So…
I’ll be seeing Dream Theater and Iron Maiden in just a few days…1 July, at what used to be called the Garden State Arts Center in Holmdel NJ. I’ve got lawn seats, which runs counter to my general loathing of general admission seating in my ever so advanced dotage. Seriously…you try having a sclerotic right S.I. joint and early onset osteoarthritis and then decide to stand for several hours in what will likely be 90+ degree heat for a metal show. I have a feeling I’ll be wheeled out of there because my one leg is gonna stiffen so much it’ll resemble a 2x4 stuck in a pair of jeans.
But I digress. This is my blog after all, and I am allowed the occasional digression.
Here’s what’s interesting about the whole situation: I have been a fan of Dream Theater, to one degree or another, since the release of Images and Words in 1992. Somewhere I even have a copy of the review I wrote of that album for my college’s newspaper, and while I don’t currently have a scanner, if I find it I’ll scan it and append it to this post at some future date. That’s not the point right now; the point is that as of this month, I’ve been listening to this band for 18 years, and this will be the first time I will be seeing them in concert. If I were to be honest, it’s likely because they are opening for Iron Maiden that I am seeing them this time. And I am not sure how to feel about that.
All bands change; all bands evolve. I’ll admit that I was not a huge fan of Images and Words, as I found some of the ballady stuff too cloying, and the production gave the songs a 90’s metal sheen that was not in keeping with the more progressive sounds I was looking for, and found in some of the songs. Their 1994 follow-up, Awake, was much more in keeping with my tastes at that time, and it still gets a decent amount of play here. Falling Into Infinity took, well, almost an infinity to come out, and it was at the time way less than satisfying (I’ve since re-evaluated my position, and while I like it more than I did, it’s still not great).
A weird thing happened then. Dream Theater got a new keyboardist, their third one, a guy named Jordan Rudess, who went to Julliard and played with Annie Haslam and the Dixie Dregs, among others. They released a 78 minute long concept album that blew everyone’s socks off, and which left me again somewhat less than impressed. Oh, there were some killer songs on there, but a lot just…I missed whatever it was that the band was doing that others fell in love with. This would end up being the theme from here on out; each successive album would come out, and I’d buy it hoping to capture in a bottle whatever it was I was looking for, and each time finding things to enjoy, and often just as much that didn’t do a thing for me. Six Degrees, Train of Thought, Octavarium, Systematic Chaos, Black Holes and Silver Linings…I’ve bought them all, listened to them all, and while there are moments that I nod my head and smile, it’s not a constant. And maybe never was, as we can see.
I’ve seen the band live on DVD, of course…being the fan I am, I’ve bought Live in Tokyo and Five Years in a LIVEtime and Live Scenes From New York and (pantgaspforair) Live at Budokan and Score and Chaos in Motion and…you get the message. I’ve seen how they are live, and I’ve heard enough of their live material to know they can bring it in concert. Yet I’ve had no desire the last couple years, as they’ve toured more heavily, to see them in concert. I’ve had chances…I could have seen the 2004 summer tour where they opened for Yes, but couldn’t get out of work (that didn’t stop my boss from telling me the Monday after the show how he saw Yes in concert with ‘that band Dream Theater that you like’ opening for them). I had a ticket made available for me for the Radio City show that they shot Score at, but no way to get into the city for it. And then, the past few years, just no longing, no burning need to see them.
Some of this, I am sure, is because the past few albums I have returned to less and less. While I am listening to Black Holes and Silver Linings as I type this, I can say this is maybe the fifth or sixth time I have listened to anything from this release that isn’t the cover songs since it came out on 23 June last year. There’s next to nothing on this album that drives me to want to listen to it, and I am not one of those people who believes that you have to listen to something twenty or thirty or a hundred times to ‘grasp the subtle nuances of what the band has to offer.’ This is Dream Theater; there ain’t a blasted thing subtle about them. Even Systematic Chaos gave me 40-odd minutes of music I liked, even though I still bristle at how much 25 minutes of that was taken from the manhwa Priest sans any crediting or attribution.
Lest anyone think I am just not metal enough to dig Dream Theater…three of my favourite albums released in the last six months are from Ihsahn, Triptykon and Finntroll. I think Enslaved is far more progressive than Dream Theater is; prog metal doesn’t mean just adding keyboards to the mix. I think Thomas Gabriel Fischer has done more to progress metal, and Ihsahn is breaking down huge boundaries, especially on After, which sees his patented symphonics mixed with crushing black metal and skronking saxophone to create a wonderfully flavourful melange that sweetens the tongue as it repeatedly bashes you in the face. I am far from afraid of metal; I do seek out great metal music to balance the lush symphonic rock of Banco and Yes, powerful metal to be the dark, brutal yin to the light, pastoral yang of Jade Warrior and Gryphon. Yet I am going into this concert with Dream Theater’s presence being more of an added bit to the fact that I am getting a chance to see Iron Maiden, also for the first time. If not for them, there’s every chance that I’d still not have seen Dream Theater in concert.
Am I going to skip seeing Dream Theater? Nope.
Am I going to whinge about seeing them? Not a chance (though I bet some reading this will assume I am doing just that here).
Will I feel the same way I did years ago? Probably not.
Will I enjoy the set? With 95% certainty, most assuredly.
I’m tossing this out there as it is. I’m not offering up any deep insights, though perhaps there’s something in here that is actually insightful. I’m sure that among you reading out there, some of you have certainly gone through the same thing with other bands, and will be nodding your heads sagely, stroking your goatees while sipping a nice single barrel scotch. I’m equally sure there will be people out there who will be looking for me at the show to administer a beat down, verbal or otherwise (ok, not so much on the second bit...I hope), for daring to besmirch the name of Dream Theater. And it’s OK to feel that way, it really is. I’m defensive of the bands I love (I still can’t believe there were people who didn’t get The Enid at NEARfest). Just because I’ve fallen out of love with Dream Theater doesn’t mean the band and I still can’t see each other from time to time and reminisce about the good old days, after all…it just means we’ve both moved on.
Showing posts with label opinion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label opinion. Show all posts
01 July 2009
Some scattered thoughts about the Prog magazine top 50 list...
The top 50 all-time prog albums list solicited by Classic Rock presents Prog has been released. As one could have probably predicted, the list is…
a) primarily bands from the UK
b) primarily melodic/symphonic
c) dominated by Yes, Genesis and Pink Floyd (30% of the list is these three bands)
What can we derive from this list?
Not a whole lot.
We can get a good guess at the readership of this magazine. We could probably put together a decent picture of their age, (25-55), gender (male), and place of residence (the UK, duh). We can tell that as expected the most popular bands still tend to be the so called Big Six (add in ELP, Tull and Crimson and 40% of the list is the Big Six). We see a dearth of non-UK bands (Rush, Dream Theater, Spock’s, Queensryche, Tool, Gong, Opeth). We see, in general, a decent snapshot of what is most accessible and easily digestible. And if we look at the publication, we see that in general it is this music that gets the bigger features, the most wordage, the most focus.
Is this that shocking?
Not really.
In the golden age of prog, bands like Yes and ELP did more than create some of the more complex rock music…they sold millions of records. Tull were much the same, while in many ways Crimson would be the odd man out…complex walls of sound, a propensity for improv and angularity…they are perhaps the most difficult band of the big six. Floyd came to prog via psychedelia, and their emphasis on soundscape, mood and texture puts them at odds with the rest of the batch. Yet there was always melody and structure guiding all of these bands (and yes, Crimson definitely dabbled there as well…Book of Saturday, Cadence and Cascade, The Night Watch…Fripp and co. could craft a hell of a catchy song when they wanted to).
What we miss on a list like this is the truly world based nature of prog. Where are the Italian bands…Banco, PFM, Le Orme, Area, Goblin. What of the German groups like Kraftwerk or Tangerine Dream…the eastern European bands like Solaris or Collage or SFF? There’s a huge Scandanavian prog scene typified by bands like Kaipa, Trettioariga Kriget, Samlas Mammas Manna and carried on through White Willow, Anglagard and Anekdoten. Likewise, there are large numbers of important and influential Japanese bands like Kenso, Gerard, Ain Soph, Vermillion Sands, and countless others. We don’t see anything truly avant garde…no Rock in Opposition, no Zeuhl…almost no fusion or Canterbury, and nothing that to my mind pushes any limits or stretches boundaries.
I am not trying to say that in order for an album to be worthy of being in a top fifty list, it has to be by nature difficult and/or edgy. There’s nothing difficult or edgy about an album like Darwin! By Banco…unless you find gorgeous melodies, delicate arrangements, and passionate operatic Italian vocals difficult or edgy. My complaints with lists like the one put together by Classic Rock presents Prog is that it represents a narrow slice of the prog listenership/fan base…and as the magazine is on newsstands all over the place, it will tend to help ossify a general impression that this is the prog that matters. I could list a dozen or more albums equally worthy of being on this list that would both widen its characteristics and present a more complete view of what progressive music is…albums that are the equal to, if not superior to, those listed by the readership. But what would this solve? It’d be yet another narrow slice of what prog music is. I’d think it more complete and more enveloping…but it’d be just one person’s viewpoint.
Frankly, progressive music is insular and ghettoised enough as it is. Limiting it to a selection of melodic albums sung in English only marginalises it further than it already is.
a) primarily bands from the UK
b) primarily melodic/symphonic
c) dominated by Yes, Genesis and Pink Floyd (30% of the list is these three bands)
What can we derive from this list?
Not a whole lot.
We can get a good guess at the readership of this magazine. We could probably put together a decent picture of their age, (25-55), gender (male), and place of residence (the UK, duh). We can tell that as expected the most popular bands still tend to be the so called Big Six (add in ELP, Tull and Crimson and 40% of the list is the Big Six). We see a dearth of non-UK bands (Rush, Dream Theater, Spock’s, Queensryche, Tool, Gong, Opeth). We see, in general, a decent snapshot of what is most accessible and easily digestible. And if we look at the publication, we see that in general it is this music that gets the bigger features, the most wordage, the most focus.
Is this that shocking?
Not really.
In the golden age of prog, bands like Yes and ELP did more than create some of the more complex rock music…they sold millions of records. Tull were much the same, while in many ways Crimson would be the odd man out…complex walls of sound, a propensity for improv and angularity…they are perhaps the most difficult band of the big six. Floyd came to prog via psychedelia, and their emphasis on soundscape, mood and texture puts them at odds with the rest of the batch. Yet there was always melody and structure guiding all of these bands (and yes, Crimson definitely dabbled there as well…Book of Saturday, Cadence and Cascade, The Night Watch…Fripp and co. could craft a hell of a catchy song when they wanted to).
What we miss on a list like this is the truly world based nature of prog. Where are the Italian bands…Banco, PFM, Le Orme, Area, Goblin. What of the German groups like Kraftwerk or Tangerine Dream…the eastern European bands like Solaris or Collage or SFF? There’s a huge Scandanavian prog scene typified by bands like Kaipa, Trettioariga Kriget, Samlas Mammas Manna and carried on through White Willow, Anglagard and Anekdoten. Likewise, there are large numbers of important and influential Japanese bands like Kenso, Gerard, Ain Soph, Vermillion Sands, and countless others. We don’t see anything truly avant garde…no Rock in Opposition, no Zeuhl…almost no fusion or Canterbury, and nothing that to my mind pushes any limits or stretches boundaries.
I am not trying to say that in order for an album to be worthy of being in a top fifty list, it has to be by nature difficult and/or edgy. There’s nothing difficult or edgy about an album like Darwin! By Banco…unless you find gorgeous melodies, delicate arrangements, and passionate operatic Italian vocals difficult or edgy. My complaints with lists like the one put together by Classic Rock presents Prog is that it represents a narrow slice of the prog listenership/fan base…and as the magazine is on newsstands all over the place, it will tend to help ossify a general impression that this is the prog that matters. I could list a dozen or more albums equally worthy of being on this list that would both widen its characteristics and present a more complete view of what progressive music is…albums that are the equal to, if not superior to, those listed by the readership. But what would this solve? It’d be yet another narrow slice of what prog music is. I’d think it more complete and more enveloping…but it’d be just one person’s viewpoint.
Frankly, progressive music is insular and ghettoised enough as it is. Limiting it to a selection of melodic albums sung in English only marginalises it further than it already is.
30 May 2008
Then came the last days of May...
I've been really quiet of late (loads of stuff happening IRL), the end result of which is that I have been pulled increasingly from posting here.
Without making excuses or getting into any of the reasons, here's some stuff for y'all:
My interview with Roine Stolt of The Flower Kings has now been posted and can be read HERE. A brief excerpt:
BK: Good. You guys are gonna be playing the inaugural Three Rivers Prog Fest, out in Pittsburgh. And I know Pittsburgh is where Inside/Out USA used to be based out of. Is there something special about that festival, you know, the idea that you're gonna be playing at the first one, or is it the fact that you're gonna be able to sort of route shows around it that makes it attractive?
RS: Well, in fact, we were asked to, because obviously we know a couple of people in Pittsburgh, because we had our record company there and we had people that we'd been working with in Pittsburgh for quite a while. So, we were asked to play this festival maybe some...4, 5, 6 months ago, I think.
BK: Long before it was actually announced.
RS: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. And I waited, and one of the reasons was of course that we had to cancel ROSfest. I didn't want that to happen again, you know what I mean. I wanted to be really, really, positively sure that we were gonna play the festival before I said OK. Anyway, so we were asked to do this, and I didn't know what other bands were gonna play, and then they came back to me a couple of weeks ago, and said "this is what the festival is gonna be, these are the other acts," and some of them are not announced yet. But they're really good acts, definitely. So, just looking at the lineup, I said "this looks interesting," and I think we can even attract some of the non-prog audience for this festival. So, that was one of the motivations for playing.
Secondly, my interview with Andy Tillison of The Tangent has also been posted, and you can read it HERE. Again, a brief excerpt:
BK: Is the European scene that much more vital for live progressive music, that a tour like this can happen over there? Here in the States it seems the entire progressive music scene is almost subsidized and supported by three or four festivals over the course of the year. Bands will come over and play one or two shows around the festivals and that's the only chance you get to see them.
AT: Yeah. Well...that's right. It has to be remembered that although the festivals are very impressive in America...we loved when we played ROSfest...it also has to be remembered that America actually has one of the smallest progressive rock markets, so that...you know...I think that for example there are more people into progressive rock in South America than there are in the United States. And there are certainly more people who are into it in Europe than there are who are into it in America. So the problem is the American vastness, it means that we can come over...we can play one of the festivals, but then we have to transport ourselves miles away to the next show to keep from interfering with that festivals bookings and play a gig on the other coast. The problem is...we've already discussed this with other bands who have done the same thing and they find nobody goes to the next gig because they've already gone to the festival! So these big festivals in America are sort of like, everybody goes and you see the same people or core at all festivals. So it is a bit difficult, of course, and the American market is...it's difficult to get over there to start with, and all the instrument hire, and...
So yeah...we can do the festivals, but unfortunately putting a tour together over there is almost impossible. We're not big enough yet...we haven't got enough people who could make a tour pay, and, you know...it is terrible that you have to think of money like this, but...unfortunately we do. We can't come home having to pay for our own performance.
Finally, those of you on the Frank Zappa merch mailing list know that there is a new Zappa DVD being released from the vaults, titled The Torture Never Stops. This is an apt title for a lot of long-suffering Zappaphiles who have been waiting patiently for the ZFT to finally released the long coveted Roxy DVD, which has been announced and promised for many years now (a trailer for this appears on the Baby Snakes DVD).
I am not going to get into the politics of the way releases are being made from the archives...there have been some strange choices, to be sure, but at the same time, several things have come out that are genuinely very interesting (Wazoo, the live Grand Wazoo release...the MOFO project (which has its own share of controversy)...Imaginary Diseases from the Petit Wazoo tour, et cetera).
But...
The Roxy era band has been considered by many to be the peak of the early post-MOI Zappa groups...I mean, how can you complain about this as a band to play with:
Napoleon Murphy Brock – flute, saxophone, tenor saxophone, vocals
George Duke – synthesizer, keyboards, vocals
Bruce Fowler – trombone, dancer
Tom Fowler – bass guitar
Walt Fowler – trumpet, bass trumpet
Don Preston – synthesizer
Jeff Simmons – rhythm guitar, vocals
Chester Thompson – drums
Ruth Underwood – percussion
And yes, we have Baby Snakes on DVD, and The Dub Room Special, and Does Humour Belong in Music?, and now TTNS...but no Roxy.
And we wait.
Just like we've been waiting for...
Dance Me This
The Rage & The Fury
200 Motels (on DVD and/or CD)
A release of Uncle Meat without the 'penalty tracks'
I've long since given up trying to understand how releases get decided upon and scheduled. I'd just like to see Roxy before I die...
Without making excuses or getting into any of the reasons, here's some stuff for y'all:
My interview with Roine Stolt of The Flower Kings has now been posted and can be read HERE. A brief excerpt:
BK: Good. You guys are gonna be playing the inaugural Three Rivers Prog Fest, out in Pittsburgh. And I know Pittsburgh is where Inside/Out USA used to be based out of. Is there something special about that festival, you know, the idea that you're gonna be playing at the first one, or is it the fact that you're gonna be able to sort of route shows around it that makes it attractive?
RS: Well, in fact, we were asked to, because obviously we know a couple of people in Pittsburgh, because we had our record company there and we had people that we'd been working with in Pittsburgh for quite a while. So, we were asked to play this festival maybe some...4, 5, 6 months ago, I think.
BK: Long before it was actually announced.
RS: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. And I waited, and one of the reasons was of course that we had to cancel ROSfest. I didn't want that to happen again, you know what I mean. I wanted to be really, really, positively sure that we were gonna play the festival before I said OK. Anyway, so we were asked to do this, and I didn't know what other bands were gonna play, and then they came back to me a couple of weeks ago, and said "this is what the festival is gonna be, these are the other acts," and some of them are not announced yet. But they're really good acts, definitely. So, just looking at the lineup, I said "this looks interesting," and I think we can even attract some of the non-prog audience for this festival. So, that was one of the motivations for playing.
Secondly, my interview with Andy Tillison of The Tangent has also been posted, and you can read it HERE. Again, a brief excerpt:
BK: Is the European scene that much more vital for live progressive music, that a tour like this can happen over there? Here in the States it seems the entire progressive music scene is almost subsidized and supported by three or four festivals over the course of the year. Bands will come over and play one or two shows around the festivals and that's the only chance you get to see them.
AT: Yeah. Well...that's right. It has to be remembered that although the festivals are very impressive in America...we loved when we played ROSfest...it also has to be remembered that America actually has one of the smallest progressive rock markets, so that...you know...I think that for example there are more people into progressive rock in South America than there are in the United States. And there are certainly more people who are into it in Europe than there are who are into it in America. So the problem is the American vastness, it means that we can come over...we can play one of the festivals, but then we have to transport ourselves miles away to the next show to keep from interfering with that festivals bookings and play a gig on the other coast. The problem is...we've already discussed this with other bands who have done the same thing and they find nobody goes to the next gig because they've already gone to the festival! So these big festivals in America are sort of like, everybody goes and you see the same people or core at all festivals. So it is a bit difficult, of course, and the American market is...it's difficult to get over there to start with, and all the instrument hire, and...
So yeah...we can do the festivals, but unfortunately putting a tour together over there is almost impossible. We're not big enough yet...we haven't got enough people who could make a tour pay, and, you know...it is terrible that you have to think of money like this, but...unfortunately we do. We can't come home having to pay for our own performance.
Finally, those of you on the Frank Zappa merch mailing list know that there is a new Zappa DVD being released from the vaults, titled The Torture Never Stops. This is an apt title for a lot of long-suffering Zappaphiles who have been waiting patiently for the ZFT to finally released the long coveted Roxy DVD, which has been announced and promised for many years now (a trailer for this appears on the Baby Snakes DVD).
I am not going to get into the politics of the way releases are being made from the archives...there have been some strange choices, to be sure, but at the same time, several things have come out that are genuinely very interesting (Wazoo, the live Grand Wazoo release...the MOFO project (which has its own share of controversy)...Imaginary Diseases from the Petit Wazoo tour, et cetera).
But...
The Roxy era band has been considered by many to be the peak of the early post-MOI Zappa groups...I mean, how can you complain about this as a band to play with:
Napoleon Murphy Brock – flute, saxophone, tenor saxophone, vocals
George Duke – synthesizer, keyboards, vocals
Bruce Fowler – trombone, dancer
Tom Fowler – bass guitar
Walt Fowler – trumpet, bass trumpet
Don Preston – synthesizer
Jeff Simmons – rhythm guitar, vocals
Chester Thompson – drums
Ruth Underwood – percussion
And yes, we have Baby Snakes on DVD, and The Dub Room Special, and Does Humour Belong in Music?, and now TTNS...but no Roxy.
And we wait.
Just like we've been waiting for...
Dance Me This
The Rage & The Fury
200 Motels (on DVD and/or CD)
A release of Uncle Meat without the 'penalty tracks'
I've long since given up trying to understand how releases get decided upon and scheduled. I'd just like to see Roxy before I die...
21 March 2008
OPINION: Some varied thoughts on the current state of progressivemusic in the United States
NB: I don't claim to have better answers (or any answers) or greater insight into the state of the music industry than anyone else out there. I'm just this guy, you know? What I do have is 20 years of listening to this music, and a sincere love of the genre. Well, and a huge CD collection, but that's beside the point.
The following are taken, with occasional edits/additions, from a series of e-mail exchanges I have been having with the US PR rep of a major independent progressive music label. I'm not going to say who, or which label, because ultimately that is unimportant. You may or may not agree with what I have to say. I encourage commentary and reply.
Italics are the rep, bold is me:
'We need to see a prog resurgence here in the US.'
The realist in me says it won't happen.
Of course, I'd love to see bands that play progressive music (including groups that play material that looks back to the traditional symphonic sound) selling huge amounts of records, but I think in general the bleeding edge of progressive is going to be bands using it as a springboard. I know it's in vogue to label bands like Tool and The Mars Volta and Radiohead as progressive, and when compared to the mass of dross that make up most top 40/100 music, they certainly are. But I fear the days of a band sounding like Yes landing an 8 minute long track in top 40 radio are long gone.
(additional note to this posting: lest you think this a strange statement to make, consider this: at one point, WPST 97.5 FM in the US, which is unabashedly a top 40/today's hot hits format station, once or twice had Pennsylvania progressive rock band echolyn on live in the studio, and used to frequently play the unedited album version of Yes' 'Roundabout' as part of a 2-fer with 'Love Will Find a Way' or 'Shoot High, Aim Low' in 1988-1989.)
Here on the east coast, we're very lucky to have fests like ROSfest and NEARfest (which I attend every year) and Progday...as well as the new 3 Rivers Fest in Pittsburgh. But they're not enough to break new bands...if you want to get ticket sales, you need old bands the core audience (35 to 55, male) have heard of. We all pay lip service to new bands and new sounds, but what sells best? Catalogue Yes and Tull and ELP and Kansas releases. The fifteenth reissue of Leftoverture will sell 150,000 copies while the new Riverside may sell in the 4 figures here in the US. It's sad, it's incredibly telling, and it shows how marginalised the genre has gotten.
I do what I can...I think it is going to become increasingly important to push newer bands without relying on comparisons to the past. It may be hard on old time fans, but...
...I mean there are great new prog bands, but they will never get the recognition that they deserve at least over here in the states.
No airplay. And for all we do for PR (all the various websites, like Progscape, MSJ, Sea of Tranquility, Progarchives, ProgressiveEars, et cetera), all they end up doing is preaching to the converted. And the converted resists new...unless it sounds like the old. (additional to this posting: unless they are a new converted listener of progressive music who has been introduced to the genre via bands like Dream Theater or Symphony X, in which case the old stuff just sounds...old. And not technically intense enough. And not heavy enough. And why did Dream Theater have to open for Yes, anyway, when they're so much more awesome and metal?) And there's definitely nothing wrong with retro-prog...a great bit of my collection includes newer bands that look back at the traditional sympho-prog sound. I think the next big shift in progressive music is really going to come from the fringes...extreme bands like Opeth and Enslaved, with Opeth getting exposure this summer on the Progressive Nation tour with Dream Theater...and electronic music. I mean, Can is being sampled in rap songs, with attribution. Kate Bush is being hailed by people like the guys in Outkast, and getting covered by bands like Placebo. Crimson and Tull and Yes touring can only do so much.
And I was one of those kids who didn't know anything 10 or 15 years ago...I thought progressive music was gone. Until I went to an ELP/Tull show, and discovered Progression magazine, and found out there were hundreds...perhaps thousands...of new bands creating music that held some connection to the music I loved. I discovered Spock's Beard and echolyn and Mastermind and a dozen other bands...then found a hundred bands I never heard of that were contemporaries of Yes and Crimson and the like...and as pleased as I was to find this vast and poorly tapped vein of wonder, it was frustrating and depressing at the same time.
I'm a voice in the wilderness, trying to talk up the music. I play it all the time at work, and occasionally someone asks what it is I am listening to. And I can only hope that someone gets turned on and buys a CD.
The following are taken, with occasional edits/additions, from a series of e-mail exchanges I have been having with the US PR rep of a major independent progressive music label. I'm not going to say who, or which label, because ultimately that is unimportant. You may or may not agree with what I have to say. I encourage commentary and reply.
Italics are the rep, bold is me:
'We need to see a prog resurgence here in the US.'
The realist in me says it won't happen.
Of course, I'd love to see bands that play progressive music (including groups that play material that looks back to the traditional symphonic sound) selling huge amounts of records, but I think in general the bleeding edge of progressive is going to be bands using it as a springboard. I know it's in vogue to label bands like Tool and The Mars Volta and Radiohead as progressive, and when compared to the mass of dross that make up most top 40/100 music, they certainly are. But I fear the days of a band sounding like Yes landing an 8 minute long track in top 40 radio are long gone.
(additional note to this posting: lest you think this a strange statement to make, consider this: at one point, WPST 97.5 FM in the US, which is unabashedly a top 40/today's hot hits format station, once or twice had Pennsylvania progressive rock band echolyn on live in the studio, and used to frequently play the unedited album version of Yes' 'Roundabout' as part of a 2-fer with 'Love Will Find a Way' or 'Shoot High, Aim Low' in 1988-1989.)
Here on the east coast, we're very lucky to have fests like ROSfest and NEARfest (which I attend every year) and Progday...as well as the new 3 Rivers Fest in Pittsburgh. But they're not enough to break new bands...if you want to get ticket sales, you need old bands the core audience (35 to 55, male) have heard of. We all pay lip service to new bands and new sounds, but what sells best? Catalogue Yes and Tull and ELP and Kansas releases. The fifteenth reissue of Leftoverture will sell 150,000 copies while the new Riverside may sell in the 4 figures here in the US. It's sad, it's incredibly telling, and it shows how marginalised the genre has gotten.
I do what I can...I think it is going to become increasingly important to push newer bands without relying on comparisons to the past. It may be hard on old time fans, but...
...I mean there are great new prog bands, but they will never get the recognition that they deserve at least over here in the states.
No airplay. And for all we do for PR (all the various websites, like Progscape, MSJ, Sea of Tranquility, Progarchives, ProgressiveEars, et cetera), all they end up doing is preaching to the converted. And the converted resists new...unless it sounds like the old. (additional to this posting: unless they are a new converted listener of progressive music who has been introduced to the genre via bands like Dream Theater or Symphony X, in which case the old stuff just sounds...old. And not technically intense enough. And not heavy enough. And why did Dream Theater have to open for Yes, anyway, when they're so much more awesome and metal?) And there's definitely nothing wrong with retro-prog...a great bit of my collection includes newer bands that look back at the traditional sympho-prog sound. I think the next big shift in progressive music is really going to come from the fringes...extreme bands like Opeth and Enslaved, with Opeth getting exposure this summer on the Progressive Nation tour with Dream Theater...and electronic music. I mean, Can is being sampled in rap songs, with attribution. Kate Bush is being hailed by people like the guys in Outkast, and getting covered by bands like Placebo. Crimson and Tull and Yes touring can only do so much.
And I was one of those kids who didn't know anything 10 or 15 years ago...I thought progressive music was gone. Until I went to an ELP/Tull show, and discovered Progression magazine, and found out there were hundreds...perhaps thousands...of new bands creating music that held some connection to the music I loved. I discovered Spock's Beard and echolyn and Mastermind and a dozen other bands...then found a hundred bands I never heard of that were contemporaries of Yes and Crimson and the like...and as pleased as I was to find this vast and poorly tapped vein of wonder, it was frustrating and depressing at the same time.
I'm a voice in the wilderness, trying to talk up the music. I play it all the time at work, and occasionally someone asks what it is I am listening to. And I can only hope that someone gets turned on and buys a CD.
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