Extended Play - December 8 Set

[Extended Play]

This week, I have four-count 'em-four artists for the show, and it's still only 3 hours! Now that's value!

First up is the very requested Jethro Tull with Thick As A Brick. This very british group released their first major concept album, Thick As a Brick, in 1972. Rather than tell a specific story with the album, Thick As A Brick flies on the (fictional) premise the the entire lyrical content was taken from a prize winning poem by 8yr old Gerald Bostok. The original sleeve for the LP is even better than the oddball concept for the album content. It's entirely housed in a newspaper that has stories behind the lyrical content and even announces that Jethro Tull will be recording young Gerald's poem 'Thick As A Brick'. Oh yeah, they did a great job with the music too . . .

Second in line is Godspeed You Black Emperor's EP from 1999 Slow Riot For Zero Kanada. Rather than go with the 5 minute song and dance, Godspeed puts together longer sweeping pieces that a first convey a darker side while still holding out hope. The music is very thematically based, starting slowly and working itself to several plateaus that gradually fade.

Next up is the most recent archival release from King Crimson, Ladies Of The Road. Rather than play both discs, I'm sticking with Vol. 1 for tonight (the second disc is strung together solos from the many performances of 21st Century Schizoid Man, pretty audacious huh?). The double set is taken from live recordings of the 71-72 Islands band in the US and UK. The first volume that I'm playing on Sunday covers every album up to Islands. As an often forgotten era of King Crimson, this set is a glaring reminder of what a great band was put together for that short period of time.

Finally, to round out my lengthy descriptions, we have Kraftwerk's 1977 album Trans-Europe Express. I could call them the godfathers of insustrial and techno, but I think you can listen close enough to draw your own conclusions. Whatever the case and parentage might be, they were very influential in the developing electronic pop sensibilities of the late 1970s and 1980s. Check out Bowie's Low and Heroes (alongside this) to note the two checking each other with some similar melodic, beat-driven, danceable songs and lyrical name-drops. Although they broke out with Autobahn just 3 years earlier, Trans-Europe Express is a more studied composition, presaging what was to come the next year in The Man-Machine. Maybe I'll continue with that one next week if I don't get hate mail about Kraftwerk. Oh yeah, they're from Germany, duh.

"Peace & Love" - to quote Vash