Phil Selway on BBC Radio 6

Phil Selway tells Matt Everitt why small venues matter, around Independent Venue Week. Part of it is the people who run them, who he says pour their lives into it for very little reward, simply because they love music and want to put events on, and who are the only reason so many rooms he played decades ago are still open.

The rest is that a venue is not only a stage for bands. It is where sound engineers, technicians, crew, poster designers and publicists learn their jobs, and where a good number of them begin careers that later take them on the road with somebody.

Before Radiohead were signed they had played six or seven shows in Oxford across about five years, which left them with an enormous amount of catching up to do. Those venues, and the immediate response of a room, made the learning curve survivable.