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Two demo tapes from before Radiohead turn up online
Eighteen songs the band recorded before they were Radiohead have turned up online, three from a 1988 tape and 15 from a tape made in the summer of 1990. They surfaced through the fan site At Ease, and NME and Spin both report them today. Thirteen other early recordings went round in August 2002.
The 1988 songs, “Happy Song”, “To Be a Brilliant Light” and “Sinking Ship”, come from On a Friday, the name the band took from the day they rehearsed at Abingdon School. The members were at university by then and played and recorded in the holidays, with saxophones in the line-up.
The 1990 tape was made on a four-track while the On a Friday name was put aside; that summer the band worked as Shindig. “Give It Up” was recorded again at Dungeon Studios at Easter 1991. “How Can You Be Sure?” became a B-side of “Fake Plastic Trees” in 1995, and “The Greatest Shindig of the World”, reworked, became “Maquiladora”, a B-side of “High and Dry” the same year.
Chris Hufford, who ran Courtyard Studio and became the band's co-manager, told Mojo in 1997 that the tape that reached him sounded like no band in particular, and that he would have let it go but for its 15th track, a strange looped dance piece. On the 1990 tape as it now circulates, track 15 is “New Generation”.
The 1990 Shindig tape
| # | Song |
|---|---|
| 1 | “Climbing Up a Bloody Great Hill” |
| 2 | “Somebody” |
| 3 | “Mr B” |
| 4 | “What's That You See?” |
| 5 | “Everyone Needs Someone to Hate” |
| 6 | “Upside Down” |
| 7 | “The Greatest Shindig of the World” |
| 8 | “Give It Up” |
| 9 | “How Can You Be Sure?” |
| 10 | “Life with the Big F” |
| 11 | “Keep Strong” |
| 12 | “Rattlesnake” |
| 13 | “Burning Bush” |
| 14 | “Tell Me Bitch” |
| 15 | “New Generation” |