Entertainment For Lively Minds
Wall of Prog Temptation
Posted by tim tunes on 17 March 2011 - 11:55am.
What would you choose?
Any thoughts on Soft Machine?
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Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys
but is that prog?
No...
...it's a fusion of rock, folk and jazz elements with mystical lyrics.
(Hang on!)
The Yes debut
down there is startlingly good you know. It was before they discovered Hobbits. It even has a Beatles cover.
You're just saying that to wind me up
I'll have EGBDF by the Moody Blues - the first LP I ever bought.
Cliche..
..Yes never wrote about Hobbits.
You'd be hard pressed to know WHAT they were writing about, but there's little or no Tolkien influence.
It was all seasons, waterfalls, vallleys, rivers..distance..turn round glider.
"Olias Of Sunhillow"? weeeell...
I know....durrrrr...
...twas a mere joke.
Ten Years After, on the other hand...
...did. Except that it doesn't mention Hobbits. Or, er, anything else. It's a drum solo...
(Extrapolating backwards... does this mean that Ginger Baker's 'Toad' was, in fact, a homage to the fellow who lived at Toad Hall?)
Flippin eck
Alvin Lee is looking good for his age. 7 Minute drum solo? Gave up after 1. I can endure keyboard solos, guitar solos even but drum solos piss me off. Even Carl Palmer and his look-at-me-I'm-taking-my-t-shirt-off-while-I-play-the-drums solo.
Oh..
..don't joke about Yes!
The first rule of
Yes club?
And Tull of course.
'Aqualung' is a good starting point but 'Stand Up' is excellent too- especially now as they've re-issued it as a 3-CD box with replica original artwork ( for those saddo 'non-downloaders' who still care about such things ).
For a novice ....
It does make my trousers twitch slightly to see someone making the effort to produce a display like this ;-)
For a "novice" I'd go for The Yes Album (bottom row, 2nd from the left), ELP first album (second from bottom row, 3rd from the right), Aqualung (top right) and You by Gong (bottom row in the middle). However, I *think* the album 3rd from the right at the bottom is one of the Prog samplers, and they are a great place to start as well.
Don't know whether Low Spark is prog but it's a cracking good album!
I like a bit of funky Prog
so I'll go for Fragile by Yes.
After that I'll be in need of some Brain Salad Surgery.
Yes
Fragile for me too, sir, if you please sir.
'The Yes Album'...
and Traffic's records, although I would never describe them as 'Prog'.
I've already chosen
I was in Fopp a couple of weeks's ago and bought Yes Topographic Oceans and Time And A Word and Jethro Tull's Minstrel In The Gallery
I bought a 2CD Camel Best Of for £5.
Great ambient music for shuffle.
Close To The Edge
please
Seconded
For me, still the most perfect album ever recorded (except maybe Van der Graaf Generator's "Pawn hearts"). How do I know? Because the first time I played it, a couple of days after its original release, the title track ended after a mere couple of minutes. Surely some mistake? I checked the label: 18 minutes 12 seconds. Played it again, still seemed to last only a couple of minutes. If time flies when you're having fun, that must be the most fun I ever had listening to an album. It still only seems to last a couple of minutes now! And the other side's very nearly as good. (Get me, eh? "Other side", indeed! Anyone'd think I still listened to vinyl!).
when your pawn hearts wears out
let me konw
you can have mine
Album
is a must
Top row, third from the right...
....is a CD version (probably the recent LP + lots of non-LP singles reissue) of the sole LP by BRAINBOX: yes, I speak of Jan Akkerman's pre-Focus band. He was in the line-up from 1969-71 and this CD collects almost all his recordings with them.
This verite from the 1971 Pinkpop Festival seems to be the nearest there is to vintage Brainbox footage (the post-Jan line-up is glimpsed briefly - his new band Focus were also on the bill, coincidentally) - but it's set to a bit of 'Down Man', one of the best Jan-era Brainbox singles, released on Parlophone in 1969...
If you want to hear a jazz-prog legend playing lead in a late 60s vocal rock band situation, this is a disc to buy!
As Colin already knows,
I'm with him on the brilliance of the Brainbox stuff, and you really should seek it out - it's just been reissued on Esoteric records (part of Cherry Red), but I think that the third from right on the top row is actually the Soft Machine...
If my eyes have deceived me...
...I can only apologise to the Vulpmeister and the Massive! The Brainbox LP cover looks very similar (if the Massive are curious, it appears 1:06 into this montage of stills, with Akkerman's best Euro-Hendrix impersonation as the soundtrack...)
Heavy Horses
The best Tull line-up, at the top of their game.
That's a magnificent wall. In a civilized world all music retail outlets would have one of those.
Soft Machine
First 2 albums are rilly good; the 2nd especially never palls for me.
Seconded
Yep, I agree. The second Soft Machine album is a great joy. It's got Robert Wyatt's quirky writing all over it (one song's lyrics are the alphabet sung straight through, another is it sung backwards), it's instrumentally fantastic (Mike Ratledge's scrobbling keyboards are wonderful - in order to compete with the volume of everything else he whacked them up to 11 and played every solo legato - because if he did leave any gaps the feedback was appalling) and the songs all hang together pretty well as (almost)a single piece.
Great track
Sounds a bit like Frank Zappa.
I have the double Softs 6 and 7 on CD because I used to have 7 on vinyl, somehow never got round to the earlier stuff. Possibly because they weren't released in NZ.
Got most of them
But I would like a physical copy of The Moody Blues at the BBC. Definitely NOT the later Bloody Moos CD near the bottom. Not very good, but it did come with the added bonus of the Christmas CD, also shown.
Sadly missing early Genesis, VDGG, Caravan, BJH, Focus, Renaissance, etc, etc.
Songs from the Wood
Jethro Tull's finest I reckon. Lovely stuff.
I agree!
Great album.
Tull's Living In The Past
(2nd from top, far right) was a double album and when turned into a cd became a different album. It was squeezed on to a single CD and some songs were changed for others. I had played those two LPs to death and the running order was sacrosanct in my mind.
Still some lovely stuff on it mind: Just Trying To Be; Wond'ring Again; Life's A Long Song; Up The Pool; Nursie. I've always loved Tull's little melodic songs which are tucked away on their albums.
I'm with you Steer...
...I think its a lovely compilationon vinyl - never got the CD versuion, seemed wrong to have trimmed it down. If only someone would do a lovingly crafted 2CD remaster with it, as was, plus maybe adding a select smattering of extras from the same 1968-72 era (like the UK version of Teacher, the once-lost 'Lick Your Fingers Clean' withdrawn single, the '17' B side....)
Strange, isn't it Colin?
When I used to play the vinyl version, I never thought of it as a compilation - it certainly wasn't a greatest hits. Tull have always exploited their back catalogue in various compilations and hits packages - I had an LP called 'Sunday Best' in the 70's and there have been many, many others since. Yet, Living In The Past was a true fan's album with lovely curios nestling alongside more well known songs. As you rightly say, it deserves to be lovingly restored.
Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab
Did a 2 disc version of "Living In The Past" a few years ago - it contains all 21 songs fron the original UK vinyl release, plus 2 that were substituted onto the US release.
Fortuitously my iPod is playing albums that begin with 'L' today (I started with Lemon Jelly's 'Lost Horizons') so as soon as I'm finished with Bo Hansson's 'Lord Of The Rings', on it goes!
"Three Cheers..."
As I promised myself, I did play "Living In The Past", and today the highlight was this song:
(The lowlight? the drum solo on the live version of 'Dharma For One'...)
You're right, Ruffster...
...it's a classic. There was something really magical and sort of Dickensian about that 'Life Is A Long Song EP (LIALS + Dr B, Nursie, Up The pool & From Later) - it seemed to ooze a fasciniating, mysterious world all its own that seemed (to me) to be otherworldly and hugely evocative when I first heard the LITP songs (and sought out copies of the original singles & EPS) in the early 80s). The world seemed a bigger, more interesting, less knowable placethen. Ah well.
Absolutely
Even though I'm a big fan of the later stuff, I think that period between 1969 and 1972, just after Martin Barre joined, and those albums they made (Stand Up, Benefit, LITP, Aqualung, TAAB) have, like you say, a kind of 'otherworldly-ness' and magic about them that seems missing from the later period. Maybe it has something to do with the change in attire from deranged tramp to slightly eccentric scottish laird...
With you all the way, Ruff...
...Aside from LITP, I think Benefit is my fave of all those wonderful LPs, in a way. A dark, slow-burner, but unique in its sound world - unlike anything else JT ever did. And they performed so little of it live even at the time. In fact, I don't believe they ever performed their hit singles of the same period (LITP, Witches Promise, Teacher, Life's a Long Song...) in concert then - with the exception of 'Sweet Dream'. It was only in the 90s and beyond that LITP & Life's A Long Song entered the repertoire, but by then a lot of the mystique was gone, somehow. Like a talented modern artist recreating a Rembrandt.
Emerson Lake & Palmer
Brain Salad Surgery will do me please.
Really like this album, but can't quite deal with the overblown pomposity that is Trilogy or Tarkus
Did anyone ever write a negative review of...
ELP's second album under the heading 'Tarkus the Rotter'?
What do you mean/
?
Da buke
Tarka The Otter...
I was going to post Jordan Rudess's version of Tarkus - v.good - but found this instead. The Return Of The Giant Hogweed by Transatlantic.
Can't afford 'em all...
... so we'll have:
VdGG - Still life
Yes - Close to the Edge
Camel - Mirage
The first National Health album
King Crimson - Starless & Bible Black
and
Henry Cow - Unrest
That lot should get the brain cells chuckling to themselves...
Close To The Edge..
..is as good as any British rock album, ever.
It's as good as "Revolver"
Yes?
No.
They were good. But they never came close to the edge of being that good.
Angel's Egg for me
Gong's best and a fine album by any measure.
I've just bought a vinyl copy of the Yes Album too. The first album I heard lying flat on my back under the influence of herbal cigarettes.
Which reminds me of this:
Silly human race..
indeed.
Stone cold, cast iron, guaranteed solid proof
that DH's theory about 1971 being rock's apogee is 100% correct.
I gave up smoking years ago, but before I die I fully intend to listen to The Yes Album one final time, all the way through, on cans, via a monstrously good stereo system, while toking on a huge doobrie made from Grade A Durban Poison.
After that, I'll be making my way through Moving Waves by Focus, Camel's The Snow Goose, Crimson's first and the mighty Every Good Boy Deserves Favour from the Moodys as a gentle come down. As the silence encroaches upon me, and my ears softly ring, I will be in a euphoric state of bliss.
That is a great track.
So is this, from 1973. I want a jacket like that (except I am too old for it now)
Go on Beany..
..there's only one thing worse than being talked about.
(Here's the original FYI)
Me & my mates always reckoned
ELP should have made a prog version of Brigadoon after Pictures Of An Exhibition. What do you think?
Probably the best real depiction of Scottish life..
..until "Trainspotting" came along.
I can just see Greg Lake singing "Go Home With Bonnie Jean"
Updated lyrics by Pete Sinfield
This track has haunted me for most of my life. Love it more than I can say.
....and The Song Of The Sea Goat
My friend Simon had this LP - Still and The Song Of The Sea Goat are both wonderful, but the rest of the album is a bit patchy isn't it? I have it on CD now, but rarely play it all the way through.
Somewhere in my collected works
I have a signed photo from Pete - as a teenager I wrote to him - and he explained that Sea Goat is about waste. I did have his book of lyrics and poems but lost it down the years. I heard that he owned the painting used on the cover - Big Friend by Sulamith Wulfing but it was burned in a fire.
http://www.artsycraftsy.com/wulfing/big_friend.html
Hmmm....
Yes, ELP, Moody Blues, Soft Machine, Tull, Thin Lizzy...wait, what?
Unbeatable
The greatest crossfade..
..ever.
Moody Blues - Never Comes The Day (1970)
Justin Hayward was the coolest dude on the planet in 1970. On The Threshold Of A Dream is my favourite MB album.
Ashamed to say
I only really discovered The Moody Blues early last year, but what a joy they've been.
Fave moments: On The Threshold Of A Dream 'The Dream - Have You Heard pt.1 - The Voyage - Have You Heard pt.2'; Seventh Sojourn 'Lost In A Lost World' and 'Isn't Life Strange'.
Outstanding stuff!
I've got seven ellpees with extras to be catching up on, g'nicht!
Nice to see so many Prog fans in here!
That's because we're mostly
That's because we're mostly old.
How strange to think
that 35 years ago many of us put away our Genesis, our Pink Floyd and our Jethro Tull, as the punk wars raged and the Roundheads of the musical press poured scorn on concept albums and called for public execution for anyone found harbouring supporters of the King of Crimson.
I have been having something of a prog binge of late and following earlier postings about The Canterbury Scene, I have immersed myself in the wonders of Caravan and Hatfield and the North. How fantastic these records are. How well they still stand up after the passage of time.
If anyone knows of a better song than 'Fitter Stoke Has A Bath' do let me know.
Bing billy bong - silly song's going wrong
Ping pong ping, clong cling dong
Tie me up, turn me on
Brilliant!
'Fraid to say
I did retire Hatfield & the North from my listening in the punk wars but Genesis, Yes, Tull and ELP have never been sidelined. In fact I only got to really hear Jethro Tull in them days, 'Minstrel in the Gallery' and 'Too Old for Rock n' Roll, Too Young to Die' are my fave JT ellpees. I've still never heard 'Aqualung' from start to finish. I just like what I have.
That's your homework for tonight James
To be honest, the only time I listen to an LP all the way through is in the car on a long journey. I've been sorting loads of boxes of CDs this weekend and am finding oodles of stuff I have not played. Perhaps The Word & The Massive should come up with a plan for a virtual Record Club when we listen to the same album from start to finish on a given day. I fancy the Yes Album today to make me feel 16 again.
Tull's live album Bursting Out
Is fantastic IMHO.
I'm shocked and saddened, Mr Blast...
....retire the Hatfields, but retain ELP? Words fail me...
But 'Too Old for Rock n'
But 'Too Old for Rock n' Roll, Too Young to Die' is one of their worst!
strongly
disagree
that and MInce n' Tatties in the Gallery are my most very fave Tull, hell I even like Stormwatch
Memories
First time I saw Tull was at Glesgae Apollo on their Stormwatch tour. Being young, I just assumed that every concert I ever went to would be as good. Ah, if only...
Just say yes
Tell me you like Broadsword James. Tell me. Is that a yes? Yes?
I'd forgotten about Broadsword
That was my favourite for a long time. This thread is like going back 20 years.
blushes
I haven't heard it
in other news:
the latest VdGG album A Grounding in Numbers is very excellent indeed
does that allow me back into the record club?
Just for you James
You will find most of the album on YouTube. Here is the title track.
Ye gods, I want them all
Even the ones I already have.
Is this a pic from an HMV or a Fopp? (I do wish there was a Fopp in Newcastle...)
It's a Fopp shot.
You can just see the tail of the Fopp logo top left.
Anyone interested in a mob-handed Word Massive Fopp shopping session in Bristol one day this summer?
Meet up late morning, grab fortifying coffee and donuts from some over-priced establishment on Park Street, then a mass troop down the hill and into Fopp opposite College Green. Decimate the shelves by blowing all our saved up pocket-money, then off to a local hostelry for a restorative pint at lunchtime?
Yup
Fopp in London, Cambridge Circus
Keith Emerson
has written a piece of music about the recent events in Japan. It's rather lovely, probably inspired by his Japanese partner (wife?) who made the video. Only just posted on Facebook and intended to be shared to spread the message.
It's FOPP near Covent Garden
Rocker 43 and I stood before this very display yesterday before going off to see the Australian Pink Floyd at Hammersmith (an excellent gig - a great show which I recommend).
I'm quietly alarmed/amused/surprised
by how many I actually have. And like. Can even sing along to, especially Brain Salad. But they're all on vinyl at my parents' house. Once a year or so I promise them I'll ship them to the land of Oz and never quite get round to it....
I've got over 20 of them..
on LP, never stopped playing them, some hold up very well after 40 years, particularly the better Traffic and Yes albums.
Missing, obviously, are King Crimson and Van der Graaf Generator and Genesis.
Dark horse for you whippersnappers catching up: Bill Bruford.
There's no Focus either.
FAIL.
Bill Bruford?
Like, totally cerebral, man.
I heart Bill Bruford's solo albums
and Feels Good To Me would be in any all-time top 10 albums I put together.
Quite..
and don't you just love the way Bruford credits Stewart with "reasonably advanced harmonic advice"?
Tull fans old or new
should check out this new bargain pairing - heavy horses and songs from the wood - £6 for the pair!!
http://www.spincds.com/product.asp?id=9027174
Steerpike is pleased with this recommendation - thank you
... never bought from spincds - are they reliable?
Try Amazon...
...You`ll get both for less than a fiver.
I'm popping in tomorrow evening...
...pre massive meet for a shufti.
spin cds are
highly recommended - never had anything other than first class service.
Prog?
Or Prog-folk? Folk-rock? Whatever it is I commend it to the PMTs (Prog Massive Tempters)
Magna Carta - Lord Of The Ages.
Crap
that's what that is Beanster!
Luckily you redeemed yourself with the three great links below (extra points for a double Wetton Whammy), here's a nice page from that Family website - http://www.familybandstand.com/the-band/poli-palmer
interesting stuff.
James
Beany's taste is impeccable (*). Yours I fear is not.
(*) and almost the same as mine.
Steady Neil
Talk like that will get you into trouble. I've already confessed on Twitter this week to owning 2 Ed "Stewpot" Stewart LPs. I have also got 2 copies of the Jim Davidson CD...but it IS produced by Greg Lake.
P.S. James; do you have any of those Prog tribute CDs? They include lots of different tracks sung by John Wetton. I can always look them up if you are interested but many are on Spotify.
STOP PRESS: I just typed JW into Spotify and it seems worse than I thought. He covers Bohemian Rhapsody and Happy Christmas (War Is Over) amongst others.
Live on the Old Grey Whistle Test
Refugee - Ritt Mickley
Pete Sinfield - Song Of The Sea Goat (PLAY LOUD)
Family - Spanish Tide
Keep it going
With a little bit of Kayak. Lady singers in Prog bands = heaven.
"If you're talking about
Progressive Rock and want to sound smarter and more sophisticated than the person you're talking to, it is recommended you reference King Crimson and/or their first album at least once."
http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/HowTo:Write_a_Progressive_Rock_Song