Radiohead: “Kid A” (part 1)

Evan Sherman is the best friend I have ever had in my entire life. I love him like a brother and he is included in most of my best memories. I was probably about four years old when he moved in next door and we bonded over a mutual respect for the endless possibilities of our combined collection of Ghostbusters toys. With time, our friendship evolved to support other interests.

For the next eleven years or so, we spent nearly every afternoon, every weekend and the infinite days of Summer together but in my reminiscences it seems it is usually Fall. The air smells cool and crisp with the wafting ashy memoirs of smoky fireplaces through distant chimneys in homes filled with families just like ours; the air was just cold enough to sting the skin around your nose yet just warm enough that you were able to feel safe and comfortable donning only a light jacket. As we ran back and forth between our yards enacting innumerable fantastic scenarios, our footsteps were accentuated by the crunch of the golden leaves. The entire world seemed to be preparing for a respite and our youthful energy cut through it with a starkly contrasting fervor. Our days went on forever as we matured conjunctively.

It is difficult to determine when our interests turned to music. It had always been a part of our lives both subtly and perceptibly. Many of our afternoons were spent on my front porch drawing comic books while my Sony portable CD player reliably gave us songs to fill in the spaces between conversations. When inevitable gusts of wind mockingly stole our loose papers, the songs served as a soundtrack to the impromptu twirling dances which must be performed in order to properly capture the fugitives. Despite these clearly musical influences, I do not recall actually discussing music until much later.

While in middle school my ears were wide open to the power of music; I was in seventh grade when I first bought OK Computer by Radiohead. I knew it was a special album. The unapologetically dramatic and paranoid desperation appealed greatly to my newly teenaged mindset. I greatly wanted to share this discovery with Evan but for some reason which to this day, I cannot fathom, I decided that the best song to win him over with was “Fitter, Happier”: an interlude track in which a computer voice made a series of non-sequitur statements which serve as a disturbing anti-technology protest. Suffice it to say, he was not immediately impressed. Evan was a year younger than me and it was not long before I had reached High School and he was still in Junior High causing our time together to wane.

My interests in Radiohead continued to grow as I fell in love with The Bends and came to enjoy it even more than OK Computer. Sometime during ninth grade, I made a mix-tape for Evan that included the song “My Iron Lung” and as I recall, it really got him excited about the band. He quickly absorbed both albums and we discussed Radiohead excitedly as a means of spending more time together. Napster was a new phenomenon and it was suddenly really easy to find music; this inspired us to pick out songs we had always wanted to hear and wait about an hour for each one to download to my parents’ computer. It was like a miracle. By the time news began to spread about a new Radiohead album which would not have any singles or music videos, we each made the decision not to seek out any of the songs before the album was released. It seemed it would be better to experience the record in its pure form.

In October of tenth grade, I was rehearsing for a production of Dracula at a local community theatre when the new Radiohead album came out. My parents were kind enough to stop at the local independent music store, ‘Tunes’, on the way home so that I could make my purchase. When I looked up at the wall of new releases, it took me a few minutes to figure out what I was looking for because the word ‘Radiohead’ was very small on the album cover and I had yet to learn the album’s mysterious title: Kid A. I bought it and sat in the backseat of my parents’ car. I peeled off the plastic and wrestled off the pointless title sticker on the top before carefully removing the disc and placing it into my Discman. I pulled my headphones over my half-frozen ears before pushing ‘play’. The sounds I was about to hear would both strengthen my friendship with Evan and change my perception of music forever.

PART 2 COMING SOON…