Tag Archives: prog

1044. tiger in a spotlight

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The word debacle applies to Emerson Lake + Palmer’s 1977. While the cool world went punk and the party world went disco, they released a dubious double album and invested big in taking a full symphony orchestra on a world tour with them. It failed. Meanwhile, a wigged out sort of post-meltdown boogie like Tiger in a Spotlight got buried on a secondary album of various odds and sods, suggesting a whole other possible history for mankind … until you do little research and discover it had been sitting on a shelf since 1973. That ship had already sailed, and probably sank.

ELP-stadium

5. The Solid Time Of Change

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Part five of the Solid Time of Change aired Saturday June-4-2016 c/o CiTR.FM.101.9.

 

Youtube playlist (possibly not the exact versions that were played). Podcast.

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.

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Part five of our journey went as follows:

  1. Yes – every little thing
  2. Yes – I see you
  3. Yes – no opportunity necessary no experience required
  4. Traffic – 40,000 Headmen
  5. David Bowie – memory of a free festival
  6. Renaissance – a trip to the fair
  7. Supertramp – Rudy
  8. Camel – first light
  9. Genesis – horizons
  10. Genesis – Can Utility and the Coastliners
  11. Cat Stevens – Angelsea
  12. Pink Floyd – Sysyphus
  13. Pink Floyd – + Cirrus [edit]
  14. Pink Floyd – pigs [three different ones]
  15. Melodic Energy Commission – song of the Delatron revises the scene
  16. Bo Hansson – divided thoughts [attic reality]
  17. 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.

1050. white shadow

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Upon leaving the then cool sort of cutting edge underground band known as Genesis in early 1975, Peter Gabriel embarked on period of serious reinvention. His second solo album found none other than Robert Fripp in the producer’s chair and Mr. Gabriel very much ready for whatever weirdness the coming decade (the 1980s) might have to throw his way. Indeed, a song such as White Shadow suggests that he’d be doing a bunch of the throwing.

PeterGabriel-78

4. The Solid Time of Change

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Part four of The Solid Time of Change aired Saturday May-28, 2016 c/o CiTR.FM.101.9.

 

Youtube playlist (possibly not the exact versions that were played). Podcast.

Also known as as the  661 Greatest Records of the so-called Prog Rock era, the Solid Time of Change is Randophonic’s latest countdown — 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 from progressive rock, or for that matter, rock that merely progresses? Four programs in and sixty-five selections down and you’d think we’d have a solid answer to these questions, but like the proverbial zoom into an old photograph, the closer we look, the murkier things get. Which isn’t to say the music isn’t great and thus, here’s to the best kind of confusion and a year’s worth of radio to figure it all out.

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Part four of our journey went as follows:

  1. Focus – harem scarem
  2. Frank Zappa + The Mothers – Inca Roads
  3. Strawbs- tomorrow
  4. Rick Wakeman – Catherine of Aragorn [+ excerpts]
  5. Rick Wakeman – Anne of Cleves
  6. King Crimson – moonchild (part 1)
  7. Moody Blues – the word
  8. Justin Hayward + John Lodge – nights winters years
  9. Sweet – love is like oxygen
  10. Procol Harum – Grand Hotel
  11. Klaatu – prelude
  12. Klaatu – so said the lighthouse keeper
  13. Klaatu – hope
  14. Gentle Giant – Mister Class + Quality
  15. Gentle Giant – three friends
  16. Steve Hillage – om nam Shivaya
  17. Steve Hillage – hurdy gurdy glissando
  18. Cream – as you said

Installment #5 of The Solid Time of Change airs Saturday, June 4th at 11 pm (Pacific time) c/o CiTR.FM.101.9, with streaming and download options available within twenty-four hours.

1. The Solid Time of Change

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Last week saw the debut of Randophonic’s latest series, The Solid Time of Change (aka 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 via bands hailing from the United Kingdom.

Youtube playlist (possibly not the exact versions that were played). Download podcast.

What is Prog Rock, and does it somehow differ from Progressive Rock, or for that matter, rock that merely progresses? These may seem simple questions but they are in fact doors that open unto some of the most complex enigmas of this split-atomic age.

straightTowardTHEsource

The good news is, for the next year (or thereabouts) there shall be a radio show broadcasting pretty much every Saturday night, starting at 11pm (Pacific Time) c/o CiTR.FM.101.9 wherein these enigmas shall be explored – also queens and kings, queendoms and kingdoms, and dreams, wizards and witches, oceans, concertos, overtures, finales, voyages, apocalypses, angels, sandcastles, swords, redeemers, rebels, relayers, even a little funk; not to mention islands, saviours, prophecies, revelations, giants, shipwrecks, astronauts, rituals, robots, roundabouts, gods and goblins, sacred texts and liars, journeys and parades, runaways and sorcerers, at least one girl child named Linda, the total mass retain and the seven seas of Rhye.

The first part of our journey went something like this:

  1. Apollo 100 – joy
  2. Emerson Lake + Palmer – Karn Evil 9 [1st impression part 2]
  3. Yes – beyond + before
  4. Genesis – where the sour turns to sweet
  5. Genesis – in the beginning
  6. Spirit – space child
  7. Spirit – aren’t you glad
  8. Uriah Heep – the wizard
  9. Queen – someday one day
  10. Queen – great king rat
  11. Electric Light Orchestra – Battle of Marston Moore [fragment]
  12. The Move – message from the country
  13. Electric Light Orchestra – 10538 Overture
  14. Giorgio – automation
  15. Guess Who – key [edit]
  16. Pink Floyd -Matilda Mother
  17. Kansas – Incomudro [lamplight to the Atman]
  18. Creedence Clearwater Revival – Ramble Tamble

Installment #2 airs 11pm, Saturday, May 14 on CiTR, with relevant links to be eventually posted here and our Facebook.

YES – Beyond + Before

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Yes – Beyond + Before aired July-25-2015 on CiTR.FM.101.9. An overlong and yet rather incomplete three part special dedicated entirely to the band known as Yes. Because founding member and bass master Chris Squire died last month, and respect is due.  Also, July 25th marked the forty-sixth anniversary of the release of Yes’s first album.

Here it is in three Mixcloud streams:

Podcast available here.

PROGRAM NOTES:

Part 1 (To The Edge) starts with track one, side one of the album known simply as Yes, and then moves chronologically through the next five albums (including the 1973 triple live set Yessongs), a time of solid change.

Part Two (In Deep) starts at the edge of the Topographic Ocean, from which point the good ship Yes either hit a reef and sunk, or sustained to reveal the true meaning of pretty much everything, possibly both.

Whatever happened, the next album, 1974’s Relayer, was every bit as ambitious, yet more focused.  Even most of the lyrics at least half made sense.

It would be three years before Yes’s next album, Going For One, which was okay, but Yes’s true glory seemed to be mostly in the past by now.  Or perhaps decades into the future as a rather stunning 2013 performance of Going For the One’s Awaken indicates.

Part 3 (New Language) skips the 1980s entirely and half of the 1990s (a period in which Yes reinvented itself as a massively successful pop act, and then seemingly got bored with it all). But come 1995, something genuinely interesting was brewing again, and it would continue until comfortably into the new millennium.  Did they match their earlier glories here?  Probably not.  But they certainly weren’t guilty anymore of not trying.

TRACKLISTS:

Part 1 – To The Edge

Beyond + Before – Yes (1969)
Astral Traveler – Time and a Word (1970)
Yours is no Disgrace [expanded] – Yes album + Yessongs (1971-73)
We have Heaven – Fragile (1971)
South Side of the Sky – Fragile (1971)
And You And I [expanded] – Close to the Edge + Yessongs (1972-73)

Part 2 – In Deep

Fragments of Topographic Oceans – Tales from Topographic Oceans (1973)
[most of] The Gates of Delirium [expanded] – Relayer (1974)
Awaken – Jon Anderson + Todmobile (live in Iceland, 2013)

Part 3 – New Language

Mind Drive [excerpt-1] – Keys to Ascension 2 (1996)
Can I + Face to Face – The Ladder (1999)
Brother of Mine [fragment] – Anderson Bruford Wakeman + Howe (1989)
Homecoming [excerpt] – The Ladder (1999)
New Language – The Ladder (1999)
That, that it is [edit] – Keys to Ascension 1 (1995)
Mind Drive [excerpt-2] – Keys to Ascension 2 (1996)
Footprints [excerpts] – Keys to Ascension 2 (1996)
Mind Drive [excerpt-3] – Keys to Ascension 2 (1996)
Dreamtime – Magnification (2001)
In the Presence of – Magnification (2001)
Children of Light [part-2] – Keys to Ascension 2 (1996)

BONUS VIDS: