progressive rock
The Life of Rock with Brian Pern, BBC FourTuesday, 11 February 2014
It’s a brave comic who steps into the spandex zucchini-stuffed loon pants of Spinal Tap. The – if you will – rockumentary will never be done better. But it is 30 years since Marty DiBergi went in search of the sights, the sounds, the smells of a... Read more... |
CD: Goodie Mob - Age Against the MachineFriday, 30 August 2013
A casual observer might know Atlanta-born CeeLo Green as the rotund soul man who struck commercial gold twice in the last decade, as half of Gnarls Barkley, and then with his own “Fuck You!” in 2010. But the 39-year-old has a long and rich musical... Read more... |
10 Questions for Russell Smith of Terminal CheesecakeMonday, 05 August 2013
In the late Eighties one of the most sonically unhinged bands of all time came together in East London. Terminal Cheesecake caused few commercial waves but gathered a devoted coterie of fans for their unholy racket at pummelling concerts. Their... Read more... |
Frozen Gold: Iain (M) Banks, 1954-2013Sunday, 09 June 2013
Iain Banks, who has died at the age of 59 only two months after revealing that he was suffering from terminal cancer, was a leading purveyor of contemporary fiction. Iain M Banks was eminent in the field of science fiction. Iain "Spanks The Plank"... Read more... |
CD: Daft Punk - Random Access MemoriesThursday, 16 May 2013
A wise man once said: DON'T BELIEVE THE HYPE. It's a simple concept, but it seems so very hard to grasp, even – or especially – in a supposedly media-savvy world. The oddest thing of all is that it seems to be the people who consider themselves the... Read more... |
The Dark Side of the Moon: Prog’s Gleaming PeakSaturday, 02 March 2013
Let us go now to a foreign country. To the foreboding concrete tunnels and rooms of an RAF early-warning facility under the Sussex Downs in the early summer of 1973.The Lower Sixth has somehow procured the space for an epic late-night party. Cheap... Read more... |
The Dark Side of the Moon: Clare Torry's Great Gig in the SkyFriday, 01 March 2013
The Dark Side of the Moon and Frankie Howerd’s Roman-era television farce Up Pompeii! aren’t as unlikely bedfellows as it first seems. The link comes from Clare Torry, whose voice opened the show each week. She also provided the unrestrained vocal... Read more... |
The Dark Side of the Moon: From a Classical PerspectiveThursday, 28 February 2013
I’m embarrassed to admit that I’d never listened to The Dark Side of the Moon until a few weeks ago. I’ve heard loads of other esoteric vintage pop, most of it terminally unfashionable and deeply obscure. Growing up in the Seventies and... Read more... |
The Dark Side of the Moon: The Dark Side of the RainbowWednesday, 27 February 2013
Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour once commented that whoever had the idea of synchronizing the 1939 Hollywood classic The Wizard of Oz (with the sound turned down) to his own band’s The Dark Side of the Moon was “some guy with too much time on his hands... Read more... |
The Dark Side of the Moon: Dub Side of the MoonTuesday, 26 February 2013
There's a lot about stoner culture that smacks of earnestness, and The Dark Side of the Moon has been at the heart of a good deal of that. The number of long, dreary, late-night conversations that must have taken place over “doobs” and “munchies”... Read more... |
The Dark Side of the Moon: the Amazon Surf versionTuesday, 26 February 2013
There are numerous tribute versions of The Dark Side of the Moon, by everybody from jazzers to electronica merchants, but the Amazon Surf version must be the most esoteric. Amazon Surf music is one of the more curious music phenomenona I've... Read more... |
The Dark Side of the Moon: A CounterblastMonday, 25 February 2013
In March 1973, John Lennon was 33. Elvis was 38. There was barely a musician, in the sense we understand it, over 40. No one with a mortgage – or hardly anyone – was into rock’n’roll. The Dark Side of the Moon changed all that. It made rock middle-... Read more... |
