Author: Jonathan

This site is reporting that Low has been asked by Radiohead to be their opening act during this Summer’s European tour.

Turns out that not long after bassist Zak Sally left Low (see below), the band got a call from Radiohead: Now the great Duluth band is joining the great British band on a European tour in July.
“It’s kind of ironic that he’s only been out of the band for two weeks and then this dream came true,” says Sparhawk. “Now I feel bad that I told you this.”

Read the rest of the article here.
(thanks to Erik)

Wanna see Radiohead live in London? Capitol Records and the Onion are offering just that with their contest. Prize includes roundtrip airfare for one winner and their guest plus 2 nights hotel accommodation and 2 tickets to see Radiohead performing live on May 25th, 2003 at Shepherds Bush Empire.
http://capitolrecords.com/radiohead/contests/theonion/
(thanks to David)

Below are some pictures of the HTTT marketing that happened at last weekend’s Coachella Festival.

(thanks to Jason for the pics)

Green Plastic can exclusively reveal some information about the upcoming video for “There There.” The video is being done by Bolex Brothers and is a mix of live action and animation. It was filmed at 1/3 speed, so when played at real time, it will be “super quirky.” We’ve been told to think “Alice in Wonderland” with Thom walking through the woods, seeing all kind of animated animals and things going on around him. KROQ radio also reports that the video also has Thom being chased by a large wrench.
There is no premiere date as of yet. Stay tuned…
(thanks to Morag)

From the NME: The elaborate artwork for the new RADIOHEAD album is yet again set to become a collector’s item as ‘HAIL TO THE THIEF’ is revealed in the form of a road-map.

The group, who based the artwork to last album ‘Amnesiac’ on an old library book, have designed and made ‘Hail To The Thief’ in the format of a road map and a number of early copies of the album come in the form of a real fold out map, as pictured on the right. The sleeve also gives an alternative name for each song.

Speaking exclusively to NME.COM, Thom Yorke explained the thinking behind it. He revealed that in the political fall-out of the September 11 attacks on the US and subsequent war in Afghanistan, certain phrases used on the radio stuck out to him.

“I was listening to lots of Radio 4,” he said. “Whenever I heard words that rang bells in my head, I’d write them down, until I had this really long list, which is basically much of the artwork.”

Yorke has also told the BBC that he was reduced to tears on hearing new single ‘There There’ finished for the first time. The track has had a famously long gestation period, and at one point was considered ‘lost’ by band insiders.

“I blubbed my eyes out,” he said. “I went to LA and Nigel (Godrich, the band’s producer) played me the mix and it just made me cry, I was in tears for ages, I just thought it was the best thing we had ever done. There was something about it, I loved what he did.

“At one time I thought it was the song that we were going to lose which I was really upset about because the melody stayed with me for about four months without going away, which is really unusual as it doesn’t take me long to get bored and I really never got bored of this song.”

‘There There’ is released on May 26. For an exclusive interview with Radiohead on their new album, out June 9, see this week’s NME, dated May 3.

The alternative titles offered by Radiohead are (original titles on left):

‘Hail To The Thief/’The Gloaming’
‘2+2=5’/’The Lukewarm’
Sit Down.Stand Up/’Snakes & Ladders’
‘Sail To The Moon’/’Brush the Cobwebs Out Of The Sky’
‘Backdrifts’/’Honeymoon Is Over’
‘Go To Sleep/’Little Man Being Erased’
‘Where I End And You Begin’/’The Sky Falling In’
‘We Suck Young Blood’/’Your Time Is Up’
‘The Gloaming’/’Softly Open our Mouths In The Cold’
”There There’/The Boney King of Nowhere’
‘I Will’/’No Man’s Land’
‘A Punch Up At A Wedding’/’No No No No No No No No’
‘Myxamatosis’/’Judge, Jury & Executioner’
‘Scatterbrain’/’As Dead As Leaves’
‘A Wolf At The Door’/’It Girl. Rag Doll’

(thanks to Nate)

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.