GFreedom Team presents: Christmas Special Prog & Roll radio show (20/12/2015)

I'm writing this post in order to inform you about tomorrow's special Prog & Roll radio show.
Since tomorrow we will have the last show before Christmas, we thought of making it kind of a special one. So, tomorrow's Prog & Roll will be a "theme" show, and the main theme will be - of course - Christmas.
During the 2 hours of the show, we will play many Christmas songs, but in very different versions than the ones you are used to, and also songs that were inspired from Christmas. We have in our playlist songs from many different styles and sub-genres of music, varying from Rock and Soul up to Punk.
We also included songs from various cartoons in order to make the show even more fun. ;-)
Don't forget that Prog & Roll is an internet live radio show, and the broadcast is mostly in English, and also Greek. 
So, if tomorrow night you are in the mood for a fun Christmas radio show, join us.
Prog & Roll begins at 20.00 UK time, and its always on time. :-)
You can listen by simply clicking the following link:
www.justincaseradio.com 
Hope to "see" you there. ;-)
Thank you.

GFreedom's Juke Box No.148

Hello everybody! :-)
As many of you know already, on every Saturday morning I'm posting here this 'Juke Box' post, which is my weekly Top-5 songlist for you.
During this week I listened to lots of music once more, and I picked the following songs as the best ones:
SYSTEM OF A DOWN: Lonely Day (Mezmerize - 2005)
CAMEL: Rajaz (Rajaz - 1999)
BIG BIG TRAIN: Hedgerow (English Electric Part.1 - 2012)
QUEENSRYCHE: Eyes of a Stranger (Operation: Mindcrime - 1988)
MANFRED MANN'S EARTH BAND: The Road to Babylon (The Roaring Silence - 1976)
By clicking on the following links you can listen to the songs in my list.
Enjoy the music, and have a wonderful weekend! :-)
SYSTEM OF A DOWN: Lonely Day
CAMEL: Rajaz
BIG BIG TRAIN: Hedgerow
QUEENSRYCHE: Eyes of a Stranger
MANFRED MANN'S EARTH BAND: The Road to Babylon 

Goodies from GFreedom's Music Collection # 24

        THE PROG WORLD ORCHESTRA: A Proggy Christmas (2012)

What do you get when some of the top prog artists in the world combine forces to make a world class prog Christmas album? Well, if you don’t know, maybe you should listen to this album!

Brainchild of prog mastermind Neal Morse, this Christmas CD is like nothing you’ve ever heard before! Featuring some great musicians, like: MIKE PORTNOY (EX-DREAM THEATER), STEVE HACKETT (EX-GENESIS), ROINE STOLT (EX-KAIPA & THE FLOWER KINGS), STEVE MORSE and PETE TREWAVAS (TRANSATLANTIC AND MARILLION), it is

the ultimate Christmas prog album geared toward the major prog fan. Complete with shreddy guitars as well as soothing fretless bass, vocals on occasion by the illustrious Mr Morse, and everything in between, this is an album the true fan will enjoy for years to come.

Totally recommended for the fans of Progressive Rock! If you are into this kind of music, then this album it is a 'must have'!

                 My Rating: 3.0 out of 5.0 stars. 

By clicking on the following link you can listen to the song 'Frankincense' taken from this album.

Enjoy! :-) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcbmBXYBBp4 

PROG & ROLL Radio Show (13/12/2015). The complete playlist.

 Last night Prog & Roll radio show was online once more as usual. It was the last "normal" show of the year, since our 2 next shows will be kind of special ones. The one on the 20th will be the 'Christmas Special', and the one after that will be the last show of 2015, and it will be totally dedicated to our audience, and their musical choices.
 Once more we had many people listening, from many European countries. I'm very glad to see that more people are joining our chatbox, and our company there becomes bigger.
 As for the playlist, we played songs from many decades, and music genres or sub-categories.
We divided the 2-hours show into 4-half hours parts once more, and here you can take a look at the songs that were played: 

1st PART: MYSTERY: Last Glass of Wine / DAVID GILMOUR: Faces of Stone / SUBSIGNAL: The Time out of Joint / SUBTERRANEAN MASQUERADE: Specter.

2nd PART: FLEETWOOD MAC: Man of the World / ROGER GLOVER: Little Chalk Blue / BARCLAY JAMES HARVEST: The Closed Shop / GENESIS: Blood on the Rooftops / BIG BIG TRAIN: Swan Hunter / KARFAGEN: Sylph.

3rd PART: UNIVERSE EFFECTS: Tormented / LEPROUS: The Price / SHAMAN: Fairy Tale / HAGGARD: Hijo de la Luna / NIGHTWISH:  Phantom of the Opera.

4rth PART: WILL-O-THE-WISP: Queen of Dreams / CARAVAN: The World is Yours / MIKE BATT: Lady of the Dawn / DULCIMER: Sonnet to the Fall. 
"Epic" Song: CRESSIDA: Munich.

On behalf of GFReedom Team I would like to thank all those who listened to our show once more. I hope you enjoyed it. Try not to miss Prog & Roll's 'Christmas Special' show, on the 20th of December! 

Thank you all! :-)

GFreedom's Juke Box No.147

Hello all!
Here I am again in order to write down my weekly Top-5 song list for you, as it usualy happens on Saturday mornings.
So, for this week, my best 5 songs are the following ones:
LOVE: Always See Your Face (Four Sail - 1969)
CURVED AIR: Metamorphosis (Air Cut - 1974)
BIG BIG TRAIN: Swan Hunter (English Electric No.2 - 2013)
ROGER GLOVER / JOHN LAWTON: Little Chalk Blue (The Butterfy Ball & The Grasshopper's Feat - 1974)
TRANS-SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA: Come All Ye Faithful / Oh Holy Night (Christmas Eve & Other Stories - 1996)
In the following links you can listen to the songs that I have in my list. The only exception is 'Swan Hunter' by Big Big Train, which I couldn't find on YouTube.
LOVE: Always See Your Face
CURVED AIR: Metamorphosis
R.GLOVER / J.LAWTON: Little Chalk Blue
TRANS-SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA: Come All Ye Faithful / Oh Holy Night
Enjoy the music! :-)

TV Series: The Last Kingdom (Season 1) - 2015

                         

                          WARNING: Spoilers ahead!

 This is a new BBC Tv Series I discovered recently, and I watched the whole 1^st season into 3 days time. That’s not so difficult though, because the whole 1^st season consists of only 8 - 45 minutes long – episodes. 

  The story is based on the books ‘The Saxon Stories’, written by Bernard Cornwell, (which I haven’t read), and tells the story of Uhtred, who was born as a Saxon, but he was raised as a Dane.

  The story starts when the Danes attack the young boy’s Kingdom of Bebbenburg, and his father Lord Uhtred, gathers an army in order to face them. Earl Ragnar of the Danes is attacked by Lord Uhtred and his army, who has no chance of victory, but his bravery earns the respect of the Viking leader. The battle is lost, and Lord Uhtred dies. The Danes take his son as a slave, together with another orphan girl, named Brida. Slowly slowly Ragnar accepts the young boy, and finally he is raising him as if he was his own son. So, after losing his father, Uhtred now found a new father, but that’s not so simple. Because, although he was born Saxon, now he is being raised as a Dane.

 All the things you just read, are just the beginning of a wonderful story, which is deployed in the 8 episodes of the 1^st season of ‘The Lost Kingdom’.

 The Last Kingdom is blessed with a talented group of actors, including some veterans as well, like Ratger Hauer for example, who plays the Viking Ravn. Also, it was a great surprise to me to see Matthew Macfadyen as the Lord Uhtred. Sadly these 2 characters won’t last for more than 1 episode, but they helped ground the series with their presence in this 1^st episode. After that, young Uhtred and Brida take over, as we watch them mature into adulthood.

 The Last Kingdom is the first book in the Saxon Stories, so hopefully with the show’s success we will get to see more…

I really enjoyed watching this 1^st season, and I’m waiting impatiently for the 2^nd one to come out.

Highly recommended, especially to all those who like Medieval books or films, filled with battles, swords, bravery and of course love stories. Because let’s face it, like it or not, every series lately MUST include a few love stories as well.                         

   My Rating: 8.0 / 10.0  - IMDB’s Rating: 8.6 / 10.0

By clicking on the following link you can watch a trailer for The Last Kingdom.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxPApTGWwas

PROG & ROLL: ALCHEMY's Presentation now available as a Podcast

Hello all!
As I wrote in the post below this one, on Sunday's Prog & Roll radio show we did an extended presentation on  Clive Nolan's musical 'Alchemy'.
 Many people asked if they would have the chance to listen to it
again because they loved it; and because I believe that it was one of the best presentations we ever did, I decided to upload it as a Podcast.
The show was divided into 3 uneven parts, and Alchemy's presentation took place during the 2nd part.

In case you would like to take a look to the playlist beforehand, take a look here: http://gfreedomathina.blogspot.gr/2015/12/prog-roll-radio-show-6122015-review-and.html
So, if you want to listen to the presentation we made to this really wonderful album, and to the rest of the show after that, just click here: http://chirb.it/GNydPM
Feel free to listen/share/download etc...
Enjoy it! :-)

PROG & ROLL Radio Show (6/12/2015). A review and the complete songlist.

Good morning all!
 As I mentioned in previous a post in this blog, on last night's Prog & Roll radio show we had the presentation of Clive Nolan's 'Alchemy' prepared. We had also informed Mr. Nolan about this presentation and he agreed to "participate" in our show, as 'guest on the chatbox'. But on Saturday afternoon, we were informed that he would be not able to join the show, due to a personal problem.
That was something that made us kind of sad, (because let's face it, it's not easy to have musicians like Clive Nolan in our chatbox often), but we continued with the show as planned. 
So, last night's Prog & Roll, was all about Rock opera's and musicals. From our behalf, we were preparing this show for almost 10 days now, and I really believe we did an excellent job. As it seemed, everybody was rather impressed (especially with Alchemy's presentation), and had some great time.
 At the time of the show, we had among our listeners Andy Sears, who plays the role of Lord Henry Jagman, and Magda from Germany, who is - I think - responsible for Mr. Nolan's PR.
 There was really big amount of people that were listening, and most of them stayed until the last song, so my guess is that they were enjoying the whole thing.
As our listeners know well, we usually divide the show in 4 half-hour parts, but especially for yesterday we changed that. So, we divided the show into 3 uneven parts, and during the middle and longer one we did the presentation of Alcemy.
Anyway, let's take a look now to the complete songlist:
Part. 1: THE PRETTY THINGS: Defecting Grey / THE KINKS: She’s Bought a Hat Like Princess Marina / O.S.T ‘HAIR’ : Aquarius / THE WHO: Teenage Wasteland / O.S.T ‘JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR’: King Herod’s Song.
Part 2: 'ALCHEMY': Prologue / Deception / Amelia / Quaternary Plan / Ambush / The Tide of Wealth / Amelia Dies / The Ritual / Anzeray Speaks.
Part. 3: SAVATAGE: Strange Reality / TRANS-SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA: What is Eternal / KAYAK: Goodbye Pharos / CAAMORA: Overture (from ‘She’). 
'Epic' song: AYREON: Isis & Osiris.
 On behalf of GFreedom Team, I would like to say a very big 'Thank You' to all those who joined our show last night, and to our faithful listeners who are supporting and advertising our show all the time.
Thank you all!

PROG & ROLL proudly presents the musical 'Alchemy', with special guest Mr. Clive Nolan!

I'm very glad and proud to announce that during tomorrow's Prog & Roll we are going to have  the English musician & composer Clive Nolan, as "guest on the chatbox"!
Clive Nolan is one of the most famous and respected musicians in the "modern" Progressive Rock music scene, and he is the leading force behind bands like Arena, Shadowlands and Pendragon.
At this point, I would like to inform you about tomorrow's special Prog & Roll:
Tomorrow's show will be a special "theme" show, and the theme will be 'Rock Opera's and Musicals, from the '60's till noawdays'.
 So, as you realize from the theme of the show, tomorrow we are going to play songs from Rock opera's and Rock musicals exclusively, famous or not.
 Further than that, we are going to make an extended presentation to Clive Nolan's wonderful musical 'Alchemy', which was released in 2013. Because of that, we contacted him and asked if he would like to "participate" in our show somehow. And he will! So, tomorrow we will welcome in our chatbox one of the greatest musicians and composers of the last decades. Furthermore, there is a big possibility that together with him, some other musicians/singers who participated in the recordings and the theatrical version of 'Alchemy' will join as well.
But there is more! Today, I am going to call him ot his home, in order to have a chat and get to now each other, and together with my wife we are going to take a small interview, parts of which we are going to play on tomorrow's show.
 We strarted preparing this show a couple of weeks ago, because we wanted to present something really special to our audience, and now that we know that Clive Nolan will join also, we just can't wait!
 So, if tomorrow night you are in the mood for some really great music, and also the oportunity to "meet" Clive Nolan, just join Prog & Roll.
Our show begins at 20.00 UK time (21.00 Italy/France/Germany), (22.00 Greece/Turkey).
The only thing you have to do, is to click the following link at the time I mentioned above.
www.justincaseradio.com 
See you there! :-)
Thank you.
 
 

New Releases: MYSTERY - Delusion Rain (2015)

  For those who aren't familiar with the band 'Mystery', I should say that  they are a Canadian band, and they have been active since the mid '80's. The band released its first album in 1992 and break up in 2000. After a 5 year break, they returned in 2005 with many changes in their line up, and a different sound. Since then, they released 4 studio albums, with Delusion Rain being their latest one.
  Personaly speaking, I discovered 'Mystery' almost 4 years ago, and I really liked them. Almost immediately, I bought the 2 albums that I could find at the time, which were 'Beneath the Veil of Winter's Face'  (2007) and 'One Among the Living' (2010). I liked these albums a lot, and when 'The World is a Game' came out in 2012, I bought it without a second thought. The same thing happened with 'Delusion Rain' this year.
  There was a surprise waiting for me though. The first thing I realised, was that their very good singer David Benoit, was not in the band anymore. For health problems I think, he was replaced by Jean Pageau. That put my mood down a little bit, but that lasted for only a few minutes. Once I started listening to the album, I realised that the new singer is equally good, and matches their sound just like their previous one. (But I like Benoit's voice better).
 Let's take a closer look at the album now:
  Well, it consists of 6 songs, and has a total running time of almost an hour. As you can understand, all songs are kind of long ones. The shortest one is 'If you see her' (6.10), and the longest one is the album's epic 'The Willow Tree' (19.30). The latter is definetely the CD's highlight with the many changes it has in its music and tempo. It starts as a ballad, then shift to a fast tempo and a long instrumental passage. The same themes are repeated like the ballad and the acoustic part, so it's like a back and forth of acoustic and electric moments.Despite the singer's replacement, the sound of the band remained the same, and that is something surely pleasing for me. The band retained its mellow, melodic & melancholic sound, which is kind of their 'trademark' in my opinion. 
Another thing I should mention, is the excellent production of the album! The sound is clear and loud with each instrument bursting in the speakers. As for their 'influences', once more they remind something like a mix between Pink Floyd and Pallas. Not always of course, but in some specific parts.
 I totally recommend 'Delusion Rain' to the fans of Neo-Prog (or 'modern Progressive Rock' if you like), and to all those who can enjoy a well structured and melodic Rock album.
                        My rating would be: 3.5 out of 5.0 stars.
By clicking the following link, you will be able to listen to the album's opening song. 
Enjoy! :-)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkMFXY-tZjg