In case you haven’t figured it out yet, Randophonic is a radio program that airs pretty much every Saturday night starting at 11pm (Pacific time) on CiTR.FM.101.9. You can read more about all that here.
Our current focus is How 2B Confused (aka the 1499 Records we all need to hear Before the Eschaton Immenatizes) — our longest, least concise countdown yet.
Download Randophonic podcasts via this archive. Stream Randophonic programs here.
Installment #47 of How 2B Confused aired in March, 2023 (c/o CiTR.FM.101.9).
How 2B Confused is Randophonic’s longest, most random and least concise countdown yet, tracking as it does the 1499 Records We All Really Need To Hear Before The Eschaton Immenatizes.
Whatever that means.
What it means is we’ll be at it until either the end of time, or we hit #1, whichever happens first (assuming both don’t happen in simultaneous singularity).
How 2B Confused #47, mixcloud stream.
A few highlights.
Installment #46 of How 2B Confused aired in March, 2023 (c/o CiTR.FM.101.9).
How 2B Confused is Randophonic’s longest, most random and least concise countdown yet, tracking as it does the 1499 Records We All Really Need To Hear Before The Eschaton Immenatizes.
Whatever that means.
What it means is we’ll be at it until either the end of time, or we hit #1, whichever happens first (assuming both don’t happen in simultaneous singularity).
How 2B Confused #46 download link (c/o CiTR.FM.101.9), mixcloud stream.
A few highlights.
Installment #45 of How 2B Confused aired in early March, 2023 (c/o CiTR.FM.101.9).
How 2B Confused is Randophonic’s longest, most random and least concise countdown yet, tracking as it does the 1499 Records We All Really Need To Hear Before The Eschaton Immenatizes.
Whatever that means.
What it means is we’ll be at it until either the end of time, or we hit #1, whichever happens first (assuming both don’t happen in simultaneous singularity).
How 2B Confused #45 download link (c/o CiTR.FM.101.9), mixcloud stream.
A few highlights.
Installment #44 of How 2B Confused aired back in February, 2023 (c/o CiTR.FM.101.9).
How 2B Confused has been airing for the past couple of years, but for various reasons has been getting ignored here at Randophonic.com. That is now changing. It’s our longest countdown yet, also our most random and least concise, tracking as it does the 1499 Records We All Really Need To Hear Before The Eschaton Immenatizes.
Whatever that means.
What it means is we’ll be at it until either the end of time, or we hit #1, whichever happens first (assuming both don’t happen in simultaneous singularity).
Download link (c/o CiTR.FM.101.9) Mixcloud stream.
A few highlights from How 2B Confused #44.
“The #1 greatest record you probably haven’t already heard is Robert John‘s take on The Lion Sleeps Tonight. Which is immediately kind of a lie. All kinds of people heard it back in the day. It was the #21 biggest selling single of 1972 in the USA, #45 in Canada. Yet somehow or other the world seems to have mostly forgotten about it. It’s also not the greatest song you probably haven’t already heard. It just isn’t. But what is then? I don’t know. I’m just some guy sitting on a porch, making a list. What I do know is The Lion Sleeps Tonight isn’t just any song. Written in 1922 by a man named Solomon Linda, a South African of Zulu origin, finally released almost twenty years later under the title Mbube, a 78-rpm record that was mostly marketed to black audiences in South Africa.
But something clearly happened along the way, not all of it good. In fact the song’s back story includes one of the more notorious copyright crimes of all time. The upside of all that being the myriad cover versions that flooded forth– everybody from Miriam Makeba to Brian Eno to Chet Atkins to Roger Whittaker, Yma Sumac, The Weavers, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Sandra Bernhard, the Stylistics, even REM (sort of). But Robert John’s take is the one for me, and not just for nailing the yodeling, but also the doo-wop stylings, and there’s a tuba involved, some pedal steel as well. And so it captures the peace and joy and freedom from worry (if only for one night) that it’s all about. Because the lion is asleep. Which if you think about it, doesn’t really makes sense. If the lion’s asleep, isn’t a raucous party going to wake it up? Not if it’s been drugged. So whatever. It’s a party! We’re alive and we’re singing, and tomorrow and all of its troubles – that’s just a rumour. Tonight the Lion Sleeps.
“Because there had to be at least one James Brown track on this list — Godfather of Soul, Hardest Working Man in Show Business, Soul Brother No. 1 and a bunch more, I’m sure. Including I hope some reference to funk. He did invent funk, didn’t he? What do I know? I’m just some white guy from the suburbs. I’ll tell you what I know. I know that whatever it is we’re all doing here, this being alive, this ever expanding sustained chain reaction of possibilities that comes with breathing, moving, growing, learning, dreaming, DANCING — we’re doing it to death. And even death is no end, because trust that whatever happens (or doesn’t) after we die — the groove goes on, the song doesn’t end, we’re fated to life eternal. Not any of our mortal stuff obviously. That all plays itself out in time even if you go vegan, pump iron, take your vitamins – you are gonna die, your flesh is gonna rot. No it’s the immortal stuff I’m thinking about, the noise we make, the light we shine and reflect, the seeds we plant, and how they grow. By which I mean ideas, passions, commitments, sacrifices, songs – the grooves in particular. None of that stuff ever dies.
Which is all just an approximation of a pile of thoughts I had this past New Years (into 2001), while DJing on some unnamed island, monster sound system, high on some of the local shrooms — not hallucinating or anything, just elevated enough to see (and feel) that the crowd were finally at the point where they’d dance to anything. But what the DJ wants at such a moment, is to give them exactly the right thing. And there it was: The JBs’ Doing It To Death. Not even a James Brown album per say. He gave this one to his band, because who was he really without his JBs? The album itself kind of a rarity, my copy pressed in Germany, 1973, one of those records you spend a long time looking for. And yeah, the title track‘s the treasure that makes it all worth the trouble. Like the intro says, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, there are seven acknowledged wonders of the world. You are about to witness the eighth’. No clever DJ tricks required, just drop the needle, slay everyone in the room, give them eternal life. Call it a paradox. I won’t argue. We need more paradoxes.” (Philip Random)
Randophonic 