Thom Yorke, Massive Attack perform to support Occupy movement

As America's Occupy movement begins to sort out its second phase of operations after nationwide evictions from campsites, London's protests have gotten a high-profile endorsement. Today, Radiohead's Thom Yorke joined Massive Attack and producer Tim Goldsworthy for a concert at an occupied office building in the London borough of Hackney, the Bank of Ideas, which was owned but abandoned by the bank UBS.

The event streamed live on the Occupy London livestream, which also reports that new music from the ad hoc combo might soon be available on Occupation Records, a music-centric fundraising arm of the movement. 

Yorke and Radiohead have been outspoken in lyrics and in interviews about their fears of corporate influence, and Massive Attack recently launched a Soundcloud page devoted to new mixes and tracks from artists inspired by the global Occupy movement.

RELATED:

Occupy Wall St. gets a benefit album

Live review: Thom Yorke at the Echoplex

Miley Cyrus supports Occupy Wall St. with new video

-- August Brown

Photo: Thom Yorke performs at L.A.'s Orpheum Theatre. Ringo H.W. Chiu / For The Times

Live: Thom Yorke and Flying Lotus perform surprise DJ set at Low End Theory

 
Thom Yorke crept into the Low End Theory shortly after 11 p.m. on Wednesday, a few months after he did it the first time. For this sequel, the lines around the Airliner weren't infinite. Nor was the Internet aflame. Until one of the bouncers blew the whistle, no one knew aside from Flying Lotus and the inner sanctum of the Wednesday night weekly.

This translated into practically a private DJ show starring Yorke and Lotus, the chief of the Los Angeles beat scene. If tickets were left to auction online, they'd bring in enough to fund a state Senate campaign. Instead, it was $10 for anyone with the foresight to make it to 2419 North Broadway by 10 p.m.

"Thom Yorke is in the building. Nigel Godrich is in the building. Flying Lotus is in the building. If I were you, I'd move up close," said Daddy Kev, employing unimpeachable logic.

"I don’t know what's about to go on, but I know it's about to go down," said Nocando, rattling off a 64-bar freestyle, eliciting Yorke's applause.

Thom Yorke does a surprise DJ set at Low End Theory

By 2 p.m. Wednesday the secret was out. Thom Yorke, the lead singer of Radiohead, was allegedly playing Low End Theory in Lincoln Heights. Maybe. After all, you can’t really predict the behavior of someone like the mercurial Yorke, you can only hope to be in the right place when it boomerangs in your direction.

By sunset the line had already started to stretch around Broadway. Twitter rumors and half-baked hypotheses clogged the Internet, but no one would give a confirmation. Nearly 20 years into his career, the rock star has long since reached the rarefied plateau typically only inhabited by the most famous and feted. He’s like an Anglo analogue to Prince — elfin, erratic and affected by a quintessentially British melancholia. And if you hear a rumor that he’s playing a secret show, you go, fully cognizant that the show may not materialize.

At 10 p.m. it was all off. Yorke had had second thoughts, a decision that triggered an immediate mood shift from collective euphoria to “Christmas has just been canceled.” Several left and were immediately replaced by an influx of others undeterred by the latest intelligence. Radiohead doesn’t have casual fans, they have rabid cultists, and most were unwilling to believe that Yorke wouldn’t come through. It made too much sense. They’d have readily accepted that he was going to ride in on a black swan while accompanied by a Bollywood string orchestra and Flea before believing that he’d let them down.

Who are these Coachella lineup Nostradamuses, and how are some so close?

If you followed the Coachella rumors in the days leading up to the announcement of the festival lineup this morning, you didn't get the full picture (or maybe you did). But some were pretty darn close.

Take a look at some of these fan-made fliers that "leaked" in the last few days. (For a breakdown of the actual lineup and poster, see Pop & Hiss' post on the Coachella 2010 lineup.)

Some are way off, sounding more like wish lists than anything else -- the Arcade Fire, White Stripes and Daft Punk stealing the headlining slot over Lady Gaga? -- but one is almost shockingly close to the mark. Check it out, second from the bottom. Even the color scheme of the poster is close to the real thing.

Muse was practically a given among lineup watchers. And by Monday night, rumors of Jay-Z, perhaps the most surprising guest and certainly the most unlikely headliner, were in heavy circulation.

On Sunday, someone under the moniker Monklish posted the full, correct band list -- in alphabetical order, not arranged by headliner -- to a new Blogger page called "Who is playing at Coachella 2010."

Monklish's profile lists her as a 30-year-old gal in the publishing industry living in Berkeley. But we imagine that if she's cunning enough to smuggle the lineup days before the embargo, she's smart enough not to use her real info.

With all of these leaks, is this an indication that Coachella's picks are getting predictable? Are the bands really bad at keeping a secret ("Them Crooked Vultures -- Confirmed by Dave Grohl")? Is it KROQ? Or is Coachella spilling the beans?

-- Mark Milian
twitter.com/markmilian

Photo: Did this man, Dave Grohl, spill the beans in Hawaii? Credit: Lester Cohen / WireImages.com

Coachella 2010: Jay-Z, Muse, Thom Yorke lead lineup

See the full lineup below...

The Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival will bring a youth movement to the low desert this year. After several years of graybeard headliners, California’s signature festival is going back to the future with younger acts including Gorillaz, Muse, Jay-Z, Thom Yorke, MGMT, Hot Chip, Spoon, Vampire Weekend and LCD Soundsystem at the very top of the bill for the three-day concert that begins April 16 at the Empire Polo Field in Indio.

There are some flashback acts, including Woodstock icon Sly Stone and the Family Stone, 1980s alt-rock group Echo and the Bunnymen and reconstituted college-rock outfit Pavement, but they're not leading the bill as Paul McCartney, Prince and Roger Waters did in past years.

The presence of rap superstar Jay-Z will raise the eyebrows of those fans who like to think of Coachella as an indie oasis on today’s live-music landscape; hip-hop stars such as Kanye West, the Beastie Boys, Lupe Fiasco and Kool Keith have performed at Coachella in the past but none of them tap into the same street imagery and conspicuous consumption ethos that defines the $150-million mogul.

Jay-Z is also a somewhat unexpected booking because he has a performance -- for which tickets are still available -- at the Staples Center on March 26. The hip-hop star will close out the opening night of the fest on Friday, when other performers will be LCD Soundsystem, rock supergroup Them Crooked Vultures, Echo and the Bunnymen, the Specials and John Lydon's post-Sex Pistols experimental outfit Public Image Ltd. 

Saturday night will be headlined by Muse, Faith No More, DJs Tiesto and David Guetta, MGMT, Hot Chip and Jack White's The Dead Weather. Sunday will close with Gorillaz, Yorke, Spoon, Parisian electronic rockers Phoenix and dance veterans Orbital.

The desert event has won a reputation among fans for showcasing artists on the comeback trail, and rock acts such as the Pixies and Iggy & the Stooges made splashy returns at Coachella. Pavement, a staple of the '90s alt-rock scene, has been an expected Coachella headliner since announcing its reunion at the end of 2009.

Thom Yorke to perform with new band again next year

During Thom Yorke's last of three shows in Los Angeles, the Radiohead frontman announced that his new, as-yet-unnamed side group, featuring Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, would be back.

While the marquee above the entrance to the Orpheum, where they played two shows following a sort of rehearsal performance at the Echoplex on Friday, listed the headliners as six question marks, Yorke at least answered one question Monday night.

Just before launching into the last song of the second encore, Yorke expressed regret that the string of unexpected concerts was about to end.

"We're going to do this again next year some time," Yorke said to a thunder of applause.

Live review: Thom Yorke at the Orpheum Theatre*

With Flea driving the groove, Radiohead's frontman funks it up.

 

To understand what Thom Yorke is up to with the new ensemble he brought to the Orpheum Theatre on Sunday, it's useful to quote one of pop's surviving godfathers. "Once you've done the best you can, funk it!" said George Clinton, the founder of Parliament Funkadelic and guiding light for countless musicians trying to find their footing on the dance floor.

To "funk it" doesn't merely mean to relax; it requires concentration and the kind of muscle that never tenses up. For Yorke, the frontman for the highly cerebral and very popular band Radiohead, it also means rejiggering the multidirectional music that group has perfected, to better emphasize its cornerstone: the groove.

Radiohead isn't often discussed as a dance band, though its sound relies as much on rhythm as on Yorke's woozy melodies and Jonny Greenwood's thickets of effects. But by joining forces with alternative rock's favorite bassist (and Clinton's friend) Flea, as well as drummer Joey Waronker and Brazilian percussionist Mauro Refosco, Yorke is aggressively reaching for the bottom in his own sound.

Live review: Thom Yorke at the Echoplex

Thom Yorke is a great dancer. This talent doesn't come up too often in his day job fronting the transcendently dispirited quintet Radiohead, where long, simmering songs tend to cover topics like wolves at one's door, impending ice ages and God being unamused by a videotape of your life.

But at Friday night's debut of his still-unnamed solo-project/ensemble at the Echoplex, he moved like Busby Berkeley at the end of days -- jerky robot twitches, stoned head-rolls, teenage sock-hop bouncing. For a man who leads what's likely to be the last rock band considered the best and best-selling at the same time, there was a sense of a previously untapped emotion in the onstage performance: Joy. For the few hundred vigilant souls at the Echoplex who managed to sneak onto Ticketweb before it exploded Friday, the feeling was absolutely mutual.

Thom Yorke at the Echoplex Friday night? Your official non-denial, non-confirmation answer [Update: Yes]

So there's a hot rumor that Thom Yorke and his new assembled band will be performing a clandestine show at the Echoplex Friday night before their two-night stand at the Orpheum this weekend. We reached Yorke's publicist by phone just now, and this is the current official line on the show's factual existence.

"We cannot confirm nor deny it, but we will confirm or deny it by tomorrow morning."

So coy. So cryptic. So Thom Yorke. We're not saying to get your camping gear out just yet, but there is a very conspicuous empty slot on the Echoplex's show calendar for Friday night. Maybe you should keep your Sterno in an easily reachable place, if, say, you need to grab it before claiming a spot on a Glendale Boulevard sidewalk in the next 24 hours.

[Update @ 9:49 p.m.] According to the official Radiohead website, the show will happen Friday at the Echoplex:

so yes that band thats doesnt really have a name that im working with at the moment??????
have decided to do a warm-up show on Friday Oct 2nd around 9pm at the Echoplex in Los Angeles
Its not that big, it'll be total chaos and its kind of a rehearsal but .. if you are near by..
below is a link to get tickets.
hope you get lucky with it.

Tickets will go on sale tomorrow at noon via Ticketweb.

-- August Brown

Photo by Herbert P. Oczeret / European Pressphoto Agency