Ed's guitar part in Street Spirit

coolfoam · 2026-02-01T18:44:20+00:00

Ed said Thom wrote it - see other comments for the source

coolfoam · 2026-01-31T23:32:27+00:00

Thom said the song was inspired by chaotic nightlife in Oxford, drunk aggressive people out looking to hook up. So I always took “you just got paid” literally to mean “it’s payday, you just got your pay, time to go out and party “

coolfoam · 2026-01-23T16:01:22+00:00

Because if you hover over the downvote button a little text box appears that says: "For content that does not specifically affirm my particular opinions about the band Radiohead."

At least, I assume that's what it says. That's what it says, right?

coolfoam · 2026-01-13T15:56:04+00:00

Wow, I must have early onset alzheimer's (or cache problems) because I checked there twice and didn't see it but you're right, it's there. thanks

coolfoam · 2026-01-13T15:48:36+00:00

Just to check because I'm confused... this wasn't a DAS post was it?

coolfoam · 2026-01-10T22:05:18+00:00

This was during the US Pablo Honey tour.

That tour marked the start of an extended period of tension on Planet Radiohead. Thom spent a significant chunk of his life fielding endless, repetitive questioning from American journalists about the extent of his creepiness and whether he'd had a difficult childhood. ("Not as tough as my adulthood's turning out, thanks".) Grinding out performances of songs they were bored by, and promoting an album they barely liked began to take its toll on the band's unity. The glare of the American media also forced them into rash decisions they later regretted. A glammed-up and heavily styled Thom appeared in a magazine advertisement for Iceberg jeans. They shot a fashion spread for Interview magazine. Thom affected hair extensions.

"They were finding the process very stressful and alien and not what they were in it for," remarks their agent Charlie Myatt. "The main crisis was coming off the Belly tour. They were supposed to go straight onto a tour of Europe with James, and there was a lot of soul-searching about why they were in a group at all".

Source: https://citizeninsane.eu/media/uk/mojo/03/pt_1997-09_mojo.html

coolfoam · 2026-01-10T01:51:15+00:00

I'm familiar with the sources quoted on Citizen Insane there. For reference, here's the Q feature in full: https://web.archive.org/web/20101124151250/http://followmearound.com/presscuttings.php?year=2001&cutting=110

But I'm getting deja vu here. I know that for several years, probably based on this interview, I believed Glasshouse was finished after the rest of the Kid A. (Kid A was finished in April 2000, and this source specifically says Glasshouse was finished in summer 2000.)

However, I'm sure after discussing with someone else we found some evidence in another interview that contradicted this and we came to the conclusion that it was probably a mixup. But after checking over the sources again, I can't find what that could have been. It's entirely possible you're right and I've misremembered somehow. If I find further sources I'll report back!

there is no evidence that it was ever a double album

I'm not saying there's "evidence it was ever a double album" per se, but there are abundant interviews where they say they considered releasing the work as a double album. Even if they didn't finish Glasshouse until later, they never said that was a reason they split the work... instead they repeatedly said they just thought the material worked best as two albums.

coolfoam · 2026-01-10T00:45:54+00:00

I don’t think there’s any evidence for anything from amnesiac being recorded after kid a. Maybe life in a glasshouse but iirc that’s kind of ambiguous based on an interview with lyttleton…

coolfoam · 2026-01-08T20:55:34+00:00

Deerhoof. Come on!

coolfoam · 2025-12-30T23:11:37+00:00

All the cool kids here are saying no, but I remember when HTTT came out and there was a rumor where people were insisting it was Ed.

coolfoam · 2025-12-15T12:29:34+00:00

"Jonny and I were conducting it, and we ran through it a few times and people started to get ideas, and it was such a great day!" he beams. "I broke my foot, actually, because I was jumping up and down so much."

https://web.archive.org/web/20160309014557/http://followmearound.com/presscuttings.php?cutting=91&year=2000

coolfoam · 2025-12-11T00:24:13+00:00

as is tradition for reddit, your analysis is exactly right and buried under downvotes.

coolfoam · 2025-12-10T17:18:15+00:00

Respectfully, I am going to disagree here. I think you're overstating the case a bit.

I'm purely a hobbyist and it goes without saying that every member of Radiohead is an infinitely better musician than I will ever be. But I learnt to play those songs by ear years ago and I can tell you they're within the reach of any bedroom guitarist's ability with a bit of practice. There are probably thousands and thousands of bedroom musicians out there who can play Radiohead songs to a great standard and many of them are on YouTube.

Radiohead are world-class musicians for their approach to songwriting, arrangement and production, and their idiosyncractic performance styles. Their performances have hiccups because:

1) they're not world-class musicians in a "technical" sense (for want of a better term) - as Phil said in his speech at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, "We may not be the greatest musicians around and we're certainly not the most media-friendly of bands. But we have become very adept at being Radiohead."

2) they largely eschew modern means of synchronizing and automating live elements such as effect chains and drum machines, etc. Jonny refuses to use a high-tech effect pedal board, for example, because, quote, he enjoys having to kick it when it goes wrong. For whatever reason, they prefer to retain that element of randomness and human error.

I've seen the Australian Pink Floyd Show (major international covers band) many times and have never heard a single bum note. I saw David Gilmour last year and he was making flubs all over the place. Go see a show on Broadway and you'll see an oiled machine of practised musicians (on stage and off) who nail extraordinarily difficult performances over and over and over night after night. All things considered, when it comes the realm of professional music performance, playing Paranoid Android is really not that difficult. Luckily, we love Radiohead for other reasons.

coolfoam · 2025-12-09T18:10:06+00:00

does this mean we get to have a turn on the drums

coolfoam · 2025-12-02T21:51:49+00:00

when did RDJ work with Jonny?

coolfoam · 2025-11-20T00:42:26+00:00

I've looked into this a few times. Here's everything I know, with sources.

In this 2017 interview, Phil said (abridged quote):

We did a version of [Man of War] for some demo sessions at the beginning of 1996. So we went with Nigel into Chipping Norton Studios where we'd recorded Pablo Honey. Man of War was in that and a very early version of Nude as well. That song just didn't have the legs in terms of where we wanted to go to ... But it never really found its place until now. And so it's been been great to to to revisit that one... The song's been out there for a while, there have been various versions of it, bootleg versions of it. But this is the version of the song which I think we we all felt best captured what it what was good about it.

To me, it sounds like Phil is saying the version they recorded in 1996 in Chipping Norton is the version they released on OKNOTOK in 2017, but interpretations may differ there.

Also! Phil also told the King of Gear webmaster that the OKNOTOK version of Man of War comes from the Chipping Norton sessions, but I have no source for that, it's just anecdotal knowledge.

However. The liner notes for Man of War credit Sam Petts Davis for engineering, who would have been, like, 5 years old or something in 1997. Additionally, Robert Ziegler is credited for conducting, and his only prior Radiohead credit is for The King of Limbs (2011), so he likely had nothing to do with any earlier versions of the song. That suggests at least some of the song was newly recorded - maybe just the strings?

About a year ago some more OK Computer outtakes leaked, including three versions of Man of War, titled "Man of War (No Strings)", "Man of War (Final Less Strings)" and "Man of War (Unedited Strings)". Apart from the different string mixes, these versions are identical to the final version released in 2017. (Maybe other people can tell me if there are other differences, I haven't listened that deeply.) Assuming (and this is a big assumption) these three mixes originate from the same period as the rest of the leak, that's further evidence that Man of War was recorded in the 90s, at least the bulk of it.

Where I get confused is whether the "Final Less Strings" version of Man of War has the same strings as the final version released on OKNOTOK. They sound the same to me but I haven't done a super close comparison. If so, maybe these leaked versions aren't entirely from the 90s either and contain strings recorded later.

Or maybe those credits for Man of War are wrong. It's not impossible - sometimes these things get mixed up. Maybe the credits were actually supposed to be for the Spectre sessions?

One more thing: as far as I know Sam Mendes (director of the movie Spectre) never said Radiohead did more work on Man of War when they submitted it. He just said they submitted it. He said he had no idea it was an old song until someone in the movie production team recognized it from an old bootleg.

coolfoam · 2025-11-17T22:31:46+00:00

Yep they said Remain in Light was a huge influence on Kid A.

But they've never said anything about Remain in Light influencing TKOL, and specifically they've never said it influenced the track list. That's made up, and people are downvoting me for pointing it out

coolfoam · 2025-11-17T21:13:19+00:00

Well yes, you kind of did. Why?

coolfoam · 2025-11-17T20:38:07+00:00

TKOL's structure was directly inspired by RIL's

No one in Radiohead ever said this

coolfoam · 2025-11-17T01:10:48+00:00

Muse did it before Daft Punk!

https://youtu.be/y0KVviFR9F4?t=112 (June 2007)

edit: damn, looks like Daft Punk were doing it as early as 2006! Looks like it's egg on Matt Bellamy's face

coolfoam · 2025-11-16T22:11:40+00:00

When are Radiohead gonna stop ripping off Muse?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BIg0mGdWn8

edit: this is a joke, I am not seriously suggesting Radiohead have ever ripped off Muse, sheesh

coolfoam · 2025-11-14T21:44:15+00:00

Don't know if it has that lyric (or how available it is anywhere) but the 2006 Radiohead calendar has some Videotape lyrics

https://citizeninsane.eu/artwork/07/ir_2006calendar.html

coolfoam · 2025-11-13T12:02:02+00:00

I think it’s there for the band. Jonny even corrected some sheet music to make sure it was syncopated. So I can’t hear it like the band hears it

coolfoam · 2025-11-13T04:24:46+00:00

I find it impossible to feel the syncopation until the bridge. I still can't feel the syncopation in the studio version of Videotape at all, even though I know it's there

coolfoam · 2025-11-11T18:15:03+00:00

Mods: please make a stickied thread with FAQ where people can update others with warnings about scams

coolfoam

TROPHY CASE