Looking for unbelievable (and seemingly endless) access to excellent music? Of course, you are! Don’t hesitate to subscribe to Glass Hammer’s Youtube channel. What a cornucopia of unadulterated goodness.
https://www.youtube.com/user/ghprog
Author: bradbirzer
By day, I'm a father of seven and husband of one. By night, I'm an author, a biographer, and a prog rocker. Interests: Rush, progressive rock, cultural criticisms, the Rocky Mountains, individual liberty, history, hiking, and science fiction.
Glass Hammer Trailer
In my not so always humble opinion, there is no greater or more fetching voice in the rock world than Susie Bogdanowicz’s. Here, you get a full seventy-plus minutes of her, Steve, Fred, and Aaron. It really doesn’t get much better than this.
Time to order. Yes, now. RIGHT NOW. Order it.
Glass Hammer MOSTLY LIVE IN ITALY
Glass Hammer–America’s finest band and one of the two greatest bands in the world–has just announced its new live release, MOSTLY LIVE IN ITALY. And, it’s a stunner! No progarchist should be without one.
http://glasshammer.com/official-store/
Here’s the video promo–well worth watching (and listening)
“Close to the Edge” by YES (Second Spring 9)
“The shape of it is perfect,” Bill Bruford once said of the title track of the 1972 Yes album, CLOSE TO THE EDGE. It’s hard to dispute Bruford on this. If Yes wrote a perfect track, it is certainly “Close to the Edge.” Other songs might be more innovative, more melodic, more complex, or quirkier, but no other Yes song matches the intensity of “Close to the Edge.”
In his own recollections of writing the song, Jon Anderson claims to have been influenced by a dream, and the dreamlike imagery is rather strong. He also believed it to be a comment on the various Christian churches all vying for superiority, with the song actually introducing a “majestic church organ” with a Moog, itself replaced once again by “another organ solo rejoicing in the fact that you can turn your back on churches and find within yourself to be your own church.”
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Man of Much Metal: Wallachia
Artist: Wallachia Album Title: Monumental Heresy Label: Debemur Morti Records Date Of Release: 13 April 2018 I wasn’t necessarily expecting to like ‘Monumental Heresy’, given the folk metal tag that they seem to have acquired over the years. However, having given the Norwegian band a relatively wide berth over their 26-year career having not been […]
Happy Birthday, Robin Armstrong
That master of Anglo-Saxon Prog and Chronometry, Robin Armstrong (Cosmograf), is 48 today. All best progarchy wishes to Robin, a man of seemingly unlimited talents.
Make Mine a Double #5: Todd Rundgren’s Something/Anything (1972) — Reel and Rock
The latest in an occasional series about the wild woolly world of rock’s double albums. Todd Rundgren has got to be one of rock history’s great chameleons. He’s gone from a paisley pop wunderkind as leader of the Nazz in the late Sixties, to a sensitive piano balladeer to a guitar-slinging metalloid, prog rocker and […]
via Make Mine a Double #5: Todd Rundgren’s Something/Anything (1972) — Reel and Rock
Rush’s GRACE UNDER PRESSURE at 34
My favorite Rush album has been, at least going back to April 1984, Grace Under Pressure. I realize that among Rush fans and among prog fans, this might serve as a contentious choice. My praise of GUP is not in any way meant to denigrate any other Rush albums. Frankly, I love them all. Rush has offered us an outrageous wealth of blessings, and I won’t even pretend objectivity.
I love Rush. I love Grace Under Pressure.
I still remember opening Grace Under Pressure for the first time. Gently knifing the cellophane so as not to crease the cardboard, slowly pulling out the vinyl wrapped in a paper sleeve, the hues of gray, pink, blue, and granite and that egg caught in a vicegrip, the distinctive smell of a brand new album. . . . the crackle as the needle hit . . . .
I was sixteen.
Lee Speaks About Music… #70 — Lee Speaks About…
Ayreon Universe (Blu Ray) – Ayreon Introduction… Well Arjen Lucassen is back with another new release only this time it’s a live concert and not a new album. I have to say this is quite a spectacular show that the guy as put on and arranged with Joost van den Broek. It must of took […]
“Massive Bereavement” by Oceansize (Second Spring #8)
I will admit, I find it rather hard to believe that this song is already fifteen years old. Stunning. For an all-too-brief moment, Oceansize was it. The ultimate prog, space rock, space prog (labels!!!) band in the world. Combining psychedelic and often nonsensical lyrics with heavy rock and atmosphere cords and walls of sound, Oceansize seemed far far removed from its namesake–the song of by the utterly bizarre Jane’s Addiction.
Oceansize jumped into the music without trepidation. Nothing from the band felt forced or contrived, though the lyrics and the music shouldn’t have worked most of the time. But, it always did.
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