#Radiohead electioneering

[nyoaeuikhoudu]

Donald and Chase's dynamic, though the song (specifically this version) definately fits with Donald more.

[thekingofgear]

Thom's Heavily Modified Tele (Tele3) Reappears in the hands of Noah Yorke

Two photos by Baxter Adams of Noah Yorke with the guitar at the Shacklewell Arms on January 21, 2023 (ny.wav). Thanks to Andrew for bringing this post to our attention!

In late-2022 and early-2023, Noah Yorke used a heavily modified Fender Telecaster for performances with the band Hex Girlfriend. The guitar is the very same Telecaster that Noah's father, Thom, used with the band Radiohead during their OK Computer tour in 1997-1998. Thom played it on more aggressive tracks from that era such as Electioneering and The Trickster.

Although Thom only used the guitar as a backup on tour in early-2000s, the instrument went through some further mods — most notably a refinish with a thin black paint. It looks as though Thom subsequently carved some words and peace signs into the paint, including the word "black" beside the control plate.

After Radiohead's 2004 tour, the guitar went unseen for a decade. It next appeared at a London Contemporary Orchestra concert in Budapest in 2015, when Jonny used it to play Steve Reich's Electric Counterpoint. Since then, the guitar once again disappeared for nearly a decade. Though the guitar may also be the "black tele" listed in Jonny's recording notes for Electric Counterpoint in June 2014 (vine).

Hex Girlfriend has shared photos from two shows where the guitar is visible: first at Sebright Arms on Nov 6, 2022, and later at the Shacklewell Arms on Jan 21, 2023. The guitar is also visible in what appears to be a rehearsal photo in Dec 2022, likely meant to promote the then-upcoming Shacklewell arms show. It can be seen in footage from two more shows as well: footage from a show in at MOTH Club on July 22, 2023, and footage from from a show at The Moon on The Moon on Oct 22, 2023. The guitar is now covered in stickers, including a "ram's head" sticker from Electro-Harmonix.

Left: a photo by Estie Joy of Noah Yorke with the guitar at the Sebright Arms on November 6, 2022 (ny.wav). Right: a photo, likely from a rehearsal, showing the guitar (ny.wav).

The guitar still has the simple wiring that Thom favored in the 90s, with the tone control removed and replaced by a relocated output jack. The original select switch seems to have been replaced by a smaller toggle switch. Also note that the neck humbucker has the screws on the "bridge" side, rather than the traditional orientation with the screws on the "neck" side. This is just cosmetic, the orientation makes no difference in sound (you'd need to adjust the wiring or the magnet to actually reverse the phase).

Left: a shot of Thom with the guitar at the Hammerstein Ballroom on Dec 19, 1997, pointing to a fan just before the band played Electioneering (youtube). Right: a photo of Jonny playing the guitar at a solo show with the London Contemporary Orchestra in Budapest on Oct 17, 2015.

Note the wear (cigarette burns?) on the guitar's Strat-style neck, particularly between the nut and the first fret. The burns are present even in the earliest photos of the guitar, when it still had a single coil bridge pickup.

One can only wonder what transformations the guitar will go through before it appears again (presumably in another decade)!

[radioheadarchive]

An early performance of ‘Electioneering,’ April 4th 1996

[everydayesterday]

song of the day:

Radiohead - Electioneering (1998)

For whatever reason, I remember this song being singled out by a review as the weakest song on the album. I disagree. It's a throwback to The Bends, and that's just fine (and in my opinion, the band is at their best when they're making noisy guitar rock). There are no weak songs here; it's one of the finest albums ever recorded.

[side note: I'm listening to this because I finally found the setlist to a concert I had attended in 2000 outside of Liverpool/Manchester; I was getting the Victoria Park in Warrington confused with the Victoria Park in London, where I'd seen the band a few nights prior. Forgive my confusion.]

[tagy489]

i was born to be silly and goofy, ive been using those powers for evil by bullshitting my way through essay after essay. just called booktok elitist and compared radiohead to a medieval story about a fox. i wield too much power and cannot be stopped

[ichorai]

OK COMPUTER ; the series.

a series based on the album ok computer by radiohead for our 8k milestone! fandoms included ; marvel, succession, harry potter, the walking dead, arcane, dc, game of thrones, and bridgerton.

main masterlist. about.

TRACKLIST.

ONE. airbag ; steve rogers (4.3k) five time steve tries to propose to you, and one time he actually does.

TWO. paranoid android ; coriolanus snow. (27k+) when you laughed, airy and light and reminiscent to that of wind chimes, coryo wished he could bottle up the sound and keep it as his, only his.

THREE. subterranean homesick alien ; fred weasley. you were looking up at the stars, and fred was staring right at you, a dopey, lovesick sort of smile playing at the corner of his lips. “do you think there’s life out there?” you asked, but instead of getting an answer, fred surged forward, a hand curling over the back of your neck to pull you closer, freckled nose bumping against your cheek, his warm lips slotting over yours, extinguishing any and all lingering existential questions on the tip of your tongue. 

FOUR. exit music (for a film) ; rick grimes. blood all over your torn shirt, giving way to teeth marks. his horrified eyes met yours. you were bit, it was clear as day—and you had to make sure rick knew a couple things before you left for good.

FIVE. let down ; viktor (arcane). it was his fault, really. he knew better than to fall in love with his coworker, who was just recently engaged to someone else. someone better than him.

SIX. karma police ; dick grayson. he skimmed his fingers down your side—your waist, your hips, your thighs. your chest was rising and falling rhythmically, features mellowed with sleep. he couldn’t help but wonder if “no strings attached” was really a good idea.

SEVEN. fitter happier ; miguel o’hara. there was a dangerous red glint to miguel’s eyes as you stepped between him and the kid. a muttered curse, a clenched fist, a twitching jaw. you weren’t afraid of the man you loved—but maybe you should be.

EIGHT. electioneering ; siobhan roy. tom had said he wanted to watch the two of you—but he didn’t exactly want to, not really. shiv didn’t quite care. it was his loss, after all.

NINE. climbing up the walls ; sansa stark. sansa begins to pull away from you after her father’s death.

TEN. no surprises ; sam wilson. the two of you go off to look for wanda, supposedly in a quaint little town called westview. but in a blink of an eye—you’re a smiling housewife and sam is your loving husband, trapped in a house that didn’t quite feel like home. 

ELEVEN. lucky ; theon greyjoy.  he thinks you look so very pretty laying on the snow, frost clinging to your lashes.

TWELVE. the tourist ; benedict bridgerton. it was typical of him, of course. to fall in love with the traveling artist with keen eyes and calloused hands.

[milksfavcookie]

i think percy would like alt-rock like radiohead for it’s implicit abhorrence of fucked up authority figures/governments. i feel like hating unjust systems would be a HUGE part of percy’s personality because of gabe and the titan war. like percy would love ‘Hail to the Thief’ for that exact reason. ‘2 + 2 = 5’ and ‘Electioneering’ would be his favorite radiohead songs i think, but he’d love all their songs a lot.

i ALSO think percy would love metal/punk rock that doesnt take itself too seriously like ‘green jelly’ and ‘primus’. the kind of stuff thats comedic while still making some kind of statement.

he’d also like billy joel, because of his mom <3

percy’s playlist can be found here

[thom-yorke-bot]

thom yorke bot whats your favourite radiohead song mine are idioteque, high and dry and electioneering

Uh uh uh.

[mossmarsh]

bark and leaf's littermate!

[pinkfloydfan4578]

greetings :-)

what is your favorite radiohead album, and why? personally, mine is hail to the thief

hello!! Thank you so much for the ask! Picking just one Radiohead album is incredibly difficult. I’ll start off by saying I love hail to the thief too, definitely in my top 5 rh albums. For me kid a, ok computer, and in rainbows (basic opinion I know) are about tied, but if I had to choose it’d be ok computer with in rainbows in second.

OK Computer is to me an album that while depressing is also incredibly beautiful with a hint of optimism present. It’s perfectly balanced in my opinion, with darker tracks like paranoid android, exit music, karma police, and climbing up the walls being alleviated by of course the gorgeous and melancholic Let Down, as well as opener airbag and closer the tourist (which also connect to each other!!) and ofc there’s Lucky, which sounds eery yet hopeful at the same time with contrasting instrumentals/vocals and lyrics. Even the energetic track Electioneering helps with the flow of the album.

For an album seeming to take place in a dystopian future where technology has taken over, OK Computer feels surprisingly human. It really makes me emotional because I think its themes are still so relevant today. When I feel depressed, Let Down helps me realize that a brighter future is ahead. And when I feel guilty or lost, unsure of what I’ve done or become, that “for a minute there I lost myself” in karma police helps me grieve and accept myself so I can move on to become better. Subterranean Homesick Alien helps me feel less alone, that there are other people out there who don’t perfectly fit into what society wants them to be. And I think it just perfectly portrays that Thom feels that way too, and that’s what makes him so special. And The Tourist encourages me to stop and realize all the beauty that exists in this world, that I’m young and should learn to enjoy my time on this earth.

Musically it’s just perfect. I’m a huge fan of rock and guitar usage though, so that should tell you something! The metal riff on airbag, the absolute genius of paranoid android’s solos, riffs, and sections, the spacey guitar and atmosphere on SHA, the Floyd-ish tone on Lucky, haunting piano on karma police, that glorious climax in Exit Music… just the absolute complexity of it all too, there are so many layers.

Also the vocals. What Thom can do with his voice always amazes me. It truly is another instrument. He does all the backing vocals on this album. That impeccable harmony he creates on Paranoid Android is all him. His pained and weary voice in exit music. His gut-wrenching “you know where you are” in let down. His horrifying scream in climbing up the walls. The second “glorious day” in Lucky. The “Slow downnnn” in The Tourist. It just connects with me directly and pulls me in.

And I think OK Computer also addresses a wide range of themes that make it so compelling. Technology, Isolation, Politics, Mental Illness, getting so obsessed with revenge and hatred of people that you lose sight of who you are, hopelessness, becoming too distracted by all that’s going wrong or all that’s happening to realize how lucky we are to exist/stop and actually absorb everything, what it truly means to be human…

because for an album that is so often called dark and depressing, it’s often the only thing that makes me feel like I belong.

[punk-chicken-radio]

radiohead - electioneering

-ax and TOS

[graveyarrdshift]

I was tagged by @astolenkiss to list the 5 current songs that i love and am currently listening to! (Thank you bestie!!)

no pressure tags: @mymagician @onlyyseedaylight @delicatetaylorsversion @foreveryournameonmylipss @flashbackwhenyoumetme @shouldve-said-no @softwarmlight @slayderman @immercuryinretrograde @moonstonemidnights @shredmyeveningown @margolovescoffeeandbooks @caffelattte @swiftpascal @lyllith @repwithtatiana @intomymelancholia

[operator-report]

My last two Worm posts have been downers so let’s answer one of the most crucial (to me) characterization questions ever: what is each Traveler’s favorite Radiohead album?

Noelle: The Traveler most likely to listen to Radiohead for real, in canon. Noelle came across an album called OK Computer one day and was like “I mean I like computers” and was greeted with the most anxious, dissociative and lush nerd music of all time. She was then immediately hooked. OK Computer is still Noelle’s favorite. Paranoid Android literally happened to her. So did all those car crashes Thom Yorke sings about although that’s maybe a bit more metaphorical. Her one bad Radiohead opinion is that she skips Electioneering when she’s listening to the CD in the car.

Krouse: Started listening to Radiohead when he found out Noelle liked them; has only heard OK Computer and Kid A but pretends to know their entire discography. Thinks Kid A is the best Radiohead album because that’s the critically accepted Correct Opinion and he knows more about [insert topic here] than you do. Krouse can quote Kid A’s Pitchfork review from memory.

Marissa: Noelle didn’t show Krouse Radiohead on purpose because she was worried he’d make a joke about the band being cliche. She did show them to Marissa. Marissa does not like Radiohead. Whenever Noelle listens to Radiohead in the car she gets a little bummed out on Noelle’s behalf, but hey, whatever makes her happy. In Rainbows is their least worst album but like. Why does that guy sing like that don’t you want to listen to Paramore instead Noelle.

Jess: As the Traveler with the best taste by, like, a mile, Jess likes In Rainbows for real. She thinks the pay-what-you-want release was a cool and revolutionary thing for bands to do in the ~internet age~ and thinks the songs whip too. She will encourage you not to forget In Rainbows Disk 2. Krouse has no idea that In Rainbows Disk 2 exists and thinks that Jess is fucking with him every time she brings it up (she is).

Luke: Luke can name a couple of 90’s-era Radiohead singles and doesn’t mind jokingly singing Creep at karaoke. In a pre-Simurgh fit of being Down Bad For Noelle, Krouse informed him that Pablo Honey is bad so he says his favorite is The Bends, as instructed by Krouse, if anyone asks. Will then quickly switch the topic of conversation to Green Day.

Oliver: Went on a parallel journey to Krouse in which he found out about Radiohead through Noelle and decided to listen to them because he thinks Noelle is cool. The big differences between Oliver and Krouse are (1) he has listened to OK Computer, Kid A, Amnesiac, and In Rainbows; and (2) he likes Kid A for non-stupid reasons. This is a person who would genuinely like to learn How To Disappear Completely.

Cody: Creep speaks to him. It’s also the only Radiohead song he’s ever heard. Pablo Honey.

[haveyoulistenedtothisalbum-poll]

Tracklist:

Airbag • Paranoid Android • Subterranean Homesick Alien • Exit Music (For A Film) • Let Down • Karma Police • Fitter Happier • Electioneering • Climbing Up The Walls • No Surprises • Lucky • The Tourist

Spotify ♪ Bandcamp ♪ YouTube

[best-radiohead-song]

BEST RADIOHEAD SONG TOURNAMENT

Round one matchups and results:

Planet Telex vs. Lotus Flower

Airbag vs. House of Cards

2 + 2 = 5 vs. Karma Police

Everything In Its Right Place vs. Nude

India Rubber vs. Electioneering

The Numbers vs. Subterranean Homesick Alien

Spectre vs. You

My Iron Lung vs. Banana Co. 

Lucky vs. Anyone Can Play Guitar

Where I End and You Begin vs. Knives Out

The National Anthem vs. Videotape

Let Down vs. Faust Arp 

True Love Waits vs. True Love Waits (Live in Oslo)

Lift vs. Optimistic

Pearly* vs. Just

The Tourist vs. Fog

Identikit vs. Pop is Dead

These are my Twisted Words vs. Daydreaming

Reckoner vs. The Bends

Blow Out vs. There, There

No Surprises vs. Burn the Witch

High and Dry vs. Bodysnatchers

Pyramid Song vs. Talk Show Host

Bulletproof… I Wish I Was vs. How to Disappear Completely

15 Step vs. A Wolf at the Door

I Might be Wrong vs. Paranoid Android

Motion Picture Soundtrack vs. All I need

The Trickster vs. Street Spirit (Fade Out)

Creep vs. Fake Plastic Trees

Climbing up the Walls vs. Man of War

Weird Fishes/ Arpeggi vs. Scatterbrain

[vengeful4ever]