“A story song about the day young David Jones (aka Bowie) played at a hippie free festival and got his mind blown by all the beautiful people, and probably some weapons grade 1960s LSD, because the sun machine came down toward the end, like a vision of heaven itself. And it was good, very good, the entirety of the vast rapture that was 1969 captured in song, because man had just walked on the f***ing moon, man, so now any f***ing thing was possible. At least that’s how it felt at the time. I think. I was only ten, and many thousands of miles away, stuck in suburbia.” (Philip Random)
For all their pomp and fantasy, Queen could also take things down to earth every now and then as Drowse makes clear. Like something Brian Wilson and David Bowie might’ve come up with if they’d ever written a song together. Because it’s eternally true. Teenagers spend vast chunks of their time alone in their rooms frustrated and confused, bored to rages of tears, or maybe just on the drowse.
This is Randophonic’s latest countdown, the 661 Greatest Records of the so-called Prog Rock era, an overlong yet incomplete history of whatever the hell happened between 1965 and 1979 – not in all music, not even in most of it, but definitely in a bunch of it, particularly during those five years in the middle (1969-1974).
What is Prog Rock? Is it different somehow from progressive rock, or for that matter, rock that merely progresses? These may seem like simple questions, but they are in fact doors that open unto some of the most complex enigmas of our time, and thus as good a reason as any for a year of radio.
Part six of our journey went as follows:
Peter Hammill – the institute of mental health is burning
David Bowie- See Emily Play
Brand X – the sun in the night
Donovan- cosmic wheels
Turtles – grim reaper of love
Nektar- do you believe in magic
Nektar – desolation valley
Nektar – waves
Steppenwolf – monster
Wishbone Ash – the king will come
Wishbone Ash – throw down the sword
Genesis – chamber of 32 doors
England – all alone
England – three piece suite
Jethro Tull – for Michael Collins, Jeffrey and me
Jethro Tull – Pibroch cap in hand
Electric Light Orchestra – Kuiama
Solid Time of Change #7 airs Saturday, June 18th at 11 pm (Pacific time) c/o CiTR.FM.101.9, with streaming and download options available within twenty-four hours.
Also known as as the 661 Greatest Records of the so-called Prog Rock era, the Solid Time of Change is Randophonic’s current countdown project — an overlong yet incomplete history of whatever the hell happened between 1965 and 1979 – not in all music, not even in most of it, but definitely in a bunch of it.
What is Prog Rock? Is it different somehow from progressive rock, or for that matter, rock that merely progresses? These may seem like simple questions, but they are in fact doors that open unto some of the most complex enigmas of our time, which are best resolved by actually listening to the radio shows.
Part five of our journey went as follows:
Yes – every little thing
Yes – I see you
Yes – no opportunity necessary no experience required
Traffic – 40,000 Headmen
David Bowie – memory of a free festival
Renaissance – a trip to the fair
Supertramp – Rudy
Camel – first light
Genesis – horizons
Genesis – Can Utility and the Coastliners
Cat Stevens – Angelsea
Pink Floyd – Sysyphus
Pink Floyd – + Cirrus [edit]
Pink Floyd – pigs [three different ones]
Melodic Energy Commission – song of the Delatron revises the scene
Bo Hansson – divided thoughts [attic reality]
Bo Hansson – flight to the ford
Solid Time of Change #6 airs Saturday, June 11th at 11 pm (Pacific time) c/o CiTR.FM.101.9, with streaming and download options available within twenty-four hours.
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.
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.”
Randophonic 
