Early Radiohead Demo With Unheard Songs From Late ’80s Up for Auction

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A cassette demo containing three previously unheard and undocumented songs by On A Friday, the band become Radiohead in 1991, is up for auction. The six-song tape is expected to bring about $2,700. The current bid at Omega Auctions is about $2,000.

The unheard tunes are titled “Promise Me,” “Boy In A Box” and “These Chains.” The other three songs on the demo are “Happy Song,” “To Be A Brilliant Light” and “Sinking Ship.”

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The auction ends on Jan. 26.

The Thom Yorke-designed inlay card features Yorke’s writing “Gripe + 3 trax at beginning.” On the cassette’s inlay, Yorke wrote “Before the ones overleaf are the following (most recent recordings 1989) Promise Me (Thom), Body(?) in a box (Colin/Thom), These are the Chains (Thom).”

The band members — brothers Jonny and Colin Greenwood, Ed O’Brien and Philip Selway — attended Abingdon School outside Oxford, U.K. in the 1980s and took their original name from the day of the week when they rehearsed.

Radiohead-Gripe-Cassette-1610991476
Radiohead-Gripe-Cassette-1610991476

The demo had been given to a friend in the ’90s.

The cassette is part of Omega’s online punk, indie and new wave auction, which also contains items from Joy Division, the Clash, Oasis and more.

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