Radiohead on MuchMusic

Radiohead are live in the MuchMusic studio in Toronto, with the audience asking the questions. The comparisons come first. Queen is pretty accurate, one of them says, since he has a chest just like Freddie's, and U2 too, though Radiohead, they say, are better. A fan says sorry about their stolen equipment and asks about Phil Selway's Japanese fan club, and the rest of the band say they are all members. It is the Pig Club, the band explain: 14 members, all cousins, with laminated cards numbered from 1,000 to make it look bigger. The gear went from outside a hotel, apparently a popular new crime in America, and they bought new equipment and missed about four shows.

There is no Oxford scene, they insist. The town is too small, there is nowhere to play, and its bands, a death metal band and a house act among them, have nothing in common, though at one point 18 were signed in a city of 100,000. They stay because it is not London but near enough. Jonny Greenwood would otherwise be starting his last year of music and psychology, which he left to do this. Select once called them five badly dressed misfits who looked like a police line-up, in a review that liked them, and now, one of them says, the British press resentfully have to write about them.