Author: Jonathan

Radiohead are placed 27th in The Top 50 Rock Bands of All Time in the July 2002 issue (no. 225) of ‘Guitarist: The Complete Guitar Magazine’. Here’s what the magazine said about them:

“Famed equally for Jonny Greenwood’s incendiary guitar lines and Thom Yorke’s equally wonderful and fragile vocals, Radiohead have carved a new path for rock guitar in the 1990s. The Oxford quintet laboriously toiled the gig circuit in the early nineties until the waster’s anthem Creep struck a chord with disenchanted American teens and broke them globally. The Bends, a yearning, claustrophobic collection of songs, followed in 1995 while 1997’s poignant and enduringly beautiful OK Computer was ecstatically received, its mammoth centrepiece Paranoid Android exemplifying a band bursting with creativity. However, guitar lovers have been disappointed of late as Radiohead closed the century with two unashamedly introverted albums exploring beats and rhythms at the expense of the guitar melodies we know they can muster at will.”

(thanks to Mark)

The German Radiohead fansite Meeting People is Easy has been subject to some legal action by EMI Germany because they have been hosting some live mp3s of last year’s concert in Berlin. Apparently a warning email was sent to the webmaster, Bjorn, by the IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) but this warning was never received. EMI Germany has now taken legal action and their lawyers are asking for 550,42 Euros as a fee.

MPIE, like Green Plastic, is a non-profit, non-commercial fansite dedicated to bringing Radiohead fans across the world info and content and does not have the money to pay this “fine.”

Various members of the band have said in past interviews that they have no problem with mp3s, especially with the live ones. It’s one thing to be hosting studio mp3s from albums you can buy and another to be hosting live mp3s from concerts that are not available in stores and certainly not hurting record sales. If anything, the availability of mp3s on the internet increase sales! Also, for a record company like EMI Germany to attack a fansite for promoting a band is insane. We give valuable time and money out of our pockets to promote Radiohead and we are not under any type of payroll.

What can you do? Please visit http://support.meetingpeopleiseasy.de/ and find out what you can do! There is also a petition you can sign.

We have contacted w.a.s.t.e. to let Radiohead know what is going on since they are probably unaware of this situation.

We recently came across this site which is promoting an “International Radiohead Meetup Day” for August 12 at 7pm. You can apparently register on the site and plan to meet up with other Radiohead fans in your area on this day.

For more info, check out http://radiohead.meetup.com.