Camel – Camel
In the 1970s, Andy Latimer and Pete Bardens got together in a studio and started releasing music under the name Camel, this is Camel’s first studio release.
Brain Salad Surgery – Emerson Lake Palmer (#219)
Brain Salad Surgery – Emerson Lake Palmer
The HR Giger album cover should be a warning to the weird bumph this album is. Seriously. Read the rest of this entry »
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Bodkin – Bodkin (#208)
Bodkin – Bodkin
This album is exactly what I’m doing the Music Project for.
My music collection is so vast it is impossible for me to have listened to every single album. The point of this project is to listen, filter and discuss with others what the albums mean to me, them and the rest of history. It is also there for me to delete albums that I have no wish to listen to again. However it is also there for me to discover albums I didn’t know I had. This is like that.
Bodkin is a gem. A prize in Prog-ism. Heavy in Hammond organ. Crazy drug inspired lyrics and wild wild instrument solo breaks. What more could a prog fan want?
Bodkin were a Scottish progressive rock band from the 1970s Doug Rome (Hammond organ), Mick Riddle (guitar), Bill Anderson (bass), Dick Sneddon on drums and Zeik Hume on vocals. A smooth mix of dirty blues (much like the Groundhogs) and Heavy Prog (King Crimson). Unique sound. An absolute pleasure to listen to and almost akin to Thotch
Unfortunately, Bodkin is the only album Bodkin made and it leaves you wanting more. Considering I heard this for the first time the other week, the album has already gone up my personal charts and nuzzled itself between Illusions on A Double Dimple (Triumvirat) and Animals (Pink Floyd).
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#146 – Bell Boots & Shambles – Spirogyra
Bell Boots & Shambles – Spirogyra
The most influential prog folk band of their time and yet few people have heard of them. Spirogyra were formed at the height of the Canterbury scene and comprised of Martin Cockerham, Mark Francism Barbara Gaskin, Julian Cusack and Steve Borrill.
Angry progressive folk with political overtones. Just what today’s folk lacks. Significantly. Show of Hands doesn’t count.
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#114 – Azure d’Or – Renaissance
Azure d’Or by Renaissance
Annie Haslam and her chums get together one more time before the 1980s comes and bites them all on the bum and sends them into a downward spiral of obscurity.
With the exception of Jekyll and Hyde and Winter Tree, much of the original “wow” of early Renaissance seems to be fading like the memory of Quatro before the approaching onslaught of the anti-Prog movement.
Punk has a lot to answer for musically. It did more damage to creativity and expression than dub step and music factories owned by Pete Waterman and his ilk. Talented musicians were forced to cut short their masterpieces and musical wankery to fit in with the growing hunger for 3 minute pop songs. A bit like how Facebook and Twitter have massacred the blogosphere by reducing the media consumers attention to 140 character text bites.
A shame.
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Album #94 – Ashes Are Burning – Renaissance
Ashes Are Burning – Renaissance
Sometime in the 1970s people with hair would gather and make music. Lovely music. Happy music. Nothing about killing policemen or getting your body parts ogled so you can become famous. Nor was there anything about “fucking the system” or being worthless. Music was a different place. A different time. A different meaning.
Out of the flotsam and jetsam of the musical ocean, a band washed upon my aural shore in the early noughties. A band I had no idea even existed and yet every song I heard seemed to slot into the crevices left by the ice age of Yes, Pink Floyd and Triumvirat. A band whose output left me feeling cosy in my jumpers, sated aurally and at one with the world. That band was Renaissance.
I would ask people if they had heard of them and most people would go “No” and yet they were massive in their time. Like giants. But then something happened and no trace was seemingly left.
Like I said in the preamble of Sieben’s As They Should Sound, the mass theft of musical property did only good for bands like Sieben and Renaissance, introducing their works to whole new audiences who would then show their appreciation by going out and buying the albums they had heard. If it wasn’t for illegal downloads, I would never have heard of Renaissance and I would never have that Renaissance shaped gap in my auralscape plugged and I wouldn’t have spent lots of money on their music.
As with A Song for All Seasons, this is a typical collection of long haired folky tunes. The kind of stuff you might expect to hear on A Handful of Songs in the 1970s. Close harmonies, lots of piano and nothing overwhelming the acoustic craftsmanship that they make. Though not necessarily a good introduction to the band, Ashes are Burning is certainly one of Renaissance’s better albums and contains fan favourites Let it Grow, Ashes are Burning and Carpet of the Sun. You can also find out more about Renaissance on Facebook and on their website because, yes, they have reformed recently and are touring again….
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Album #83 – Aqualung – Jethro Tull
Aqualung – Jethro Tull
Sitting on a park bench listening to Aqualung reminds me about history lessons at school. Read the rest of this entry »
Album #72 = Angel’s Egg – Gong
Angel’s Egg – Gong (1973)
Take one impressionable teenager. Play them The Flying Teapot Radio Gnome Part 1. Sit back and wait.
I bought this in on CD in 1990 after having my mind blown by The Flying Teapot. Gong are kind of like Bonzo Dog Doo Dah band meets King Crimson. Jazz, with bizarre fantasy world inspired lyrics and a hell of a lot of jazz influence.
Several years later I was at Sheffield Hallam University and Gong were playing at the Nelson Mandela building (now demolished). Of course I was too shy to go and see them by myself and regret that I never had the balls to do so. I would probably have given up on them there and then.
French band, Gong’s second Radio Gnome but fifth album tells the story of Zero, the hero, and his continuing exploits on the planet Gong with the Pot Head Pixies. Yes, you guessed it, this album is heavily drug inspired. Perfect for your spotty teenager in the early to mid nineties at a time of naive mysticism and pre-millennial optimism. Great stuff, if only for a song about vaginas.
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Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe – Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe [#71]
Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe (ABWH)
ABWH by ABWH is an album that slots in between Big Generator and Union in the pantheon of Yes albums. Oh, yes, you probably won’t be aware of what happened.
As frequently happens with Yes, there are often little tiffs between members, some members want to do something one style, while the others throw their toys out the pram and say they want to do it a different way.
Case in point. Listen to any Yes album pre-90125. The style is different. You can hear how the style has evolved sure, but it’s definitely a different paradigm shift is styles. The younger, cooler, less hippy members of the band went “We want to do an album like this” while the pye eyed hippy lot went “No but we want to do one as well”
Unfortunately you can’t have two bands with the same name formed of members, old and new. No. It just won’t do (Are you reading this Renaissance, Deep Purple etc?)
So what you do in a situation like that? When your older band mates come along and say “Hey, lets make an album?” Well you make an album. Of course the existing member of Yes at the time (White, Squire, Kaye and Rabin) went “Oi! No! Not as Yes you don’t” and so began a long battle for the rights to use the band name Yes.
In the meanwhile, ABWH produced an album and this is that album. Jon Anderson, Steve Howe, Rick “Grumpy” Wakeman and Bill “I’ve met Stegzy Gnomepants” Bruford. It’s full of Anderson mystique, Howe and Wakeman twiddly and Bruford boshbishbashing. It’s a show off album. It says “Listen to us! We’re old but we can still do stuff”. Yeah.
It’s ok.
It’s not great.
It’s ok.
Its definitely of the time, late eighties, early nineties. You can tell from the tribal and African influences. To me it’s too twee for the time. It’s certainly an album of talent, but it’s like 10 years too late. The style is very Peter Gabriel and you can tell Squire isn’t about because the bass just isn’t as fiddly.
Spin forward a few years, the band reconciled their differences and recorded Union. Another pile of tosh. More of that later.
A Song for All Seasons–Renaissance [#43]
A Song for All Seasons–Renaissance
I first came across Renaissance in 2002 when I used to subscribe to Last.fm’s radio service.
In case you didn’t know, Last.fm supposedly checks what you listen to and then finds artists you might like and plays samples of their music mixed in with yours.
The song that kept being played was Northern Lights. It was one of those songs that made me think “Here! I’ve heard this before!”. It was more than probable that I had.
Keen to find out more, I spent a week downloading their catalogue and rapidly falling in love with their music. Bewildered by the fact that I hadn’t actually heard of them before that day.
They’re a mix of folk and prog. Prog folk? Maybe. Kind of like Fairport Convention meets Yes.
No..that’s not it.
It’s similar. But not.
Anyway, make your own mind up and, as usual, I would be interested to hear what you think about them too.
A La Carte – Triumvirat [#31]
A La Carte by Triumvirat
Triumvirat, for me, was one of those mystical bands that were impossible to find in conventional music shops. Whenever I went to HMV and browsed the “T” section I was always unsurprised to not find Triumvirat. Triumph, yes. Trivium, Yes. No Triumvirat. It was hardly surprising having “inherited” Illusions on a Double Dimple on vinyl from my brother who himself had “won” it in a competition.
So with the advent of the internet I was able to find out all about Triumvirat. How fantastic they were. How they were from Germany (not Finland as some sources say). How one of the original band members died in an accident. How the style changed following the death and how the line up changed constantly in true Prog Rock fashion. . I was also able to “obtain” their entire catalogue. Acesticks.
In A La Carte, the curious mix of Emmerson Lake & Palmeresque twiddly gets brushed into the musical recycle bin to give way for a more “ELO” tweeness.
Which doesn’t work.
There are two songs on this album that I like: Waterfall (sung by Barry Palmer) and For You. I will give a sample for you, of For You for you. For you, to fore ewe. Four eu?
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01011001–Ayreon [#22]
01011001 by Ayreon
I can’t remember how I first heard about Ayreon. It might be listening to a compilation or something but from the first song that I heard, I just knew that I would like his work.
So I managed to get his back catalogue with this fantastic double album being released at the moment that I began getting Ayreon’s work.
I think that Ayreon, or Arjen Anthony Lucassen, does a bloody good job of uniting various artists such as Floor Jansen, Anneke Van Giersbergen, Bruce Dickinson and Fish under a single project umbrella. Much in the same way as Ivo Russell-Watts did with 4AD and This Mortal Coil. The difference being that Lucassen creates a concept album as the central cusp of the union.
So let us see….changing artists – Check; Concept albums – Check; Bearded and hairy musicians – check; Rock music – Check….so does that make it prog? New prog? In my opinion, yes it does.
01011001 tells the tale of the descent of man into destruction despite alien entities, psychically beaming visions of our destruction into our little heads. It works. It tells a story. With music and catchy tunes.
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9012 Live: The Solos & 90125- Yes [#20] & [#21]
9012 Live: The Solos – Yes
People that have known me for a while will no doubt agree when I say, as a youth, I was weird. When all my contemporaries were enjoying U2, Deacon Blue, Blur and Shakespear’s Sister; I was deeply entrenched in a puddle of prog. Most notably, Yes and Triumvirat.
As I reached my early teens my desire for music grew. HMV became the Minaret that called me through it’s doors to the music Mecca that was inside. Remember, this was many years before the Internetz and free musicz. You would have to go through the LPs and CDs alphabetically by artist and hope that there would be something new or exciting within your price range. If they didn’t have the album, you could ask them to order it, but they’d probably charge a fortune. Or you could just hope that on the off chance it would somehow miraculously appear in the racks.
In the day, records were out of my price range and I would use Christmas and Birthdays to boost the contents of my music library by asking grandparents to buy me the albums or by using gift vouchers. One of the albums I got during this time was this. Unfortunately the vinyl got warped somewhere between the printing press and my record player. I didn’t have a receipt. I didn’t have the courage to ask for a refund. Instead I listened to the listenable bits and made do.
This album reminds me of so much about my childhood. Probably because this and the accompanying studio album and video were on repeat
90125 – Yes
I wrote to Jimmy Peado Saville and asked him to fix it for me to sing with Yes because of this album. He was obviously too busy fiddling to Fix anything for me.
90125 is a break from the twiddly weirdness of their earlier stuff. A complete style change from Tormato and Drama. Yet it works. It works well. They even had a new guitarist. Trevor Rabin (Steve Howe had gone to play with Asia). He looked so cool I wanted long hair like his. I wanted to be dark haired so I could have long hair like his. This was new stuff and a new style that would continue to evolve and grow like me. I must have listened to this album a million times as teen and as a twenteen. With the VHS live video to accompany it too.
Incidentally, this is the album which contains Owner of a Lonely Heart; Yes’ most famous song.
Stegzy's Music Project 