For years I have been listening to Radiohead. I cannot write coherently about how good they are and how much I like them. They have been around since 1992/3ish but I only started listening to them in probably 2004/5. Amazingly enough the first song of theirs that I really connected with (other than thinking "Creep" was cool because of the guitar bit in the chorus - now I like Creep for wholly different reasons) was Planet Telex - which is the first song off of The Bends which was their second album. So I started with their second album and my listening history pretty much followed the correct chronological order (OK Computer, Kid A, Amnesiac, Hail to the Thief, In Rainbows) whilst skipping over completely Pablo Honey. I did not discover how good the songs off of Pablo Honey were until I bought Radiohead: The Astoria London Live. (GO BUY THIS) I have also gotten into certain B-side songs - as all true fans of bands should do - and one of them in particular has been a song I have been in absolute love with since I first heard it.
True Love Waits is one of those songs that I don't even remember how I came to have it on my computer. But somehow I got a file on my computer that was obviously a live pull of some sort and at the beginning Thom says: "This is a brand new song that nobody's heard before." Remember that I didn't start listening to RH 'til about 2004/5 and the song file had no time stamp or anything to indicate when or where it might have come from. And I wasn't all that bothered about it, the song is so good that it doesn't matter when/where it's from. But so I'm cruising along last week just scrounging on youtube for something (as with all youtube sessions whatever original video I had come their to watch was long forgotten and I was on some tangential torrent in youtubeland) and I came across this:
True Love Waits - 1st Time Ever!
So of course I clicked on it and the first thing I see is: Brussels - April 12th, 1995. And then Thom says "This is a brand new song that nobody's heard before." Cue goosebumps, jaw dropping, and that feeling near my stomach that I get when someone I care about says or does something incredibly thoughtful for me and I don't know how to emotionally handle it. I know that no one else will have this same reaction to this tiny little video but I needed to share with everyone how profoundly it affected me. The idea that the song was first performed when I was TEN, first performed when I was probably thinking about cute 5th grade girls and how awesome fade patterns are this song that would come to mean so much to me was first being played in a country thousands of miles away, and then someone filmed it (and in 1995 they probably had one of those big freaking vhs recorders) and then, TEN more years later when YouTube was invented: "Hey I've got this old VHS from ten years ago, I'll put it on YouTube"...I don't even know how to react to all of that.
Second thing - people that know me know that I enjoy the Dave Matthews Band. Most people think that I am obsessed with them and all I do is listen to Ants Marching or something. Which is completely not true now. I have completely diversified my musical interests and do not listen to nearly as much DMB as I used to - which means that I still do listen to them quite a bit. Half of a ton is still 1,000 pounds. But so I was wondering through YouTube again...wait, some back story needs to be told first. I'll be quick about it.
The Dave Matthews Band performs a song called "Grey Street". This is a song that was officially released on the 2002 LP Busted Stuff. But hardcore fans, like myself, had been listening to it for years already because they had been playing it live since 2000 (and Dave encourages taping/distributing of their live shows, see upcoming FN) and it was, shall we say, unofficially released on The Lillywhite Sessions LP (more backstory) that everyone had in 2001. This is a song that takes some explaining because it is an integral part of the band. When it was first played in the summer of 2000 it did not have set lyrics. Pretty much every night Dave would sing something different with the chorus generally being the same every time. Go here and you will see that there are 70 different "versions" of Grey Street* out there. I should also mention that DMB not only allows but encourages taping of their live shows** so almost every one of those versions can be listened to. One of these versions is from 7.12.00 and I have had a copy of it for several years now and love it more than I love puppies. But so I was trolling through Youtube and saw this:
Dave Matthews Band - Grey Street (Extended) 7/12/00
Naturally I clicked on it and was overjoyed to actually get to see the band perform this song I have loved for so long. Some amazing things about the song I did not know before watching this video:
- It was performed at Giants Stadium.
- Dave plays his six-string. Grey Street now is played with the 12-string and I always thought that it had always been that way.
- Dave breaks a string - when they start the third verse*** Dave is not playing because he is switching out his guitar. What is interesting is that when I first heard the song I did not think anything of this absence of sound because of all the versions I have heard of this song they always play more quietly during the third verse. I have no way of knowing if this accidental string breaking began this tradition - but I think that it is true. This is early on in the playing of Grey Street (the 14th time played) and the band has another song called "Hello Again" that Dave broke a string during and, because that song does not have the band playing the same harmony as Dave, the song needs the guitar they stopped the song and Carter did a drum solo until Dave could get it switched. They continued to put the drum solo in at the same spot when they played it later.
So...apart from me wanting to share lots of tiny little details with all of you...why am I sharing all of these tiny little details with you?
Because I love music. I love it. I want people to love music as much as I do. And I think to love something you have to really know that something as well as possible. These are two very specific songs that I completely enjoyed in a pretty narrow sense (like most songs are enjoyed I think) but, because of all the tiny details and the new format I have a whole new way of viewing these songs.
So if you love something - do everything you can to view it from as many angles as possible.
_Todd
*You will also see that, yes, dmbalmanac.com is a real website that contains setlists from every single DMB live performance on record. The band has toured every summer since 1993 and has played over 2000 shows. On this website you can click on, say, 1993, then on 3.4.93 and see not only what songs were played, but how long each song lasted, how many times that song was played on whatever tour they were on, who played on the song, and any differences from the "normal" playing of the song (i.e. - different lyrics, different outro). If you ever thought I was "obsessed" with DMB you now have a correct sense of just how obsessed some fans can really be - because the almanac is completely run by fans and is in no way affiliated officially with the band.
**This was how they spread their music in the early days - they would go to a city in where they had never been, and they had no records released at all, and the crowd would sing along with Dave because they already knew the songs - all done with cassette tapes and generous people mailing them, giving them to their friends.
***You will note that the youtube description has the parenthetical (extended) in the title. This is because the band no longer plays the third verse and last big chorus. It is strictly a two verse with two chorus affair now.
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