[atlantaprog] Re: From the Guardian UK

Whoa. 

Very cool article.

Karnataka and Marillion aren't my cup of meat, but so what?

Glad to see the plague spread.

Perhaps the Brits were Too Cool for Prog because (a) they had the best, and hence had won the Prog sweepstakes, and (b) they had lost their political empire and wanted to appear fierce and barbaric like the former colonies that had thrown them out.

Paul

>From: Allen Welty-Green <agmedia@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Reply-To: atlantaprog@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>To: atlantaprog@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: [atlantaprog] From the Guardian UK
>Date: Fri, 1 Apr 2005 10:59:14 -0500
>
>http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/fridayreview/story/
>0,12102,1449094,00.html
>
>In prog we trust
>
>  Epic songs. Symphonic key changes. Psychedelic cover art. Get used
>to  it - because prog is the rock that just won't die. By Adam
>Sweeting
>
>   Friday April 1, 2005
>The Guardian
> 
>"How can any innovative, forward-thinking art or music not be  
>progressive?" asks Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, guitarist with the Mars
>Volta.  "We are really tired of those labels."
>
>If you want to describe Frances the Mute, the Mars Volta's recently  
>released second album, only the terms "progressive rock" and
>"concept  album" will do. It has been designed as a pseudo-symphony,
>with  evolving themes and interlocking movements. There are dramatic
>leaps  from doomy blues to ferocious nu-metal, punctuated by
>cacophonous free  jazz and mariachi trumpets. Tracks last as long as
>13 minutes and have  names like Umbilical Syllables, Pour Another
>Icepick and Plant a Nail  in the Navel Stream - titles that recall
>Genesis albums from the era  when vocalist Peter Gabriel dressed up
>as a giant dandelion. Even the  sleeve is in prog's great tradition,
>since it was designed by Storm  Thorgerson, whose Hipgnosis team
>created artwork for Yes, Led Zeppelin  and Pink Floyd.
>
>  For the past couple of decades, few people have been able to speak
>the  words "prog rock" without collapsing in tears of helpless
>mirth.  Suddenly, however, there's a change in the wind. Fabled
>1970s  progressivists Van Der Graaf Generator have reformed for a
>new album,  Present (a double-disc set, naturally). It's due for
>release later this  month, 28 years after their last studio
>collaboration. The Generator's  arcane lyrics, bewildering time
>signatures and extended jazzy  extemporisations have never been a
>mass-market taste, but their  comeback has provoked seething
>anticipation: tickets for the band's  concert at the Royal Festival
>Hall on May 6 sold out before the show  was officially announced.
>
>Their timing is propitious. Music of a progressive bent is gaining a
>  momentum unseen since in the mid-1970s, before punk rock decreed
>that  using as many as two chords per song was considered poncey and
>decadent  (though Sex Pistol John Lydon later owned up to being a
>Van Der Graaf  Generator fan). Unmistakable prog-like noises are
>emanating from  Porcupine Tree, who are hailed as natural heirs to
>Yes and Pink Floyd,  while Muse have demonstrated the commercial
>potency of mixing grunge  with classical flourishes plundered from
>Rachmaninov. The Darkness have  proved that prog can be funny
>(intentionally, that is). Spock's Beard,  Pain of Salvation, Cryptic
>Vision, Lacuna Coil, Karnataka and Meshuggah  are developing their
>own variations on the progressive theme. There are  even enough
>bands to mount their own ProgAID effort to benefit tsunami  victims.
>Members of Pendragon, IQ, Pallas, Strangefish, the Flower  Kings,
>Galahad and others joined forces to record All Around the World,  
>written by Rob Reed from British prog band Magenta.
>
>"It was in about 1995 that I discovered there was sort of an  
>underground movement," says Roine Stolt, of Swedish prog-rockers the
>  Flower Kings. "A guy called me from America saying they were
>thinking  of setting up a prog rock festival. I thought, 'What!
>About 25 people  will turn up.' But the same guy organised the
>festival we played in Los  Angeles in 1997, and we got an incredible
>crowd. It seems there are  more prog record labels and new bands
>coming up, and magazines are  starting to write about progressive
>rock."
>
>In the original golden dawn of prog, bands such as Yes, King Crimson
>  and Emerson Lake & Palmer exploited the then-new technology of  
>electronic synthesizers and innovations in studio techniques.
>Recently,  the spread of broadband internet connections has
>galvanised interest in  the genre.
>
>"It's a godsend, because you can have a website that's just as good
>as  a site by any major band," says Stuart Nicholson, vocalist with  
>Brit-proggers Galahad. "People can find out about us, and that might
>  lead them to Magenta or Mostly Autumn or other groups. You can
>sell  merchandise online. The irony is that a band like ours is more
>punk  than punk was, because we're totally independent and we
>operate outside  the major music industry."
>
>Galahad formed in Dorset 20 years ago. Having survived a period when
>  "it was like you were suffering from some kind of disease you
>couldn't  let people know about", they are now hailed as gurus of
>the neo-prog  underground. The band are starting work on a new album
>(their 12th) for  Rob Ayling's Voiceprint label, and they are
>sensing a gradual shift in  audience tastes.
>
>"The major labels are pushing all these mainstream rock bands who
>don't  rock," Nicholson complains. "It's all a bit boring. The
>younger  audience wants something apart from prefabricated boy
>bands. Dance  music is dying, and people want to see live music and
>a bit of a show."
>
>What all prog practitioners agree on is that the music offers huge  
>scope. "We're building on progressive music, rock and pop in
>general,  some Swedish folk music, classical and jazz," explains
>Stolt. "You can  build a song around anything - African rhythms,
>Indian scales or  Japanese music. It's this freedom to create that
>attracted me in the  beginning."
>
>By contrast, the first coming of prog was defined by a batch of
>English  bands with a set of shared tastes and values. As Bill
>Bruford, the  original drummer with Yes, points out: "Half the main
>protagonists had  come from the church - a lot of organists and
>choirboys. Chris Squire  from Yes sang in a choir. The Rick Wakemans
>and Keith Emersons were  organists. So the church had quite a lot to
>do with it. There wasn't a  note of jazz in it. Completely white.
>Completely pertaining to  south-eastern, middle-class nice boys like
>myself. The classical  influence came from the fact that classical
>was the only music being  taught in school."
>
>Today, Bruford plays jazz and teaches a course on the history of  
>popular music. "When I describe those years with Yes to my students,
>  they all say, 'Wow, that sounds fantastic.' The music industry was
>  trebling in size each year, so there was plenty of money. We could
>be  adventurous and take our time in the studio, and nobody ever
>showed us  a bill. There was a great sense that anything could
>happen in the  music. It's all but impossible to re-create those
>circumstances now."
>
>Maybe, but new factors have come into play. Recording equipment has  
>become cheap and accessible to an extent unforeseeable 30 years ago,
>  while the globalisation of music makes it easy for musicians to
>soak  themselves in a multiplicity of sources. Several of the new
>acts have  female singers, in a departure from prog's all-male
>tradition. Bands  from South America or eastern Europe inevitably
>bring their own  perspectives, and even the home-grown ones don't
>conform to the popular  cliches. "We all come from working-class
>backgrounds - we didn't go to  public school," says Galahad's
>Nicholson. "Our original members were  from a council estate, but
>that doesn't mean you can only be into the  Sex Pistols."
>
>Anything seems possible, and while there's little likelihood of prog
>  re-establishing its 1970s dominance, the music has proved that it
>is  capable of adapting to survive. "Despite what the industry says
>music  should or should not be, these people beg to differ," adds
>Bruford.  "There are pools of enthusiasts all round the world. In
>fact, it's only  the British who sneered at prog. Everybody else
>thought it was great."
>
>
>

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