I've always meant to investigate Caravan beyond the title track of In the Land of Grey and Pink and a remaster with bonus tracks for $5 was an absolute steal. The Kansas set is a live album. I've heard several songs from it and this is the band in fine form - perhaps at their proggy peak. It's full of energy and twists & turns and is just wonderful. (I wonder if there's overdubs.) I already have Mayhem Symphony, a cleaned-up radio broadcast courtesy of the Progressive Rock Remaster Project, from Pittsburgh on Halloween 1976, but Two for the Show was recorded on the Point of Know Return tour and has some classics from that album.
Listening to J-Tull Dot Com has been fun. It brings back a lot of memories from a time in my life that were a bit like wilderness years. I was single and getting on my feet career-wise. In a sense it was around this time that I really began to mature into an adult. While it's not Tull in full on prog mode, there's a lot of nice riffing from Martin Barre, Andy Giddings continues to bring vitality to keyboards in Tull's sound, and they both getting writing credits here. The flute playing is loud and brash. Plus some of the outtakes are just as good as the material that made it onto the album.
The 2026 remixes are really good. There seems to be more space between the instruments with everything a bit more upfront. Plus I think there's more stereo separation, though I haven't done a thorough comparison.
With a tree about to meet its end down the block, let today's song be about our leafy friends who majestically tower over us, shading us from the sun, providing a place to climb. And some of them give us their sappy goodness for our pancakes.
I didn't know Van der Graaf Generator were formed in Manchester until recently. Here they are at Shank Hall in Milwaukee back in 2009. I was at this show and "Interference Patterns" (heard here) and "Man-Erg" left me gobsmacked.
Pink Floyd kicked off the tour for Dark Side of the Moon here in Madison on 4 March 1973. While I have never seen an audio recording of that show in general circulation, I now see that there are a couple videos from that show - high res scans of Super 8 film.
It is really neat to see and hear the tunes from Obscured by Clouds.
I've been watching this review of Jethro Tull's Songs From the Wood by Doug Helvering and he notes the generous use of double entendres in the lyrics of "Velvet Green". He theorizes that it will be "The Lemon Song" of Songs From the Wood. I laughed aloud.
A few months ago the headphone jack on my phone started to act wonky. The merest twist of the cord or slightest shift of the device would cause my headphones to fall silent. Since I could still call my mother, text people, and MFA for work, I decided to just buy a cheap MP3 player instead of replacing my phone which hopefully has a couple to a few more years of life left in it.
Sadly SanDisk doesn't make them anymore which is a shame because I'd bought their MP3 players in the past and they were solid, if no frills, devices. So I get my new one and load it up with music, audio dramas, and podcasts. It was nice to be able to listen to something and not be tempted to look at texts or check my email or just find something online to distract me from giving my ears a good time. I know too many people who stare at screens for way too long, who can sometimes barely concentrate on what is before them without looking at their phone.
For these people, the briefest downtime must be spent looking at social media, conversations must come to a grinding halt so that the status of an Amazon order can be checked, the people next to them must be briefly ignored so that the texts of someone not there can be addressed, and so on.
I soon relearned the eternal verity "You get what you pay for." First I noticed that the thing doesn't read the Title metadata and instead uses the file name which meant I had a lot of "Track #"'s.
Then one day I put on Seventh Son of a Seventh Son. "Moonchild" played and I rocked out as one does to Iron Maiden. Expecting the wash of synth, melodic guitar, and gentle rim shots of "Infinite Dreams" next I instead got "Capital Letters (In Surgical Spirit Land)" by IQ. I had discovered that it only parses the first three characters of the album title. And so the songs from Seventh Son of a Seventh Son were intermingled with those of Seven Stories Into Eight. Trying to find songs from albums that begin with "The" was nigh impossible.
Navigating by artist proved to be a bit better but that list was clogged as I had the Intrigue compilation on there which meant 4 CDs worth of artist names who had but one song apiece on the album.
Despite the poorly designed menu navigation system, I got my fix of tunes and whatnot. Then it occurred to me one day that I have all these albums on there along with multiple audio dramas and I usually couldn't listen to an entire album nor finish an audio drama because I was always finding something else to listen to with such a large array of choices.
I was reminded of the days of yore when I had access to Netflix and a couple other streaming services. I'd become trapped in the indecision of all those menus consisting of seemingly endless lists of movies and programs. It was almost like being paralyzed by the enormous number of choices laid before me. Most of the time I'd scroll and scroll and just turn the TV off after a while because I didn't want to spend anymore time parsing potential viewing options. A waste of the time I have left on this planet.
It makes me sad that I have such difficulty listening to an entire album from start to finish since I used to do so effortlessly and frequently; that I am usually seeking something else even before whatever it is that has my what I thought was rapt attention is complete. I'd jump to another album even though I'd only gotten 2 songs in on the one I was listening to. Days would go by between listening sessions of an audio drama and, when I'd return to it, I'd find that I couldn't quite recall everything that had transpired up until that point.
As Thoreau implored, "Simplify! Simplify!" and so I have put a stop to it.
I deleted 18+ GB from my MP3 player just a day or 2 ago. I have but one audio drama on it that I shall listen to until completion before starting another. There are several podcasts on there and just a few albums of music. I thought that it would be fun to write about the Jon Davison era of Yes and so the 4 albums the band has made with him are on there and just another song or 2.
So far I can say that I definitely look at my phone less and often leave it in another room when unneeded. This means more time playing with Willow and giving my attention to more important things such as the people sitting right next to me. We'll see how the MP3 player saga pans out. Hopefully with a lengthy, erudite look at latter day Yes. Ha!
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Some new music of note. Some old stuff too.
Rhiannon Giddens has a new album out in September called Hope Is the Thing with Feathers and the first single, "Carolina Rain" is out now. A lovely tune. Sadly her tour plans don't call for her to get any closer than Minneapolis at this point.
The Hu also have a new album out soon - in July - called Hun. "Grey Hun" is on the Youtubes. Unfortunately their tour plans are on mega bills with a few other artists. Hopefully they'll come this way for a solo show soon.
The Two Steves, Hackett and Rothery - the progressive rock dream team - have done an album together called The Roaring Waves which comes out in August. Our first taste is "The Black Sea".
Deep Purple are not only still around, but they're still creating new music instead of resting on their laurels and simply playing "Smoke On the Water" over and over for aging boomers. The new album, Splat!, comes out next week. It's their second with guitarist Simon McBride who joined a couple years or so back. He seems to have given the venerable band an injection of energy as the singles that have been released thus far are just plain good hard rock. The songs are kinetic and don't betray that most of the band are in their 70s or 80s.
Another band of old codgers that won't put their instruments down are The Rolling Stones. Their latest, Foreign Tongues, is to be released in a couple weeks. I chatted with a pal of mine about newer Stones just a week or so ago when he and I went to see the Gregg Allman documentary. His experience with them ends with Steel Wheels and so I talked up Voodoo Lounge. It's a great album and the b-sides are wonderful and it's just a really fun rock album with catchy riffs and Mick Jagger being Mick Jagger.
They put out Hackney Diamonds in 2023 and I enjoyed the singles from that album and the ones from the new LP are a blast too. While these guys may not be breaking any new ground, they keep doing their thing and it sounds great still.
Jethro Tull release J-Tull Dot Com: Another Cast Of The Net in August. The box set features a remixed version of the 1999 album along with some outtakes and live tracks. "Spiral" has been remixed and it sounds very nice. I think the drums are up a bit in the mix and that there's more stereo separation - it sounds "wider".
Speaking of Tull, I've been listening to the alternate mixes of RökFlöte lately and really enjoying them. Everything is more up front in the mix it seems and there is more room between the instruments. The guitar and keyboards are no longer this mushy, soft rock amalgamate; the electric guitar is grittier, ballsier and the keyboards are allowed to step up and lead the charge too. I mean, these are songs about gods like Thor who brings down the thunder with his hammer, not Ratatosk, the messenger squirrel.
Thick as a Brick 2 and Homo Erraticus both deserve this treatment. Their restrained mixing aesthetic works fine for The Secret Language of Birds where the whole affair is turned down and acoustic instruments need to be at the fore. However, these later IA efforts deserve to be let loose.
I heard this fine stoner-doom-sludge-Sabbathy tune just today on All Songs Considered. Great riffing with some fine complementary synth work. Old school analogue Moog? Sure sounds like it.
Although released 20 years ago, I just heard music from this album yesterday. Accordion rulez!
Originally destined for Smile, "Cabinessence" eventually emerged on 20/20 with some overdubs, apparently. What a fantastic song. Late 60s/early 70s Beach Boys is great stuff. This was another subject of conversation with my music movie pal on the drive to see that Gregg Allman doc.
Son Volt has a new song out called "If I Could". It's Jay Farrar in Woody Guthrie mode.
A friend who is also a big SV fan poked at it by saying that the lyrics are too on the nose instead of having a more oblique critique of our times. The young man of the 90s in me has some sympathy for that position but I don't feel Woody Guthrie should lose points because his lyrics directly reference the Great Depression. Being open and direct has its virtues.
I wonder if there's something odd about my generation in that we enjoy direct, unopaque lyrics of the past but not of our own time. Does "Ohio" suffer today from directly referencing the Kent State Shootings? Did it in 1970?
Steve Hackett gets two mentions here because A) he's Steve Hackett and B) Mike and Tom from Tabletop Genesis just did a show about his third solo album, Spectral Mornings, which makes me want to listen to it.
This tune was apparently left off Dominion. Will it be on the next IQ album? Will they play new material when I see them later this summer?
Former Jethro Tull keyboardist/string arranger Dee Palmer died earlier this week and Ian Anderson penned a tribute which is at Tull's website. I think of all her string arrangements, I like those on Minstrel in the Gallery best so I'll have to fire up the stereo soon.
One of the neat things about the Tull box sets (in addition to the plethora of music pulled from the archives and dusted off) are all of the interviews and behind the scenes details. For decades all we knew was that Dee (née David) had contributed "additional material" to supplement Ian's on Songs From the Wood but for the wonderful box set, she gives details of her contributions, most notably for "Velvet Green".
On the Stormwatch box, in addition to her composition "Elegy", which made it to the album, it features an early take of "Dark Ages" where she gets a writing credit. Plus there's this song which is credited entirely to her.
When I saw that Stick Men were returning to the Appleton Beer Factory, I immediately bought a ticket because having a ticket obligates one to go even if the show is out of town. They were last there in 2024 and it was a great concert which allowed me to rock out within mere feet of prog gods. Seeing Peter Gabriel live, Tony Levin was this small figure in the distance playing bass or Chapman stick but at the Appleton gig, he was about 6 or 8 feet away and seemed to be simultaneously larger than life and just this guy who happened to have a Chapman stick hanging down in front of him. I could see his fingers work their magic on the stick as he culled manic melodies from the 10 strings of the mysterious instrument.
And so last month my ladyfriend and I made a trek to Appleton for an overnighter on a cloudy afternoon. Upon pulling into the parking lot, we spied this lion donning wings and with what I take to be the Appleton skyline painted on it outside the hotel's entryway.
I wondered if there are more chimeric lions around town just as other Wisconsin burgs have painted cows and Madison has various decorated Bucky Badgers that are to be found around town.
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Back in 2024 I had come to Appleton to see a band perform but also to find respite from my wife and my marriage. But now I had a new partner. Instead of wandering Appleton alone, I had someone to explore the town with.
Our first stop was The Cozzy Corner for dinner. I'd stopped in there last time I was in town and enjoyed the blues/R&B decor as well as the food. My ladyfriend had been there a few times back in the day when she'd been in town for conferences.
I went with chicken and ribs.
My lady and I were in agreement: the ribs were dry and had a weird gritty/sinewy kind of texture which we thought was from being reheated. Not beyond edible but disappointing. Perhaps they'll be better on our next visit when Stick Men are back in a year or two.
To cheer ourselves up, we stopped in at The Book Store. That's not true. We stopped in because both of us love books and bookstores and would have done so even if our dinner had been superlative. Perhaps unimaginatively named, it was a spacious spot with rows and rows of shelves bursting with books, glorious books.
The romance section was likely the largest I've seen in any bookstore ever. Harlequin novels were categorized by cover color, whatever that indicated, and the sheer volume of space dedicated to this genre was a bit disconcerting. They even had an "extra spicy" section.
I dared not crack the spine of any of these "romances" lest I blush once learning what playing doctor truly entails.
Someone involved with the store is a Doctor Who fan. Tom Baker was to be found in a couple different spots in the sci-fi section.
The Doctor's arch enemies were lying in wait at the checkout ready to exterminate unsuspecting readers.
I ended up buying a book of poetry.
At first I thought that it was my first tome of verse but that's not true. It's the second as I have a copy of The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot on my shelf by which I mean still in a box somewhere.
I'd first run into Mary Oliver's work via the woman who organizes the Token Creek cleanup excursions that I've attended and thought that it was a good time to delve into her writing as I'd found the readings of a couple of her poems to be absolutely lovely.
With our purchases in hand, we headed back to the hotel where I'd relax for a little while before heading back downtown for the show while my ladyfriend would settle in for the night.
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The Appleton Beer Factory was hoppin' when I got there. There was a spot at the bar just for me and I cozied up with the beer menu. An Irish dark lager stood out for me. If I recall correctly, it was on nitro and was only around 3.5% A.B.V. meaning I could have 2 or 3. It was really tasty with a smooth body and a dry, mild roastiness. Just perfect.
As showtime approached, I went into the backroom which had a stage nestled in amongst the conical fermenters and boilers, kilometers of pipes, and plumbing equipment. Off to the side I noticed a guy setting up his recording rig and assumed it was the same taper from last year. I asked him if his recording was going to end up being available on Dime and he replied that it would, if turned out well enough.
Last time drummer Pat Mastelotto had a medical emergency and was unable to perform. Sitting in for him was his drum tech, methinks. This night, however, Mastelotto was ready, willing and able.
I adore Pat Mastelotto's drumming. His playing is intricate yet not overly busy, exciting but not pushy. He'll trigger something MIDIly with one hand and then starting playing a drum or cymbal while his other hand keeps a beat with a shaker. There's a lot going on but not to distraction. It's such a pleasure to watch him ply his trade.
The show began with a bit of improv before they went into "Cusp". I love this song! Mastelotto is just behind the beat and he looks like an octopus as he seems to have enough arms to constantly reach for a cymbal or a floor tom. Levin is playing a melodic lead, while Markus Reuter conjures a bass line from his touch guitar.
This was followed by "Brutal", the title track of their last album. I hadn't heard any of their new material at the time but really enjoyed it as the song had a kind of swagger - a swagger run through a regimen of Crimsonesque angular THRAK. Speaking of which, we were treated to a Fripp solo tune, "Breathless", in addition to a few Crimson tunes.
All of the Frippery sat well next to the Stick Men originals. The virtuoso playing was a joy to behold whether the song was a chaotic rocker or something quieter and more contemplative.
I stopped at the merch table after the show and grabbed a copy of Brutal before heading back to the hotel, ears ringing.
Stepping into our room, I found my ladyfriend fast asleep. Only her head remained uncovered while the rest of her body lay enshrouded by the blanket. It was a lovely, peaceful moment. The look on her face was one of serenity and I felt wanted coming to a bed with a woman who desired to be next to me. It was also great knowing that I would return home and deal not with a failing marriage but with a burgeoning romance. Life got worse after my last visit but it has since gotten much better.
Holy crap! Genesis released "Invisible Touch" as a single 40 years ago yesterday. I recall that day and my friend bought the 45 and we both liked the b-side, "In the Glow of the Night" better. Ha!
Yesterday I finished reading Piranesi by Susanna Clarke and have discovered via the internet that it is littered with allusions to the Narnia books by C.S. Lewis. I think I read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe back in 7th grade so I am a bit rusty on all things Narnia and they went over my head.
How much am I missing having failed to recognize all the Narnia references?
