Our tribalism always finds an outlet through politics, sports etc – but they manifest in other spheres too. Art is no exception; metal definitely is not. T-shirts, tattoos and band patches – all signal tribal association. Instinctively adopting a genre identity and defending those musical sensibilities is a commonplace. Labels, artists and the other marketing aspects are also an accentuating factor here.
Years ago I used to frequent this bar, they mostly played 70s to 90s metal. So you could find a wide variety of old-school metal-heads being regulars there. Before these metallers split into factions, sub-factions and more nuanced quibbling sub-categories – there were two broad species – those who listen to power-metal and those who despised it. Needless to say, each considered the other as poseurs. The polarizing quality of power metal cannot be more evident. I guess melodramatic compositions and fantasy themes are not everyone’s cup of tea!
It’s difficult to identify sounds which might appease both these battling tribes, but DragonForce is a definite contender. This late 90s British band is a form of anachronism – classic power metal blueprint, but also extremely technical. In short, its power metal with intricate progressions and sonic intensity of 80s thrash.
Sheer speed of the guitar solos makes passages resemble Super Mario music. Herman Li and Sam Totman’s dual guitar harmony is melodic and maddeningly precise. Aggressive bass lines, blazing leads and blast beats are all quintessential extreme metal elements. While those fantasy themed lyrics, high pitched clean vocals and catchy choruses tailored for large arenas – all indicate Ronnie James Dio/Rob Halford lineage of power metal. DragonForce may not be genre-bending revolutionaries, but they might just manage to placate two seemingly irreconcilable tribes.
The Laurentian Mountains studio, where Rush recorded the video for “Tom Sawyer,” was destroyed by an early morning fire today. Provincial police received a call about the blaze around 5:30 a.m., but when firefighters got to the studio, it was too late. Investigators with the Sûreté du Québec are working to determine the cause of the fire.
It’s been too long since I last posted something other than an obituary (although the music world did just lose another great in Glen Campbell). A concert, then, offered a welcome opportunity for change. Last night (August 8) I attended a collaboration of two rock icons at the Colosseum in Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. Although I must confess I did not stay the entire show (due in large part to a rather frenetic work week), what I did see impressed me, at least as a fair-weather fan of these two legends.
Peter Frampton opened up with an hour and ten-minute long setlist of his greatest hits, many of which were from his most successful album, 1976’s Frampton Comes Alive. While the highlight of his act was a lengthy (about 17 minutes) and rollicking rendition of “Do You Feel Like We Do” – which included his iconic “talkbox” solo and some fun interplay between Frampton and the keyboardist – Frampton also performed a unique version of Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun” (again using a talkbox) as a tribute to Chris Cornell. Frampton explained how he and Cornell had performed this song together a few years ago and, in an acknowledgement of Cornell’s exceptional vocal skills, Frampton allowed his guitar to do the singing. It was a touching and classy gesture on his part.
After Frampton’s gig it was time to say hello to the Steve Miller Band. Steve Miller is 74 years old, but he can still jam – and he had a lot of fun doing it. After playing a few hits, including “Abracadabra,” he welcomed Frampton back on stage for a surprising performance of four old blues songs: KC Douglas’ “Mercury Blues,” Otis Rush’s “All Your Love,” Muddy Waters’ “Can’t Be Satisfied,” and Elmore James’ “Stranger Blues.” This homage to these classic blues musicians elicited a positive response from the audience and it was probably my favorite part of the whole show. Miller and Frampton showed off their guitar chops with a number of improvised solos and duels. And we enjoyed watching and listening!
Frampton exited to much applause for a second time as Miller and his band prepared to return to their greatest hits, but it was at this point that I left (I never would have done this on a Friday or Saturday night, I promise). I did check out the setlist and confirmed my suspicions: Miller concluded the night with the hits “Fly Like an Eagle,” “Rock’n Me,” and “Jet Airliner,” among others. Despite my early exit, this proved to be a wonderful experience. Having known just a few of the songs of both performers going in, I did not exactly know what to expect – but I did not leave disappointed. From the humorous (Frampton accidentally burping on the talkbox while performing “Do You Feel the Way We Do”) to the touching (Miller dedicating “Living in the USA” to the members of the United States armed forces), this concert did not disappoint.
First, let’s give proper credit to James Parker, who is a contributing editor to The Atlantic and a white man who hates prog rock: he manages to avoid, in his review of David Weigel’s book The Show That Never Ends: The Rise and Fall of Prog Rock, the adjective “pretentious.” Kudos. Props. Cheers. Scattered applause.
The rest of his article—that is, the entire article—is appalling, bad, and cranky (the abc’s of lousy articles), starting with the title—“The Whitest Music Ever”—and taken up a few notches with the subtitle: “Prog rock was audacious, innovative—and awful.” Perhaps Parker was trying to top Kyle Smith’s embarrassing excursion into prog criticism. If so, he succeeds in some ways, if only because he doesn’t even try to construct an argument, provide much (if any) context or contrast, or observe any basic journalistic rules governing facts, truth, and other boring minutia. It’s so pathetic, it makes a typical blog rant on about any topic sound like “The Gettysburg Address” in comparison.
Here, bullet-pointed in order to keep me from wasting too much time shoveling on this, are five glaring problems with the article:
• The word “was” in the subtitle. Just like Smith, Parker seems completely unaware of the history of prog after the late ’70s and is clueless about the steady re-birth of prog over the past 25 years or so. Everyone knows that prog experienced a serious dive in maintstream popularity; what many folks don’t admit is that prog didn’t die. You could say it went into hibernation, but there’s a real sense in which it actually fragmented or melted into the world of pop music—think Asia, Genesis, Yes (with Rabin), Alan Parson’s Project, and so forth—and then slowly began to reform throughout the Eighties, finally coalescing again in even more diverse and surprising ways in the Nineties. As Alexis Petridis observed in a 2010 article in The Guardianon the resurgence of prog:
The perceived wisdom is that it was utterly swept away by punk, but that doesn’t account for the string of British prog bands signed by major labels in the early 80s – not just Marillion, but IQ, Pendragon and Pallas – nor for the continued chart success of Yes, Rush and Genesis, although whether those bands’ 80s oeuvres could truly be considered prog is a matter of some debate…
I say “diverse” because prog in recent decades has become incredibly popular in places such as Italy, Spain, South America, and parts of Asia. Yes, it is still Euro-centric (ooh, how horrible), but it’s not about “white” as much as it’s about a certain stream of Western culture and artistic expression (ooh, that really is horrible). In sum: anyone who thinks prog died in the Seventies shouldn’t be writing about prog. Period. Continue reading “Who knew The Atlantic could be so shallow?”→
I’m thrilled to learn that the forthcoming Tears for Fears album has a name: THE TIPPING POINT. At the moment, the title is a tentative one, more indicative of the band’s desires and aspirations than of any confirmed realizations.
It’s been, amazingly enough, thirteen years since the band’s last studio album, EVERYBODY LOVES A HAPPY ENDING.
Westword has a really good article and interview here:
I, for one, have no doubt that this will be a worthy successor to EVERYBODY and a brilliant album. I’m pretty convinced that Orzabal is our great living pop musician.
Groovy rumble of eight-string guitar, robotic barking, and this blunt calculated tempo variation – all Meshuggah signatures. Built on a musical skeleton forged from groove and death metal, obZen is akin to a cybernetic monster — mechanistic and precise. By constantly adopting math metal, jazz and progressive attributes, the band has always been pushing music into unimaginable territories. obZen is no exception.
Album is an excellent crossover from 90s to modern Meshuggah, basically more groove metal than djent. Needless to say, Jens Kidman’s vocals blend in as if it’s another discordant machine in this mechanistic orchestra. Odd rhythmic structures, Tomas Haake’s jazz like drumming, and down-tuned proggy leads – all simply inspire still reverence, not moshing.
Both for the artist and the listener, maximum creative bliss is at the margins. Meshuggah has been constantly placing themselves at those very structural margins of numerous demanding genres. Habitually creating novel classifications for what’s considered exceptional. obZen is yet another extraordinary dissonant chapter.
“ELP were often criticized for running an overblown or overproduced show … The Persian carpets are useful because they cover the crisscross of wires over the stage, reduce slippage, absorb some of the noise so you can hear each other play and — this is the prima donna part — they make you feel more comfortable and at home on stage.” (Emphasis mine.)
This quote, from page 160 of Lucky Man, was when I finally understood Greg Lake. In books like Keith Emerson’s memoir Pictures of an Exhibitionist and David Weigel’s The Show That Never Ends, heusually comes off as pretentious, petulant, demanding and unsatisfied, the irrational antagonist to Emerson’s grand designs. After Lake’s passing in late 2016, Sid Smith’s lovely obituary in Prog Magazine humanized him for me, and Lucky Man — while not a tell-all book like Emerson’s — completes the process. Underneath the aura of entitled celebrity Lake projected, the man got the cosmic joke. He realized he was living the dream, he felt he’d worked hard to get there — but also that hard work wasn’t the whole story. So he figured he might as well live the dream in high style.
Lake draws the veil over a lot — we don’t get the play-by-plays of tour debauchery that Emerson overshared, and the conflicts during the recording of Tarkus and the 1977 Works orchestra tour are stated but soft-pedaled. What we do get is an outline of the classic rock and roll career — humble beginnings in Bournemouth, a wannabe pop star stint in London, success with King Crimson, and a ten year roller coaster ride to the top of the world and back down with ELP — all before he turned 35. What do you do for an encore?
Here’s what I take away from Lucky Man: Lake realized lightning like that doesn’t strike twice. He took opportunities when they came up (a brief 1980s solo career, a one-night stand with Asia to help out Carl Palmer, the extended 1990s reunion of ELP and their final 2010 show, his Songs of a Lifetime tour), but he never put much faith in another climb to the pinnacle. Working with and hearing great musicians obviously excited him — his stories of meeting the Shadows’ Hank Martin, seeing Elvis live in Vegas, touring with Ringo Starr and recording with the Who bring out his inner fan. But in Crimson and ELP, Lake knew his standards and his boundaries, and he stuck to his guns, no matter the friction that resulted. It was the music that mattered the most to him, and both Emerson and Palmer acknowledged that in retrospect. With any worldly ambitions fulfilled so early in life, he could simply take pride in his accomplishments and find satisfaction in his family.
Which makes the end of Lucky Man, where Lake reflects on Keith Emerson’s suicide and his own terminal cancer diagnosis, even more poignant. An Epicurean who enjoyed the high life in so many ways, the man’s final words provide a gracious, fitting coda to this surprisingly Stoic memoir:
“Without your love and encouragement the life I have lived would never have been possible. I have been a lucky man.”
Note: Lucky Man has only been published in Great Britain. It’s available worldwide through Book Depository, which is based in the UK, owned by Amazon but operating independently. They offer free worldwide shipping. Here’s the link.
(This post is in loving memory of the late Joel Kimball, master of the Rickenbacker bass and the bagpipes at Alma College from 1980-1984.)
On Nebraska,Bruce Springsteen rode the violent edge of Americanness that coursed through rock and roll, consciously plugging into Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and the legacy of Charlie Starkweather’s and Caril Fugate’s 1958 killing spree across the midwest. Springsteen was inspired towards Misfit-style murder ballad by Terrence Malick’s 1973 film Badlands, a thinly-veiled fiction of the Starkweather/Fugate rampage, and went so far as to write a song called “Badlands” for Darkness on the Edge of Town before going all in with the spare Nebraska. As a source of influence on Springsteen’s work and, by association, those of Springsteen’s acolytes, Malick’s film is profound, and yet it achieves its own dark power partly through a music almost entirely unrelated to its subject matter.
Music für Kinder. Music for children. Given the youth of Starkweather and Fugate, this may have been the connecting tissue Malick was looking for when he used the work of Gunild Keetman in his film. Keetman and her collaborator Carl Orff created volume upon volume of educational texts and compositions from the 1930s into the 1960s under the name “Schulwerk” and “Music für Kinder.” While Orff, as the composer of “Carmina Burana,” was the high-profile name attached to the project, Keetman did the heavy lifting. At times interpretations — as in the first of the four pieces presented here, “Gassenhauer” (which Malick used throughout Badlands), composed by Hans Neusidler in 1536 and recast by Keetman in 1952 — the work tends towards the percussive and rhythmic, with simple starts building progressively in complexity. The results are lovely, spritely even, but, as in this performance by the Karl Peinkofer Percussion Ensemble in 1995, maintain a meditative quality lending a potential for darkness, not of childhood but of perhaps lost childhood.
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.
Apart from the blatantly stereotypical header above, ‘Game Of Thrones’ isn’t the only strong namedropping connection to Yorkshire at the moment. Hailing from what was once dubbed the County of York, a new Prog band calling themselves THIS WINTER MACHINE has emerged in an area starved of such bands. When asked what the Prog scene was like locally, vocalist, AL WYNTER replied, “The short answer is that there isn’t really one. There are a couple of bands, and an organisation that puts on gigs but there is no scene to speak of. No dedicated venues or prog nights anywhere and its hard to get decent gigs playing original material.” That hasn’t at all deterred the band from playing and recording what was their debut album now with F2 Records titled ‘THE MAN WHO NEVER WAS.’
Track listings
1. The Man Who Never Was (16:05) :
– a) Asleep
– b) Dreaming
– c) Snow
– d) Awake
2. The Wheel (9:28)
3. Lullaby (Interrupted) (4:53)
4. After Tomorrow Comes (7:58)
5. Fractured (10:26)
Total Time 48:50
There were a couple of lineup changes but for the sake of this album released in January 2017 we’ll go with Al Wynter (Vocals), Marcus Murray (drums), Mark Numan (keyboards and backing vocals), Gary Jevon (guitars), and Peter Priestley (Bass). I asked Al how the band got together. “Well I put an ad out,” he explains, “and Marcus and Mark, and a different bassist came and jammed and we got on okay. After a couple of rehearsals it was clear the bassist wouldn’t be able to commit and put in the required time so Pete, who I’ve known for many years, offered to step in. Then Jevo came on board and the album was written and recorded in a matter of weeks. We started writing from the first rehearsal. When Jevo left we advertised and Graham was a friend of Marks (keys player) and joined. Then Pete had the idea of having 2 guitarists so Scott came through the auditions and joined. And now here we are. ”
When asked about the origins of the band’s name, the vocalist acknowledges, “My surname is a play on the band name. The idea of a Winter Machine came from a daydream I had where an old style horse and plough pulled a Victorian kinda machine through a field changing the land from Autumn to Winter.” He went further into some of the song selections on this album and I asked him how personal the lyrics were on such tracks as, ‘After Tomorrow Comes’ and Fractured’ and especially ‘The Man Who Never Was’ (“Watching the seasons unfold from a safe place I know. A design never ending. Covering all of my thoughts in a blanket of snow That is gone by the morning“). Was it at all biographical in any way? “I’m usually telling a story in character,” Al added. “The songs are partly autobiographical to a degree I suppose, but its not really about me. I observe things then write about it. But I don’t like to explain my lyrics in detail, I think its better that people take from them what they want. All I will say is that it all means something, at least to me. I try not to use too many throwaway lines.” Al followed this up with: ” This Winter Machine existed before my stage name, Al Winter, and all tracks are group written to varying degrees. For instance ‘After Tomorrow Comes’ was almost complete and brought to the band by Mark. ‘The Man Who Never Was’ is a song I’d had for almost 10 years, but we all put our own stamp on them. They’re definitely group efforts. But on the new album we’re writing now pretty much everything is co written from the ground up. ”
The artwork on the album sleeve is very interesting to. Not sure if anyone else has noticed but the British have this deep fascination with telephone boxes! “The telephone box for me represents a vanishing British tradition,” Al explains. “It’s an iconic image that many associate with the UK but actually red telephone boxes are very rare and more likely to be seen in country villages. Also I liked the juxtaposition of the old and the 20th century. Those were my reason for including it in the art.” Every picture tells a story, and there is definitely one in there with the fox and hooded person, and the owl and the gears…
On a sadder note, Al advised me the artist for this album, Sandor Kwiatkowski passed away last month in Switzerland. If you listen to Clepsydra you’ll know his work on their album covers. Sandor also did the amazing art posters for the Night of the Prog Festival recently.
Early days yet but I did ask the Yorkshire vocalist how he felt things were tracking for the band. “We have a good and supportive label,” he reflected. “… not to mention building a solid and dedicated fan base. It would be nice to be moving faster but things are going in all the right directions so its hard to complain. What I think we need is a dedicated manager. A modern day Peter Grant to get us to that next level! But I think we have done okay for a band only together a year or so. Any ideas would be appreciated!
Al started his vocal career at a very young age sing in bands when he was just 15. “It was standard heavy rock of the day, kind of in the vein of Ozzy or Ratt or Van Halen. Very 80s haha..!” He went on to say into his relation with Prog, “I was at a friend’s house in my early teens and we were looking through his brothers albums and I liked the look of the sleeve for Rush – ‘Permanent Waves.’ So I looked at the lyrics and decided ‘Jacobs Ladder’ looked like a short song (only a couple of verses, what did I know!) and put it on the turntable and it blew me away. I’d never heard anything even remotely like that. From then on I was a fan, and to this day they’re still my favourite band.“
This included bands bands like Marillion and I asked him if it was it mainly listening to Geddy Lee and Fish that drew him into wanting to sing vocals?
“Not so much, no, although they have been an influence (especially Fish and Peart) on my lyrics,” Al points out. “I sang from an early age, and got involved with musical theatre. I’ve always listened to a wide range of singers. Ozzy was great for a while, and the great rock singers like Gillan and Rodgers and Dio definitely made me sit up and listen. But I’d say people like Hogarth or Gabriel have also inspired me, along with a lot of soul singers from the 60’s and 70’s and even some folk vocalists. If its good, I will try to take something from it. However, I think its important to try to sound like yourself. Too many desperate copyists about, in Rock and Prog in general.” And that’s one of the reasons I’m not going to take the liberty and compare this band to any other. I listened to the album a couple of time today through the speakers, up loud, and it rocks! The title four-part song ”The Man Who Never Was‘ has a good lead in with a piano playing in a room filled with folk that segues into a short instrumental, building with ominous tones, and opens up into an epic long track filled with vocals and a story worth listening to. Al’s got a voice made for Metal or Melodic Rock if he wishes to, but he’s doing just fine in Prog. I like his tones. Not hard, but not soft either. The second track, ‘The Wheel‘ opens up some mice bass work and with the drumming heralds some cruisey lead guitar which then moves into top gear with more melodic licks. it’s a track that builds on itself. ‘Lullaby‘ showcases more standout guitar rips. A favourite track of mine is ‘After Tomorrow Comes‘ which has radio play written all over it. The weaving of piano with vocal and interplay of guitar and other keys with drum bass emphasizes a beautiful power ballad type song with a touch of Yorkshire muscle behind it. The song also has a memorable chorus that hangs around long after the track has finished. The last track bookends a song longer than 10 minutes which starts off with a staccato melody on guitar and then a quick burst of synth that would even have Rick Wakeman tapping his toes to. This is ‘Fractured‘ and it’s a good song to end with. It starts quickly then softens but doesn’t take long to pick up speed and take you to the end. A song of many colours. I was expecting a somewhat bleak and darkened collection of tracks but nothing could be further from the truth. If the movie ‘Labyrinth’ needed a heavier soundtrack then this one would fit the bill perfectly. Hearing this makes you want to see the band perform these songs live. Al promises they ae looking into a video following a live performance. As to what’s next… “Our next concert is in Wakefield on 16th of September. After that we have gigs with bands like German proggers Crystal Palace in October and with rock legends Magnum in November. Then next year we have some dates with Martin Barre from Jethro Tull. We also have some great things to announce in the near future.”
This Winter Machine isn’t letting the dust settle though. “We are working on the follow up album,” Al reflects. “Which has the title of ‘A Tower Of Clocks.’ It’s a full blown concept album and much more dense and diverse than the debut. That’s coming on well and we are optimistic we can release it this year. I know our label would approve of that ha,ha…!”
Al advises you can buy their album at the usual online places such as Google Play, Amazon, iTunes etc
It’s been too long since I last posted something other than an obituary (although the music world did just lose another great in Glen Campbell). A concert, then, offered a welcome opportunity for change. Last night (August 8) I attended a collaboration of two rock icons at the Colosseum in Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. Although I must confess I did not stay the entire show (due in large part to a rather frenetic work week), what I did see impressed me, at least as a fair-weather fan of these two legends.
Frampton exited to much applause for a second time as Miller and his band prepared to return to their greatest hits, but it was at this point that I left (I never would have done this on a Friday or Saturday night, I promise). I did check out the setlist and confirmed my suspicions: Miller concluded the night with the hits “Fly Like an Eagle,” “Rock’n Me,” and “Jet Airliner,” among others. Despite my early exit, this proved to be a wonderful experience. Having known just a few of the songs of both performers going in, I did not exactly know what to expect – but I did not leave disappointed. From the humorous (Frampton accidentally burping on the talkbox while performing “Do You Feel the Way We Do”) to the touching (Miller dedicating “Living in the USA” to the members of the United States armed forces), this concert did not disappoint.
First, let’s give proper credit to James Parker, who is a contributing editor to The Atlantic and a white man who hates prog rock: he manages to avoid, in his review of David Weigel’s book The Show That Never Ends: The Rise and Fall of Prog Rock, the adjective “pretentious.” Kudos. Props. Cheers. Scattered applause.
On Nebraska, 
Progarchy 
