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Radiohead are set to debut new material when they headline Reading And Leeds this weekend. They’re almost certain to air ‘These Are My Twisted Words’ - which surfaced online recently - since they played it last weekend at an Austrian festival.

Thom Yorke’s dad was was an amateur boxer, and encouraged his son to take up the hobby - without much success.

The average coughed up for Radiohead’s innovative you-decide-what-to-pay, internet-only released seventh album ‘In Rainbows’ was a miserly £2.90, with 60 per cent of fans electing to pay nowt.

Radiohead met in the ’80s as fellow pupils at an all-boys public school, the Abingdon School, in Oxfordshire. Ubiquitous TV comic David Mitchell went to the same school - he was a few years below.

Thom Yorke was inspired to become veggie by The Smiths’ ‘Meat Is Murder’ - as well as more personal reasons: “I started going out with this girl,” he explains, “and I wanted to impress her so I pretended to be a vegetarian.” Sadly Chris Martin trounced Thom Yorke to win the coveted ‘World’s Sexiest Vegetarian’ crown in 2005.

According to Thom Yorke, he and Colin Greenwood only ended up in a band together because of their terrible dress sense: “We always ended up at the same parties. He’d be wearing a beret and a catsuit, or something pretty fucking weird and I’d be in a frilly blouse and crushed velvet dinner suit and we’d pass round the Joy Division records.”

Smash hit breakthrough tune ‘Creep’ was initially dismissed as a possible single release in 1992 when producers mistakenly thought it was a Scott Walker cover. The confusion occurred after the band demoed the song in the studio and Yorke described it as “our Scott Walker song” (meaning it to be a moody soundalike).

Scott Walker-related fact number two: The eccentric crooner would love to join Radiohead. Walker was quoted in 2006 saying: “Radiohead are fabulous. If I could have it all again and be in a band, that’s the kind of band I’d like to have been in.”

In 1987, a week after Jonny Greenwood’s first rehearsal with On A Friday, the band played their debut gig at the now defunct Jericho Tavern in Oxford. Modelling themselves on early heroes Talking Heads, they added a brass section, including two saxophone-playing sisters to fill out the line-up.

In 2004, Thom Yorke’s middle finger sold for £248 on ebay. It turned out not to be his actual flesh-and-bone, but rather one he’d deliberately smashed off his recently acquired NME Award, declaring the bird-flicking middle digit to be offensive.

Thom Yorke suffered a traumatic Christmas in 1996. His garden pond froze, killing his collection of exotic fish.

A mysterious number, 1426148550, appeared on the cover of the ‘Airbag/How Am I Driving’ EP. Fans quickly discovered it to be a pager number which, if dialled, revealed the voice of Thom saying “Hello”. Fans left messages which the band supposedly kept for possible inclusion in a future recording.

Jeff Buckley was a bigger influence on Radiohead than they would perhaps today admit. ‘The Bends’ producer John Leckie, recalling the profound effect seeing Buckley had on Thom Yorke, said: “It made him realise you could sing in a falsetto without sounding drippy.”

Radiohead cite their music teacher, Terence Gilmore-James, as an early mentor. Colin Greenwood explains, “When we started, it was very important that we got support from him, because we weren’t getting any from the headmaster. You know, the man once sent us a bill, charging us for the use of school property.”

Thom Yorke finds his own singing voice irritating: “It annoys me how pretty my voice is… how polite it can sound when perhaps what I’m singing is deeply acidic.” This dissastisfaction led to Yorke semi-speaking, rather than singing, on 2003’s ‘Myxomatosis’ and ‘A Wolf At The Door’.

Phil Selway and Jonny Greenwood joined the band Dive Dive, alongside Jarvis Cocker, to appear in the 2005 film ‘Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire’ as the Weird Sisters, a popular band among young wizards.

Colin Greenwood and Thom Yorke’s first musical project together was called TNT – they were a bit punky. While Yorke was at Exeter University, he played guitar in Flickernoise, a techno outfit.

In 1987, Thom Yorke and his girlfriend were involved in a car crash. His girlfriend suffered whiplash and although Yorke was unharmed, it brought on his car phobia, which he later wrote about in Radiohead songs such as ‘Airbag’, ‘Killer Cars’, ‘Stupid Car’ and ‘Drunkk Machine’.

Ed O’Brien is the tallest member of Radiohead at 6ft 2in; in fact no other member exceeds six foot.

Thom Yorke recorded the vocals to ‘Fake Plastic Trees’ in late 1994 just after seeing Jeff Buckley play the Garage in London. Apparently, an inspired Yorke rushed back to the studio, did two takes then broke down in tears.

Jonny Greenwood is the only band member to be a classically trained musician, having taken formal viola lessons as a child. In addition to viola and guitar, the multi-instrumentalist plays organ, piano, xylophone, glockenspiel, ondes martenot (similar to a theremin), banjo and harmonica.

Thom Yorke’s sulky demeanor and refusal to get matey with fellow celebs has caused a few hissy fits in the past. Kelly Jones harumphed that he was a “miserable twat”. Jack Black, Miley Cyrus and Kanye West have also enjoyed public grumbles about their treatment by the infamously taciturn singer.

Thom Yorke defended his gloomy reputation in 1996 thus: “It’s just that I’m surrounded by a world of grinning idiots and I don’t think I want to be another one.”

Back in 1992, one NME live reviewer described Radiohead as “a lily-livered excuse for a rock band”. Oops. We came round though, giving 1997’s ‘OK Computer’ 10 out of 10.

Thom Yorke wrote ‘Creep’ after being rejected by a girl he was infatuated with while studying at Exeter University in the late ’80s. Yorke says it is about being in love with someone, but not feeling good enough, declaring, “There’s the beautiful people and then there’s the rest of us.”

In the mid-’90s Jonny started wearing a wrist brace to support a poorly strumming hand; he then decided it looked rather dapper even after his wrist was better and kept it on as a kind of trademark look.

After the success of Radiohead’s debut album, 1993’s ‘Pablo Honey’, Yorke has confessed his ego got a bit out of control, causing him to drink too much and dick about with his hair (blond extensions, anyone?). “When I got back to Oxford I was unbearable,” he cringed in 2000, “as soon as you get any success you disappear up your own arse.”

Members of Radiohead have played homage to their increasingly expanding offspring by dedicating various songs/albums to them. ‘Hail To The Thief’ is dedicated to Jonny’s firstborn son Tamir born in 2002; ‘Amnesiac’ is dedicated to Thom’s son Noah born in 2001; while Thom’s daughter, Agnes, born in 2004, had Yorke’s solo effort ‘The Eraser’ dedicated to her.

When Radiohead first got together at their Oxford school, they were known as On A Friday because they practised, cryptically enough, on Fridays in the music room. After they were signed in 1991, they changed their name to Radiohead, the title of a Talking Heads song.

The Radiohead lads are a well-educated bunch. Besides their public-school learning, Thom has a degree in English and Fine Art from Exeter; Colin’s got a degree in English from Cambridge; Ed studied Economics at Manchester Uni, and Phil has got an English and History BA from Liverpool. Jonny dropped out of his Oxford Brookes music degree to join the band in 1991.

Credits NME.

Top 20 Beach Boy Hits

Whenever there’s a Beach Boys song on the radio, most people want to wax up the old surfboard and take the old “woody” down to the beach and enjoy the sounds of summer. And what would the sounds of summer be without great beach music? The one group who epitomized the beach sound was The Beach Boys.

The group originally consisted of brothers Brian, Carl and Dennis Wilson, along with their cousin Mike Love and Al Jardine. Other notables who played with the Beach Boys included Glenn Campbell, when Brian quit touring in 1964; Bruce Johnston (of Bruce & Terry) permanently replaced Campbell and Darryl Dragon (the Captain of the Captain & Tennille) worked as a stage keyboardist.

In high school they were known as Kenny & the Cadets, Carl & the Passions and The Pendletones before settling on The Beach Boys in 1961. And aren’t we glad they did?

Here is a list of The Beach Boys 20 biggest hits, the year in which they were a hit, along with some fun facts.

1. I Get Around - 1964

Their first #1 hit.

2. Help Me, Rhonda - 1965

Johnny Rivers did a cover of this song 10 years later.

3. Kokomo - 1988

This song was featured in the Tom Cruise film “Cocktail.”

4. Good Vibrations - 1966

In 1976, Todd Rundgren did a dead-on remake of this song.

5. Barbara Ann - 1966

Dean Torrence of Jan & Dean fame did the vocals on this one.

6. Surfin’ USA - 1963

This song personified the beach sound and cemented the Beach Boys as the #1 group in its genre. Leif Garrett also covered this song in 1976.

7. Sloop John B - 1966

Originally, a West Indies song dating back to 1927.

8. California Girls - 1965

The best of the best beach songs. David Lee Roth’s version, twenty years later, wasn’t too shabby either.

9. Rock And Roll Music - 1976

Written by Chuck Berry and a hit for him in 1957.

10. Fun, Fun, Fun - 1964

Everyone wanted to meet this girl in the T-Bird.

11. Be True To Your School - 1963

This song featured the march “On Wisconsin” and cheerleading by The Honeys.

12. Surfer Girl - 1963

One of the few slow songs for the Beach Boys to do well on the charts.

13. Dance, Dance, Dance - 1964

This song peaked in the summer of 1964 and had everyone dancing on the beaches.

14. Wouldn’t It Be Nice - 1966

One of their more controversial songs of the day. With lyrics like “Wouldn’t it be nice to sleep together;” it had more conservative radio stations playing the B Side “God Only Knows.

15. When I Grow Up (To Be A Man) - 1964

A great song, but it didn’t have much to do with fun at the beach as much as it had boys questioning the responsibilities facing them after high school.

16. The Beach Boys Medley - 1981

This single featured excerpts from Good Vibrations/Help Me, Rhonda/I Get Around/Shut Down/Surfin’ Safari/Barbara Ann/Surfin’ USA/Fun, Fun, Fun.

17. Wipe Out - 1987

The Fat Boys and The Beach Boys teamed up to bring a rap vocal rendition to this song, originally done as an instrumental by the Surfaris in 1963.

18. Do You Wanna Dance - 1965

A 1958 hit for Bobby Freeman and, later, a 1973 hit for Bette Midler.

19. Heroes & Villains - 1967

Trying to cash in on the popularity and unique style of “Good Vibrations”, this one didn’t quite measure up.

20. Surfin’ Safari - 1962

Their first big hit and the one that started it all.

The Beach Boys were inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame in 1988. They still perform today, bringing their special blend of music for new generations to enjoy.

Credits Carl Megill.

Kasabian are reportedly being chased to score the soundtrack to gangster film director Guy Ritchie’s next film.

Madonna’s ex-husband, who has previously directed ‘RocknRolla’ and Brad Pitt fronted flick ‘Snatch’ is apparently hoping to meet up with the band to discuss the idea.

“The Kasabian album ‘West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum’ is the best thing I have heard this year. I’ve have been playing it non-stop,” he told The Sun.

“I’d love to meet up with the band. The music on the latest album is like a film soundtrack. He’s a talented bloke, Serge (Pizzorno).”

The band missed out on the Barclaycard Mercury Prize 2009 earlier this week.

Credits NME.

Radiohead guitarist Ed O’Brien has hit out at the UK government’s plan to cut off the internet access of persistent illegal file-sharers.

O’Brien, a member of the Featured Artists Coalition musicians’ alliance, was speaking as the organisation condemned the plan, which was outlined in August, saying it could drive fans away from music.

“It’s going to start a war which they’ll never win,” the guitarist said about the proposed measure, reports BBC News. “It won’t work. It’s as simple as that. I was talking to a serial file-sharer the other day who is a friend. He downloads films and he hasn’t paid for music for six years.

“I asked his opinion of it and he laughed. He said, ‘Even if they cut me off I’ll still be able to do it.’ It’s something you do not want to take on, so move on.”

In a joint statement with the British Academy Of Songwriters, Composers And Authors and the Music Producers Guild, the FAC described the proposals as “heavy handed” and explained that its members, which include Kate Nash and Blur’s Dave Rowntree “vehemently oppose” the notion.

“We don’t want to make enemies of our fans,” Rowntree said. “The sensible thing to do is to try to see how we can monetise all this file-sharing activity, which is evidence of a lot of interest in music.”

Billy Bragg, also a member of the coalition, said: “We’re concerned that, in an age where there is much greater competition for attention, these proposals are in danger of driving young people away from the idea of listening to music. As musicians, we’re worried about that.”

The government had originally given media regulator Ofcom until 2012 to decide whether such connection restricting or severing moves were necessary. However, it is believed that after the intervention of First Secretary Of State Lord Mandelson, the Department For Business, Innovation And Skills has since decided that this timescale is “too long to wait”.

Credits NME.

So you think you are the biggest fan of the Beatles. But how many of the following facts did you know?

1. Impossible as it may sound there are still Beatles songs unreleased - the most notable ones being Carnival of Light (an experimental piece recorded on 5 January 1967 for The Million Volt Light and Sound Rave) and a 27-minute jam of Helter Skelter. A John Lennon composition the three surviving Beatles worked on in the early ’90s prior to the Anthology release called Grow Old with Me also remains unreleased.

2. The Beatles (or at least half of it) sang for the Rolling Stones: Lennon and Paul McCartney provided backing vocals to the 1967 single We Love You.

3. Besides writing hundreds of songs for the Beatles, Lennon and McCartney also wrote dozens of songs for other artistes such as From A Window (Billy J. Kramer with The Dakotas), One and One Is Two (The Strangers with Mike Shannon), Step Inside Love and It’s For You (Cilla Black), Come and Get It (Badfinger) and Woman (Peter and Gordon).

4. The Beatles’ third studio album A Hard Day’s Night is the only one to exclusively contain Lennon-McCartney compositions.

5. Paul is not McCartney’s first name, James is. Lennon changed his middle name from Winston to Ono after marrying Yoko Ono in 1969.

6. At the end of Strawberry Fields Forever, Lennon is heard mumbling what sounds like “I buried Paul”, which helped fuel the ‘Paul is Dead’ rumours. He’s actually saying “cranberry sauce”.

7. The only Beatles single to ever feature another musician on the credit is Get Back/Don’t Let Me Down (credited to The Beatles with Billy Preston). Preston, recruited by George Harrison to ease the growing tensions in the band, played the Hammond organ on both songs.

8. Two days after Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band released, Jimi Hendrix opened his set at London’s Saville Theatre with the title track, something McCartney considers his “single biggest tribute”.

9. The final version of Strawberry Fields Forever was created combining two takes of the song in two different keys and speeds - a remarkable achievement considering the equipment and technology of the time - but still failed to fully satisfy Lennon.

10. The only Beatles track to be credited to Lennon and Harrison is an early instrumental called Cry for a Shadow recorded in 1961 when the band was backing Tony Sheridan. Flying and Dig It are the only two tracks to be credited to all four Beatles.

11. The BBC banned several Beatles songs - I Am the Walrus (for the use of the word ‘knickers’) and Fixing a Hole, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds and A Day in the Life (all for alleged drug reference).

12. The working title for the film Help! was Eight Arms to Hold You.

13. For the Sgt Pepper album cover, cutouts of Adolf Hitler, Mahatma Gandhi, and Jesus Christ were requested by Lennon, but ultimately they were left out, though a cutout of Hitler was made for use.

14. Ringo Starr was the first to actually leave the group, walking out in 1968 during the acrimonious White Album sessions. As a result, the remaining Beatles all took turns on the drums for some of the tracks. When Starr finally returned he found his drum kit covered in flowers.

15. The closest the Beatles came to reuniting was at Eric Clapton’s wedding to Patti Boyd in 1979, where McCartney, Harrison and Starr played. Lennon did not attend.

16. The last time Lennon and McCartney played together was at the Los Angeles Hit Factory studio in 1974. The abysmal (and possibly drug-fuelled) session, which also featured Stevie Wonder and Harry Nilsson, was of such bad quality that the bootleg recording was released as A Toot And A Snore In 74.

17. Lennon and McCartney each recorded demos called India which remain unreleased. Each of them also recorded a version of Fats Domino’s Ain’t That a Shame for their rock and roll albums (called Rock ‘n’ Roll and Снова в СССР respectively).

18. The first song ever written by Lennon was called Hello Little Girl. McCartney’s first was I Lost My Little Girl.

19. Lennon was charged with plagiarism by Chuck Berry’s publisher over Come Together which resembled Berry’s 1956 song You Can’t Catch Me. The case was settled out of court. George Harrison faced and lost a similar lawsuit over his solo hit My Sweet Lord which resembled the Chiffons’ He’s So Fine.

20. Lennon’s number 9 connection: Lennon was born on 9 October 1940, his son Sean was also born 9 October, 1975. He wrote the songs #9 Dream (part of Lennon’s ninth solo album Walls and Bridges which was released in the ninth month of 1974 and peaked at number 9 in the US charts) and with the Beatles - One After 909 and Revolution 9. He lived in apartment number 72 on 72nd Street in New York and was killed in the evening of December 8 when it was already early morning of December 9 in his birthplace of Liverpool.

Tracks for Morrissey’s ‘Swords’ B-side collection announced

A tracklisting for Morrissey’s new ‘Swords’ collection has been put up on fan site True-to-you.net, which Morrissey himself often communicates through.

Released on October 26, the 18 track collection includes B-sides from singles featured on his last three studio albums.

Released on CD and double vinyl LP, early copies of the CD version will include a bonus live disc featuring eight tracks from one of Morrissey’s gigs in Warsaw last year.

‘Swords’ tracklisting:

‘Good Looking Man About Town’
‘Don’t Make Fun Of Daddy’s Voice’
‘If You Don’t Like Me, Don’t Look At Me’
‘Ganglord’
‘My Dearest Love’
‘The Never-Played Symphonies’
‘Sweetie-Pie’
‘Christian Dior’
‘Shame Is The Name’
‘Munich Air Disaster 1958′
‘I Knew I Was Next’
‘It’s Hard To Walk Tall When You’re Small’
‘Teenage Dad On His Estate’
‘Children In Pieces’
‘Friday Mourning’
‘My Life Is A Succession Of People Saying Goodbye’
‘Drive-In Saturday’
‘Because Of My Poor Education’

As well as the B-sides collection, Morrissey has also announced that he will play a Los Angeles date “sometime” in December.

Although the date and venue have yet to be confirmed, the announcement says that more information will be released shortly.

Credits NME.

Picture this: Kurt Cobain prancing around the stage belting out Bon Jovi’s hair-raising ‘You Give Love A Bad Name’, shroud in a glam rock backdrop. Unthinkable? Nirvana fans seem to think so.

The decision to include the likeness of Nirvana’s iconic frontman as a playable avatar in the fifth instalment of the Guitar Hero series has been met with varied reactions with the music and gaming worlds.

Many fans of both the game and Nirvana, who fronted the rise of alternative rock in the early ‘90s, were ecstatic to hear of the long overdue inclusion of the band’s cathartic anthem ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ as well as ‘Lithium’ on the soundtrack, but the follow-up announcement of Cobain as a controllable in-game character proved an eyebrow raiser.

Perhaps his inclusion will guarantee that the fifth edition of the gaming phenomenon is in Cobain’s own words a ‘Radio Friendly Unit Shifter’ but the Seattle band’s faithful supporters will be Scoffing when they see Cobain yell “Yeah boyyyyyyyy!”

Many are calling it ridiculous, in-dignifying and defacing the legacy of the man who opposed commercialism to such an extent that the pressures of superstardom are said to contributed to his death in 1994. Now gamers have the tongue in cheek ability to have Cobain sing along to the hair metal he helped to bury.

This is the man who scraped off the studio polish for Nirvana’s rasping, abrasive follow-up classic “In Utero”. Drenched in unsavoury squealing feedback and a raw, live sound, courtesy of producer Steve Albini, it was Nirvana as Cobain had envisaged. The natural sound was deemed “unreleasable” at the time.

Nirvana were also renowned for their run-in with MTV executives who insisted the band perform ‘Lithium’ over the proposed new song ‘Rape Me’ at the 1992 MTV Music Video Awards. Cobain’s final stab at the MTV bosses was playing the opening bars of the aforementioned outlawed song, “just to give MTV a little heart palpitation” before exploding into a fierce rendition of Lithium, culminating in instrument obliteration, Novoselic taking a bass to the face after a misjudging the landing, and Cobain ascending the towering amplifiers. It was a statement of resistance toward the insatiable corporation Cobain despised.

At one point he even branded fellow grunge monarchs Pearl Jam commercial sell-outs, a fact which helped shape the rest of Pearl Jam’s career as they withdrew from the spotlight and changed their musical direction. So, with all this in mind, how do you view Cobain’s inclusion in the new Guitar Hero game? Is button-bashing his ghost into ‘performing’ songs he helped dethrone a little too tasteless? The widespread view is that Cobain would never have signed this off had he been alive. Smells Like ‘Territorial Grave Pissings’. What do you think?

Credits Live4ever.

Pearl Jam have announced they are giving away two free live-CDs with their forthcoming album Backspacer, out September 21.

Fans who buy the album will, via the new eBridge application, be able to preview eleven Pearl Jam shows before selecting two to download, although, sadly, their spectacular London O2 show is not among them.

Buyers will also get access to Pearl Jam’s Ten Club.

The gigs available for download are Halifax (22/09/05), Philadelphia (03/10/05), Santiago (21/11/05), Chicago (17/05/06), Grand Rapids (19/05/06), Camden (28/05/06), E Rutherford (06/03/06), San Francisco (16/07/06), New York (25/06/06), Hartford (27/06/08) and Mansfield (28/06/08).

Pearl Jam have been issuing ‘official bootlegs’ of almost every single show they have played since 2000, but this is the first time the eBridge software has been used.

eBridge optically embeds every CD with a unique serial-coded application which, when launched, enables the artist to deliver bonus content, and is accessed by inserting the CD into a PC/Mac, or by a secure web-link.

Credits QTheMusic.

Beck has signed up MGMT, Devendra Banhart, Wolfmother’s Andrew Stockdale and Little Joy’s Binki Shapiro to cover Leonard Cohen for his new Record Club project.

The US musician has been staging informal jam sessions with the musicians to cover classic albums, and has chosen Cohen’s 1968 album ‘Songs Of Leonard Cohen’ as their latest project.

They have posted one song from the session, ‘Suzanne’, online already at Beck.com, with more set to follow.

Writing on the website, Beck explained that his “close second choice” was an album from Swedish popsters Ace Of Base, who are being kept “on the list for next time”.

Credits NME.

Radiohead’s Thom Yorke has confirmed the release of a new 12-inch vinyl single set for release later this month.

News of a Yorke single featuring two new compositions surfaced on Tuesday (September 1), with the frontman now confirming that a double-A side featuring the songs ‘FeelingPulledApartbyHorses’ and ‘The Hollow Earth’ are set for release.

He posted a message on the official Radiohead website, Radiohead.com, explaining that the single will be available from September 21 to order from the site and shops as a 12-inch vinyl single and download.

Both songs were produced by long-time band producer Nigel Godrich.

Multi-instrumentalist Yorke explained that although the songs were being released under his name, ‘FeelingPulledApartbyHorses’ was actually co-written and played with Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood. He described the song as “a radical rework of an old tune that’s been kicking around without a home since 2001″.

He wrote that ‘The Hollow Earth’ was a “bass menace that was born out of the [2006 solo album] ‘The Eraser’ period, but needed a little more time”.

Following the vinyl release, the single will be available as a regular download from October 6.

Credits NME.