Radiohead tribute unites local musicians

The Oklahoman/News 9 has an article on a local band doing a tribute to Radiohead:

Few current bands exert the influence Radiohead holds over its audience and its fellow musicians. The British progressive band's music has become so iconic, composers now create classical arrangements built around "OK Computer" songs. An entire genre of British bands emerged after 1995's "The Bends," and one of the most popular free mp3s on the Internet is "Rodeohead," a bluegrass medley of Radiohead classics.

So, when organizers of the Mix Tape Club concerts sat down to discuss a theme for reviving the series of tribute nights, it did not take long before they found "Everything In Its Right Place."

"Radiohead sells itself," said Tony Shanks, co-founder of the Mix Tape Club. "It's not like we have to sit down and come up with a concept like we did with 'TV Party' and with ''80s Night.'"

"A Tribute to Radiohead," featuring members of Starlight Mints, Student Film, the Fellowship Students, Cheyenne, the Short Story, Ambassador Bill and the Mad Laugh, kicks off at 10 p.m. Saturday at the Green Door, 329 E Sheridan. This Mix Tape Club show will be the first of its type since October's "Glam Night" featuring songs by David Bowie, Queen and Roxy Music.

Justin Rice, lead singer of the local art-pop band Student Film, said the participants find unique challenges in performing Radiohead songs.

"The experience of it has been pretty cool," Rice said. "It's kind of hard, because Radiohead ... they've got a lot of equipment, especially on songs from 'Kid A,' stuff that we don't have. It's kind of hard to duplicate that stuff, so we've been trying to find other ways to go about it."

"Trial and error is the best way to put it," Student Film drummer Eric Nauni said. "A lot of times, it's just sitting around a lot of times not even as a band working things out on your own. It might just be a keyboard effect, but it's trying to figure out the thing you can bring to the rest of the band." [read it in full]

4th Radiohead.tv episode on Music Video Festival

There's more news regarding the 'missing' 4th Radiohead.tv episode. A Finnish Music Video Festival will premiere all episodes of 'The Gigantic Lying Mouth Of All Time'. The Oulu Music Video Festival received all videos from EMI Finland which will be screened from August 25th - 29th 2004. [thanks Heikki]

Fannypack & Radiohead collaboration?

Fannypack posted an update on their site, Fannypack.net, reporting on their new album. Somehow a collaboration with Radiohead is mentioned:

Final mixdown of new Fannypack album this week! We'll be in the studio making sure it sounds good for you. Look out for our new album featuring collaborations with Marc Anthony,Hillary Rodham Clinton, Derek Jeter, Cher, Lisa Lisa And The Cult Jam, Radiohead,The Baha Men, Paris & Nikki Hilton, and Spongebob Squarepants. Release date sometime in September.

OK Computer book available for pre-order

As reported earlier, a new book on Radiohead's OK Computer will be released soon. The book in the 'Thirty Three and a Third' series will be out on August 30th. 'Thirty Three and a Third' is a new series of short books (128 pages) about critically acclaimed and much-loved albums of the last 40 years. The OK Computer book is written by Dai Griffiths and you can already pre-order it now.

Last chance to vote for Radiohead on the X list

Grab your last chance to vote for Radiohead in Xfm's annual X list mega-poll, where you tell XFM what is your favourite music of all time. Last year, Radiohead's 'Paranoid Android' made it to the number 34 spot. The band also had entries on number 9 with 'Street Spirit', 13 with 'Creep', 17 with 'Just', 24 with 'Idioteque', 34 with 'Fake Plastic Trees', 41 with 'Everything In It's Right Place', 51 with 'The National Anthem', 56 with 'Karma Police', and 66 with 'My Iron Lung'.
The most popular 104 songs from this year's poll will make up the XFM shortlist which will be played out in full on August Bank Holiday, but remember, this week is your last chance to vote for your Radiohead favourites!

Episode 4 of Radiohead.tv out on promo tape

The fourth of episode of Radiohead.tv turned up on eBay this month. Radiohead.tv aka 'The Gigantic Lying Mouth Of All Time' featured three episodes, which were all available on the internet. A DVD of all four episodes was scheduled to be released in April, but was cancelled a couple of weeks before its release dates. The missing episode was included on a Capitol Records promo tape together with the previous episodes and was up for auction at
eBay this month.

For a tracklisting of the fourth episode, check this thread on the Radiohead Hub message board. [thanks roth]

Artifacts of the future: Radiohead on a datacard

In the montly feature of Wired Magazine, 'found', Radiohead is mentioned. The August issue reports "artifacts from the future" - 4 media cards one might find in a store someda. One of the 4 is a 1.1 Petabyte data card called "(The) Complete Radiohead" that includes 32 albums, 184 videos, 328 interviews and 1,788 concerts. The other cards are "The Tonight Show" (all 18,000 episodes), "The 1st 80 Billion Web Pages", and Time/Life Presents The 2,000 Greatest Westerns Ever. [thanks mfkennedy]

Hanson covers Radiohead's 'Optimistic'

Hanson, of 'Mmmbop' fame, has been covering Radiohead’s 'Optimistic' on their latest tour, the Underneath Tour, which started this July 5. The group have opened with 'Optimistic' on both nights at their NYC Irving Plaza shows. [thanks Clare]

O'Riley rocks the crowd — well, sort of

Pioneer Press published a review of Christopher O'Riley's Radiohead recital at the Sommerfest Festival as well.

"When you think of the Twin Cities' hippest hangs for midnight music, Orchestra Hall probably doesn't pop to mind. But that's where more than 1,000 casually clad scenesters of Gens X and Y assembled Friday for a late-night piano recital.

But not your grandmother's typical piano recital. Christopher O'Riley was performing his solo transcriptions of songs by Radiohead, the British band that has been king of the rock critics' darlings for the past decade. Radiohead's albums customarily are all over the year-end 10-best lists, thanks to an imaginative brand of anthemic rock rife with brooding lyrics and a melancholy melodic sweet tooth.

It was clear from early in the program that this was a mutual admiration society gathering, and O'Riley proved both an engaging host and an engrossing performer, even if some of Radiohead's layered rock sometimes seemed too complex to get two hands and 88 keys around.

Rather than take a minimalist approach that would find the lovely melodies inside the songs that Thom Yorke and his bandmates created, O'Riley forced his fingers into a flurry of flourishes up and down the keyboard, sampling a percussively pounding bass line here, a crashing power chord there, and, when at his most astounding, elements of all of the instruments simultaneously.

While it sometimes added up to an experience as exhausting to the ear as a Radiohead album can be, it was nonetheless among the best efforts ever attempted at finding common ground between rock and classical music. For O'Riley's style is deeply rooted in the classical repertoire he most often performs (such as the Prokofiev and Chopin offered earlier Friday, or the Robert Schumann he plays tonight).

But even the non-Radiohead-savvy who can't tell "Paranoid Android" from "Fake Plastic Trees" likely came away from Friday night's concert with the knowledge that they'd witnessed something special. O'Riley's arrangements and athleticism on the ivories were on a par with the lengthy solo improvisations of Keith Jarrett's "Koln Concert" prime.

While Jarrett's career arc has found him moving from jazz to solo work to classical, perhaps O'Riley is headed in the opposite direction. For — when he added a song by the late singer-songwriter Elliott Smith to Friday's program — one couldn't help but wonder if Radiohead may be only the first muse that draws O'Riley down a new path. And, while he explores these fresh inspirations, he may prove to be the ideal magnet that classical concert halls need to draw younger audiences."

Best and worst Radiohead Songs Ever in Q

The latest Q & Mojo special edition, The 150 Greatest Rock Lists Ever!, is a 148-page collection of rock trivia celebrating the best – and worst – of everything, for music fans everywhere, including The Best – And Worst – Radiohead Songs Ever as voted by Q and Mojo readers.

Radiohead episode 'most outrageous South Park'

Comedy Central did a countdown of the most outrageous south park episodes this last weekend. The episode featuring Radiohead was number one. [thanks justin & dave]

Christopher O'Riley review in Star Tribune

The Star Tribune reviewed Christopher O'Riley's Sommerfest performance:

In an unusual move, as part of Sommerfest, the Minnesota Orchestra offered two concerts Friday night, playing host to what might have seemed like two different worlds.
The first was a standard orchestra concert conducted by Patrick Summers with pianist Christopher O'Riley as soloist. The second, which started at 11 p.m., was a recital during which O'Riley played his own transcriptions of songs by the English rock band Radiohead.
The first was attended by a mostly older crowd, the second by a group looking to be from late teens to late 20s. A small number went to both, judging by overheard conversations and by the cheer that went up during the first concert when O'Riley mentioned the Radiohead recital to the audience. To be sure, these are different idioms: Brahms, Dvorak, Chopin and Prokofiev (O'Riley played the Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 1) followed by the often rather complicated and yet poignant songs of Radiohead, which is rock more in a marketing than in a truly musical sense.
It was the similarities that were interesting. Much of what O'Riley has so painstakingly -- and often beautifully -- created in these Radiohead arrangements or paraphrases draw from a highly pianistic, 19th-century style: the thick Brahmsian chords that open "Fake Plastic Trees" for instance, or the shimmering, Rachmaninoff-like filigree in "Motion Picture Soundtrack." Both of those songs are from O'Riley's Radiohead compilation, "True Love Waits," which has been such a hit that he will record a follow-up CD.
The frequent concertgoer, that is, who claims to hate rock would likely have been quite at ease listening to Radiohead, at least to these versions, and the rock fan who thinks classical music is stuffy might have found the evening's first program engaging.
In Prokofiev, the rock fan might, in fact, have found a soul mate. Whereas Dvorak and Brahms are determinedly cheerful, at least in their dances, Prokofiev is full of irony and insolence and anxiety, as is Radiohead, though O'Riley's deft performance of the First Concerto on Friday night brought out additional elements of sparkle and whimsy. Both concerts were enthusiastically received, though there was a notable reverence in the rapt, hushed way the younger audience listened that wasn't present in the earlier concert.
It helps that O'Riley so obviously loves these songs and has put so much of himself into these transcriptions. He played for about 70 minutes and, after playing two encores, left the stage looking gratified but exhausted.

'Creep' on PS2 game soundtrack?

Radiohead's 'Creep' is included on the new GTA (Grand Theft Auto) game, San Andres, which is set in a southern California city in the early 90s. [thanks Chris]

Update: turns out the above is from an article from the Official UK Playstation 2 magazine, which was just speculating on the possible soundtrack. [thanks Kim]

Gillian Welch covers Black Star

Gillian Welch, the Nashville folk/alt-country artist has started covering Radiohead's Black Star in her live sets, including her show at the Bowery Ballroom in New York City last night. [thanks DoctorEllisD]

Field Day organizer wants Radiohead next year

Remember the Field Day Festival from last year? Organizer Andrew Dreskin signed Radiohead last time in June 2003. The festival however was a disaster. The festival didn't have a license for the site until only a couple of days before the date and then moved - last minute - to another site, the New York Giants Stadium... where it just rained all day.

Anyway, according the Daily Freeman, Andrew Dreskin is trying again. He proposed holding a two-day rock festival next summer on the Greig Farm and inviting Radiohead, REM, Lou Reed, Tom Waits, Coldplay and Norah Jones.

Andrew Dreskin's proposal for the Field Day festival in July or August 2005 comes on the heels of the Red Hook Town Board rejecting a similar proposal earlier this year for an August 2004 concert called the World Unity Festival. That proposal, from a different promoter, Global Alliance for Intelligent Arts, was rejected by the board amid concerns that problems experienced during the 2001 Gathering of the Vibes festival at the Greig Farm - specifically traffic congestion - would be repeated.

Dreskin's proposal envisions 30,000 people, roughly the size of the Vibes crowd, attending the Field Day festival. "We anticipate attendance of approximately 30,000 socially aware 18-to-34-year-olds, of which 20,000 will camp on site," the promoter told the Town Board on Tuesday.

Dreskin refused a reporter's request for a copy of the concert plan, saying the information was confidential and would not be available to the public. And the Town Board still was meeting late Tuesday and could not be queried about the proposal. Dreskin said he has been putting on concerts for about 10 years and is seeking to establish a permanent site for an annual event.

"Field Day was widely seen as the most innovative modern rock music festival in the United States in 2003," Dreskin said. He said that festival was held in Giants Stadium, the East Rutherford, N.J., home of professional football's New York Giants and New York Jets. Giants Stadium holds about 75,000 people and is part of a multi-venue sports complex designed to accommodate large crowds.

Dreskin said he plans to invite Jones, Reed, R.E.M., Radiohead, Coldplay and Tom Waits to the 2005 festival in Red Hook but that no commitments have been secured. "We shy away from the aggressive, heavy stuff," he said. "We target a slightly older demographic. We don't do heavy metal."

Radiohead on VH1's "I Love The 90's"

On the 1990 episode of "I Love The 90's" they played "Creep" during the backround of the Edward Scissorhands part. And on the 1997 episode they listed Thom Yorke as one of the "Dirty Alternative Rockers of the 90's" and called him the "Dirty Computer Rocker". "Just" was also featured in the 1995 episode during the Toy Story segment. I Love the 90's - 1996 episode featured "High and Dry" played over the clips of the movie "Twister". Creep was featured in some segemnt in the 1995 episode about anorexia, and made a final appearance in the 1999 episode during the Sixth Sense segment. [thanks Andrew, LawnG, Bryan]

Take The Radiohead Test

Does Thom Yorke eat cookies in bed? Do you know the answer? Are you a proper Radiohead fan? Take the test!

Pixies documentary on Trio

As reported earlier Thom Yorke featured in the Pixies documentary 'The Pixies: Gouge' The documentary airs on the Trio Network on Monday July 19th at 2PM ET. [thanks Alex]

The Yorke-Larkin connection

The Village Voice published some lyrical connections between Radiohead and poet Philip Larkin:

Before Radiohead's "Myxomatosis," off last year's Hail to the Thief, no prominent artist had dared speak of that blindness-inducing, genital-swelling rabbit disease. Or had they? Philip Larkin (1922–1985) prefigured Thom Yorke & Co. by nearly 40 years in his poem of the same name, published in The Less Deceived and featured in the recent Collected Poems (FSG). It sounds even more like Radiohead than Radiohead ("Caught in the centre of a soundless field/While hot inexplicable hours go by/What trap is this? Where were its teeth concealed?"), which could be why the song sounds less like Radiohead than anything else on the album.

Bitter, dissonant, exhausted (only more so), Yorke conjures images of poetic betrayal ("It got edited/fucked up"), lagomorphic aphasia ("Don't know why I feel so tongue-tied"), and icy disaffection ("You should put me in a home/Or you should put me down"). It wouldn't be the first time they've used your man's poems as a jumping-off point. The title of 1994's B-side "Lozenge of Love" comes from "Sad Steps" (also from Larkin's The Less Deceived), to which it makes a dire counterpoint. "I can't sleep/Why can't someone hold me/I need warmth . . . /I won't have the strength/When you really need me," sings Yorke; Larkin finds himself "Groping back to bed after a piss . . . /Four o'clock . . . /shiver[ing] slightly," reminded of "the strength and pain/Of being young; that it can't come again." The final word: In 1997, fresh off of OK Computer, guitarist Jonny Greenwood read Larkin's "Home Is So Sad" on the radio. An ostensibly sentimental poem about nostalgia for stillborn potential? This is what you get, Larkin might say. [thanks Juliet]

Radiohead top SMH survey

As posted here last week, Sydney Morning Herald asked to vote for your best albums and singles. The results are in. Herald readers have voted overwhelmingly for Radiohead's OK Computer, from 1997, as the "greatest" popular music album ever. And the first single from that album, Paranoid Android, was voted the best song.

So what did the Herald survey of great rock albums and singles reveal? Well, for starters, it revealed the fragility of surveys. Do our readers really have an enduring love affair with Radiohead?

SMH states: Our survey seemed to be fair and accurate. While it attracted a healthy number of participants (4438 total voters) the word clearly got out to Radiohead fans. To try to bring the survey back to a more balanced accuracy, a total of 519 votes - most coming from a very enthusiastic Spanish chapter of the Radiohead fan club - were deleted, leaving 3919 valid voters.

While it was true that most under 18s picked Nirvana and Radiohead (that old fan club again!) they were also happy to vote, in large numbers, for Pink Floyd, the Beatles, Guns N'Roses and AC/DC. In contrast, the over-55s were totally locked into their age group with only single votes for Radiohead and U2.

No one should be surprised to learn that the majority of the votes for Radiohead's excellent OK Computer (widely regarded as the best album of the past decade) came from the 18-35 age group and the largest vote for Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon came from the 36-55 age group.

Surveys are modern parlour games. They are more fun than serious analysis. However, from the vantage point of 2004, and recognising that each new generation finds its own heroes, the results seem to be fair and representative. Radiohead rules. Perhaps the greatest irony is that the lead singer, Thom Yorke, and the rest of the band, who still wander the streets of Oxford totally unaffected by their success, would be bewildered by the adulation heaped upon them by a generation who, it must be said, have remarkably good taste.

'Creep' used in French movie trailer

Radiohead's 'Creep' is used for the the trailer of the French movie 'Ils Se Marièrent Et Eurent Beaucoup D'enfants'. The movie will be out in France on August 25th. At the moment it's unsure if the track will make the soundtrack as well. You can see the trailer here (click on 'bande annonce'). [thanks Marjorie]

Pitchfork reviews Pedro the Lion's "Let Down"

Pitchfork's journalist Ryan Schreiber wrote a review on Pedro the Lion's 'Let Down' cover:

Any time an artist covers Radiohead, they are showered with publicity. This is no great secret; it's an obvious and well-understood method of attracting an open-minded audience to your difficult or obscure music. The Flaming Lips, Brad Mehldau, and UMASS Front Percussion Ensemble have all greatly benefited from this tactic in recent months, gaining bonus fans on the strength of their drastic revisions of Radiohead's weird-to-begin-with oeuvre.
Such a gambit would seem to make sense-- at least on some level-- for indie troubadour David Bazan. While never known for his dedication to unrelenting innovation, his music could well appeal to fans of Radiohead's pre-Kid A work, particularly since he's got a knack for convincingly passionate performances. What I can't comprehend is why, on this cut from his band's new tour-only EP, he wouldn't give 100%.

"Let Down" seems a perfect match for his naked emoting, but here, he gives nothing-- his read is totally staid, lacking any feeling or emotion whatsoever. In fact, I've rarely heard Bazan sound quite this bored-- his bloodless rendition gives the impression that, if the song ever meant anything to him, it's been lost over years of replaying. Even the band plays as if they've too-carefully studied their parts, resulting in a backdrop with all the intensity of a K-Mart karaoke cassette performance.

Naturally, this would be a setback under any circumstance, but that Pedro's version is absolutely verbatim to the original doesn't help matters. I can see this song meaning enough to someone that they wouldn't dare to change a note for their own performance, but then, what's to offer the listener? I can't even begin to imagine why someone would choose to drop this on the stereo in lieu of Radiohead's original, as the only real difference is a noticeable lack of conviction. It's a terrible shame for the kid who drops his money on this disc expecting at least a little effort, but doubly so for the band, who stood to boost their waning listenership and blew it by coasting instead. [from pitchfork, thanks adrian & sarah]

OK Computer book in the works

Radiohead's 'OK Computer' will be featured in a book which is part of a series written by a music journalist with a unique fondness for their chosen album, and details how its influence has played out in their lives, musical and otherwise. Kim Cooper, self described "editrix" of Scram, a 12-year old journal focusing on underappreciated artists, was recently commissioned to write a book for Continuum's 33 1/3 series, focusing on Neutral Milk Hotel's much revered In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. [from pitchfork, thanks Alex]

New album recordings next year

Radiohead are planning to start recording the follow-up to 'HTTT' in 2005, but is unlikely that we'll hear from the band at all until that time. The band have revealed that they will take a complete break from recording and touring commitments for the rest of 2004 but deny that the next record will show such a marked change in direction as ‘Kid A’.

Drummer Phil Selway told NME: “We have no plans at the moment- we just want some clear time not thinking about music and not really thinking about what we’re going to do next. We’ve got to rest everything.”

He explained: “We’ve just had a very intense period of recording and touring. We’ve got to not so much rethink everything but just come back to it with the right motivation. We’re very keen to get back together and make music together, but as and when we don’t yet know”.

Talking about a possible change in direction, Selway said: “We’d reached a point at the end of OK Computer where we were sick of that approach to song writing and we needed time away from it. We don’t think we feel that way now.”

He continued: “I don’t think we need to knock down what we’ve done before and completely reinvent ourselves but at the same time we need to improve as musicians, we need new material, and to try arrangement ideas”.

Also, in that same NME in a short Q&A with DJ Shadow.
Q-When you were recording with U.N.K.L.E, did Thom Yorke tell you any jokes?
A- “Well, there was one time when he was really laughing at James Lavelle and I because we were both filming each other filming him do the vocals. Since then my footage was stolen from Manchester- I was on tour and someone stole my camcorder including six months of tape. I’m sure the tapes went straight in the bin, too.”

[thanks Ed.]

Ben Kweller: Kid A is overrated

Speaking to the NME, Ben Kweller chose Kid A as the most overrated record:
"I don't really get this record. There is something to say about changing what you do and trying different things but i just can't find any song to connect to. I was always confused about why people were going nuts over it. For all the hype it got, it's basically just another good noise record but without the emotion that i like to hear from Thom. I always preferred Pablo Honey and 'The Bends'. [thanks Ed.]

Q: OK Composer

Q magazine has a bit on Jonny assignment at the BBC entitled OK COMPOSER. Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood has been appointed composer-in-residence at the BBC. Imagine the fun he’ll have with some of the Beeb’s most famous theme tunes…

Theme: Eastenders
Before Jonny- Upbeat theme to the planet’s most depressing soap.
After Jonny- Reworked at one- third speed, with the addition of discordant cello and clarinet squaks, as a requiem for the destruction of the East End by Nazis in World War II and it’s subsequent Yuppie resurrection during the Thatcher years.

Theme: Only Fools And Horses
Before Jonny- Cheery Cock-er-nee knees-up by creator John Sullivan.
After Jonny- Resolute chipperness destroyed by unsettling tempo changes and new lyrics by Thom Yorke reflecting the fact that anyone selling a bit of tat in Peckham these days is likely to be a fully-qualified doctor from Somalia whose talents are wasted by brutal immigration rules.

Theme: The 10 O’Clock News
Before Jonny- Ominous mix of beats, pulses and bleeps that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on Kid A.
After Jonny- Pretty much the same, except stretched out over a full 30 minutes in order to provide an appropriately discomforting soundtrack to the litany of horrors brought to us by Huw Edwards, Fiona Bruce and the bloke on the sports desk. [thanks Ed.]

Radiohead sightseeing in Oxford

From This is Oxfordshire:

The search is on for Oxfordshire's best-loved rock locations.

It could be the Carfax Assembly Rooms the site of Eric Clapton's first professional gig the Zodiac club where the video for Radiohead's Creep was shot or the flat in Cowley Road that Supergrass shared.

Virgin Radio is asking listeners to come up with suggestions they can put on a shortlist in the national search to find the UK's most significant rock pilgrimage site. The radio station has joined forces with Travelodge hotels to uncover possible contenders.

Presenter Geoff Lloyd suggested the county's most important site was Abingdon School where the members of Radiohead met. He said: "For me it has to be Abingdon School. If five young men hadn't met up and got such a good education Radiohead would not have formed and made such inspired intelligent music.

"We're looking for all the local places that have a rock history. It may be the site of an important gig the inspiration for an album cover or the place which saw a meeting of minds - like Abingdon School."

To celebrate Oxford's music credentials and the music links of the surrounding area submit your entry on the website www.virginradio.co.uk. Anyone voting gets the chance to win an all-expenses paid trip to Graceland the Memphis home of Elvis Presley.

'Split Sides' at the Barbican Centre in October

As reported earlier, the Merce Cunnigham Dance Company will take their ballet, 'Split Sides', with the Radiohead and Sigur Ros score to London. You can attend the ballet at the Barbican Centre, Silk Street, London EC2 (0845 120 7536) from 5 to 9 October. Get your tickets asap, because it's likely to sell out fast. Previous reports have already mentioned that the band are not playing live. Instead, the show will use a remixed soundtrack of the material recorded in New York. [thanks Alex]

Vote for XFM's X List

XFM have their annual poll The X List back online. At the moment, people can vote for any of their favourite tracks to be included in the top 104 X List played out on August Bank holiday weekend. The voting closes on July 30th, Then you can vote for your favourite tracks within the list of 104 most voted tracks to rank them from 104 to 1. Last year, Radiohead's highest position was #4 (for Paranoid Andorid). Let's vote to get Radiohead on number 1 this year.

Paul Rudd on Radiohead's OK Computer

'OK Computer' is one of actor Paul Rudd's favorites. This is from an article in Blender magazine:

“This came out when I was filming The Object of My Affection, and I remember racing to Tower Records to buy it the day it came out, running back to my trailer and not coming out until I’d heard it all the way through. Nothing else went into my CD player for two years. I was so into it, I developed a lazy eye.”
[thanks Nathan]

DJ Shadow on Radiohead

DJ Shadow (AKA Josh Davis who collaborated with Thom Yorke) was interviewed in the Financial Times: "I've always been fascinated by music that makes everybody behave a certain way. For instance, I've noticed that when you're driving with your friends, and a certain song comes on the radio, everybody gets silent and pensive, looking out the window. I started analysing what music made that happen. Certain people are able to do it; Radiohead create that true emotional urgency and grit."

BBC Radio 1 DJ Jo Whiley on Radiohead

BBC Radio 1 DJ Jo Whiley regularly presents the BBC's TV coverage of Glastonbury. Whiley in the Independent: "Radiohead headlined the Saturday night of that apocalyptic Glastonbury in 1997. The weather was just hideous. Stages were literally sinking, bands were being cancelled (I remember Kenickie turning up and just waiting around hopelessly in their wellies), people were saying goodbye as if they were never going to see each other again... it was awful. But while I was finishing off that evening's TV coverage with John Peel, in the distance we heard Radiohead doing "No Surprises", and suddenly all these fireworks started to go off. It was incredible, one of those spine-tingling moments, when against all odds music can transcend its surroundings and take you to another place.

Mind you, Peel's reaction was: "I never could see what people saw in that band." (We were having our usual musical differences.) But he still gave me a piggyback to my caravan was because the mud was so thick. What a gent." [thanks Alex]

'Go To Sleep' video at Computer Animation Festival

SIGGRAPH today announced the program for the Computer Animation Festival for SIGGRAPH 2004, the 31st International Conference on Computer Graphics & Interactive Techniques, being held 8-12 August 2004 in Los Angeles, California. Radiohead's 'Go To Sleep' video was also selected by the jury.

Go To Sleep: Radiohead Music Video

Stephen Venning, The Mill

This poignant work features a low-poly version of a famous rock band's (Radiohead) lead singer sitting on a park bench delivering the track's vocal. He is surrounded by drones walking through the city streets oblivious to the city's classical architecture crumbling to the ground. Almost simultaneously, the city is re-building itself into a monolithic flat-faced future. [thanks Alex]

FYI: 28-04-04 Netherlands - Greece: 4-0!

Vote for Paranoid Android and OK Computer

In Saturday's Sydney Morning Herald 50 years of Rock special, 'Paranoid Android' is included in Renee Geyer's list of top 10 songs. SMH are also conducting an internet poll to find the best albums and songs of the last 5 decades. 'Paranoid Android' is in the running for best song - and 'OK Computer an option for best album. Vote!
[thanks Kelly]

Fitter Happier worst Radiohead song?

Palm Beach Post Staff Writers present the 50 worst songs of great rockers. Radiohead's 'Fitter Happier' is included:

Fitter Happier, Radiohead: OK, OK, I know the "song" is actually a computer telling us about the emotional deadness that comes as we head toward a perfect society. But c'mon, when that freaky computer voice starts talking, you quietly, sheepishly, move ahead to the next song. It's OK to admit it. Fitter Happier is the one computer glitch on OK Computer."

'No Surprises' on 'Back to back'

"No Surprises" will be included in an upcoming special of "One-shot videos" on network Sonic Cinema (Sundance Channel, USA). "Back to Back: One Shot Videos" features two clips that unfold in a single, uninterrupted take: Radiohead's "No Surprises" and Wax's "California.": Tuesday July 20 from 09:30 pm - 10:00 pm ET [thanks Alex]

OK Computer 6th best album of the decade

FHM magazine surveyed 100,000 people online for their best album album of the past decade. Radiohead's OK Computer came in 6th. Here's the full list:

1 Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication
2 Oasis - (What`s the Story) Morning Glory
3 Eminem - The Marshall Mathers LP
4 U2- All that You Can`t Leave Behind
5 Coldplay - A Rush of Blood to the Head
6 Radiohead - OK Computer
7 Coldplay - Parachutes
8 Prodigy - Fat of the Land
9 Blur - Parklife
10 The Verve- Urban Hymns

U2 were also voted the best band of the past decade in the survey by FHM magazine, followed by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Oasis and Coldplay.

The Matrix (1999), starring Keanu Reeves, was voted the best film of the decade, followed by the last in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Return of the King, Quentin Tarantino`s Pulp Fiction (1994), The Shawshank Redemption (1994) and Fight Club (1999).

FHM surveyed 100,000 people online.

Montreux broadcast on Ovation Network

The Ovation Network (USA) will be broadcasting highlights from the 2003 Montreux Jazz festival.Radiohead is meant to be shown this Friday, starting at 20:00. [thanks monoverb]

Radiohead feature on BandBaja

“Can you tell me what’s so great about Radiohead?”

A genuine question. My inclination is to answer it with a rather emphatic, “’cuz, they’re fuckin’ Radiohead, For-God’s-Sakes!!!.” However, precarious eccentricities are employed by those who root their premises on passing tenors to embellish their inflated understanding of the cosmos. And I promised to not be cynical. Really, who I am I to be cynical.

The above is from a feature in BandBaja. Read it in full. [thanks Henry]

Placebo on Radiohead

Placebo's drummer Steve Hewitt on Radiohead in the Daily Star:

"Quality song writing (is what we listen to) - people who are capable of writing brilliant songs, like Beck for instance, whose album 'Sea Change' is very different from his last record; but he is quite a songwriter, it's just immense," says Hewitt. "Same as Radiohead. You're still always as eager to get the new Radiohead album because you're interested to hear what they've done - you know it's going to be fantastic."