Tom has released yet another segment of his video diary. Poor Tom! Long live, the Elf King!
Tag: Glass Hammer
Welcome to All Things Glass Hammer (TAC)
This morning/today, I have a piece at The American Conservative introducing a 26-year old band as America’s greatest rock band. Please check it out. And, note, there’s nothing political in the article, despite the venue. So, humans of all political persuasions, be not afraid!!!!
Creating Glass Hammer in 1992, long-time friends, Steve Babb and Fred Schendel—who had played in several 80s metal bands—decided to dive into what they loved most: complicated, intricate, baroque, over-the-top rock. At the time of the band’s creation, the term “progressive rock” was more than out of favor, evoking for most the horrors of bloated songs, the wearing of capes, the stabbing of keyboards with knives, and lyrics about Hobbits. Though, if Babb and Schendel had hoped to avoid the “progressive rock” stereotype, they failed miserably. If anything, their music—what they called “fantasy rock,” bringing the speculative and imaginary worlds of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and others to life—was inordinately more nerdy than “progressive rock.”
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/birzer/glass-hammer-giving-meaning-to-time-space/
Glass Hammer reveals CHRONOMONAUT!
Straight from Steve “the Mighty” Babb!
Glass Hammer Set To Release “Chronomonaut” Concept Album
Glass Hammer have been teasing a concept album based on “the ultimate prog fan”, and now it’s official.
Fans will no doubt recognize the name “Tom” from 2000’s Chronometree release and videos on Glass Hammer’s social media sites show that Tom has recently resurfaced to promote his own music. Bassist Steve Babb explains, “While Chronometree documented Tom’s prog-rock influenced alien-encounter in 1979, our new album Chromomonaut tells the stranger story of all that happened later; from Tom’s failed early eighties prog-rock band, The Elf King, to his most recent musings on nostalgia and the glory days of progressive rock.”
“We wanted to create a truly immersive album experience,” says Babb. “So we’ve been releasing videos of Tom and giving him a virtual life on the internet. He has recently interacted with other fans on prog forums and on his own social media pages. Tom’s attempts at restarting his old band have even been the source of articles on Progarchy.com. There was just something about him that fans really related to back in 2000 when Chronometree proved to be the turning point in Glass Hammer’s career. People liked that Tom took his music so seriously – he reminds us of ourselves, prog-fans and prog musicians alike. Tom loves his album collections, maybe too much. But then so do we.”
Bandmates Fred Schendel, Susie Bogdanowicz and Aaron Raulston are all on board for this release. Guest appearances include Discipline’s Matthew Parmenter and Chris Herin.
“Chronomonaut” will be released on Friday, October 12th. Pre-ordering for autographed copies will begin one month ahead of the release on September 12th at the band’s website.
Youtube Teaser Link: https://youtu.be/UuWJFWwYxKs
Band website: www.glasshammer.com
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This Friday, look for a feature length article on Glass Hammer at The American Conservative by yours truly.
Tom Timely Chronomonaut Video #4
Tom “The Elf King” Timely has released a new video–this one from August 1983. He’s approaching Hawkins, Indiana, rather quickly.
Tom “The Elf King” Timely: Video #3
Tom keeps releasing his old recordings and video diaries. Here’s no. 3.
Tom Woods, Roie Avin, Prog. People. . . what more do you want!!!
This week, I had the great and grand pleasure of speaking with Tom Woods and Roie Avin about the state of progressive rock music. As you all should know, Tom Woods is an absolute genius–especially on all matters political, cultural, and economic. That’s his razor-sharp logic side. But, he’s also a romantic and a huge prog fan.
Roie Avin, as you all should know as well, is the founder of one of the best prog sites on the web, Prog Report, and the author of one of the best books ever written about rock or prog, Essential Modern Progressive Rock.
If you don’t own it, you must.
Ok, so a bit of bias here. Tom is one of my three or four closest friends, and, though, Roie and I have never met, I have been following him rather closely for the past five years. The three of us, I think, had a blast. So, here’s hoping you do as well.
https://tomwoods.com/bonus-ep-1204-without-this-music-your-life-is-worse/
Tom Timely VIDEO #2: Chronomonaut
He’s back. Video no. 2, this one from August 1, 1983. Again, I can only suspect that Tom lives very, very close to Hawkins, Indiana.
2018: Selah?
2018 is now a month past its halfway mark, and the year is somewhere in its middle age, and it will only continue to age until that fateful day, December 31, inevitably comes.
From the perspective of progressive rock, it’s been a solid year, but not an outstanding year–at least in terms of studio releases. Certainly, those released–from The Fierce and the Dead to Gazpacho to the Kalman Filter to Galahad to 3RDegree–have been excellent, to be sure. But, they’ve been few, especially compared to the re-releases and re-mastered and re-packaged.
Perhaps, 2018, in the end, will prove to be a moment of all of us catching our collective breath. Maybe what the Old Testament called “Selah,” pause.
Tom Timely Revealed! Glass Hammer being Mischievous.
So, after several months of curious postings and even a rather great music video, it seems that Tom Timely, aka “The Elf King,” is the Tom of Glass Hammer’s 2000 masterpiece, CHRONOMETREE.
Here’s Tom, himself, from 1983.
Notice the date! Just about three months before season 1 of Stranger Things begins. Tom never admits it, but I’m guessing that he lived in Hawkins, Indiana.
Enjoy the mystery!
Glass Hammer Addendum
In my previous post on Glass Hammer News, I forgot (rather stupidly) to include Tad Wert’s excellent review of Glass Hammer’s Mostly Live in Italy. No time like the immediate to fix a mistake.
Here, for one and all–wonderful Wert’s wonderful (yes, I employed “wonderful” several times) review: https://progarchy.com/2018/05/05/glass-hammer-lives-it-up-in-italy/
Progarchy 