Radiohead Fever Dreams, Cassandra Wilson and Dylan’s Darker Side

Radiohead’s long-awaited return to Australian stages provides the spark for Episode 39 of On The Record with Brian Wise and Michael Mackenzie—and the hosts could scarcely have more divergent views.

Michael Mackenzie is in the ballot for the band’s multi-night runs across Perth, Melbourne and Sydney, keen to hear how a group with such a vast catalogue might shift its set from night to night.

In Rainbows remains a particular favourite.

Brian Wise, however, recalls a deeply strange late-night encounter with Radiohead on MTV after a Louisiana crawfish boil many years ago. It was, he says, less a musical revelation than a fever dream—and enough to put him off seeing them live ever since.

However, there’s good news for those who missed David Byrne’s recent Who Is the Sky shows. Byrne’s five-night Baltimore residency has been filmed and is being shaped into a concert movie, continuing a formidable screen legacy that includes Jonathan Demme’s Stop Making Sense and Spike Lee’s American Utopia.

The episode also pauses for two farewells. British sitcom star Richard O’Sullivan—remembered for Man About the House and Robin’s Nest—gets a fond nod, while the hosts pay tribute to Cassandra Wilson, the Mississippi-born singer whose recordings brought jazz, blues and roots music into striking new focus.

Her versions of “You Gotta Move” and “Death Letter” are singled out as essential listening, with Wise recalling the formidable presence of her Jazz Fest appearances.

From the cassette archive comes another treasure: Wise’s 1986 interview with Richard Thompson. It joins a steadily growing digitisation project that is rescuing old conversations and radio recordings from tape—a welcome reminder that the musical past is often sitting in boxes, waiting for another chance to be heard.

Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks also comes under scrutiny, via the changing lyrics of “If You See Her, Say Hello”.

The album version is melancholy and resigned; later live performances took the song somewhere much harsher, transforming wounded reflection into something close to menace.

It is a telling illustration of Dylan’s restless instinct to keep reworking even his most beloved songs.

On screen, Bill Nighy takes centre stage twice.

Wise is working through Lazarus, the latest Harlan Coben adaptation, while Mackenzie catches Nighy alongside Imelda Staunton in And Sons, a family drama about an estranged writer summoning his three sons to his crumbling London estate. The verdict is measured: strong performances and an intriguing premise, though perhaps better suited to the small screen than the cinema.

Elsewhere, Ryan Reynolds and Kenneth Branagh’s action vehicle Mayday gets a qualified recommendation for undemanding Saturday-night viewing—though its real point of interest is the score by avant-garde saxophonist Colin Stetson. For Wise, the appearance of an SR-71 Blackbird does not hurt either.