New Tweet tonight from Chieftan Mews containing a Youtube Video link to Flying Over San Jose (BBC2 1975-1976).
Uploaded in 2008 Youtube gives the following description of the file:
This tape was introduced in May 1975 as a new tape and was later twinned with Cheers! to form its later replacement, Five Spanish Dances, which was launched in December 1976. This tape was composed by the Simon Gale Orchestra and included some of the tracks later to be used on Summer Sunny Holiday and Melancholic Rock, and was the first tape to be launched on BBC2 after the decision was made to reduce trade on the channel in favour of a lunchtime closedown in order to save the BBC money and power from January 1975.
According to comments on Youtube Chieftan Mews had previously linked to this video in a Direct Message to a fan six months ago.
nth I jot Or is a tricky one that appears to have a maths feel.
Nth is a term used for the largest number in a series of ordered numbers.
I is 1 in Roman numerals or may simply be i as an unknown interger.
The Phrase Finder has the following history for the world jot:
A jot is the name of the least letter of an alphabet or the smallest part of a piece of writing. It is the Anglicized version of the Greek iota – the smallest letter of the Greek alphabet, which corresponds to the Roman ‘i’. This, in turn, was derived from the Hebrew word jod, or yodr, which is the the smallest letter of the square Hebrew alphabet. Apart from its specialist typographical meaning, we still use the word jot more generally to mean ‘a tiny amount’. Hence, when we have a brief note to make, we ‘jot it down’.
Or is often used in maths to determine a Boolean operation where one can either be true or false.
It could also be a reference to Or Records a London based independent record label founded in 1998 who specialized in Electronic and Experimental Computer Music including a two edition of their own computer music audio magazine in 1999 featuring Aphex Twin and others. You can still order it from Touchshop for £6.00 plus postage.
One of two links to Youtube Chieftan Mews sent out on the same day both linked Youtube videos of BBC Test Card F titled ‘BBC Test Card F (1978)’.
“The time now very nearly 3 o clock, the next program on bbc1 Songs of Praise follows at 3.15 after a trade test transmission…”
A Youtube commenter names the piece of music as ‘Finally, swing-time’ by Pit Fontana’s New Sound. According to TestcardCircle.uk that song was used during the 2nd half of 1978 to early 1979.
Mew’s tweeted a 2nd Testcard after this one ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6SmOBxP9-g ; Test 2 ), however the second tweet was not deleted until the 20th of March 2012. You can read more about it, and the history of Test Card F here.
Songs of Praise is a weekly religious program first broadcast in 1961 early on Sunday mornings. Consisting of church hymn’s it still runs today and is broadcast in a number of countries.
In 2007 Adam Buxton uploaded a parody of Songs of Praise providing his own subtitles to the program with amusing results:
Adam Buxton is British DJ and Comedian who in 2007 helped Radiohead with their Thumbs_Down webcast to celebrate the release of In Rainbows.
A fan of the band he wrote a nice long detailed blog post about the whole thing here on his website, and later in 2008 entered his own (rather hilarious) remix for the Reckoner remix competition:
On the 29th of November 2011 Adam Buxton ran a live BUG Music Video’s special evening focusing on Radiohead’s career, during which he screened some behind the scenes footage of the recording of Thumbs_Down, Previous video clips from the band and a interview with Jonny and Colin. Described as a ‘one off’ Adam repeated the event in Los Angeles on February 2nd 2012.
A Silly Blog carries a nice review and description of the event Here.
One of the most interesting bits of trivia from the program refers to a In Rainbows Scrapbook mentioned in the Bug Program notes as a ‘proposed but ultimately unreleased DVD ‘scrapbook’ from the In Rainbows period’.
(Source: Attributed to Ian Davies by Auntie Nubbins of A Silly Blog )
Adam Buxton is on twitter as AdamRealBuxton and is one of the accounts Chieftan Mews follows on Twitter.
@ChieftanMews: #8 of 10: http://t.co/IAEHtG1 Have you really considered that you have been lied to constantly since you were born? (Expires Aug 25 or so)
The 3rd of a series of 10 weekly questions asked by Chieftan Mews.
In this case it came with a link to The King of Limbs – Live from The Basement on the Offical Radiohead Youtube Channel which the band have been using since 2005 to host their videoclips and some webcast material for In Rainbows and The King of Limbs. They also uploaded all of the remixes from TKOL-RMX 1234567 and The Daily Mail/Staircase along with The King of Limbs on the day the album was released in stores.
Radiohead reported on Dead Air Space that there had been a issue getting The King of Limbs – From The Basement shown in the UK, apologizing for the delay on July 20th as “the original broadcaster decided not to show it”.
On June 5th 2011 BBC Worldwide Music Television announced that they had signed a deal to be the international distributor for The King of Limbs – Live From the Basement.
Their press release gave the following details:
BBC Worldwide Music Television has signed a deal with Radiohead to distribute internationally a new and exclusive live performance of Radiohead’s eighth album, ‘The King of Limbs’.
Radiohead – The King of Limbs: Live From The Basement is a 55-minute performance from one of the most successful and critically acclaimed acts of their generation, who have sold over 30 million albums worldwide. The programme will feature the notoriously elusive band performing the entirety of their celebrated new album in a studio setting with some additional behind the scenes material. It is scheduled to be the first time that the grammy-award winners are captured on camera this year.
The King of Limbs album was released digitally in February 2011 and physically at the end of March 2011, yet this exclusive performance will be the first time the band will have played this collection of songs in public. The band will be performing for acclaimed music show ‘From the Basement’, the brain child of production genius Nigel Godrich, who has either engineered or produced all of Radiohead’s albums since The Bends and has worked with a variety of international acts including Paul McCartney, U2, R.E.M and Air.
Having launched the title at MIPTV, BBC Worldwide has already received pre-sale offers for a number of major territories and expects to have a substantial network of broadcasters in place for its premiere.
Salim Mukaddam, VP Music Television at BBC Worldwide said, “It is a real honour to be working with Radiohead on this project. Radiohead are a band that rarely performs for television, but when they do, it’s a moment to savour. There is already huge anticipation for this performance and we’re delighted that they’ve decided to work with us at BBC Worldwide, confirming our position as market leaders in Music Television. As a fan I cannot wait to see these beautiful songs brought to life in this programme.”
Bryce Edge of Courtyard Management, Radiohead’s management company said, “This will be Radiohead’s first collaboration with BBC Worldwide and the band are excited at the prospect of having their first live performance of ‘The King of Limbs’ broadcast around the world . The band will be filmed and recorded by the From The Basement team, which includes Nigel Godrich their long time producer, Dilly Gent ,who commissioned many of the memorable Radiohead videos and Grant Gee who filmed the Radiohead documentary ‘Meeting People is Easy’”
Radiohead – The King of Limbs: Live from the Basement becomes available to international broadcasters in June and is embargoed for broadcast until 1st July 2011. The programme is filmed in HD, will have no audience and no presenter – just a rare opportunity to see an intimate performance from one of the greatest bands in the world.
On the 20th of July BBC Worldwide America announced that rights had been sold to broadcast the performance on the MTV Network in America.
The BBC Worldwide Blog carried a piece the next day written by Salim Mukaddam the Vice President of BBC Worldwide Music Television about the project:
Last year I had the opportunity to bring together my personal passion and professional life when I met with Radiohead’s management, Bryce Edge and Chris Hufford. You could not wish to meet two more welcoming, co-operative, professional and knowledgeable people. Both Chris and Bryce instantly saw the potential that a partnership with BBC Worldwide could deliver. However, any project was obviously going to be dependent on the band – thankfully the band was interested and had a project in mind.
Radiohead launched their new album ‘The King of Limbs’ in February and from that point everything seemed to happen at light speed. The band wanted to work with their long time producer Nigel Godrich. He is one of the team responsible for ‘From The Basement’ – an incredible music show that sets the benchmark for quality in music television. The band’s concept was to perform the whole of their new album for our TV project…
…The result is a beautiful fifty five minute journey into the world of Radiohead. The King of Limbs is a stunning album in itself, but seeing the band bring these songs to life is a joy to behold. The full programme is coming to a TV screen near you soon, with confirmed broadcasts on Palladia in the USA, Canal + in Spain, Fuji TV in Japan, MultiShow in Brazil and SuperChannel in Canada.
To date Radiohead – Live from the Basement never made it to television in the UK despite broadcasts occurring in other countries such as Spain, America, Canada, Japan, Brazil and Australia. The BBC Claims that this was due to them being ‘unable to find a broadcast partner’ for the UK even with the BBC having their own broadcasting network in that region.
On February 3rd 2012 AustinLBrock uploaded the full recording of The King of Limbs – Live From The Basement to Youtube with the permission of the band’s management and BBC Worldwide. Unlike the original version uploaded by the band this included the footage of Supercollider from the Bluray and DVD that the band released on the 9th of November 2011.
@ChieftanMews: Bestow blindfolds and gAg mouths to avoid pre-tense and maKe whoopie to the sounds around you. BeAt your drumKit @philipselway @clivedeamer
Feb 23, 2012:
@ChieftanMews: many citizenS have theIr patria in war/gameS/takeovers and are fIghting from afar in their settee/chair/sofa. are you /they/we winning?
Two of 5 Tweets sent on February 23rd that where deleted within 24 hours. The first tweet is addressed to Phillip Selway and Clive Dreamer who is currently working with Radiohead as a additional drummer for The King of Limbs.
As reported on The King of Limbs Part 2 there is a hidden message in the selection of capital letters.
It is as follows:
B A K B A K
S I S I
It relates to a recent SISI BAKBAK remix of Hold On by SBTRKT
This remix has recently causing some confusion in the press for Sisi BakBak being a possible alias for Thom Yorke.
Consequence Of Sound gives the following info:
SBTRKT will release his new single “Hold On” digitally on February 21st, and as a limited edition 12” in a deluxe lenticular sleeve on May 8th. It comes backed by the instrumental ”Rise to Freedom”, along with a remix of “Hold On” attributed to Sisi BakBak, who (through powers of Sherlock-like deduction) is probably Radiohead’s Thom Yorke.
According to KEXP’s Cheryl Waters, who premiered the track, the remixer is soon playing Seattle’s Key Arena (that’s where Radiohead is playing in April.) Also, as Pitchfork points out, BBC’s Rob da Bank tweeted (via P4k): “listening to the thom yorke mix of @SBTRKT for the 18th time…unbeatable!”” So there you go.
As yet there has been no official word to deny or confirm that Thom is Sisi Bakbak
Chieftan Mews has a long history of tweeting messages directly related to the band (even if in a round about fashion). From this we can take the message as confirmation that Sisi Bakbak is indeed Thom Yorke who has a long history of involvement with DJs including work with Modeselektor, UNKLE, DJ Shadow, Flying Lotus, Burial, Four-Tet and MF Doom.
Thom also organised the TKOL RMX 1234567 remix collection of The King of Limbs.
In somewhat-related news Modeselektor will be releasing a special Deluxe Tour edition of Monkeytown on the 16 March 2012 which features a additional bonus track co-written by Thom Yorke. It may be Dull Hull from the B-Side of the limited edition Shipwreck single (which you can listen to here) or it could be something new.
** UPDATE 20-March 2012 : it is Dull Hull, you can read the full tracklisting here **
While the first edition of Modeselektor’s third studio album “Monkeytown” was already far from standard, this new and updated deluxe package offers an even more extensive collectors item.
Released in the middle of the second leg of the album tour, this Deluxe Tour Edition of the album features an entire bonus cd filled with all instrumentals from the album and an additional bonus track co-written by Thom Yorke (Radiohead). The bonus DVD comes with all 3 official videos for the songs “Shipwreck” with Thom Yorke, “Evil Twin” and “Berlin” feat. Miss Platnum as well as extensive live footage. Filmed at the Warehouse Project in Manchester you will find 7 songs from the live show as well as a 20min interview added as additional video bonus material.
Alltogether about 3 hours of Modeselektor entertainement.
According to their website the Deluxe Tour Edition is limited to only 3000 copies, you can order it here.
Now for the rest of the tweets!
Pre-tense could be read as a reference to ‘The Present Tense’ a currently unreleased song that made it’s debut at the 2009 Latitude Festival being played solo by Thom Yorke. A fan favourite you can listen to it here.
Whoopie has two meanings, one is to celebrate in a (usually) drunken fashion, the second is to have sex. Considering Thom Yorke’s reaction to people ahem.. ‘making woopie’ to Radiohead it’s more likely to be the former then the latter.
blindfold is a reference to Running Blind the title of Phillip Selway’s recent E.P.
Mew’s had previously retweeted a message from SandbagUK informing of a limited edition release of the E.P. signed by the man himself, It is now sold out but you can still buy Phil’s debut album Familial here.
The second of the two tweets appears to be about computer games.
‘patria’ is a Latin word for ‘Homeland’ or ‘Fatherland’.
February 23rd was the release date for ‘Wargame: European Escalation’ described as ‘a real-time strategy video game developed by Eugen Systems set in the years 1975-1985.’
Wiki gives the following:
It features large maps up to 150 square kilometres in size. It can have up to 100 million scenery objects. Players can command 361 unique units. [3]. Playable factions include the Warsaw Pact which is subdivided into the Soviet Union, Communist Poland, East Germany, and Czechoslovakia. On the other side is NATO, which is subivided into the United States of America, United Kingdom, France and West Germany. Each country has its own arsenal of units, and players can choose various units from the four subfactions of the side they are playing on, unlocking better units through game progression.
While Mew’s seems to be referencing that game in particular it doesn’t actually mean he’s played it. Many websites and gaming platforms such as Steam present advertisements for upcoming games that appear when logging in.
For example is a screenshot of the game advertised in Steam’s main page on the 5th of March.
Screenshot of Wargame: European Escalation advertised on Steam.
Previously on the 3rd of June 2010 Jonny Greenwood posted a Office Chart to Dead Air Space unique in listing a selection of Games instead of music which he addressed to “all the nerds who are marveling, like me, at Red Dead Redemption”
Red Dead Redemption is the title of a game by Rockstar San Diego released exclusively on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on the 21st of May 2010 in the UK. Awarded numerous Game of the Year titles it’s considered to be a modern classic and raised the bar for open world games.
Set in 1911, during the decline of the American Old West. The game follows John Marston, a former outlaw, while he sets out to hunt down his former gang members. Marston’s wife and son are taken hostage by the government in ransom for his services as a bounty hunter. Having no other choice, he sets out to bring his three former gang members to justice.
Braid (various)
Marathon (Mac)
Goldeneye (N64)
Elite (BBC Micro)
Cave Story (various)
Ico (PS2)
Red Dead Redemption (PS3)
Zelda Ocarina of Time (N64)
Zelda Twighlight Princess (Wii)
Half Life 1 and 2 (Mac, PS3)
Test 2 takes you to a Youtube Video of BBC Testcard F featuring the instrumental piece ‘Voy, Voy, Voy’ from BBC2 cia 1971-1972. The video is 10 minutes long and contains a number of pieces of music and features Carole Hersee and Bubbles the Clown who together have been shown on television for about 70,000 hours (That’s 8 years!). Test Card F traditionally appeared during dead air on BBC1 and BBC2.
Test Card F is a test card that was created by the BBC and used on television in the United Kingdom and in countries elsewhere in the world for more than four decades. Like other test cards, it was usually shown while no programmes were being broadcast, but was the first to be transmitted in colour in the UK and the first to feature a person,[1] and has become an iconic British image regularly subject to parody.
The central image on the card shows eight-year-old Carole Hersee, playing noughts and crosses with a clown doll, Bubbles the Clown, surrounded by various greyscales and colour test signals needed to ensure a correct picture. It was first broadcast on 2 July 1967 (the day after the first colour pictures appeared to the public on television) on BBC2.
The card was developed by a BBC engineer, George Hersee, father of the girl in the central image. It was frequently broadcast during downtime on BBC1 until that channel went fully 24 hours in November 1997, and on BBC Two until its downtime was replaced entirely by Pages from Ceefax in 1998, after which it was only seen during engineering work, and was last seen in this role in 1999.
Posts in the comments on Youtube state that the harmonica track is titled ‘Johanna’ and performed by the Guy Luypaerts Orchestra.
Interestingly enough ‘Testcard Girl’ was portrayed in a rather Chieftan Mews-ish role as a character in the original BBC series of Life on Mars broadcast in 2006-2007 where she appears first inside the television and then in visions providing the main character with comments relating to his life and things that where going to happen.
She also repeatedly taunts him and occasionally scares him out of his wits with quotes such as “You don’t like me and my clown, I can see I make you frown. When on earth will all this end? I’m you’re friend, you’re only friend.”
You can read more about Test Card F on Wiki here including links to download your own copy of Test Card F if you feel so inclined. While it’s tempting link to Testcard Girl’s role in Life on Mars I’d suggest hunting up the entire series instead to avoid spoilers. It’s well worth the effort.
Dead Air is the name for a unexpected gap in Radio or Television broadcast usually due to a operator error or technical fault. In a era of 24 hour news-cycles and broadcasting Dead Air is the one thing media organizations strive to avoid.
It is also the title of a 2002 novel by Iain Banks.
The Guardian review of it states that:
Dead Air is narrated by Kenneth Nott, a shock-jock on commercial radio who takes a swollen pride in his contrarian opinions. We first meet him at a drug-fuelled loft party in the East End of London, where everyone, for some reason, starts chucking fruit and furniture off the balcony. Ken’s girlfriend, Jo, does PR for a snotty young British indie band called Addicta; he is also sleeping with a woman called Celia (or “Ceel”), who happens to be married to a dangerous gangster.
You probably wouldn’t like to meet Ken. He is one of those annoying, professionally opinionated people who are never off duty. Large portions of the novel are dedicated to expounding his reactions to the latest topics of media discussion, whether he is on air or just chatting in a pub: gun control (“Guns for nutters only; makes sense”), American imperialism, CCTV cameras, Euroscepticism, the death of Diana (“put on a fucking seatbelt”), all get extended libertarian rants. It is a tribute to Banks’s chatty prose skill that these discussions are largely entertaining, if superficially argued.
For all his hard years of service Chieftan Mews has only gotten this brief mention by Ed O’Brien on Dead Air Space on March 5th, 2005 in a post titled ’1 2 3 4 …. Chieftain Mews anyone?’:
For those who don’t know or remember, Senor Chieftain Mews,as he likes to be addressed now, was our slightly disturbing host on ‘the most gigantic lying mouth of all time’ …. Well, his comrade in arms and occasional masseuse, Chris Bran (who has also been hugely involved in our webcasts since we started them back in 2000), has a pilot out of his new comedy called ‘This is Jinsy’ .. it went out last Monday night on BBC 3 and you can still watch it on the BBC iplayer, but only for a few more days… hurray whilst stocks last… Go check it out .. It’s mental:
@ChieftanMews: @gillespeterson : Please help me find Twain & Wildwood. They don’t have facebook or twitter accounts so I am unaware of what they are eating
Gilles Peterson is the host of Gilles Peterson Wordwide on BBC Radio 1, at the time of the tweet he was scheduled to do show with Thom Yorke on the 29th of November. He did not respond to Mew’s message.
You can listen to the show on BBC iPlayer Here or just check out the playlist which featured a previously unreleased Jamie xx remix of Bloom that didn’t make the cut for TKOL-1234567.
Mew’s tends to refer to any kind of material in terms of food and in the past has urged fans at the beginning of a episode of The Most Gigantic Lying Mouth of All Time to ‘Eat’ what was to come (So sit back, relax, and eat. Eat. Eat.).
In this case he’s searching for Stanley Donwood (Twain) and Thom Yorke (Wildwood) who both have twitter accounts at @Stanleydonwood and @ThomYorke respectively. He ends up resorting to Facebook in his search where he registered on the 4th of March 2011.
@ChieftanMews: #7/10: No more hiding: “The atom had a positive, a negative & a neutral” & “Later for the date than the hadron collider” & “I am open.” ??
This was the seventh of 10 tweets Mews sent out counting down from 10 to 1. Each where phrased as a question and usually paired with a date for when the answer was expected to be received by.
‘Open. No More Hiding’ is a phrase Mews had previously changed his profile to after the release of The Universal Sigh.
The phrase ‘Open. No More Hiding’ appears on page 7 of The Universal Sigh in large letters. You can read it here on the E-Universal Sigh.
“The atom had a positive, a negative & a neutral” is from Dimethyltryptamine by Jay Electronica from the Style Wars EP. You can read the rest of the lyrics here.
“Later for the date than the hadron collider” is from Gazzillion Ear by MF DOOM from the Gazzillion Ear E.P., you can read the lyrics here.
Thom Yorke provided a remix of the song in 2009 and has recently corroborated again with MF DOOM under the alias of SISI BAKBAK.
The last piece of lyric “I am open” is from Supercollider.
Atom’s are of course a name for the base unit of matter. Each contains a central nucleus of positively charged protons and neutral neutrons which are surrounded by a cloud of negative charged electrons. Interestingly enough Hydrogen is the only atom to be not made up in this way as it only has a single neutron and no protons at all.
The usual diagrams you’ll find will show something like this..even though they’re um.. not 100% accurate:
( Source: Post Everything.com )
It’s also part of the name Atoms for Peace which was formed in 2009 by Thom Yorke, Nigel Godrich and Flea from the Red Hot Chilli Peppers.
The hadron collider is the Large Hadron Collider (LRH) the world’s largest and highest-energy particle accelerator taking 10 years to complete and had a number of significant delays. The LRH was built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) who are amongst Mew’s followers.
Like the LRH Supercollider was late and missed out on being part of The King of Limbs as the band where still working on it in March, a good month after The King of Limbs and during a period of very little press and communication from the band (except for Mews). It was later released as a 12″ single alongside The Butcher for Record Store Day 2011 in the UK, Japan and America.
On the 19th of April W.A.S.T.E started sending out emails to everyone who had purchased The King of Limbs with a link to download Supercollider and The Bucher along with the following message from the band.
Thank you – Merci – Gracias – Grazie – Dankeschön – Obrigado – Gui lah hui te ha – Ashoge – Shukran – Tsikomo – M goi – Tak – Dank u – Vinaka – Aabhar – Köszönöm – Go raibh maith agaibh – Arigato – Tashakkur – Dziekuje – Gestena – Hvala – Tack – Tesekkür ederim – Spasibo – Dêkuji – Sas efharisto ……
Right, that’s most of you covered, apologies to those we’ve missed out … ok, so here are two tracks for your listening pleasure:
Supercollider and The Butcher. We released these as a limited edition 2 track 12inch vinyl to mark Independent Record Store Day last Saturday, April 16 … so in case you missed out and didn’t get a copy here they are.
It’s a thank you for being SO supportive of what we do …
p.s. This is not part of a new loyalty points scheme, a Radiohead clubcard or even an air miles redeemable reward type thing…
It is just a big old-fashioned thank you!
Hope your Spring/Autumn is good.
Ed, Colin, Jonny, Philip & Thom
x
FYI… ‘The Butcher’ was recorded and mixed during ‘The King of Limbs’ sessions, but we couldn’t make it work on the album; ‘Supercollider’ was started during those sessions and finished off in March of this year.
Continuing with the ‘late’ theme Radiohead posted on Dead Air Space in July regarding a delay in having Radiohead-From the Basement broadcast in the UK due to BBC Worldwide (who had partnered with the band in the project) cancelled the July 1st screening. While MTV and Palladia did broadcast it in June the film had its television debut in Spain.
@ChieftanMews: 25 years. Jericho. Friday. Woods. Saturday. Living. Project. Phil’s harmonica. Ago. Carrots&sticks. Bluebook. Mobile Devices & Birds Chirp.
Unscrambled you could read it as ’25 Years. Ago. (this?) Saturday. (On a) Friday. Jericho (Tavern with) Phil’s harmonica.’ in rather a Cluedo who/where/how style.
2011 marks the 25th anniversary of On a Friday’s first gig at the Jericho Tavern a pub and music venue in Oxford. Jonny Greenwood originally joined the band on harmonica before playing keyboard and ending up as the lead guitarist.
On a Friday is of course the name Radiohead used until 1991 when they signed to EMI.
September 8, 1986 is not a Saturday it’s a Monday, nor is September 8, 2011. This suggests that Radiohead’s first gig must have been on Wednesday September 10th, 1986 however finding any source to confirm has been difficult as most sites only say the band performed in the 2nd half of that year (well except some that insist it was 1987 pft).
The rest of the tweet is more modern.
Carrots&sticks. is of course a idiom for the idea of combining a reward and punishment in order for a certain behaviour.
It appears on a Kid-A era tour poster titled ‘Fear Stalks the Land’ along with the line ‘Mobiles Chirping’ from Idioteque, Abbatoir noises and ‘Our Name is Legion’ a which Mew’s has also tweeted.
(Source: Rockfeedback.com)
it also appears in artwork from the additional hidden art booklet as “CHECKS AND BALANCES CARROTS AND STICKS” in 1st edition Kid-A cds reprinted on a T-shirt as SEX WORK DEATH in 2000 and in Dead Children Playing a picture book by Stanley Donwood & Dr. Tchock (Thom Yorke) featuring artwork from OK Computer though to Hail To the Thief.
(Source: Dead Children Playing)
Bluebook is of course a nod towards Facebook’s logo.
Birds Chirps is another way of saying Birds Tweet ala Twitter.
and Mobile Devices.. all three ways to keep in touch.
Woods relates to Bad Woods and Twisted Woods which are both sets of prints by Stanley Donwood, the first forms part of the artwork for The King of Limbs with the second being the artwork for These Are My Twisted Words.
On Facebook Mews got himself into a bit of a conversation when a fan replied to his question with the answer “25 years ago at the jericho tavern… on a friday?”, he accused them of being a bot for replying so quickly.
Mew's conversation on Facebook
Italo Rossi 25 years ago at the jericho tavern… on a friday?
8 September 2011 at 15:08 · Like · 4
Chieftan Mews Italo Rossi is a bot.
8 September 2011 at 15:10 · Like · 13
Italo Rossi absolutely not, sir. I’m a living human being. prove me wrong.
8 September 2011 at 15:11 · Like · 2
YFAN ”I’ll see you in 25 years.” – Laura Palmer, Twin Peaks. David Lynch is reviving Twin Peaks and Radiohead will be providing the score?
8 September 2011 at 15:11 · Like · 5
Chieftan Mews Meanwhile. Farewell and be alert or not.
8 September 2011 at 15:12 · Like · 9
ZFAN I choose death before more bad mews.
8 September 2011 at 15:12 · Like
Chieftan Mews When I cry, lightning strikes. Reality has now become a fantasy. I have proof. Meanwhile. Wham chose life. Farewell and be alert or not.
8 September 2011 at 15:18 · Like · 9
Bot’s are a name for software that runs a automated set of tasks usually at high speed. Such tasks may be to analyse websites such as the ‘web crawlers’ utilized by search engines like Google, for fraud/crime or to perform some level of basic AI such as ‘Chatbots’ which aim to mimic the experience of talking to a real person.
Later he responds to another fan with “When I cry, lightning strikes. Reality has now become a fantasy. I have proof. Meanwhile. Wham chose life. Farewell and be alert or not.”
The line ‘When I cry, Lighting strikes’ may be a nod towards Lightning Crashes by Live from Throwing Copper, it was released in the UK in 1996.
‘Wham chose life’ refers to the ‘CHOOSE LIFE’ t-shirts worn by WHAM when performing ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go Go’ on BBC’s Top of the Pops in 1984.
Finally each of the Facebook messages is signed off with ‘be alert or not.’ suggesting that Mew’s may, or may not be active again soon.
I always thought this to be a original Mews quote from the end of the Thumbs Down Webcast
It turns out that the phrase “Life is the name of the game, and I want to play the game with you” belongs to the intro song of a cult BBC TVGameshow from the 1970s named The Generation Game.
