Jukebox #6

Today, I've got selections from Soft Machine, Yes, and PFM for your listening pleasure.

Rick Wakeman- The Six Wives of Henry VIII (1973)

Today, we'll examine the debut offering from Yes' most famous keyboardist, the oft-praised, oft-mocked Rick Wakeman. The composition of this album is a little interesting for a concept album. As I'm sure you can guess, Wakeman's concept here is to capture the personalities of the six wives of Henry VIII via progressive rock. While touring Yes' Fragile, Wakeman read a book on the wives, and he was reminded of old melodies he had written down but never used for anything. He decided to revive those tracks, flesh them out, and make this album, recorded for A&M records. This is the result. Many members of Yes guest on the proceedings.

I'm a student of Tudor history myself (I'm currently working on an undergraduate thesis on the counter-reformation of Queen Mary), so I've listened to this trying to see if Wakeman actually tried to make a stab at history or was just throwing down melodies. For the most part, I say: no, he did not actually make an accurate instrumental rock opera about the wives of Henry VIII. Why is the notoriously slutty Catherine Howard getting a calm, grand piano driven ballroom piece, which then morphs into a harpsichord driven bar-room jig? In an overall sense, Wakeman uses bombastic, loud grand pianos, harpsichords, and keyboard sounding synthesizers to capture the feel of Catholic Mass music that would have been contemporary to Henry. He makes the interesting decision to put the wives out of order, with the Catherine of Aragon leading off like she's supposed to, but then doing Anne of Cleaves and Catherine Howard, followed by Jane Seymour, and then Anne Boleyn. He finishes with Catherine Parr, like history did. Very interestingly, Catherine of Aragon, despite being Henry's wife as long as the others combined, gets the shortest track by far. Individually, other than that Cathedral feel which is this album's backbone, the tracks vary greatly in tempo and Wakeman's keyboard instrument of choice. Catherine of Aragon is a slower, strong peice that builds to a climax, representing her tenacity under fire from Henry (this is one part he did well historically). Anne of Cleaves is more upbeat, Jane Seymour is almost strictly a pipe organ, representing her piety, and so on. However, performance-wise, this is all about Rick Wakeman. He deftly bends his keyboard melodies across instruments with immense intensity. All else fades into the background under the onslaught of Wakeman's bombastic keyboards. The Six Wives of Henry VIII.

I don't think Wakeman read that book very closely. There doesn't seem to be much a theme to this outside of "inspired by the Renaissance". However, nothing here is outright bad. I think these melodies are fine, and they did deserve better than to just be discarded. I'm glad Wakeman dredged them up. There's intensity and skill here which make The Six Wives of Henry VIII worth having, though the record could use more sonic variety than "prog-church music".

Grade: B-

King Crimson- In The Wake of Poseidon (1970)

In The Wake of Poseidon is a Dark, dreary album, cast from the same mold as its predecessor, In the Court of the Crimson King. The prior album of 1969 was a triumph that defined the entire Prog Rock Genre, and how and if King Crimson would continue to contribute to the budding genre in the new decade was up in the air. Beginning a long tradition of lineup turnover (all King Crimson albums before the 80s have a different lineup), Greg Lake, Ian McDonald, and Michael Giles formally left the group. Despite this, Lake and Giles, along with Giles' brother Michael, performed on this album on a session-only bassist. The mastermind behind King Crimson, Robert Fripp, remained on as the guitarist, and lyricist Peter Sinfield also remained with the group. Singer Gordon Haskell and woodwinds man Mel Collins rounded out the album's performers. The stopgap nature of this album does reflect in the work.

One thing In The Wake of Poseidon is not is original. I can rarely think of a non-pop act, certainty not a prog act, who so blatantly re-hashed a prior work than here. This is In the Court part two, at least on its A side. "Pictures of a City" is a re-hash of "21st Century Schizoid Man", almost down to the last note. Same tempo, same acid guitar, same distorted scratch vocal from Lake, even the same stop start section (and I mean the same stops and starts TO A TEE). Unbelievable. While "Cadence and Cascade" and "In the Wake of Poseidon" are also pretty clear rip-offs of  their prior "I Talk to the Wind" and "Epitaph" respectivly, they do deviate more. These three pieces all serve the same functions: rocking, battering, spiteful attack of sound, followed by a pastoral, flute driven cool down, and then followed by midevilish epic. Side two does chart new territory. "Cat Food" is a mix of themes seen elsewhere: Lake's vocals are again warped into a scratching, tortured noise, but the instrumentation is much quieter  It is in fact a rather popish song, with a clear melody and something like a verse-chorus musical structure. Then you have the 11 minute epic "The Devil's Triangle". Inspired by the classical composer Gustav Holst's "Mars: Bringer of War" from the planets suite, it builds slowly like a marching army which culminates in a slogging thunder of mellotron, snare drum beats, and bass guitar before stopping, and then re-staring even more chaotically. These two B side tracks build upon prior Crimson works instead of treading water.

Nowhere on In The Wake of Poseidon, however, does the spark of passion that so dominated In the Court come through. That lineup had burned out too fast, other opportunities opening up for the non-Fripp members (particularly Lake, now the L in ELP). King Crimson was rescued by hiring these departed members as studio musicians, but a masterwork could not come out under such conditions. If you like their first album, you'll get more of the exact same here, but watered down. I think In The Wake of Poseidon is ok, probably being the 5th best 60's/70's KC album.

Grade: C+

Jukebox #5

Here's a taste from my most recently reviewed album, Joy of a Toy by Kevin Ayers:



and a preview of my next, In the Wake of Poseidon by King Crimson:



And a little bit of Jethro Tull, 'cause we all love us some Tull.

Kevin Ayers- Joy of a Toy (1969)

I will kick off the revived blog in similar fashion to the old, reviewing an album from a recently deceased member of the Canterbury Scene in their honor. Kevin Ayers was an original member of Soft Machine, performing in their early shows and on their first album. He left in 1968, retreating to Ibiza off the Coast of Spain. The songs on Joy of a Toy were written during this productive, reclusive phase.

Joy of a Toy is above all a whimsical album. This is not one of those gloomy, brooding Progressive Rock albums. Instead, Joy of a Toy is one of the most upbeat, refreshing, and relaxing albums in the movement. Must of the music is largely acoustic in nature. The entire thing is shock full of upright piano, horn, and flute touches, with mostly bouncing beats. This is also notably a a very lyrical album. However, again, no existential angst, the lyrics are very simple, upbeat, often about love, and come off like a fairy tale  What makes  Joy of a Toy work as an early Prog album, however, is it's play with sound. Tracks like "Girl on a Swing" combine a subtle synth track and occasional electronic sounds into a pastoral piece, and it sounds interesting, but not disturbing. "Stop This Train (Doing it All Again)" uses a slowed down opening to create a chaotic effect which matches its lyrics about disease in a public place. Little touches like these help the album gain a unique little bit of panache that makes Ayers into a relatable storyteller and folsky progster. OTher standout tracks that I adore are "Song for Insane Times", which is a matter of fact ode to the swinging sixties which Ayers seems to know was on its way out, and "The Lady Rachel", a slower piece that tells the tale of either a dreaming woman or a suicide, depending on how dark you want to read the lyrics.

Ayers did something very cool an unique on Joy of a Toy. I've never quite seen another member of the Prog Rock seen effectively fuse a childish feel and whimsical doings on with well thought out music theory and effective use of the studio. The album does not fall particularly well into the Canterbury catalog, but that is to its credit, not its fault.

Grade: A-

Count Felix Returns

Well, hi internet. Good to see you after a two year absence.

I'll come clean with you, internet. For a year and a half, I regularly updated a prog blog. And then, I suddenly stopped. Why? Well, a number of reasons. Fist of all, I didn't really start this thing with the proper intentions. I had envisioned the Prog Blog as something mostly geared at a group of friends. I thought they might be interested, and I fell for that trap. They didn't give a shit, and when I turned the focus out to the general internet, I didn't really know what I was doing. Second, I didn't know my ass from a hole in the ground. I pretended like I knew a lot about music theory, synthesizers, and the like and could give an intelligent analysis. Like most high school aged males, I was off the money. I kept going to make an ego trip, but had nothing much to say. Thirdly, my collection was running out. I didn't have the money to acquire needed material, especially in the cases where I did my tri-annual "national spotlights" on foreign countries.

So, it's been two years and a month since I last posted on the blog. I'm ready. As I've grown up, I've mostly addressed the later two, and I think I'm interested in truly designing a reviews blog for the internet at large. So, there will be some changes around here.

1) Count Felix's Prog Blog will now focus on reviews and band biographies. The editorials I was putting out were embarrassing and terrible, stating highly clichéd opinions on Prog. I won't say I'll never put out an editorial piece, but expect them rarely.

2) I'm going to adopt a regular update schedule that's a little different than the past. In the old days I aimed for 5 posts a month on random days. This was awkward and let me put things off, contributing to the final end of Count Felix's Prog Blog v.1.0. Now, you can expect an album review EVERY SUNDAY, starting this coming Sunday, April 7th. In addition to the 4-5 reviews a month, there will be jukebox features (still the same format- three Youtube videos of prog pieces) that will be posted EVERY OTHER WEDNESDAY, starting next Wednesday, April 10th.

3) My old reviews vary wildly in quality- some are still pretty good and some I'm not so fond of. I might re-review a number of albums I already approached in the future, although I will promise everyone that for the first month of Prog Blog v.2.0, I will only do albums I've never tackled online.

4) I'm also going to take requests from the viewing audience, if any of you are still out there. Feel free to suggest albums you want reviewed.

With that, I'll stop for now. I've grown up a lot since I started Prog Blogging in May 2009 and I'm determined to finally put out a high quality product.

Download Generation and Prog

Today, the West gets its music online. There are many advantages to this situation, as music is now more accessible, more portable, and via both legal and illegal means, cheaper than ever. However, all these changes have put one negative effect into the Prog Rock relm, but many positive ones.

The losses Prog Rock takes from the download culture are easily apparent. Back in the vinyl days, bands could really take full advantage of the visual aspect of album products. It's impossible to get the same effect on CDs and 3- inch thumbnails as it was on four sleeves worth of cardboard that's nearly a square foot. Art was always a big avenue of creativity for the progsters, and this loss is pretty significant.

However, downloading gives a nice global perspective to Prog Rock. Back in the 70's, importing Krautrock, French Prog, or just about any non-English prog into the world outside of its parent country was rather difficult. While things did get around, it was on a much more limited basis than today. With the digital age, it is easy to discover old Italian prog bands just surfing iTunes, and at least until recently many of these were for discount prices. Globalization has proved a positive way to generate much greater quantities of word of mouth. Also, the digital file does not scratch and warp, so for such intricate music it is a far superior format to the vinyl record.