Rants By Topic

Rants about the musical genre oft described as Progressive Rock or just ‘Prog’.

The Show That Never Ends (Part I)

06.24.2017

Part I of a discussion of Dave Weigel’s new book The Show That Never Ends, a history of Progressive Rock, which is getting all sorts of discussion on social media. The chat ended breaking down into two broad topics. This week? Career Planning: Robert Fripp vs. Keith Emerson. Filet Mignon with Ketchup.

Roger CortonWhere you been, man? We gotta discuss this book.

JCHSick. And you know I haven’t actually read the thing.

RCBut surely you’ve heard about it?

JCHThat guy has like the best PR agent of all time. I expect to see a review in Juggs Monthly (laughs). Nobody gets that reference. Dude, where did you get that?

RCWikipedia. I didn’t get the reference.

JCHWow. I gotta stop doing jokes like that. I haven’t seen a for realz skin mag in twenty years. Anyhoo, nothing but interviews. Probably the biggest thing to happen to ‘Prog’ in a decade. And I have […]

Open Your Eyes

05.31.2017

Albums, Progressive Rock, Songs, Videos

An oldie but still a classic: Open Your Eyes, the epic from Compartments in a new video. Ants again for the first time. Rick Wakeman’s cape.

Roger CortonI see you redid the old videos for Open Your Eyes. You combined the three parts all into one. Why?

JCHAnts (laughs). You remember when the computer servers crashed last summer? I lost a ton of old original materials.

As Editor, this is where I jump in with a ‘We Regret The Error’. As our readers know, I chop out a lot of material from our chats in order to make these (cough) discussions readable. My goal is 800 words even though we rarely make it. Sometimes I’m not as careful as I could be and in this case, I hacked out the entire portion of our chat on 08/24/16 where we discussed the server crash. I apologize for not finding somewhere to put it at the time because it was […]

Pleb?

01.31.2017

Culture, Progressive Rock

Why the ‘divide’ between ‘classic prog’ and ‘modern’ prog? “It feels to me like the kids who dig ‘Modern Prog’ as they like to call it, have almost no connection with the source material. That’s what bugs me personally. Usually with music, the people who dig a newer version of a music still enjoy the source material from which it sprouted.”

Greg Lake

01.27.2017

Music Appreciation, Progressive Rock

I was on a plane recently, listening to the Emerson Lake & Palmer album ‘Trilogy’ as the miles flew by. If you’re a progressive rock fan–or even just a ‘classic rock’ fan–it can actually be hard to listen to such a chestnut as this. It’s like listening to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony for classical music lovers. Some tunes are so familiar that we can’t even really hear them anymore. Or even worse? They sound almost cloying.

But ironically, there’s a reason we get so jaded, right? They wouldn’t be ‘classics’ if they hadn’t deserved enough listens to wear out the grooves in the first place. However if one does make the effort to hear a piece with fresh ears, the rewards can be phenomenal. (The advantage that classical music has over progressive rock is that we can get a fresh perspective simply by listening to another version of Beethoven.)

Anyhoo, I listened to the outro solo on “From The Beginning”, which starts with a one-pitch bass fill. It’s just […]

It’s About Time: Yes Inducted Into Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame For 2017

12.28.2016

Music Appreciation, Progressive Rock

Well, they finally made it. If you read the short bio on the site, it’s actually pretty good. The piccie they chose for arguably the defining progressive rock group? Nicht so gut. Bill looks a bit out of place. And Rick? That hat? Oy veh. (He never did quite look comfortable in the mold of astral traveller, now did he?)

Regardless, THREE CHEERS. Look, I’ve made no secret of the fact that Yes is my personal fave of all times. Lots of people say they have one record that “literally changed my life!!!!!!!” And for me, Yessongs is it. I can never say enough good things about that album and what it means to me.

And frankly, I thought they’d never get in. Time has passed and the whole idea of the Hall Of Fame has become (like the Grammys) truly diluted and polluted with stuff that is a million miles from […]