Why, this awesome picture of course!
This was taken last night at a Rush concert Mike Portnoy took his son to. Apparently Mike signed autographs for fans sitting near him at the concert. I can’t think of a better night than seeing Rush and meeting Mike Portnoy! Maybe meeting Rush, seeing them play, and meeting Mike Portnoy could top that.
Who is Afraid of Marillion?
Yesterday, prog queen Gianna Englert (and liberal arts demi-goddess) reminded us that today is the twentieth anniversary of Marillion’s album, AFRAID OF SUNLIGHT. For what it’s worth, it’s my favorite Marillion album, rivaled only by MARBLES.
Every time I bring the band up, someone tells me they love Fish or Hogarth more. I have no problem with either Fish-era Marillion or Hogarth-era Marillion. I love both. Marillion is Marillion. I actually buy into their own understanding that they represent a better way of a life. Perhaps I’ve just been taken in by great PR and marketing. The band seems the true inheritors of those who once cried for peace, love, and happiness.
What convinces me? Marillion understands better than almost any one in the musical world that it’s ok to promote what is beautiful and not do it tongue-in-check or with irony or with cynicism or with a wink. They actually mean it. When I listen to Marillion, I feel as though I’m with Sam, somewhere in Mordor, seeing a white star beyond the reach of all evil.
Another important—well, perhaps, critical—point. It’s arguable that AFRAID OF SUNLIGHT is the very first album of third-wave prog. But. . . .
Let me get personal for the rest of this post. If you’re not interested in reading, I totally understand. . . this is NOT a proper review or a retrospective. Merely a reflection and an appreciation.
***
Here’s the hard part. On August 8, 2007, my wife and I lost a daughter. My wife had come full term in her pregnancy, and Cecilia Rose was due on August 6. Rather than induce labor on that day, we decided to go all natural and wait for the baby to arrive when she was ready.
Sometime early on the morning of August 8, Cecilia Rose became entangled in her own umbilical cord. She suffocated on the very thing that had given her life. We didn’t know until later that day that Cecilia had passed away. Just before midnight, my wife (the strongest person I’ve ever met) gave “birth” to our deceased daughter. Long story, short—the following week was the absolute worst of my life. Every minute seemed like a month, and every hour a year. It was horrible.
The first week was the worst, but nothing really improved over the next year. In fact, life was pretty miserable. I was on sabbatical and working on my biography of American founding father Charles Carroll of Carrollton. Thank God. I needed something.
As it turns out, we live across the street from the main cemetery in Hillsdale, and we buried Cecilia Rose across the street. I visited her grave every day, miserable and confused. Frankly, I felt like an absolute failure as a father—after all, I have one real duty in this world: to protect my children. I realize how irrational I was—but the feelings were sincere, nonetheless.
A lot of things got me through that year—my wife, my kids, my friends, my writing. I would sit at Cecilia’s grave, wondering why her death had to happen? Almost daily, I listened to AFRAID OF SUNLIGHT. It brought me immense comfort.
I know the album is actually about surviving fame. . . but for me it was just about surviving.
Day-Glo Jesus on the dash
Scorch marks on the road ahead
Friendly fire in hostile waters
Keep the faith, don’t lose your head
Don’t lose your head
The power of music. The power of Marillion.
P.S. If you made it this far, thank you.
Darren kindly sent this, this morning:
Hello Brad – thank you for the review on ‘The Art of Rush, Hugh Syme: Serving a Life Sentence’ book.
https://progarchy.com/2015/06/23/the-art-of-rush-hugh-syme-serving-a-life-sentence/Here’s something of interest to read.
http://www.dailytribune.com/arts-and-entertainment/20150612/sound-check-rush-art-designer-happy-with-his-life-sentenceHere’s some photos of Hugh in The Ian Thomas Band back in the day.
http://rockinhouston.com/performers/ian-thomas-band/977/Regards
Darren
Tomorrow, June 24th, Marillion’s Afraid of Sunlight turns twenty. In honor of an album that holds a lot of meaning for at least a few of us here at Progarchy, here’s a live version of the title track.
Review of ART OF RUSH, HUGH SYME: SERVING A LIFE SENTENCE, written by Stephen Humphries (2112 Books, 2015), with a brief essay by Neil Peart.
In a week, my family and I move back to Michigan. It’s been an incredible year in Colorado, and we’ll be very sad to leave this rather textured slice of heaven. The year went by all too quickly. As you can imagine, the house is in chaos, and, at many levels, so is my life. Books here, cds there, my brain across the street, six kids and one cat feeling the “unsettlement” of the moment.
This is a long and convoluted way of writing. . . .
I should’ve reviewed THE ART OF RUSH a month ago. It’s written by a truly gifted music journalist and critic, Stephen Humphries (a graduate of Hillsdale College in Michigan). I have nothing but respect for Humphries, and the more I read him, the more I like him. He’s opened my eyes to my own biases against certain artists, and he’s more than once made me rethink some dogma I’d already decided and locked away, presumably (at least at the moment of decision) forever. THE ART OF RUSH, amazingly enough, is his first book, though he’s been publishing articles and reviews for almost two decades.
And, of course, it’s designed and illustrated by one of the most gifts men in the visual arts today, Hugh Syme.
I certainly don’t want to get into an us vs. them situation, but let’s say that where Roger Dean is beautiful, Syme is diverse and eclectic. Dean has spent a lifetime exploring consistency in his art, while Syme has worked with and in every artistic endeavor and genre imaginable. Dean is classic, and Syme is romantic. Dean is a perfectionist, and Syme is an explorer.
Everyone recognizes a Roger Dean painting anywhere–whether it’s residing on a Yes album or stolen by a major Hollywood producer. Probably only James Marsh (Talk Talk) is as distinctive as Dean, though Dean is better known.
THE ART OF RUSH shows exactly why Syme is not as distinctive as a Dean or a Marsh. He’s too (damn!) interesting to be distinctive. Whether it’s a font, an image, or an idea, Syme tries anything. And, crazily enough, it always works!
As is well known, Syme’s first cover for Rush was 1975’s CARESS OF STEEL. Peart liked and appreciated Syme so much, Syme has designed very album (inside and out) since. This means he’s been a part of Rush only a year less than Peart himself. And, the two men get along famously. Syme possesses the wonderful and uncanny ability to make the ideas of Peart–a radical individualist, perfectionist, and explorer in his own right–visual and successfully so.
The book, produced by 2112 Books, comes in three versions: tall, grande, and venti. Just joking–with apologies to Starbucks. No, it did come in three versions when released in May, but the Rush Backstage website only lists the cheapest one now. A $99/272 page hardback, coffee table style. Believe me, it’s well worth the $99.
I could be wrong, but I think it’s ONLY available at the Rush Backstage website. Amazon.com comes up with nothing when I searched for it there.
THE ART OF RUSH is as beautifully crafted (and as heavy!) as you’d expect from Syme. The binding, the pages, the design. . . all perfect. Peart provides a short but kind introduction, and Humphries provides all the words thereafter.
My version also came with an LP size card-stock poster celebrating forty years of Rush. Whether this is normal or not, I’m not sure. But, I am sure that the ART OF RUSH is a glorious thing to own and to linger over. It is a piece of perfection, in and of itself.
The Tipton brothers are big names within progressive metal circles. The hugely talented twins were responsible for the technical progressive metal behemoth that was Zero Hour and, since then, have created Cynthesis and Abnormal Thought Patterns, both quite different from Zero Hour and from each other but both delivering music of the very highest calibre. I was lucky enough to get an advance copy of the sophomore Abnormal Thought Patterns album, ‘Altered States Of Consciousness’, which comes out at the end of June 2015 via Lifeforce Records.
Suffice to say that the content has blown me away. Ostensibly an instrumental technical progressive metal band, this new record has seen the introduction of guest vocals as well as a number of guest musicians of real note. But it’s the overall final product that is so impressive, treading that fine line between technicality and atmosphere, melody and overt aggression. So impressed have…
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So, there are only a few day to go before two of the finest voices in prog, Christina Booth and David Longdon, share Magenta’s stage at the Borderline in London and the Robin 2 in Bilston to give us Spectral Mornings, the 2015 charity version.
However, Christina has already provided us with plenty of wow moments on top of those in Magenta’s gorgeous 2013 album, The Twenty Seven Club, and that incredible performance at last year’s Trinity festival with Magenta during which she sang Don’t Give Up with Alan Reed. Many grown men and women present were in pieces afterwards including dear Alan whose bottom lip did not stop wobbling during the song. It was simply one of those “you had to be there” moments.
It was no secret then as it is now about what Christina was going through, having lost both her parents in quick succession and then bravely announcing to the world that she was being treated for breast cancer. Well, if prayers and absent healing were all made available through all nations’ health services, the amount of love and good wishes she received during her diagnosis and treatment would potentially make modern day medicines obsolete!
Fortunately, Christina has now been given the all-clear and The Light is a legacy of these darker days she spent coping with both her family losses and her illness. As well as her immediate family especially her sister Francesca Murphy, who also sings, Christina has had the closeness of the Magenta family notably band founder Rob Reed, prog’s Everyman (not the one currently touring North America) and guitarist Chris Fry.
The Light is an album about love, loss, looking back, remembering, reconciliation, searching for knowledge, reassurance and finally finding that light of hope among all the darkness.
What is so special about this album is it is all about that voice, that crystalline pure soprano with that oh so slight vibrato that evokes so much raw emotion and that can seamlessly move into soulful or jazzy.
Rob Reed has produced The Light with real tender loving care and in such a way that none of the accompanying musical arrangements ever dominate or drown out her shimmering vocals.
The guest players are a who’s who of prog, the roll call comprising Andy Tillison, Theo Travis, John Mitchell, along with Magenta’s Fry, Dan Nelson and Andy Edwards with sister Francesca on backing vocals.
I defy anyone not to be moved by the tone of Christina’s faltering voice on Disappeared or uplifted by the gorgeous Celtic vibe on the title track.
There is plenty of light in this many-faceted world of prog, but Christina still shines the brightest and most glorious of them all.
Here is the video of the title track on The Light if ever further proof was needed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvudNV5hbeg
Regular readers will know that The Tangent’s Andy Tillison is a firm favourite with many of the contributors to this site, myself included. You’ll not be surprised, therefore, to see some words from me about his most recent live outing – a special “Evening with…” show last Saturday at Wesley Hall in Crookes, just on the outskirts of Sheffield.
Wesley Hall is part of a Methodist church and not the most obvious location for a prog gig – until you learn that the minister there is none other than music-loving Progarchy contributor John Simms! Anyway, it’s a charming place and in many respects a good venue for an intimate show like this one – although I’ll admit the hill-top setting made me feel somewhat foolish for deciding to walk up from the city centre.
When I arrived, just a little bit sweaty and out of breath from the climb, a handful of people were standing outside, chatting amiably with Andy himself and his partner Sally. This relaxed and friendly atmosphere pretty much set the tone for the rest of the evening. There was no particular hurry to start and an understandable willingness to wait until fellow Progarchist Alison Henderson and partner Martin had managed to find something to eat, given the very lengthy drive they had undertaken to be there. Eventually, we made our way into the hall and found seats, and soon enough, when all had been fed and watered, the show began.
Andy had admitted beforehand to a certain degree of nervousness about this, his first proper solo gig, but it really didn’t show as he ran through an almost bewilderingly diverse repertoire, mixing classics from The Tangent and Po90 with an unexpected rendition of Rory Gallagher’s Bullfrog Blues and a hilarious Berlin School-inspired homage to classic UK kids TV show The Clangers – incorporating the theme from Vangelis’ Chariots Of Fire, no less! As if that weren’t already enough, we also enjoyed the incongruity of seeing a drum solo played on a keyboard and heard a raw, powerful performance of In Earnest preceding a jazzed-up version of The Commodores’ Three Times a Lady. Threaded through this intoxicating mixture were the anecdotes and dry self-deprecating wit of the man himself. A case in point would be the delightful tale of how GPS Culture‘s leitmotif was constructed by splicing the theme tune of soap opera East Enders onto the jingle from a PC World TV advert!
Thank you, Andy and Sally, for a joyous evening that will live long in the memory. And thank you, John, for hosting it!
Here’s the title track from the new album out this year from The Darkness, “Last of Our Kind”…
It’s pretty darn great, and the whole album’s not too bad as well…
Check out the guitar solo starting at 2:34, which is very tasteful and nicely paced with a little bit of flash sprinkled in at just the right moments (like around the 3:00 mark)…
Of course, the track’s secret weapon is that nifty falsetto vocal work…
***
For those of you who love Chestertonian Prog as much as I do, we don’t have to wait much longer. I just received a very kind and interesting email from Mark Ptak of the prog band, Advent.
I just wanted to make you aware that (after what seems like an eternity, I know – especially for us, with all the various unavoidable delays) we’ll finally be finishing mixing this weekend (woo-hoo!) and entering the mastering stages of Advent’s new release, “Silent Sentinel,” hopefully starting next week, I believe, with Bob Katz over at Digital Domain in Florida. (http://www.digido.com/) Bob is one of the most sought after mastering engineers out there, and we’re very pleased to have the fruits of our laborious efforts in his capable hands again. Cover artwork will be done once more by the extremely talented artist, Michael Phipps, who previously did “Cantus Firmus” for us. We’re looking to have the album ready for purchase by August, so please feel free pass the word around that the album will soon be made available. I’ll have more details in the not too distant future, but for now, thanks, and be prepared for one helluva musical ride when this thing is released – as there’s almost a double album’s worth of material coming at ya! Talk again soon…
Best,
Mark
Nothing to make a June day even better. Very excited about this. To order the first album, Cantus Firmus, please click here.
Progarchy 