Tag Archives: Strawbs

The 12 MixTapes of Christmas [2018 version]

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These 12 Mixtapes of Christmas have got nothing to do with Randophonic’s other 12 Mixtapes of Christmas from two years ago, or even with Christmas (beyond being a gift to you). And they’re not actually mix tapes, or CDs for that matter – just mixes, each 49-minutes long, one posted to Randophonic’s Mixcloud for each day of Twelvetide (aka the Twelve Days of Christmas).

There’s no particular genre, no particular theme or agenda being pursued, beyond all selections coming from Randophonic’s ever expanding collection of used vinyl, which continues to simultaneously draw us back and propel us forward (sonically speaking) — music and noise and whatever else the world famous Randophonic Jukebox deems (or perhaps dreams) necessary toward our long term goal of solving all the world’s problems.

Bottom line: it’s five hundred eighty-eight minutes of music covering all manner of ground, from Roy Orbison to Curtis Mayfield to Can, Bob Dylan, Manfred Mann’s Earth Band, Kraftwerk, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and beyond (and that’s just from the first mix) — anything and everything, as long as it’s good.

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023. The Final Countdown*

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Installment #23. of the Final Countdown aired December-10-2018 (c/o CiTR.FM.101.9).

 

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 #23 went like this.

857. Marius de Vries – The Avengers Theme
856. Holger Czukay – cool in the pool
855. Ropes – Club in Europe Forever
854. Blue Nile – stay
853. Barry Adamson – something wicked this way comes
852. Spoon – I turn my camera on
851. UB40 – present arms in dub
850. Johnny Mathis – wild is the wind
849. The Rain and the Sidewalk – master of the universe
848. Can – I’m so green
847. Chicago – make me smile [longer edit]
846. Jimi Hendrix – love or confusion
845. Three Dog Night – never been to Spain
844. Joni Mitchell – cold blue steel + sweet fire
843. Nitin Sawhney – Voices
842. Strawbs – a mind of my own
841. Funkadelic – Brettino’s Bounce
840. Funkadelic – Music For My Mother
839. Sun Ra – exotic forest
838. Neil Young – lotta love

Tracks available on this Youtube playlist (not exactly accurate).

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.

 

411. where is this dream of your youth?

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“The Strawbs original recording of Where is This Dream of Your Youth? is nice enough, a nifty little bit of folk pop, but it’s Rick Wakeman‘s sustained live freakout on the Hammond organ (found on 1970’s Just a Collection of Antiques + Curios) that hooked me, and keeps on hooking me, just keeps going, going, going through the decades – peaks and valleys and all manner of long haired freaky looking people grooving along in smoke filled rooms, smelling of incense and wacky tabacky. Because groovy still meant something in those days, with a new decade dawning, the revolution at hand. Or so it must have seemed.” (Philip Random)

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645. Benedictus

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“As the story goes, Strawbs main man David Cousins was rather choked at losing keyboard whiz kid Rick Wakeman to Yes. So, as was popular at the time, he consulted the Classic of Changes (aka the mystical I-Ching), which gave him a few lyrics if nothing else. ‘Humble must he constant be, where the paths of wisdom lead, distant is the shadow of the setting sun‘. Good enough for the lead-off track from 1972’s Grave New World, which I’d say was their best album, as if losing Wakeman had lit a fire under them. They’d prove the bastards wrong. They’d expand the known universe without him. And they did, even if hardly anyone noticed. One of the best damned bands most people have never heard of, let alone heard.” (Philip Random)

Strawbs-1972

38. The Solid Time Of Change

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Installment #38 of the Solid Time of Change aired on Saturday May-27-2017 (c/o CiTR.FM.101.9).

Youtube playlist (sadly inaccurate).

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.

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Part Thirty-Eight of the journey went as follows:

  1. National Health – squarer for Maud
  2. Pink Floyd – interstellar overdrive
  3. Procol Harum – in held twas in I [edit]
  4. Moody Blues – nights in white satin
  5. Moody Blues – The Dream
  6. Moody Blues – have you heard [part-1]
  7. Moody Blues – the voyage
  8. Moody Blues – have you heard [part-2]
  9. Strawbs – new world
  10. Strawbs – the life auction
  11. Strawbs – ghosts
  12. Mike Oldfield – tubular bells [pieces]

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.

34. The Solid Time Of Change

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Installment #34 of the Solid Time of Change aired on Saturday April-1-2017 (c/o CiTR.FM.101.9).

Podcast (Solid Time begins a few minutes in). Youtube playlist (somewhat inaccurate).

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.

solid-crop-34

Part Thirty-Four of the journey went as follows:

  1. Pink Floyd – pow R toc H
  2. Roxy Music – Virginia Plain
  3. Strawbs – autumn
  4. Strawbs – hero and heroine
  5. Al Stewart – Nostradamus
  6. Genesis – cinema show
  7. King Crimson – trio
  8. King Crimson – fracture
  9. Black Sabbath – Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
  10. Sally Oldfield – water bearer
  11. Sally Oldfield – Songs of the Quendi
  12. Sally Oldfield – mirrors

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.

28. The Solid Time Of Change

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Installment #28 of the Solid Time of Change aired on Saturday February-4-2016 (c/o CiTR.FM.101.9).

Podcast (Solid Time begins a few minutes in). Youtube playlist (somewhat inaccurate).

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.

solid-crop-28

Part Twenty-Eight of the journey went as follows:

  1. Jethro Tull – Dharma for One [live]
  2. Strawbs – where is this dream of your youth?
  3. Strawbs – Benedictus
  4. Alice Cooper – I Love the Dead
  5. Tiny Tim- the other side
  6. Vangelis – he-ho
  7. Vangelis – we were all uprooted
  8. Moody Blues – melancholy man
  9. Procol Harum – a salty dog
  10. Yes – to be over
  11. Doors – The End
  12. Pink Floyd – careful with that axe Eugene
  13. Van Der Graaf Generator – my room [waiting for wonderland]

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.

854. the life auction

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The Strawbs started out as a folk band in the 1960s, but somewhere along the line, things started getting so-called progressive, which Rick Wakeman‘s stint on keyboards only accentuated. But even after Yes scooped him up, the Strawbs continued with the progressing and expanding, and nowhere so seriously, intensely, psychedelically as The Life Auction, found on 1975’s Ghosts. It’s tea time, the middle of England somewhere (or maybe just some drab Canadian suburb) and the acid you dropped an hour or so back is finally kicking in hard, the truth about everything revealed in the polluted haze of another diluted day.

(photo: Steve Jepson)

The 12 MixTapes of Christmas

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The Twelve Mixtapes of Christmas have got nothing to do with Christmas (beyond being a gift to you) and they’re not actually mix tapes, or CDs for that matter – just mixes, each 49-minutes long, one posted to Randophonic’s Mixcloud for each day of Twelvetide (aka the Twelve Days of Christmas).

The mixes are in fact remnants of an unfinished project from a few years back that had something to do with compiling a playlist for an alternative to Alternative Rock (or whatever) radio station. To be honest, we’re not one hundred percent clear about any of it because somebody spilled (what we hope is) red wine on the official transcript, thus rendering key parts illegible.

Bottom line: it’s five hundred eighty-eight minutes of music covering all manner of ground, from David Bowie to Bow Wow Wow to Tuxedomoon to Claudine Longet, Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, Captain Beefheart, Aphrodite’s Child, Tom Jones, Marilyn Manson, Ike + Tina Turner, anything and everything, as long as it’s good.