DJ Shaxx Presents: Planet Mixtape

You know the story. The Buggles' "Video Killed the Radio Star" becomes the first music video shown on MTV in the U.S. on August 1981. The 80's first flash in the pan is born. But do you know the next part of the story? The Buggles (Geoff Downes and Trevor Horn) brought prog rock dinosaurs, Yes, back to life for a brief stint as new wave zombies with rad guitar solos. Now, how the hell did that happen? Turns out that Downes and Horn were under the same management as Yes. After 1978's  Tormato , an album featuring the forgettable "Don't Kill The Whale," Jon Anderson (vocals) and Rick Wakemen (keyboard wizardry) went splitsville. At that point, most people would probably agree that the band was dead. Steve Howe and Chris Squire saw it differently. Yes' management approached their buddies in The Buggles about jamming with the remains of Yes: Howe (guitar), Squire (bass) and Alan White (drums). What I can only imagine as a weird experience fo...

By the end of 1981, prog rock was in deep trouble. Punk rock's offspring had traded in guitars for synthesizers and learned to write catchy pop songs. Prog pioneers who had redefined rock and roll's sound throughout the 70s, with their bold use of Moog and ARP synthesizers (Rick Wakeman, Keith Emerson, etc.), now stood on the sidelines scratching their heads as Adam Ant lookalikes scored hits with their own brand of synthesized music. The new wave had arrived and proggers were beached. The only prog group that had managed to successfully make the jump to the 80s was Genesis. With Phil Collins out from behind the drums and singing love songs, the group scored hits with "Follow You, Follow Me," "Turn It On Again," and "Misunderstanding." Genesis wasn't new wave, but they had successfuly shed the odd time signatures and existential lyrics of the 70s and attracted a mainstream pop audience. But Genesis was just the beginning. Following the...

In the late 70s, as punk and post-punk bands spiraled towards their new wave destinies, prog dinosaurs stood paralyzed in the shadows. Bands like the Sex Pistols were meteors, igniting a global firestorm that would trigger prog's extinction. The British music press (Melody Maker, Sounds, NME, etc.), once proponents of prog darlings Genesis, Yes and ELP, now bashed any band releasing songs in odd time signatures and singing about aliens and whales. The punk revolution had turned the U.K. music industry and press on its head within a year (1976-1977). For me, this is one of the most interesting times in pop music. Although prog groups saw their audiences rapidly dwindle (Yes audiences had dropped from 20,000 to 3,000 by 1980's Drama tour), many record labels had built fortunes on the works of prog artists and were willing to foot the bill for some interesting transitional experiments. Yes' Drama , ELPs' Works , Genesis' . ..And Then There Were Three... were p...

Clocking in at nearly 23 minutes, Supper's Ready was the first extended composition that Genesis attempted in the studio. It appeared on 1972's Foxtrot . With Steve Hackett's ornate and chiming guitars, Tony Banks classical sounding keys, Phil Collins' athletic drumming (hitting 9/8 in section VI) and, of course, Peter Gabriel's dramatic voice -- lifting from an ethereal hush to a fantastic shriek throughout, it's a prog-rock masterpiece. This was Genesis firing on all cylinders. They were in their formative stage as a band and in love with composing together. Ultimately, the tune would provide a perfect opportunity for Gabriel to develop costumes and portray a host of fanciful characters, including a giant daisy (pictured here). Lyrically, the song is expansive, dealing with themes of good and evil, particularly allusions to the Book of Revelations. Gabriel based the lyrics for the first section, Lover's Leap, on two otherworldly experiences. On one occ...

The Strawbs were an English group that dabbled in tasty genres like folk, progressive and glam rock. They are a band that I want... No! I need to dig into more. Rick Wakeman played with them before departing for Yes in 1970. Not nearly as technical as other prog bands, The Strawbs incorporated the softer sounds of fantasy and psychedelic pop. Melody was at the forefront of their songs, unlike groups like King Crimson or ELP who were more invested in musical gymnastics. At times, vocalist David Cousins can sound like early Peter Gabriel, which I like. There is nothing quite like the punch of mellotron combined with bombastic drums and wizard-like vocals. And that's what The Strawbs' "Hero and Heroine" delivers! Are you game for adventure? Suspend your scabbard from your baldric and bring along a flagon of wine. Here is the map for your journey. Click play and take the first step of your quest.

Girlschool, where have you been my whole life? I love this band's sound. "C'mon Let's Go" is rock & roll perfection. The palm-muted guitar scraping matched with pounding tom-tom drums is punk rock perfection! Girlschool inhabited that creatively blurry zone between punk, hard rock and metal. They were closely associated with Motörhead and the new wave of British metal in the early 80s. They are the longest running all-female rock band, going on 35+ years. "C'mon Let's Go" appeared on their second album, Hit and Run (1981). The album reached #5 on the U.K. albums chart, but never got a proper release in the U.S. Goes well with early Ramones!

Suzi Quatro was the first female bass player/vocalist to experience major success as a rocker. Originally from Detroit, she moved to Britain in 1971 at the urging of producer, Mickie Most. She put together a band of motley rockers, resembling the Stooges or MC5. On the road with Slade and Thin Lizzy, Quatro's group developed a rough and tumble, adrenalized rock and roll style that laid the groundwork for later female, rebel-rocker acts. The Runaways, Girlschool and eventually The Donnas were all touched by Quatro's persona and sound. Throughout the early 70s, Quatro was huge in the U.K. and Australia. Unfortunately, fame eluded her in the States. It wasn't until she landed a repeated cameo as the tough-talking Leather Tuscadero on Happy Days in 1977 that she became a household name. "Can The Can" is the second single, from her 1973 debut, Suzi Quatro . This song is so rock & roll, it's ridiculous. The Brady Bunch clones around the stage are like, We b...

Looking for cosmically lofty and conceptually dense ideas in 70s progressive rock?  One only needs to spend an evening with the 1973 album,  Tale from Topographic Oceans , by Yes. The experience is unique and... long. In it's time, the record was one of the most ambitious endeavors attempted. Four sides. Four songs. After their prior album,  Close to the Edge,  which featured their most extended compositions to date, Yes decided to go even further outside the realm of rock norms on Tales. The four, conceptually-linked songs were   massive, featuring an arsenal of complex movements and repeated musical motifs. This was as sonically expansive as Yes would ever get on record. Lyrically, Jon Anderson based his ideas on Paramahansa Yoganda's Autobiography of a Yogi . At the time, Anderson told New Musical Express, "We're close to the edge of spiritual awareness within the framework of the group, making music. We have this long song, which we felt could hold ...

Power pop bands could be ugly, short or totally forgettable. But, they always had good hair. It was an unspoken prerequisite for the genre - as much as the chiming guitars, harmonies and poppy lyrics. Simply put, I love Badfinger's hair. I picked up their greatest hits for a buck at my local thrift store last summer on the basis of the band's hairstyles. 23 songs. I was like, "O.k. I'm gonna become a massive Badfinger fan, dammit!" In the end, it came down to three for me: "Come and Get It", "Day After Day" and "No Matter What." These are as good as any pop songs ever written. "Without You," later made famous by Harry Nilsson ain't too shabby, neither. Badfinger were the first band signed to the Beatles' Apple Records in 1968. "No Matter What," released in 1970, reached number 8 in the U.S. and number five in the U.K. It was originally rejected as a single by the label. What were they thinking? The tune...

The Records straddled that magical threshold between The Bay City Rollers and Cheap Trick -- sugary sweet vocal melodies, rocking guitars, skinny ties, modish haircuts and songs about girls, girls and... mostly girls. How do you distinguish late 70s power pop from post-punk or early 80s new wave? The Records' 1979 hit "Starry Eyes" is a good place to start. The song bears characteristics of all three genres. By listening to the following three versions,   you can literally hear the late 70s turning into the 80s. See if you can hear it. "Starry Eyes" - 1978 Demo "Starry Eyes" - 1978 Single "Starry Eyes" - 1979 U.K. album version (produced by Mutt Lange)

David Byrne's got a new record, American Utopia , set for release on March 9. On his website , Byrne explains, "These songs don't describe an imaginary or possibly impossible place but rather attempt to depict the world we live in now. Many of us, I suspect, are not satisfied with that world—the world we have made for ourselves. We look around and we ask ourselves—well, does it have to be like this? Is there another way? These songs are about that looking and that asking." Here's the first track from the record, co-written by the ubiquitous Brian Eno and featuring contributions from a host of other artists. There's a funky, yet sober urgency to the tune. You can sense Byrne's anxiety in the chorus: "Now everybody's coming to my house And I'm never gonna be alone And everybody's coming to my house And I'm never gonna go back home"

I would contend that "Love, Reign O'er Me" is one of the most climactic and rewarding endings to an album in the history of rock & roll. It comes at the conclusion of a four-sided rock opera, begins with the sound of rain and ultimately ends with Keith Moon beating the shit out of his drums right after Roger Daltrey bellows "Looooooooooooove!" as if he is literally in the process of casting his life into the storming Atlantic Ocean while simultaneously absorbing every hardship, letdown and impossibility that he has ever faced. This is The Who at the peak of their powers. "Love, Reign O'er Me" was released in1973 as the second single from the band's sixth album and second rock opera, Quadrophenia . However, the deeper context of the song can only be truly experienced through listening to the entirety of Side 4 (Dr. Jimmy > The Rock > Love, Reign O'er Me). "The Rock," and six-minute instrumental, has a proggy, Celtic ...

I've always loved glam rock -- Bowie , The New York Dolls , Mott The Hoople ,  Queen , T. Rex . The flamboyant and gender-bending style. The attitude, sparkly and swagger. The first time I heard Sweet was Fox On The Run . It was my favorite song on the Dazed and Confused Soundtrack. I think it was the swirling, bubbling synthesizer that drew me in. At the time I had no idea that Sweet was a part of the 1970s glam world. Later, I found out that they sang Ballroom Blitz . That's the same band? Then, in college, I bought Action and fell in love with tunes like Lady Starlight and the title track . As I pieced together their discography (in a pre-Internet age), I noticed that the band's sound inexplicably wavered between hard rock, glam and bubble-gum pop. I could never put my finger on what Sweet was all about. I just loved a lot of their songs. This week, I picked up a copy of their 1977 album, Level Headed . The album is anything but steady (as the title would have yo...

Sweetbottom -  Angels of the Deep . I can provide a totally valid explanation for the existence of this record in my collection. You see, I'd been eyeing this peculiar 12" at my favorite little hole-in-the-wall record shop for about a month. It was in the $5 box. After a few weeks it finally landed in the $1 bin. For the album artwork alone, I thought, this is worth a buck. Four late-70s dudes clad in white, cotton shirts and pants, hairy chests and... white shag carpet. Sweetbottom indeed. Adding to the allure, the notes revealed that the album had been recorded at the Shade Tree Resort Studio in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin between 1977-78. Could this be like the Great Lakes version of Yacht Rock? Could I be holding some long-forgotten, Midwest soft rock obscurity? I was tempted to cheat and pull out my cellphone to Google them, but then I paused. This is $1 we're talking about. Let's take the risk and live dangerously. As I approached the register, I noted that the ...

Nicola Cruz was born in Limoges, France. His parents are from Ecuador. He uses electronic music as a means of exploring and reconnecting with his family's culture. I've heard hundreds of attempts to marry electronic music with South American styles. None of it ever quite resonated with me. However, Cruz takes it to a different place. This is not your run of the mill Andean flute and techno beats. None of it sounds tacky or lacking respect for the source material. He samples and mutates the sounds of the Andes and Amazon without losing their soul. It's all there, intact, but presented abstractly. There's a depth here that is worth listening for intently.

There's a blizzard raging outside. I'm down in my basement thumbing through a stack of vinyl I've been neglecting for months. What am I in the mood for? Aha! Here it is.  The Blackbyrds second record . When jazz great, Donald Byrd , was head of Howard University's Department of Jazz Studies in the early 70s, he put together a collective of six gifted musicians and gave them flight as The Blackbyrds . Their second record, Flying Start, is loaded with jazz-funk grooves (some awesome drum breaks), Grant Green -esque lead guitar and a fair share of Kevin Toney's ARP synthesizer. The latter is what I dig the most. On this track, The Baby , Toney doubles up the synth with Joe Hall's bass to create a fat groove. For the entirety of the song, this bass/drum combination continues relentlessly, providing a perfect foundation for guitar, flute and synth pads. This is jazz-fusion at its finest. Very listenable, not too smooth and funky as hell. The perfect soun...

Tonight, I offer you a sampling of progressive circus music for steam punks. Belem & The Mekanics is Didier Laloy (diatonic accordion), Kathy Adam (cello) and the composer Walter Hus. Laloy and Adam play along with Hus' 15-piece orchestra, composed of mechanized instruments (organs, accordions and percussion) that are controlled by a computer. The whole affair builds on the idea of the orchestrion, a machine that autonomously plays music to simulate an orchestra -- think player piano, but on a grand scale. Apparently, these were quite popular in Belgium and France throughout the early 1900s. I chose this song, Norvégien , for its dynamics and spotlight of the mechanical tick-tocking rhythm, which eventually builds into a drumbeat (played on the instruments by a computer). If you're interested in seeing behind the scenes and understanding the mechanics of their music, check this out: Here's a little extra homework assignment. Who else has performed...

It's January 2nd. The temperature in Maine hovers between 10º and -10º F. We will be hit by a bombogenesis (weather bomb) on Thursday and Friday which will drop close to a foot of snow, followed by temperatures that could plunge 20 below. Meanwhile, the U.S. President has just responded to North Korea's most overt nuclear threat to date with a response akin to a mentally deranged joke -- the most unstatesmanlike exchange in U.S. history. Seems like the perfect moment to revisit  Joy Division's Ice Age : Ice Age was recorded in 1979, but unreleased until its appearance on the 1981 posthumous album, Still . The song is a great example of the bands early sound, driven by a frenzied post-punk beat and distorted guitars. Many listeners debate the meaning of Ice Age . Some argue that the song is a literal expression of Ian Curtis' Cold War anxiety. Others perceive it as a song about feeling disconnection (the disintegration of a relationship). It's not hard to ...

Let's start 2018 with a bang. R.E.M. 's Begin the Begin , a musical manifesto for personal activism, is a great place to start this year sonically. This was the lead song from 1986's Life's Rich Pageant and the first time that listeners could really discern Michael Stipe 's lyrics. His eccentric mumble emerged from its abstract cocoon and transformed into something more pronounced, confident and explosive. Along with Stipe' s strengthened howl, the band's music took on a more muscular tone. Bill Berry 's drums rocked harder and Peter Buck cranked up the distortion. The album was the first time that R.E.M. addressed political and environmental issues lyrically ( Fall On Me, Flowers of Guatemala, Cuyahoga ). Begin the Begin doesn't try to plant the seeds for a bloody revolution or take sides politically. Even Stipe recognizes his own inability to articulate solutions: "Answer me a question, i can't itemize I can't think...