The Smile: Tiny Desk Concert

VPM | By Bob Boilen

Published January 3, 2023 at 10:00 AM EST

Updated April 10, 2023

Surely my musical highlight for 2022 was this Tiny Desk concert from The Smile. Just how Radiohead‘s Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, and Sons of Kemet drummer Tom Skinner were going to perform songs from their sonically adventurous album A Light for Attracting Attention was a puzzle not only to me but to the band. They arrived early, along with saxophonist Robert Stillman, to test out several tunes and figure out just what made sense behind my desk — minus the volume and effects that shape the album’s sonic landscape. For roughly 90 minutes, the Tiny Desk crew was treated to a casual rehearsal, witnessing the band’s creative companionship work itself out, settling on four songs.

I generally crank up the volume when I listen to The Smile, but as the band settled into the opening song, “Pana-vision,” Thom Yorke’s fingers gently stroking the piano keys with his voice not much louder, I was drawn in; the mood felt simultaneously mysterious and welcoming with the bass, sax and drums punctuating the now surreal atmosphere.

For keen eyes, you’ll see Thom Yorke being handed a guitar for the second tune but all of a sudden he’s playing bass while Jonny Greenwood’s bass is suddenly a guitar. They had recorded another tune before “The Smoke,” but it didn’t make the final cut; they weren’t happy with their performance. The set ends with my favorite song, “Skrting On the Surface,” and we hear the vocals, guitar, bass and drums weaving so perfectly with lyrics that remind us how fragile our lives are and for me how these magical moments can be transcendent.

SET LIST

“Pana-vision”

“The Smoke”

“Skrting On the Surface”

MUSICIANS

Thom Yorke: vocals, piano, guitar, bass

Jonny Greenwood: bass, guitar

Tom Skinner: drums

Robert Stillman: saxophone

TINY DESK TEAM

Producer: Bob Boilen

Director/Editor: Maia Stern

Audio Engineer: Josh Rogosin

Series Producer: Bobby Carter

Videographers: Maia Stern, Joshua Bryant, Sofia Seidel

Production Assistant: Jill Britton

Tiny Desk Team: Suraya Mohamed, Marissa Lorusso, Hazel Cills, Kara Frame, Ashley Pointer, Teresa Xie

VP, Visuals and Music: Keith Jenkins

Senior VP, Programming: Anya Grundmann

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Bob Boilen

In 1988, a determined Bob Boilen started showing up on NPR's doorstep every day, looking for a way to contribute his skills in music and broadcasting to the network. His persistence paid off, and within a few weeks he was hired, on a temporary basis, to work for All Things Considered. Less than a year later, Boilen was directing the show and continued to do so for the next 18 years.

Significant listener interest in the music being played on All Things Considered, along with his and NPR's vast music collections, gave Boilen the idea to start All Songs Considered. "It was obvious to me that listeners of NPR were also lovers of music, but what also became obvious by 1999 was that the web was going to be the place to discover new music and that we wanted to be the premiere site for music discovery." The show launched in 2000, with Boilen as its host.

Before coming to NPR, Boilen found many ways to share his passion for music. From 1982 to 1986 he worked for Baltimore's Impossible Theater, where he held many posts, including composer, technician, and recording engineer. Boilen became part of music history in 1983 with the Impossible Theater production Whiz Bang, a History of Sound. In it, Boilen became one of the first composers to use audio sampling — in this case, sounds from nature and the industrial revolution. He was interviewed about Whiz Bang by Susan Stamberg on All Things Considered.

In 1985, the Washington City Paper voted Boilen 'Performance Artist of the Year.' An electronic musician, he received a grant from the Washington D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities to work on electronic music and performance.

After Impossible Theater, Boilen worked as a producer for a television station in Washington, D.C. He produced several projects, including a music video show. In 1997, he started producing an online show called Science Live for the Discovery Channel. He also put out two albums with his psychedelic band, Tiny Desk Unit, during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Boilen still composes and performs music and posts it for free on his website BobBoilen.info. He performs contradance music and has a podcast of contradance music that he produces with his son Julian.

Boilen's first book, Your Song Changed My Life, was published in April 2016 by HarperCollins.

See stories by Bob Boilen