20 years ago today I threw an unlikely Radiohead midnight release party...

Painting by Finkusaz via reddit

I wrote a version of the below earlier as a Facebook post, but after reading it I decided to park a slightly edited version here as well. It was kind if a landmark evening and is worth saving outside of that particular platform. Sooooo...

Twenty years ago today—well, technically beginning at 10 p.m. last night—my first "official" event as the new talent buyer for The Note* was the release party for Radiohead's Kid A.

The previous talent buyer had left me with a nice cushion of other quality bookings I oversaw after she left, but this was the first one I had booked that was happening on the calnder. And it was a massive success, far exceeding my expectations, but it was very weird at the time. The notion of Reckless Records teaming up with The Note for a Radiohead release was unusual enough to bring a lot of people into the club who had never entered the room before. It took me a while to convince Reckless of the pairing, but it worked! So I set up an evening of movies, a spin of the new album at midnight, and DJ sets until 4 a.m.

I had to work at Kamehachi** that night, so got to the event late and walked into a room full of people watching my DVD of the Meeting People Is Easy tour documentary projected onto a screen and played through the club's sound system. 

And I immediately noticed something was off. It sounded weird. Once I got to the soundboard I saw whoever had plugged the movie into the system hadn't noticed the reverb was turned all the way up, creating a wash of sound that was barely intelligible. Yet people had been watching the movie without complaint for at least an hour! 

It was then I realized that the fans drawn in by 'OK Computer' were willing to believe anything by the band was intentional. The "new" fans packed around me were hipper and cooler than the fans of the band's earlier albums I had known. So this truly marked the dividing line in my head for the band—from here on out people would accept everything they did as genius just because they're Radiohead. Which is fine—to each their own, and there are far worse acts to give a musical pass to than Radiohead! And I remain appreciative of every single person who attended the event.

ANYWAY, I just realized that anniversary was today. And the fact it happened 20 years ago makes me feel MASSIVELY ancient. But it is a very fond memory and I cherish it. 

*Which would eventually become The Flat Iron (R.I.P. Flat Iron).

**I was still working two jobs at the time, restaurant manager and talent buyer, but that would end soon because even I needed to occasionally sleep no matter how young and energetic I was.