Nothing to Fear, Nothing to Doubt

I found some very interesting interpretations about my another ritual song that is Pyramid Song by Radiohead and wanted to share. This is written by Toni Raffini who is most probably a great Radiohead fan:

"I don't know if most radiohead fans already know about this but this could go into your description of "nothing to fear". It has big references to Dante's Inferno. Here is a reference for every line:

~(I jumped into the river black eyed angels swimming with me)

Apparently this is Thom repenting perhaps (I didn't know he believed in God) for in the Inferno you enter the first circle of hell after the Vestibule. The River is Acheron. The black eyed angels are demons. I think this is here just to let you know that Thom is in hell. Not literally, i think he had some wierd dream or is a big fan of the Inferno, i don't know.

~(A moon full of stars and astral cars all the figures I used to see) 

This is where it gets interesting. The last two lines of the Inferno are "The beautous shining of the Heavenly cars. And I walked out more beneath the stars." Thom's lyrics are from the viewpoint of Dante (the writer of the Inferno) because it is when he comes back to the surface through the mount of Purgatory, returning to the things he "used to see".

~(All my lovers were there with me All my past and futures) 

All the lovers of Thom that he has apparently seen on his voyage through hell. He is placing himself in the shoes of Dante. The past and futures part is interesting because the sinners of hell can see into the past and future but cannot see into the present.

~(And we all went to heaven in a little row boat)

Lines 130-135 of Canto XXXIV say right at the end before Purgatory: Down there, beginning a little further bound of Beezlebum's dim tomb, there is space not known by sight, but only by the sound of a little stream descending through the hollow it has eroded from the massive stone in its endlessly entwining lazy flow (There was nothing to fear and nothing to doubt) Dante is scared at the end of the Inferno, we can see here that Thom isn't."

Here with the video below we can join this astral travel:

Sources:
http://www.greenplastic.com
http://amazon.com

To Disappear and Be Re-born Ritual

How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found is a book by Doug Richmond, originally released in 1985, which is a how-to guide on starting a new identity. It has the subtitle "Planning a disappearance, arranging for new identification, finding work, establishing credit, pseudocide (creating the impression you're dead), and more."
The book recommends a method of disappearing by assuming the identity of a dead person with similar vital statistics and age, and also includes a section on avoiding paper trails which, due to the age of the book, may no longer be relevant or useful.
The song by Radiohead, on their album Kid A, is named "How To Disappear Completely (And Never Be Found)" and is allegedly about Thom Yorke coping with his depression and then the newly acquired pressures of fame.
Here you can find the tabs of How to Disappear Completely.
Here you can find something that was said by band members about the lyrics of the song.
Here you can find many ideas from different people about what this song interprets.


And the video below includes the background song of a disappearance and born-again ritual:



Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/

Story of "Paranoid Android"

"Paranoid Android" is a song by Radiohead, featured on their 1997 third studio album OK Computer. The lyrics of the darkly humorous song were written primarily by singer Thom Yorke, following an unpleasant experience in a Los Angeles bar. At more than six minutes long and containing four distinct sections, the track is significantly influenced by The Beatles' "Happiness Is a Warm Gun" and Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody". "Paranoid Android" takes its name from Marvin the Paranoid Android of Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. It was used to be the ending song of the anime Ergo Proxy, in 2006. "Paranoid Android" was recorded in actress Jane Seymour's 15th century mansion (which Yorke was convinced was haunted) near the village of St Catherine, near Bath, Somerset.The first edit was over 14 minutes long and included a long organ interlude performed by Jonny Greenwood. Radiohead played this extended version during a tour with Alanis Morissette in September 1996. O'Brien said "when we started playing it live, it was completely hilarious. There was a rave down section and a Hammond organ outro, and we'd be pissing ourselves while we played. We'd bring out the glockenspiel and it would be really, really funny." Before the song's first live performance, Yorke told audiences that "[i]f you can have sex to this one, you're fucking weird." He also sarcastically referred to the version of the song played during the tour as "a Pink Floyd cover". Radiohead were inspired by the editing of The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour (described by Colin Greenwood as "brutal"), to shorten the song to a final six and a half minutes, a process that led to Jonny Greenwood's organ section being replaced by a substantially shorter guitar fade out. However, it took the band a year and a half to learn how to play the final version in live performance. "Paranoid Android" has four distinct sections, each played in standard tuning, and a 4/4 time signature, although several three-bar segments in the second section are played in 7/8 timing. The opening segment is played in the key of G minor with a tempo of 84 beats per minute (BPM), and begins with a mid-tempo acoustic guitar backed by shaken percussion before layered with electric guitar and Yorke's vocals. The melody of the these opening vocal lines span an octave and a third. The second section is written in the key of A minor and begins about two minutes into the song. Although the second section retains the tempo of the first, it differs rhythmically. Ending the second section is a distorted guitar solo played by Jonny Greenwood, which lasts from 2:43 to 3:33. The third section was written entirely by Jonny Greenwood, and reduces the tempo to 63 BPM and changes key to C minor/D minor. This section uses multi-tracked, choral vocal arrangement and according to Dai Griffiths, a "chord sequence [that ordinarily] would sound seedy, rather like something by the band Portishead".

The fourth and final section begins at 4:58, and is a coda that resolves to the tempo, key and musical patterns of the second movement. After a second solo, a brief guitar riff is introduced, which Jonny Greenwood says "was something I had floating around for awhile and the song needed a certain burn. It happened to be the right key and the right speed and it fit right in." The song ends, as does the second section, with a short chromatically descending guitar motif.

Remarking on the band's goals for the "Paranoid Android" music video, Yorke said that, "When it came time to make the video for that song, we had lots of people saying, 'Yeah, great, we can have another video like "Street Spirit", all moody and black and dark. Well, no. We had really good fun doing this song, so the video should make you laugh. I mean, it should be sick, too." Magnus Carlsson, Swedish creator of the animated series Robin, was commissioned by the band to make the video. Radiohead were fans of the show, and connected with the Robin character; Jonny Greenwood described him as "affectionate" and "vulnerable", while Yorke admitted that he found Robin "quite the vulnerable character, but he's also violently cynical and quite tough and would always get up again." At first Carlsson sought to work on a video for "No Surprises" and was uncertain as to how to approach "Paranoid Android". Eventually he devised a scenario to the band's liking after he locked himself in his office for over 12 hours to stare out of the window, while listening to the song on repeat while jotting down visual ideas. As Carlsson did not have access to the lyrics at the time, the concept for the video was based entirely on the song's sound. According to Yorke, the band "deliberately didn't send Magnus the lyrics" because they "didn't want [the video] to be too literal."

Like Robin, the "Paranoid Android" video is drawn in a simplistic style that emphasises bold colours and clear, strong lines. It features Robin and his friend Benjamin venturing into the world, running into miserable EU representatives, bullying pub patrons, two kissing leathermen, a drug addict, deranged businessmen, mermaids and an angel who plays table tennis with Robin. The band appears in cameo at a bar, where they are shown drinking while watching a man with a head coming out of his belly dancing on their table. However, in this cameo only the versions of Yorke and Jonny Greenwood resemble themselves; O'Brien said "If you freeze-frame it on the video, the guy with the five strands of hair slicked back, that's Colin. It looks nothing like him." Colin Greenwood said "there was no way that we could appear in it to perform in it because that would be so Spinal Tap" and that having animations that did not resemble the band members allowed the video to be "twisted and colourful which is how the song is anyway". Yorke was ultimately pleased with the video, saying that it "is really about the violence around [Robin], which is exactly like the song. Not the same specific violence as in the lyrics, but everything going on around him is deeply troubling and violent, but he's just drinking himself into oblivion. He's there, but he's not there. That's why it works. And that's why it does my head in every time I see it." 

Evan Sawdey of PopMatters described the video as "bizarre-yet-fitting", and Melody Maker said it represented a stunning "psycho-cartoon". Adrian Glover of Circus called the animation incredible and the video "really cool". MTV vice president of music Lewis Largent told Spin "You can watch 'Paranoid Android' a hundred times and not figure it all out."

Here is the interesting video clip of Paranoid Android:

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/

Story of "Creep"

“Creep” was the first single from Radiohead and a track on their debut album Pablo Honey. When it was first released in September 1992, Radio 1 found it too depressing, and so after being aired only twice, it was taken off the station’s playlist, but it subsequently became the band’s biggest hit.

Thom Yorke explains the song saying that he wrote it while studying at Exeter University. It tells the tale of an inebriated man who tries to get the attention of a woman he is attracted to, by following her around. In the end, he lacks the self-confidence to pull it off. Although he usually referred to the drunken student in the third person, with no little contempt, sometimes outright denying it was him, he sometimes admitted it was.

The song has been released in a few versions: the original contains the word “fucking (special)”; an instrumental radio edit, on which this is replaced by “very (special)”, appears on several compilations and is a bonus track on the American version of Pablo Honey. Allegedly Thom said that the band isn’t pleased about this edit, saying that the song had lost its anger as a result. Other versions of Creep release by Radiohead on B-sides include a performance from the Town & Country Club in London on 14 March 1993 (also on a Japanese reissue of Pablo Honey) and a version performed by Thom solo on acoustic guitar for KROQ in Los Angeles on 13 July 1993 with the clean version of the lyrics, which was also included on the EPs Itch and My Iron Lung in various territories.

The single is generally credited with catapulting the band to world-wide renown. In late March 1993 they flew to Israel for their first taste of fame following its success there as a result of heavy airplay on Galei Tzahal, and late in May they flew to the USA for more success– a San Francisco radio station had picked it up, and little by little “Creep” had permeated the nation’s airwaves. It was not a hit at home in the UK until it was reissued in September that year, almost a year after the first release, and by this time the song’s popularity had spread worldwide. Some attribute “Creep’s” success to its capture of the loser/slacker zeitgeist of the early 1990s (which had a similar effect on Beck’s Loser, and had previously catapulted Nirvana and the grunge idea into the mainstream.) If so, it was a double-edged success, quickly earning the band the reputation of ‘complaint rockers’ and leading to speculation that they were one-hit wonders.

The song is widely recognized for the two blasts of guitar noise that precede the chorus. The story goes that during initial runs of the song, guitarist Jonny Greenwood was fed up with the slow pace of the song and that this was his way of showing his displeasure. When they were first running through their songs for producers Sean Slade and Paul Q Kolderie one of the band described Creep as “our Scott Walker song” and they misunderstood and initially dismissed it, thinking it was a cover version.

The first Radiohead gigs were attended primarily for the performance of “Creep”; anything else, the crowd didn’t want to hear, and the band soon started to resent playing it. This led to the band’s creation of “My Iron Lung”, which featured as the title song of their next release, My Iron Lung EP (1994), and as track 8 on their second album The Bends (1995). This track deals with how Creep was the song they relied on, how it was their “life-support”, their “iron lung”. Thom explained in an interview that they didn’t want to stop playing it as that would be making a big deal about it, however he often made comments before the song on stage which suggested he had little respect for anyone who wanted to hear it. (Ironically on the live version available which predates the song’s success he can be heard bemoaning the fact that it wasn’t a hit.)

After mid 1998 they did not play the song live at all until the final encore of their hometown concert at South Park in Headington in Oxford in 2001, when they played it in a seemingly impromptu decision after an equipment failure on the keyboard near the start of Motion Picture Soundtrack. Since then they have played it 13 more times (Including their latest performance of the song as they headlined V Festival 2006). It is rare to attend a Radiohead concert and hear Creep played.

The song is similar to the 1974 song “The Air That I Breathe” by The Hollies. The songs have an almost identical bass line, and the verses have the same chord structure and a similar melody. As a result the publishing credits also include Albert Hammond and Mike Hazelwood in addition to the five Radiohead members.

In March 2005, Q magazine placed “Creep” at number 15 in its list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks.

You can watch the video clip of Creep here:

The annimated video below is the acoustic version of Creep:

Sources: 

http://www.greenplastic.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/

Stanley Donwood - Graphic Designer of Radiohead

Modified Bear logo
by Stanley Donwood

Stanley Donwood is the pen name of English artist Dan Rickwood. Donwood is known for his close association with the Radiohead, having created all their album and poster art. He has also collaborated with Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke and others on the band's website, and appeared in the occasional band webcast and the 2001 Grammy Awards ceremony.
After graduating from the University of Exeter, Donwood worked as a freelance artist in Plymouth, England. Aside from his work for Radiohead, Donwood also maintains his own website,Slowly Downward, where short stories and various other writings are published. 
Stanley Donwood and Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke met as art students at the University of Exeter. Donwood was asked by Yorke to produce the cover art for the 1995 album The Bends, which would begin a collaborative working relationship between the pair for various Radiohead art and promotional material. According to an interview, Donwood jestingly said his first impressions of Yorke were that he was "'Mouthy. Pissed off. Someone I could work with.'" Yorke is credited alongside Donwood under the moniker "The White Chocolate Farm", "Dr. Tchock", "Tchocky" or similar abbreviations.

For Radiohead's 2000 album Kid A, Donwood produced a series of mountainous landscapes and a series of images centered around a minotaur. Donwood cites Caspar David Friedrich and Hieronymus Bosch, as well as time spent in war museums and mountain landscapes as influences in its bleak, post-apocalyptic style.

In 2002, Donwood and Yorke won a Grammy Award for Best Recording Package for the Special Edition for the album Amnesiac. Donwood's writings have also been used in his Radiohead album artwork, and frequently on Radiohead's official website.

Nine acrylic on canvas paintings, inspired by Paula Scher's map paintings, provided the basis for 2003's Hail to the Thief's look, creating maps of war torn cities like Kabul and Grozny out of brightly colored blocks with politically charged words or phrases.

In 2006, Donwood began creating and selling large screenprints. In an interview with antiMusic.com, he explained it as an effort to reconnect with the process of print making and as a means to share his art in a larger format than the small, low quality prints in album cover and insert art, "It's a way of getting pictures out in the way they should be seen; not as 4-colour litho on cheap paper, but as real pieces of artwork that have a much greater visual impact."

Donwood's most recent exhibition, "London Views", is a series of fourteen lino prints of various London landmarks being destroyed by fire and flood. The prints are being exhibited in Lazarides Gallery, in Soho, London. The prints are also used as the cover and insert art for Thom Yorke's solo album, The Eraser.

In November 2006, Donwood exhibited the original paintings and other artwork done by him and Yorke for Radiohead albums, at Iguapop Gallery in Barcelona. The exhibit focused onKid A, Amnesiac and Hail to the Thief as well as a companion art book called Dead Children Playing which was produced, credited to Donwood and Tchock.

In late 2006, Stanley Donwood, along with Richard Lawrence launched an independent record company, named Six Inch Records.

Only three albums were released on the record label, each with three hundred and thirty three copies of each release. The CD discs were packaged by hand into sleeves that were six inches square. All mechanised operations - printing, cutting and scoring were carried out using a 1965 Heidelberg platen press.

On 18 February 2009, Donwood announced on the Six Inch Record blog that the online shop was to be closed, as there were no more records to sell. Donwood stated on the matter: "Six Inch Records is no longer a going concern, and there will be no more musicians signed, records made, events held."

You can find list of works of Stanley Donwood here.

You can find some information about The King of Limbs newspaper album of Stanley Donwood here.

You can find some of photos in that newspaper album here.

And these are some of photos in the newspaper album:

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/

http://www.ateaseweb.com/

http://www.creativereview.co.uk/

http://imgur.com/

Thom Yorke

Thomas Edward Yorke    07-10-1968

They made much use of the various different rooms and atmosfheres throughout the house, and the isolation from the outside world encouraged time to run at a different pace, making working hours more flexible and spontaneus. Again, the set-up was unorthodox; the band played in the ballroom, with Nigel Godrich recording in the library. Thom sung Exit Music (for a film) in the chilly stone entrance hall; Let Down was recorded live at 3.00 am in the ballroom. This was starting in November, after spending October at home rehearsing.

By Christmas almost fourteen songs were completed. They were finished and mixed in London during January and February 1997. ”Obviously there was still pressure, but it was in an environment where we could cope with it,” says Yorke. “The biggest pressure was actually completing it,” adds O’Brien. “We weren’t given any deadlines and we had complete freedom to do what we wanted. We were delaying it because we were a bit frightened of actually finishing stuff.” OK Computer was released in June 1997. The album has received many awards including a Grammy for Best Alternative Album. The album was followed by their “Against Demons World Tour“. An intensive touring schedule and rave reviews for ’OK Computer’ and Radiohead’s live shows had it’s influence on the band. Grant Gee, director of the ‘No Surprises’ video accompanied the band on their tour and filmed the hectic life of the new rock stars, which resulted in the ‘on the fly’ documentary “Meeting People Is Easy”.High expectations remain while Radiohead took some time off before starting to work on ‘Kid A‘. The band only appeared at the Amnesty International Concert in Paris (Dec. 10th 1998) and Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood performed at the Tibetan Freedom Concert in Amsterdam, where a new song, ”Pyramid Song” made it’s live debut.

After Ed O’brien’s contribution to a soundtrack project for the BBC drama series “Eureka Street”, the band returned to the studios for the recordings of ‘Kid A‘. New material premiered during three internet webcasts. Radiohead broadcasted from a studio somewhere in England. ‘Knives Out’ was played in their December ’99 Webcast, while ‘Everything in it’s right place’ debuted in their second webcast in February 2000.

Ed O’Brien kept the fans up-to-date with his diary on the recording sessions. The band finished their album in April 2000, while a European Tour was scheduled for June and July 2000 in ancient theatres and special venues. The band also toured in a big tent in September and October 2000.

The fourth album, ‘Kid A’ was released on October 2nd 2000. The album was a big succes, although not promoted with any singles. Iblips with clips of the new songs were used to promote the album, mainly on the internet. ‘Kid A’ reached the number one position in the USA and received a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Album.

But Radiohead will be releasing more and more material. The band returned to the studio and finished their 5th album in November 2000. Thom Yorke said on January 11th:. “We need time to finish artwork and the film work that goes with it”, The comment demonstrates the bands remarkable volte face regarding matters of promotion. Yorke went on to say that the band are “really proud of Amnesiac and we want to give it a fair chance within the giant scary cogs of the bullshit machine”. “If ‘Kid A’ is difficult then God help us!”The new album, entitled “Amnesiac“, is due for release on June 4th 2001. “Amnesiac” includes tracks like ‘Dollars and Cents’, ‘I Might Be Wrong’ and ‘You and Whose Army?’. The final track, ‘Life in a Glass House‘, features jazz trumpeter and broadcaster Humphrey Lyttleton. “Pyramid Song” & “Knives Out” were released as singles, together with music videos. The band released an internet only video for ‘I might be wrong’ on their official site. ‘Amnesiac’ sells even more copies than ‘Kid A’. The album release was followed by a sold out tour through Europe, North America and Japan. Highlight of the tour is a show in their hometown Oxford on July 7th 2001, where the band headlines it’s own festival together with Sigur Ros, Beck and Supergrass.

The live recordings of the tour are compiled on an 8 track live album, ‘I might be wrong – live recordings‘. The mini-album features songs from ‘Kid A’ & ‘Amnesiac’, as well as an acoustic version of the previously unreleased ‘True Love Waits‘.

In the meantime Jonny Greenwood has also been recording some original music for a documentary about the human body, called ‘Bodysong’. Asian Dub Foundation released their new album featuring Ed O’Brien on guitar. Ed collaborated with the band on three tracks: ’1000 Mirrors’ (as well as Sinead O’Connor), ‘Blowback’ and ‘Enemy of the enemy’.

Radiohead begin recording the follow-up to ‘Amnesiac‘ in April 2002. Colin Greenwood said in March 2002: “We’re going to start work again in April. We’re going to give it a bit more of a break than the last time. We’re planning to play some shows in Europe in the summer and we’ll take it from there.”

The shows in Portugal and Spain are aimed at road-testing new material recorded in studio sessions booked to start April 2002. The intention is to play to hardcore fans, rather than what they see would be a larger, potentially more apathetic festival audience. Guitarist Jonny Greenwood previously said that the gigs are “to let [Radiohead] get their shit together” and allow the songs the chance to evolve, while fellow band member Ed O’Brien explained that they want to be “pretty self-indulgent”

The band record the songs played that debuted live in Los Angeles, Colin Greenwood: “We fly to LA at the end of august. (Longtime producer) Nigel Godrich rents a space there. We’re going to spend two weeks working. The plan is like with OK Computer’ We’ll have loads of songs we know and it’ll just be (mimes dumping a pile of books on the table)… there!” He thinks about this: “It means that we’ll be in America for September 11. Which will be interesting” Jonny Greenwood said: “We’re going to LA to record to the new album. No, it’s not very ‘Radiohead’, but we recorded the last album in a cold northern Europe location because we thought it was us. It wasn’t. So we’ll try this.” Joking about it being a West Coast album in the style of The Eagles or Lynyrd Skynyrd Jonny said:”Well Phil’s singing, so it could work out that way,”

Thom: “Well, the idea is not to use any computers on this record. (Mirthless laugh) Ha!, we’ll see how long that lasts.” Thom Yorke did two solo perfomances for the Bridge School Benefit Concert in Mountain View in October 2002, where he played new songs ‘Sail to the moon‘ & ‘There there ‘.

Ed O’Brien in October 2002: “We’ve done about four weeks.” He explained, “Two weeks in Los Angeles and two in our own studio in Oxford. It’s sounding good. A lot of energy, really good. It just feels really good. As I always say it’s gonna be an album of three minute pop songs. That’s what they always say but that’s what it is this time.” When asked if he was joking, or whether he was serious about the sudden change of style for the band’s, O’Brien remained positive. “Yeah,” O’Brien laughed, “Guitars? Yup, there are a few. In fact there’s a bit of everything. It’s sounding really good. It’s like ‘We’ve honed our thing, we’ve done our thing’ so what we’re doing feels like the right thing to be doing now. As vague as I am.”

In January 2003 Ed says that the atmosphere in the band is “fucking brilliant” compared to the frosty recording sessions for their last two albums ‘Kid A’ and ‘Amnesiac, and that the new songs contain “space and sunshine and energy”. He commented: “You know that time when bands begin to swagger, like when the Stones got in a grove from ’68 to ’73? In the last two years, I think we’ve done that. To me, this record feels like the culmination of the best bits of ‘The Bends‘, ‘OK Computer‘, ‘Kid A’ and ‘Amnesiac‘. Speaking to Q, drummer Phil Selway added: “I don’t think we’ve ever felt so self assured in the studio. This time no shit hit the fan. And Thom’s voice has been incredible. That’s the stand out element for me. He’s reminded us that he’s in a league of his own.”

Recording is completed in January, although sessions on the record are expected to continue until at least mid-February. When talking about the working titles ’2+2=5′ & ‘Are you listening?’ Thom denied that they were going to be the actual titles (“K O R R e K T ! it isnt. it never was. HA!”).

The album title, ‘Hail to the thief‘, release date (June 9th 2003) and its tracklisting are announced on March 24th 2003. But, unfortunately for the band an early mix of the album leaks on the internet in full on March 30th. The unfinished recordings are all over the internet. Radio stations broadcast the new material as well.

Two days later producer Nigel Godrich confirms: “Its the rough mixes …. some tracks not even finished. aint that a bitch? Not really what I’d want the world to hear, frankly. boo.” Jonny Greenwood: “People will still download them and hear them, I can understand the temptation. It’s not the fans I’m pissed off about, it’s just the situation I guess. It’s stolen work, fer fuck’s sake.”

Colin Greenwood: “All the attention is gratifying, but we want it when all our hard work’s done and the best it can be. Until then, this is all just unhelpful noise. Wait until you see the final, real, finished album!!!!!” Probably not what Colin had in mind, but just 3 weeks before the release date, the finished album does leak on the web as well.

The albums first single ‘There There’ is released on May 26th. Radiohead’s own TV station at Radiohead.tv launches on June 9th.

Radiohead play a short tour throughout the UK and Ireland in small venues, kicking off in Dublin, Ireland on May 17th. The tour is more or less a testcase for a lengthy tour scheduled for the rest of the year. The band play European festivals in May and June including their first Glastonbury Festival appearance since their 1997 performance.

At the moment Radiohead continue their tour in July and August with dates in France, Italy, Switzerland, Spain and Japan. The band will play in North America in August and September. Another tour in the UK and Ireland is set for November and December.

Sources: 

http://www.ateaseweb.com/

http://www.undertheradarmag.com/

http://picsnow.us/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/

Phil Selway

Philip James Selway   23-05-1967

They liked the simple way they’d recorded Black Star (on the Bends) and Lucky (for the Bosnian charity album HELP) with engineer Nigel Godrich and asked him to build and man a mobile studio for them. Radiohead began writing OK Computer in early 1996 at their rehearsal studio, Canned Applause, a converted apple shed near their homes in Oxford, England. By July they had recorded four songs with producer Nigel Godrich. Having learnt from the Bends, they decided to break the songs in live before completing the record.

By July 1996, Canned Applause was set up for recording. It was the first time the band had attempted to cut album tracks outside of a conventional studio environment. Despite the experimental and unconventional setting, four songs from Canned Applause found their way onto the album. The songs were Subterranean Homesick alien, Electioneering, The Tourist and No Surprises. This last song was, in fact, the first day of the Canned Applause sessions.

In August 1996, Radiohead returned to America to tour, and again used it as an opportunity to play in new material. The band’s new material was premiered on a 13-date American tour supporting Alanis Morissette.

While on the road, they sampled some of their new material live, including an epic, expansive version of “Paranoid Android.” “If you think it’s a long song now, you should have heard it then,” boasts O’Brien. “It was eight to ten minutes longer, and when we started playing it live, it was completely hilarious. There was a rave down section and a Hammond organ outro, and we’d be pissing ourselves while we played. We’d bring out the glockenspiel and it would be really, really funny.”

September 1996, Radiohead moved their equipment from Canned Applause to St. Catherine’s Court, a mansion in Bath once owned by the actress Jane Seymour. There, they recorded the rest of Ok Computer away from the pressures and distractions of the big city. “We set up in the ballroom,” remembers bassist Colin Greenwood, “and the control room was set up in the library, which had these amazing views over the gardens. There were some magical evenings as we sat down with pieces of music with the windows open.”

Sources:

http://www.ateaseweb.com/

http://galeri.uludagsozluk.com/

http://www.independent.ie

Ed O'Brien

Edward John O'Brien    15-04-1968

Meanwhile, unbeknown to the band, a radio station in San Fransisco, “Live 105″ had just named Creep its favourite record of the year and quickly crossed over onto L.A.’s KROQ and other Westcoast stations. The single eventually peaked at a modest 34 in the US, but Pablo Honey went gold. Exactly a year after it’s original release, a reissued Creep finally hut the UK charts, peaking at number 7. Because the album kept on breaking around the world, the Pablo Honey Tour lumberd into its second year.

The tension lingered into the recording of the second album, produced by John Leckie. The edifice marked “follow-up to Creep” cast a long shadow over the sessions. “It was either going to be Sulk,The Bends, Nice Dream or Just,” Leckie remembers. “We had to give those absolute attention, make the amzing, instant smash hits number 1 in America. Everyone was pulling their hair and saying, ‘It’s not good eneough! We were trying too hard”

In the meantime, My Iron Lung was released in 1994. The 8-track EP showed the transistion between “Pablo Honey” and the upcoming album “The Bends”. My Iron Lung (taken from a live show recorded at London’s Astoria), was also released as a singl e, but peaked at a disappointing 23 in the charts.

The solution was a change of scenery. Radiohead quit the studio and toured Australasia and the Far East. “It made them re-evaluate what they were good at and enjoyed doing,” claimed Hufford. “Playing live again put the perspective back on what they’d lost in the studio.” Having worked the songs in on the road, they returned to Britain and completed the album in a fortnight.

“The Bends” was released in 1995. Radiohead were back and were no longer the one-hit-wonder band, but it wouldn’t be until the fifth single from the album, Street Spirit, 18 months later, that Radiohead would hit the top 10 again.

Sources:

http://www.ateaseweb.com/radiohead-biography/

http://www.greenplastic.com/

http://www.soundunwound.com/

Jonny Greenwood

Jonathan Greenwood   05-11-1971

Hufford and Edge had become their managers. Their relationship was immediately put under strain. The debut release was an EP produced by them. “Not a clever move” admits Chris Hufford. “A huge conflict of interests. I think Thom was very insecure of my involvement. I’d had that happen to me as an artist when one of our managers acted as producer. There was definately some friction on that front. Otherwise it was a treat, we fired out the songs. The 4-track Drill EP came out in March 1992 with Prove Yourself as the lead track. It reached 101 in the UK singles chart. It was time to find new producers.

Paul Q. Kolderie and Sean Slade, who produced Buffalo Tom’s “Let me come over”, were hired to produce the two songs for the next single, Inside My Head and Lurgee. Both the band and the producers weren’t too happy with the songs Parlophone had chosen. “Inside my Head wasn’t very melodic, didn’t have any of the stuff we thought the others had, so we were rather disappointed”, says Paul Kolderie. “And the one day in rehearsel, they burst into this other song, which I gues they’d just written. When they finished it, Thom mumbled something like, “That’s our Scott Walker song”…except I thought he said “That’s a Scott Walker song”. Now I was pretty familiar with Scott Walker, but Jeez, there’s a lot of albums and I could have missed something! We walked out of the rehearsal that night and Sean said, “Too bad their best song’s a cover”.

That song was Creep. Legend has it that the band weren’t unanimously keen on Creep. Jonny’s famous guitar crunches were supposedly an attempt to ruin a song he didn’t like. “Jonny played the piano at the en d of the song and it was gorgeous” notes Kolderie. “Everyone who heard Creep just started going insane.” So that’s what got us the job doing the album.”  

Pablo Honey was completed in three weeks. Creep was released to coincide in September 1992, while Pablo Honey was scheduled for the new year. Creep came out to an audible shrug; one or two good reviews, almost no airplay and just enough sales (about 6,000) to get it to number 78 in the UK charts. Pablo Honey was released together with the third single Anyone Can Play Guitar.

Souces:

http://www.ateaseweb.com/

http://s4.photobucket.com/

http://www.radyokafa.com/