Selections available on this Youtube playlist (not exactly accurate).
The Final Countdown* is Randophonic’s longest and, if we’re doing it right, most relevant countdown yet – the end of result of a rather convoluted process that’s still evolving such is the existential nature of the project question: the 1297 Greatest Records of All Time right now right here. Whatever that means. What it means is dozens of radio programs if all goes to plan, and when has that ever happened?
Installment #18 of The Final Countdown* went like this.
953. Swirlies – house of pancake
952. Lykke Li vs Holy Ghost – I’m Good, I’m Ghost
951. Sly + the Family Stone – spaced cowboy
950. 10cc – art for art’s sake
949. Al Green – I Wanna Hold Your Hand
948. Blow Monkeys – sweet murder
947. Holger Czukay – der osten is rot
946. Bill Frisell – egg radio
945. Irving – I can’t fall in love
944. Slothomatic – starman
943. Dandy Warhols – Ohio
942. King Black Acid – always crashing in the same car
941. Jade Warrior – [funky] waves
940. Harold Budd + Zeitgeist – breathless
939. Receiver – O’Driscoll’s Curse
938. David Bowie – African Night Flight
937. Can – transcendental express
936. War – gypsy man
935. Brian Eno – Some Words
The numbering was off on-air, but it’s correct here.
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.
Speaking of that Indonesian monkey chant that Vic Coppersmith-Heaven had so much fun with in the early 1980s, here’s Jade Warrior from almost a decade previous, taking it on from a more acidic angle. Jade Warrior being one of those outfits that made the pre-punk 70s such an endlessly cosmic delight, dropping a steady diet of instrumental non-hits, that mostly tended to just float along, with occasional eruptions.
Podcast (Solid Time begins at around the 4 minute point). Youtube playlist (incomplete and probably inaccurate).
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 records from 1965 through 1979 with which we hope to do justice to a strange and ambitious time indeed, musically speaking.
Part fifteen of the journey went as follows:
Jethro Tull – living in the past
Blodwyn Pig – see my way
Strawbs – down by the sea
Black Sabbath – wheels of confusion / the straightener
Goblin- Suspiria Theme
Quiet Sun – sol caliente
Quiet Sun – bargain classics
Jade Warrior – monkey chant
Pentangle – light flight
Gentle Giant – think of me with kindness
Gentle Giant – the advent of Panurge
Genesis – riding the scree
Aphrodite’s Child – loud loud loud
Aphrodite’s Child – Aegean
Neil Diamond – be
Pink Floyd – Grantchester meadows
Pink Floyd – several species of small furry animals gathered in a cave …
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
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.
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?
Stevie Wonder – you haven’t done nothin’
In which even the blind man can see the bullshit. 74 was that kind of year.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
Randophonic 