The Solid Time of Change has been our overlong yet incomplete history of the so-called Prog Rock era – 661 selections from 1965 through 1979 with which we’ve hoped to do justice to a strange and ambitious time indeed, musically speaking.
Part Forty-Nine of the journey (the second to last) went as follows:
Yes – perpetual change
Genesis – the waiting room
Genesis – anyway
Genesis – here comes the supernatural anesthetist
Genesis – the lamia
Jethro Tull – Thick as a Brick
The final episode of the Solid Time of Change airs Saturday, October-21, starting at 11 pm (Pacific time) c/o CiTR.FM.101.9, with streaming and download options available within twenty-four hours via our Facebook page.
The Solid Time of Change is our overlong yet incomplete history of the so-called Prog Rock era – 661 selections from 1965 through 1979 with which we hope to do justice to a strange and ambitious time indeed, musically speaking.
Part Twenty-Nine of the journey went as follows:
Buffalo Springfield – broken arrow
Electric Light Orchestra – Shangri-La
Aphrodite’s Child – the system
Aphrodite’s Child- seven trumpets
Aphrodite’s Child – Altamont
Tommy James + the Shondells – crimson and clover
Barclay James Harvest – suicide
Barclay James Harvest – hymn
Gentle Giant – the runaway
King Crimson – cat food
King Crimson – groon
Fleetwood Mac – oh well
Genesis – ripples
Genesis – in the rapids
Genesis – it
Genesis – watcher of the skies [live]
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 page.
Two songs that more or less fuse into one from that oft forgotten era when the band known as Genesis weren’t just considered cool and relevant, they had the keys to the underground. In fact, they had a whole concept album about the place called The Lamb Dies Down on Broadway wherein a Puerto Rican street punk named Rael gets caught up in a local apocalypse (like a fly on a windshield) and next thing he knows, he’s trapped in dense labyrinthine depths that will take him the better part of four sides of vinyl to reconcile. In other words, it’s the early Genesis at the absolute peak of their ambitions (if not their attainments) and Peter Gabriel’s final album with the band. Though both would go off to achieve mega levels of success on their own, neither would ever again come close to the sheer weird edge cutting heights (depths?) they achieved here.
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.
Back in NYC‘s just odd and intense from beginning to end, and particularly in the middle, nothing really sounding like you think it should, but why would it? It’s Genesis (the earlier, better Peter Gabriel version) at the peak of their powers tearing all preconceptions to shreds. Found at about the one-quarter point of The Lamb Lies Down on a Broadway a double concept album concerning a Puerto Rican street punk named Rael who sees the world end one morning on Broadway, then somehow finds himself lost in a purgatorial netherworld wherein convoluted stuff happens that even Peter Gabriel (who wrote lyrics and sang the song) was probably never quite clear on. Which may just explain some of the rage here.
Part One of Randophonic’s three part celebration of the 40th anniversary of 1974 aired November 29th, on CiTR.FM.101.9.
Here it is in two Mixcloud streams. All Secrecy No Privacy:
The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (an extended Movie of the Week):
The podcast of the full program is available for download here …
Think of it as a halfway cool radio program from forty years ago — a few guys running through some of the essential records of the year, not ranking them so much as just shouting them out. This is the important stuff. This is what has kept the flesheating robots at bay for the past three hundred or so days. And they might have been stoned while they were doing it, so stuff is out of order and maybe a little confused, but in a good way, 1974 proving rather difficult to really pin down.
But there was certainly no shortage of darned fine music.
Kraftwerk – autobahn
Wherein some very smart German guys decide that what the world truly wants and needs is a sort of stretched out and techno-fied version of the Beach Boys’ Fun Fun Fun. And they nail it, a hit single and album world wide. The future is suddenly very cool.
MFSB – TSOP [the Sound of Philadelphia]
Disco wasn’t really a SOUND yet in 1974, so it wasn’t really annoying at all. Not yet anyway.
O’Jays – for the love of money
The root of all that evil. Same as it ever was.
Camel – freefall
Introducing progressive rock, the elephant in the room, which it’s safe to say peaked rather gloriously in 1974, with Camel as solid an example as any. Tight playing, complex arrangements, no fear of cosmic overload.
Alice Cooper – teenage lament ’74
Does it always suck to be a teenager? Probably. But as far as we know, 1974 is the only year that had an actual teenage lament.
Sensational Alex Harvey Band – the man in the jar
Straight outa Glasgow, and not just a little glam, but you would not want to mess with any of them.
Rolling Stones – fingerprint file
74 was not a great year for the Stones with Keith Richard heroin comatose pretty much the whole time and Mick Taylor (the best player they ever had) calling it quits. Yet they still nailed it big time with Fingerprint File. All secrecy. No privacy.
BTO – not fragile
Big meat eating, truck driving riffs and melodies that rocked pretty much the whole world. Nothing pretty about any of it …
ELO – boy blue + Laredo tornado
ELO finally just went all the way technicolour with their fourth album, the concept known as El Dorado. These two flowed nicely together through the middle of side A.
10CC – Wall Street Shuffle
Blood sucking brokers ripping the whole world off, laughing all the way to hell and back. Some things never change.
Genesis – The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway [an extended Movie of the Week]
It’s hard to grasp now, but forty years ago Genesis were pretty much the epitome of strange and complex cool, with the four-sided Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (Peter Gabriel’s last album with the band) believed by many to be one of the genuine monsters of the so-called prog-rock genre, by many others to be simply monstrous.
What’s it about? To be honest, we’re pretty sure not even Peter Gabriel knows, and he wrote the lyrics. That said, it seems to begin with an apocalypse of sorts. On Broadway. But nobody notices except Rael. Who’s Rael? He’s the (sort of) punk hero of the thing, whose weird adventures will take us deep into subterranean regions of mystery, pleasure, torment and lifeless packaging.
What’s the significance of the lamb? Not much, it seems.
Meanwhile from out of the steam a lamb lies down. This lamb has nothing whatsoever to do with Rael, or any other lamb. It just lies down on Broadway.
Randophonic 