Author Archives: Randophonic

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About Randophonic

For now, I'm best thought of as a radio program. Sometimes it may seem I'm all the work of one person, other times many. What matters is the program.

476. Dad

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“Vancouver’s fabled York Theatre, 1985. Husker Du are in town, the hot ticket of the season. The joint’s packed and wild, like some hack Hollywood screenwriter’s fever dream of a punk rock show gone horribly wrong (in a good way). I’m pretty sure this is the night that somebody actually dove off the balcony. Or maybe that’s just how the drugs remember it. I was definitely quite high, ripped on some of the best LSD of the decade. Anyway, the evening ends up being like high school sex. It peaks way early with warm up act NoMeansNo more or less destroying the headliners. Dad is the encore, the first time I’ve ever heard it. I remember it moving me to tears. The sheer horror of it, and empathy, I guess. I remember thinking, punk rock isn’t supposed to do this. I remember throwing myself off the balcony. Well, maybe not that part.” (Philip Random)

NoMeansNo-dad

477. yin and yang + the flowerpot man

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“It’s perhaps hard to imagine now, but come the mid-1980s, so called psychedelic rock was pretty much absent as a musical force, even as an underground item. Chalk it up, I guess, to being two decades on from your various Beatles, Hendrix, Byrds, Cream (and related) eruptions and seductions, and the culture maybe just needing a break for a while. Except Love + Rockets sounded just fine to my ears, and relevant. They were Bauhaus basically, without the singer, which made a big difference — still conjuring cool moods and working powerful dynamics, but they’d left Dracula’s castle in the rearview, opted for a brighter, sweeter, more colourful set (and setting). Look no further than a title like Yin and Yang and The Flowerpot Man, though the song actually seems to be more about the mystical-magical virtues of alcohol than psychedelics, strangely enough.” (Philip Random)

478. king of the hill

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King of the Hill was the Minutemen‘s version of consciously selling out. It said so on the cover, Project: Mersh. Record company big-wigs, pouring over the data, brainstorming how to shift more units, having a eureka moment. “I got it! We’ll have them write hit songs!” Good for a laugh. But then the word hit that D. Boon, the big guy that played guitar and sang and wrote most of their songs, was dead, killed in a van crash in Arizona. A brutal end to what had been a damned fine story.

Minutemen-projectMERSH

479. highway blues

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“I probably heard Roy Harper at the time, Highway Blues jangling away on one of the cool FM radio stations that I was just starting to really explore in 1973. So much of that sort of long haired cosmic truth telling at the time. But it would be the 1980s before I really discovered Lifemask, going through my mid-decade retro-phase (that’s never really ended, it’s true). It was Mr. Harper’s voice that hooked me, the loose, confident freedom of it. Whatever he was on about, you were glad he was getting it out, making sense at least to himself out on that lonely highway.” (Philip Random)

RoyHarper-1973-heashot

005. The Final Countdown*

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Installment #5 of The Final Countdown aired Saturday-April-14-2018 (c/o CiTR.FM.101.9).

Tracks available on this Youtube playlist (somewhat inaccurate).

The Final Countdown* is our longest, most random and (if we’re doing it right) relevant countdown yet. Which doesn’t mean we’re one hundred percent clear as to what it’s all about – just the end of result of a long and convoluted process that finally evolved into something halfway tangible a month or so ago. The 1297 Greatest Records of All Time right now right here, if that makes sense. And even if it doesn’t, we’re doing it anyway for as long as it takes, and it will take a while.

FINAL-05

Installment #5 of The Final Countdown* went like this.

1211. Negativland – The Playboy Channel
1210. LCD Soundsystem – yeah [crass mix]
1209. Residents – suburban bathers
1208. Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark – messages
1207. Ulrich Schnauss – on my own
1206. Love + Rockets – lazy
1205. Dr. John – Danse Kalinda Ba Doom
1204. Harmonium – un musicien parmi tant d’autres
1203. Gary Wright – love is alive
1202. Art Ensemble of Chicago – funky AECO
1201. Mothers of Invention – dog breath in the year of the plague
1200. Mothers of Invention – Montana
1199. Waterboys – nobody ‘cept you
1198. All Mighty Whispers – Love Revolution
1197. War – seven tin soldiers [the middle jam]
1196. Clash – junko partner [and dub]
1195. Fiery Furnaces – one more time
1194. Flying Lizards – in my lifetime
1193. Flying Lizards – glide-spin
1192. Simple Minds – seeing out the angel

Randophonic airs pretty much every Saturday night, starting 11 pm (Pacific time) c/o CiTR.FM.101.9, with streaming and/or download options usually available within twenty-four hours via our Facebook page.

 

05. reSEARCH – the giants drift

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Installment #5 of what we’re calling The Research Series aired April-15-2018 on CiTR.FM.101.9.

The fifth of a planned forty-nine movies, each forty-nine minutes long, featuring no particular artist, working no particular theme, pursuing no particular agenda beyond boldly going … who knows? Or as Werner Von Braun once put it, “Research is what I’m doing when I don’t know what I’m doing.” And we definitely have no idea where all this will take us.

reSEARCH-05

05. reSEARCH – the giants drift

Clara Rockmore – Valse Sentimentalle
Birdsongs of the Mesozoic – drift
Chris + Cosey – the giants feet
Ray Russell – goodbye svengali [edit of an edit]
Goose Creek Symphony – I’ll fly away
Spirit – guide me
Tim Buckley – no man can find the war
Bjork + Thom Yorke – I’ve seen it all
Mythos – encyclopedia terra [part 3]
Giorgio Moroder – transformation seduction
Daevid Allen – bell
Rip Rig + Panic – epi epi arp woosh
Tribal Drift – ants
Cluster – avanti

Further installments of the Research Series will air most Sundays at approximately 1am (Pacific time) c/o CiTR.FM.101.9, with streaming and download options usually available within twenty-four hours via our Facebook page.