Today marks the release of Phil’s solo album, Familial, in the United States. It was released yesterday in Europe. The Village Voice spoke with Selway about the shift from Radiohead drummer to solo singer-songwriter for Familial. The Voice‘s Vijith Assar says of the album : “Elliott Smith’s influence runs strong on these delicately strummed tracks, Selway’s quiet whisper cooing over songs steeped in striking sentimentality.” Selway talks about the new album, including his passing percussion duties along to Wilco’s Glenn Kotche, in an interview at villagevoice.com.

Here’s the tracklist:

1. “By Some Miracle”
2. “Beyond Reason”
3. “A Simple Life”
4. “All Eyes on You”
5. “The Ties That Bind Us”
6. “Patron Saint”
7. “Falling”
8. “Broken Promises”
9. “Don’t Look Down”
10. “The Witching Hour”

We suggest you go out and purchase it now. You can get it on iTunes, Amazon, or your local record shop.

Selway and his band make their way to Ireland this weekend for the Electric Picnic at Stradbally Hall, as part of their month-long tour.

Okay, this is our last flashback of the day. In going with the mid 90s theme of never-released songs, we now look at the very popular live song, “Lift.” It was played regularly in 1996 on tour and is the only Radiohead song where Thom actually refers to himself by name in the lyrics. Well, that is until the song was reworked in 2002. This brings us back to those pre-OK Computer days where a lot of fans thought (and hoped) that it would be included on the album.

Here’s the original:

And the reworked version from 2002:

Which one do you prefer?

Most Radiohead fans are aware of “True Love Waits” as it’s been performed a lot on tour and even released as a live track on the 2001 EP I Might be Wrong – Live Recordings. Here’s an early look at the song, back when Jonny played the keyboard mid way through. To a lot of fans, this is THE version of “True Love Waits”. I personally remember listening to this version in the late 90s after downloading a .vqf of it off Napster. Ah, the old days…

There a few songs out there that Radiohead have played live that have never been recorded and released. One of the more rare and obscure ones is “I Promise” which was played during their 1996 tour. Roy Orbison, anyone?

Stanley Donwood is having an art show in San Francisco, CA from September 2 to October 27th at FIFTY24SF Gallery. Here’s the press release:

FIFTY24SF Gallery Presents “Over Normal”
New Works by Stanley Donwood

Fifty24SF Gallery presents “Over Normal”- a solo exhibition by Stanley Donwood and his first ever showing in the United States.

When thinking of iconic imagery in music from the last 20 years, Stanley Donwood’s work with Radiohead invariably comes to mind – and for good reason. Where Radiohead’s music stretched the auditory horizons and painted musical sceneries of mans place in the modern world, Donwood’s imagery and packaging forced us to face the gravity of the music from the minute the album hit our hands; and by creating cryptic, academic and (at times) dystopian layouts, the albums themselves became as striking and relevant as the music they contained.

Although Stanley Donwood generally avoids the grandeur of media and would prefer to be undersold, to speak only in terms of his work with Radiohead would be a disservice. From his exhibitions of intricate etchings at Lazarides Gallery in London, to the vibrant works that made up his show at Iguapop Gallery in Barcelona, Donwood’s gallery work has consistently mixed personal and political emotions with modesty and humor.

For “Over Normal”, the catalyst for the large works featured in the show is in Los Angeles, where Stanley began to notice (with equal parts amazement and distress) that the advertisements bombarding him on the multilane highways were made of seven basic colors, immediately grabbing viewers’ attention in a primal way. More recently, Stanley noticed a parallel between the use of those colors and an influx of spam emails that promised everything from more fruitful sex lives, to cheap foreclosed properties at the expense of someone else’s misery. The word’s that were used in the emails were formatted in the same fundamental way as color in the advertisement’s had been used: to grab unconscious attention and tell a story without the viewer knowing it. Marrying the immediate words used in these emails with the attractive and distressing colors of the advertisements, Stanley has produced a line of seven vibrant, original pieces for this exhibition.

Stanley has also produced a 12 page newspaper to accompany the show, this explains how he came about putting together a neuron firing sound installation in an artificial neural network which is also featured in the show and is entitled ‘The Overnormaliser’.

“Over Normal” will run from September 2nd – October 27th with an opening reception occurring on September 2nd from 7:30PM – 10:00PM.

******************************************************************************************
Relevant Links:
FIFTY24SF Gallery: http://www.fifty24sf.com
Stanley Donwood: http://www.slowlydownward.com/
******************************************************************************************

Here are some examples of the artwork that will be shown:

While we’re in the flashback mood, here’s a video of Radiohead performing “Street Spirit (Fade Out)” at Pinkpop in 1996. Some of you may not be aware of this, but Jonny plays the guitar and keyboard at the same time during this song, which is shown towards the end of the video. Enjoy!

We’ve linked to this performance before and thought that it deserved another mention. One of the better performances of “Paranoid Android” occurred on Later… with Jools Holland back in 1997. It’s clearly evident why Jonny used to wear that brace on his wrist due to RSI (repetitive strain injury). He abuses that guitar… in a good way.

In case you haven’t heard, a long-haired Thom Yorke performed a solo set at the Big Chill this past weekend, and slipped the newish “Give up the Ghost” song in to the setlist. Up until now, it hasn’t been clear if this was going to be a Thom Yorke/Atoms for Peace song or a new Radiohead song. At the end of the song, Thom clears that up by saying “That’s a new Radiohead song.”  And there you go.

Below is a video of it for your viewing (and listening) pleasure:

Wow, just wow.

I’m sure the folks at Capitol sent this out as a response to the Beavis and Butt-Head episode where they watched “Creep.”

From: Reconstructed: A Music Blog (thanks to JMD)

Put it right is a five year initiative by UNICEF UK to inspire action to protect the rights of children everywhere. Radiohead have contributed “Videotape” to a new film promoting the campaign, which you can view below.

More info can be found at http://www.unicef.org.uk/