Prog Rock Obscurities – by Ken Golden Any list of recommended albums is simply a snapshot representing a momentary state of mind. Here are 10 prog rock albums that will require some digging but if you are a fan of the genre you will be rewarded. Don’t think of this as a definitive “top 10” just 10 great ones in no particular order: Spring – same (RCA Neon). Neon was RCA’s answer to Philips Vertigo label. In fact they poached Vertigo founder Olav Wyper and he set up shop offering similar fare. Spring was from Leicester in the UK. Their sole album was released... Read More
Digging Deeper into Progressive Rock with Ken Golden
I am delighted to include a piece by Ken Golden, entitled “Prog Rock Obscurities” on some of the more obscure, but still accessible, masterpieces of “prog” rock. Ken has not only become my “go to” guy on matters “prog” but has an interesting history: After years of crate digging and buying some of the most obscure (and ultimately valuable) period “progressive rock” records (when they were still obscure, but far cheaper), Ken launched a company, The Laser’s Edge, in 1987 to distribute digital copies of rare progressive rock... Read More
JOSH WHITE: JOSH AT MIDNIGHT REMASTERED (Ramseur Records Ram 1-811)
Blues is both some of the simplest and hardest music to play: I don’t care if it’s played on a Les Paul pumped through a stack of Marshalls or a beat down acoustic guitar from an old ’78—it isn’t the notes, it’s the feeling, the tone and rhythm that convey the emotion, not pyrotechnics. Josh White is somewhat of an enigma to me- he was around in the earliest days of the rural blues, learning his chops from street performers in the South where he grew up. White helped popularize a regional style of “Piedmont blues,” known for its distinctive fingerpicking and alternating... Read More
A Nice Note from a Reader~
The expertise Mr. Hart freely shares in his thoughtful reviews and compelling articles through The Vinyl Press should be required reading for any serious collector. Besides publishing informative interviews with recording artists like Ian Anderson, the record reviews in The Vinyl Press provide an important guide to filling those obscure niches every collector has. Any worthwhile LP collection should include examples of the excellent but underappreciated recordings by artists such as Bloodwyn Pig, Captain Beyond and Terry Reid – albums that likely never would have entered my ken without... Read More
Lucifer’s Friend self-titled
If you mixed Zep riffs with Uriah Heep vocal parts, played by Black Sabbath and added in some organ parts ala Deep Purple, you’d be describing the debut album of Lucifer’s Friend. No surprise about the vocals- John Lawton later went on to sing for Heep, but already had that full-throated wail on this record. The band is essentially a German heavy rock band that has been labeled, after the fact, as “proto-heavy metal.” That’s fair, in the same sense that early Sabbath and Deep Purple (and even the Iron Butterfly) anticipate some of the “heavy” rock that followed, before speed... Read More
Dead Can Dance’s INTO THE LABYRINTH: A COMPARISON OF PRESSINGS
Into the Labyrinth: Comparing Three Vinyl Pressings Dead Can Dance’s Into the Labyrinth is probably the most accessible and well-known album by the group/duo of Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry. For those familiar with the album, it is a striking blend of aboriginal polyrhythms, Celtic spiritualism, with mid-Eastern influences, medieval chants and powerful electronica/ rock, all pulled together and made coherent by the haunting sing song of Gerrard’s ethereal voice and the contrasts of Brendan Perry’s more conventional, but distinctive, vocal style. For those unfamiliar with Dead... Read More
BLIND MELON Self-Titled
These guys were not on my radar during the ‘90s- and after two albums, the lead singer died of a drug overdose in the band’s tour bus outside a venue. Vinyl releases of the first album were extremely limited, and are now very costly. Music on Vinyl (“MOV”) has done a reissue worth buying. That label, which presses through the old CBS plant in the Netherlands, is a prolific reissue house, but source material is often digital files, making it less desirable than other, more “audiophile” reissue labels that promise full analog reissues. (Though astute readers are aware that... Read More
Warps, Budget Ultrasonic Cleaning and Surface Dust: An Introduction
Warps, Budget Ultrasonic Cleaning and Surface Dust: An Introduction I buy a lot of used records and encounter some “challenged” copies in the process. This is hardly deliberate but comes with the territory: sometimes, the records are purchased in “lots” or more often, over the Internet, where physical inspection is impractical if not impossible. Even new, sealed records have problems. (Older “sealed” records can be the riskiest in my estimation- a complete unknown and if too tightly shrink-wrapped, are prone to warps over time). But, through a combination of... Read More
Opeth- Damnation Steve Wilson Remix
Opeth- Damnation I had heard of Opeth and even had a couple of their albums- very heavy metal, of the death/speed/black metal variety, that is not my usual fare. An Internet colleague with an impeccable taste for avant-garde music of all types had recommended Damnation and another denizen of the Net, known for his depth of knowledge in all things progressive, clued me into the recent Steve Wilson remix. The album was, at the time, apparently an outlier for Opeth; the crunch and growling voices were replaced by natural vocals and far more melodic themes. Although Wilson had mixed the... Read More
Blodwyn Pig- Ahead Rings Out
Blodwyn Pig- Ahead Rings Out On the heels of our recent look at early Jethro Tull, it is worth spending a little virtual ink on Blodwyn Pig’s first album. Tull’s debut, This Was, a blues-drenched mix of hard rock was, in many ways, a “one-off.” Mick Abrahams, Tull’s guitarist left, and the band’s direction on the next album–the seminal Stand Up—and thereafter, was shaped by Ian Anderson. Some Tull fans were disappointed that it didn’t continue as a blues-rock band. I’m not. The common wisdom was that Abrahams wanted to continue in a blues vein and Anderson... Read More
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