Jonny Greenwood was named #35 in a poll for “Guitar’s Greatest Player” by Total Guitar magazine. Jimi Hendrix came in at #1.
(thanks to Dawn)
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Category: Jonny Greenwood
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Jonny speaks!
Jonny Greenwood made an appearance on the official Radiohead messageboard earlier today where he shed some light on a couple of things:
Whether the song “Reckoner” would appear on the new album, Jonny replied, “Played once, dropped. Possibly the worst show that tour too, I’m afraid. Lovely spot though. I was very ill….”
Someone asked him to speak about the new album, which he described as “Guitars yes, big wiry synths yes, Philip singing yes lots of drumming yes.”
Jonny also dispelled the “Parrots” rumor by saying, “I’m afraid, my old love, that Parrot’s nest was an endearingly ramdom rumour started by whoever said it first.”
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Jonny’s setup
Check out Jonny Greenwood’s gear setup over at Guitar Geek.
(thanks to Sam)
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Ondes Martenot
Would you like to purchase an Ondes Martenot like Jonny Greenwood uses on tour? Fortunately, Analogue Systems has them for sale for £1050 on their site. Analogue Systems were commissioned by Radiohead to reproduce the Ondes Martenot, which they have dubbed “The French Connection.” Here’s some info about it:
The French Connection was not born out of nowhere… it was commissioned during 2000 by Jonny Greenwood of the band Radiohead. Greenwood already owned an Ondes Martenot (an instrument built in 1983 by the son of Maurice Martenot) complete with all three resonators, but was nervous about performing with it, fearing that it would be damaged on tour. So he approached Martenot to purchase a second device for live use. Unfortunately for him (but fortunately for the rest of us) his instrument was one of a production run of just 50, and these were long gone – 44 to a music school in Japan, and the remaining five to other musicians.
So Greenwood approached Bob Williams, owner of Analogue Systems, to ask whether he would be prepared to design and build a replica for use with Radiohead’s existing RS Integrators. Williams accepted the challenge, and in April 2001 demonstrated a prototype to Greenwood. Following a couple of minor modifications, production began, and the first two French Connections were delivered to Radiohead in May 2001.
Check out more here.
(thanks to karolina)
From the folks at Pitchfork:
Radiohead are reportedly already at work on the follow-up to last year’s Amnesiac, scheduling studio time in May and publishing some teasing lyric fragments on their official website. Rather than sequestering themselves in the studio as on the mammoth sessions that begat Kid A and Amnesiac, Radiohead hope to use the sessions to bang out some demos before roadtesting the new material on select live dates later this summer. Sources told Pitchfork the sessions will likely be engineered by Graeme Stewart, who lent a hand on both Kid A and Amnesiac, as well as producing the highly experimental Amnesiac b-sides. The band is likely to reteam with Nigel Godrich for more recording further down the road.
While little is known about the new material aside from a handful of tunes sporadically previewed on the Amnesiac tour, one need only examine the band’s current listening diet to deduce the future direction of Radiohead. Or not: “We’re listening to a lot of guitar music at the moment,” guitarist Ed O’Brien told Worldpop. “I like a lot of the new bands like Electric Soft Parade.” Of course, Ed also dropped the names of the White Stripes and the Strokes, and he’s been saying the next Radiohead album is going to have a big guitar sound since, well, since 1997. Thom Yorke, meanwhile, has been listening to equal doses of Tim Buckley and glitch. Guitarist/keyboardist Jonny Greenwood has been learning both accordian and trumpet. In fact, the guys have been stocking up on all manner of “software, strange instruments, and synths” for the new recordings, according to our sources.
Among the new-ish material performed on the Amnesiac tour were the anthemic “Reckoner” (a hooky riff-rocker in its sole performance last year– who knows how it’ll turn out once Yorke sics his ProTools on it), “Follow Me Around,” a holdover from the post-OK Computer period, and “Wicked Child,” performed exactly once on a webcast, only to disappear, erm… completely. The official Radiohead site recently posted several lyrics and lyric fragments from the works in progress, with bits of “Reckoner,” “Bring on the New Blood,” “Keep the Wolf from the Door,” and “Up on the Ladder” among other, untitled snippets of Yorkespeak.
Jonny Greenwood has also been recording some original music for a documentary about the human body with “assistance” from the band, and there have been mutterings about a potential Radiohead b-sides compilation being prepared for a summer 2002 release in the U.S.
{thanks to Eddie, Steve, & Zoe}
From www.worldpop.com:
Radiohead plan to go back into the studio in May to record a new album according to Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien. The guitarist told worldpop: ‘The band are planning a get-together in May in the studio. We’re putting all gigs on hold at the moment to concentrate on writing new material.’
Speaking at yesterday’s NME/Carling Awards where the band won the award for Best Video for Pyramid Song, O’Brien said the new album may be a return to a guitar based format, ditching the electronica the band experimented with on Kid A and Amnesiac. ‘We’re listening to a lot of guitar music at the moment,’ said O’Brien. ‘I like a lot of the new bands like Electric Soft Parade.’
‘It’s a bit embarrassing to pick up an award for Best Video,’ continued the guitarist, ‘because it wasn’t made by us.’
O’Brien also refuted the band’s critics who claim they make depressing records. ‘We don’t make unhappy records. We make uplifting ones,’ he said.
Radiohead’s guitarist Jonny Greenwood has also contributed to a new Bryan Ferry solo album entitled Frantic. The album is released on 15 April and Greenwood played on the track, Hiroshima.
{thanks to Dale at Liquidcat.}