RADIOHEAD TRIBUTE ALBUMS

Oddly, not just one but two Radiohead tribute albums are coming out within six months of one another. The first, Exit Music: Songs for Radio Heads was released on the venerable BBE label in April. It's quite a hit-or-miss affair, but there are some gems, especially Bilal Oliver's exquisite cover of "High and Dry" (Bilal, where are you?), which my wife listens to on our iTunes about 10 times a day!

But now I just read in the most recent Village Voice that the Easy Star All-Stars, the dudes behind 2003's surprise hit Dub Side of the Moon (a track-by-track reggae rendition of Floyd's ultra-famous 70s space-rock classic) are back with Radiodread, their version of the quintessential 90s album OK Computer. And, according to the Voice piece, the most successful track on the record is Toots & the Maytals' re-imagining of "Let Down." Oh man, I gotta hear that! Other big-name contributors include Horace Andy, Morgan Heritage, Sugar Minott, The Meditations, Israel Vibration, and Frankie Paul.

Like most people, at first I thought the whole concept of Dub Side of the Moon was a silly joke, a gimmick. But I gotta admit, I ended up enjoying the hell out of it, and now I'm geeked to hear Radiodread.

Easy Star co-founder and producer Eric Smith had some interesting things to say about the unlikely juxtaposition of two very different sounds: "There is a lot of suffering and pain in reggae. It's a struggler's, it's a sufferer's music. The casual fan sees reggae as a summer, spring-break-type music, and that's really far from what it's about. We like some of the darker areas of reggae, and one of our concerns with combining those two was, we'd have a really, really dark album on our hands."

The more you think about it, the idea of Jamican musicians covering Pink Floyd and Radiohead is not all that weird. To state the obvious, there is one thing that Dark Side of the Moon and OK Computer have in common -- they're extremely stoner-friendly. (As a side note, I still haven't heard the Bob Dylan reggae tribute, Is It Rolling, Bob?, though I must say the title is brilliant. Does anyone know if it's any good?)

Radiodread is scheduled for a late August release. And Thom Yorke's first solo release, The Eraser, is out July 11. The band recently had a two-night stand at MSG (I missed it!), and their North American tour (with openers Black Keys and Deerhoof) continues through August. No word on the next Radiohead album.