The Intergalactic Sofa - A Radio Kras Podcast

The Intergalactic Sofa ("one size fits all") meets the Radio Kras Tardis.

And when you touch down…
Do you remember when you first heard music? Did you ever hear a piece of music when you were a kid and suddenly things were never the same again? I remember hearing the Beach Boys' I Get Around on the radio when I was about 9 years old. It resulted in possibly the biggest peak experience of my life. In the three minutes or so that this song lasts some mysterious force in the universe picked me up, rearranged all my molecules, messed with my 9 year-old sense of reality and blasted my nervous system into a hitherto unknown region of the multiverse. Suddenly all the pieces in the cosmic puzzle fit and the universe roared YEEESSSSSS!!! Charged up? I was bloody soaring through the red... Then, finally, as the song began to fade, it deposited me safely back down in the family living room wondering what the hell was that? And where do I find some more? I was never really the same again. It gave me a passion for music and I’ve been chasing that buzz ever since.

That is what music does to you. That is what any good art will do to you. It makes you feel something and hopefully inspires you. And so...

The Intergalactic Sofa
When Gimi asked me to do another program with him on his In Campo Aperto show on Radio Kras I suggested doing something with a Grateful Dead / psychedelic theme. It is the music I have probably found most inspirational over the years and, in the case of the Dead, a pretty fail-safe tonic and general pick-me-up for when the times get too weird.

This post was actually the original inspiration for the show. Freak Out! In Praise of Improv
I ended up narrowing my choices down to about 5 or 6 hours of music. I knew I wanted to get the 19 / 09 / 1970 Grateful Dead gig at the Fillmore NY in as I think it is some of their finest recorded music. The rest we pretty much just chose as we went along.

We set the Intergalactic Sofa on auto-pilot for Eight Miles High; The Misunderstood took us to the Sun, Jonathan Wilson to the Valley of a Silver Moon and the Dead circumvented a particularly fine Dark Star. We finally ended up on the Quicksilver Messenger Service's Happy Trails.  A fine ending. Turned out quite well really...

Check the embedded program out below. Both Gimi and I agreed it's a pretty cool trip
Don't worry the chat is in Spanish. The music speaks for itself I hope this stuff inspires you as much as it does me...
  

The Intergalactic Sofa (gets you there on time)

1. The Byrds - Eight miles high (Single). An apt start and Gimi and I chatted about how under-rated a guitarist Roger McGuinn is and how wonderfully berserk his playing is here.
2. The Byrds - Why? (Single). From the era of Why Not?
3. The Byrds - What's Happening? (Fifth Dimension LP). Crosby gets existential and McGuinn's guitar supplies the answers.
4. The Byrds - Hey Joe (Fifth Dimension LP). The Byrds rock...
5. The Misunderstood - My Mind (Before the Dream Faded LP). Hold tight. You can quite clearly hear steel guitarist Glen Ross Campbell tear holes in the very fabric of reality in the last 30 seconds.
6. The Misunderstood - I Can Take You To The Sun (Before the Dream Faded LP).
7. The Butterfield Blues Band - East / West (East / West LP). According to Joel Selvin when the BBB played San Francisco in '65 they had a massive effect the SF scene.
8. The Grateful Dead Live at the Fillmore East, New York (September 19, 1970). http://archive.org/details/gd1970-09-19.mtx.chappell.SB14.31510.sbeok.flac16  Dark Star > St. Stephen > Not Fade Away > Darkness Jam > China Cat Jam > Not Fade Away. Some of the finest Dead music there is.
   
9. Jonathan Wilson - The Trials Of Jonathan (Live in Aviles, Spain 8/7/2013).
10. Jonathan Wilson - The Valley Of The Silver Moon (Live in Aviles, Spain 8/7/2013). Keeping the faith and a great live band.
11. Cream - NSU live in Detroit Oct 1967. Eric tries to keep up with Ginger and Jack.
12. Jimi Hendrix Experience - Red House (Live in San Diego - In The West LP). The skill and the ideas. Hendrix nails it.
13. The Quicksilver Messenger Service - Mona, Maiden of the Cancer Moon, Calvary (Side 2 Happy Trails LP). The best psychedelic western film soundtrack that never was. 
14. The Byrds - Captain Soul (Fifth Dimension LP). We hope you had a pleasant flyte...

Listen below


Download
available here http://radiokras.net63.net/index.php?id=1685
or here https://ww2.archive.org/details/Aperto2813




More on stranger than known

My Radio Kras Podcasts - From Punk to Funk

Freak Out! In Praise of Improv

Cream live at the Spalding Bar-B-Que, 29th May 1967

The Grateful Dead - 1969 Dark Star set to vintage 1950s San Francisco film

The Tarnished Gold of Beachwood Sparks

Texas International Pop Festival with Led Zeppelin, Janis, Johnny Winter, Delaney and Bonnie, Sly, Sam and Dave

Jonathan Wilson - Retro-Futurism at the Centro Niemeyer, Aviles, Spain

Jonathan Wilson concert at the Centro Niemeyer, Aviles, Spain - 8th July 2013

So. I’m writing this not from The Valley of the Silver Moon (probably one of Jonathan Wilson’s best-known and most accomplished songs) but from a park in a city called Gijon in northern Spain. It’s a very hot muggy evening and it feels like there might be some thunder in the air. Perfect weather for listening to Jonathan Wilson’s album “Gentle Spirit” then.

There is a sultry, soporific feel to many of the songs on the album which suits the heat induced lethargy I currently feel. Although, to be honest, despite the high quality of song-writing and production it is an album I have found at times to be a little overlong. I can’t always seem to maintain the required mood for the entire 80 minutes. That is almost certainly my fault but I’m not sure it doesn’t also suffer from what we used to call double album syndrome, ie cut out half the songs and have a really classic single album instead. “Gentle Spirit” would be an absolute classic with 6 or 7 songs.

The Jonathan Wilson band seen live, however, is another story. I had the supreme pleasure of seeing this excellent band on Monday night in a city near here called Aviles. They were playing in a room downstairs at the Niemeyer Center and amazingly, there were only about 150 people present (no advertising? If not then shame on you Aviles) so it was a pretty intimate relaxed kind of gig. The room itself is all white and shoebox shaped with the stage set up down a long side. It has an art gallery feel to it but with the paintings removed. In fact the whole Niemeyer center in Aviles looks like a film set from a 1970s science fiction movie set in the 21st Century.

Maybe an apt setting for Jonathan Wilson’s own kind of musical retro-futurism.

Centro Niemeyer, Aviles - From Jonathan Wilson's facebook page

Anyway, not the standard kind of set-up then. This was the first time I’d seen the band and I thought I knew what to expect as there is some very good footage around of the band playing live on the net. The Live on KEXP gig is particularly impressive here. I was definitely ready and up for it. By the end of the show my expectations had not only been met but greatly surpassed.

For me, it is in a live setting that the songs on the album really come into their own. Live they have an organic quality that the album occasionally seems to lack, but it is the band. Believe me, the band are seriously good. Like early 70s Traffic, the songs build into a slow groove with some particularly fine extended instrumental passages. The tight interplay between the rhythm section of Dan on bass and Richie on drums (apologies, I didn’t catch their surnames and have been unable to find the line-up listed online) allow the soloists, Wilson, Omar on second guitar and Jason(?) on keyboards, to stretch out into some particularly high-quality musical interaction. Wilson is a very nifty economical guitar player with a soulful lonesome tone (occasionally reminiscent of David Gilmour) and has more than able support. Highlights were numerous but The Valley of the Silver Moon was stunning and live goes places it doesn’t even hint at on the album (see below).

Madonna's La Isla Bonita (see below) was a surprise but new song “Angel” has a particularly fat groove which is reminiscent of the middle rock section in the Pink Floyd’s Echoes but with a hint of Little Feat’s rampant syncopation. Everybody is dancing. This isn’t sit-on-the-floor stoner trippiness anymore this is classic relaxed ultrafunk. This bodes very well indeed for the new album to be released in the autumn.

The guys came out front stage for a quick chat after the gig and I had the pleasure of briefly chatting to Dan, Richie and Jonathan. This is a great band. Go and see them. Even if you don’t like the album much, you will be amazed by how good this band is live. Classic rock rebooted, refunked and retuned.




Desert Raven

La Isla Bonita

Encores

JW at the Niemeyer

If you like this try 

The Tarnished Gold of Beachwood Sparks

Parallax - Pink Floyd and the BBC