Category: Music

The CDRGO! Project has been putting together a series of yearly CDRs, in which the object is to fill up a 700MB CDR with mp3s of songs released in a given year. There’s no other guidelines – some folks went with hits, some with obscurity, some with both. I volunteered to do 1973 and here’s how it went:

1. The Electric Company, “Third Season Theme”
2. Alice Cooper, “Hello Hooray”
3. CKLW radio babble – FM converter ad
4. Queen, “Keep Yourself Alive”
5. Black Sabbath, “Killing Yourself To Live”
6. Blue Oyster Cult, “Hot Rails To Hell”
7. Zior, “Entrance Of The Devil-The Chicago Spine”
8. New York Dolls, “Jet Boy”
9. David Bowie, “Watch That Man”
10. The Stooges, “Gimme Danger”
11. ZZ Top, “Jesus Just Left Chicago”
12. Shocking Blue, “In My Time Of Dying”
13. Joe Walsh, “Rocky Mountain Way”
14. Franco Battiato, “Aria di Rivoluzione”
15. Don Cherry, “Trans-Love Airways”
16. Neu!, “Fur Immer (Forever)”
17. Faust, “Krautrock”
18. Area, “Le Labbra Del Tempo”
19. Magma, “Mekanik Kommandoh”
20. Ocho, “En Tropicana”
21. Rare Earth, “Smiling Faces Sometimes”
22. Jerry Reed, “Lord Mr. Ford”
23. Charlie Daniels Band, “Uneasy Rider”
24. Electric Light Orchestra, “Showdown”
25. Pink Floyd, “Us And Them”
26. Kevin Ayers, “Decadence”
27. Fleetwood Mac, “Hypnotized”
28. Al Kooper, “(Be Yourself) Be Real”
29. Todd Rundgren, “Zen Archer”
30. The Kinks, “Sweet Lady Genevieve”
31. ABBA, “Ring, Ring”
32. Deep Purple, “Woman From Tokyo”
33. The Who, “Sea And Sand”
34. Genesis, “Dancing With The Moonlit Knight”
35. Amon Duul II, “Apocalyptic Bore”
36. Roxy Music, “Mother Of Pearl”
37. King Crimson, “Easy Money”
38. Vicki Lawrence, “The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia”
39. Dolly Parton, “Jolene”
40. Charlie Rich, “Behind Closed Doors”
41. Beach Boys, “Trader”
42. Golden Earring, “Radar Love”
43. Slade, “Cum On Feel The Noize”
44. Little Feat, “On Your Way Down”
45. Roy Harper, “Bank Of The Dead”
46. Serge Gainsbourg, “Des Vents Des Pets Des Poums”
47. Scott Walker, “Any Day Now”
48. Stealers Wheel, “Stuck In The Middle With You”
49. Kris Kristofferson, “From The Bottle To The Bottom”
50. Lee Hazlewood, “Poet, Fool Or Bum”
51. Buffy Sainte-Marie, “Why You Been Gone So Long”
52. Marie Osmond, “Paper Roses”
53. Roberta Flack, “Killing Me Softly With His Song”
54. Lou Reed, “The Bed”
55. John Cale, “The Endless Plain Of Fortune”
56. Sandy Denny, “Solo”
57. “Live And Let Die” movie radio spot
58. Johnny Pate, “Brother On The Run (Opening)”
59. Herbie Hancock, “The Spook Who Sat by the Door”
60. James Brown, “Down And Out In New York City”
61. New York City, “I’m Doin Fine Now”
62. “Willow’s Song” from The Wicker Man soundtrack
63. PFM, “Photos Of Ghosts”
64. Bruce Springsteen, “Incident on 57th Street”
65. Tangerine Dream, “Circulation Of Events”
66. Agitation Free, “Dialogue And Random”
67. Gabriel And Marie Yacoub, “Pierre de Grenoble”
68. Gong, “Other Side Of The Sky”
69. Mike Oldfield, “Tubular Bells Part 1”
70. KFRC radio babble “Mick Jagger car giveaway”
71. The Rolling Stones, “Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)”
72. Eloy, “Future City”
73. Neil Young, “L.A.”
74. Steely Dan, “My Old School”
75. Joao Donato, “Chorou, Chorou”
76. TM Productions, Interkey promo spot
77. Nazareth, “Razmanaz”
78. Rory Gallagher, “Walk On Hot Coals”
79. Hawkwind, “Orgone Accumulator”
80. Can, “Future Days”
81. David Essex, “Rock On”
82. Ann Peebles, “I Can’t Stand The Rain”
83. Sly And The Family Stone, “In Time”
84. Betty Davis, “Game Is My Middle Name”
85. Suzi Quatro, “Skin Tight Skin”
86. Sylvia, “Pillow Talk”
87. Jimmy Cliff, “Struggling Man”
88. Stevie Wonder, “Living For The City”
89. Donny Hathaway, “The Slums”
90. 24-Carat Black, “Food Stamps”
91. Fela Kuti, “Alu Jon Jonki Jon”
92. Kraftwerk, “Kristallo”
93. Leny Andrade, “Nao Adianta”
94. Risken Finns, “Barnen Fragar Annu Efter Dig”
95. Lucio Battisti, “Ma E’ Un Canto Brasileiro”
96. The Gimmicks, “Att Fa Resa”
97. Tom Waits, “Martha”
98. Gladys Knight And The Pips, “Midnight Train To Georgia”
99. Sweet, “Little Willy”
100. Brownsville Station, “Let Your Yeah Be Yeah”
101. Johnny Cash, “Oney”
102. Alan Price, “Look Over Your Shoulder”

Threw together a cover too. Hooray for 1970s retrofuture! (and microgramma font)

Saw Primal Scream at Canes in San Diego last Friday. One hell of a brilliant show of ridiculous over the top rock and roll excess that wound up the relatively small audience into a pack of happy pogo’ers. More shows should be like this. The set list was wisely limited to the last three albums (with a couple of exceptions) and on the whole I preferred the live sound to the studio albums – which isn’t the first time I’ve said this.

No Kevin Shields though – he was out for the US shows this time. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that he’ll be back on the next tour, since I missed seeing My Bloody Valentine out of my own stupidity (“oh I’ll catch them next tour”). However any day you get to hear Mani on bass is a good day indeed.

I love seeing shows at Canes. It’s a little non-descript beach club in San Diego that just gets some amazing shows – Spiritualized and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Mogwai and Bardo Pond. Never really gets crowded and the sound is great.

GREAT show last night. Apparently it was a warm up show for a South American tour next month so it wasn’t announced and was completely free. The set list was wonderfully anarchic with a couple of new songs, couple old ones, and a couple things I didn’t recognize that were crowd requests. Any day you get to hear “Gigantic” is a good one.

Apparently, the Soviet Union had it’s own synthesizer manufacturers – no big surprise since they had their own builders for things like electric guitars, etc. but it’s still wild to see. Much like the western manufacturers, the Soviets built some normal looking ones, and some completely off the wall.

Anyway, all you analog-heads should check out the Museum of Soviet Synthesizers and prepare to pick your collective jaws up off the floor.

As applied to different prog rock bands

Some choice selections…

Heldon chicken – started crossing the road in an electrifyingly anarchistic manner then exploded in a fireball half-way across.

Genesis chicken (with Peter) – danced across, then spread its wings and ascended slowly into the sky. Then the sun came out and all the peoples of the world rejoiced. The new Jerusalem was at hand. Utopia found.

Genesis chicken (after Peter) – kept promising it would cross tonight, tonight, tonight… but it never did. And will it ever? Inquiring minds want to know.

Hawkwind chicken – Made it almost all the way across when it was abducted by evil sadistic cryogenically recycled alien acolates from Zorkon Beta 5QX7 who were collecting Earth specimens for interplanetary scientific research.

Soft Machine chicken – This totally hip chicken was wearing totally rad rectangular spectacles that were so dark and cool looking, it couldn’t see where it was going. It managed to eventually improvise its way across the road.

Legendary Pink Dots chicken – not knowing what a road was, this chicken crossed a gulfstream instead. Remember, relativity over objectivity equals art.

Van Der Graaf Generator chicken – flapped haphazardly into the middle of the road, then rolled onto its back, kicking its legs in the air clucking incessantly.

Peter Hammill chicken – Did the same as the Van Der Graaf chicken, but it also pecked at the pavement violently until its beak was chipped and bloody, then stared painfully into the sun yelling verses from The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner.

Yes chicken – Steadfastedly refused to cross the road. Period.

Rick Wakeman chicken – Thumbed its beak at the Yes chicken and waltzed across the road while eating some KFC and chain smoking unfilter Camels.

Patrick Moraz chicken – tripped and fell down half-way across because some idiot left a half-eaten bucket of KFC lying in the middle of the road.

ELP chicken – shot like a cannon across the road, accompanied by swirling fog, atmospheric explosions and fireworks. Tickets to see this highly hyped event were $34.95 and/or £53.

King Crimson chicken – Started to cross the road, but when it got to the center decided that the whole idea of chickens crossing roads was stupidly conceited and overdone. But after sitting on the shoulder watching all the other chickens crossing merrily, it decided it really did want to cross after all.

Pink Floyd chicken – This half-machine, half-animal chicken,instead of crossing the road, would flag down cars and peck the drivers to death.

Amon Duul chicken – Crossed the road by running through a drainage culvert, marveling at the way its movements echoed through the galvanized steel. Went into the Black Forest to experience nature on LSD.

Amon Duul II chicken – Crossed the road like the Amon Duul chicken, but it was suffering from delusions of grandeur, thinking it was a secret agent on a mission to find out where in the world Carmen Sandiego is.

Mike Oldfield chicken – shyly crossed the road when it was sure no one was looking. Incidently, it made the road it crossed. Also, it manufactured the asphalt used to make the road, as well as chip the rock used in the production of the asphalt, as well as invent the use of pavement for roadways to begin with.

Can chicken – BECAUSE IT CAN! End of story.