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Calling all prog fans!!

#141
Been checking out some more Prog lately.

Cynic - Kindly Bent To Free Us. My guitarist's son brought the album over and we listened to it on his very nice stereo system (analog baby, yeah!) I really liked this album.
Ozric Tentacles - Erpland
The Pineapple Thief - Someone Here Is Missing ('So We Row' is fantastic!)
Astra - The Black Chord
Porcupine Tree - Voyage 34 The Complete Trip (Whooa, duuuude! :D)
Tool - 10,000 Days & Lateralus, I liked 10,000 Days best (I realize they are probably more metal than traditional prog but the elements are definitely there)
The Mars Volta - Octahedreon, I always liked TMV but hadn't kept up with them for quite a while.
OM - Advaitic Songs, I'm not sure if this is prog, but I like it.
Happy The Man - Happy The Man
 
#142
Basshappi said:
Been checking out some more Prog lately.

Cynic - Kindly Bent To Free Us. My guitarist's son brought the album over and we listened to it on his very nice stereo system (analog baby, yeah!) I really liked this album.
Ozric Tentacles - Erpland
The Pineapple Thief - Someone Here Is Missing ('So We Row' is fantastic!)
Astra - The Black Chord
Porcupine Tree - Voyage 34 The Complete Trip (Whooa, duuuude! :D)
Tool - 10,000 Days & Lateralus, I liked 10,000 Days best (I realize they are probably more metal than traditional prog but the elements are definitely there)
The Mars Volta - Octahedreon, I always liked TMV but hadn't kept up with them for quite a while.
OM - Advaitic Songs, I'm not sure if this is prog, but I like it.
Happy The Man - Happy The Man
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Interesting you list Tool here. I tend to consider them 'progressive' as well. Funny thing about perception. ;) Good to see folks like the new Cynic album as well!

Some unfamiliar artists listed there as well (aside from Porcupine Tree, which I already dig). Will definitely check the others out!
 
#144
Basshappi said:
Basshappy, what equipment were you using on the first album? I really like your tone on that recording.
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Hey Basshappi

The entire record was recorded with a stock 1974 mapleglo Rick. The only mod I made was to take off that god-awful plastic pickguard and replace it with a mahogany one I made for it. Bad blurry shot, but you can get the idea:

Rick Rick.jpg


The entire record was recorded direct with an LA2A limiter just to catch the peaks and prevent distortion when I dug in a little too hard - and there was very little EQ and no effects. A slight bump around 100k and a slight cut in the mids. Ken Scott lived by the philosophy that if you have to use more than 3db of EQ anywhere, something else was wrong. We also had about half a dozen bass amps in the studio, I remember a Marshall, my Hiwatt, a couple of Ampegs and Fenders - which were mic'ed up at various times for various songs and simultaneously tracked. Ken had just come off of the "Crime of the Century" Supertramp record and he was really enamored with the sound he got with Dougie on that record - which was all direct. In the final mix, we used almost none of the mic'ed sound, the direct tap just had an incredible "closeness" that the amps lacked. Also, the tube grit didn't serve any purpose, the sound of the band was too dense. The clean powerful direct tone mixed much better with the kick and solidified the foundation of the band in a way that the amps didn't.

The surprise was that the day after we finished the basic tracks, my PRS #7 arrived at the studio. Paul had been working on it for over a year and we were all very surprised that he finished it. We ended up doing "Knee Bitten Nymphs In Limbo" in sections with lots of punches and I wasn't happy with it. I could hear the emotional mismatches caused by the lack of continuity. I asked Ken if we could redo that track, and he consented, and actually he was excited to hear the bass too. We plugged it in, he did his "dial a brew" thing with the rotary switch and I nailed it in one take. The really fast sections down near the first fret where the "climbs" originate, were so hit and miss on the Rick for me and after a while could make my hand cramp, but with the medium scale PRS, they were delightfully comfortable and a pleasure to play. So the whole record is the Rick with PRS #7 only on "Knee Bitten".

As a side note, Paul ended up putting the bridge pickup from the mapleglo Rick into PRS #7, and then moved it to PRS #11 later on, where it still resides today. He came to a show and told me he could improve the sound of the Rick pickup and asked me if I would let him rewind it. I consented, and he did improve it. It's a one of a kinder, and the only Rick pickup that Paul ever rewound.
 
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#145
Very cool, thanks for the info. I thought it might be a Rick.
The second HTM album "Crafty Hands" sounds significantly different both in in terms of the recording and production as well as the material itself which sounds more "focused" compositionally. I really liked it.
 
#146
Basshappi said:
Very cool, thanks for the info. I thought it might be a Rick.
The second HTM album "Crafty Hands" sounds significantly different both in in terms of the recording and production as well as the material itself which sounds more "focused" compositionally. I really liked it.
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Hey Basshappi (nice name!)

Thanks so much for the mention and compliment on Crafty Hands.

Yeah, Crafty Hands would be my favorite but by a small margin. I really enjoyed working with Ron Riddle on drums, who toured with Stu Hamm and Blue Oyster Cult among others and is an amazing composer and multi-instrumentalist in his own right. He always kept you on your toes, hardly ever played anything the same way twice.

He also had a pet wolf named Chance, who we all met and hung out with when we rehearsed at his place in Ithaca. After Chance passed away Ron did a cool video tribute to him here:



Ron was always like the wolf - untamable and unpredictable...

And what a drummer!
 
#154
BassHappy said:
So many impossibly great players from Europe and especially Canterbury in the UK - which all had a big influence on me and my band "HAPPY THE MAN":

Ray Schulman (Gentle Giant)
Greg Lake (Crimson/ELP)
John Wetton (Crimson/Asia)
Gordon Haskell (Crimson)
Mike Rutherford (Genesis)
Pierre Moerlen (Gong)
Percy Jones (Brand X)
Chris Squire (Yes)
Nic Potter (Van Der Graff Generator)
Cor Dekker (Ekseption)
Bill MacCormick (Matching Mole)
Richard Sinclair (Hatfield and the North, Caravan, National Health, Gilgamesh)
Colin Bass (Camel)
Paul Marshall (Egg)
Kevin Ayers (Soft Machine)

It's debatable whether or not you would call these wonderful bassists "Prog", but IMHO they were still influential to me and to the genre:

Jack Bruce (Cream)
Tim Bogert (Vanilla Fudge)
Rick Laird (Mahavishnu)
Bruce Hauser (Touch)
Jerry Smith (The Flock)
Andy West (Dregs)

I am not saying there are not others, but these are the ones that I listened to and influenced me.

BassHappy
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Dude, you left Rick Kennel off the list!! For shame Happy, for Shame! ;)

But seriously, Andy West should be on a lot more lists; his talent is indisputable and his Alembic sound just perfect. Certainly, considering I see Mike Rutherford on so many lists, and Mike was really a far better songwriter than bass player (and I love Mike and Genesis and his 'Mechanics' work). Nothing against Mike, but Andy is a far more accomplished musician.
 
#155
jim777 said:
Dude, you left Rick Kennel off the list!! For shame Happy, for Shame! ;)

But seriously, Andy West should be on a lot more lists; his talent is indisputable and his Alembic sound just perfect. Certainly, considering I see Mike Rutherford on so many lists, and Mike was really a far better songwriter than bass player (and I love Mike and Genesis and his 'Mechanics' work). Nothing against Mike, but Andy is a far more accomplished musician.
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Hey Jim

Yeah, kind of hard for me to put myself on the list....!

;););););)

Right or wrong - I kind of look at it like this - some players like Rutherford, Lake and Wetton were mostly self-taught rocker bass players at heart. They really never concentrated on or had aptitude or an appetite for the extended harmonic structures we would think of as fusion or jazz-rock. Players like my friend Andy and bassists like Levin, Jaco and Stanley and of course, many others - were more suited and into the jazz-rock fusion thing. The bridge for me was Rick Laird of Mahavishnu. Rick was a rocker at heart and if Mahavishnu would have had say - Jaco on bass, the sound of the band would have changed dramatically. I consider the Dregs and Mahavishnu among my favorite fusion bands, for that exact reason. They both covered an immense landscape musically, but never forgot how to rock out.

However, I don't really consider one musical form to be superior over the other - they are simply different approaches. Kinda of like apples and oranges to me. I am a rocker at heart and a fusion oriented bassist would have changed the landscape of Happy the Man dramatically. The music was just too dense and intricate and there was very little space leftover for a busy bass player. A lot of times the role was that of anchor and the hard part was in many cases deciding what not to play. Don't get me wrong, I always managed to get my chops in - but our trademark was that we spent countless hours and hours together perfecting our craft and our parts. Whenever things were not working as well as they could, I simplified my parts and put more air into my lines - and that almost always solved the problem. The rhythm section and hence the band - needs to breathe together and sometimes you take one for the team.

As far as songwriting goes, yes that is an entire different area and you are right - Mike certainly excelled at that.
 
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#158
CanadaNeal said:
Do tribute bands count? We're off to see these guys (again) in January. Can't wait. They do 3 different shows - Foxtrot, Selling England and this one (Lamb);

The Musical Box - The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway FULL SHOW HD

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Hey Neal

I have a great story about Musical Box, but only from the Genesis side. I have enjoyed seeing them a number of times over the years, but I never had the pleasure of meeting the guys. This story more than likely goes back a number of years, not sure exactly when - but it is directly from my friend Dale Newman, who worked for the Genesis organization and was also the caretaker of the studio complex in Chiddingfold for over 40 years.

The Musical Box guys were visiting the complex along with Tony Smith, the band's manager and a few other folks. The conversation eventually came around to the one of the guys from Musical Box wondering what ever happened to all the original staging costumes used in the early Gabriel days. Tony Smith was like, wow, it's too bad all of that stuff is no longer around and lost somewhere. My friend Dale promptly replied - What do you mean, we kept almost all of that stuff and I know exactly where it is! So, they ventured out to the storage area and in the end Musical Box found themselves in possession of much of the original Genesis/Gabriel stage costumes. Luckily, Dale was meticulous and a bit of a hoarder, and in the end it benefited everyone.
 
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