ProgRockin'

New Blog Layout

2009-11-15T04:14:00.000-08:00

If you are reading this you would have noticed that I have changed the layout template of the blog. The new design is easier to maintain and expand and also looks more clean. It features 3 columns (except at the top of the page), which means you don't have to scroll so much to see the links and other stuff in the sidebar.

Hope you like it.

If not, let me know in a comment to this article.

Who do you think you are?

2009-11-03T12:51:00.000-08:00

Progulus listener Zaii recently commented in the forum:

Does anyone else get bored of new Prog Bands saying things like "for fans of Dream Theater, Porcupine Tree and Opeth"? It's always the same few massive Prog bands and most of the time they actually don't sound anything alike. It would be nice if they named a band they actually do sound like. I have become so disillusioned by people saying such things that when a band claims to sound like DT, yes and PT for example I immediately become very skeptical and assume they are a not particularly talented group who are just trying to draw in as many listeners as possible by claiming to sound like the biggest band they can think of. When was the last time someone said "sounds like Karmakanic" for example???

This got me thinking again about the difficulty of finding your own sound and also finding a way to tell people what you sound like. You want to be accurate, but you don't want to confuse people. Zaii also made reference to a band that's been spamming the Progulus tag board. Spamming will make people made to begin with, but they also claim to sound like Dream Theater, Rush, and Genesis. They aren't even close. I think it's bad form to try to ride someone's coattails in a deceptive way. If you say you sound like Rush and you don't, I probably won't take the time to find out what you so sound like. I'll probably forget all about you.

Sometimes descriptions of bands are written by their label or promoter. In this case you'll probably hear an accurate comparison, but it will also be of the biggest bands. This is pure marketing, meant to catch the most ears. This isn't necessarily wrong either. I think you do need to speak your audience's language. Once after a Strange Land show one guy in another band (a well known guy in this area) said "Man, you guys have that Kansas thing down!" I know it was meant as a compliment, and I took it as such. But I also said to myself "Huh?!" I'm the only member of Strange Land that listens to a lot of Kansas, and they really are a generation before us anyway. But the guy who gave us the compliment was a little older and probably stopped listening to anything remotely prog in 1980. When people hear something unfamiliar the brain needs to find a place to put it. Sometimes the closest match isn't that close at all. Do we sound like Kansas? Well, more than we sound like Barry White. When I have to describe Strange Land to non-prog fans I'll say Queensryche, Rush, King's X, maybe Living Colour, maybe Dream Theater (if they're metal fans). Listeners of commercial hard rock radio will know some of those bands, and the comparison isn't inaccurate. If I start talking about Pain Of Salvation and Fates Warning I usually get blank stares.

Another problem in describing my band is whether or not to talk about influence vs. inspiration vs. emulation. We are influenced by Devin Townsend, Echolyn, Dead Soul Tribe, and Nevermore but I don't think we really sound much like those bands. Sometimes I want to make the comparison though because I've been inspired in some way by such a band even though I'm not copying their sound.

So, back to Zaii's point, and knowing your audience. If I know I'm talking to the prog crowd I can mention all of the above bands and more obscure ones. It's hard to make the comparison to the lesser known bands, there are so many and such variety. Strange Land is influenced by Fates Warning, but it's later material. We are influenced by Queesnryche, but mostly Rage For Order through Promised Land.

It is a mistake to compare yourself to someone you don't sound like. I think it's also a mistake for younger bands to say "for fans of" when they aren't ready or are not up to snuff quality-wise. If I say "Strange Land sounds like Symphony X" and we don't, you'll be annoyed. If I say "we're influenced or inspired by" then we still might grab your attention. There is too much emphasis on being the next [fill in famous name here] that bands are unwilling to let time and word of mouth work. I find it better to sound like me than to not sound like someone else but say I do. Unfortunately, in the marketing world, "I sound like me" doesn't cut it. So many bands try to say they sound like whatever you like.

Be A Pro

2009-11-01T16:03:00.000-08:00

There's nothing like good customer service. I even think it's worth paying a little more for great service. In the world of the performing musician, good customer service is contained in being professional. And by professional I don't mean making a living at it. I don't mean any particular level of technical prowess on your instrument. I mean common courtesy. I mean doing what you say you will do. I mean not behaving like a dumbass. One definition from Merriam-Webster: following a line of conduct as though it were a profession.

For the second time this year Strange Land ventured south of the border to Illinois. We played on the north side of Chicago at the Redline Tap. Cool place, good food. Big thanks to Progulus listeners Iceman and Falcon and their friends and family for coming out.

For the second time this year, a show in Illinois was partly hosed because other bands didn't show up. Click here for the scoop on the previous show. This time there were five bands booked. One cancelled a few weeks before the show. Two more were total no-shows. No call, no excuse, nothing. We were expecting to play a 30 minute set. We played for an hour. The other band that did show, Seeking, was cool. Glad to meet them.

But what kind of a moron do you have to be to just bail on a show with no notice? I've seen other examples of not being pro. Chewing out the sound guy. Wrecking the venues property. Being rude to the other bands and to the staff. Getting drunk and making a fool of yourself. Sorry, but acting like a "rock star" doesn't make you one. I know I'm weird but I've never thought it was cool to behave like a typical rock star. The closest I think you can be to getting away with it is when you actually are a rock star with millions of dollars and a team of lawyers. Even then, I'll still think you're an ass and your behavior isn't cool. You'll just be better equipped to not care and get away with it.

We are probably the most punctual band in the state of Wisconsin. I feel bad if I show up five minutes late. We treat the sound guy with respect. We thank the venue and the other bands we play with. We thank the people who came to see us. That's pro, and that earns us the respect of venues, sound guys, bands and fans. That gets people to buy cds. That gets us invited back to the venue. That gets us invited to open for national acts. That gets other bands to trade shows with us. And that is why we are entering out 11th year as a band. One measure of success in my mind is survival. We've made it 11 years, 3 albums, and dozens of shows because we've outlasted so many other bands. One of the biggest keys to our survival is our commitment to being pro.

The 5th Season - a diary, Day 1

2009-10-31T15:08:00.001-07:00

While writing this I find out that it is quite a little Lord Of The Rings what I wanna tell about just 3 days. Well it is indeed a 'shortened' version and I decided to do one article per day. But I want to bring this down to "paper". So, if you're really bored one day, feel free to actually read the whole thing. :-) Well, here it is:

Friday morning at 7 am. Into the car.
The box of Oktoberfestbeer is there, good.
Promised it to the regulars.
One hour later, at the other end of town we pick up Dario (aka ProgressiveLunatic, aka LordPL) and FluffyGuts. Could have been 30 minutes to go, but some Al Qaeda guy was mumbling something about not wanting beer and an Oktoberfest in Afghanistan, so half of the city, around the Oktoberfest, became a high security zone. We had to go a long way around that... Anyway, we're at the highway now.
At the end of the road, our road, a weekend with 15 progmetal bands and people from 15 nations are waiting! Though the line up is a bit weaker than on the last two festivals, exitement has already taken control over me.

Fluffyguts is a girl from Australia, she popped up at the ppe forum, looking for assistance to trip from Munich to ppe. There was a free seat left in our car.
Gerhard (gdantell) said he might show up on short notice when his business trip will allow it.
Robert (Atomic) was checking out if he could join some 10 days ago, but found out that he hasn't any more work-free days for this year. Bummer.

German highways are a mess, half of the entire way is under construction and it takes us more than an hour longer to cross the border at Roermond. We tried to avoid the Friday afternoon rush in Venlo and decided to hit Barloo from the south, and find the road to Baarlo filled with a massive traffic jam. We leave the road and take the long way around it, navigating with a map on my lap. That's not easy in the Netherland, they have a rather strange idea of where to put signs on the road and where not. If we had to rely on the signs I guess we would have ben completely lost. Fortunately the truck in front of us is from Venlo, and considering that it's Friday afternoon, we guess that guy is heading towards home. The roads we pass sometimes are so small and designed in a way that we're expecting a dead-end several times, even though they're labeled as main road in the map. We find a road sign that leads to Baarlo - thankfully.
It's a quater past four when we reach the castle, our accommodation. Casteel DeBerckt is kind of a hotel and they have a deal with progpower, everyone who orders a package deal for progpower also books bed and breakfast at the castle for a pretty fair price. And it is indeed 'bed', not 'room'. They simply fill their rooms with progpower people, noone has his own room there. If you come alone, you'll end up sleeping in a room with absolutely unknown people, unless you told the progpower staff who you wanna join rooms with. We did that.
When we enter the courtyard, a couple of black t-shirts are already there, sitting in a circle around some beer and an ipod with speaker application, with - of course - Devin Townsend playing. The regulars. When they gather, they are mostly always making a circle. They see us coming, with the box of beer, and welcome us, shouting out "It's the Geeermaaans", raising their beer cans.

At the entrance of the castle they have exposed a room plan this year, but the lady who welcomes us still is confused because Fluffyguts is in a different room than Dario and me. We help her in pointing at our names on the plan. I should mention that they don't have a reception at the castle, you just get in and wait on the corridor until some staff comes along. Something like the castle would be impossible in Germany, a hotel without a reception, only functional furnishing that lacks any kind of design, no bar. I know, Dutch hotels are different to the ones I've ever been anywhere else. But still, the castle is a great place.
Entering our room we find Gary (Cyberfloat) and Simon (jimmyjoint) hanging out, just as expected. The Brits always go into their room and only get out when they're leaving the hotel. Ok, Let's hug! It has been an entire year. Before I can pull off my jacket Gary is holding a bottle of Jamesson under my nose. Ah dammit, let the party begin!
Wait, six beds in our room? Weird... looks like they've messed up the reservation and we're having spare beds. And one window is broken. Wait... there were two people in the room, a window is broken, three empty bottles of beer at the table. Not two, not four, but three. Hey guys did you....?

Grabbing all we need for the festival, print of booking confirmation, torch (2 km to walk back at night, no lights on the road...), we go down to the courtyard, make the circle of the regulars a little bigger and thankfully receive some beer. Finally, the travel is over. Hanging out, chatting and relaxing. Marcel tells me that they don't know which rooms they're in. I talk about the exposed plan, but he says that some are still on the road or even in the air. I don't get the point, but don't want to get into it too detailed now...
After a little while it's already time to get up and leave the castle. We stand up... and stand... and stand.... I start walking slowly, Dario wonders about it and I say "it's time to get this thing moving". That helped. Slowly the trail of the black t-shirts is heading it's way. Watch out Baarlo, we're comming!
A car is speeding down the road and almost hits 2 of the black t-shirts. Fool, it's progpower, don't you know you ought to use another road?? Another car aproaches, more carefully. When it reaches us, growling from inside, hands out of the windows. They'll be there faster... cheaters!
Simon, Gary and me are not talking much, as usual. Dario, as usual, talks. And talks. And talks. Glad he does. He's doing the talk for us all...
We reach Baarlo, reach the venue and pass by. We're heading towards the great chinese restaurant right before the show starts. A tradition. It simply is funny seeing them being scared behind their desk when the long haired mob of black t-shirts arrives, aproximate 30 of us. We cross the mainroad 20 meters beneath the traffic lights. We're proggers. Using the traffic lights would be mainstream, wouldn't it?
At the restaurant, the cheaters are already there, Asians are praying, the bigger tables get occupied by the regulars, we're adviced to use the next one. We thankfully sit down and Gary stands there... crying. What's up? Oh, it's four seats and we're five. He prepares himself to sit alone at the next table. Damn poor guy. We decide to mess up this whole place and Gary takes his chair to our table, at the front end of it.
Gary used to tell me about chilly festivals, chilly chocolate, chilly jam etc through the entire year. Now while eating chinese food, they all do stop chewing, breath in, reach for beer, drink, breath again, start searching for little red vegetables (paprikas?) in this delicious dish. I don't really think it's hot at all; I even added some chilly sauce to it, and still... too mild, European... well...
After a very delicious - mild - dinner and some chat we gotta leave, queue up at the counter for paying. Another mess at the restaurant. And it takes quite long, although nobody had else then buffet and one or two beers.

Going back, crossing the main road, but at the traffic lights. Huh??? Why that? Oh, ah, our English friends are leading the trail...
We aim the festival. Walking through Baarlo. Church bell rings, windows get closed, some kids are taken off the streets panically....
[soundtrack advice: establish this cut with a harmonica melody in 9/4 and add a dramatic church bell to the cut]
WE HIT IT!!!! The holy place! The venue! Sjiwa!!! (On all other 362 days of the year it's just the local youth club...)
At the entrance we queue up again. His holiness Rene, the man who organizes this every year, hands out the tickets personally. And that's quite due! It's a ritual. You hand over the ticket confirmation, Rene browses the stack of envelopes for your name and hands out yours. You receive it humbly and your prog aura expands to the measure of our planet and blesses entire mankind withing 5 seconds. And collapses back to a little bigger than normal size. Woossshhhh
It's strange somehow. After such a tight day I'm finally at the venue, and still I don't feel like having arrived. Next task is exchanging. You gotta give them Euros for some kind of Sjiwa currency, some plastic coins. They won't give you beer or anything for real money. Ah yes, the beer. small one is 0,2 liters, big one 0,4 liters. I tried to tell them that, where I come from, a big beer is actually one entire liter, but they never seemed to have any use for that information....
A small - very small - beer in hand I'm at the merch stand, the guy welcomes me and we chat a bit. Being here for the third year, even he already knows my face. I want an Andromeda t-shirt, size M, so I better get one at the beginning. No. They don't have one. That is always a problem at the end of a year he says. Almost pissed, I feel like shouting out to all bands "make more of the most common sizes!!!!!!!!!" Well, I take L then, telling myself that L is good in winter.
No band has played yet but I already have a merch bag. Including a progpower poster. Hehe...

Cirrha Niva is the band that starts this years festival. A dutch band that already has their 5th album out. I did not know about them before they were announced for progpower. Their music is dark, a bit depressive, but aggressive. No grunts - thankfully - the singer is a shouter, not taking much care of hitting the proper note for the sake of shouting, but he's never out of key. Their music is nothing special, pretty generic in style, though most bands do grunt in this genre.
I takes a bit until I notice that there is no bass player. He couldn't come, so they taped the bass and now play to the 'tape'.
The sound is not good. It's hard to seperate the instruments, the bass track is so silent, yes, unaudible for long sections of their gig.
The bands stage approach is a bit stiff, yet uncertain, but we, the audience are too. It seems we all need a bit of time for settling. Musicwise a good start of the festival, they do a good job in warming us up.
In the break I'm finally relaxed and do some talk here, some there.

Cloudscape is the second band. Number three in my personal favourites of this years bands. I like their style of "Sweden metal goes prog". They go on stage and just start, whithout any need of warming up. Some little feedbacks occur, from the drum mics I suppose; but these are just a worms guesses. The mix changes drastically for several times, suddenly the drums are completely off the PA. The engineer must have drastic problems. During song three engineer seems to have everything under control, but...
Why is it always at progpower that the drums are too loud and the guitars way too much in the background? I mean, we're celebrating a metal fest after all. Remembrance back into 2007, when the gig of Circus Maximus sounded like prog rock.
I'm at the wrong place, gotta go closer to the stage. Yes, in row four the sound is quite ok. (most of the time at progpower there is enough space to be wherever you want to)
The band puts quite some energy on stage. They're having fun playing for us and Mike Andersson is a great frontman, good good show! Sound... not good, sounds pretty 'cloudy', as if Devin Townsend were on stage.
Despite the sound and "Sweden prog metal" I liked their gig.
When they're done, the thank you goes around. Thank you band for playing, thank you folks for listening, thank you Rene, thank you Matthias... (Thank you Mattias? A couple of bands last year did thank him as well. That's weird...)

Talk of this break is the sound. Everybody wonders if the new loudness policy causes this, maybe it's not solvable to produce a good sound at lower levels with this FOH/PA. Fact is, everybody's complaining. Last two festivals haven't been too loud in my opinion. I don't understand this policy, as most people use ear protectors anyway. I tell myself to get arranged with it. I have heard so many crappy sounding gigs in my life, I have learned how to listen concentrated and enjoy a gig.

Headliner of tonight is Andromeda. If someone asks me for a good example for prog metal I point at Andromeda. Dream Theater? Who?
... I find a good place in row two. Nice sound here, I can hear the drums unamped, sounds way better than what the engineer offers. All other instruments and vocals come from the PA and surround me, I'm in a cloud of notes. Many notes! And all coming pretty fast and continuous. David Fremberg is one of the very few who sing on stage exactly as in the studio! Most of the biggest vocal heores in the world can't achive that. They got my body, my head, moving within the first tune, and that won't stop until the gig is over. I never bang head on 4/4 bands, time signatures and overall rhythm must be complex for me. But then I can't stop, I never bang on purpose. I'm wrenched, pushed and hustled in a centre of a continuous box barrage cloud of notes. Thomas Lejons drum breaks are absolutely insane, he is up in my Walhalla of drummers for now and ever. The entire band is. I'm blown! Looking around me I see that the others are too. Everytime someone is extra-impressed by some musical madness, looks around and looks into anotherone's eyes, a hug is next, we front-rowers do bang heads and hug. Marcel, the regular, is air-drumming. Another song is over, another little rest, suddenly the floor is playing techno. Ah, right we've been warned. Local teenagers are having a disco party in the basement. Must it be really that loud? No respect, these kids today. Woooooosh the Andromeda train goes on....
And then they're finished. What? Ah ok, two hours are already over. Thank you, thank you, thank you band, thank you audience, thank you Rene, thank you Mattias. ("He was at progpower from the beginning and did not miss one festival, for eleven years long!")

I feel like I wanna go home. This weekend cannot get any better. what a massive musical event did I experience right now! --- Nah, hey the entire weekend just started, man! Even though there will be no better band than this, it will be fun.
I turn around and look for the Brits - ouch my neck! I can't find them. We go outside and hangout there a bit, smoking, chatting, drinking, the Brits are gone. They left during this ultimate gig? Nuts....
Fluffguts comes along. Haven't seen her since we arrived at the venue. She's having party already. Good! :D
Local kids ocupy the basement, so no afterparty there tonight. The trail of the black t-shirts is heading towards the castle. Passing the local pig farm and an ugly smell we consider shooting some ham for breakfast but give up because we have no weapon. Not even a drum stick...
After a refreshing walk and talk - hell my neck still hurts - arriving at the castle, someone comes out the door and says "hey we gotta find a room where nobody's sleeping, someone sleeps in our room." Confusion... But the gods of prog are kind to us. Rene arrives on his bicycle, has loads of beer, grabs them beers and quickly dives into the downs of deBerckt.
We hang out in the courtyard, confused, not knowing where, what's going to happen. suddenly, on the second floor, there's music, loud music. Some of the regulars climb up the wall and enter the room through the window. When Dario and me come in, the reagulars already made up their circle, but there's place left at the table. David, Fabian and Johan of Andromeda are sitting there, and some more people. Fabian gives me a beer, we hang out, talking loud, because the music - Devin Townsend, what else - is quite loud.

Second row from left to right: Fabian (hidden), David (bald), me, Dario, Johan, and, hmm... was it the drummer of Cloudscape?
Hard to tell almost a month afterwards...

I tell Rene that I find the people of Baarlo cool. They simply bear the annual progpower without complaints and even help people wo are too drunk. Rene says that many of them just like the fact that something's happeing in Baarlo, and the few who don't go on holidays.

Progpower afterparty... drinking, talking music, listening... all are equal. No high noses, egos or something. Being the headliner, the festival master or just someone. We're all here for the same thing and we shall all be happy being together.

I find our British friends in our room, Simon the snoremonster and his endless attempts of trembling the house down.
Five snores and the Friday is no more. over and out.

Identity Crisis

2009-10-25T13:50:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about my identity lately. Specifically, should I have chosen a stage name years ago when I started playing out after college? I'm not getting mobbed by fans and I have my privacy. But there is obviously a conflict between my life as a musician and my personal life away from the stage. Lately it seems the more I express my private life the more damage I do to my music life.

I am a guitarist, bassist, singer, and percussionist. I am a composer. I am a recording engineer. I am an artist. I am a designer. I am a traveller. I am a friend. I am a son, a cousin, and a nephew. I am a skeptic. I am an atheist. Did those last two taint your view of all the previous ones? I wonder if there are some parents out there who would complain to their kid's schools if they new that the music teacher was using music in the classroom written by an atheist. Probably a few, never mind that I've only had instrumentals published so far and I wouldn't advocate atheism in a song to be bought by a school.

Still, I am who I am. People will either accept me or not. If you decide not to like my music because I'm an atheist, well, I can't change that. Music is music and I've found many religious songs beautiful. Especially in the classical world (like Ave Maria by Bach/Gounod). Creativity will find its way in the world, filtered through each artist's experience.

I think instead of separating the private from the public, I'm going to be bringing them closer together. Music is my life. I've never felt like I needed to do something as compulsively. I breathe, I eat, I play music. It's not something I can't do. I feel like I should focus on that and just shut up about everything else. I have to be 'me' to the fullest to be satisfied with my music. But music is not my life. I am more than just little black dots. I can't be creative without experiencing life. I think Neil Peart of Rush said it best:

Back in April of this year, just before the Snakes and Arrows tour, I did a TV interview for the Canadian music channel, MuchMusic. The cameraman placed the interviewer and me in the rehearsal hall, in front of my drums, where I had been laboring for several weeks by then. Some of the interviewer’s questions seemed to angle toward a certain starry-eyed view of my work, especially the touring side of it, and I tried to explain to him that I didn’t consider touring, or even drumming, to be my life.
He seemed perplexed, and to appraise me as clearly jaded and cynical, because his next question was, “When did you start to feel that way?”
I paused to think for a couple of seconds, then was glad to feel the mental light bulb illuminate a true and clear answer. I was able to answer honestly, “About a month into the first tour, in 1974.” That really was when I started to feel that touring was “not enough,” and turned to reading books as a way to make more use of the days and nights.
Partly out of sheer contrariness, but partly out of a desire for context, I often refer to playing the drums, with deliberate disrespect, as “the job”—hitting things with sticks. Obviously it means much more to me than that, and has been a central focus in my life. But still, it seems rather sad to hear anyone say that their work is their life.
Not family and friends? Not reading and writing? Not hiking or cross-country skiing or birdwatching or motorcycle riding or swimming?
Just work?
I don’t think so.

Thanks Neil.

Catharsis

2009-09-25T12:35:00.001-07:00

subject: CD Baby loves you

"Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.
A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure it was in the best possible condition before mailing.
Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.
We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved "Bon Voyage!" to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, August 25, 2009.
We hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. In commemoration, we have placed your picture on our wall as "Customer of the Year." We're all exhausted but can't wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Sigh...
We miss you already. We'll be right here at http://cdbaby.com/, patiently awaiting your return."

This is the standard confirmation mail of CD Baby when you order something there. One month later I send them mail, I thank them for all the love and ask where my cd is. - Nothing... no answer...
Money gone but no Strange Land CD for me, just a love letter....
Put my picture off the wall guys. You don't like the way I look at you and I hate staring at you while walking by and laughing in my face.

Edit:

Day 35 --- an e-mail came in, almost a week late. They messed up the shipping adress. I wonder who's gonna pay for the second copy. Me or my Strange Land. I wouldn't have a problem with a second purchase, just for supporting Sean's band. (for any other purchase it would make me angry of course...)

note to self:
That's not fair, stringray. Every other band would have to give out another hardly produced copy! Treat them all equally and support any amateur band fully!!! grrrr...

Edit 2:

Day 39 --- another shipping has been confirmed by e-mail.
Sean has found out that they revamped their web site and some things still seem to operate improperly. Well, bugs happen....
The global 3 letter shipping company does not report non-delivered mail and seems to simply thrash it. That's a new no-service to me.

Edit 3:

Day 70 --- nothing arrived. I give up.

I'm going to do a second purchase once Sean has the cd available at the German independent distributor. They never annoyed me.

Sean was so kind to provide me with mp3s in the meantime, so I can at least listen to the music whenever I want.

Great cd Sean!

Teaching my kids some (musical) values

2009-09-15T13:07:00.000-07:00

Da-da-Daa dada daDaa da-da-daa da-daaa

If you didn't already guess it...this is my 17 months old son mimicking a famous guitar sequence of Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water". Apparently he picked it up while his older brother (9) was seeking out all versions of this song he could find on YouTube. I don't know how he got to hear this song, and I'm not much into this band, but it made me think...maybe this could be the start of something wonderful. Yeah, I know that statement is kind of cliche, but nevertheless I feel that I am on to something here.

Let me explain...My son has had a MP3 player for some time. Initially I put 15 good, somewhat popular songs on it, that he listened to for a while and then probably forgot about. Then he asked me if I could put 'Smoke' on it so that he could listen to it without the computer, cause his mother was getting a little enough of co-listening to it, and was thinking that his computer time was getting a little excessive. I told him "sure" and suggested that we also found some more material, since he was already bored of the 15 songs already on the device. What I didn't tell him was about my "evil" plan to slowly introduce him to "real music". This is something that has been in the back of my mind since I got kids; to "help" them discover music that is inspirational, entertaining and appreciated rather then just being the background noise of their lives.

Now, given the task of filling a MP3 player with music, what would you put on it? If the only requirement is that it should be good music, should you choose the things you like yourself or would it be fair to choose from all kinds of genres in order to give the potential listener more choice? Well, I'm not ashamed to say that I will try to instill in my son a taste for the music I prefer listening to, and I don't find that selfish in any way. You see, something that can bring people together more than anything else...is music. And I can think of no better cause than cultive the relationship with my son. If his potential love for jazz or classical music is to suffer because of that...so be it.

So I accidentally copied 2 songs onto the player with the names of Mystery Train and Sunrise on Mars (by Transatlantic and Threshold). Only 2 since I didn't want to scare him too much with unknown songs. You know the thing with kids, you just have to listen to the popular stuff to be cool. His reaction? Well he didn't care much about Threshold, but surprisingly he thought that Transatlantic was "way cool". Sad for the Thresholders, but great for my son. I like Threshold, but I still consider them to be only a few "measures and signatures" from mainstream. Transatlantic is on a completely different level. It is true that Mystery Train is not the most complex song made by the band, but it is a supreme display of greater musicianship compared to what "normal" people listen to these days.

To come back to the statement I made earlier about jazz and classical. It is actually a bit contradictory. I have found that prog can be the doorway leading to great discoveries in music. Before I got into prog I was completely anti jazz and classical (including opera), but now I'm open to both categories. Because there are no rules in prog, anything can be incorporated into it. Sometimes the result is bad, but a great many times the result is purely amazing. Just a side remark here: if you hate jazz and start liking The flower Kings...you are doomed to eternal schizophrenia.

Before I end this, it is time for the million dollar question...

What should I put on the MP3 player next?

A proggers 5th season - the fever's already begun

2009-08-25T12:54:00.001-07:00

It looks like so many people have their 5th season. The people in the Cologne area have their carnival. They stop working and just hang out drinking. Drinking a LOT! In Munich we have the Oktoberfest. Since travelling the world became so affordable, it's mostly tourists who drink. Drink a LOT! Well what would you do if you travelled half the globe for attending the worlds biggest 'drug' fest.

Fortunately I can escape the Oktoberfest for a weekend for the europroggers 5th season. Not to far away from Cologne, in the Netherlands there's the little town Baarlo, and they've established the best music festival in the world, progpower europe. 3 days, 15 bands, and what will we do? We will drink. Drink a LOT! But hey, how would a progger drink? Right, not without hearing 3.743.712,07 notes a day, played live.
But not just that, a proguli meeting par exellence it will be, meeting cyberfloat, Jimmyjoint, gdcantell, and of course PL already ordered tickets and I hope more will come.
The big deal of the festival is that most of the audience and bands will stay at the same accommodation and many bands just do the same like us folks, enjoy the festival and see the others play. It's like a big family. There is no "you audience - we band". It just happens that you're chatting with some dudes, go for another beer and you can't find them anymore; the reason for this is mostly that these guys just prepare for stage and gonna play in 20 minutes. That's how you spend the afternoon and half of the night. After the headliners have played the party starts at the bar in the basement. That's where you meet the Threshold drummer, guitarist Marcel Coenen, etc. Once you have enough beer and go your way to the venue, another crowd happens to hang out, someone brings some beer from somewhere and you talk to Zero Hour among others before falling into bed. In the morning you even don't notice the hangover, at breakfast, Pathosray on the left and Cynic on the right of you, you prepare for the next massive note attack.
But definately all people you meet there are great guys. If regulars or just some who only come once, all are nice, friendly and helpful. There even are no doors locked at the accomodation, and people share rooms who have never met before. They say that there never was anything missing in the end of the festival (except a beer or two...).
And they seem to come from all the world, no matter if Australia, Korea, Paraguay, etc, no place in the world seems to be too far away.
Bummer, still 6 weeks to go...

Last year I intended to post my very personal impressions of the festival, but ended up being too busy to do it. I Promise I'll post them this year.

A very deep thank you goes out to Rene Janssen and his team for organizing the festival for the 11th time now, and to the nice and kind citizens of Baarlo for bearing the invasion of the black t-shirts so patiently. Be prepared!

A personal note for Jana:

I promised to provide you with a ride from/to Munich, as the car is going that way anyway. Would be a shame if you'd jump over to Munich from Australia and not head to the festival.
I'm leaving a second trace here, if I intended to do you any harm, I'd be traceable not only via the progpower team, but also through the google server.

Edit: If there's some space left I'll bring some Oktoberfest-beer!!

That is why I do this

2009-08-24T20:08:00.001-07:00

Strange Land had a show last Friday at a place that shall remain nameless here. I am the diplomat of the band after all, not that you can't all go to the web and find out where it was. It was out first show at this venue and our first within about 70 miles of this place. I thought we made this clear to the venue. We're interested in expanding our territory and reaching new people. Details were sketchy about the show until a few days before. Then, it looked like we were on a bill with five other bands. The whole show started at 6, we were told to be there no later than 10. Ok... looks like we're last. No biggie, with 5 other bands there should be a decent number of people hanging around.

Ah, but it's never that easy. From 6-10 it was an all ages show. We were indeed last and the band that was supposed to be before us didn't show. I thought, fine, we'll go on around 10:30 then. Promptly at 10 all the under 21 people were booted out. The band on stage at the time finished their set with a pretty good crowd still there. But for some reason the venue made us wait until 11 to start. In that time almost everyone left while the cover band got started upstairs (don't even get me started on cover bands. I'll lose my diplomatic immunity). Since the band we we're booked with didn't show none of their people were there. So most of the night we had five people. We managed to snag a few others in passing from upstairs. Add to that, the sound guy was pulling double duty due to an emergency. He was running up and down the stairs doing sound on both stages. He loved us though. Sound guys seem to like us because we don't sound like every other band they have to sit through. At one point Brad's vocal mic behind the drum kit was feeding back and he just unplugged it. We didn't have Brad singing for most of the night. Such is the nature of live shows. Shit goes wrong and you either roll with it or you collapse.

All that said, this was one of the best shows we've had in a while. We played well. We had fun on stage. And the crowd that was there was engaged. I have so much fun when I can interact with people from the stage. We cracked jokes. I got everyone to introduce themselves. We laughed. I may take my music seriously, but I don't take myself seriously. It wasn't my show. It wasn't Strange Land's show. It was our show, band and audience together.

I've played a lot of shows for many different kinds of crowds. I'll take small and enthusiastic over large and indifferent any day. I'm they guy in the band who isn't gung ho to play out. I prefer writing and recording. But for shows like this I will always come out and I will enjoy playing on stage. All I need to do to be successful is reach one person. To make one person laugh. To know that one person understands what I'm trying to do. For one person to feel like I understand them because of a song we wrote. We got lucky, we reached more than one last week. And that is why I do this.

Special thanks to Progulites Iceman and Falcon for coming out. It's cool to meet hardcore prog fans and to put faces and real names to the chat board nicknames.

Music is Music

2009-07-10T23:32:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine asked me today why people thought it was weird that he listens to Iron Maiden, Eminem, and Ziggy Stardust all in a row. Apparently it's not acceptable to have wide-ranging tastes anymore, and people are supposed to be defined by their musical genres of choice. Metal, classical, jazz, prog - all of these carry stereotypes as being very elitist and condescending towards anything that's not part of that particular genre.

Now personally, I enjoy a huge variety of music myself, but I rarely find myself listening to something other than prog or metal - occasionally rock, pop, jazz, or classical, but rarely. Not that that's all I enjoy, that's just what I enjoy most. I mean, I guess it is considered strange that someone would listen to such a variety of music, but it shouldn't be. Because people like different types of music. Some people like Pantera. Some don't. Some people like Coldplay. Some people like Suffocation. Some people like Pink Floyd, some people like Koyaanisqatsy, some people like Consiorzoacquapotabile, some people like Metallica. Different people listen to different things for different reasons. As for me personally, I enjoy to various extents all of those bands. PF, Suffo, CAP, and Koyaa in particular more than the others - and this is just the rock/metal/prog end of the equation.

Although I really, seriously fucking hate it when people (especially girls) say that "they listen to everything". No they don't. The spectrum of music is NOT just the modern rock/hip-hop/pop from the second half of the twentieth century that you hear on the radio. I can honestly say that I like (or at least can appreciate) almost all types of metal (black metal's a bit tough), extremely different forms of prog, folk music, the blues, showtunes, avant-garde music, various types of jazz, "classic rock", modern hard rock to a limited degree, funk, hip-hop, bluegrass, soul, gospel, zydeco, polka, mariachi, a LOT of classical (which really composes about 99% of the music ever written), psychedelic rock, disco, post-rock, REAL pop (not bubblegum pop), and I'm even warming up to country a little bit. I don't make the claim that I actually listen to each genre on a regular basis, but I at least like them all. Music is music, and there's really no point in trying to find "the best and only the best", because it's all a matter of personal taste. I'm not really picky at all. I'm like that with hanging out, with video games, with deciding what clothes to wear, with music, with food, whatever. Whatever the choices are, I don't care - I'll find at least some enjoyment in each of them. That's not to say I don't have preferences, because I definitely do, and there are some bands/genres/foods I really don't like at all.

But if somebody says "I listen to everything", you best give me your favorite folk metal band, your favorite funk band (and which era too, most funk bands had a LOT of revolving members), your ideal jazz sextet, be able to distinguish between the genres of classical music, discuss your favorite instrumental timbre, which era of technical death metal you like better, define "post-rock" and "djent", your favorite minstrel singer, enjoy the accordion, and be able to have an opinion on whether serialism is really music or math.

^ THAT's listening to "all types" of music, not the fucking bullshit that people claim it is. Remember kids, not all music is on the radio, by a long, long shot. Granted, some music on the radio is good - some music on it is GREAT. I'm not at all ashamed to admit I'm a fan of Creed, Coldplay, Alter Bridge, Muse, T-Pain, and a number of others. But for some reason people are always afraid to try out new music if it doesn't fit in their preconceived notion of simple 3 minute pop songs. Or their preconceived notion of UBER BROOTUL HEVY METLZ, or of long, atonal, complex 20 minute epics.

People are just too unwilling to think outside the box just for one second and try to appreciate music for what it is, rather than trying to slam it for what it's not. I can't tell you how many times I've facepalmed reading reviews that say "I usually listen to really obscure death metal like Destroyer 666 and Lykathea Aflame, but this Sigur Ros album sucks, it's all 'pretty' and not heavy and it's not TEH BROOTULZ". And it's the same on the other side of the coin. "Death metal sucks blah blah, that's not even music just random shit and noise." Death metal is one of the most complex musics out there and to blatantly INSULT it like that is just fucking WRONG, as in both morally and factually incorrect. The same thing with ignorant prog nerds who think that everything popular is automatically shit and that songs have to be long with 6453524 million time signature changes to be good. No. That's not how it is. Hell, I'm sure most prog bands don't even think that way. I'm sure for the most part Dream Theater don't go into the studio thinking "this part has to be in 7/4, this part has to have a G#sus4add9 chord, the melody for this part is too catchy, let's change that..." No, I'm pretty sure they just head in the studio, jam out on some riffs and try to construct a song that sounds good - whether it's "truly progressive" or "breaking new ground" be damned. A good song is a good song.

But not everybody is open minded. People will have likes and dislikes. And personally, almost nothing gives me more enjoyment than recommending people music they haven't heard before and them enjoying it. But there's a responsibility that goes with it, you can't just introduce a casual listener to a band like Sigh, and you can't just introduce a death metal listener to polka music. Small steps, and that's what genres are for. But music is music. And even if you're a death metal listener, you can't expect growls and blastbeats in your polka album. Because there's a fucking huge variety of music out there, and to expect it all to fit within your little preconceived notions is stupid.

I'm not saying everybody should be super-open minded all the time, and I'm not saying that all music is automatically good, but there's a give and take with it that needs to be acknowledged far more often. If you enjoy Daft Punk, Eminem, Count Basie, Iron Maiden, Sigur Ros, Mr. Bungle, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Koyaanisqatsy, and Ziggy Stardust at the same time, awesome for you - you've got an appreciation for well-crafted, well-performed music, no matter the genre or what anyone expects of you. More people should listen to music the like that, and actually I think a lot would, they just haven't been exposed to things that would really challenge and intrigue their ears. Remember kids, music CAN be entertainment, and that's fine - but it can also be an experience, whether a song be 3 minutes long, 6 minutes, 12 minutes or 50 minutes. A lot of people forget that.

Update on the sabbatical coming soon guys. :] Rant over.

"There are only two types of music - good music, and bad music" - Frank Zappa

An elision of purpose

2009-07-05T15:54:00.000-07:00

So, the new Strange Land cd is out. Special deals are selling now, the general distro will start in a week or two. It's been a too long process to get this one out. The reasons are varied, from our own procrastination to major personal issues, to playing too much of the waiting game. Nonetheless we are pleased with the results and we thank everyone who has stuck with us. When we picked the title we didn't think we'd actually be having a cathartic experience making it.

So what happens next? Is this the end of a process, the beginning, something in the middle? It all depends on what kind of band you are and what you want out of your career. Some bands just love making new music, so the release of a cd is pretty much the end. You finish the album, get the word out that its available, and move on the the next one. The amount of promotion you do I guess depends on how much energy or money you have for it. Once you've told people it's available you get right back to making new music.

On the flip side the album release is just the beginning. You get it out there, push the promotion, set up a tour. You play as many shows as you can hoping to collect some new fans along the way. I suppose the bigger you get the more this second option is what you do. Bigger bands have the resources to mount full scale tours. For the most part bands in this mode don't even think about recording for a year or two.

I think we'll try to hit a mark somewhere in the middle. As part of growing as a band I think the balance shifts around. We can justify more advertising but not a full scale tour. Hopefully more shows but we won't be putting off writing and recording new music to make time for shows. I'm sure we'll find a balance. I know for a fact it won't take 5 years to release the next one.

Going and going, with fictional borders...

2009-05-03T00:09:00.000-07:00

The following is an essay I wrote for my English class. The assignment was to pretty much interpret and give meaning to any song (and I cut it down, originally I wanted to do a 25+ minute epic ;D). Enjoy!

-----

"My New World", by Alex Ricard

Most bands would consider a 16-minute long song exploring different musical territories and building up over a variety of themes a massive accomplishment, but this is just the order of the day for prog-rock super group Transatlantic. From their two albums, only three of their songs are under 15 minutes long (and simultaneously, they have three songs over 25 minutes long). “My New World” from their first album SMPTe is, comparatively, a concise and focused effort from the band that explores the limits of pop and rock music over its duration, lyrically telling the complex story of two unlikely lovers in the 1960s as a metaphor for the state of America during that time period. Overall, “My New World” uses this love story, combined with the musical flow and structure of the song and the positive energy from the music itself to create a rich, vastly layered atmosphere.

In alternate verses, the two main characters are introduced through the lyrics. “Days in the sun she's seen by the river/reading a book, feeding her dreams,” Roine Stolt sings, illustrating the female as a peaceful hippie type who “hiked up to Woodstock, she got high in Frisco …painting and poetry filled up her mind.” The male character is also introduced here, as “the boy, the pride of his mother” who “took pride in serving his country/went off to war, no more than a child.” The chorus is a thematic break from the story to feature a first-person perspective with “my new world was spinning me around,” alluding to rapid changes both in society and in a personal connection as the main focus of the lyrics. Throughout the song as the love story progresses, the differences between the two characters (representative of the diversity of the American people) are further explored: the line “now she’s a loner, now she’s a stoner, no one can touch her” is repeated throughout the song, while a verse dedicated to the boy states “disappointment struck him hard when he found out/there was no ‘lucky Stars and Stripes’/they set it all on fire, while Jim and Janis got us higher”, showing a shared experience in troubled times, such as in a relationship or a period of massive social change. By the end of the song, however, the differences are resolved with a final chorus stating “my new world is spinning me/and time is not my enemy/my new world is ahead of me today/and all things pass away,” underscoring the peace and contentment perfect for a happy ending. However, as implied in the chorus and title of the song, the “new world” is a complete change, due to the troubles and triumphs that occurred during the ‘60s.

The music itself begins with a slow, sweeping melody played on strings. Guitars then quickly come crashing in for a bombastic exaggeration of the same theme before the song settles down for a Beatles-esque piano shuffle in irregular 5/8 time for the introduction of the characters. The song slowly builds up to the chorus which features four-part harmonies with an uptempo beat, giving off a happy feel. “My New World”, over time, becomes very atmospheric and soft and then fluctuates between loud and soft sections, creating an episodic story. The overall structure of the song is very linear: throughout the work, many melodic themes are revisited, modified, layered, and constructed in a way similar to leitmotifs in classical music. This structure helps to further the storytelling nature of the work, while helping the emotions reach their full fruition because the song is not bound to a traditional verse/chorus structure.

“My New World” modulates through various major keys, which gives it a “happy” feel. The chord progressions and rhythms used give it a very Beatles-influenced sound, combined with the influence of bands such as early Yes and Genesis, who also had their start in the sixties. The fairly brisk style imbues the song with a slight sense of purpose - even the solo sections speak with unique voices. Rather than being an all-out rocker, “My New World” is casually restrained, remaining polite and pleasant, yet still with an attitude. The song carries with it the peaceful and idealistic attitudes of the ‘60s and contrasts it with the harsh realities of the violence of the period, functioning as both a timeless love story and a homage to the entire time period.

Bright Ambassadors Of Morning stole my trebles

2009-04-16T13:00:00.000-07:00

Pure Reason Revoluton, I like them mainly because of the clever vocal-arrangements.
When they cancelled their gig at Progpower Europe I was quite disappointed, but now I had the chance to see them at a local venue. Knowing not much more than their debut album, I didn't expect much, as the cd sounds rather plain and sort of easy listening, and I did not expect them to pull off the same vocal work as on disc.

The bigger surprise it became!
Starting the gig with some early to mid 80's sounding keybards and keyboard bass, the show seemed to be something like a positve and 'happy' version of Depeche Mode. Soon the guitar came to a more prominent place in the music, more agressive parts got played like Steve Wilson does in Porcupine Tree, the vocals raising to their full power, all the fine harmonies and canon style achived live, wow! 20 minutes after the show started I realized that I got tears in my eyes, couldn't stand still, had to groove all the way through. The show started quite solid and increased to full power in about 35 minutes to full fire works, volume at 10 (11 would be too much, I prefer to still hear the drums...), then they switched back one gear and played tunes with more complex sound structures. One should mention that the band is sort of a gathering of multi-instrumentalists, lead singer-keyboardist-guitarist, female vocalist-bassist-keyboardist, guitarist-vocalist and drummer.
In the meantime the guitarist plays his solos kneeing on the floor for adjusting the knobs of the many effect processors live. Again, like Steve Wilson did back in the days.
I'm not annoyed that, including encores, the gig was only 90 minutes long, knowing how young the band is, and the few people in the audience. however, I felt like a Shikansen hit me and took me to Berlin, sticking on its very front, in that time. All those landscapes flying by at lightspeed...

They truly have the potential to become big! A formula like: {positive depeche Mode x Porcupine Tree + self} comes to mind.

Back home I wanted to end the night with one more beer and a bit of the most recent PT recordings. I gave up. No trebles, it has been gone. I didn't notice what an earbleeder the gig was.... ok, one beer, no music anymore.

wishes for the band:

1. a second microphone for the lead vocalist. It simply is a time-waster to always adjust the tripod when switching from keys to guitar and back.

2. a better stage clothing for him. Complaining about that warm lamp while wearing the most tasteless leather jacket is stupid.

3. Bring that dynamics of your live sound to disc! Whenever somebody says it is too exhausting for the common listener, tell him you're not about to do easy listening.

Have a Cigar, dear boy, and listen to The Sound of Muzak.

2009-04-14T21:09:00.000-07:00

Back in 2007 Hanson (yes THAT Hanson) released a 12-part documentary filmed during the making of their album "Underneath" which saw them leave their major label Island/Def Jam due to frustrations with the label in the making of the album. In the end the band started their own indie label and have been releasing albums on it since then.

The documentary is a warts and all detailing of trying to make an album in the major label environment when the label wants to exert pressure on the band to make a "radio hit". It's VERY revealing and candid and even if you HATE Hanson (and fair play, I don't like them either) but if you ever wanted to see the ugly side of making a record for a major label and just the making of an album this is worth a look.

Part 1 of 12 is down below. I'm only a few "episodes" in, it's really great and quite revealing. I really hope nobody here (or anyone, really) never have to go through that....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arfx4i-050I

Also, for a class of mine I had to create a "protest poster" (see above) about any particular issue. I chose the music industry. The documentary I linked above is a great example of all of the shit and horrible things that happen in the industry. Personally, I'm of the belief that the major labels need to fall and hard. Call it karmic justice, but their insistence on sticking with outdated business models and their tendency to rip the artist off for 80, 90 percent of the profits is just flat-out wrong. It really disheartens me to see these pigs in control of the music industry. Pink Floyd said it best 30 years ago - it's a machine, and always has been. Now, I am not at all advocating downloading music illegally. Supporting artists, especially small and independent ones is the right thing to do, without question. But when buying CDs and going to shows is only supporting the middle man, how can we support bands? With the current recession, the boom of downloading, the "loudness war" and the mp3 trend, increasingly manufactured pop music with Auto-Tune all over the place, it's no wonder how the industry got to where it is today. It needs to fall so it can be rebuilt from the ground up. Maybe in 50 years we'll see the same cycle, but for right now we cannot allow this to continue. They said home taping was killing music, and that downloading was killing music, but it's not killing the music, it's killing the industry. And the industry is killing music.

We do abuse music

2009-04-01T13:21:00.000-07:00

I decided to post this as a new article though it is a direct reaction on Sean's because this is to strong in my mind for just doing a comment:

Do you remember those news printed on paper everyone used way back? I still use them because you can read them wherever you are, without the need of a monitor or display and internet connection.

One or two months back I read in a small article in one of those that the company Muzak went bankrupt. That company's product has the same name; aka elevator music or warehouse music.

It is said that music makes people friendly, peaceful, yet happy, so playing music in a warehouse lightens up the customers mood and they'd purchase even more - was their claim.

This is a tragical simplification in my opinion, because nobody ever had the idea that one's mood might turn bad if he doesn't like the music he hears.

Back in the 80ies, when I once purchased some car spare parts and queued up at the cash point I realized at a certain moment that my spirit was slowly changing into bad mood. I realized that I wasn't the only one whose mood was darkening, a couple of other people were doing the same thing. I was a strange effect to me and I was wondering about that for about 5 Minutes. Then I noticed that a speaker was dabbling out the most crappy Bavarian folk music at an almost inaudible loudness. I said to another - in the meantime quite angry - dude: "Hey I think it's that almost imperceptible music torture that makes me so angry. It took a bit to find that out." That guy stared at me, froze for a moment or two and smiled at me when saying that "this really is the worst music I ever had to bear!" Luckily the emotion in our part of the queue was back to positive, now that we had found out the evil that happened to us.

Back a few years from now, the warehouse music wasn't a single event anymore but a pestilence, we went for some speaker cables to an electronic shop. Still being in a rather good mood - emotionally dumb for sonic pollution - my friend said to the salesman: "That indeed is some nice crappy music you guys have playing there." The salesman switched from good manners to aggression instantly. "Yes and it is in here ALL FUCKING DAY LONG!!!" we were trying to be nice guys but man, that went wrong....

So much for the general music-does-people-good idea.

Well so, folks, look around, errr... listen around! Music is everywhere. Everywhere!

I mean, when I was a teenager it was so unimaginably cool to have that walkman playing music while cycling through the city! But that was long ago.

Today wherever you go there's muzak. If McDonald's, Burger King, SFCC, any store, SUBWAY STATIONS!!! TV jingles, sweepers, shows, serials, documentaries, - even news! movie, games, yet websites.

Really, what would a website of a warehouse chain be without muzak!! http://www.hertie.de

Where else... wait loops, cell phones, ipods, car radio, car docking station, wifi, itunes, the list seems endless.

I fear opening a can of beans, muzak could be inside!

Do I need a psychiatrist?

Isn't it any wonder that one blunts about music? It is a sonic pollution, yet violation today how music is abused and sprayed at us. How can something so omnipresent be of worth for the common man? Even gold would be nothing of worth if it were available everywhere endlessly.

I'm no more one of those people carrying an ipod everywhere, ripping cds to itunes and using the computer for listening to music.

I want my gems stored in shelves (that's what they are for - the shelves of course...), grab the jewel case, open, insert, play, sofa, listen, read/watch booklet (damn is this font supposed to be read? What's the song title???), be happy!

I tune in to progulus when I actually want to listen to random prog goodness.

I refuse to have music playing right now because yesterday we've been at a great Asia gig ( where 150 - 200 progulus flyers went away, not one ending up on the floor!), and a little session afterwards - because silence is golden.

Sean, the Cartasis demo is great! Hope to hold the cd in my hands soon!

How do you use music?

2009-03-29T14:22:00.000-07:00

It's always the lament of the independent prog musician that you can't get people to pay attention long enough to even like or dislike your music. Prog, like jazz and classical, takes more than superficial attention to appreciate. We often blame the industry for aiming for the lowest common denominator. We blame the fans for not making any effort to find new music. We blame the bands that make the music we find superficial. I'm sure we can blame ourselves for something too. But maybe it's more than that, more than finding someone specific to point a finger at. We proggers make music that is a little more 'adult' or mature in nature. We're aiming for audiences tied up in bills, kids and jobs. Even the teenagers we might find an audience in are swamped with both day to day activities and by entertainment choices. I don't have the time I used to to throw on a disc and my headphones and just lay on the floor and absorb new music. I used to do that and pour over the liner notes. There are many older albums that I know all the song titles to. Now most of my listening is in the car, at work, or while I'm out walking. There are cds I've had for 3 years that I can't name a track on.

Is music becoming something that doesn't stand on it's own? Is music now something found in movies, in tv shows, in video games, in your ring tones? Is music something that has been so omnipresent in the background of electronic entertainment that we're numb to it? Prog has nearly always been a niche. Is all of music become a niche in the vast swamp of everything that we have at out fingertips for consumption? I heard an NPR story the other day about tv shows finding an audience. About 10 years ago a hit show had 20 million viewers weekly. Now a hit has under 10 million. Has the overall world of entertainment become to fractured and diversified that we only have niches? And now, since it's so easy to make your own music or movies or art, every niche is getting very crowded. If everyone is making their own music, who's listening to mine?

Maybe it's just the nature of change. Maybe we are at a point in human history where the very nature of music consumption is changing. Once upon a time music was about the only form of entertainment available. I'm under no illusion that we can or even want to go back to the days of Bach's church employment and rich royal patrons. I have long been aware that there are a lot more choices out there for entertainment. There are more ways that ever for everyone to create their own entertainment. But lately I've been thinking lately it may be more of a cultural change. We now consume music like potato chips. It's always there, there's always more, and there are almost too many flavors to choose from. Inundated with so many choices we find a handful we know we like and never deviate from those choices. There is limitless music available. We can buy it and keep it forever. We don't need to go see it or buy sheet music and play it ourselves. We don't even have to go through the hassle of putting needle to vinyl anymore. For those of us who do want a lot of variety it's hard to keep up. I have been putting all of my cds into my iTunes library. As of today I have 830 albums in my itunes. I have nearly 30 DAYS of continuous music. I'd be willing to bet that I spin less than half of those more than once a year, and I still have about 100 cds to go.

It is an interesting time to make music in. Like the tv industry has seen and the music industry is struggling with, I think the superstar is on the decline. You'll see less and less new bands achieve the status and longevity of bands like Rush or the Beatles or Madonna. I feel like I'm right at the start of finding a new way. A way to keep making the music I need to make, for myself, and finding new ways to share with people. Hey, I do have some ego. I wouldn't put out the effort I do if I didn't want other people to like my music. I can say I make the music just for me, but I'd be lying if I said that was enough. So, if you're bored and looking for something a little new and a little different come visit my niche of a niche of a niche.

A Death Metal Sabbatical

2009-03-29T02:44:00.000-07:00

I will soon temporarily leave the world of Prog in the very capable hands of my colleagues here at Progulus and Progrockin'. Over the course of my musical exploits in the past few months (years, even), I've grown tremendously as a musician, even just as a guitarist. My rhythm technique and soloing have especially improved, and my improvisation continues to impress even myself in say, an acoustic folk-blues setting, or melodic vocal harmonies. But in the past few weeks, I've gotten back into metal in a big way. If anybody reading this has a Facebook, they can find me as a fairly prominent member of the groups "Lifer: A Hard Rock/Heavy Metal Forum", "Metal Heads", and "DO NOT USE THE HORNS UNLESS YOU ARE METAL". Really thrusting myself back into the internet metal community has sort of given me a new perspective on prog, and it's weird to listen to bands without keyboards again, haha.

I've come to realize that my musical ability to write metal has grossly stagnated. I really don't know how to write a good riff anymore, and this saddens me deeply. I was given a stong dosage of death metal, tech-death, black metal, and a little folk, old and new: Atheist, Death, Lykathaea Aflame, Agalloch, Gorguts, Desultory, Incantation, Immolation, Immortal, and many more. I've put them all in a massive playlist on shuffle, and so far have gotten way back in the swings. Tonight I am enjoying my last night of prog with some Kaipa before I enter a "death metal sabbatical". I will listen and enjoy death metal again for the first time in years. I love what I've heard so far, and really, it's not as bonecrushingly brutal as I remember. I get the same feeling from something like the extremes of jazz-fusion as I do this. It's actually kind of a nice, comforting feeling, simple and agressive and straightforward in its aggression. I love it.

To kick off the festivites, I spun Atheist's "Unquestionable Presence" today and wondered why I ever left metal. Don't worry guys, I am a progger first and foremost, and will always be. But sometimes, it's just nice to go home.

The Road to Life and Progressive Rock Part V

2009-03-07T21:12:00.000-08:00

Phase 6

Graduate through a new "door".

"Computerized clinic, For superior cynics, Who dance to a synthetic band,
In their own image, Their world is fashioned, No wonder they don't understand!"
-Natural Science/Rush

A "Late" Graduation and the beginning of a Love Affair.
The Senior year would add something to the radio waves . . .
"The Spirit of Radio" by a band called Rush. Another band I couldn't take in yet,
I didn't know what to make of it. It had such weird time changes that the only
thing I could compare it to was my creative "whistling and humming" in the
shower! I'd make up weird melodies, odd time changes with beats (sort of "Beat-
Box" like sounds waaay before the Rap community would find its use, we're talking
70's thru the 80's here!)- So I was emulating Drums and Guitar SFX- like I said, I
was weird, I used to imitate instruments, celebrities, cartoon characters, sound
effects, etc..
So Rush was a mystery to me, and Geddy's voice was REALLY different, I didn't
know what to make of them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpCASVFyQoE

As I mentioned before, In my last years of high school would see the days of
New Wave, for the most part I wasn't interested, with few exceptions (see
previous story). But many of these bands would be another link.
Bands like these would influence Prog to come (its my contention that if their
were no Flock of Seagulls, U2 and Ultravox, there would be no "Grace Under
Pressure" by Rush in 1984, in sound, that is) and was just another re-birth for
the genre. But for the most part, I heard less musicianship and more "push a
button and it plays a melody", programmed, tweaked sequencers making music.

"All this machinery making modern music, can still be open hearted
Not so coldly charted, It's really just a question of your honesty, yeah, your honesty
One likes to believe in the freedom of music, but glittering prizes and endless
compromises, shatter the illusion of integrity"
-The Spirit of Radio/Rush

Yet again how prophetic those words would be.

Punk was also transforming the American bands. With the likes of the
Dickies; Stiff Little Fingers; Black Flag; X; The Dead Kennedy's; Social
Distortion; Patty Smith; The Angry Samoans; The Ramones, The Butthole
Surfers, and The Meat Puppets etc. (Acknowledgement to "Iggy Pop" and
"The Stooges" for doing it in the late 60's early 70's).
Like the Harder Rock bands of the late 70's rebelling against Disco, these
"Punkers" would musically "Flip-off" some of the sappier New wave and Top
40 rubbish, this new music seemed to want-to yell at the establishment, and
make things "ugly", this would be the root of Thrash from the "Crossover"
bands like:
DRI; Excel; Waysted Youth; Corrosion of Conformity; S.O.D.; Misfits and
more would in-turn influence Heavy Metal into "Speed Metal" and beyond.
This would come much later of course, but again, I'd hear these bands and
heard the influences seeping through each other. And would add their angry
tones of the coming "New Wave of British Heavy Metal".
But at the same time the Punk movement was litterally spitting at the Brit
"Dinosaurs" and their Progressive Rock full of pomp and circumstance, and
only the strong would survive. And I wanted more.

ELP, Yes, Genesis, Pink Floyd, the Bands that put England on the map again
were now labled "Out of touch" with the World, "over the top" and Labels,
Record Exects (many abandoning the bands they supported) and Radio
listeners wanted "simpler" and "straight forward" musics . . .
I was not one of those people.
But Jon Anderson (Vocalist for Yes) would say decades later:
"We were Punks, we were doing what was not popular, The Who were punk
kids, James Cagney was a Punk, these guys making Punk music would
eventually become more popular, then they would buy better equipment and
so on..."

"All the same we take our chances, laughed at by time, tricked by circumstances
Plus ça change, plus ç'est la meme chose
The more that things change, the more they stay the same"
-Circumstances/Rush

Again, the Pop music (Top 40) was starting to wane from me as FM Radio
had what I was looking for, especially in the late hours, when D.j.'s got a bit
more adventurous with the turntable. Pop songs ran out of "musicianship".
But popular music is just that. And it held no form of creativity for me to sit
through it, I respected music too much to just "tune it out". The music I liked
held me in its trance, I couldn't just "wash the dishes" to it.
This would be the way to this day . . . its not, just music to me, its something
a creative person "crafted" and played with the highest denominator.
Eventually, Hit Singles would't mean anything to me anymore, "Albums" were
more important than a single track that was "made" to have more creativity
than the whole. But good music is good music, no matter how simple, some
music just didn't sit well with me.
But time and time again, with almost every job and friends that would be made
in the coming years, I had to "tolerate" musical tastes.

1981:
I was doing terribly in school, but drawing constantly and because of these
2 things, my parents, especially my Dad, we started to be at odds with each
other . . . I HATED school, my attention span was nil, but I wasn't a bad kid,
on the contrary, Smoking didn't make sense to me, just the the smell of Pot
gave me a headache, drinking made people annoying and stupid, Beer tasted
like piss and I didn't hang with the "wrong" crowd (maybe bad choices in what
a "friend" was, but...), I was a good kid with my head in the clouds.
I couldn't WAIT for school to be over! So my wish came true, and with not
able to grasp Math and failing "P.E." (Physical Education) as it was my last
class of the day, and I couldn't stand the competitive attitudes of the other kids
and the Coaches (except for 2), were right out of the movie "Dazed and
Confused".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_eTV4lRJYU&feature=related
I'd hang with a friend named Robert Flock (Who had a punk/new wave friend
that introduced us named Eric, who always made fun of me in a condescending
way) we would sneak off to the Stadium, talk skateboarding, music and girls,
stupid jokes and laughing our heads off, then jump the fence and head over to
a Doughnut shop with our saved lunch money (The food at school was really
bad, one of many reasons we called the School "the Chino Work Farm").

. . . I wasn't going to graduate with the rest of the class, which (I) was the shame
of my parents. This would be the 1st real nail to start distancing me and my folks.
How I'm still ALIVE from that news is a miracle . . .
But I was going to get my Nogales High School Diploma if I went right away to
a Continuation School for the summer!
To my amazement it was swift and easy and I got to talking to another kid, he
was this big guy with semi-long hair, but he seemed more mature than the other
kids. We would talk about music and he told me he was going to see Rush on the
"Moving Pictures" Tour. I just started to hear the new songs, and he talked about
Neil Peart and what an awesome Drummer he was.

After we "Graduated" and went our separate ways, Rush stuck in my head,
and I started paying attention to the songs and the musicianship . . . this was
the same band I saw on that turnstyle in the Record Shop!? How could I be
soo stupid!!!? (If I heard Cygnus X-1 Book II/Hemispheres back then, God
knows who I'd be now!) Next to Kansas, this Canadian trio would engulf my
world . . .

Phase 7
New influences, new awareness.

"Passing time will reach as nature relays to set the scene, New encounters
spark a true fruition, Guiding lines we touch them, our bodies balance out the
waves, As we accelerate our days to the look in your eyes."
-Sound Chaser/Yes

So after the insanity of High School, went into a stint at community college
(Mount San Antonio, Walnut Ca.) in a crappy Drawing class (I learned more in
High School, though "now", they have an excellent curriculum for Art and
Digital/CG Graphics).
But because of joining up, I was to receive my own stereo to enjoy my new
collection of music. I had my ideas of what I wanted, I was building up on
pamphlets of equipment. Pioneer was looking really good and that years series
of stuff was really cool in design and I was asking for a deck type set up of an
Amp/Receiver; Cassette deck; Turntable and Speakers.
Not the whole top of the line "Rack", but enough to have oomph!
http://i360.photobucket.com/albums/oo48/jgmacv/levisdeer176.jpg

. . . And what I got was a Soundesign all in 1 component model that had a built
in Cassette and 8-Track player (its 1982 not 62!) and a separate Turn-table
that sounded like a Bus idling. . . I was disappointed to say the least.
But "I" was a disappointment! So I kept my mouth shut and made due.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3114/3197033479_9fb4676c2f.jpg
(My God! that's the Stereo I had! Yikes!)

1st Job:
My 1st goal was to get a nice Turn-table and I was eying a cool Pioneer direct-
drive. http://www.vinylengine.com/library/pioneer/pl-4.shtml
But to obtain it I had to get a job and My Parents were shuving me to get one!
At this time, my best friend Glen had a neighbor named Alex Zandor, He would be
a new music friend who was becoming a Hard Rock/Heavy Metal fan. He would get
me a job at a plant that made "Cables for Nuclear Power Plants" (and in a scary low
tech way of lacquering them, as cable being fed through holes, drilled through empty
large plastic paint buckets with sponges and lacquer!), And the supervisor was this
butch looking red haired woman(?) with facial hair and her husband, this pencil
neck/eraserhead with a twitch and stuttered as he would talk of "simple things".
All this on the graveyard shift . . . but it was money for Art books, sacred Vinyl and
that sweet Turntable.

New Musics (81-82):
This is probably the time that Southern Rock was hitting its peak and my faves
would be Molly Hatchet (that had a bit of Metal in them); Point Blank; Allman
Brothers; 38.Special; The Outlaws; Blackfoot; Atlanta Rhythm Section and of course
ZZ Top and Lynyrd Skynyrd (Who even to this day, I own NOT 1 record).
The amazing guitar solos were the main event to these guitar driven Southerners,
and some even had "3" guitarists!
Molly Hatchet doing Allman Bros.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B53j-lKZdhE
Outlaws, the "Epic":
Part1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqJ_V7ay3E8&feature=related
Part2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3JAglkUrms&feature=related

Blackfoot:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrtApoX959c
Pointblank:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTRplwZmv2A&feature=related

Also, I was discovering:
Pat Travers; Gary Moore (his Metal years); Survivor; Gamma (Ronnie Montrose's
band); Pat Benatar; The Cars; Sammy Hagar; Judas Priest and Blue Oyster Cult,
and re-discovering Robin Trower.
Survivor (When they were a great Hard Rock Band):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9asPx5eYZY

Glen Mayfield would hang out with me and Alex and we talked about seeing
Kansas (for some reason Alex didn't go) . . .
At this time sadly, Steve Walsh (the original Vocalist) had left, but was
replaced by the excellent John Elefante . . . It would be my FIRST concert,
and it delivered!
A funny note:
Seems the floors were "slippery" at the Universal Amphitheater, with the 1st
song "Paradox", John would play his key parts up on a riser, then run to the
front of the stage to sing, when his key part was coming, he'd run . . .
and then he slipped, sled and fell on his butt! But got up, RAN to the riser
where his keyboard waited and made it in just in time for his part!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCzVd_BrL9s
Robby Steinhardt was playing his Violin for "Mysteries and Mayhem", then
started walking the stage . . . and fell right on his butt, his part came up, and
he just sat on the ground and played it out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqhDa4pPzIg

"Windows" . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55sSc95T_nk&feature=related
I remember being very nervous, with pot heads and beer drinkers making
trouble and the "unknown" plaguing my mind, but also the excitement!
Still one of my fave shows to this day, my teens were filled with their music
and here I am witnessing these awesome musicians playing their catalogue
along with the "Vinyl Confessions" material, though I missed the great Walsh,
John's vocals just soared and with much gusto, passion and POWER!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNODeiYl-gs

Another Clip from Vinyl Confessions Tour in Omaha:
"Play the Game Tonight"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ymn_zMIBKzA

"And when the curtains open, to the roaring of the crowd, you will feel it all around you
Then it finally happens, and it's all come true for you
And the songs are playing over and over, till you do it all over again!"
-Play the Game Tonight/Kansas

2nd would be another fave show with Zebra! This too was an energetic show
and they were even better live, filled with such power and sound from this
power trio, I was truly impressed. Singer/Guitarist Randy Jackson's Double
Neck "B.C. Rich Bitch" sounded HUGE, chorus ladened and echo . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3yPXOtIjdM&feature=related
Doing Led Zep and the "Double Neck":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-R57a_qjWfk&feature=related

3rd would be Heart on the "Passion Works" tour, and again . . . awesome.
Nancy Wilson looking gorgeous as ever and her voice ripping the ceiling
open!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pSMOusgPHg&feature=related

Going to concerts would bring a new understanding what it took to get it
off the ground, as well as being able to perform or enhance the music from
the studio to stage.
Perceptions of this growing within me with each band and passing years.

"Those who wish to be, must put aside the alienation, get on with the facination,
the real relation, the underlying theme..."
-Limelight/Rush

Phase 8
"Expanding Realms" circa 1981-84

"In a similar way, At the end of today, I could feel the sound of writing on
the wall, It cries for you, It's the least that you can do, Like a spiral on the
wind, I can hear it screamin' in my mind, Long live Rock and Roll! . . ."
-Long Live Rock n' Roll/Rainbow

So during the time, with new friend Alex would be filled with hanging out
at his Grandmothers, who was VERY Hungarian (she was always saying
"Eat EAT!!!" but she cussed like a sailor) and had a Stockpile of Sodas, and
high-end junkfood like bags of Milanos! It was a wonder Alex was tall and
skinny. You would open any drawer in her immaculate house, and there
would be candy bars, Hostess confections and Pop Tarts!
So it was listening to music, watching movies, talking music, Sci-fi, playing
guitars, drinking and eating. . . hanging out. I was 19.
Never did too much heavy conversation though, I was missing that with
Glen Mayfield, heck . . . with a girl would be a change, but that would
come briefly when I was 21, too sad to talk about here and would involve
too many verses of songs. For another entry in my Book perhaps. It was
brief, sad and both in desperation to feel needed (for acceptance, sex, love
and just needing to feel sympathetic). A short-term relationship that would
be a premonition for the future.

Metal finds a Hero:
Ozzy Osborne would release to the world Randy Rhodes and the New Wave
of British Heavy Metal would hit our shores.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRbPWcLode0
. . . but the ONLY one that I would hear from it, was the great debut from
Def Lepard "On Through the Night", that I played religiously.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLGGKtRDk24&feature=related
Randy took what Eddie Van Halen unleashed on the World, but Randy had the
"Darkside" of its sound, with many Classical flurries/undertones that made it
really different, and lots of Power Chords, so it grabbed many an Influence
from the past but took Metal into the future.
"The Blizzard of Oz" album would be played over and over. There was also a
faster tempo than most Hard Rock/Heavy Metal at the time (other than Priest),
and it is something that appealed to me. I also noticed that Ozzy aquired
Drummer Tommy Aldridge from the Pat Travers Band, so I was already a fan
of his style.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6JA6X25g9M

Also, me and Alex went back through the history of Black Sabbath, we
started listening quite alot to the Debut Sabbath album, dark and scary!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akt3awj_Ah8
And "the Wizard" had a great Harmonica by Ozzy himself:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCjspyo-_aI

Another album I enjoyed . . . and was surprised by the topics,
"Master of Reality" and the Pro-Christian themes it had, very
Church of England, but songs like "Into the Void" stood out:
(Tony Iommi Interview and Music)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epDSucMvP70&feature=related
Then of course . . . the fave for all the Pot-heads:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdD1yrOCwnY

So Black Sabbath; Ozzy; Kansas; Yes; Styx; Pat Travers; Lepard and Van
Halen would be the diet of the day. And new discoveries of Gary Moore; April
Wine; Robin Trower; Billy Squire; Quarterflash, The Cars and Neil Young.
As well as re-discovering Led Zeppelin by purchasing and listening to Alex's
Cassettes. Favorites would be in "Houses of the Holy"; "Physical Graffiti" and
"Presence".
Kashmire:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1yFQ6vcRNk&feature=related
Achilles Last Stand:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lU1oD3JqfN8&feature=related

April Wine:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SX6zdrvmCw8&feature=related
(Love the Guitar Harmonies and the "3 Guitar solo/swaps")
Gary Moore:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ga8ahi7jJg8&feature=related
and the great Intro to "End of the World":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40OR-JtfP_Y&feature=related

(Other than Gary Moore) the radio was often playing many tracks from these
albums and soon, the release of Van Halen's new album,"Fair Warning", me
and Alex worshiped this album and played it daily.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5TNCc4v72I&feature=related

Comprehension of the music filtering through my ears would grow into more
adventurous musics.
I remember asking my friend Alex as we were driving from work, "Have you
heard about this band Iron Maiden?" and he'd say he heard something about
them. But we never pursued it, not even searching for them at record stores.

After a visit from Alex's brother Bob, he played for me the Soundtrack for the
movie "Brainstorm" by James Horner. Funny how I 1st heard it at a Electronic
Store called "The Federated Group". Bob had it on Cassette and we listened
to a few tracks on an early Aiwa Portable, but it sounded really good, and we
cranked it! An employee came around and asked, "What is this? This is really
cool!" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BV-bs5aEMRk
I had yet to see the movie (Brainstorm) but the music made quite an impact on
me . . . it was powerful.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtwCHfmDQ60&feature=related
When I got my own copy on vinyl, and before I slept, I listened to it on
headphones . . . and track 2, "Lillian's heart attack" scared the PANTS off me!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGzt6dx6JNU&feature=related
It would take awhile to get used to it.
Then the gorgeous "Michaels Gift to Karen" for the very touching scene with
Christopher Walken and Natalie Wood (in her last Film):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtKcoQLLecU
This album along with the Star Wars soundtracks, would inspire me to get into
this genre.

When I visited Alex's family in the suburbs of Las Vegas, we went to a Record
store around the "Strip" and it would be the 1st place to buy Focus albums.
Eventually buying a few more, and Focus "3" would be a fave because of a few
songs having "medieval qualities" about them:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEZdXfcOdLY&feature=related
(later discovering the Strawbs and "Folk Prog" or the Canterbury Sound) and
also purchasing Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9A60e16SvM
Strawbs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuuCHawtzZc&feature=PlayList&p=
1F6224FAD8756F1F&index=59

And speaking of the Canterbury Sound, because of my love of medieval
history, I would buy almost any Rock album with a medieval theme (like Rick
Wakemans "Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round
Table") from my childhood love of Knights and its history. I came across an
album with a "Knightly" cover, the song titles were interesting, so I bought it
and took it home. As the 1st track came on, the music was in-different key
(or so I thought) of the vocals, and the more it went on, the more dissonant it
became, but it did have a melodic quality, but . . . I must have had the face of
dog when it hears a strange noise.
As the album went on, that sound was getting weirder, I didn't know what to
make of it. The musicianship was strong, and the vocal layering/harmonies
were really beautiful, but this was NOT what I thought it would be.
This was Gentle Giant and the album "The Power and the Glory". The song
"Cogs and Cogs" with its beautiful intertwining vocal layering would be a fave,
but this album would have to grow on me for the next 20 years when I could
understand it. I had a lot to learn (I think this album was a big influence on the
Kansas "Point of Know Return" album, especially songs "The Spider" and
"Paradox", as well as the obvious for Spocks Beard; Echolyn; Advent; Eye
Strings and the like which would be discovered in a whole other lifetime).
Other albums would be purchased in more recent years and i'd hear what I'd
been missing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiKlrZEGTyM

The Moody Blues would be another purchase and I loved the poetry within
the moody tunes. Their debut "Days of Future Past" and "On the Threshold of
a Dream" would be new (old) faves. And I'd buy other albums in years to
come. But I loved the prose and poetic dialogue intros!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo2DQBlVcJ0
Soon they would return with their new album "The Long Distance Voyager"
in 1984.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fv8oKH0_lac&feature=related

This was also a time I tried to learn how to play Guitar from a neighborhood
music store and a former guitarist of "The Ink Spots(later years)", which I
appreciated and was happy to learn the basics . . . it was just that I could not
remember the lessons, like school, I was not able to comprehend what was
being taught, I couldn't grasp it, a wall that plagues me to this day.
But from the same unit that used to be the store that held that album with the
"Nude man" on the cover, I got my own Guitar, again a "half-ass purchase" of
a cheap Memphis brand (plywood) for $150.
A Black Stratocaster, why? One name . . .
Ritchie Blackmore.

1. The Rainbow induction

"You don't know what's happening, you want to go home, but there's nowhere to hide
You walk out on stage, your first time alone, the crowd's going wild
And you feel so alive, you could stand up and take this all night
They love you but you're in love with the spotlight
You're the spotlight kid!"
-Spotlight Kid/Rainbow

On latenites I would stay up watching the new "Video" shows sprouting up.
This particular one was called Rock World and this episode featured "Rainbow"
at the 1st "Monsters of Rock at Castle Donnington Speedway" in England.
This was a leg for the Down to Earth tour (apparently "monsters" was started
up by Rainbow's Promoter).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsters_of_Rock
The sounds coming from all the musicians, the stage presence and Blackmore
just SHREDDING his White Strat with sounds that made my jaw drop! His "lip
singing" the notes and at moments in a trance as if he was far away in this
guitar dream world, as he let notes fly off and hover into the air with thousands
of fans in COMPLETE silence!
Blackmore and his Strat in a Guitar FX extravaganza of feedback, tremolo,
string bending-sounding like a wolf howling and entwined with haunting notes
enhanced by his Taurus Pedals adding Major/Minor notes and nuances.
. . . As a note faded into the night sky, it segued into Graham Bonnets rendition
of The Shirelles "Will you still love me tomorrow" . . . INCREDIBLE!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=So9f5ZEFDQc
with "Eyes of the World" intro:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlYkSYwDzfU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTxJJaqPdbU
"Difficult to Cure" with new singer Joe Lynn Turner would soon come.
"Spotlight Kid" was a Radio Single and I loved the main Riff and the "sound"
Don Airey chose for the Keyboard Solo! From there I bought every album
from their history and would also discover another name of their past
. . . Dio.
I worshiped Blackmore and Rodney James Dio, and then the airwaves would
introduce Dio with Black Sabbath and more albums to my growing collection
(and even an album of his Blues/Rock debut band "Elf". Had to have MORE
Dio!). Going back into their past catalogue, I religiously listened to "Rising";
"On-Stage" and "Long Live Rock N' Roll".
I also became a LP collector and of ANY EP-single I could find from
Rainbow, as I still do to this day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-aHeoLuMDY
(1977 w/Ronnie James Dio)
Dio with Sabbath:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frtJQFe9apw&feature=related
The album "Heaven and Hell" would be a staple on my Turntable.

Rainbow's "Tarot Woman" from Rising:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPkiwdHXXFA&feature=related

From there, I'd go back further to Deep Purple and re-discover a band that
influenced a genre and a generation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fp8avo9MENw&feature=related
Ritchie Blackmore became my Guitar Hero. Showmanship with "chops",
he rose from a Bluesman, Rock, Even a little "Funk", one of the Founders
of Heavy Metal and Post-Progressive Rock to Neo-Classical and beyond.
He had all I wanted and more!
"Lazy":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6x8GGXrCFQ&playnext_from=PL&feature=
PlayList&p=4FDB56BECB104AFF&playnext=1&index=18
Later years after Ian Gillian (vocal extrordinaire) . . .
"You Fool No-one":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5CoGJevTuo
(With David Coverdale on Vocals, later to form the Rythem & Blues/Hard
Rock band "Whitesnake")

Rainbow Bio:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_(band)
Deep Purple and the "Family Tree":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Purple

2. The Education of Rush: 1981
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrejJHPnVfk&feature=related

"All the world's indeed a stage, and we are merely players, performers and portrayers
Each another's audience, outside the gilded cage"
-Limelight/Rush

But on FM radio, I would hear more from Moving Pictures and it was time
to make a purchase. After I got fired from the assembly job and one of my
strange fates with friends that would just "fade away", Alex and I went our
separate paths and I found a job at a Printer, loading up paper and cutting
them. Across the street there was, the now long gone, Zody's Department
store. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hq0C3OUaTow
They had this LP clearance sale and ALL the Rush albums up to Moving
Pictures for $2.99 . . . I bought them all and began my odyssey.
(The Tour album, "Exit...Stage Left" would soon follow. It would be the 1st
time to hear them live, Somehow I missed Rush when they were on Don
Kirchner's Rock Concert, same for Kansas).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lpVjXwAfm0&feature=related

It would be profound, each album had its own world of musicianship and
ideas that would baffle, amaze and inspire me and would be my soundtrack
for my drawing sessions. . . . These guys were GIANTS!
"2112" was a Sci-fi kids dream, the music was cinematic with a Hard Rock/
Prog soundtrack! but every song was soo beautiful, from its 2112 side A
to side B and the individual songs, and the haunting mellotron laden "Tears".
The cinematic would continue with "Farewell to Kings" and the same feelings
I would have with Yes's "Close to the Edge" were found in Rush's "Xanadu".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qH_PPzcpeBw
But the last track "Cygnus X-1", a voyage that was, much like Bowman's
perilous hyperspace flight in 2001: A Space Odyssey, another cinematic
journey through sound, I can't imagine a fans anticipation for the next album
when the last words on Cygnus lyric sheet says, "to be continued", and here
I am breaking time and space . . .
I then held in my hand the album I called "Gay" so many years ago . . .
As that $45 needle from that Pioneer Turntable I saved up for, hit the groove
of side 1, my life would change like seeing that Star Destroyer flying over my
head in that Cinema in 77. I couldn't believe that 3 guys could produce such
sounds, colours, and scenes. I held this album in my hand when it came out
and I "didn't buy it!!?" NUTS!!! Who knows what I'd become if I heard
"Hemispheres" back then! The same, or a musician, a drug addict?
All I knew was, this was the most brilliant piece of music I had EVER heard.

A Rush Fanatic I became.

Neil Pearts words, let alone his amazing abilities on his ever growing Kits,
would transport me to wondrous worlds and everyday thought, in profound
lyrics that resonate in me, and sometimes find there way into my vocabulary
to this day.
But it is because of The "Professor", I would become a Drum fan and hear the
difference between a player and a Drummer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qF-k4wg70rg&feature=related
Alex Lifeson. . . his "sound" so synonymous to Rush and what they are. One
of the most underrated Guitarists there is! From the technical, to the moody,
the atmospheric and sublime. It would be his sound (as well as his mates) in
those crazy time signatures, but also his Guitar tone and style in which he
played, filling the role of a second guitarist, that would be unique to my growing
ears and a prolific understanding of what music could be.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N415bC2xCwA
Geddy Lee has the most distinguishable voice in Rock . . . but then the Bass.
I'm not sure if anybody truly appreciates what the man DOES on that 4 string
Bass, listen to the older pieces (as now), he does NOT just add a "beat" or
rhythm, the man plays it like a 6 string Guitar! And the tone was his signiture.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUNxqE_3N0c
And STILL to this day, they sound like "musicians", not old fogies trying to
live on there past. They create MUSIC.
For now on, they would set the standard and ALL would follow.
To this day, I am still on the look out for any LP's, Promo Discs (CD and LP),
EP's and Tour Programmes that I can get my hands on.
Bands have done Tributes and interpitations of their music, but none can
emulate their knowledge of recording, playing style or sound, that makes
them squeeze out soo much music, from a "Trio" that plays more like a 6
piece band. This IS the definition of a Power Trio.
Kansas and Rush would be at a tug of war for my favorite bands of all time.

But with the older albums, I would re-discover the "Permenant Waves" album,
it was still fresh and new. Hearing "The Spirit of Radio" properly on a good
Turntable made it more dynamic and the time changes were soo damn unique
at that time. "Freewill" was another unique piece that it could be a hit, yet be
un-radio like, Alex's Guitar Solo was more akin to a Jazz piece, take away the
Drums and Bass and its a Fusion masterpiece! It almost has no Rock
elements in it, almost freeform, but you bring in the Bass and Drums and it
follows the lines, but still it comes from another World, it has to be one of my
favorite all time Solos!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDqDlRf8wxs&feature=related
. . . not only that, but the prolific words and clever phrasings that fit the music
so well! Words that would grow in meaning as I got older, at first I thought it
was "Anti-Deity", but we all have a Freewill, and my guide does not want
"Jesus Robots", but a human being of freewill and a conscience.
We all have a choice, and this song was a reminder that our own choices, if
we believe it is right without malicious intent, its the right one (or a "kindness
that can kill", we choose our path what ever it may be).
It didn't stop there, 2 "Ballads" that only Rush could make unique, "Alone
and yet together like 2 passing Ships":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAjcbiCcFlI
"Entre Nous" showed that prog Bands could write well thought out "Love Songs"
that was not only from the heart, but with some intelligents.
"Jacobs Ladder" was Cinematic, A "Film" of Clouds would grow in my head as
"Thunder Heads are rumbling through our distant overture", it was the anatomy
of a sky battle of Storm Clouds represented in music!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnkwhHOjv-4&feature=related
But the big Final was to be a favorite, Epic and prolific, from our "beginnings" of
life to possibly "losing our way", science and nature colliding, yet we have that
will to create something unique and go beyond what is "instinct".
"Natural Science":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkX2bmWmNd0

. . . To say I was overwhelmed by their catalogue is an understatement.

Rush Bio:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Rush

Finally purchasing an Emerson Lake & Palmer album!!!
I'd end up finding ELP's "Pictures at an Exhibition" and would listen to it
quite alot, and STILL did not own "Brain Salad Surgery".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Y1x04hAUT4

"Talk, talk, it's only talk, debates, discussions, these are words with a D this time,
Dialogue, dualogue, diatribe, dissention, declamation, double talk, double talk"
-Elephant Talk/King Crimson

Another introduction to something that should've made me run out and get
EVERY album. A show that tried to ride the Saturday Night Live band wagon
in 1981. A comedy show called "Fridays"(on ABC) and this band comes on
that I had heard of a long time ago, these guys were soo incredible I didn't
know what to think of them, they were sort of New Wavish, but . . .
progressive.
The SOUNDS coming out of this smiling mans Guitar was NUTS! and is that
Bill Bruford on Drums!? It was King Crimson promoting the "Discipline" album
and it was . . . insane (until YOUtube, I thought I'd NEVER see this again).
Adrian Belew left an impression on me with his "Dialogue" vocals, his happy
dimeanor and crazy playing style, as well as Tony Levin on Bass, and it just
might be the 1st for me to notice bass playing of that calibur since Geddy Lee.
And seeing Robert Fripp "sitting" as all these busy notes came flying out of his
fingers (it was before or after this I read about Bill Brufords history in a
magazine called "Musician" and he also talked about his "Mutant" kit that is in
the vid, notice the Simmons Electronic Drums, he was 1 of the first to use
them).
I went out and got the album probably a few months later and became one of
my all time favorites. As I collected more albums in the years to come, I would
discover that the 3 "Primary colour albums" (Discipline, Beat and Three of a
Perfect Pair) were a different line-up and sound, of their previous history.
These 3 would be my faves (as well as the albums to come after), but would
slowly re-discover a band with a rich influencial history.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76eoyyem2K8
(Note: seems ABC/YOUtube keeps deleating it for copyright bullshit, hopefully it
is still up by the time you click on link).
I've never seen Guitarist/Founder (on Chair) Robert Fripp THIS happy (hehe).

It was there I would discover another "U.K." based band. . . . and a few others.

Phase 9
. . . Heavy Metal, Heavier times.

"For the windows of the world, are never open all the way, and the voices of the past
are not forgotten
Till you leave it all behind you, you will never see the day, 'cause your life is on the line"
-Windows/Kansas

To be Continued . . .

Opus Insert
("The Pied Piper, The Anatomy of a Whistle or How to annoy as many people as
possible").

Or how about, "You're not paid to be a Canary!", what the hell am I talking
about you may ask. Well my Father was a damn good whistler. In fact, he was
always in the same key of the musics he whistled along with.
In-turn, I was to imitate my Dad-imitate the music I loved. I have always been
an imitator of sounds, birds, animals, musical instruments, celebs, cartoons,
sound FX, since I was a little kid.
But I vaguely remember a Hit song that had whistling in it back in the 60's.
My Dad would imitate it to a T, and I started doing it, though it wasn't the "O"
shaped mouth-blowing air out, was more the "sides of the mouth open with
the tongue tip touching the pallet behind the teeth, like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbQh8mTLUU0&feature=related
I started "singing" melodies by whistling, much like Guitarists playing the
vocal parts of songs (as I do :P), and that includes any inflection in the
voice, any subtlety. Then I started doing this with the melodies of music of
the instrument, mainly Guitars and keyboards-from there I was imitating them,
(and Drums, again, like a "Beat-Box"), but I was doing this since the late 60's.
Bass was a controled "farting" sound (Ha!), but I'd add a "voice" to it, so it
became 2 sounds at the same time, even the "Fretless" sound. Same for
Drums, a popping sound as well as tongue on pallet, mouth opens quickly,
teeth clenshed and air through the teeth-Snare and High Hat and other
Cymbals, it went onto emulating China Crashes, Double Bass Toms (Kick
Drums), Electronic Pads, Wind Instruments . . . call me "Bobby McFerrin",
before . . . Bobby McFerrin (why didn't someone tell me I could make money
with this, instead I'm bragging to Prog Heads that don't have any money! :P).
One thing I still catch myself doing is, when I imitate a Guitar sound, I "whistle"
the "Harmonics", I just can't help myself. When I hear Eric Johnson's "Bristol
Shore", its either a high E or a harmonic towards the end of the song, I plant
that tougue up to the pallet by the teeth and blow "(schh)TTEEEEEEE!!!!"
. . . I'm a freak.
Then Geof Tate comes along and for 3 albums has his trademark whistles,
the best comes from "I will remember" from Rage for Order (Queensryche):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcA9JhbWYAo
Everytime I see the "Unplugged" version of it, where Tate "doesn't" whistle
any of the parts, I whistle the parts :P When I'm in a large Parking Garage,
I get the urge to whistle it . . . and damn it, when I'm goofy enough to do it,
Blow man blow!
. . . I'm such a weirdo! what is wrong with me?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83bmsluWHZc&feature=related
"Be HAPPY at your work!"

A Prog Musician's Pledge

2009-02-05T11:15:00.000-08:00

1. I will keep my chops and my mind sharp, as a tool needs to always be ready to work.

2. I will be humble about my chops and my mind, but I will never be afraid to use them.

3. I will keep my mind open to influences and I will continue to learn and absorb so my songs may reflect the world as it is, was, and could be.

4. I will never write vapid, hollow songs unless I am writing a concept album that has vapid, hollow characters.

5. I will veil any love songs, if written at all, in metaphor like "You spread your gossamer wings above the breaking dawn." The phrases ooh baby baby, yeah baby baby, and hey baby baby are verboten (see #4 for exceptions).

6. I will not write songs about how much I rock, how much you rock, how much Rock rocks, how much I want to rock you, or how you rock me baby baby (See also #4).

7. I will always be in it for the love and joy of music, never for the money.

8. I will fear no meter or rhythm no matter how "non-danceable" someone else thinks it is.

9. I will fear no harmony no matter how dissonant it is.

10. I will fear no melody no matter how oblique it is.

11. I will moderate the use and be wary of the overuse of 4/4, 3/4, 6/8 and of I-IV-V, I-vi-ii-V, and vi-vii-I.

12. I will remember the past of prog and look forward to the future of prog.

13. I will take my music seriously but not myself.

This is the first draft of this list. Although I like having 13 items I'm open to additions. Any thoughts?

The Great Debate

2009-01-20T11:43:00.000-08:00

Is Falling Into Infinity an album so evil? Is it not?

The record company forced the band to write a more song based album, less progressive, for spreading the masses. Evil evil capitalism, really.

To draw my "lines in the sand", let me start at the beginning.

It was in 1990, prog seemed dead to me for many years, I was into metal, King's X was the high end of greatly crafted music, metal itself was beyond the edge of a mass product, my musical self was dumb, my interest almost dead.

When I listened to a friend's copy of "When Dream And Day Unite" I was very much impressed that someone does make this great music again and I instantly got me a copy myself. It took many listens over some months to explore and understand the full divineness of this recording. A good, good sign.

"Image And Words" was so different, it was almost shocking, but still, another divine album. Their first gig in my area, supported by Fates Warning. Awake came out, another album, again heading another direction. The fusion elements Sherinian introduced to the band combined with a new move of progmetal. Another gig, where they played "The Great Medley", a pre-release tour. Awesome, awesome! I already was a big fan of them. "A Change Of Seasons" again took me months to really understand everything they did put in there, as every album before.

It went on and on, every new album showed some new directions and skills of those guys, it was unbelievable.

"Falling Into Infinity" simply showed that they have those fine skills in writing "normal" songs too. Nothing bad for me, and I loved those songs and still do. As for gaining fans, it may have helped, but wasn't necessary anyway. The band Dreamtheater got mentioned in every corner of the global metal scene, like wildfire.

Gods. Creators of the universe.

Then came "6 Degrees Of Inner Turbulence". Looking back in 2009 now, I think this album introduced the turning point. It sounded to me as if they lost some love, some enthusiasm.Still the fine writing of those gods, but it didn't touch me emotionally. I never warmed up on it and never will.

"Train Of Thought" hit me better, it was a bit like back to "Awake". But less innovative, harder, faster, but almost without all those fine ideas in writing that made them being the gods of DT. "Octavarium" got even worse. 7 normal-length tunes that plainly pump out guitar - aggression without saying anything or leaving any kind of impression or emotion. The prog epic Octavarium sounds like an interwaved collection of prog clones; you simply never hear a DT-identity in any of its notes. The band regresses tragically.

They move to Roadrunner Records. Light at the end of the tunnel?

"Systematic Chaos" - oh no, the regressing line continued linearly. As BG said so perfectly: They are nothing more than a proggier, better Metallica. I didn't purchase this album.

What will the next album be like? A prog - Motörhead with LaBrie - vox. I better do not imagine that....

I don't think so, rather than that I bet they will not change any further and keep up doing the same and the same, stating that this is the DT sound. Their place in the market.

Twisting this article by 6 degrees, I go back to "Falling Into Infinity", the fan collecting album Atlantic insisted on.

The album is good, it ever was, it just showed another aspect of those geniusses.

I have no idea for what reason they changed label. Not knowing anything is good in that case, gives me a chance to speculate:

Atlantic saw where they are heading to and tried to bring them back on the track of being innovative and spectacular. DT didn't want to, they intend to reinforce their place in the market as the DT sound. A tross on a money collecting quest.

Now would that be better than the intention of releasing "FII"?

If they wanna get me back in the boat, they better concentrate on new musical adventures, bring in a couple of different styles and genres, show their incredible skills, set up more new, higher levels in prog metal, give me a reason for studying an new album for several months.

What we got for the last few albums was a bunch of so extremely high skilled geniusses hanging in the couch of a progmetal-Bonjovi. Please guys, stop that tragedy!!!!!

What's it gonna take to get noticed these days?

2009-01-16T06:10:00.000-08:00

If you're George Bellas, it takes a lot.

I think the postmen in Finland must be underpaid. Lion Music used to send out their album promos in the mail quite unprotected in nothing but paper sleeves, and some of them that arrived in my mailbox looked like they had been smashed with a hammer. It doesn't take a huge amount of force to crack a CD, but it does to smash one into many pieces. These postmen must be venting all of their salary frustrations on the Lion Music promos. In any case, Lion Music recently stopped sending out promos in the mail, and have opted for a new digital download system. One of their recent offerings is a new album by George Bellas, his second release in 2008 if anybody is keeping track.

When I casually glanced at the new album on the Lion Music download center I noticed that this Bellas album only had one track available for download, and thought to myself that it must be a promo song for his upcoming album or something which is not uncommon to see in the music business. After the download started I walked away and came back several minutes later and it was still only about 10% done. "Hmm, Surely it would have been done by now. I do have broadband," I said to myself. It was then I realized that there was something special here, because after going back to look again track 1 on the disk was 75 minutes long! What could it be? Did Lion Music compress the whole album into one download for convenience? No, their other albums aren't like that. What is it then? Did George Bellas really write and record one song that's 75 minutes in length? My curiosity was piqued.

Take a look over at the Truth In Shredding blog and look at the right hand column. There are so many guitarists there are with solo albums these days. Some of the names I've heard of, but most of them look totally unfamiliar to me. It must be pretty tough to get noticed if you are one of them. I don't care to speculate on the reasons why musicians write music the way they do. There are probably as many different answers as there are guitarists on that site. But an album with one 76 minute song on it means several things to me. One, that they have definitely stretched some musical boundaries, especially in the world of instrumental guitar albums. And two, that they are intellectually capable of writing such a song. He has my attention. Now here's a quote on the Lion Music website about the album:

George’s goal on "STEP INTO THE FUTURE" was to compose ultra-modern sounding music that used composition techniques that he had not previously used on any of his other releases. George comments, “I did not initially plan to write a 76 minute song, it just came out that way. I just kept writing and writing and as more ideas came to me, I eventually realized that this was turning into a behemoth of a song. The album was not a bunch of separate tracks that were merged together after the fact, but it was indeed written as one long continuous piece. There are several factors that differentiate "STEP INTO THE FUTURE" from my previous releases, one of which is that this album contains only one song that is 76 minutes long. Other significant factors are the compositional techniques that I employed. Although I am known to compose very complex, progressive music, I did not want to use the same elements found on my previous releases. So, all fresh scales, meters and chords were written specifically for this album. I was very much inspired by advanced compositional techniques such as: Interval Sets, Twelve Tone Serialism, Poly-Meters, Poly-Chords, Quartal and Quintal Harmony to name a few. I was also inspired to have a bunch of very melodic guitar playing with very lyrical themes that at times had a melancholy feel to them. To put it simply, I was imaginatively inspired with what the future may hold. I would also say that "STEP INTO THE FUTURE" is the most dynamic album I have released so far. This album was not written as a showcase for guitar solos, it is composition in the truest and finest sense there is. I really strived for something that captivated my senses with ultra imaginative, highly unique, creative writing”.

Sounds pretty intriguing, and indeed the album really is. Thankfully it is not chock full of some guy playing 64th notes and arpeggios as fast as humanly possible the whole time. There's real song structure here writing in the prog epic style, with lots of dynamics and plenty of imaginative ideas, odd time signatures, and slow and fast-paced passages. There is musical genius here, that much is clear.

The challenge for me was how to present this album in a radio-friendly format for the station. While it would be nice to hear this whole thing in it's entirety, I decided that it would be better to break it down into several lengthy segments that would still give it an epic feel without being so lengthy that it would aggravate the listeners.

I hope you take some time to get to know this CD, I think it's really a unique creation and I hope it does get George Bellas some notoriety. He sure got my attention in a BIG way this time.

Best of 2008

2008-12-30T22:13:00.000-08:00

Yes, I know most other music related sites are doing the same, but still...I couldn't resist.

Lets keep the list to the top 3 and have a small description for each.

If any of you (co-authors or readers) would like to join, please add you own top 3 as a comment and I will move it to the main article.

Below are the current contributors (click on [+/-] to show/hide):

BG [+/-]

1. Ayreon - 01011001

This is an amazing album. At first I was disappointed since I expected more guitars and a heavier sound, but the songs grew on me and this quickly became my most listened to album of the year. The most compelling side of this production is the range of vocalist that mr. Lucassen got involved and especially the way he managed to "use" them...it never feels like a case of too many cooks spoiling the meal. This album also has references (through the lyrics) to other Ayreon releases, which made me revisit all of them...just to connect the dots

2. Jupiter Society - First Contact / Last Warning

Sometimes not liking something at all is a good start. I suppose the music and vocals found on this album is so atypical that it may put you off at first. For me this is also it's strength....the emotion and atmosphere is crunching and demands your attention from beginning to end. It is dark, brooding and gives you a constant feeling of impending doom...I like it :)

3. Opeth - Watershed

What is it with Sweden and prog rock/metal? It seems they spawn buckets full of great bands and albums on a yearly basis. Opeth is, by no means, new...but they keep renewing themselves with every album. This is not as good as the previous one, but far better than anything else that aspires to become something in the same category. As a kid I sometimes listened to death metal but never really liked the growling and grunts. Opeth has found the perfect balance between harsness of "death" and the beauty and intricateness of prog.

Foster [+/-]

1. Ayreon - 01011001

I'm a big Ayreon fan, and this album didn't disappoint. There are some incredible moments on here, and there's just something about that signature Ayreon sound that is so appealing.

2. Paul Gilbert - Silence Followed By A Deafening Roar

An incredible album from one of my favourite guitarists. So many different sounding songs on this album, all with amazing fretwork. I would have bought this for Progulus by now if it wasn't for the fact that I have no money. Same goes for his Get Out Of My Yard album.

3. Opeth - Watershed

I wasn't really a big Opeth fan (the growling put me off) until earlier this year, when I got hold of Ghost Reveries.. And then my opinion changed. I really like this album, but it's only really making this list because this year was a little bit disappointing in terms of releases compared to last year.

Stringray [+/-]

1. Amaseffer - Exodus - Slaves For Life

The blend of jewish music, prog metal and "soundtrack" is extremely well done. I love it's tragical style (despite the bible theme). The album is full of great suspense curves, from rather cheesy elements through several emotional states, up to almost death metal and back. On top of that some awesome solo guitar playing at a highest level tone and not to mention Mats Leven's outstanding vocals, combined with oriental vocal performances by Kobi Farhi.
Also best newcomer 2008!

2. Mindflow - Destructive Device

After 2 albums I didn't spend much attention for, here it comes: a mainly metal oriented piece with fine crafted vocal melodies, a couple of prog elements in it, containing time signatures that make most people stumble, but kicking me into heavy grooving.
The cocept works quite well; the production output is a perfect metal sound that makes aggresion physical through bashing airwaves at my body.
I skip the "binaural tracks", but that's really a minor minus.

3. Andromeda - The Immunity Zone

It took me years to recognize the band at all and now I'm totally in love with their music. Their delight in writing and playing is addictive to me, I love how they simply have fun in juggling notes just for the joy of doing it, and stil they manage to create fine tunes that way that don't seem to 'noodle' along at any time.
For me they're the band that comes closest to the good old Kansas, who I tend to call my prog roots.

Lamneth [+/-]

This was a hard decision for me this year, because there were two albums that I think both deserve the #1 spot, and in the end my choice came down to a right brain vs. left brain decision.

1. Karmakanic - Who's The Boss in the Factory

Highly complex, technically difficult, seamlessly interwoven, these are the things that I crave. Karmakanic finally delivers more than 2 years after their announced release date. This music could be described as Flower Kings for people who hate the Flower Kings, because it's an idealized version that seems superior in almost every way and still has the brilliant Jonas Rheingold touch.

2. Everon - North

This must have been a very difficult album for Oliver Phillips to write and record, because he touches on some of his very personal emotional experiences. But I guess he always does that. This album (and band) is so brilliant because they are so adept at sharing the human experience in a way that touches us without being too mushy (well except for 'Islanders' anyway). There's great songwriting here and great production as well.

3. Fromuz - Overlook

I had the hardest time picking the #3 slot because there's a lot of good releases this year that I could have put here but nothing that really stood out as more exceptional than the others. I went with the album that has received the most spin time in my car. I've already reviewed the album here in detail so there's no reason to repeat myself. Brilliant.

Arcarneiro [+/-]

From the few '08 albums that I have (most of them I got from my friends!!! thx!!!), here are my top 3 fave ones....

1. Zero Hour - Dark Deceiver

On every album, they get better and better. After the very good Specs of Picture Burnt Beyond, these heroes of tech-metal come with another fine release. Hopefully, now they got settled with a singer, and a quite good one, they can get more tight and improve their sound. At 1st, didn't enjoy Chris voice, but now thinks that he's perfect of ZH!!! Awesome technical display by all band members, specially Troy on the bass and his Tendoniti

2. Presto Ballet - The Lost Art Of Time Travel

Delightful prog-rock album! Very enjoyable from start to finish!!! Great keyboard work, with all the Hammonds, Mellotrons and all that...

3. 7for4 - Diffusion

Another mix of different kinds of music styles and another awesome fusion album. Didn't top my fave album Time, but it's just great. Very cohesive album with no weakness. Even tho the work is based mainly on Wolfgang Zenk's guitar, every one have space to breathe and contribute for this great instrumental album.

Runner-up for the 3rd: Mindflow - Destructive Device.

Was quite surprised by it. Even tho liked their 2 1st albums, always thought that they lack a bit of identity. Plenty of hooks on the album, something that was somewhat missing on the previous. It continues the Alternate Reality Game started on the previous album, adding a very interesting touch with the 2 binaural tracks, which may also be a annoying thing, if the person don't know what it is about or doesn't care for the game. A very good Metal album with a bit of Prog-Metal flavor here and there... My only complain about it is that it almost looks like that that Ben Grosse wrote, recorded, played, and sung the whole album... you almost see his name everywhere... didn't like this move by the band. It seems they are trying to catch some "outside" attention to the album by all means... it feels really strange to me see his name directly in the cover of the album.

Rock is the new Pop

2008-12-22T22:33:00.000-08:00

It seems that most non-mainstream artist at some point get so fed up about the music industry’s attempts to stifle creativity in exchange for profit, that they get inspired to write songs pointing the wrong doings of the corporations. I am not only talking about “poor” guys like George Michael (can’t believe I dare mention him here on this site) who could not change record label and wrote a song whining about “Freedoom….Freedoom ….You gotta give be4 u takeee” but also artists who are “persuaded” into performing a specific kind of music.

Thankfully there exist some labels that specialize in prog and other minority genres, so everything is not hopeless although only the most recognized (counted in album sales) band have a chance to move on to a bigger label and distribution channels.

Anyway, I thought it would be interesting to find out what prog artists have "done a Georg Michael” and let out some steam through their lyrics. On the top of my head I can think of the following:

Spocks beard – V - The Great Nothing
Explorers Club – Age of Impact - (whole album)
Rush - Permanent Waves – The Spirit Of Radio

…but I am sure there are many more.

I think what the most prog fans abhor in pop is the repetitiveness. MAVIII said it nicely in his last post :

“…base their rhythms from another song that was sampled, and then add some annoying FX sample and have it in the song over and over to create a beat or somekind of "cool" factor. And great! The chorus is pretty much the entire song, repeated over and over and over and over and over…”

Unfortunately this kind of stuff sell by the millions, so that is what the big labels strive to achieve in as many bands and genres as possible. To be fair, the labels are not all to blame since consumers happily buy what they offer. On the other hand, if the same labels had a bigger hand in exposing the non-mainstream, I am sure that many would break away from their current listening habits.

[hippie & futureman (chorus)]

A secret yearning lurks inside
like a dream trying to hide
another time, another space
an empty feeling haunts my brain
a strange void I can't explain
another time, another space

“Another Time, Another Space” by Ayreon on the album “Into The Electric Castle”

I have always believed that many people don’t know what they like. They just don’t know what treasures are out there until someone helps them to make the discovery. That is how I developed my own taste in music. I was listening to pop until someone showed me the hidden chest, turned the key and opened a completely new world.

To get back to the subject about repetitiveness...what really annoys me these days are the “successful” attempts to turn rock into pop. It’s not a new trend, but it is bigger business than ever. To describe what I mean...take this band, I don’t even remember their name, but they have a nice chorus line going something like this: “I will find something more of what I had before. Shame on you baby…forever your’s”. The band (or label) must have really liked that one since they repeat it a gazillion times. The style they play is rock, but their performance is pure pop. Their music is like candy, it tastes good for awhile, but when you don’t stop eating it’s going to make you puke.

Another example of rock turning pop is “Nickelback”. I my book they are the archetype of this phenomenon. There was an interesting article some time ago about how they, in their attempt to be creatively lazy, plagiarized themselves: Follow this link to read about it.

Even the harder rock is going the same direction. Just take a band like “Linkin park”. Have you ever felt that they lacked creativity? Well maybe they do, just look the following images:

What I've Done

Faint

Somwhere I Belong

Crawling

Numb

Lying From You

Please read the article related to these images here.

Alright…enough rants from me this time. Now I will go and listen to some real music and soon I will have forgotten all about pop....

Windy tunes and cookware

2008-12-21T10:43:00.000-08:00

So it's a frigid 6ºF below zero with a wind chill of -27 at the moment. My roommate is also a musician and one of the first things she said to me this morning is "how do you like our door playing overtones?" The back door isn't sealed perfectly and when the wind gusts it plays tones. Somewhere between the sound of a Native American flute and a French Horn. Of course, being the music geek that I am I had to grab a guitar and figure out the notes. It's playing Bb-C-Eb and F, pretty well in tune. Guitar in hand I joked that I was going to go jam with the door. She suggested my next song title, Door Jamb Blues. I think she's on to something.

I also had to mention this morning how I found the skillet to have a nice bell tone to it. Just give it a whack with a hand, knee, head, whatever is handy and you get a cool ringing. I've always been one to make instruments out of whatever is at hand. I like finding that pan or box or table that has a cool tone. I guess I am fascinated by sound. The other day I noticed the shower was dripping in a clave pattern. To me, music is everywhere, in every sound. I wonder how much of my fascination with making music out of every sound in hard wired in my brain and how much is the result of all my musical training.

Whether hard wired or experiential, I think this aspect of me is a key to my love of prog, and all forms of music that push boundaries and go outside the formula. I'm always looking for something new. I want to hear that thing that I've never heard before. I think that is a central quest of my songwriting. Can I take my experience and training and all the thoughts in my head and condense them in to a song that sounds new and fresh, that says something new. Or says something I've heard before, but in a new way. I think keeping open ears is essential. I might hear a new song of Progulus that does it for me, or it might be a water clave. In either case I think I am always staying open. That musical part of my brain is always on because I don't know where the next new sound will come from.

(No Seans were harmed in the writing of this blog)

The Road to Life and Progressive Rock Part IV

2008-12-18T15:41:00.000-08:00

Phase4

Home.

"All my life I knew you were waiting, revelation, anticipating, All is well, the
searching is over, let the truth be known, Let it be shown (give me a glimpse
of home)"
- Glimpse of Home/Kansas

As spiritually to Kerry Livgren (Kansas founder/guitarist) and to myself, it would be
prophetic those words. Where Home seemed to be and what spiritual guide would
reveal themselves . . . we both would come to understand much later.
But home for now was a nice roof over our heads . . .

It's 1978-79.
The move to our new "House" was a welcome one.
From the sweltering heat of the Valley, to the suburbs of West Covina.

3 MORE YEARS!
Since my education was ruined by my experiences in Louisiana, the only
solace was Art class. It's Late in my Junior year at Nogales High School in
La Puente/West Covina, and we were allowed to listen to the radio and took
turns listening to different stations, unfortunately only 2 to 3 of us were into
Rock, so it was a treat to hear on KLOS, KWEST and KMET , the latter 2 are
now long gone, which was too bad, especially KWEST, from my rare listens,
they played more progressive Rock music (And I remember hearing ELP's
Karn Evil part II, possibly the 1st time I actually heard it all the way through).
But KMET would stay on the air till about 83-84, a station that would
introduce a taste of "NWOBH" years later . . . but that's another story.
Yes; Journey; REO Speedwagon; Kansas; Genesis; Boston; Ted Nugent;
Lynyrd Skynyrd; Outlaws; Aerosmith; FogHat; Robin Trower; Deep Purple;
Uriah Heep; Fleetwood Mac; Santana; Led Zeppelin; Supertramp; ELO; the
Who; Moody Blues; Queen; Cheap Trick; UFO; Bad Company; Bob Seger;
Heart; Steely Dan; James Gang/Joe Walsh; Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers;
Pink Floyd between the AWFUL : Greatful Dead; Van Morrison; the Doors;
Jefferson Airplane; AC~DC; Bruce Springsteen; Bob Dylan; Jackson Browne;
Bowie; The Rolling Stones, yes (hehe), I was not a fan of those particular
artists at that time, some have grown on me.

. . . But when I heard a cut from YES "Drama"(1980), I think it maybe one of
those times I started noticing a difference in this music without anyones
insight or influence, what this music was and how complex, and I would
defend it against the "Rock Haters" of the school!

. . . then the other kids would bitch and moan and the radio would turn to an
R&B station.

Its hard being a rocker.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78BivgombIE

Another foray into Fusion/Prog would come in 3 people:
From a one time visit, a friend "from the hall ways", Rick Lacero (who played
drums for the school band) at his home. And he had this beautiful Stereo
System, the kind you'd see in the Electronic section of a Trade Mag. It was all
separate "Decks", cool lighted windows and LED's, even an Equalizer! And a
top of the line Turntable!
Rick took a Record out of its sleeve, and carefully ran a brush over and blew
at it. On the cover was a painting of a guy standing with a Les Paul and it was
entitled, "Jeff Beck- Blow by Blow" . . .

The needle gently, with a warm thump hit the groove, you could hear just a
little static. . .

And these glorious sounds came out, textured and crying notes, complicated
groove lines and biting solos . . . all heard on these wonderful speakers soo
warm and full of sound that you felt it in your chest and stomach, I had NEVER
heard music soo clear! Rick is talking, but all I hear is music filling my body!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aK04s4eo5Dk

He then puts on another album, slowly . . .
the sound of animals? Sheep! . . . they sounded distant, then the distinct sound
of a Rhodes Keyboard . . . I look at the cover and there is a PIG flying over a
Manufacturing Plant between 2 smoke stacks! All in rich browns . . .

That was my 1st real introduction to Pink Floyd.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNQW_Ih-1qY&feature=related

Again, why those 2 bands didn't take . . . must be because it was too much
for my brain to handle, I was overwhelmed! Plus our friendship wasn't close,
Rick was the same age but was smarter, on an another level, as was
everyone else. I was more of a geek than he was, things were a bit "beyond
me" (Well he was in the school Band, so really we were geeks, I just wonder
about my personality back then, I was quiet and timid, too nice of a guy I think).
But I would always remember that experience with Jeff Beck, and my 1st LP
by him would be "There and Back", and Floyd would make its way to my turn-
table with their release of the epic, "The Wall" in a few years.
Beck and "Star Cycle":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUiV-0-OrMA&feature=related
Pink Floyd:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1yD9avOGgM

I say . . . YES!!!
Then there was my then, best friend Glen Mayfield. Weird match when I think
about it, me Latino and weird haircut, him tall handsome, blond blue eyed and
doing well in school and driving an old Ford Pick-up with a "Camper". He also
was a bit more mature but we got along because of our sense of humour (he
was a Monty Python fan too) and he also loved Kansas, Yes (which I just
started getting into) and Genesis, but Genesis was just "too out there for me",
it would take a while for me to understand the complexity, subtlety, quiet and
EPIC in one song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdD6L4cKKU8
If Genesis was too much to take in, then Yes for some reason had it for me,
and I guess it was Steve Howe, he was more in your face than Steve Hackett
(At the time), and he just shredded on that big Gibson! And the grandiose
playing and "sounds" of Rick Wakeman! all tempered with Jon Anderson's
angelic voice (I would not come to appreciate Chris Squire's Bass, Bill Bruford
and Alan White's Drum playing until way later, as well as other Bassists and
Drummers. The "Education" was just starting).
The opening of "Close to the Edge" and throughout would transport me from
its slow fade-in opening of a Tropical Rain Forest to a Cavern of Stalactites
and Stalagmites floating in its water and the Jules Verne feel to Wakeman's
keys at the bridge of the song, with each musician enhancing its "vision" with
music I had never heard before or could ever conceive.
Part1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEfZY04fsr0
Part2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQBT7jInKgk&feature=related
"Fragile"; "Close to the Edge" and "Relayer" would be the albums I would
worship and wear out the grooves.
Drama would soon be purchased and the opening track "Machine Messiah"
alone would be worth the trip, but the whole album was brilliant. I was just getting
into the YES line-ups and was surprised that it was a different vocalist and
Keyboardist, soon to find out they were 2 members of the Buggles (Later, singer
Trevor Horn would produce Yes's no.1 Album "90215" and Geof Downes would be
one of the founding members of Asia).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRW8SzZX99g
And the other Keyboardist, would become the famous Soundtrack Composer,
Hans Zimmer!
"Tempus Fugit" though was the single and it was just different than anything on the
radio in 1980. To Rock and the "New Wave" of music that was coming out of the
U.K. Most of the music coming out of that Alternative scene was not to my liking,
and Punk was also driving out any band playing this "pretentious music" that I was
just getting into. As far as this New Wave/Punk went, there were few exceptions
like, Missing Persons; Flock of Seagulls; Ultravox; Bauhaus; U2; Stiff Little Fingers;
Dead Kennedy's; Big Country; The Alarm; Altered Images and others that I really
liked but never dived into, but U2 and the Police and Missing Persons, I noticed they
stood among the crowd, and later I would learn of Missing Persons "Drummer"
years later.
Other than the bands I mentioned, I really despised the New Wave scene. And "Pop
Music" at the time was getting worse. Though Punk would influence another genre
of music soon to engulf my world.

My friend Glen was also a "Born Again", so I was then treated to Myron Lafevre,
Phil Keagy, Petra and later, A.D. (Kerry Livgren's solo band), and he introduced
me to early Electronic/New Age: Tomita; Wendy/Walter Carlos; and Tangerine
Dream.
Petra:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elC7NrfewhM
A.D.:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUDlENFH9H8

We also liked Styx, and I started seeing that they also were more than their
Hit Singles, their guitars had a distinct tone that I loved, it was Hard Rock, but
had enough Prog elements to keep it different than what was out there, And
"Grand Illusion" would play alot on my turntable in the years to come (A year
later, same for "Pieces of Eight" which is still my favorite).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjjKXT7OyFw&feature=related

Spiritual Influence influx:
I had a sort of an awakening happening to me at this time, the "spirit" that was
always in me, but could not name.
I was coming to an understanding what God and Christ meant to me, and the
deep analytical break-down of what they were about. Glen opened the door,
but it was me who always had the spirit of Christ in my heart and I knew what
was right and wrong. My values from my Parents and my own mind kept me
from trouble, I have always had a logical mind and could see where "things"
could take me if I wasn't careful. But I wasn't going to shove it down anyone's
throat, I never could take the title "Born Again", but understanding the roots of
it is still an ongoing process to this day, and sort-of private and "individualistic".
It would grow, but my way of understanding would separate me from ones
who more zealous about it.
I always saw this "Higher Power" as a friend, not something to live in fear of,
yet many would preach fire and brimstone when the verse, "He who cast the
1st stone..." seems to be forgotten all too often.
And it was in music that I started noticing the different spirituality in my fave
bands, or at least values that I grew up with, respect for others, for myself
and a deeper and higher purpose for all that we do. Though I would fumble
and fall throughout my life, I still would hold onto the logical, and moral values
that I learned on the road through my hardships in school (and life in general).

The "Craft" of Spirituality.
It was Glen (I believe) who also introduced me to Kerry Livgrens Book about
his spiritual journey and life on the road with Kansas-"Seeds of Change"(in an
Expanded Edition), where he writes:
"As modern music becomes more formularized, derivative, and shallow,
listeners are crossing cultural and generational boundaries to find music of
spiritual and creative substance. Witness the recent interest in various types
of "ethnic" music. I find myself listening to it a lot because it seems so
untainted and fresh -free from the corporate mold. Christian music suffers from
the same malady.
Though we as Christians have a mandate to be skillful and creative, and Scripture
affirms that we should sing unto the Lord a new song, we rarely hear anything new.
The atmosphere of Christian radio is so limited as to be stifling.
Not only is it as highly formatted as its secular counterpart, but in most cases, the
artist must conform to some sort of spiritual criteria -someone's definition of what
makes his or her music acceptable Christian music. It's a strange irony indeed that
finds lyrics with the most profound truth coupled with the most unchallenging sort of
muzak."

That was written in 1991. This says everything about the music of TODAY in many
genres, that fall short of imagination and creativity.
But its in Prog I find creativity that can spiritually move me, as well-as spiritually
minded bands from Cynic to Neal Morse to Kings X to Iona to Extol to Kansas and
Yes. And even bands such as Black Sabbath ("Masters of Reality") and Iron Maiden
and their morality tales. But this will be part of my journey to come, and this book of
Mr. Livgren will be given to me by a dear friend decades later.

A 3rd friend, brief but left an impression. . .
It was the time I was thinking of taking Art classes from meeting a senior
(I was a sophomore) named Rick Saenz. A Latino with long hair and a quiet
friendly demeanor (Artist written all over him!). He was a budding Artist, and
had such an amazing style, his Art geared to Fantasy and Band Logos.
His main influence was Roger Dean and he would show me Yes covers and
Art books, his Art and again, just overwhelmed by it all, I wish I could have
looked at his Album collection, but I'm sure my mind would explode. I do
remember he liked Uriah Heep, but it would be years till I appreciated them.
"The Magicians Birthday" and that Dean Cover! The 1st time I ever seen it.
He also had a poster on the wall over his bed, that he mailed-in for with a
"coupon", that was of a woman with steel-like/tubing for hair that looked
very familiar. It was from the inside sleeve of ELP's "Brain Salad Surgery",
that he took out, in which the original pressing, the front cover opened from
the middle into 2 halves revealing the woman hanging on his wall, my mind
raced back to 1973 and that display in Louisiana.
Hehe . . . ELP and this album yet again!
I kept looking at his sketch book and he said, "You can borrow it if you want"
. . . so for almost 2 years I held on to it. I definitely count Saenz and Dean as
my 1st inspirations for my Logo work. And Rick I guess was my link to Dean.
A mis-fortune that I did not keep in contact with Rick.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGb1htR-N9s
Roger Deans site:
http://rogerdean.com/

Phase5
Discovery.

" I know it's most unusual, To come before you so, But I've found an ancient
miracle, I thought that you should know, Listen to my music, And hear what it
can do, There's something here as strong as life . . . I know that it will reach you"
- IV Presentation/2112/Rush

As the years pass within High School, my ears started to really understand
what they were hearing. Another Christmas would bring a favorite memory.
1979 and SoCal Winters were still cold, the cold winds upon the rusted trees
brushing the house, a fire crackling in the fireplace, warm lights in the den
and listening to my new albums from my parents, "Don't Look Back" from
Boston and the album that would really begin the awareness of Prog,
Kansas "Monolith".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wveGtAQk6Ko
("People of the Southwind", which is the Lakota meaning of Kansas)
At this time, Me and my Dad were watching Don Kirschner alot late night on
Saturday, and so since Kansas was on Don's label, they released "Promo-
Films" for the new album Monolith. I recall they were for the singles, "The
Otherside", "Away from You" and "Reason to Be". Cool visuals and being
able to see them perform was really awesome. So because of that exposure
I asked my parents for that album.
It would be over 3 decades till I'd see those videos again! For awhile I thought
I was hallucinating because NO-ONE remembers seeing them.
But finally released on the accompanying DVD on the "Sail On-the 30th
Anniversary" box set for Kansas.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSVULtkJqDQ

Both Kansas and Boston albums I would play and play. But something new
was on the horizon . . .
Van Halen.
This would just shake up the world of rock, the music industry and the way
guitarists played. Just the cover of the debut of Van Halen looked wild and
the sounds Eddie would pull from his guitar were never heard of! (Even though
later to find Steve Hackett and Alan Holdsworth did many of the "tricks" Eddie
used, but Eddie was just more flashy with the techniques). Taking advantage
of feedback, Tremelo pulls and "Dive bombs", Harmonic vibratos, Hammer-ons
and Pull-offs would enter the vocabulary of every kid guitarist to come. It also
added a difference to Hard Rock of the time that would give birth to the new
Heavy Metal "sound".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1uZSXEICsE&feature=related
The coming years would see kids coming out of the woodwork with different
styles, attitude, aggression and musicianship that would engulf my world
. . . but that wont happen till after High School, but the seed was planted.

Also during this time, next to the neighborhood Stater Brothers Market, was a
little Mom&Pop Record store, mostly catering to the R&B crowd, I was flipping
through the LP's on a turnstyle and I came across an album with a cringe and
wonder in my face:
A blueish cover with the backside of a naked man atop a BRAIN and an
English chap with a derby! . . . "How GAY!" I thought. I put it back and went to
join my Mom at the Market.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6c/Rush_Hemispheres.jpg

A new world would open to me, and there was one band that would make me
listen even closer, with lyrics that made me pay attention . . .

"So turn around, Turn around, It's on the other side
Feel the sound, Feel the sound, It's comin' from deep inside,
It will fill you with emotion if you let it be your guide, So
Turn around, Turn around It's on the other side . . . "
- On the Otherside/Kansas

To be continued . . .

Opus Insert
(Or Angry Rant number 1).
"All this machinery making modern music, Can still be open hearted,
Not so coldly charted It's really just a question of your honesty, yeah,
Your honesty.
One likes to believe in the freedom of music, But glittering prizes and
endless compromises, Shatter the illusion of integrity. . ."
-The Spirit of Radio/Rush

Well I've been thinking alot about this because of a recent work related experience
and re-reading the above excerpt of Mr. Livgren and the lack of "Art" in music.
I have, back in the day, had gotten on my soap box on Progulus.com's chat board
(and particular Forums), when people were complaining about a Genre of Prog, if
it was Prog, why is it on here, why is the sky blue, ls there a Santa Clause? etc.
It just seemed like the definition of what Prog was so clear to me, but it seems the
genre needed genres.
I would then try to stop the feuding and bloodshed by bringing up:
"Well, at-least its not Top 40 muzak" or "You know in the whole vast configuration
of things, our music doesn't matter to the rest of the world or the music Industry,
so its better to listen to a BAD Prog song amongst the fine Prog that is coming on
the queue anyways!"

. . . crickets.

Well all this was hit to home again. I had recently gotten a job at a Warehouse
for Avon "where ambitions go to die", this job wasn't fit for Robots, we were
basically Cannon Fodder, lifting heavy objects and racing to station to station
filling shelves break to break non-stop from 8 to 13 hours a day.

What could make it worse for a Music worshiper like me . . .
KIIS FM:
http://www.kiisfm.com/main.html
Believe me, I would rather not advertise this waste of Air, but if you just "look"
at the page, you'll get the idea. This garbage was force fed to us every fucking
day. Even people who were into Pop and R&B hated the station because they
would play the same 7 stupid songs OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER
AND OVER AND OVER . . . I actually still have songs like "I kissed a girl";
"american boy" "shake it" Shake shake shake me Shake shake shake me
Shake shake shake me! and other songs that I don't want to know the title
INVADE my head at any given moment!
Now hearing this music throughout a possible 13 hour shift, in pain and wishing
I was somewhere else and enjoying the mellow sounds of Meshuggah whilst
firing off a few rounds of a Mini-Gun, you get to listen carefully, break-down the
"music" to indeed acknowledge if it has any skill or merit of being called music.
And what a surprise . . . NOOOOOO!!!!!!
I had made a sign and posted it up at an event that I was a part of and was
being covered on a particular day by a KIIS Fm crew, the sign was mocking
their musical jingle:
"Support UNCHALLENGING music . . . KIIS FM!"

Pop music of today is like Commercials for Cellphones for people who have them
fused to their ears already (you know, with or without the "blue tooth" and having
loud conversations about nothing, LOOK AT ME I AM IMPORTANT I HAVE A CELL
PHONE), buy the cars they are told to buy, go clubbing and drink crappy beers to
laugh and vomit and dance the night away, BUY BUY CONSUME CONSUME.
(. . . Pink Floyd and "Sheep" come to mind).
There was a time that even "One hit wonders" had musicality about it, there was
some skill, they played instruments and didn't base their rhythms from another
song that was sampled, and then add some annoying FX sample and have it in the
song over and over to create a beat or somekind of "cool" factor.
And great! The chorus is pretty much the entire song, repeated over and over and
over and over and over . . . and they are not limited to R&B; Rock and Country have
suffered, "simple is more" and are plagued by the "repeat the title of the song over
and over so you can remember the song and make me some more money".

"Observe and reapeat, observe and repeat, maintain the standard"
-Control and Resistance/Watchtower

I mean come on, its all about some kind of beat that they can "react" to, what other
relevance could the lyrics or the musicianship possibly mean to anyone?
So you want to party, great, but isn't there more to life? A REAL life?
There are very few exceptions, but its all bottled up like a commercial, to be in the
"backround of your everyday" . . . instead of leaves in the wind, birds chirping, all
that will obsolete the way mass consumerism has been growing, as people wear
Headphones most of their lives to shut out the outside world.

I swear, if you took a 5 minute song by Spocks Beard or even Porcupine Tree, I bet
people would wake up and ask, "what is this?" Yes, maybe even look into them.
Maybe gain "5" more fans . . . I can dream.

You really become appreciative of the Progressive and the more adventurous Metal
Bands that work on an entire Album with all the craft, imagination and skill it takes to
make this type of music.
Metal and Progressive Music, will have longevity, as much as a Classical piece, a
Jazz performer that created something never attempted. You can move onto a new
band or album, but you can always open up a CD case or LP sleeve, put it on and
be transported to where you were or just enjoy the ride all over again.
A meat-grinder of the mediocre, Pop Radio is just another flavour of the month,
easily replaced by the same ol' flavour you tasted before . . . simply replaceable.

. . . Like an employee at Avon!
(I never tasted crap, but it probably tastes like modern pop).

"I'm sick of eating shit, can I try another flavour!"
-Art Nazi/Skyclad