With another cheery and mirthful Guy Fawkes Day officially ringing in the start of the 2012 Holiday/Galactic Apocalypse Season, it’s perfectly natural to sit around Oxfordshire or wherever and ask yourself, “What do I get this year for the Radiohead fan in my life who has everything?” And while the #1 answer to that question is “plaster casts of the Greenwood brothers’ genitalia,” my bros over at Stereogum have pointed out a runner-up gift option that ain’t too bad: an eBay listing for Radiohead’s “first four demo cassette tapes”… on cassette!
Yup, for just one-half of one-tenth of one-tenth of one million US dollars, you or your significant sugar-parent can hit the “Buy it now” button and purchase these fine specimens of Thom and his buddies’ pretty awkward college rawk phase, back before they were calling themselves the obviously not-lame name of Radiohead and instead went by the completely unrelatable On A Friday (who’s ever cared about Friday?), and later by the name Shindig (a clever reference to how much the band “dug” the Collective Soul song “Shine”). And folks, top-rated eBay seller 619andyp has held nothing back in his presentation of these incredibly rare collector’s items, here. This eBay listing has got it all: a description of his online-company, a photo of the item described, pink and red sans-serif text enumerating the “artist” and “title,” international fucking shipping instructions — you name it! And sure, all of this music is available on the internet already, but that’s probably why there’s a “Best Offer” option that allows bidders to pledge less than $50k if he or she has the balls to go and sully Shindig like that.
Speaking of the music, there seems to be some tunes involved here that later got reworked for Radiohead’s most critically acclaimed album Pablo Honey, and there’s even a ska jam called “Tell Me Bitch” that I’m reasonably confident is a clairvoyant pre-rant about George W. Bush. So, yeah. Are you sold yet? I know I am! Maybe you and I could go in on this thing together. So let’s see… I’ve got… 10, 11… 11 dollars.
• Radiohead: http://radiohead.com
• eBay: http://ebay.com
More about: Radiohead
