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 sixteen of the journey went as follows:
Kraftwerk – radioactivity
Queen – ’39
David Bowie – Andy Warhol
Barclay James Harvest- in my life
King Crimson -the night watch
King Crimson – Lizard [parts a+b]
Van Morrison – Snow in San Anselmo
Genesis – unquiet slumbers for the sleepers
Genesis – in that quiet earth
Genesis – Afterglow
Van der Graaf Generator – undercover man
Van der Graaf Generator – scorched earth
Hawkwind – you shouldn’t do that [live etc]
Hawkwind – you know you’re only dreaming
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.
Podcast (Solid Time begins at around the 5 minute point). Youtube playlist (probably inaccurate).
The Solid Time of Change will be Randophonic’s main focus for the forseeable future, an 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, musically speaking.
Part nine of the journey went as follows:
Rick Wakeman – white rock
Rick Wakeman – lax’x
Love – alone again or
Love – the good humour man, he sees everything like this
Manfred Mann’s Earth Band – Pluto the Dog
Emerson Lake + Palmer – take a pebble [edit]
America – sandman
Moody Blues – higher + higher
Moody Blues – house of (three) doors
Moody Blues – legend of a mind
Caravan – the dog the dog, he’s at it again
Caravan – the love in your eye [unpop edit]
Pink Floyd – fat old sun
Jon Anderson – ocean song
Jon Anderson – meeting [garden of Geda]
Jon Anderson – sound out the galleon
Jon Anderson – transic
Jon Anderson – naon
Daevid Allen – only make love if you want to
Van Morrison – almost independence day
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.
“The best part of that Band movie The Last Waltz is when Van Morrison hits the stage and they kick things through the stratosphere with Caravan. As far as I know, 4% Pantomime is the only other time they all hooked up on record, and the magic’s here too. Good, infectious, less-than-lucid times all around.” (Philip Random)
Randophonic’s first ever attempt at a proper Christmas show aired December 20th on CiTR.FM.101.9.
Here it is in two Mixcloud streams.
Plus a very special Movie of the Week — Monty Python’s Pleasures of the Dance.
The podcast of the full program is available for download here …
A special program in which we look back with fondness at cherished memories of Christmases past. Try to anyway, as it turns out the Jukebox is still stuck in minimum 49-percent prog-rock mode after the previous week’s 1974 blowout.
Which isn’t to say there aren’t plenty of highlights, seasonal and otherwise.
Sorry about that. The rest are guaranteed highlights, presented more or less in the order they were broadcast.
Van Der Graaf Generator – theme one
Written by George Martin for some TV show or other. Reimagined for drums, keyboards and various horns by Van Der Graaf Generator at their 70s freakout peak.
They don’t say which King Henry, though this strikes us as decidedly Shakespearean. Which raises the question. Where the hell are all the rocked up Shakespearean Christmas carols?
The Clash – if music could talk …
… then we truly would have peace on earth.
Delaney + Bonnie – where the soul never dies
What it’s really all about.
Beatles – Christmas time + The Word
The word is love. The time is now.
Emerson Lake + Palmer – Jerusalem
An interpretation of William Blake’s cosmic musing on Britain’s industrial revolution (those dark Satanic mills) and Jesus Christ himself taking a little walk ‘cross England’s green and pleasant. ELP at their least annoying.
December even mentions the Christ child, but it’s not so much a Christmas song as a meditation on the gloomiest time of year, and how we always seem to find the light to see our way through, which seems to be what spirit’s all about.
Van Morrison – St. Dominic’s Preview
A song about many things, most of them indecipherable, but there is homesickness at the root of it. You think Buffalo’s a long way away? Try Belfast.
Manfred Mann’s Earth Band – father of night, father of day
In which the Earth Band manage in ten minutes what Bob Dylan’s original accomplished in less than two. And yet, we’re pretty damned sure that the good Lord has love enough for both.
The band that brought bassoons and krumhorns to rock. And one more time, why is there not more of this sort of Shakespearean groove available this time of year?
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 