The Fusion Reactor #84 - Chains

These five song chains were a lot of fun to put together. There's nothing terribly deep to them or anything, so I guess we can just get on to the playlist.

But first... On seeing that title, who else's first thought was of that song by Three?

Ahleuchatistas The Day the Earth Stood Still 02:38
Robert Fripp & Andy Summers Still Point 03:09
Overhead Point Of View 05:17
Iona View of the Islands 02:30
Vital Information Island Holiday 06:17

Herbie Hancock Juju 05:04
John McLaughlin Juju at the Crossroads 05:15
Smokin' Granny Road to the Desert 04:23
KBB The Desert of Desires 07:38

Aireline How I Spent My Time in the City 05:58
Passport City Blue 05:14
Umphrey's McGee Blue Echo 06:08
Joe Satriani Echo 05:38
Camel Echoes 07:20

Steve Hackett Paint Your Picture 02:59
Proto-Kaw Picture This 06:31
XTC This World Over 04:47
Steve Morse Over Easy 05:15
King Crimson Easy Money 06:11

Salem Hill Evil One 05:03
Forever Einstein One Thing After Another 00:53
Volta do Mar Another Air Strike Called Love 03:28
John Abercrombie Love Song 04:27
Clarke, DiMeola & Ponty Song To John [Dedicated To John Coltrane] 06:04
A Minor Forest John Gets Leftovers Again 02:21

OK, two semi-deep things. First, there are 10 artists on this show that have never been on a Fusion Reactor before. Name them all and win the No Prize! Second, the first chain is pretty much circular. I should have thought to make them all that way, then I could have called the show Circles. Maybe another time.

The Fusion Reactor #83 - No Waiting

Doubles... Seeing Double... I didn't have a really good name for this show. I don't even have a good way to explain it, other than by examples. Like this: This band has two guitar players. This one has two keyboard players. Understand? See, it's not that complicated. Probably the most common one would be double guitarists, but I fit in a nice variety of stuff. The playlist:

Kansas Journey From Mariabronn 07:56
Kerry Livgren is a guitarist and a keyboardist, and the band has one of each of those (Rich Williams and Steve Walsh, respectively) so it's kind of a double double.

Gongzilla Mezzanine 04:14
Bon Lozaga and Allan Holdsworth play the guitars on this one.

Glass Hammer Farewell To Shadowlands 07:30
Steve Babb and Fred Schendel double up on the keyboards... and they play just about every other instrument on the album too.

Kenso PM 07:07
Two keyboarders with names I can't pronounce.

moe. Rebubula 19:22
Two guitarists, and two drummers. One of the drummers (Jim Loughlin) is quite the instrumentalist. That's him on the xylophone you hear at the beginning, but in addition to that and drums, I've seen him do some guitar, bass, and (if my memory serves) flute.

Sonny Rollins Tenor Madness 12:16
John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins both play tenor sax on this 12-minute workout.

Uz Jsme Doma Uprostred Slov (In the Middle of Words) 09:02
There were two sax players (one alto and one tenor) in the first incarnation of this band.

John Scofield & Pat Metheny One Way To Be 05:49
If you didn't know these guys play guitar... You do now.

King Crimson FraKctured 09:06
More double guitars - I love the way they lock together on this stuff.

Pat Metheny and Jim Hall All Across The City 07:36
Pat still plays guitar, as above. So does Jim.

Don Caballero Slice Where You Live Like Pie 05:09
Ian Williams and Mike Banfield are locked together on guitars here, but in a different way than the King Crimson.

Miles Davis Tatu (Part 2) (Calypso Frelimo) 06:32
There are THREE guitarists on this one. I'm not sure about the rest of the band, I think I counted at least two percussionists in addition to the drummer.

Volta do Mar 7/1000 03:37
Two bass players... yep this group is one of the few to have that feature. One plays the five string and is kind of in the normal bass role, and the other plays leads on a 6-string bass.

Salem Hill All Fall Down 07:14
Kind of a double Kerry Livgren situation where I believe both Carl Groves and Mike Dearing play both keys and guitars in this song.

Sunny Day Real Estate The Rising Tide 05:38
Another band with two guitarists closes it out on a nice peaceful happy note.

Sorry, I don't know if 'entendre' is the right spelling. Otherwise that might have made a good title.

The Fusion Reactor #82 - Trios of a Perfect Pair

They say that all good things come in trios. Or something like that. This week's show features groups with three members. Sometimes one or more is a multi-instrumentalist, but most of these are just three people on three instruments.

Emerson, Lake & Palmer The Endless Enigma (Part One) 06:42
Niacin Red 08:00
Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey Off Minor 04:26
Rush Bastille Day 04:41
Soulive Rudy's Way 05:20
Tripod Dance of the Kabuki 06:56
ProjeKct Two Contrary ConstruKction 04:56
Medeski Martin & Wood Buster Rides Again 07:37
Ginger Baker Trio Straight No Chaser 05:34
Duke Ellington A Little Max (Parfait) 02:58
UK Nothing To Lose 03:58
Mclaughlin, DiMeola, De Lucia Espiritu 05:30
Charlie Hunter Trio Lulu's Crawl 06:43
Glass Harp David & Goliath 02:51
Chaibaba C3H8 04:49
Waking Vision Trio East 05:13
Clarke, DiMeola & Ponty Chilean Pipe Song 06:15
Visual Cliff Eye of the Dove 04:31
Béla Fleck & the Flecktones At Last We Meet Again 05:35
John McLaughlin 1 Nite Stand 07:05
Genesis Dodo/Lurker 07:32

If you're looking for the place I messed up, that would be the Soulive song. They did just have three members but that song had a guest saxophone player. Mea culpa.