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Thom Yorke tells the Chicago Tribune US touring is run by cartels
Thom Yorke tells Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune that two companies, Clear Channel Entertainment (formerly SFX) and Ticketmaster, run live music in America as cartels, and he is surprised the government has let them. The band spent 10 months trying to bring over the 10,000-capacity tent they played in across Europe last year and found no way round them.
SFX and Ticketmaster have come against every step of the way demanding a piece of the action
Thom Yorke2
Where they could, they settled for outdoor and unusual sites. At one low point they talked about not touring the United States at all, then chose to compromise instead of ending up like Pearl Jam, whose fight with Ticketmaster became the only thing anyone asked them about. Tickets on this tour are under $40. Prices are not his department, he says, but the band always ask not to overcharge.
The interview runs before Wednesday's concert at Hutchinson Field in Grant Park, which moved there from Arvey Field after the first 16,000 tickets went in four minutes.
Kot puts it to him that, by his bandmates' account, Yorke first wanted Kid A and Amnesiac as one double album. Taken as finished things, Yorke answers, each cancels the other out.
They are separate because they cannot run in a straight line with each other.
Thom Yorke2
Putting the songs out as EPs was considered and dropped as a cop-out. He calls Amnesiac another take on Kid A, a kind of explanation, and denies it is the more accessible record held back: “Knives Out” is on it because it was too good to lose.
After Can, Kraftwerk, Faust, Messiaen, Penderecki and the 13th Floor Elevators, he is not sure Radiohead are a rock band any more.
Laptops are the new electric guitar, I reckon, but I still love electric guitars, and drums and singing.
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Asked about the bands that copied OK Computer, he begins This question makes me feel ill.
2 The fuss over Kid A leaking onto Napster was a mistake that made the band look precious, he says; the best of it is the live bootlegs, with people singing along to songs not yet recorded.
When they heard Kid A had gone to number one, the band went out to celebrate at an overpriced Manhattan restaurant and sat round the table too shocked to say a word.