Wednesday, July 30, 2014

PINK FLOYD: The Endless River (October 2014)

 

Here are some very interesting news concerning not only the fans of Pink Floyd, but the fans of Rock music in general.
  It was officially announced that on October 2014 Pink Floyd will release their new album 'The Endless River', which will be their first release since 'The Division Bell' (1994).
  According to the rumours 'The Endless River' will be an album of mainly ambient and instrumental music based on the 1993/4 Division Bell sessions which feature David Gilmour, Nick Mason and Richard Wright. The album is produced by David Gilmour with Phil Manzanera (Roxy Music).
 The songs are based on unreleased material the band produced with Rick Wright, during sessions for The Division Bell in 1994, and was originally recorded under the tentative title The Big Spliff.
  I'm not sure if Pink Floyd have anyrthing to offer anymore, but I guess we'll have to wait and see...
 For those who might be interested on more info, here's an article from 'The Guardian' on the subject: http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/jul/07/pink-floyd-new-album-2014-the-endless-river

Saturday, July 26, 2014

GFreedom's Juke Box Nο.99

Hello everybody!
Another Saturady morning is here, and I'm sitting in my pc in order to write the usual 'Juke Box' post, which is my weekly Top-5 songlist.
As some of you know already, on last Sunday we had the last Prog & Roll radio show for this season, therefore I had nothing to prepare for this Sunday. So although Ilistened to lots of music, truth is that Progressive Rock was kind of limited, as you will understand from my Top - 5 list.
So, without further ado, these are my best 5 songs for this week:
BOB DYLAN: The Times they are A-Changing (The Times they are A-Changing - 1964)
SAVOY BROWN: Poor Girl (Looking In - 1970)
FISH: Five Years (Songs from the Mirror - 1993)
PHIL OCHS: Knock on the Door (All the News that Fit to Sing - 1964)
SIENA ROOT: We are Them (Different Realities  2009)
As usual I'll cnclude this post by adding 2 videos with songs from my list. On the first one you can listen to 'Poor Girl' by Savoy Brown, and on the second one 'We are Them' by Siena Root.
Enjoy the music, and have a great weekend!
Thank you for reading... :)


Friday, July 25, 2014

Tales from the Progressive Oceans Part. 16

                             CAMEL: Moonmadness (1976)
   Camel were formed in 1971 by Andrew Latimer, Doug Ferguson, Andy Ward and Peter Bardens.
   Their first 3 albums are considered as "classics" in the Progressive Rock circles and all of them are really excellent works. Just for the record I should mention here the names of these albums, which are: 'Camel' (1973), 'Mirage' (1974) and 'The Snow Goose' (1975). The last of these 3 albums was the one which make them rather famous, although it did cause them lots of troubles. (But that's another story).
So, the band "stepped" on the sucess of 'The Snow Goose', and the next year they released the album 'Moonmadness', which unlike 'The Snow Goose' wasn't an instrumental one.
   'Moonmadness' is another really excellent piece of work, but it's also the album on which the original line-up is together for the last time. Doug Ferguson left the band after the 'Moonmadness tour' and it was replaced by Richard Sinclair (ex-Caravan). For the recordings of the album and the tour which followed, Camel recruited the saxophone/flute player Mel Collins who continued working with the band for a few more years.
  The album can be concidered as a 'concept' one, because it has an overall main theme (like 'The Snow Goose' did as well), but does not follow a storyline, and it's mostly based on stories of the band members themselves.
  In the original version the album includes 7 songs, and has a total running time of almost 40 minutes. (In 2002 a remastered edition was released with 5 more songs, which were demo and live versions).
 The album opens with the intro-like instrumental 'Aristilus', followed by the very good "classic-Camel" 'Song within a Song'. Next comes the 7-minute long instrumental 'Chord Change', which is also a very interesting piece of music. The first side (in the vinyl version) closes with the really beautiful 'Spirit of the Water', which is one of those songs which are proving that Progressive Rock songs can be short and wonderful at the same time. The B-side includes 3 songs, all of them over 5 minutes long, and wonderful! 'Another Night', 'Air Born' and 'Lunar Sea'.
  In my opinion the highlights of the album are the really magnificent 'Air Born', followed by 'Song withing a Song'. But the whole album has such a quality and such a tight structure, which can be listened from the start 'till the end without having to skip any of the songs, because all of them are remarkable compositions.
 This was maybe the last really brilliant album 'Camel' ever recorded, because after that they started going downhill.
 For all those who might be interested in Camel's music and need a starting point, I would suggest to start with 'Mirage' and 'Moonmadness'. Both albums are really great!
(A couple of years ago I wrote a post about 'Mirage' in this blog, and if you are interested you can take a look here: http://gfreedomathina.blogspot.gr/2012/05/tales-from-progressive-oceans-part-5.html)
 I hope you'll found this post interesting and informative.
Thank you for reading. :)
 For the needs of this post I just uploaded on my channel in YouTube the song 'Air Born', and I'm posting it here for you to listen to it if you want.


Tuesday, July 22, 2014

The last PROG & ROLL radio show of the season. (20/7/2014) The Full Playlist

Hello all!
The Sunday (20/7) we had the last Prog & Roll radio show for this season, therefore we wanted to make it kind of a special one somehow.
 What we finally did was that we extended the show to 2.5 hours (from 2 hours), and we included in the playlists songs from bands and artists which we play very rare, or we never played before. In the first half hour we had a very upbeat program mostly with Heavy Metal or Progressive Metal bands. In the second half hour we continued the upbeat set, mostly with Neo-Prog or modern Progressive Rock bands. Then, at the 3rd part we did a "tribute" to the classic Rock scene of the '60's, followed by a classic Hard Rock 4rth part.
The final 5th part was including songs from the English classic Progressive Rock music scene. And that is what the last Prog & Roll was about. (musicaly at least).
Many people joined the show, from time to time the chatbox was on fire, and we had lots of fun.
The 2.5 hours of the show passed very fast I have to admit, and at the end everybody seemed happy and satisfied with the whole show. 
From now on we will not have another show 'till September, because it is time for us to relax, and make some research at the same time. (for new bands etc).
And here you can see the whole playlist, divided in the 5 parts I mentioned earlier:
Part 1:  DREAM THEATER: The Number of the Beast (Live) / SYSTEM OF A DOWN: Chop Suey! / TOOL: Stingfist / RAMMSTEIN: Rosenrot / DISTORTED HARMONY: Breath.
Part 2:  PORCUPINE TREE: Blackest Eyes / GALAHAD: Secret Kingdoms / THE D PROJECT: Rearview Mirror / CRIPPLED BLACK PHOENIX: Northern Comfort / ARENA: Enemy Without.
Part 3:THE BEATLES: For no One / THE WHO: I’m Free / THE ROLLING STONES: Ruby Tuesday / THE KINKS: Days / THE DOORS: Strange Days / LOVE: The Castle / JEFFERSON AIRPLANE: Greasy Heart.
Part 4: BLUE OYSTER CULT: Sinful Love / SCORPIONS: The Sails of Charon / TED NUGENT: Stranglehold / RUSH: Red Barchetta.
Part 5: PINK FLOYD: What do you want from me / MARILLION: The Last Straw? / GENESIS: The Chamber of 32 Doors / CAMEL: Air Born / BARCLAY JAMES HARVEST: Medicine Man / KING CRIMSON: In the Court of the Crimson King.
 I want to thank all of you who listened and supported our show during this season. It means a lot to us to know that many people are listening and enjoying it.
PROOG & ROLL will be back in September, so 'till then enjoy your summer and take care!
Thank you!






Friday, July 18, 2014

Last PROG & ROLL radio show of the season on this Sunday night.

Hello all!
I'm writing this post in order to inform you that on this Sunday (20/7) we will have the last PROG & ROLL radio show for this season.
It's almost the end of July, and it's time to take a break, so we decided that this show will be the last of this summer.
And because of that we wanted to make something special. So, this Sunday's radio show will be extended, and it will last about 2.5 hours. But further than that, the majority of the songs will be upbeat, and we will include some bands and artists which we rarely play or we have never played before. We will play music from many decades starting from the year 1966, and reaching up to 2014. We will include music styles like, Classic Rock, Psychedelia, Progressive Rock, Hard-Rock, Progressive Metal, Neo-Prog etc..
 We hope many people will join us, so all together will spend a beautiful night with lots of fun and lots of good music.
For those who aren't familiar with our radio show, I should inform you that it starts at 20.00 UK time, and the broadcasting is in English and Greek.
You can listen online by clicking this link: www.justincaseradio.com
 Thank you for reading this, and we will meet online on Sunday night.

Thursday, July 17, 2014

The 'YES' Documentary Part.2

A couple of days ago I posted here the first part of this very interesting documentary about YES.
As far as I saw many people visited my blog to watch it, and that surely means something.
So, today I'm posting the second part which is slightly longer than the first one, and has a running time of 1 hour and 45 minutes.
I hope you will enjoy this second part as well.
Enjoy! :)

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

The 'YES' Documentary (Part.1)


Recently I discovered a documentary concerning one of the greatest bands of the Progressive Rock scene of the '70's. I'm talking about 'YES', and in this 2-parts documentary you can see many
interesting things about them. Interviews, rare live footage etc.
The documentary is divided in 2 parts, and today I'll post the first one which has a running time over 90 minutes.
Tomorrow or the day after tomorrow I'll post the second part, so it will be complete.
So make yourself a coffee or a drink, sit back, and enjoy 'The YES Documentary'! :)

       

Sunday, July 13, 2014

Tonight's PROG & ROLL radio show is cancelled...

Good morning all!
I want to inform you that tonight the radio show 'Prog & Roll' is cancelled, for the following reasons:
GFreedom Team who presents the show is on holidays, and it would be kind of difficult to make the show (not impossible though). But further than that, tonight at the time of our show is World Cup's final Argentina VS Germany.
We didn't want to have our show at the same time with World Cup's final, and since it's already difficult to do it anyway, we decided to cancel it.
 We will be back on next Sunday night with a very special show prepared.
Have a nice day all!
Thank you...

Saturday, July 12, 2014

GFreedom's Juke Box Nο.98

Hello everybody!
Despite the fact that I'm on holidays I still find time to listen to music and deal with my blog, but not so often as before. I listened to lots of music this week, and once more it was difficult to choose only 5 songs for my weekly Top-5 song-list.
After listening to a few songs again, I decided that for this week these are my best 5 ones:
IQ: From the Outside in (The Road of Bones - 2014)
CURVED AIR: Stay Human (North Star - 2014)
EDEN: Spartegen (Erwartung - 1978)
THE D PROJECT: Rearview Mirror (Making Sense - 2014)
COCKNEY REBEL: Death Trip (The Human Menagerie - 1973)
I will conclude this post as usual, by adding 2 videos with songs from my list, so you can listen if you want to. First comes 'Rearview Mirror' by 'The D Project', and then 'Stay Human' by Curved Air's latest album. This time both songs are from my channel on You Tube.
Enjoy the music everybody, and have a nice weekend! :)


Thursday, July 10, 2014

GFreedom's channel on You Tube. An Update...

Hello all!
Here's an update concerning my channel in You Tube.
Well, it's been almost 2.5 months that I decided to start my channel, and so far I've uploaded 160+ songs from many different music styles.
I must say that I'm pleased with the visits I see, so I'll try to keep up the pace in the future.
In order to make the search easier, I created 4 playlists in which I'm placing songs that more or less fall under the specific category.
The playlists are:
1. Progressive: In this playlist I'm including Progressive Rock, Progressive Metal, Neo - Prog, and Prog - Related songs).
2. Hard - Heavy: Here you can find classic Hard -Rock and Heavy Metal, + Progressive Metal songs. (The Progressive Metal songs are included in the"Progressive" playlist as well).
3. Rock in general: In this playlist you can find classic songs from Rock music in general, as the title implies. Rock, Blues, Rhythm & Blues, Psychedelia, it's all in there!
4. Folk - Rock:  And in this one, I'm adding Folk - Rock sings from UK & USA. (But mostly from the English Folk - Rock scene). (And by Folk, I don't mean Country).
As my songlist will be expanding I guess I will add more categories, but for the moment  I have only these 4.
There are also some songs which do not fall under any of these categories, so these ones are not included in any of them.
In case you want to check my channel, just open You Tube, go to channels search, and type: George Eleftheriou. You will find it under that name. In case there are more channels with the same name, you will recognize mine from the "Jester" on the avatar.
Feel free to subscribe, like or dislike, comment, share songs, etc...
Enjoy the music people! :)
Thank you for reading.

Monday, July 7, 2014

PROG & ROLL radio show on 6/7/2014. The full playlist...

Hello all!
Last night we had one more Prog & Roll radio show. While making the playling I had in mind to make it more Rock and less Prog this time. Also, I wanted to include some Folk-Rock, because it has been sometime we didn't play any songs from this music genre. So, during the second part we played only Folk-Rock music.
During the 2 hours of the show I tried to include songs from many different music styles, as you will see in the playlist which follows:


SPIRAL KEY: At Sixes & Sevens / SAVIOUR MACHINE: Carnival of Souls / NIGHTWISH: Phantom of the Opera  / IRON MAIDEN: Phantom of the Opera / DODSON & FOGG: You’re an Island / ESPERS: Rosemary Lane  / FAIRPORT CONVENTION: Fotheringay / LAZY FARMER: Gipsy Davey / DANDO SHAFT: Coming home to me / DONOVAN: Catch the Wind / PHIL OCHS: Knock on the Door / WISHBONE ASH: Errors of my Way / URIAH HEEP: Stealin’ / SCORPIONS: We’ll Burn the Sky / LUCIFER’S FRIEND: Dirty old Town / JULIAN’S TREATMENT: First oracle - The Coming of the Mule / NEKTAR: Wings / ELOY: Poseidon’s Creation / DAVID BOWIE: Space Oddity.
I want to inform you that on next Sunday we will not have our show once again, because we will be away on a travel. Our next radio appointment will be on Sunday the 20th of July. 
Thank you very much for listening to last night's show, hoping you enjoyed it! :)