s'all wrong

s'all right

s'all wrong

s'all right.

"today, myself, i was struggling, feels like we been trapped for a long time. in la la land. very frustrating. and under pressure now its so slow. enough to drive anyone loopy. im supposed to be positive>> smiling faces for the outside. well im fucking tearing my hair out. too much at once. furiously writing, working out parts. cracking up. not much time left. unshure about everything. im not supposed to put any of this here. so thats why i am."

At this point there is some sort of deadline set, by their producer perhaps, and the feelings that Ed expressed in the december radio interview about self doubts when looking at the results of the "fun period" in august-october seem to have intensified, at least with Thom.

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March 20th sees a new post by Thom, this time more optimistic. Today RH listen through the material they have so far and Thom checks the lyrics.
"feels like we are finally getting somewhere. there are lots of songs. too many to get together straight away. so we will be furiously rehearsing and writing as we go."
At least Thom is "quite into the idea of singles at the moment (that dont get on the radio)", and he seems to think not much of the "old way of doing things that is hard to get over... all the 'album' crap".

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On march 21st nme.com has this statement from the band regarding the upcoming tours and the way the new tracks may be released:

"We're excited to be touring again, especially to play new songs to an audience. For the first time, we have no contract or release deadline to fulfil - it's both liberating and terrifying.

To keep things more fun and spontaneous, we will be playing new songs that are work in progress. We will also be releasing music to download when we are excited about it, rather than wait twelve months for a full blown album release. Music's not just about all-time greats - it's also a document of its time, and we want to be able to put out a song when it feels right."

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The interview with Thom and Colin in april 4ths NME issue contains further bits of information (though some of that perhaps has to be taken with a pinch of salt, after all, it's NME...):
15 Step apparently makes Colin "foam at the mouth" every time they work on it, and the band was able to get Nude right, because Colin was coming up with a missing part.
The arrangements at this point are overall sort of minimalistic.
Thom: "We're trying to strip things down to the bare minimum at the moment. [...] It's always going to be melodic, though."

At the time of this interview, the other band members work in the studio on a new, so far untitled track. And we also learn, that Jonny has a whole room of his own for all his equipment.
Thom again: "He was taking the radio and using the dips and troughs in the conversation and putting it through a pulse so it was creating a rhythm. It was absolutely nuts, man. It was like a drum machine that's improvising on the basis of what's coming on the radio."

Apart from another comparison of the new material to Ok Computer (remember HTTT?), this time in reference to the lyrics (though he says they would be even more terrifying this time), Thom also mentions the phrase "New Suburbian" as kicking around for ages. A possible album title, perhaps.

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On april 19th Radiohead's sound engineer Graham starts writing about the tour rehearsals (which begin today) at his MySpace blog.
This day the band runs through new songs, each of them a couple of times.

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April 20th, the second day of rehearsals, sees the new procedure of playing 10 old songs first before continuing with the new tracks. All in all, 40 old songs are considered for the upcoming shows.
The 21st sees the same procedure: 10 old songs, then new stuff. There are no rehearsals on the weekend.

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Graham posts in his MySpace blog again on the 24th. It's the "5th day" of rehearsals (when was the 4th if they took time-off for the weekend?), and again they rehearse 10 old songs for the tour. After that they move on to new songs.

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On april 25th Colin posts nine pictures from the day. They show the band rehearsing for the 6th day for the upcoming tour. There are some indications for the arrangement of the song(s) they play: one of the pictures shows Thom on a Glockenspiel, another has Ed singing along with Thom. Before the pictures disappeared and reappeared (some of them renamed), the post was titled "rehearsal week 2".
The picture of Thom looking anguished outside against the wall was initially called "Videotape!Again!.jpg"
You can speculate that they had some trouble rehearsing Videotape today.

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Two pictures from this days rehearsal are posted on the 26th. They show Jonny on Banjo, him again playing a guitar with a bow, and Thom on drums.

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Old and new songs rehearsed on the 27th as well, so they spent more time on the old material than they originally had intended. Today the Koko rehearsal takes place at late night, with Jonny joining in on drums.
On the 28th the setlist for the first show is rehearsed. The 29th is the last day of band rehearsals, and apparently features the best run through of the new material so far.