[eBay]Wait, there are guitars on Radiohead's Kid A? (Kidding!) Ed O'Brien is auctioning off the white Fender Telecaster that was used on Kid A and Amnesiac and during Radiohead concerts from 1998 up until the 2007 In Rainbows tour. Why is he departing with such a storied piece of music history, the six-string that gave birth to "Optimistic" and "I Might Be Wrong"? Because whatever the guitar draws at auction, all of that money will go to the Billie Butterfly Fund, which benefits children with brain cancer. All of the members of Radiohead also signed the Telecaster; isn't it adorable how both Thom Yorke and bassist Colin Greenwood turn their signatures into smiley faces?
On the handwritten "authenticity note," O'Brien penned, "To whoever ends up with this Tele... It was bought in the summer of '98, just prior to us going into record the albums which came out as Kid A and Amnesiac. It was pretty much the only guitar I used at that time. It's also been gigged a lot, up until and including the In Rainbows tour." The Telecaster has only been on eBay for about a day, but 43 bids have already pushed the guitar's price up to £4,700.00 (about $7,500). John Lennon's tooth is expected to land £10,000 at auction, so just imagine how much this guitar will raise for charity, especially considering that everyone from Rolling Stone to Pitchfork (and this Amp writer) named Kid A the best album of the last decade.
There are nine days left in the auction, so the sky's the limit on the final bid, but it's fairly obvious who's going to win this Telecaster: Coldplay's Chris Martin, who for years has been trying to capture Radiohead's sound and create his own Kid A. What better way to do that than by purchasing the very instrument that features on that masterpiece. It's like buying DaVinci's paintbrush! Martin also seems like the type of guy who would swoop in and make a last second bid to seal the deal.