Intelligent Life On Planet Rock
Prog Rock - The Best Of
I challenge you to create a playlist of 78 minutes of the best progressive rock you know.
This is mine (I haven't timed it but it should in theory fit on a CD):
Genesis - Duchess
The Peter Gabriel era leaves me cold so I have to go with a Collins era song. This is a great song and its proggyness is quite pronounced (I prefer Keep it Dark but it's too poppy for this playlist).
The Alan Parsons Project - Can't Take It With You
Dark Side Of The Moon engineer continues where Pink Floyd stepped off. My favourite of their songs. It's about a rich man pleading to keep his fortune while the boatman waits to take him to the other side.
The Moody Blues - Question
The Moody's are very proggy. I think of this as their big hit single.
Pink Floyd - Comfortably Numb (The Wall Live 1980-81)
Echoes is the more obvious choice but it would eat up too much space. I plumped for this live version because I expected there to be an extended guitar solo on the end. There isn't. I might replace it with the version on PULSE which does have an extended solo.
Radiohead - Subterranean Homesick Alien
Excellent song and one of their more proggy moments.
Tool - Lost Keys (Blame Hoffman)/Rosetta Stoned
15 minutes of prog-metal about someone going to ER and recounting to a doctor a visitation from an alien. He's slung into a mental hospital in the end.
The Beatles - A Day In The Life
The first prog epic? The Fall have an interesting version of this on their 2007 box set.
ELP - Knife-Edge
One of ELP's more direct and rock orientated songs. I considered Pirates but it's maybe a bit too jokey for this playlist.
Television - Marquee Moon
Er, isn't this a punk song? Perhaps, but it's 10 minutes of intricate music with long instrumental passages.
Van Der Graaf Generator - Killer
Song about a killer shark. It's a good song but I feel I could do better so I'm up for replacing this.
One final question, how important is sequencing on a various artist list? I sequenced these songs in this order by default and yet it plays really well. Did I just get lucky, or does it not matter too much how songs are sequenced because they don't have any real connection to each other?
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A replacement for Killer...
La Rossa (from Still Life)? The ultimate VdGG track IMHO!
I only have
a 7 track best of. Killer was the best song on it.
7 Track best of
Thats so Prog. Was it a triple album boxset?
The tracks I have
Darkness
Killer
Man Erg
Theme One
Pioneers Over C
Plague Of Lighthouse Keep
Refugees
http://www.play.com/Music/CD/4-/2869410/First-Generation/Product.html
Looks like a corker
but misses out the later period stuff, which is less evil hippy, more existential angster. Beefier organ sounds too!
good one
Nice one Lee
Hmmmm... An inneresting idea!
First thoughts...
No Canterbury bands? Caravan/Egg/Hatfields were pretty much the stereotypical UK progressive artists. Needs some Softs in there as well.
No King Crimson? They were about as 'progressive' as it got - every album/lineup pushed the boundaries back and unlike (say) Floyd or the Moodies, they didn't stay in their (or the audience's) comfort zone.
The inclusion of Television suggests that it's not exlusively a UK playlist so how about some QMS, Moby Grape or, of course, the Dead?
I can see it'd be tricky to get a CD-length playlist together - a good reason to ditch CDs and go digital I guess :-)
No Canterbury bands?
No Canterbury bands? I hate them. All of them.
No King Crimson? Larks Tongue in Aspice was so horrible, so bad, so pointless that I never investigated further.
Interested to hear...
...what you hate about the Canterbury bands?
I talk from a point of ignorance
but they seem to have joined soft rock with the more twiddly bits of prog rock. I'm not a big fan of soft rock and I have no time for low to mid-tempo twiddly music. They seem more interested in playing rather than songwriting. I much prefer good songs performed by bad musicians rather than bad songs performed by virtuosos.
but surely a working definition of 'progressive rock'
would be "bad songs performed by virtuosos (sic)" :-)
'Deed you do......
Take a listen, a real listen to In the Land of Grey and Pink, which, it's true, isn't hard as in hard or heavy rock, but pastoral melodies, well played with that seminal Sinclair organ tone. The vocals are an aquired taste, but they enter fairly seldom to my personal relief. OK, after Caravan comes all the wierder stuff, yer Softs, Matching Moles, Eggs, Hatfields, but I always feel this was the template for this brand of prog.
Seconded
Caravan & co are for me the shining lights of prog - I also dig their fuzzy-organ-led pastoral Englishness, humour and lack of pomposity.
Thirded.
They were, and are, completely lovely.
The first three Caravan Albums
....are some of the best English music produced in the twentieth century. Particularly, "If I could do it all over again..." A genuine psychedelic classic that I come back to again and again. Yes some of it is twiddly but it also has some monster riffing on it. It is an album that creates an atmosphere and induces revery ......now what was i saying oh yeah, got any skins?
Twice daft
You might as well say you hate all bands from, oh, let's say Sunderland. It's meaningless.
The Canterbury bands don't all sound the same, they just grew from a nucleus of players who happened to be connected with a low number of degrees of separation.
Similarly, dismissing KC because you didn't like 'Larks Tongues' is like dismissing Picasso because you were unimpressed by 'Guernica'.
Tangent alert!
I was viewing Guernica and a young American stood by me and said "Hey, that's neat". Many thoughts were running through my mind, but neat wasn't one of them.
Without being facetious...
...ARE there any bands from Sunderland???
The Futureheads
are from Mackemland
Weren't Kenickie from Sunderland...
...based solely on Lauren Laverne's accent?
The Toys Dolls and The Kane Gang...
were also from Sunderland.
Yeah, on the not exclusive UK tack...
how about Amon Duul II or Can? (sorry don't know how to insert umlauts)
Non-UK? How about Kansas?
Famed for the anthemic classic rock "Carry On Wayward Son" but surely proggers for stuff like Song for America, Closet Chronicles, the noodley Magnum Opus or my favourite The Wall (no nothing to do with Mr Waters)or take Excerpt From Lamplight Symphonyfrom the recently remastered and re-released quadruple platinum Two for the Show (see http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00175G79K/ref=cm_rdp_product_img )
'The Peter Gabriel era leaves me cold'
Well clearly never agree on anything prog related, so de gustibus non est disputandum and all that.
ditto
and as for "No King Crimson? Larks Tongue in Aspice was so horrible, so bad, so pointless that I never investigated further."
you deserve nothing but my scorn!
I was thinking the same...
...but was trying not to overreact.
LTIA is a fine piece of work but Red is a true milestone in progressive music.
Since 1975, Starless has featured on my 'desert island discs' selection - I suspect it's the only track never to have dropped off the list in all that time
the best prog 4 cd set ever
let me take over from LOUDspeaker, who is obviously a whole lot younger than I, if hegrooved on 'late 70s early 80s Phil Collins'
This set needs redifinition, i have read a lot of commens related to his/her list (prog? it's a young Him) and here''s my elder perspective:
disc 1:
Moody Blues-Gypsy
King Crimson-I Talk To The Wind
Emerson Lake & Palme- The Three Fates: Clotho, Lachesis, Atropos
Happy The Man-Knee-Bitten Nymphs In Limbo
Yes-Close To The Edge
Fireballet-Night On Bald Mountain (suite)
Renaissance-Kings & Queens
Genesis-The Fountain Of Salmacis
Rush-Tom Sawyer
Hammer-Death Of A King
King Crimson-Cat Food
The Nice-Rondo (19)69
Jimi Hendrix Experience-1983...A Merman I Should Be/Moon, Turn The Tides Away...Gently, Gently Away
Disc 2:
Gentle Giant-Peel The Paint
If-I Couldn't Write And Tell You
Caravan-A Hunting We Shall Go.Pengola/Backwards/A-Hunting We Shall Go (reprise)
Supertramp-School
Pink Floyd--A Saucerful of Secrets
Man-No Nups To The Nupalese (live)
The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown-Child of My Kingdom
Rare Bird-As Your Mind Flies By
Yes-Roundabout
Genesis-Supper's Ready
Disc 3:
It's A Beautiful Day-Time Is
Focus-Hocus Pocus
King Crimson-Sailor's Tale
Emerson,Lake & Palmer-Tank
Kansas-Song For America
Camel--Nimrodel/Prosession/The White Rider
Caravan--Nine Feet Underground
Curved Air-Metamorphosis
Genesis-Entangled
Strawbs-Lady Fuchsia
Gentle Giant-Just The Same
Rick Wakeman-Catherine Of Aragon
Pink Floyd-Echoes
Crack The Sky-Ice
Disc 4:
Arthur Brown's Kingdome Come-Time Captives
Anthony Phillips--God If I Could See Her Now
Steve Hackett-Tigermoth
King Crimson-Bolero (The Peacock's Tale)
Mike Oldfield-Tubular Bells, side 1
Caravan-For Richard
Love Sculpture-Mars/Sabre Dance
Manfred Mann's Earth Band-Waiter, There's A Yawn In My Ear
Gong-You Never Blow Yr Trip Forever
Electric Light Orchestra-In The Hall of The Mountain King
Curved Air-Vivaldi
The Move-Open Up Said The World At The Door
(bonus disc)5:
Camel-The Snow Goose
King Crimson--In the Court Of The Crimson King
Genesis-Twilight Alehouse
Yes-And You And I
Marillion-Grendel
Van der Graaf Generator-Wondering
The Who-Rael
Focus-Harem Scarem
Ekseption-Beggar Julia's Time Trip
ok. knock me out.
no one...
likes a show off
Excellent
I was going to lay into the young chap who started the thread, what with him including Television, who certainly aren't progressive or prog, but your fine and interesting selection has lightened my mood. Why you've even included one of my favourite Happy The Man tracks!
However, on closer inspection....
Tigermoth? No! Rrrrrrrubbish! What about Spectral Mornings or Everyday? Or any of the first 3 tracks on Please Don't Touch.
Grendel; you've already got Supper's Ready so you don't need it backwards.
The Move? Sorry, not progressive.
Waiter, There's A Yawn In My Ear? A strange choice.
Supertramp? Prog or progressive? No. Just rock.
Far too much King Crimson and odd choices too!
Where's the PFM?
Only early King Crimson?
What about the later stuff?
Back in the day we certainly regarded The Move as in the same bag as other heavy/underground acts.
There seems to be some fine grading of bands going on here - Genesis 'progressive' but Supertramp 'not progressive' - how does that work then?
By all means use the terrible modern term 'prog' to refer to some narrowly defined genre based on the instrumentation or length of songs, but please don't make the mistake of believing that's how we thought back in 69-75. At the time it was all just 'heavy' or 'underground' music and prety much anything that would now be called 'rock' was lumped in with it - from Amon Duul to Zappa via Crimso, Free, and Led Zeppelin.
The younger contributors here would do well to understand that, at the time, we didn't think in terms of a clearly defined genre - in fact, I'd argue that the whole point of the movement we've since named 'progressive' was that there were no limits, it was about a musical attitude of freedom to experiment. Mellotrons and triple-necked guitars were simply tools used in that process - not a fundamental requirement. Similarly, long complex song structures were a result of the experimentation, not the price of admission.
McCartney's conventional-sounding 'Thrillington' brass band work fell under the same 'heavy/underground/progressive/experimental' umbrella as did Richard Sinclair throwing a tray of spoons across the stage, Bill Bruford thrashing a steel plate or Keith Emerson banging the reverb springs on his Hammond - the point was that people were trying new things and pushing music into new and (by pop musicians) unexplored territory.
I hate any kind of 'genre-lisation' myself but, if pushed, I'd suggest that any band could be classed as progressive as long as they were exploring new territory - as soon as they stopped, they stopped being progressive. By that argument, the first Moody Blues album was 'progressive' but the remaining ones weren't.
As for 'prog', that seems to be a recent invention based purely around long songs with mellotrons - it seems a narrow and meaningless definition to me.
But, hey, it's all just pop music anyway :-) All the above was being done 20 years earlier by musicians working in the classical and avant-garde traditions - long pieces, odd time signatures, diatonic scales, electronic instruments - it was all old news by 1960.
Lovely comment, Stimps
Concise summary and well made. Actually aren't all genres defined retrospectively?
Or was the use of a word like progressive or underground merely a tool for 15 year old boys to try to explain to their mothers what the sort of music they were listening to, pop sounding, well, too trite and rock sounding too roll, as us greatcoated ones needed to distance ourselves from the frippery of singles and the banality of drainpipes and ducks arses. I certainly recall that awkwardness.
I now quite like rock'n'roll and 60s pop, by the way, but that is only with the passage of time. Back in the days it was as tantamount a sin as listening to daytime Radio 1.
Retrospective genre-lisation?
You might be right Retro, although based on what my kids tell me they're listening to, it seems that modern dance music invents new genres with every other record.
"So, this must be Banging Industrial Belgian Techno?" (doing subtle dad dance as I talk to show I'm down wiv da kidz)
"Daaaaa-aaaaaaad, don't be daft, this is Happy Handbag Industrial Techno. Duh!"
Even your name
Sounds like a prog album or band..
Box sets are all well and good
but can you shrink it down to one CD?
Easy
Easy - just write them as high bitrate MP3 or OGG. would fit on 1 CD with plenty of room for more. :-)
Dave
(doesn't everyones CD player play MP3's these days?)
The BBC4 prog documentary
was followed a few days later by an even better programme made in 2004. It was called Timeshift(?) and was narrated by Tommy Vance. At the end John Peel said (with some paraphrasing):
"I saw ELP at the Isle of White. It was all these middle class people running down to the front going (mimics a plummy home counties accent) 'My mind is literary blown'. I thought ELP was a waste of talent and electricity.
Punk came along and it made you reassess what you had been listening to for the last two or so years. Suddenly you realised that a lot of your favourite records were terrible.
The thing with prog rock was it was a bunch of 16 year olds going to the gigs and being forced by peer pressure into liking it. It was bad form to go to a gig and come out of it saying that you didn't like it and you didn't enjoy it. You would look thick if you said you didn't like Yes."
Which is my way of saying that I don't like Crimson and I'm not afraid to say it. And Yes are pretty bad too. I hate Anderson's voice and his lyrics are extra special bad, he makes Robert Plant look like a clever lyricist.
Jon Anderson
His lyrics are usually complete bobbins, but I really like their optimism. No-one else writes with the kind of crazed hope for a better, more spiritual world that he does, and I can't help but like them for that.
Floats whispering through my cosmic underpants
...was the memorable phrase used by Melody Maker to describe the lyrics on the 1978 outing Going For The One
I believe that is was ....
Rick Wakeman who said that after viewing the Hipgnosis art work with the nude chap and air bubbles around the nether-regions.
and as we all know, Saint Ravenscroft was
above issuing any utterances containing hypocrisy, self-aggrandisement, bullshit or historical revisionism, so what he said must be right.
Or.....
The thing with punk rock was it was a bunch of 16 year olds going to the gigs and being forced by peer pressure into liking it. It was bad form to go to a gig and come out of it saying that you didn't like it and you didn't enjoy it. You would look thick if you said you didn't like the Clash.
Good point.
No Yes?
On no!
Something from 'Rock Bottom' by Robert Wyatt...
Progressive in the true sense of the word, with nary a dragon, wizard's cape or elf in sight.
No Focus?
Big year for the Dutch
Yawn.
Can we stop discussing Prog/progressive now? Some is good and some is shite, one mans meat etc etc. This seems to have gone on and on and on and on.
Jeepers, even a discussion of whether bluegrass is folk or country or whether gospel is r'n'b or soul would be more stimulating.
Wasn't the point about Progressive that you didn't talk about it? Or definitely not during it. Sit down at the front, too, whilst you are at it!
Oy
That is the point of the blog isn't it? We could just abandon the blog and recite "each to his own, in my opinion, obviously" and not waste hours a day on here. And of course you talk about prog. But you're right, not during it. Any you should have your eyes closed and headphones on. And bluegrass is clearly folk but is not country. I'm more than uo for another "ABBA are shite" thread though.
No, the presence of a banjo confers country
except in Ireland and Scotland, when it's folk. Unless etc etc etc
No, I think not
The presence of a banjo confers bluegrass. The presence of a steel guitar confers country. The presence of a fiddle could be either. Sorry Retro we seem to be at odds today.
Discuss:
Take it easy by the Eagles is bluegrass.
Kiss this thing goodbye by Del amitri is bluegrass etc etc
(Well, I never said either was country either)
And Fire in the hole by steely Dan is country?
(Relax, it's all relative, after all, and I seem to have too much time on my hands today!)
Take It Easy...
certainly has bluegrass banjo on it, but does that make the entire track blugrass?
As I said
Take it easy, I'm only joshing....
Hear Hear
Can we also put an end to the following subjects:
The Wire
How horrible the X Factor is
"Pop" music
Richard Thompson
Squirrels
Stuff you like
Stuff you don't like
Something funny you saw in the "inter net"
Sarcastic comments on other people's blogs
Yeah.
Sure. Now THAT would make for a really interesting website wouldn't it?
( Oops...sorry, guilty of 'barred subject no 9' )
NO RT !!!!!
Simon, Beware of Men with Beards drinking Real Ale. they're coming for you mate.
Sorry but I gotta say...
...that my Prog is limited to two bands.
1. The Carpet Crawlers. Remastered studio version please. (6mins)
2. Supper's Ready. Ditto. (22mins)
3. Afterglow, off W&W. (5mins)
4. Wish You Were Here, off the studio album. (5mins)
5. Firth of Fifth. Remastered studio version, with piano intro. (9mins)
6. Cinema Show. Live version from Seconds Out. (11mins)
7. Comfortably Numb, off The Wall. (6mins)
8. The Musical Box. Remastered studio version please. (10mins)
I can make this
This can be made if you own the following Best Ofs: Echoes and Platinum Collection by these two bands. As I do I'm going to make it and I'm going to listen to it on the bus home tonight.
Are these tracks sequenced in this specific order for a reason?
Turns out that
3. Afterglow, off W&W. (5mins) is not on the Best Of. So I've replaced it with Hey You by Floyd.
The version on Seconds Out...
...is MUCH better anyway :-)
Yes and Yep
Yes - I sequenced it in a way that I thought might work. Basically a good opener and a cracking end - impossible to follow the "Now, now, now-woah-woah-ow"
Yep - happy to have the Seconds Out version of Afterglow.
Well, with respect
If you're not interested, read another thread. This is why I've not yet clicked on yet another one related to the bloody Wire.
Mind you, I don't think I can offer much here either (and I started the original prog thread a couple of months back).
But I am or I wouldn't have read it......
I was just hoping for a little more than a retread of my bands proggier than yours.
Fair enough
I think that's probably why I'm not adding anything either.
Here here!
I've never seen The Wire and I'm sure it's wonderful and all that, but I'm getting sick of hearing about it to the extent that I probably never will.
I hadn't either....
...but was forced to investigate because of this place...Three days later and series one dealt with (red of eye, wee of hour) and I can say that it was bloody wonderful, and this is coming from someone who believes that the television is best used as an expensive stand for photographs.
Prog 45s
Forget fitting tracks on a CD! Anyone else admit to owning prog 45s? I still own 'Refugees' by VdG and 'Sweetness' b/w 'Something's Coming' by Yes. Mind you, when I looked in the box to check I also found 'Sunny Girl' by The Hep Stars, the band that Benny Andersson was in before Abba, so that's probably dropped my prog score.
Yes - Going For The One 7" single
and Genesis "Follow You, Follow me" and "Your Own Special Way".
Almost forays into the pop charts
Theme One
VDGG also. Also got the Genesis single just for the Twilight Alehouse track on the b-side.
Lighten up children. It does what it says on the tin. Don't like Prog? Don't venture in and moan. I don't even open anything on Elbow or Fleet Foxes anymore. Just so 2008.
Zig-Zag
flexi disc (mag long time lost) 7" Genesis - Twilight Alehouse, how much eh?
never been a fan of that particular 'hidden gem' I think it was the quality of the snoud from the free bit of plastic, it did have the Charisma Hatter on the label
no other 'progressive rock' 7''s or 12"s, apart from a blue vinyl Yes GftO period single I sold for three quid c. 1986
KC
I bought 'Lark's Tongues ...' around 1976, literally 48 hours before being laid low with some weird viral thing that kept me off school, in bed and slightly delerious for a fornight. I listened to it often over those two weeks. I am still unsure if it contributed to my delerium, but even now I cannot listen to it without feeling slightly unwell.
I'm fine with the rest of the canon though, and won't have a bad word said about the Crims (at least up to the point where the double trio format arrived).
P.S. Were Fripp's League of Gentlemen prog, or new wave?
The LoG...
How about "progressive new wave dance"? :-)
For what it's worth
"Lark's Tongues In Aspic" is one of my 10 discs for the island maroonment. There isn't a hi-fi system available that can do it justice. It demands live gig levels of amplification. It turns corners faster than Ayrton Senna, has more textural variety than Harrods Ladies Outfitters department and it struts like Panzer division officers arriving at a house of ill repute. Anyone who can't hear that it is a powerful and impressive piece of work has my profound sympathy.
Sorry, V V, but…
… you should realise you're only allowed EIGHT records on the desert island. You'll need to chuck 2 back into the sea.
How silly of me.
I have an ingenious solution. I'll pick an Oasis album and a Nirvana album as part of my 10, then plead indulgence by suggesting that I scratch the playing surfaces irreparably, but keep the discs to use as signalling devices. That would be the most useful thing either artist had ever achieved, and I'd be left with 8 real musical choices. Sorted.
I agree entirely with all you say VV
- and if I may say so, very eloquently expressed - it's just that for me it has a profoundly unsettling effect at some sub-atomic level. Maybe this is actually just as Fripp intended? My own desert island preference would be the live 'USA'.
All hail the mighty Crim
Some great comments here. Crim, at their best, create the most terrifying music that I can think of. LTIA is a fine example, perhaps down to Jamie Muir's unhinged contributions. However the most terrifying thing they have yet achieved is The Deception of the Thrush, particularly the version on the single disc ProjeKcts compilation. The disembodied voice, played through a Warr guitar, saying "Double the blame" (or something!) is enough to make anyone brown their trousers.
"enough to make anyone brown their trousers"
Something we are all after, eh, Earl? Lovely thought that it is, I don't necessarily think so.
(Which reminds me about the urban myth, or is it truth, that if played loud and low enough, certain deep bass rumbles will and can cause an involuntary bowel evacuation. Now I dare say I ought to know the answer, but isn't there a story about some noiseniks who, whilst in concert, um, stumbled upon that "major chord" to the distress of all present?)
I thought it was a James Blunt gig...
but I may be mistaken.
Richard Hammond of Top Gear
Richard Hammond of Top Gear investigated this on a cable channel repeat that I stumbled across. They put a speaker in a port-a-cabin with a volunteer. Apparently he did brown himself. They played the tone on the programmes soundtrack. I didn't take the chance and put the volume down just in case.
and did you
change your name to QUIETspeaker?
lame joke - yeah
no offence meant folks
and as a point of order that any prog fule should kno, it's Larks' Tongues in Aspic
it's also the disc I take with me when trying out a new piece of hi-fi equipment, I've seen some terrified salesman leap across the showroom when they realise that opening coda on percussion and allsorts was merely the calm before a very violent storm
Eats shoots and Bible Black
Well spotted, Sir!
Unnecessary
a) they wouldn't have broadcast such a signal even if possible
b) I believe it's faaaaaaaaaaaaar too low to be broadcast accurately anyway and most importantly
c) there's no actual scientific evidence to suggest such a note has the claimed effects - the Brainiac claim you cite is flawed in many crucial respects and certainly better, more sceptical shows such as mythbusters have failed to replicate the effect.
Beatles?
In no sane world could those poptastic moptops be considered to be prog old boy.
Just what I was thinking...
absolutely no way... sorry, but that's just wrong.
The BBC4 prog doc
made it pretty clear that Sgt Pepper was the start of prog. And Day In the Life sounds very similar to Moody Blues songs of the time. And the Moody Blues are very prog.
It may have been very influential in giving rise to prog...
but to describe 'A Day In The Life' as prog is nonsense. It's like calling Led Zeppelin 'the godfathers of heavy metal' when they shouldn't be held responsible for all the talentless oafs (© David Hepworth, Zepcast) that followed them.
Beg to differ,
but I'm not sure the Moodies are "very prog".
They were a psychedelic blues band ('Go Now' etc) who went "progressive" in as much as they blagged an album's worth of studio time and marketing budget off Decca by doing it in cahoots with an orchestra, but they strode a line that pretty much delineated the conventional edge of prog, if you like, beyond which be dragons.
You could always play a Moodies album when your Granny was visiting, whereas she'd probably have had a stroke on the spot if you'd let her have 30 watts of Crimson, Family or Tractor.
In what way were the Moodies 'very prog'?
They used a Mellotron to decorate some MOR songs on their first album. Subsequent albums followed the same template and, in no way progressed.
The point of progressive music was that it pushed forward - it wasn't just about specific instruments.
nope
"used a Mellotron" seals the deal - Progressive Rock, fact
Quite ...
although they never did find that lost chord, did they?
and neither did...
...Len/Jeff/Alex
Which means The Kooks
are a prog band. I think not.
I was listening to some wierd noodling....
...in the car just now, during the break period.How far around the jazz fusion clock can something go before it becomes progressive rock? I still don't know whether it was one or the other, apart from lashings of synthesizer, probably one of those strap-on pretend guitar keyboard thingys, and thumby bass playing. Definitely mid 70s.
Probably 78 minutes long, but thankfully got caught short before it finished.
Surely...
...the best of Prog is a contradiction in terms?
I sat and watched the programme on Friday and just seethed with anger at the parade of pompus knobs until I could take no more and turned it off.
The question is should I be proud to still be irked by the spectre of prog after all these years or should I just let it lie and get on with my life.
Yes? No, not on my watch sunshine.
I do like the odd bit of prog
but I must say that after sitting through a couple of hours on TV the brief clip of Bowie doing Starman stood out like a bright refreshing thing among a sea of dirges. Though I enjoyed watching it all. Some of it may be better heard and not seen though.
I watched it
Enjoyed it but was struck that, aside from Bowie and The Sex Pistols, owned none of the recordings and there were whole bands I'd read about but never heard. The clips did nothing to make me want to change that. Prog is like WW2. It is very interesting but I don't want to be involved.
Not the best selection
of prog I felt on Prog at BBC but obviously the amount of available material is restricted. I really like Soft Machine's 'Third' album but this was later gone-too-jazz version minus Robert Wyatt. And no original King Crimson, just rather smugly clever, irritating later eighties incarnation.
.
.
Au contraire
That was where it all went wrong. Posing and image were suddenly a factor as opposed to music....much as I fell for it at the time and bought Starman too....
Excuse me...
Posing and image have always been a factor, Bowie did it brilliantly. Try this - sing Starman, then attempt The Revealing Science of God (Dance of the Dawn) from Topographic Oceans.
Glam - 1 - Patchouli Oil - Nil
This is war.
"Ground control to Major Tom...."
Let's see; Derivative and predictable? Check. Simplistic and verging on plagiarism? Check. Opportunistic bandwagon jumping? Check. Basic musical structure no more than three chord strumming? Check.
On the other hand...
"Battleships confide in me and tell me where you are. Shining, flying, purple wolfhound, show me where you are. Lost in summer, morning, winter, travel very far. Lost in musing circumstances, that's just where you are."
Let's see; Meaningless yet intriguing? Check. Original and unique? Check. Accompanied by outstanding ensemble playing of the highest order? Check.
Glam -1
Greatcoats - 50
Stick that in your bong and smoke it.
With onomatopoeic notes:
"Battleships confide in me and tell me where you are.
Dum diddlum diddlum diddlum
(up a tone)
Shining, flying, purple wolfhound, show me where you are.
Dum diddlum diddlum diddlum
(up again)
Lost in summer, morning, winter, travel very far.
Did diddum diddlum did
(finally up again)
Lost in musing circumstances, that's just where you are."
(descending bass line)
Diddle diddle dum dum diddlum diddlum dee...
Bah!
Bah-bah bah-bah! Bah-bah bah-bah, bap-bah!
Bah!
Bah-bah bah-bah! Bah-bah bah-bah, bap-bah!
Sod it, where's the CD? Got to hear it.
Arts Lab? Don't give me that nonsense, give me Yes in full flight.
Whenever some indie-kid comes out with the old saw...
...about Radiohead being the reincarnation of 1970s progressive music I always suggest they listen to side one of Close To The Edge then come back and we'll talk.
This 'Radiohead are modern prog' stuff doesn't have...
much substance. For me, their musical heirs are bands like The Pixies, The Smiths, Magazine... I doubt Thom Yorke is putting his feet up listening to 'Brain Salad Surgery' as I write this.
lazy
journalism jism, I do not see or hear the connection, myself - I do dislike Radioheid with a passion too
thank you
Shot with his own gun
'Battleships confide in me'?
'Shining, flying, purple wolf hound'?
That's grade A horseshit which ever way you read it.
and they nicked the 'did diddlum diddlum dee' refrain from Jake the Peg.
Glam 180 - Prog - zero (in halls of arcadian fires of the styx, with the future behind us, etc etc)
I'll see your grade A horseshit
and raise you a Beckenham Arts Lab turd:
"He says hes a beautician and sells you nutrition,
And keeps all your dead hair for making up underwear."
Hoist. Petard. Yours.
Glam - 0
Greatcoats - 50
That's 2 nil.
Fun to funky
One well timed reference to Bowie and I sit back to enjoy the fireworks. Jean Genie was about Iggy I believe so lyrics maybe quite factual reportage. Not so sure about the meaning of 'old men feeling up the rum guy' though. Prog and glam daftness - it's all part of rocks rich tapestry isn't it?
I always thought it was
'Old man, beating up the wrong guy'.
We live and learn.
( By the way, it is actually possible to like both Bowie and Yes....)
Liking both
Well I like bits of Yes songs, I just couldn't manage a whole one. I am sure I would not have felt the way I did had they played better prog tracks.
Law man...
...beating up the wrong guy, surely.
Yup...
That's what I hear as well
Tsk tsk
Those rozzers!
That's how I've always heard it too.
Well thats...
...what beauticians do round our end. That underwear is very warm and comfortable.
Thing is, with that couplet, I could spot the song straight off. It works, in the context of the song, where as yer Andersons Lyrics...
Come on everybody here we go...2,3,4
Coins and crosses
Turn round tailor, assaulting
Never know their fruitless worth;
all the mornings of the interest shown,
presenting one another to the cord.
doesn't really do it does it?
It's your own fault -
you're not putting enough in with the tobacco, is all.
'Glam - 1 - Patchouli Oil - Nil'...
line of the year so far. Very funny.
I sit between these two arguments...
in general a band's image isn't very important to me, but with Bowie it is a different matter. Change and evolution were absolutely key to what he was about as a musician and an artist, and he had the nous and bravado to carry off each phase of his career with utter conviction. When I see old clips of Bowie now, I start thinking that he is possibly the greatest pop star that ever lived... charisma like his doesn't come along very often.
Wasn't that because..
...he'd spotted the next idea to nick? I mean, what did he actually originate himself?
ps - am in trollish mood today - too cold on bike in morning...I'll get over it
This needs...
...a topic of its own, methinks. Anyway how about "The Stylophone as rock instrument" for an innovation?
Oddly enough...
I bought someone a Stylophone as a birthday present last month. I didn't even know they still made them (until I bought one, obviously)
Dead easy to connect to a Marshall guitar amp they are!
Ice Road Treaders
Too cold to cycle in?
Where do you live, Siberia?
I've cycled everyday since 1974, rain or shine.
Too cold?
Ladyboy.
Yours,
A. Troll.
(I was going to start on some Bowie innovations, but taking the piss out of the non-cycling was easier. You might find it easier to ride in cold weather if you take the stabilisers off)
-8
in Herts - and I did cycle in - fucking cold it was too.
-8?
I live in Newcastle, it was -52, and we we're not allowed to own a coat.
The thing was
Going to a gig (mainly prog but sometimes rock, folk or blues) as a grammar school lad in his mid-teens (not a private school lad like yon John Peel) it was a night out from crap on the telly and homework. It was a laugh with a few illicit pints thrown in.
I suspect had we been born 5 years later we would have been doing exactly the same to whoever was touring during the punk wars. We did not have iTunes; we sat in other mates kitchens listening to the latest LP until told to turn down the racket. But we were happy...etc, etc.
Like many musical phases it was short lived. Many of the bands climbed up their own arses. The same could be said of Two Tone, Brit Pop, etc. Thank the Lord and give us the next big thing. Glam Rock? That will do nicely. Kerching.
I liked the quote from Whisperin Bob about when Focus appeared on the OGWT - the record company were so inundated with orders for recoreds they turned over the whole plant to producing Focus LPs for 8 days. Marvellous. There's never enough yodelling in rock.
My copy of Moving Waves is on Blue Horizon.
So there.
Wot? No Frank?
It is an irrefutable truth that no "Best Of Prog" can possibly exist without at least one track from 'Hot Rats'.
The Tangs
were overlooked, completely
OK COMPUTER
Prog ? Discuss.
Danny Kelly once described it as " Art Students who took all the dreary bits from Pink Floyd's "Animals" and then made a record"
Danny
was spot on.
No he wasn't
Most prog was recorded before Animals.
Animals
has no dreary bits, it's Floyd's 'Golden Period' classic
do I have to add IMO?
Quite a bit of noodling in Sheep though
and every time I listen to it I think they should have hiked up the vocals during the Lord's Prayer section - Roger Waters does it the same way live to this day. Bah!
Gilmour's finest hour
IMO of course.
I...
thank you!
I was thinking more of
the tiresome keyboard noodling.
No
...you don't - one useful thing out of the Fuzzyface debate before Christmas was general agreement that this is all opinion! Except for ABBA being crap, which is of course a fact.
Yes he was.
Animals is low grade Floyd, but OK Computer is barely fit to wash its feet.
Let the Prog odyssey commence
Scott Walker – Clara (12:43)
Ever since Tilt, Scott Walker has ploughed a singular furrow, peddling a European Art House version of Prog.
The inspiration for Clara was newsreel footage of the bodies of Benito Mussolini and his star-stuck mistress Clara Petaccihi which, following their impromptu execution, were strung-up in public and attacked and mutilated by an angry mob.
At the song’s midpoint, Vanessa Contenay-Quinones, in the role of Petaccihi, sings accapella, describing how she feels like a Swallow that has become trapped inside an attic. Walker’s left-field take on a drum solo (in which noted percussionist, Alasdair Malloy, beats-out a rhythm on a side of pork) is supposed to represent both the body of the panicked bird as it slams into the walls of the house, and the fists of the angry mob against the bodies of their former oppressors.
Grateful Dead - Blues for Allah
- Sand Castles and Glass Camels
- Unusual Occurrences in the Desert (21.01)
The only legitimate challenger to Spinal Tap’s Stonehenge. Here The Dead re-imagine themselves as Arabian nomads, sombrely meditating on the futility of spilling blood in the desert where nothing will grow. This is followed by a lengthy instrumental passage where abstract psychedelia is used to sketch a lysergic vision of the arid wastelands. The song concludes with a harmonised mantra, augmented by the pleasant wailing of a largely forgotten female member of the group - Donna Jean Godchaux (who in a bizarre reversal of the normal - girlfriend on keyboards – band setup, was the wife of keyboard player Keith Godchaux).
Blues for Allah is far and away my favourite Dead album, however I find this track exhausting to listen to.
Ween - Buckingham Green (3:18)
Ween’s homage to English Prog rock: Wilfully obtuse lyrics, concerning a child without an eye, and one of the most pompous guitar solos I’ve ever heard.
Mansun - Television (8:19)
Mansun’s second album - Six - is unabashedly Prog. The hilarious cover painting features a man clad in an alabaster mask, hunched over an ancient text. In the background, a galleried library, with sparsely populated shelves, plays home to a model of the TARDIS; a gentleman dressed in a panama hat, sitting in an egg chair; a nun and the hindquarters of a Zebra.
The music is one part po-faced commentary on our times / One part boldly absurd homage to the worst excesses of the genre. Television is the fraught account of an obsessive-compulsive cokehead, driven to paranoid schizophrenia by the big eyeball in the corner of his room, and the long hours he has spent staring at The Testcard.
The Divine Comedy - Eric the Gardener (8:26)
The simple tale of a man who uncovers Roman archaeology while gardening and, by association, rediscovers his own distant biological roots. The song’s genteel beginnings are dramatically blown away two minutes in, when for no apparent reason there is 30 seconds of foundation-shaking church organ, punctuated by increasingly violent cymbal blasts.
The Mars Volta - Metatron (8:12)
Like many of the songs on The Bedlam in Goliath, Metatron was inspired an experience with a Ouija board that the band had purchased in Jerusalem. Its a rough ride composed of squally, effects-laden guitar, random drum fills and changing time signatures. This is Prog rock at its most berserk.
Dream Theater – Metropolis Pt. 1: The Miracle and the Sleeper (9:13)
Soft rock built on the shifting attention spans of accomplished musicians, eager to show-off their range. In fact The Miracle and the Sleeper was so Prog that the band decided that it could not be contained within a single nine minute song. Seven years later they expanded the concept into their 5th album - Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory.
Goldfrapp – Utopia (4:17)
Numerous feeble excuses explaining the dearth of female Prog Rockers have been banded about: Women can’t read runes; they are hopeless at navigating the alien geography of Roger Dean; they lack the upper body strength to drive a kitchen knife into the workings of a Hammond organ, and so on.
Enter Alison Goldfrapp, proving that there are few things more Prog than the story of a genetically engineered girl of genius-level intelligence, living in a futuristic fascist society, with a dog that needs new ears.
I was torn between including this, or Marianne Faithfull’s similarly-themed City of Quartz.
Genius, backwards.
So glad you reminded me of Six, an album I haven't played in ages, but one of the great sleepers I discovered by accident.
As for The Mars Volta, I think I like the idea of them a little more than the actual material, which is exhaustingly intense. It might just be that I'm too old and unfit to listen to much of their material, although to be fair to my own lethargic tendencies, I did buy three of their CDs at the same time. Rather a lot for anyone to imbibe at one sitting, methinks.
I'm not so sure about Dream Theater, I find them a little bland, but I will revisit on your recommendation.
Oh, and Scott Walker. Is he Prog? Does he have to be? Isn't he just Scott Walker, scary as heck, mad as a box of frogs, and a real original?
Dream Theater...
...are certainly the commercial end of the genre. I enjoy bits of their songs. Actually that's a problem with a lot of Prog - you hear something that you like and then all of a sudden the band changes tack and does something completely different.
Very good point
I liked bits of Yes 'Yours Is No Disgrace' on Prog at BBC - in fact it was some of the instrumental parts, don't like the singing so much, in fact it was a gentle, keyboard based passage - I thought go on do some more of that. Soft Machine's 'Outbloodyrageous' works well for me all the way through. I seem to be favouring an instrumental approach. Can's 'Quantum Physics' off 'Soon Over Babaluma' is rather wonderful, though other earlier, more free style Can tracks appeal to me very little - like 'Soup'. There's two I would include from my limited knowledge of the genre.
Six of One, Half a Dozen of the Other
I once played Mansun's Six on my iPod on the train home after a bit of a session, and havoing not heard it in a long while was slightly befuddled by the jazz noddling interspersed between each track. It spoilt the flow but in my genetically-prog-rammed receptive way, I could of course hear why they had included these passages (I wouldn't want to admit I was thick would I?). Upon sobering up I discovered that without completing the "album artist" box on iTunes, the iPod could not discern between Mansun's Six or Soft Machine's Six, so played track 1 of each, then track 2 etc etc. I didn't even feel foolish, just programmed a new playlist for future similar journeys.
Attack Of The Grey Lantern is a better album, though I am still waiting for the Softs to record a version.
They also did a song about stem cell research
I used to love Dream Theater back in the day (as P Diddy would say). Metropolis has great (by great I mean ridiculous) lyrics, to whit:
I was told there's a miracle for each day that I try/ (ok...)
I was told there's a new love that's born for each one that has died/ (fair enough...)
I was told there'd be no one to call on when I feel alone and afraid/ (a bit maudlin, but ok...)
I was told if you dream of the next world/
You'll find yourself swimming in a lake of fire
What? Who as it told him that?? I reckon it was Ronnie James Dio.
There's a bit during the instrumental section where it just degenerates into noise, but not the usual metal noise: thrashing drums and guitar, Motorhead style, but intricately constructed and composed noise. I once put it on my answering machine to scare people.
Unfortunately the last few albums of theirs have been absolute bobbins, they seem to have chucked out all sense of melody (a lot of people disagree with me about this - they say DT never had a sense of melody to begin with).
Much better are the two albums by "prog supergroup" Transatlantic (made up of members of Dream Theater, Marillion, Flower Kings and Spock's Beard). Long, jammy tracks for sure, but they are extremely melodic, and when playing live they would throw in covers of prog classics like Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Firth of Fifth, In Held Twas in I, and side 2 of Abbey Road.
A bit too widdly widdly for me?
1. Scott Walker – Clara (12:43)
It sounds full of interesting ideas but I assume it's a good idea in theory, in practice it's awful.
2. Grateful Dead - Blues for Allah
- Sand Castles and Glass Camels
- Unusual Occurrences in the Desert (21.01)
"I find this track exhausting to listen to." - are you sure you would want to put this on a Best Of?
3. Ween - Buckingham Green (3:18)
Never heard of this band.
4. Mansun - Television (8:19)
Never heard of them but your description makes them sound interesting.
5. The Divine Comedy - Eric the Gardener (8:26)
Is this the Irish Brit-pop band? Interesting, and very prog, subject.
6. The Mars Volta - Metatron (8:12)
The Volta are only of any use when they're playing heavy metal. When they slow down for any leangth of time I find their music to be pretty bad. Not a "song" band.
7. Dream Theater – Metropolis Pt. 1: The Miracle and the Sleeper (9:13)
I have Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory. I find it to be dull with some great bits sprinkled throughout. The storyline appears to have been taken from a film called Dead Again (http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/dead-again).
8. Goldfrapp – Utopia (4:17)
I also found this album to be a bit bland, a bit too "film soundtrack" like for its own good. Though I assume it would make for a nice end track.
Two minor floyd classics
Cirrus Minor and Picture Box - they'ed be on my Prog album. And Close to the Edge. And 21st Century Schizoid man. All sound good to me.
The Night watch - where next ?
While you are all gathered ... and wandering on and OT so gloriously, can ya'll recommend something for me ? I like most of ITCOTCK, and have heard odd bits of later Crimson but their track that *really* knocks me out is the Night Watch. It's the haunting Fripp guitar, similar to the runs he contributes to the Roches first album which I love.
Where else shouldI look for this - it's the side of Fripp that I think I like the most (though I did see 'Discipline live in 81 in London just before he felt happy to use the Crimso brand again).
Thanks
If you really want to hear...
...just Fripp's guitar in that style then check out any of his solo 'soundscapes' releases. They're solo guitar with loops/echo.
As regards further Crimso listening, there are several 'best ofs' but I'd stick with the 72-74 line up (the band that recorded The Night Watch). Each of their studio albums contains a killer ballad in a similar stylee
Larks' Tongues - The Book Of Saturday, Exiles
Starless & Bible Black - The Night Watch, Trio
Red - Fallen Angel
word of caution
Fripp's Soundscapes series is mostly not identifiable as guitar. He plays a Fernandez sustainer guitar with MIDI pickups, controlling synths, through (I think) 4 delay units. Only very occasionally does he switch to the "real" pickup and play some actual guitar lines. The Churchscapes CD is the one where this happens the most.
Personally I recommend Radiophonics, which is mostly harsh electronic noise. It's probably not for everyone.
Wise words earl...
On reflection, I think that Nick W might have been referring to Fripp's signature 'clean' sustained sound. That being the case, any of the 72-74 era Crimso albums have it all over the shop although, personally, I think Fripp's work on Bowie's "Heroes" is the exemplar for that style of playing.
(edit: the version of Here Comes The Flood off Exposure has some gorgeous playing in that style as well)
Here Comes The Flood
The sage of Wimborne
Thanks to all re pointers, esp in view of my rather vague q-I think it was feel rather than instrument so probably more the ballads than the all-guitar stuff, but all suggestions welcome. I have of course heard Heroes. The CDs I have are a '77ish one-disc best of drawn largely from the 1st album and the Discipline era; Starless; and Earthbound (a gift passed on by my bro).
I am thinking of a point equidistant between his playing on the Roches track ("Hammond Song" iirc), the Night Watch, and the old Arena TV intro which I think is a Fripp/Eno number ?
Wish I could remember more about Discipline '81 in London-my strongest recollection is a seated Fripp reproving us Southerners for our lack of enthusiasm compared to the last audiences ... ;-) The OGWT video of Frame by Frame shown in the recent BBC4 docs captures that vibe pretty well though.
Crimso ballads
Next step should be Larks' Tongues (for Book Of Saturday) and Red (for Fallen Angel)
Or the single
Matte Kudasai = please wait in Japanese
Matte Kudasai
Thanks-that's one I do know as they did it live in '81 and Annie Nightingale played it a lot on its release.
[In my above posting I realise I should have said a '97 compilation not '77, sorry-I think MK is on it]
(edit: looking it up I realise it was '86_The Compact King Crimson, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Compact_King_Crimson)
Shirley
All is needed is the A Young Person's Guide to King Crimson.
Possibly updated for us Oldies?
Ye gods. Just checked. It includes Groon. B-side of single Cat Food, which I saw them perform on TOTP. Kid ye not.
I think The Young Person's Guide
was (a) shellac only and (b) only covered 69-74.
There's a slew of subsequent 'best ofs' including (I think) 'The Concise KC', 'The Abbreviated KC', 'The Essential KC' and 'The Condensed KC' - all of which are variations on a theme
Surely they are not 'variations',
they must be 'observations'?
heh... Variations on a theme, definitely
in the classico-jazzic sense of the word, of course
Giles Giles & Fripp (& Dyble)
Fripp and Vista
And if you want to hear that, just boot up Windows Vista
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/01/12/fripp_vista/
The linked video contains more than you'll ever need...
Book of Saturday
from Larks' - Wetton's crystal baritone and then the rest, still takes my breath
How bizarre
Nah!
speak to a man with the vinyl (bought in the 70s and still mint), Virgin CD (80s) and the 24 bit 30th anniversary edition which a very good friend 'gifted' me - he knew I'd appreciate, nay, cherish it more
But I am sure
that - like me - you didn't buy any of them as a result of watching a TV ad. Sounds like one of Mark Ellen's patented voice overs.
Fripp has issued some...
...contemporary Larks' Tongues and Starless radio adverts as part of his podcast series.
There was also a UK TV ad for Yes' Going For The One; I suspect because Topographic Oceans had dented their sales so much the record company wanted to let people know it was a new start
(furtles on Youtube...)
Nope, can't find it!
TFTO
TFTO went to #1 in the UK album charts, it is only since Wakeman has taken every opportunity to rubbish the album, thereby giving every crtic who fought in the "punk wars" ammunition, that it has been reviled as a mistake. In fairness all of those stories of recording amidst hay bales, with clockwork cows and insect infestations in the keyboard rig, do open them up to attack. That plus touring 80 mins of new and unreleased music without a break, must have been a challenge.
Relayer came after this and before G4T1, and re-trod the Close To The Edge formula. If anything the ads were to reclaim the band after the warring egos led to 5 solo albums, one from each member (yes even the Drummer's, and bloody awful it was too, not remotely prog), in the fallow period between.
Ramshackled
I bought Olias, Beginnings and Fish Out of Water and the drummer's one used to get the most plays. It was a very nice album with ex members of Lindisfarne, who if I remember went on to form a band called Radiator. Olias is Anderson whimsy run riot, Beginnings an Howe noodlefest but there's some keen stuff on Squire's Fish. Alan White's album was a very pleasant surprise and probably something I wouldn't have listened to back then.
Much as I love Yes...
Olias was just one step too far. Without the rest of the band to hold him back, Anderson went so far as to be a parody of himself.
Alan White's Ramshackled was, I thought, a pleasant enough listen. A nice variety of styles and he avoided the typical solo drummer mistake of trying to do a 'drum album'. It was never going to change the world though
I suspect the fact he'd not come from the psychedelic background of the rest of Yes (Bodast, Tomorrow, The Syn, Mabel Greer's Toyshop) gave him a slightly wider perspective.
Here's a track from Ramshackled - a nice little reggae lilt.
Prog, wasn't that why punk
was invented? Was watching some of the prog stuff on tv recently with my wife, who thought it dreadful until Genesis and King Crimson came on towards the end, which she quite liked...got to admit she was right.
Liked the list earlier of more modern prog stuff. Mansun's Six was a really rather good effort, and certainly worth anyone who hasn't heard it to investigate further.
VV made a observation which is spot on, in liking the idea of them rather than the actual reality, Porcupine Tree fulfill that very well.
Must admit though, king crimson sound like they are worth investigating further
You lucky person.
If you can afford to, start at the beginning and buy and listen to them in chronological order.
The only early one to skip is Earthbound, a crappy live recording - much better contemporary material can be had from the KC Collectors Club if you really get hooked.
Earthbound
The crappy sound quality was an act of rebellion against all things prog; the ferocity of the music was intended to blast away all of the hippy following. It's more punk in attitude than it is prog. It left the decks clear to start again on Larks' Tongues in Aspic, I think. Since then, Crim has not compromised.
The version of 21st Century Schizoid Man is a monster, fans of The Mars Volta should investigate.
It wasn't a rebellion against 'all things prog'
rather, it was, by being wilfully different from what went before, being true to the spirit of progressive music. The key is the 'progress' element of the word. Progressive bands of that era were keen to progress music to new places.
Progressive music was nothing to do with mellotrons and Crimson Kings.
The crappy sound quality was simply because they were the only recordings available to Island and they were owed one more Crimson album. At the time, the band looked dead and buried so Island wanted to get one final album out there. Oddly enough, the USA album was later released for exactly the same reason.
The Crimso captured on Earthbound was a cracking jam band but was forever on the verge of falling apart - Fripp wanted to progress and develop his ideas whilst Boz and Ian Wallace wanted to blow around the blues. Personally, I love Earthbound for it's energy and sheer bloody-mindedness but, as Vulp so rightly says, there are several better recordings of that Crim in existence.
It's worth it just to hear the band shouting at each other in the background!
Spot on.
I only hesitate to recommend Earthbound when addressing a KC neophyte; I too love to play it as loud as my structural engineer advises is wise. Boy oh boy, though, once I discovered the Collectors Club recordings, I nearly brought the house down.
Heh... Same here...
The Collectors Club is a cracking service. I get confused with the new DGM Live service though, there's just TOO MANY shows on there and no way of seeing what's there/new.
With the KCCC there was a steady drip-feed of stuff with some guarantee of quality but with DGM Live, Fripp seems to be saying "Fuck it, here's EVERYthing I have, help yourself"
Earthbound
thank God it was a HELP at £1.49 otherwise I would no longer own it - dreadful noise from a band falling apart at the seams. I recall a quote from Boz in his BadCo. days along the lines of "Robert couldn't play a 12 bar blues, so we'd finish the set, go off then run back on for the encore before Robert knew what was happening and start a blues jam".
I avoided Islands for years only to be most pleasantly surprised when I finally heard it.
If you listen carefully to Earthbound...
You can hear a voice saying "OK, start something off then" followed by a chugging drumbeat and an "Oh no, not that!"
A few bars later there's a searing guitar sprayed all over the bluesy rhythm.
I also recall that during the (interminable) VCS3'd drum solo in Groon, you can hear Ian Wallace shouting at Fripp "Robert, play some guitar!" A rare example of a drummer wanting to finish his solo.
Islands is fabulous.
Like marron glace fishbones, whatever they are.
I prefer fish 'n' chips
with cat's foot iron claw
I remember being very confused by Earthbound
Apart from the obligatory ITCOTCK, I had had little truck with KC, thinking them way too cerebral for me, especially after Greg Lake had left (I was a teenager, ELP rocked!). I then moved into a phase of idolising all things to do with Mel Collins and his myriad alumni, including Boz and Ian Wallace, who were the bizarre, I felt, rhythm section of Crimson at that time. Given Mel et al were more usually associated with Grease Band slopy (not necessarily sloppy) rock styles, I thought it worth a go on the fabled CASSmusic headphones. Hmmm. The next Fripp I could stomach would not be until Fade away and Radiate by Blondie.
So tell me, o learned ones, Boz went to Bad Company and died, Ian Wallace went, eventually, twice to Dylan, where did Mel Collins go after Kokomo and Clannad?
Mel Collins did loads of sessions...
...and ended up back with Crim in time for 1974. Only as a session player although I seem to remember that Fripp later said that, had that iteration of Crim continued, the intention was to add Mel Collins (and Mark Charig?) as permamenent members
Also ...
I think played sax on the Stones' 'Miss You'.
And wasn't Ian Wallace instrumental (ahem!) in Dylan's conversion to Christianity? Or am I making that up?
Mel Collins was everywhere 1970-85
King of the session men. Whenever any bejeaned guitar band needed some sax action, he was yer man. Then just fell from view.
Wikipedia tells me
that he and other ex-Fripp sidemen are part of high grade tribute band The 21st Century Schizoid Band. Like The Magic Band without the Captain I suppose. Still, worth a punt if appearing at a venue near you I dare say, though heaven help the guitarist perched on his stool and weighed down by the expectations of the crowd ...
That would be
Jakko Jakszyk, son-in-law of Michael Giles. Band sadly inactive since death of Ian Wallace in 2007.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jakko_Jakszyk
Although...
...as you might guess from the name, they do focus on the earlier years of the Crim repertoire.
Jakko (the guitar player) could, of course, justify his lack of stoolage by pointing to the fact that Fripp made a conscious decision to start stitting down only after several Crimso gigs.
21st C Schizoid Band
They were excellent; I saw them at QEH a few years back.
I can just
post this, can't I?
pffff, even the cover's gorgeous
One word
Teletubbies
DGM now sell...
a lurrrrvely Larks' Tongues t-shoit. They've made the mistake of adding the title to the image though; something they didn't do with the S&BB shirt
https://www.dgmlive.com/shop/
Tolkien & Prog
Was there any prog-rock that used Tolkien-esque fantasy lyrics or was it just a tired music journalist creation?
Two mildly proggy
Led Zep tracks spring to mind. Ramble On and The Battle of Evermore make one or two references to LOTR I think.
Lep
The main culpret of it was Zep of course. Most of the prog cliches are down to lazy journalism.
Early Rush dallied with the Tolkeinesque
Most obviously with 'Rivendell' off (errr) Fly By Night
Bo Hansson
Lord of the Rings, but it was possibly all instrumental, it being a classic I neglected to get around to.
Indeed
it is instrumental, and soothingly pastoral too. It's not highly thought of by some, but I have a soft spot for it.
My vinyl copy has a full size 12x12 colour print slipped inside the sleeve of a nice portrait of JRR himself sitting under a big tree, taken by Snowdon. It was omitted from later pressings and makes mine a bit collectable I think.
Bo Hansson
The Black Riders Ride to the Fjord is superb.
Thinking back
Steve- The same people who walked around with King Crimson and GENESIS Albums under their arms at my school(Sixth formers)usually followed this the next day with a copy of LOTR.Hence the connection for me. The RAF greatcoat and Dunlop green flash were common place too.
Mine was an ARP one
with lovely brass buttons.
Gah! I read that...
...and thought you were talking about synthesizers :-(
All this prog stuff
is a bit dull isnt it. I feel like I am stuck in a time warp. Genesis,VDGG,Caravan and some Camel are the only things that stand the test of time for me.
Am also bemused that the Gabriel era Genesis leaves the poster cold - they rapidly went down the nick after he left as far as i recollect. They quickly morphed into a MOR singles band with very little connections to prog.
Consider it
a history lesson for enthusiasts and those who like to learn.
Genesis without PG was still Genesis. Only different. Better than no Genesis.
But Genesis with Ray Wilson...
...wasn't better than no Genesis (mm... nice grammar Stimps)
Agreed...possibly
They should have gone with this chap
cheery trivia ahoy
I think they asked him, but he declined the invitation. A difficult role for anyone.
After seeing this:
they decided to ask Kevin Gilbert, but he never knew about it because he had just committed suicide.
Memo
Thanks for the yellow tabs, Fraser. Much easier to keep up with these long drawn out blogs, with various movements ocurring during their whole (which might be a definition of a prog soundwork)
Song seems too trite a word to describe!
How Green was my Greatcoat ...
... or ou sont les ARPs d'hier
Decided to take the spirit rather than letter of LOUDspeaker's prompt, so here is a proggy playlist that would guarantee a Proustian rush for me, (or should that be a Mahogany Rush ?), and my reasons ... [no attempt at balnce or fairness, or keeping to time].
(edit: Decided it is "too personal a tale" and moved it to a blog entry instead):
Where is it?
Always keen to see other people's prog playlists - it's a fine way of discovering goodies you'd only otherwise come across by investing the GDP of a small Caucasian principality in obscure Peruvian vinyl, or in dodgy reissues of Italian hippy bands from 1973.
Post a link, please!
Greatcoat redux
Sweet of you to ask-but it isn't that obscure, interest to me was more to chart my personal prog odyssey 77-80 or so. And an odyssey was what the list rapidly became ...
So here's just the tracks themselves with minimal reasons, I'll probably do a proper blog entry when I've got a personal blog site-which is probably where this'd fit best.
Thanks again though.
1. Karn Evil 9-ELP. Just a little blipvert from it, the synth theme used for Radio 4's Science Now in the mid 70s. I think with hindsight this was probably the first bit of true prog I ever heard.
2. Awaken-Yes. The first prog album I bought was GFTO, and this is of course, for bettter or worse, its apex.
3. Twilight Alehouse-Genesis. BBC version. "Proper" Gabriel-era Genesis, at its most atmospheric, and a nod to the huge importance of Tommy Vance's show to me in those days as a window into the then-recent past (Top Gear sessions etc etc). Very necessary as Peel was well into his year zero phase.
4. Us and Them-Pink Floyd. BBC live recording. I recall hearing DSOTM for the first time as a repeat of the BBC's own live recording, which I think had originally been made in quad.
5. Every Day-Steve Hackett. BBC live recording from Reading. One of Hackett's talents was the classical retread, and this is a fine example-based on Ode to Joy.
6. Heart of the Sunrise-Yes. A peak experience in every sense, early 90's and just off a ski lift in Snowmass or Aspen, sun bouncing off the snow-this came on the PA ...
7. Turn it on Again-Genesis. The odd one out, as i didn't like it when I first heard it and don't like it much more now-but captures a turning point for them and me, to perfection.
8. Survival-Yes. "Real" Yes, as I came to know it. "Something's Coming" would have worked just as well.
9. Starship Trooper-Yes. Live from Yessongs. Another Rock Show find in my case. "Has this one got many verses", as my Mum used to say ...
10. Run Like Hell-Pink Floyd. Well remember the preview of this on R1, with Waters and Vance. Saw the show live in '81.
11. Run through the Light-Yes. Only time I saw them back in the day was London in '80 or '81 with Downes and Horn. Rather liked them, esp in view of the heckling Horn faced.
12. Echoes-Pink Floyd. Waters may now see it as a rehearsal, now sounds better than the main show to me-most recent stay on my iPod was the mashup with the end of 2001 on video.
13. Althea-Grateful Dead. Rockpalast, 1981. Remember staying up to see and tape this and some other songs, pretty much my intro to the Dead. Would never have expected I would see them, and later on Garcia/Grisman at the Warfield, little more than 10 years later ...
14. Many too Many-Genesis. For a band that in their own words once epitomised shoegazing male fear of women, they sure knew how to write a sixth form slow dance number when they gave it a go ...
15. Epitaph-King Crimson. And so it is, for Dom, Gerry, Mel, Alexis and all the others, not dead but lost to me.
16. As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls. Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays. By 1980 or so I was exploring a bit more widely-and had already been introduced to Metheny via the OGWT week that showed the Joni Mitchell Shadows and Light concert. Still I think it was again the Rock show that introduced me to this track, as spacey as it gets, though not a purist's prog ...
That's a cracking list.
Did you know that Rick Wakeman rates Awaken as his favourite Yes track?
You've prompted me to go back and reconsider Duke - I've ordered it from Amazon.
Thanks!
Duke is damn good...
...irrespective of any debate about it's genre. Guide Vocal and Duchess are excellent songs and the closing medley (Duke's End) is a sort of Los Endos redux.
Personally, I see it as the last 'proper' Genesis album. Abacab had a couple of good tracks but was built out of jams. Duke was the last album of 'written' music/songs
Knowing me knowing you
Thanks.
Re: Awaken, I recall Michael Bywater's enjoyment of playing the church organ with Procol Harum at a one-off charity gig, so I imagine it's even better if you actually like the rock form (he doesn't, much). I always thought the sheer drive of the intro to Parallels was a wonderful moment too.
Re: Duke. I agree. I think you can practically hear them bashing out a modus vivendi in Polar Studios-something people will buy and that Phil likes and has a long suite. As it was Sweden I always feel a spoof Bergman/Interiors B&W documentary should exist,
(edit: listening to Earth Wind and Fire's polyrhythms on September and Fantasy today I realised the above is quite unjust, it should have been Tony arguing for 4/4 in that era ...I remember Collins in the late 70s talking up george Duke and Al Jarreau, certainly encouraged me to explore them a bit )
The Brother has our vinyl copy-should dig it out. Abacab though, isn't anywhere, as far as I am concerned ... I remember a letter from a friend at the time with the words "I think the lads have blown it this time".
Amused to see this thread has now been removed from Hot Topics, after being described as "fevered" in last week's "Something for the weekend" ...[I roughly translate this as "That's enough prog-Ed"]
Remember that...
Collins was always one for the odd time signature. Witness his work with Brand X - full on Jazz-Rock Fusion widdliness. I suspect his Brand X material was that deemeed too widdly for Genesis.
apocalypse in 9/8
Sure, quite agree. Was just looking for a script for my weak joke ;-0
Anyway, a bunch of Brits having a row would surely be a silent film anyway ...
Great choice
I've got all of these apart from Grateful Dead.
You don't know what the numbers they say in As Falls mean do you?
Got some good frequencies for you
No idea, I think in a way that absence of any programme is kind of a strength ...makes Echoes seem literal ...
Re: Dead, I think closest I've heard to the sound and feel I had on that off air tape was in a live album from that era, but posting this has motivated me to see if I can track down the Rockpalast stuff when back from my break.
The way Bob Weir sings
etc on "Looks Like Rain", with tasty guitar of the type that Mark E mentioned keeping as a commute mood booster on his iPod a while back, really showed me another way of doing, in the loose sense, "prog".
I gotta playlist right here!
Can i take it from this Topographic Oceans sized thread that people actually do want to talk about prog on The Word website? Who knew?
I made a prog compilation a while ago for a friend, but seem to have lost the list. I do remember another friend bursting out laughing when he read the tracklist. "are these real?" he asked, and to be honest he had a point (the first track was Lizard part 1: Prince Rupert Awakes)
Here's the tracklist of a 5CD boxset from Rhino Records I have called Supernatural Fairy Tales, which sadly does not feature the similarly named psych rarity by Art, but it does feature some rather peculiar choices. Discuss.
Disc: 1
1. America - The Nice
2. Paper Sun - Traffic, Steve Winwood
3. Repent Walpurgis - Procol Harum
4. Private Sorrow/Balloon Burning - The Pretty Things
5. Legend of a Mind - The Moody Blues
6. Kings and Queens - Renaissance
7. Sympathy - Rare Bird
8. Under the Sky - Peter Sinfield
9. Searching - Klaus Schulze
10. Sunrise - Kingdom Come
Disc: 2
1. System/Babylon - Aphrodite's Child
2. Death Walks Behind You - Atomic Rooster
3. De Vierte Kuss - Ash Ra Tempel
4. Killer - Van der Graaf Generator
5. Oh Yeah - Can
6. Knife Edge - Emerson, Lake & Palmer
7. In the Land of Grey and Pink - Caravan
8. It Happened Today - Curved Air
9. Hocus Pocus - Focus
10. Prophet/Marvelry Skimmer - Wigwam
Disc: 3
1. Perpetual Change - Yes
2. Lothlorien - Argent
3. Ladytron - Roxy Music
4. Radio - Supersister
5. Dear Little Mother - Savage Rose
6. Musical Box - Genesis
7. Roll Over Beethoven - Electric Light Orchestra
8. New World - The Strawbs
9. Celebration - Premiata Forneria Marconi
10. Karn Evil 9: 1st Impression, Pt. 1 & 2 - Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Disc: 4
1. Dancing With the Moonlit Knight - Genesis
2. Siberian Khatru - Yes (it's actually And You & I with the last 30 seconds missing. How weird)
3. Virginia Plain - Roxy Music
4. Warrior - Wishbone Ash
5. Warinobaril - Lard Free
6. Mozambique - Amon Düül II
7. Round and Round - The Strawbs
8. Questions and Answers - Nektar
9. Fils de Lumiere - Ange
10. Ritorno Al Nulla - Le Orme
11. Without Words - Clearlight
Disc: 5
1. Star Palace of the Sombre Warrior - Seventh Wave
2. Perfect Mystery - Gong
3. Free Hand - Gentle Giant
4. War - Henry Cow, Slapp Happy
5. Andra Satsen - Samla Mammas Manna
6. Let's Eat (Real Soon) - Hatfield and the North
7. Traccia II - Banco, Banco del Mutuo Soccorso
8. Tröller Tanz (Ghost Dance) - Magma
9. It's a Rainy Day, Sunshine Girl - Faust
10. Mummy Was an Asteroid, Daddy Was a Small Non-Stick Kitchen Utensil - Quiet Sun
11. Radar Love - Golden Earring
12. Inca Roads - Mothers of Invention
Glad I haven't bought that set...
...as I can recreate it from the original albums except for these:
Dear Little Mother - Savage Rose
Warinobaril - Lard Free
Andra Satsen - Samla Mammas Manna
Traccia II - Banco, Banco del Mutuo Soccorso
Tröller Tanz (Ghost Dance) - Magma
Is it worth seeking these out?
Not Especially....
I have the box set, because I found it cheap in a second hand store , and it was prog and therefore an autromatic must have. On the whole I can't say any of the above 5 tracks stand out as essential listening. I have some Magma, but unlike Steve Davis, I never clicked with them at all. Banco had their moments.
It turns out I don't like prog
The list that I started this thread with leans heavy on bands that aren't proper full on prog. So I considered making another list of the widdly widdly prog stuff. And I couldn't make a good one I would actually want to listen to. It hit me: I don't like prog.
If you asked me a week ago what time of music I was into I would have said prog rock, heavy metal, pop etc. Prog first on the list.
On my shelves of A material, which is loosely and not obsessively organised by genre, I realised that I only had a small prog section. A Genesis Best Of, an Alan Parsons Best Of and the complete works of Pink Floyd. The rest, Tool, Radiohead and the Flaming Lips are proggy but lean much more towards metal, art rock and psychedelic rock respectively. Nothing twiddly twiddly is on the shelves.
In my drawers, where I chuck the stuff I don't really listen to, I have a tiny smattering of The Mars Volta (1 CD), Dream Theatre (2 CDs), Yes (a Best Of), Jethro Tull (2 CDs) and a small number of Genesis (3 albums?) and Alan Parsons albums (5 albums?).
It seems that I don't like prog. I prefer the Collins era to the Gabriel era of Genesis; and Parsons and Floyd have little in the way of widdly twiddly musicianly stuff to their names. In fact, are Floyd really a true proper prog band after the Meddle album?
I seem to love prog influenced stuff (like Iron Maiden) but not the real thing. And I clearly hate the twiddly widdly stuff a lot more than I had previously realised.
So
you have widdly stuff in your drawers. Don't worry. This is normal when you reach a certain age.
Just remembered
that I have an ELP Best Of and a live album on my shelves. In my drawers I have a few albums (I had most of them but I sold half of them on eBay).
This thread
caused me to venture into the attic and retrieve a vinyl copy of ELP's live offering "Welcome Back My Friends ...". This was a mistake.
Never heard it but
I have heard 1993 Royal Albert Hall (which is good and I still listen to it from time to time) and Works Live (which is pretty bad and I sold on eBay).
Welcome Back...
...is, in the opinion of this author, ELPs finest album. The earlier studio albums always sounded thin and never managed to capture the power of Emerson's Hammond
The acid test
I think you've found in a sense the echt ELP album, "the cusp of Tet" (see another thread here), etc etc.
It really does divide fans from pretty much anyone else-and yet was a monster seller in its day iirc.
I have had 2 copies, a yellow C180 that a friend taped for me-always threatened to snap at any moment-and the CDs bought cheap in US during my personal prog revival.
About half of me thinks in the cold light of day it is unforgiveable posturing from talent being burnt, the other half just switches off the Inner Critic and *enjoys*. And I still think there is quite a lot to enjoy-listened to Tarkus (interpolates bits of Crimson) yesterday in an iPod assisted "random" moment, and maybe it was the fact I was looking out over a stormy Pacific holiday beach, but a lot of the keyboard playing was just plain fun-as Palmer says, "that's showbiz".
Mark you I think the Poteet school band that Beany found on YouTube really would give them a run for their money ...
Oh thank-ee
Can I also mention the E-Music project (EMP)
http://www.thehawkstudio.com/
Features music of the Beatles, ELP, Tull, Love Trousers, etc. Amateurs being professional, if you know what I mean.
How true
I bought it on vinyl for about £1 only a few years back, but only played it less than once, having taken the stylus off at intervals. Shame really, as the studio albums had some merit.
Wot No 'Echoes' ?
No 'Echoes' [Floyd of course} no Prog as far as I'm concerned !!
Egg
Finally got around to watching the Prog Britannia yesterday afternoon. Discovered I had never knowingly listened to any Egg, however much I thought I knew about them. Clearly I knew nothing bar their Kentish origin, as I didn't even know who Mont Campbell was, but thought he came across as a thoroughly good, er, egg, unlike my childhood hero, Carl Palmer, who came across as a prize twat, not least with his pasted on hair (or should that be, given his instrument, paisted, arf arf)
Best starting point for Egg investigations?
There's not a lot of Egg to choose from...
Personally I'd recommend The Polite Force as their best album and a good place to start.
Egg was the only other original album. There was a brief reunion in 74 which resulted in The Civil Surface which features mainly more 'chamber' style pieces.
There was a rarities/loose-ends/live compilation last year - The Metronomical Society - which is a good place to finish up
Start with
a mummy chicken...
Why not go to their official MySpace page
http://www.myspace.com/eggarchive
Details on their releases, special editions and website links. Also there are music samples and a link for those of a downloading persuasion. May I also *cough* commend the link to the Dave Stewart & Barbara Gaskin MySpace page - new CD out soon.
I saw King Crimson
at Brighton Dome in the early seventies, was amazed by Fripp, synthesiser drum solo, mad arrangements.. loved it. Went back a year or so later all new personnel,new, er, tunes?, bored witless. Tried again not long ago by going to see Yes also in Brighton (with large but doubtless cheap Eatern European Orchestra). Fell alseep during Tales of Topographic Oceans. Really must sell those old prog albums that I don't have.
Did enjoy the programmes on BBC4 though.
Sounds like you liked...
...the band captured live on 'Earthbound' and hated the line up generally regarded as the best/most adventurous
Yes! stimpy I believe you
Yes! stimpy I believe you have hit the nail on the head That was the lineup I liked, Fripp / Burrell / Collins / Wallace / McDonald, then it all got a bit too pretentious (my version of best/most adventurous) and out there for a simple soul like I. here! I just found I have the 1989 remastered four cassette "box set" of Crimso, now where the hell did I get that from?
Now there's a question
Can prog be 'too pretentious'?
Glad to see this thread is still quietly ticking along on the background. Much like prog itself apparently during the last 30 years.
Not if the musicians are good enough...
...to write it and carry it off. Prentention is simply the shorthand for over-reaching oneself and pretending to be something you're not.
It doesn't apply if you are what you're claiming to be, or the music is what is is trying to be.
The real problem is, very few pop musicians are as good as they think they are and progressive music is often where they wash up.
Even the best, classically trained pop musicians struggle when they try to move beyond the pop idiom - cf Rick Wakeman/John Lord, and others with aspirations beyond pop have falled flat on their faces in a big way - Keith Emerson's Piano Concerto and Jon Lord's orchestral experiements spring to mind.
So, can progressive rock be pretentious? Yes, definitely, there's too much terrible pastiche classical, avant garde & jazz resulting from, I suspect, pretention on the part of the musicians trying to write/play it.
The technical term for this is, of course, "Lick My Love Pump Syndrome"
Brian Eno said of David Bowie
that his best music was made when he was at his most pretentious.
I have nothing against pretensions as long as they remember that an audience has to sit through the end results.
Indeed...
I'd rather sit through a symphony* by someone who knows how to write and/or play one than a symphony by someone who *thinks* he knows how to write/play one.
*For symphony, substitute jazz odessey, 12-tone cycle, avant-garde adventure as appropriate
Arbour Zena
Interestingly, was somewhat huffy as a teen when Emerson's concerto was dis(mis)sed roundly in the NME-reviewer referred to Keith Jarrett's albums as an example of a much better contemporary experiment.
15 years or so later picked up a white label LP of Jarrett's Arbour Zena-sudden realisation of what the guy (Shaar Murray ???) was saying. There's a moment in track two when keith finds a groove that is as good as any "orchestra+group" music that I know ... definitely one of "those keep on iPod and take whenever necessary"-type tracks
N
(similarly great small group Jarrett moment in his "Survivor's suite"-from memory I think same era and both have Jan Garbarek
Emerson
I really like Keith Emerson's Piano concerto#1, Arbour Zeno left me cold maybe I should revisit it
Arbour Zena
And, as I haven't heard Keith's for about 25 years at least (only the 3rd movement on the Works Live CD), I should probably revisit that as well ... not really taking a position here ... just remarking on some found experiences.
Great mishearings
Not a phrase I would have thought anyone could ever mishear, but I guess an Amazon reviewer of Keith's memoirs
http://www.amazon.com/Pictures-Exhibitionist-Emerson-Palmer-Changed/dp/1...
has done so: "There's a scene in "Spinal Tap" when David St. Hubbins is playing a beautiful piano piece and Rob Reiner asks him what the music is called . St. Hubbins replies "Lift my Love Pump." Well, I think that might sum up this book, and I can't say I wasn't warned by the title."
Not sure I'll be seeking out this book-would be curious if anyone here has ?
Progressive but is it prog? mostly instrumental playlist.
As I am bored thought I'd do a just for fun prog type playlist of my own. Make of it what you will.
Pink Floyd - Echoes 23.31 (from Meddle 1971)
Soft Machine - Facelift(live) 18.46 (from Third 1970)
Frank Zappa - Son of Mr Green Genes 9.00 (from Hot Rats 1970)
Can - Quantum Physics 8.31 (from Soon Over Babaluma 1975)
Tangerine Dream - Rubycon Part 1 17.18 (from Rubycon 1975)
I'll bookend this thread with a list reprise (how prog is that?)
Genesis – The Knife
The Alan Parsons Project - Can't Take It With You
The Moody Blues - Question
Pink Floyd – Comfortably Numb (Version from The Wall Live 1980-81)
Radiohead - Subterranean Homesick Alien
Tool - Lost Keys (Blame Hoffman)/Rosetta Stoned
The Beatles - A Day In The Life
ELP - Knife-Edge
Television - Marquee Moon
Van Der Graaf Generator – Killer
Goldfrapp - Utopia
The only difference is that the Collins era Genesis song has been replaced with a Gabriel era song, and that I've added an ambient track by Goldfrapp onto the end (based on Backwards7's list).
The Knife
Hmmmmm, surely, if proof be needed, that prog ain't rock. Much as I love Trespass, and I do, this track ruins it, with its weedier than weedy wig out ersatz "rocky" bit.
As embarrassing as the Eagles "rocking" thru' "Saturday Night".
I guess you had to be there...
...but it was always a very effective set closer. Even at the Milton Keynes reunion it got the biggest cheer of the night.
I think The Knife rocks out convincingly.
It's almost , almost heavy metal at an exteme push. Iron Maiden could cover it and it would sound like one of their own songs.
I'm sure it was.
I'll bet that it was, as they will have, I'm sure, realised how godawful the recorded version sounds, and made for sure the live one would have been polished and scuffed up marvelously. I hope so, cos it is, underneath, a good song. It's just those 8-12 bars that make it fall flat on the floor
Interestingly I was reading about remastering
and found out that there is two forms of remastering.
1. Digitally re-record the finished master copy to get a clearer sound.
2. Take the individule parts of the songs and remix them to get great sound and make a new master copy. The disadvantage is that as it's a new mix it might not sound the same as the version prevously released.
On the Genesis Platinum Collection 3CD Best Of they used both methods to remaster the songs. Almost all of disc 1 (Collins 91-81?) is method 1. Disc 2 (Collins 80-76?) has some songs done with method 1 and some by method 2. On disc 3 (Gabriel) all the songs are remixed apart from Supper's Ready (which might have been too complicated to remix due to its length?).
The Knife is a remixed version. Maybe this version, which is the only version I've heard within recent memory, has been remixed to sound very different to the flat studio version you dislike so much? I personally think the distortion and messiness is what gives it its power and is a deliberate effect.
I don't know but I'm intrigued enough to
try and go listen to the re-mix. My version is the vinyl, I should add. I will investigate it and report back tomorrow, with hope in my heart.