Lecture Series, Part 6: Space Rock
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Artist:
(I got the yellow dot up there somehow, but there's a fancy MOG player at the bottom to listen to the whole track with!)Well, now that things have settled down after the holidays in MOGland, I figured it's about time to continue my long-winded rants about all things prog. Those of you who have stuck through this, I hope you've been able to hear some stuff you like, and if nothing else, I hope the term "prog" conjures up more than long capes and overblown keyboard solos!Tonight's installment is Space Rock. Like krautrock, this is a style many of you might have more than a passing familiarity with, so I don't know how much detail I need to go into. Simply put, "Space Rock" refers to longer, drawn out songs (sometimes instrumental, but not necessarily so) that have a root in the psychadelic rock of the 1960's (although wikipedia does talk about space rock existing as far back as the 1940's on its "space rock":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_rock page). Other than that, the sky's really the limit. Some space rock has a harder edge to it, some can be softer and more ambient in feel. But once you hear it, you know it.Unlike some other styles of prog, space rock has had a bit of commercial success. The most successful band considered to fit into this style is Pink Floyd, and we all know how things turned out for them, don't we?(more about them in the comments).Other bands include Ash Ra Temple, Porcupine Tree (the earlier stuff such as The Sky Moves Sideways, which is a supremely excellent album, by the way), Hawkwind, and even bands like The Flaming Lips, believe it or not.For this first song, I've included a pretty cool song by a new discovery of mine, Gong. Gong is classified by some as a Canterbury band, due to some of its founding members, but stylistically they fit more into the Space Rock sound. Gong has been around in various incarnations since the 1960's, as Gong, Gongzilla, Pierre Moerlen's Gong, and Mother Gong. They are most known for their Radio Gnome Invisible Trilogy, which consisted of the albums The Flying Teapot (1973): 
Angel's Egg (1973):
and You (1974) which has what I consider one of the coolest album covers of the period:
These albums have a whole mythology and quasi-storyline attached to them, but it's pretty silly and rather drug induced, I suspect. If you want to read the story, you can find it "here":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Teapot_%28album%29. Still, the music's pretty good.This is the title track from the album The Flying Teapot, and it's the spaciest track on the album. It has a pretty sweet groove, and is one of my current favorite songs to lay back and jam to. Audio note: the sound ain't the best. The song is about 12 minutes long, so I had to use a less than desirable bit rate to fit it all. Plus, I recorded it off of my turntable, so there are cracks and stuff. Plus, in the beginning you can here the belt of my turntable, but it all fades out as the song picks up.
Angel's Egg (1973):and You (1974) which has what I consider one of the coolest album covers of the period:These albums have a whole mythology and quasi-storyline attached to them, but it's pretty silly and rather drug induced, I suspect. If you want to read the story, you can find it "here":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Teapot_%28album%29. Still, the music's pretty good.This is the title track from the album The Flying Teapot, and it's the spaciest track on the album. It has a pretty sweet groove, and is one of my current favorite songs to lay back and jam to. Audio note: the sound ain't the best. The song is about 12 minutes long, so I had to use a less than desirable bit rate to fit it all. Plus, I recorded it off of my turntable, so there are cracks and stuff. Plus, in the beginning you can here the belt of my turntable, but it all fades out as the song picks up. In the comments, old school Pink Floyd, a little bit of Hawkwind, and the ineffable Ozric Tentacles!
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