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Colin Greenwood Ed O'Brien Radiohead

New Documentary about Radiohead/Oxford Music Scene

Anyone Can Play GuitarJon Spira writes in to tell us about a new documentary he made called Anyone Can Play Guitar:

My documentary about the music scene that inspired, nurtured and launched Radiohead is now finished. Ed, Colin and their manager Chris Hufford all took part in the interviews and there is a bunch of hugely significant never-before-seen archival material including early live footage and what we believe to be the earliest ever band photos (taken during the recording of their first demo). We need to raise a few thousand pounds to fund the sound mix and picture grade, so we’ve signed up with indiegogo.com.

Anyone who donates to the project via the link below will get perks packages which include tickets to the premiere, credits on the film and free very limited edition pre-release DVDs of the film with extras that will never be available elsewhere. This is really your only guaranteed chance to see the film as early as possible.

The link to see the trailer and donate is:

http://www.indiegogo.com/Anyone-Can-Play-Guitar

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Pablo Honey Radiohead

On this day in 1992: Creep released

It was on this day in 1992 that Radiohead’s U.K. record label released “Creep” as the first official release from the band. While Radiohead is one of the biggest bands in the world today, “Creep” did not initially do too well. In fact, it wasn’t until the end of 1992 that the song started getting attention. First in Israel and then in America when a DJ at San Francisco’s Live 105 started playing the song. “Creep” was re-released in 1993 and became the huge hit that it was. Legend has it that Jonny Greenwood disliked the song and attempted to sabotage it by thrashing his guitar during the chorus. Little did he know that this actually made the song.

Do you remember the first time you had heard Radiohead? Was it this song? What were you doing in 1992?

Respect.

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Phil Selway Radiohead The King of Limbs

Radiohead returning to studio next week

Radiohead is heading back to the studio in a week’s time to “take stock” of new material and assess when — and how — it should be released to the world.

Drummer Philip Selway told The Canadian Press the band will regroup next Monday to determine how close the followup to “In Rainbows” is to being ready.

“We’ve been working on material on and off for a year now and we’ve had the summer off so yes, we’re basically taking stock on Monday and seeing what we need to do with the material to move it to those final stages,” Selway said in a telephone interview from Amsterdam on Monday.

“We’re just returning to it with fresh ears and taking stock of where we are and how close we are to finishing stuff, really, and we won’t know till Monday.”

The band is working on the eagerly anticipated followup to its seventh album, “In Rainbows,” which sent shock waves through the music world in 2007 when it was first released digitally online, through the band’s own website, and at an indeterminate “it’s up to you” price. The band also streamed a free concert to fans months later on New Year’s Eve, and Selway hinted the band might have some more digital or online plans up its sleeves — although he wouldn’t say what exactly.

“Whatever we do with any record, it always has to come from the music we’ve made, whatever we release, and because we’re not at that stage at the moment — we haven’t finished anything — we don’t know how or what’s the most appropriate way for getting it out there,” he said.

“Then again, you look at the track record of what we’ve done over the past decade in that area and I suppose, you know, it’s probably a safe bet to say there’ll be something in there somewhere along the line.”

While “In Rainbows” was largely shaped by extensive touring and live experimentation with the songs, Selway said that won’t be the case with the new project.

“Uh, no,” he said laughing.

“I don’t know what we’ll be doing but the process of making ‘In Rainbows’ — so much came about through what we were doing live — has been quite the opposite so far. But you never know, we might get back together on Monday and after discussing stuff we might just throw this all out and say maybe we need to go back to the drawing board. Who knows, as I say, it’s all up in the air at the moment.

“But we’ve been enjoying what we’ve been doing.”

(from 570News, thanks to Caroline)

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Colin Greenwood In Rainbows Radiohead The King of Limbs

Colin: “We have just finished another group of songs”

Colin Greenwood
Colin Greenwood

Colin recently wrote  an essay entitled “Set Yourself Free” where he describes the decision the band made in 2007 to release In Rainbows in the “pay what you think it’s worth” format. An interesting read indeed, and even more interesting because Colin reveals that Radiohead have finished recording some new songs:

Three years later, we have just finished another group of songs, and have begun to wonder about how to release them in a digital landscape that has changed again. It seems to have become harder to own music in the traditional way, on a physical object like a CD, and instead music appears the poor cousin of software, streamed or locked into a portable device like a phone or iPod. I buy hardly any CDs now and get my music from many different sources: Spotify, iTunes, blog playlists, podcasts, online streaming – reviewing this makes me realise that my appetite for music now is just as strong as when I was 13, and how dependent I am upon digital delivery. At the same time, I find a lot of the technology very frustrating and counter-intuitive. I spend a lot of time using music production software, but iTunes feels clunky. I wish it was as simple and elegant as Apple’s hardware. I understand that we have become our own broadcasters and distributors, but I miss the editorialisation of music, the curatorial influences of people like John Peel or a good record label. I liked being on a record label that had us on it, along with Blur, the Beastie Boys and the Beatles.

It’s exciting to be discussing new album news again. Keep in mind that Ed said a new album would be out this year.

Read the full essay here.

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In Rainbows Radiohead tour

Radiohead helps fans make concert DVD

This is certainly old news for most of you, though it’s so cool that we had to post it. A group of fans recently put together a DVD of live footage from the 8/23/2009 show in Prague. What’s even cooler is that Radiohead provided the audio masters for them to use so not only do we get amazing visuals, the sound is top notch.

But wait, can it get any better? Yes. The concert is available in a slew of different formats… all for FREE.

Here is the trailer:

To download, check out http://radiohead-prague.nataly.fr/