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frenchie 
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 Topic: Side-Lengths
Posted: July 31 2004 at 09:30 |
I am new to the forum so i dont know if this has been discussed before but...
What was the first side-length track?
Genesis - Suppers Ready?
Rush - 2112?
Jethro Tull - Thick as a Brick (part one)?
Yes - Close to the Edge?
Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells (part one)?
Pink Floyd - Meddle?
well i recon it is
Pink Floyd - Atom Heart Mother.
This song arrived in 1970 and was 23 minutes long before any others i can find.
Prove me wrong.
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The Worthless Recluse
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Marcelo
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Posted: July 31 2004 at 11:23 |
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In 1967, an Italian one-shot band called Le Stelle di Mario Schifano released its only album, "Dedicato A...". The first side on that LP had a side-lenght track with a very long name: "LE ULTIME PAROLE DI BRADIMANTE, DALL'ORLANDO FURIOSO, OSPITE PETER HARTMAN E FINE (DA ASCOLTARSI CON TV ACCESA, SENZA VOLUME)". Wow! It was a very psychedelic track, I guess the first "prog" in Europe, and the lenght was 17 minutes.
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lucas
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Posted: July 31 2004 at 11:46 |
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What about Colosseum's "Valentyne suite" ?
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"Magma was the very first gothic rock band" (Didier Lockwood)
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threefates
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Posted: July 31 2004 at 12:21 |
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I've read several times that PF's AHM recorded in 1970 was the first side length prog record. I believe ELP's Tarkus..recorded in early 1971 was the next. However, I'm sure this archives has some obscure prog band who probably was even earlier...
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THIS IS ELP
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Easy Livin
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Posted: July 31 2004 at 12:32 |
Procol Harum, "In held twas In I" from 1968 I reckon.
Like "Supper's ready" & "Horizons", it had a brief introductory track "Magdelene (my regal Zonophone"), but it was effectively a side long piece.
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maani
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Posted: July 31 2004 at 22:59 |
All:
Actually, even prior to the release of PH's album featuring "In Held Twas In I," Iron Butterfly released "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida," which included the first side-long track.
Peace.
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richardh
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Posted: August 01 2004 at 03:21 |
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Ars Longa Vita Brevis(1968) - The Nice , is the earliest one I know of.
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richardh
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Posted: August 01 2004 at 03:23 |
 maani wrote:
All:
Actually, even prior to the release of PH's album featuring "In Held Twas In I," Iron Butterfly released "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida," which included the first side-long track.
Peace.
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Shouldn't they be in the archive section then?
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ummagumma08
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Posted: August 01 2004 at 09:34 |
Other great early side-lengths:
Out of Germany we for instance have:
Can - Halleluhwah (Tago Mago, 1971)
Organisation - Tone Float (Tone Float, 1970)
Edited by ummagumma08
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frenchie
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Posted: August 24 2004 at 16:03 |
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looks like you lot have been doing your homework. good work!
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The Worthless Recluse
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Dick Heath
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Posted: August 24 2004 at 16:33 |
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Reading the Soft Machine biography and you'll discover both sides of Volume 2 were intended as two continuous pieces - back in 1969, the record company ABC Probe couldn't cope with that and Machine obligued by titling all the segments. But then thinking hard:
Cream's Wheels Of Fire, have Spoonful and Toad taking up a side each released the same year as that Iron Butterfly album - and I know who I prefer. And Quicksilver Messenger Service took up a side covering Bo Diddley on Happy Trails - when was that released? And I'm sure Canned Heat covered two sides with one amazingly over-extended boogie around the same time
BTW in the mid 60's and before, you were lucky if a whole album clocked
in at 30 minutes (some Beach Boys albums are less than 25 minutes long)
- so any track going beyond the 10 minute length would have been
considered mighty long!
I suggest Renaissance or Touch produced the first 10 minute plus progressive tracks on record back in 1969 (Bullet and Aleisha & Others/75 respectively) that is if you don't count the loosely connected songs on the Moody Blues Days Of Future Passed or even the Beatles' Sgt Pepper or the Pretty Things SF Sorrow.
Todd Rundgren clocks in with the all time longest single track covering an LP side on his Initiation album.
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AngelRat
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Posted: August 24 2004 at 16:47 |
The first Mothers Of Invention album 'Freak Out!' has a side-long track called 'The Return Of The Son Of Monster Magnet' it is about 12 minutes long and the lp was released in 1966.
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Easy Livin
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Posted: August 24 2004 at 17:05 |
Dick Heath wrote:
Todd Rundgren clocks in with the all time longest single track covering an LP side on his Initiation album.
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"A treatise on cosmic fire" I think? "The Ikon" on his Todd Rindgren's Utopia album was also over 30 minutes. I seem to remember the album had instructions on it to record the track onto tape an listen to it that way, as the bass responses would be improved!
Have you come across a band called Continuum from the early 70's. They did an album called "Autumn Grass" the title track of which was over 26 minutes. It was a sort of jazz prog album, featuring a guy called Tim Rice (no relation). They are probably worthy of inclusion on this site.
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Certif1ed
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Posted: August 25 2004 at 04:45 |
Darn it, Dick Heath - you beat me to the Pretty Things "SF Sorrow"!
Love's "Da Capo" (1967) also contains the side-long "Revelations", and the Stones actually came quite close in 1966 on "Aftermath" with the track "Goin' Home".
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Dick Heath
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Posted: August 25 2004 at 13:30 |
Easy Livin wrote:
Dick Heath wrote:
Todd Rundgren clocks in with the all time longest single track covering an LP side on his Initiation album.
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"A treatise on cosmic fire" I think? "The Ikon" on his Todd
Rindgren's Utopia album was also over 30 minutes. I seem to remember
the album had instructions on it to record the track onto tape an
listen to it that way, as the bass responses would be improved!
Yes - I was too idle to walk down the hall (cue for the
DOORS..........) and pull the album off the rack and check out the full
title. My long-gone vinyl version recommended taping asap - I think
because the micro-grooving was fine that there was a big risk rapid
abrasive wear from the styllus and the usually crap associated with
turntables etc. In passing anybody been brave enough to fork out 3000
quid or more (what that's 10000 US at current exchange rates - - only joking) for one of those so called non-contact laser-for-styllus turntables?
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Dick Heath
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Posted: August 25 2004 at 13:39 |
Certif1ed wrote:
Darn it, Dick Heath - you beat me to the Pretty Things "SF Sorrow"!
Hey the old man can still do it -- whatever "it" is.
Love's "Da Capo" (1967) also contains the side-long "Revelations",
Of course - good spot.
and the Stones actually came quite close in 1966 on "Aftermath" with the track "Goin' Home".
An old favourite but hindsight tells me it was really just a
long jam, which I think they ran out of ideas before the track
finished............... I remember I had to wait 4 weeks after the
album's official release date (mono only) to get the stereo version -
DECCA were really strange in the 1966 to 1969 period, in
that stereo and mono releases dates were rarely the same.
If I remember correctly there were approx 9 months delay before the
stereo version of John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers (Clapton reading
the Beano) got released following the mono version.
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Certif1ed
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Posted: August 25 2004 at 15:11 |
It's true that "Goin' Home" was just a jam - but hey, we're talking side-long tracks in general! I guess that any Grateful Dead album would fit nicely... "Revelations" and "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" were also jams on the whole.
Talking of John Mayall, his "Bare Wires" suite of 1968 also fits quite nicely into the side-length "track" category - twice  .
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James Lee
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Posted: August 25 2004 at 16:16 |
good call Cert- "That's it for the Other One" by the Grateful Dead filled the first side of "Anthem of the Sun" in 1968. Not simply a jam, it was the first extended piece that was recorded by the band (and therefore more representative of the Dead's live set than the shorter tracks that had appeared on the eponymous debut disc a year before). It was listed as separate tracks/ movements on the album only because their record company couldn't handle putting only one song on a side. For any of you who are disposed to speak ill of the Dead, jazz guitar virtuoso Henry Kaiser thought well enough of the song to do a cover version.
looks like 68 was the year longer songs began to flourish
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mirco
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Posted: January 06 2005 at 10:57 |
richardh wrote:
maani wrote:
All:
Actually, even prior to the release of PH's album featuring "In Held Twas In I," Iron Butterfly released "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida," which included the first side-long track.
Peace.
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Shouldn't they be in the archive section then?
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Good question. I have not heard much of IB, but my general idea is that they were a prgressive-psicodelic band, between the pioneers of the movement.
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Syzygy
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Posted: January 06 2005 at 12:32 |
Actually, side 4 of Dylan's Blonde On Blonde was taken up with Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands, and was released just before Zappa's Freak Out in 1966, pipping him at the post for rock's first double album. The song is just under 12 minutes long, about the same as Monster Magnet, but it did occupy a whole side of the original vinyl version.
I can't think of any off the top of my head, but I'm sure that some Jazz musicians had released side long epics well before anything discussed so far - people like Miles Davis, John Coltane and Charles Mingus were recording extended compositions almost as soon as the LP format had been invented.
Edited by Syzygy
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Side-Lengths
