Here’s some information from GP visitor James Jinsai about the promotional blitz Capitol Records is doing for Hail to the Thief. It seems that the album was heavily promoted at last weekend’s Coachella Festival in California:
Hey. Just got back from coachella… a few things… HTTT propaganda everywhere first off. The most noticable advertisement from the festival was a plane with a HTTT banner trailing its tail flying around LIKE MAD during Blur’s set. It looked like it was trying to chase its tail (the HTTT banner). It was so bizarre that the lead singer of Blur actually stopped and addressed it with something along the lines of “well, lets just stare at it for a second.”
There were a couple of trucks painted red with RADIOHEAD: Hail to the Thief written on them. Each one was handing out lots of promotional stuff. There were rectangular blue and red HTTT stickers which just simply said Hail to the Thief on them with the release date underneath. Also, amongst the weirder stuff was a temporary Hail to the Theif tattoo (which had the text “Do not affix to any part of your body or any other body, under penalty of ridicule and public humiliation. Someone else is gonna come clean it up. Someone always does.” written on the backside along with the release date).
Perhaps the strangest trinket was a Radiohead Hail the Thief bus/subway pass… I really have NO idea what this thing is. It has instructions on the back which detail how to slide it like a card on the subway or bus. It requests that you “please refill and continue to use this card until expiration date” and gives a phone number, which I presume is how you would go about refilling it (with special details regarding use outside of NYC). Oh yeah, the expiration date is the release date of HTTT, June 10.
Also, according to Tammy from KROQ, the video for There There is part film, part animation, which she likened to “that A-ha video, or Who Framed Roger Rabbit.” She went on to say that the video portrays Thom being chased around by a cartoon wrench.
