JUNE REWIND: RADIOHEAD@GLASTONBURY, NEW KXM AND PINNICK ON CORNELL 

Cut the Fake Plastic Trees, kill the Creep, say no to No Surprises. Instead, Burn the Witch, beckon a Reckoner.

There (there):

a minor adjustment to Radiohead’s Friday night headliner at Glastonbury – just enough to swing the balance from those slow-burn early-yearners. Now we’re nearer to setlist manna.

Then again, they weren’t playing for me, watching at home on the televisual rectangular with a Grolsch palm. They were playing for Very Many Thousands at the world’s biggest festival, but does a gig-no-go disqualify the home-rs from comment? Not with gigs this big, not with it being The Week of Radiohead – back catalogue on steady rotation – and I reckon they pretty much nailed a perfect setlist for the occasion. It had everything. Airbag, Lotus Flower, Weird Fishes, Bodysnatchers, Kid Amnesiac … what else would you want?

Less indulgence and less dirge, according to some reports and comments. That’ll be those playmorebendsCREEEEEEEEP knobshiners who can’t forgive the band for 20-plus years of evolution, right? Too bad, losers. Friday night was surely as crowd-pleasing a set as you’re ever gonna get from Radiohead, and while some of us don’t thrill to Creep/Trees/Surprises, they had to be in there, even though they dragged the encores down a bit. Burn the Witch would have been a defining pre-Karma moment but hey, it is what it was. I guess it all comes down to what your Radiohead is, and for the post-OK heads who saw 1997 as a warm-up for Kid A’s rhythm-n-twitch reset then it was a proper treat, even on the telly. Grand ol’ Thom of Yorke seemed to be half a bar short of full charge here and there, but the music was impeccable – cue Myxomatosis. And Bloom. And There There. And Let Down. And … you know.

To extend the Radiohead obsession you can, if you’ve got BBC Radio iplayer access, hook yourself up to The First Time interviews with each band member. Here’s the infinitely likeable Colin Greenwood to get you started.

NEW SOUNDS

KXM put a new album out, Scatterbrain, the other week. Haven’t really heard it yet – been working up to it by playing its predecessor, the self titled debut. Who am KXM? Ray Luzier (Korn) + Dug Pinnick (King’s X) + George Lynch (Lynch Mob), and if you like the King’s X latter years and Poundhound and Dug solo then KXM will not fail you. Rescue Me is pure King’s X, but there’s a harder edge too, thanks to some bristling stickwork from the Korn man – check Stars. Son of Mr Scary? Very possibly.

If electronic desert spacerock floats your whatsit then, er, Floating Points might just have become your guys because the upcoming Reflections Mojave Desert looks cosmically promising if this is anything to go by. Insert your own Pompeii Floyd reference, many already have.

DUG PINNICK ON CHRIS CORNELL

Seeing as King’s X were band of the month after their gig in Bristol, it’s little wonder that this was stumbled upon during various online trawls about the band – Dug Pinnick speaking about Chris Cornell. Two souls full of friendship and music … and who knew about the Superunknown-Dogman vocal pact? RIP CC.

OLD-SCHOOL OF THE MONTH

Should this be a feature? A track from old that’s sounding so-very right now? A fast, irrepressible all-about-the-music interview with Steven Tyler in the Planet Rock mag lay the tarmac to Aerosmith this month, so get your toxic strut on with this deeper cut: Combination. From Rocks. It does. 

’til next time!

amplifier wordsmith: the monthly rewind