Leprous - Coal

Review of Leprous' new album, Coal now published on DPRP Here

Canada Week!

This week has been designated 'Canada Week' as I managed to catch my favourite two Canadian three pieces live. The road trip took in NoMeansNo in Nottingham on Tuesday followed by a lovely drive through the Peak District to Manchester to see Rush.

NoMeansNo are a band that I discovered in 1988 courtesy of my wonderful friend Pete (God rest his soul). He'd heard them of John Peel and seen that they were playing in Bristol so a few of us decided to go along on Pete's recomendation. That night at the Bierkeller opened up new possibilities as NoMeansNo were one of the most amazing things I'd ever seen and still are. Having seen them a good few times over the intervening 25 years I almost missed this year's tour but thanks to my mate Gareth a plan was hatched to see both them and Rush. It all worked out, we got to Nottingham, NM put on a great show as always and hopefully Gareth is now a convert! Due to battery malfunction and poor planning no pics but this vid might give you a clue or two as to what they do:-

It's great to know that they're still out there playing their skewed bass-led prog-punk! The compact room (to say the least) at The Doghouse was ideal and the 100-200 in attendence certainly seemed to be enjoying themselves. It was great to meet up (for the first time) with virtual friends Virus, Filth and Happy from the forum at Nomeanswhatever.com.

Another band it's great to know are still out there doing their thing is the mighty Rush.

We pitched up in Manchester without tickets having been reticent to stump up the masses of cash necessary almost a year in advance but strolling up to the box office on the afternoon of the show they were able to offer us near enough perfect seats - bottom of the side tier about 10 rows from the stage. Miraculous, eye level with the band and the best seats I'd ever had for Rush. And no booking fee!

A fantastic show from a band at the very top of their game, the set was very '80s biased in the first half, almost the whole of Clockwork Angels in the second half with a bunch of classics. Marvellous! Got some pics this time, a bit shitty as my phone is a bit decrepit but no matter, great stuff.

Steve Hackett Live - Genesis Revisited

My review of Steve Hackett's Genesis Revisited show in Cardiff on 11th May 2013 is now up on DPRP:-

Steve Hackett Live 2013

A remarkable show and all credit to Steve for keeping this wonderful music alive.

Is it really 40 years old?!

Greetings.

Being a willing but inherently lazy individual it has taken me a long time from deciding that I need somewhere to post any thoughts that do happen to enter into my head to actually doing it.

So here we are then.

The main focus of this blog will be music, which I have loved from an early age, and more specifically progressive rock in all manner of its forms which I have been passionate about since my teens. No doubt more on this at some point.

Since 2006 I have been writing album and gig reviews for the esteemed Dutch Progressive Rock Pages (DPRP.net) which has proudly been posting progressive rock reviews, interviews and all kinds of other things since 1995 which in Web terms is a mind bogglingly long time ago. At the moment my main hat is Reviews Editor, a role which I proudly took on at the start of 2013 and seem to be doing well enough at that I haven't been replaced yet. Long may this "job" continue as, so far, I love it.

The Team at DPRP are all passionate about the genre and if you haven't been there before please have a look around. The site is definitely showing it's age but plans are afoot to release a new and gleaming site out into the Interwebs hopefully sooner rather than later. Anyhoo, there is plenty of interesting stuff that will hopefully be a good source to dip into know and again and fire your enthusiasm for the most maligned of genres, now thankfully receiving more acceptance than at any time since I've been listening to it, Progressive Rock. (It's not all Hobbits and capes you know!)

I'll no doubt edge into other genres now and again and hope to include in these pages a kind of resource, if that's the right word, of my listening, gig going and writing.

Thanks for getting this far!

Jez