Review of Chicago Transit Authority

Released 1969

"Listen. If you think we're here for the money; you could be right, you know. But the bread is not too good here"

On spotting this in the same market where I found The Twelve Dreams of Dr Sardonicus, just a week or two later, I stumbled across a very battered copy of the eponymous album by Chicago Transit Authority. This was a double album, being offered for £1. Checking the vinyl quality, I was surprised to see that it was more or less immaculate. Yes, the outside of the gatefold sleeve was illegible in places, with coffee cup rings and other oily stains. But the inside was fine with unmarked black and white photographs. A bargain.

Whilst the name Chicago Transit Authority meant nothing to me, I was familiar with Chicago, who, at the time in the mid eighties were at their commercial peak. They were in the midst of a long run of AOR radio friendly ballads, astonishingly popular, especially in the States and considered by most serious rock fans to be phenomenally 'wet'. Their contemporary guise as formulaic large haired balladmongers, distinctive for their middle-eight horn sections, was hugely incongruous with their presentation in this, their first outing.

As this was the same line up, I wasn't surprised to hear the horn section and nor the mainstream vocals of Peter Cetera. However the similarities between the two incarnations stopped there. For a start, this album felt as though it could have been recorded live in one session, incorporating a high level of improvisation. There was a real sense of urgency and of purpose with the drums and percussion very much to the fore, totally at odds with the modern band I was familiar with; utilising motifs from rock and jazz. There were also at least two other singers contributing lead vocals.

The real surprise, regarding the musicians, was Terry Kath, the lead guitarist. I had read that he had accidentally perished during a 'pretend' game of russian roulette in the mid seventies, still a young man. What I was unprepared for was the uniqueness of his contribution, providing very heavily distorted and feedback driven solos of incredible quality and dexterity. I had also read that his bandmates believed he was second only to Hendrix in terms of his virtuosity, also that Hendrix himself was seriously impressed by Kath's dedication to his art. Having listened to this album several hundreds of times in the intervening years, I am still amazed that he never appears in lists of great guitarists.

Another large surprise on the first listen was the close association the band and it's music had with the social unrest prevalent in Europe and the States as the sixties drew to a close. There is the inclusion of chants from the student riots in Chicago in 1968 and a clear political emphasis in songs like Liberation, a 15 minute largely improvised instrumental jam with some of the finest indications of a group all playing as one in perfect accord that I have come across.

To further the separation from the Top of The Pops friendly guise of the band, there was a track, Free Form Guitar, which was just that: eight minutes of cleverly controlled feedback. Very daring and, as far as I'm aware, unheard of at the time.

My own favourite track was a cover, I'm a Man. Again, this was essentially a jam. Massively exciting for the listener and, by all accounts the group at the time.

But was it prog? Long instrumental tracks, truly inspirational muscianship, a political theme or concept all contrive to make it borderline prog, although, for me there are two or three minutes in the last third of the aforementioned Liberation, which is so dark and angular that it would make Robert Fripp of King Crimson's eyes bleed.

Twenty five years on, this is still one of my top five all time albums.

Review of Spirit's Twelve Dreams of Dr Sardonicus

Released 1970

"Oh, I'm rolling, flowing through the whole population
(Mr. Skin you know where you've been)
Oh, the high and the low born are my friends and relations"

When I stumbled across a second hand copy of Spirit's Twelve Dreams of Dr Sardonicus in a market in 1984, I allowed myself a smug grin. With several worthwhile music books fleshing out my immersion in all things prog, I had already read up on Spirit and knew several interesting facts about the band.

I knew that Randy California was taught to play the guitar by Jimi Hendrix, when the latter was in Jimmy James and the Blue Flames, that Ed Cassidy, the imposing bald headed drummer was Randy's stepfather, and that the keyboard player, John Locke, claimed to be a direct descendant of the English Philosopher of the same name. I was aware that this was a well respected example of (relatively) early American prog. As such, it was with great relish that I handed over my £2.50 for this copy in very good condition.

I wasn't overly enthused by the cover. Actually, none of Spirit's album covers showed any real inspiration. The melted faces of the bands was very reminiscent of Pink Floyd's Piper At the Gates of Dawn, although the effect was much more extreme; maybe they took stronger drugs than Syd Barrett.

Having yet to experience any non-British prog, I had an very open mind about what to expect.

My first impression was that this wasn't a true prog record. Most of the tracks clocked in at the three or four minute mark. There were very 'poppy' strains; simple and repetitive chorus', as well as several main stream rock style posturings: lots of 'ooh's' and 'aah's' more in line with Jim Morrison than the intellectual eclecticism's I had picked up from Yes and Genesis etc.

However, underpinning the deceptively simple short song structures was a connecting theme; each track flowed into the next where the whole was greater than the sum of the parts. I have no idea who Dr Sardonicus is (was?) or what inspired these dozen odd dreams, but - unlike my last prog purchase ( Yes' The Yes Album), by the time the needle floated towards the centre hold at the end of the second side, I was smitten. This was sing-along prog with a bona fide guitar hero to boot. Every listen revealed another layer of bonkers lyrics, of delicate keyboard work, almost inaudible sound effects or gorgeous psychedelic guitar. Wonderful stuff.

This was top drawer prog that none of my friends had ever heard of. Now, that was worth £2.50.

Review of Yes' The Yes Album

Released 1971

"Loneliness is a power that we possess to give or take away forever.
All I know can be shown by your acceptance
of the fact there shown before you".

I had a kind of subliminal awareness of Roger Dean's classic Yes logo from what feels like a very young age. As Yes were a major band, constantly in the music press and doing the stadium circuits during the mid seventies, somehow, given my tender years I seemed to know of Yes and their caped keyboard player, Rick Wakeman. I knew nothing about their music, just that they were a 'significant' band that existed just outside the mainstream. And for that reason alone, they interested me.

With a desire to delve further into the progressive rock world, and as I was reading anything and everything I could about the genre, I continually found references to the fact that Yes were revered proponents of the prog stable.

The Yes Album was my first Yes purchase based simply on the lack of availability of anything else in their catalogue in my home town. Having purposefully set out one day to purchase a Yes album, I was disappointed that the only one I could find didn't have a Roger Dean sleeve. I found the sleeve odd (and still do) and shrugged with resignation at the realisation that my previous theory about all prog rock albums being devoid of images of the band was clearly misguided. However disappointed I was about the sleeve, I went ahead with my purchase fully expecting to be let down by the music itself.

I wore a furrowed brow throughout the first airing of the album. This was very strange music. There were so many changes of time signature, of tempo and of mood in each song that it felt as though several different songs were being stitched together. The complexity of the instrumentation struck me at this time as pretentious. This concerned me greatly, as this was a common criticism hurled at the genre and especially at Yes themselves. On top of this, the bass was being used in ways I had never heard before; wandering all over songs, in what felt like the wrong places.

And then there was the voice and the lyrics. I had been told that you either loved or hated Jon Anderson's Lancastrian tenor stream of consciousness. On this first listen, I couldn't see myself falling into the former camp.

When the album finished, I put it away for a few days feeling as though I was out of my depth and perhaps simply too young to appreciate what many others felt was a worthy piece of music.

I have since learned that many great albums just don't work on the first listen. Some indeed take either many plays to register properly, or that you just have to be in the right mood and in the right place for it to 'click'. In the case of The Yes Album, my second listen worked due to the wearing of my headphones. When Steve Howe culminates the final part of Starship Trooper with a achingly wonderful piece of guitar work, I heard it entirely differently and was seriously impressed. Also, the first time around I hadn't picked up the 'subtle' interweaving of 'all we are saying, is give peace a chance' into the denouement of I've Seen All Good People. Now that I picked it up on the headphones, I could see that it was clever and that it worked.

Picking up these nuances made me listen more intently. It was then possible to be more receptive and respecting of Tony Kaye's keyboard work and to be impressed by the drummer, who clearly had jazz leanings. Very slowly, I even began to be drawn in by Jon Anderson's singing style. I couldn't make head nor tail of the lyrics, but I became enthralled by how the whole thing just worked. I wasn't hard to see why Yes' music divided music lovers in the way that it did, but I was delighted that now that it had clicked for me, I was moving into the inner sanctum of prog.

I still don't like the sleeve though.

Review of Genesis's Trepass

Released 1970

"Stand up and fight, for you know we are right. We must strike at the lies that spread like disease through our minds"

It was clearly inevitable that my next progressive rock album after Marillion's Script For a Jester's Tear would be by Genesis.

Given the comparisons banded about by the music press about the two bands in 1983, primarily based on Fish's vocal stylings, I was keen to learn more about what had inspired this so-called 'neo-prog' band.

I was drawn to Trepass in particular by virtue of the fact that it was available through the Brittania Music Club. On reflection, given that their entire portfolio couldn't have exceeded 250 albums, Trepass was a surprisingly eclectic inclusion.

The sleeve was, in common incidentally with both previous purchases - The Dark Side of The Moon and Script For A Jester's Tear - devoid of band photographs, except for one of the posters for the former. Given that the rest of record collection almost always included the band in a variety of meaningful poses, I took it that, as the genre unfolded before me, that the music was the thing: more relevant that the people who produced it. Of course, this added a degree of mystery and heightened the expectation.

Immediately I could see why parallels had been drawn between both vocalists. As well as the timbre of their voices, their intonation and phrasing were very, very similar. There was also the same sense of theatre, of 'staging' each song and the same rawness of emotion.

Musically the correspondences between the two bands was not as apparent. Yes, there were long instrumental passages; but those on Trepass were often much longer, more intricate and certainly played on a wider variety of instruments, including six and twelve string guitars, mandolins, harpsichords as well as a myriad of others which I couldn't identify. In addition to vocal effects, the inclusion of taped sound effects there was a choral quality to much of the album that added to the feeling that this was of another time. If I found it otherworldly in 1983, goodness only knows what a sixteen year old would have made of it when it came out in 1970.

As 'The Knife' throbbed through my trusty Amstrad, I wondered how any album could incorporate such a variety of styles: medieval, mystical, lilting romanticism and now a militaristic rhythm with barked sound effects and a spiralling guitar solo. But it did, and it worked wonderfully.

Now with three albums which where all from the prog rock camp, I was entirely hooked and I knew that I wanted to know more about this odd world. But where to turn to next?

Review of Marillion's Script for a Jester's Tear

Released 1983

"So here I am once more in the playground of the broken hearts"

Although my world changed forever when I first heard The Dark Side of The Moon, my main musical interest remained classic rock and what was known at the time as the NWOBHM.
With restricted access to live music in West Cornwall and not too many knowledgeable musical contemporaries to inspire me, it fell to Kerrang! magazine to provide my window on the wider outside musical world.
One week, among the usual album reviews for the likes of Saxon, Whitesnake and The Tygers of Pang, my interest was caught by a particularily enthusiastic review of Marillion's first album: Script for a Jester's Tear.
Much was made of the the similarities with Genesis, a band at who at the time were extremely popular for making non-rock based music. Photographs of the lead singer Fish in make-up and striking daring garish theatrical poses seemed at odds to the the Phil Collins modern day fronted version of Genesis I knew. I was intrigued. The review spoke of stunning musicianship, lengthy instrumental passages and referred many times to the 'golden age' of progressive rock music.
At the time this term would have meant little or nothing to me.

I was intrigued enough to seek out the album shortly afterwards. As with the first time I held my (first) copy of The Dark Side of The Moon, I was struck by the depth of detail on the gatefold sleeve, the artistic fonts and colours used and knew once more that this was a group that was trying really hard to produce something of great quality.

Being used to the standard verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, versus, chorus and largely predictable lyrics of the rest of the rock bands I was listening to, reading the lyric sheet for this bizarre album reminded me of the poetry I was studying at college.

When I first played the album I was therefore quite unsure whether it would appeal to me in anyway. The title track starts slowly with accompanied vocals, with instruments joining as the pace increases and the drama escalates. I had never heard such 'naked' vocals; the singer seemed to bare his anguished soul for all to see, regardless of how vulnerable or feminine or contrived his tales. The sense of theatre, of a an event pulling the listener in to it's tortured terrible world drew me in on the very first listen.

Playing anything else in my record collection at the time (other than DSOTM) then seemed not quite right. The depth of these two records was utterly compelling, revealing layer after layer with subsequent listens, while everything else, whilst exciting and immediate felt hollow in some way.

I now had two albums linked by, by what? I wasn't sure, but I knew I wanted more.

Review of Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of The Moon

Released 1973

"Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over,
Thought I'd something more to say".

My first prog rock purchase was The Dark Side of The Moon by Pink Floyd.

My love of music came from an early immersion in my parent's record collections: The Beatles, Elvis, Buddy Holly etc. The first band I decided I liked off my own back was Queen. I delighted in collecting everything they did and threw myself fully into the history of the band. Listening to Alexis Korner's 'Great Guitarists' (or similar) Sunday night Radio 1 series to learn more initially about the influences of Brian May, I was drawn further into the series and became captivated by the programmes on Ritchie Blackmore and Jimmy Page. This drew me into investigating rock music per se from the late sixties and early seventies.

I read voraciously about this classic period and fell in love with the myths and legends of Led Zeppelin. Keen to learn more about their contemporaries I gradually became aware of the better known exponents of prog rock. Fascinated by the other worldliness of the album sleeves of Genesis, Emerson, Lake and Palmer and Yes whenever I visited a record shop, I remained intrigued but did not commit myself to a purchase until I was about seventeen.

I remember very clearly descending the iron steps to the now long defunct basement record store on Menage Street in Helston, Cornwall. This was a tiny dark room with background music which was at the time completely unfamiliar to me; probably Frank Zappa or Captain Beefheart in hindsight. I felt out of my depth, but somehow knew that serious music fans were more likely to be seen here in the dark rather than down the road in Woolworths.

Thumbing through the albums I stopped when I recognised the name TDSOTM. In those days (early eighties) albums were still presented in see through plastic sleeves. I removed the album from the sleeve and rubbed a thumb across the emitted spectrum of light emerging from the prism. This had quality. It told me that this was a significant item; time and effort had gone into the design of this. It felt right. Opening the gatefold, the spectrum of light formed a repeating pulse motif across the middle, with lyrics above and below. I knew I wanted to own this piece of art and I knew that in doing so, things would change.

Later, at home, when I placed the record on the turntable, and turned on the Amstrad tower system carefully lowering the stylus onto the outside edge of the album, I swear I was holding my breath.

To first hear a pulse, to then hear sound effects, rather than just 'music', followed by mechanical noises and a soaring crescendo, all before the first track settles into a laid back almost stoned groove left me speechless. My life changed at that point. Odd time signatures, long instrumental passages, glorious female wailing, stunning guitar solos, atmospheric keyboards and lyrics that seemed to speak directly to me with absolute immediacy, all served to freeze time. I stood throughout that first listen, desparate for it not to end.

I studied the accompanying poster wondering what inspired these strange looking men pictured against a background of pyramids, flames and gongs to compose a piece of music that flowed effortlessly and beautifully across forty five minutes suite, of such complete perfection. Why wwere there two postcards? What did it mean? I had no idea, but I knew it felt right.

I felt proud and priviledged just to hold the complete package. I wanted to both shout it out loud and keep it utterly to myself at the same time. I lay back on my bed, put on my headphones and listened to it once more straight away.

I was hooked. My appetite had been whetted. I wanted more and was overwhelmed at the thought of the unknown world I was about to tap into.

Why 'Love of Prog'

Welcome to my progressive rock music blog.

Most visitors coming to this site are most likely already familiar with what progressive music is. For those of you who are not, and need a definition, I cannot better that provided by the best online resource dedicated to progressive rock music; www.progarchives.com. This is the best overview of the genre, giving the novice an excellent starting point to unpicking this marvellously misunderstood world.

For those of you who are already afficiandos of the genre you will understand that trying to explain the appeal of gatefold sleeves, twenty minute album tracks, capes, triple necked basses and inpenetrable lyrics to a non-believer is challenging at best, bewildering at worst. You either get it or you don't.

This blog therefore is not trying to convert music fans with other preferences. Instead, I have started this blog to reach out to other fans of prog rock, young and old, wherever they may be, to share their own feelings about progressive rock music; asking them to articulate, as best they can, exactly what it means to them.

I will detail all the key landmarks I have experienced during my prog rock odyssey to date. This will primarily be in the form of blog entries based around specific albums; reviews which will focus as much on the muscians, the history of the album and the band, as on my own reasons for caring to write about each one in the first place.

So, cue the dry ice, twinkle the ivories, bring out the flute, the lute, the mellotron, the pedal steel guitar; cue the incense and the light show, pull up a beanbag, put on the headphones and enjoy the trip.

Andrew