OFF WITH YOUR RADIOHEAD @ Asheville Music Hall 11-16-2019
Ever since he first heard “Creep” on FM radio as a teenager, Jeff Thompson has been crazy about Radiohead. “The Bends” and “OK Computer” got so much play on his Panasonic boombox in the 90s that the poor machine forgot how to play CDs by other bands. Jeff screamed along with “Paranoid Android” in his college dorm room so many times and so loudly that a psychiatric intervention became necessary. “You are not Thom Yorke, Jeff,” the doctor repeated to him over and over as he flung himself around his padded cell. But Jeff ignored the doctor and called him a “Gucci LIttle Piggy.” He was eventually released, not because he got better, but because the nurses grew exhausted from hearing one too many versions of “Fake Plastic Trees” crooned at them.
So, getting to sorta pretend to be Thom Yorke on stage is not only the fulfillment of a decades long fantasy (delusion) for Jeff, but it’s also a form of therapy for him.
Radiohead is, in Jeff’s opinion, one of the most brilliant, inspirational, and musically innovative bands in the history of rock. Pushing the boundaries of convention rhythmically, melodically, harmonically, lyrically, thematically, and all other words that end with “cally,” they’ve also been fearless pioneers and risk takers in the realms of business and progressive ethics. In short, they do it all, and do it in ways that have never been done before.
Getting to pay tribute to them through the project Jeff calls “Off with your Radiohead” is a high honor for Jeff, and one in which he takes great pride. It is with immense pleasure that he performs the songs of Radiohead to the best of his ability with an assemblage of some of the finest musicians in Western North Carolina—including Aaron Price, Josh and Jake Cavinder, Josh Blake, and Mattick Frick.
It seems unlikely that Jeff will ever actually get to BE Thom Yorke, but don’t tell him that, and come check out an Off With Your Radiohead show. See if he and his bandmates come anywhere near close to pulling it off. We think you’ll be pretty pleased.
music: https://www.reverbnation.com/offwithyourradiohead
