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Is Prog or Alternaprog, really coming back?
I just read this, it's something I've half-thought (bands like Muse, Coopers, Oceansize...)
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Progressive rock is back
Virgin Records
(From left) A Perfect Circle is James Iha, Josh Freese, Jeordie White, Maynard James Keenan and Billy Howerdel.
A Perfect Circle and the Mars Volta
WHEN: 7:30 p.m.
WHERE: Dodge Theatre, 400 W. Washington St., Phoenix.
ADMISSION: Sold out.
DETAILS: (602) 379-2888, www.dodgetheatre.com.
Michael Senft
The Arizona Republic
Mar. 28, 2004 12:00 AM
Dust off the Mellotron. Progressive rock is back.
A new generation of musicians and music fans has discovered the joys of concept albums and long, meandering keyboard solos.
After the rise of punk in the late '70s, prog rock became anathema to musicians. When Johnny Rotten screamed, "I am an Antichrist!" on the Sex Pistol's hit single Anarchy in the UK, the theatrical blend of classical music and rock-and-roll that typified prog bands like Yes and Genesis was instantly written off by critics as an example of everything wrong with rock.
"It's all cyclical," says Rob LaDuca, one of the organizers of the North East Art Rock Festival, a prog-rock festival held annually in central Pennsylvania. "For a time fans preferred simpler music forms - punk, grunge. It's now going in reverse. Intelligent young musicians and listeners start wanting something that's deeper - deeper musically, deeper compositionally, deeper lyrically to sink their minds and their hips into."
Ken Golden, owner of the Laser's Edge (www.lasercd.com), an Internet record store/label group specializing in progressive rock, agrees.
"Every kind of music has come around again - except prog," he says. "But now there's a lot of people growing up who are listening to their parents' record collections, bands like Yes, Genesis, King Crimson. It's manifesting in bands like Radiohead."
But don't put on the gold lamé cape just yet. The current crop of prog-rockers don't dress like wizards and sing about hobbits. And they don't sound much like Emerson, Lake and Palmer, either. Today's prog bands are incorporating the fury of punk, the speed of thrash and the electronic sounds of techno with the odd-time signatures and instrumental prowess of past bands. Call it "alternaprog."
"The '70s bands wanted to be more adventurous, be more long-form," LaDuca says. "The current bands may not sound like Yes, but they share the same ethic."
According to Golden, the alternative metal scene has helped spur prog-rock's resurgence as well.
"A lot of kids who are interested in heavy music . . . are looking for non-traditional forms of it," he says. "Now we're seeing these hybrids where bands are taking metal and morphing it, making it more intricate and technical, adding progressive elements. Bands like Tool, they're sort of the mutant child of King Crimson."
But the biggest aid in the prog-rock revival is the Internet. It's "the biggest driving force behind the revival," Golden says. "There weren't any regular publications, any specialty stores. Before the Internet, fans had to hunt out-of-the-way record stores, read back issues of Sounds and Melody Maker to find out about bands. Now there are hundreds of Web sites devoted to the most obscure bands from all parts of the world."
LaDuca also credits the Internet. Last weekend, NEARFest tickets sold out in less than an hour, solely on the strength of cyberbuzz.
The prog-rock revival is touching the Valley, as well. Tonight fans can catch hot bands in the current crop of alternaprog bands at a sold-out show at the Dodge Theatre - A Perfect Circle, a supergroup featuring former members of Tool, Smashing Pumpkins and Marilyn Manson; and the Mars Volta, an improvisational group that rose from the ashes of Texas emo band At the Drive In earning rave reviews and brisk sales with its epic concept album De-Loused at the Comatorium.
Josh Freese, drummer from A Perfect Circle, sums up the alternaprog ethos.
"We're not prog in that we're playing music like Yes or Rush. But we're pushing the musical envelope and playing music that is more than your typical pop or metal, so in that sense we are progressive band."
Print This | Email This | Most Popular | Subscribe | Larger Type | Smaller Type
Progressive rock is back
Virgin Records
(From left) A Perfect Circle is James Iha, Josh Freese, Jeordie White, Maynard James Keenan and Billy Howerdel.
A Perfect Circle and the Mars Volta
WHEN: 7:30 p.m.
WHERE: Dodge Theatre, 400 W. Washington St., Phoenix.
ADMISSION: Sold out.
DETAILS: (602) 379-2888, www.dodgetheatre.com.
Michael Senft
The Arizona Republic
Mar. 28, 2004 12:00 AM
Dust off the Mellotron. Progressive rock is back.
A new generation of musicians and music fans has discovered the joys of concept albums and long, meandering keyboard solos.
After the rise of punk in the late '70s, prog rock became anathema to musicians. When Johnny Rotten screamed, "I am an Antichrist!" on the Sex Pistol's hit single Anarchy in the UK, the theatrical blend of classical music and rock-and-roll that typified prog bands like Yes and Genesis was instantly written off by critics as an example of everything wrong with rock.
"It's all cyclical," says Rob LaDuca, one of the organizers of the North East Art Rock Festival, a prog-rock festival held annually in central Pennsylvania. "For a time fans preferred simpler music forms - punk, grunge. It's now going in reverse. Intelligent young musicians and listeners start wanting something that's deeper - deeper musically, deeper compositionally, deeper lyrically to sink their minds and their hips into."
Ken Golden, owner of the Laser's Edge (www.lasercd.com), an Internet record store/label group specializing in progressive rock, agrees.
"Every kind of music has come around again - except prog," he says. "But now there's a lot of people growing up who are listening to their parents' record collections, bands like Yes, Genesis, King Crimson. It's manifesting in bands like Radiohead."
But don't put on the gold lamé cape just yet. The current crop of prog-rockers don't dress like wizards and sing about hobbits. And they don't sound much like Emerson, Lake and Palmer, either. Today's prog bands are incorporating the fury of punk, the speed of thrash and the electronic sounds of techno with the odd-time signatures and instrumental prowess of past bands. Call it "alternaprog."
"The '70s bands wanted to be more adventurous, be more long-form," LaDuca says. "The current bands may not sound like Yes, but they share the same ethic."
According to Golden, the alternative metal scene has helped spur prog-rock's resurgence as well.
"A lot of kids who are interested in heavy music . . . are looking for non-traditional forms of it," he says. "Now we're seeing these hybrids where bands are taking metal and morphing it, making it more intricate and technical, adding progressive elements. Bands like Tool, they're sort of the mutant child of King Crimson."
But the biggest aid in the prog-rock revival is the Internet. It's "the biggest driving force behind the revival," Golden says. "There weren't any regular publications, any specialty stores. Before the Internet, fans had to hunt out-of-the-way record stores, read back issues of Sounds and Melody Maker to find out about bands. Now there are hundreds of Web sites devoted to the most obscure bands from all parts of the world."
LaDuca also credits the Internet. Last weekend, NEARFest tickets sold out in less than an hour, solely on the strength of cyberbuzz.
The prog-rock revival is touching the Valley, as well. Tonight fans can catch hot bands in the current crop of alternaprog bands at a sold-out show at the Dodge Theatre - A Perfect Circle, a supergroup featuring former members of Tool, Smashing Pumpkins and Marilyn Manson; and the Mars Volta, an improvisational group that rose from the ashes of Texas emo band At the Drive In earning rave reviews and brisk sales with its epic concept album De-Loused at the Comatorium.
Josh Freese, drummer from A Perfect Circle, sums up the alternaprog ethos.
"We're not prog in that we're playing music like Yes or Rush. But we're pushing the musical envelope and playing music that is more than your typical pop or metal, so in that sense we are progressive band."