Song · On a Friday / pre-Pablo Honey (1986–92)
Everybody Knows
Seven years before Pablo Honey, a school band in Abingdon already had this one on tape.
1986
on a friday
The band was On a Friday, which Thom Yorke and Colin Greenwood had started at Abingdon School, and they made the tape there in 1986, and Spin places the recording in the school's music room. The youngest of them, Colin's brother Jonny, had not yet joined. There is a saxophone solo on it, and Stereogum reckoned the song would have sat comfortably on Pablo Honey, which came out seven years later, in 1993.
2011
on youtube
It turned up on YouTube in November 2011, with “Girl (In the Purple Dress)” from the same tape. The woman who posted them said the cassette had been given to her husband, who was at school with the band, when he was seventeen, and where it came from rests on her word. She and her husband had been students in Liverpool with Phil Selway, she said, and went to the band's gigs in Oxford, one of which drew a crowd of six.
on stage
Live, 1986 Demo Tape.· [Redacted]watch on youtube →
sources3
- The site's own catalogue note, based on Stereogum and fan archives, for the Pablo Honey comparison.
- “Pair of So-Called 1980s-Era Radiohead Demos Hit the Web”, Spin, 21 November 2011, for the music room, the band's beginnings, the saxophone solo, the uploader's account and the crowd of six.
- “Hear two previously unreleased Radiohead demos”, Uncut, 21 November 2011, for the tape and when it surfaced.