No 'Stalgia
Week from Monday 2nd March 2026 - The start to ANOTHER NEW MONTH... Already? why! that's three in as many... It's also another one of those 'IN-BETWEEN WEEKS' when I ALMOST forgot to post anything to this bloggydiarywotsit AT ALL! (It's just past dawn on THURSDAY when I'm writing this little segment.) I had my monthly armful up at the horsepickle last weekend, and I've done the required paperwork and phone calls in preparation for my NEXT appointments. I popped to the shops for such essentials as cereals and a TV GUIDE. I get up, take my meds, do some puzzles, make coffee and watch some cartoons. After that, who knows? All part of life's rich tapwasher...
As I've suddenly regained an enthusiasm for STEVEN WILSON's music, I paid a visit to the Bandcamp of INSIDE-OUT MUSIC, the leading vendors of yer so-called "PROG ROCK", to stream a few more items of that ilk. With yet another BANDCAMP FRIDAY imminent, I ask myself the question "What have I been missing out on?" since I first turned my nose up at such nonsense...
The simple answer is "NOT MUCH". What I heard only confirmed that I really DON'T have ears for that kind of thing any more. STEVE HACKETT is still churning out karaoke rehashes of the GENESIS back catalogue (sounding exactly the same as the originals, only with MUCH WORSE vocals). The present-day YES are a dull shadow of former glories and should have packed it in years ago. The same is true for several other notable 'old school' (self-tribute) bands.
I also discovered (maybe confirmed?) that while the first MUTE GODS album was strong and fresh, it was a one-off. The two follow-ups I found pretty boring. Meanwhile, having already 'purged' several TIM BOWNESS albums recently, I found his more recent offerings just as unappealing. I couldn't bear to hear so much as half-a-number by ANY of the "prog metal" bands on the label. The only thing I enjoyed enough to CONSIDER buying is the latest by JAKKO, and even that doesn't immediately grab me as much as his earlier efforts. But he does at least stand out from the crowd.
Most of what you call "PROG" isn't remotely PROGRESSIVE at all. "PROG" fans strike me as VERY conservative and are only happy for their heroes (old and new) to keep giving them something that sounds vaguely the same as stuff from fifty years ago. The closer the better. 'New' bands like BIG BIG TRAIN and FLOWER KINGS a.o. are highly skilled at providing the fans with MUSIC THAT SOUNDS A BIT LIKE [Genesis/Yes/Gentle Giant/Moody Blues/Jethro Tull/Pink Floyd/Rush/delete as applicable], thus meeting a continuing demand. I once coined the term "RETROG" (not so much 'PROGressive' as 'RETROGressive') to describe this entire genre. But I seem to have become rather jaded of it all, and nothing I've listened to today has persuaded me otherwise. It is COMFORTABLE music to listen to, technically IMPRESSIVE, but holding few SURPRISES.
Having said all that, I really enjoyed hearing KANSAS, curiously enough.
#OnThisDay #TenYearsAgo - I put PROGZILLA RADIO on while I was working. It seemed to make the day go swimmingly. It's always nice when they throw the odd CLASSIC track into the playlist, but now I've heard enough to realise that I don't actually LIKE very much of the current music that CALLS ITSELF "prog". There is nothing whatsoever about it that is 'PROGRESSIVE'. It restricts itself to a predefined, audience-pleasing musical vocabulary (i.e. cliché), as much as does any other genre. All modern "prog" is VERY derivative of what went before, and much of it is fairly boring as a result. Some of it is laughably SPINAL TAP-like. I'm inclined to agree with STEVEN WILSON, who pointed out that a lot of the current exponents of "prog" (specifically the sub-genre "prog-metal") sound pretty much interchangeable. Or, as ROBERT JOHN GODFREY (out of The Enid) puts it, in the latest "PROG" magazine:- "Now prog is just bog. Most of it is now meaningless, shallow nonsense. It is either a poor parody of things gone past, or is a cynical attempt to try and feed the prog community with the sort of stuff they are used to. Now we have nothing challenging, no new ideas and nothing behind it..."
I think it would be safe to say that my own default musical 'COMFORT ZONE' is somewhere down at the 'JAZZIER' end of the spectrum. FLASH-FOR-THE-SAKE-OF-BEING-FLASH virtuosic playing and 'clever' arrangements, while IMPRESSIVE on face value, just aren't enough to actually MOVE me. I require a goodly dose of IMPROVISATION to get the hairs on the back of MY neck a-tingling. There needs to be a sense of ADVENTURE involved. That's probably one reason why I constantly find that '70s King Crimson pushes all the right buttons for me, but '80s King Crimson doesn't so much. And why the Mahavishnu Orchestra were 'better' at shredding than Joe Satriani or Steve Vai. And why I will usually find an extended set by the Grateful Dead (always on the verge of falling apart) more stimulating than any number of tight, slick, highly-rehearsed rock performances (Sorry, musos!)
Not much change there then...
Channel Five has been showing 'The Best Of' "THE X FILES" all this week. I always felt that the drawn-out conspiracy plot about ALIEN ABDUCTIONS and GOVERNMENT COVER-UPS never really went anywhere (it got rather boring after a while), so I'm glad to see that they're only showing some of the quirky single-story episodes that were dotted around the long-running series. They still make for compelling telly!
#OnThisDay #TwentyYearsAgo - I've been listening to a rough mix of the new music that SHELFY has produced on his Apple Mac. The music is most appealing in a trancy, Whirl-Y-Gig sort of way and I laughed out loud at the funnies several times. A couple of the tunes I thought delightful enough for me to add them to my MP3 Jukebox! Now there's a thing! May I suggest the name "THE FUTURE SOUND OF HONITON"!?
I've done 'THE YOUTUBE THING' with another Gridling Band relic from the eighties, namely "CLT RAP". But I opted for the 'PAISLEY PARK HOEDOWN' version that I did in 1988, rather than the 'original' recording that was destined for "TFoR&R?". This time around I posted it 'as is' straight from the tape, rather than submit it to any 21st Century secret space enhancements. It didn't need it.
As I've suddenly regained an enthusiasm for STEVEN WILSON's music, I paid a visit to the Bandcamp of INSIDE-OUT MUSIC, the leading vendors of yer so-called "PROG ROCK", to stream a few more items of that ilk. With yet another BANDCAMP FRIDAY imminent, I ask myself the question "What have I been missing out on?" since I first turned my nose up at such nonsense...
The simple answer is "NOT MUCH". What I heard only confirmed that I really DON'T have ears for that kind of thing any more. STEVE HACKETT is still churning out karaoke rehashes of the GENESIS back catalogue (sounding exactly the same as the originals, only with MUCH WORSE vocals). The present-day YES are a dull shadow of former glories and should have packed it in years ago. The same is true for several other notable 'old school' (self-tribute) bands.
I also discovered (maybe confirmed?) that while the first MUTE GODS album was strong and fresh, it was a one-off. The two follow-ups I found pretty boring. Meanwhile, having already 'purged' several TIM BOWNESS albums recently, I found his more recent offerings just as unappealing. I couldn't bear to hear so much as half-a-number by ANY of the "prog metal" bands on the label. The only thing I enjoyed enough to CONSIDER buying is the latest by JAKKO, and even that doesn't immediately grab me as much as his earlier efforts. But he does at least stand out from the crowd.
Most of what you call "PROG" isn't remotely PROGRESSIVE at all. "PROG" fans strike me as VERY conservative and are only happy for their heroes (old and new) to keep giving them something that sounds vaguely the same as stuff from fifty years ago. The closer the better. 'New' bands like BIG BIG TRAIN and FLOWER KINGS a.o. are highly skilled at providing the fans with MUSIC THAT SOUNDS A BIT LIKE [Genesis/Yes/Gentle Giant/Moody Blues/Jethro Tull/Pink Floyd/Rush/delete as applicable], thus meeting a continuing demand. I once coined the term "RETROG" (not so much 'PROGressive' as 'RETROGressive') to describe this entire genre. But I seem to have become rather jaded of it all, and nothing I've listened to today has persuaded me otherwise. It is COMFORTABLE music to listen to, technically IMPRESSIVE, but holding few SURPRISES.
Having said all that, I really enjoyed hearing KANSAS, curiously enough.
#OnThisDay #TenYearsAgo - I put PROGZILLA RADIO on while I was working. It seemed to make the day go swimmingly. It's always nice when they throw the odd CLASSIC track into the playlist, but now I've heard enough to realise that I don't actually LIKE very much of the current music that CALLS ITSELF "prog". There is nothing whatsoever about it that is 'PROGRESSIVE'. It restricts itself to a predefined, audience-pleasing musical vocabulary (i.e. cliché), as much as does any other genre. All modern "prog" is VERY derivative of what went before, and much of it is fairly boring as a result. Some of it is laughably SPINAL TAP-like. I'm inclined to agree with STEVEN WILSON, who pointed out that a lot of the current exponents of "prog" (specifically the sub-genre "prog-metal") sound pretty much interchangeable. Or, as ROBERT JOHN GODFREY (out of The Enid) puts it, in the latest "PROG" magazine:- "Now prog is just bog. Most of it is now meaningless, shallow nonsense. It is either a poor parody of things gone past, or is a cynical attempt to try and feed the prog community with the sort of stuff they are used to. Now we have nothing challenging, no new ideas and nothing behind it..."
I think it would be safe to say that my own default musical 'COMFORT ZONE' is somewhere down at the 'JAZZIER' end of the spectrum. FLASH-FOR-THE-SAKE-OF-BEING-FLASH virtuosic playing and 'clever' arrangements, while IMPRESSIVE on face value, just aren't enough to actually MOVE me. I require a goodly dose of IMPROVISATION to get the hairs on the back of MY neck a-tingling. There needs to be a sense of ADVENTURE involved. That's probably one reason why I constantly find that '70s King Crimson pushes all the right buttons for me, but '80s King Crimson doesn't so much. And why the Mahavishnu Orchestra were 'better' at shredding than Joe Satriani or Steve Vai. And why I will usually find an extended set by the Grateful Dead (always on the verge of falling apart) more stimulating than any number of tight, slick, highly-rehearsed rock performances (Sorry, musos!)
Not much change there then...
Channel Five has been showing 'The Best Of' "THE X FILES" all this week. I always felt that the drawn-out conspiracy plot about ALIEN ABDUCTIONS and GOVERNMENT COVER-UPS never really went anywhere (it got rather boring after a while), so I'm glad to see that they're only showing some of the quirky single-story episodes that were dotted around the long-running series. They still make for compelling telly!
#OnThisDay #TwentyYearsAgo - I've been listening to a rough mix of the new music that SHELFY has produced on his Apple Mac. The music is most appealing in a trancy, Whirl-Y-Gig sort of way and I laughed out loud at the funnies several times. A couple of the tunes I thought delightful enough for me to add them to my MP3 Jukebox! Now there's a thing! May I suggest the name "THE FUTURE SOUND OF HONITON"!?
I've done 'THE YOUTUBE THING' with another Gridling Band relic from the eighties, namely "CLT RAP". But I opted for the 'PAISLEY PARK HOEDOWN' version that I did in 1988, rather than the 'original' recording that was destined for "TFoR&R?". This time around I posted it 'as is' straight from the tape, rather than submit it to any 21st Century secret space enhancements. It didn't need it.
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