In a Spinner interview that made the rounds yesterday, the Fiery Furnaces' brotherly half, Matthew Friedberger, had some choice (and vaguely confusing) words for Radiohead.

The issue at hand was Radiohead's song "Harry Patch (In Memory Of)", Radiohead's tribute to Harry Patch, the last surviving British World War I veteran, who died in July. (Patch was often known as "the last Tommy," a "Tommy" being an old term for a British soldier.)

But Friedberger went the fuck off, confusing the song's subject with the similarly-named experimental composer Harry Partch, according to his publicist. He said, "'Oh, please listen to our new song about Harry Patch'. Fuck you! You brand yourself by brazenly and arbitrarily associating yourself with things that you know people consider cool. That is bogus. That's a put-on. That's a branding technique, and Radiohead have their brand that they're popular and intelligent, so they have a song about Harry Patch."

He continued, "How's the song? Is it 48 notes to the octave? What does it have to do with Harry Patch? Oh, my wife says I am being very rude. She doesn't like me insulting Radiohead. She's afraid they will send their lackeys through the computer to sabotage us. But they needn't worry -- we are a band that sabotages ourselves."

Well, Friedberger has now issued a statement clarifying what he was saying there. To hear Friedberger tell it, he still doesn't like Radiohead, but he does know the difference between Harry Patch and Harry Partch.

The entire statement, which still doesn't make much sense, is below:

"Like most creative musicians, Matt Friedberger is not a fan of Radiohead and most of their chart busters. Of course, Matt and all the Fiery Furnaces family are great fans of all Tommys living or dead, so much so that lots of the Fiery Furnaces' work is, because of the pun, dedicated to imitating the Who's Tommy.

"Back in the fall of 1996 or whenever that interview was conducted, the interviewer asked what Matt thought of the Radiohead song celebrating a WWI veteran. Matt naturally thought it would be interesting to pretend that they wrote a song about the celebrated American composer of a similar sounding name, hence his joking in the interview about Radiohead composing a song with something like 48 notes to an octave. It was easy and amusing to imagine Radiohead's attempt to colonize that relatively arcane bit of our musical lifeworld. This is what they used to call, in some bohemian and advertising circles, 'riffing' or fooling around.

"Matt has not heard the Radiohead song about Harry Patch, but if he did, he is sure he wouldn't like it. No doubt Radiohead and their fans can ignore his opinion of this matter and continue with their triumphant artistic interventions. Matt would have much preferred to insult Beck but he is too afraid of Scientologists."

Oh... snap?