Song · Radiohead
I Don't Want to Go to Woodstock
A Headless Chickens record from Exeter, made by the band Thom Yorke was in before Radiohead were anybody.
late 1980s
exeter
Headless Chickens were a student band at the University of Exeter that Yorke played in while On a Friday were on hold and he was away from Oxford. Their recordings surface in two places: a 7-inch EP, and the compilation Year Zero: The Exeter Punk Scene 1977–2000, which is where most people who have heard this song found it.
The song came out in 1989 on The Hometown Atrocities EP, a 7-inch shared by four Exeter bands and pressed in a run of just over a thousand. Yorke is not the singer. Simon Shackleton, known as Shack, sings it and plays bass, with Yorke on guitar and backing vocals, John Matthias on violin and Martin Brooks on drums. It is credited to the whole band, and it is the only song Headless Chickens ever released.
the record
not a radiohead song
It sits in this catalogue as a piece of the band's prehistory rather than as a Radiohead recording. There is no Radiohead version.
the video
A recording of a song they never released.· Shaun McCrindlewatch on youtube →
sources3
- Mark Brend, “Thom Yorke's Year Zero”, Record Collector, July 2000: the band, the EP and the Year Zero compilation.
- The Hometown Atrocities EP (Hometown Atrocities STORM 1, 1989), its Discogs entry: the lineup and credits, and the pressing.
- Will Richards, “A Brief History Of... Headless Chickens”, DIY, 14 July 2015: Yorke's Exeter years.