352. decades

“The first thing I heard about Joy Division was that they were a cool new band out of Britain who were doing a sort of new wave meets The Doors thing. Which sounded cool. The next thing was that their lead singer had killed himself. But good luck getting to hear any of the actual music. Local rock radio wasn’t playing any of it and whatever few dozen of their records that may have made it to town as imports were quickly scooped up by people far cooler than me. So it was all just mystery for a long time until I finally heard Decades on a mixtape in some guy’s car – as suitable an epitaph as anyone ever wrote for themselves. And strangely, it’s almost exactly what I expected. Dark and strange and heavy with mood just like Jimbo the Lizard King and his crowd, except the edges were harder, the lines cut sharper. Like nothing I’d ever heard before really, except perhaps in my dreams. I guess I liked it. I’ve never really stopped listening to it.” (Philip Random)

JoyDivision-1980-live

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014. The Final Countdown*

Installment #14. of The Final Countdown aired Saturday-June-30-2018 (c/o CiTR.FM.101.9).

Tracks available on this Youtube playlist (somewhat inaccurate).

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 over a year of radio if all goes to plan, and when has that ever happened?

TFC-014

Installment #14 of The Final Countdown* went like this.

1031. Ennio Morricone – an Indian story
1030. Screaming Blue Messiahs – wild blue yonder
1029. Doors – soul kitchen
1028. REM – Cuyahoga
1027. Flatt + Scruggs – down in the flood
1026. Queen – someday one day
1025. Gordon Lightfoot – Don Quixote
1024. Flying Burrito Brothers – lazy day
1023. Alan Parsons Project – Dr Tarr + Professor Fether
1022. CloudDead – rifle eyes
1021. Pauline Easy – Billie Jean
1020. The Leisure Society – Cars
1019. Cookin’ with Kurt – soup du jour
1018. Holger Czukay – Dancing In Wide Circles
1017. Godley + Creme – Consequences [stampede + mobilization]
1016. Sun Ra – nuclear war
1015. Lovin’ Spoonful – day dream
1014. John Mayall – sitting in the rain
1013. Arthur Louis – knockin’ on heaven’s door
1012. Wall of Voodoo – on Interstate 15
1011. John Martyn – I’d rather be the devil
1010. Aphex Twin – analogue bubblebath
1009. Jenny Owen Youngs – Fuck Was I
1008. Sonic Youth – I’m Not There

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.

 

535. [love hides] five to one

“I had a copy of the Doors’ Absolutely Live kicking around for years before I finally listened to it, grabbed cheap for future reference, I guess, because at the time I was going through a prolonged phase of just not being into Jim Morrison and his bullshit, poetic and otherwise. Early 1990s finally, I put it on and what blew me away was the band. Hot shit indeed for a trio (guitar, drums, organ – the bass notes coming from the Ray Manzarek’s left hand). And yeah, I had to admit the singer had a certain something too, not remotely afraid to howl his angst and poetry and prophecy at the universe. We’re all doomed apparently.” (Philip Random)

(image source)

563. soul kitchen

“Yeah, Jim Morrison was an asshole, who died for his own sins, nobody else’s. But damn, the Doors were a strong band, and yet they were pretty much nothing without him. And that first album in particular – well, somebody had to do it. 1967. Summer of Love – offer at least a hint that there was a darker side to things even as it was rocketing to the top of the charts. Soul Kitchen makes the list because it’s remained mostly well hidden over the years, and thus, no allergies.” (Philip Random)

Doors-1967

816. not to touch the earth

“I didn’t really twig to this track until I saw the Doors movie, which I realize I’m not supposed to like (or am I?), the whole thing just being so absurdly over the top — Val Kilmer chewing not just the cheap studio scenery, but great chunks of the Mojave desert as well. Except it’s true, all that excess. The psychedelic 60s were that weird, eruptive, wild, kicking into overdrive by 1967, blowing through to the darkness beyond the ozone by 1968, which is where Not To Touch The Earth comes in. You’re so high you’re not sure if you’re worm or a god, or maybe just some long dead Indian who snuck into your eggshell skull during a thunderstorm in the desert when you were still a small boy.” (Philip Random)

(image source)

831. Alabama Song

In which Ralph Schuckett, Richard Butler, Bob Dorough, Ellen Shipley and John Petersen take on a Kurt Weill song made famous by the Doors, sort of. But it really ought to be the other way around, Kurt Weill being one of the greatest songwriters of the 20th Century (oft working with Bertolt Brecht), and the degree to which so many are ignorant of this is the degree to which we continue to be ignorant of what makes this f***ed up world continue to spin and wobble and crash and burn. Fortunately, producer, arranger, lover-of-cool-stuff Hal Willner set a bunch of us straight in the mid-80s sometime with Lost In The Stars an all-star tribute if ever there was one. Beyond the five names already listed, it had Todd Rundgren, Van Dyke Parks, Dagmar Krause, Tom Waits, Marianne Faithfull, even Sting (not sucking) all throwing in, paying homage, telling the truth.

kurtweilllottalenye

28. The Solid Time Of Change

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.