Labelled with Prog

My audiobook recently has been "The Show That Never Ends - The Rise and Fall Of Prog Rock" by David Weigel. While it focuses on the stories of the 70's heavyweights there are also diversions into other parts of Progworld which have pointed me towards yet more overlooked music.

Looking through the genre tab of the iPod it turns out I have quite a bit of stuff labelled "Progressive Rock". Seems strange for someone whose music tastes formed at the end of the 70's and the early 80's. Then there's the Prog Magazine Readers group on Facebook which spends most of its time arguing about what is or isn't "Prog". So what's it all about (Alfie)?

To set my stall out I don't like ELP, not too fussed about Pink Floyd (for me the Collection of Great Dance Songs compilation is all the Floyd you need) and I can take or leave most Genesis. I've nothing against the early/mid 70s, I just wasn't there...

King Crimson: My interest in Crimson starts in 1981, in fact I saw the band while it was still called Discipline at Moles Club in Bath on their first gig. The inventiveness of the trio of 80s albums still amazes me. Live they were constantly challenging, listen to any of the downloads at DGM Live, better, listen to them all. From there right up to the current 8 man band revisiting and rewriting earlier incarnations it's the sound of boundaries and envelopes being pushed. Nothing has ever got close to King Crimson. They are the musical equivalent of flicking away a lit cigarette without looking to see where it lands.

 

Camel: Much gentler stuff, and a different kind of inventive. If you like Gilmour's guitar but not Waters' polemics then try Camel. A much sparkier prospect live where the Jazz & Blues inflections that can sound twee on record catch fire and Andy Latimer's guitar work has space to stretch out.

Renaissance: I know, not very radical whats with the orchestras and all. Forget Northern Lights, it's Betty Thatcher-Newsinger's lyrics sung by Annie Haslam and earlier by Jane Relf that make Renaissance's best albums worth your attention.

Procol Harum: Again ignore the hit and go for the live stuff. I got properly interested when BBC4 showed their Live at Union Chapel, and it's a good place to start.


David Weigel's definition of Prog drifts towards Jazz Rock, Electronic and AOR. Consequently people like Soft Machine, Robert Wyatt, Mike Oldfield and John Wetton get a fair covering. His look at 80s "Neo Prog" doesn't go much further than Marillion, and the more recent revival, or perhaps that should be reappraisal, concentrates on Porcupine Tree, which is fair enough given Steven Wilson's ubiquity. It stops short of his recent chart shaking "To the Bone" album, which itself has generated some "is it Prog?" debate. Personally I think the place to start with Wilson's work is "Hand Cannot Erase".


John Mitchell, the other name to conjure with in modern Prog circles, has a very definite sound that he brings to his albums with Frost*, Lonely Robot and his production work, particularly Kim Seviour's excellent "Recovery Is Learning" album. Kim was previously singer with Touchstone, who highlight much of the problem with current Prog leaning music. Talented musicians, decent production, but hit and miss material, making most albums a struggle. Mitchell and Wilson have the songwriting skills to move beyond the banal to something with some lyrical bite and most importantly a tune. You see why I'm not keen on ELP now.

A few recommendations some from slightly outside the Prog box, that I think are "progressive" within a fairly traditional rock music format.

Elbow. As I suggested in my live review in March, Elbow have many of the qualifications for Progressive-ness, better live than on record, songs that can be the stuff of epics, and a comfort with the fact that they are good at what they do.
Try: "Live at Jodrell Bank", "Build a Rocket Boys" and "Little Fictions"


Steeleye Span "Wintersmith" with Terry Pratchett. I'm not a massive Pratchett fan (although try The Long Earth written with Stephen Baxter), but this rendering of his stories hits the spot. Chris Tsangrides production toughens up the sound without losing the organic, folk based feel. Get the deluxe edition with extra tracks and live material.
Try "The Dark Morris Song" "Crown of Ice" and "The Good Witch" for a flavour of the album

Robert Fripp / Andrew Keeling / David Singleton: The Wine of Silence. Fripp's soundscapes orchestrated by Andrew Keeling and produced by David Singleton are a thing of beauty. Probably more accurately seen as modern classical music, nevertheless meets the definition of progressive as something challenging and involving. Don't try it, just buy it.

Yes: The best of the "proper" Prog bands for me. Rick Wakeman describes their studio albums as "sterile" and by and large he's right. Despite a tendency (mostly Steve Howe I gather) to repeat the recorded works the same every night, right down to the solos, Yes can be a great live band, or at least before they turned into their own tribute band.
Try Keys To Ascension, very close to the best of live from a time when they were playing at their best. The only song missing is Southside of The Sky. Also try Live from the House of Blues, and the best studio album Going For The One.

One Of A Kind

Sid Smith has been talking about Bill Bruford's solo band from 1979 -80 on Twitter which got me thinking about them as well...

I came across Bill Bruford as part of U.K., although I didn't listen to them then. I may have mentioned before that I am very much of the curating style of music fan and I like to keep track of people so when two of U.K. turned up on Rock Goes To College sometime later I paid attention. Bill's clanging Roto Tom based drum sound was new to me, and they all seemed to be doing something slightly different with the sound of their instruments. Then I found the album 'One of a Kind' in a cut out bin for £1.99.

First track "Hell's Bells" still sounds like it's from another place, Holdsworth's opening solo with it's yawing vibrato and and the simple 11 note keyboard riff that repeats through the song set the tone for the rest of the album. One of my favourites has always been "The Abingdon Chasp", an Allan Holdsworth piece that was probably the first time I had heard bass guitar taking the lead in stating the theme of the piece, and to my mind is far more impressive than the slap bass solo at the start of 5G. For me the simplicity of the tunes allow the soloing space to expand to fill the gaps. Holdsworth complained in a magazine article that he hadn't been allowed to do much more than solo with U.K. and while Bruford were better he was still wheeled onto the mix to add flash rather than be integrated into the piece.

There had been an earlier album, with the same band 'Feels Good To Me', but the writing on 'One of A Kind had matured so far from this that it is odd that the Rock Goes to College show concentrates on it so much. There is a bootleg of the whole show that also features "Hell's Bells" and the two parts of "One Of A Kind", if anything Holdsworth's solo on the former is even more impressive than on record. Apparently it was the band's first gig.

In his autobiography Bill describes the trials of running the band, bringing bassist Jeff Berlin over from the US and carting Hammond Organs around, which explains Neil Murray's appearance on this OGWT segment promoting Feels Good To Me

I saw them play in Bath (The Pavilion?) in early 1980 supporting Brand X, who I hadn't learned to love yet. I was there for Bruford who were promoting their new album "Gradually Going Tornado". John Clark (the unknown John Clark) was doing a passable impression of AH and it turns out was his student. The band was good but to my recollection sounded like it was running out of steam. Not the band I had heard on TV the year before. Listening later to "The Bruford Tapes" a release of a radio show in New York reinforced this view of the Bath show. 

That third album with John Clark replacing Holdsworth and more vocals isn't one I listen to often, for me the high point of this band was 'One Of A Kind'. The writing, playing and arranging all aligned in perfect combination and is one of the highlights of improvised rock or jazz rock fusion. I still listen to it regularly and find it as fresh as in 1979.

I saw John Clark again about 5 years later when I was dragged to a Cliff Richard concert by my partner, and there he was adding Holdsworth style solos to "Wired For Sound" and "Bachelor Boy". Dave Stewart cropped up on Top Of The Pops with Barbara Gaskin, Jeff Berlin wandered off into the darker reaches of Fusion, and I next saw Bill Bruford at Moles Club, Bath in 1981 with a band called Discipline who shortly after became the next iteration of King Crimson. My remembrances of Allan Holdsworth are here.

For a view from the trenches of life in music from the 70s to the new century I unreservedly recommend Bill Bruford's autobiography. The fact that he has played on so much of my favourite music and played with people who I like may influence that view. He has some interesting opinions on the business of music as well.

There is a great acoustic version of One Of a Kind rounding off the Earthworks album 'Random Acts of Happiness' which I almost love more than the original.

Buy Bill Bruford's music at Burning Shed