A Thirty-Year First: Jonny’s Stolen Ebony Frost Tele is Back
Jonnying playing the stolen Tele during Ful Stop in Madrid on November 4, 2025 (Javi Dieguez).
When it came time to play Ful Stop last Tuesday, Jonny swapped his Honda-stickered Telecaster for one with no stickers at all. Swapping guitars for the song wasn’t new, since it requires a unique two-string capo, plus Jonny generally wears his guitar higher for the tune. But during the A Moon Shaped Pool era, Jonny usually played his “Uchuu Ace” Tele (his other guitar with a prominent 60s anime sticker on the pickguard) for Ful Stop. But in Madrid, he played an instrument with a more complex backstory.
This time, it was Jonny’s Ebony Frost Telecaster Plus, played at a Radiohead gig for the first time in thirty years (plus a month and two days). The guitar, which you’ve doubtless heard on the recording of My Iron Lung, was put in a van after Radiohead’s gig on October 2, 1995. The next day, it was stolen in Denver along with the rest of the band’s gear. Although we call the guitar his old “backup”, it was consistently used during the Bends era. He played it for nearly half the songs on the band’s famous Astoria gig.
Jonny playing the Ebony Frost Tele during Vegetable at the Astoria on May 27, 1994. Note the wear to the guitar’s upper horn.
After the theft, there was no sign of the guitar for almost 20 years. Then, in 2014, someone was browsing this very site and recognized the guitar as one they’d purchased in Denver during the 1990s. After we directed them to Radiohead’s guitar tech Plank, Jonny was reunited with the instrument.
Soon after, Jonny broke out the guitar for a couple of solo shows in Oxford and Geneva in February, 2015. But since then, it’s disappeared from view as Jonny’s love for Les Paul guitars deepened during his solo work on Junun and The Smile. This tour is the first time that Jonny’s playing it with Radiohead, once again using it as a “backup” for his main Tele.
Jonny playing the Ebony Frost Tele during the fourth Madrid show on November 8, 2025 (raphph).
Jonny picking through the intro of 2+2=5 Lollapalooza Berlin on September 11, 2016 (radiohead.com). The reddish outer ring is unusually prominent in this photo.
For a while now, we’ve referred to the finish on Jonny’s No1 Telecaster Plus V1 as “Tobacco Burst.” While Jonny’s Tele is often called a “sunburst”, on closer inspection the finish is little different. A traditional sunburst has three sections: a semi-transparent yellow center, a red ring around that center, and black edges. In contrast, the finish on a 1990s Tele Plus lacks a clear red ring (though it does turn reddish near the edges), and the central yellow section is darker than on a traditional sunburst. So the darker “Tobacco” version of a burst seemed accurate. It doesn’t help that the guitar is often seen in low-quality footage and under stage-lighting, both of which can mask the details of a guitar’s finish.
In fact, Fender’s official name for the finish on the 1990s Telecaster Plus V1 is “Antique Burst.”Thank you to Ben for pointing us to uploads of some official Fender price lists from the early-90s (click the download links on that page to view spec/price lists for all Fender guitars, not just Strats). Checking those price lists, we can see that Fender used the “Antique” finish for their modern, higher-end instruments. The finish is offered for the “Signature”, “Designer”, “Set-Neck”, “Ultra” and “Plus” series instruments. In contrast, the 1992 “American Standard Telecaster” was offered in a traditional “Sunburst”, while the 1992 Mexican-made “Standard Telecaster” wasn’t even available in any burst colors. Vintage reissues had their own set of bursts in 1992: “2-Color Sunburst” for the ’52 reissue and “3-Color Sunburst” for the ’62 reissue.
Jonny playing his No1 Tele during My Iron Lung at the Chicago Metro on April 6, 1996. Jonny had only recently acquired the guitar after his original No1 Tele Plus was stolen in Denver, hence the lack of stickers. Some combination of lighting and digitization has totally masked the details of the finish, giving it a “2-tone” appearance. But it’s still recognizable as the same guitar, note the wear to the finish on the edge of the lower bout.
A closeup of Jonny’s Telecaster from Radiohead’s show at Victoria Park on June 25, 2008 (photo by Neil Lupin).
On many sunburst Fender guitar from the 1950s, the red ring would fade with exposure to sunlight, sometimes fading entirely and leaving behind a 2-tone burst. Some good examples can be seen in this TDPRI forum thread, along with some 3-tone burst guitars from the 1960s (after Fender found a way to prevent the red from fading). Presumably, the “Antique Burst” is so-named because it resembles the faded finish on a 1950s guitar.
Jonny’s “No1” Tele Plus shouldn’t be confused with his “No2” backup Tele. The backup is originally an American Standard Telecaster, but Plank converted the guitar to Plus specs (though by necessity it has a full bridge plate, rather than a humbucker ring like an original Tele Plus). The American Standard wasn’t available in “Antique Burst”, but was instead offered in the more common “Sunburst” finish.
Jonny playing his No2 Tele during Ful Stop at the Glastonbury festival on June 23, 2017 (photo by Sara-Lou Bowrey). This guitar has the more common “Sunburst” finish, if you look closely around the Kaoss Pad and all the stickers!
For some further confusion, check Fender’s official “instrument finish chart.” The online chart includes both “Tobacco Burst” and “Antique Burst”. However, the picture for “Antique Burst” is distinctly reddish, more closely resembling the “Crimson Frost” on an early-1990s Tele Plus (and not to be confused with the mid-1990s “Crimson Burst” finish, which lacks the black edges). The online chart doesn’t include “Crimson Frost” or “Crimson Burst”, and instead lists a “Crimson Red Transparent” color that isn’t on any price list from the 1990s. So it appears Fender may have switched some names around to more accurately describe the colors (for example, the 90s “Crimson Burst” is really more transparent than burst).
hello! im a big fan of the site, its really helped me and my bandmates so far. my question is as follows:
me and my bandmates are absolutley obssesssd with Radioheads Live at the Astoria concert from 1994. i know you have already made a post about the concert, but i was wondering if you could help me out. i have all of the pedals, amps, and guitars Jonny used on that gig (even a shredmaster clone with higher gain!!!), but it still doesnt sound right. i was wondering if you knew (or could estimate) what Jonnys signal chain is for that concert. i know its a niche question, and probably doesnt matter, but id be thankful for your help.
Have you tried adding some crowd noise ;)
You’re clearly pretty deep in this stuff, so I’m going to be a bit blunt for your benefit. Please keep re-reading our post about mixing until you understand that you’re putting your efforts in the wrong place. To sum it up in a quote: “A lot of the gear at the Glastonbury 1997 performance is different from the Astoria 1994 performance, but the two still sound closer to each other than to the [1995] Jools Holland recording.”
As Jonny often says, recordings are never the same as live performances. By the same token, the sound from an amp in your room is never going to be the sound on a recording (studio or live), even if Jonny played your room with the exact gear from that show.
If you read our full rundown of the gear used for the Astoria show, you’ll see that Jonny’s setup isn’t that complicated. A couple Tele Plus guitars, a couple amps, and a handful of pedals. You can find the full signal chain on Jonny’s effects page (along with the signal chain for all of his Radiohead pedalboards from 1992-present). But his sound for most of the show is just a Tele Plus into Shredmaster into an Eighty-Five — what difference would it make if his Small Stone was before or after his Tremulator? That’s not going to affect the choice of mic, the mic position, the eq and compression and gate applied to it at the FOH mixer, and the sound of the PA speakers.
And even that doesn’t cover the blend of “dry” and “mic’d” sound available by splitting the signal before the amp with a DI box connected to the FOH mixer. While that’s partly used as a backup in case an amp breaks, Jim Warren (Radiohead FOH mix engineer) explicitly mentions blending in the dry signal for certain songs in an Audiotechnology interview. We go into more depth in the Fender Eighty-Five entry on Jonny’s amplifiers page, but in the 90s Jonny fed the DI box from the “Preamp Out” on his Eighty-Five. This meant the DI sound has the slightly mid-scooped sound of a Fender 3-band EQ, but without the mid-focused sound of a Fender speaker.
Note the stack of Summit Audio DCL-200 rack compressors on the right, used for Thom’s vocals, Ed’s vocals, and Colin’s DI bass signal (Audiotechnology 34).
We obviously think gear matters, or we wouldn’t have created this blog. But we care about the way gear is used, not just the brand of the amplifier. Thinking about gear only as a guitarist — focusing on guitars and amps and pedals without thinking about the rest of the picture — will really limit your ability to understand how recordings are made. They’re just one part of the picture.
If you’re really desperate for those more aggressive distortion sounds, you could rig up a PA speaker and run it alongside your Eighty-Five. But even then, you’re missing the sound of a close microphone on the Eighty-Five’s speaker, which picks up more high frequencies than you hear from a playing distance. So maybe just add an EQ pedal to your current setup, and mess with it until it sounds the same, even if it’s not the exact same setup.
Jonny playing his Ebony Frost Tele Plus during My Iron Lung at the Astoria on May 27, 1994. Note the cable connected to the “Preamp Output” on the Fender Eighty-Five behind him. The speaker is still connected when the Preamp Output is used, and the amp is visibly mic’d in other footage from the show.
Hey I was curious as to how I can get the same tone and sound of jonny’s guitar part in the live version of my iron lung from the MTV most wanted in London 1994? I genuinely love to learn how to replicate it I’m a newbie to guitar
All you need for Jonny’s sound on My Iron Lung:
Electric guitar with humbuckers.
Distortion pedal with a Marshall-type sound and the EQ set for lots of mids.
Whammy pedal or other pitch shifter with an expression input.
Solid-state or digital amp set for a clean Fender-type sound.
Jonny’s guitar setup has never been “boutique”. If anything, the secret to his 90s distortion sound was to keep using the inexpensive gear he had when the band were signed: a solid-state practice amp and a distortion pedal.
If you already have a guitar with single coils instead of humbuckers, don’t rush out to drill holes in your guitar. Just turn down the tone knob about halfway and turn up the gain on the pedal.
Jonny stomping on his beat-up volume pedal at a show in the 90s. The volume pedal isn’t necessary for My Iron Lung, but it can be helpful for dealing with noise: when he wasn’t playing, Jonny used the volume pedal to mute his distortion pedal, acting like a noise gate. The footswitch to Jonny’s old Digitech Whammy WH1 pedal can be seen at the right edge of the photo.
following from your weird fishes post, what actually is counterpoint? can you give some radiohead examples to explain it?
There are plenty of resources online to learn about counterpoint. And there are endless examples in Radiohead’s music, though they usually aren’t lengthy sections following historic rules (as you might find in prog rock). Of course, you could analyze any vocal melody as basic counterpoint against the bass, and you’d be correct (save for a few unaccompanied vocals like the verses of Idioteque). Thom does introduce and resolve some nice 9-8 suspensions over the bass during the verses of My Iron Lung for example. In fact, when analyzing counterpoint, the intervals of each melody should be looked at primarily in relation to the lowest voice (the bass), rather than in relation to each other. But generally when people talk about counterpoint in Radiohead, they’re trying to emphasize the presence of secondary melodies. So listen for any melodic parts (vocal or instrumental) that don’t follow Thom’s vocal rhythmically, and you’re likely to find counterpoint with three or more parts.
Thom’s voice and Colin’s bass on My Iron Lung. While the relationship between the vocals and bass on any song can be analyzed as basic counterpoint, this is a particularly stark example since guitars are (briefly) absent. It’s worth noting that the dissonances are either passing (as with the augmented 4th on “hurts”) or prepared suspensions (9-8 and 7-6).
Looking through A Moon Shaped Pool, here’s some examples of multiple, connected melodies:
Burn The Witch — In the second verse (starting 1:30), the violins and cello each briefly add distinct counter-melodies.
Daydreaming — Thom’s processed vocals are a perhaps too textural to call counterpoint, but they form a similar role. This is especially true around 4:17, when various layers of Thom’s vocals and Ed’s guitar interplay in interesting ways.
Decks Dark — The choir’s melody at 1:22-1:47 forms some compelling counterpoint with the bass guitar. When Thom’s vocal enters at 1:48, it adds a third “melodic voice” to the texture.
Desert Island Disk — This track is sparser, but Ed’s guitar at 2:28 could be viewed as a brief secondary melody.
Ful Stop — Lots of examples here. The “take me back” section is a good example, as Thom and the upper synth both have independence from the bass. When Jonny’s guitar enters at 3:39, it adds an additional layer.
Identikit — Lots of examples here too, perhaps most notably in the interplay between Thom’s main vocal, the (looped) backing vocals, and Jonny’s guitar riffing. There’s also cool rhythmic play between Thom’s synth and the choir singing “broken hearts make it rain” (starting 2:30).
The Numbers — Jonny’s piano is constantly adding counter-melodies. The strings at 3:30 also largely form a separate melody that interplays with Thom’s vocal.
Present Tense — The extra guitar layer at 1:45 could also be read as being in counterpoint with the main guitar part, in a similar way to Jonny’s upper arpeggios against Ed’s main apreggios on Weird Fishes. But the better example (perhaps the best on the album) is the multi-part choir that enters at 3:13. By 3:37, the melodic texture gets pretty complex!
Tinker Tailor — The piano adds a nice secondary melody at 1:58, accented by Colin’s nimble bass guitar. There’s also a ton of sub-melodies from the ondes and various string parts for the duration of the lengthy outro.
While most string writing in pop music is fairly flat (not far from playing a chord on a keyboard), Jonny’s string arrangements are generally more multi-layered. Often every single player will have a unique part to play, even for Jonny’s early arrangements like for Climbing Up The Walls. However, that doesn’t mean they’re always forming a contrapuntal texture, because sometimes the strings are not rhythmically independent.
One last note: Overall, I’ve tried to point out moments of full independence. But the secondary melodies in Radiohead’s music often fall in and out of unison with the main melody. If following the theories of counterpoint strictly, one could argue they are not fully independent voices. But this flexibility is clearly a strength for Radiohead. The supporting instruments are free to add flair when needed, but also to bolster the main melody at key points, which prevents their music from becoming noodly.
Radiohead’s 1994 live setup at the Astoria in London
Performed in the midst of the recording of The Bends, Radiohead’s show at the Astoria gives us a picture of the album just as it was coming together. Some songs would be tweaked further before recording, others are near their final form, and one was just about perfected at this show: My Iron Lung. The band liked this performance of the song so much that they used this live recording for the intro and verses of the album version, albeit with some vocal overdubs. Overall, the range of sounds and the use of effects at this show are much wider than on Pablo Honey, and the band had no qualms about mixing those new sounds into the songs from that album to give them new interest. But the band are principally focused on the more dynamic and interesting guitar playing and arrangements that would so clearly differentiate The Bends from its predecessor. Perhaps no song shows this more than Just, which Thom says was written mostly by Jonny, who “was trying to get as many chords as he could into a song. It was like writing a medley.”
(Guitar World. April 1998). Not only does the song have tons of chords, but the main riff — in addition to being practically a cover of Magazine’s Shot By Both Sides — is the first time that Jonny used the octatonic scale – a truesignofthings to come.
This show also gives us a look at the band’s setup before most of it was unfortunately stolen in Denver on October 3, 1995. The band had switched out a few pieces by then — Thom was using Ed’s old Peavey 130 as a monitor instead of the Fender Super 112, and Jonny switched out his Orange combo for a Fender Twin — but their setup largely remained the same until the theft. According to Ed, “[t]hat was everything we’d ever owned in terms of musical instruments … We had to regroup, buy new gear, and play a week and a half with Soul Asylum. That’s the worst touring we’ve done. Morale was incredibly low, as one would expect” (denverpost). The band had to rebuild their setup before recording OK Computer in 1996, but they did use their original setup when they recorded Lucky in just five hours on September 4, 1995 – almost exactly a month before the theft.
It’s worth noting that the setup is identical to that used for Radiohead’s performance at the Rock Am Ring festival five days prior, and their setup is a little easier to see in that video since it takes place during the daytime. It’s also nearly identical to their setup for the Reading festival a few months later.
Highlight: Jonny’s Original Telecaster Plus Guitars
Jonny playing his original Tobacco Burst Telecaster Plus during You.
Among the gear stolen in 1995 was Jonny’s original Telecaster Plus guitars: his main guitar in “Tobacco Burst” finish and his backup in “Ebony Frost”. Though virtually identical to the Tobacco Tele Plus that Jonny has used constantly with Radiohead since 1996, the older Tele can be distinguished by a different collection of stickers gracing its face. At this show, it features an arrow sticker on the pickguard and a “perfect patient” sticker showing the Pink Panther — perhaps a souvenir from a doctor responsible for Jonny’s arm brace. Jonny later added a large “no nukes” peace-sign sticker, visible in the music video for Just. By contrast, the Ebony Frost guitar is distinguished by being perhaps Jonny’s only Tele without any decoration.
For any who may somehow come across the Tobacco guitar and hope to return it, the serial number begins with N9083****.
The theft must’ve been particularly frustrating for Jonny, since the original Telecaster Standard that he bought as a teen from his guitar teacher had also been stolen a few years earlier. Jonny wrote expressed his feelings about the stolen Tele Plus with some wit in a waste newsletter:
“Dear w.a.s.t.e.r.s,
right now my mind is on the people who stole our instruments, and,
specifically, the person with my guitar, which will no doubt end its
days having Green Day songs worked out on it. A better fate was deserved
– and while the reverence given to guitars annoys me, I shall miss it.
Less of a ‘63 sunburst mint and more of an ‘89 battered wreck it may
have been, but Emily loved him. My only comfort is knowing that whoever
has it will find it unplayable, with it’s Heath Robinson buttons and
bolts all over it, and hopefully throw it away.
We’re two days into the U.K. tour as I write this, and everything
being new has put new life into us. I hope you got a chance to see this
tour. Write soon (enclosing witty-but-realised-too-late-heckles). Love
Jonny G
“
While Jonny’s stickered old Tele Plus remains lost, we were lucky enough to have a small part in returning the Ebony Frost Tele to Jonny after 19 years. He performed with it at the St John the Evangelist Church in Oxford on February 21, 2015, and also at the Victoria Hall in Geneva on February 25 of the same year.
At the Astoria, Jonny used the Tobacco Tele for You, Creep, The Bends, Maquiladora, Fake Plastic Trees, Just, Stop Whispering, Anyone Can Play Guitar, Pop Is Dead, and Blow Out. He used the Ebony Frost for Bones, Ripcord, Black Star, My Iron Lung, Prove Yourself, Vegetable, Street Spirit, Pop Is Dead. But at shows of this era, Jonny used the two instruments interchangeably – knowing Jonny, he doubtless didn’t bother listening for small differences between the two – switching whenever he needed to tune up or switch to an alternate tuning. In studio, he more likely stuck with his main Tobacco Burst guitar, which is why he wrote about just one guitar in the waste newsletter.
Jonny playing his Ebony Frost Telecaster Plus during Black Star.
Jonny performing with the Ebony Frost Telecaster Plus
Thom Yorke’s vocal and guitar setup at the Astoria
Audix OM7 vocal microphone
Takamine EN10C acoustic guitar
1990s Fender Telecaster Thinline electric guitar (heavily modified)
Early-90s Gibson SG Standard SGS- electric guitar
Proco Turbo Rat distortion
Fender ‘65 Twin Reverb Reissue tube amplifier
“Red Knob” Fender Super 112 tube amplifier
All of these guitars were unfortunately stolen in Denver on October 3, 1995, but not before they could be used during the recording of The Bends. The Thinline Tele was repeatedly modified over the course of 1994 and 1995. At this show, the pickguard is removed, and it’s fitted with a Tele single coil in the bridge, a DiMarzio DP102 X2N humbucker in the middle, and a Tele or Strat single coil in the neck. It also has a standard Telecaster control plate, but with an output jack in place of the tone control. Thom’s Red Knob Fender is kept on top of Phil’s drum riser, and it’s only used as a monitor so that Thom can hear himself on both sides of the stage.
Thom singing into his Audix OM7 vocal mic during Just.
A closeup of Thom’s heavily modified Telecaster Thinline during The Bends.
In this screenshot from Maquiladora, one can see Thom’s Proco Turbo Rat by his feet, surrounded by a square of white tape.
Jonny Greenwood’s guitar setup at the Astoria
Tobacco Burst Fender Telecaster Plus V1 “Tele1”
Ebony Frost Fender Telecaster Plus V1 “Tele2”
Demeter The Tremulator tremolo
Digitech Whammy WH1 pitch-shifter
Electro-Harmonix Small Stone V2 phaser
BOSS LS-2 line selector
Plank’s Shredmaster clone distortion
BOSS FV100 volume pedal
1970s Orange OR-80 tube amplifier
Fender Eigthy-Five solid-state amplifier
This show took place during the brief period in 1993-1994 when Jonny used a clone of the Marshall Shredmaster built by the band’s tech, Plank. Photos of the band recording in 1992 show a stock Shredmaster, and touring photos show Jonny started using the clone around 1993. The clone was build in an enclosure with with an angled white front panel and black side panels. Photos often show a few of the knobs missing – either removed to prevent adjustment, or kicked off by accident. According to Plank, the clone didn’t hold up well to touring: “I made a version of the shredmaster a few years ago but after a couple of tours the prototype box was flattened due to being stomped on and that was it !!” (stringsreunited). Jonny’s used a stock Shredmaster since.
Jonny chooses between two signal chains with his BOSS LS2, which takes a single input and selects between two outputs. The modulation pedals are placed before the LS2, so they can be used with either amp. The volume pedal is placed after the Shredmaster clone to work as a master volume control. This allows Jonny to change the volume of his high-gain sound without changing the amount of distortion, enabling dramatic crescendos and violin-like effects (such as on this performance of The Bends). It also lets Jonny mute the Shredmaster clone when he isn’t using it to avoid noise. But it’s worth noting that at this show, the volume pedal can sometimes be seen at full volume when Jonny is playing clean, so perhaps Jonny used his Eighty-Five for clean tones on some songs during this era. This would explain why the Shredmaster clone was destroyed by stomping, and also how Jonny is able to switch from cleans to distortion so quickly on songs like Maquiladora.
Jonny with his foot on his Whammy WH1 during the outro of My Iron Lung. In case you’re wondering how he created those sounds on the album recording, you can watch him do it here. One can also see the Shredmaster clone (the larger white box), BOSS LS2 (the smaller white box), BOSS FV100 volume (the black rectangle beside the clone and LS2), and Small Stone V2 (identifiable by the bit of orange from its label).
Jonny’s Orange combo and Fender Eighty-Five can be seen in this screenshot from Anyone Can Play Guitar. Additionally, on the left Ed can be seen playing his original Plank guitar, while on the right Jonny’s tech
Duncan can be seen tuning Jonny’s Ebony Frost Telecaster
Plus. Colin’s Music Man Stingray can be seen in a guitar stand in front of Duncan.
Ed O’Brien’s vocal and guitar setup at the Astoria
Audix vocal mic
Rickenbacker 360 electric guitar in “Mapleglo” finish
Plank “Ed1” electric guitar
Marshall Guv’nor distortion
EBow (“licked-circuit” model)
BOSS LS-2 line selector
Yamaha FX500 multi-effects rack unit
Korg A2 multi-effects rack unit
Korg FC6 MIDI foot controller (for Korg A2)
BOSS TU12H tuner
Mesa Boogie Trem-O-Verb tube amplifier
1980s Vox AC30 tube amplifier
The “Plank” guitar was built by the band’s guitar tech, Plank. Unfortunately, it was stolen along with rest of the band’s gear in Denver on October 3, 1995, but Plank built Ed a second custom guitar, dubbed “Plank ED2″. The first Plank has only one f-hole, while the second has two. Ed used the FX500 on Pablo Honey, including for Blow Out. The A2 was acquired after the recording of ‘Pablo’, and went on to be used heavily for The Bends. At this show, Ed used the A2 for heavy tremolo on Stop Whispering, for flanger effects on The Bends (at 20:08) and My Iron Lung (at 26:02), for the reverb effect on Just (“but then he’ll get to you”), and possibly for the delay effect on Pop Is Dead. While the fast tremolo sound wasn’t used on the recording of Stop Whispering, Ed was clearly experimenting with the A2 at this time, since he used a similar setting on the recording of Planet Telex.
Ed playing his original Plank guitar during Anyone Can Play Guitar.
Ed getting some feedback from his Mesa Boogie Trem-O-Verb during Stop Whispering. He’s playing his Plank ED1 guitar, and one can see his 80s AC30 on the right, and his rack units on the left. The half-rack unit with the green display is the FX500, and underneath it is the A2. There’s also a BOSS TU2 or LS2 on top of the rack, most likely used by the band’s techs for troubleshooting purposes.
Colin Greenwood’s bass setup at the Astoria
Music Man Sterling in “Honey Burst” finish
Music Man Stingray in “Honey Burst” finish
BOSS TU12 tuner
Gallien-Krueger 400RB V1 bass amplifier head
4x10 bass cabinet
1x15 bass cabinet
Colin’s music Man Sterling was his main bass for both Pablo Honey and The Bends, while the Stringray seems to have been a touring backup. Unlike the other guitars used at this show, the Sterling wasn’t stolen in Denver, but Colin no longer has the bass because in May 1996 he traded it for the Olympic White Fender Precision Bass that would become his favorite touring bass for the next two decades. The person to whom Colin traded the bass still has it, and you can see more recent photos of it on Colin’s page. The reason that the bass wasn’t stolen is that by late-1995, Colin had gotten a new touring bass: his Music Man Stingray in Green Sparkle finish. The new bass can be seen clearly in the band’s set for MTV’s Most Wanted on August 18, 1995.
A screenshot of Colin playing his Sterling during Blow Out. His 400RB amp head and TU12 tuner can be seen on top of the 4x10 cab. There’s also an unknown red/orange box on the left – it may be a DI box, but that seems unlikely since the 400RB has a dedicated “DIRECT” output. On the right, one can also see the Solina String Ensemble played by a ghost during Street Spirit.
A closeup of Colin’s Sterling from during Stop Whispering.
Phil Selway’s drum setup at the Astoria
Phil didn’t give any interviews with drum magazines during this era, so it’s hard to say much about the specific sizes of drums and cymbals. But we can tell that he’s using DW drum kit in natural finish and Ziljian K series cymbals. He stopped using DW kits soon after this, but has remained faithful to K series cymbals to this day.
A screenshot of Phil at the dw kit during My Iron Lung.
Hey there! During the 1995 Jools Holland performances of The Bends and High and Dry, I noticed Jonnys distorted guitar sound is particularly focused and wirey. Perfect example, during the solo for high and dry of that performance. Why does his sound stand out so much during this performance? We know he’s using a shredmaster and a Tele plus. Is he perhaps still using a fender tube amp instead of the 85 for dirt? Maybe his use of a quarter instead of a pick adds attack to the solo?
When Jonny’s guitar sounds much clearer on a tv performance than it does in a massive stadium, or on a record, it has very little to do with his guitar setup.
Though blurry, this screenshot from Radiohead’s Jools Holland performance of High and Dry shows Jonny using both a blackface-reissue Fender Twin Reverb and a Fender Eighty-Five (youtube).
But first, to clear one thing up: Jonny has basically never used his Shredmaster with a Fender tube amp for distortion. For approximately the first year after Radiohead were signed, the Shredmaster was his main pedal and the Eighty-Five as his main amp. Even when Jonny did start using tube amps in 1993 (such as a Fender Twin Reverb and Mesa Boogie combo), it was only for clean playing. The Shredmaster continued to be used exclusively with the Eighty-Five.
A photo of Jim Warren at the FOH mixing desk during soundcheck before one of Radiohead’s October 2016 performances in Mexico city (avidblogs).
Usually, when you hear Radiohead, it’s either on a studio recording or in a music venue. Even when reverb isn’t used as an “effect” on recordings, there’s basically always reverb added during the mixing stage to make the instruments sound more natural and blend well together. In contrast, Jim Warren (the band’s FOH engineer since the early-90s) rarely adds heavy reverb to the mix at live performances. Since Radiohead basically always play in large venues with a lot of natural reverberation, the venue itself adds all of the natural blending that the band needs (this is a big part of why direct soundboard recordings of Radiohead’s shows sound significantly more dry than album recordings). Jonny’s amps are close-mic’d for both recording and live performance, and in both cases his guitar would sound extremely dry if you just heard the sound picked up by the microphone on its own. But in both cases reverb is being added later to make his guitar sound more natural, which is why many people (citation needed) think Jonny uses reverb effects live more than he actually does.
When Radiohead perform for a television program, they generally play with the same setup that they use for live performances, but they don’t have the natural reverberation of a large venue to smooth out their sound. Just like on studio recordings, this means they need to add reverb. But whose job is it to add that reverb? In recent years, the band have been lucky enough to have the power to bring their own producers or mix engineers with them for televised performances if they want to. But back in the mid-90s, you can be sure that the producers of Jools Holland (and any other shows the band performed on) had total control over how the band were mixed for broadcast.
Jonny uses reverb infrequently-enough in live performance that it was one of the few pedals he didn’t bring along for Radiohead’s 2010 Haiti Benefit show. The odd rectangle of velcro near the center of the pedalboard is where Jonny normally keeps his reverb pedal…
Perhaps in order to make the songs sound a little clearer through television speakers, the mix engineer for Jools Holland probably just added less reverb and mixed Jonny’s guitar louder than John Leckie did on the studio recording. Or perhaps the mix engineer didn’t know the band very well, and mixed the ”lead guitar” much louder than the other two. The mix of The Bends is much less of a “wall of sound” than on the album version, but that means you’d be able to hear Thom and Jonny clearly through bad-quality television speakers. Also, note that the bass is much quieter than on the studio recording (not just the bass guitar, but the bass frequencies for the whole band). That seems to be a common mixing technique for television. Official recordings of live performances from throughout the 90s capture the “wall of sound” a lot better than the Jools Holland televised recording. A lot of the gear at the Glastonbury 1997 performance is different from the Astoria 1994 performance, but the two still sound closer to each other than to the Jools Holland recording.
So when Jonny’s guitar sounds much clearer on a tv performance than it does in a massive stadium, or on a record, it has very little to do with his setup. He may be playing the same song with the same gear, but it’s the engineers who ultimately determine how he sounds and what you hear. This is also a big part of why why Jonny’s TelePlus->Shredmaster->EightyFive setup sounds different on The Bends (produced by John Leckie) compared to OK Computer (produced by Nigel Godrich).
A screenshot of Jonny “bowing” the low-E string of his Telecaster Plus with a coin during the Jools Holland performance of High and Dry (youtube).
Hey friend, bit of a picky question here maybe, but at 4 seconds into Radiohead's performance of Just in 2009 someone makes this strange descending sound right before Jonny's octave run starts. I think it's Jonny's guitar but not sure how that sound is achieved. Been trying to find this out for a long time.
Hello! You’re correct, Jonny is responsible for those noises. He started adding them to the Just intro in 1995, and did so at most performances for the next decade-and-a-half. As is often the case with Jonny, the noise is created with a combination of technique and effects. With his right hand, Jonny scrapes the side of his pick against the grain of his guitar’s wound strings, sliding the pick down the strings for a descent in pitch. With his left, he holds and releases his guitar’s cutoff switch, allowing only short bursts of the noise to be audible (rather than the full descending scrape). As for effects, Jonny uses his Marshall Shredmaster (on its normal settings) and Digitech Whammy. The Whammy is set for a two-octave upward shift with the treadle at max, adding an almost mechanical-sounding warble and instability to the sound. It’s the same instability (and Whammy setting) heard elsewhere on Just, but applied to a percussive noise rather than notes. Ed and Jonny have both used the warble of the Whammy’s one-octave upward shift to great effect (Ed uses it to create the intro sound on Lucky, and Jonny uses it for the main riff on My Iron Lung), but it’s much rarer for the pedal’s particularly unstable two-octave shift to be used. In sum, Jonny takes what is a rather unpleasant scraping sound in isolation, and makes it quite musical using a cutoff switch, a distortion pedal’s harmonics and compression, and a pitch-shifter’s warble.
Close-up video of Jonny at the start of Just is rare, but there’s a very clear view of Jonny performing the technique in this video (0:05-0:07) of the band’s performance of Just at the 1996 Pinkpop Festival. Additionally, you can hear Jonny perform the technique in isolation at the start of this video, from the 2008 Southside Festival.
A screenshot from the Pinkpop performance (youtube). Jonny’s left hand can be seen scraping a pick against the lower wound strings, while his right middle finger rests on the guitar’s cutoff switch.
Jonny is now using his new Ondomo as his touring ondes Martenot! They replace his 80’s student model Martenot, which he used for touring in 2000 and 2016. Jonny has one Ondomo on top of his keyboard stand, and another on its own separate keyboard stand which is brought closer to Thom during How To Disappear Completely. Jonny visited Japan to pick up his first Ondomo in 2016, and had three more Ondomo delivered earlier this year.
Jonny also revamped his modular setup, which now consists of two 9U eurorack cases on their own stand, as opposed to a single 9U rack kept underneath his laptop. The patches on both 9U racks seem to be identical, so the modular on the left (unused during Idioteque) is probably just a backup in case anything goes wrong.
Jonny seems to be trying to make his setup more “modular” in the traditional sense, since his laptop setup now also has its own independent stand. Its rolling table is wheeled closer to Thom’s piano for Videotape, when Jonny plays a Max/MSP drum machine patch.
Jonny is no longer using Nigel’s Crumar Multiman-S / Orchestrator – his keyboard setup now consists exclusively of the Ondomo and his Fatar Keys SL-161. Jonny’s new keyboard stand appears to have a sliding tray for the Fatar.
Thom used Nigel’s sunburst Fender Telecaster for Burn The Witch. Nigel had previously used the guitar with Atoms for Peace in 2013.
Ed switched back to a Fender-only amp setup, after using a Fender Vibro-King Custom and a Vox AC30 on the 2016 tour. The new setup consists of two 4x12 cabinets fed by a single Fender amp head, possible a Bassman. The two cabinets are slightly angled upwards, making it easier for Ed to hear them and safer for fans at the front of the crowd.
The Ondomo is visible on the right side of the image, on top of Jonny’s keyboard stand (@xkurzx). Jonny has a BOSS TU12H taped to the top of it.
Jonny playing an ondomo when he picked up his first one in Japan (@ygrrrrr).
Jonny playing his modular during Idioteque (godieinhell2).
Thom and Jonny during a performance of Videotape (@suryaf).
Thom playing Nigel’s Telecaster on Burn The Witch (godieinhell2).
Nigel’s Telecaster being carried offstage in Fairfax, VA in 2013 – original post with photo by Gio.
Ed’s new amp head is behind and to the side of his cabinets, suggesting that he doesn’t intend to adjust its settings much (@simone007).
Some further updates:
There’s a small screen mounted on the upright piano, just beneath the camera. The screen is showing the feed from the camera, so it’s probably there so that Thom can better align his eye for You and Whose Army? (see the above picture).
Burn The Witch has been rearranged a bit, with Thom entering with guitar (Nigel’s Tele) near the start and Jonny playing their DSI Prophet ‘08 as well as guitar. Jonny plays the Prophet during the first half of second verse, and during and the second half of the second chorus (godieinhell2). Jonny had previously played his ondes Martenot during the start of the second verse and guitar for the rest of the song.
On Climbing Up The Walls, the second Ondomo and another keyboard (possibly the Prophet ‘08) are brought out to Jonny (godieinhell2). It seems like Jonny’s setup has been rearranged such that, whenever possible, he’s closer to Thom and the rest of the band.
Thom is using his 60′s Gibson SG for The Tourist. When the band last played the song in 2008, Thom played Jonny’s natural finish Gibson Less Paul (allbearsrule).
Thom at the piano during the band’s performance of All I Need in Miami (allbearsrule).
Post-Atlanta Updates:
Audio Kitchen posted a photo on Flickr identifying Ed’s amplifiers as their own. The two amps are called ‘Emcee’ and ‘Burly Chassis’, each running into one of Audio Kitchen’s standard 1x12″ cabinets. Steve from Audio Kitchen informed us that Ed’s amps use the Big Chopper as their basis, but have a special reverb modification which uses amp’s second channel as a reverb return. This allows Ed to change the tone of the reverb using the second channel’s Baxandall EQ. The cabinets are fitted with Celestion Blues.
Additional photos of Ed’s setup show us that in addition to the Audio Kitchen amp heads, he is also using a Fender amp head of some kind. This is very likely being used as a spare, since Ed only has two cabinets.
Jonny is now using his Ondomo on Desert Island Disk. He initially loops a note played on the Ondomo, then spends the rest of the song adjusting the settings of a BOSS RV5 reverb. The RV5 is kept on the music stand next to the Ondomo.
During the 2016 tour, Jonny had used his keyboard Akai Headrush E2 to loop a chord played on the Crumar Orchestrator / Multiman-S. He would then manipulate the volume of the Headrush throughout the song.
Thom is also playing Nigel’s sunburst Telecaster on My Iron Lung (godieinhell2). Thom had played his ‘64 Gibson SG on the song since 2007.
On Paranoid Android,How To Disappear Completely, and The Numbers, Thom seems to have switched to using a new Martin acoustic. The new instrument is far less worn than Thom’s main Martin 000-18, which has considerable wear from strumming. The old Martin was still used to performFake Plastic Trees, however.
In 2016, Thom used his Gibson B25 for Paranoid Android and How To Disappear Completely and his old Martin for The Numbers.
Jonny adjusting a BOSS RV5 during Desert Island Disk (peterhutchins). You can also see him do so briefly in this video.
Ed’s amp setup in Atlanta (@chrisimparato). His small rack setup is is also visible to the right of the amps.
Post-Missouri Updates:
The band played Where I End and You Begin for the first time since 2008! The arrangement is similar to the 2008 From The Basement version, but Clive Deamer provides added percussion throughout. Additionally, Ed and Jonny both play different instruments than they had previously.
Ed used his Custom Fender Stratocaster’s Sustainer System instead of his Epiphone Casino and EBow. Ed is still using his EBow for My Iron Lung and Nude.
Jonny used his Ondomo instead of his Analogue Systems French Connection (and The Apprentice Cabinet), and the band’s DSI Prophet ‘08 instead of a sampled synth triggered by his Fatar CMS-161. Jonny has also started also using the Prophet ‘08 on Climbing Up The Walls and Myxomatosis. He had used his CMS-161 for synth samples on both songs prior to the 2016 tour, when he had used his Crumar Orchestrator / Multiman-S.
Jonny used his “production” finish Ondomo during Radiohead’s concert in Kansas City. The “production“ finish Ondomo was kept on top of his main keyboard stand, and was to play Airbag. One of his two “JGreen Brown” finish Ondomos served as his primary ondes Musicales for the concert.
Thom is using only three acoustic guitars for this year’s tour: his new Martin 000-18, his old Martin 00-18 (which was used heavily on A Moon Shaped Pool), and his Gibson B25. It seems that his Gibson Hummingbird, which was used for Climbing Up The Walls in 2016, is no longer a part of his live setup.
On Lucky, Ed is using a new Fender Stratocaster, and Thom is using his Gibson SG.
Ed’s new Fender Strat is black with a black pickguard, a maple fingerboard, and three Gold Lace Sensor pickups. It may be the Eric Clapton Signature Strat which he first used in 2012, but with the original white pickguard swapped out for a black one. This would be unsurprising, given that Ed swapped out the white pickguard on his original Clapton Strat (which after circa-2002 modifications became his “Sustainer” Strat) for a black one.
Prior to the SG, Thom had used various Epihphone Casinos for the song starting in 2009, when he stopped bringing his Rickenbacker 330 on tour.
Aside from the new Strat, Ed mostly using the same guitars as last year: he’s using his Custom Fender Stratocaster for most songs, his Rickenbacker 360′s for most songs off of OK Computer, his Gibson ES-335 for some of In Rainbows (Nude and Videotape), and his Gretsch Panther for everything else.
The Panther replaced Ed’s ES-335 for Bodysnatchers in 2016, and this year it also replaces the Gibson for House of Cards.
Where I End and You Begin in Kansas City – Jonny can be seen on the left playing the DSI Prophet ‘08 (serfi).
Jonny is now using his new Ondomo as his touring ondes Martenot! They replace his 80’s student model Martenot, which he used for touring in 2000 and 2016. Jonny has one Ondomo on top of his keyboard stand, and another on its own separate keyboard stand which is brought closer to Thom during How To Disappear Completely. Jonny visited Japan to pick up his first Ondomo in 2016, and had three more Ondomo delivered earlier this year.
Jonny also revamped his modular setup, which now consists of two 9U eurorack cases on their own stand, as opposed to a single 9U rack kept underneath his laptop. The patches on both 9U racks seem to be identical, so the modular on the left (unused during Idioteque) is probably just a backup in case anything goes wrong.
Jonny seems to be trying to make his setup more “modular” in the traditional sense, since his laptop setup now also has its own independent stand. Its rolling table is wheeled closer to Thom’s piano for Videotape, when Jonny plays a Max/MSP drum machine patch.
Jonny is no longer using Nigel’s Crumar Multiman-S / Orchestrator – his keyboard setup now consists exclusively of the Ondomo and his Fatar Keys SL-161. Jonny’s new keyboard stand appears to have a sliding tray for the Fatar.
Thom used Nigel’s sunburst Fender Telecaster for Burn The Witch. Nigel had previously used the guitar with Atoms for Peace in 2013.
Ed switched back to a Fender-only amp setup, after using a Fender Vibro-King Custom and a Vox AC30 on the 2016 tour. The new setup consists of two 4x12 cabinets fed by a single Fender amp head, possible a Bassman. The two cabinets are slightly angled upwards, making it easier for Ed to hear them and safer for fans at the front of the crowd.
The Ondomo is visible on the right side of the image, on top of Jonny’s keyboard stand (@xkurzx). Jonny has a BOSS TU12H taped to the top of it.
Jonny playing an ondomo when he picked up his first one in Japan (@ygrrrrr).
Jonny playing his modular during Idioteque (godieinhell2).
Thom and Jonny during a performance of Videotape (@suryaf).
Thom playing Nigel’s Telecaster on Burn The Witch (godieinhell2).
Nigel’s Telecaster being carried offstage in Fairfax, VA in 2013 – original post with photo by Gio.
Ed’s new amp head is behind and to the side of his cabinets, suggesting that he doesn’t intend to adjust its settings much (@simone007).
Some further updates:
There’s a small screen mounted on the upright piano, just beneath the camera. The screen is showing the feed from the camera, so it’s probably there so that Thom can better align his eye for You and Whose Army? (see the above picture).
Burn The Witch has been rearranged a bit, with Thom entering with guitar (Nigel’s Tele) near the start and Jonny playing their DSI Prophet ‘08 as well as guitar. Jonny plays the Prophet during the first half of second verse, and during and the second half of the second chorus (godieinhell2). Jonny had previously played his ondes Martenot during the start of the second verse and guitar for the rest of the song.
On Climbing Up The Walls, the second Ondomo and another keyboard (possibly the Prophet ‘08) are brought out to Jonny (godieinhell2). It seems like Jonny’s setup has been rearranged such that, whenever possible, he’s closer to Thom and the rest of the band.
Thom is using his 60′s Gibson SG for The Tourist. When the band last played the song in 2008, Thom played Jonny’s natural finish Gibson Less Paul (allbearsrule).
Thom at the piano during the band’s performance of All I Need in Miami (allbearsrule).
Post-Atlanta Updates:
Audio Kitchen posted a photo on Flickr identifying Ed’s amplifiers as their own. The two amps are called ‘Emcee’ and 'Burly Chassis’, each running into one of Audio Kitchen’s standard 1x12″ cabinets. Steve from Audio Kitchen informed us that Ed’s amps use the Big Chopper as their basis, but have a special reverb modification which uses amp’s second channel as a reverb return. This allows Ed to change the tone of the reverb using the second channel’s Baxandall EQ. The cabinets are fitted with Celestion Blues.
Additional photos of Ed’s setup show us that in addition to the Audio Kitchen amp heads, he is also using a Fender amp head of some kind. This is very likely being used as a spare, since Ed only has two cabinets.
Jonny is now using his Ondomo on Desert Island Disk. He initially loops a note played on the Ondomo, then spends the rest of the song adjusting the settings of a BOSS RV5 reverb. The RV5 is kept on the music stand next to the Ondomo.
During the 2016 tour, Jonny had used his keyboard Akai Headrush E2 to loop a chord played on the Crumar Orchestrator / Multiman-S. He would then manipulate the volume of the Headrush throughout the song.
Thom is also playing Nigel’s sunburst Telecaster on My Iron Lung (godieinhell2). Thom had played his ‘64 Gibson SG on the song since 2007.
On Paranoid Android,How To Disappear Completely, and The Numbers, Thom seems to have switched to using a new Martin acoustic. The new instrument is far less worn than Thom’s main Martin 000-18, which has considerable wear from strumming. The old Martin was still used to performFake Plastic Trees, however.
In 2016, Thom used his Gibson B25 for Paranoid Android and How To Disappear Completely and his old Martin for The Numbers.
Jonny adjusting a BOSS RV5 during Desert Island Disk (peterhutchins). You can also see him do so briefly in this video.
Ed’s amp setup in Atlanta (@chrisimparato). His small rack setup is is also visible to the right of the amps.
