Every college town nurtures its own hothouse music subculture, and the venerable university halls of Oxford, England, are no exception. During the 1990s Brit-pop era, the “Oxford scene” saw bands such as the chirpy retro-pop trio Supergrass and the dreamy “shoegaze” outfit Ride making waves nationally. But no band emerged with the same impact as Radiohead. Art-rockers whose members got together while pupils at an expensive private school in Abingdon (a small town a few miles south of Oxford), they debuted in 1986 under their original name, On a Friday, at Oxford’s legendarily scuzzy music venue, the Jericho Tavern.
So it’s a homecoming, next Wednesday, when “This Is What You Get: Stanley Donwood, Radiohead, Thom Yorke” opens at Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum. Featuring the band’s original artwork—paintings for album covers, drawings, etchings, CD booklets, posters, and drafts of lyrics—the exhibition takes its title from a line in Radiohead’s haunting song “Karma Police.”
