D-Sides, Orphans, and Oddities
Episodes
Thursday Dec 02, 2021
Thursday Dec 02, 2021
Bruford - Age Of Information (1980) I guess, if I'm going to call the Bowie band of 1975-1980 the best band of the decade, this group would come close to that. With the inimitable style of Jeff Berlin on bass and the wonderful Bill Bruford on drums, this album might have been the closest Prog came to the elusive jazz/pop hybrid bred into the bone for so many of the Prog hopefuls of the era.
Jan Hammer Group - Don't You Know (1977)
Can - I Want More (1976) Can was a sometimes impenetrable German Prog outfit. Their music in the early part of the decade wasn't something I could say I liked, even though I tried like heck. This was a single, which kinda makes sense. All Prog was catching a terminal disease at this juncture, but no one knew it.
Renaissance - Flight (1983) I messed this song up on my show, but this is not a bad record. Renaissance had some great moments in the '70s, and if you are interested, go find Scheherazade and Other Stories from 1975. Like Close to The Edge, it only has three songs, but I think that record is their apex by a mile, and I like the other albums. This was from their last "Golden Era", Time-Line album, although it had been a while since they could get a record company to pony up the do-re-mi for an orchestra.
Discogs: Renaissance was originally formed in London, UK, in 1969 by ex-Yardbirds vocalist Keith Relf and drummer Jim McCarty who wanted to explore a new sound blending elements of rock, folk, and classical music. Relf assumed the role of guitarist, and they were joined by bassist Louis Cennamo, keyboardist John Hawken, and vocalist Jane Relf. This lineup recorded the first self-titled album and most of the second album, Illusion (1971). A rapid series of personnel changes followed. Guitarist and composer Michael Dunford first appeared on Illusion. Before his departure from the band Hawken recruited new vocalist Annie Haslam. By 1972, when the Renaissance recorded their third album, Prologue, none of the original members remained though McCarty still wrote music for the band.By 1973 the lineup had stabilized with Haslam, Dunford, keyboardist John Tout, bassist and vocalist Jon Camp, and drummer Terry Sullivan. This lineup produced a string of relatively successful albums over the remainder of the decade. They had one Top 10 single in the U.K., "Northern Lights", from the album A Song For All Seasons (1978).By 1980 Sullivan and Tout departed leaving Haslam, Dunford, and Camp as the stable core of the group with various other musicians coming and going through the early and mid-1980s. The group released two albums, Camera Camera (1981) and Time-Line (1983) which were not well received by either fans or critics. Renaissance went into the studio to record a further album but found themselves without a label willing to release it. Material for this album as well as discarded tracks from the sessions for the previous three releases finally saw the light of day as Songs From Renaissance Days in 1997. [Ed: Which I gobbled up the day it came out, as there was no other domestic CD of this group available at the time.]
Yes - The Revealing Science of God (1973) There are moments in this song that, to me, are just amazing, transcendent, and still cause chills maybe 40 years after the first time I heard them ("Getting over overhanging trees...") like almost all of Yes' epic side-long monsters. There's a reason Prog fans like me are filled with sadness that the people who made this magic for us cannot seem to just stop recreating or trying to recreate these moments with an ever-shifting group of lesser talents. The Beatles did it right. They just stopped, resisted the potentially lucrative urge to make themselves stand there again, together, and recreate sounds from which they had long ago moved past. I like this. There's a real fire that people might have forgotten these very young men possessed.
King Crimson - Thela Hun Jinjeet (1981) So this might be #3. Tony Levin played on some later Yes albums, as well as Peter Gabriel (he plays the Chapman Stick, a strapped upright instrument with both tenor and bass strings). He also played with Paul Simon and hundreds of others. Robert Fripp played with David Bowie on his Berlin Trilogy, and Bill Bruford was amazing in Yes, his own band, Bruford, and...Genesis during a tour! Bowie and...Adrian Belew!! Who is here after stints with Talking Heads, Zappa, Tom Tom Club....it goes on and on, but I really like anything Bill Bruford played on.
Bruford - Gothic 17 (1980) I've played stuff from Bruford's first record with Annette Peacock. This is in that funky, other-worldly combination of jazz and pop. I love Jeff Berlin's voice. I wish they had dome more records together. Go find "Joe Frazier" off this album. Whoo boy.
Gentle Giant - Interview (1976)
Genesis - One For The Vine (1977) Genesis at their peak. It's hard to believe it now, but this was composed solely by Tony Banks. The scope and drama, pathos, and virtuosity amaze me especially when one considers that he (and they) never created anything this beautiful again. Who was the best keyboard player in Prog? I think about it and Kerry Minnear comes to mind, as he really was the creative force in Gentle Giant. But neither he, Keith Emerson, Rick Wakeman, or any of the others, as good as they were, authored something as wonderful as this.
Rush - Jacob's Ladder (1980) I don't care what you say. This album is peak Rush. After years of album/tour/album/tour, "The Spirit of Radio" captured their amazing musicianship, their cool humor, and the fact that you could be groovy in 7/8. I think of this record as the end of the beginning, but not in a good way. I played this in a band once. We were terrible. I had a tiny Casio keyboard (it was all we could afford) and I couldn't play the last bit on bass with anything resembling speed. Our drummer was great.
Discogs: Rush's seventh studio album.The cover depicted the famous incorrect headline "Dewey Defeats Truman" on a newspaper in the bottom left corner.However, the Chicago Tribune (the paper that originally published the error) pressured the band to remove the headline. Some versions appear altered with either "Dewei Defeats Truman" or a blanked section.The billboards in the distance (mid-right) originally read "Coca-Cola." However, the cola company objected to the use of their logo and the cover was changed to display the band members names in a similar typestyle to the original logo.Trivia: The woman on the cover of this album is model Paula Turnbull. Contrary to rumor, the guy waving in the background on the cover is not one of the members of Rush, it's actually Hugh Syme, the art director of the album.
UK - In The Dead of Night/By The Light Of Day/Presto Vivace and Reprise (1978) One of the first Prog supergroups, members of other big groups smooshed together. In this case, John Wetton of King Crimson, Roxy Music, Uriah Heep, Mogul Thrash, etc., Bill Bruford, the amazing Allan Holdsworth (Soft Machine, Gong) , and Eddie Jobson (Zappa, etc.) make a great album. Then Bill leaves, and Terry Bozzio (Zappa) records another record and a live album, and then...Asia.
Joe Simon - Before The Night Is Over (1977)
I don't consider The Moody Blues or Pink Floyd prog.
Wednesday Jun 17, 2020
Roy Wood. Who's Roy Wood?
Wednesday Jun 17, 2020
Wednesday Jun 17, 2020
Annie Haslam - If I Were Made Of Music (1977)
Annie Haslam - Inside My Life (1977)
Annie Haslam - Nature Boy (1977)
Roy Wood - Colorful Lady (1979)
Roy Wood Wizzo Band - Life Is Wonderful (1977)
Roy Wood - Keep Your Hands On The Wheel (1979)
Roy Wood Wizzo Band - Sneakin' (1977) compared with Don Ellis' "Pussy Wiggle Stomp" (1970).
The Archies - Plum Crazy (1968)
The Archies - Strangers In The Morning (1968)
Climax - Rock and Roll Heaven (1972)
Dean Martin - Sweetheart (1971) Written by the Gibbs Brothers sans Robin.
Dean Martin - For Once In My Life (1971)
Jasper Carrott - Funky Moped (1975)
Roy Wood Wizzo Band - The Thing Is This (This Is The Thing) (1977)
Mickey Dolenz and Starship - It's Amazing To Me (1973)
Roy Wood Wizzo Band - The Stroll (1977)
The Archies - Hot Dog (1968)
Neil Sedaka - Solitaire (1972)
Ray Conniff Singers - At Seventeen (1975)
Rudy Ray Moore - The Human Tornado (1976) From "The Human Tornado"
Scott Walker - Farmer In The City (1995)
Bob McGrath - Sir Duke (1977)