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: 4/10: Leaves fall & then grow again. From the same branches. The sounds they make can change too. .. … Kid is now an Adult?
Tweeted the day before the release of TKOL RMX 1234567 a two-disc CD collating the collection of Remixes of The King of Limbs released between July 4th and October 10th Chieftan Mew’s refers to the remixes in this tweet as growing from the same ‘branches’ as the original songs. Both leaves and branches are a reference to ‘Stems’.
In remixing the term Stems are used to denote the individual parts of a song isolated into separate files to facilitate remixing. Previously with In Rainbows Radiohead had released Stems of both Reckoner and Nude for a remix competition located at RadioheadRemix.com.
While in 2005 Trent Renzor famously experimented with releasing stems of his music for fans Radiohead had previously run a competition in 2003 called ‘The Loophole’ providing samples from Hail To The Thief and offering fans the chance to become ‘a minor celebrity’ by having their remixes featured on the Radiohead website. Unlike other competitions The Loophole contained more then just stems of songs from Hail To The Thief as samples included additional pieces such as offcuts, alternative takes and even one sample that would later turn up in on The Eraser as part of Black Swan. While it’s unknown how many remixes where made there was 100 ‘winners’ featured on the Radiohead.com site.
You can read more about The Loophole and maybe download some of the original stems yourself to mess around with at Citizen Insane.
Last year on twitter Flying Lotus admitted that he too was asked to provide a remix of The King of Limbs but didn’t know where to start with it, he later gave more details in a interview:
Indy: He was also on your last album. Are there any more collaborations like that in the works?
FL: Not that I know of. They wanted me to remix the new Radiohead record, and I’ve been trying to mess with that a little bit. But I haven’t gotten to it yet.
Indy: Tell us what that’ll sound like when you’re done with it?
FL: It’s too early to say, man. I have no fucking clue. It’s difficult to work with, because the pieces that they gave me, there’s no real a cappella. It’s like piano and voice at the same time.
Indy: So you can’t separate them.
FL: No, I can’t. So I have to come up with some shit that’s a little similar to the record, I guess, to an extent.
@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)
@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.
