Occasional scenes in the video for “There There” appear based on the work of artist and taxidermist Walter Potter. In particular, the cat wedding upon which Thom Yorke’s character stumbles resembles Walter Potter’s The Kitten Wedding.
Radiohead.tv has available both the full video for “There There” and a 3 minute trailer for The Most Gigantic Lying Mouth of All Time. After you register at the bottom of the main page, you’ll be redirected to a “thanks.php” page where you can watch both the video and the trailer. The video is only available in Windows Media Player and RealPlayer formats whereas the trailer is available in those formats as well as QuickTime.
Radiohead.tv, also known as The Most Gigantic Lying Mouth of All Time, now has available a 30 second teaser. An excerpt:
You can see the teaser in high-quality quicktime format by following this link: http://stream.qtv.apple.com/qtv/outsideline/teaser_b_300.mov
The number 1-866-868-4433, a toll free call in the US, is the Hail to the Thief Hotline. The At Ease Forums has information on navigating the options callers are presented:
1) Rotary phone – when chosen, you’ll hear a loud long tone until you press a number, at which point you can press # to return to the menu.
2) Any option chosen here will let you hear “I Will”. Press * during “I Will” to hear “2+2=5”
3) Any option here will let you listen to “Go To Sleep”. Press * during “Go to Sleep” to hear “2+2=5”
4) This will read a list of websites Radiohead endorses(like at Radiohead.com), if you press a number while she is reading them she’ll ask to you “Please let me finish!”
5) This will just have the lady saying “Cobweb” over and over and over…
6) This will ask you for a 10-digit social security number. Whatever you put in will just lead to her saying “Hail to the Thief” and sending you back to the menu. How clever.
7) This will let you listen to “Sit Down, Stand Up”. Press * during the song to hear “2+2=5”
8) She will say “I told you not to press 8.” and hang up.
9) This will re-read the menu options
The good folks of W.A.S.T.E. have initiated the process of “passing bits and pieces” onto Radiohead sites. The first batch of bits and pieces included two photos of Thom Yorke. You can see both photos on Pulk-Pull’s W.A.S.T.E Updates page.
The title of Radiohead’s compilation of music videos is Seven Television Commercials. The experimental video artist Nam June Paik wrote the following about television commericals generally:
“Plato through the word, or the conceptual, expresses the deepest thing.
St. Augustine thought the sound, or the audible, expresses the deepest thing.
Spinoza through the vision, or visible, expresses the deepest thing.
This argument is settled for good.
TV commercials have all three.”
This is quoted on page 223 of The Worlds of Nam June Paik (New York: Guggenheim Museum Publications, 2000).
“Knives out” is a phrase commonly used to describe the hostile stance of a critic or critics. For example, note the title of these news articles in The Guardian, The Observer, and The Sydney Morning Herald.
The following is excerpted from an email Koyder sent to me in May 2003:
“Today Greenplastic posted a picture of the album’s promo copy http://www.greenplastic.com/news/archives/00000460.html> and one thing about it attracted my attention in particular. Notice the logo on the back side of the album cover, which is also printed in 1:1 scale on the CD’s front – a white circle with a black triangle inscribed in it, in which another circle with a triangle is inscribed. It’s the logo that you can see on all digitally protected CDs http://news.com.com/2100-1023-958353.html>. At first I thought ‘HTTT’ would be yet another record tainted by this brilliant user-friendly technology, but then it occurred to me that, since the logo constitutes the CD’s front, it may be the actual logo of ‘HTTT’. Minding the album’s title, it seems fairly reasonable.”
Radiohead.tv, an official band site, is up for viewing. Once registered, you are sent a link to clips of the video for “There There.” An excerpt:
From early viewing, it appears the video will narrate the song to a certain extent. As the opening lyrics read:
in pitch dark i go walking in your landscape
broken branches trip me as i speak
Throughout the video, Thom Yorke is walking in a dark, treed landscape:
In these excerpts from a biography on Radiohead’s Capitol Records site, the band discusses the new album’s title.
Jonny Greenwood: “We’d never name a record after one political event like Bush’s election. The record’s bigger than that. Hopefully it will last longer than Bush unless he’s getting a whole dynasty together, which is always possible. One of the things Thom’s singing about is whether or not you choose to deal with what’s happening. There are a lot of lines about escaping and avoiding issues, about keeping your head down and waiting. Everybody feels like that from time to time as much as they feel frustration about things they can’t change. It’s a confusing time right now but that doesn’t mean that we’re issuing any kind of manifesto. It’s more like we’re summing up what it’s like to be around in 2003.”
Thom Yorke: “We don’t have to stand on a soap-box and preach because hopefully we’re channelling it through the new record. We didn’t start out to make a protest record at all. That would have been too shallow. As usual, it was simply a case of absorbing what’s going on around us. The title of the record goes so much deeper than just being some anti-Bush propaganda. If we got into a situation where people start burning our records, then bring it on. That’s the whole point. The gloaming has begun. We’re in the darkness. This has happened before. Go read some history.”
