Entertainment For Lively Minds
Prog!....On the Box!......Tonight!
Posted by muttnjeff on 2 January 2009 - 1:22pm.
Lest anyone has missed it, today sees the BBC reevaluation of Prog on BBC4 (Prog at the BBC - 9pm). Then 'Prog Rock Britannia' at 10.
It's described in the Times this morning as 'highly entertaining'.
Fingers crossed
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Thanks for the reminder
The BBC site is here http://www.bbc.co.uk/musictv/progbritannia/ . I can't investigate it myself because I'm at work, but it looks like it should have some tasty titbits for anyone who can't wait till 9 for their dose of prog.
Shame that
clips 3 and 4 are the same!
Wakeman playing
Worksong on the Mellotron. I'll be watching.
Too right
There is also the live performance of "Tubular Bells" featuring Mick Taylor and Steve Hillage on guitars. Terrific.
Prog
Forgot about this until I read todays Independent. Looks like it will be about the best thing on TV this holiday season. Programme on after it re an American Radio Station looks interesting too.
I do hope
a few of us spotted the Bobby Harrison (singist of SNAFU) Roger Dean record sleeve that adorns those BBC clips... well?
Just watched Prog Night!
Enjoyable enough. A few points:
- hardly any Floyd, why?
- Wishbone Ash, not really a prog band, I would say;
- The early 80s King Crimson were terrific;
- Genesis and Yes head and shoulders above most of the rest.
The Floyd
Big enough to get whole documentaries devoted to them, so their story has been covered a few times on BBC4 before
The Ash
Wishbone Ash had an album with a mystical warrior adorning the cover, and songs like Throw Down The Sword and A King Will Come. Hence they get lumped in with prog by default.
There was a lot of pre prog underground stuff, like Atomic Rooster, The Moody Blues, The Nice etc, presumably because there isn't too much "golden age" prog footage to choose from as they were all doing 20 minute suites rather than singles on TOTP.
"Prog" is a retrospective term, remember
At the time it was just "progressive" or "hairy" music and it covered pretty much everything that was album- rather than single-based. Everyone I knew in the early Seventies who owned Foxtrot or The Yes Album would also be sure to have Argus and In the Court of the Crimson King too. Even Santana and Led Zeppelin sat quite comfortably in people's "progressive" collections, although I expect few would qualify them as "prog" now.
The current "Very Large Array of Keyboards" definition of prog was bolted on later, probably because it provided the starkest contrast with the guitar-based punk bands that dominated the final years of the decade.
Agree,
also, I would contend they aren't/weren't really 'prog' as the show defined it - superior musical 'chops' etc. Good as the Floyd are at their instruments, I couldn't really see any of them getting into either Yes or King Crimson, could you? This takes nothing from their body of work, as I would rather listen to any Floyd album rather than any Yes or KC (and that includes AHM, TFC, OBC, More etc).
All Hail Prog Britannia!
I've not laughed so much in ages. It was well done too.
Now the debate starts. Where was the Gentle Giant clip that was shown on the website? Where were String Driven Thing? As I remember it nobody gave a toss about Egg (sorry Mont) but Dave Stewart's later bands went on to better things...sort of.
And it goes on. The Emerson, Lake & Palmer Whistle Test special tomorrow. My wife is already anticipating Greg Lake in his Y-fronts. Me? I'm getting more beer in...
P.S. narrated by Nigel Planer. Trivia question - what are his Prog connections on the prog(ramme)?
Egg
Had to look them up - never heard of them!
Wasn't that
a different Dave Stewart?
depends
if you're Ken Bruce...
Yes
Different from David A Stewart of the Eurythmics and also in this group of hippies (the chap on the left)
Nope...
The one in Uriel, Egg, The Hatfields, National Health, Bruford and Dave & Barb was *the* Dave Stewart.
There was a different Dave Stewart who had some mainstream success with The Tourists during the 1980s.
I can't answer
the Planer question and I wish I could, but I was overjoyed that King Crimson took centre stage
Reckon
it was because he played the hippy in 'The Young Ones'. You know, it's that whole hippy=prog thing that makes perfect sense in Beebland.
neil's heavy concept album
He once recorded a cover of Caravan's "Golf Girl" (and Tomorrow's "My White Bicycle")
Correctomundo
Tomorrow featured the guitarist Steve Howe. Neil's LP also had Dave Stewart on keyboards and stuff, Barbara Gaskin on vocals. Both part of the Canterbury scene. A fine elpee it is too - now available on CD.
Stonehenge
Loved the doc also, for me just the right mixture of amused nostalgia from Wakeman, Wyatt et al tempered with a genuine understanding of what it was trying to do at the time-I particularly liked Jonathan Coe for the latter, no great surprise in view of the excellence of The Rotters club.
Bit that really amused me though was Carl Palmer's choice of 1/2" thickness for his stainles steel drum kit-a piece of pure Spinal Tap that ensured a two ton bass drum if I heard correctly. I'll be watching Tap into America (sorry, the ELP on the road in '73 doc) tonight.
Also liked the inspired complementary choice of Still Crazy, with the divine Juliet Aubrey-although saw it on a BA flight about three weeks ago.
Divine is the word
You've reminded me to order the set of "Middlemarch" from Lovefilm - my dislike of historical drama is regularly and hypocritically overwhelmed by the inevitably featured winsome lovely. Helena BC anyone?
Helena ... and Minitrue
Oh yes -in voice of Churchill the dog ...
Meanwhile, was struck by the other, shorter, earlier "Timeshift" doc as to how images are used. In the OGWT ELP doc, for example, the dinner in Vienna and Palmer's Jag were pretty much used as is, in the 1994 Beeb doc they became shorthand for pop's moneyed aristocracy or somesuch ... Obvious I know but made watching the same set of clips used two or three times a bit more interesting.
The most overwhelming impression for me from the OGWT doc was actually how relatively non-glossy the lifestyle looked ... and how much more expensive a modern pop show (Madge, Kylie et al) looks than the much-reviled proggers could have managed ...
[meanwhile Palmer and the 1/2" drumset is at about
1h03m26s
in the Prog Britannia doc at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/ seems I misheard a bit, the whole kit weighed 2 tons, the bass drum needed two people to lift it]
Jag?
Only a roller would do for the boy-dun-good. It seemed to be the car of choice when driving into a swimming pool. At least he could drive it himself (see Noel bloody Gallagher with his L plates)
The boy palmer
Must admit I didn't see a flying lady but I am sure you are right .. will have to look again
2nd Division Proggers are the key
For me it was never the big boys that exemplified prog (Yes,Genesis,ELP,Floyd, Tull etc)they all had loads of personality and that in the main got them past at least some of the charges of being self-indulgent noodlers.
If you really wanted to experience full-strength prog I think the clearest examples were to be found amongst the 2nd tier.Last night's programmes had a crack at that idea but chose the wrong bands - Egg (too obscure), Wishbone Ash (too rocky and guitar-driven), Caravan (just too whimsical). I'd have gone for something really proggy. Like (say) Greenslade or Renaissance. Loads of keyboards and not too many songs!
of course
no one will be watching the Genesis stuff tonight
Very impressed ...
...with Mont Campbell's archetypal prog appearance. I thought to myself, if they ever remade Lord of the Rings they need look no further for a perfect Gandalf. So I was subsequently a little disappointed that a recent photo on Mont's own website shows he has despatched the flowing locks and splendid beard. Shame.
thought...
...they might have gone a bit less Brit-centric and had a look at bands like Rush and Can.
I watched all the programmes and felt there was a lot of overlapping.. would be great if they had made a new film to round off the " Campfire story films" and investigated the modern revival of prog, which would no doubt lamentably focus 40 minutes on Radiohead and Muse and leave 15 minutes for Mars Volta, Oceansize, Ghost etc. ( yeah just forget that idea )
I'm not really a 'prog' fan i'm just interested in good stories.
I've heard about ELP and Arthur on Ice so many times it kind of passes over my head ... a bit like an aeroplane.
P'raps
They saving that for Prog Canada and Prog Germanica. I would have loved a bit of Magma, Ange and Saturnalia but I'm daft.
If we can go back into the archives for Kate Bush on the cover any chance of a lovely shot of Sonja Kristina? Please Mark.
allow me
I say that trumps la Bush
Tubular Hell's Bells...
look who it isn't!
how many did you spot?
apart from Oldfield:
Steve Hillage
Mike Howlett?
Fred Frith
Mike Ratledge
Karl Jenkins
John Etheridge?
Mick Taylor
On t'other guitar
Caravan
Super Furry Animals obviously like them quite a lot.