Unsteady 'head

Tad Kubler isn't sure about what Radiohead are up to these days:

"I think they've lost the plot. What are they doing? Where are they going? What's happening? I don't get it any more. They lost me. I still appreciate what they're doing, or what they're trying to do. But I think they're trying too hard not to be Radiohead. That seems a little ridiculous to me".

"I like them as a rock band, all the buttons and sequencing and stuff like that I don't really care for. I'm a fan of rock music and what they're doing now I don't think is very good. When you have that kind of money, you can put on a great performance regardless of what you do. If you can't go out and pick up your instruments and play a good show, that doesn't do it for me. I don't have any interest in that".

Uh-oh. Much as I like the Hold Steady, I'm not sure I like where this would be heading... if Radiohead using sequencers is BAAAAAAAD, because they're trying to be something other than what you might expect, that would suggest that a band who plod on, week-in, year-out, never progressing would be the ideal, wouldn't it? But that would mean... The Hold Steady are... endorsing... oh, no:

"I love Oasis. I love them. I think that what they do is earnest. I think it's honest. When they get up and do what they do, it's one take and they get up and they perform. I trust Noel Gallagher to do a good job with the record"

Tad also has a pop at Muse for using electronics, too. It's all a bit dispiriting from a band whose songwriting suggests at wider horizons than that.

Just as a sidenote, though, the NME report says that Tad was also unimpressed with the charging system:

The Hold Steady's guitarist Tad Kubler has slammed Radiohead's revoluntionary pay what you want plan for their last album 'In Rainbows'.

It's not so clear - at least from the BBC website - that he was talking about the pay-what-you-feel model at all; just the music on the album.