The Progressive

RUSH 27/04/2010

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Evening everyone! What’s on the menu tonight you may be asking? Well tonight we are serving chicken!

If you’ve been to a RUSH concert recently you may have noticed that there were three henhouse rotisserie chicken ovens on stage in place of the bass amps. Why? That is a question that has baffled scientists for decades. But anywho…

2010 is gearing up to be a big year for RUSH. At the beginning of the month the band announced a 40 date North American tour known as the Time Machine tour that will begin on June 29 in Albuquerque, NM. The tour will be the first (and possibly only) time that the band will play their most famous album Moving Pictures in its entirety. The band will also play at least two new songs that are expected to be included on an upcoming album to be released sometime in 2011. I myself have just purchased tickets for their concert at the Woodlands Pavillion in Houston, TX on Saturday September 25. This will be my second RUSH concert (the first was in New Orleans in April 2008), and I’m very excited!!

The band will also release their very first official documentary film RUSH: Beyond the Lighted Stage on DVD and Blu-Ray Disc at the end of June. The band was also inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame in March (although they have yet to be inducted into the Rock’n'Roll Hall of Fame).

2010 marks 35 years since Neil Peart joined the band, and RUSH’s lineup of Geddy Lee on bass and vocals, Alex Lifeson on guitar, and Neil Peart on drums has remained consistent for 35 years! If that isn’t amazing, I don’t know what is. Their music is even popular today among teens with the band’s songs on Rock Band, and the band appearing on Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report. The kids of South Park are also huge fans as well! RUSH have proven to stand the test of time, and hopefully they will be around to play their great music for us for many years to come!

(Best RUSH tribute band – Lil’ RUSH)

(Trailer for the RUSH documentary Beyond the Lighted Stage)

(RUSH can act?! Geddy and Alex star in What’s That Smell?)

Porcupine Tree 21/04/2010

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Hello proggers and bloggers! So this week’s been very busy for me, but lucky for you I have just enough time to tell you about one of my favorite prog bands and the one I think that is doing the most to bring prog back to the forefront: Porcupine Tree! Writing about them this particular week is a bit ironic seeing as how I’m deep in sadness due to the fact that I’m missing their concert in Houston, TX tonight (Wed. April 21) because I have to attend 5 classes today (one of which is the music marketing class that I’m writing this for). But enough about that!

Porcupine Tree are currently touring the US promoting their newest album The Incident. It is my favorite album, and they are playing the entire album live as the first half of their concert (yet another reason why I’m upset for missing this concert). The album is meant to be listened to as one whole piece with all of the tracks running together to create a modern masterpiece. Read between the lines, iPod shuffle!

Porcupine Tree originally began as a solo project for guitarist and singer Steven Wilson, but by the early 90s he had recruited Richard Barbieri on keyboards, Colin Edwin on bass guitar, and Chris Maitland on drums. Porcupine Tree became a real band and began to tour. After the release and promotion of 2000′s Lightbulb Sun, Chris decided to leave the band, and he would be replaced by Gavin Harrison for 2002′s In Absentia. Since then, the band has released three more albums and have continued to grow in popularity due to increased album sales with each release.

The band are about to release their second DVD Anesthetize in May. It was recorded in 2008 on the Fear of a Blank Planet tour, and it will be issued on DVD & Blu-Ray Disc and in a special limited edition containing DVD, Blu-Ray Disc, and two CDs all encased in a 120 page hardcover book (and guess who’s getting one!).

I first discovered their music a year ago. At the time, I had no idea they even existed. Now I can’t live without them! I’ve also become a fan of Steven Wilson’s many other projects including no-man and Blackfield. I’ve included some tasters of their music on this page, but you should just go out right now and buy every CD they have cause once you listen to one sample, trust me, you’ll want more, a LOT more!

(a medley of samples from their most recent album The Incident)

(a trailer for their new DVD Anesthetize)

Thick as a Brick 13/04/2010

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Hello everyone! For this week’s blog post, I thought I would visit one of my favorite prog albums, Jethro Tull’s Thick as a Brick.

Thick as a Brick was Tull’s follow-up to the very successful album Aqualung. Ian Anderson was a little ticked off however because many people in the public and press were calling Aqualung a concept album (which Anderson defends to this day that it most definitely was not). So in revenge Anderson wanted to write “the mother of all concept albums”, and this led to the creation of Thick as Brick, and in the process, they created (what I consider to be) their best album of all time.

Anderson’s idea was that the album would just be one long 43 min. piece of music with all of the lyrics written by Anderson under the pseudonym “Gerald Bostock” (a fictitious schoolboy who wrote the lyrics as a poem). The album was meant to be a joke and make fun of progressive rock and the concept album, but it became Tull’s first #1 album in the United States.

The album cover and packaging was also a huge project as the band decided to design the cover and packaging like a local newspaper. So members of the band, management, and crew wrote articles and contributed photography to the packaging. It took longer to design the cover and packaging than it took to write and record the actual album!

What I love so much about this particular album is the use and combination of so many different themes. This album is basically the rock version of a classical symphony and just when you think you’ve heard it all, another theme appears out of nowhere. Another amazing thing about this record is the wonderful dynamic range. I’ve listened to the album while driving, and at some parts I can barely hear anything cause it gets so quiet at times. If this album were released nowadays, they would probably over-compress the dynamics and it would lose the wonderful effect that you get.

Thick as a Brick is considered to be one of the greatest prog rock albums of all time by a legendary band. Listen to it and you’ll know what I mean. Who’s joking now?

(An edited performance of Thick as a Brick from Madison Square Garden in 1978)

The biggest and worst epidemic in the history of the universe: SHREDDING!! 07/04/2010

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AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ladies and Gentlemen, there is a widespread epidemic that is tearing its way right through the heart of rock music: SHREDDING!

Now most people would think, “Hold on. I thought shredding was a really awesome thing!”

Well watch these videos and tell me if you still feel that way after viewing. (Since this is a Prog Rock blog I’ve confined myself to using strictly examples concerning Prog Rock bands, but this epidemic extends way beyond the realm of prog!)

(There are plenty more videos of Dream Theater shredding!)

(This is the one that started it all for me.)

(Oh no! Not Pink Floyd! It can’t be!!)

(By far, my favorite example!)

(Looks like Radiohead have also caught the shredding fever!)

(And Rush too!)

(And even Sigur Ros)

(Yes, even Tool are guilty of it!)

(And finally Yes)

Prog’s Best Artwork 07/04/2010

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Well I’m back from break. This week I wanted to do something different. Instead of featuring prog’s best music, I thought it would be cool to look at what I consider to be some of the best album covers the genre has to offer. So let’s go back to the very beginning shall we.

It’s the end of the 1960s. Album art up to that point in time was all about showcasing the look of the artist. And then this appears…

No picture of the band. No album title. The band’s name isn’t even on the cover. This was certainly a very revolutionary cover when it was first released, and I think that still holds true today. This cover is for King Crimson’s debut In the Court of the Crimson King. Not only does this album have one of the definitive covers of all time, but this is considered by many to be the quintessential prog rock album.

Is there a modern-day comparison? How about this one:

This cover is from the debut album of The Mars Volta titled De-loused in the Comatorium. I think my favorite part about this cover is the guy in the background with his hands over face. This cover was designed by the great Storm Thorgerson who is probably best known for designing all of the famous Pink Floyd covers. So speaking of Pink Floyd and Storm, anyone remember this one?

The man was actually lit on fire. These two men were professional stuntmen on a Hollywood lot. This was done in the days before CGI, and this way of doing things is continued today by Storm including dragging hundreds of beds onto a desert to shoot Pink Floyd’s A Momentary Lapse of Reason cover.

Now last (but certainly not least), there’s no way that you can talk about great prog album covers without talking about the work of Roger Dean for Yes.

Roger Dean not only created Yes’ famous logo, but he created the distinctive look of their covers, and yet he still only considers himself to be nothing more than a landscape painter. Here’s my favorite Yes cover. It’s for their album Tales from Topographic Oceans.

Opeth 24/03/2010

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Hello everyone! It’s time for a new post. This week I decided to highlight a particular album (and band) that has caught my attention over the past few weeks: the album Damnation by the band Opeth.

I had originally come to know of Opeth through Porcupine Tree’s Steven Wilson who produced three of their albums: Blackwater Park, Deliverance, and Damnation. After first listening to the song Burden (from the album Watershed), I really like what I was hearing. Unfortunately, while listening to the rest of the Watershed album, I discovered that there was plenty of death metal and death metal vocals/growls on the album. I don’t really like death metal so I knew that I would probably never buy an album of theirs if I was going to skip through all of the death metal parts.

Fast forward to the beginning of March 2010. I decide to give them another chance. I type in their name on YouTube and one of the first videos that comes up is of their song Windowpane. After listening for only 30 seconds, I realized how truly awesome this song was, and no death metal! It was perfect. And then once I discovered that the album which that song came from had no death metal on it at all, I knew that I was destined to buy and love this album. And I was right.

So I’ve delved deeper into their catalogue and discovered other gems like the song Harvest on the Blackwater Park album. Opeth have got to be one of the most different metal bands I’ve come across. When you listen to both sides of the group, it sounds like two completely different bands. It’s awesome! I hope they explore more progressive sounding music in the future. Until now, they’ve given us a lot of amazing work to enjoy.

(my favorite Opeth song Windowpane)

(Ghosts of Perdition – for all of you death metal fans)

Genesis 17/03/2010

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Hello everyone! Sorry for no blog post this past week. I was in Memphis. But this week’s post is extra special for me because this particular band began my love of progressive rock: Genesis!

Yesterday evening, Genesis were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (or as Steve Hackett termed it the “wall of blame”). Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford, Phil Collins, and Steve Hackett were all in attendance. Peter Gabriel did not attend because he was rehearsing for his upcoming tour. Trey Anastasio, lead singer of Phish, inducted them in, and Phish performed “Watcher of the Skies” and “No Reply At All” as a tribute.

Genesis’ career in music has lasted over 40 years, but they originally did not want to be a band. They began in 1967 as a collection of songwriters, but they soon realized that if anyone wanted to hear their songs, they would have to record them themselves. Their first album, From Genesis to Revelation, was released in 1969, with Trespass following in 1970 before guitarist Anthony Philips would leave the band. Not soon after, Tony, Mike, and Peter found Phil Collins to play drums and Steve Hackett to play guitar and the so-called “classic lineup” was formed. The band would then record four more albums before Peter Gabriel decided to leave the band to pursue a very successful solo career. Rather than replace Peter with a new singer from the outside, Genesis found the perfect singer inside of the band: Phil Collins.  After recording two more albums with these four members, Steve decided to leave the band, and then there were three. And there would be three for the next 16 years until Phil decided to leave the band to focus more on his solo career. Phil would be replaced by singer Ray Wilson to record the final Genesis album Calling All Stations. And that was the end…until 2007 when Phil reunited with Tony and Mike for a 45 date stadium tour of Europe and North America.

Will there be any more activity from Genesis in the future? I sincerely hope so. It’s looking very unlikely at this point because Peter is very busy with his solo career and Phil dislocated some vertebrae in his neck rendering the nerves in his hands useless, so he can’t play the drums without taping the sticks to his hands. Maybe in a year things will get better.

In the meantime we do have a back catalogue of 14 amazing albums. For newer fans, I would recommend checking out the 1970-1975 box set, especially Selling England by the Pound and The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway. A Trick of the Tail is another one of my personal favorites. Selling England was voted as the #1 progressive album of all time in Classic Rock Presents Prog‘s readers poll, and it currently holds the #1 spot on the top prog albums list on Prog Archives.

(The intro to Genesis’ VH1 Behind the Music DVD)

Yes Concert Review 03/03/2010

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Hello everyone! I’m so happy March has finally arrived, aren’t you?

Well here is the review of Yes’s concert at the House of Blues last Thursday that was promised to all of you.

This concert was the first time I had ever been to the House of Blues, and I loved how small the room was. I was literally about 7ft. from the stage in front of bassist Chris Squire. The stage was pretty small too. Oliver Wakeman, who plays the keyboards, is usually on Chris’ left. Well Thursday night, there was no room on Chris’ left so Oliver was in the back behind the guitar amps. The show began around 8:15 with Stravinsky’s Firebird as the band walked on stage and kicked into Siberian Khatru soon after. Amazing! The sound balance was pretty good, but I would’ve liked the keyboards and vocals to be louder. The band was in top form, with all members doing their part very efficiently. Steve Howe seemed to be pretty irritated by the bad PA saying at the end of the show, “Maybe next time we come back they’ll have a better PA.” Benoit did an excellent job on the vocals throughout the entire  concert, and for the second half of the concert, he wore a New Orleans fleur-de-lis shirt! My favorite song of the night was Yours Is No Disgrace because that night was the first time I heard that song live, and it was great! Steve Howe had a long solo in the middle of the song proving he’s still got his chops. After the show I waited patiently outside with my friends for the members to come out. I got 4 of the 5 members to autograph my Close to the Edge CD!! Overall it was a fantastic night.

Here’s the set list:

• Siberian Khatru
• I’ve Seen All Good People
• Tempus Fugit
• Onward
• Astral Traveller
• Yours Is No Disgrace
• And You And I
• Steve Howe Solo: Clap
• Owner of a Lonely Heart
• Machine Messiah
• Heart of the Sunrise
• Roundabout
• Starship Trooper

In other Prog news: Peter Gabriel and Genesis fans should make their way to their local music store to purchase Peter Gabriel’s new covers album, Scratch My Back.

Yes 24/02/2010

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Mystery 16/02/2010

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Good afternoon. Hope everyone in New Orleans is having a great Mardi Gras!

This week’s post will take us to one of the biggest breeding grounds for progressive rock – Montreal, Canada. The band: Mystery.

The band members include Benoit David, Michel St-Pere, Steve Gagné, Benoit Dupuis, Dean Baldwin, and Francois Fournier.

The band was first formed by Michel in 1986 with their first self-titled CD being released in 1992. The band then went on to release two more albums, Theatre of the Mind and Destiny, before singer Gary Savoie decided to leave the band. His replacement was Benoit David, who Gary had originally seen a few years earlier singing in the Yes tribute band Close to the Edge. In 2007, a new album was released, Beneath the Veil of Winter’s Face (a must-have album for anyone that loves progressive rock).

A new album, One Among the Living, is expected to be released 2010, and the band will perform for the very first time in the US on April 30th at ROSfest 2010.

My first introduction to the band was through Yes when Benoit David replaced Jon Anderson in late 2008 for Yes’ In The Present tour. After going to my first Yes concert in Biloxi, MS in December 2008, I was very impressed with Benoit’s ability to handle Jon’s very high and difficult singing. So once I found out that he was in another prog band Mystery I went on their website and listened to some samples from their newest album. I was blown away. Fantastic music and sound combined with great lyrics and wonderful vocals by Benoit, proving that he’s more than just a nostalgia singer.

I highly implore all of you to go on Mystery’s website and listen to the songs they have posted. I especially love The Preacher’s Fall and Beneath the Veil of Winter’s Face.

Also, for those of you who enjoyed the Abigail’s Ghost post a few weeks ago, head over to amazon mp3 to get a free mp3 download from their new DVD Live at ROSfest. Here’s the link

Mystery performing “The Preacher’s Fall”