March 13, 1995 –
Parlophone Records released Radiohead’s second studio album, The Bends, in the UK on this date.
John Leckie, the producer of The Bends, recalled to Q magazine April 2008 the recording of the album: “I love the album but by the end of the sessions I felt devastated. Without telling me, the band sent copies of the master tapes to the States to be mixed by the Americans who produced Pablo Honey. It was the first time it had happened to me. After 100 days’ work I felt like I’d given birth to a dozen babies and had them all taken away. I wasn’t even invited to the final playback. The band chose me as producer because I did the first Magazine album Real Life, which they were all big fans of. I suggested we use the Manor studio in Oxfordshire but they said it was ‘too rock ‘n’ roll’ and went for Mickie Most’s RAK studio in London, where they worked solidly for nine weeks. Thom would be there when the studio opened at 9 o’clock, working on his own at the piano before the others turned up at 12. After that the band went off on a tour of the Far East. When they came back they weren’t happy with a lot of what we’d done at RAK so they decided they would use the Manor after all. After that I went to Abbey Road to start mixing. I heard later the band said it was like the schoolteacher had left the room. Maybe it was an age thing, I was 20 years older than them. They felt more comfortable with RAK’s assistant engineer, this young guy, Nigel Godrich.“
The Haus of Dcaligari 