Nothin' But The Prog In Me

Three minutes. Plenty of time to flee a hotel room, flush a stash, tuck the magazine back under the mattress...to smoke a cigarette, mix a martini, tell any joke that isn’t The Aristocrats, read poems by Basho or William Carlos Williams (or Basho AND William Carlos Williams.) Time enough to listen to some of the greatest pop songs in human history—“I’m Eighteen,” “I’ve Been Tired,” “It Takes Two”—all clocking in at three minutes exactly, all leaving you as flushed and elated, as wrung and regretful, as the fucking they point towards. Songs like these were made for the radio and its format of the “classic pop single," over-and-out once they'd banged their choruses into your head. But such was never Sal’s game, nuh-uh. One tuned in to the Ear to get stretched, played-with, teased at great length. By songs that threatened never to end, or in some cases—hear that taffy-chord at the beginning of “Ecstasy Symphony”—never to begin. “Is this thing still on?” “Are we there yet?” Never, never, says the Ear. We’re just getting underway.

Beach Boys-Good Vibrations (Sessions)

Bruce Springsteen-NYC Serenade (Live at The Main Point 1975)

Can-Bel Air

Spiritualized-Feel So Sad (EP version)

Kraftwerk-Kling Klang

Spacemen 3-Ecstasy Symphony/Transparent Radiation (EP version)

Richard & Linda Thompson-Calvary Cross (Live)

Soul Asylum-James at 16 Medley

Sonic Youth-The Diamond Sea (with alternate ending)

Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson-The Bottle/Guan Guanco

Eddie Hazel-From The Bottom Of My Soul