Happy Birthday Alex

On By Dave BandanaIn Progarchy1 Comment

Officer of the Order of Canada. Guitarist. Trailer Park Boys kidnap victim. It’s the great Alex Lifeson’s birthday today, so here are nine Lifeson lessons whipped from the pages of Classic Rock.

“I make them up every night… it’s terrifying!” – Lifeson on his live monologues, Classic Rock issue 61

“It’s the most popular song in Mexico…ever!” – Lifeson on Closer To The Heart, Classic Rock issue 61
alex
“Much as I like what we do in Rush, on my solo album I wanted guitar…and then some more guitar!” – Classic Rock issue 71

“We had access to two studios, and nothing else to do at night.” – Lifeson on why the Snakes & Arrows album was recorded so quickly, Classic Rock issue 107

“We’ve had some difficult times with producers. Mainly because they didn’t happen to be a producer.” – Classic Rock issue 113

“We know how boring and ordinary we are.” – Classic Rock issue 148

“It’s kind of a success story. Kids from the suburbs have a dream, and they live their dream. Everybody can relate to that.” – Classic Rock issue 148

“Our whole relationship’s based on humour – laughing and goofing around, being idiots.” – Lifeson on Rush, Classic Rock issue 148

“I definitely hear a lot of Rush in a lot of bands coming through right now.” – Classic Rock issue 179

Mighty News: Arjen Lucassen’s New Project

On By bradbirzerIn Uncategorized1 Comment

Yesterday, our favorite Dutch rocker and master of sci-fi prog, Arjen Lucassen, announced the name of his new project: Gentle Storm.  I have no doubt it will be incredible.  I’m sure–genetically!–Lucassen is constitutionally incapable of anything less than perfection.  Equally exciting, Gentle Storm will be performing live.

Here’s hoping they come to Red Rocks!

The Gentle Storm

We are excited to announce that Arjen’s collaboration with Anneke van Giersbergen will be called The Gentle Storm. The album is planned for release in early 2015.

Arjen likes to say that his touring days are over, but he’s helped Anneke form a stellar band for live dates in support of the album. You can find out more at your favorite social media pitstop:

www.facebook.com/TheGentleStorm
www.twitter.com/gentlestormband
www.instagram.com/gentlestormband
https://www.facebook.com/annekevangiersbergenofficial
https://www.facebook.com/arjen.a.lucassen

More details to follow!

 

Lego Ayreon: Into the Electric Castle.
Lego Ayreon: Into the Electric Castle.

RochaNews: Pineapple Thief Free Download of New Track

On By bradbirzerIn UncategorizedLeave a comment
Gorgeous artwork for the forthcoming TPT album, Magnolia.
Gorgeous artwork for the forthcoming TPT album, Magnolia.

THE PINEAPPLE THIEF OFFERS FREE DOWNLOAD OF NEW TRACK “SIMPLE AS THAT”

10th studio album “Magnolia” out September 16 via Kscope

ENGLAND – The Pineapple Thief is offering fans a free download of the new track “Simple as That” from the band’s upcoming 10th studio album Magnolia at:http://emailunlock.com/kscope-burningshed/the-pineapple-thief-simple-as-that#. Magnoliais set for a September 16 North American release via Kscope.

“Here’s the opening track from the new album for you, the beginning of a deep and varied journey,” said songwriter and guitarist Bruce Soord. “I hope you get as much from our new music as we do. Thanks for your support!”

Additionally, a Magnolia instrumental teaser video is streaming on YouTube at:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJrVo9BkURQ.

Fans can also pre-order Magnolia via the following links:

Magnolia follows the acclaimed 2012 album All The Wars and marks an important turning point for The Pineapple Thief, as it expands its musical horizons beyond the progressive sphere. Recorded at Snap Studios and mixed at Strongroom Studios in London, Magnoliarepresents the ultimate culmination of Soord’s ongoing quest to raise spirits and connect. A devastating yet uplifting collection of 12 beautifully crafted songs, it showcases the band’s intuitive chemistry and soulful demeanor, cramming a vast array of emotional shades and inspirational ideas into its 47 mesmerizing minutes. Veering from the strident opening assault of “Simple as That,” due to be the first single, through to the cinematic sweep of the closing track “Bond,” it marks an important step in the band’s story, while skillfully encapsulating everything that has made its musical journey such a relentlessly fascinating one. 

“All I ever wanted was to write catchy songs that stay with people,” commented Soord, explaining how this record represents an important evolutionary phase for The Pineapple Thief. “The striking thing is that there are no long tunes… all I care about now is writing a good song. I don’t think about whether it’s rock or progressive or commercial or anything like that. As time went on, I discovered I could say everything I wanted to say within a shorter period of time.” 

New drummer Dan Osborne, also heavily involved in the production of Magnolia, brought fresh energy and ideas to The Pineapple Thief, strongly contributing to steer the band in a new direction. Completing the line-up are solid bassist Jon Sykes and keyboard maestro Steve Kitch. While string arrangements are courtesy of regular collaborator Andrew Skeet of The Divine Comedy, the stunning final mix was crafted by mix engineer Adam Noble, who has previously worked on albums from the likes of Placebo, Guillemots, Paul McCartney, Robbie Williams and Belgium alt rock band dEUS. The artwork for Magnoliawas created by French artist Patrick Gonzales (http://www.patrickgonzales.net).

1. Simple as That (04:01)

2. Alone at Sea (05:21)

3. Don’t Tell Me (03:35)

4. Magnolia (03:47)

5. Seasons Past (04:14)

6. Coming Home (03:06)

7. The One You Left to Die (04:19)

8. Breathe (02:35)

9. From Me (04:31)

10. Sense of Fear (04:31)

11. A Loneliness (03:22)

12. Bond (04:31)

Formed in 1999 by founder and chief songwriter Bruce Soord as an experimental bedroom project, The Pineapple Thief has since continued to evolve and refine its sound. The group is seen by many as one of the most interesting and innovative rock bands the U.K. has produced in recent years. Previous albums like Someone Here Is Missing (2010) and All The Wars (2012) have made The Pineapple Thief’s reputation and fan base stronger, resulting in interest from a wider audience. Bruce Soord also collaborates with other Kscope artists, joining forces with Jonas Renkse of Swedish band Katatonia on their critically acclaimed Wisdom Of Crowds project. Along with this collaboration, we saw Soord join Katatonia on their recent “Dethroned & Uncrowned – Unplugged & Reworked” acoustic European tour.   

With a new, blossoming sound, Magnolia has all the potential to bring The Pineapple Thief to the masses. This, the band’s 10th record, could not only be a milestone, but also a mainstream breakthrough for the band. With Magnolia, The Pineapple Thief has created 12 musical gems that defy all classifications – anthemic, catchy, intense, honest and straight from the heart.

Stay tuned for more information on The Pineapple Thief and Magnolia.

 

The Pineapple Thief online…

 

The Pineapple Thief is… 

  • Bruce Soord – vocals, guitar
  • Dan Osborne – drums
  • Jon Sykes – bass
  • Steve Kitch – keyboards

 

A huge thanks to our friend Brian Rocha and Fresno Media for reaching out to us–ed., progarchy.com

The Triumph of Kate Bush

On By Time LordIn ProgarchyLeave a comment

katebush-concert

Tracey Thorn recounts her experience of the amazing Kate Bush concert in the pages of the New Statesman, namely, the experience of “the ecstatic triumph of a life’s work”:

Six straight songs and then, just as we are relaxing, the stage transforms, and the drama begins: a multi-sensory performance of “The Ninth Wave”, the suite of songs that forms side two of The Hounds of Love (1985). There’s Kate on screen in a life jacket, apparently slipping away from us, singing “And Dream of Sheep”, one of her most beautiful songs.

I should probably write this somewhere more formal – my will, perhaps – but in case I forget, let me say here that I would be happy for you to play this song at my funeral. I weep as she sings it, partly because I’m imagining my own funeral, but also because we are witnessing a struggle between life and death, where a drowning woman yearns to be saved, to return to her beloved family. “Let me live!” she cries a few songs later. Overwhelming and exhilarating as they are, all the special effects – Kate in a tank, a helicopter search beam strafing the audience – are in the service of the songs and the story.

Why is it so moving? Well, because when finally she is brought back it is not just the fictional heroine, but Kate herself who has survived the years, and those cold seas, and returned to us. The two strands, family love and audience love, intertwine as she shows us how both mean so much to her. “D’you know what?/I love you better now,” she sings, as the first half ends and we wipe our tears.

Part two is calmer, more reflective, consisting of one side of the recent album Aerial (2005). Reprieved from death, she now revels in the simple, sensuous pleasures of life. Birdsong on a summer afternoon. The setting of the sun and the rising of the moon. In more conventional hands this could be merely decorous and pastoral, even a little twee, but somehow she has found a way to transform contentment into euphoria. The mood is hypnotic, rhythmic and trancey, and the stage dazzles with images of light and flight; less genteel garden party, more full-on midsummer rave, it could be the ultimate blissed-out headliner of a blistering, sunny Glastonbury.

And her singing voice, which I so worried about? It is a thing of wonder, any youthful shrillness replaced by a richer, occasionally gravelly tone, and with a full-throated power unbelievable in someone who has so rarely sung live. All I can think is that she must have been practising, on her own in a barn somewhere, for the past 35 years. Practising, planning, waiting for all the stars to align – her own desire, the cast of collaborators, the right time and place – in order for this to happen. And it is an ecstatic triumph, a truly extraordinary achievement.

Zee Baig is an American: Long Live, Fire Garden!

On By bradbirzerIn Uncategorized1 Comment

I just found out that Chicago’s master of all things Prog, Zee Baig, became an American citizen today.  Getting to know Zee–even if only virtually–over the last year has been one of the great joys of editing progarchy.  

Sound of Majestic Colors (2014) by Fire Garden. A masterful work of prog metal.
Sound of Majestic Colors (2014) by Fire Garden. A masterful work of prog metal.

His success today is the kind of thing that makes me say: good for Zee and incredibly good for America!

So, let me be blunt–let’s please help Zee celebrate by supporting his excellent band, FIRE GARDEN.  

 

A U.S. citizen.
A U.S. citizen.

Goodbye Thomas, Hello Billy: Behind the Scenes Drama with Yes

On By Time LordIn ProgarchyLeave a comment

yes-with-baker

Steve Howe has revealed in a radio interview that Yes wasn’t getting what it needed from Roy Thomas Baker on the production of Heaven and Earth, so they had to turn to Billy Sherwood, who left his stamp especially on the vocal mix:

“We got into it, and it was OK,” Howe tells WMGK‘s Ray Koob. “You know, every producer’s got a certain style. Roy’s method was pretty much about the sound. It wasn’t so much about the construction of the songs, like Trevor [Horn, producer of 2011’s Fly From Here], who worked very hard on that. So, Roy kind of let us do most of the music, and twiddled with a lot of knobs. But, I tell you, in the end we really did have to bring it back to Yes Central — because, in a way, I don’t think he was as familiar with our mixing style as say Billy Sherwood, who ended up doing that for us. Well, we did it with him; it was a collaboration. So, we had to kind of pull it back to Yes Central. It was all fair in love and war.”

When I saw Steve after the show in Vancouver, he remarked about his good memories of Vancouver because that was where The Ladder was recorded. Steve is really happy with the sound of The Ladder because of its unique “flavor.”

I think Jon Davison is fantastic and I have come to like Heaven and Earth very much, despite what initially struck me as weird about it — namely, the production! — and this news makes me wonder what the album could have been if Sherwood and not Baker had been involved for the entire process.

I hope they do another album with Davison soon, and with the right producer this time.

Chartbusting — Kate Bush

On By Time LordIn ProgarchyLeave a comment

kate-bush-screen-siren

Kate Bush’s concert series this year has kicked off a remarkable return to the charts for her. She is now the first female artist ever to have 8 albums in the Top 40. And all of her albums are currently in the Top 50:

Her achievement is only bettered by Elvis Presley, who took 12 places after his death in 1977, and the Beatles, who scored 11 on their remaster releases in 2009.

Bush’s first chart record came when debut single Wuthering Heights made her the first female artist to reach No.1 with a self-written song. Now her 1986 record The Whole Story has made No.6 while Hounds Of Love, from the previous year, has reached No.9. Further titles are placed at 20, 24, 26, 37, 38 and 40, with three more at 43, 44, and 49. That means her entire back-catalogue is in the top 50.

…

Kate Bush album chart placings

No. 6: The Whole Story (1986)

No. 9: Hounds Of Love (1985)

No. 20: 50 Words For Snow (2011)

No 24: The Kick Inside (1978)

No. 26: The Sensual World (1989)

No 37: The Dreaming (1982)

No. 38: Never For Ever (1980)

No. 40: Lionheart (1978)

No. 43: Aerial (2005)

No. 44: Director’s Cut (2011)

No. 49: The Red Shoes (1993)

Evergrey – Hymns For The Broken – Interview: “It Has Surpassed All Our Expectations”

On By bradbirzerIn progressive rock musicLeave a comment

manofmuchmetal's avatar

The Electronic Press Kit for ‘Hymns For The Broken’:

It is not often that I get personally invited by an artist to interview them for this little blog of mine. However, that was exactly the reality with which I was faced recently when I was contacted directly by none other than Mr Tom S Englund of Evergrey. Or, in my world, where Evergrey are the pinnacle of my musical enjoyment, a person I consider something of a hero but also a friend.

“Matt.. I’ll be in London for press next month.. so we should do an interview – right?”

Outwardly, my reply was “I think it would be rude not to wouldn’t it?”. Inwardly, I was jumping around like a mad thing.

Having organised the requisite day off work, I headed to central London from my back-end-of-nowhere home. Informed that I was first up on the day, I made…

View original post 3,315 more words

Death of the Album

On By Time LordIn Progarchy1 Comment

If the future is streaming, what place is there in the future for the self-contained unit known as “the album”?

Jason Notte provides the sobering statistics:

Juniper Research finds that digital music industry will see worldwide revenue grow from $12.3 billion this year to $13.9 billion in 2019. Juniper’s research indicates that even that growth hinges on the streaming music sector bringing in more cash as sales of digital downloads, ringtones and ringback tones continue to plummet. …

That growth comes as any album that isn’t released on vinyl dies a horrible death. Nielsen Soundscan equates 2,000 streams to one album, but even with that in the equation, album sales are down 3.3% through June. Take streaming out of the mix and you’re looking at a 14.3% drop from the same time last year. The nearly 20% drop in compact disc sales over the last year is almost expected as CDs continue their post-’90s free fall, but the 11.6% drop in digital album sales and 13% drop in digital track sales is far more troubling.

Digital download sales fell for the first time last year and aren’t coming back. People aren’t loading up their smartphones with songs anymore and aren’t carrying iPods anymore.

That’s not great news for the music industry, which uses digital track sales as a crutch to limp toward respectable numbers. When you factor in “Track Equivalent Albums” — a stat that equates 10 of an artist’s tracks with one album — Katy Perry, Pharrell Williams, Lorde and Beyonce all had albums sell 1 million copies and go platinum this year. Take those individual tracks away and reduce album sales to strictly physical and digital albums in their entirety, and suddenly Beyonce, Lorde, Coldplay and Eric Church are the only artists to go gold and break 500,000 sales this year. The only album to go platinum by that measure? The soundtrack to Disney’s Frozen, with 2.7 million copies sold in the first six months of 2014.

According to Nielsen, album sales of any kind plummeted from 755 million copies in 1999 to just 290 million last year. Compact disc sales have fallen steadily from 730 million in 2000 to just 165 million last year. This year, the Frozen soundtrack was the only digital album to sell 1 million copies — or even more than 350,000.

Meanwhile, even as digital track sales fall, singles sales remain strong. Pharrell’s Happy sold 5.6 million copies in just six months. Katy Perry and Juicy J’s Dark Horse broke 4 million, but even artists a bit further down the chart are more representative of what anyone’s actually listening to. DJ Snake, Iggy Azalea, Bastille and Aloe Blacc are absent from the first-half album charts, but all sold more than 2 million copies of their singles Turn Down For What, Fancy, Pompeii and Man.

Move it over to on-demand streaming, and those 2 million to 5 million sales turn into 40 million to 65 million audio streams and 70 million to 120 million video streams. Psy’s Gangnam Style still managed 69 million video streams this year after making more than $1 million off of streaming royalties alone last year. Google CEO Larry Page watched Psy’s viral hit rake in $2 per 1,000 pageviews and called it “a glimpse of the future.” By that measure, the 122 million views Perry’sDark Horse received through June adds up to $244,000 alone. It isn’t seven figures, but it’s a whole lot of cash for one song doing six months of work.

He concludes:

As the music industry continues to gravitate away from an ownership model and toward its streaming future, it’ll take any gains it can get. A robust streaming ecosystem is great for everyone involved, but if cannibalization limits both artist and label options, the same losses plaguing physical album sales and digital album and track sales now could kneecap streaming in the not-so-distant future.

Note that, oddly enough, the Frozen album is available on vinyl, as some people still insist that it is the only way to buy music.