Podcast (Solid Time starts a few minutes in). Youtube playlist (incomplete and not entirely accurate).
This continues to be Randophonic’s main focus, our overlong yet incomplete history of the so-called Prog Rock era (presented in countdown form) – 661 selections from 1965 through 1979 with which we hope to do justice to a strange and ambitious time indeed, musically speaking.
Part Twenty-Four of the journey went as follows:
Manfred Mann’s Earth Band – solar fire
Manfred Mann’s Earth Band – as above so below
Strawbs – queen of dreams
Moody Blues – in the beginning
Queen – in lap of the gods
Queen – she makes me (stormtrooper in stilletos)
Queen – in lap of the gods … revisited
David Bowie – big brother
David Bowie – chant of the ever circling skeletal family
Rolling Stones – she’s a rainbow
Wings – nineteen hundred and eighty-five
David Essex – rock on
Van Der Graaf Generator – darkness [11-11]
Steve Miller Band – in my first mind
Steve Miller Band – the beauty of time is that it’s snowing [psychedelic B.B.]
King Crimson – happy family
Brian Eno – the great pretender
Residents – The Eskimo Edit
Fresh episodes air pretty much every Saturday night, starting 11 pm (Pacific time) c/o CiTR.FM.101.9, with streaming and download options available within twenty-four hours via our Facebook.
Brian Eno and friends deliver a nifty bit of funked up coolness (with samples*) from 1977. The friends being Snatch, the best two woman punk band you’ve probably never heard of, Brian Eno being, as always, way ahead of his time (sampling wouldn’t really be a thing for better part of a decade). RAF first showed up as a b-side to Eno’s King’s Lead Hat single, and later on First Edition, a nifty little 10-inch album that was packed full of precisely the kind of modern music that caused arguments. (*Yes, some of those samples come from a Baader Meinhof ransom message that was delivered via public telephone call. Those were the days.)
In which the (comparatively) early Roxy Music remind us that among other cool and artful tricks, they could kick out rock solid power pop that was years ahead of its time. From 1974’s Country Life. Brian Eno is already gone but this remains one cool and strong and innovative band.
The Solid Time of Change is Randophonic’s latest project, an overlong yet incomplete history of the so-called Prog Rock era – 661 records from 1965 through 1979, presented in countdown form, with which we hope to convey some sense of what was indeed a strange and ambitious time.
Part seven of our journey went as follows:
Van der Graaf Generator – theme one
Roxy Music – in every dream home a heartache
Godley + Crème – I pity inanimate objects
Horslips – King of morning Queen of day
Horslips – ride to hell
Captain Beyond – as the moon speaks
Captain Beyond – Armworth – myopic void
Brian Eno – dead finks don’t talk
Mothers of Invention – oh no
Mothers of Invention – Orange County Lumber Truck
Mothers of Invention – weasels ripped my flesh
Chilliwack – changing reels [edit]
Annexus Quam – osmose 1
Mike Oldfield – Hergest Ridge [fragments]
Anthony Phillips – Henry: portraits from Tudor times
Steve Hackett – hands of the priestess
Steve Hackett – a tower struck down
Steve Hackett – hands of the priestess (2)
Solid Time of Change #8 airs Saturday, July 2nd at 11 pm (Pacific time) c/o CiTR.FM.101.9, with streaming and download options available within twenty-four hours.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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