Before the days of Radiohead, Thom Yorke was a college student struggling to reach fame with his University of Exeter band, Headless Chickens. Recently unearthed archival footage posted to YouTube shows Yorke and his college band performing an earlier version of Radiohead's sophomore album The Bends hit, "High and Dry."
The faster rendition of the Radiohead staple song was posted to YouTube by musician Shaun McCrindle, notes the A.V. Club. Other recorded performances include Yorke rarities such as McCrindle's student film "Exminster Grind," and track "I Don't Want to Go to Woodstock" by the Headless Chickens--filmed at the same Lemon Grove gig as "High and Dry." Yorke assisted the filmmaker with his project by co-writing music, reports Rolling Stone.
As McCrindle notes in the video description, the Headless Chickens lineup consisted of electronic musician Simon Shackleton and John Matthias, who contributed viola and violin stylings to The Bends. Since Radiohead's 2011 LP The King of Limbs, the bandmates have sprawled out in their own directions to pursue solo careers. As fans await the band's ninth untitled LP, guitarist Jonny Greenwood explained that the group has been working and recording for "a couple months."
Yorke released his sophomore solo LP Tomorrow's Modern Boxes via BitTorrent, becoming the highest-selling, legally paid for album on the site. "It's an experiment to see if the mechanics of the system are something that the general public can its head around," the singer noted in a combined statement with his Atoms for Peace collaborator Nigel Godrich. "If it works well, it could be an effective way of handing some control of Internet commerce back to people who are creating the work, enabling those people who make their music, video or any other kind of digital content to sell it themselves [and] bypassing the self-elected gatekeepers."
The Radiohead front man recently crafted an 18-day soundtrack for companion and Radiohead's personal visual artist, Stanley Donwood. He'll head out for a handful solo gigs at Tokyo's Summersonic Festival, the Hostess Club all-nighter and will also appear on a bill alongside Patti Smith and Flea to perform at Pathway to Paris.
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