Author: Jonathan

New York, NY

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In Rainbows Radiohead

RH Manager encouraged band to split prior to In Rainbows

Radiohead co-manager Brian Message was recently interviewed in the Irish Times. We couldn’t help but notice this little nugget of info. Good thing the band didn’t listen!

Prior to that decision Message says he and two of his partners had actually advised the band to split up. Two years after leaving EMI Radiohead were still no closer to recording an album. The songs were written but the band couldn’t achieve the sound they were looking for in the studio. Courtyard felt maybe it was time to call it a day. Surely professional managers shouldn’t encourage their most profitable act to split up?

“I’ve been lucky to work with some great artists and Radiohead are a once in a generation act,” says Message. “But you have to be honest if it’s not working. You have to have passion about what you do. I’m an accountant but I love music and I’m passionate about the artists I work with.”

Read the full interview…

Categories
Radiohead

Radiohead’s “Inside My Head” live from 1993

Here’s a mid-week blast from the past for you: Radiohead performing “Inside My Head” from Chicago’s Cabaret Metro in 1993.

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Jonny Greenwood Radiohead Thom Yorke

A walk down memory lane

Here are two articles which you should check out. Both are on the awesome music and culture website, The Quietus.

The first is an interview with Thom and Jonny from 1996. It’s really quite a fascinating and humorous read. For example, Thom explains why he’s fascinated with car accidents (Airbag, Killer Cars, Stupid Car):

“Oh, OK. Why are there so many references to cars? Well, I’ll tell you why. It’s because when I was younger, my parents moved to this house, which was a long long way from Oxford, and I was just at the age where I wanted to go out the whole time. I used to have this one car, and I very nearly killed myself in it one morning, and gave my girlfriend at the time really bad whiplash in an accident. I was 17. Hadn’t slept the night before. Anyway, eventually, my dad bought me another car, a Morris Minor, you know, and when you drove around corners in it, the driver door used to fly open. Um, and I’d only do 50 miles an hour, and on the road that went from my house to Oxford, there was fucking maniacs all the time, people who would drive 100 miles an hour to work, and I was in the Morris Minor, and it was like standing in the middle of the road with no protection at all. So I just gradually became emotionally tied up in this whole thing.”

Check out the full interview to read more about what Radiohead was like in 1996.

The second article is from 2003 and follows Radiohead on tour in France. It’s also a great read. Check it out!

Categories
Radiohead

The Directors of Radiohead

Fake Plastic Trees video

IFC.com has a feature up highlighting some of the directors Radiohead has worked with over the years in their music videos. The band has long been known to create highly creative videos, which is in large part to the directors they work with. Jake Scott (son of Ridley Scott), Jonathan Glazer, Grant Gee, Michel Gondry, and Jamie Thraves are all featured. Here’s an excerpt about Thraves’ work on “Just”:

Thraves has done videos for bands like Blur and radio titans Coldplay, but none of his videos has caused more stir than Radiohead’s “Just.” It epitomized the look of rock cool at the time. He nailed it with the Elvis glasses, Yorke’s wardrobe and the hot shots of Jonny [Greenwood]’s string-bending solo. But what’s kept fans talking on forums and blogs over the years is the weighty statement made by the man on the sidewalk that makes the crowd lie down with him, just as the subtitles stop. People have gone so far as to watch it in slow motion with lip-reading experts to determine what the line is. The results? Inconclusive, since the shot cuts away to the band anyway. Neither Jamie Thraves nor the band will say, even if there is actually something to say, since they feel it would defeat the point of the art. But fans still keep asking the question, anyway.

Read more…

This feature is an ongoing special that IFC is running called “Radiohead Fanatic Fortnight.” Check that link often for new things and also for a chance to win Special Collectors Edition packages of Radiohead’s first three albums, and 12 high-quality vinyl EPs.

Categories
Radiohead tour

Radiohead to headline Reading, Leeds festivals

Radiohead will be headlining both the Reading and Leeds festivals this Summer in the UK. We can only hope that this is part of a much larger tour that the band has been talking about doing during the Summer months.

For more information about the Reading Festival, go here. For the Leeds Festival, go here.

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GP

And now we are 12

On March 26, 1997, “A Green Plastic Radiohead Page” was born. Let’s go back to this time, shall well?

– OK Computer had yet to be released
– Bill Clinton was still president of the US
– I had to update the site a lot from a university computer lab
– There were a ton of RH fansites out there (Planet Telex, Lift, Tony’s RH Page, Polyethylene, etc…)
– The site originally was hosted on a free AOL homepage
– I really had no idea what I was doing
– People were really convinced that Thom and Stanley were the same person
– Animated gifs (’nuff said!)

12 years later and we are still around. While it’s become more and more difficult to give time to the site, it’s still a joy to run and I hope to be around for a long time. Many many thanks to everyone that has ever contributed to the site and of course, thanks to the band who have always had nothing but kind words to say about GP and allowed me and the other fansites the freedom to do what we wanted.