048 - Radiohead's The Bends

Download: Radiohead’s The Bends.m4a

Playlist: Apple | Spotify

Another cowardly foray into the show's sacred cows

• Alternate copy takes

• Going from technical to emotional

• "Palette": 3

Addenda

• Waldron say: “I think the high feedbacky guitar stuff at the end of ‘Just’ must be done with a slide.”

Email from friend-of-show, Will Harries, regarding “What happened at the end there” of the song Just:

Hey Bill and Waldron, I know "what happened at the end there" in Just by Radiohead.  Johnny Greenwood (or Ed O'Brien) is almost certainly using a Whammy pitch-shifter pedal (along with a bunch of other effects) to start at a multi-octave pitch-shift UP, then using the Whammy pedal to swoop the note back DOWN towards and to the actual non-pitch-shifted note, then moving into the final outro solo.

Why am I so sure?  Because of... you guessed it... Phish.  Trey has used Whammy pitch-shifter pedal in many rigs, but most heavily in the late 90's.  Any '97 or '98 show is sure to have some jam involving looped and pitch-shifted guitar on at least 3 occasions.  See this excellent and exhaustive page for all the various sonic uses with audio and video examples.

Why am I also so sure?... this guy's "Best (Digitech) Whammy Pedal Songs" playlist includes My Iron Lung off The Bends, placing the pedal square in Johnny's (or Ed's) pedalboard at the time of The Bends.