This song, not “Hocus Pocus,” was my first introduction to Focus, back in about 1993. The friend who introduced me to it put it on a cassette of Gentle Giant’s album Interview and let me proceed on the mistaken impression that it was Gentle Giant. For a time I professed my love of the Gentle Giant “epic,” and proclaimed that only Gentle Giant could possibly have made it!
As for the title… well, it’s never been clear to me whether there’s an “o” in it or not.
Now, I know these guys like to jam. But I also know this song like the back of my hand. And I’m pretty sure this is actually a fairly sloppy, mistake-ridden performance. And it still rocks.
I was just perusing my iTunes library and I discovered something astonishing: I have more tracks by Porcupine Tree (173) than by Rush (172). And I have every Rush studio album (plus the new single) in my library. The time on my Porcupine Tree music is more, too… an astonishing three hours more. In total I have over 18 hours of Porcupine Tree music in my iTunes library. Granted, much of it is live, so I have plenty of duplicate tracks, but their live performances are so blistering and so perfect, that in some ways they’re superior to the studio originals.
I decided to honor this rise in prominence of Porcupine Tree by featuring them today on the blog, and what better track than “The Sound of Muzak”? Steven Wilson went through a protracted period where he was bitterly angry at the music industry (gee, I can’t imagine why), and for a while there every Porcupine Tree album had at least one track devoted to criticizing the bland, soulless commodification of music. The tracks are all good (are there any real duds in the Porcupine Tree catalog?), but this one probably says it best, and is worth quoting in its entirety:
The Sound of Muzak
Hear the sound of music
Drifting in the aisles
Elevator prozac
Stretching on for miles
The music of the future
Will not entertain
It’s only meant to repress
And neutralise your brain
Soul gets squeezed out
Edges get blunt
Demographic
Gives what you want
One of the wonders of the world is going down
It’s going down I know
It’s one of the blunders of the world that no one cares
No one cares enough
Now the sound of music
Comes in silver pills
Engineered to suit you
Building cheaper thrills
The music of rebellion
Makes you wanna rage
But it’s made by millionaires
Who are nearly twice your age
Soul gets squeezed out
Edges get blunt
Demographic
Gives what you want
One of the wonders of the world is going down
It’s going down I know
It’s one of the blunders of the world that no one cares
No one cares enough
I came to this video indirectly, from a Slate article about a new, three-minute Nike ad for World Cup Soccer, which prominently features an extended remix of the original studio version of “Hocus Pocus.” As crazy as the studio version is, imagine seeing the band play it live, twice as fast, with even more insane yodeling, flute playing, whistling action from Jack Nicholson-in-The Shining-meets-a-garden-gnome-with-a-neck-beard organist/multi-instrumentalist Thijs van Leer.
I’ve already featured a video of “Yours Is No Disgrace” before, but this is a different one. And not just any different one, but a great one, from the era where psychedelic freakouts were broadcast regularly on television. It also features Bill Bruford in his “TUBS” shirt, which was a great source of amusement for a friend and me back in high school.
As I tweeted yesterday, I actually heard this song in its entirety at a frozen custard shop here in Minneapolis. It was playing on XM satellite radio, so that makes it a little less surprising, but still… not your usual aural accompaniment to a banana split.
This is a bit of a departure for Hall of Prog: not a performance of a specific song, but a trailer for what looks like one of the best prog rock-related documentaries ever made. Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage is an award-winning documentary that is going to be screened across the U.S. on June 10. I’m not quite sure why there are two sites; I think one is for the movie itself and one is for its U.S. distributor. At any rate, both are worth checking out.
Since I always have to have something snarky to say, let me latch onto this highly selective statistic cited in the trailer and other promotional materials for the film: seeking to emphasize the band’s influence, they note that Rush is ranked third all-time for most consecutive gold or platinum albums, behind the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. It may be true, and it’s not an insignificant fact, but, really, it’s pretty heavily qualified: most consecutive albums certified gold or platinum. It may help to explain Rush’s longevity, but it seems intended to suggest that they’re the third most popular rock band of all time behind the Beatles and the Stones, and I think it’s pretty hard to make that argument. Geddy Lee’s own assessment is probably more accurate: “I always like to consider us the world’s most popular cult band.”
I’ve never been a huge ELP fan. They’ve always tended a little too much towards the easily mockable, cartoonish bombast for which prog rock has earned the somewhat-deserved bad reputation it has never been able to shake. Unfortunately for my own personal reputation, I like just enough of their music that I just can’t bring myself to reject them completely.
I have, however, completely rejected Works, Vol. 1 to the extent that I have never owned it. ELP as a band are scarcely a band, but rather three colossally over-inflated egos that only manage to share a stage by virtue of lacking a fourth member. (And by “member” I mean… well… you get it.)
Anyway… I have drawn a line in the sand regarding this album from late in the band’s original era, a time when the only thing that could bring them together to record even one side of a double LP as a group (as opposed to their three individual sides that comprise the rest of the album) was the extra revenue all three names appearing on the gatefold sleeve would bring in. (Well, that and the fact that apparently none of them could be bothered to record an entire solo album, either.) Yet despite myself, I kind of like their rollicking shuffle version of Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man.”
Why do I like it, exactly? Perhaps only by association. It is probably the first prog rock recording I was ever directly exposed to as a child, via its frequent use to accompany the lesser televised sports in the late ’70s and early ’80s, the kinds of sports Howard Cosell would introduce to the American audience every Saturday afternoon on ABC.
I think it’s safe to say that I haven’t heard this song in at least 25 years. That is, until yesterday. I was watching the opening ceremonies for Target Field, the new Minnesota Twins stadium, which hosted its first regular season game yesterday. At one point several Twins legends were trotted out into the left field bleachers to help raise flags honoring each of the team’s most successful seasons (division, league and world championships spanning 1965 to 2009). And what better music to accompany this festive moment than ELP’s “Fanfare for the Common Man”?
It had been so long since I’d last heard it, I wasn’t even entirely sure it was ELP (and, given the liberties the band took with it, I also wasn’t entirely sure it was “Fanfare for the Common Man”). But once it got to the synthesizer mayhem that occurs later in the recording, I knew there was only one man who could be responsible for such sounds, and I also knew royalty checks would soon be cut and delivered to the residences of Messrs. Emerson, Lake and Palmer.
Eight years ago, when I lived in Atlanta, I turned a coworker friend on to Porcupine Tree. Today on Facebook he shared this video I had not previously seen. Awesome.
Porcupine Tree is one of the few bands whose intense, precise, meticulously-produced playing in the studio is not only matched but surpassed in a live setting. Plenty of bands feed off the energy of a live crowd to create a performance that is more “alive” than their studio albums, but it’s rare that a band’s playing is, if anything, more tight on stage, and mixed as well to boot. I can verify that this isn’t (entirely) post-production cleanup work making the band sound so great here; when I saw them live in 2003 in Athens, GA I was blown away by just how great they sounded, especially in a venue like the 40 Watt Club.
I regret that I haven’t had the opportunity to see the band live again since then, but artifacts like this video and the 2005 live DVD Arriving Somewhere… capture that live energy.
Fear of a Blank Planet was the third in a string of back-to-back masterpieces by the band, beginning with 2002′s In Absentia. And they just keep getting better.
So… um… yeah. Anyone who thinks prog rockers are either nerds in lab coats or delusional anachronists in sequined capes needs to watch this video from 1971 of Keith Emerson going balls-out crazy-ass rock-n-roller on his beat-up Hammond organ with a set of throwing knives and… uh… himself.
I saw ELP live in 1993, and in addition to the knife routine (possibly on the same beat-up but incredibly resilient Hammond), he brought in a little then-contemporary technology, in the form of a large metal phallic MIDI controller, which he played by… well… you can guess. And at the… erm… climax… flames shot out of the end of it.
Field Music themselves eschew the label “prog rock” but I’ve heard strong similarities between them and Gentle Giant ever since their 2006 self-titled debut.
This new album sees the band returning from hiatus with a renewed sense of purpose and a reinvigorated muse. They’ve never sounded better, and they’ve never produced such an expansive, yet cohesive, body of work. The Gentle Giant sound is still there, for me, with the primary difference being that I would not be embarrassed to play Field Music for non-prog-loving friends.
“Mr. Pink” by Level 42
From the 1982 album Strategy (The Early Tapes)
Level 42 is a strange band. Immensely talented, but perhaps a decade too late on the scene, they’re best known for their huge 1986 pop hit “Something About You.” That’s a great song, much better live than in the studio (where Mark King’s bass was so processed and restrained that it’s hard to believe it’s not a synth), but the band’s legendary instrumental “Mr. Pink” is where King (along with the rest of the group) really shines.
Like Geddy Lee, Mark King dazzles not just with his bass playing, but with his ability to play intricate bass parts and sing at the same time. But he’s arguably a better bassist (in fact I’d say it’s hard to argue that he’s not) and unquestionably a better vocalist. So why has Level 42 languished in obscurity? This performance from 1984 may hold the key: even at the peak of New Wave synth mania, in a live setting Level 42 sounds almost nothing like it does on record. In fact, if it weren’t for the clothes and hair, I’d say this recording sounds almost like mid-’70s Return to Forever.
The band apparently released a number of albums over the years in the U.K., but failed to make much of a dent here in the U.S. Of the band’s original albums, only World Machine, which contains the hit “Something About You,” is readily available today. A number of low-budget live recordings from the later years are available though, and they show off an immense talent. But if that’s still not enough for you to welcome them into the prog pantheon, consider this: future Porcupine Tree drummer Gavin Harrison toured with the band briefly before their initial breakup in 1994.
