18 hours of Radiohead's OK Computer Sessions Stolen ... and Then Released by Band*

What has been edited out is a lot of field recordings that have audio from TV and radio programs. So it's because of copyright and other legal issues.

What's Missing from MD125

• "TV stuff" (audio from TV programs)
• "Seattle Park stuff" (field recording)
• "Panic Office"/"Heartbleep"/"God's Radio" - TV Stuff" (audio from TV programs)
• Soft Machine Drums (rehearsal or possibly a sample or cover?)
• "ambients 1" (Choir from TV with dialogue)

 

Maybe he said that every time he performed it! Just before he told the crowd they were best audience they'd ever had.

 

I don't know, there's a handful of things which would of had it as a good single - I'm almost certain take one has some buried Mellotron strings in the verses and in the context of a Bends era track, I'm inclined to say this one ranks higher than half of that record.

 

It's mostly likely San Francisco which is regarded as the first time I Promise was played as paulisdead noted. There is an audience recording for the LA show (March 29, 1996, The Wiltern) that has Thom introducing I Promise. After playing High & Dry, he says "Thanks a lot. Okay this is a new song. I don't know the words if that's why you were here. Not because I've got a (sounds like-->) big mic on the stage. Honestly." Unfortunately, I don't have nor believe there is a source for San Francisco but if someone has it they can check it against Thom's speech introducing I Promise on the minidisc.

 

Listening through Discs 14-15 on the way home today. The full band versions of "Attention"--kind of a goofy song. Really reminds me of something from The Bends era (if not the Pablo Honey era), and I could have seen a finished version on the My Iron Lung EP of leftovers.

I don't know about that--I could almost easily see "Lift" on OKC in some fashion. It has that weary, wistful style of several other songs on there. Maybe a little too close melodically to "Let Down" and parts of the vocal melody of "Airbag" that would've made its inclusion redundant. At the very least, I'm surprised they didn't release a version of "Lift" on the Airbag/How Am I Driving EP.

 

I'm sure they figured college radio would play the hell out of it even if it was released as a B-side or EP track, turning it into an "accidental hit" (like "Yellow Ledbetter" for Pearl Jam). Since they didn't want to have a hit with it, they kept it buried.

 

I don't know why they didn't just release it as a single in 1998 after OK Computer.

 

Thanks! Well that rules out L.A. then. It's not the first time Thom has gotten a detail wrong on the Minidisc label. It's good there are other sources to double check the dates.

 

Thanks a whole bunch to you Soniclovenoize for the track listings! I've screen-capped each of the 18 discs' content and pasted into a Word doc. Is making all of the music very accessible now.

 

Because they felt it was a step backward musically. Strongly principled guys.

 

No prob! Working on a revision, and all the discs will be grouped into one post for easier reading.

Idk if someone posts in the Radiohead reddit/discord groups and knows those guys who made The Document, send em this stuff if they are going to do a revision. Having "untitled" songs drives me nuts, and all the timestamps are mostly different anyways. (just credit me)

 

I've been sharing links to this thread on the r/radiohead Reddit page in the hopes that someone will fill in the blanks on the missing dates and track names. When I get home, I'll crosscheck some possible dates for live shows.

 

MiniDiscs (Hacked) - Wikipedia

The official release is now has a Wikipedia article.

 

Currently, I'm going through each FLAC file and extracting each track into it's own new folder by type: Acoustic Demo, Live Track, Studio Track and Soundcheck Sketch. From there, I'll whittle each folder down to a single 75-minute "highlights" disc

 

Some of these songs got swiped or recorded a different way quite a long time ago.
My friend had a bootleg called something like Radiohead the basement tapes. That was bought from some dodgy market in England around 98. The sound quality on this wasn’t close to as good as the quality in this release on most of the tracks except a few.

It had the Bends 4 track version that’s on this. It had the version of lift everyone is raving about... except sounded way worse recorded quality. A great version of man o war but bad quality.. it had a great quality version acoustic of subterranean homesick alien great as the sound was good and the recording was amazing. It had a version of I promise on it... and I think it had the Unkle rabbit on and some others.

Now the quality was bad on most of it. I literally waited 20 years for them to put out Man of War, I promise and lift. And was overjoyed when they put out the 20 anniversary that I bought on vinyl and iTunes.

Over the years I’ve spent a lot of money on Radiohead. Everything on vinyl and CD. Sometimes more than once. Everything. All Bsides all albums... Including Jonnys body song and both his and Thoms film scores and everything Thom did solo... again vinyl and digital. I bought amnesiac and in rainbows 4 times each. Just saying this because on some level I feel bad about the bootleg.

My point is. Some of these songs got stolen or leaked at the time. I’m glad they’re out now. I waited a long time.

Have not yet come across a version of man o war on the mini disk but haven’t listened to all of them.

 

Couldn’t find any bootleg called “Basement Tapes” on Discogs, did you mean their “From The Basement” DVD?

I did find a few possible contenders for the material you described:

Radiohead - Work In Progress 2000 - Experimentation In Electronic Music

Radiohead - Million Dollar Question

 

Right on @soniclovenoize. Thank you for all the work.

 

It is. I was a fan of Minidisc and used it a lot in the late 90's - when I went to transfer these to WAVs for storage/reworking etc, I found the sound to be excellent and this may well be down to how ATRAC worked.

I lack the technical knowledge to elaborate beyond what my ears hear and I'm happy to bow to superior knowledge.

 

Please, someone tell Thom to write more clearly, so the next leak would be easier for us to manage.

 

Radiohead own their masters now!
This is what they said about the tape fragments:

* This is a piece of a Radiohead ½ inch master tape from an actual recording session.
The tape degrades over time and becomes unplayable. We thought rather than it ending up as landfill we would cut it up and make it useful as a part of the special edition. A new life for some obsolete technology...
Each loop contains about ¾ of a second of audio - which could be from any era in the band's recording past going back to Kid A. You may have silence, you may have coloured leader tape, you may have a chorus... It's a crapshoot.
We have copies. Don't worry.

They put it out as a single and made a video for it a couple of years ago.
It's a slower, arguably inferior (rehearsal) take than the studio takes in the Minidisc dump, but they did put it out.

 

A superb effort in this thread from @soniclovenoize Very much appreciated.

 

Surely this is at least partly because they are - to borrow a phrase - awkward buggers.

 

I vote we just go over there & reprogram the electronic Radiohead fans! Who's with me??

 

No, they are probably different completely different sources, unrelated to the Minidiscs:
- The Bends 4-track demo was already released on a compilation
- the Lift recording was an FM source of a live gig (probably Pinkpop)
- the acoustic SHA was an FM-source of a radio performance (KCRW)

 

another shoutout for @soniclovenoize