Treefingers opens as a new Radiohead fan site

Treefingers, a new Radiohead fan site in English, opened today, New Year's Day 2003. It is named after the ambient instrumental on Kid A, Treefingers, and run by Miro, who has kept the Slovak fan site radiohead.sk going since 2001. The Slovak site carries on; this one is written for fans anywhere.

The news page comes first and will be updated most days. Around it sit lyrics, laid out album by album from Pablo Honey on; tabs for guitar, bass, drums and piano; the discography, a band section and tour dates; and Ed's diary, the online diary Ed O'Brien kept in the studio while Kid A was being made. An articles page will keep a running list of links to Radiohead pieces in the press, from the next few days on.

For talking back there is a message board, where you register to post, a guestbook and a mailing list. The shop page sends you on to W.A.S.T.E., the band's own mail-order, and to the big online record shops rather than selling anything itself. A site updates log on the front page says what has changed each day, and not every page is finished: a page for the new album is next.

As for the band, the first real story on the news page is the sixth album. Phil Selway has told NME that Radiohead spent only eight weeks recording it, in Los Angeles and Oxford, to keep the feel of a live performance after the long Kid A and Amnesiac sessions. Many of the songs have already been played on tour and in the webcast before Christmas. Mixing should run into the spring, with the album due in June.