Category: Ed O’Brien

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New Radiohead album almost complete, Thom and Jonny play Glasto

Wow, we picked the wrong time to go on vacation. In case you didn’t hear last week, Ed O’Brien announced during an interview with BBC 6 Music that Radiohead are “a matter of weeks” away from completing their next studio release.

He told 6 Music’s Adam Buxton that the Oxford five-piece changed their working methods on the new material, to avoid the lengthy recording process involved in recent albums such as In Rainbows.

“It was such a slog. We decided at the end of the record never to do it like this again. That was kind of the end of Radiohead mark two.”

To listen to the interview, go here.

Thom Yorke at GlastonburyMeanwhile, Thom and Jonny delighted everyone with a surprised slot at Glastonbury on Friday night. Organiser Michael Eavis introduced the pair, saying, “Welcome to the biggest surprise of the weekend. There’s two superstars, I’ll not name them but they’re standing right there.” Thom Yorke then rather unnecessarily introduced himself with “Hi, my name’s Thomas Yorke” before launching into ‘The Eraser.’

The pair played a mix of Yorke’s solo material and Radiohead favourites, including ‘Harrowdown Hill,’ ‘Weird Fishes/Arpeggi,’ ‘Idioteque’ and ‘Street Spirit (Fade Out).’ Their rendition of ‘Karma Police’ naturally prompted a mass crowd singalong.

The lucky few who had witnessed this most special of impromptu sundown shows Tweeted rapturously about the experience afterwards. It was fitting that Radiohead, a band whose 1997 headline slot is widely considered one of the all-time classic Glastonbury performances, should show up to make sure the festival’s 40th anniversary year was one to remember.

Setlist:

01 The Eraser
02 Harrowdown Hill
03 Black Swan
04 Cymbal Rush
05 Arpeggi
06 Pyramid Song
07 Idioteque
08 Karma Police
09 Street Spirit (Fade Out)

What’s that? You want some video? Greg Clarkson at your service! Here’s ‘Weird Fishes/Arpeggi’ shot from the 2nd row. Check out his YouTube Channel later as he says he’ll upload more.

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Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien: “The recording industry dragged its feet over digital”

Ed O'Brien
Ed and his awesome beard

Ed O’Brien will be speaking at the MIDEM 2010 Music Conference this week and has given an interview which you can watch. Here is part of the interview:

“I have a problem when people in the industry say ‘it’s killing the industry, it’s the thing that’s ripping us apart’. I don’t actually believe it is … (Pirates) might not buy analbum, but they’re spending their money buying concert tickets, a t-shirt, whatever.

“It’s an analogue business model in a digital era. The business model has to change. You’ve got to license out more music – have more Spotifys, more websites selling more music. You’ve got to make it slightly cheaper to get music in order to compete with the peer-to-peers.

“BitTorrent is very utilitarian, it’s deeply unsexy. The Richard Branson of nowadays would be able to set up a really amazing website for 14- to 24-year-olds that deals with their music … and do something really innovative and make it really easy for people to buy music, and cheap.

“A lot of 14-to 17-year-olds don’t have credit cards, so how are they going to get music digitally? These are very, very, very basic issues – I find it staggering that the industry seems to be really dragging its heels on this –this is stuff that you could do in one week. Move quicker!

“That’s been the whole problem in the last 10 years. Why are we here now? Because the recording industry dragged its feet over digital.”

See the whole interview here.

(via paidContent)

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Ed O'Brien

Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien To Deliver MidemNet Keynote

Ed O'BrienFrom Billboard:

Radiohead guitarist Ed O’Brien will give a keynote address at the digital music business conference MidemNet in Cannes on Jan. 23.

O’Brien, who is a director on the board of the Featured Artists Coalition (Billboard, April 4), will describe the initiatives Radiohead has taken on the Web and discuss the opportunities for the artist to fan relationship in the digital era.

Michael Gudinski, founder and chairman of the Australian Mushroom Group of Companies, has also signed up to the main MIDEM international music conference and trade fair. He will deliver a keynote within the International Indie Summit on Jan. 26 – the official national day of Australia.

Gudinski is a promoter, publisher, producer and label boss, and one of the best-known executives in the Australian music industry. He entered the business in 1972 with the creation of Mushroom Records, the largest independent in Australia. He signed artists including pop act Kylie Minogue, one of Australia’s biggest music stars and a successful pop export.

Gudinski built Mushroom into a music group and created the Frontier Touring Company in 1979, which has become the leading tour promoter in Australasia, working with acts including Justin Timberlake, Garbage and Aerosmith.

He has been the recipient of many awards and won the prestigious JC Williamson Award, the Australian live entertainment sector’s most coveted trophy, this summer.

The 44th edition of MIDEM will be held from Jan. 24 to 27.

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Spinner: Are Radiohead Just Hitting the Pause Button?

Excellent recap of what’s been going on lately in Radioheadland from Spinner about the whole “Radiohead is not making any more albums” hysteria:

Is the world over-reacting about the possible “no albums” future of Radiohead?

Media reports have barked, blared and bleated this week that the band is turning its back on albums after an interview with frontman Thom Yorke in the Believer magazine hit the internet.

“None of us want to go into that creative hoo-ha of a long-play record again,” Yorke told the magazine. “Not straight off … It worked with ‘In Rainbows’ because we had a real fixed idea about where we were going. But we’ve all said that we can’t possibly dive into that again. It’ll kill us.”

Yorke then spoke of his desire to release an orchestral EP, using multi-instrumentalist Jonny Greenwood’s increasingly impressive talents as an arranger.

Playing at the 7 Worlds Collide show at London’s Dingwalls on Tuesday, drummer Phil Selway showed an impressive voice as he sang two songs ‘The Ties That Bind Us’ and ‘The Witching Hour’.

He and guitarist O’Brien spent a month in New Zealand in December and January helping with the Neil Finn-helmed album ‘The Sun Came Out’.

RadioheadSelway later told Spinner he will record his debut solo album in Radiohead’s studio in September.

Radiohead are currently rehearsing for their appearances at Reading and Leeds festivals later this month, the latest in a string of live dates since the digital-then-physical release of seventh studio album ‘In Rainbows’ at the end of 2007.

It seems that amid the revelations the band want to do more single-song releases or EPs — like the recent ‘Harry Patch (In Memory Of)’ — Yorke’s proviso “not straight off” has been glossed over.

The torturous recording of ‘OK Computer’ (1997) and the subsequent touring put Yorke in a less than sanguine mood, but after a three-year gap the band responded with not one album but two (‘Kid A’, ‘Amnesiac’) with a little over a year.

At the 7 Worlds Collide show, as Neil Finn rounded off the various band members recording achievements, guitarist Ed O’Brien offered a shaky hand single for “maybe” when Finn mentioned Radiohead might be working on a new record. That’s not a no, but a maybe.

Interviewed on the UK’s BBC Breakfast TV news on Wednesday, Selway left the question regards “no new albums” unanswered.

Maybe Radiohead need to attend to some personal projects before they reconvene to make another album, with all the effort that requires. It would be churlish not to let them.

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Take A Listen To 7 Worlds Collide, AKA The Radiohead Wilco Johnny Marr Neil Finn Supergroup – Stereogum

Take A Listen To 7 Worlds Collide, AKA The Radiohead Wilco Johnny Marr Neil Finn Supergroup – Stereogum.

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Radiohead Lately

pandemoniumx3

It’s been a while since our last post. Here’s what you (and we) have missed:

Radiohead opens up a new digital store. You can now purchase the In Rainbows CD2, as well as other treats.

Radiohead’s Kid A, Amnesiac, Hail to the Thief Get Deluxe Reissue Treatment. Capitol is at it again. (via Pitchfork)

Ed and Phil are being included on the Neil Finn supergroup benefit album. It’s called The Sun Came Out and will feature the singing debut of Phil. Yeah!

Stanley Donwood exhibits new work in Bristol ‘EL CHUPACABRA’.

Stanley’s apt choice of title ‘El Chupacabra’, meaning ‘the goat sucker’ in Spanish is his response to suffering a long fixation with the horned gods and having to live amongst some of the most mendacious economic times he can remember provoking him to start making pictures of Pandemons.

“I’ve got nothing against goats. I’ve simply discovered that if I draw a goat, give it the mouth of a rapacious carnivore then dress it in the suit and tie of a disgraced banker or politician it looks fucking evil. There are thirteen Pandemons in the show called ‘el chupacabra’. Thirteen ghosts at the funeral. Thirteen spectres at the feast of the goat. Loitering on the blackened cliffs of free-market economics, cackling as they raise a glass to toast Milton Friedman, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Augusto Pinochet. Gallons of paint I’ve poured over them to drown their snickering. But still they laugh.” Comments Stanley Donwood.

Sounds amazing.

And finally, you’ll notice a new look to GP. This is our first major design change in over 6 years. After dozens of mockups, we’re finally settled on this look, which should hopefully be more clean and simple. Many of the sections are still old so we’re working to convert those over. Until then, things may be a bit stupid.