Tag: rock
Is This The End of Rock? Maybe, Maybe Not. An Editorial.
Classic Rock Magazine’s most recent issue (March 2014) has a fascinating article/editorial asking, “Is This the End of Rock”? The website has reposted it as well–http://www.classicrockmagazine.com/blog/is-this-the-end-of-rock/.
Well written, Scott Rowley’s article laments the decline of the popularity of rock—as there seems to be little new talent, few companies, and even fewer cd shelves promoting and selling rock music. In particular, with the decline of genre-radio, there’s no precise way to get a “mass movement” behind a band, a song, or an album.
Such laments, of course, can be heard in the book publishing and movie-making industries as well, as the author of the piece readily admits.
In some ways, I can sympathize with the article’s author, but only in a a very few ways.
I grew up with an amazing radio station, KICT-95FM, out of Wichita, Kansas. I started listening to T95 sometime in 1978 or so. I was 10. As a teenager, I would rather listen to it or to my albums than watch TV, any day. I even had the great privilege of having roughly six years of working for classical, rock, and news radio as a DJ and as a news reporter.
KICT95 and my albums were the soundtrack and the background of my life. For a long time in my life, radio was everything.
Whether I was delivering pizzas or writing debate briefs (I was a high school debater–yes, I’m sure you’re shocked!), I always had music playing. Though I now teach professionally, little has changed. I would still rather listen to good music and write than watch TV, though I’m, admittedly, a big fan of science fiction. Our house and my home and work offices always have music playing. And, of course, I edit this website, dedicated to music.
Technology and a vastly expanding digital market has changed everything over the last two decades. Steve Jobs, in particular, decentralized the world of media. We no longer have to look to Arista or to CBS or to MGM to provide entertainment, all based on a corporate profit model.
As with all decentralization, it means harder work at all levels. Bands will have to find time to write, to record, to tour, and to promote. Fans have harder work as well, making choices about what to buy, how to search it out, and how much time to promote it.
In other words, in music, we’ve gone from from the equivalent of a world of Walmarts and Targets back to the “ma and pa dime stores”, the local soda fountains, and the corner groceries and drug stores.
Rock, as a genre, consequently, could follow two paths. It could follow jazz in the late 1980s and basically die out or become so specialized as to become, sadly, merely obscure.
The other path is to follow prog, and the ways paved, in the mid 1990s, by Marillion, Spock’s Beard, and the Flower Kings.
The loss of CDs, centralized, corporate music making, and genre radio has been a huge boon to the creativity of prog as a genre. We proggers—fans and musicians—have formed small but highly inclusive communities, using the internet as a means of communicating, sharing, discussing, debating, and promoting our favorite bands. I know how frustrating it is for such great groups as Big Big Train, The Tangent, Cosmograf, TFATD, Leah, and others to get a market. I would give much—and have, especially given my own limited financial resources and time—to promote progressive rock wherever and whenever possible. I would love Greg Spawton or Andy Tillison to do nothing all day but write music, never having to worry about a 9 to 5 job. If I had the financial means, I would gladly serve as a Patron, allowing them to do nothing but write and produce.
But, objectively, we also have to admit, as a genre, we proggers (fans and musicians) have done really, really well over the last twenty years. If we want art as expression and not as market campaigns—forgive me, Mr. Peart—we’ve succeeded. Rather than a Walmart or Target (is it Tesco in Britain?) of prog rock, we have lots and lots of wonderful, small-town stores and boutiques, intimately connected to their customers. Rather than a Coors or a Budweiser, we have in the prog world, neighborhood after neighborhood of locally-produced, finely honed craft beers. Rather than a General Motors or Ford, we have folks making model cars in their garages. Well, you get the idea.
And, those prog labels that have done beautifully–such as Insideout, Radiant, Kscope, Bad Elephant–have done so precisely because they have allowed for the flourishing of creativity and have promoted it, rightfully, as the creativity that it is.
As with all changes in the market and technology, there are those who will adapt, create, and succeed, finding a place. There will also be those who—out of failure to understand or sheer bad luck—fail. If mainstream rock wants to succeed as a genre, it needs to look to prog, not jazz, as a model. It needs to accept decentralization and intimate relationships with the fan base.
As proggers, we have almost everything to praise. Rather than lamentation, we should be celebrating. The old taskmasters are gone, and we’re–the small labels, the musicians, and the fans–now in charge.
Yet Another Top Albums List
Brad’s post below on his Top 101 albums of the rock era got me thinking about my favorite albums of the same era. And given his hopes that we all do a similar post, I’m only too happy to oblige now given a few free hours and an overwhelming urge to write something (that’s not job related, which I get enough of Monday-Friday and often times on weekends).
I’ve discussed elsewhere that coming up with a list of five or ten desert island discs would be nearly impossible for me. If I was a secret agent under interrogation, a knowledgeable interrogator could easily get actionable intelligence from me by simply trying to force me to come up with such a list. Thus, I’m not going to restrict this list to any particular number of albums.
On the other hand, I am going to put one restriction on this list – I’m not going to list anything I’ve first heard in 2013. For me, it takes time to fully digest great works of art, and thus all of these albums here will be ones that have stood the test of time for me. This will eliminate some great albums from the list, such as English Electric 2 by Big Big Train, Riverside’s spectacular Shrine of New Generation Slaves, and other great releases from a year that is shaping up to be one of incredible abundance for excellent prog rock. It will also eliminate albums such as Spirt of Eden by Talk Talk and Tick Tock by Gazpacho, neither of which I had actually heard until a few months ago. Nevertheless, all of the releases mentioned in this paragraph are extremely likely to end up on a future edition of this list.
Finally, here and there, I will add a few notes about some of the albums on the list. Maybe to give some insight as to why I like them, maybe an interesting fact about them … who knows. The reasons will hopefully be self-evident.
Genre-wise, the list will cover a lot more than just prog, but generally will stay within the realm of rock. This will eliminate some other favorite albums, such as two excellent releases of instrumental flamenco guitar by the late Italian guitarist Gino D’ Auri. It will also eliminate some classical guitar oriented albums by Steve Hackett that I otherwise like very much.
Anwyay, without further adieu, my list:
AC/DC – Back in Black
Aerosmith – Toys in the Attic
Aerosmith – Rocks
Aerosmith – Rock in a Hard Place (this is a *very* underrated album among Aerosmith fans, in my opinion, probably since it was the only one without Joe Perry. But Jimmy Crespo did a bang-up job in his role, and this album flat out rocks. As an Amazon reviewer noted, it’s “criminally underrated.”)
Arena – The Visitor
The Beatles – Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
Big Big Train – English Electric, Part 1
Big Big Train – The Underfall Yard
Black Sabbath – Paranoid
Black Sabbath – Sabotage
Black Sabbath – The Mob Rules
The Cult – Electric
The Cult – Sonic Temple
Days of the New I (sometimes referred to as ‘Yellow’)
Days of the New II (sometimes referred to as ‘Green’. This album came out in autumn, 1999, around the time I was going through a divorce from my first wife. As you can imagine, I was a whirlwind of emotions. This album both resonated with me and grounded me during that time. It’s also spectacularly good).
Drive By Truckers – Southern Rock Opera
Drive By Trucker – The Dirty South (If you’ve ever lived south of the Mason-Dixon line for any extended length of time and like raw, gritty music, then these two albums are for you).
Emerson, Lake, and Palmer – Trilogy
Emerson, Lake, and Palmer – Brain Salad Surgery
Fleetwood Mac – Rumours (one of the best pop albums ever. It showed that ‘pop’ and ‘quality’ need not be mutually exclusive. I swear my opinion here is in no way swayed by the fact that Stevie Nicks was a strong celebrity crush of mine in the late ’70’s … no, really … ok, maybe a little)
The Flower Kings – Space Revolver
Gazpacho – Night
Genesis – Selling England by the Pound
Genesis – A Trick of the Tail
Genesis – Wind and Wuthering
Glass Hammer – Perilous
Grateful Dead, Charlotte, 3-23-1995 (This isn’t officially an album, but rather a bootleg recording of the only Grateful Dead show I ever attended. While I was nothing close to being a Deadhead, it was a great show, and I can certainly understand why The Dead had so many dedicated fans. One additional note – Bruce Hornsby sat in on piano that night).
Heart – Little Queen
Iron Maiden – Piece of Mind
Iron Maiden – Powerslave
Jane’s Addiction – Ritual de lo Habitual
Jefferson Airplane – The Worst of Jefferson Airplane (yes, a greatest hits album, but what a great collection of songs here).
Jethro Tull – Thick as a Brick
Jethro Tull – Warchild
Jethro Tull – Minstrel in the Gallery
Jethro Tull – Songs from the Wood
John Cougar Mellencamp – Scarecrow
Jon and Vangelis – Short Stories
Jon Anderson – Olias of Sunhillow
Jon Anderson – Song of Seven
Jon Anderson – Change We Must
Judas Priest – British Steel
Kansas – Leftoverture
Kansas – Point of Know Return
Kerry Livegren – Seeds of Change
King Crimson – In The Court of the Crimson King
Led Zeppelin – III
Led Zeppelin – IV
Led Zeppelin – Houses of the Holy
Led Zeppelin – Physical Graffiti
Led Zeppelin – Presence (It would seem strange to call a band as lauded as Led Zeppelin ‘underrated’, but I think the label applies. They did music that falls into so many different genres, from bluesy music such as ‘When The Levee Breaks’, to prog-tinted stuff such as ‘Stairway to Heaven’, ‘Kashmir’ and ‘In The Light’, to folky stuff such as ‘The Battle of Evermore’ and ‘Gallows Pole’ to flat out rockers such as ‘Rock and Roll’ and ‘Out on the Tiles’ … and they did them all extremely well).
Lone Justice – their self-titled debut. (Their cowpunk sound was a little bit ahead of it’s time, and if they had debuted in the mid-90’s or later when the alt-country wave hit, they might still be around. Also, it’s entirely possible my opinion here is swayed a bit again by the celebrity crush thing, the object of which being lead singer Maria McKee)
Marillion – Script for a Jester’s Tear
Marillion – Clutching at Straws
Marillion – Brave (this was an album that didn’t click with me on the first few listens, and I set it aside. Years later I picked it up again, gave it a good listen, and was blown away, wondering how I missed it the first time around. A true masterpiece).
Montrose – their self-titled debut.
The Moody Blues – Days of Future Passed
Mother Love Bone – a self-titled album. (One really wonders how music history would have been different if the lead singer of this Seattle-based band, the flamboyant Andrew Wood, hadn’t succumbed to his demons and died of a heroin overdose on the verge of releasing their debut album in 1990. There almost certainly would have been no Pearl Jam, and I wonder if the grunge thing would have ever taken off, given that Mother Love Bone’s sound was nothing like that of the other bands of the same time and place).
Neil Young and Crazy Horse – Live Rust
Neil Young and Crazy Horse – Weld (both live albums, and thus compilations, but both are very good. In fact, I think most of the songs on these albums sound better live than in the studio).
Paul Simon – Graceland
Pearl Jam – Vitalogy
Pete Townshend – Empty Glass
Pete Townshend – White City (a ridiculously underrated album)
Pink Floyd – Meddle
Pink Floyd – Dark Side of the Moon
Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here
The Police – Syncrhonicity
Porcupine Tree – Fear of a Blank Planet
Queen – News of the World
R.E.M. – Life’s Rich Pageant
Renaissance – Novella
Renaissance – Turn of the Cards
Riverside – Rapid Eye Movement (I thought of this album as pretty good when I first listened. I’ve re-assessed lately, and now realize it’s great, the best of the ‘Reality Dream’ trilogy in my opinion).
Riverside – Anno Domini High Definition
The Rolling Stones – Some Girls
Rush – 2112
Rush – A Farewell to Kings
Rush – Hemispheres
Rush – Permanent Waves
Rush – Moving Pictures
Rush – Grace Under Pressure
Rush – Power Windows
Rush – Clockwork Angels
Rush – Exit Stage Left (a great live album)
Saga – World’s Apart
Simple Minds – Once Upon A Time (Another album that proved ‘pop’ and ‘quality’ need not be mutually exclusive. This album had some exceptionally strong melodies).
Soundgarden – Badmotorfinger
Steve Hackett – Voyage of the Acolyte
Steve Hackett – Spectral Mornings
Tool – Lateralus
Tool – 10,000 Days
Trevor Rabin – Can’t Look Away
U2 – War
Van Halen – Fair Warning (another very underrated album)
Wang Chung – To Live and Die in LA Soundtrack
The Who – Tommy
The Who – Who’s Next
The Who – Quadrophenia
The Who – Who Are You
Yes – The Yes Album
Yes – Fragile
Yes – Close to the Edge
Yes – Going for the One
Yes – Drama
My (Brad’s) Top 101 Albums of the Rock Era
On Facebook, Chris McGarel posted his favorite albums of all time. It’s an excellent list. I’d like to do the same, and I’m hoping all of the Progarchists will as well at some point. But, I’m not quite ready to be so definitive yet. So, instead of a “best of,” I offer a list of 101 favorites, subject to change over time. Two weeks before turning 46. . . with a bit of humility and more than a bit of awe, I offer the following 100 in (according to group name) alphabetic order.
ABC, Lexicon of Love
Advent, Cantus Firmus
Arjen A. Lucasen, Lost in the New Real
Ayreon, Human Equation
Ayreon, Timeline
Beatles, Magical Mystery Tour
Big Big Train, English Electric (vols 1 and 2)
Big Big Train, The Difference Machine
Big Big Train, Far Skies, Deep Time
Big Big Train, Underfall Yard
Big Country, Steeltown
Blancmange, Happy Families
Bryan Ferry, Boys and Girls
Catherine Wheel, Chrome
Chris Squire, Fish Out of Water
Cocteau Twins, Heaven or Las Vegas
Cosmograf, When Age Has Done Its Duty
Cosmograf, The Man Left in Space
Echo and the Bunnymen, Heaven Up Here
Echo and the Bunnymen, Porcupine
Flower Kings, Paradox Hotel
Flower Kings, Space Revolver
Gazpacho, Night
Gazpacho, Tick Tock
Genesis, A Trick of the Tail
Genesis, Seconds Out
Genesis, Selling England by the Pound
Glass Hammer, Lex Rex
Glass Hammer, Perilous
IZZ, Darkened Room
Jethro Tull, Songs from the Wood
Kate Bush, The Hounds of Love
Kevin McCormick, Squall
Kevin McCormick, With the Coming of Evening
Kingbathmat, Overcoming the Monster
Love Spit Love (self titled)
Kansas, Leftoverture
Marillion, Brave
Marillion, Marbles
Moody Blues, Days of Future Past
My Bloody Valentine, Loveless
New Order, Low Life
Nosound, Lightdark
Oceansize, Effloresce
Peter Gabriel, Security
Peter Gabriel, So
Phish, Rift
Pink Floyd, Animals
Pink Floyd, The Final Cut
Porcupine Tree, Signify
Porcupine Tree, Lightbulb Sun
Porcupine Tree, Fear of a Blank Planet
Psychedelic Furs, Talk, Talk, Talk
Pure Reason Revolution, The Dark Third
Queen, A Night at the Opera
Radiohead, Kid A
Riverside, Out of Myself
Rush 2112
Rush, A Farewell to Kings
Rush, Grace Under Pressure
Rush, Snakes and Arrows
Sarah McLachlan, Fumbling Toward Ecstacy
Simple Minds, New Gold Dream
Sixpence None the Richer (self titled)
Spock’s Beard, The Light
Spock’s Beard, Snow
Steven Wilson, Insurgentes
Talk Talk, The Colour of Spring
Talk Talk, The Spirit of Eden
Talk Talk, Laughing Stock
Tears for Fears, Songs from the Big Chair
The Cure, Disintegration
The Cure, Pornography
The Cure, Head on the Door
The Cure, Bloodflowers
The Doors (self titled)
The Fierce and the Dead, Part I
The Reasoning, Dark Angel
The Reasoning, Adventures in Neverland
The Smiths, Queen is Dead
The Stone Roses (self titled)
3RDegree, The Long Division
The Tangent, Le Sacre Du Travail
The Tangent, Not as Good as the Book
The Tangent, The Music That Died Alone
The The, Dusk
Thomas Dolby, Golden Age of Wireless
Thomas Dolby, The Flat Earth
Tin Spirits, Wired to the Earth
Tori Amos, Under the Pink
Traffic, John Barleycorn Must Die
Traffic, Mr. Fantasy
Transatlantic, SMPT: e
U2, The Joshua Tree
Ultravox, Lament
World Party, Goodbye Jumbo
XTC, Skylarking
XTC, Nonesuch
Yes, Close to the Edge
Yes, Drama
Yes, Fragile
More BillyNews: The Dutch Woodstock, 1970
Featuring performances by Pink Floyd, Santana, T.Rex, The Byrds, Canned Heat, Jefferson Airplane, Soft Machine, It’s A Beautiful Day, Family, Country Joe, Dr. John & the Night Trippers, Flock and Al Stewart
London, UK – One of the most historic concert events of the early ’70s, the Dutch Woodstock, also called the ‘Holland Pop Festival’, has now been released on a double CD/DVD set by UK’s Gonzo MultiMedia. Featuring rare and exciting performances by Pink Floyd, Santana, T.Rex, The Byrds, Canned Heat, Jefferson Airplane, Soft Machine, It’s A Beautiful Day, Family, Country Joe, Dr. John & The Night Trippers, Flock and Al Stewart, makes this extraordinary release a must for fans of music everywhere! The three-day festival was held in August 1970 at the Kralingse Bos (Kralingse Forest) in Rotterdam, and despite the rain, an estimated 100,000 people attended the astounding event!
Featuring…
Pink Floyd – Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun, A Saucerful Of Secrets
Santana – Gumbo, Savor, Jingo
The Byrds – Old Blue
Canned Heat – Human Condition, So Sad
T-Rex – Pavillions Of Sun
Jefferson Airplane – Saturday Afternoon, White Rabbit, Ballad Of You & Me & Pooneil plus interviews with Paul Kanter & Grace Slick
Soft Machine – Esther’s Nose Job
It’s A Beautiful Day – Wasted Union Blues, Open Up Your Hearts
Family – Drowned In Wine
Country Joe – Freedom Is A Constant
Dr. John & The Night Trippers – Mardi Gras Day
Flock – Big Bird
Al Stewart – Zero She Flies
The Dutch Woodstock double CD/DVD set will be released by GONZO MultiMedia UK on March 22, 2013
To Purchase The Dutch Woodstock double CD/DVD set: http://www.gonzomultimedia.co.uk/product_details/15545
Press inquiries: Glass Onyon PR, glassonyonpr@gmail.com
Send us your music!
Dear Artists, Groups, Record Labels, Engineers, Producers, Managers, and assorted Fellow Humans,
We the Progarchists absolutely love music. Indeed, we consider it one of the finest things in the world. Please let us review your work. We’re dropbox, email, and mail friendly. If you send us something, I promise we’ll consider your trust in us a sacred one. We will treat your work with all due respect.
Though we specialize in progressive and art rock, we feel qualified to review anything classical, rock, jazz, or blues related. Sacred music is fine as well.
For email notices, inquiries, news, etc., please contact us at bradbirzer@gmail.com.
For actual, physical, tangible mail (yes, we still love CDs and vinyl), please use the following:
Brad Birzer/editor
Progarchy
6 West Montgomery
Hillsdale MI 49242 USA
We also love interviews.
Yours,
Rainbow re-release
Got a really nice email and press release today from James Parrish. Thanks much, James
*****
LONG AWAITED DELUXE REISSUES OF RAINBOW SET FOR RELEASE THIS NOVEMBER
Rainbow are set to release Deluxe Reissues of On Stage and Long Live Rock N’ Roll this November.
Rainbow, lead by the guitarist, Ritchie Blackmore, became synonymous with some of the most well regarded and popular charting Rock songs of the seventies and eighties. From ‘Stargazer’ and ‘Man On A Silver Mountain’ to ‘All Night Long’, ‘Long Live Rock And Roll’ and ‘Since You Been Gone’, each year in the decade of Rainbow was marked by some of the best songs and performances captured both on record and in concert.
Passing through the band were some of the best the genre had to offer. Vocalists Ronnie James Dio and Graham Bonnet, bass player and producer Roger Glover and drummer Cozy Powell, each brought their individual talent to the table to record some of Rock’s best loved hard rock on those albums and singles.
On Stage is a live album originally released in 1977. The album was recorded live over several German and Japanese dates in late 1976 during the Rising world tour. Producer Martin Birch spliced many of the tracks together from different dates. The recording features the customary introduction to a Rainbow show – the classic quote from The Wizard of Oz,”Toto: I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore. We must be over the rainbow!” with the last word repeated as an echo, then the actual band plays a musical phrase from the song ‘Somewhere over the Rainbow’ before breaking into ‘Kill the King’.
Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll is the third studio album released in 1978. This was Rainbow’s last album to feature Ronnie James Dio on vocals.
Disc 1
Over The Rainbow
Kill The King
Medley: Man On The Silver Mountain
Blues
Starstruck
Catch The Rainbow
Mistreated
Sixteenth Century Greensleeves
Still I’m Sad
Disc 2 (bonus tracks) – Live Osaka 9/12/1976
Kill The King
Mistreated
Sixteenth Century Greensleeves
Catch The Rainbow
Medley: Man On The Silver Mountain
Stargazer
Still I’m Sad
Do You Close Your Eyes
(Previously unreleased)
Long Live Rock N’ Roll
Disc 1
Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll
Lady Of The Lake
LA Connection
Gates Of Babylon
Kill The King
The Shed (subtle)
Sensitive To Light
Rainbow Eyes
Disc 2 Rough Mix’s 02/07/1977:
Lady Of The Lake
Sensitive To Light
LA Connection
Kill The King
The Shed (subtle)
Long Live Rock N Roll
Kill The King
Shepperton Studio Rehearsals:
Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll
Rainbow Eyes Don
Don Kirschner Show with Alt Vocals:
Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll
Kill The King
Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll
LA Connection
Gates Of Babylon
For more information please contact James Parrish at Prescription PR at james@prescriptionpr.co.uk


