Concert Review: Heterotopia Live @schooltree

On By Time LordIn Progressive rock1 Comment

Lucky are the few to have seen the masterwork Heterotopia live!

Here’s an excerpt from an excellent review of Schooltree’s September 29th concert:

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m here to attest that Lainey Schooltree has chased that Holy Grail and brought it back to the land of the mortals in the form of [a] 100 minute epic called Heterotopia. She has kept her covenant with the ancient gods of progressive rock and delivered a work that deserves a place in the pantheon. After seeing Heterotopia in its embryonic state, I was especially excited to see how it translated in a proper live setting in its final form. Not only did it exceed my already high expectations, but I left having the sense that I had witnessed the launch of a significant work that demands to be judged on the global stage.

…

Decked out in goth chick glam, Schooltree herself seemed content to let Heterotopia speak for itself. And that’s exactly as it should be. While so many are eager to confer automatic legitimacy and priority to “womyn in rock” these days, Lainey Schooltree has simply thrown down a gauntlet of stone cold artistic achievement. Heterotopia is a musical monument that stands tall in the valley of its ancestors and demands to be judged alongside them. I may not have seen Yes, Pink Floyd and Genesis back in their heyday. But I did see Heterotopia at Oberon in 2017. As far as I’m concerned, that’s a perfectly comparable experience.

Meet Me at the Mead Hall

On By Dave BandanaIn Progressive rockLeave a comment

thejoyfulsurprise's avatarThe Joyful Surprise

Meet me at the mead hall in winter
(Set the world to right)
With songs, science and stories
(Hold back the fading light)
Artists and dreamers and thinkers
(Right here by your side)
Finding truth in those travellers’ tales
(On this brief flight of life)

Here with science and art
And beauty and music
And friendship and love
You will find us
The best of what we are
The poets and painters
And writers and dreamers

“A Mead Hall in Winter” from the CD “Grimspound”

Music by Rikard Sjöblom and David Longdon
Words by Greg Spawton

“A Mead Hall in Winter” is a song from Big Big Train’s “Grimspound” album released earlier this year.  A reference to St. Bede’s analogy of a man’s life to a sparrow’s brief flight through a feasting hall, the song pays tribute to the age of Enlightenment that the band fears we are losing sight of.  As…

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Rick’s Retroarchy: Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, The Live Anthology

On By kruekuttIn Rock and RollLeave a comment

by Rick Krueger

When I heard that Tom Petty had died, I dug into my Closet Full of Box Sets and pulled out this baby.  Released in 2009, it came in two versions: a four-CD set with 48 tracks (still available at a super-bargain price) and the Best Buy-only version with an extra CD, one of the first 96K/24 bit audio Blu-rays that included all the songs, two DVDs (a 1978 concert and a 1994 documentary), a replica of a 4-song vinyl promo EP from 1976, various and sundry tchotchkes, and a ludicrous price tag.  Guess which one I bought?

Listening to The Live Anthology again over the past week, Petty’s songwriting struck me again as solid, unpretentious and down to earth; it hasn’t resonated that strongly in my life, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worthwhile and well done.  A lot of my favorite moments on the set come when TP quiets down and pours himself into the forms of classic country and folk.  Songs like “Wildflowers” (which feels like an obscure Carter Family tune), the beautiful, hushed lullaby “Alright for Now” (the closer for the four-CD set), and the agrarian hymn “Southern Accents” skip overblown, Springsteen-style myth-making and just communicate — plain-spoken, deeply felt, lovely.

And then there are the Heartbreakers.  Back in my college days, I used to read Stereo Review regularly, mostly for Steve Simels’ rock reviews — agree or disagree, they were always opinionated and entertaining.  Truer words may have never been written than Simels’ New Jersey-style summation of TP & the HBs’ work on Damn the Torpedoes: “Dese guys is good.”  On the evidence of The Live Anthology, they stayed that way for more than 30 years.  Always in sync, almost telepathic at times, Petty, guitarist Mike Campbell and keyboardist Benmont Tench weave elegant, immersive webs of rock, blues, and R & B over a variety of unflappable, grooving rhythm sections.  Whether it’s the Byrdsy power pop of “I Need to Know,” “Even the Losers” and “The Waiting,” mega-hits a la “Refugee,” “Runnin’ Down a Dream” and “Free Fallin’,”  extended jams like “It’s Good to Be King” and the previously unreleased “Melinda,” or a head-spinning range of cover tunes (a surf instrumental version of “Goldfinger”?  Booker T & the MGs’ “Green Onions”?  Van Morrison, Conway Twitty and the Grateful Dead?), the band always sounds lean and soulful, consistently in the moment, listening for the inherent magic and then doing what’s needed to make it happen.

For a while in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Petty rented out our local arena to get ready for his US tours.  Now I kind of regret that the closest I got to hearing him live was serving beer at one of the concession stands for his 2008 Grand Rapids show.  (There are soundproofed plastic flaps over the arena entrances; plus, I served a lot of beer that night.)   For people like me who missed the chance, The Live Anthology is an eloquent testimony to what the man and his band could do at their best.  Listen to the complete deluxe version here:

 

soundstreamsunday: “I’m So Tired” by the Beatles

On By Craig BreadenIn art rock, Rock and RollLeave a comment

paul john mixing white album 68Released in November 1968, the White Album did a Pollock on all the principles of freedom the Beatles had been shaping since 1965’s Rubber Soul kicked off their long, disciplined freakout, and splattered the canvas with every elementary Beatle colour: rock and roll, British music hall, folk-and-pop, country, novelty songs, in no apparent order or thematic unfolding.  In its elemental, revelatory mess and as a rock double album it bears resemblance to Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde (1966) or even Hendrix’s Electric Ladyland (released just the month before), and if you took the long view you could, I suppose, think of it as part of the strengthening trend in the late 1960s towards the belief in rock music as art.  While The White Album may not be a lot of things to otherwise die-hard Beatles fans, it is very definitely Art.  Self-conscious Pop collage.  If the grinning nods-and-winks of yore are replaced by the dour four studiously not having a good time together during these last years of their existence (or perhaps merely shrugging the veil of idolatry), the music gives the lie to this not being good for the rest of us and for popular music in general across the timeline of centuries.  That Abbey Road and its blueprint for rock’s next steps was still in their future is almost impossible to believe.

“I’m So Tired” is a late Beatles-era Lennon masterpiece, a song of yearning and uncertainty.  Its central line,  “I’d give you everything I’ve got for a little peace of mind” is both a call of desire for Yoko Ono and, in its cultural context, maybe the expression of the need to cool off for a bit, get some bearings amidst the drugs and money and politics and war and bullshit.  This is what makes great songs.  And of course it doesn’t hurt that there’s a lazy kind of rhythm to it, torch ballad sway giving way to hard rock march in the B section.  Twice through and out, nothing to it really, but in its barely 2-minute glory it contains in its molecules everything the Beatles were and would be.

soundstreamsunday presents one song or live set by an artist each week, and in theory wants to be an infinite linear mix tape where the songs relate and progress as a whole. For the complete playlist, go here: soundstreamsunday archive and playlist, or check related articles by clicking on”soundstreamsunday” in the tags section.

Dismember

On By Mahesh SreekandathIn Heavy metalLeave a comment

The initial guitar harmony is quite enticing, and well tailored to mislead that unsuspecting casual listener. As you can hear, the musical terrain flips in a couple of minutes. Lyrics, quite aptly scream — “Innocent soul dismembered…Enter the dark regions. And suffer a thousand deaths”. It’s good old Swedish brand of hardcore/punk aggression, but reconciled with guitar melody.

Dismember is an apt introduction to the early 90s Stockholm scene. Borrowing elements from their American and English contemporaries, these Swedes distilled their own characteristic flow and melody. Here, we can clearly discern that multinational lineage of Venom, Celtic Frost, Possessed, and Napalm Death.

For the uninitiated, the elegantly down-tuned melodic leads make Dismember relatively more palatable. The sheer sonic density of Entombed or Grave could be a tad intimidating. In some ways, Dismember also exhibits tendencies mostly associated with Gothenburg death, especially that of ‘At The Gates’. A closer examination reveals even more musical parallels, especially with the legendary English death metallers — ‘Bolt Thrower’.

But not just from the neighboring avenues, fascinating how back in the 80s, influences from places as far as Tampa, Florida or the Bay Area traveled back to Stockholm. Informal networks and underground tape trading channels simply emerged. Even without the World Wide Web, Altars of Madness wrecked a sonic carnage within the European scene. Simply stated, it was artistic entrepreneurship which drove the most extreme sounds on the planet. To channel a wise Scottish philosopher – death metal evolution is yet another illustration “of human action, but not the execution of any human design”.

Image attribution:
By Mattias Hedström (Own work) [CC BY-SA 2.5], via Wikimedia Commons

Heterotopia: Illustrated Libretto, 2nd edition CD @schooltree

On By Time LordIn Progressive rock2 Comments

The illustrated libretto book publication and the 2nd edition CD digipak are now both available for Schooltree’s incredible concept album, Heterotopia.

You can buy them online at schooltreemusic.com with Apple Pay (or pay by credit card). Don’t miss your chance to own this magnificent souvenir of one of 2017’s greatest artistic achievements!

Album Spotlight: Haken – “Affinity”

On By bradbirzerIn Progressive rockLeave a comment

The Prog Mind's avatarThe PROG Mind

hakenaffinity

_____________________________

1. affinity.exe

Haken’s “Affinity” begins with a software boot sequence.  The command has been entered, and the program is about to launch.  Although this track isn’t really a song per se, it does give pause for us to consider what we are about to hear.  Yes, Haken’s music is amazing and the band never disappoints, but that isn’t really what I mean.

Haken’s lyrics have long been a favorite of mine, and I have been meaning to spotlight “Affinity” since 2016.  What has taken so much time is the fact that this album is generally a little more complex to interpret, as it isn’t a complete concept album by true definition.  Instead, according to my interview with Ross, “Affinity” is an album held together by a theme, but does not necessarily tell a story.

Ross, however, has always welcomed fan interpretations of his lyrics, and this album bears interpretation…

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ECHO US: New Arrival at Progarchy HQ

On By bradbirzerIn Progressive rock1 Comment

Just out of the mailbox–a beautifully packaged prog album from ECHO US.  Eager to dive into this one.

to wake a dream

A World Of Knives

On By russellclarkenzIn Progressive rockLeave a comment

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Eclectic prog funsters Knifeworld will be performing as part of Ginger Wildheart’s Halloween Hootenanny at the Slade Rooms in Wolverhampton, England, on Saturday 28th October.

Get your tickets here.

They’ll also be at London’s Lexington on Saturday January 20th 2018. In their own words…

A full-band Knifeworld acoustic show followed by an epic electric set. Both performances will feature long since played tunes and surprises.

Ooh!

Get your tickets here!

Once that’s all done and dusted the busy bees will be off over the pond to get on a boat or a ship or something floaty on February 3rd 2018.

As the Cadogan Crow flies..

On By alisonscolumnIn Progressive rock2 Comments

 

Telescope and crow

It’s a Saturday afternoon in late September and we’re heading to London by train on the second leg of an epic journey that has been gathering speed for several years. The destination tonight is located within the traditional haunt of the once fêted Sloane Rangers, the well-heeled, young members of the Chelsea and Kensington jet set. But tonight, Sloane Square and its environs are the temporary haunts of another social group, better known as Passengers or, for two nights and one afternoon only, the Cadogan Crows.

The Passengers, sorry Crows, have flocked here from every corner of the globe, the furthest travellers coming from Australia and America, with a sizeable contingent winging its way from Europe – Norway, Switzerland, the Netherlands, France, Spain and Italy among the represented nations.

It’s not a global sporting occasion which has set their compasses and sat-navs to SW1 but the re-emergence on the live stage of one of the UK’s best known unknown bands, Big Big Train.

Since they graced the stage of Kings Place, London, in August 2015, the anticipation of more Big Big Train live dates has frequently reached fever pitch. However, the fans have had to make do with a double live album recorded at those London concerts plus three new studio albums that have significantly moved on the stories they are renowned for telling. Instead of the verdant beauty of Upton Heath, the ethereal loveliness of Curator of Butterflies and tales from the coalface in Worked Out, there have been freshly mined tales to explore.

Talisman

The talisman for these new tales is a crow, which, by custom, is a bird of omen and by a happy co-incidence, often enjoys the collective name of “a storytelling”. The flight starts with Folklore, released last year, which was joined this year by its companion piece Grimspound, the eponymous name of the crow, and finally by The Second Brightest Star, which acts as the coda to this particular musical chapter.

Also, maybe by design or perhaps another happy co-incidence, the Cadogan Hall, the venue which Big Big Train has chosen for this particular leg of the live journey, is just a short crow’s flight from the River Thames, which features so prominently on the recently released London Song EP.

The imposing Byzantine Revival-style hall has an interesting history, having originally been built as a Christian Science church, hence its impressive stained glass windows.  It nearly became the palatial home of former Harrods owner, Mohamed Fayed, until Cadogan Estates Ltd bought the building and turned it into a concert hall. In fact, its prog credentials include Marillion’s Live From Cadogan Hall DVD, which was recorded here in 2010.

As the hour approaches, there’s a sizeable crowd assembling outside in the intermittent drizzle. It’s one of those moments when you realise that around 75% of the fans there probably know each other personally or have spoken at some juncture on Facebook. At one point, I look up to see a Facebook friend, previously unmet, who regularly thrashes me at online Scrabble!

Handshakes, hugs, selfies – the sight of so many people of a certain age, some meeting for the very first time but conversing like old friends, is a significant part of what this evening is all about – and all united by one band. If any adjudicator for the Nobel Peace Prize is in the vicinity of SW1 this evening, they may find some worthy contenders for bringing together people in the spirit of peace, love and understanding.

The hall’s expansive foyer is soon consumed by the swelling tide of concert-goers, many of whom are immediately drawn to the expansive merch desk running along almost one side of it.

Mementos

The desk is in overdrive for most of the evening as thoughtfully-crafted mementos and souvenirs literally fly off the table. Umbrellas, car air fresheners in the shape of the last two albums, aprons, mugs, concert tee-shirts and of course, the ever growing collection of albums, available on CD and vinyl, all find new owners. My own personal choice is an exquisite hand-painted pendant depicting the cover of The Second Brightest Star. Alas, the pendants have all been snapped up within an hour on the Friday night. Continue reading “As the Cadogan Crow flies..” →