Category: Radiohead

Radiohead to Prince: Hey, that’s OUR song

Post author By Jonathan
Post date May 30, 2008

WASHINGTON (AP) — After word spread that Prince covered Radiohead’s “Creep” at Coachella, the tens of thousands who couldn’t be there ran to YouTube for a peek. Everyone was quickly denied — even Radiohead.

All videos of Prince’s unique rendition of Radiohead’s early hit were quickly taken down, leaving only a message that his label, NPG Records, had removed the clips, claiming a copyright violation. But the posted videos were shot by fans and, obviously, the song isn’t Prince’s.

In a recent interview, Thom Yorke said he heard about Prince’s performance from a text message and thought it was “hilarious.” Yorke laughed when his bandmate, guitarist Ed O’Brien, said the blocking had prevented him from seeing Prince’s version of their song.

“Really? He’s blocked it?” asked Yorke, who figured it was their song to block or not. “Surely we should block it. Hang on a moment.”

Yorke added: “Well, tell him to unblock it. It’s our … song.”

YouTube prohibits the posting of copyrighted material. If the site receives a complaint from a copyright owner, it will in most cases remove the video(s). Whether the same could be done for a company not holding a copyright is less clear, but Yorke’s argument would seem to bear some credence according to YouTube’s policies. YouTube, which is owned by Google, declined to comment.

Minnesota-grown rock star Prince also did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.

The dispute was an interesting twist in debates over digital ownership, held between two major acts with differing views on music and the Internet. Radiohead famously released their most recent album, “In Rainbows,” as a digital download with optional pricing. They also have a channel on YouTube.

When Prince performed at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, California, on April 26, he prohibited the standard arrangement of allowing photographers to shoot near the stage during the first three songs of his set. Instead, he had a camera crew filming his performance.

Prince, who founded NPG Records in 1993, has been innovative when it comes to music distribution, too. He released his 1997 album, “Crystal Ball,” on the Internet and in 2006 was awarded a lifetime achievement award by the Webbys. In 2007, he gave away copies of his disc “Planet Earth” in a British Sunday newspaper.

But the Purple One has also shut down his official Web site and in September of last year said he would sue YouTube and eBay for not filtering unauthorized content.

Prince fans have organized to urge him to relent in his legal fights to control images and photographs of himself. As of Thursday, the most popular YouTube clip about Prince playing “Creep” is an expletive-laden rant from Sam Conti Jr., who describes himself as a “former Prince fan.”
(thanks to Justin)

Tags cover, Creep, Prince

In Rainbows Jonny Greenwood Phil Selway Radiohead

Radiohead on CNN.com

Post author By Jonathan
Post date May 28, 2008

There is a lengthy article/interview with the band on cnn.com for your reading pleasure.
Here’s a bit:

As unified as “In Rainbows” sounds, it took years to complete. The band began recording it with producer Mark Stent, the first time in years they didn’t work with Nigel Godrich.

The attempt was futile and Radiohead set out on tour to help bring the new songs into shape. When they returned to the studio, they went back to Godrich, considered the unofficial sixth member because of his importance in helping refine the group’s sound. (Colin calls his wealth of gear “like Aladdin’s cave.”)

“The key thing in actually propelling it forward was Nigel coming back into the process,” said Selway, 41. “The reality when we got in there was it still wasn’t good enough. We really had to raise our standards quite a lot.”

Typically, songs begin with Yorke writing something on piano or guitar with vocals and fleshing it out with the multi-instrumentalist Jonny Greenwood. Then the band works together to find the right arrangement, a process that can be tortuous. “Videotape” underwent, Yorke jokes, hundreds of versions before finding the right minimalist sound.

“We still sometimes get overawed by the songs,” said Greenwood. “We’ll get very attached to a song as an idea in its very basic form, but we also know we can’t really leave it like that. So that’s what we spend our time talking about and planning and thinking about. Thom will sit and play ‘Pyramid Song’ on piano, for example, and it’s obviously not finished. It needs a rhythm to propel it along. But what do you do with it and yet not mess it up? So that’s the sort of enjoyable pressure we like to be under.”

Though the method of release overshadowed the music of “In Rainbows” somewhat, it’s been almost universally hailed as a masterpiece. Yorke has been quoted as calling it “our classic album, our ‘Transformer,’ our ‘Revolver,’ our ‘Hunky Dory’ ” — a statement he said is a misquote: “I do talk some … but I didn’t say that.”

His point, he said, is that they strove to make a similarly concise work as those albums.

Read the rest….
(thanks to Alex)

Tags In Rainbows, interview, Jonny Greenwood, Nigel Godrick, Phil Selway

In Rainbows Radiohead Thom Yorke

Screen shots of “House of Cards” video?

Post author By Jonathan
Post date May 28, 2008

I know we owe you an update on the current tour. Things have been quite crazy here so in the meantime, I would recommend you hanging out at our message board, Mortigi Tempo, for all the latest tour happenings.

For now, we would like to show you these images that Thom posted up at waste-central.com today. Could they be from the new “House of Cards” video that was described as having 3D lasers?

(thanks to Rex)

Tags House of Cards, In Rainbows, lasers, Mortigi Tempo, video

In Rainbows Radiohead tour

Details on “House of Cards” video

Post author By Jonathan
Post date May 9, 2008

From PalmBeachPost.com:

They must have been using SunFest as a diversion!

Running it as if it were a double-secret stealth operation, members of the hot rock band Radiohead filmed their new video on a closed sound stage at the media-oriented G-STAR School near West Palm last weekend.

Known for lacing their Brit brand of rock with electronic sounds and playing concerts against a backdrop of cutting-edge lighting, Radiohead shot the video with something other than a camera, maybe for the first time ever.

“They used 3-D lasers,” says the school’s production coordinator, Ashleigh Cromer. Actually, there were 64 of them, feeding data into a computer that reconstructs images.
For the House of Cards video, the boys starred in a party scene (with milk in glasses) that also featured Pirates of the Caribbean beauty Lauren Maher as frontman Thom Yorke’s love interest.

The band’s tour started Tuesday night at the Cruzan.
(thanks to our members at Mortigi Tempo)

Tags House of Cards, Mortigi Tempo, tour, video

Colin Greenwood Ed O'Brien Jonny Greenwood Phil Selway Radiohead Thom Yorke

Excellent Radiohead Interview from Word Magazine

Post author By Jonathan
Post date May 8, 2008

Word Magazine If you get a chance, check out this great interview The Word did with the band. Here’s a snippet:

What do people most often get wrong about Radiohead?

Thom Yorke: We play up to the tortuous thing a bit too much. It’s not quite like that in the band. But also, this idea that there’s some sort of masterplan, that we’ve got some sort of clue what we’re doing… We haven’t.

Ed O’Brien: I used to think that maybe people didn’t know that there’s actually a great sense of humour in the band. But maybe the webcasts and a few of the things we did last year show that we’re not entirely super-serious all the time. You can’t do what we do without humour. It’s a lot easier to be melancholic in music. We struggle with songs of joy. That’s the tough part.

Phil Selway: People have got a pretty accurate take on us, I think. It can be uncomfortable because some of those takes are less than flattering, but they’re probably valid. You know, po-faced and over-serious… fair point, really. People are starting to pick up on the more playful side of Radiohead, which we hope has come to the fore in the past few years but, you know, no smoke without fire.

Jonny Greenwood: That we’re grumpy. People confuse the work with the people who make it. We’re not necessarily like our songs. Also I think they misunderstand Thom, and how really tiresomely energetic and enthusiastic he can be. Even when the rest of us are flagging, he’s the one with the energy and the excitement who’s saying, “Come on, this sounds amazing, what you’re doing is great.” That’s really good for us and I don’t think anyone knows it.
Read the rest…