Earlier this year, Ash played the idyllic Coachella Festival in sunny California, a positive and uplifting experience that Wheeler admits set the band off on the right foot.

We were lucky enough to get to play at 11pm, and the American kids loved us and remembered all the old songs. It was like we never went away actually. Plus we got to watch Radiohead as well after we played.

The fact is, we're entertainers, and we have to do what the audiences want. I remember Thom Yorke saying in an interview he wouldn't play songs from certain records, and I just think that's foolhardy or stupid.

Yeah, he's supposed to get off and have a good time, but it's more about the fans -- it's their show, Kurosky adds. I'd be a liar if I said I didn't get off on being cheered at. It's a rush. Sometimes I have to stop and look at all the heads and realize this is kind of unreal. But I like that old-school entertainer thing -- you're being paid to do a job, and you have to think about what they want.

I used iTunes to do the same illogical thing that I do in record shops: checking the sections that house all my favourite artists to see (a) if albums I already own are in stock; and (b) if my favourite bands have somehow released a new album that’s escaped my attention.

That said, the process was not unenlightening. I learnt first of all that Sssh! Don’t Tell Anyone But Here Are Some New Songs by Radiohead exists only in my head; and secondly that, even if it did exist, I wouldn’t have found out about it. You see, Radiohead have withheld their music from sale through iTunes. Is this because Thom Yorke is so subversive that he’s happy for you to download the band’s tunes for free on the file-sharing network mlmac? Or is it because, hey man, the albums were meant to be heard complete, and how dare you pay just 79p for Pyramid Song and ignore the rest of Amnesiac?

Hello, Mittens the office cat here,

I appear to be all on my lonesome in W.A.S.T.E. HQ at the moment. Mel and the others have gone on holiday.

Seeing as I didn't get invited to go to the seaside with them, I've decided to get my own back, and I'm feline groovy.

As of today I have created a part of the store which I have called mittens mania. In mittens mania you will find that some of our newer shirts are at giveaway prices.

And I've pressed the button that means you won't have to pay any postage when you buy from the mittens mania section, wherever you are in the world.

They all come back on the 1st July so get in there and stick 'em one from me.

That'll teach them for leaving me behind, they'll get into a whole heap of trouble for this.

moral of this tale...

Don't mess with the cat !

http://www.waste.uk.com/Store/DisplayItems.html?CatID=89

Boy, am I glad I bought tix to the TWO Radiohead concerts in Sydney. Although the first had its highlights, there were a lot of problems. The audience, strangely enough, didn’t have a good energy, the band had technical problems and the setlist was badly constructed. Add to this Thom Yorke’s vocals faltering on the first song “There There” and you’d almost call it a disaster. But like the seasoned professionals they are, Radiohead managed to rescue the gig with some hot performances of “Myxomatosis”, “My Iron Lung”, “I Might Be Wrong”, “Backdrifts” and much to my joy, “Pyramid Song”. Plus, Radiohead on a difficult night are still so much better than most bands on their BEST NIGHT!

The second concert was a whole different ball game. From the moment I walked in, I could feel the anticipation in the crowd who were quite vocal about getting rid of the dreadful support act, Bumblebeez, ASAP!!! By the time Radiohead hit the stage,
everyone was truly vibed. The band had completely changed the setlist and was on fire. Each song sounded far superior to their CDs, and that’s really saying something. The light show was probably the most spectacular and effective I’ve ever seen, as it gave the songs a different dimension. The huge video screens instead of alienating you from the band, somehow managed to bring you closer. It really is impossible to pick highlights, as every song was dazzling. It’s merely a matter of whether your fave song was played and as I’ve yet to hear a Radiohead song I don’t like, I loved everything.

David Gray: I did an awful lot of support tours, all around America mandy times, and the UK, and they were often bloody miserable experiences.

Radiohead were the exception in that they were incredibly thoughtful about making sure we got soundchecks and just looking after us generally.

There was such a good bibe about their group of people that the tour was a real pleasure. They were a band that were coming into their own, we watched them develop from nervously playing The Bends when Creep was still their only big hit on the first tour. Then, by the second tour, they were in a nother gear, there was a confidence about them and they knew they'd managed to wriggle free of the whole Creep issue.

Thom was writing the songs for Ok Computer and playing them during soundchecks. There was a proper camaraderie about it. It was really good fun. There was a particularly insane night in Toronto when they were being presented with a platinum record aqnd their whole record company were there. I dunner where mine were, or even who they were! But after the show, at that time we were into a vodka and cranberry regime and we'd caned our entire rider but the time they'd finished their set.

The venue itself was like a labyrinthine succession of clubs and we ended up tumbling into their presentation. We were running about the place, barking on all fours getting in their photos, they didn't seem to mind. It ended up back in their dressing room. We'd already emptied all the ice out of our room covered it in crisps and round it was spectaculary good for moon walking. So we moonwalked into theirs and did the same. Ice and crisps everywhere. Brilliant fun, but a hell of a mess. And later we heard that Radiohead cleaned the place up after we'd left!

Perhaps significantly, Tweedy (Wilco's frontman)does not mention Radiohead, an English quintet that has matched Wilco's daring almost stride for stride. When Wilco was dropped by Reprise, which balked on releasing 2002's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot because of the experimental album's lack of commercial potential, eager suitors from other labels sought to flatter Tweedy by touting his band's chances of becoming the American Radiohead.

This was not the way to the heart of a man who is almost pathological in his determination not to be labelled anything, no matter how flattering the comparison.

It became almost a cliché to call Wilco the American Radiohead, says Chicago Tribune critic Greg Kot, author of the newly published Wilco: Learning How To Die (Broadway Books), an authoritative and sympathetic history of the band and its principal architect. And I'm sure Tweedy was really tired of hearing it.

But there is some truth to the cliché because, like Radiohead, Wilco is a band that keeps changing up the formula every time. In fact, there is no formula.

The bands' parallel trajectories are interesting.

After a so-so 1993 debut remembered mainly for the single Creep, Radiohead took an enormous leap forward two years later with the searing, primal rock of The Bends, reaching its commercial zenith with the more noodling OK Computer (1997), and then escalating its fondness for experimentation on Kid A (2000).

...

Not everyone has greeted the transformations enthusiastically. For every lapsed fan who says they haven't liked anything Radiohead has done since The Bends, there is a Wilco counterpart who feels similarly about Being There. The difference is that while Radiohead has made greater inroads commercially — selling millions compared with hundreds of thousands for Wilco — Radiohead has never repeated the phenomenal success of OK Computer, while Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, which has moved nearly half a million copies, is Wilco's biggest seller to date.

The difference between Wilco and Radiohead — or almost any significant other band you can mention — is the impermanence of its roster. Tweedy and bassist John Stirratt are the only constant fixtures on every Wilco album, including the two Mermaid Avenue collaborations with Billy Bragg that involved setting music to unrecorded lyrics by Woody Guthrie. And Stirratt, who hasn't had a songwriting credit since A.M., has had to satiate his authorial ambitions in a side project, the Autumn Defence.

Word around the campfire is that Radiohead, who flew in from Australia, received a cool million to play this gig. Thom Yorke is sick and can't give Lucky and 2+2=5 his usual full-throated blast, but the songs almost work in a Johnny Rotten kind of way- it's as if he's hocking up a big gob at the Queen's motorcade. The band dedicate the infrequently played Creep to the Pixies. Despite a wry laugh, Yorke sings it like he means it, and the downstroke cha-chunk noise before each chorus rings out in the desert night like the sound of God firing up His lawnmower.

Do you listen to a lot of other people's music while you're making a record?

Peter -- Peter Buck, my guitar player -- is the exact opposite of me with this. He absorbs music and books at a rate which I've never seen before. He buys 30 DVDs and CDs at a time. He goes to see live music, new bands, everything. But my fear is that I would steal something (from another artist) without knowing. (Laughs.) "I'm so brilliant... No, Polly Harvey is really brilliant, and I stole that from her!"

Does that happen?

Absolutely. I write this song called Disappear, and then days later realized it was a Radiohead song called How To Disappear Completely. I called (Radiohead frontman) Thom Yorke and left him a message saying, "Thom, I think I stole your song," and he didn't call me back. I was so upset. Finally, a few weeks later, I heard from him, and he said, "Michael, that song came from a conversation we had four years ago!"

So I guess that means you have mutual ownership of the idea, then?

Yeah. I don't feel so bad anymore.

Did you ever expect that your voice would become so popular? I've heard it in other things, such as Radiohead's song Fitter Happier, and of course Stephen Hawking's computerized voice.

Fred: The Radiohead thing was just a fluke. I spent maybe half an hour recording that, and at the time it made no sense. But when the song was mixed, it really came together. As for Dr. Hawking, I'm proud to have been the basis for his system. When I hear him speak, I don't even hear myself any more, his ideas are so unique. But my wife likes to think that I'm the one talking about time and space occasionally.

As you may have heard, the pop single is doomed. Today’s teenagers would rather buy ringtones or download songs from the internet, if they’re not buying computer games, DVDs and drugs. The grown-ups, meanwhile, have given up on singles as a rip-off and buy Norah Jones albums instead.

I won’t shed a tear. Singles are a rip-off, and I’m not sure anyone over 12 cares who is at No1 any more apart from the horrible record company people who spend fortunes putting them there. I’d feel sad if albums died too, though, as a few people now seem to think they might.

This is not a new prediction. Wise old Brian Eno once mused that in the future the idea of listening to the same prerecorded sequence of music again and again would seem medieval. The future of recording, Brian thought, would be self-generating sound - music that is different every time you play it. Recent predictions about the death of the album are more prosaic, and partly the fault of the iPod. If you can download music and store hundreds of songs on one of these fancy portable MP3 players, why buy albums? Buy individual pieces of music instead and compile your own sonic landscapes.

This bothers me. Certain sets of songs work together, and lose impact if split from each other, or even from the artwork they’re packaged in. The modern nightmare that is Radiohead’s OK Computer, the greatest pop album of the late 90s, was great partly because of the tracklisting, the way songs shared themes which resonated more as you went on (it starts with a car crash, ends with a man saying "idiot, slow down"). Then there was the haunting intermission of Fitter, Happier, perfect in the middle of the album, far less powerful elsewhere, and the paranoid artwork that made you never want to get on a plane again.

Most piano recital programs are filled with titles like "Sonata in E-flat," "Etude No. 1" and "Variations on a Theme by So-and-So." When Christopher O'Riley plays a recital, however, the program is likely to list titles like "Fake Plastic Trees," "Karma Police" and "Subterranean Homesick Alien." Last year, O'Riley released a product that was what the pianist himself has called an "obsession" -- "True Love Waits: Christopher O'Riley Plays Radiohead."

For those who aren't up on what David Letterman likes to call "the rock and roll," Radiohead is an English band more praised than played. The group had its first hit a decade ago with a song titled "Creep," and its third album, 1997's "OK Computer," was one of the most critically lauded rock albums of the decade. The band's music has been called everything from austere and angst-ridden to aggressive and atmospheric -- and that's just the adjectives starting with the letter A.

But it is the obvious craftsmanship in the band's songwriting, serving as the foundation for its mix of crunching guitars and dreamy electronica, that has attracted the attention of musicians like O'Riley. For those who don't pay attention to the world of classical music, Christopher O'Riley is one of the superstars, a musical dynamo whose career is divided equally among the concert stage, the recording booth and the radio station.

O'Riley has always pursued wide-ranging musical styles, performing solo piano music by everyone from Beethoven to P.D.Q. Bach. He's been a soloist with major orchestras throughout the world. Locally, he's been a guest twice at the OK Mozart International Festival in Bartlesville, and he performed with the Tulsa Philharmonic in 1997.

He's also been an advocate for contemporary music, and for bringing classically trained skills to non-classical forms, from tango to jazz. And he hosts a nationally syndicated public radio program called "From the Top," that features performances by, and O'Riley's conversations with, up and coming artists.

Creating his own solo piano transcriptions of other music is something O'Riley has done often in his career. And even the idea of melding classical and rock music is not new to him. The composer Aaron Jay Kernis wrote a piece for O'Riley called "Superstar Etude No. 1," based on the piano playing style of pioneer rocker Jerry Lee Lewis.

In an interview with the Tulsa World in 1997, O'Riley said he used to play rock 'n' roll piano as a youngster. Classical music was always in my life, he said at that time. "But playing rock music was a way of my turning being the least popular kid in my class, who was always locked away playing music, to my advantage.

Rock was a type of music that was easy to catch on to, and it helped get through those rough years of adolescence. But his attachment to the music of Radiohead goes much deeper than trying to earn acceptance through some kind of crossover production. I connect with Radiohead's music for the same reason I connect with most of the music I play, O'Riley said last year in an interview with the Boston Herald.

I'm always listening for interesting textures and colors and harmonies, and those are hallmarks of Radiohead's style. I wouldn't call anyone in the band a virtuoso guitarist, but you have potentially three guitarists contributing a specific building block in a way that is much more contrapuntal than you find in most popular music. As a classical player, that makes my ears perk up.

I think by playing Radiohead I am revitalizing an activity that's been going on for hundreds of years, he said. If Beethoven could be cajoled to sit down at a party and play piano, he didn't trot out his Fifth Symphony. He'd improvise on the popular songs of his day.

Lizst took Hungarian folk songs and made them into grand piano fantasies. Bartok recorded hundreds of folk songs, which became the building blocks of his classical compositions.

People are right to be skeptical of crossover. When Pat Boone does 'Stairway to Heaven,' it's calculated, not sincere. But I don't think of 'True Love Waits' as being a crossover record. I think it's like Lizst's 'Hungarian Rhapsodies.' Only this is O'Riley's 'Radiohead Rhapsodies.'

Do you think that's why you've gravitated towards collaborations with other similarly misunderstood and over-analysed artists? Nick Cave, for example, and Radiohead's Thom Yorke, who sings on Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea.

Harvey: It certainly helps. I didn't purposefully seek them out, though, it just happened that people would ask me to do things, or I'd ask them to do things, and afterwards you'd find out that it's really great to be able to talk to people who do the same thing I do, because unless you've been in that situation you can't really understand what's going on. Now, I've built up a network of people I know I can ring if I'm struggling, or if something dreadful happens.

Did you write This Mess We're In, the duet with Thom Yorke, with him in mind?

Harvey: Yes. I hadn't met him before we did the recording. I'd written a few times, and I think he'd written back, but nothing much had gone on. But I sent him the song and asked if he'd be interested in singing it. It was something I'd wanted to do for a long time, because I've loved his voice for years, and I'd wanted to write a duet for ages as well. I just decided that if he didn't want to do it I'd sing it myself.

What is it about his voice that appeals to you?

Harvey: There are very few voices, male or female, that really move me inside, particularly ones that are still alive. Thom can sing the most mundane word, and make it absolutely heartbreaking. It's amazing to see him work, as well--he's very intelligent and very skilled at using his voice.

That was the other thing that was really attractive to me, hearing someone else singing my songs. It just brings such a different quality, and it's very exciting to work with other people, whether I'm contributing to their music or they're contributing to mine. And I learn so much--I've just been working in Sparklehorse for a week, in Spain, and I've picked up all these ideas that I'd have never have thought of trying, and then I'll take those with me and carry on.

Covering Radiohead or Buckley is in grave danger of becoming a cliche, which is why I'm going to steer clear of it from now on. You can't just do a song because you like it. You have to have artistic vision for it, as though it's yours, and new.

The voice of Susan Philipsz comes singing down the telephone line from Berlin, clear, untrained, rather melancholy and as if she’s singing to herself, but with a sense of purpose. It has a muting effect. The song ends, and there’s a click of a mouse on a computer. Did you get that? asks Philipsz. I held the mobile up to the computer speakers. I’m not very technical.

The song is just one of many sound installations that Glasgow-born, Berlin-based Philipsz has created in the past decade since graduating with an MA in Fine Art from the University of Ulster.

Her lonely, detached songs won her a nomination for the Beck’s Futures Prize this year, and feature in its exhibition, which hits Glasgow this week after being shown at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts. Philipsz didn’t win the prize, but received a share of the ?20,000 pot.

Her work is about temporarily altering listener’s perceptions. It’s what makes her an artist rather than a singer. Much of her work has involved hijacking public address systems, the first example of which was at Laganside Bus Station in Belfast in November 1998. The installation, called Filter, consisted of a recording of Philipsz singing, unaccompanied, Airbag by Radiohead, Who Loves The Sun by The Velvet Underground, Jesus Doesn’t Want Me For A Sunbeam by Nirvana and As Tears Go By by The Rolling Stones.

I chose those songs for their themes of longing and escapism, she says, because bus stations are normally places where you’re waiting to be some place else. I was interested in that psychological state.

I'm not a great acoustic player, he acknowledged. I enjoy it, and I'm getting better, but there's nothing virtuoso about it. And I like that. It allows me to sing and interpret the songs differently. That's part of what makes it special for me.

On the day the album was recorded, Mr. Haynes took the stage at around noon, a time at which he would more typically be sleeping. (Characteristically, he had played late the previous night with the Allman Brothers.) The thousands of stalwart revelers staggering into the site surely were not in much better shape. Consequently, the set has an almost dreamlike feel, as if Mr. Haynes were simply playing some of his favorite songs as they came to mind.

That's pretty much how it was. As Mr. Haynes, who had done about a dozen solo performances in his life to that point, was sketching out his set list that morning, his wife, Stefani Scamardo, who manages him and other performers, noted the brooding Radiohead song at the top. In a perfect spousal question that is really a comment, she asked, You're not really going to open up with `Lucky,' are you? Mr. Haynes, a North Carolina native who speaks in a cheerful hey, buddy drawl, chuckled at the recollection. Well, yeah, he replied, I think I am.

1996: Radiohead Get Paranoid. OK Computer is the sound of rock falling apart. It quotes Thom Yorke as saying it was going to be a real 'up' album but it came out 'a bit poisoned.'

It also quoted Nigel Godrich as saying This is something we never dreamed we could get done. I was so happy, I rang my girlfriend just to say 'wow, we've done something really great.'

These are the six themes of Bodysong (2003), an acclaimed British documentary done in the abstract, music-heavy style of Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi, and Naqoyqatsi. Directed by Simon Pummell with an accompanying soundtrack by Jonny Greenwood (famous for his work with the music group Radiohead), this film attempts to show the viewer these six stages of life...without glorifying or condoning any of them. Comprised of documentary footage about the six themes above (much of it pre-1970s), Bodysong is a unique and jarring film: it doesn't pull any punches, and makes no apologies.

Needless to say, leave the kids at home.

The footage itself is raw, visceral, beautiful, and extremely uncomfortable to watch at times. The first minutes of the film include several clips of full-on childbirth, and the camera never turns away for a second. Although this section of the film may be particularly hard for some viewers to sit through, the footage immediately following is perhaps the most stirring: as the new mothers are handed their children, a profound look of peace and happiness washes over them. As a male, I'll never experience this type of mother/child bond, but it was truly moving to "witness" it firsthand.

“Growth” focuses on the early stages of development, and often exhibits footage of children and parents at play, and the first steps toward social interaction. Naturally, the “Sex” theme isn’t too far behind, and it’s easily the most uncomfortable portion of the film’s 83-minute running time. Basically, this section holds absolutely nothing back --- including hardcore clips of pornography --- and is extremely tough to sit through. In short, I felt like Cybill Shepherd’s character in Taxi Driver.

Genuine Stanley Donwood artwork, a unique utterly one-off original painting done by his own fair hand, and blimmin’ huge with it too. Offered for sale on behalf of Bath Fringe Festival, the painting currently adorns the front of The Pleasuredome, the Fringe’s temporary venue, and can be viewed in situ on Bath Recreation Ground until Sunday June 6.

Come to a show while you’re at it – visit www.bathfringe.co.uk.

There aren't a lot of good English bands, I don't think, he said, following the pronouncement with an appropriately placed yawn. Coldplay's successful and they're good, too. Radiohead is successful and they're good. But Robbie Williams is s---. He hasn't been so successful. It's just the nature of the beast. Quality will shine through no matter what the country.

One of the most popular shows at the late, lamented Blinding Light Cinema was a unique performance called Radiohead vs. the Matrix. In it, the Vancouver filmmaker Nicholas Podbrey screened the martial arts/science fiction movie The Matrix while manually switching between the original soundtrack and five different albums by Radiohead, the electronica/rock band. The resulting experience was somehow greater than the sum of its parts, the eerie music matched with exciting visuals.

Technically, Podbrey wasn't altering any of these works; he was merely playing a movie and some albums at the same time in a members-only theatre. Still, he made a point of getting permission from both Radiohead and Warner Bros.

He thinks of Radiohead vs. the Matrix mainly as a live performance but has considered making a DVD combining the images and music. That would be a far different matter -- one that could move Podbrey out of the realm of fair use and into that of felony.

Technology created over the last few years makes cultural expressions like this possible. It also makes it possible to distribute those expressions around the world, without the permission of copyright holders. Copyright law, which regulates intellectual property, is struggling to catch up but is also widely missing the mark.

What do you remember from touring with Radiohead or Air ?

The favorite tour we have done was in 2000 when we supported Radiohead in roman theaters just before Kid A came out. We loved to play in roman ruins in Arles. The Vaison la romaine show was cancelled because of the rain but it was beautiful. We loved to play in these areas: it’s amazing. We feel like playing on another planet by doing that. We were very lucky of doing that.