"Thunder and Lightning" b/w "The Coming of Kohoutek"

According to Russo's Collector's Guide, fifty years ago to-day (2 September 1974), Argent's "Thunder and Lightning" (edited) b/w "The Coming of Kohoutek" (Epic 8-50025) was released in the U.S. and Canada.  This seems to be the last single Argent released in these countries; Russo doesn't list any more.

"The Coming of Kohoutek"

I listened to Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique yester-day, and afterwards, I was thinking about "Dies Irae," which is quoted in the last movement.  A loose quotation of it also appears at the beginning of Argent's "The Coming of Kohoutek," and I realized that its placement at the beginning of the three linked songs that start the Nexus album ("The Coming of Kohoutek," "Once Around the Sun," and "Infinite Wanderer") has some significance and is appropriate for this context.  As Rod Argent explains in this interview,  "the comet [Kohoutek] was heralded as being potentially one of the most spectacular events to occur in the sky for many years.  In the far past, spectacular comet visitations had been linked to all sorts of prophesies of doom and destruction, and I included a very famous musical theme - the Dies Irae, (Day of Wrath), written in the 13th century."  Obviously, the theme heralding the "Day of Wrath" precedes the event that it announces, and likewise, Argent's quotation of the tune comes first in the song.

"The Coming of Kohoutek"

About a month ago, I got a Moog synthesizer (the Subsequent 37).  I still have a lot to learn, but the first thing I did was try to replicate a little tune that Mike Vickers played on the BBC in 1969.  (I don't think he ever gets enough credit for this, so I'll mention it:  Vickers set up the Moog synthesizers for the Beatles' Abbey Road and for Emerson, Lake, & Palmer.  In December 1968, he did some orchestral overdubs for Zombies songs, as heard on Into the Afterlife and the second disc of Zombie Heaven.)

This was my second objective:  the first bit of "The Coming of Kohoutek."

I'd noticed before that the Moog and the Mellotron violins play the same thing (a loose quotation of "Dies Irae"), but I don't think I'd noticed the lower Moog part (panned right) until I started examining the song more closely.  My audio example is just those three parts plus some guitar arpeggios.  I played to a click track, not to the original Argent recording, so the tempo might not be very accurate.

"The Coming of Kohoutek"

Recently, I finally got around to notating the synth/mellotron quotation of "Dies Irae" at the beginning of Argent's "The Coming of Kohoutek."  I've known the guitar quotation for years, but this keyboard quotation (which I learned in August) is at a lower pitch.  After I notated it, I lookt at my old posts about "The Coming of Kohoutek," and I discovered that I haven't written much about the "Dies Irae" quotation, so I'm doing that now.

I identified the quotation myself (after hearing a similar phrase in Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique and doing some research), but I also found this interview with Rod Argent where he talks about the song a bit and confirms the "Dies Irae" quote:

Progsheet: Argent's The Coming Of Kohoutek got lots of airplay on FM radio here in the States. Please give me some background on the song. 

Rod Argent: The comet was heralded as being potentially one of the most spectacular events to occur in the sky for many years. In the far past, spectacular comet visitations had been linked to all sorts of prophesies of doom and destruction, and I included a very famous musical theme - the Dies Irae, (Day of Wrath), written in the 13th century. It was a short theme that's been used by many composers. I just thought it was interesting to look at things a bit from a historical perspective, and it was the dramatic nature of the whole event that fascinated me. In the end, the comet Kohoutek was pretty much a damp squib!!

Here's the "Dies Irae" tune:

[source]

And here's the synth/mellotron quotation from the beginning of "The Coming of Kohoutek":

Argent uses only the first two thirds of the "Dies Irae" and changes the rhythm a bit (notwithstanding the overall lengthening of the note values), but the intervals remain the same.

"The Coming of Kohoutek"

Backdated, archival post

[link to original on tumblr]

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Some of the guitar parts from Argent's "The Coming of Kohoutek."  It does get more complex than the D A C repetition, but I haven't figured that out yet.  The other part is just a quotation of "Dies Irae," an allusion that I figured out at the beginning of June.

"The Coming of Kohoutek" / "It Never Fails to Please Me" / "I'll Keep Trying"

Backdated, archival post

[link to original on tumblr]

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I learned a few bits of Argent's "The Coming of Kohoutek" earlier, and I figured out a better way to play one of the guitar parts in "It Never Fails to Please Me" from the Into the Afterlife album.

I also realised that the parts I had sort of made up for "I'll Keep Trying" are actually pretty accurate.  Since they're probably as accurate as I'm going to get, I'm just going to say I'm done with that.  I may record a version of just the guitar part to-morrow.  I know the bass part too, but I've already done a version with that, and it hasn't changed.