Part Two of Randophonic’s three part celebration of the 40th anniversary of 1974 aired December 6th, on CiTR.FM.101.9.
Here it is in two Mixcloud streams.
And the Movie of the Week — Queen – Modern Times Rock + Roll
The podcast of the full program is available for download here …
Think of it as an at least halfway cool radio program from forty years ago playing not the popular stuff from the year, but the important stuff — the true wild and innocent sounds that kept the flesheating robots at bay for another three hundred days or so. Brian Eno gets a lot of play because he released his first two solo albums in 1974 (and they, of course, changed everything forever). Otherwise, it’s a whole lotta everything, legendary and cool.
Brian Eno – needles in the camel’s eye
It hits you like a wall of solid pop. Powerful and beautiful.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0c20cjbmD4
Roxy Music – all I want is you
A smart, sophisticated rocker from the band Eno had just left. Which raises the question. What would have happened if he’d stayed? What wouldn’t have happened? Would Richard Nixon even have had to resign?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6H7_217yXKQ
Stevie Wonder – you haven’t done nothin’
In which even the blind man can see the bullshit. 74 was that kind of year.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKhMMCaFQsk
The Undead – somebody super like you
From Phantom of the Paradise, definitely the best Faustian glam rock movie ever.
Sweet – ballroom blitz
In which the bubble-glam wunderkids hold nothing back, tear the whole room apart.
Sparks – talent is an asset
LA wasn’t glam enough so they moved to London and never really looked back. This one’s about Albert Einstein’s relatives.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUVix4T44nI
Jade Warrior – monkey chant
Take an ancient Balinese monkey chant, lay down some psyche guitar. Disturb all the hippies.
Hot Chocolate – Emma
Emma has big dreams. She wants to be up on the silver screen. Spoiler alert: she kills herself in the end.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vPu_nrzgSU
David Bowie – 1984 + sweet thing / candidate / sweet thing
Where was David Bowie in 1974? A decade ahead of things in the year of the Diamond Dogs. Big Brother is supreme. Everybody loves him. And why shouldn’t they? Even monsters can be beautiful.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98yi7t8cukk
Brian Eno – seven deadly Finns
A single that didn’t really chart anywhere yet went a long way toward inventing the future sounds of punk, new wave etc. And it has yodeling.
Brian Eno – Third Uncle
It starts as a direct rip-off of Pink Floyd’s One of These Days. By the time it’s over, it’s found an entirely other galaxy
Badfinger – just a chance
From their last album before the suicides started — the one that’s jammed with solid pop rock gems, but for whatever reason, got yanked from all the stores almost immediately after its release.
Strawbs – hero and heroine
Title track from another one of those shoulda-woulda-coulda-but-didn’t albums. Maybe Dave Cousins voice was just too weird, because you can’t blame all those mellotrons and angels amped way high in the mix.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q1eytiOHbM
Wings – nineteen hundred and eighty-five
The groove’s a killer. The production is pure drama. The lyrics don’t seem to be about anything. Where’s John Lennon when you need him?
Can – chain reaction
They’d just lost Damo Suzuki to the ozone or wherever. But they didn’t seem to mind, just kept working the infinite groove, pretty much inventing techno trance more than a decade ahead of schedule without realizing it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHCNgT-QCDE
Brian Eno – on some faraway beach
Lead off track from his first solo album — promising so much and, of course, he would deliver so much more.
Neil Young – ambulance blues
Neil is stuck on some dreary wintertime beach waiting for the paramedics to come. But it’s not an emergency really. The damage is already done.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4HaSMVH-xA
Van Morrison – you don’t pull no punches but you don’t push the river
The true heart of Celtic soul gets laid bare here, epic and wise. You gotta learn to spot the difference between a foe you can knock down and a force of nature you best just go with, bound for great oceans and who knows what treasures on distant unseen shores?
Gram Parsons – 1000 dollar wedding
About as sad as sad songs get. And then he OD’ed on heroin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiaCZ3KgJe8
Bob Dylan – dirge
Mr. Zimmerman enters the truly good part of his 1970s, and he’s definitely in a mood.
Anne Peebles – I can’t stand the rain .
It always rains too much. Why should 1974 be any different?
QUEEN – MODERN TIMES ROCK + ROLL (the Movie of the Week)
An almost one hour mix of Queen at the very beginning of their muchness. Their first album (Queen 1) was released in 1973 but nobody heard it until 1974.
And by the end of 1974, we had two more to perplex and astonish us (Queen II + Sheer Heart Attack).
And confusing indeed it all was — a strange zone where Led Zeppelin and the Beach Boys seemed to hold equal measure, and everything in between. Or as Philip Random puts it. “Strange wild changes, absurd operatics, serious raunch, nymphs and ogres, black queens, white queens, Jesus Christ himself, fathers and sons, tenement funsters, lilies of the valley, tatterdemalions and junketers. Bohemian Rhapsody was still over a year away and who needed it anyway? It was all there already. And if you were fifteen year old me, you ate it up. Because it NEVER got any better than those first three albums and their Modern Times Rock’n’Roll … for lack of a better term.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQeYOAXgCgQ
Randophonic 