Walking on the Wild Side...Memories of Lou Reed

Good evening progheads...welcome back to my closet library.  Tonight the candles burn just a bit dimmer in honor of Lou Reed.  I know this blog has been dedicated to all things prog but I believe I would be derelict in my responsibilities as a blogger and a fan of music if I did not honor the memory of a true rock 'n' roll pioneer.  I am writing this right after hearing of Lou Reed's passing through the veil at the age of 71.  Even that astonishes me--rock 'n' roll has been filling the airwaves so long one of its alumni I remember from my youth made it through seven decades...

Lou Reed was such an integral part of rock 'n' roll's coming of age it is hard to know where to start.  One of my earliest memories of Lou is from his time with the Velvet Underground.  The Underground was a band that absolutely identified itself with its generation.  Founded by Lou Reed and John Cale and managed by Andy Warhol, the VU is one of those bands that was never appreciated during its lifetime but is regarded as a standard bearer in the music world today--Rolling Stone lists the Velvet Underground's first four recordings in their Top 500 most influential albums of all time...whaddya know; sometimes Rolling Stone gets it right.  But while Reed and Cale went on to successful solo careers,  the other members of the band were not so fortunate.

One particular favorite from the Velvet Underground for me is "Heroin."  Listening to this song you can feel raw pain as real and hurting as a shovel to the face.  The speak/sing delivery Reed provides on vocals makes it almost too life like-- and I can understand why people choose a path that can only lead to self destruction. The up and down tempo makes the images you get in your head fast forward like so many still photographs of a life lost too soon.

When Lou left the Velvet Underground in 1970 he recorded his first solo album with then session musicians Rick Wakeman and Steve Howe...hmmm...Reed went on to record several ground breaking albums; "Transformer" and "Berlin" among them.  One of the more peculiar traits Lou had was his ability to follow up any commercial success with equal if not greater failure.  The album "Metal Machine Music" is regarded as both complete trash and absolute genius--depending on who you ask.  Although Lou defended the album as a serious artistic work, he also acknowledged he was not necessarily "focused" at the time.

Lou Reed has worked with many well known and diverse artists including David Bowie, Patti Smith, David Byrne, Laurie Anderson, The Blind Boys of Alabama, and Ornette Coleman.  Reed was a pioneer, radical, punk, poet, artist, singer, songwriter, and visionary.  One thing Lou was never accused of was being afraid--he refused to back down from a challenge and always seemed to come out somehow new and refreshed because of or in spite of it.  Although he would not take any credit for the punk movement that started in the late 1970's, it is hard to imagine Sid Vicious and Johnny Rotten getting anywhere without Lou Reed having blazed some kind of trail.

On the lesser known side of his persona is a documentary Lou Reed made in 2010, "Red Shirley," about his then 100-year-old cousin.  It is 100 years of life packed into 30 incredible minutes...and one more "wild side" of Lou Reed that is fortunately recorded on non-erasable film  for everyone to enjoy.  When Shirley talks about escaping to Canada before the Nazis "took care" of the rest of her family, you definitely get a sense there is so much more to Lou Reed than meets the eye.

I spent quite a bit of time trying to decide what song to post this week--and whether or not it was even possible to capture any essence of what Lou Reed was about in just one clip.  Although that may very well be impossible I do believe I came as close as any mortal human and Lou Reed fan could...so please enjoy this live version of "I'm Waiting For The Man," recorded in 1972.  Typical sing/speak in Lou's ironically smooth while sounding dragged-through-a-scotch-bottle voice...there is no substitute.

Keep walking on the wild side Lou; you will be missed forever here but enjoyed eternally there.  The band in heaven just got incredibly cool...

I know I barely scratched the surface of what was an amazing career by one of the most influential and yet unassuming artists in the music world.  I just felt I would be committing music blasphemy to not recognize one of the greats.  I will be back on track next week with another review of new and exciting progressive music. Until then, dim the lights, play some vinyl...and keep on waitin' for the man...

The Aristocrats

Good evening fellow prog heads and welcome once again to the concert closet--complete with music library.  This week I walked around the atheneum several times searching for something different without re-inventing the wheel...if you know what I mean.  The thought suddenly crossed my mind that there are many great progressive musicians out there well known as solo artists and/or members of one band who also played in other bands.

With that notion stuck in my head, I began a search this week for a band that might not be so well known collectively as one or more members may be individually.  With the parameters of the search established, I found myself looking at a band called The Aristocrats.  Drummer Marco Minnemann has been in several prog bands, clinics, and projects.  He has performed with Terry Bozio, Eddie Jobson and John Wetton in the Ultimate Zero Project, the prog power trio KMB (Keneally, Minnemann, and Beller), and was runner-up to Mike Mangini as the heir apparent to Mike Portnoy when Portnoy left Dream Theater.

Jumping in feet first, my opening selection this week is a song entitled,"Sweaty Knockers."  I will admit the title made my head spin back to the right just a bit as I was thumbing through the collection...and I am certainly glad it did. The opening guitar riff makes my fingers bleed just visualizing it--so many time signature changes it defies logic...yet the music does not crack your speakers and they don't play loud just for the sake of playing loud.  The drums are lightning fast and the bass player has so many pedals he's working I swear there must be 500 garage doors randomly opening and closing within a 25 mile radius...

I move down the line to my next tasty morsel, "Waves."  Once again the guitar is the focal point of the song and Govan truly is a master with an axe.  The Aristocrats are a band that feed off each other...one musician raises the bar and the others eagerly follow suit.  The Aristocrats make it fun to just sit and listen to prog music.  After two-and-a-half minutes the guitar takes a backseat to some strong bass line and drums--but just for a minute.  "Waves" hits you head-on like it's high tide 24/7 and a storm just rolled in...

Liner Notes...The Aristocrats are Guthrie Govan on guitar, Marco Minnemann on drums, and Bryan Beller on bass.  Short and sweet, this trio plays like there are three musicians on the stage and fifteen more behind the scenes keeping up.  All three have numerous side gigs to their credit including tours and albums with Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, and Steven Wilson...just to scratch the surface.  The band formed almost by accident in January 2011 and have not let up since...and suddenly a big "Yeah!" was heard for accidental band formation...

I like what I hear but like a true proghead I need more...and helping number three is just the fix; "I Want a Parrot."  It seems The Aristocrats are unable to play anything without first smacking you in the head to get your attention...and once again I am eyes front and ears wide open.  The bass is a little funkier here and the drums hop throughout...reminding me of an old blues number being played a little too fast and hard--and thus sounding better than the original.

The selection below was carefully chosen as I wanted to showcase the wide range of abilities The Aristocrats possess.  "Culture Clash" is a song that showcases all three musicians in their own right.  It is hard to find a song by this trio where the guitar is not front and center, but here it feels as though the guitar needs the drums and bass to complete the sound and bring everything full circle. One of the great things about The Aristocrats is no one in the band acts as though he is the reason they are so good.  Each member understands that to be at this level requires all three members to be at their peak.  What I especially appreciate is the way the music seems to use mood, passion, and raw emotion to bring it to life.  The true culture clash is just that--everyone wanting their ideas and opinions to be the most recognized and popular...but that is impossible.  Like it or not, some ideas, opinions, and thoughts get thrust upon the masses as the next best thing and "we the people" are supposed to simply accept them.  The Aristocrats thumb their collective noses at that notion and play on as they choose--on their terms--letting individuals decide...and THAT is the essence of prog...and also what makes The Aristocrats the perfect spokesband for the cause if you will...

And just as easily and quickly as it started, another seven days has advanced on the reel-to-reel...please mark your calendars to come back next week for another look into the progressive library.  All this deep searching has really opened my eyes, ears, and mind...and I look forward to filling the newly created void...until next Tuesday...

The Custodian

Hello my faithful progheads!  As promised, I am back in the library as open  minded and excited as a foreign exchange student in a strip club...lots of promise, plenty of opportunity, and a smile on my face that will not fade...

After indulging my inner King Crimson connection these past two weeks, I am back on track with the original intent of this blog--finding new, different, and exciting progressive music to enjoy and review.  "Prog Rock" is so much more than a style or genre...to me it is a way of life.  To truly enjoy and appreciate progressive music is to open one's mind, heart, and soul to the beauty that lies under the surface.  The ability to explore different interpretations and points-of-view is what separates the fulfilled from the disappointed...

Before I find myself in a dark room with a knee-deep stack of old albums scattered about, I better start walking down the library aisle.  Giving in to my poor sense of direction, I find myself standing in front of a bin labeled "The Custodian."  No prior knowledge of what to expect means no pre-conceived notions, ideas, or prejudices...this should be fun!

My first indulgence this week is "Necessary Wasted Time."  This is the title cut from the band's debut album. The song opens simple enough; easy guitar with a steady beat...and then the vocals ooze in like a thick fog rolling over the interstate.  The result is a unique sound that beats both hard and soft as if there is indecision as to where the song is headed.  I find this intriguing--the way a new album should be.  The guitar continues to cut through the song and sting you just a bit.  The vocals have that "other end of the phone receiver" quality.  As I type this it may seem as if I am less than pleased--but I assure you "Necessary Wasted Time" is good.  Remember how awkward it was to describe your favorite drink to your parents?  That is the challenge I feel here...The Custodian is a really good band but the right words are difficult to find.

My second selection is "The Man Out Of Time."  A very mood driven, almost hypnotic tune; the opening guitar and keyboards blend together into a somber, melodic goblet of gin...very nice.  There is a hint of Alan Parsons Project wafting throughout...the vocal harmonies are extremely smooth and that "phone voice" is back once again, this time like a narrative.  The Custodian is a band that dares to be different and dares you to define them.  The drums here are enough to hold the song together yet not so much that the mood is lost. The Custodian has a way of getting under just one layer of your skin so as to draw interest but not blood...

Liner Notes...The Custodian is led by Richard Thomson on drums, synthesizer, and vocals, Owain Williams on lead guitar, Nariman Poushin on electric and acoustic guitars, and Michael Pitman on bass and vocals.  I have always been impressed by a band with a singing drummer.  Fellow progheads may remember Thomson from the prog metal death band Xerath, where he also sang vocals.  The Custodian is a bit tamer than Xerath which is neither good nor bad--just different.  Having listened to both The Custodian and Xerath I can say it is unfair to compare the two...but I will say The Custodian is more forward thinking in both music and lyrics.

My third selection this week is a song titled, "Other People's Lives."  The acoustic opening is quite nice and very calming--but it is just getting you loosened up for the kick.  However; don't expect a size twelve boot to the throat--it is more like a size six Converse to the chest...you feel it but you're not left gasping for air.  I am beginning to pick up hints of Porcupine Tree as I travel through this song.  The tempo picks up a bit and I like the way the mood shifts from calm and serene to a little anxious and jumpy...in much the same way life comes at you from all sides.

The Custodian is a very interesting band.  It is difficult to place a label on their music, which is a tribute to the style and ability of the individual artists.  The Custodian does prog proud because they are able to change moods and attitudes almost as often and easily as my daughter changes her shoes.  Thompson has made a big paradigm shift from Xerath and I believe it shows growth, maturity, and a willingness to put himself out there.  The Custodian is a band that starts out smooth and takes a few side roads while travelling the path...yet still manages to arrive on time and intact.

The selection I chose this week for your listening pleasure is "Stop Talking."  Do what the title says and listen; pay attention to how well the acoustic blends into the electric, and how the top note of vocals is just enough to tie it all together. You can find out more about The Custodian at  https://www.facebook.com/WeAreTheCustodians.

Well fellow progheads, another week has flown by.  I will head back into the library to search out yet another new and different sound to bring to the prog buffet.  Just thinking about adding another band to my growing list of impressive and inventive prog is whetting my appetite--and I hope you are as intrigued as I am.  If you have a request I am all ears...feel free to let me know about other prog bands and artists; I am always ready to broaden my prog horizons.  Until next week...

The League of Crafty Guitarists

Hello fellow Progheads!  Isn't it amazing (and a little scary) how fast seven days fly by?  This week in my final tribute to the rebirth--for the eighth time--of King Crimson, I searched the library high and low for something different and creative.  Imagine the deja vu I felt walking through the section marked for The League of Crafty Guitarists, and remembering I saw one the band's first live performances in Boston waaaaay back in 1986...oh, the memories....

The League of Crafty Guitarists is the brain child of Robert Fripp...yes--him again.  One more blog post to shout the excitement of the King Crimson reunion.  I promise to venture elsewhere next week, but I could not resist just a glimpse and a listen to some really cool acoustic guitar work.  If I knew then what I know now, I would have put the math book down and picked up a six-string when I was a teen...

Back to the blog at hand...The League of Crafty Guitarists started out as a series of guitar and personal development classes, and since 1986 over three thousand crafty guitarists have graduated from these sacred halls.  Before I go off on a tangent here let me make my first musical choice..."A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court."  As the music starts and you begin to fall between chords and notes, you realize there are a dozen players building this tune.  Trying to sort them out is almost impossible, so you ask yourself, "Why bother?"  Just lie back and enjoy what is destined to be a journey through sight, sound, imagination, time, and perhaps even a mood swing or two...

As I move along the buffet I find another morsel that seems very tempting.  "Fireplace" is an extremely interesting piece of music...in much the same way the Mona Lisa is an extremely interesting piece of art.  The players here work incredibly well together, and the flow is quite melodic.  Of course--in typical Fripp fashion--the ending hangs there for you...wait for it...twice.

Helping number three is a piece entitled, "Bicycling to Afghanistan."  On the one hand the music pulls in the listener as you feel yourself hanging on by your fingertips with each passing note.  All of a sudden and ever-so-sneakily the music has found a way to wrap itself around your fingers and work its way up to your elbows, helping you improve your grip on both the song and your head...

Listening to acoustic guitar is an exercise in mind discipline--at least for me.  It is very easy to get caught up in loud music and yearn for the great guitar riff that just shreds your ears, or that bass line that drags you down deep into the inner bowels of the song. But to listen to acoustic music is to unplug not only one's ears, but also one's mind.  To sit back--really just sit back--and let the soothing balm that is acoustic guitar simply move over you slowly and deliberately is very freeing and gratifying.  If you've read even one of my posts you know I enjoy music in many ways prog; metal, experimental, loose, loud, and always different.  But there are times I just want to forget everything and let the music direct me instead the other way around.  The League of Crafty Guitarists does just that...

Liner notes...this week liner notes takes a back seat to reality--there have been so many guitar players move through The League of Crafty Guitarists that an attempt to name them all would be a lesson in futility.  I do know that Trey Gunn cut his teeth here, and countless others have learned to hone their craft by joining the League.  Suffice to say The League of Crafty Guitarists is led by Robert Fripp and as such there really is no way of knowing who did what when, where, or on which album...

I chose the track below as a fitting end to a soothing post.  "Invocation" washes over your ears like low tide in July on Cape Cod...and as if that were not smooth enough--this piece was recorded live.  The guitar is many things in the many different hands of so many different players.  In the hands that make up The League of Crafty Guitarists, the guitar is an extension of the soul...

OK fellow progheads, I know...the original intention of this journey was to seek out new music and new adventures in the prog world.  Pardon my veering down Robert Fripp Boulevard the past two weeks as I celebrate in my own way the eighth incarnation of King Crimson and their upcoming tour.  I promise to be back on track next week with something different and prog tinged...until then, pour a glass of single malt and melt away...

KTU

Happy Tuesday Progheads...and what a week it has been!  I am sure by now (unless you live in a soundproof pod) you are aware that King Crimson--to use Robert Fripp's words--is in "Go! Mode."  The band is planning a tour tentatively scheduled to begin in September 2014.  But alas;  like most things in life there is good news/bad news to this announcement.  First, the good news; Fripp has decided to build a "Seven-Headed Beast that includes three drummers" (his words again).  And now the bad (or at least sobering) news--Adrian Belew will not be part of King Crimson's eighth incarnation.  At least he still has his Power Trio and Crimson Project to keep him busy...

So to pay a bit of homage to the band I continually use as the standard-bearer for all things progressive, I have decided this week to walk down the library aisle dedicated to progressive drummers.  With three percussion men in this latest rebirth of King Crimson, surely I can find a band one of them was in while waiting for the phone to ring last week...let's see what lies buried over here...

I don't have to venture too far into the past to find KTU, a band featuring Pat Mastelotto.  KTU is simply incredible. Their sound is classic, futuristic, experimental, metal-edged, dark, and absolutely mind blowing. The first song I choose for my ear-orgy is "Kataklasm."  Start listening to this song in a dark room with your eyes closed and you will feel like you have been transported to a different dimension.  The opening riff--played on the accordion--is the stuff prog dreams are made of.

After allowing the sounds I just bathed in to sink deeper into the pores of my skin, I turn to another amazing song called "Absinthe."  Once again KTU shows innovation, style, and an ability to create a sound so unique it is jaw-dropping.  Listening to this band for five minutes gives one confirmation that Gunn and Mastelotto were honor students in the school of progressive experimental/improvisation.  As I sit and listen to this it is difficult to distinguish where one instrument ends and another begins...and that is what makes KTU so damn good.

Liner notes...KTU consists of the aforementioned Trey Gunn on Warr guitar and Chapman stick and  Pat Mastelotto on percussion.  They are joined by Kimmo Pohjonen on chromatic button accordion and voice, and Samuli Kosminen on sampling.  KTU is the "marriage" of the duos TU and Kluster--and that must have been quite a ceremony.  KTU was brought to life in 2004 and have released two studio albums, "8 Armed Monkey" in 2005 and "Quiver" in 2009.

In true progressive style, Kimmo is credited for voice rather than vocals, because what he does is not simply singing nor it is just noise.  Rather, Kimmo seems to give the music a soul as you feel yourself being absorbed into the sound like it was a tangible being.  If there is need for a warning here it is simply this--KTU is not for those looking for catchy, nine-minute "prog ballads."  Even by progressive standards KTU is on the experimental fringe...a place I believe more bands need to go to perform and more people need to go to get a good listen. I could literally stay in this world for days and never be bored...

OK, musical piece number three...a cut called "Sumu" from the "8 Armed Monkey" album.  By now the bar has been set fairly high and once again KTU delivers--with a punch to the temporal lobe.  Yes, this truly is a feast for your brain.  To label the sound or try to pigeon hole KTU is like describing the taste of milk--you know it when you taste it but try putting it into words.

The cut below is "Sineen," another sample from "8 Armed Monkey."  This is a song that does Master Fripp proud.  I definitely get a feel of King Crimson from back in the Jamie Muir days...and no one eked more inspiring sounds from inanimate, obscure objects than he did.  KTU makes you feel like you are in a Paris cafe, listening to a Gregorian chant, and standing in the middle of an apocalyptic sound check all at once--they are that amazing.

There you have it prog heads, one for the good ol' days while praising the good new ways.  Next week I truly have no idea where this journey will take me, but I do know this--I gotta get me an accordion...