Posts by Blacksword

    I'm steppin' in 'ere to defend meself - PAPERLATE is brilliant!! Bought it as a single originally (4-track EP was it?) and the song has that trumpet chorus (I love a bit o' brass, me) and also I think it's just a bit different and one of a few reasons why I love Paperlate!

    I love Paperlate too! Surely among their best singles. I can take or leave brass generally, but the tune is just too infectious!! The song has a great energy and positivity about it too. Maybe it should have been on Abacab instead of sh!t like Whodunnit.

    I would tend to agree with you, the general audience though doesn't seem to agree with us, perhaps due to the fact they were active in that period, nor does incidentally the prog audience. I don't know the current status but Thick as a Brick was #1 in the poll of prog albums of all times for quite some time on Progarchives. The other bands were Genesis, Yes, VdGG, Pink Floyd, King Crimson, ELP, Rush and so on. I would also suggest that Brick was by all means intended as a Prog album by Anderson.

    Thick as a brick was intended as a spoof prog album; a send up of concept albums. I have always regarded Tull as a prog band. Not sure why anyone wouldn't really. They're not a favourite of mine though. There isn't really a template for prog rock. All those bands were very different to each other. VDGG were a little 'rough around the edges' too IMO, but unmistakably prog rock. Floyd were also not the worlds best musicians, with the exception of Gilmour. Their music was quite basic. Brilliant and very orginal, but relatively basic. Interstingly many Floyd fans don't regard them as prog rock.

    I'm not an authority on Kino, but I can recommend It Bites, especially their album Once Around the World. IB are more on the prog pop spectrum. Arena are more on the neo-progressive ROCK side of things.


    I wa a massive It Bites fan back in the day, and I've probably seen them live more than any other band. They always had incredible live sound and are among the tightest musicians I've ever heard.


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    90125 was a genius album. The combination of Trevor Horns production techniques and the bands sheer songwriting skill carried them through. I remember - in the days when I had hair! - sitting in a hairdressers talking to the guy cutting my hair about music. He was a massive Level 42 fan, with a love also for soul music. I asked him if he'd been to any gigs lately, and he said he'd been to see Yes at Wembley. I think it may have been on the Big Generator tour. He said his mind had been completely blown away, and that 90125 was one of the best albums he'd ever heard. It was clear that Yes had reached a whole new generation of fans with that album. Wakemen has said he would have loved to have worked on that album.


    As for Genesis, although I'm lukewarm on much of their post Duke stuff, I wouldn't begrudge them that success. It's not as if they hadn't earnt it. Every now and then they still produced fantastic music.


    Yeah, Tull are an anomoly. Thick as a Brick topped the US charts. Funny to think that the album was supposed to be a piss take of prog rock concept albums.

    Hugh Fielder's book was the first one I bought on the band (from Skeleton Record Exchange in Birkenhead - a wonderful haven of second-hand records and merchandise, including a vinyl A Trick Of The Tail signed by none other than Tony Banks). A great read, in my opinion.

    I agree. A great read. Must have read it cover to cover ten times in my teens. I can't believe how obsessed with some bands I was at the time! Have you ever read From one fan to another by Armando Gallo? It's mostly a collection of AG's photographs of the band over the years. Not so muvch an informative read, but an excellent pictorial history of te band.

    Right, I forgot to mention JT, the point remains though, after over ten years of recording albums most of which critically acclaimed and some of those with a reasonable commercial success, they were not, at least commercially speaking, in the league of abovementioned bands. I don't remember when they broke even financially but it was quite late in their career . They survived Punk and with a new decade looming, it was time for them to sit down and rethink what they were doing, not simply go into a studio and do what they did. They a card to play, Phil and his newfound visibility. They obviously played it.

    They were £500K in debt in 1975. They broke even after the release of Trick in 76.


    Phil had relativey little visibility until Face Value which was around 1980 (?) They survived punk, I guess by moving to the middle of the road. The likes of Yes, ELP carried on doing what they did, after the record buying public had mostly moved on, which is why they died (at least temporarily so) Floyd survived because their music had enough rage, anger and misery in it to suck in some of the punk/new wave sympathisers. KC had long got out of the game, knowing that it was dying and Fripp cleverly made sure he was hanging out with, and collabroting with the right musicians of the time to maintain his profile sufficiently to stage a KC comeback in the future, bringing some new wave crediblity with him. As for Tull, I really can't explain their sustained success, as they strike me as completely 'unfashionable' throughout their entire career.


    I tink the pop element of Geness really came from Tony. It was more his band than Phil's. I'm sure they were influenced by Phil's love of Motown and soul, but Banks was also a pop music fan and never really regarded Genesis as a prog rock band. I don't think they would have taken a commercial direction if Banks hadn't wanted to. Altough I would agree that by the time of Genesis (Shapes) Phil's solo success was winning the band a new generation of fans.

    Jethro Tull were outselling Yes and ELP in the US by the mid 70's IIRC, Thick as a Brick went multi platinum in the US, and they were playing places like the LA Forum and MSG, from about 76 onward. Genesis did lag behind a little commercially, although I think they had quite a high profile in the 70's, because of all their connections and collaborations. It wasn't until they started releasing pop singles in the late 70's, that they really took off. Bands like Yes and Tull seemed more able to score hit singles with songs that were more repesentative of what they did on their albums, whereas Genesis often diluted their prog element to virtual non existence to score a hit.

    ^^^ I suspect SR is going to be up there somewhere in many of our top 3's!!


    My choice for number 3 is Dance on a Volcano


    This is the track tha really got me into Genesis. I knew very ittle about the band, until Tommy Vance played this tune and inspired me to explore their work further. I was instantly sucked in by the melodies, and the energy of that great 7/4 vibe. It's a classic album opener and bold way to come back after PG's departure. Classic Genesis to my mind, and one of my faveoutites from the Collins fronted band. Trick is also my favourite Genesis album.

    Number 4: Dukes Travels


    The beginning of the closing section of the excellent Duke album. A tense and exciting semim instrumental, and argubaly the band farewell to prog rock. Collin's percussion is incredible, as are Banks swirling keys and Rutherfords melodic lead guitar. The live version at the Lyceum in 1980 is also brilliant with the dual drums.