Author: Jonathan

Both Pitchfork and the NME have articles up about the recent discovery of the supposed On a Friday demo tracks.

At this point, it has neither been confirmed or denied that these are real. Maybe someone in the band would care to comment?
(thanks to Cera & Zach)

Some may be questioning the validity of the recently discovered On a Friday demo tracks. While we can’t say that we’re 100% sure that this is definitely Radiohead, we feel pretty confident that they are. Here’s some more info I received from Marc Gommans about how these were discovered:

This is an extract taken from the From A Great Height book:
…
“Around the beginning of 1991, a young man named John Butcher visited the {Courtyard} studio. In his pocket was a tape of fifteen sonds made by a band that featured two of his former classmates at Abingdon, Thom Yorke and Colin Greenwood. It was the first recording by On A Friday. {Chris} Hufford’s response was one of reserved interest. “There were some good tunes but it was all obviously ripped off mercilessly,” he remembers. The final track stood out for him, though; he describes it as a “weird looped-up dance thing which was completely mental.” Hufford was interested enough to ask for more.”
googlyamnesiac, a member of the Atease messageboard, picked up a CD in a record store (Bleeker Street Records) in New York which contained all these unreleased tracks + bonus tracks (for more information about the tracklist + scans, click here: http://koti.mbnet.fi/latez/demo/)
This CD is obviously not real (because it was originally recorded on tape). But the material IS real. Sure, only 14 tracks were reveiled yesterday (instead of 15), so there is either one track missing from the originally recorded demotape, or the information in the book (From A Great Height) is inaccurate.
But it makes sense, right? This last track Hufford was talking about, must have been “The New Generation”. And it obviously IS a completely mental looped-up dance thing.
My guess is that someone got his hands on this demo tape a couple of years ago, and decided to make some money out of it. So this person started to make several bootlegs discs (with extra bonus tracks), and sold it to record stores. And now, after all these years, the tracks finally got leaked onto the internet.

Download the tracks here or here and decide for yourself.