#8 of 10: http://t.co/IAEHtG1 Have you really considered that you have been lied to constantly since you were born? (Expires Aug 25 or so)

Aug 18, 2011:

@ChieftanMews: #8 of 10: http://t.co/IAEHtG1 Have you really considered that you have been lied to constantly since you were born? (Expires Aug 25 or so)

The 3rd of a series of 10 weekly questions asked by Chieftan Mews.

In this case it came with a link to The King of Limbs – Live from The Basement on the Offical Radiohead Youtube Channel which the band have been using since 2005 to host their videoclips and some webcast material for In Rainbows and The King of Limbs. They also uploaded all of the remixes from TKOL-RMX 1234567 and The Daily Mail/Staircase along with The King of Limbs on the day the album was released in stores.

Radiohead reported on Dead Air Space that there had been a issue getting The King of Limbs – From The Basement shown in the UK, apologizing for the delay on July 20th as “the original broadcaster decided not to show it”.

On June 5th 2011 BBC Worldwide Music Television announced that they had signed a deal to be the international distributor for The King of Limbs – Live From the Basement.

Their press release gave the following details:

BBC Worldwide Music Television has signed a deal with Radiohead to distribute internationally a new and exclusive live performance of Radiohead’s eighth album, ‘The King of Limbs’.

Radiohead – The King of Limbs: Live From The Basement is a 55-minute performance from one of the most successful and critically acclaimed acts of their generation, who have sold over 30 million albums worldwide. The programme will feature the notoriously elusive band performing the entirety of their celebrated new album in a studio setting with some additional behind the scenes material. It is scheduled to be the first time that the grammy-award winners are captured on camera this year.

The King of Limbs album was released digitally in February 2011 and physically at the end of March 2011, yet this exclusive performance will be the first time the band will have played this collection of songs in public. The band will be performing for acclaimed music show ‘From the Basement’, the brain child of production genius Nigel Godrich, who has either engineered or produced all of Radiohead’s albums since The Bends and has worked with a variety of international acts including Paul McCartney, U2, R.E.M and Air.

Having launched the title at MIPTV, BBC Worldwide has already received pre-sale offers for a number of major territories and expects to have a substantial network of broadcasters in place for its premiere.

Salim Mukaddam, VP Music Television at BBC Worldwide said, “It is a real honour to be working with Radiohead on this project. Radiohead are a band that rarely performs for television, but when they do, it’s a moment to savour. There is already huge anticipation for this performance and we’re delighted that they’ve decided to work with us at BBC Worldwide, confirming our position as market leaders in Music Television. As a fan I cannot wait to see these beautiful songs brought to life in this programme.”

Bryce Edge of Courtyard Management, Radiohead’s management company said, “This will be Radiohead’s first collaboration with BBC Worldwide and the band are excited at the prospect of having their first live performance of ‘The King of Limbs’ broadcast around the world . The band will be filmed and recorded by the From The Basement team, which includes Nigel Godrich their long time producer, Dilly Gent ,who commissioned many of the memorable Radiohead videos and Grant Gee who filmed the Radiohead documentary ‘Meeting People is Easy'”

Radiohead – The King of Limbs: Live from the Basement becomes available to international broadcasters in June and is embargoed for broadcast until 1st July 2011. The programme is filmed in HD, will have no audience and no presenter – just a rare opportunity to see an intimate performance from one of the greatest bands in the world.

( Source: BBC.co.uk )

On the 20th of July BBC Worldwide America announced that rights had been sold to broadcast the performance on the MTV Network in America.

The BBC Worldwide Blog carried a piece the next day written by Salim Mukaddam the Vice President of BBC Worldwide Music Television about the project:

Last year I had the opportunity to bring together my personal passion and professional life when I met with Radiohead’s management, Bryce Edge and Chris Hufford. You could not wish to meet two more welcoming, co-operative, professional and knowledgeable people. Both Chris and Bryce instantly saw the potential that a partnership with BBC Worldwide could deliver. However, any project was obviously going to be dependent on the band – thankfully the band was interested and had a project in mind.

Radiohead launched their new album ‘The King of Limbs’ in February and from that point everything seemed to happen at light speed. The band wanted to work with their long time producer Nigel Godrich. He is one of the team responsible for ‘From The Basement’ – an incredible music show that sets the benchmark for quality in music television. The band’s concept was to perform the whole of their new album for our TV project…

…The result is a beautiful fifty five minute journey into the world of Radiohead. The King of Limbs is a stunning album in itself, but seeing the band bring these songs to life is a joy to behold. The full programme is coming to a TV screen near you soon, with confirmed broadcasts on Palladia in the USA, Canal + in Spain, Fuji TV in Japan, MultiShow in Brazil and SuperChannel in Canada.

(Source: BBCWorldwide Blog)

To date Radiohead – Live from the Basement never made it to television in the UK despite broadcasts occurring in other countries such as Spain, America, Canada, Japan, Brazil and Australia. The BBC Claims that this was due to them being ‘unable to find a broadcast partner’ for the UK even with the BBC having their own broadcasting network in that region.

The ‘lie’ statement from Mews refers to the fact that the copy of The King of Limbs – Live From The Basement uploaded to Youtube was described as ‘in full’ in the Youtube Comments, Chieftan Mews had previously claimed on July 12th that the version broadcast was missing footage of Supercollider ( @nigelgod that buck, took me out of the final cut so I took Supercollider & some juicy footage before being banished to the Zigg. Stuck.Help ).

On February 3rd 2012 AustinLBrock uploaded the full recording of The King of Limbs – Live From The Basement to Youtube with the permission of the band’s management and BBC Worldwide. Unlike the original version uploaded by the band this included the footage of Supercollider from the Bluray and DVD that the band released on the 9th of November 2011.

Mew’s later retweeted a link to the video from AustinLBrock ( RT: @AustinLBrock: [1080p] Radiohead – The King Of Limbs From The Basement [Full Show + Supercollider] #Radiohead #ThomYorke http://t.co/tD0arRGD ).

We’d love to hear what answers other people sent to Mew’s ‘quiz’!
Let us know in the comments or email muggs@ersmenoo.com.

@stanleydonwood @nigelgod : You can’t see this message

Jun 29, 2011:

@ChieftanMews: @stanleydonwood @nigelgod : You can’t see this message

Chieftan Mew’s negates himself here, by tagging both Stanley Donwood and Nigel Godrich (@nigelgod) in his message he assures that both can see and will be notified of his message.

Instead it’s more likely that he’s informing fans of Nigel’s new twitter account as his disused former account of @nigelgodrich has no tweets.

Compulsive Liar.

@ChieftanMews: Remember: 99 percent of everything on the internet is a lie.

Mew’s often calls himself a liar, this comes back to his first days as the host of The Most Gigantic Lying Mouth of All Time in 2003.

This gives the impression that everything Mews says can not be trusted.

However the dilemma comes from the fact that while Mews IS most certainly a compulsive liar he is also a unofficial spokesperson for Radiohead within the fan community.

The Most Gigantic Lying Mouth of All Time?

How do you know when someone’s telling the truth? Let alone a non-verified twitter account by a self confessed liar?

Ever since the discussions started people have questioned the authenticity of Mews, the matter growing more complicated as fakes and copycats emerged. Yet there is strong evidence that Mews is genuine.

1. Followers and Following:
On the day The King of Limbs was released Chieftan Mew’s only had 100 or so followers and was only following a couple of accounts (at the time Stanley Donwood and Radiohead) while he has a bad habit of deleting past tweets he had tweets from as far back as 2010 – long before TKOL was released.

A few days after the discussions started on forums and Mew’s follower count had climbed over 300 Mew’s left the following message:

Mob Likens Fight ** If XXXX Links, Beg ** Fib Me, Ghost Link! ** ␄

After which his account was set to private. Possibly this was to avoid the media following him as being private allows him to accept or deny each follow request and offers him the ability to send them messages.

2. Timezones:
Mew’s tends to be quite regular about tweeting, however he will tweet earlier or later depending on movements, while Radiohead where in the USA he was tweeting a day later then when he was in Europe.

3. Language:
From the very first video Mew’s has had a unique way of speaking which has been translated to twitter. He often mixes up song lyrics or obscure references to places, band trivia and recordings both new and old. While some have attempted to parody and copy his style (see Chieftan Meows for one hilarious example) inside knowledge such as the exact meaning of Ims Menoo/Ers Menoo and their use quickly separates Mews from imitators.

4. Operator 3:
Lurker originally posted this discussion with a W.A.S.T.E customer support person last year:

[Visitor] is the twitter account “ChieftanMews” http://twitter.com/#!/ChieftanMews in any way affiliated with the band. the reason i ask, this account accurately predicted radiohead’s “japanese tweet” as well as the video for lotus flower
[Operator 3]we know of chieftan mews
[Visitor] so this isn’t a troll?
[Operator 3] no, this is all i can say

5. Stanley Donwood:
Stanley has referenced Mew’s a number of times in tweets (and Mew’s has returned the favour in kind) with the two giving some amusing banter on who is following who.

Joining Facebook:
Mew’s Joined Facebook late last year as ‘The Chieftan Mews’ as his usual title was already taken by a impersonator. As with his first tweets his first two posts consisted of links to himself on The Greatest Lying Mouth of All Time followed by similar to identical messages to those posted on Twitter. He’s also been known to like posts and send messages bringing his activity in line with that on Twitter.