GFreedom's Juke Box Nο.124

Hello all!
Since it's Saturday once more, it's time for me to write down my Top - 5 songlist for this week.
During the week I had an extremely busy schedule, and I wasnt able to listen to as much music as I would like. Therefore  my options were kind of limited, but I will write my list anyway.
So, without further ado these are my best 5 songs for this week:
DRIFTING SUN: Trip the Life Fantastic (Trip the Life Fantastic - 2015)
KEEF HARTLEY BAND: Not Foolish, Not Wise (The Battle of North West Six - 1969)
KARNATAKA: Road to Cairo (Secrets of Angels - 2015)
SUBTERRANEAN MASQUERADE: Early Morning Mantra (The Great Bazaar - 2015)
GREEN ON RED: 16 Ways (Gas Food Lodging - 1985)
I will conclude this post as usual, by adding 2 songs from my list as videos, so you can listen right away if you want to.
Enjoy the music, and have a nice weekend!
Thank you. :-)

Prog & Roll's 100th special show is available as a Podcast...

Hello all!
   A couple of weeks ago, it was Prog & Roll's 100th broadcast, and in order to celebrate it we played a "game" with our listeners among other things. I believe it was a really good show, and everybody seemed to enjoy it.  
During the show many people were asking if we are going to upload it as a podcast, in order to be able to listen to it again, and maybe download it as well. I promised them that I was going to do it, so... here it is!
  So all of you who want to listen to it once more or download it, you can do it now. As for all those who wasn't able to join our show that night, here's your chance to listen to it.
 At the start of the podcast you'll listen to the radio station's ad for a few seconds, and then comes Prog & Roll's intro spot. After that, the show starts.
 If you want to read a few info & take a look at the playlist beforehand, please check here: http://gfreedomathina.blogspot.gr/2015/04/prog-rolls-100th-broadcast-review-and.html
And here you can listen and/or download the whole show:
http://chirb.it/AkAH4w
I hope you'll find it interesting and enjoyable.
Thank you! :-)

CICCADA: The Finest of Miracles (2015)

  Ciccada is one of the most talented and promising bands in Greece right now. (In my opinion at least).
  I discovered them a few years ago, when they released their first album 'A Child in the Mirror'. While I was listening to that album I was surprised by their rather unique sound (for the Greek standards at least), which combines many different elements such as Folk, Jazz and Progressive Rock, just to name a few.
  A couple of months ago, Ciccada released their second album 'The Finest of Moments', which is better than their first one in everything. Better compositions, more "mature" sound, and a lot of guest musicians playing a huge variety of instruments, giving their music a beautiful "color".
 (I had the chance to meet the drummer Giannis Iliakis, and the mastermind behind the band Nikos Nikolopoulos, and I have to say that they are cool and interesting guys, but above all very good musicians).
  As for the album, it includes 10 tracks and has a total running time of almost 45 minutes. There are 3 small tracks included, which can be characterised as "passages" between songs, and they are under 2.00 minutes long. All the rest are between 3.00 and 9.00 minutes in length.
 The album's opening track is the dreamy instrumental 'A Night Ride' having as leading instruments the keyboards and the violin at the start, but there are more instuments added later on, such as the flute and guitar. Definitely one of the best songs here.
  With the second track 'Eternal' the band is presenting to the listeners their female singer Evangelia Kozoni, with the soft and beautiful voice.
 As for their influences, most probably are bands like: Gentle Giant, Jethro Tull, Camel etc, but you can't say that Ciccada are a "copy" of those bands. They have some elements from those bands in their music yes, but they are combined in such a way that the final outcome sounds very personal.
 At the moment I got the album's in MP3 version, waiting for the release of the vinyl version which will probably come out in May.
 I strongly recommend the album to those who can enjoy and appreciate an album with "dreamy" passages, beautiful melodies, and in many occasions complex compositions.
           If I had to rate it, I would give 4.00 out of 5.00 stars.
(In Prog Archives Ciccada's albums have a rating of 3.80 for 'A Child in the Mirror' and 4.06 for 'The Finest of Miracles)

Game of Thones Season 5: 4 episodes leaked...

  All Game of Thrones fans SHOULD read this!
 All of you who are fans of the TV series Game of Thrones and you have been waiting for season 5 to start, you should know that since Saturday night (1 day before the premiere of the 5th season), the first 4 episodes were leaked on the internet and they are available for downloading.
The quality is 480 (normal TV quality), but I don't think that's a problem really.
What I'm saying here is not based on rumours, I downloaded them as well, so I can assure you it's 100% true!
So, don't loose time! You have the chance to watch all 4 of them even before their official release!
Enjoy! :-)

GFreedom's Juke Box Nο.123

Hello all!
Since it's Saturday once more, it's time for me to write down the list with my 5 best songs for this week. Despite my very busy schedule during the week, I found out time to listen to music, and these are the songs I picked as my best ones:
GRATEFUL DEAD: St. Stephen (Aoxomoxoa - 1969)
KAIPA: Map of Your Secret world (Sattyg - 2014)
ANDREW LLOYS WEBBER: Gethsemane (O.S.T Jesus Christ Superstar - 1973)
CRIPPLED BLACK PHOENIX: No! (White Light Generator - 2014)
ARENA: The Demon Strikes (The Unquiet Sky - 2015)
I will conclude this post as usual, by adding 2 videos with songs from my list for you to listen to.
Enjoy the music, and have a nice weekend! :-)

Goodies from GFreedom's Music Collection # 18

                          ALICE COOPER: Love it to Death (1971)
  The Detroit-born Vincent Furnier took the name Alice Cooper for his band at the start and later for himself, after a 17th century witch.
  The band was formed in the mid-60's, but it was 1968 when they were named as 'Alice Cooper'. The band moved to Los Angeles and became known in the underground rock community for its theatrical horror shows. Frank Zappa discovered them, and offered the band a contract in his record company, on which they released their first 2 albums 'Pretties for You' (1969) and Easy Action (1970), but without any success. Everything seemed to go wrong, until they were discovered by the 19-year old Bob Ezrin, when he saw them performing live in 'Max's Kansas City'. He convinced the band to become their producer, despite that Furnier was calling him as a 'nineteen-year-old Jewish hippie'. Bob Ezrin devoted himself to the band, working with them up to 10-12 hours per day, trying to make their sound more appealing and 'acceptable'.
  With the help of Ezrin they recorded a few songs, but the failure of their previous albums was a "barrier" they had to overcome in order to be able to release the new one. The record company was refusing to release the album, and they finally agreed on releasing a single, and if the sales were satisfying, they would proceed with the album. Among their recordings was an 8-minute-long jam named 'I wish I was eighteen again', on which Bob Ezrin was focused on. After hours and hours of rehearsing,

recording, mixing etc, Ezrin managed to present the 3-minute-long 'I'm eighteen' (including 'Is it my body' as B-Side'). 'I'm eighteen' became famous, climbing up to No.21 in the singles charts, and received a massive airplay from the radio stations across the country. (It also reached at No.7 in Canada). After that, the record company agreed to release the band's next album.
 'Love it to Death' was released on the 8th of March 1971, and it was the first of a series of great albums the band released until their break up in 1974. ('Killer - 1971', 'School's Out - 1972', 'Billion Dollar Babies - 1973', and 'Muscle of Love- 1973').
  The album includes 9 songs, and almost all of them are very good compositions. The main style is a rather dark and gloomy rock, which includes bizarre and provocative lyrics in many occasions. The first 3 songs are straightforward American Rock, followed by the 9-minute-long 'Black Juju' which is one of the album's strongest moments. Black Juju was deeply influenced by The Doors and Pink Floyd's early works.
 The B-side opens with 'Is it my Body' which was the B-side on the single 'I'm eighteen' as I mentioned above. Next comes the 2.30-minute long 'Hallowed Be My Name' which in my opinion is one of the album's "weakest" songs. But what comes next can be easily included among the band's finest moments ever! 'Second Coming' at first, and especially 'The Ballad of Dwight Fry' are both incredible compositions and a "must" in Alice Cooper's live performances even in our days.
'The Ballad of Dwight Fry' is a dramatic piece about the inmate of a mental asylum, and it opens with a young girl's voice asking her mommy if her daddy 'will ever come home', supported by a childlike piano background. This part is kind of chilling to be honest. Alice Cooper himself is "playing" the role of the father, and his performance is stunning to say the least!
 The album's last song is a cover version of 'Sun Arise' by the Australian entertainer Rolf Harris, but it doesn't add anything more in the album.
 'Love it to Death' achieved good sales in USA Canada and UK (mostly), climbing on the album charts in these countries, but it received mixed critics. Despite that, the band's fame was suddenly increased, and it will continue to grow with every new album in the years to come.

  'Love it to Death' is considered as one of the foundational albums for Heavy Metal and Punk, having influenced many groups and musicians. The Punk-Rock band 'Ramones', were often referring to 'Love it to Death' as one of their main influences during their early years. Vocalist Joey Ramone based the group's first song 'I Don't Care' on the chords of the main riff to 'I'm eighteen'. Another example is Sex Pistol's song 'Seventeen' which came as a response to 'I'm eighteen', and it is also said that Johnny Rotten auditioned for the Sex Pistols singing the Alice Cooper's song.
There are numberless examples of how influential and important album 'Love it to Death' was, but there is no meaning of writting them down.
 I will conclude this post by saying that for me 'Love it to Death' is a "must" in the discography of every Rock fan, together with 'Killer' and 'Billion Dollar Babies'.
                            If I had to rate it I would give 8 out of 10.
Thank you for reading.

Prog & Roll's 100th broadcast: A "review" and the full playlist...

As I wrote here a few days ago, last night Prog & Roll radio show was celebrating its 100th broadcast. It was a very important and happy day for us, that's why we wanted to present a really special show, and I believe that we did!
  We had lots of people listening from many different countries once more, and the chatbox was really on fire! Last night we had listeners from UK, Germany, France, Greece, Turkey, Mexico, Canada, USA and India! And I'm referring to those who were active on the chatbox only, because there were many who were just listening without participating.
 All of you who are listening to our show on a frequent basis know that we have musicians among our listeners, but this time we had too many! The ones who logged in during the show were: Anton Roolaart from USA, Staphane Desbienes (The D Project) from Canada, Jens Kipper (Archonaut) from Germany, David Curnow (Salander) Benjamin Bell and Mike Kershaw from England.
 At some point during the show, we received a mail from Benjamin Bell which was including a poem based on Rush's 'The Temples of Shyrinx', but with different lyrics which were referred to Prog & Roll. As you can understand we did read it online, and it was the following:

And the Greeks shall inherit the Earth"

They've taken care of everything.
The bands you'll hear, the songs they'll sing,
The playlist full of prog and rock and more,
It's one for all, all for one,
We chat together, quote Python,
Always vote for Epic #4,

We are the guests of the Justin Case Shoutbox,
Our great contributions,
Fill this scrolling wall.
We are the guests of the Justin Case Shoutbox,
Every Sunday night,
Here on Prog and Roll!

Look around the site they've made,
The quality of songs they've played,
Come and join the conversation man!
"That sounds like Crimson's mellotron,"
"The Yes influence in this one's strong,"
"Does anyone else here know about this obscure band?"

We are the guests of the Justin Case Shoutbox,
Our great contributions,
Fill this scrolling wall.
We are the guests of the Justin Case Shoutbox,
Every Sunday night,
Here on Prog and Roll!

It was a very touchy gesture with which we laughed a lot, and we want to thank him for that!

 As for the playlist, it was in a way made by our listeners. How's that? During the last 2-3 weeks all together we played a "game", on which we were asking to send us a list with the 10 albums they would take with them in a deserted island. I received many lists, much more than I was expecting to be honest, and thank you all for taking some time to make them. So what we did was that we picked the most famous bands and albums from those lists, and we just chose the songs.
 Here you can see which bands or artists which were more commonly included in the lists:
15 Times: PINK FLOYD
9 Times: GENESIS
7 Times: YES / QUEEN
6 Times: RUSH / MARILLION
4 Times: ELOY / CAMEL / PORCUPINE TREE / RAINBOW / METALLICA / DAVID BOWIE
3 Times: JETHRO TULL / LED ZEPPELIN / BLACK SABBATH / STEVEN WILSON / IRON MAIDEN.
 Further than that, we added 2 small parts from older shows in the playlist, and we were very happy when some people told us that they were there when these shows were "aired".
Anyway, I think it's time to write down the full playlist from last night, so here it is:
BLACK SABBATH: Snowblind / LED ZEPPELIN: Going to California / RUSH: The Trees / MARILLION: Heart of Lothian / PORCUPINE TREE: The Joke's on You / Intro from Prog & Roll No.5 on 28/10/2012 (Tribute to 'The Lord of the Rings') / CAMEL: Nimrodel / ELOY: The Sun Song / IRON MAIDEN: Powerslave / JETHRO TULL: Cup of Wonder / DAVID BOWIE: Ziggy Stardust / Part from Prog & Roll No. 75 on 28/9/2014 (Prog & Roll's special birthday show) / GENESIS: Dancing with the Moonlight Knight / YES: Wonderous Stories / PINK FLOYD: Comfortably Numb / QUEEN: White Queen / RAINBOW: Stargazer / MONTY PYTHON: Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.
 I would like to inform you that we will not have a show on next Sunday, because of the Orthodox Easter, and we will be back on Sunday the 19th of April.
 A very big thanks to all of you who are supporting our show and advertise it on every given ocassion.
Your love and support means a lot!
Thank you!

GFreedom's Juke Box Nο.122

Hello all!
  During this week I listened to a really huge amount of music, because I was trying to prepare the
playlist for tomorrow's 100th Prog & Roll radio show. During these last 2-3 weeks we are playing a "game" with our listeners, on which I asked them to send me a 10-album list that they would take with them on a deserted island. The main idea was to make a playlist based on their preferences. Because I received really many lists, I spend this week listening to songs & albums from those lists, trying to figure out which songs I will include in tomorrow's playlist.
 As you can understand, it is really impossible to pick only 5 songs to put in my list, so I just chose 5 of the best and I'm adding them here.
RAINBOW: Stargazer (Rising - 1976)
CAMEL: Nimrodel (Mirage - 1974)
MADRUGADA: Higher (Industrial Silence - 1999)
GENESIS: Firth of Fifth (Selling England by the Pound - 1973)
IRON MAIDEN: Rime of the Ancient Mariner (Powerslave - 1984)
I'll conclude this post as usual, by adding 2 videos with songs from my list for you to listen to if you want.
Enjoy the music, and have a nice weekend! :-)

PROG & ROLL Radio show Presents: The 100th Broadcast!

 I'm very happy and proud to announce that on this Sunday (5th of April) we will celebrate Prog & Roll's 100th broadcast! It's been more than 2.5 years Prog & Roll is 'on air', and during these years we had the pleasure to have listeners from many countries, and to "meet" people and musicians who can now call as our friends, despite the fact we never met them from close. The truth is that your love and support are giving us strength to continue and try to improve all the time.
That's why it's very important to us to celebrate it altogether.
  During the last 2-3 weeks we are playing a "game" altogether, and on this Sunday you will learn of the results. The "game" is that we asked of our listeners to make a 10-album list, which they would take with them on a deserted island. (And this time we are participating as well). The response was impressive, and I want to thank you for that.
 So, what we did is to collect all your lists and see which bands and albums are your most favourite ones, and we prepared the playlist according to your choices. I believe that the playlist I have right now in my hands, is a very interesting one to say the least. ;-)
 Further than that, we have a couple of small surprises prepared as well, but I'm not going to say what they are.
 So, if you are free on this Sunday, we will be very glad to "see" you online, and speak with you through the chat box, as we will be listening to nice music. As far as I know, there will be many musicians who will join our show once more, so if you want to "meet" and chat with them this is a good chance to do so.
 I want to remind you that Prog & Roll start at 20.00 UK time, and the broadcast is in English and Greek. 
You can join our show by clicking the following link: www.justincaseradio.com
 That's all for now, I hope to see you there! :-)
 Thank you.

A Journey to Prog Vol.3 A "review" and the setlists...

As I wrote in a post a few days ago, on Sunday the 29th of March I went to the mini festival 'A Journey to Prog' in which 3 very good Greek bands were participating. Before anything else, I should say that I couldn't stay until the end, so I almost missed the performance of 'Poem'. I only saw the first 2 songs they played, and then I had to go. That's why I can't provide any info about their performance.

  The concert took place at a very "warm" place called 'Kyttaro Live' which is in the center of Athens. I reached there almost a half hour before the start, and I was kind of disappointed from the crowd I saw there. And although as the time was passing more and more people were showing up, they never filled the place. That was kind of a letdown for everybody I believe, and it was real pity, because all bands performed really well. 

Now let's take a look at the concert:

  At 21.00 Mother Turtle from Thessaloniki appeared on stage. I never saw them live before and I was really curious, because for me the stage is the "mirror" of every band or artist. When you are on the stage facing the crowd, you have to prove yourself, and show to everybody that you got what it takes. Well, I have to say that the guys surely "got it"! They played for almost an hour, presenting the songs from their (very good) debut album. Their performance was excellent, and they played the songs superbly! As for the end, they kept a surprise for us. The last song was a really good (and a little bit faster) cover version of 'Lady Fantasy'. (You know, from 'Camel'). That was the cherry on the cake! This was the first time I saw them live, but it will surely not be the last one! I strongly recommend seeing them live on every given occasion. You will not regret it!

Here is Mother Turtle's setlist:

707 (A November Less)

The Elf

Mother Turtle and the Evil Mushroom Part.1

God Games

Rhinocerotic

Lady Fantasy (Camel cover) 

  The second band which appeared on stage was 'Verbal Delirium'. I have seen them twice in the past, so I knew what to expect more or less.Their performance lasted more than an hour, during which they played songs from their two albums. Furthermore, they presented two new songs from the third forthcoming album.'Verbal Delirium' consists of 5 basic members, plus a very important addition: Nicolas Nicolopoulos, the leader of the band 'Ciccada' who gives a unique "flavour" to their sound by playing Mellotron, Flute and Saxophone. All of them are very "professional" on stage, and their performances are always of very high standards.The same happened this time as well. Usually they end their shows with a cover version, but this time they chose not to play one. 

  What I wrote for 'Mother Turtle' stands for 'Verbal Delirium' as well. Both are very promising bands,and going to their shows is always a pleasure. So, try not to miss their next ones!

 Here you can check Verbal Delirium's setlist:

10.000 Roses

The Scene Remains the Same

Dancing Generation

Desintegration

Erased

Decayed Reflection

Imprisoned Words of Fear 

Sudden Winter

Aeons

 After a small break, it was time for the Progressive Metal band 'Poem' to get on the stage. As I mentioned earlier, I wasn't able to sit through their show, and I watched only the first two songs. Both of them were good ones, but I have no idea about the rest of their set. It was a pity I had to leave, but I hope to see them in one of their next concerts. For the same reason I have no setlist to provide to you, and I'm sorry for that.

  I took some videos with my mobile camera, but the sound is terrible, so I'm not posting them here. Instead, I'll post some videos I found on YouTube from some older performances of the bands. (In Poem's video, the live footage starts at 1:50)

 I hope you found this post interesting.

Thank you for reading.