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- Led Zeppelin's untitled 4th album AKA "Led Zeppelin IV" 1971 (UK)
The
Kosmik Radiation show has come to a close with the airing of this
episode. Our final classic album is simply one of the most popular
classic rock albums of all time, and contains the greatest classic rock
song of the 1970's. There isn't much I can say about Zeppelin IV that hasn't been said many times before. I figured it would make a classy finale! The
Kosmik Radiation show debuted on the FM airwaves in April 2005,
and
WORT-FM and this website began hosting recent programs online for your
listening enjoyment around the summer of 2006. The show was originally
on from 2:00 to 5:00 every Wednesday morning (i.e., late nite Tuesday)
until early 2009 when the show moved to the same timeslot on Friday
mornings (i.e., Thursday late night.) At the end of summer 2014, Kosmik
Radiation moved to 11:00 to 2:00 on Tuesday nights (not quite so late
night!), where it remained until April 2018. At that time, host Dave
3000 moved from Madison to Chicago, and from then on the program was
pre-recorded and submitted for airplay rather than "performed" live on
the air from WORT's studio in the middle of the night. At this time,
Kosmik Radiation also returned to the same timeslot the show originated
with in 2005! Although the
format evolved over the years, Kosmik Radiation always focused on "psychedelic, progressive, heavy and underground sounds from all around":
groovy music (and sometimes other audio weirdness) from all over the
world, since the years when music got "groovy" in the middle of the
previous century (roughly around BeBop and Varese). Although the show certainly played a ton of records from the
1960's and 70's, nearly a third of the tracks played on Kosmik
Radiation were new records released in the preceding 12 months - overwhelmingly on small indie labels or self-released music. Originally
the first show of every month was going to be a deep dive into a
legendary (or obscure) artist of yesteryear, however the Digital
Millenium Copyright Act rules for webcasting made that impossible once
WORT programs went online. So instead there were monthly specials
focusing on specific years, genres, musical instruments (including a sitar show and a cowbell show;
I actually had a cowbell mic-ed up in the studio and played along to many of the
songs to add EVEN MORE COWBELL!) There was a three-part series on
psychedelic music in Japan I did back in 2007 (part one - two - three), and in the late
2010's that sort of came full circle when I started playing a lot of contemporary J-pop
on the show. Sometimes I played records on top of each other,
backwards, at the wrong speed, and created live "collage" mixes on the
air. One time I brought a guitar to the studio and mic'ed it up so I
could jam along to the Dead live on the air. Probably the most
elaborate show was the 2008 Neil Young birthday episode: a six-hour program with a band performing nearly two hours of Neil songs live from WORT's studio! There was also an incredibly strange Beatles special that year with a different bunch of musicians live in the studio. I did some pretty creative thematic shows, like making up "imaginary albums" from legendary groups that broke up, hosting a goofy novelty music show "in character" (all of my air breaks were completely scripted for that one), and an electronic music special
where all the air breaks were performed by synthsized "robot" voices.
Basically, I got to try out just about every wacky idea I had for
interesting things to do on the radio! Whatever part of this 6,888 day
(nearly 19 year) journey into weird late night radio that you were a
part of, THANKS FOR LISTENING!
-- "stay groovy!" - your now-former host, Dave 3000 |
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- David Bowie "Heroes" 1977 (UK)
The
Kosmik Radiation show is coming to a close, and we're going out with
the best of the best. Next week we'll do legendary groups of the groovy
era (the 1970's and earlier), and this week we're focusing on
individuals or "solo artists", if you will. And I can't think of a more
singular individual in the modern music world than the iconic and
enigmatic Mr. David Bowie. All of his albums are "at least interesting"
(even the twee 1967 debut and the slick 1980's pop), and no two Bowie
albums are alike. He's been accused of many things, but sounding like
anybody other than himself is not one of them. His early 1970's take on
glam rock is rightly heralded as among the most creative rock of it's day, and heck he even got Lou Reed into the American Top 10! (Iggy
didn't quite get that far, but Bowie kept his career aftloat until the
punk era came along as well.) Bowie's commercial peak could have been
the 1980's, and he did very original albums during the 1990's (Earthling) and into the 21st century (The Next Day, blackstar). But in between the glam and the pop, he spent the end of the 1970's in Berlin making futuristic records with Brian Eno that prefigured (i.e. heavily influenced) the way popular music sounded in the 1980's. "Heroes"
was the second of his so-called "Berlin trilogy" of albums, and was a
pretty popular record considering how uncommercial and weird it is!
(Like, a "disco" record with Fripp & Eno -- and side two is mostly instrumental!) In fact, this album was a big influence on Scott Walker
when he decided to "get weird." A nice irony, since Walker was clearly
one of Bowie's biggest influences as a singer back in the 1960's when
he was getting started. |
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- Jeff Parker "The New Breed" 2016 (USA)
Jazz
is still alive! Jeff Parker is a guitar player whose most famous gig
was playing in the popular "post-rock" band Tortoise in the 90's-00's,
and around then he also had another underground jazz-rock thing going
called Isotope 217° along with trumpeter Rob Mazurek. By the 2010's, he had carved his own musical path. The New Breed
is a modern jazz masterpiece. His current group (also called The New
Breed) has a sound that strongly echoes 1970's jazz fusion and
groovy progressive soul (the sound of Jeff's childhood, and "his Dad's
music" - the album cover is an old polaroid of his dad.) So there is a
clear nostalgia factor, but also the music is composed and performed in
a chopped-up, nearly cubist style, that recalls modern hip-hop
techniques. Though it is definitely not anything like a rap album
either. Since Mr. Parker was in a "post-rock" band, maybe this very
original music should be called "post-jazz"? |
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- Dr. Patrick Gleeson "Patrick Gleeson's Star Wars" 1977 (USA)
There were three huge "cultural event" blockbuster films I recall from the end of the 1970s: Smokey & The Bandit (#2 at the box office in 1977), Saturday Night Fever (1978), and Star Wars (#1 at the box office in 1977; the film later rebranded as Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope). Even it you hadn't seen these films, references to them were everywhere. Smokey
was a sexy "red state" comedy with a Country Music soundtrack (sooo dumb
but kind of fun) and of course everyone knows about the legendary
Bee Gees disco hits from Fever
(which is a 5-star classic film about blue collar urban youth, in case you haven't seen it). The third of those films
needs no introduction, and anyway I want to focus on what the deal was
in 1977 when the first film in that ever-expanding fungus-franchise
came out. Internet-driven "fandoms" did not exist yet (there were a few
Trekkies around, but everyone thought they were the biggest dorks in
the world.) Franchising, merchandising, sequelizing, monetizing, and
all that corporate jazz was not really a thing yet, but it was about to
be in large part due to the explosion of Star Wars mania. Every
conceivable thing about Star Wars appeared on store shelves and in TV
commercials: I recall eating "C-3PO's" breakfast cereal and washing my
hair with Darth Vader shampoo when I was a kid! So naturally, there
would be "Star Wars music albums" to be sold. I think there must have
been changes in how studios deal with music liscensing, because there
were a ton of "not music from the actual movie" Star Wars "inspired"
albums based on John Williams' classic score for the film (including
the inevitable disco version). I own two "electronic" Star Wars albums
- the one by Electric Moog Orchestra Music From Star Wars
(also 1977) is very mid, but Dr. Patrick Gleeson's take on it is so
original that he put his own name before the movie in the title of his
album (and maybe also had to do that for legal reasons? None of the
album artwork refers to intellectual properties of 20th Century Fox
pictures in any way of course! That's why there's a giant skull
shooting pinballs at moons on the front cover!) Gleeson's previous
works include an electronic version of Holst's famous classical suite
The Planets (which is not as good as Tomita's
version of the same piece
that came out the same year). But more importantly he was a founder of
Different Fur Studios in San Francisco where he worked as the
"synthesizer technician" on some of the grooviest Herbie
Hancock albums of the 1970's and eventually joined Herb's touring band. In subsequent years,
he co-produced a couple tracks on Devo's debut album (1978; Brian Eno and
Conny Plank also worked on that one!) and the very cool My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts (1981) was recorded at his studio! |
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- Rob Mazurek Exploding Star Orchestra "Lightning Dreamers" 2023 (USA)
This
was a pretty weird year for music, by which I mean there wasn't a lot
of notable "psychedelic and progressive rock" which is the main vein of
this show. So this year, we have a bunch of pop, electronic, and even
country music in my Top 25 of 2023,
and
our top album of 2023 is a "psychedelic jazz" album. Rob Mazurek is a
trumpeter, and some of the key members of the ESO include trippy
vocalist
Damon Locks and brilliant guitarist Jeff Parker (who will get his own
classic album in the coming weeks!) This week's classic album is the
eighth release by ESO, though Mazurek has been releasing albums for
nearly 30 years; his previous projects include the band Isotope 217°
(also with Jeff Parker) and he was a founding member of the Chicago
Underground Collective (who released nearly 20 albums in the 1990's,
and most recently put out a record in 2020). He also spent several
years living in Brazil, adding another dimension to his musical
influences. This album was released on the Chicago label International Anthem
which has been releasing some of the best jazz of recent years,
including the #4 album on my best of the year list, the posthumous
final album from another trumpeter, Jaimie Branch. |
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- Parquet Courts "Wide Awake!" 2018 (USA)
This
week is the 800th episode of this show, so we're looking back on
some of the great artists of the Kosmik Radiation Era (2005-2024) and
inducting some modern classics into the hall of fame. Parquet Courts
are an indie rock band from Noo Yawk Citay formed around 2010. They
remind me of a few classic punk/new wave bands from that area,
particularly Talking Heads, and of course every white group from NYC has been influenced by Lou Reed.
The early records were lo-fi and quirky, on the last couple albums
their production values and sonic palette have expanded notably. Wide Awake! is my favorite by Parkay Quartz so far, and it was in the running for my best album of 2018. |
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- Charles Bradley "Victim Of Love" 2013 (USA)
Charles
Bradley released his first record (a 7" single) in 2002 when he was 54
years old. Prior to that, his main claim to fame was performing in bars
and small clubs doing James Brown impersonations under the name "Black
Velvet." He didn't really begin his ascent until he started working
with Menahan Street Band in 2007, and his debut album came out in 2011
when he was 63 years old! I saw him three times in Madison during the
2010's, and those shows progressed from half-full to overflow crowds;
later he headlined a local festival with thousands of attendees which I
did not see. His concerts were old-school SOUL exravaganzas with a hot
band and Charles even did the splits on stage! It was almost impossible
not to fall in love with the guy upon encountering him: in fact, he
would literally say "I LOVE YOU" to the crowd about a hundred times at
every show (even more than Ozzy says it!) One time I even saw him hanging
out by the door after his gig to personally thank the audience as they
were leaving and he gave hugs to anyone who wanted one! It was very
clear how grateful he was to finally be living his dream as a SOUL
SINGER. Artistically, he was a bridge to the greats of the past. His
main influences were James Brown (on the
uptempo numbers) and Otis Redding (on the ballads). Sadly, he died of
cancer in 2017 and only left us four albums, including one that was
posthumously released. Victim Of Love
was his second album and is my favorite of the bunch. I should
also mention that in addition to his great original songs, he also
did some incredible covers: "Changes" by Black Sabbath
was the titular track of his third album (and easily surpasses any
previous version of that song), and his soulful funky versions of Neil Young's "Heart of Gold" (an early B-side included on his final album) and The Grateful Dead's "Cumberland Blues" (from a tribute album) are also amazing! |
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- The Black Angels "Directions To See A Ghost" 2008 (USA)
For
our third classic album this week, here's one that is just straight-up
old fashioned GROOVY PSYCHEDELIC ROCK. The Black Angels were the hot
neo-psych band of the late 00's and early 10's, though they have been
less prolific in recent years and somewhat supplanted by the Aussie psych rock boom. I think they are also still involved with the Austin Psych Fest which they began and has been going on for about 15 years now. Angels are a Texican band in the grand tradition of 13th Floor Elevators
and have performed gigs as Roky Erikson's backup band. If you like
tribal rock beats, heavy drones, gobs of reverb, and strobe lights,
this is yer band maaan! I think their best album could be their second one Directions To See A Ghost.
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