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Radiohead · S1 E6
The Jericho Tavern
Oxford's music scene is small, incestuous, and uninterested in them. They play the same pub over and over until someone notices.
The room holds maybe sixty people and tonight there are twenty-two. On a Friday is playing their fourth gig at the same Oxford pub this year, and in the back, a recording engineer named Chris Hufford is hearing something he can't quite name.
"Planet Telex," Radiohead, live at Belfort Festival (1997). Raw, loud, the band tearing through one of The Bends' most ambitious tracks. It captures the energy of five people who spent years playing to empty pubs and finally have a room that's listening.
The Jericho Tavern, 56 Walton Street, Oxford. The pub where On a Friday played to near-empty rooms until the right person walked in.
Oxford, 1991
Oxford's music scene in 1991 belongs to shoegazing. Ride are the city's biggest export, Swervedriver are building a following, Slowdive are about to sign to Creation. On a Friday fit none of these categories: too angular for shoegaze, too art-school for indie, too weird for the mainstream.
The Jericho Scene
Planet Telex
"Planet Telex" opens The Bends with a statement of intent: this is not the band that made "Creep." Thom records the vocal in a single take, reportedly after a night of drinking, lying flat on the studio floor because he can't stand up. Producer John Leckie keeps the take because the looseness is the point. Listen for the bass: Colin plays it high and melodic, almost like a second vocal line.
TAP TO REVEAL: Who are Chris Hufford and Bryce Edge, and why does it matter that they have never left?
Oxford's music scene in the early 1990s was dominated by a specific genre. What was it, and why didn't On a Friday fit?
Stop Whispering
"Stop Whispering," Radiohead (Pablo Honey, 1993). The title is the lesson of the Jericho Tavern years. After playing to empty rooms for months, the band decides to stop being polite about it. The US version, remixed by Chris Sheldon, pushes it even louder.
Hufford and Edge believe in them, but now they need the music industry to believe too. Next: Colin Greenwood puts a cassette tape into the hands of an EMI rep, and the moment On a Friday ceases to exist.
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