Thursday 27 August 2009

The bank holiday weekend


A few decision of things worth checking out as the last days of summer draw to a close.


1. Leeds and Reading festivals, Friday to Sunday: Kings of Leon, Arctic Monkeys and Radiohead headline in front of crowds of over 150,000, split between the two sites.

2. Notting Hill Carnival, London, Sunday and Monday: Europe's longest street festival. Over 1 million revellers are expected to attend the Caribbean festivities. Check out the Transport for London website for details of underground station closures.

3. Manchester United v Arsenal, Saturday, kick-off at Old Trafford, 5.15pm: Clash of two premier league titans it's live on Sky Sports if you can't take tickets.

4. Cricket, International Twenty20 Match, England v Australia, Monday, Old Trafford, 2.30pm: Twenty20 cup kicks off with an Ashes rematch, of sorts.

5. Manchester Pride: Ten days of gay pride celebrations culminate with a Big Weekend including a parade through the city on Saturday from 1pm.

6. Mathew Street Festival, Liverpool, Sunday and Monday: Six stages feature the best tribute bands around in the 17th year of the festival.

7. World Bog Snorkelling championships, Llanwrtyd Wells, Wales, Monday, race starts 11am: 200 competitors, some in fancy dress, battle it out to be the fastest across a muddy trench.

8. Get Loaded in the Park, London, Sunday: 40,000 gather on Clapham Common to see Orbital and Royksopp top the bill.

9. Scrum on the Beach, Newquay, Saturday and Sunday, 12-11pm: Meet England rugby players and play beach rugby.

10. Magician and comedian Jerry Sadowitz is at the Playhouse in Edinburgh on Saturday night.

11. Battle of Marston Moor, York, Sunday - Monday: Thousands are expected for the biggest re-enactment of the year, the First English Civil War festival.

12. Or stay at home and watch Wuthering Heights on ITV 1 on Sunday and Monday at 9pm, a two part Peter Bowker adaptation of the Emily Brontë novel.13. You could go to the cinema, with Pedro Almodovar's Broken Embraces and Judd Apatow's Funny People opening this weekend.

Sunday 23 August 2009

Radiohead Play Live For The First Time "These Are My Twisted Words"


Upon the track's official departure on Monday, Jonny wrote that the band would "probably" play "These Are My Twisted Words" at this summer's gig. And sure enough Radiohead kicked off the encore to their first ever Austrian show Friday with the new non album, non EP single. A fan at the 2009 Frequency Festival in St. Poelten footaged it for posterity:


Setlist01 "15 Step"
02 "There There"
03 "Airbag"
04 "All I Need"
05 "Kid A"
06 "The National Anthem"07 "Nude"
08 "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi"
09 "The Gloaming"
10 "Myxomatosis"
11 "Climbing Up The Walls"
12 "Street Spirit (Fade Out)"
13 "Videotape"
14 "Jigsaw Falling Into Place"
15 "Karma Police"
16 "Bodysnatchers"
17 "Idioteque"----------
18 "These Are My Twisted Words"
19 "Pyramid Song"
20 "Reckoner"
21 "(Nice Dream)"
22 "Paranoid Android"----------23 "Everything In Its Right Place"
Radiohead have gigs in Prague (8/23) and Poznan (8/25) before next weekend's Leeds & Reading sets. Then the Internets will will a new album into actuality probably.

Monday 17 August 2009

Radiohead EP mystery solved a bit! Sort of! Maybe!

This week the world has been a-flutter with the news that Radiohead might be releasing new material on Monday, August 17 after a new song seemed to appear online.

Now, eagle-eyed observers have noticed that elements of the file and code attached to the song featured the words "wall" and "of" and "ice", and that indeed the combination of the three appeared in a mysterious poem that accomanpanied the track on back-of-the-internet-lorry site what.cd. You can find all the Wall of Ice stuff hidden in the ASCII code here.

If you therefore assume that Radiohead follow the same model as they did with In Rainbows – ie they create a website based on the title of the release – you get www.wallofice.com. And that leads straight to the WASTE shop. In other words, it looks very much like the rumours are true: there’s an EP coming with that title and Radiohead’s site is all set up to receive the orders via that site.

It would also be a massive raspberry to EMI, who are reissuing a load more Radiohead back catalogue to feed Guy Hands' coffers in a few weeks, not to mention being entirely in tune with Thom Yorke's hints that the band are no longer interested in going down the path of releasing full-length albums.