After a little over a week spent either poolside or oceanside in a small Mexican tourist town, life has called me back to rainy, chilly Portland, OR, where I am currently intermittently working on a team accounting project for my capstone course. That's fun, right? Here's a great, pretty chill prog rock record that I put on late one night last week while we were sitting out on our back patio overlooking the ocean, because everyone likes old-school prog when they're drunk on vacation somewhere warm.
The tiny bit I know about this band: They were originally from New Zealand, which is where they were located when they released their first two records, this and the also-great Scented Gardens for the Blind. They then moved to Australia, where they were based from then on, and became a more straightforward pop/hard rock band.
Track listing:
1. Universal Radio
2. Going Slow
3. Patina
4. Weetbix
5. Graves
6. Avalanche
If you like this, you should hear:
I guess the most interesting thing in their history is the connection to heroin trafficking (the "Mr. Asia syndicate"). Chasing the dragon indeed!
ReplyDeleteThe first two Dragon albums are pretty good and quite different to the Dragon of "April Sun In Cuba", which although a great song is not much like this.
Oh shit, I did not know that, although I did know that their original drummer died of a heroin overdose -- felt like it was maybe too sad of a thing to just plop into my shitty writeup.
DeleteHaven't heard any early Dragon before and after how our horrid last prime minister tainted April Sun In Cuba forever during the last election here, I think I need a Dragon pallet cleanser ha ha. Just for context for those outside of Australia, he did a truly cringe ukulele rendition of April Sun during of one of the worst stage managed 'hey I'm just a normal guy just like the rest of you plebs' media stunts in the country's history. He got utterly thrashed in the election too btw. So good :)
ReplyDeleteWow, that's hilarious. Those moments are always the absolute worst. "Look, I love filthy peasant music just as much as the next filthy peasant!" Glad to hear he's out.
DeleteHa ha! Glad I missed that, might have ruined the song for me :-) And glad he's gone!
ReplyDelete