Kosmik Radiation on WORT radio - classic album of the week (most recent 12 weeks)

Jul 3, 2009	Funkadelic "Funkadelic" 1970 (USA) It's the "4th of July", and that means it's time for the 5th annual Parliament-Funkadelic Spectacular! If you don't know about "America's greatest band" by now, shame on you! The eponymous 1970 debut album by Funkadelic marks the beginning of a string of incredibly influential, brain-melting heavy funk records. Here's some outrageous early video of Parliament/Funkadelic: "I Wanna Testify" by The Parliaments was the song that started it all -- and the rest of this crazy freakout from 1969 is also well worth checking out! And here they are again freaking out on TV with a tune from their debut LP, "I Got A Thing, You Got A Thing, Everybody Got A Thing". But this next one may be the craziest clip of the classic Funkadelix ever: "Cosmic Slop " (1973 video). And here's a glimpse of the spectacularly mind-blowing P-Funk stageshow of the later 1970's: "Cosmic Slop" (live 1979).
Jun 26, 2009	Liars "They Were Wrong, So We Drowned" 2004 (USA) If I was doing a radio show with a "best albums of the year" list back in 2004, this would have been a cinch for the #1 slot. In fact I'd say it's probably one of the two or three best albums of this entire (musically unremarkable) decade. The problem with our modern age is that most "new" music these days sounds like a retread of something from the past -- indeed, Liars first album (already a CAOTW) sounded a lot like Gang of Four, ESG, and the "punk funk" of the 1970's/1980's. But on their second full length release, they thew away the style guides of the past and brewed up something truly original. Drowned is a concept album about "witchcraft", featuring "songs" with very little form or melody. At the time, critics went nuts and to this day you will often see this record rated online as a "two-and-a-half star / 6 out of 10" album. Which just goes to prove "music critics" are, as a whole, the least intelligent form of human life on the planet. The hipster scribe community seemed to come around for their third album however, the almost-as-weird Drum's Not Dead (#2 on the Kosmik Radiation Best of 2006 chart) -- on which the songs are still formless, and the drums carry the "melodies"! Unfortunately, their fourth self-titled album from 2007 was significantly less adventurous or interesting than the first three -- here's hoping they re-write the rules again next time out. Here's Liars live at The Knitting Factory doing a song from this album: "Broken Witch". And here's the uplifting ballad-like "The Other Side Of Mt. Heart Attack" from the Drum album, and finally "Houseclouds" is a catchy tune from their most recent release to date.
Jun 19, 2009	The Guess Who "Wheatfield Soul" 1969 (Canada) I have an unreasonable obsession with The Guess Who, and in particular their hammy hockey-haired lead singer Burton Cummings. He's like a prairie hybrid of Jim Morrison and Lou Reed, but with the voice of Tom Jones! This was The Guess Who's first "American album", though they had been working in Canada and making records there since 1965. "These Eyes" became a Top 10 smash and launched a very successful run of hits in America, and the rest of the album is full of juicy psychedelic pop nuggets. The 10-minute centerpiece "Friends of Mine" is such an over-the-top parody of The Doors, I think it's actually better than anything that band ever did! Where Morrison's muse was "so poetic" that it delved into self-parody, Burton's jive is "so parodic" that it's true street poetry! (A street that runs past a grain elevator, that is!) Here's a few rare early videos when The Guess Who was the house band on a Canadian TV show and played covers of popular Anglo-American hits like "She'd Rather Be With Me" by The Turtles and "Tin Soldier" by The Small Faces. And of course their big hit was "American Woman" (this version comes from the mid-70's and features the post-Randy Bachman lineup); plus here's another jammy version of the song featuring their fellow Winnipeger Neil Young!
Jun 19, 2009	The Monkees "Headquarters" 1967 (USA) Since this is my self-indulgent birthday show, here's a second classic album for this week: a landmark album by the first musical group I was ever into. The Monkees TV show ran in syndication on Saturday mornings in the 1970's, and the groups combination of cute hijinks and subversive surrealism was irresistable to my young mind -- and they made surprisingly good records too. By 1967 everyone knew the Monkees "didn't play their own instruments", so in a gloriously quixotic move the four actors who played a band on TV rebelled against the suits who created them and insisted on being an actual band in the recording studio. Don Kirshner, the svengali figure who oversaw the first two (huge-selling) Monkees albums was fired, and the Prefab Four produced, wrote and played most of the instruments on this, their third LP. Amazingly, their slightly shaky garage-rock stylings stand up very well today (better than those first two records they did), and Headquarters even reached #1 on the US album charts for exactly one week -- before being replaced by a little album called Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. For video stimulation, let's start off with the classic opening credits from The Monkees show which aired from 1966 to 1968. Here's the band "performing" a song from this album on the show, Mickey Dolenz's protest anthem "Randy Scouse Git" (the title of the song was changed to "Alternative Title" in the UK because "Randy Scouse Git" is British slang for "horny bastard from Liverpool"!) However, The Monkees' greatest TV moment was their final 33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee prime time special from 1969 -- here's Mickey working out his mojo with Brian Auger and Julie Driscoll on "I'm A Believer", and here they are actually playing their own instruments on Mike Nesmith's "Listen To The Band", which was their final hit song.
Jun 12, 2009	Magma "Magma" 1970 (France) Magma was one of the most original "rock" groups of all time, inventing their own language to sing songs about the mythology of "planet Kobaia" and its inhabitants, against a backdrop of music that has more in common with Stravinsky and Coltrane than the Beatles or Zeppelin. They were apparently quite popular on the European continent (in fact still are), though the American music press gave them nothing but scathing reviews during their 70's heyday. Therefore they have remained an obscure cult band on these shores, but are highly recommended for curious ears looking to hear something "completely different." (In fact there is a whole musical movement in Europe called "Zeuhl" which is based on the pioneering work of Magma.) This is their first album which has Kobaian lyrics, but is closer to "jazz fusion" and "prog rock" than some of their later opuses, so might make a good place to start. Keep your wig on tight, here's some extra-crazy videos! First, Magma on French TV in 1970, and next here's "De Futura" from a 1977 TV appearance (written by the remarkable bass-playing troll Jannick Topp, though he wasn't in the band for this performance.) And I think this next one is just about the craziest thing I've seen on youtube: a video illustrating misheard lyrics from Magma's "Mekanik Destruktiw Kommandoh" (it's worth watching the whole thing, and the music's great of course!)
Jun 5, 2009	Spirit "Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus" 1970 (USA) Spirit was one of the greatest and most ogirinal rock groups of the 1960's, though for some reason they've never really risen above "cult status", even during periods when their style of music comes back into vogue. Some of Spirit's key influences were Jimi Hendrix (guitarist Randy California briefly played in Jimi's Greenwich Village band before he became famous), jazz (drummer Ed Cassidy and keyboardist John Locke were older cats from that scene) and of course the "west coast psychedelic sound" that they are usually associated with. Dr. Sardonicus was their 4th record, and the last one with the original line-up. Though it failed to sell when it was first released, it continued to grow in popularity throughout the 1970's and eventually led to reissues of their earlier albums and singles, and California and Cassidy reforming the group around 1975. Also of note: this album was produced by David Briggs, who birthed many classic Neil Young & Crazy Horse albums. (Neil himself turns up a couple times in the Spirit story -- they had all lived in the same area of Topanga Canyon in California for a while.) Here's video of a later version of Spirit (California & Cassidy with some other guys) performing a popular tune from this album, "Mr. Skin". And here's part of a fan documentary compiling clips throughout the group's career, including earlier hits and near-misses like "I Got A Line On You" and "Fresh Garbage".
May 29, 2009	The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band "Volume 2: Breaking Through" 1967 (USA) The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band was a second-string psychedelic band from California, as the name implies intended to be a freaky "happening" band like The Mothers of Invention and Andy Warhol's proteges The Velvet Underground. At the instigation of the notorious Kim Foley, oil scion and popstar-wannabe Bob Markley got together with a struggling group called The Laughing Wind and WCPAEB was born. Since he had money, Markley provided the funds for an extravagant light show and state of the art equipment that allowed the group to compete in the psychedelic sweepstakes (their concert reputation led Reprise records to sign them in 1967), though the rest of the band questioned his musical talents (for what it's worth, Markley eventually wound up in legal trouble for his "fascination with young girls" and was last spotted in a mental institution more than a decade ago.) Since he was the money man, Markley also controlled the rights to the band's name and got to decide which songs were going to be released on their albums -- needless to say, this group was never much of a "band" in the collective sense, and apparently disagreements and arguments were the rule of the day! In spite of the sordid details (did I mention one of their guitar players also produced the Dirty Dancing soundtrack?!?), WCPAEB did make a couple of groovy records, and my favorite is this one (which despite the title was actually their third album!) The highlight is undoubtedly the immortal psychedelic nugget "Smell of Incense", later a minor hit for the Dallas band Southwest F.O.B. Unsurprisingly, there doesn't seem to be any video of this hitless group -- but here's a record geek showing off his copy of this album.
May 22, 2009	Bob Dylan "John Wesley Harding" 1967 (USA) This year it's Dylan's turn to have the CAOTW for the Bob & Miles Birthday Special, and this is one of his most noteworthy and unsung albums. This surprisingly understated record followed a period of tremendous turmoil in which Bob nearly died, and perhaps as a result his songwriting made a huge stylistic shift. During the years 1965-66, Dylan had been an absolute sensation -- the only artist who could be considered the equal of (if not greater than) the Almighty Beatles. Then he got seriously injured in a motor cycle accident, and spent the "Summer of Love" recuperating in upstate New York with the Canadian gang who would soon come to be known as The Band. While everybody else was freaking out and turning day-glo with flowers in their hair, Bob turned his back on the trends of the day and refocused his songwriting efforts on the traditional folk and blues themes that had originally inspired him. Of course, no one really knew what was going on with the "disappeared" Dylan at the time, and when John Wesley Harding came out at the very end of 1967 few seemed sure what to make of it. But before you know it, "mellow" rustic music with an old timey flair suddenly became all the rage (beginning with the Byrds and Grateful Dead going "country" and continuing on through the rise of the Eagles and similar soft-rock groups in the 1970's.) For video, here's Neil Young playing the most famous song from this record (which was popularized by Jimi Hendrix.)
May 15, 2009	Far Out (Far East Family Band) "Far Out" 1973 (Japan) Far East Family Band was one of the greatest of the unsung bands of the 1970's. This Japanese group specialized in excess -- there were a whole lot of guys with very long hair in the band, their first album boasted "eleven synthesizers!" (one played by the guy who would later become new age artist Kitaro), and most of their songs are in the 10-20 minute range in length. But before becoming Far East Family Band, there was originally a smaller group called Far Out which was the first to pioneer the epic psychedelic song stylings of Fumio Miyashta. There's a whole terrific chapter on FEFB in Julian Cope's Japrocksampler book. Here's some very cool footage of Far East Family Band live back in their glory days when they were sort of like "The Japanese Pink Floyd." At the end of the group's career, FEFB leader Fumio Miyashta moved to Los Angeles and tried to keep the band going -- here's the much-reduced "group" live in Los Angeles 1978, and here is Fumio on LA cable access TV in 1979!! And as a bonus, here's the incredible Flower Travellin' Band live in 2008, reunited after 35 years with all original members! (Check out Hideki Ishima's rad electric sitar!!!)
May 8, 2009	Faust "Faust" 1971 (Germany) The 1971 debut album by the German group Faust is one of the landmarks of "krautrock" music, and among the most acclaimed "experimental" records of all time. The genius of Faust is that there do not seem to be any rules to their music -- at times they are melodic or even funky, and at other times jarringly "un-musical." Though their albums were never big sellers, the group established a strong cult following which has only grown over the years, and have proven enormously influential in recent decades (much like Frank Zappa and the Velvet Underground, artists to whom Faust in turn probably owes some debt.) After falling mostly silent during the years 1975-1990 (though apparently still recording in secret at their rural location in Wümme during this period), three of the core members of the group revived Faust and the band has been more active in recent decades than ever before (their most recent record was 2007's Disconnected, a collaboration with Nurse With Wound.) The packaging of Faust's early albums is also worth a mention -- Faust was originally released as a transparent record in a transparent sleeve (with transparent lyric sheet) with a picture of an X-ray of a fist on the cover ("Faust" is German for "fist.") Their second album Faust So Far came in a "none more black" sleeve, while their final album Faust IV features a minimalist design with empty musical staves on the cover. Though their most popular album was undoubtedly The Faust Tapes -- for even though it's probably their most strange and disjointed record of all, Virgin Records sold it at the super low budget price of 49 pence in order to drum up interest in the group. Here's some documentary footage of Faust in 1971, and here is Faust today!
May 1, 2009	Matching Mole "Little Red Record" 1972 (UK) This week's show falls on the first day of May, thus the theme of the monthly special is "May Day", a date of great significance for both pagans and communists! So fittingly, the CAOTW this week is Matching Mole's Little Red Record, which features a cute cover depicting the band members in the style of Maoist propaganda. Matching Mole was a "Canterbury scene" supergroup founded by singing drummer Robert Wyatt after he left (or was kicked out) of The Soft Machine, and also features the talents of guitarist Phil Miller (Hatfield & The North, National Health), bassist Bill MacCormick (Eno & Manzanera collaborator) and originally David Sinclair (Caravan, Hatfield & The North, Camel) on keyboards, though he was replaced by David MacRae (Nucleas) for this, their second album. Stylistically, they were perhaps the loosest of the Canterbury groups, playing a whimsical brand of progressive jazz rock that was mostly instrumental. This particular album is also quite notable in that it marked the first joining forces of Brian Eno (guest synthesizerist) and Robert Fripp (who produced the album.) Sadly, this was to be the group's final recording, as Robert Wyatt fell from a window in 1973 and has been paralyzed ever since. (And PS - Wyatt actually is a genuine "card-carrying member" of the Communist Party of Great Britain.) Here's some footage of Matching Mole live in 1972, around the time of this record -- and here's a trippy clip of The Soft Machine live in 1971 , and also live in 1967, when Wyatt was in the band. And finally, here's a rather strange moment in pop history: after his accident, Wyatt had a hit single in the UK with his version of the Monkees' "I'm a Believer", and performed it on TV in his wheelchair!
Apr 24, 2009	Mission of Burma "Vs." 1982 (USA) This week is the fourth anniversary of Kosmik Radiation's debut on WORT-FM, so we're taking a trip through my vinyl collection. One of my all-time favorite bands and albums is this gem from Mission of Burma -- a "punk" band who came along too early for the indie rock wave of the 1980's, and whose aesthetic was really closer to psychedelic art rock anyway. The group only recorded two singles, an EP and this full-length LP before breaking up in 1983 (followed by a posthumous live album) -- until they regrouped in 2002, and since then they have made two more fine albums! (I never expected that to happen!) Here is the reconstituted Mission of Burma performing some songs from this album live in recent years: "Mica" and "Trem Two". Plus, here's some rare early video that reveals the band has never really changed much: "Red" from 1983, and "Peking Spring" from 1979.
Apr 17, 2009	Pavement "Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain" 1994 (USA) The theme of this week's show is VINYL RECORDS, on account of "National Record Store Day" is this Saturday. Like a lot of folks, I gradually migrated from buying LP's to CD's as the 1980's turned into the 1990's -- and this was pretty much the last new release I ever purchased on vinyl (at least until recently, when I have pretty much sworn off of CD's all together!) And a real good one it is too! This was Pavement's second full-length release, and the first to feature the "mark II" line up of the band with Mark Ibold, Bob Nastanovich and Steve West joining founders Scott "Spiral Stairs" Kannenberg and Stephen "S.M." Malkmus. The record version even came with a bonus 7" single: "Jam Kids / Haunt You Down". Pavement is all over Youtube -- so here's live clips from the early 90's of "Unfair" and the classic "Cut Your Hair" from this album; plus here's a rarity from 1992 called "Secret Knowledge of Back Roads", with their original hippie drummer Gary Young doing handstands while S.M. sings.