In which Yazoo (or perhaps merely Yaz) remind us that in the early days of synth-pop, it was pretty much obligatory that an album include some genuinely experimental side-trips, because why not? But in the case of In My Room, it ends up being way more than just some mucking around with tape loops and sound effects. It’s a smart, soulful examination of angst, loneliness, confusion – all the things that go on in one’s room.
“In which the band known as Guadalcanal Diary take a campfire singalong about God (or whoever), apply rock and roll thunder and voila! a glimpse of what might just be heaven (or whatever). From 1984’s Walking in the Shadow of the Big Man, which is the first thing I ever heard from them, and the last thing I really needed to. The whole album’s a gem.” (Philip Random)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3H2FHkFy5Ok
“Second of two in a row from Gilded Palace of Sin, the Flying Burrito Brothers’ debut masterpiece of countrified rock. Because you can’t really hear one Burrito without the other, both apparently concerning the same girl, the same tormented relationship, which of course only makes the country stylings more relevant. Or as Motron puts it, ‘the country stuff set the drugged out hippie rock stars free to mix whiskey and heroin and broken hearts – a terrible way to live, but it sure made for some kickass and essential music.” (Philip Random)
“It must’ve felt very weird when the Flying Burrito Brothers first hit in 1969. Out of all the psychedelicized weirdness and envelope smashing wildness of the previous years comes … country rock!?!? My friend Motron’s theory is that it was all tied to the assassination of Martin Luther King – that up until springtime 1968, the big dream of All You Need Is Love was alive and well and thus the white man’s pilfering of the black man’s music was all just part of the shiny happy game. But after that – it just didn’t feel right anymore. And thus Nudie suits and pedal steel and so-lonesome-I-could-die ballads suddenly felt somehow relevant – the white man’s soul music, as it were. Bob Dylan, of course, was ahead of the game as usual, but it took Gram Parsons and crew (by way of the Byrds) to really make it a fact. And it’s all there on Gilded Palace of Sin – one of those albums that truly does not have a weak moment.” (Philip Random)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QBkD1Xub3k
In which the good captain (Beefheart, that is) kicks out more of those blues so authentic it can only feel surreal to hear them coming from a white man. But then you actually listen to what’s going on and you realize, this isn’t authentic at all. It’s mutant, working curves and angles that feel positively alien. Of course, he did go to high school with Frank Zappa. Which raises the question, who the hell else went to Antelope Valley High back in the day? And what was in the water?
Installment #48 of the Solid Time of Change aired on Saturday September 30th (c/o CiTR.FM.101.9).
Youtube playlist (not entirely accurate).
The Solid Time of Change is our overlong yet incomplete history of the so-called Prog Rock era – 661 selections from 1965 through 1979 with which we hope to do justice to a strange and ambitious time indeed, musically speaking.
Part Forty-Eight of the journey went as follows (22-13):
Installment #49 (the second to last) should air Saturday, Oct-14, starting 11 pm (Pacific time) c/o CiTR.FM.101.9, with streaming and download options available within twenty-four hours via our Facebook page.
Randophonic 
