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Matt Pinfield remembers Radiohead on MTV's 120 Minutes
first posted on Treefingers by Miro · rewritten for the archive
Matt Pinfield, a former host of MTV's 120 Minutes, has two Radiohead stories in the show's “exit interview”, now published by altmusictv.com. After the final programme was taped on 4 May 2003, its last host, MTV2's Jim Shearer, sat down with Pinfield and the show's creator, Dave Kendall, to look back on 17 years of MTV's show for underground and alternative music.
Tapings happened whenever the studio was free, sometimes as early as 7 or 8 in the morning. Radiohead came in at 9am to play two songs from The Bends live, “High and Dry” and “Street Spirit”.
I can't believe Thom Yorke sounded so amazing at 9 in the morning.
Matt Pinfield1
His second memory is of the day the band were presented with a gold record for The Bends, and the MTV staff received copies too. Critics, Pinfield recalls, had written Radiohead off as a one-hit wonder after “Creep” and so missed The Bends, then hailed OK Computer as the greatest album ever made. He loves OK Computer, but The Bends is his favourite Radiohead record.
Thom Yorke came over to him, Andy from MTV and Lewis Largent, near to tears, and thanked them for backing the band when they took stick for it.