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.
I know I’ve pushed the limits of what constitutes “prog” here before, but perhaps never so far as this… and yet… not as much as it may seem at first.
Seals and Crofts are best known for the title track from the same album, “Summer Breeze.” I’ve loved that song since I was a kid, along with a few of their other hits like “We May Never Pass This Way (Again),” but it wasn’t until just recently that I actively started exploring their surprisingly extensive catalog. It’s a good time to do so: some of their CDs can be had on Amazon (click the link above) for as little as $5.99.
“Hummingbird” starts off with a very Beatles-esque introduction before settling into a classic Seals and Crofts groove. But the thing that really makes this song transcendent for me is the wondrously circuitous chord progression that occurs between 3:13 and 3:46 in this stripped-down live recording. It’s almost like I can see the storm clouds parting and the rays of sunlight streaming through. A little cheesy, perhaps, but I love it regardless, and I think this song goes a long way to show how Seals and Crofts are far more than the AM radio/soft rock lightweights they’re often taken for. Jim Seals is a skilled guitarist, Dash Crofts (yeah, there’s a name that could only be a rock star in the early ’70s) is perhaps even more skilled as a mandolin player, and their songwriting and arranging skills are first-rate.
Since today’s “Beatles Day,” I felt I needed to do something Beatles related here. Even though Sgt. Pepper was one of the seminal albums that ushered in the prog rock era, it’s hard to argue that the Beatles were ever prog themselves. Perhaps the suite on side 2 of Abbey Road is as close as it gets.
But I didn’t even bother to search for any Beatles videos on YouTube: if there are any, and they’re official, embedding will probably be disabled; if they’re not official, they’ll probably get yanked if they haven’t already. So, post-Beatles solo tracks it is.
If any Beatle was prog-minded, it was definitely Paul McCartney, and some of his later solo work definitely had tinges of prog, especially tracks like “Band on the Run” and “Live and Let Die.”
Here’s another proggish track, from McCartney’s 1971 debut solo album.
People my age probably know Chicago best for drivel like “You’re the Inspiration” (a popular favorite for the “slow skate” at rollerskating rinks during the early ’80s). But I was fortunate enough in high school to have a band director who spent a lot of (probably weed-fueled) nights in college jamming out to early Chicago. He had us play songs like “25 or 6 to 4″ and “Saturday in the Park” and “Make Me Smile” in the pep band at basketball games. And he made sure we learned that these soft rock balladeer douchebags were once a sizzling hot jazz-funk band.
And, in their earliest of early years, back when they were still known as Chicago Transit Authority (before the real CTA sued them and they dropped the “Transit Authority” and registered a trademark on the name Chicago® before the city itself could sic its lawyers on the band too), they were borderline prog. Their debut was a double album, with seven tracks over six minutes long, and culminating in a 14-plus-minute group improvisation. Sure it was a bit self-indulgent, especially the seven minutes of wankery that ended side one: “Free Form Guitar.” But much of it was still very good, and several of the band’s best songs ever were on this very first album.
But when they were on, they were on, and here we see the band in its earliest form, with guitarist Terry Kath taking lead vocal duties, along with a guy on bass whom you might just be able to recognize as Peter Cetera, the person any self-respecting Phil Collins fan can always cite as a bigger sell-out.
Terry Kath killed himself playing Russian roulette in 1978, and in many ways that was the death of the band. Sure, they’d been steadily drifting towards middle school PG-rated makeout music from the very beginning, but without Kath the band lost whatever edge it had left. But thanks to the magic of recording technology, we can look back at where they were in 1970 and imagine a world where things turned out differently.
By the way, yes, this song was one of the suggestions iTunes Genius gave for “Yours Is No Disgrace.”
iTunes Genius is still dancing on the edge of what really constitutes prog rock, while simultaneously trying to hem me in with late ’70s Genesis and Yes. But it also smartly picked my favorite Styx song, so I’ll give it another chance.
I was really hoping to find a vintage ’70s performance of this track, but I’ll settle for this recording from 1996, during what was probably the only, brief period in the entire past two decades when Dennis DeYoung and Tommy Shaw would deign to share the stage. Their feud is notorious, and I doubt anyone who knows anything at all about Styx hasn’t seen the legendary VH1 “Behind the Music” episode about the band.
There’s not much more to say about it, other than that Dennis DeYoung is probably never again going to be seen performing with the band he co-founded, so you might as well enjoy this. Then again, given the fact that he’s chosen a cheesy pan flute patch on his digital synth to fill the role of the original Moog line, maybe the band really is better off without him.
I’m bending the rules of the iTunes Genius scheme a bit here — this was not actually the first track it recommended following “I Know What I Like”; it was actually the fifth. But there was a persistent Peter Gabriel – Genesis – late ’70s Yes rut getting established, and I felt it was time to introduce some fresh material.
Namely, Supertramp. Supertramp is somewhat peripheral to the prog world, but there was a decisive prog streak in their music, and in the big tangled prog rock family tree, there is at least one direct connection, though a rather ignoble one: Supertramp’s Roger Hodgson collaborated with Jon Anderson to write a song from the buried 1994 Yes album Talk.
But here we see Supertramp in their prime. Or, to be honest, slightly before it. Breakfast in America is generally regarded as the band’s masterpiece, but Crime of the Century, is not to be dismissed as easily as I usually do. Given the twists and turns “Rudy” takes the listener through in its seven-minute duration, the album is certainly worth a listen.
This was the first track iTunes Genius recommended following yesterday’s selection of “Behind the Lines” by Genesis. Once again, a 1980 track. However, the version we hear on this video is actually from a concert performance in 1978, and you can definitely tell that the song evolved between this version and what eventually appeared on the studio recording two years later. In some ways I like this version better; it has a more raw feel. And Tony Levin’s stick playing is fantastic, of course. The Chapman Stick is often thought of as a substitute for electric bass, and indeed is often used that way. However here we see the instrument’s full potential: Tony Levin is playing both the bass line and a distorted guitar lead line on the stick at the same time.
Radiohead’s avant garde bona fides were established with Kid A, something of a point of no return, but that makes it too easy to overlook just how forward-thinking they already were on their second and third albums, The Bends and OK Computer, really were.
I don’t listen to it often enough anymore, but I love The Bends. It’s a brilliant album. Overshadowed by the masterpiece that OK Computer was, it kind of makes one wonder if people would celebrate Pet Sounds as much as they do if Brian Wilson had actually managed to finish Smile back in the ’60s.
It’s easy to think of Radiohead almost as two separate bands, given how radically they digressed from traditional rock sounds on their later work, but hearing a track like “Planet Telex” performed live, post-Kid A, you realize that there’s a lot more continuity in the evolution of the band’s sound than it may seem at first.
But ultimately, I’m just full of hot air. Don’t worry about what I’m saying. Just listen and enjoy.
This is a bit of a rarity for me here: Japan is not really a band I’ve listened to at all; in fact, watching this video may have been the first time I had ever heard one of their songs in its entirety. However, I am well aware of the band for two significant reasons: singer David Sylvian collaborated with Robert Fripp on 1993′s excellent The First Day, which I’ve highlighted here before, and keyboardist Richard Barbieri has for over a decade been a member of what is probably my favorite band, Porcupine Tree. It’s cool to see Sylvian doing his best to look like a member of Duran Duran (though of course, in fact it is the other way around), and it’s amazing to see Richard Barbieri so young.
This eerie, experimental track is from Tin Drum, which my research suggests is Japan’s most highly regarded album. It seems to be something of an acquired taste, and it’s not the kind of music I would typically listen to while working, driving, or really doing anything besides devoting my full attention to the music itself. But it is definitely intriguing, and makes me want to hear more.
Umphrey’s McGee, a six-piece out of Chicago, is generally seen as a jam band in the vein of Phish, but if they are in that vein, then it’s definitely early Phish, when they were still dabbling with elaborate prog-infused arrangements and extended compositional structures, not just interminable country-tinged Grateful Dead-esque noodlery.
In fact, Umphrey’s McGee almost sounds like an alternate-universe Phish, where their success didn’t turn them into lazy composers.
I’ve been into this guys since right after Safety in Numbers came out back in 2006, and this year’s Mantis is even better. I also recommend Anchor Drops, from 2004, which is probably also slightly stronger than Safety in Numbers. But, then again, only Safety in Numbers features a cameo appearance by Huey Lewis, so that’s worth something (or, perhaps, in fact not).
