2008

2008-08-08 - All Points West Festival, New Jersey:

If you've made a Reckoner Remix or would like to
recommend one, post the URL and I'll add your
widget above {stems}

Radiohead - Reckoner - From the Basement [Download]

In Rainbows
15 STEP
BODYSNATCHERS
NUDE
WEIRD FISHES/ARPEGGI
ALL I NEED
FAUST ARP
RECKONER
HOUSE OF CARDS
JIGSAW FALLING INTO PLACE
VIDEOTAPE 

Bonus Disc with Discbox 
MK 1
DOWN IS THE NEW UP
GO SLOWLY
MK 2
LAST FLOWERS
UP ON THE LADDER
BANGERS AND MASH
4 MINUTE WARNING

http://www.inrainbows.com

http://www.citizeninsane.eu/inrainbows.html

http://radiohead.tbdrecords.com 

http://youtube.com/radiohead 

http://myspace.com/radiohead

DIGITAL RELEASE: October 10th 2007

DISCBOX RELEASE: December 3rd 2007

STORE RELEASE: Dec. 31st/Jan. 1st

Pitchfork’s Recent Interview with Colin

March 28th 2008
pitchforkmedia.com

When I spoke with Radiohead’s 38-year-old bassist on the phone recently, he was lounging in his Oxford home, drinking a beer and enjoying Sheila and B. Devotion’s campy 1979 disco hit "Spacer". "It’s amazing," he gushed as if he was being introduced to the wonders of recorded sound at that very moment. Colin Greenwood is in one of the most accomplished and popular bands on earth. He has an appropriately classy fansite devoted to his unique charms called How to Be Like Colin Greenwood (step one: "be personable," step three: "enjoy a drink now and then"). This is the guy who gets to break out the intro to "The National Anthem" in front of thousands on a regular basis. (With thousands more to come soon: The band is set to announce the second leg of its North American tour on Monday.) He’s got a great life. And, importantly, he knows he’s got a great life. But he’s not pompous about it-- instead, Greenwood wasn’t afraid to rhapsodize about his band’s quest for "emotion" and "soulfulness," slyly calling out his own faults and contradictions along the way. Here, he talks about the State of Radiohead, the increasing importance of communal spaces in today’s society, and his affection for the Metallica documentary Some Kind of Monster.

Pitchfork: Where were you when In Rainbows was first announced?

Colin Greenwood: I was where I am right now, sitting down at home and watching the excitement on the old Google News.

When they sent the album I was having breakfast and checking my e-mail. A file download thing appeared at half seven in the morning, which was quite exciting. Then I read reviews of it from people staying up in the small hours in America. Some had exams the next day but they were drinking loads of coffee and staying up anyway. It was really mad. We were trying to create an event. Why not?

Pitchfork: I think it worked.

CG: Yeah, a friend of our manager had the idea a couple of years ago. It was great because it made us think about putting the record out in a very quick way, like a live thing.

Pitchfork: Based on interviews, it seems like being in the studio can be fairly painstaking for you guys. Was the accelerated release strategy a way to force you to be more spontaneous as a band?

CG: I suppose, yeah. It takes so long to make a record and then it takes so long again to release it. We’re all champing at the bit to do some new things even now. We were just playing a couple of new songs in rehearsals. But there’s no need to moan about the fact that so many people are into it. If you want to tend to their passion then you have to defer what you’re doing next for a while. It’s a nice position to be in, in a way.

Pitchfork: The Pitchfork review of In Rainbows suggested "Radiohead have grown tired of trying to outrun themselves." What do you think of that assessment?

CG: Before we started rehearsals last week I listened to the record-- I hadn’t listened to it since before Christmas-- and some songs still choked me up. The emotional pull is what makes it good. I think the biggest problem we have is taking too long over things. Not in terms of getting it right, but sometimes we do things quickly that are really good, like "Lucky" on OK Computer. There’s a sort of self-considered, analytical, self-consciousness that can be crippling-- but it can act as quality control, too. I saw Portishead at ATP at Christmas and it was incredible. It took them like 10 years to make their new record but the new songs sounded unbelievable.

Pitchfork: With Kid A and Amnesiac, the band almost totally reinvented its sound, and Hail to the Thief was restless in its way. But In Rainbows seems more comfortable and relaxed. Was there a turning point for the band during the recording of the record?

CG: We handed ourselves over to our producer Nigel Godrich. We did one session in a crumbling country house and one in a reconditioned country house and then we reconvened in February of last year-- that was the turning point. We recorded "15 Step" and "Arpeggi" in our studio in Oxford in two days and it was really good. We’d recorded those songs a half dozen or a dozen times, but we went back in and played them again and everyone wasn’t thinking about what they were doing as much. I think if it’s quite painful and it takes a while it tends to be good...which is sort of a contradiction of what I said earlier.

Pitchfork: In an interview before the recording of In Rainbows, you suggested the band might be feeling too safe in terms of your close relationship with Nigel Godrich.

CG: It wasn’t about being too safe with him, he just wasn’t around because he was working with Charlotte Gainsbourg and Beck. It wasn’t like he was twiddling his thumbs and we were like, "Ah well, we won’t give him a ring." So when we tried to work with with [producer] Spike Stent, it was more out of a desperation to try to get things moving. It didn’t work out. But Spike actually turned the crank to get the engine going.

Pitchfork: Would you consider trying out another new producer at this point?

CG: It depends what we’re doing. The thing about working with Nigel is that he’s brilliant with psychology. What really struck me about him during the last sessions was he’s got that ability to be generous and patient when he’s making a record and then he can be objective as well. To have the ability to be utterly supporting in the studio and then make a call later is a real skill.

Pitchfork: My favorite song on the record is probably "House of Cards", largely because it sounds like the closest Radiohead have ever come to making an Al Green song-- it seems so easy and effortless.

CG: It’s funny you say that because we had different versions of it. There was one where Jonny had this bass riff that made it sound more R.E.M.-y. But then Phil [Selway] and Thom [Yorke] reworked it and came up with this amazing rhythm. But then we had to wait a year to record it, which was difficult. I’ve been looking at footage from Bonnaroo in 2006 when we were playing that song in front of 80,000 people and it just sounds great. All the kids were throwing their glowsticks in the air. People were obviously out of their minds at midnight in Tennessee. To be able to be like that is hard-- to have that soulfulness, you know? But that’s what everyone should aspire to in a way. That immediacy. But it’s really fucking difficult.

Pitchfork: I think one of the few underrated qualities of the band is its humor, like the Se7en parody on the webcast ...

CG: We did that webcast with [comedian] Adam Buxton and [director] Garth Jennings, they’re friends of Ed [O’Brien]’s. We just asked them down and they made this video for "Nude" too. For that, we just rented cameras from this old guy who normally does nature stuff and just jumped up and down in front of them. And then they edited it on their laptop and put it up on YouTube. It was so cool because we didn’t have to go through three weeks of video commissioning and receiving dodgy scripts set on abandoned skyscrapers in downtown L.A. or something. If you go in thinking "let’s try it," it’s really liberating. So that’s where our heads are at with it and we’re trying to keep it like that.

Pitchfork: Were there any more funny bits for the webcast you decided to leave out?

CG: Gratuitously obscene or depraved bits? Um, no. I’ve got a lot of respect for people like Fox News now-- I can understand why stuff like that is rubbish because it was really difficult to put together three hours of content. Everything on the webcast is everything we did.

Pitchfork: Another great thing about the webcast was all the covers you guys played, like the Smiths’ "The Headmaster Ritual" and Bjork’s "Unravel", it looked like you were just goofing off.

CG: Yeah. In rehearsals yesterday, Thom, Ed and I were running through a Siouxie and the Banshees cover called "Happy House" and Jonny [Greenwood]-- the young one-- was like, "What the fuck is this?" And we’re like, "You know, Siouxie and the Banshees! Check out Juju." The version of "Unravel" on the webcast was the first time we were running through it and we just kept it because it was so tentative. You could tell we were feeling our way through it, which is very nice to see, isn’t it? It’s what I loved about playing the songs from In Rainbows on the second webcast-- you can see there are moments in each song where things swim in and out of focus a bit.

Pitchfork: Do you think you’ll play any of those covers this year on tour?

CG: Probably not. Especially after seeing the Smiths do ["The Headmaster Ritual"] live on YouTube, it’s just amazing.

Pitchfork: The recent webcast from the small club in London was remarkable to see, too. Do you wish you could do more tiny gigs like that nowadays?

CG: When we were playing there I had to keep pinching myself because it felt like some kind of dislocated time travel from ’93. But stuff from The Bends sounded amazing in there-- when Jonny slammed the chords for those songs they ricocheted around the club walls and it was just amazing. When you hear something played where it was made it’s so cool. Jonny wasn’t wearing earplugs and he was deaf for the next three weeks.

Pitchfork: I read an interview with R.E.M. recently and they discussed about how their last couple of records suffered because the band wasn’t really talking to each other. How important are the interpersonal relationships in Radiohead? Do you guys see a lot of each other outside of band duties?

CG: Well, we see each other so much doing band stuff. Right now, we’re all putting our time in with our own thing before we go back into the cloistered [Radiohead] world. But my agent sent me Some Kind of Monster when we were starting up recording this album and I took that documentary very seriously. I watched it six or seven times. You know: Dr. Phil [Towle-- not that Dr. Phil], dysfunctional band getting ready to record their seventh album or whatever. We didn’t get Dr. Phil though, which was a shame in a way.

Pitchfork: So you can relate to Metallica’s plight in that movie?

CG: Totally. Also, Jonny brought in the Pixies documentary from their 2006 tour, which was really tender-- they’re obviously all touched or damaged by what they’ve been through and you can see that. I think it’s wonderful. You go through all these experiences together and you’re very aware of those sensitivities. I would say if you have the 2006 Pixes documentary and Some Kind of Monster, you have a good understanding of band dynamics.

Pitchfork: Radiohead have been together for more than 15 years at this point, do you every worry about falling into a holding pattern a la U2?

CG: I don’t think it’s a concern. It’s more general insecurities about what to do next. We all have our different musical axes hit other people with. Thom loves the new Autechre record; I’m going through a Fleetwood Mac Tusk and ’71 Greatest Hits obsession. Have I answered your question? Not really.

Pitchfork: So there’s not a constant cloud hanging over the band in terms of repeating yourselves or others?

CG: No. There’s a song we’re playing called "Go Slowly" and there’s a bit in the middle that breaks and it’s really violent, and I reckon there’s an R.E.M. song that’s somewhat similar. But references like that are emotional ones that are tied to your memory of other peoples’ great music. By now, you accept your limitations. And as you get older you realize how important your emotional response is to any kind of music-- from the new Autechre to "Dragonfly" by Fleetwood Mac-- and how that can inform what you make next. It’s the most important thing and it’s easy to forget that and think, "Oh, this is new and happening."

Pitchfork: The Pitchfork review of Hail to the Thief put forth the idea that "anything Radiohead does from here on out will sound like Radiohead"...

CG: That’s like a late-night stoner comment. At about three in the morning-- after you’ve put on Captain Beefheart and you put the red scarf over the light bulb-- it makes a lot of sense. But the next morning you’re like, "I don’t know, maybe the world is fucked and we didn’t solve it." So I don’t know about that.

Pitchfork: Fair enough. But do you think the band would ever consider another Kid A-style left turn?

CG: It would be really nice to be able to put out releases that wouldn’t be conditional upon an album format, and just put out music in different ways. I read a review of Neil Young’s recent residency in London this week and he just plays all this stuff from all over his career. To be in that kind of position would be so cool. Jonny wanted to do a recording of the classical arrangement version of "Weird Fishes" he did with Thom when they were at the Royal Festival Hall a few years ago. And Jonny’s got his film music as well. It would be great for a band to have all those things going on under its name. That’s what the download and the webcast was starting to engage in-- the idea of broadcasting different kinds of music in different ways.

Pitchfork: But with your touring schedule this year, would you even have time to work on such material?

CG: We’re actually gonna be working with Nigel again soon-- we’ve reserved time and we’ve got stuff we want to do. It’s like having and old-school executive producer that’s talking about the bigger picture and booking time to be creative. Dr. Phil would be proud.

Pitchfork: How frustrating was it to not have any control over that Radiohead boxed set your old label released late last year?

CG: For me, it was upsetting because I remember when R.E.M. put out Out of Time and, around the same time, IRS re-released Murmur and the Chronic Town EP and Fables and stuff. It was just really nice for them to put out the back catalogue, because I think a lot of people got into R.E.M. around then. I would love for us to have people check out what we’ve done before in a cool way if they haven’t already got it. But we’re not traveling on that road at the moment. If you start taking stock, it’s like the pathologist’s knock on the door.

Pitchfork: So we won’t see a double-disc version of the The Bends filled with alternate takes anytime soon?

CG: No, because the other versions weren’t any good!

Pitchfork: Radiohead is one of the few bands whose songs are covered a lot even though you’re still active and relevant...

CG: Like on YouTube when there’s like 20 versions of people playing "Videotape" in their bedroom on the guitar or keyboard-- how cool is that?

Pitchfork: Do you ever sit back and watch a couple of those videos?

CG: I haven’t done it because I know how hard it is to play some of those songs. But that’s why I love playing shows, you’ve got thousands of people sharing their personal passion for the music with each other, it’s such a wonderful thing to be able to curate. When you’re playing the songs, people are really into it together but they’re all into their own thing about it, too. I remember reading this book of essays by Jonathan Franzen called How to Be Alone in which he talks about the actualization of public spaces in American suburbs and how people can only congregate at malls now. So to be able to play and get loads of people together is really cool.

Pitchfork: Any idea if you’ll play any new songs on tour this year?

CG: Don’t know yet. Thom came in with a list of 70 songs we’re rehearsing for the tour and it’s like, fucking hell! So it’s been real difficult to remember stuff. We should’ve gone onto YouTube to remind us how to play the songs. Are you going to see the tour?

Pitchfork: Yeah, I’m planning on going to the Liberty Park show.

CG: It was amazing when we played there last time. The World Trade Towers were standing-- we played there two or three weeks before September 11. And then on the night of September 11 we played in Berlin. We sold 13,000 tickets and nobody knew if anyone was going to turn up because they closed the city down. But everybody who bought a ticket turned up. It was that thing we were talking about-- public space. It was an incredibly emotional night.

   The most Gigantic Lying mouth of All Time

             

                                  enjoy some
   


Episode 1


Episode 2


Episode 3


Episode 4

Download Episode 1 (29 min):
http://www.pulk-pull.org/lyingmouth/episode1.mov

Download Episode 2 (27 min):
http://www.pulk-pull.org/lyingmouth/episode2.mov

Download Episode 3 (28 min):
http://www.pulk-pull.org/lyingmouth/episode3.mov

Download Episode 4 (27 min):
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=RQGOEFJK

1-3 iPod compatible m4v (371 mb zip):
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=JMFULDPJ

Official website: http://www.theeraser.net

Eraser Artwork Slideshow:

Eraser Messageboard at Ateaseweb.com (requires login):

Thom Yorke Eraser Interview:

The Eraser on Myspace: xix, xx, and XL's official Eraser page

Rolling Stone Review (June 26, 2006) * * * *

Lyrics

1. the eraser

please excuse me but i got to ask,
are you only being nice because you want something?
my fairytale arab princess
be careful how you respond
you might end up in this song
i never gave you an encouragement
and its doing me in doing me in doing me in doing me in
the more the more you try to erase me the more
the more the more that i appear
the more the more the more you try the eraser
the more that i appear
you know the answer so why do you ask?
i am only being nice because I want something
you're like a kitten with a ball of wool
and its doing me in doing me in doing me in
the more the more you try to erase me the more
the more that i appear
the more the more i try to erase you the more
the more the more that
you appear
no youre wrong youre wrong youre wrong
youre wrong youre wrong

2. analyse

a self fulfilling prophecy
of endless possibility
in rolling reams across a screen
in algebra in algebra

in fences that you cannot climb
in sentences that do not rhyme
in all that you can never change
the one your looking for

it gets you down
it gets you down

theres no spark
no light in the dark
it gets you down
it gets you down
youve travelled far
what have you have found
that theres no time
theres no time
to analyse
to think things thru
to make sense

by candles in the city
you never looked so pretty
by powercuts and blackouts
sleeping like babies

it gets you down
it gets you down
youre just playing a part
youre just playing a part
youre playing a part
playing part
but theres no time
theres no time
to analyse
analyse
analyse
analyse

3. the clock

time is running out for us
but you just move the hands upon the clock

you throw coins in a wishing well
wake up
you just move your hands upon the clock

it comes to you begging you to stop
wake up
but you just move your hands upon the clock

throw coins in a wishing well
for us
make believe that you are still in charge

4. black swan

what will grow crooked you cant make straight
its the price that youve got to pay
do yourself a favour and pack your bags
buy a ticket and get on the train
buy a ticket and get on the train

coz this is fucked up
fucked up

people get crushed like biscuit crumbs
and laid down in the bitumen
you have tried your best to please everyone
but it just isnt happenin
but it just isnt happenin

and that is fucked up
this is fucked up
this your blind spot
blind spot
it should be obvious
but its not

you cannot kick start a dead horse
you just cross yourself and walk away
i dont care what the future holds
coz i am right here and im today

this is fucked up
this is fucked up
we are black swans
black swans
and for spare parts we are broken up

you are fucked up
this is fucked up
we are black swans
and for spare parts were broken up

5. skip divided

im in a skip divided malfunction
i flap around and divebomb
franticly around your light
enveloped in a sad distraction
i got your voice repeating endlessly
could you guide me in
could you smother me
i swoop around your head
but i never hit
im blinded by your daylight
electric veins passed through me
i thought there was this big connection

i only got my name
i only got this situation
i just need a number and location

without appropriate papers or permissions
im known to bite in tight situations
and as i head into french windows
i thought there was a big connection

i only got my name
i only got my situation
i just need my number and location

but the mole keeps telling me hey hey hey hey
the devil may hey hey hey hey
you are a fool for sticking round

ive tried every trick in the book
oh how come i
how come i lose

no one can undress your elliptical caress
dont look into my eyes
coz your desperately in love

when you walk in the room everything disappears
when you walk in a room its a terrible mess
when you walk in a room i start to melt
when you walk in a room i follow you round like a dog
im a dog im a dog im a lapdog
im your lapdog

i just got my number and location
i just need my number and location

6. atoms for peace

no more going to the dark side with your flying saucer eyes
no more falling down a worm hole that i have to pull you out

the wriggling twiggling worm inside devours from the inside out
no more talk about the old days its time for soemthing great

want you to get up and make it work
so many allies so many allies so many allies so many allies
so feel the love come off of them and take me in your arms

peel all of your layers off i want to eat your artichoke heart
no more leaky holes in your brain and no false starts

i want you to get up and make this work
so many allies so many allies so many allies so many allies
so feel the love come off of them and take me in your arms

i want you to get up and make this work
i want you to get up and make this work

hey itll be okay

7. and it rained all night

and it rained all night and washed the filth away
down new york air conditioned drains
oh the click click clack of the heavy black trains
a million engines in neutral
oh the tick tock tick of a ticking timebomb
in 50 feet of concrete underground
one little leak becomes a lake
says the tiny voice in my earpiece
so i give in to the rhythm the click click clack
im too wasted to fight back
oh tick tock goes the pendulum on the old grandfather clock

i can see you
but i can never reach you

and it rained all night and then all day
the drops are size of your hands and face
the worms come out to see whats up
we pull the cars up from the river
its relentless invisible indefatigable indisputable undeniable
so how come it looks so beautiful?
how come the moon falls from the sky?

i can see you
but i can never reach you

8. harrowdown hill

dont walk the plank like i did
you will be dispensed with
when youve become
inconvenient
up on harrowdown hill
near where you used to go to school
thats where i am
thats where im lying down
did i fall or was i pushed?
did i fall or was i pushed?
then wheres the blood?
then wheres the blood?

im coming home im coming home
to make it alright so dry your eyes
we think the same things at the same time
we just cant do anything about it
we think the same things at the same time
we just cant do anything about it
so dont ask me ask the ministry
dont ask me ask the ministry
we think the same things at the same time
there are so many of us so you cant count
we think the same things at the same time
there are too many of us so you cant count

can you see me when im running?
can you see me when im running?
away from them
away from them
i cant take the pressure
no one cares if you live or die
they just want me gone
they want me gone

im coming home im coming home
to make it alright so dry your eyes
we think the same things at the same time
we just cant do anything about it
we think the same things at the same time
there are too many of us so you cant
there are too many of us so you cant count

it was me led into the backroom
harrowdown hill
it was me led into the backroom
harrowdown hill
there was a slippery slippery slippery slope
there was a slippery slippery slippery slope
i feel me slipping in and out of consciousness
i feel me slipping in and out of consciousness
i feel me...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kelly
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/5092160.stm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw-hjKrZp2s

9. cymbal rush

try to save it but it doesnt come off the rug
try to build a wall that is high enough
s'all boiling over
s'all boiling over

try to save your house
try to save your songs
try to run but if follows you up the hill
s'all boiling over
s'all boiling over

your loved ones
your loved ones

a normal conversation
a normal conversation
you should a took me out while you had the chance

all the rooms renumbered and the losers turned away
dont turn away dont turn away

there were ten in the bed and the little one said roll over

Watch the acoustic performance of "The Clock" on the Henry Rollins Show here:

http://live.video.rainbow-media-online.com/ifcvideos/henry_show/ThomYorkeWithTitles.swf

You can also download the mp3 of this performance here:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=CVROKP0O

Thom also performed "Cymbal Rush" with Jonny on the Henry Rollins Show:

You can download the mp3 of that performance here:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=L232FP77

Harrowdown Hill video:

THE FLIGHT LAST night was torturous. He didn't sleep - he never sleeps, in fact, no matter what he tries. The herbal pills shut down his body but not his brain, and melatonin gives him wide-awake nightmares that he dubs "the horrors." Sometimes he works on songs on his laptop, but usually, by the time he's halfway through the air, Thom Yorke is silently freaking out. But this morning he woke up, put on a Bjork tune, and got a massage. Sitting in an abandoned, librarylike meeting room at Philadelphia's Loews Hotel, he walks over to a window framing the skyline. The sky outside is a wondrous blue, and the 80-year-old Ben Franklin Bridge looks as if it could reach into heaven. Yorke takes it all in, sweeping his arm across the display of buildings. "You know, you land in the U.S., and you look out the window here," he says. "And all this infrastructure, everything that's going on ...it will not exist."

He launches into an explanation of how it will all go down: The world's oil supply will be depleted, America won't be prepared, and the City of Brotherly Love as we know it could be gone in the next 100 years.

This is what Thom Yorke is like on a good day.

His malaise is understandable. Yorke is a few months shy of 38, and like most people who pay attention to what's going on in the world, he's scared shitless. Much of this fear is channeled through The Eraser, a heavily electronic side project - he bristles at the term solo album - that Yorke recorded with Nigel Godrich, who has also produced albums for his band Radiohead. Its nine songs are jittery meltdowns about alienation and anxiety, and it's hard to listen to it without thinking, Man, does his voice sound good when it's so far up in the mix. Also, is the apocalypse going to arrive before track six is over?

And yet, because he has a partner, Rachel Owen, and two young kids, Agnes and Noah, and because it's no fun to be a gloomy Gus all the time, Yorke remains a 21st-century optimist, one who believes that things are bad but we're not entirely screwed. Yet. "I have to be positive," he says, "because when it comes down to it-how do I say this without sounding really revolting?-you have to get up every day with love in your heart."

He pauses, his face frozen in a wince.

"There you go. I sound like some sort of lunatic. I'll just say I haven't slept much."

There is absolutely nothing surprising about seeing Thom Yorke in person. With the exception of the mid-'90s Pablo Honey era-during which he rocked a blond shag that made him resemble Garth Algar after partying in The Dark Crystal - he's appeared more or less the same for over a decade: spiky dark hair, a flatlined gaze (the result of a lazy left eye), and some tentative stubble. He dresses his age, in jeans and a white short-sleeved dress shirt, but looks five years younger - not surprising, perhaps, since 33 is the scientifically proven median age of Radiohead's fan base.

What is surprising, though, is that while Yorke sounds as tense as ever, he's looking relatively relaxed these days. The perpetually tortured glare that greeted reporters and hangers-on during the OK Computer era has been replaced with an occasional nervous laugh and some self-deprecating digs. "It's difficult to tell how people have changed," says Radiohead guitarist Ed O'Brien. "But Thom's been in a better headspace for quite a few years."

Part of the reason for this reversal, Yorke admits, was The Eraser. After Radiohead's exhaustive tour in support of 2003's Hail to the Thief, the band needed a rest. Yorke retreated to his home base of Oxford, England, gathering blips and beats that had been lying around for years and assembling them with Godrich's help. "After the last tour everybody decided to take a break and have kids," says Godrich. "But Thom had actually had his kids first, so he was given this space to think about what he should do. And he thinks very hard about that." Everyone in the band knew about the project, but when Yorke describes the recording, it's as though he's talking about having an affair. "We were getting together a week here and a week there, and it really wasn't a big deal," he says. "And because it wasn't a big deal, it was fun. It felt like nobody was watching."


Brian Raftery: What happened on that last tour that made you so anxious to work on The Eraser?

Thom Yorke: The last show was Coachella, and by the end of that, we'd completely lost interest and lost confidence. Part of the nail in the coffin for me, personally, was going on after the fucking Pixies. It's like going on after the Beatles. It was a massive big deal, and I really, really, really didn't want to do it. It was an odd situation, as well, because I think the Pixies misread it. They thought it was because we didn't like them. I lost sleep for a month. It was time to stop for a bit.

BR: What happened when you stopped?

TY: The interesting thing was the lack of momentum, the lack of doing anything. You just sort of go into this loop where you're like, "Ahhhh, fucking hell," because nothing's done. Unless you finish a song, you can't move on. That's what was the good thing about The Eraser, going bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, and it was done. I want to get a bit of that bang, bang, bang, bang thing back again.

BR: Making The Eraser may have been cathartic, but it's a very bleak record. There are songs about distrust, isolation, bombs in the Underground...

TY: I have many bleak thoughts. Don't get me started, man. It's one of my specialties, apparently. I'm concerned for our future, generally speaking. I'm concerned for my children's future. The reason I called it The Eraser is because the whole thing was written just trying to forget about all the things that scare me. For example, we've reached the point where the [oil] supply has peaked. So what's going to happen? It's this enormous fucking elephant in the room, and everybody in the Western world is ignoring it. It's insane. And me being me, I don't ignore it. I guess I have too much time on my hands. So yeah, big surprise that I happen to be writing about that.

BR: How do you keep those things in mind and not have it weigh down your life?

TY: I have periods like that, which probably means I should be [institutionalized]. But I'm not a pessimist. I've gotten involved with this Friends of the Earth [group]; in the U.K. they're a big thing, like Greenpeace. They have this campaign to get the government to reduce carbon emissions by 60 percent by 2050 or something like that. And it's quite interesting to be sitting down with these people, and them actually saying, "These things are achievable."

We've got 50 years to reassess how we interact with the world around us. And it could be really exciting. It's not like this [points to window] is making us happy. Sitting in gridlock is not a blissful occupation.

BR: So what about stepping up your political involvement, like Bono or Bob Geldof?

TY: I'm not capable of becoming a big spokesperson. I don't think it's a good idea for the sake of my sanity. You have to know what your limits or strengths are, otherwise you'll crack. And taking on the responsibility in that way is really tough. You have to retain your independence of mind because everybody has a different [opinion]. It's not good for you. It's purely self-preservation.

BR: But you've spoken out against Bush and Blair in the past.

TY: I have a problem when I make personal attacks; I always say, "Well, they don't make personal attacks on me." It's bad karma doing that shit. But at the same time, they're pretty good at racking up their own bad karma. I find it very difficult to worry about that level of karma when they're still preaching about democracy.

BR: Do you ever wish you weren't aware of all this stuff? That you could shut it out?

TY: I wish I could find the pill. Unfortunately, all the ones I've tried only make it worse. [Laughs] The stuff that makes it go away for me is listening to music. That's always going to be the best way.

BR: Have you ever tried antidepressants?

TY: Oh, no! GlaxoSmithKline's legacy to the world is these poor bastards who can't get of Prozac. That's a fucking evil organization. Oh, I can't say that, can I? [Pauses] That's a very astute organization. They obviously know exactly what they're doing.


IN NOVEMBER 2000 this magazine put the pouty faces of Yorke and his Radiohead bandmates - O'Brien, guitarist Jonny Greenwood, bassist Colin Greenwood, and drummer Phil Selway - on the cover, along with the question, "The world's greatest rock band?" At the time the answer was pretty easy: Sure, why not? They were only a few years removed from the laser-show vignettes of OK Computer, and they'd just released the successfully audience-segregating Kid A, the only chart-topping record to include a reference to rampant lemon-sucking. Besides, the pickings were slim - other groups mentioned in that issue included Disturbed and the Insane Clown Posse - and so being the world's greatest rock band was about as admirable as being the world's most dazzling salt-rock formation.

Despite the good-but-not-great sales of 2001's Amnesiac and 2003's Hail to the Thief, the fact that they have released only one new song in the past two years, and the ascent of bands that sound more like old-school Radiohead than Radiohead do, the answer remains the same: Of course they're the world's greatest rock band.

Much of this has to with Yorke being one of the last truly myth-shrouded frontmen left. Not to slag on the competition, but the Gallaghers no longer have the tunes, Bono isn't enough of a recluse, and Chris Martin still hasn't written a song as good as "Karma Police." Even musicians who aren't Radiohead fans speak glowingly of them. "What they're doing with musical ideas is really genuine and authentic," says Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore. "They could really become super arena-rock, because they had that promise. But they take another turn with [their sound], because they want to do different things."

And like Moore, Yorke finds himself in the position of unlikely rude elder statesman.

BR: Do you feel old?

TY: I feel old. And wise. It's a fucking weird thing, because I've always wanted to do that thing of growing old disgracefully, one way or the other. It's a bad idea to say to yourself, "I wish I was 20 again." I hated it. I used to go through really bad periods.

BR: What was going on?

TY: I was - well, I am - sort of confrontational. If I don't agree with something, then I'll rant and rave about it. It was almost pathological. Early on I used to get into all these scrapes with people. I'm sort of proud of that, because it kicks up the dust. The Arctic Monkeys-they have a bit of that, which I think is good. I don't really understand the music myself, but they've been put in that position, and they're really young, and they don't give a fuck. There's all these people all over them like a rash, and I can remember exactly what that's like-all these people going [affects a sleazy coo], "Oooh, we'll have a piece of you." And I think biting the hand that feeds you is incredibly important.

BR: Nowadays are you more comfortable with the inanities of fame?

TY: They don't happen anymore. There seems to be this threshold, and during the OK Computer period, suddenly all of this shit started happening, and you're this moving target, and weird people start attaching themselves to you.

With Kid A and Amnesiac, it was tough making those records, but at the same time, it was exciting to feel like you were basically jumping off: "Fuck the lot of you! We're off!" The most amazing thing about it was I remember sitting in Central Park, and Kid A was No. 1 for one week-like some sort of clerical error was going on. How the fuck did we do that? No videos, no bullshit-we minimized it as much as we could. Knowing that we'd never get away with it again was like our little proxy Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle.

BR: So do you have a normal life in Oxford?

TY: It's fine. Really. It's good for the soul to see the same people walking down the street and not get hassled. I only get hassled once every two or three days - someone might come up, but it's usually a nice thing, a positive thing. So I cannot complain.

BR: Are your kids old enough to know what you do?

TY: My [five-year-old] son came to our first show in Copenhagen. I can't get anything about it out of him: "So what do you think?" [Mimes a childlike shrug]


LIKE SO MANY other easily distracted creative types with too much free time and too little restraint, Yorke started blogging last year. The posts? Strung together rants, plus the occasional in-the studio update (Radiohead have been recording a follow-up to Hail to the Thief since last fall, though Yorke says they're nowhere near done). Yorke's prose style is choppy and scattered, and his entries make for an often disturbing read: Extremely personal, grammar-be-damned lines like "I was struggling, feels like we been trapped for a long time" are posted with no additional details, leaving readers to wonder if Yorke has gone completely crackers (and also to ask, "When did he start using smiley-face emoticons?").

BR: I'm going to read you a few of these blog postings...

TY: Oh, goody.

BR: 'Have come through another crisis, shaky but intact:' What crisis?

TY: [Pauses] Just wondering whether [Radiohead] should be carrying on. I always wonder whether we should be carrying on. We all do, really. In January and February we were still trying to work out what was what. It just seems to take a monumental effort to get everything back in gear. We stopped for so long. You need to be hanging out a lot and sharing ideas without realizing it. You can't disappear for six months and come back and expect it to be wonderful. And by rights now, we should have split up. Isn't that what we're supposed to do at this point? We're not fucking 20.

BR: Here's another one: "I'm fucking tearing my hair out. Too much at once:' It sounds like you put a lot of pressure on yourself.

TY: The pressure's from all of us. There was a long period of time when we didn't have a producer. We didn't have someone external giving us feedback. And by default, that meant that I, for whatever reason, was the one saying yes or no, and I was tearing my hair out because I couldn't wear both hats.

BR: How about "There are giant waves of self-doubt crashing over me:'

TY: Ah. There I go again.

BR: Is this an allusion to depression? You've talked about depression in the past.

TY: Maybe. I mean, I can never work out if it's depression or just lack of energy.


A FEW NIGHTS LATER, outside Philadelphia's Tower Theater, a determined-looking teen stands on the corner, index finger in the air. Like so many other 'Headheads milling about, he has an almost zero chance of getting in; the Tower holds only 3,000, and the seats for tonight's show - the band's first Stateside concert since they were forced to headline over the Pixies-sold out in seconds.

So he'll miss out on the mad rush when the band takes to the stage with "You and Whose Army?" He'll miss the nine new songs, many of which sound like a return to the rock-oriented Radiohead of The Bends (especially the soulful "House of Cards" and the Wire-in-a-haunted-house "Open Pick"). And he'll miss out on one of Yorke's most physically animated performances to date: The frontman staggers, flails, and waves, and at one point appears to approximate Axl Rose's shimmying snake dance (though the homage is probably accidental). To the casual observer, it could even look as if hes havingfun.


BR: When you were in the studio earlier this year, pondering the breakup of the band, how serious did it get?

TY: What will probably irritate me about talking about that is that people make a big thing out of it. Well, what do you want me to say? Do you want me to say it's all wonderful and that we never thought about it? I think it's good to be honest about wanting to still have genuine reasons for doing this. But when you say that some days it doesn't feel like the right thing to do, it's made into this big thing. But surely, that's fundamental. That's a fundamental part of the whole process of being a musician-choosing whether to work this way or that way.

How bad did it get? I don't know. Lots of discussions. I think we're a lot closer now than we have been for a few years.

BR: Do you still enjoy being in Radiohead?

TY: Yeah, I do. Ultimately, it's important to me to be sharing ideas with the others. That's the way we do it. You don't notice it until you actually decide to not hang out with each other for a bit.

BR: You've been cracking jokes and smiling a lot on this tour. Do you think your reputation for being humorless is fair?

TY: No. I think it's widely unfair. But it's out of my control. I'm humorless when I
think people are wankers. I'm not tolerant of idiots.

BR: What's the biggest misconception people have about you?

TY: Well, that's the same as the previous question!

Sidebar:

JOHNNY CASH MOVIES, PIXIES WHO SING
These are a few of Yorke's favorite things

Walk the Line
"Fucking hell, what a great film! I liked the way they were able to take the [characters'] biographies and dramatize them in a way that wasn't naff."

Liars, Drum's Not Dead
"My favorite record of the moment. I don't know what it is about it--when you have it on, you just zone out. They moved to Berlin, and they sound like they're smoking loads of ganja."

The Bug vs. the Rootsman
"They're on Rephlex, which is Aphex Twin's label. It's all sort of bit-crushed, and I guess it's drum'n'bass. I don't know. I'm too old to actually know the difference between this and grime. I'm supposed to know this shit."

The Georgraphy of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape, by James Howard Kunstler
"It's an American book. [Album cover artist] Stanley Donwood lent it to me because we've been obsessing about suburbia. It's an analysis of the way America's developed since the first settlers. There was this period before and after the Second World War where America could have gone one way or another. And it chose to go [towards massive development]."

Bjork "Unravel"
"'While you are away, my heart comes undone / Slowly unravels in a ball of yarn / The devil collects it with a grin.' I'm trying to get Radiohead to do a cover, because I think it's one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard."


"Ain't No Fat on This Record"
Yorke comes clean about his albums

PABLO HONEY
1993
"Some of the songs we did justice to, and some we were in a bit of a hurry to do. But I think we did a good job on that record, considering we were kind of wet behind the ears."

THE BENDS
1995
"I like the fact that The Bends was so direct, but it [required] a lot of aborted versions and starting over. For 'Street Spirit (Fade Out),' we were bashing our heads against the wall for days and not getting anywhere. We had countless versions that didn't make sense. I was being impatient."

OK COMPUTER
1997
"The house [in Bath, where it was recorded] was the most haunted house we ever encountered. Some people saw things; some people heard things. What tends to happen to me with haunted houses is I hear the thoughts of this other entity. You can't determine what they're saying; they're not that specific. Unless you're under the influence, and it gets really specific!"

KID A
2000
"I often think about the horn section on 'The National Anthem.' Me and Jonny were standing in front of all these players: Jonny was writing out scores, and I was going, 'Just play it like a bunch of cars in a traffic jam! They're really cross!' I really didn't give a shit what they started playing. I was listening to a lot of Charles Mingus. I wanted to take that to the extreme."

AMNESIAC
2001
"It never felt right to make Kid A and Amnesiac all one record; they both have [their own] weird flow. Amnesiac has some good songs on it--we play 'Dollars & Cents' a lot. And I'm really proud of 'You and Whose Army?': Jonny was listening to ['30s vocal group] the Ink Spots, and he and Nigel had a bee in their bonnet about how it should be done. And I was like, 'Are you sure about that?'"

HAIL TO THE THIEF
2003
"Of all the records we did, I'd maybe change the playlist. I think we had a meltdown when we put it together. 'There There' is amazing, and '2 2=5' is good, but as Nigel says, I wish I had another go at that one. We wanted to do things quickly, and I think the songs suffered. It was part of the experiment. Every record is part of the experiment."

THE ERASER
2006
"Ain't no fat on this record--it's a lean motherfucker. Short records are a good idea--40 minutes is the length of a school lesson, isn't it? Besides, we didn't have a lot left over. There's a B-side called 'Drunk Machine,' which was cool, but The Eraser has a nice sheen to it, and if we put that in, it would have been like putting a massive stink bomb in the middle of the record."

With Radiohead, and Alone, the Sweet Malaise of Thom Yorke | New York Times

Note: Thom's solo acoustic rendition of "Reckoner" from last year's Trade Justice Movement concert can be found on part 12.