Kosmik Radiation Radio - January 28, 2011 Playlist

January 28, 2011 Playlist

Happy Birthday
Robert Wyatt
Robert Wyatt, born 28 January 1945

and Johnny Rotten
John Lydon, born 31 January 1956

CLASSIC ALBUM OF THE WEEK
Robert Wyatt "Rock Bottom" 1974 (UK)

Today is Robert Wyatt's 66th birthday, so our CAOTW is this critically acclaimed and hard-to-classify masterpiece from 1974. Wyatt's story is perhaps more famous than his music -- the biggest life-changing event in his biography being the accident that left him paralyed in 1973: a tough blow indeed for a professional drummer who depended on his dexterous limbs to make his art and his living. But rather than give up, Wyatt gave in -- producing this lunar underwater seascape of sound, a sort of spiritual drowning and rebirth if you will. A startlingly original take on "the Caterbury sound", the only album with a remotely similar vibe is Brian Eno's highly acclaimed Another Green World album (which came out the following year and may have been very much influenced by this record, Eno and Wyatt being old friends and collaborators.) Though Wyatt's work is arguably the greater album on account of Robert's amazing voice -- though somewhat thin and reedy, there is a core of emotional power in his singing comparable to Neil Young's One could also make the case that Robert Wyatt is the most original "British jazz vocalist" there has ever been.
Here's a short video chronology of Robert Wyatt's formative years: as singing drummer of The Soft Machine in 1967, one of the leading lights of British psychedelia alongside Syd Barrett's Pink Floyd. By that group's fourth album (Wyatt's last with the band), they had mutated into a pioneering progjazzfusion band, as this clip of The Soft Machine in 1970 shows. Next, Wyatt created and recorded two albums with his "sequel" band Matching Mole (this band's name is a pun on the French words for "Soft Machine.") After becoming paralyzed from the waist down in a tragic drunken accident, his next public appearance was a heartfelt cover of The Monkees' "I'm A Believer" in 1974 -- when he performed it on TV in his wheelchair, the BBC tried to avoid filming him below the waist (an interesting politically correct inversion of American TV's reluctance to show Elvis Presley's wiggly legs on TV back in the 1950's.)

(N) = New Release

Artist	Song	Album	Year (label)	Country
DMBQ	Are You Satisfied?	The Essential Sounds From The Far East	2005	Japan
Sex Pistols	Johnny B. Goode (Chuck Berry) --> Roadrunner (The Modern Lovers)	The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle	rec. 1976, rel. 1979	UK
Sex Pistols	(I'm Not Your) Stepping Stone (The Monkees)	A-side 7" single (The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle and also Flogging A Dead Horse compilation)	rec. 1976, rel. 1979	UK
Sex Pistols	I Wanna Be Me	B-side 7" single (The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle and also Flogging A Dead Horse compilation)	1976	UK
Sex Pistols	Liar	Never Mind The Bollocks Here's The Sex Pistols	1977	UK
Public Image Ltd.	Four Enclosed Walls	Flowers Of Romance	1981	UK

Talking Heads	Pulled Up	77	1977	USA
Wire	Too Late	Chairs Missing	1978	UK
Tyvek	4312	Nothing Fits (N)	2010 (In The Red)	USA
Gang Of Four	Do As I Say	Content (N)	2010 (Yep Roc)	UK
Blank Dogs	Insides	Land And Fixed (N)	2010 (Captured Tracks)	USA
Suuns	Sweet Nothing	Zeroes QC (N)	2010 (Secretly Canadian)	Canada (Quebec)

Syd Barrett	Gigolo Aunt	An Introduction To Syd Barrett (N - compilation)	2010 (Capitol)	UK
The Budos Band	Raja Haje	III (N)	2010 (Daptone)	USA
Konono No. 1	NO. K	Tradi-Mods vs. Rockers (N - various artists)	2010 (Crammed Discs)	D. R. Congo
White Fence	Sticky Fruitman Has Faith	White Fence Is Growing Faith (N)	2011 (Woodsist)	USA
Ducktails	Arcade Shift	Ducktails III: Arcade Dynamics (N)	2010 (Woodsist)	USA
Can	Spoon	Ege Bamyasi	1972	Germany

Tomita	The Harp Of The Ancient People With Songs Of Venus And Space Children (based on Prokofiev)	The Bermuda Triangle	1979	Japan
Eloy	Atlantis' Agony At June 5th, 8498 - 13 P.M. Gregorian Earthtime	Ocean	1977	Germany
Shinki Chen	The Dark Sea Dream	Shinki Chen And Friends	1970	Japan
King Crimson	In The Wake Of Poseidon	In The Wake Of Poseidon	1970	UK
The Velvet Underground	Ocean	VU	rec. 1969, rel. 1984	USA

Robert Wyatt	Little Red Riding Hood Hit The Road	Rock Bottom CLASSIC ALBUM OF THE WEEK	1974	UK
The Soft Machine (Robert Wyatt)	We Did It Again (live)	Noisette	rec. 1970, rel. 2000	UK
Robert Wyatt	Little Red Robin Hood Hit The Road	Rock Bottom CLASSIC ALBUM OF THE WEEK	1974	UK

Banco del Mutuo Soccorso	Il Giardino Del Mago	Banco del Mutuo Soccorso	1971	Italy

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