Halcyon Magazine

BY DANIEL HARJU

Mixing rhythm’n'blues with social satire, the Kinks wrote songs that were as quirky as they were brilliant pieces of Marxist commentary. Today, when that unregulated shit of free-market capitalism keeps hitting the fan and more and more people risk loosing all they’ve got, we all need some comforting confirmation of our anxieties. Ey? This might not be a better time for existential reflections than the less turbulent era of yesteryear but this song by Ray Davis can perhaps help us find some solid land to ground our feet on. That Dead End Street the Kinks sung of was located in England, but we all know this place. The video is really great too.

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As a further sign of the impending Apocalypse as predicted by the Popul Vuh in 2012, Indie 103.1 has now decided to close its doors. Or rather, air their show via extraterrestrial digital waves rather than from a brick-and-mortar FM broadcast station. It is a dark time for good music. Let us rise up despite the dismal times and do our best to create music that shall serve as respite to the hostile and challenging soundscape.

Indie’s goodbye message:

Indie 103.1 will cease broadcasting over this frequency effective immediately. Because of changes in the radio industry and the way radio audiences are measured, stations in this market are being forced to play too much Britney, Puffy and alternative music that is neither new nor cutting edge. Due to these challenges, Indie 103.1 was recently faced with only one option — to play the corporate radio game.

We have decided not to play that game any longer. Rather than changing the sound, spirit, and soul of what has made Indie 103.1 great Indie 103.1 will bid farewell to the terrestrial airwaves and take an alternative course.

This could only be done on the Internet, a place where rules do not apply and where new music thrives; be it grunge, punk, or alternative; simply put, only the best music.

For those of you with a computer at home or at work, log on to www.indie1031.com and listen to the new Indie 103.1 - which is really the old Indie 103.1, not the version of Indie 103.1 we are removing from the broadcast airwaves.

We thank our listeners and advertisers for their support of the greatest radio station ever conceived, and look forward to continuing to deliver the famed Indie 103.1 music and spirit over the Internet to passionate music listeners around the world.

BY DANIEL HARJU

Right before they unexpectedly morphed into the Electric Light Orchestra, Jeff Lynne, Roy Wood and Bev Bevan reached their musical apex together as the Move with the 1971 album Message From the Country. This video is some TV singback performance. The song is called “Words of Aron” and is off of this, their album as the Move. Notice the mildly eccentric Roy, the bearded multi-instumentalist in the yellow suit. Wood would go on to become Wizard, the brain behind the outlandish everything-but-the-kitchen-sink glam band. This song by Jeff Lynne (that genial Birminghamite who gave the world loads of Beatles-inspired classic cheese such as Rockaria, Calling America, Telephone Line) is phenomenal but also sounds light-years from what the group would do only a few years later as ELO. Quasimodo playing the bass flute is actually Bill Hunt, who would later become an ELO member.   

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