Tag: Marillion

A Sense of Foreboding

On By Dr NickIn progressive rockLeave a comment

So Album 18 from Marillion finally has a release date (9 September) and a title – and the latter is a surprise. Here’s Steve Hogarth’s explanation:

What’s in a name?……

All worthwhile human impulses come from love. And all negative and destructive human impulses come from fear.

This album is called F*** Everyone and Run or F.E.A.R.

This title is adopted not in anger or with any intention to shock. It is adopted and sung (in the song “New Kings”) tenderly, in sadness and resignation inspired by an England, and a world, which increasingly functions on an “Every man for himself” philosophy. I won’t bore you with examples, they’re all over the newspapers every day.

There’s a sense of foreboding that permeates much of this record. I have a feeling that we’re approaching some kind of sea-change in the world – an irreversible political, financial, humanitarian and environmental storm. I hope that I’m wrong. I hope that my FEAR of what “seems” to be approaching is just that, and not FEAR of what “is” actually about to happen.

fear

Happy Easter

On By Bryan MoreyIn progressive rock2 Comments

Happy Easter, Progarchy. Today is the day when Christians all over the world commemorate Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, conquering sin and death so that we might have eternal life, if we believe.

Check out this great video of Marillion and Dream Theater performing the song, “Easter,” way back in ’95. Enjoy.

Transatlantic’s “We All Need Some Light” is also fitting. Here’s a video from their KaLIVEoscope 2014 show. The song starts around the 4:00 minute mark, after a duet with Morse and Stolt.

Tom Woods Promotes Steven Wilson!

On By bradbirzerIn progressive rockLeave a comment
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A great show by a great man.

Famed American commentator, historian, economist, and man of letters, Tom Woods, is promoting Steven Wilson’s latest album, HAND.CANNOT.ERASE.  What a great thing for the prog world to be given this kind of place of prominence!  Woods has had such greats as Ian Anderson and Steve Hogarth on his show.  Let’s hope he gets Wilson next!

The Woman Who Erased Herself

5th March 20161 COMMENT

When Joyce Carol Vincent died in December 2003, no one noticed for over two years.

Was she a lonely old lady nobody knew? Not even close. She was an attractive young woman with friends and family. And slowly but surely, she simply melted away in the anonymity of the city (London, in this case).

Steven Wilson, a musician I like very much (and who has worked closely with Tom Woods Show guests Ian Anderson and Steve Hogarth), was struck by her, and based his 2015 release Hand. Cannot. Erase. loosely around her life.

When I first listened to it, I didn’t like it at all. I didn’t think there was anything there.

Was I ever wrong.

I can’t stop listening to it now. It’s beautiful, brilliant, and emotionally captivating. I’m listening to it as I write this.

The character in Wilson’s story makes the deliberate decision to disappear from society by moving to London. Sounds strange: you’re going to move to a big city to disappear? But as Wilson notes, the strategy makes sense. You could never accomplish this in a small town, where everyone knows you and someone would check in on you.

On the other hand, with masses of people all around, you can simply…disappear.

If you’re intrigued, grab yourself a copy.

Be warned: you’ll need to devote some time to this. These aren’t pop songs you hear on the radio. At first you just won’t see it — well, if you’re like me, anyway. But suddenly you’ll become aware of the beautiful melodies, the evocative turns of phrase, the emotional intensity, all of it.

In the past I’ve given out free CDs of music I like. As a surprise, I told my supporting listeners they could have an album of Tom-approved music if they just asked for it. I sent a $20 double album out last year.

Wilson’s album is selling for just under $10 on Amazon as an mp3 download. If you’re a Tom Woods Show supporting listener at the Silver, Gold, or Platinum levels, just use my contact form to send me your mailing address if you’d like one.

This offer expires March 15, 2016.

If you become a supporting listener at one of those levels between now and then, you’re eligible, too. Just send me your address.

The way forward:

http://www.SupportingListeners.com

Steve Hogarth on Brilliance and Success

On By bradbirzerIn progressive rock music1 Comment
Promo for Vol II of THE INVISIBLE MAN DIARIES.
Promo for Vol II of THE INVISIBLE MAN DIARIES.

“I’m reminded once again that it’s not enough to be brilliant.  You need that lucky break that crosses you over to the mainstream punters.  And a shed load of marketing money. . . It happened to Marillion before I met them and we’ve managed to maintain a hard-core big enough to make it possible for us to function at a certain level.  It’s like getting an enormous rock to roll.  Once it’s rolling you can keep it going easier than the effort it took to get it started.  So rockn’rolls’s not such a bad name for it.  But it could have been called ‘momentum’ instead.  Doesn’t have the same ring about it though. . . (and anything derived from Latin is very unrock n’roll.)”

–Steve Hogarth, THE INVISIBLE MAN DIARIES, vol. II, pg. 129

A Better Way of Living: Marillion

On By bradbirzerIn progressive rock music5 Comments

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.

Day-Glo Jesus
Day-Glo Jesus

***

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.

Marillion: A Sunday Night Above the Rain – Review

On By Gianna EIn progressive rock music1 Comment

When I think of Marillion, the first image that comes to mind is sincerity. It was the band’s sincerity that grabbed me the first time I heard “Afraid of Sunlight,” a nearly 7-minute story of celebrity and self-destruction that nonetheless ends with an invocation to hope, and again when I stood in the audience at the band’s weekend convention in Montreal last year. Lead singer Steve Hogarth likes to introduce the autobiographical “This Strange Engine” with the claim that the song is “perfectly true” – a sentiment that in fact captures all of what Marillion does and is. 

ImageThis is where the band’s latest live release, A Sunday Night Above The Rain, succeeds – it reveals the sincerity that has come to define Marillion. The live release is the band’s third installment from the 2013 “Weekends” in Holland, England, and Canada, and features Sunday night performances recorded at both Montreal’s Theatre L’Olympia and Centre Parcs, Port Zelande. The band performs their 2012 studio album, Sounds That Can’t Be Made, in its entirety, interspersing the more recent tracks with other songs from their 30+ year catalog. From the opening 17-minute prog epic, “Gaza” it’s clear that the audience is in for something special. When Hogarth cries “it just ain’t right” for the children of Gaza, you believe him. As the band moves into “Montreal,” you can’t help but note their admiration and appreciation for the city and its fans. And when they reach “Neverland,” a highlight of every Marillion show, the mood in the room borders on transcendent.  

The setlist showcases the band’s unique reimagining of prog music, weaving narratives and odd time signatures with contemporary rock elements in “Power,” Beatles-esque riffs in “Lucky Man,” and soaring, melodic guitar solos in “The Sky Above the Rain.” The lights and screen projections succeed in creating an atmosphere and story appropriate to each song, but also to the whole of the experience, elevating fans “above the clouds” if only for a few hours. When the camera pans to the audience, expressions range from joyful to dumbstruck. And the band themselves, having seen this in one form or another for more than 30 years, nonetheless seem genuinely surprised by it all. Every time.  

A Sunday Night Above The Rain brings those 30 years into a pitch-perfect two and a half hour distillation. From the abject power of “Gaza” to the tongue-in-cheek-I-forgot-the-lyrics-again “Garden Party,” any fool can see the bond that has grown between the band and its fans. And watching the show unfold, it is easy to see why.      

Marillion-Easter

On By Connor MullinIn progressive rock music5 Comments

In keeping with the Easter spirit, here is Marillion’s beautiful song Easter.  A happy Easter to all.  Enjoy.

1994: A Pretty Good Year

On By bradbirzerIn progressive rock music7 Comments

Yesterday was one of those days where I felt like I did next to nothing but grade.  Freshmen midterms, upper-class midterms.  Midterms galore, and avalanches of blue books.  I also proofed a senior thesis.

Enough, Birzer!  Don’t bore the readers into madness. . . .

As I was calling it a day, a song from Pearl Jam’s Vitalogy came into my mind.  I have no idea why.  Sometimes, these things just happen.  And, the thought of the song led me to ask, when did that album come out.  As I looked it up, I realized how quickly 20 years had gone by.  I’m a historian, and I study memory, time, eternity.  But, this hit me.  “Last Exit” was 20 years old.  So, I did a quick search.  What else came out that year.  And, I came up quickly with this list of music that meant something to me (and still does) that came out that year.

Under the pink

Tori Amos, Under the Pink.  One of my favorite albums of all time.  So deadly in its perceptiveness of life.  So gloomy, so bouncy, so Tori.  “A pretty good year. . . .

Phish-Hoist-Frontal

Phish, Hoist.  I had the great privilege of meeting all of the guys of Phish in the spring of 1990.  They were the featured band at a campus event.  Amazingly, only about 20 of us came to watch them.  I was mesmerized.  These guys are a lot like Dave Matthews in terms of genre, but Phish is Monty Python to Matthew’s John Hughes.  Even after two decades, the lyrics of Hoist crack me up.  The music hasn’t stood up all that well.  But, still good.  The best song is the concluding “Demand.”

toward-the-within-4e9a078d6f126

Dead Can Dance, Toward the Within.  Seriously weird and gorgeous all at once.  In particular, “I Can See Now” and “American Dreaming” are two fantastic songs.

underthetableanddreaming

Dave Matthews Band, Under the Table and Dreaming.  When this album first appeared, I was rather blown away.  This struck me as a proper pop album.  Matthews has a good voice, and his lyrics can be quite infectious.  It doesn’t mean that much to me anymore, and I’m not sure I would do much to seek the album out.  But, still, “typical situation” remains a fine song.  Indeed, it’s one of the best of that decade.

1289832552_front

Marillion, Brave.  Another mind boggler.  I’ve written quite a bit about Brave elsewhere, and I plan to do so again.  But, sheesh, nothing captured the zeitgeist of the post-Cold War world more than this album did.  It could also be counted as one of the two of three albums that ushered in the third wave of prog.  Those bastards will find us another one!

220px-Lslalbum

Love Spit Love, self titled.   I always liked the P-Furs, and this band was a worthy successor.  Sadly, I think almost everyone in the music business forgot this album even existed.  But, I’ve never stopped listening to it–even after two decades.  Butler has a voice that one either loves or hates.  I, for one, love it.  Though I risk a tongue lashing from Eric Perry, I regard this as one of the great rock-pop albums of the last fifty years.  Hooks, pauses, pounding drums, pauses, plaintive lyrics, wacky psychedelic keyboards, pauses, carnival-esque sound scapes, and still more pauses.  Phew. . . this is a masterful pop album.  Every single song is a wonder, but none more so than “Green” and  “St. Mary’s Gate.”  If these songs doesn’t bring a tear to your eye. . . nothing will.  If I had to compare this album to Amos’s Under the Pink and choose one over the other, I’m not sure I could.  When I feel imaginative and want to walk over grassy hills, I listen to Love Spit Love.  When I’m angry and feeling a bit like forcing some social justice down someone’s throat, I listen to Tori Amos.  In the end, though, I’d pick this one over Under the Pink.

So, in sum: 1994 was, as Tori Amos proclaimed, a pretty good year.

But, then, I thought of 1984.  Holy Schnikees.  More than pretty good, it was given to us on a silver salver.  But, that’s for another post.

Marillion’s Prog Ghosts of Xmas Past

On By Time LordIn Progarchy3 Comments

Once your laughter at the video subsides, you’ll want to go download Marillion’s Carol of the Bells.

Consider putting Little Atlas on your map

On By carleolsonIn Uncategorized2 Comments

The Miami-based proggers Little Atlas (home page) have—according to keyboardist, vocalist, and founder Steve Katsikas—been around for nearly twenty years and have just released their fifth studio album, Automatic Day littleatlas_automaticday(10t Records). I have all of the band’s albums save their debut, Neverworldly, which are all very solid to exceptional, and yet have never spoken with anyone else about the group. A few months ago, I was going to write a post about that odd silence, and now that the group’s new album is out, I’m finally writing it.

My .02 is that Little Atlas is well worth checking out, and that each of the band’s album has progressively (yes, pun intended) built upon and improved on the previous. Comparisons to early Genesis, Marillion, and Spock’s Beard are apt points of reference. The music is highly intelligent and tasteful, with a wide array of tones, moods, tempos, and lyrical perspectives. While the players are all top-notch, the focus is definitely on songs and grand themes rather than virtuoso showcasing. Katsikas has a background in psychology, which is evident in many of the songs, notably in the 2007 album, Hollow, which presents ten different perspectives in a sort of psychological-prog suite (the title song, “Hollow”, is one of my favorite cuts by the group). As for the new album, Roger Trenwith of the “Astounded by Sound” blog does a fine job of explaining its many merits:

Covering subjects linking the mythical, the stellar, the metaphysical and the politick, both personal and impersonal, Steve Katsikas has crafted a set of intelligent lyrics that to highlight one particular trio of songs make a stately progress from Greek mythology (Twin of Ares) to man’s helplessness at the mercy of the passage of time (At the End Of The Day), via a depiction of Nature as the true deity (Emily True), without seeming in the slightest part contrived, or indeed jarringly disconnected, as could have been the case with a blunter intellect holding the pen. OK – so the lyrics to Emily True are actually by poet Emily Dickenson, but these three songs manage to flow seamlessly nonetheless!

Musically, Emily True manages to mix Rush and Blue Oyster Cult with an epic vision to come up with a new art rock template for the 21st century, and a fine beast it is too.

Illusion Of Control continues an undercurrent of darkness that runs through the album, and would not have sounded out of place had it been penned by Amplifier around the time of The Octopus. Although not quite as heavy (but heavy enough!) as the Manchester sci-fi prog metallers, it is yet more evidence of a new post-prog zeitgeist currently weaving its smoky tendrils through the subconsciousness of a fair number of bands around the globe….

Never forgetting the value of a structured song, there are no aimless instrumental passages, and no displays of musical ego on Automatic Day. Everything is kept tight and to the point. Probably the best song on the record is We All Remember Truth, which within its economic four minutes manages to display all the virtues of the first two sentences in this paragraph.

Read the entire review. And watch a video for “Oort”, the opening cut from Automatic Day: