This is a band I didn’t put in the Prog-Rock encyclopedia on
purpose, because I wanted to make a separate presentation here…
Anglagard is a Swedish band formed during the summer of
1991, by guitarist Tord Lindman and bassistJohan Hogborg. In order to find members for the band, they placed ads
asking for musicians willing to play Progressive Rock in the style of the big
bands of the ‘70’s. Their ads were answered by Thomas Johnson (keyboards) and
Jonas Engdegard (guitar) at start, and a little later 2 more members were
added. Mathias Olsson (drums) and Anna Holmgren (flute).
One year later (1992) they released their first album under
the name ‘Hybris’. The album was well received, and the band performed live in
a few Prog-Rock festivals in Europe and USA.
Their sound resembles the sound of the Progressive bands of the
‘70’s, and especially the ones of King Crimson, Genesis, and Van Der Graaf
Generator.Their songs are long, complicated, mostly instrumental , with a heavy
sound filled with mellotron.
A special mention must be made in the virtuoso
percussionist’s way of playing drums.
‘Hybris’ was named ‘album of the year’by many music magazines, and the band gained
a lot of reputation in the Progressive Rock circles.
In 1994 they released their second album , named ‘Epilog’.
Their music style is the same, but the compositions seemed more inspired. Again
they participated in many Progressive Rock festivals, but after a while the
band splited up.
The recordings from these live performances were released in
1996 in the album named ‘Buried Alive’.
In 2009 rumours spread that the band was reforming after 15
years. That was proved to be absolutely right, and presently they released
their 3rd studio album after 18 years of silence.
The band is at 5/6 the same, with the exception of Thomas
Lindman.In addition they have 3 more musicians added in the band. Tove
Tornberg (cello),Daniel Borgegård Älgå (clarinet, bass clarinet, baritone
saxophone) and Ulf Åkerstedt (bass tuba, bass trumpet, contrabass trumpet).
The new album is called ‘Vijiana Oga’, and it contains 4
intrumental songs of an average length 15 minutes each…Upon its release it reached at No.6 in the
Swedish charts, and was sold out.
The latest news are that a re-print is on the way.
As for the future of the band? Well, I guess we will have to
wait to find out…
In the following video you can listen to the (15 minute long) Höstsejd from the album 'Epilog'.
What
do you get when you take about 5 keyboards 3 guitars, 3 bass guitars, and God
knows how many different percussion tools? You get a Box of Crayons album!
That’s
a rather unknown American band, that I have decided to put in this encyclopedia
mostly because of their weird line up and their effort to play something
unique.
As
you probably understood already, the keyboards is the main ingredient in this
band's music, that in somecases is
‘flirting’ with the sound of Marillion and Camel(among others). And on the top of that, the
singer's voice reminds in some parts the voice of Peter Hammill.
Hmmm
they don’t sound so unique finally eh? And they are not. They have made a mix
of many styles of the ‘70’s, they have added many percussions and many
keyboards, and they tried to make something that looked original, but they
failed.
That’s
why maybe they managed to release only one studio album (Colorblind Chameleon –
1997), that it featured no less than 17 (!) musicians. (Except the keyboards
and the percussions you can hear many other ‘unusual’ instruments as well, such
as clarinets, trumpets etc)…
It
was a band that mixed too many ingredients together and failed to make a proper
cake…
BRAINTICKET
They were formed in 1968 and although they
considered a German band they were actually rather Pan-European, having members
from Germany Belgium and Switzerland.
With the passing years it became obvious that
Brainticket was actually the personal project of the very talented Belgian
Keyboard/flute player Joel Vandroogenbroeck.
They released their first album under the name
Cottonwoolhill in 1971. An extremely experimental & psychedelic album,
followed by ‘Psychonaut’ one year later. Psychonaut was more pleasant and kind
of ethnic for its era.
On 1974 they released ‘Celestial Ocean’. The
music style of this record is more Krautrock than the previous 2 albums, filled
with heavy keyboards sounds,and a bizarre
concept-based Egyptian Mythology as the main theme.
That was the last album they recorded before
disbanding a few months later.
In the early ‘80’s they re-appeared, released
2 more albums (Adventure-1980 and Voyage-1982), before dissapearing again.
One more album was released in 2000 (Alchemic
Universe).
Latest news is that J.Vandroogenbroeck formed
the band again with a new line-up, and since 2011 they are touring together
with Nektar. On 17th of August 2011 they performed live for the very first
time in the USA, in a club in New York.
BRUFORD BILL
William Scott ‘Bill’ Bruford was born on the 17th of May 1949 in Kent
England.
He is a percussionist, composer, producer, and
a record label owner.
But above all, he is one of the best drummers
in Rock music.
He worked with great musicians and very big
bands in his career, and participated in many records as guest musician.
He started his career in 1968 as a former
member of ‘Yes’.Together they release
some great records that made them extremely famous. (Yes, Time and a Word,
Fragile etc). At the peak of their success, he decides to leave the band and
search for something new and more challenging.
And he found it almost immediately. A few
months after quitting Yes he joined King Crimson, a band he was interested for a
long time. The comparison of these two bands was described very clearly by him
a few years later:
"In Yes, there was an endless debate
about should it be F natural in the bass with G sharp on top by the organ. In
King Crimson...you were just supposed to know"
With King Crimson they released some of the
most influential records in the Progressive Rock scene, before Robert Fripp
decided to disband them in 1974.
After King Crimsonhe worked as a session drummer and he saw his
name in the credits of many records in the 2 following years.Just to name a few: Chris Squirel (ex-Yes): Fish out of Water
(1975), Steve Howe (ex-Yes): Beginnings (1975),
Pavlov’s Dog: At the sound of the bell (1976) are some of these records.
Between 1976-1977 he joined Genesis and toured with them
for about 6 months. From this tour 2 live albums came out: ‘Seconds out’ and
‘Three sides live’. In the meantime Phil Collins was trying to adapt himself as
the new frontman of Genesis…
The same year he formed his own band named
‘Bruford’ and decided to explore more Jazz/fusion forms, leaving aside Rock for
a while.
From 1977 until 1981 he worked again as
a session drummer, until Robert Fripp decided to re-unite King Crimson . In 1981
he joined King Crimson for the second time, and together they released 3 more
records before they disbanded again in 1984.
In 1985 he was approached by ex-Led Zeppelin’s
guitarist Jimmy Page, in order to join him and Paul Rogers in the new band they
were trying to set up. After a few rehearsals B.Bruford decided that he didn’t
like the style of the band and left.
From 1985 and up, he participated in numberless
projects, recordings, live shows etc, with many different (but always top
class) musicians.
In 1990 the readers of ‘Modern Drummer’
magazine voted for him to enter into the magazine’s Hall of Fame…
Bill Buford’s discography (as a member of a
band or guest musician) must exceed 60 records in total…
In the following videos you can see him together with Genesis performing live the songs "Carpet Crawlers" and the second part of "Supper's Ready'. Best moment when Phil Collins joins him on drums and they play together...
This is a song that I've been listening A LOT these last days.
It's funny that sometimes you might have some songs that you have never paid attention to, and all of a sudden you listen to them again and you are in shock!
That is exactly what happened to me with this song.
I thought of sharing it with you, so I found a very nice live version and I'm posting it here for all of you that you may be interested.
You can read a few information about Arena, and see one more live video here: The Progressive Rock Encyclopedia
In the video that follows you can see them live, performing "The Hanging Tree" taken from the album "The Visitor" (1998).
Enjoy...
For the fans of Marillion and Fish, this is a 'must' to watch!
I found this video and I thought I should share it with you.
Is the concept album 'Misplaced Childhood' performed live by Marillion's former vocalist/songwriter Fish. The concert is from 2002, and maybe the version can't compare with Marillion's live versions from the '80's, but still is a live version of a really great album!
Sit back to your seats, relax, and watch one of the best Prog-Rock albums of the '80's performed live!
(Have in your mind that it lasts about 45 minutes)...
Enjoy!
Last night RHCP performed live in front of about 50.000 fans in the Olympic Stadium of Athens.
I wasn't able to be there, so I'm writing here a few things that I've learned from friends that went to the concert, and I read from reviews.
Before the band 2 support bands were performed.
The first support showed up on stage at 19.00 and they were the Greek band 'The Sunny Side of the Razor", and they played for about half hour.
At about 20.15 the second support band showed up. The British band 'AAAK' and the played until 21.00.
And 45 minutes later, one of the most famous bands of the last years appeared on the stage.
First song 'Monarchy of Roses', second 'Dani California', and the Olympic stadium is on fire!
Despite some problems with the sound, and the fact that the guitarist played the whole concert on a chair, (he recently had broken his foot), RHCP gave a very good performance, and probably satisfied their fans. They played for about 2 hours...
Here is the playlist:
Monarchy Of Roses Dani California Can't Stop Scar Tissue Look Around Strip My Mind Parallel Universe I Could Have Lied The Adventures Of Rain Dance Maggie I Like Dirt Under The Bridge Higher Ground Californication Goodbye Hooray By The Way Encore: Chad &
Mauro Jam Suck My Kiss Ethiopia Give It Away
I watched these great series a few years ago.
Lately I found myself thinking very much about them, and I wanted to do 2 things:
1. To watch them again, and
2. To write here in my blog about them...
But a few days ago I read this really very nice review, and instead of writing another one myself, I'm putting here the link and if anyone is interested, he/she can go to that blog and read it. Tinny Discusses
Life on Mars was one of the best TV series I've watched the last years!
I strongly recommend it! IMDB Rating: 8.5
Here you can watch 2 video trailers... Watch them in the order I have post them... ;)
Hello everybody, and have a nice month!
Today is Saturday 1st of September, and as I promised the 'Juke Box' series of posts are back!
In these almost 3 weeks I listened to lots of music, and many different kinds, so I guess this week's Juke Box will be a bit mixed. Again! :)
So without further delay, I'm posting my most favorite songs for this last week...
David Bowie: Port of Amsterdam (Single B-side) (1973) Roy Buchanan: Down by the River
(Buch & the Snake Stretchers) (1971) Moby: New Dawn Fades (O.S.T: Heat) (1995) Rush: La Villa Strangiato (Hemispheres) (1978) Mercury Rev: Secret for a Song (The Secret Migration) (2004)
Let's see if anyone is in the mood to post his/her best songs for the last week...
One year later (1992) they released their first album under
the name ‘Hybris’. The album was well received, and the band performed live in
a few Prog-Rock festivals in Europe and USA.
