The third known On A Friday demo tape comes from the summer of 1990, and was recorded between the sessions for their last two cassette releases. It's a compilation of 4-track recordings made between June and August at Clifton Hampden Village Hall, Nuneham Courtenay Village Hall and at home. This tape contained 15 new songs, and has been recompiled over the years, sometimes removing 'Tell Me Bitch' (which is really no great loss), and also re-titling some of the songs. By the time of these recordings all the members were at different Universities around the country, but reconvened over the summer, with the exception of Phil who was in Ireland. In order to keep recording and rehearsing, the band drafted in school friend Nigel Powell, who had recorded some previous demos with the band, to keep the drum stool warm. The Clifton Hampden tracks were recorded over a number of weeks with this line up, and in between sessions Jonny took the four-track home with him where he, Thom and Colin would continue working on the tracks, and when Phil returned the band recorded one more demo track 'What Is That You See?'. The band did not have a settled name during this period, having dropped On A Friday temporarily, but not yet having come up with anything better. One possibility was Shindig, which survived long enough for Thom to spray paint it on his acoustic guitar case, but by the time of their next 'proper' demo in April 1991 (the previously mentioned 'Manic Hedgehog', from which two songs for this 1990 tape would be substantially developed), they had reverted to On A Friday. For this post I've gone with the 14 track version, but kept the original song titles. 'Tell Me Bitch' has already appeared on a previous post in a different form, but it you are a masochist and really want to hear it, you can track down the original speeded up version yourself online.
Track listing
01 Keep Strong02 Somebody03 Burning Bush04 Climbing Up A Bloody Great Hill05 Mr B06 What Is That You See?07 Everyone Needs Someone To Hate08 Upside Down09 The Greatest Shindig (Of The World)10 Give It Up11 How Can You Be Sure?12 Life With A Big F13 Rattlesnake14 New Generation
The second known On A Friday demo tape reportedly comes from 1988. The band were pretty much inactive between 1987 and 1990, but there seems to have been some activity in 1988, as indicated by a gig at the London School of Economics, so it's possible that they reconvened after their University courses had already begun in order to make these recordings. The line-up of the band at this point included three saxophone players: Rasmus 'Raz' Peterson, Liz Cotton and Charlotte Cotton, but Jonny had still not yet joined the band. The recordings were made at Woodworm Studios in Oxfordshire and engineered and mixed by Dave Pegg.In April 1991, during the Easter holidays, the band recorded a 3-track demo at Dungeon Studios in Shipton-On-Stour, which had 16-track equipment. They worked there for three days, and it cost the band more than £300, which was a lot of money for them at the time. The recordings were engineered by the studio's owner, Richard Haines, and contained three new recordings, two of which were reworkings of songs from a summer 1990 compilation tape. This demo helped the band get some regular live gigs, among them one at the Jericho Tavern, where Chris Hufford saw the band for the first time, and both the gig and the tape convinced him and Bryce Edge to produce On A Friday's next demo at their studio.The final demo was recorded in October 1991 on 24-track equipment for £500 at Hufford and Edge's Courtyard Studios, and consisted of five new songs. Officially titled 'First Tapes', it became widely known as the 'Manic Hedgehog Demo', named after the shop in Oxford that sold the cassette copies for £3 each. Following the sessions for this demo, Hufford and Edge became the band's managers and more recordings at Courtyard would result in their first official release as Radiohead, 1992's 'The Drill' EP. This post complies all the songs from those three demo cassettes, plus 'Tell Me Bitch', a notorious ska track by the band, which was sped up in post-production to produce arguably their most hated song. This is a slowed down version which would be more how the band played it before they manipulated the tape, and although it's still not great, it is a marginal improvement on the released version.
Track listing
01 Happy Song02 To Be A Brilliant Light03 Sinking Ship04 What Is That You Say05 Stop Whispering06 Give It Up07 I Can't08 Nothing Touches Me09 Thinking About You10 Phillipa Chicken11 You12 Tell Me Bitch
It's pretty well-known that before Radiohead appropriated the title of the Talking Heads song for their name, they were known as On A Friday, as the only time that they could practice was on a Friday. The wrote and recorded a lot of songs during these sessions, some of which were released on their own OAF label as demo tapes, whereas others would not surface until many years later. The earliest known demo tape by the band comes from 1986, when the line-up included a saxophone player, Rasmus 'Raz' Peterson. Jonny Greenwood had not yet joined the band, but his brother Colin was on bass, alongside Thom Yorke on vocals, acoustic guitar and keyboards, Ed O'Brien on guitar, and Phillip Selway on drums. The tape was recorded in the music room of Abingdon School, and contains seven songs, with remixes of three of them which are slightly weird 'dub versions', where the vocals cut in and out at random. One last track was tagged on to the end of the tape, which was obviously recorded at a different time, and is of a noticeably lesser quality. Although these are the earliest known recordings from On A Friday, they were actually the last to surface, only appearing on Youtube in 2011. The owner explained that her husband was at school with the band and partied with them before Jonny joined, and the demo was given to him at 17 in school, after he used to go and see them play in Oxford, and became friends with the band. Although this demo was recorded by a bunch of teenagers in their school music room, it's surprisingly competent and confident, and you get the impression that this is a band who could go far. I wonder whatever happened to them. 
Track listing
01 Fragile Friend02 Girl (In The Purple Dress)03 Everybody Knows04 Mountains (On The Move)05 Fat Girl06 Lemming Trail07 Lock The Door08 Fragile Friend (Remix)09 Lemming Trail (Remix)10 Lock The Door (Version)11 In The Breeze
