Glorious night of TV on the Radio

It's hard to know, exactly, where to begin when talking about everything TV on the Radio did right at a sold-out House of Blues Thursday night. Or why the Brooklyn quintet's breathless cross-pollination of rock, funk, electro-pop, and soul worked so wonderfully, seamlessly, well.

Was it the band's gritty energy and brash command of groove that hit you not just in the legs and solar-plexus (where it should), but also the head? Was it the outfit's internalized mastery of older sounds wrapped in new sonic threads - the nimble keyboards and Prince-ly falsettos that made "Crying" gallop gleefully as dance music for the indie-rock set?

Could it have been frontman Tunde Adebimpe's old-school soul revue showmanship - his feverish shimmies across the stage, arms twisting toward, and beckoning the audience on "The Wrong Way"? Or, with a jerking thrust of his arm, punctuating a satisfying guitar riff from the epically bearded Kyp Malone on "Wolf Like Me"? Or perhaps it was David Sitek's pedal-pushing electric architecture, coaxing squalls and walls of feedback from his guitar like the Jesus & Mary Chain crashing a P-Funk party on "Halfway Home"?

The fact that drummer Jaleel Bunton, in perpetual motion, and bassist Gerard Smith, who lent a marvelous thrum and thump to every song he touched, were greased cogs at the core of TVOTR's polyglot mix of machinery goes without saying.

Ultimately, what made the band's 80-minute performance Thursday so brightly and brilliantly charged with electricity was all of the above elements, hard-wired to connect through, and to, multiple outlets. When a band makes you think of Sly Stone and Gnarls Barkley ("Red Dress") as easily as it does Phil Spector and sleigh bells ( "Family Tree" and "Young Liars"), you've got a unique group on your hands.

The last time TVOTR was in Boston, playing the Wilbur Theatre in October, it brought a horn section. This time, stripped back to the formidable essentials, the band sounded like a glorious street symphony, an orchestra unto itself.

"Well, there's a golden age comin' round," sang Adebimpe in his fluttering tenor, repeating the last two words like a mantra, as if willing the promise real. Meanwhile, the tune's dancing melody bopped infectiously around him, engulfing him and enveloping us. "Let it move right in. Let it kiss your face. Let it sow your skin in perpetual embrace. . . . The age of miracles. The age of sound . . . Comin' round, comin' round, comin' round."

Suddenly in that instant, in the glorious sway and bend of sound, the waiting was over. The moment - golden and gleaming - had finally, fully arrived

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David Carradine Death Photo - David Carradine Hanging Photos

An American Hollywood Actor David Carradine recently death in June 3, 2009. He was body found in his room at the Swissotel Nai Lert Park Hotel on Wireless Road, in central Bangkok, Thailand on June 4, 2009.

The BBC reports that a hotel maid discovered the American actor in a closet with a rope around his neck and body. A Thailand police official said he was found hanging by a rope in the room's closet and the Bangkok Post reported that his body was found curled up in the wardrobe with a shoelace tied around his genitals and neck.

Carradine 72-years-old actor famous for his work in the 1970's television series Kung Fu and recently in the Kill Bill films. He workedmoe than 100 films and he was nominated four times for a Golden Globe Award.

David Carradine’s family is horrified that a photo has been published that shows the dead actor hanging, according to a RadarOnline.com report.

A tabloid newspaper in Thailand published Carradine photo Saturday, shadowing much of the body, but still showing explicit details of the death scene.

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Groundbreaking Book: Tender Buttons by Gertrude Stein 1914

Published in 1914, Tender Buttons is one of the great Modern experiments in verse. Simultaneously considered to be a masterpiece of verbal Cubism, a modernist triumph, a spectacular failure, a collection of confusing gibberish, and an intentional hoax, the book is perhaps more often written about than actually read.

Divided into three sections—"Objects," "Food," and "Rooms"—the book contains a series of descriptions that defy conventional syntax. William Gass notes that these are, respectively, "things external to us, which we perceive, manipulate, and confront," "things which nourish us," and "things which enclose us."

An American by birth, Gertrude Stein lived as an expatriate in Paris for most of her life. At once a novelist, an essayist, and a poet, she was famous for hosting evening salons that gathered together the great thinkers, painters, and writers into one room, and sparking (and recording) their exchange of ideas. Besides Tender Buttons, her major works in verse include Patriarchal Poetry and the somewhat more accessible Stanzas in Meditation.

Tender Buttons is not frequently anthologized, perhaps because it is meant to be read as a single, long prose-poem. However, notable selections include "Suppose an Eyes," "A Carafe, That is a Blind Glass" in which she seemingly announces her intentions towards Cubism, as well as "In Between," which is often read as a feminist poem because of its strong (though abstract) themes of sensuality. Another noteworthy poem is "Orange In" from "Food," which contains both the repetition and word-combining that many consider to be cubist.

Still avant-garde and experimental ninety years since its first publication, Tender Buttons has inspired generations of experimental poets, providing inspiration for the Language movement, as well as a variety of imitations— both successful and not. She is beloved and cited as influence by many poets and novelists, including William Gass, Sherwood Anderson, E. E. Cummings, Ernest Hemingway, and Harryette Mullen.

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