SmashingHead

Fri: 03-28-08 Interview: Radiohead "On YouTube...there's like 20 versions of people playing 'Videotape' in their bedroom on the guitar or keyboard-- how cool is that?" 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.

ho appena visto il film. è un capolavoro (e raramente abuso di questo termine) e la colonna sonora di jonny è straordinaria. non perdetevelo al cinema e, se possibile, vedetelo in lingua originale. m

Ti ho mandato una mail in privato!

trovato il biglietto! mi metto in lista! prato: Caio, CutToShreds, Sig. Bakke, Cremo, Attack No.1 (+ Girl), streetspirit, fracturingirl, Lacatus (+Mason & 1 friend), TearsOfBlackstar, Garrel, Jack La Motta (& friend), consuelo (e 2 amiche), radioRina, >fra, petlifesaver (& friends), paranoidguitar, elflum, utopia1985, paranoidandroid84, psychodandy, elipotter (+2 amiche), bean, Wolf at the door, max, WIERDO, fratellI di Pandroid (& friends), Paranoid Spirit + mamma, frankhead, renny, karmapoliceman, , Bonham + 2 amici, <fra>, followmearound (+ una decina), Maquilador, haunted, smashinghead prima tribuna:Tatvit, GreatGig (+ 2 amiche), Babuc + amica (settore G), Wolfattedoor, sushi police, Pyramid_Ana, everhanto seconda tribuna: Marco83p, LURGEE**

grande cut. ancora una volta complimenti e pensaci davvero a questa carriera. marco

molto bene. ma 17 gennaio (titolo) o febbraio (testo) ?

jonny sta arrivando a dei livelli paurosi. è un disco bellissimo. spero che i radiohead attingano da tutto ciò

qualcuno riesce ad uploadarlo su un altro sito di sharing? grazie

Lo streaming del nuovo cd di jonny. due tracce: Open Spaces e Future Markets http://journal.nonesuch.com/journal/2007/1...such-radio.html genius...

hahahhahahhaha grandi toti e tata. quante risate nella mia adolescenza. sono dei geni ma per ovvi motivi non hanno potuto varcare i confini regionali. questo lo possono capire anche i non pugliesi, la mitica sigla del polpo: http://youtube.com/watch?v=lsAm7ixVOiQ

grazie! ma il merito è tutto di cuttoshreds. quanto alla tua videotape, io non sono bravissimo con l'elettronica. forse tatvit ha il know how

Quando cuttoshreds ha postato la sua faust arp sono rimasto davvero molto colpito. la sua versione era davvero molto riuscita ed intensa. Con il suo assenso, ho aggiunto con il mio sintetizzatore i violini alla sua parte di voce/chitarra. Non è stato facile, per tanti motivi. Anzitutto, imparare le parti di jonny (arrangiamenti per archi degni del miglior morricone). Poi adattarmi alla traccia di federico, registrata in qualità sonora non eccellente, spesso, per ovvie ragioni, non completamente a tempo. Queste collaborazioni a distanza sono fantastiche. Spero che vi piaccia… http://download.yousendit.com/78F7F0D81FA12D51 Marco p.s. Max, si possono mettere dei downloads diretti dal sito per le nostre cover dei radiohead? sarebbe carino, anche perchè questi link tipo yousendit sono expiring.

azz.. mooolto bella

http://www.ateaseweb.com/2007/11/05/emi-to...iohead-box-set/

bodysnatcher è cantata benissimo!! e per certi versi è molto più psichedelica di quella dei radiohead. fa un certo effetto sentire la mia arpeggi con il cantato. grazie, mi piace molto. ok. ormai è chiaro che la board è piena di risorse. come mi capitava di commentare con federico (cuttoshreds) qualche giorno fa ci sarebbe da divertirsi se abitassimo tutti nella stessa città. forse è il caso di cominciare a pensare ad uno di quei album registrati in gruppo a distanza, stile neongolden dei notwist per intenderci. marco

sono di brindisi, laureato a lecce, ora lavoro a roma terrone maledetto doc!

christopher o'riley si è già messo a lavoro sul nuovo materiale. ecco la sua all i need http://akhaia.typepad.com/christopherorile...performance.mp3

SmashingHead possso metterci una voce sulla tua arpeggi??? please ;-) of course... così ne esce un bel duetto pugliese

una piccola like spinning plates, con poca tecnica ma tanta passione http://download.yousendit.com/FBB5791334BFB68A

http://download.yousendit.com/27C4F7236F53EB42 questa è una mia versione di arpeggi (piano solo) che avevo già postato. credo che un po renda l'idea della mia delusione per la versione di arpeggi di inrainbows. mi sto divertendo troppo ad scoltarvi. tutti bravi

per la gioia di Lacatus, una mia versione di Faust Arp... che ammetto, è proprio difficile da cantare e suonare insieme. ci ho provato! l'ho registrata con la mia chitarra acustica e un microfono da 15 euro, in presa diretta e senza sovraincidere niente. ci sono tantissime imperfezioni, ma prometto che da gennaio vi manderò cose più accurate. faust arp cut, davvero complimenti. è bellissima. dovresti serimante pensare ad una carriera. sono davvero impressionato... marco

da ATEASEWEB Radiohead will embark on an international tour starting next spring. Although details are still sketchy, expect the band to play multiple markets, in sizeable venues. “We plan to tour next year, starting in May through to probably the end of the year. With lots of holidays in that period,” says Bryce Edge of Courtyard Management, the firm that manages the band to Billboard.com. “At the moment we are talking with our agents in North America and for the rest of the world, trying to get a schedule which works for the band and works financially. They toured last summer almost for creative reasons, definitely not for financial reasons. And I think they quite enjoyed it,” explains Edge. “The next set of touring will be slightly larger-scale venues.” Frontman Thom Yorke is anything but a fan of international treks and, in the past, the singer has raised concerns over the effects of touring on climate change. “He likes to do shows, but the whole business of schlepping around the world is not top of his list of favorite things to do. He really enjoys playing to the fans — it’s just the process of how to do that which is the pain in the neck (for Yorke). They’re not road dogs. They never have been.” Bryce Edge also talked about the speculation on sales of new album ‘In Rainbows”. Edge downplayed as “exaggerated” reports that “In Rainbows” had shifted more than 1.2 million copies, but admitted the average price paid was “probably pretty close” to £4 ($8). “We haven’t analyzed the data yet,” he explains. “The servers are still functioning on delivering the records to people. When that calms down a bit, we will have a moment to analyze and drag the data off. “ And he was philosophical on reports that the illegal platforms have delivered millions of units. “The fact of the matter is, as soon as a record goes into manufacture, or advance copies are released to the press, it goes onto BitTorrent. That is the fact. What we are dealing with is a situation that we always dealing with.” A label deal has yet to be struck for the physical release of the album, a spokesperson for the band says.

bhe, ma allora hai aspettato 4 anni per il disco meno riuscito dei radiohead (escluso il loro esordio giovanile) e sei anche contento?

in effetti lacatus non mi sono espresso benissimo. quando ho scritto soddisfatto avevo in mente un concetto di sufficienza, di discreto apprezzamento. purtoppo non posso modificare il poll. pertanto prego a chi vota di interpretare il "soddisfatto" in questo modo. sorry

Sono passati 8 giorni dall'uscita di IR. Ognuno di noi in questi giorni ha espresso giudizi frammentari, anche perchè le discussioni erano divise per canzoni. Ho pensato ad un poll semplice ed essenziale. Quattro risposte sono poche e non rendono giustizia alle varie posizioni ma è l'unico modo per "tastare il polso" della board su IR. Magari sarà interessante comparare i risultati con quelli di un poll indentico tra qualche mese o tra qualche anno.