RA#26 An Evening Of Progressive Rock 2

At Left- One of the premiere finds during the Prog hunt since the beginning of the old "Bad Prog" shows and now the search for genius and greatness that is RA's very reason for existence- ladies and gentlemen, Copenhagen's own Tomrerclaus. Great record overall, but the amplified cello of "Cellokarma" with all the feedback and such...genius. Just pure Psycho-Psych genius.







Ah yes, so now in part of catching up the famed RA blog, DJ Timothy can not only talk about all the great music we played last Saturday night, but also share some of the details of his harrowing cross-country train excursion from Seattle to Brooklyn, NY replete with incredibly shitty food, rude Amtrak attendants, desperate days in need of a shave and one highly entertaining drunken evening with a Neo-Nazi and his "service" dog, a pit bull puppy named Billy. And its all true friends- all true. (Billy was actually much more like the second link than the first; after all, he's just a puppy and he's still learning. But the first link was just so bad-ass, I had to include it here. Billy actually spent most of his time asleep or begging his owner for treats, or wanting me to scratch him behind the ears.)

So, the deal is that I am temporarily broadcasting from the ultra-opulent and mega-modern studios of DJ Micah here in the Carroll Gardens section of Brooklyn, NY. The "RA Over BK" phase of my Prog Empire is now being launched, and fans of the program can expect many big things to come in the following months. With luck, RA will pitch its tent here in the pork products capitol of the world and soon establish hegemony over the dutchbag Indie rock which owns this town and is in need of a damned good whacking. But first, about that Nazi and his pit bull.

You have very little control of who ends up on your car when you travel by train; I've done the Amtrak all the way across America several times now, and while it is very enjoyable, there are always some inconveniences that must be dealt with, namely, the absolutely horrible food available and the fact that sometimes you end up in conversations against your will with insane strangers who just love train travel. In this case, however, I can't exactly say I was displeased with my Nazi travelling companion's company. Being white, of course he was cool with me, and you know, the kind of guy who would have N-A-Z-I tattooed across his knuckles always has some kind of story that is worth hearing- you just don't end up a Neo-Nazi with a doctor-prescribed stress relief pit bull for nothing, I tell you that.

Everything was fine with this guy (I won't mention his name, he's got enough problems) until we got to Chicago and had a four-hour lay-over. This left a lot of time to kill, which NN filled by having a few beers (I did the same thing) and then buying a sixer of Old Style and a pint of nasty Canadian whiskey which he smuggled on board. I needed that after three days of enforced sobriety, and as I said, NN was very entertaining, regaling me with tales of his various imprisonments, a really nifty 9/11 conspiracy I hadn't heard before, theories on pit-bull raising ("They're actually victims of dog racism") and ever-so-many wonderful flights athwart convention, reality, and The Jews. All this is fine by me; it's just some guy talking, and I treat all of these encounters like an ongoing interview with the flip-side of rational thought and unconventional living; DJ Timothy is very hard to offend, because the more likely a person is to be insane, the more likely I am to find him all the more amusing.

We killed that pint of whiskey in about 45 minutes, though, and that with the Old Styles and all the other was enough to have just about anyone loaded. Now, to repeat: I find this incredibly amusing, on a train in the middle of Indiana at 3 a.m., with a post-traumatically stressed Neo-Nazi, his pit bull "service dog", and both of us drunk. It was then that- literally out of nowhere- a diatribe commenced about Somalis (wow, NN really doesn't like Somalis, I'll tell you that) and I had to call things off for the night before this cat got me kicked off of the train. At one point- and I swear to you this is true- poor Billy put his little pit bull puppy head on my lap from underneath the lounge car table, and just looked at me with these big, despairing and disconsolate eyes; like, "He gets like this some times. It really upsets me, too. Please scratch me behind the ears." Further incident was avoided, but I awoke the next morning with a throbbing hang-over, and that's no fun on a moving train going through the wastes of Ohio. Anyway, I made it, am loving the weather and all the old sights of BKLYN and especially the fattening-up I'm undergoing here and that's about all I have to say this week.

Oh yeah- there was a show Saturday night. If you'd like to see the playlist, it's below, and I promise next week I'll return to the established form of actually writing about the music I played that week. - TKR

Setlist For RA#26 An Evening Of Progressive Rock 2

1) Emerson, Lake And Palmer- "The Barbarian"
2) Tomrerclaus- "Cellokarma"
3) Dark- "Maypole"
4) Hansson And Karlsson- "Tax Free"
5) King Crimson- "Cat Food" (Live in Glasgow, 1973)

6) Van der Graaf Generator- "Killer"
7) Spirogyra- "Cogwheels Crutches And Cyanide"
8) Svanfridur- "What Now You People Standing By?"
9) Il Rovescio Della Medaglia- "Absent For This Consumed World"/"Ora Non Ricordu Piu"
10) Il Balleto Di Bronzo- "Un Posto"

11) Pussy- "G.E.A.B."
12) Gentle Giant- "Pantagruel's Nativity"
13) Barclay James Harvest- "Dark Now My Sky"
14) Blast Furnace- "Ginger Cake"
15) Ache- "De Homine Urbano"

16) King Crimson- "The Devil's Triangle"
17) Junipher Green- "Friendship"
18) Heldon- "Perspective IV"
19) Dennis- "Grey Present Tense"
20) Metamorphosi- "Introduzione"

21) Ripaille- "Fils De La Lune"
22) Rare Bird- "Iceberg"



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