[atlantaprog] Re: From the Guardian UK

Actually, I apologize, didn't know that even went to the list til just this 
second.  I swear I deleted the ARIA email and put your private email in the 
"To:" line...sorry everyone.

Beth
> 
> From: Allen Welty-Green <agmedia@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: 2005/04/01 Fri PM 12:01:48 EST
> To: atlantaprog@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [atlantaprog] Re: From the Guardian UK
> 
> No one was banned. Technical problems. See my OFFLIST reply.
> 
> On Apr 1, 2005, at 11:26 AM, <atlantaprog@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> > so...were you going to at least tell me I've been banned????  I can't 
> > even post something nice to Wheat about him having a nice time in NYC? 
> >  Nice of you to at least let me know Allen.
> >
> > Beth
> >
> >
> >>
> >> From: Allen Welty-Green <agmedia@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> >> Date: 2005/04/01 Fri AM 10:59:14 EST
> >> To: atlantaprog@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> >> Subject: [atlantaprog] From the Guardian UK
> >>
> >> 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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