Been really enjoying BBC Four’s Prog Britannia series. This cropped up a lot and had me listening to In The Court of The Crimson King this afternoon.
I promise not to do prog tomorrow.
Entries categorized as ‘Prog’
21st Century Schizoid Man – King Crimson
January 3, 2009 · Leave a Comment
Categories: 1969 · Prog
Tagged: 21st Century Schizoid Man, King Crimson, Prog Britannia
Ring Out Solstice Bells – Jethro Tull
December 17, 2008 · 1 Comment
So, as mentioned in the last post, I was doing some Christmas shopping after work this evening and was getting a bit hacked off with the festive music. I was in a toy shop when I heard this and it fair discombobulated me for a moment. Jethro Tull? In a toy shop? I then realised that this had somehow slipped onto the Christmas playlist on a token festive ticket. Christmas is after all a re-appropriation of a pagan festival to celebrate the Winter Solstice. Made me chuckle to myself that Jethro Tull were getting played around the Bull Ring like this and it’s not even really a Christmas song. Can I say “winterval” at this point?
The animated video to this is rather good. I seem to remember it doing the rounds a year or so back. Check out the codpiece on the dancing people. Ian Anderson would be approve.
Categories: 1976 · Christmas · Prog
Tagged: Christmas, Jethro Tull, Ring Out Solstice Bells, Solstice, winterval
Firth of Fifth – Genesis
December 10, 2008 · 2 Comments
I like Genesis and what’s more I like Prog Rock.
Blame it on my Dad, as this is the sort of thing that was playing in our house during the seventies. There was a time when I would have loved to have said that I was big fan of The Clash when I was seven but to be honest my main musical references at the time were the likes of Yes and Genesis. Of course during my teenage years and through my twenties I was in denial of some sort and would never admit it but now I’m well into my thirties there seems to be little wrong in declaring a love for Prog.
I was listening to The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway today, so a track from that was lined up to be today’s selection, but on the way home from work this came up on shuffle. Take a listen to the full track in it’s spendour over at last.fm, an epic nine and a half minutes that starts with Tony Banks’ fine piano work and contains some of Peter Gabriel’s less nutty lyrics about “sheep in pens”, “undinal songs” and “madrigals”. There’s also some great big old synth work and a great violin-effected solo from Steve Hackett.
Also on the last.fm page currently is a clip of a later version minus piano intro and with a very hairy Phil Collins on vocals. Worth a look for the double headed axemanship going on.
If you like this then try the whole of the Selling England by the Pound album it comes from, IMHO the best of the Gabriel era Genesis albums. Worth getting hold of for the one about the lawnmower – I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)
Categories: 1973 · Prog
Tagged: Firth of Fifth, Genesis, Prog
