In Rainbows, Caisson Disease

It's that time again...presidential election season is on us FOR THE ENTIRE NEXT YEAR. Is anyone else just a little discouraged about politics in America? For me, it's hard not to curl up a fetal ball of futility and try to outlast the long nuclear winter. Maybe by next summer, I will turn into a political junkie scouring the web for interesting, under-reported tidbits of information. Then again, maybe by next summer, the rapture will take place and Tim Lahaye and Jerry B. Jenkins will be left behind. In other, more interesting news,
Radiohead, one of my favorite bands have released their latest record, In Rainbows for a sliding price scale that varies from nothing to whatever you're willing to pay for it. Apparently, the site received so much traffic that it crashed earlier today...prompting me to download 7 of 10 tracks so far from various mp3 blogs. I plan on purchasing the cd though, when it comes out.

Prior to listening to most of In Rainbows, initial impression being that I REALLY like this record, I spent some time with the back catalog in the form of a b-sides album courtesy of
The Good, The Bad, and The Unknown. There's nothing better than Bends-era Radiohead in my humble opinion and several of these songs, "India Rubber," "Killer Cars," and "Banana Co." sent a shock wave of nostalgia through me. I suddenly realized, I have been a serious fan of Radiohead for over ten years and bought CD SINGLES to get these b-sides when they came out. My friends Jason Nill and Justin Landis can surely remember the manic pawing through cd bins full of overpriced imports and bootlegs. I once paid $32 for a Radiohead 2000 bootleg and Radiohead Unplugged set me back $26. Speaking of Unplugged some of these b-side tracks have seen even better life as Thom Yorke/Jonny Greenwood acoustic numbers. I'll have to track that aged CDR down and see if it still works. The music landscape has changed. According to our culture's accelerated pace of nostalgia, I am old at 27. Happy Wednesday.