At Left: Your host's favorite Prog album of them all, the magnificent Lark's Tongues In Aspic from the staggeringly talented early-70's King Crimson.
Radio Anthrocide dumped its wave of Scandinavian tributes for the week of show #12 and went for an all-Prog format. No bells, no whistles, no gimmicks, just this writer's roots; mad obscurantism and album-side-long treatises on the entire meaning and scope of life. Look for more of these as your correspondent DJ Timothy decided about half-way thru the show that he was having more fun with an avalanche of Prog than he had with virtually anything he had done for years.
The show started with the great Marian Varga and Czechoslovakia's greatest Rock band, Collegium Musicum, from their 1971 magnum opus Konvergencie, an absolutely massive work clocking in at 82 minutes in the original release and a staggering 136 with the CD issue of early 2000. I chose "Concerto In D" to represent the album because of the mind-blowing keyboard solo by Varga and also because the rather cheesy symphonic opening was mandated by the Czech secret state police- only in Stalinist countries could genius like Varga's be so mindlessly assailed. (The idea was to make the music of this rather raucous band more "Classical", and not in the "decadent" style of the Western bands, of which ELP would be the nearest comparison to CM. Too much fun was something definitely frowned upon by the stooges installed by Moscow after the rambunctious attempt at "another path" to Socialism in the Prague Spring of '68) The troubles CM faced at the hands of the authorities are legion and legendary; the original album cover showing a very decadent-looking Varga in jeans jacket and an almost-pimpish cap, with a dangling cigarette; that had to go, and the state cultural administration would only allow the album to be released after it was bowdlerized to this more Socialist-Realist construction...which obviously is also more boring. The album, on the other hand, is flat-out amazing and easily matches anything released during the Classic Prog era in the West. And the solo you'll hear in the "Concerto"- with all of the many allusions to Bach- is simply stunning.
Highlights of the show following this dramatic opening included King Crimson from a near-riotous concert in Glasgow, 1973- my very favorite of all of the 48 Crimson concerts I maintain on my hard drive, and including the wondrous moment when a rather pissy Fripp lectures the crowd about waiting to cheer until the "numbers" have been completed...and then not too loudly, please. And- whilst playing some of the more famous Prog bands this week (a rarity for RA and perhaps exemplified by Genesis performing "Supper's Ready" in toto from a stunning concert in Montreal, 1974- replete with a game attempt at Quebecois French by Peter Gabriel) I also, as is my custom, dug deep into the history of the form and gave The Norman Haines Band and the curiously-named Public Foot The Roman their due on this extravagant and very- satisfying-to-produce show. And let's face it- you can never really hear too much Peter Hammil, and the intricate and profound "A Plague Of Lighthouse Keepers" is still one of the two or three most beautifully-realized Progressive Rock epics of them all. As always, I do hope you enjoyed the presentation, and will join me again this coming Saturday for the second show of RA to tackle the daunting subject of Progressive Electronic music. Cheers, - TKR
Setlist For Radio Anthrocide #12 An Evening of Progressive Rock
1) Collegium Musicum- "Concerto In D"
2) King Crimson- "Shark's Lungs In Lemsip"/"Lark's Tongues In Aspic Pt.1" (live in Glasgow, Scotland 1973)
3) Richard Pinhas- "Dedicated To KC"
4) Van Der Graaf Generator- "A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers"
5) Gnidrolog- "I Could Never Be A Soldier"
6) Axis- "Materializing The Unlimited"
7) Colosseum- "The Valentyne Suite: a) January's Search; b) February's Valentyne; c) The Grass Is Always Greener
8) Time (Yugoslavia)- "Za Koji Zivat Treba de sa Rodim"
9) Genesis- "Supper's Ready" (Live in Montreal, 1974)
10) Flea- "Topi O Uomini"
11) Rare Bird- "Iceberg"
12) Gentle Giant- "Pantagruel's Nativity"
13) Gracious- "Introduction"
14) Janus- "Red Sun"
15) Jonesy- "Know Who Your Friends Are"
16) Kebnekaise- "Elefantens Svavande Mot Nirvana"
17) Quiet Sun- "Sol Caliente"
18) Mighty Baby- "House With No Windows"
19) Mike Oldfield- "Tubular Bells {Part One}"
20) The Norman Haines Band- "Den Of Iniquity"
21) Public Foot The Roman"- "Judas Returns"
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