Don’t Get Any (Big Ideas)

Video by James Houston Radiohead held an online contest to remix “Nude” from their album – “In Rainbows” This was quite a difficult task for all the electronic musicians that entered, as Nude is in 6/8 timing, and 63bpm. Most music that’s played in clubs is around 120bpm and usually 4/4 timing. It’s near impossible to mix a waltz beat into a DJ set. This resulted in lots of generic entries consisting of a typical 4/4 beat, but with arbitrary clips from “Nude” thrown in so that they qualified for the contest. Thom Yorke joked at the ridiculousness of it in an interview for NPR radio, hinting that they set the competition “for a laugh” and to find out what would come out of such an impossible task. I decided to take the piss a bit, as the contest seemed to be in that spirit. Based on the lyric (and alternate title) “Big Ideas: Don’t get any” I grouped together a collection of old redundant hardware, and placed them in a situation where they’re trying their best to do something that they’re not exactly designed to do, and not quite getting there. It doesn’t sound great, as it’s not supposed to. * Sinclair ZX Spectrum – Guitars (rhythm & lead) * Epson LX-81 Dot Matrix Printer – Drums * HP Scanjet 3c – Bass Guitar * Hard Drive array – Act as a collection of bad speakers – Vocals & FX