I'm going to limit this to just 3 that I've recently found - with actual period videos! (and some other links at the end too.)
"Magic Fly" by Space, from Magic Fly (1977)
So much insanity!! I'd heard of France's Space before as a band The Time & Space Machine had remixed. Crazily enough, Jannick Top from Magma was a founding member. On the other side, they put out From Earth to Mars in 2010 - sounds not all that bad really.
"Supernature" by Cerrone, from Supernature (Cerrone III) (1977)
Did I mention crazy? Cerrone was also from France, one of a few global Space Disco hubs. Click the link for an interesting Wiki read on this "French disco drummer, singer-songwriter and record producer" who "was 'the first' to put the kick drum (or bass drum) into the foreground of modern dance music." He's still going too, recently Vs'ing Louie Vega.
"Nightflight to Venus/Rasputin" by Boney M from Nightflight to Venus (1978)
The 1st part kinda reminds me of a neon-strobe Sun Ra, and then the 2nd tune actually happens. Things get freakier before the rules set in...
One pattern I noticed is how much material was based directly on non-musical properties from film and television - like Droids' "The Force," Moroder's "Battlestar Galactica," and "Theme from Star Trek" by The Galactic Force Band (???).
And the Wikipedia entry talks about Space Disco leading to '80s stuff like the awesomely-named Laserdance (from Holland) and even Falco's "Der Kommissar" (Austria).
On 25 May 1977, Meco watched the feature film Star Wars on its opening day. By the second day, 26 May 1977, he had watched it four times, and he watched it several more times that weekend. He then got the idea to make a disco version of the score by John Williams.
Meco was an American named Domenico Monardo, who originally formed a band... musical group... production team. Along with a "guitar genius," the current musical director for Dancing with the Stars (ABC-TV) and Jon Bon Jovi's 2nd cousin, they made an album.
"Star Wars" from Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk (1977)
Apparently, Tony Bongiovi would regularly advise: "It's not dumb enough – It's too good." Ever heard of Suzanne Ciani? "In 1977, Ciani provided the sound effects for Meco's disco version of the Star Wars soundtrack, which was certified platinum." She recently had a collection released by Finders Keepers. US CD from Forced Exposure. Check out a tune or another of hers.
I embedded the long (album) version up there, but there are a whole bunch of different ones. Such as the Cantina Band 7" edit, or some longer remix, some of which are probably not MECO originals... Who knows any more?!
Encounters of Every Kind, Side 1 (1977)
Because of the known hilarity of the Meco-Star Wars axis, I recently bought the unknown Meco Close Encounters of the Third Kind record, released the same year (1977). Same trip as the infamous Caroliner haul. Coincientally, it was "the last Meco album to gain significant prominence on the Billboard charts, though he continued to record film tie-ins with disco-inspired albums..." Surprising!!
Here's the tracklist for Side 1: "Time Machine" (0:43), "In the Beginning" (3:27), "Roman Nights" (1:26), "Lady Marion" (2:52), "Icebound" (1:20), "Hot in the Saddle" (4:27). Close Encounters, amirite?
"Theme from Close Encounters" from Encounters of Every Kind (1977)
O wait, there it is - last track on the record! There was also a "very rare" Close 7" version, but what you really care about is...
Get ready for a new Can boxset of unreleased material - coming June 19th to America! 3 CD's!!
"A Swan Is Born" from The Lost Tapes (2012)
Can (#1, 1973) was possibly the greatest of the avant-garde, post-hippie era of German experimental bands. Read more & download this track over at Pitchfork. I found this other video at the Mute Records site for the set...
[Posted 12/3/2011] I think I put all of these up before going out of town for a weekend. It's all about Patti!
"Land" by Patti Smith, from Horses (1975)
[10/21/2011]Nice Grantland article on Patti Smith's Horses (1975) - if you like that reading thing (or Patti). Nothing for a coupla days, so bonus "posts" meow...
And here's where this gets meaningful for punk, because the implication of "Land," and by extension the rest of Horses, is that this this stuff was in the music all along. Early rock was always in league with ecstasy and violence, even when the lyrics suggested otherwise. A cheesy party track like "Land of 1000 Dances" concealed pathways to self-escape worthy of Rimbaud.
"Free Money" by Patti Smith, from Horses (1975)
[10/21/2011] Free Money from the PSG!
"Friction" by Television, from Marquee Moon (1977)
[10/21/2011] Always seemed like T.V. And Patti inspired each other, vocally at least. This is one of my (many) favorite Television songs...
[Posted 11/22/2011] And now comes the triumvirate of major French dudes from '70s avant-pop and soundtrack and album louche. GO!!
"Cannabis" by Serge Gainsbourg, from Cannabis OST (1970)
[9/16/2011] So, what next?? Howsabout France? If so, we must start - and possibly end - with Le Serge. Father of Charlotte, subject of a new biopic, et cetera... Howsabout "Cannabis?"
"Bonnie and Clyde" by Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot, from 1968 single
"L`enfant au Royaume des Mouches" by Jean-Claude Vannier, from L`enfant au Royaume des Mouches OST (1972)
[9/17/2011] Jean-Claude Vannier, often heard en compagnie de Gainsbourg. Like the previous tune, this one is also from a soundtrack. Groovy!
"La girafe au ballon" (c. 1968) by Jean-Claude Vannier, from Electro rapide (2011)
From a new rarities collection, just out last month on Finders Keepers (more on them in 1 post).
The many guises of...
"L'étrange Msr. Whinster" by Horrific Child, from L'étrange Msr. Whinster (1976)
[9/18/2011] And finally, Jean-Pierre Massiera - in the guise of Horrific Child - with the title track from the weirdo-gonzo "L'étrange Msr. Whinster." Mid-'70s gnarl!
"Love Like This (Human Egg)" by Jean-Pierre Massiera, from Psychoses Discoïd (1976-1981) (1976)
Joakim Nilsson: The first one is a reflection of life and "The Siren" is about a nightmare of Roky Erickson. They were composed at completely different periods.
"Hisingen Blues" from Hisingen Blues (2011)
Title track official video, and the cover art's pretty sweet as well...
Okay, maybe I have time for one more post. Check out this NASA-commissioned artwork, recently posted over at BoingBoing. Unfortunately, I forget about BoingBoing.net all too often - because I'm very, very interested in a decent amount of what they dig up.
Fine. So, that explains "NASA" and "space colony" - but what of RAMA? Well, these pictures reminded me of the Rama series of sci-fi books by Arthur C. Clarke. Rama was a mysterious object entering our solar system, which turned out to be a cylindrical alien space colony, much like those pictured above. In fact, the Wikipedia page for the first book, Rendezvous with Rama (1973), even contains the first painting above.
Much like Clarke's fiction initially proposed the whole idea of geosynchronous communication satellites (in 1945!!! or at least 1956)... Rama included some bold ideas, later implemented by reality:
Clarke invented the fictional space study program which detects Rama, Project Spaceguard, as a method of identifying near-Earth objects on Earth-impact trajectories... However, a real Spaceguard project was initiated some years later, named after Clarke's fictional device. After interest in the dangers of asteroid strikes was heightened by a series of Hollywood disaster films, the United States Congress gave NASA authorization and funding to support Spaceguard.
Been listening to a little more of Gong's You (1974), third chapter of the Radio Gnome Invisible series. Of course it has "Master Builder," but the video linked in my previous Gong (vs. Magma) post has been removed. So, here's that again, plus some other groovy batty psych-prog weirdness.
"A Sprinking of Clouds" from You (1974)
Major discovery, at least for me recently. Appears right after the "Builder," so I guess I've just sorta overlooked it. No more!! If there's a typical Gong type of tune, these aren't it. That would be quirky and distinctly British, with odd vocals that do more for the overall narrative than the song itself. These are the jams, and there's no typical Gong style of jam. "Clouds" is really different, with a gradual build in the electro- vein, until the pulsewaves crash hard - then blast off entirely.
"Master Builder" from You (1974)
Freaktastic jazzcore, with some spacerock drone-groove.
Back from Austin, and will have lots of newness in the upcoming week, but for now...
Always fun to run into something you like someplace you wouldn't think to find it. Did not expect to find this video at Biomusicosophy, but it's awesome!!
"Easy Wind" live on Calibration tv show - 8/30/1970 KQED Studios, San Francisco, CA
Reminded me to go ahead and post this too!
"New Speedway Boogie" live in Calgary, AB - 7/3/1970
The solo Beatles mash-up album-link search reminded me what terrible cover art the solo Beatles used. Just horrible - especially Paul!
But one that I'd never seen stood out, so I figured I would try my best to compile four cool solo Beatles album covers...
Fantastically ludicrous, in the absolute best way, is Ringo Starr's Goodnight Vienna (1974)! I'm a big fan of the original The Day The Earth Stood Still movie, which was the only version when this album came out. I'm not sure what the response was at the time, or whether anything done by a Beatle could be considered "ballsy." But looking back, it's great. Apparently the title phrase was old-school Liverpudlian slang for "Let's get out of here." Wikipedia's entry also informed me of this tv advert for the album:
Can anything top that? Doubtful... And for George, I actually had to go with a 1979 Capitol reissue of Dark Horse (also 1974). I actually have this framed and hanging in the loo.
I'm almost positive that was the back cover of the original gatefold release. Given the unusual placement of printed text and the Hare Krsna logo, but you can't really tell whether it might be just bad design. I'm equally sure that someone like me found the whole picture too good to pass up: the boots obviously, but the hat, the flower... plus the relaxed attitude. Like, this is just how George Harrison goes out for a stroll in the park. Obviously!
John Lennon's album covers weren't necessarily very bad, more pedestrian and predictable. They usually just featured some picture of him, or him and Yoko, or him and Yoko naked. And there's not much avoiding that, so why fight it?
At least Mind Games (1973, so close) played with perspective, or lack thereof. Making Yoko the entire horizon, and John a tiny, awkward dwarf engulfed in a wide open field. With the title, it opens all sorts of questions - especially if answers.com is correct that Lennon himself designed the cover. That's internet info for you, though.
Sorry, I'm pretty sure there are no good McCartney solo album covers. But I'm open to suggestions...
Sometime around college, I heard Tago Mago (1971) and Autobahn (1974), and Big Black's cover of Kraftwerk's "The Model." But I doubt I put them all together too much.
Like quite a few musics, my full awareness of Krautock started with the Spin Alternative Record Guide (1995, OOP). In addition to entries for Can and Kraftwerk, this was appended to Faust's:
After Faust, you'll surely want to venture further into the Krautrock hinterland. Start with Neu!, a group something like Germany's Television. Combining radiant guitars with the unsyncopated symmetry of the motorik beat (also used by Kraftwerk) to create an aura of restrained elation...
Amon Duul II lay at the baroque end of the Krautrock spectrum; imagine Led Zeppelin produced by John Cale and you'll get some idea of the grandiose delights of Phallus Dei, Dance of the Lemmings, and Yeti. As for the rest... Ash Ra Temple's [sic] lysergic raga-rock and Popul Vuh's pellucid, almost Gothic instrumentals can be taken straight, but Brainticket and Guru Guru walk a precarious line between sublime and ridiculous.
If you think that didn't spark my interest, you don't know me! (And maybe you don't, but it did.)
Around the same time and unbeknownst to me, crazy Julian Cope (of The Teardrop Explodes) was self-publishing Krautrocksampler (1995, OOP). He defined Krautrock very narrowly, as music that could not have been created anywhere but in the late '60s and '70s German rock underground. Therefore, he leaves off some landmark albums from his otherwise seminal Krautrock Top 50 list.
A couple more genre'l notes before we dig into the exemplars. The term Krautrock was originally coined by the contemporary British music press, apparently as a condescending perjorative. It gained currency when it was embraced by some of the acts themselves (especially Faust's song with that title), by John Peel, and obviously later by Julian Cope and others approvingly. Cope would definitely not include a band like Brainticket (they're Swiss), but I'm going wide.
Still, he's pretty right on: the only thing drawing together Velvet-y agit-funk and side-long synth-suites is their roots in the German youth counterculture of the '60s.
Top shelf The seminal bands that are centrally identified with the genre. Many of their members cross over into other important Krautrock acts or made a mark solo. Band name links go mostly to All Music Guide biographies, song titles go to the best YouTube clip I could find - without repeating previously posted songs.
Second class All of these acts show up in Cope's Top 50 albums list, but they're not the major names. For the most part, they were more experimental, shorter lived, and/or not quite as titanic as the top shelf bands.
Third tier There's some great stuff here, and some of it's way, way out there. But these are more obscure, or drifting away from what really makes the music Krautrock. Still worth checking out... if your interest hasn't already run dry.
Nowadays Expanding from those included on the old 3 Who Would... Kraut post. Don't want to overdo it by including anyone I can imagine being heavily under the influence, but I'm also leaving out avowed admirers such as Radiohead, Flaming Lips, and Wilco. They just don't often sound Krautish.
Here's another subject I'm not an expert on: Franco-progressive bands. But I do know there's really only two major ones, and enough to group them both together in one post. Magma, the brainchild of drummer Christian Vander: Zeuhl, Kobaïa, Rock In Opposition... And Gong, the project of guitarist Daevid Allen: Pot Head Pixies, Zero the Hero, Radio Gnome Invisible...
Magma is the crazier one. Further out on the prog end of the rock spectrum, almost into avant-garde composition. Seems like if you dig it, there's plenty to dig deep into - with historical live jams.
Maybe these quotes will help you decide if you're down with Magma.
Kobaïan is a lyrical language created by French drummer and composer Christian Vander for his progressive rock band Magma. It is the language of Kobaïa, a fictional planet invented by Vander and the setting for a musical "space opera" sung in Kobaïan by Magma on ten concept albums.
French drummer and composer Christian Vander formed progressive rock band Magma in late 1969 in an attempt to fill the void left by the death of American jazz musician and composer John Coltrane.
Zeuhl means celestial in Kobaïan. Zeuhl typically blends progressive rock, symphonic rock, fusion, neoclassicism, aspects of rock in opposition and vocal elements of African-American spirituals and Western military call and response. Common aspects include dissonance, marching themes, throbbing bass, keyboards including piano, Rhodes piano, or organ, and brass instruments.
As one might expect, the music from Kobaia several hundred years from now is very unlike what we are accustomed to on twentieth century planet earth. Magma's music is very strange, beautiful, and ultimately rewarding, but it does require an open mind on the part of the listener. It is music that must be experienced fully with body, heart and soul: not simpley a cerebral performance of some kind of space opera by clever musicians, but a full blown spiritual experience with the music acting as the connecting vehicle between performer and listener.
That's right: zombies.
Gong is more traditionally psychedelic and proggy, being sung in English but making not necessarily more sense. The 3-album tale of Zero the Hero, an intergalactic plan to raise human consciousness via the Angel's Egg, initiated over the Radio Gnome Invisible wavelengths, from a command center in the Hymnalayas of Tibet. 'Tis a bit silly, but often groovy live.
Here's the resource background for your Gong preview reading.
The Gong mythology is a collection of recurring characters, themes and ideas that permeate the rock albums of Gong. The story begins when a pig-farming egyptologist called Mista T Being is sold a "magick ear ring" by an "antique teapot street vendor & tea label collector" called Fred the Fish. The ear ring is capable of receiving messages from the Planet Gong via a pirate radio station called Radio Gnome Invisible.
Meanwhile, the mythology's central character, Zero the Hero, is going about his everyday life when he suddenly is compelled to seek after heroes and starts worshipping the Cock Pot Pixie, one of a number of Pot Head Pixies from the Planet Gong. These pixies are green with propellers on their heads, and they fly around in tea-pots.
Zero's (drug-induced) trip to the Planet Gong continues, and the Pot Head Pixies explain to him how their flying teapots fly (a system known as Glidding). He is then taken to the One Invisible Temple of Gong.
Inside the temple, Zero is shown the Angel's Egg — the physical embodiment of the 32 Octave Doctors (descendants of the Great God Cell). The Angel's Egg is a magic-eye mandala, also a sort of recycling plant for Pot Head Pixies. A grand plan is revealed to Zero...
Ennio Morricone is known for two things: writing Sergio Leone film scores, and writing the musical scores for about a billion others.
Crime and Dissonance (2005) was co-compiled by Mike Patton (Mr. Bungle/Faith No More/etc...), put out on his own Ipecac Recordings label, with liner notes by John Zorn (Naked City/Masada/Book of Angels/etc...) - so you know it's gonna be freaky. And it is. The selections come mostly from obscure late-'60s and early-'70s films. Including apparent soft-core porn, so a soft-core *NSFW* [not safe for work] warning on the videos. The only movie I was familiar with is Dario Argento's debut, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970).
I'm just going to throw out what's already available on YouTube. The comp is 30 tracks of noisy guitar skronk, sexy mellow interludes, heavy jazz vibes, and just about everything wild and of the era. 2xCD for a favorable price! My more favorites embedded, rather than linked... but it's all groovy.
... okay! I made one video, because this song is pure insanity. It goes from pastoral to choral chanting to boogie-psych to military marching to baroque classical, then mix-mashes it up again.
"Ricreazione Divertita" from Crime and Dissonance (2005)
Disc 1, track 1: "Giorno di Notte" - funky wah-wah and organ breakdown, from Una Lucertola con la Pelle di Donna (1971), a Lucio Fulci giallo.
"Astratto 3" - percussive insanity plus sexy moaning, from Veruschka: Poesia di una Donna (1970), an art-horror film with the titular experimental super-model.
It's been a year since we lost a giant, Godfather of Rap, King of the Party Records, the badass: Dolemite, Rudy Ray Moore (1927-2008).
The comedy's just too epic to be contained in little ol' YouTube soundbites, so here's some film-related musical greatness. First up, the theme from Dolemite (1975)!
And the sequel's equally awesome theme song: The Human Tornado (1976)!
[Click for gigantic poster size]
How you like "Ghetto Street, USA?" From Petey Wheatstraw, the Devil's Son-in-Law (1977)... [full instrumental version]
Here's the famous proto-rap "Shine and the Great Titanic," also from Dolemite:
One more - the Dolemite soundtrack is really terrific! Revelation Funk's "Time is On Our Side" (performed live in the film):
And finally, here's hoping It Came From Trafalgar (????) will finally get a release sometime soon. Cheers!
Speaking of my previous failures at blogging, I once wrote on the Grateful Dead's 11/15/1971 show in Austin, TX [streaming]. Good show. Besides being a Texas show, it's known mainly for two things: the first-set "Dark Star > El Paso > Dark Star" [tracks 9-11] - a pretty crazy combination. That's a psychedelic trip into the cosmic void, enveloping a Marty Robbins tune... (~26 min)
But we're here to listen to the "Not Fade Away" [track 23 ff.], a pretty common Dead cover. One of a few Buddy Holly signature tunes, it was also an early Rolling Stones chestnut. The Grateful Dead trade a little of the Bo Diddley beat for something a bit more tribal, but typically use it as a launching pad for... something.
Here they break pretty far away, introduce bits and pieces of other Dead songs ("China > Rider"), delve into some high psychedelia, rave on, conjure a deep pulsating jam, then clear out down the folky road, and finally bring it all back to Buddy Holly again (~25 min). Within just a few years, even the Grateful Dead wouldn't still be jamming this way anymore, but this is what it was really all about: free-form, unpredictable, symbiotic interplay that makes the improvisation sound rehearsed. Not everyone's bag, I can dig it.
Actually, I just realized looking at the setlist, that it's a cornucopia of covers. "BIODTL" is Jesse Fuller. "El Paso." "Me & My Uncle" was written by Papa John Phillips. "Me & Bobby McGee" was written by Kris Kristofferson, popularized by Pigpen's buddy Janis Joplin. Hank Williams' "You Win Again." Buddy Holly... and the interpolation "Goin' Down the Road Feeling Bad" is an early-20th century Traditional. It's been covered by lots of people, including Woody Guthrie. And of course Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode," wellspring of rock-n-roll!
Some might say it's just a sub-Roger Dean alien cityscape. I'll even admit to liking some Dean, but this is Klaatu! The band whose lack of album credits spawned rumors of a prog Beatles reunion?! Yeah, that Klaatu.
Hope is from 1977, which makes it probably the best late-period Canadian Beatlesque prog record of all. My sources tell me it's a concept album "about the sole survivor of an arrogant race of beings, who warns space travelers of hazards in the last days of his life." So, of course it would win the Canadian Music Critics award for Best Album!
Hey, wait. Is that some kind of metaphor for the USA? Hmmmm...
Apparently, the art was done by "Ted Jones." Good info. He also did the design for their first few records. Can't tell whether that's the Fisk University art professor, but maybe not. Still, you can really tell from that pompous city, that was one arrogant race of beings. Also, pretty nifty how the sun pattern on the cracked tile plaza is from their first album cover (Hope was the 2nd). The back's pretty nice as well, giving a zoomed-out overhead shot of the town, the mountain in the background, and close-up red giant sun.
Plus, all respect for The Day the Earth Stood Still bandname homage!
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