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One of the reasons I started this whole thing was to be able to talk about significant cultural events: the end of The Sopranos, Barry Bonds becoming the MLB Boom King, shitting at work… You know, the important stuff. So, thanks to 5 lads from Oxford, England I am forgoing my travelogue to talk about yet another significant cultural event: the release of a new Radiohead album.

That’s right, Radiohead has released their seventh proper studio album titled, gaily enough, In Rainbows, but you won’t find this thing where most proper studio albums reside. Sam Goody don’t got it. (Does that place even exist anymore?) Best Buy doesn’t have it. So where can you find this thing? Right about here.

Without a contract with a record label, Radiohead has opted to take the power back and release it themselves over the intarwebz as a download and as a discbox to be released in December, which just sounds bananas. More on that later.

And how much will this download cost you? What would you say if I told you “however much you want,” is that something you might be interested in? In a marketing scheme that is certainly not RIAA approved, you can pay anywhere from $0.00 to a million-trillion dollars for this thing. Well, thank you very much, gentlemen.

So now that you have the tools to get it, just what did you pay (or not pay, as the case more than likely is) for? In short, ten tracks of excellent Radiohead music.

Radiohead is quite a conundrum of a band. From their humble roots as guitar rocking brit-poppers to breathtaking visionary pop virtuosos on the grandest of scales to general documenters of electronic fart noises, Radiohead has run the gamut over their fourteen plus years. Each new album has been the source of great anticipation resulting sometimes in magnificent bliss, sometimes in mild (or great, depending on the day) disappointment. Regardless, no matter what you always got the same thing: Radiohead doing whatever the hell they felt like, and doing it thoughtfully with great effort and detail. No matter your thoughts on any of their albums, you have to hand them that. These guys put as much of themselves in their work as any great painter, chef or San Fernando Valley porno star.

This is the same band that made one of the best albums of all time, OK Computer. (Really, can this even be disputed? I’ve listened to that album hundreds of times and it still gives me chills.) Then, as a follow-up, decided to do just about everything in their power to alienate all of their fans by doing a complete 180 and making rather inaccessible electronic music. I remember the first time I played Kid A. I said aloud “What the fuck is this,” ate some mushrooms and put on OK Computer again. Mission accomplished, Radiohead.

Over time I learned to appreciate Kid A (and it’s follow-up, Amnesiac). You could even say I like these albums a good deal, actually. But every mention of a new song or album always brought with it the same questions: “Did they remember how to play their guitars for this one?” “Is this the return to OK Computer form?” “Who moved my cheese?”

When Hail to the Thief was released I expected little. In fact, I even resigned myself to another album of noisy, atmospheric bleep-bloop futurism. I was almost looking forward to it. Then the chorus to “2+2=5” exploded out of my speakers with potent guitar fury that hadn’t been heard from the band since the beginning of “Airbag,” starting off an album that seemed to pull the best parts of all of their meanderings together. The album may have been sprawling and imperfect, but it was fucking awesome nonetheless (critics and Allmusic.com be damned) and oh so welcome, complete with a couple of songs I would deem classics (“There There,” The Balls.). Definitely a worthy exercise for everyone involved.

If there’s one thing the release of Hail to the Thief taught me about new Radiohead albums is that you shouldn’t really expect anything. You’re going to get what they’re going to give you. Just sit back and enjoy it. This brings us to In Rainbows, the aforementioned seventh proper studio albums so coyly released with hardly a peep.

Tracking the progress of this release went a little something like this for me, tracked by posts and news on Pitchfork. Thank you, sirs (and ma’ams):

1/19/07: Radiohead working on album.
4/18/07: 10 second clip of new song. It’s all happening!
6/13/07: “WE ARE NEARLY THERE…” Thanks, Ed.
8/15/07: No new Radiohead album in 2007.
—Dead air due to wedding and honeymoon—
10/8/07: Holy crap! Radiohead is releasing an album in two days!!! Visit site, find out it’s free, “buy that bitch” and wait for the download code.
10/10/07: Wake up early, download, and Pod it to listen to at work.

That’s about it. That seems to have taken a long time, but seriously, those sneaky bastards! I was well ready to not even think about that album until the new year, yet here we are with ten new Radiohead tracks. Life is pretty decent.

“Enough with the exposition, already! Tell me, is it good? Is it worth the money?”

Well, of course it’s worth the money, you cheeky git, it was free! I would’ve been glad to give them a little scratch for it, but I didn’t have a little scratch. And I certainly didn’t have a shitload of scratch for the discbox. So I’ll just try and catch them on the flip side with either the discbox (that’s around Christmas bonus time) or when some dudes in suits put it on the shelves in proper form with pretty album artwork. They may even do the dual release with the fancy packaged version and the regular version. I’ll probably buy both of them, too, so no, I don’t feel bad about getting a freebie on this one. They still owe me from the concert I got tickets for that got stormed out back in 2001, too, so I’m karmically fine with all of this.

Speaking of the discbox, it’s a music wanker’s and Radiohead-phile’s (pretty much the same thing) dream, consisting of the new album on cd and vinyl, as well as a bonus cd with more new songs and extra junk as well as lyric booklets, all wrapped up in a hardback book with a slipcase. I just got a nerd boner. But busting the nerd nut will cost you 40 pounds (that’s $80 to us Yanks).

Now let’s talk about the music. In Rainbows combines the best elements of all eras of Radiohead in perfect proportion: small swaths of drum machine (or drum machine sounding drums, courtesy of master drummer Phil Selway), lots of guitars (! a little loud, a lot soft), moody atmospherics… You name it, if you liked it it’s on this album.

The first sounds you hear are the frenetic drum machine handclaps of “15 Steps.” The rest of the song plays as a study between light and dark with airy guitars battling brooding basslines. The following 9 songs run the gamut from upbeat distorted (dance?)rockers (“Bodysnatchers,” a spiritual descendent of OK Computer’s “Electioneering”) to emotional chillers (the closing track “Videotapes,” which has nothing to do with your mom in German scheisse videos). The bulk of the album resides somewhere in between. The prevailing sound of In Rainbows is acoustic or clean-toned electric guitars with a shuffling beat (“Weird Fishes/Apreggi” and “Jigsaw Falling Into Place,” two stellar examples). While most Radiohead albums are best listened to at night or in winter, this one could actually be a nice soundtrack to a pleasant summer drive, your next workout at the gym, or some hardcore pound fucking sweet love making in the afternoon. That is, if you don’t have any Slayer available.

My favorite song on the album, which is pretty tough to pick since they’re all good, would probably be “All I Need.” A bassy synth that sounds similar to something out of a Peter Kruder production meanders over a perfect beat with bell and piano flourishes. Thom Yorke uses his low, seductive pseudo-croak to weave a sinister sounding song of obsession, telling the object of his affection “I’m in the middle of your picture lying in the reeds.” Oh, so that was the creepy dude with the lazy eye that was following us around! With about a minute to go all of these little parts reach a crescendo indicative of the very thing that made me like Radiohead in the first place: the uncanny ability to play the right notes and parts at exactly the right time and bring it all together to make the hair stand up on the back of my neck. This song harkens back to the sound explored in “Talk Show Host,” from the Romeo + Juliet soundtrack, and not coincidentally one of my favorite Radiohead songs of all time. Total classic.

Listening to Radiohead in the post-OK Computer era, one gets the feeling that these albums were not easy, let alone fun, to make. Even Hail to the Thief, with the exception of songs like “There There,” has the clinical sheen of Kid A and Amnesiac in the production. While I love that album, it doesn’t sound like the work of a group of friends making music together. Where Hail to the Thief came off as an intense and cathartic audio exercise, In Rainbows feels much more, dare I say, serene. There’s a sense of relaxation and even fun that informs each of the tracks in a way that hasn’t been heard since the more earnest pop moments of The Bends. Perhaps the lack of pressure from a studio and freedom from deadlines allowed them to just relax and make the music the way they wanted to. And maybe Thom Yorke got all of the crazy electronic atmospherics out of his system on his solo album The Eraser, allowing for an album that sounds much more like a group effort, and the music is all the better for it. Upon each listen of In Rainbows, it seems as though Radiohead is actually enjoying making music, which is quite a breakthrough for a band that seems to take themselves so seriously. In Rainbows is a breath of fresh air in the midst of all the new music wankery we’ve been suggested to, and is a welcome addition to anyone’s music collection. So what are you waiting for? Go download that bitch! And if you don’t like it you’re stupid.

So, here’s what I had been meaning to tell you. I got Thrashin’ on the Netflix, it is simultaneously just as bad and as good as I remember it, but for totally different reasons.

For those of you that don’t know, Thrashin is the epic story of Cory Webster, perhaps the raddest skateboarder in the history of the universe. Cory, played by Josh Brolin (who you may remember as Dr. Block from Grindhouse, looking as old as Yoda’s ballsack), goes out to Cali (from where, we’re never really sure) to hang with his shred-bro’s and get rad with it at the LA Massacre, the “world famous” downhill skateboarding race.

Problem #1: Moms gives him $30 bucks, not to be used on beer, for his trip out there. What the fuck is that going to pay for? 300 bags of ramen? $30 ain’t shit in California, I presume. Problem #2: I don’t even think that when skateboarding was at its gayest that downhilling was something anyone really cared about. I guess it gave more head to head drama for the climax than a pogo-off.

Did I mention that Cory has cultivated the Patrick Swayze circa Road House look? Yes, it does always come back to Road House. Suck it. Keep in mind that this was 3 years before Road House came out, too. So Swayze cultivated the Cory Webster look. How ’bout them apples?

Cory’s shredmates are the guy from Loverboy, Dave Grohl, and Encino Man (not their real names, but that’s how they look and I’m sticking to it.) The guy from Loverboy has just finished building the gnarliest half-pipe, and it’s time to shred.

Yadda yadda yadda… Lots of funny clothes and bright colors. I forgot how neon the skateboarding world was back then. Bad news for everyone, really. Neon clothes are some gawd awful shit, let me tell you what. Cory and the rest of the Ramp Locals (totally uncool “gang name,” I would shoot the Ramp Locals on principle alone.) go shred around Venice Beach and do sweet acid drops off of stuff. Dang… He even stops to see a freestyle demo by Per Welinder. For any of you that don’t know what freestyle skateboarding is, you better recognize. Get an education below.

See? If dudes that look like that can excel at something in the skateboarding world, it has to be the dumbest thing ever. Difficult? You bet. Dumb? And how… But, there was an advantage. Piece of ass Not Jodie Foster was there. It was love at first sight.

Enter the Daggers. This is a much cooler skate gang name. The Daggers are the baddest (and raddest, don’t forget the radness) bunch of skateboarders in Venice Beach, which pretty much puts them in the running for baddest skateboarders ever. Led by the fearsome and totally homoerotic Hook, played by some dude that you shouldn’t ever care about, though he kind of looks like Richard Greico, and NO ONE should care about him, either.

Wouldn’t you know it? But Not Jodie Foster’s brother is Hook! Some real West Side Story shit happens. Lots of dudes get rad with it, etc….

I’m not going to summarize the plot any further, because the story is really like a delicate onion with many layers to be savored one at a time. Only that onion is covered in shit and griptape. I will, however, give you a number of things that should encourage you to see this movie, or at least bow to its greatness.

1) The Music: Where to begin… I think it’s amazing that I haven’t seen this movie since I was about 12 and I still know pretty much every song in it. Amazingly scary and stupid. For starters the theme song was sung by Meat Loaf. Yep, Bitch Tits Bob… When I think skateboarding music, I think Meat Loaf. Nothing like a little Bat Out of Hell when you’re trying to rip some roast beef grabs on the halfpipe. And there’s the appearance of the Red Hot Chili Peppers in their full heroin glory. Hillel Slovak and all. Fortunately there are no cock socks, but they look grungy as ever. They even performed one of my favorite Peppers songs of all time, “Blackeyed Blonde” off of Freaky Styley.

2.) The Gear: Seriously, how did I look at this movie when I was10 and think “holy fuck! Skateboarding is rad as shit!” There’s really no good reason. They throw shit together that I couldn’t pick out at a Goodwill under the influence of an 1/8 of mushrooms and a can of Redi Whip. Lots of neon, and some sweet headwear. The guy from Loverboy rocks a totally 80’s headband, and Dave Grohl has a Gator-esque fedora, without killing his girlfriend. I will now sleep with all of these guys at once.

3.) The skateboarding: Alright, looking back on it this was probably some next level shit. But with the advances in tricks that have been made in the past 20 years (hell, even the 10 years following the production of the movie) one can’t help but think that they’re doing some really cheesy shit.

Yes, that is a big pool, and yes, it’s pretty scary. But a downhill? Freestyling? Acid drops off of everything? Ninja please. This is proof positive that I did not have enough shit going on in my life back then.

4.) The Joust: So Hook and Cory Webster decide to “settle this shit” with a joust. They get on either end of a ditch with what looks like half a nunchuck with a koosh ball on the other end, then they both drop in and wack at each other. Really? This is a joust? Why don’t the both of you get in your underwear and have a “not in the face” pillow fight? Nancy boys. But you’ll definitely never forget it.

5.) The quotes:

“That’s a cab-rye-o-let. That’s Hungarian for fast car.”

Hook says something funny about breakdancing to a breakdancer. I forget what it was, but it was something like “breaking is over.” You’d just have to be there.

5.) The Innovation: Okay, so the tricks were corny and the music was gay, but at least it inspired someone to make a rollerblade take on it and call it Airborne, which is one of my favorite “it’s two in the afternoon and I’m hung over, fuck it I’ll watch it” movies of all time. Seriously? If it were any more similar they’d have to call it Thrashin II: Electric Boogaloo.

If that didn’t make you want to rent it you have no soul. Oh, and there is a scene where all of the toughest skate gang in all of Venice Beach stands around and watches Hook spazz out and play air guitar. Or you can catch this montage with the dialogue en Espanol! Is that something you might be interested in?