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.
If you pre-ordered the new EP-Single “In The Last Waking Moments…” featuring an all new song “Through The Ages” as well as two live tracks, “Spiraling” and “A Million Miles Away (I Wish I Had A Time Machine)” then we have a question for you…
It is looking more and more like the EP will arrive before Pete leaves for the U.K. (Since we greased a few pockets to make this happen for you…)
So the question is… If these new EPs come in on Thursday and are able to be shipped this weekend,..
Do you want your EP AUTOGRAPHED BY PETE TREWAVAS AND ERIC BLACKWOOD … OR UN-SIGNED AND SHRINKWRAPPED?
Your EP will come Shrinkwrapped as the standardif we don’t hear from you.
Artist Wendy Farrell-Pastore’s signature is also available on request in this email.
If you didn’t order yet, it’s not too late! In fact… anything else you order from the store can come autographed by Pete and Eric (and Wendy upon request) for the next 2 days, if you order and let us know now!
Order via Visa, Amex, Mastercard, JCB, Discover, etc..
Just as we started progarchy last fall, I received a note from Chris of Stereohead Records in the U.K. asking me if we’d be interested in reviewing a cd by a band named, amazingly enough, Kingbathmat. Well, of course, we would. Who could resist checking out a band with such a name? These guys MUST be interesting, I thought. And, I was right. “Truth Button” proved to be an excellent release.
Last week, while doing some work in Minnesota, I received another email from Chris. A new Kingbathmat is coming out on July 22–would I be interested in reviewing, and would I like it as a download or as a CD? Well, of course, my rational side wants the CD. I’m rather proud of my collection, and “Truth Button” has pride of place in it. But, my greedier side wanted the immediate gratification. So, I downloaded it.
Oh, boy–it’s good. Really, really good. “Truth Button” was excellent, but this is “Truth Button” with even more excellence and more confidence and more adventure. Yes, it goes to 11.
Please don’t consider this a full review–that’s still coming. But, I do want progarchy readers to know that if they preorder this CD, they will not be disappointed. These guys can play. I mean really, really play. And, so very tight without being overly produced.
I generally hate labels, and I’m not sure what I’d label this–but the label that keeps popping into my fuzzy little head is this: “funkadelic prog.” Of recent releases, it might most easily compare to the work of Astra. But, Kingbathmat is far more subtle–without losing any of its energy–than Astra. Whereas Astra drives, Kingbathmat lingers, toys, and plays with its music.
Listening to Astra is akin to driving from Kansas City to Denver as quickly as possible, windows down, hoping to get to the majesty of the mountains . Listening to Kingbathmat is like exploring the wild, untamed, and unpopulated backroads and Great Plains of Kansas and eastern Colorado en route, knowing there are little known charms and forgotten mysteries worth discovering in that undulating land.
In the tradition of music over the last fifty years, I most hear the influence of Rush (heavily), later Traffic, and Soundgarden.
The masterpiece of the album is the sixth and final track, “Kubrick Moon.” Holy schnikees. I have no idea how to describe this, except it’s confirmed me as a serious and unrelenting Kingbathmat devotee. John, David, Rob, and Bernie–slay the gorgon with all the might that is in you!
BBT bassist, lyricist, and composer extraordinaire, Greg Spawton. Photo by Willem Klopper.
What more can one write than: 2013 has already proven to be one of the finest years in prog history.
We’re not even quite halfway done with the year, and just consider the number of quality (an understatement) releases: Big Big Train’s English Electric, Vol. 2; Cosmograf’s The Man Left in Space; Nosound’s Afterthoughts; The Tangent’s The Rite of Work (translated!); Shineback’s Rise Up Forgotten; Days Between Stations’s In Extremis; Majestic’s V.O.Z.; Riverside’s Shrine of New Generation Slaves; Sanguine Hum’s The Weight of the World; and Lifesigns’ Lifesigns. Additionally, BBT, Matt Cohen, Matt Stevens, Leah McHenry, IZZ, Heliopolis, Arjen Lucassen, Glass Hammer, The Advent, Kevin McCormick, Transatlantic, The Flower Kings, and Gazpacho are working on new material.
If I forgot anyone, please forgive me. So much greatness is emerging, that it’s hard to keep track of it all.
When I see comments on the web to the effect of “sure, there’s lots of stuff coming out, but it doesn’t live up to the past,” I just scratch my head.
Are you kidding me? Name another time when so much intensity, diversity, meaning, and beauty has sprung forth from the prog community? There are several recent releases that I would argue beat (though, of course, they build upon) any thing that’s come before. But, why compare? Let’s enjoy what we have and give some thanks.
Consider other developments in the prog world:
David Elliott has founded Bad Elephant Music
Kev Feazy of The Fierce and the Dead is a dad.
Prog fan, Richard Thresh, is a father yet again, as well
Billy James of Glass Onyon is promoting prog like a wonderful mad man
First lady of Prog, Alison Henderson, is one of the three winners of Playtex’s Ageless Generation competition to find women who are fabulous and over 50
Brian Watson has created much of the art for the forthcoming The Tangent release
Willem Klopper, Captain Redbeard, Craig Farham, and Nick Efford reveal prog-inspired art and photography by the week
Russell Clarke also gives us prog-inspired photos of his Norwegian Forrest Cats (well, ok, this is not quite as proggy as I’m suggesting)
Back to a serious note, 3RDegree and John Galgano are touring in the U.S.
. . . . and the list of accomplishments go on and on. . . . Bravo!
We’re truly sad to have lost Ray Manzarek to the ravages of time, and Chris Thompson of Radiant Records to another profession. But, of course, we recognize this is life. And, we wish all well.
Progarchy.com
On the Progarchy.com front, the progarchists remain unified in their vision of attempting to match our writing quality and thoughts with the excellence of the music being made and created, past, present, and future. Our site is not even a year old, and we have 760 of you who receive every single post via email, and anywhere from 100 to 1,000 visit the website on a daily basis. Folks as profound as Greg Spawton, Matt Stevens, Giancarlo Erra, and Andy Tillison have offered their kind thoughts about the site. A huge thanks to all who have supported us.
A few interesting additional notes
Our own progarchist, John Deasey, and Matt Stevens.Master of Prog and Chronometry, Robin Armstrong.
Matt Stevens has started a video series on Youtube, answering questions presented to him. In this one video–https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcmmj5YtRdY–you’ll get a sense of Matt’s integrity and genius. In under three minutes, he demonstrates more confidence and virtue about art and humanity than a myriad of academic books have done over the last 30 years. Atheist or theist, I say, “God bless you, Matt!”
Also, as we all well know, most proggers can’t afford to live only on the profits of their releases. Such, of course, is a rueful comment on modern life, but it’s also simply a reality. So, for this journal entry, let me praise the other business/pursuit of Cosmograf’s Robin Armstrong. We all know the kind of professionalism and artful sense Robin brings to music. He does the same as an entrepreneur. Just check out his website, http://poshtime.com/wordpress/about/, a witness to his mastery of all things chronometric!
Please support Robin not only in his music, but in his excellence as a businessman as well.
Thanks for reading all of this. Rising pizza dough beckons me. . . .
Los Angeles, CA – In anticipation of their brand new full length album, Florida-based psychedelic space rock trio Sons Of Hippies will premiere a new single and video “Rose” on the music & culture website MXDWN.com this Monday, June 17th. “Rose” is the second single from the Hippies’ new album, Griffons At The Gates Of Heaven, mixed by Jack Endino (Nirvana, L7) and mastered at Abbey Road Studios, to be released July 16th on Cleopatra Records.
Directed by James Herrholz, “Rose” stars SOH vocalist/guitarist Katherine Kelly, drummer Jonas Canales and bassist David Daly out for a drive in their classic, cherry red Mustang on a sun soaked Florida afternoon when they encounter a seductive trio of car washing vixens. Much sudsy fun and playful teasing ensues. But things are not all what they seem and soon enough the story takes a shocking turn you’ll have to see to believe!
Sons Of Hippies was conceived high in the mountains of Tennessee amid fellow music lovers at a festival on a 700-acre farm. Their name originated when Brazilian native Jonas Canales and Florida-bred Katherine Kelly probed familial bonds to discover they were, indeed, children of hippy parents. The duo’s dreamy, melodic but complexly synthesized music struck a chord with audiences and earned the band a critic’s choice award from Tampa’s popular Creative Loafing magazine for “Best Modern-Sounding Record” in 2009. Bassist David Daly joined the group in 2011 and in December of the following year, the band signed with Cleopatra Records. The resulting album is the group’s strongest and most ambitious set of recordings to date, and earned these young upstarts a spot on a summer tour with two giants of classic and progressive rock.
“Bollocks”. I mean there ARE people who will say that kind of thing. Quite why the Brits are so frightened of a member of their number being ambitious, creative and inspired eludes me. But hey, I’m used to it and its water off a duck’s back to me. You can call it elitist because I did something I could do, I pushed myself, I went further than I had to. If that’s elitism then I’m guilty of it and so are the people who listen to it. But I am a musically uneducated person who started off in a punk band and got better and more varied in what I do. I wanted more, music itself led me there. I was not in any kind of “elite” when I started, and becoming part of one has never been the goal, so really it’s just the old 70’s and 80s journos whose over use of words like “pretentious”, “elitist” and “pompous” were simply expostulations of not knowing how to review “Tales” when they got the job to write reviews of “Keep On Runnin'”.
You can’t level the “Dinosaur” band accusation at me. The Tangent has had a hard life of little comfort, very, very little financial reward, no mainstream media support. We took on a musical form that is possibly the most difficult to do well, most difficult to market, most difficult to play live and even most difficult to explain to others.
I speak with a broad Yorkshire accent. I’m a Scargillite lefty and advocate of sensible anarchy, totally down to earth in nearly every way apart from believing that music is more than 2 minute romps of pop, punk or thrash. I’m naive, fragile and irritable and I’m a struggling artist not a failed Rock Star. There’s a huge difference.
Progarchy 