Late Prog Tournament Update

I'm sorry the tournament is a little confusing this year, but we have one more late update. The fellow who rec'd the Gonin-ish LP (the Japanese avant-garde prog metal album) has decided he doesn't have the time to participate in this year's tournament. So his rec his been replaced by the rec of another participant who wanted to enter but just got there too late.

Here it is:

Soft Machine - Hidden Details (2018) - The latest release by this classic British psychedelic jazzy prog band who began their career in the late 1960s.

So once again, Gonin-ish is out, and Soft Machine is in.

I'll have the results of the second Round 1 matchup the beginning of next week. According to the early voting, it looks like a slaughter.

Prog Contest 2021: Round 1 Match 2

For our second matchup of this year's prog contest, my friend Friday is taking us on a tour of the Norwegian fjords, matching up an album from 1974 against one from 2019. Here's the skinny:

Moose Loose - Elgen Er Los

"Moose Loose was a 70s Norwegian instrumental progressive rock and jazz fusion band. I love how dynamic and eclectic this album is. It can both jam out and be soulful. The musicanship is on point and all instruments (guitars and keys very prominently and well-done, but the bass guitar and drums are both still excellent) harmonize very well together. It's a very engaging album all the way through. Also this has to be one of the best bandnames ever." - Pangea

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAo5fZEaXWo&list=OLAK5uy_n__60Ep2-wQJZum4DraOEL-GhEJ2vxscM

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/3Zkqtd2SOcPVihEaqQPzNc?si=M20pBDqcTCOgGV7aZl48pQ

vs.

Jordsjo - Battfiolen

"A sweet piece of bingeable Norweigen prog. Replete with synth and flute there’s no hiding the influence of Jethro Tull, but it’s truest ancestry lies in the melodicism of early Camel and Swedish instrumentalist Bo Hansson. For me, good prog tricks the listener into feeling like he’s hearing something playful but familiar while still pushing the experimental boundaries and Nattfiolen is one of the finest examples of that in recent memory. Headphones are the only way to listen, as some of the stereo effects really bring the fairy tale to life." - Inoculaeted

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/54Ooribd5hSPdl2keRxLBT

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qPeIJkyf84

I'm looking forward to just enjoying this round and voting with no pressure on me. Now, from the descriptions of the two albums above, I have a sneaking suspicion I already know which one I'm more likely to vote for. But I'm going to keep as open a mind as I can, give each LP their three listens, and try my best to enjoy my trip to Norway, as it might be the closest I ever get to one. (Damned if I wouldn't love to really sail those Norwegian fjords some day, though.)

See you next week.

Prog Contest 2021: Round 1, Match 1 Results

It sucks going first. The contest has just gotten started, and all of a sudden, I was already facing sudden death. I didn't expect to have my knight have to go into battle quite so early. So because of that, and because I had a lot of work this week (and a lot of music that I bought last week to work my way through), I didn't even start my listening until two days after we got underway. As a result, I watched in horror as my recommendation, a classic album of the 1970s that was only even eligible for the contest because for some unknown reason, so few people on the site had noticed and rated it, fell behind early. 

By the time I had given each of the two contestants my requisite three listens, though, it had caught up and pulled slightly ahead. I cast my vote on Sunday night, with the following (longwinded) explanation:

So, it won't surprise anyone that my vote goes to Procol Harum.

It's simply a matter of the Procol LP having a whole lot more of what I like in prog music than the Tantra LP.

Even in prog, hooks are important to me, which is why some of my favorite prog bands are bands like Procol, Jethro Tull, and even Yes. This album has hooks galore, even in an extended piece like "In Held 'Twas in I" (which is really mostly a suite of interconnected little songs).

The Tantra album, on the other hand, has some hooks, but also several extended parts that feel to me like good musicians just noodling around. I can't tell you on which tracks, because I listened to both LPs on YouTube, but somewhere around the 20-minute mark, the Tantra album breaks into an extended drum mostly-solo (with some music box effects along for the ride), and it starts to lose me there.

Also, even in prog, vocals are important to me. Not everyone loves Gary Brooker's voice, but I always have. The majority of the Tantra album doesn't have vocals (always a minus for me), and in the parts where it does, I don't really like Michael Cardoso as a vocalist much at all. This is a case where I think he'd have been better off bringing a vocal specialist into his band than trying to sing himself, which apparently he did on some of his more recent projects.

Where Tantra stands out is in their musicianship. I can definitely hear the Steve Howe influences on Cardoso's guitar playing. I liked the keyboards a lot too.

It's not really fair, of course, to compare them for lyrical content. I've always liked Procol's epic fantasies, as penned by Keith Reid. But I don't understand Portuguese, so it takes away a possible realm of enjoyment for me here (for Tantra). The album art is pretty cool -- it speaks of fantastic realms, so I'm sorry I can't understand the lyrics.

In any event, the Tantra album was always going to have an uphill battle for me here vs. Procol Harum. Procol has long been one of my favorite bands, and "In Held 'Twas in I" (along with King Crimson's first album) were really the first pieces of prog I ever heard, the ones that drew me into the genre in the first place.

So again, I vote for Procol.

By the next morning, Procol held a slim 2 vote lead, while one of the other contestants who loved the Tantra album tried desperately to round up a few votes for his pick (and I threatened to kill him and throw his body into a swamp. I like to think I'm a reasonably good sport, but I desperately wanted to last at least one more round.)

Here's what I've noticed about these tournaments -- we each define "progressive rock" slightly differently. Whereas I'm still looking for hooks, great vocals and melodic sounds, some of the others are looking for long (and sometimes somewhat atonal) instrumental passages. In the end, I've never seen an album I've hated win the whole thing, but usually my top one or two choices don't win it either. (And as for my actual recommendations, forget it! I think I've only ever made it out of the first round one time.)

Anyway, in the end, I was grateful to hang on for a tough win. 

Final Result: Procol Harum 10 votes, Tantra 8 votes.

Now I can just relax and enjoy the music for the next nine matchups.

Prog Contest 2021: Round 1 Match 1

Here is the first of the first-round matchups in Friday13th's 2021 Prog Rock Tournment. As you can see, my rec is up first.

Procol Harum - Live With the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra

"This was Procol's best selling album ever. The pluses include live performances of some of Procol's proggiest material ever, including their 19-minute opus classic 'In Held 'Twas in I', and the acknowledged best version of their song "Conquistador" (much better than the studio version on their first album). The LP is also historic as being one of the earliest collaborations between a symphony orchestra and a rock band. The only real minus in that their great guitarist Robin Trower was no longer with them, and organist Matthew Fisher had also long since left the band. But Dave Ball and Chris Copping do a fine job in their place, and Procol lyricist Keith Reid makes an appearance on 'In Held 'Twas in I' during the spoken interlude that begins, 'Held close by that which some despise'. Overall, this was one of the classic live albums of the 1970s, and a highlight in the career of one of my favorite bands." - Divaman

Youtube playlist [album only first 5 tracks]: https://tinyurl.com/vdw69bex

vs.

Tantra - Misterios e Maravilhas

"It definitely shows the best symphonic prog in Portugal. The album is full of long instrumental passages, loaded with feeling and elegance, beautiful melodies and a strong emotional charge, with ripped solos from keyboards and electric guitars, and percussion with multi-rhythmic dynamics. Almost all instrumental, only two tracks have lyrics: À Beira do Fim and Partir Sempre, curiously the first and the last one, respectively." - Zig

Youtube: https://youtu.be/fmFMLZXPPiQ
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/0nbsfmdRTPkqR7v5Y35Mk3 (with Bonus tracks)

Voting concludes next Monday. I've given them each one listen so far, although obviously I'm intimately familiar with the Procol Harum album. 

I'll let you know who I voted for (although let's be honest - it would take a lot to get me to vote against my own rec, especially since it's an album I already love), and who wins.

Prog Contest 2021: Preliminary - Holy Crap! Another Update

 Hi Guys,

Sorry if this is confusing for you. Two more entrants have been allowed into the prog contest, which is now definitely closed off at 20 entrants. (We've never had more than 16 before, which is why I published the original 16 entrants so early. But I think that because we skipped having a tournament last year, and because Friday13th (who runs it) has announced that this is the last one he'll be doing, there has just been a ton of interest this year.

So here are the final two entrants:

19. Collegium Musicum - Collegium Musicum (1970) - A progressive art-rock band from Czechoslovakia.

20. Kollektiv - Kollektiv (1973) - A German jam rock/prog rock band.

Again, the first matchup of the first round has started, and I'll tell you all about it in my next entry.

The Story Behind the Creation of "Alien Anal Probe Blues"

Well, the prog contest has started, and my entry is up first. But before I tell you about that first matchup, I need to do this. 

One of the entries in the prog tournament is the Strawbs' album A Collection of Antiques and Curios. And this led me into telling the guys involved in the tourny that I knew John Ford of The Strawbs, and that he had even one time backed me at a show while I sang my singular "greatest hit" song. I haven't told them what the song is yet, but what I did tell them is that I had written a song that I was sometimes invited to perform at certain musical venues, and that it was something of a "cult classic" within a very select (i.e. tiny) group of musical friends here on Long Island. One of the guys asked to hear it, and I'm going to send it to him, although I'm not happy with the only known recorded version of the song. (I flubbed the second verse a little, and I let it run too long by putting an extra musical verse in between the second verse and the chorus, so it feels a little draggy to me.) But if I'm not all that proud of this particular performance, I'll always be proud of the song itself.

So I figured if I'm going to send him the song, I should least explain it and how it came about. And what better place to lay all of that out than here.

There were four main elements that went into the creation of "Alien Anal Probe Blues". The first was the University of Stony Brook. When Denise and I first moved out to Suffolk County from Queens, I discovered The Spot, the graduate student lounge on the campus of SUNY Stony Brook.  I went there one night to catch a performance of the band My Favorite, and immediately fell in love with the place. Before too long, I became friends with Godfrey, who ran The Spot (and booked all of the bands there), which led to me getting to know a number of the members of the staff of WUSB, the campus radio station (which I think has the strongest and furthest-reaching signal of any college station on Long Island). This eventually led to me joining the staff and doing a local music show on WUSB in the wee hours of the morning for about two-and-a-half years.

The second element was the blues. It's a funny thing, because while there's definitely some diversity here, by and large, Long Island, NY has to be one of the most prosperous places on Earth. This is especially true of Nassau and Suffolk counties, the two counties most often associated with it. (Technically, Brooklyn and Queens counties, both of which are part of New York City, are also part of Long Island - they're clearly part of the physical island. But when most people say "Long Island", they're really thinking of Nassau and Suffolk County.) But as prosperous and well off as Long Island is as a community, for some reason, there is a huge blues scene out here. The Long Island Blues Society has always had a thriving membership, and WUSB, being a community radio station as well as a college station, has always had more than its fair share of blues shows. So a form of music that was created by dirt-poor African-Americans in the Deep South of the U.S. is practiced rigorously and lovingly by hordes of mostly well-to-do white guys (and gals) in this huge, sprawling suburb of New York.

The third element was space aliens. One of the people I met through Stony Brook was Mike McMullen, a pleasant fellow who fronted a space-themed rock band called Argon and the Flying Sauces. Mike told me that he was fascinated with UFOs, and that growing up in northern Suffolk County, he and his friends used to love to lay up on their rooftops at night and watch the skies, because apparently Suffolk (the easternmost county in New York State -- if you go any further east, you're swimming in the Atlantic Ocean) was a hotbed of UFO activity throughout the 1980s. (I later learned one possible reason for this -- apparently, there was an Air Force base out here in those days somewhere near Montauk. And my guess is that the skies were pretty full in those days, but that the aircraft spotted were disappointingly terrestrial.) 

And the fourth element was South Park. I'm a huge fan of the show South Park (although I've lost track of it in recent years.) And the very first episode of South Park (and still one of the funniest) is entitled "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe".

Now Stony Brook University is about as far north as you can go in Suffolk County. And Patchogue, where I live, is as far south. And one of the primary roads you can take to drive north to south and back again without hitting a zillion traffic lights  is County Road 97, otherwise known as Nicholls Road. So as you can imagine, I spent a lot of days, and especially nights, driving up and down on Nicholls Road.

This one fine evening, I was driving home on Nicholls Road listening to one of the blues shows on WUSB. Now I have often teased my blues-loving friends that most blues songs have the same basic chord progression, and that you could take the lyrics from one blues song and transpose them onto any other blues song with little difficulty. And as I drove, sort of vaguely thinking about my friend Mike McMullen and flying saucers over Nicholls Road, and having just watched the South Park episode "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe" the night before, a bunch of lyrics came together in my head. And as they did, I started to sing these lyrics to every single blues song that they played on WUSB during that long drive home. And by time I got home, I had written the magic that is "Alien Anal Probe Blues".

Alien Anal Probe Blues

Woke up this morning

I was feeling kind of down

Woke up this morning

I was feeling kind of down

Well my pants were down around my ankles

And I was strapped to a metal table face down

Won’t somebody help me

I’ve got me those alien anal probe blues

Won’t somebody help me

I’ve got me those alien anal probe blues

And if it was you here on this table

Well I’ll bet you’d have them too.

I see you laughing in the corner

But you do not get my point

I see you laughing in the corner

But you do not get my point

It’s just that every single one of those alien fingers

Must have at least six or seven joints!

Now I’ve seen me some bad times

But this is sure the worst

If you want to touch me down there

You’ve got to take me dancing first

Woke up this morning

I had me those alien anal probe blues

And if it was you here on this table

Well I’ll bet you’d have them too.

Now I’m a man of peace

And I believe we can be friends

I swear to God I’m a man of peace

And I believe we can be friends

But we’re gonna throw down space brother

If you go up my ass again!

Well, one and one is two

Two and two is four

I’d sit down and talk the whole thing out

But my ass is too damn sore!

Woke up this morning

I had me those alien anal probe blues

And if it was you here on this table

Well I’ll bet you’d have them too.

copyright c 2005

Prog Contest 2021: Preliminary (Update)

 Well, we've got two more late entrants into this year's prog contest, bringing us up to 18. I'm not quite sure how Friday's going to work the math for that, but that will be his problem, not mine.

The two new entrants are:

17. Hercules and Larnaean Hydra - In Other Worlds (1976) - A Greek avant-garde psychedelic prog band

18. Hermann Szobel - Szobel (1976) - An Austrian progressive jazz-fusion artist.

I think the first round starts tomorrow (Monday).

Prog Rock Contest 2021: Preliminary

Well, it's been two years since the last one, but Sputnik Music User Friday13th is getting to host what he says will be his last Prog Rock Contest on the Sputnik Music website.

Here's a little background on the tournament, and its history: Friday put together the first one in 2013. In 2014, he switched it over to a Psychedelic Rock tournament. However, this proved to be less popular. So he went back to prog rock in 2015, and he's kept it as prog rock ever since.

Again, these are intended to be relatively obscure albums competing, albums that have drawn less than 30 ratings apiece on the Sputnik Music site.

Here's the list of previous winners:

2013 - Los Jaivas - Alturus de Machu Picchu (1981) - A Chilean band that blends folk and symphonic rock

2014 - T2 - It'll All Work Out in Boomland (1970) - A British psychedelic/progressive rock band

2015 - McLuhan - Anomaly (1971) - An American prog rock band that blends jazz and psychedelic rock

2016 - Landberk - One Man Tells Another (1994) - A Swedish progressive art rock band

2017 - Universal Totem Orchestra - Mathematical Mother (2016) - An Italian symphonic jazz rock band

2018 - Carmen - Fandangos in Space (1973) - An American prog rock band that mixes rock music with flamenco music and dance

2019 - Wobbler - From Silence to Somewhere (2017) - A Norwegian symphonic prog rock band

As you can see, the winners have come from several different countries, many different sub-genres of progressive rock, and a time span from 1970 through 2017 (although with the '70s having been prog's heyday, there tend to be more entries from this era than from any other). I don't know about you guys, but out of these seven albums, there were only two I had previously been familiar with.

The tournament begins with 16 entries every year. Friday has to approve each entry as meeting the criteria of the contest. (You can't claim Duran Duran is prog, for example. You have to have an outside source saying the artist is prog, such as progarchives.com, Wikipedia, or even Sputnik Music itself.) For each of the first 8 weeks, Friday will present two entries that he believes go together in some way or other, and everyone votes on their favorite, after giving each album at least one (but hopefully several) listens.

This year's players, much like the bands who'll represent them, also come from a number of different countries. Here are this year's entries:

1. Syzygy - A Glorious Disturbance (2013) - An American crossover prog band

2. Colosseum II - War Dance (1977) - A British progressive jazz fusion rock band

3. Procol Harum - Live With The Edmonton Symphony Orchestra (1972) - A British crossover progressive blues rock band

4. Moose Loose - Elgen Er Los (1974) - A Norwegian progressive jazz fusion rock band

5. Gonin-ish - Gonin-ish (2000) - A Japanese experimental progressive metal band

6. Regal Worm - Pig Views (2018) - A British psychedelic prog rock band

7. Pendragon - Love Over Fear (2020) - A British neo-progressive rock band

8. Alas - Alas (1976) - An Argentinian progressive metal band

9. Tantra - Mistérios e Maravilhas (1977) - A Portuguese symphonic prog band

10. Tarantula - Tarantula (1976) - A Spanish symphonic prog band

11. Jordsjo - Nattfiolen (2019) - A Norwegian symphonic prog band

12. Strawbs - Just A Collection of Antiques and Curios (1970) - A British folk prog band

13. Quiet Sun - Mainstream (1975) - A British progressive jazz fusion band

14. Yolk - Solar (2017) - A French avant-garde prog band

15. Serú Girán - La Grasa de las Capitales (1979) - An Argentinian progressive jazz blues band

16. Ibio - Cuevas De Altimira (1978) - A Spanish folk prog band

My own entry, the Procol Harum album, is the only one I've ever heard before, and the only one of the other bands I've listened to (albeit a lot) is Strawbs. (I have heard of Pendragon, though, so I'm looking forward to giving them a first listen.)

Ten of the LPs were recorded in the 1970s, four in the 2010s, and one each in the 2000's and the 2020's. 

Interestingly, this year, there are three live albums among the entrants, which is pretty unusual.

As you can see, there are a variety of prog styles represented. For those of you who know my tastes, I have a bias towards folk or symphonic prog, and a bias against jazz and experimental, but we'll see how it goes.

I'll let you know when the first matchup has been set. Until then, happy progging.

April 2021 Song of the Day

 Wow, this is two months in a row that I'm posting my Song of the Day update on the first day of the following month. I know what you're all thinking -- this guy has no life! And you're right. (Well, I actually, I have brief lull in work this morning, and I figure I'd better get to it while the getting is good. But also, I have no life.)

The voting wasn't even close this month in terms of the top spot, which is another reason I feel confident is getting to this early. So pull up a chair, and I'll tell you all about it.

For new readers, this blog entry refers to the monthly Song of the Day list on the Sputnik Music website. Each month, one user hosts the list and names a theme. Everyone then recommends songs in line with this theme, and people rate the various song recommendations. The list of April songs can be found at Sputnik Music Song of the Day - April 2021.

1. The theme for this month was Sing Along, meaning anthemic songs and songs people like to sing along with.

2. We had full participation again, meaning thirty different Sputnik Users each got to pick one song a piece. I would have actually liked to have recommended our old friend Tony Hightower's brilliant little number, "So the Hell What," but it's not posted anywhere on YouTube for me post a link to so the other Users could hear (and rate) it. (I think it might not be on Spotify either, but I forget for sure if I checked. We basically all use YouTube, bandcamp or Spotify, so if a song isn't up on at least one of them, it's not eligible.) I did consider going with Halley DeVestern's "Glow in the Dark Baby Jesus," but it's got a country/blues kind of vibe, and that never seems to score well with the other Users. So in the end, I played it safe and went with Patti Smith's "Summer Cannibals," which scored a very respectable average rating 3.77 out of 5. Unfortunately for me, it was a high-scoring month, so I wasn't even close to the top spot. Sorry Patti. Maybe next time. Patti Smith - Summer Cannibals

3. I thought it was a very solid month's worth of songs, and my average rating for the month was 3.05 out of 5. I actually had a three-way tie for my personal top spot of the month, with three different songs rated at 4 out 5: Don McLean's classic, "Vincent"; another classic, 1981's "Golden Brown" by The Stranglers; and yet another iconic track, "Last Caress" by the Misfits. All three of these tracks scored higher than a 4 out of 5 with the group at large. Don McLean - Vincent; The Stranglers - Golden Brown; Misfits - Last Caress

4. However, this time out, the winning recommendation was Fugazi's "Waiting Room", thanks largely to the fact that five different Users gave it a perfect 5 out of 5 score (and another gave it a 4.8). I gave it a respectable score myself, but I thought all of the 5's it received was kind of insane. But what can you do?

5. Once again, you can find all 30 of the tracks that were recommended for April up on YouTube. And here's a link to the full month's playlist, because I'm such a helpful guy: April 2021 Song of the Day YouTube Playlist

So that finishes off April. Hopefully, now that the warmer weather is here (and many of us have now been vaccinated), people will have the chance to get and about. Stay safe, y'all!