Monthly Archives: May 2016

Jethro Tull’s Disaster Passion Animals + War

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By way of hyping Randophonic’s next big deal series (The Solid Time of Change – aka the 661 Greatest Records of the so-called Prog Rock era) which is due to premiere this Saturday on CiTR.FM.101.9 (Vancouver, BC and thereabouts), here’s a little something which aired on last week’s program.

Being an attempt at imagining the Jethro Tull double album that was intended to come after Thick as a Brick, but became what are now known as the Chateau D’Isaster Sessions … comprised of various tracks that were only released many years after the fact, plus stuff from the Passion Play and War Child albums.

Podcast available here.

jethro_tull-disasteretc

1086. psychedelic venture

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In which The Ventures prove they can do psyche as well as the weirdos. From 1967, which means nobody seems to remember anything about it. And yet we do have this album as evidence. Gatefold sleeve, crazy shapes and colours. A few half-assed covers but it’s the originals that stand out with titles like kandy koncoction, 1999 AD (still the future back then), endless dream and, of course, psychedelic venture.

1087. is anybody home?

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“I have no idea who Trisomie 21 are, or where this record  even came from. It just showed up in my collection sometime in the mid-80s (a confusing time indeed), the hideous cover being precisely the kind of thing you couldn’t ignore. And then you’ve got whatever’s going on in Is Anybody Home? The singer’s trying to croon, not really pulling it off, but the mix is so deranged it works anyway. A reminder that the 80s were stranger than anyone gives them credit for.” (Philip Random)

1088. junco partner

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9S8KUB5WAfg

“The Clash dub out a cover of a Dr. John song (which was itself a cover) concerning a junkie friend, wobbling around, making a mess of things. Not unlike the album Sandinista in general (and I mean that in the best possible way). Six sides of pretty much everything imaginable (and more) stumbling madly in all directions making it one of the essential albums of the decade in question, because the 80s were that kind of time, the world was in that kind of mess. It was our duty to stumble.” (Philip Random)

1089. beggars farm

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If you considered yourself hip to what was cool in Britain 1968, Jethro Tull were the real deal – heavy duty underground stuff that couldn’t be messed with, even if the main guy did play flute. Beggars Farm goes back to their first album when they were still mostly a blues outfit, though the cover suggested something deeper was going on, the band all got up as old men.  Like they knew something we didn’t – that all the flower power youth stuff was just a passing fad.

(image source)

1090. life’s a gas

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T-Rex from the peak of their almost absurd success (in Britain anyway where they had no less than eleven top ten hits in less than four years; over here in the Americas, they barely had one). And anyway, Life’s A Gas was only ever a b-side, and an album cut, which is perhaps more important. Because, it speaks to the depth of what Marc Bolan had going at the time of Electric Warrior. The only thing cooler at the time was Bowie.