Thom Yorke makes his first record, with Exeter's Headless Chickens

Thom Yorke is on a record for the first time. Headless Chickens, the band he plays guitar in at the University of Exeter, have the last track on The Hometown Atrocities EP, a 7-inch shared by four Exeter bands. The song is “I Don't Want To Go To Woodstock”, and Yorke is not the singer. Simon Shackleton, known as Shack, sings it and plays bass, with Yorke's backing vocals clear behind him. John Matthias plays violin and Martin Brooks drums, and the whole band share the writing credit.

Yorke came to Exeter in 1988 to read English and Fine Art, and On a Friday, the band he started at Abingdon School, has been on hold while he studies. Live, Headless Chickens play mostly covers, Prince's “Raspberry Beret” one of them.

Hometown Atrocities was started by Martin Edmunds and David Goodchild of Mad At The Sun to bring punk and hardcore bands to a city with no real venue for them. Its shows move from pub to pub, and a landlord can stop one halfway through a set. Headless Chickens have played for it at the Printers Pie, and Yorke is part of the collective. The EP is its first record, with Jackson Penis, Beaver Patrol and Mad At The Sun on the other three tracks, made at Daylight Studios in Honiton with Paul Bateman producing.

Just over a thousand copies have been pressed, most in a black-and-white sleeve. About 50 come in a green one that prints “A Disgrace To The Corpse Of Kylie” across a photograph of Kylie Minogue.