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Ed O'Brien Radiohead The King of Limbs Thom Yorke

Thom Yorke: The way TKOL was recorded was a gamble

Thom Yorke and Ed O’Brien recently gave an interview with NPR’s Guy Raz and talked about the recording process for The King of Limbs:

Speaking recently with NPR’s Guy Raz about recording The King of Limbs, singer Thom Yorke and guitarist Ed O’Brien agree that, after coming off the long tour cycle for In Rainbows, the band was feeling exhausted and uninspired. To make the new album work, everyone had to slow down and step back.

“We had an initial session of about five weeks, and it was really like kids in kindergarten,” O’Brien says. “You had to simplify what you were doing — you couldn’t do loads of ideas. You had to listen to one another. Believe it or not, in a band you can lose that.

“Part of what you do is rejection,” O’Brien adds. “I think everybody finds it hard, but I think part of creativity is bouncing back from that. What’s great about the environment that we have is that no one ever says, ‘You can’t do that.’ You try it, and then it’s judged on whether it’s right for the track.”

Radiohead tried a new approach for The King of Limbs: Each member worked, piecemeal, on his own contributions before sharing them with the group. Yorke says working that way was a big gamble.

“Almost every tune is like a collage: things we’d pre-recorded, each of us, and then were flying at each other,” Yorke says. “You get to a point where you think, ‘OK, this bit needs a big black line through it.’ It’s like editing a film or something.

“I don’t think we really genuinely thought anything would come out of it,” he adds, “certainly not an entire record.”

Playing live presents its own set of challenges. O’Brien says that, as happy as he was with The King of Limbs upon its completion, the prospect of turning an intricate studio creation into a concert experience was panic-inducing.

“That’s the scary part — you realize that you have created in this vacuum, in this bubble,” O’Brien says. “It plays tricks on the brain.”

But Yorke says adapting the new material was liberating, as well.

“That’s one of the ways we move on musically, is having to force ourselves to learn this thing,” he says. “It’s a backward process, but it really exists in another way once you can actually play it.”

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Jonny Greenwood Radiohead The King of Limbs Thom Yorke

Watch Thom and Jonny on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon

Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood’s taped performance of “Give Up the Ghost” on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon aired last night. In case you missed it, you can watch it below.

Here’s another video of the performance that also includes the introduction that Jimmy Fallon did with special guest, Michael Stipe.

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Radiohead The King of Limbs Thom Yorke

Radiohead to live stream DJ set to celebrate remix release

TKOL RMX 1234567

Check it:

Radiohead will celebrate the release of their remix album ‘TKOL RMX 1234567’ by streaming a live DJ set via The Boiler Room next Tuesday 11th October, from around 8pm UK time.

Thom will be DJing, along with Jamie XX, Caribou, Lone and Illum Sphere, who all feature on the album.

You can watch Radiohead’s takeover of The Boiler Room live via www.boilerroom.tv or www.radiohead.com/deadairspace.

‘TKOL RMX 1234567’ is a CD compilation which collates all the 12” remixes that have been released throughout the summer. The album is released on October 10th and will be available from most music stores.

You can also pre-order it here.

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Atoms for Peace Thom Yorke

In other news: Flea confirms new Atoms for Peace album

Atoms for Peace

While we’ve known for a while now that there’s a new Atoms for Peace album on the way, it is nice to see news about it. Speaking to Rolling Stone, Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea confirmed that the band will be releasing a new album:

Last year, Thom Yorke‘s new group Atoms for Peace hit the road for a brief American tour before playing Coachella. According to the band’s bassist Flea, the group started to work on their first album at that same time. “At the end of the tour we went into a studio for three days and just jammed – totally improvising,” says Flea. “Thom and Nigel [Godrich] have taken that stuff and done shit with it. I’ve heard little bits and pieces. I have no idea when it’s going to come out. Not real soon though.”

Flea says that many people have the wrong perception of Yorke. “People always think about him and talk about as this really cerebral artist,” he says. “Especially when we were playing together. People would go, ‘Thom is so cerebral and Flea is just an animal.’ But Thom is the type of musician who doesn’t think at all. He goes totally on feeling and intuition. Whereas I’m like, ‘You can try a G7 chord with a diminished fifth, that might be proper.’ My point is that he’s such a beautiful, natural and exciting musician. Also, his relationship with Nigel is so cool, Nigel being this organizational, producery-type guy. They’re going to have something incredible. I have complete faith in them.”

He refuses to describe the sound of the new material. “I kinda feel like it’s not really my place to talk about that stuff,” he says. “The mystery should be the mystery.” He does think they will tour again at some point. “I imagine that will probably happen,” he says. “I hope that happens. I just have a warm place in my heart and my mind and my balls for the whole fucking concept.”

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Radiohead

Radiohead to play for Wall St. protestors today? [UPDATE – Nope]

Zuccotti Park
Christopher Robbins/Gothamist

Gawker is reporting the following rumor:

The Occupy Wall Street protesters camped out in Lower Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park are buzzing over a big secret musical guest scheduled to play this afternoon at around 4pm. We hear that it’s Radiohead, who are in New York for a couple concerts.

It makes sense: Radiohead’s lead singer Thom Yorke has a history of lefty anti-globalization protest. What do you think: Are the millionaires from Radiohead authentic enough to be the bards of revolution? They’re certainly capable of mobilizing people: When their New York show sold out in minutes they almost caused a Twitter riot.

Hmmmm… Again this is just a rumor. Stay tuned…

UPDATE: This has been confirmed.

UPDATE AGAIN: Radiohead’s PR agency, Nasty Little Man, just tweeted the following:

RADIOHEAD IS NOT PLAYING WALL STREET TODAY nor were they ever confirmed to do so.

Very weird. From Gawker:

However, an Occupy Wall Street spokesman insists the show will go on and that organizers have email confirmation that Radiohead will be playing an acoustic set at 4pm. “What we think is happening is they don’t want a lot of people to come,” he said. “Trust me, we have confirmation.” CNN is now reporting that the show is happening as well; what might happen if Radiohead doesn’t show up could be more interesting than if they did.

UPDATE 2:19 PM ET: From Gothamist:

A source with MoveOn.org also maintains that Radiohead WILL play, and that the band’s management has “officially” denied any performance because the band wanted this to be “only for the protesters.” A spokesperson for the Mayor’s office has not responded to requests for comment, but police have put in new barricades at Wall Street and Nassau.

The possibility of a big, disorganized free concert calls to mind the great Drake shitshow concert at the South Street Seaport last year, and the Justin Bieber mall riot!

We’re getting the sense that Radiohead may have wanted to show up unannounced and play for the demonstrators, but someone connected with the protest leaked it to Gawker to get the publicity they’re now savoring.

 UPDATE: 3:15 PM ET: From Radiohead:

We wish the best of luck to the protesters there, but contrary to earlier rumours, we will not be appearing today at Occupy Wall Street

UPDATE: 3:55 PM ET: From Gothamist:

Patrick Bruner, the Occupy Wall Street spokesman who earlier confirmed the concert, emails, “I got hoaxed. Radiohead was never confirmed. Completely our fault. Apologies. The band were victims in this hoax as well.”

What a complete mess this turned out to be.

 

(thanks to Dave)

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Radiohead at Roseland Ballroom Night 2 [With Video]

Radiohead wrapped up their stay in New York last night by performing their second and final show at the Roseland Ballroom. The setlist was very much in the same vein as night 1, however the band surprised us at the start of the second encore by playing “Supercollider” for the first time as a full band. They also played “Like Spinning Plates” earlier, which was a treat. Another treat for us was finally meeting Adriaan from ateaseweb.com.

After the show, Thom Yorke did a DJ set at the Westway. This seems to be a regular thing for him, doesn’t it? After the Saturday Night Live performance, he did a DJ set at the Jane Hotel in NYC.

Setlist:

  1. Bloom
  2. Little By Little
  3. Staircase
  4. The National Anthem
  5. Feral
  6. Subterranean Homesick Alien
  7. Like Spinning Plates
  8. All I Need
  9. True Love Waits/Everything In Its Right Place
  10. 15 Step
  11. Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
  12. Lotus Flower
  13. Codex
  14. The Daily Mail
  15. Morning Mr. Magpie
  16. Reckoner

Encore

  1. Give Up The Ghost (just Thom and Jonny)
  2. Myxomatosis
  3. Bodysnatchers

Encore 2

  1. Supercollider
  2. Nude

Did you go last night? If so, let us know your thoughts in the comments.

More videos after the jump.