Author: Time Lord

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Judas Unrepentant

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Alva Noe has an interesting essay out on art, skepticism, and forgery:

I don’t know whether it is true that a janitor at an art gallery was fired not so long ago for sweeping up the artwork the morning after the opening, but the story captures a certain skepticism about art: if art is whatever “we,” or the art cognoscenti, say it is, then there is no such thing as art.

The worry that art is a sham is an old idea and it is one that art itself has cherished.

…

It is right to reject, as Gopnik does, the myth of the connoisseur, but Gopnik does so for the wrong reasons. The problem with the myth is not that it attributes unrealistic powers of discernment and identification to the connoisseur or critic, but rather that it mischaracterizes his or her job, and so it misunderstands what powers he or she needs to do the job well in the first place.

Gopnik describes the connoisseur as if he or she were a human measuring device, someone who has been trained up to give the right answer to questions of value and origin. This thought leads directly to skepticism. For either we suppose that the connoisseur cannot be wrong, that whatever he or she says goes, or we suppose that a mistake is possible, that a different connoisseur or critic could offer a different answer—but if a mistake is possible, then we must admit that there are no settled criteria for deciding the question of value, there is only what you or I or we “like.”

The connoisseur or critic, crucially, is not a measuring instrument, a kind of authorship- or value-detector. Rather, they are bent on seeing, and seeing is not mere detection. Unlike detecting, seeing is not instantaneous, nor is it all or nothing or once and for all. Seeing is itself thoroughly critical; it is thoughtful and it is contextual. Stanley Cavell captures this idea when he explains that what distinguishes the critic is not that he or she can discern qualities that you cannot, but rather that, in discerning them, the critic can give you the means to discern them as well. Criticism is less an art of discrimination than it is a discipline of accounting for what one sees; it is a practice of making it intelligible to oneself and another. Critics make sense, and they give you the tools you need to make sense too. Critics don’t just see, they teach us how to see.

…

We are all critics, and neither the possibility of forgery, nor that of perceptual error, should lead us to be skeptics, about art, or anything else.

If you need a soundtrack for further reading and reflection, why not revisit Big Big Train on Tom Keating.
 

Catching up with Neal Morse

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From The Prog Report:

Neal Morse talks about the new Transatlantic album “Kaleidoscope”, Flying Colors, working with Mike Portnoy, and how to make an album in a week.

Dream Theater (Best of 2013 — Part 3)

On By Time LordIn 2013Leave a comment

Coming in the #3 slot (in alphabetical order) on my Best of 2013 list is this self-titled splendor:

Dream Theater

Back in August, we got excited when we first heard the preview of “The Enemy Inside” (which has gone on to receive a Grammy nomination).

Then, in September, the band treated us to a full album stream.

My favorite tracks include the glorious “Along for the Ride” and the amazing “The Looking Glass” and the scintillating “Surrender to Reason“…

But let’s be real. Whatever track you are listening to at the moment becomes your favorite!

This is a powerfully good album. Surely everyone who knows and loves Rush can recognize the unmistakable musical excellence at work here.

What a thrill to hear Dream Theater at the top of their game, showing us their very best!

Exactly the sort of prog metal that I like best is found here on this upper-echelon release.

Congratulations, gentlemen.

With your musical panorama, you have given us what prog gives best.

Namely, the bigger picture.

NOW What?! (Best of 2013 — Part 2)

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Moving right along, right after Big Big Train at #1, we come to the #2 slot (in alphabetical order) on my Best of 2013 list:

Deep Purple.

With the release of NOW What?! the band caught me by surprise. (Note that the first word of the album title is in “all caps,” which I think is particularly hilarious. But a lot of reviewers have missed out on that nice little tonal detail.) And what a fine surprise this album is.

I wasn’t expecting the album to be so good! In fact, I remember downloading it and listening to the first three tracks (“A Simple Song,” “Weirdistan,” and “Out of Hand”) thinking, “WHOA,” this is not too bad at all… and then, WHAM! Suddenly the next two tracks (“Hell to Pay,” and “Body Line”) totally blew me away. Why? Well, because it seemed as if the instrumental breaks were actually escalating in intensity as the album progressed. The wild organ freak-outs and the insanely great guitar playing were — yes! — veering off into prog-class warp drive territory.

And then, the unmistakably epic tracks “Above and Beyond” and “Uncommon Man” sealed the deal, with their instrumental and compositional prowess. Note that both of these tracks are fittingly dedicated to rock god Jon Lord, the Deep Purple founding member and super-talented classical composer who died in 2012. The latter track (“Uncommon Man”) invokes Aaron Copland’s classical epic, “Fanfare for the Common Man,” which progarchists will recall has also been previously transmuted into prog excellence by Emerson, Lake, and Palmer.

Let it be noticed by one and all: Steve Morse serves up some sweeeeeeeeet guitar work on this album. “Apres Vous” and “All the Time in the World” keep the album orbiting in the stratosphere of excellence.

Indeed, Flying Colors made it into my Top Ten list last year, instantly passing the prog litmus test with flying colors. So, I was sad that the supergroup had no studio album in 2013. (Hence I am looking forward to what will surely be one of the highlights of 2014.)

But this new Deep Purple album has both surprised and more than satisfied me in the meantime, by giving me many unexpected 2013 moments of Steve Morse guitar bliss. His synergy with Don Airey’s organ virtuosity on NOW What?! should make all prog-lovers sit up and take notice. The whole disc is a joy to listen to.

NOW What?! offers classic hard rock with the perfect twist; namely, prog-class musical virtuosity.

English Electric Part Two (Best of 2013 — Part 1)

On By Time LordIn 201310 Comments

Progarchy.com is an awesome music site because we have a contrarian community here with truly excellent taste in music. I love reading everyone’s 2013 lists! It’s a real thrill to share this site with so many thoughtful people. One of the things I especially enjoy is how individual personalities really shine through in the Top Ten lists. And yet we also have some common rallying points. For example: witness the huge love for Big Big Train on this Web site.

So far we have had superb year-end reflections from Alison Henderson, Kevin Williams, Thaddeus Wert, Craig Farham, Russell Clarke, Brad Birzer (in two parts), Erik Heter, John Deasey, and James Turner.

Today, I am going to start my year-end reflections. Like last year, I will spread it out over many days. (Just trying to keep it epic and proggy here, eh?)

But, this year I will also do a couple of things differently. First of all, I am not going to do a Top Ten. In the spirit of Spinal Tap-like excess, and in celebration of the release this year of the riff-tastic 13, Black Sabbath’s fine return to form, I am going to do a Top Thirteen list. (And, after all, it is also the year 2013.)

So, I am going to do my Top Thirteen list in alphabetical order for the first Ten. Then, the last three will be three bonus additions, given out of alphabetical order. (I will explain my rationale further when I get to the final three.)

However, I want to start off my Top Thirteen list with a bit of a dissenting argument. And this argument accompanies the band that I deliberately have coming up first alphabetically into my Part 1 position… namely, Big Big Train.

Notice that I am putting their English Electric Part Two on my list. That’s because I absolutely cannot endorse English Electric Full Power with a Top Ten slot.

I vehemently object to the idea that a prog band can rip apart their two preceding albums and then assemble them into an alternate playlist, mixing in some new bonus tracks, and calling this playlist the final product. What ever happened to the prog ideal that a concept album was a carefully-sequenced work of art that was meant to be digested uninterrupted as an organic whole?

Perhaps that ideal was often more musical B.S. than reality on the artist’s side. But still, on the listener’s side, even if the alleged epic unity was half-baked and overly pretentious, at least it encouraged artists to strive toward that ideal nonetheless, and to encourage listeners to critique the music with those highest of aspirations as setting the bar of judgment of success whenever hearing the approximate realization of the ideal.

So, where are we with prog now in the twenty-first century, if one of the absolutely upper-echelon prog bands is caught up in the technological whirlwind that encourages musical projects to be released in less-than-finished form as mere works in progress?

Well, I am never going to be able to accept the reconfiguration of track order when it comes to excellent prog music. This is because, as I get to know the albums, I become deeply immersed and I internalize every detail. One of the very greatest things when listening to a beloved album is, as one track ends, anticipating — in the brief moment of silence — the beginning sounds of the imminent next track.

J’accuse! By monkeying with the track order of English Electric Parts One and Two, Big Big Train has done violence to the intimate musical memories that are forged as the listener forges a bond with the prog cycle of unfolding experience!

For me, Full Power is not the glorious final form of the magnificent English Electric achievement. I mean, get serious: how can it be? Let me quickly annihilate the thesis: Full Power begins with “Make Some Noise,” which is a great song, but it is a stand-alone single. If you try and argue that it is the indispensable overture to a final-form epic, I will laugh in your face. Get real. It is a B-side, a bonus track, a novelty song. It’s not the unmistakeable “Theme to English Electric.”

Therefore, I say English Electric Part One was the Best of 2012. And English Electric Part Two is the Best of 2013.

But admit it, people: Full Power is an imposter of an album.

Make Some Noise is, yes, a really nice EP of bonus tracks mixed into a short highlights playlist for English Electric fans. But Full Power is as much a playlist as Make Some Noise! How could it possibly be the best form of Parts One and Two?

Okay, wait a minute. Maybe some of you are going nuts at this point. Maybe both you and the band will want to demonstrate to me how Full Power most certainly does work better as an overall track order for the English Electric musical vision.

But you know what? I don’t care. Even if the band were to agree with you.

Because you’d still be wrong about prog in general, even if you might be right about this album. (Honestly, I stopping listening to Full Power after a while because it was just doing too much violence to my already-established, deeply internalized, fond musical memories of Big Big Train’s work. So, maybe you could argue I didn’t give it enough of a chance. But really! Why should I have to?)

But, to conclude, I have saved my main point for last…

I have read a number of people on this site celebrating how 2013 has been such a great year for prog. So much great prog music. More than we have time to listen to. How wonderful. Yada yada yada.

But you know what, people? It is exactly this sort of situation that creeps me out. Look where technology has brought us — a surfeit of prog to tickle our ears in 2013! Now, on the one hand, my immediate reaction to that is joy and excitement. Kid in a candy store, right? But, on the other hand, on further reflection, what does that situation say about prog?

That it has become a commodity!

Which is truly a great danger to the health of the art form, in my opinion. Because, if prog is becoming a generic “commodity,” and you can easily (and without too much effort) get your “fix” of it almost anywhere, then the art form is flattening out, and entering into a decadent phase.

The only hope we have, then, to resist the commodification of prog, is to adhere to critical standards, and to unfurl our annual Top Ten lists as setting the very standards by which we must judge the true upper-echelon achievements as showing best how to resist the commodification of prog.

Therefore, by placing English Electric Part Two on my list — and not English Electric Full Power — I am saying that at all costs we must resist the “playist-ification” — the commoditization — of prog!

I can endorse only fully formed artistic statements as worthy of upper-echelon rank. And if the artists themselves laugh and say that there is no such thing… well, then you know what? They are giving up on one of the key ideals of prog. If you want to do concept albums themselves as time-delayed, track-order improv… well, good luck with that. This ain’t jazz! What new sensibility are you bringing to bear here? Commoditization!

Hey artist, you can go remix Vapor Trails, or go slice up English Electric, if you like… but you know what? I might still enjoy it. But it’s not you at your best. And we fans must refuse to give our critical endorsement to any kind of playlist mentality. Otherwise we may as well go back to Top Forty land.

So, there you have it. Has it really been been prog’s luckiest year ever? Think again…

I say we will always remember that 2013 was when the great Big Big Train gave us an illustration of the greatest danger facing prog: its commodification. (Now, let the debate begin!)

More of my Top Thirteen will soon follow, in celebration of this un/lucky year…

It was the best of prog, it was the worst of prog.

Marillion’s Prog Ghosts of Xmas Past

On By Time LordIn Progarchy3 Comments

Once your laughter at the video subsides, you’ll want to go download Marillion’s Carol of the Bells.

Dream Theater Top Ten

On By Time LordIn 2013Leave a comment

Check out the Top Ten Albums of 2013 of James LaBrie, John Petrucci and Jordan Rudess.

For more Top Ten Lists, visit http://top2013.roadrunnerrecords.com/

The Musical Excellence of Dream Theater

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Dream Theater’s “The Enemy Inside” has been nominated for a Grammy: “Best Metal Performance”

Check out Shred King John Petrucci in Guitar World on how to visualize melodic shapes on the fretboard.

It’s the latest installment of his excellent instructional column over there.

There’s a cool video to go with it, as bonus video content related to the magazine’s January 2014 issue.