No Filler Music Podcast - Ep 29: Radiohead - Hail To The Thief

Episode Date: February 10, 2019

We continue our deep dive into Radiohead with a look at Hail To The Thief. Coming out of the Kid A and Amnesiac tunnel where Thom nearly turned his back completely on guitar-based melodies, Hail is a return to Radiohead embracing the traditional rock song format and Thom finding his voice again. The computer was still a critical component to the song-writing process, but treated like the other instruments used in the recording session. The result is uniquely Radiohead, a mashup of every stepping stone that brought them to that point. For more info, check out the show notes: https://www.nofillerpodcast.com/episode/album-review-radiohead-hail-to-the-thief Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. We have been in our past quite defensive because there have been a lot of things that we haven't necessarily felt comfortable with doing this. You know, when you become a band and you release records, you get into it because you play music and then you sort of decide to release records

and you enter that whole arena of promotion and marketing. And some of these things, you know, they're not bad things, but there's some things that we haven't felt comfortable with. But now, only after 12 years of doing this as a kind of, you know, okay, this is what we do. And we, you know, if we want to get our record heard by people, which is, you know, ultimately what we want to do,

these are things that you have to do. And welcome back to No Filler. The music podcast dedicated to sharing the often overlooked hidden gyms to fill the space between the singles on our favorite records. My name is Travis. With me is my brother Quentin, as always. And we're back on the radio head train. Q, are you excited? Of course, dude.

It's been way too long, man. So, hail to the thief. we've arrived at my favorite radio head album. And that was Mr. Ed O'Brien on that interview clip that played us in, sort of talking about how the band has sort of matured as a group up to this point and how they've sort of learned to play all the games that come with like promoting a record. and, you know, they had done the big major hit when they came out with Creep in 92. They did the endless amounts of touring, and they got kind of burnt out from that whole thing really quickly,

as we talked about in our previous Radiohead episodes. And then they went into the kid A and amnesiac era where it was more, you know, electronic-driven. And then they came out on the other end of all that and made hail to the thief and had sort of, you know, me it almost seems like you know the longer you're you're in a career a certain career like you just become better at it you know yeah yeah no like i like that it took tom york's dismay you know like the fall of tom york in between what okay computer and kid a and then them figuring out who radio head was as a band with kid a and amnesiac and then they emerge on the other side they've got everything fucking figured out and then

they drop hell to the thief and i've got i've got a ton of uh interview clips to share and you know stint bits from interviews from from this era so we're going to dive into this uh hopefully pretty extensively but first we're going to do our what you heard weekly segment where we share something that we've heard recently that has caught our interest. Sometimes it's a band or a genre that's way, way different than the band that we're covering. That won't be the case for me, but Q, What do you got for us? Okay, so I've ever heard of a band called Clatoo? How do you spell that?

K-L-A-T-U. Nope. All right, well, I discovered them through the vinyl subreddit. I've actually found a lot of good artists through just being subscribed to the subreddit. So it's, you know, vinyl junkies. A lot of times people just post a picture of

their turntable with like the album leaned up against a speaker or something. And then like part of the criteria of posting on vinyl on the vinyl subreddit is you have to have like a certain character length description of your post. So a lot of people will just post an album that they're super into that they're listening to on vinyl. And, you know, their description of it will kind of just go into details about why they love the record and all that stuff. This is a Canadian band that were popular in the 70s.

They're still around, actually. But I don't want to talk too much about the band before I play. a clip real quick. This is a psychedelic pop rock band from the 70s. I'm going to play a song from their debut album, which was self-titled in America, but when it was originally released in Canada, it was called 347 Eastern Time,

or EST, what is it, Eastern Standard Time. So this is a song called, called Dr. Marvolo. And again, this is off of Clitou's debut album. That came out in 1976. So what year did that song come out? 1976. A little backstory behind this band.

I thought it was really cool, kind of interesting. So again, in 1976, self-titled debut album by Clotoo gets released on Capitol Records with little notice. So basically, no hype. You know, like, these guys wanted the album to be released with little to know information about them.

Basically, they wanted the music to shine through. They didn't want anything else to be part of that, you know. So no one knew anything about this band. And so this was released in August of 76. The following February, a writer named Steve Smith for the Providence Journal in Rhode Island, wrote an article called Could Clotoo be the Beatles? Mystery is a magical mystery tour.

The article began the rumor that Clotoo was in fact, more than likely, either in part or in whole, the Beatles. So this comes out, people think, oh my God, the Beatles are back together. Now they're called Clotoo. And, yeah, that rumor and the hype ran around. and like fucking record sales sword.

You know, radio stations ran is Clotoo the Beatles promotions. There were clues with the records as to whether or not they were, in fact, the Beatles with backward messages, Morse code, references to the group's identities and song lyrics and the word Beatles

hidden in various places on the record jacket. Wow. So, but I mean, really, Yeah, the John Lennon similarities were obvious, but what about the female vocalist? Well, I mean, I don't know. Yeah, I don't. So if you listen to the album, for one, it's a really fun listen, dude. It's got that magical mystery tour or like Sergeant Pepper's vibe.

You know, it's very whimsical. There's a lot of like horns and strings sections. and yeah dude like from song to song I don't know how many singers were involved in the recording of this album but there's only three members in the band

there's two singers slash you know bass guitar and then there's a drummer so but there's another one of the other guys sings a lot like Paul McCartney you know so over time they've just been dubbed you know they've just been called like the Canadian

Beatles, right? Because they're from Canada. So, I mean, they, they obviously knew, knew what they had as far as, like, their, I mean, you know what I mean? Like, you don't, you don't sing like John Lennon and don't realize that you're singing like John Lennon. You know what I mean? Right, right. Right.

And, like, the Capitol records and the band themselves didn't deny that they were the Beatles because of all the hype around it. Yeah, I mean, that's genius, right? I mean, that's a great way to build hype. Not to mention it's like, you know, well, we sound like him too. Yeah. So then anyways, after several months of conjecture, the group's identity was revealed at the end of the year. It wasn't the Beatles after all.

Immediately the record sales declined. And due to a backlash generated by the Beatles hoax, therefore subsequent albums failed to sell. So that kind of blew up in their face. That's hilarious. Dude, and it sucks because that was all because of this. fucking journalist that had that article titled, Could Clotoo Be the Beatles? And they went with it.

And, you know, so it kind of blew up in their face. But anyways, again, this album's, it's a lot of fun. I just listened to it all the way through yesterday. A really cool record. Again, this is Clitoo's self-titled, or 347 EST, is the actual name of the album. again it came out in 1976 really fun listen

I definitely recommend giving it a solid listen all the way through so that's my watcher heard nice man nice what about you brother okay so since it's been so long since we've had Radiohead on this podcast

you know the original schedule was supposed to be about once a month we would do a Radiohead album and you know we had some episodes in between where we couldn't get together So. Yeah, I was out of town.

Yeah. It's, yeah. So, you know, I wanted to get to Radiohead even sooner on this episode. So my what you heard is their latest single, which came out last month called Ill Wind. So this is as new as it gets for Radiohead. This is actually a B-side from their last album, A Moon-shaped Pool, which came out in 2016. So anyway, let's just play a little bit of it. And again, this is a brand new single by Radiohead called Ill Wind.

Never disappoint, you know. They just never do. Right. I was about to say, this is like for us, you know, you know how we feel about Spoon. Yeah. Spoon can do no wrong. I mean, dude, Radiohead, they're the same, man. You know, it's funny.

I said that this was the most, like the newest radio head. And I guess that's true. But fans of Tom York, Got to hear some new Tom York with the, with the Susperia soundtrack. I think I played some of that a few episodes back. So, yeah. But anyway, just, you know, this is, you know, when you think of all the radiohead, sort of the landscape of radiohead songs, you know, this kind of falls into that more

on the haunting side as far as his vocals and just the overall vibe. It's got a very, yes. It's, you know, his voice reminded me of, um, of exit music for a film on okay computer, um, as far as like, it just sounds like he's right there and you're like right next to you, you know, with his voice. Yeah. That's my favorite side of Radiohead. And that's like their main side, you know, is that haunting vibe.

Yeah. Like, I mean, you know, just kind of makes your hair stand up on end, you know, when he listened to it, Especially if you've got it cranked up, you know, like it's like where it's filling the space, you know, filling the room that you're in. Like, it just gives you chills. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they've always done a good job, like, with just the music just, like, surrounding you and enveloping you, you know? Yeah.

Yeah. And, you know, let's talk about how killer that baseline is that just plays throughout the whole song. Yeah, dude. And the drums, too. It just has a very like, almost kind of a jazzy kind of vibe, the drum and bass at least. Now, is Nigel Godrick still producing their stuff, you know, up to this day? Yeah, he produced it. Yeah, so anyway, I think this is a good segue now to, obviously, I mean, you can't have a better segue than that into talking about hail to the things.

thief. Not only because... So let me just say real quick again, you know, I mean, no one cares. But I have purposely not listened to this album leading up to this episode because it's honestly the episode. It's honestly the album of theirs that I've given the least amount of attention to. I don't know why, dude, because for a lot of people, Hilda the Thief, it's like the album to listen to for radio. But I've always

I've always circled back to Kid A and Amnesiac is like my favorites, you know, like the ones I'll always go back to. But have you listened to In Rainbows? Oh, dude, I love In Rainbows. Okay, so that's interesting because

I mean, the stepping stone, you know, between Amnesiac and In Rainbows, like you just sort of skipped over it. Yeah. And so like, I've listened to Hale to the Thief. I know I've listened to it all day through before,

you know, and I loved it. Yeah. But, you know, when going back to Radiohead albums, I don't know why. You know,

I just don't go back to Hale to the Thief. So I'm excited to listen to these songs again. Yeah. Well, um, the, the main difference and the, the thing that's going to jump out immediately,

when you listen to the songs on Hail to the Thief versus what they were doing on Kid A and Amnesiac is that it's sort of a you know they kind of find their their sound again as far as like you know I'm just going to let's just let I've got a lot of good clips here so let's just let the band actually kind of explain it or at least let

let's let Tom explain it he's got a really good breakdown I think this interview was around the in Rainbow's era, but he's sort of, they're talking about hail to the thief. So, um, let's listen to what Tom had to say. Even when you might have been dragged into Britpop, when Creep was becoming big, you were over in the States and stuff and you missed all that. I know, but OK Computer, sorry, the Ben's was, was our response to Britpop completely. Yeah.

And OK Computer was our response to hanging out with REM on tour, you know, and how to this, And Kidae and Amnesak was a response to my utter obsession with everything didn't involve with ours. And, you know, Hale to the Thief was not as much a response to things musically. And then by the time we got to this, we felt completely isolated. Well, Hale to the Thief was also at the time. That was an attempt to make a record where we all got on. And it was harmonious.

Interesting. So like he said there, you know, we had talked about this in the previous episodes that they did OK computer. Tom York sort of had a not a meltdown, but like he went off the deep end. Yeah, I mean, he just became obsessed with like he said there, everything musically that involved or basically anything that didn't involve a guitar. Like he was so turned off by melody and like the traditional like rock guitar. structure song. He was infatuated with rhythm over melody. Yeah.

Yeah. And dude, here's the interesting thing. And I see where you're getting at here. Like, Hilda the Thief. So, okay, I don't know. Like, when we covered Amnesiac, and I thought it was really interesting that, okay, so we talked about how Kid A and Amnesiac were all material. from the same era, you know, like, all that you hear between those two albums were written

around the same time, right? But, like, right off the bat, when you listen to Amnesiac, it seems like, you know, Tom York's voice is back, you know, center stage in a lot of those songs. And there are more melodic songs in Amnesiac. You know, you still have your, your rhythm-heavy songs and your songs where Tom York's voice is kind of hidden away under effects and other things. But, you know, to quote that, where is that? Okay.

So remember that quote I read for our Amnesiac episode by Stanley Donwood, the guy that did the artwork for Kid A&A. And Amnesiac. He also did the artwork for Held of the The but he said that kid A is like you pick up the phone and you call somebody and all you get is an answering machine. I'm paraphrasing, but with Amnesiac, you actually get through to that person and you're engaged in the conversation. I just think it's interesting that in between Kid A and Amnesiac, so basically the songs that they decided not to put on Kid A versus the songs that they ended up putting on Amnesiac, it does. does feel like, you know, a disconnect and then like a connection, you know.

And so it feels like you've, you're finally connected to Radiohead with Amnesiac. And so here comes Hale to the Thief. And my guess is, and from what I remember listening to Held to the Thief, that's even more so the case with this album. Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, that's a good way to look at it. And, you know, the thing about this record is that it's a return to, it's kind of like, it's a little bit of their past and, well, it's all of their past, but like merged into one sound. So there's a interview that NME did around the 10-year anniversary of this record, which would have been, you know, maybe six years ago. And they're talking to Nigel Godrick, as we all know, the producer of all of these records.

And he's talking about that sort of the merging of the recorded instruments and the electronic stuff. He personally didn't think that it worked for the album. But he says, in a way that's the criticism I would have of it, it didn't really have its own direction. It was almost like a homogeneity of previous work. maybe that's its strength question mark so I would be on the side of the coin that says that that's the strength of this album is that it's the electronic stuff that they were doing

and on kid A mixed with the more melodic stuff they did on OK computer and here's another one more quote here from Tom York he said the last two records Kid A and Amnesiac were a real headache we had spent so much time looking at computers and grids, we were like, that's enough, we can't do that anymore. This time, we used computers,

but they had to actually be in the room with all the gear. So everything was about performance, like staging a play. So they treated the computers this time like the other instruments that were in the room. Dude, man, and that... I love that that goes back to... I mean, that's a callback to Tyco, right? Like, we talked about that in our Tico episode.

Yeah, you're right. He treats, he treats his, the effects, you know, and the software or the, you know, the, he treats his computer effects and all that like their physical instruments. So like Tom York saying, and, you know, with the band, they had all these effects available to them via computer, but they had that alongside their actual, like, performance and instruments. and it was more harmonious than that end. Yeah, yeah, that's a good throwback, dude. Good pool. Dude, and again, it's so interesting to me. So remember, Tom York kind of said,

like with interviews that I read around MESiaks release, they felt like they were connecting for the first time as a full band because in the previous years, Tom, you know, is Tom York's way or the highway. right yeah like he was the one that that that made all the decisions with songwriting and all that stuff and then he had that fucking breakdown and realized that oh shit you know we're we're not a band if i'm the only one calling all the shots so you know he started to let the other members kind of shine through and do their own thing and and throw in their own ideas um you know and

And those are the songs that end up on amnesiac. So you've got that. And then in a few years down the line, you've got Held of the Thief where this whole time the band has been kind of working together rather than just Tommy York calling all the shots. Yeah. Yeah, that's probably a good way to look at it too. And for sure. And that's what Ed O'Brien was saying in that interview clip that, you know, this was like the album where it felt the most harmonious, you know. Yes, dude, so let's listen to our first clip, man.

It's time. Just get some tunes going. Okay. First song is called Sail to the Moon. And let me just give some context here. Tom York wrote it for his son, Noah, who was a baby at the time, like not even a year old. So it's sort of a, what are you, you singing a song to your kid, you know, when he's going to sleep, like a lullaby. You're talking about like a lullaby?

Yeah, it's like a lullaby. Yeah. Or at least if Tom York wrote a lullaby, right? So, and what's great about this song and why it's a good first song for us to listen to is that it sort of shows how Tom sort of found his voice again on this record compared to the last two records. So anyway, here we go. Let's play it. This song is called Sail to the Moon. You want to talk about, you want to talk about goosebumps, man.

Yeah. Gorgeous song. Yeah, that was good, dude. and I mean, really simple song, right? Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's a lullaby, right? Really straightforward. So, let me read the lyrics here. I sailed to the moon.

I spoke too soon and fell into the sun. I was dropped from moonbeams and sailed on shooting stars. Maybe you'll be president, but no right from wrong. or in the flood you build an arc and sail us to the moon that's basically it I love it man

he's singing to his son yeah so anyway here's some interesting information about this song so for those of you who aren't aware of this website it's it's crazy the amount of resources that are on this website but it's called citizen insane

dot eU and it's a fan site that basically has this guy is gathering information on Radiohead almost to the point of like obsession like he'll have he'll have screenshots from old versions of the website

the Radiohead website and I'll be like this is the first time that this lyric showed up on the website and all this kind of stuff but it sounds like Radiohead really did treat their website like a piece of art almost they would just throw fragments of like lyrics and stuff onto the website before the song even came out.

Yeah, that's really cool. And that's true for a lot of these songs. Yeah, so here's a quote from Colin Greenwood, who's the bass player and brother of a guitar player, Johnny. He says that there are two kinds of songs when you're working with Tom. There are the ones which are sort of all right and you do something that's really good. and then there's the ones like sail to the moon that when you hear the demo of it you could just put that on the record and everyone would swoon

and it's a real case of don't walk on the grass don't step on the flowers when you're playing it so you really just try and like play as little as possible to get in the way with the tracks because it's such a delicate sort of thing such a beautiful thing and it's great and it has

this is interesting kind of funny quote, but he says, it's got this James Bond sort of moonwaker vibe to it when you switch the gravity machine off in the studio and everyone's just floating around. Wow. So in other words, like, it's such a. Yeah. So basically, you know, Tom York has a demo tape of this and he brings it to the band and it's like, hey, here's a new song.

And these guys are so, like he said, it's like, don't step on the grass, don't step on the flowers, like it's such a perfect song that you don't want to mess it up when you're adding your part to it. Yeah. Wow. So he's saying that there are two kinds of songs that Tom York brings to the band. And this is one of the types of songs where it's like, you know, this is such a perfect, beautiful song that we, you know, we have to kind of touch.

Like what can we add to it? Yeah. Yeah. Like, like, what can, yeah. What can we add to it to not take away from how impactful it already is? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So here's something interesting.

And this is what I'm talking about with, and this is the early, early days of like, of the web and messaging boards and stuff like that. One thing I found out about this record is that people out there had found and downloaded the songs before the record came out. It's one of those things, right? Yeah. They found demos of it and whatnot. Early releases of it. We know all about that, man. Yeah, we were, we were the ones who were doing that a few times.

Yeah, we were doing that. basically back then. Yeah, yeah. But we all know what happened with in rainbows, right? The next record, they put it out on the internet. Name your price, remember? Name your price. Yeah, they were one of the first bands, maybe the first band to do that.

Yeah. And we all know about Tom York's relationship with record labels and all that good stuff. Also, obviously, this record, Hailed of the Thief, was their last record on their contract with whatever that, I think it was Excel or something. something like that. Whatever the record label was, this was their last record on that contract. So that's probably also why when it came to in rainbows,

you know, or I guess it was capital. Maybe it was capital. I don't know. But whatever. It was according to Spotify, it's copyright Excel. Well,

that may have been because they re-released it. Excel might be like the new. Yeah. Either way. No, but I didn't know that. Yeah, that makes sense then. Yeah. That they decided to just fuck,

you know, fuck it, let's do our own thing. Oh, no, yeah, it was capital. Parlophone records in the UK and capital records in the U.S. So anyway, the point I was trying to get at was that if you listen to the record, when I was reading the lyrics, I said, you know, I sailed to the moon. That's the first line. Yeah. It sounds like he says, I sucked the moon when you listen to the actual song.

And he's saying here that maybe fans speculated about the line on message board. records, right? Because back then they didn't have the lyrics yet because people would download the song. A demo is of the song, right? And then Tom just used what they thought that they heard. He said that even during the OK computer sessions, he used lyrics. The fans had misheard from low-quality live recordings. So maybe this happened to get in here. No fucking way, dude. Yeah, so that's what I'm saying. Like they had this, they would, you know, it's funny that to think Tom's going on message boards and sort of like reading what how the fans are interacting with songs that they like live recordings so awesome man and then he's like you know I'm just kind of seeing it like that because

that's what they think the lyrics are yeah I love it yeah man that's and it's also just kind of messing with you right but anyway and like from from so early on back to okay computer days like and I feel like we've talked about this in the episode like they just don't care right you know yeah I mean, like, in the best way possible, they do not care about fame or, you know, following the fucking the rules. Yeah, exactly. And they never have, right? All right. So let's move to the next, let's move to the next song.

This is going to be a nice change of pace from sail to the moon. And this is one of my favorite radio hit songs. It's called Where I End and You Begin. Start, dude. His voice is fucking, ugh. And like that. like that the the the effects that that that that he's got on on the guitar lines like towards the end there yeah towards the end of the clip yeah dude and like I wish we could just like pause this recording real

quick because I just want to get behind my kit man yeah those beats yeah man with the the phillips dropping that like and that's the thing with with with drummers that I admire fire, you know, in a door. Anytime I listen to them play, I just want to be behind my kit so that I can play something similar. Dude, that's just one of those drum beats, man. Yeah. What a great song.

Killer track, man. And just, I love the, the imagery of where I end and you begin. And this is one of those songs that, like, the meaning is sort of up for interpretation, according to some of the old interviews that I've read. Yeah. Here's just a, here's just a sampling here of, like, what it could mean, right? So,

somebody's saying, whoever the interviewer is at the time is just talking about the meaning of it. And he's asking sort of like, you know, is it the idea of two becoming one? And Tom says, or the opposite.

I really don't know what on earth these words mean. I do know I went through a phase where I couldn't actually, where I couldn't get back into my head. I'd walk around and I'd be, I could sort of see myself from above.

It's not much fun, I tell you. And the song originally stems from that. So, like, me, I've always read the song as, like, two people are so opposite from each other. They're, like, where I end and you begin, like, it's two different, very different things. But he's, Tom is suggesting here that, like, you know, I don't know what it means. Maybe it means, like, when I, you know, back, I had this phase where I felt like I was floating above myself where like I ended in this version of myself that was floating above me began so like he's up in this different place with these lyrics you know what I mean but he's also saying I have no

idea what the words mean I mean when I hear that phrase you know I immediately think you know that we're so harmonious with each other that I don't know where I end and you begin because we're so connected right well that's the thing though if you actually read the lyrics. Like here's the, here are the lyrics. Let's get to the bottom of this. There's a gap in between.

There's a gap where we meet, where I end and you begin. I'm sorry for us. The dinosaurs roam the earth. The sky turned green where I end and you begin. And then he even says, that's even the end of the lyrics,

I'm up in the clouds, I am up in the clouds, and I can't come down. It's almost like he's having it out of, out of body like sort of like where you're what's called like sleep paralysis or something like that where you can't move yourself but you're sort of seeing

yourself it's interesting yeah you can get yeah there's there's drug induced instances with that too like where you're you've got the out of body experiences yeah yeah I've never had one of those dude

I don't know about you nope and you know what dude This is a side track, but some people dream that way. They dream in third person. That's fucking weird, dude. Anytime I'm dreaming and I'm involved in the dream, I'm seeing it through my own fucking eyes.

I never see myself in my dreams. But apparently that's a thing, dude. Some people dream that way. Yeah. So here's some more lyrics here. X will mark the place like the parting of the waves like a house falling into the sea. I will eat you alive and there'll be no more lies. That's another theme in this album and I think through a lot of Tom's lyrics.

He likes to sing about cannibalism. Interesting. He even kind of acknowledges it. He says he can't get it out of his system. Just cannibal. Constant cannibal thing is what he says. And then here's another one. A lot of the record is about the frustration and powerlessness and anger and the huge gap

between the people that put themselves in control and the people that allegedly voted for them. So now he's getting political with it. Yeah. So like the, and the thing is, the funny thing about this is that he actually wrote this song years before Hale to the Thief came out. How many, how many years? he wrote it in 1998 after the okay computer tour so like his probably his relationship to the songs meaning and whatnot has changed right since he wrote it that's why he says i have no idea what it means like it means this it could also mean that man but yeah it's fuck dude knowing that that that this song has been just hanging out in his back pocket for all those years right and that seems

to be a lot of a lot of the case with with these songs um on this record And according to this fan website, he's got, this is what I was talking about earlier, he's got screenshots of the website. He says here like, this page appeared in the kid A era version of Radiohead.com under the title, I've had my fill. And they just has a screenshot of some of the lyrics from the song. Oh, man. We're just thrown just like, you know, just randomly on the website. Man, if you're like deep in it as a fan. Right.

You know, like you get a screenshot of some lyrics and like you got to wait fucking, what, five years before it surfaces again? Exactly. Man. So, but that's what's cool. Right. I mean, that's what I like about. That's what's great about radiohead is that they really, I feel like they really knew how to use the internet back then. Yeah, I was going to say, like, that's such a cool way to go about like sharing ideas, you know, with your fans.

It's kind of like, it's almost. It's almost like a guerrilla marketing type thing. Not so much. Not so much because it's on the website. But I mean, like just dropping little hints and things here and there that you can take. And like you're like, I don't know what this is, but this is awesome. That stirs up excitement with your fan base. Right.

Exactly. So anyway, really cool stuff. This is a great song. Again, it's one of my favorite radio hit songs. It's just got so many, so many different movements to it. And like, you know, it's just. And again, his voice is just commanding. you know. Plus, killer

baseline again, right? The Greenwood brothers are just killing it, you know? Yeah, dude. Always. Yeah. What does she get for us, brother? All right. So, now, this next song, I will say I didn't really pay much attention to it. My previous, like, listens of this album,

like, this is one of those songs that I've kind of ignored or just kind of, like, you know, skipped over or whatever. But I really like it. It's called A Punch Up at a Wedding. And has a really interesting feeling to it and like sound that kind of is different than some of the older, some of the older radiohead stuff. But anyway, let's just play it. Again, it's called a punch up at a wedding.

I just love the feeling of the piano, basically, right? The piano kind of carries the melody and the baseline. The piano and the baseline. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But that's a cool, just super simple.

I just love how punchy the piano is, you know. Punchy, right? Yeah, it's a, it's a bit more aggressive, you know? Yeah. Just like straight forward. Right. And that's, you know, like it just, like a driving baseline. Right.

Yeah, super simple. And again, it's like, you know, compared to the computer heavy stuff that they were doing in the past, like this is none of that, you know. Yeah. This is, yeah, this is. Yeah, this is just a rock band. You know, and each member of the band is showcased up front. Yeah. So I just was typing into Google to, I wanted to read the lyrics real quick.

Well, actually, okay, yeah, you can read them off, but I was going to explain what this is about. So I'm just, just not looking too far into it. It sounds like the lyrics, it's literally about someone who's ruining a wedding. Yes. Now, here's the, here's some drunk person ruining a wedding. Yep. So that is a metaphor for Tom's feelings toward a really negative review that somebody gave a concert that they gave back in 2001. He says, you're like a punch-up at a wedding.

I would feel the same way, man. I'd feel the same way. Like, fuck you, dude. Like, you perform live in front of people then. Right. So, yeah, dude, here's a little bit more on that. This is from Tom. He says, yeah, he said, this is just like a punch-up at a wedding.

Nobody knows what's going on. It's just a riot. And someone in the middle is being affected by this. And this is supposed to be the biggest day in their lives. And it's being ruined. I basically don't read anything that anybody writes about us now. Because I just can't anymore. And the main reason for that was that he just, he goes on and say,

he happened upon this review, like, accidentally of this Oxford show that they did. did, which was to them, it was a really important gig, and like, they thought it was amazing. It was one of the biggest days. He says it was one of the biggest days in his life. It's probably a very important, like, venue and concert for them, right? Yeah. And then he says, whoever this person was just tore it to shreds. They couldn't really think of how to tear us to shreds, really, so they just tore the audience to shreds and just said, basically, who are these people?

Who are these people a bunch of students, you know, white middle class, which was not the case at all. but what's the point in arguing? But this person managed to totally and utterly ruin that day for me forever. And it really shouldn't have done that. And I should have been bighead enough to just ignore it. And he says that that was sort of a lesson that he took from that, you know, that you can't. You just got to ignore the critics, you know. But yeah, that's what he's saying.

It's like a punch-up at a wedding. Like a fist fight breaks out at a wedding. And the bride is just standing there like in the middle of it all. Like this is supposed to be the most important day of my life. Yeah, why is this happening? You're shitting all over it. That's why when you look at the lyrics, it even says like, you know. You had to piss on our parade.

Yeah, the piss on our parade. You had to shred our big day. Exactly. All right, so we got one more song, and that's because, Q, you, I think you even mentioned the song, that you wanted to hear this song. Yes. On a previous recording. So we're going to play. Yes, thank you, brother.

Thank you. We're going to play mix and mitosis. Hell, yeah. Here we go. I love this song, man. Let's do it. And so that comes right after a punchup at a wedding. So what's this song about, man?

This is about, he says it's, maybe this is why it came after punch up. Is that there's a very convoluted response to what this is about from Tom. So I'm not going to read it because it's kind of hard to follow. But he's basically saying that this is about a sort of a misrepresentation of, of like these protests and stuff that were happening around. I don't really know the historical context or whatever, but this G7 or whatever summit in over there in the UK. And there is this like petition that millions of people signed.

And then there were these protests that were happening and the media and the news just focused on the protest and like put it in this negative light, basically. I don't know. Like I said, it's hard to follow. But basically it's about how, sort of like with punch up, how things can get like misrepresented. And like if you were there, you would have known what it was meant to be.

And the media can just take it and sort of do with it whatever they want. You know, that's why if you look at the lyrics, it says, you know, but it got edited, fucked up and strangled, beaten up, used as a photo in Time magazine, buried in a burning black hole in Devon. Dam. Buried. So basically, you just took what this was supposed to be and just buried it, you know? Yeah. And so that's, I guess that's the underlying theme, right?

You know, anger and frustration with these kind of things. Yeah. Yeah. Here's a quote from him. He says, the whole thing was just written. up so badly and everyone who was ignoring the fact that there was actually millions of people's fixed signatures on this thing. So there you go. I mean, that kind of stuff happens all the time. Yeah. Dude, well, I mean, let's just talk, let's talk about just the, just the song, man,

like the music behind it. Yeah. Yeah. First off, another killer drumbeat. And like, what are we hearing like the, boom, do, we, we know, like, I think it's the, it's the base. Is that. You know, with a bunch of effects on it. Yeah. Man, fucking amazing, dude. Yeah, it's a powerful, powerful thing. So fucking cool. Right.

What they can do with their effects on their instruments. Yeah, listen. I'm just going to keep reading this because this is really important here. I like what he's trying to say here. He goes, it just stuck with me how utterly powerless people are to really represent what goes on if other people elsewhere see fit. If they see a nicer and more convenient story to be written another way, they can write off the wishes of millions of people in a split second at editorial decision,

which I feel is immoral. So to me, I feel like that reminds me of the way that the Occupy Wall Street movement was represented in the media. Yes, man. It was represented so negatively. Right, because the cameras would show up and focus on the people that were clearly, like, you know, acting up or whatever. You know, it happens all the time, right.

Right, right, right. With any kind of protest, a lot of times they'll focus on the negative. Yeah, the cameras are going to go to the people that are, you know, throw on the brick through the window or whatever. Right, right. And not focus on all the people. Yeah, the camera's going to focus on the fucking flames, you know. Yeah, because that's what's, that's what people are, want to tune in to see.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, dude. So in other words, let's just completely subvert the whole idea behind this movement and just show this other thing and just, you know, whatever. What's going to get our ratings up? Yeah. And then it's like, well, you're, you're fucking power. Like, what are you going to do about that thing?

We're, we're, we're powerless at this point, dude. Right. And this is what I love about Radiohead and Tom York in particular is that, you know, he's such an observational, like, lyricist or whatever. And then they obviously have such a, like, a negative, uh, relationship with, like, power struggles and, like, politics and stuff. And then look what they did on the next album To give the middle finger to the record label

You know The record industry Pay what you want, man If you don't want to pay a dime Then fucking download it Exactly who cares We care more about our fans That we care about your bottom line

Yeah dude and man Let me just I'm so excited to listen to In Rainbows with you dude Yeah and that's gonna be the last record That we cover on our radio head Palluzza Radiohead Palooza, whatever you want to call it. Yeah.

And I'm going to try to get, I'll try to get my friend Nathan to join us. Yes. It's about time we get another human on this podcast. Yes, dude. Reach out to them now, man. We send him a message right the fuck now. So that's it, huh? That's our take on hell to the thief.

Yeah, that's it, dude. Nice. What a killer album, man. You've got to listen to the whole thing. Yeah, man. Yeah, I'm definitely missing out on a lot of good songs, I feel like. I mean, it's true for every Radiohead record, but this is a, pull up track one push play and let the whole thing go because i'm dude i might be doing that right

after we do it man do it man and let me tell you one of my all-time favorite radio head songs is on here it's one of the singles so we couldn't play it for you but it's it's track nine there there yeah that is one of my favorite radio head songs and it's even i think it's probably one of tom york's favorite ones too he says here i'm reading this uh this enemy article that sort of revisits Hail to the Thief on the 10-year anniversary. And Tom says that, or at least Nigel or somebody says that York, yeah, here he is. He told this to BBC. He said that he had tears when he heard the finished recording of There, There.

He says, I just thought it was the best thing we had ever done. So there you go. From Tom York himself, he saw there there as one of the best songs they had ever done up to that point. And man, it's such a killer song. All right. Cool. Yeah, man. What a great album. And then like I said, next, I guess in a month, we'll circle back to radiohead again and cover in rainbows to top it all on.

Yeah. Yeah, I can't wait, man. So we'll have a sidetrack next week. And it's briefly here. I'm pretty excited. our next full-length album is going to be on Beck's C-Change, which, Travis, you don't, surprisingly, you don't know too much about this album, man.

I really don't. C-Change is Beck's breakup album. That's all I'm going to say about it, dude. Okay. It's a breakup album. But this album came out on the heels of a few other really, really successful albums of his. You know, he became uber famous after a loser came out.

You know that song, right? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. You can take that out if you want. But anyways. Everybody knows loser. Yeah, well, C-Change was like just a stark change, like, complete opposite of all the stuff he came out with before it.

It just kind of hit people in the fields. And man, I'm so, I'm so fucking stoked, dude. And I'm even more excited now that I found out that you haven't actually even listened to this album before, dude. You're going to get blown away. And this is just coincidence. Like, this is not on purpose. We didn't do this on purpose, but Nigel Godrick produced this record, man. So it's fucking perfect, dude.

I know, man. I just found that out when I was looking into, when I was typing up some notes for this. this record. So yeah, man, it's such a good album. I'm really excited to listen to it with you. Cool. So do you have an outro for us, bro? Nope. I sure don't. Let's just play some more of that Clatoo stuff, huh? Sure, why not? Why the fuck not? Or we could play. We could keep playing the single, the new radiohead single, just let it play us out. All right, just fade that out. Just fade it out with that. That would probably be more appropriate. All right. Cool.

Well, all right. So then we don't know what we're going to be doing next week for our side track. We haven't figured that out yet. But we'll be back into your earbuds next week with the sidetrack for this episode. As always, hop on to our website, no-filler podcast.com. We've got our show notes on there. We'll link to all of the articles, interviews, any videos that pertain. to the record that we covered, you know.

Chances are, we'll have lots more info on our websites if you want to dive a little bit deeper in the albums that we cover. And yeah, until next week, my name is Quentin. My name is Travis. Take care. Unwrap Holiday Magic at Holt Renfrew

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