The Free Radical

(Love Is How Y Make It by Gong 1973)

First, let’s talk copyrights for a moment. I’m inviting you, Dear Reader, to have a little discussion about music, consciousness, and the manifestation of worlds. While we’re “sitting” together, this is the music I’ve chosen to play in the background. Playing music in my “home” (this blog) for guests is certainly permissible… so let’s just proceed… until the copyright police come a-knocking. Then we’ll just tell them together to please fuck off.

(Sold to the Highest Buddha by Gong from the 1973 album Angel’s Egg – Part 2 of Radio Invisible Gnome)

Listening to music is one of the only activities which engages the whole human brain. That’s probably not quite true when you’ve got some inane line from a pop song on endless repeat rattling around in your cranium though. These selections are of a slightly different caliber– although not too challenging or alienating as to leave newbies to prog rock scratching their bleeding heads in utter confusion. Let us rather go gentle into imagination and neuronal fecundity…

Recently, I posted something similar which exclusively featured progressive masters Yes, primarily focusing on their 1973 effort Tales from Topographic Oceans. It was intended to unite and inspire. The response was very good!

Everything offered here today is either from 1973 or before. Those in the know realize that something highly significant occurred within humanity’s collective in 1972… It was something which made this current transition we’re now experiencing, the Slow Apocalypse, possible. What was happening musically on the planet at that time was a key feature of what transpired.

(Mixed Up Man of the Mountain by Khan from the 1972 album Space Shanty)

The common thread for these first three songs is a fellow by the name of Steve Hillage– singer, song-writer and guitar player. His involvement with Gong was rather short-lived. The band Khan was his own creation. He had extensive ties to the whole Canterbury scene in the early seventies and was hugely influential in bringing a certain spiritual awareness to progressive music. Gong was a unique organization mainly revolving around the figure of Daevid Allen and other transients cycling through a commune in France. Hillage was just one such visitor/contributor.

I could have selected any of the songs from Space Shanty; they’re all fantastic. I went with the one with the title that resonates with me personally for– hopefully– obvious reasons.

(Mister Class and Quality?/Three Friends by Gentle Giant from the 1972 album Three Friends)

Sticking for the time being with the British influence, there was perhaps no greater contributor to the relentless pushing of musical boundaries within the general rock genre than Gentle Giant. Their every effort was geared toward stretching the beliefs and expectations of their listeners as to what was even possible. Challenging time-signatures and smart lyrics became the prog standard.

Alongside contemporaries like Yes, the music of that magical era carved out vast spaces of creative imagination within humanity’s consciousness. This next selection from Yes is from their second album. The respect their musicianship demanded allowed them to explore the relationship between symphonic classical music and avant-garde rock. They were setting the tone of unabashed ambitiousness that would quickly come to the fore in later efforts once Steve Howe and Rick Wakeman joined the likes of Anderson, Squire and Bruford.

(The Prophet by Yes from the 1970 album Time and a Word)

Chris Squire was definitely the instigator of the snarling bass sound that would permeate much subsequent progressive rock music– especially that of Rush’s Getty Lee.

Now we’re getting into my favourites– the music I literally grew up on… and the music which kept me in the faith, that this life was indeed worth living, as I sensed that something monumental was being accomplished here. For a good ten years in my youth whenever I was asked who my favourite band was I could only answer with a list of five, for choosing among them was merely a matter of mood and fleeting momentary preference. Anyway, the top five were: Yes, Rush, Pink Floyd, King Crimson, and Jethro Tull.

(Lark’s Tongues in Aspic Part 1 by King Crimson from the 1973 album of the same name)

Whenever I brought home a new King Crimson album I wasn’t sure what to make of it at first. Usually I didn’t care for it straight away. I’d have to listen to it maybe five or six times before my brain had been adequately rearranged to be able to begin to appreciate what was being offered. This is a bit of the heavier side of Crim.

(Lark’s Tongues in Aspic Part 2)

It was my brother who first introduced me to Yes and Rush. As a youngster I always read all of the liner notes from every album I got my hands on. What I found astonishing was that immediately after Yes’s most successful masterpiece to date, the album Fragile, the drummer– Bill Bruford– elected to leave the band to join up with King Crimson because he felt that Crim had more to offer in terms of innovation and creativity. Well, that’s how I got into King Crimson; I followed Bruford… and was not disappointed for even a second. Deep down I always knew that what Robert Fripp and the boys were doing was transforming the soundscape of our collective inner ear.

(Cadence and Cascade by King Crimson from the 1970 album In the Wake of Poseidon)

Just in case the preceding Lark’s Tongues was a little too heavy for your tastes (who likes aspic anyway?), Cadence and Cascade displays a completely different side to Crim. Throughout the years I have asked myself many times about King Crimson: Is this even the same band? Actually, no. Robert Fripp, the guitar player, is the only constant in the many incarnations of the Crimson King, and even he admits that King Crimson is transcendent to and independent from his own musical vision. 45 years later the Crimson beast is still kicking out face-melting originality (the photo above is the cover from their 1969 debut album).

One surefire hook for me in the early days was intelligent lyrics. King Crimson employed the services of poet Peter Sinfield as a full-fledged non-musician member of the band. As a teenager I could easily imagine myself in such a role when I grew up… still working on the growing up bit! An interesting press clipping from this era of the band proclaimed in its headline that if Wagner was alive today, he would choose to work with King Crimson!

(Captain Marvel by Return to Forever from the 1973 album Light As a Feather)

Early on I was enamoured of the contrast/affinity of flutes and rock music. Strictly speaking, this crosses over into the realm of fusion. Return to Forever were the very definition of the fusion between jazz and rock; they defined the genre for me. Chick Corea, the piano player and primary songwriter spent significant time working with Miles Davis in one of Davis’ many splendoured ensembles. Another who worked with Miles prior to all this explosive creativity of the early seventies was guitar legend John McLaughlin– but we’ll get to him momentarily.

First we’ll follow the entrancing lure of the flute to one of my most influential favourites Jethro Tull.

(excerpt from title track from the 1972 album Thick as a Brick by Jethro Tull)

Jethro Tull was the historic inventor of the seed drill; there is no member of the band named Jethro, musician or otherwise. The genius of Tull resides primarily in the person of Ian Anderson. He’s the acoustic guitar player, vocalist, flute player, lyricist and main songwriter. The entirety of this album consists of a single song, Thick as a Brick, divided into two parts due to the nature of vinyl being double-sided.

(excerpt from title track from the 1972 album Thick as a Brick by Jethro Tull)

Tull were just such a special phenomenon that I don’t feel much need to comment on the impact they had upon our social psyche. I’ll let the music speak for itself.

(Little Umbrellas by Frank Zappa from the 1969 album Hot Rats)

Already by late 1969 our victory over the social engineers and controlling elite was assured as evidenced by the many seminal releases of that year (but that’s a whole other blog post). Frank Zappa was right in the thick of his creative explosion between 1969 and 1973 issuing some of the most original musical compositions the world of rock had ever contemplated. His music and the many incarnations of his supporting bands were wholly genre-defying.

(Eat That Question by Frank Zappa from the 1972 album The Grand Wazoo)

I consider Frank Zappa to be the greatest composer of the twentieth century. He became much more famous later in his career when he began writing songs with highly provocative lyrics, taking jabs at the social milieu of american life in the eighties. But it was his instrumental work of the early seventies which caught my attention and my heart. Frank, you were truly one of a kind! He lived to only 53 years old, but managed to release 68 albums of astoundingly creative music in that time! Beat that! Anyone? Anyone? I dare ya!

(Awakening by The Mahavishnu Orchestra from the 1971 album Inner Mounting Flame)

Like the last musical blog post, I’m ending with a little “wake up call.” This one’s a bit more jarring than the softer classical style of Yes… as might be expected from an alarm clock from ’71. John McLaughlin is the central figure of this stellar band, stepping up to meet the expectations of a demanding musical world. Having served valuable time playing with Miles Davis, John was ready to face the challenging void instilled by Jimi Hendrix’s mortal departure in 1970. The Mahavishnu Orchestra drew upon the unlikely instrumentation of Goodman’s violin trading leads with McLaughlin’s blistering guitar and Jan Hammer’s unique keyboard style. Irishman Rick Laird held down the perfunctory bass while Billy Cobham showed the world how to play drums with frenetic precision.

I’ve presented these snippets into my and our collective past as a trigger and signpost for the emergence of what exactly is transpiring now in the world. I trust that many will recognize the seeds which were sown so very long ago which now bear fruit.

Look to tomorrow for a very important message to be posted here regarding our movement forward from this sacred place…