Green Plastic Radiohead

Radiohead.com has been updated with a “Dead Air Space” blog/journal that Thom has been posting in. Among his sometimes hard to understand sentences is this nugget of info about Radiohead’s current record label status:

“we have no record conntract.
as such.
any offers?..what we would like is th e old EMI back again, the nice genteel arms manufacturers who treated music a nice side project who werent to bothered about the shareholders. ah well
not much chance of that…..”

He also mentions that the band will be heading to the studio on Thursday.
The blog is a new idea, very similar to Ed’s online diary back in the Kid A recording sessions. MaxK, Radiohead website handyman and once webmaster of the wonderful unofficial RH site Planet Telex, had this to say this morning:

good day everybody!
as you may or may not have noticed we’ve added something new to www.radiohead.com
dead air space is an attempt to do something that every man and his dog, literally, have been doing on the internet for the last 5 years.
itll be used by all the members of radiohead to put up words + pictures and things when they have something to say. and also when they dont.
its an attempt to make the site slightly more in focus as everything else starts coming into focus, so to speak.
itll be updated like this rest of the site – sporadically with no guarantees or refunds.
i think that is about it… we hope it provides some interest for some of you at some point.

UPDATE: For some reason, Thom’s post about the record contract has been removed. Hmmm….

An email from Mr. Donwood:
Hello. This is an email to let you know that I’m doing another series of prints, this time for Banksy’s site, www.picturesonwalls.com.
You’ve probably heard of Banksy; he’s done loads of graffiti all over the world. He gave some monkeys in a zoo pieces of cardboard with ‘I’m a celebrity – get me out of here’ written on them.
Anyway, his site features prints from loads of people, such as 3D, Jamie Hewlett, David Shrigley, and one of my favourite artists ever, Gee Vaucher.
So I’m pretty pleased to be associated with the site, and I’m doing some different work to that on my own site, www.slowlydownward.com.
To start with there are four new prints, but I’m planning to add another six or so over the summer. So yes, this is an announcement; go to www.picturesonwalls.com. And www.slowlydownward.com. And www.radiohead.com.
Stanley Donwood

Bands including Gorillaz, Razorlight and Radiohead are hoping to set a record for the fastest recording of a download album, for charity War Child.
Each group has been asked to record an original piece of music in one day – emulating the original War Child charity album of 1995.
The tracks will be made available to download on 9 September and on CD a few weeks later.
Profits will go towards helping children affected by global conflict.
The 1995 War Child Help album raised more than £1.25m to aid children caught up in the Bosnian conflict.
The charity has also supported projects in Kosovo, Serbia, Rwanda and Iraq.
Radiohead were among the bands to contribute to the first album with their song Lucky, which became the signature tune of the Help album.
‘Re-making history’
Now bands including The Coral, Bloc Party, Manic Street Preachers and The Zutons are creating new tracks for Help: A Day in the Life.
The majority of the songs will be recorded on 8 and 9 September and released on the internet on 9 September.
Mark Waddington, chief executive of War Child said: “It was my intention that any new album we made in 2005 should match up to the feats of the past.
“That’s why we have set ourselves the challenge of re-making history and releasing the fastest album ever… again!”
He added: “It’s a tall order but we feel with the support of amazing artists such as Radiohead, Magic Numbers and Hard-Fi, we can make it happen and help a new generation of children affected by war.”
(from BBC News)

Here’s some fun Tuesday reading for you!
“Some people just don’t get it. Being a Radiohead fan is the equivalent to being a rock and roll snob. Their music is a critic’s dream, with each subsequent listen bringing further analysis and dissection. Genius. Brilliance. Pioneers. These are all words that have been used to describe British rock band Radiohead and their hesitation to fit into anything deemed mainstream. ”
Read the rest…

Stanley Donwood is the semi-official sixth member of Radiohead. Having designed all artwork from The Bends onwards, he has created one of music’s most distinctive band images. Now he’s screen-printing old favourites and new classics, and selling them through his website. Here he tells GQ exclusively why.
How did you first get involved with the band?
“I have lied about this so many time that the truth, if there ever was one, has become impossibly sedimented in the strata of my deceit.” (Donwood met lead singer Thom Yorke at the University of Exeter)
Who or what inspires you?
“The first pictures that I ever saw were by John Constable, on biscuit tins and as jigsaw box lids. When in the Eighties I saw Peter Kennard’s versions of these paintings, with ‘The Haywain’ as an image of a missile launcher, I knew that I could be an artist. Or something.”
What’s your favourite Radiohead artwork?
“Kid A. The artwork for this record was almost impossible to do. I wanted to make artwork that looked, from a distance, like jewellery thrown onto mud, but close up revealed itself as the most ghastly shit that people can ever do to each other. I was fascinated by the horror in the Balkans at the time. At the same time, this was a continuation of the work on OK Computer, and it continues on Amnesiac and Hail To The Thief. So they’re all inextricably linked.”
Are you, for sound bite purposes, “the Terry Gilliam of Radiohead”?
“While it’s really complimentary to be compared to someone such as Terry Gilliam, I don’t honestly think it’s appropriate. God, I’d love to make something as good as Brazil. Here’s the riposte: a sound bite is a statement designed to preclude the possibility of intelligent thought.”
Do the band have input with your work?
“Oh, man, I’m terrible at working on my own. There’s no frame of reference, no one to tell you if what you’re doing is good or fucking terrible. I once spent two months working on this idea that combined topiary with porn. I joined the National Trust and everything, just so I could cycle to all these gardens that had famous topiary in them and photograph it. I wanted to make pictures that had phallic topiary fucking vulva-shaped clouds. Quite tastefully, I might add. Anyway, there I was, taking photos and really getting into it… until Thom told me that it might not be…. quite the thing… for the new record. Honestly, topiary and photography… what was I thinking?”
So why the new venture?
“I hadn’t screen-printed for about 15 years and I thought I’d better start with something I knew. And I imagined that a few people might like proper versions of pictures only ever seen as the 12x12cm images in jewel cases.”
Prints, in limited editions of 288, 288 pounds each, and of 144, 144 pounds each, www.slowlydownward.com

Another flash animation of a Radiohead song. This time it’s “I Will”.
Also, check out “Sexual High”. If you’re in to Radiohead (why else would you be here?) and Marvin Gaye, you might like this mash-up of “Sexual Healing” and “High and Dry”. (thanks to biz and aeon)