovered a truth, or been released from a bondage. Perhaps even found God? Who am I to say, but something feels hopeful here. Something picks me up as I listen to some of these tracks.
One of my favorites so far is “Videotape”, which, to me, paints some incredible pictures of grace. The imagery of arriving at heaven, with your life on videotape, reminds me that God has the power to (thankfully) erase that tape. It is a powerful thought – the videotape of my life available for all to see. A scary thought.
When Thom Yorke sings,
You are my centre
when I spin away
Out of control
On videotape
I get chills. I can’t know his meaning, but I claim those words as my own. I don’t want to sound cheesy here, but really, Christ is my centre when I spin away, out of control, on videotape. And I do so often.
There are many moments like this on the album. And as it’s been only a day or so, it will take me time to process them all.
There is hope In Rainbows. Biblically, they are a symbol that God will never destroy the earth again by flood. They are a promise from our Creator. To Radiohead, they seem to hold some similar hope. In Rainbows we are reminded of the realities of our fallenness. We are reminded what we have done on videotape. And we are reminded that beyond all of that, after the rain and cloud (and perhaps after the fall of the conventional music industry), we can find a future In Rainbows.
Download the album for the price you choose here.
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