2HB

to humphrey bogart

Bryan Ferry wrote it for Roxy Music's first album. The title is an address: 2HB, to Humphrey Bogart, and the song is largely about Casablanca. Ferry's Hohner Pianet carries it, and Andy Mackay's saxophone solo is built on the melody of “As Time Goes By”, put through tape echo by Brian Eno. It has been influential in odd ways: Madness answered it with “4BF”, for Bryan Ferry, and the Human League with “4JG”, for J. G. Ballard.

the venus in furs

For Todd Haynes's Velvet Goldmine, a fictional band called the Venus in Furs recorded the glam songs. The line-up was Bernard Butler, Clune, Paul Kimble, Andy Mackay from Roxy Music itself, Jonny Greenwood and Thom Yorke.

That is what this recording is: two members of Radiohead in someone else's band, playing a Roxy Music song, for a film about a version of glam rock that never happened. It is not a Radiohead track, and the band have never performed it.