Author:Mike Barnes
Just what I always wanted! This epic six hundred page plus tome really has everything you could hope for and more besides, covering the genesis (pardon the pun) of prog, on into its prime era and then the gradual fade from the public consciousness, touching on all the major players, plus a goodly number of minor ones too. The quality and in depth nature of the writing can’t be faulted, comprehensive and well researched to the nth degree. It’s one of those books you pick up late in an evening to read, say, just the chapter on Pink Floyd, then you realise the next one is on Yes, so you stay up and read that too, only to find the following one is on Tull…. and before you know it it’s two in the morning. As well as the big names, the author covers numerous lesser acts – the likes of Henry Cow, Hatfield and The North, even Renaissance, Curved Air and Steve Hillage all get a look in. In fact, just about every prog act you can think of features somewhere in these pages. As well as the writing on bands, there’s also a number of informative chapters of background information, for example rock journalism at the time, culture, censorship in the media, etc. Although this is a long book by any standards, the pages just fly by and I would really recommend that anyone with an interest in prog seek it out, as this is surely the last word on this much maligned, often misunderstood genre which produced some of the best and most inventive music of the time. In fact, it’s everything you wanted to know about prog but were afraid to ask!
Length of Read:Epic
Might appeal to people who enjoyed…
Prog in all its many forms.
One thing you’ve learned
There’s always something new to learn or hear in the prog field.
Twang says
Looks brilliant!
Twang says
Scored a copy for my birthday. Excellent!
Vulpes Vulpes says
I’m expecting my copy to arrive on Feb 27th according to the dodgers, and I am really looking forward to it. I saw that this was coming out when a short extract appeared in the Ucnut special edition on “Prog” a month or two back. I have reasonable expectations that this will prove to be a tome worth ploughing through.
Over the years, far too many of the people writing about progressive bands were not personally present at the time, and I’ve abandoned several titles where it’s become obvious that the research was done either via press archives (second-hand info from rock journalists – very few of whom had anything insightful to say) or by interviewing extant musicians who were actually present (and who often take full advantage of the benefits of hindsight and the authorship of history by the survivors).
To get a really full and personal understanding of what “progressive music” originally was at the time, and of how it then morphed over the years as other categorisations developed, each one reductively parsing the progressive diaspora until only the bands were left to become “progressive rock”, you really need to have been a non-civilian, record-buying, pocket-money-saving music junkie at the time it was all happening.
Unless you can appreciate the trauma of having to choose between buying the latest Laura Nyro LP or the latest Genesis LP for reasons of severe economic limitation, in the full knowledge that it would be WEEKS before you could afford to buy the other one, and that by then there would probably be a new Yes or ELP album out as well, you have no idea of what you are talking about, or indeed of how life threateningly important and exciting it all was as it was happening.
Lodestone of Wrongness says
As a very wise man once said “You can’t bludgeon a woodpecker”
Slug says
Now there’s a challenge…
Vincent says
I believe this has chapters on progressive rock “fashion”, and the controversial “girls and progressive music” debate, both highly salient to my development, and, indeed, marriage. The context of progressive music is often lost, i suspect, as music critics of the 70s were older than the progressive rock fans, so could be supercilious about it, and used their opportunity in the music press. Thankfully, as young ‘uns, I thought they were simply wrong, and Canned Heat was NOT ‘more authentic’ than, say, Focus, just more basic. (Generally, “authentic” can wash my stained purple loons, as it’s a shibboleth of existential wank; art is artifice, making art as entertainment or to show aspiration of vision or show technique is not a moral failing). I’m not going to convince a year zero music nihilist of this. Nor do i wish to. But live and let live, and I hope we hear fewer music journalist cliches about progressive rock in the future, as some perspective is achieved.
Colin H says
I guess I’ll have to purchase a copy.
Vulpes Vulpes says
Next thing you know you’ll be trawling eBay for a second hand Mellotron.
Mike_H says
Colin writes about music for a living. When could he ever earn enough to buy a mellotron?
Colin H says
It’s a fair point… To be pedantic, I proofread academic stuff for a living… but I still couldn’t afford a mellotron… nor the time to do much writing about music!
Tiggerlion says
There’s a bloke in Norfolk who curates a museum by day (not the best paid job, I imagine) and records complex time signatures by night. He calls himself The Curator. I bet he ‘borrows’ his mellotron.
Colin H says
I used to work in a music college and smuggled a weighty keyboard from some other room into my library’s storeroom, brought in a digital 8-track and and recorded various demos there. Didn’t have many customers. Helped to fill the time.
Tiggerlion says
I guess Alistair Murphy might make some noise during quiet moments too.
Colin H says
Let’s hope so.
Vulpes Vulpes says
Is anyone else any the wiser? Me confuse. Me puzzle.
Tiggerlion says
Vulpes Vulpes says
Cheers Tigg – missed that contribution – will follow up!
Tiggerlion says
It was two years ago now.
Vulpes Vulpes says
So it was!
And I bought the album after reading your post!!
2 years, too many lost brain cells since then, evidently.
*digs frantically to try to find the CD*
Blue Boy says
Hepworth and Ellen chat to the author in the most recent Word podcast. He’s not the most sparkling interviewee to be honest, but worth a listen if this book appeals.
GCU Grey Area says
I do like me a mellotron. Must have been one hell of a thing to lug around the world on tour, and try and keep vaguely alive with all the analogue stuff inside. Worth it though, for the opening blast of Genesis ‘Watcher Of the Skies’ and the outro to ‘Entangled’.
They pop up in unusual places – XTC and Talk Talk used them.
Vulpes Vulpes says
None more mello(tron):
Twang says
Inevitably there’s a plug in for them now. They have settings for how knackered, out of tune and how much tapse hiss you want for full authenticity.
https://www.arturia.com/products/analog-classics/mellotron-v/overview
There’s ‘tron all over this but Rick generally supplemented the choirs with real voices as here. The bells and strings are ‘tron too:
What a brilliant album.
Vulpes Vulpes says
It’s a fantastic achievement for the silly old Tory sod, especially as he was a curry guzzling beer monster at the time. I still have my vinly and the CD replacement copy (cough – I just couldn’t part with the original, it means too much to me). To think there are some deprived young people today who haven’t even heard of it, let alone actually listened to it. There again, it demands more than a 20 second short term memory in order for things like themes and variations to be noticed, so I imagine it’s too technically difficult for the poor dears to appreciate. Good job TJ has a proper musical mentor!
😉
Twang says
Yes I took the opportunity to play him this stuff when he was still (relatively) compliant. The first music his baby ears ever heard was side 4 of “Waiting for Columbus” starting with “Willin'”. I call it good parenting.
I too have my crackly vinly and the deluxe reissue CD with various bonus extras but it’s the main thing you listen to. Love the sound of analogue synths played by fingers not some bloody sequencer, Hammond organ, Steinway and the St Giles-without-Cripplegate portative organ!
Vulpes Vulpes says
The Feat should be on the National Curriculum!
Twang says
Yes I have footage of him and I singing it together when he was 6. #goodparenting.
Sniffity says
“To think there are some deprived young people today who haven’t even heard of it…”
They might mistake it for a new musical doing the rounds that apparently portrays the Six Wives as a sort of medieval Spice Girls (how empowering it was to be beheaded is anyone’s guess).
duco01 says
Re: “the Six Wives as a sort of medieval Spice Girls”
I feel that Catherine Parr would definitely be Ginger Spice
thecheshirecat says
See also Beck, Julian Cope, Malcolm Middleton
The last word on the subject …
http://www.planetmellotron.com/
nicktf says
I do love a Mellotron, I find myself watching this from time to time, just to remind myself how nuts the instrument is
Her blog about vintage synth repair is strangely fascinating too
http://www.belltonesynthworks.com/blog/
Vulpes Vulpes says
That is brilliant! I knew they were somewhat Heath Robinson, but I had no idea just how utterly and amazingly bonkers the instrument conception, construction and delivery mechanism really are.
I can’t help but imagine that surely the whole design process must have been fueled by some seriously strong, er, consciousness enhancements?
It’s completely wild in a charmingly analogue way. I have close to the square root of no interest at all in fully digital synths, but this thing is a work of joy.
I wonder whose shed the first one was built in; the instrument has all the hallmarks of eccentric individualism, like an amateur Tesla coil array built from old washing machine guts in a garage somewhere in the mid-west.
itfc1959 says
God, I log in for the first time in years and the first thing I see brings a lump in my throat, joy to my heart, and something else in my trousers. I love the sound of the Mellotron. I’ve got a plug-in and sound samples of just about every tape Streetly Electronics ever made, and I LOVE IT.
Back to the book. Renaissance, ‘even’? I saw Renaissance at the Rainbow with Caravan, before Miles Copeland cut them adrift in the wake of the New Wave, and the whole set was awash with Mellotron.
I will probably buy this book. (Actually, there’s no ‘probably’ about it.)
Suddenly life feels just that little bit better