This is almost too awesome for me to process: It’s the James Last Orchestra, that bastion of PBS pledge drives and your mom’s house, doing Hawkwind. I just don’t know what to say.
Reminds me of the joke about what’s the difference between the James Last Orchestra and a goat: the goat has horns in the front and an ass in the rear.
But seriously: THIS IS INCREDIBLE:
In 1977, Todd Rundgren and his band Utopia released their first studio album, “Ra.” Later that same year they would release “Oops! Wrong Planet,” which did much better … but “Ra” has a number of delights, not the least of which is the 18-minute epic “Singring and the Glass Guitar.”
An “electrified fairy tale,” the song tells the story of the land of Harmony, where everything is peaceful and everyone is happy – thanks to the muse Singring. But jealous forces – “and there are always jealous forces in such tales” – kidnap Singring, seal him in a glass guitar, seal the guitar in a box with four locks, and then scatter the four keys to the four corners of the earth.
Guess how many members there are in Utopia? … Yes, that’s right, there are four, and each one of the band members becomes one of the brave adventurers who goes after a single key in this wonderfully cheesy, silly, upbeat rock-and-roll fantasy tale.
An intrepid YouTube user managed to dig out video of a performance of the whole piece in Germany in 1977. It’s long, so it’s split into three bits. Enjoy!
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