Leeds today - Leeds Festival mayhem

Guns n' Roses, the reformed The Libertines, Blink 182, Dizzee Rascal and The Cribs have all been announced for Leeds Festival over the August bank holiday weekend. Judging by the number of tweets and comments last night, half the internet seemed to go into a meltdown of excitement when the acts were announced at 7.15pm.

The future of the Leeds Citizens Advice Bureau - which has campaigned for consumers for more than 70 years - is hanging in the balance. Dianne Lyons, chief executive, told the Yorkshire Evening Post that she does not know where funding is going to come from for the service after March 2011.

"You could argue that we are facing a combination of challenges that threaten to overwhelm what we have achieved together over the last nine years with budget cuts looming, capital funding disappearing and an increasing difficulty attracting and retaining talented colleagues," writes Education Leeds boss Chris Edwards over on his Interesting Times blog.

Leeds city council has today announced the dates for the biggest free outdoor concert events held anywhere in the UK – Party in the Park and Opera in the Park in Leeds. The council's events team, who organise the two annual flagship events held at Temple Newsam, have confirmed the two concerts will take place this year on Saturday, 24 July and Sunday, 25 July.

Our friends at Real Radio Yorkshire are delighted to announce that as they celebrate their 8th birthday they have been awarded the rare Gold Investors in People award (IIP). The Leeds-based GMG Radio owned station is the first media organisation across Yorkshire & Humberside, and one of the first 10 organisations working with IIP Yorkshire & Humberside, to achieve this prestigious Gold award. The news came on the day Real Radio Yorkshire celebrates its eighth birthday with a surprise gold-themed party for staff.

Over at Hownottodoafoodblog.com there's a couple of excellent write-ups of Granary Wharf restaurants, Wasabi Teppenyaki and The Hop. Check 'em out!

On Tuesday, 27 April the Lord Mayor of Leeds, Councillor Judith Elliott, will be hosting an evening of entertainment and refreshments with a Chinese theme to raise money for her charity appeal for this year, reports About My Area LS8.

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Leeds Festival Rumors

We’re sceptical but we thought we had better bring you this slice of news anyway.

A poster has recently been doing the rounds for this year’s Reading/Leeds line-up that has allegedly revealed that Linkin Park, Blink 182 and Green Day will headline this year’s festivals.

While everyone and their mum has been speculating for ages that Blink 182 will headline this year’s event (and we’d be shocked to the point of a heart attack if they weren’t part of this year’s soiree), we’re doubting that Green Day (who are playing stadium shows a couple of weeks later) will be part of the proceedings and, considering the size of Lock-Up headliners in recent years (Rise Against, Gallows, Billy Talent, Jimmy Eat World), we doubt NYC hardcore legends Sick Of It All have the following to pull that off.

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Leeds Festival Tickets News

Today, we've got more on the market row that's threatening to involve the whole of Leeds, more from guest blogger Lee Hicken in Barcelona and more on the bid to improve the safety of vulnerable children in Leeds.

The Tories have refused to commit to delivering the £250m Leeds trolleybus plan should David Cameron win the forthcoming election, reports the YEP. A Conservative source said the party would not follow Labour's lead and protect the scheme from future spending cuts by effectively ring-fencing its funding.
Residents in part of north-west Leeds are joining forces with local police officers to tackle speeding drivers in their communities, reports West Yorkshire Police. The North West Leeds Community Speed Watch scheme sees members of the public working alongside neighbourhood policing officers to target drivers who put lives in danger by breaking the speed limit on local roads.
Irish budget airline Ryanair has announced that it has opened its new base at Leeds Bradford Airport.
The Leeds Arts Council continues its work to bring top-notch entertainment to the city. The group's latest offering will be "My Fair Lady" and cast and crew members are working hard in rehearsals to make it a memorable evening for everyone, says theleedsnews.net.
Fears about the risks of abusing the fertiliser component and so-called "legal high" substance mephedrone has featured in a police drugs awareness session for Leeds students, reports the YEP. Lucy Martin is an emerging local Digital Artist. Lucy's work stands out as one of high quality that holds landscapes and ideas in a dream-like state. Creative Boom caught up with her to find out some more about her Digital Art. The Leeds Festival 2010 website has launched! Tickets and an announcement on the bands on Monday. Leeds council has been singled out as one of the most ethical authorities in the country. The council was shortlisted in this award catergory last year, but this year beat off competition from five other shortlisted councils from across the UK to win the award for its outstanding approach to standards and ethics at a prestigious ceremony last night.
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Leeds Festival Tickets - 2009 Line up RadioHead

Style and songwriting

Among Radiohead members' earliest influences were Queen, Scott Walker, and Elvis Costello; post-punk acts such as Joy Division and Magazine, R.E.M., Pixies, The Smiths and Sonic Youth. By the mid-1990s, Radiohead began to mention an interest in electronic music, especially that of Massive Attack and the instrumental hip hop of DJ Shadow, which Radiohead claimed as an influence on parts of OK Computer. Other influences on the album were Miles Davis and Ennio Morricone, along with 1960s rock groups, such as The Beatles and The Beach Boys. Jonny Greenwood also cited composer Krzysztof Penderecki as an inspiration on the sound of OK Computer. The electronic style of Kid A and Amnesiac was the result of Thom Yorke's admiration for glitch, ambient techno and IDM as exemplified by Warp Records artists such as Autechre and Aphex Twin. The jazz of Charles Mingus, Alice Coltrane, and Miles Davis, and 1970s Krautrock bands such as Can and Neu!, were other major influences during this period. Jonny Greenwood's interest in 20th century classical music also had a role, as the influence of both Penderecki and composer Olivier Messiaen was apparent; for several songs on OK Computer and later albums, Greenwood has played the Ondes Martenot, an early electronic instrument popularised by Messiaen. While working on Hail to the Thief, Radiohead put renewed emphasis on guitar rock. The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and particularly Neil Young were reported sources of inspiration to the band during this period. Since beginning to record In Rainbows, Radiohead members have mentioned a variety of rock, electronic, hip hop and experimental musicians as influences, including Björk, Liars, Modeselektor, Spank Rock and M.I.A.

Since their formation Radiohead have lyrically been spearheaded by Yorke, but musically, songwriting is a collaborative effort, and it has been noted in interviews that all the band members have roles in the process. As a result, all the band's songs are officially credited to "Radiohead". The Kid A/Amnesiac sessions brought about a change in Radiohead's musical style, and an even more radical change in the band's working method. Since the band's shift from standard rock music instrumentation toward an emphasis on electronic sound, band members have had greater flexibility and now regularly switch instruments depending on the particular song requirements. On Kid A and Amnesiac, Yorke played keyboard and bass, while Jonny Greenwood often played Ondes Martenot rather than guitar, bassist Colin Greenwood worked on sampling, and O'Brien and Selway branched out to drum machines and digital manipulations, also finding ways to incorporate their primary instruments, guitar and percussion, respectively, into the new sound. The relaxed 2003 recording sessions for Hail to the Thief led to a different dynamic in Radiohead, with Yorke admitting in interviews that "[his] power within the band was absolutely unbalanced and [he] would subvert everybody else's power at all costs. But ... it's actually a lot more healthy now, democracy wise, than it used to be."

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Leeds Festival Tickets - 2009 Line up RadioHead

2009 and 2010 sessions (2009–present)

 

In May 2009 the band began new recording sessions with producer Nigel Godrich. A few months later, in August, Radiohead released two singles from these sessions on their website. First, "Harry Patch (In Memory Of)", was recorded in tribute to the recently deceased Harry Patch, the last surviving British soldier to have fought in World War I. The song was sold for £1, with proceeds donated to the British Legion. The song featured Thom Yorke singing lyrics based on Patch's own statements about his war experience, over a string orchestra backdrop arranged by Jonny Greenwood. Later that month, a new song "These Are My Twisted Words," was made available as a free download or a torrent; a digital set of pictures was included. Jonny Greenwood explained that the song had been one of the first products of the band's recent studio sessions, and it was likely to be played during their August festival appearances, the final dates of the In Rainbows tour. In a mid-2009 NME interview, Yorke suggested that Radiohead would turn their focus from full length albums to releasing EPs, including the possibility of an EP of orchestral music. But in mid-December 2009, O'Brien posted on the band's website that the band would begin work on its next album in January. He stated, "The vibe in the camp is fantastic at present, and we head off into the studio in January to continue on from the work we started last summer...10 years ago we were all collectively (that’s the band) in the land of Kid A .. and although hugely proud of that record, it wasn’t a fun place to be...What’s reassuring now, is that we are most definitely a different band, which should therefore mean that the music is different too and that is the aim of the game."

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Leeds Festival Tickets - 2009 Line up RadioHead

In Rainbows and independent work (2005–2009)

 

Radiohead began work on their seventh album in February 2005. In September 2005, the band recorded a piano-based song, "I Want None of This", for the War Child charity album Help: A Day in the Life. The album was sold online, with "I Want None of This" being the most downloaded track, although it was not released as a single. Radiohead had already begun recording their next album on their own and then with producer Mark Stent. However, in late 2006, after touring Europe and North America and debuting 13 new songs there, the band resumed work with Nigel Godrich in London, Oxford and several rural locations in Somerset, England. Work was finished in June 2007 and the recordings were mastered the following month.
Radiohead's seventh album, In Rainbows, was released through the band's own website on 10 October 2007 as a digital download for which customers could make whatever payment that they wanted, including nothing; the site only advised, "it's up to you". Following the band's sudden announcement 10 days beforehand, Radiohead's unusual strategy received much notice within the music industry and beyond. 1.2 million downloads were reportedly sold by the day of release, but the band's management did not release official sales figures, claiming that the Internet-only distribution was intended to boost later retail sales. A "discbox", including a second disc from the recording sessions, vinyl and CD editions of the album, and a hardcover book of artwork, was sold and shipped in late 2007.
In Rainbows was physically released in the UK in late December on XL Recordings and in North America in January 2008 on TBD Records, charting at number one both in the UK and in the US. The album's success in the US marked Radiohead's highest chart success in that country since Kid A, while it was their fifth UK number one album. "Jigsaw Falling into Place", the first single from the album, was released in the UK in January 2008. The second single, "Nude", debuted at number 37 in the Billboard Hot 100, Radiohead's first song to make that chart since 1995's "High and Dry" and their first top 40 hit in the US since "Creep". A greatest hits album, titled Radiohead: The Best Of, was released by EMI in June 2008. The compilation was made without the input of the band and also did not contain any songs from In Rainbows, as the band had already left their label. Radiohead continued to put out tracks from In Rainbows as singles and videos; in July a digitally-shot video for "House of Cards" was made available. "House of Cards", along with "Bodysnatchers", also received a single release on radio. In September the band announced a fourth single, "Reckoner", and a remix competition similar to one organised for "Nude".
In Rainbows received overwhelmingly positive reviews, among the best of Radiohead's career. Critics praised the album for having a more accessible sound and personal style of lyrics than their past work; it sold more than three million copies within one year of release. In July 2008, In Rainbows was nominated for the short list of the Mercury Music Prize. At the 2009 Grammy Awards, the band won Best Alternative Music Album. Their production team also won the Grammy for Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package. The band received their third nomination for Album of the Year, along with three other nominations for the band, plus nominations for Godrich's production work and for the "House of Cards" video. From mid-2008 to early 2009, Radiohead toured North America, Europe, Japan, Mexico and South America to promote In Rainbows. The band headlined the Reading and Leeds Festivals in August 2009.

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Hail to the Thief and a hiatus (2002–2004)

 

During July and August 2002, Radiohead toured Portugal and Spain, playing a number of newly written songs. They then recorded the new material in two weeks in a Los Angeles studio with Nigel Godrich, adding several tracks later in Oxford, where the band continued their work into the next year. Radiohead members described the recording process as relaxed, in contrast to the tense sessions for Kid A and Amnesiac. The band's sixth album, Hail to the Thief, was released in June 2003. Mixing sounds from throughout their career, Hail to the Thief combined guitar-based rock with electronic influences and topical lyrics by Yorke. Although the album was critically praised, many critics felt that Radiohead were treading water creatively rather than continuing the "genre-redefining" trend that OK Computer had begun. Nevertheless, Hail to the Thief enjoyed commercial success, debuting at number one in the UK and number three on the Billboard chart and eventually being certified platinum in the UK and gold in the US. The album's singles, "There There", "Go to Sleep" and "2 + 2 = 5", achieved a level of play on modern rock radio. At the 2003 Grammy Awards, Radiohead were again nominated for Best Alternative Album, while producer Godrich and engineer Darrell Thorp received the Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album.
Yorke denied that Hail to the Thief's title was a comment on the controversial 2000 US presidential election, explaining that he first heard the words in a BBC Radio 4 discussion of 19th century American politics. Yorke said his lyrics had been affected by news reports of war in 2001 to 2002 and "the feeling that we are entering an age of intolerance and fear where the power to express ourselves in a democracy and have our voices heard is being denied us" but said, "[Radiohead] didn't write a protest record, we didn't write a political record." After the release of Hail to the Thief, Radiohead embarked in May 2003 on a world tour, including a headlining performance at the Glastonbury Festival. The tour finished in May 2004 with a performance at the Coachella Festival. During their tour, the band released COM LAG, an EP compiling most of their b-sides from the time. Following their tour, the band began writing and rehearsing in their Oxford studio but soon went on hiatus. Free of their label contract, Radiohead spent the remainder of 2004 resting with their families and working on solo projects.

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