Official RADIOHEAD thread

[hedwig]

there's lotsa moments of lyrical delivery in the eraser i think are so wonderful.

por ejemplo:
"so i give in to the rhythm / the click click clack "
"in algebra, in algebra.."
"hey hey ... hey hey"
"i'm a dog, i'm a dog, i'm a lapdog.. i'm your lapdog"
"we think the same things at the same time"
"i can see you but i can never reach you"


here's a recent rolling stones interview with thom about the eraser. enjoy!

RS: The new Radiohead songs in your live show are surprisingly straightforward. Some of them are almost like garage rock. Are you rediscovering the joys of simplicity?

Thom: "We're trying not to get too fussy, which is obviously our tendency. We don't really listen to rock music. A lot of what we listen to is techno and dub. But essentially, it's dance music, and that's feeding back into us, in a crude way."

Looking back at Kid A and Amnesiac, it's as if you had too many options in front of you and tried to use them all.

"That's always the problem. My favorite tune from that time is "How to Disappear Completely," because we didn't care how it could be seen as pretentious or anything. It just sounds glorious. What Jonny did to it is amazing.

But I like that Liars record that just came out [Drum's Not Dead], because they're using loops and stuff we've been making for ages. It's cool that there's someone besides us saying, "We're a live band, but we also do this . . ."

Describe the beginning of The Eraser.

A lot of the basic ideas were kicking around when I got all of my software on my laptop. They weren't things that would ever get to the band; they just worked in that isolated laptop space. There was no point in going to the others and saying, "Phi, do you want to try a beat on this?" Or, "Colin, do you want to play some bass?" Because the sounds and ideas were not from that sort of vibe.

What kind of vibe was it?

I would split up rhythm patterns and manipulate sounds to get to a brand new place. It was stuff that I do when I'm bored, really -- something I'd do when I'd sit in front of the television or traveling around.

It's something I've wanted to do for a long time. I wanted to work on my own. It wasn't casting aspersions on anybody. I just wanted to see what it would be like. Luckily, I happen to be in a band where nobody has a problem with that. In fact, I think there was some sense of relief, that finally I was going to do it. Rather than saying it and chickening out.

The biggest surprise on The Eraser is how clear and clean your voice is.

I kept begging Nigel to put more reverb on it. "No, I'm not doing reverb on this record." Please hide my voice. "No."

But I'm always looking for things that make me want to sing. They're not necessarily chord progressions. It can be a rhythm, with one note on it. In the last song, "Cymbal Rush," the first bit you hear is something I had for three years: one little note. I could hear the melody in there straightaway. But if you played it to anyone else without me singing it, you'd think, "What's he on about?"

There were all these random electronic doodles, but being forced by Nigel to isolate down to the best bits made me realize these were the best bits. All I could see was how clever my programming was. Suddenly I was being forced to forget all that and be the singer again. And I wasn't thinking about Radiohead. I never thought, "I should stop here. I should give this to the band." Once I made the decision to do this record, that's what I was writing for.

Were these songs written in a concentrated period?

Absolutely, except for "Cymbal Rush" -- that riff that had been around for ages -- and "The Eraser," where the piano chords are Jonny's. I recorded them on a dictaphone around his house one day. A year and a half later, I had to own up that I had sampled them, cut them into a different order and made them into a song [laughs]. "Is that alright? Sorry, Jonny."

"Harrowdown Hill" was kicking around during Hail to the Thief, but there was no way that was going to work with the band. "And It Rained All Night" has this enormously shredded-up element of "The Gloaming" [from Hail to the Thief], not that you'd ever I remember doing that in New York. I couldn't sleep one night, and it was one of those New York things, where the rain just chucks down. The rain was so loud.

"Black Swan" has this tiny, shredded segment of something that was one of the library samples we had. It was Ed and Phil doing this thing, and I sliced it into bits. The sample was 2000, but the song was 2005.

Your writing has always been intensely personal and conflicted, but because your voice is so up front on The Eraser, the words and images come through so vividly, as in "Analyse."

[Sings] "Power cuts and blackouts/Sleeping like babies." I used to live in central Oxford, on one of those historical streets, with all these houses built in the 1860s. I came home one night and for some reason, the street had a power cut. The houses were all dark, with candlelight in the windows, which is obviously how it would have been when they were built. It was beautiful.

I also like the lines in "Black Swan": "You cannot kick-start a dead horse/You just cross yourself and walk away."

[Laughs] As always, whatever psychic garbage you've got going on in your head, you end up using it. You should have seen the stuff I didn't put in. That's the shit you don't want to know about.

Your album is the first you've put out since the end of Radiohead's EMI contract. Is the XL deal for one album?

Yeah. We will only ever do that now.

Does that also go for the band's future releases?

I don't know. We haven't talked about it yet. There are a great many things we haven't talked about.

My big problem with corporate structure is this bizarre sense of loyalty you're supposed to feel -- towards what is basically a virus. It grows or dies, like any virus. And you use it for your own selfish ends. Jonny had a big problem with the fact that we didn't have any obligation -- a release date or anything. He found it difficult to work in a vacuum. Which is one of the reasons why we chose to go out on tour: "This is something we can work toward." It's human nature. Personally, I don't have that. But I can see why, if you're a group of people, you need it.

Has the band talked much about the way you want to release music in the future? There were rumors about a series of EPs.

I'm into the idea of singles and EPs. Jonny and I were never convinced about that whole thing with Kid A; "We don't release singles. This is an album, and that's it." What gets me down is the emphasis on the LP. It's one of our strengths. You can create a more exciting picture with lots of different things that you put together. But I want something that gets you on the dance floor. I always have. But we never do that.

So how do you account for the fact that, on your own, you made an album anyway?

There you go -- bloody-minded [laughs]. As it went on, this group of songs fit together quite well. It was Nigel who started it: "What if you opened with this song, then put this one and that one . . .?" Suddenly, we had the first four songs of an album.

How would you describe the status of the next Radiohead album?

We have roughs of things. We have maybe half of something so far. There's another six tunes we haven't started playing live yet. There's one called "Videotape" that's really cool. It's got lots of cyclical melodies. It's one of the first things we had. We were smashing our heads against the wall, trying to figure out what to do with it. Sometimes that drives me crazy.

What have you learned about yourself -- as a songwriter -- from making The Eraser?

I got a lot more confidence. I go through phases where I have absolutely no faith in anything I've done at all. But I was actually talking about what I was doing again. I'd ring up a friend, say "Listen to this," and play him the bass riff on "And It Rained All Night." It was things like that, little pockets of excitement that I'd missed for so long.

I was also surprised and reassured by how cool the rest of the guys were with this. When I said I was going to do it, they were like, "Yeah, please." I was a little worried when I gave them copies of it. If they hated it, that wouldn't be great. And I was worried that it would freak them out. But it didn't, which was great.

I had fun doing it as well. That is mostly what I have learned - this is fun. [Laughs] I'm very, very lucky.

[tpfkabi]

all i've downloaded is Skip Divided.

it sounds very Bjork Medulla-y.

i'm going to try and actually hold out until release date for the rest. same day as the new Sufjan as well.

[Jeremy Blackman]

Yes, it's really growing on me now. I love The Clock, Harrowdown Hill, Atoms For Peace, and The Eraser. (In that order, I guess.)

GT... I think I love Amnesiac because it's Radiohead's most fearless album, and I think it's what they were working toward, and I think with that album they acheived it. I love every second of Amnesiac. And I think stuff like Skip Divided is a step backward. It's interesting to hear Thom Yorke doing Sigur Rós and Björk, but it's just not him.

I'm sure I'll eventually regret some of my negative comments, but I don't think I will ever think Black Swan is not annoying.

[MacGuffin]

A wider horizon for Radiohead
The publicity-shy band previews new material before an adoring crowd in Pennsylvania.
By Richard Cromelin, Times Staff Writer



PHILADELPHIA — Few rock acts have worked harder to elude the scrutiny that comes with being a great band than Radiohead, but sometimes you have to face the inevitable. All eyes were back on the English quintet as it opened its U.S. tour at the Tower Theater here on Thursday, but at least this time the focus of curiosity was something even the band members could appreciate: a preview of Radiohead's first new songs in three years.

In the late 1990s, when they were neurotically suspicious of adulation and sensitive to expectations, the attention might have fallen more on their potential for stardom or for breaking up. But the group has managed a remarkable adjustment in recent years, carving a space and establishing a pace that accommodate personal lives and creative freedom.
 
That meant withdrawing as a candidate for biggest band in the world, which Radiohead accomplished by avoiding long tours, predictable recording schedules and easy, radio-friendly music. In becoming what is essentially a cult band with a mass audience, the group has renewed its enthusiasm for performing, something that was obvious on its last tour in 2003 but was even more apparent Thursday in the intimate setting of a 3,100-seat theater.

The musicians got a heroes welcome when they hit the stage, a sign of the strong bond the fans have with Radiohead's music and its example of uncompromising conduct. And the band could count on that loyalty and willingness to go against the grain in playing a set loaded with unfamiliar music.

The process isn't new for Radiohead, which has taken in-progress material for several of its albums on the road before finishing the recordings. But U.S. audiences have rarely been included, so this sold-out, 19-concert tour, following a series of shows in Europe and concluding with stops June 29 and 30 at the Greek Theatre, has an air of special occasion.

The group, which is loosely aiming to complete its album by the end of the year so that singer Thom Yorke can devote some time to a solo album, worked nine new songs into the 23-song program, placing them among selections drawn primarily from its most popular album, "OK Computer" (1997), and its experimental successor, "Kid A." Those older tunes felt reinvented and fresh, especially the "Kid A" songs. Once remote and icy, they now seem like an integral element in the Radiohead canon.

On first impression, the varied new songs expand Radiohead's musical range while reconnecting with some of its earlier, guitar-rock values. "15 Step" started with an all-percussion backdrop for Yorke's vocal, which proceeded to adopt a Middle Eastern-sounding intonation. "House of Cards" might have been the biggest stretch, a gentle groove with a vintage soul-music flavor, uncharacteristically caressing (though the lyrics posted on fan websites are more typically sinister) and content to stay in one place musically.

"Bangers 'n' Mash" was a lively rocker, with Yorke having a bash at a drum kit while singing, and "Arpeggi" revived some of the drum-and-bass sound of "Kid A" and "Amnesiac" before breaking into a brisk, guitar-driven section. "Nude," which has been floating and forming for a decade, follows a similar pattern, breaking from the Radiohead pattern by refusing to release its built-up tension.

"Open Pick" and "Bodysnatchers" were guitar-led rockers, while the ballad "4 Minute Warning," played as one of the encores, found Yorke at the piano while his bandmates hovered nearby, casual as a group at the corner pub.

"Thank you for listening to all the new songs tonight," Yorke said, just before concluding the two-hour show with the "OK Computer" favorite "Karma Police." They aren't much for small talk, but at the end they seemed pleased to be there, returning the audience's ovation with smiles and applause of their own.

It remains to be seen whether these new songs will fit the contours of the times in the same way that made Radiohead's earlier work an essential survival guide in an age of alienation. A lot will depend on the final versions, and the way they're recorded, and, of course, the way the times change.

Radiohead has rarely failed to be on top of it before, but the question the group will have to face this time is whether it can be comfortable enough to carry on and confrontational enough to matter. When the time comes to reveal the answer, the band had better get ready to have all eyes on it once again.

[Pubrick]

The group, which is loosely aiming to complete its album by the end of the year so that singer Thom Yorke can devote some time to a solo album,

invalidated?

[Myxo]

First impressions:

It's much more song-oriented than I thought it would be. In between the blips & bleeps, his (very personal) voice without the reverb and Radiohead instrumentals is really beautiful. That doesn't take anything away from Radiohead's music. I'm a huge fan. But hearing more of him and less production is really wonderful. Cymbal Rush in particular is fantastic.

[tpfkabi]

15 Step has a very danceable beat.
the other day i had access to a fast connection so i watched videos of all their new songs and Thom dances through that one.

the first US date they played Kid A, Myxomatosis and Airbag. three songs i was dying to hear when i saw them on the HTTT tour that i have yet to see live at two concerts. WSYB is another i'd like to see live. i'm surprised they pulled out Black Star.

[modage]

i love black star and think a dance album would likely be terrible, but if they're going to inch towards it i wish they'd just get it over with so they can be good again.

[Jeremy Blackman]

If anyone has a link to an accurate version of the lyrics, it would be appreciated.

http://www.ateaseweb.com/theeraser/

[MacGuffin]

Los Angeles radio station KROQ had a breakfast concert with Radiohead a while back:

http://www.kroq.com/kevinandbean/breakfast/index.html

[grand theft sparrow]

from NME.com

Thom Yorke to appear on US chat show
Star meets a real life 'talk show host'


Radiohead's Thom Yorke has confirmed an appearance on an American chat show.

The star will be one of the guests on 'The Henry Rollins Show', where he will be promoting his debut solo album 'The Eraser'.

Yorke will feature on the American programme on July 15.

Former Black Flag frontman Rollins' show, broadcast on the IFC Network, features the likes of Dinosaur Jr., Peaches and Dashboard Confessional in future episodes.

Radiohead are touring in North America throughout June. They then go on a second European tour of the year in August, including their highly anticipated V Festival dates on August 19 and 20.

'The Eraser' is released on July 10 on XL Records.

[MacGuffin]

Radiohead
By Frank Scheck , Hollywood Reporter
Bottom line: Old faves, plenty of new material and an intimate venue make for a sterling show.

Theater at Madison Square Garden, New York
Tuesday, June 13

It seems perfectly fitting that the stage backdrop for Radiohead's current tour consists of floating video screens displaying distorted images of the band members. Like the music itself, the visuals are dreamy, off-kilter and highly impressionistic.

Playing smaller venues as a warm-up for the recording of their next album, the band delivered a fan-friendly show that featured a canny mixture of old faves and new material. In the 23-song set, there were eight new songs, with a majority of the older ones coming from "Kid A." Selections from "Amnesiac," "OK Computer," "Hail to the Thief" and "The Bends" rounded out the bill.

The show began on a subtle note with lead vocalist Thom Yorke singing and playing an upright piano on "You and Whose Army?" before the rest of the band kicked in. But things picked up quickly with the powerful "National Anthem," and the rest of the two-hour performance displayed an energy that seemed to surprise even die-hard fans.

This was in part because of the more straightforward, rocking nature of the new material. Such songs as "Bangers 'n' Mash," "Arpeggi" and the piano-driven "Videotape" are more readily accessible than much of the band's more ethereal, atmospheric work, while numbers like "15 Step" display a rhythmic funkiness more than a little reminiscent of Talking Heads.

Performing with their usual dazzling light show, the band delivered all of the material with the utmost conviction. There was the occasional glitch to be sure -- "Oh, shit, amateur on the drum kit," Yorke joked after drummer Phil Selway got off to a false start -- but overall the playing was remarkably precise.

Despite the music's raw power, it was presented with no small degree of playfulness. The band members, who also include bassist Colin Greenwood and guitarists Jonny Greenwood and Ed O'Brien, switched instruments with abandon, with Yorke frequently pitching in on piano, drum kit and tambourine. The singer also engaged in plenty of frenzied dancing, his herky-jerky movements providing a suitable visual accompaniment for the uptempo numbers. And for an encore of "Everything in Its Right Place," he sang a few bars of the Yuletide classic "Silent Night."

The new material was greeted with the sort of enthusiasm that only dyed-in-the-wool fans can provide, but naturally their greater ardor was reserved for such classics as "Fake Plastic Trees," "Morning Bell" and the show's appropriate closer, "How to Disappear Completely."

[tpfkabi]

i love black star and think a dance album would likely be terrible, but if they're going to inch towards it i wish they'd just get it over with so they can be good again.

when thom says 'dance album' i bet he means more along the lines of talking heads circa remain in light and idioteque/15 step.

[modage]

well tickets were near impossible to get.  but since i havent seen them since 1998, i decided to give it another chance and spent $340 for a pair on stubhub.  i hope it's worth it.

well 8 years later, it was.  but only because the snubbing of NOT seeing them AGAIN would've been too much to bear.  the show itself was not worth it, mostly because it was NEARLY the worst setlist i could've ever imagined.   and thats even allowing them to play 8 new songs.

stuff i was dying to hear:
paranoid android
no surprises
idioteque
just

other stuff that was good:
national anthem
i might be wrong
like spinning plates

great albums but i would've chosen a different track:
the tourist
my iron lung

stuff i would've gladly traded out:
everything in its right place
a wolf at the door
pyramid song

complete wastes of my time:
the gloaming
kid a
dollars and cents
myxomatosis

the stuff they didnt play (i would've given anything to hear):
airbag
exit music
karma police
electioneering
climbing up the walls
lucky
planet telex
the bends
high and dry
fake plastic trees
black star
street spirit
morning bell
you and whose army
2+2=5
backdrifts
there there

i know you should not expect a band to play its back catalog when they've got new stuff.  and i wouldnt have expected more if i hadnt been reading the setlists from this tour and seen how much of it they were playing. but even the stuff from the 3 most recent albums was mostly the crap.  and it was really ridiculous how much better Paranoid Android is over anything since then new stuff included.  its like it truly was the best group of songs they would ever write on that album and they could not top it, so they didnt try.  so whatever.  there were about 8 good songs, but by the time they got to most of them i was already too angry to enjoy them.  they're ruining Nude by over arranging it.  it was perfect 8 years ago and now they've overthought it and strangled the beauty out.  just like they did with How To Disappear Completely, Motion Picture Sntk (big time) and Like Spinning Plates which you can see is quite a beautiful song when you take away the stupid noise.  i like most of the new songs, its clear its not going to be their best but i like them.  they still SOUND great though.  i just wish they still wrote great songs and i wish we'd gotten a better setlist.

[MacGuffin]

Radiohead Debut Seven New Songs, Please Crowd With Hits At NYC Show
Some new material rocks harder than anything since OK Computer.   
Source: MTV

NEW YORK — In the past decade, Radiohead have been called dour scientists who use the stage as a sonic laboratory. But during the first of their two shows at the Theater at Madison Square Garden, they were more like excited kids on a playground filled with exotic toys.

Singer Thom Yorke shook invisible maracas, twitched and talked into his guitar pickups as his bandmates wove a backdrop of skewed rhythms, unsettling noises and skittering electronic beats, which coalesced with Yorke's pained, elliptical vocals.

For some, this type of high art is sobering. For Radiohead, it's simply a blast. Clearly the bandmembers — Yorke, guitarists Jonny Greenwood and Ed O'Brien, bassist Colin Greenwood and drummer Phil Selway — are meticulous about writing songs, but playing them is another matter. During the show, they grinned constantly, gleefully conjuring dizzying arrays of sounds from their main instruments, as well as a variety of pianos, samplers, stage drums and an electronic gizmo that looked like an oversize PSP. Even Yorke was in a spiritually sound place.

"I'm gonna have to try out the drum set later," he quipped before the new song "Bangers 'N' Mash," then laughed as a small kit was placed to the side of his mic stand.

The older songs Radiohead played were culled predominantly from the angular electronic rock material of 2000's Kid A and 2001's Amnesiac, and they worked well alongside the seven new songs. Not that they're returning to the enigmatic drum-and-bass clatter of "Everything in Its Right Place" or "National Anthem" — they're simply reclaiming their role as modern innovators after their somewhat lackluster 2003 disc, Hail to the Thief.

Four songs into the two-hour concert, Radiohead introduced fans to the first new number, "15 Step," which featured soulful vocals, a jittery beat, artificial handclaps and watery slivers of jazz guitar before launching into a combination of galactic keyboards and hiccupy guitar noises.

Two of new numbers rocked harder than anything Radiohead have done since OK Computer's "Paranoid Android." "Bodysnatchers" combined Yorke's trademark wail with the quirky dissonance of Sonic Youth and the drone of Velvet Underground, and the aforementioned "Bangers 'N' Mash" was a raw, propulsive audio melt of glam riffage, funk drumming and attitude that peaked with a dizzying pregnant pause before diving back into the melee.

The softer songs were equally captivating. During "Videotape," backward-sounding guitar gurgled through major, elegiac piano chords. Halfway in, an ominous beat cut through, and toward the end, O'Brien sat cross-legged twiddling the knobs of various effect pedals while Greenwood hunched over and sawed away at his guitar.

During "Arpeggi," a repeated three-note guitar arpeggio drove the rhythm while Yorke crooned. Sometimes it sounded like all the members were each playing a different song, but their parts intersected.

One of the many highlights, "Down Is the New Up," rode a sturdy backbeat over jagged riffs, mournful wails and soulful background vocals, pausing in the appropriate places for textural washes of piano and guitar effects. The only head-scratcher was "House of Cards," a hazy number that resembled a U2 ballad.

While the true excitement of the show came from the sneak preview of new songs, Radiohead also rolled out a cavalcade of hits. "Fake Plastic Trees" showed how organic and vulnerable the band can still sound, while "Street Spirit" and "Lucky" reminded the crowd that Radiohead were a killer mainstream alternative-rock band long before the arrival of Coldplay or Keane.

Near the end of the first encore, Radiohead performed the soaring, arresting title track from their 1995 disc, The Bends. They then moved into Kid A's "Everything in Its Right Place," during which the band built tension gradually over a bed of clicks and blips, then released it all at once in a flood of computerized noise and echoed vocals.

Before releasing Hail to the Thief, Radiohead embarked on a similar series of European and North American dates to road-test their new material. However, while that tour was more of a trial to separate the wheat from the chaff, this time, the band seems proud to exhibit the new songs with the knowledge that they're all winners. For this consistently challenging band, 2007 could be a banner year.