Time Machine A Vertigo Retrospective

This 3-CD set is a tribute to the swirling Vertigo label of its golden-era of 1969 to 1973. And it is filled with some bands and artists that hit the big time like Black Sabbath, Uriah Heep, Rod Stewart, and Gentle Giant to name a few while others were too obscure or ahead of their time with bands like; Colosseum, Gracious!, Jimmy Campbell, Affinity, and Manfred Mann's Chapter Three. Ahead of their time? No, they were fucking awesome on this compilation of the Vertigo label. Disc one starts off with the hard rockin shuffle of Colosseum's The Kettle. The piece appeared on their first album Valentyne Suite to feature a newcomer keyboardist Dave Greenslade, unfortunately the album was released without this track in the US called The Grass is Greener in 1970. Of course The Kettle is a heavy metal classic that could have gotten airplays back in the 1970's. You have some killing artists like Juicy Lucy, Affinity, Clear Blue Sky, and Cressidsa's jazz ballad of To Play Your Little Games. This box set shows that they were virtuoso performers to get the Prog gates open into another world of a new dimension that you never seen before. Disc Two contains the weirdness of the Vertigo label with artists such as Dr. Z's Evil Woman's Manly Child and Jimmy Campbell's stoner folk classic Half-Baked from his self-titled album while May Blitz get the proto-thrash metal treatment with For Madmen Only. You get the Vertigo treatment of a whirlpool terror of Jade Warrior, Patto, Tudor Lodge, Beggars Opera, Warhorse, Freedom, Magna Carta, and the glam rock cult heroes the Sensational Alex Harvey Band with their punk rock classic Midnight Moses appearing on the second disc. The last disc covers the end of an era for the Vertigo label featuring classic prog with germany's Atlantis with their 9-minute blues rocker Living at the End of Time and Status Quo's fast bullet train single Paper Plane. Other artists and bands to close it up include Vangelis experimental's Let it Happen from his post-Aphrodite's Child album Earth, while Gravy Train goes sinister with their flute and guitar work on A Ballad of a Peaceful Man and Black Sabbath's classic Spiral Architect gets the closing of a life time. The booklet is a treat to show the history of the band's line-up and history of the Vertigo label, ads, and Mark Powell's liner notes. A brilliant Time Machine to back in time where Prog was king back then.

Man - Live at the Padget Rooms Penarth

This 2-CD set reissued on the Cherry Red label Esoteric Recordings, is the holy grail for Man fans. The complete concert on 6 tracks never before heard since the original release in 1972. Most of the pieces appeared on the previous Man albums on the United Artists label with their first two including Man and Do You Like it Here Now, Are You Settling In? This was the last line-up of the original members of the group to include Deke Leonard guitar & vocals; Micky Jones guitar & vocals; Martin Ace Bass & Vocals; and Terry Williams drums. This group were paying an homage to the psychedelic scene and the West Coast that was happening in America at that time. They were a crossover between the Grateful Dead and Pink Floyd. You have the guitars going into a battle zone of the rhythm and lead voice section between Deke and Micky on the 24-minute composition Spunk Rock as they duke it out at the Padget Rooms to get the crowd all pumped and headbanging with its Hendrix and Jimmy Page relative solos on the first number while Many Are Called, But Few Get Up and Angel Easy gets a magical spell for 9 and 5-minutes of Prog and heartpumping country foot stompin' rock treatment. H. Samuel another composition to Spunk Rock, has the audience and their fans being glued to the group as they play excerpts on the self-titled album with the sinister guitar work on Would the Christians Wait Five Minutes? The Lions are Having a Draw as Terry Williams does his Jazz relative solos Billy Cobham style while Martin Ace does soulful basslines to fit the scenery. The Avant-Garde on the 11-minute mark, they're scatting and going into the space rock mode including their guitars going into darker territories with Alchemist. I bet Man were thinking "Let's suprise the fans with this Jam and have their jaws dropped thinking to theirselves 'What the hell just happened?" The tension on the last 2-minutes has Man going into a climatic climax with feedback amps going haywire while the guitar is into a whammy mode and hitting the pedals like Mr. Hyde and ends with a silence. This is a total classic right here! If you thought the original Romain was only six-minutes long on the first Man (United Artists) album, think again. This time they are cookin! The 20-minute live version of this hard blues rockin' classic just went harder than before. The first 7-minutes is Deke and Micky doing their Led Zeppelin tribute to fill the void and then they get the crowd going for more as they sing their hearts out. The final track Daughter of the Fireplace is essential with Deke singing his heart out with his guitar going heavy metal including Micky Jones as they take their blues rocking sound to get you going for more.

Strange Pleasures Further Sounds of the Decca Underground

This 3-CD compilation is almost a lost treasure chest. From the Cherry Red Esoteric label and Prog chief and fan, Mark Powell, he decided it was time to do a sequel to the 2003 tribute to the DECCA label on Legend of a Mind The Underground Anthology. Strange Pleasures is almost another psychedelic trip down memory lane where Legend left off with a mystery on what is behind the other door of the experimental scenery. These 49 tracks on the box set stays in focus around the underground scene in London from various Psychedelic bands that hit the big time in the Marquee or were too obscure for the BBC. Tracks like the darker beauty of Al Stewart's Turn into Earth, Genesis earlier take of their homage of the psychedelic Bee Gees with In the Beginning, and the classical symphonic orchestra prog masterpiece Twilight Time by the Moody Blues in 1967. When you listen to these gems, you began to see that the DECCA/DERAM label were on a train mission to see what was going on in the London scenery during that chronological period in 1967 to 1975. The Accent's proto garage rock of psychedelia music with Red Sky at Night and Bill Fay's (admired by Wilco) folk ballads by the mellotron on Some Good Advice and Garden Song. The First CD ends as 1969 comes to an end of the flower generation with Egg's jazzy fusion of I will be absorbed and Alvin Lee's Ten Years of the hard rockin' pounding sounds of Bad Scene. As the second CD begains, you could tell its like a time machine train with the chugging sounds of Caravan's If I Could Do It Again, I'd Do It All Over You, Denny Gerrard's medieval taste of prog acoustics on Atmosphere, and T2's own take of early Pink Floyd with JLT. This compilation is one of the best and the songs from various bands are a clean cut in the golden-era before the Prog scene started to dwindle at the end of '75 when Punk and Disco came into the scene. As the final third CD begans to conclude Strange Pleasures, it starts with one of the earliest songs from one of British Heavy Metal heroes of the early '70s that was the answer to Led Zeppelin, Thin Lizzy's take of the wah-wah blues rocker Things Ain't Working Out Down the Farm, Ten Years After hard rockin' I'm Coming On while Gong's guitarist Steve Hillage's canterbury supergroup Khan took the epics into the solar system with the 9-minute Space Shanty as Steve Hillage and Egg's Dave Stewart take the virtuoso landscape into a spaceship ride while the avant-garde scene goes strangely further with an unknown band that I'm beginning to dig from the DECCA label called Zakarrias and their acoustic rocker Cosmic Bride. Mark Powell keeps the music of the Progressive Rock genre into a ray of light as Bill Fay comes back into the framework with the darker ballad of jail sentences of trail by error on Time of the Last Persecution. All in all, this is one of the best Prog compilations I've enjoyed listening to and you will also when you buy this to get a real kick out of.

The post aftermath of Hurricane Ike. Still Survivng and Never giving up!

To all Prog and Prog Metal fans who read this,

I Just want to let you know that I'm alright. My family are okay also due to Hurricane Ike. The house is fine and it didn't get hit. We (the family and I) were very lucky not to get hit. We had no Power for 13 days in a gruesome hot 84 degree fahrenheit inside my house. But finally got power back yesterday afternoon.

We lost power on Fri Sept. 12 and had to use portable TVs and a small Sports Radio that my Dad had about 19 years ago. It still works to this day. And watched the debris and broken trees and traffic signals that lost power also. Not to forget the Curfew which was a sticky situation. Plus the destruction of Galveston, Texas. For me, I've been there a couple of times when I was a kid.

My parents, my sister, and I would go there to go to the beach, look at the sites, Moody Gardens and the Grand Opera House. Now, when I watched the destruction of Galveston, it almost looked like a Nuclear Holocaust. I don't want to scare anybody, but the destruction looks like a War Zone including Bonar Peninsula. My thoughts and prayers and concerns also are with the citizens of Galveston and hope to rise and start again including Kemah, Texas.

When the hurricane passed, it was almost like 'What the hell's going on?!' and 'When are we getting power back?!' it almost a tension situation, but like I said it will take a while to get this sorted out. We didn't get any damages from Hurricane Rita four years ago, but now with Hurricane Ike's destruction to Galveston, I just hope everyone will rebuild and start a new beginning.

My house in Houston is fine, just a couple of small shingles that came off the roof. No Water Damages to the house, it was REALLY hot inside the house, but now we have power back on Sept. 23. I'm still truckin'. Don't worry, I will get back on track to write reviews for Prog albums and hopefully get the writing machine going.

For now, take care of yourself and each other,

Zack

Aphrodite's Child - 666

While the concept albums was ruling the prog genre at the beginning of the 1970s, the globe was turning around and around as it lands in the outskirts of Greece that has one prog band that took the concept album into the layers of hell! That band of course is Aphrodite's Child. Formed in 1967, they started out as a greek psychedelic love-song band. They had some amazing songs like; It's Five O'Clock, End of the World, Let Me Love, Let Me Live, Spring, Summer Winter and Fall, and Rain and Tears. But all of that would change when Vangelis took the concept album into the obscure territory with this double concept album based on the Apocalpyse of St. John. 666 is an amazing masterpiece filled with heavy rocking guitar sounds from Silver Kouoluris, bizarre greek folk tales, ambient and atmospheric music into flameish annihilation!

The key tracks on 666 are the Pete Townshend guitar sounds with Babylon as Vangelis bangs the bass drums while Demis Roussos sings about the fallen empire of Babylon the great, The 5-minute epic heavy metal track on The Four Horsemen as Silver takes on the guitar solo into obscurity while Irene Papas makes her erotic X-rated porn sounds in the avant-garde climax of Infinity. And the space sounds of Aegean Sea and The Waking Beast allows the listener to go deep into pure heavy moods. And the climax of all epics, the 19-minute experiemental strange twist of All the Seats Were Occupied as the battle between good and evil fight for the final showdown with Heaven & Hell to duel it out.

Sadly, Aphrodite's Child's 666 was their final album in 1972. They called it quits as Vangelis enjoyed a mainstream success with film scores such as Chariots of Fire, the Sci-Fi cult classic Blade Runner, and the dreaded Oliver Stone pretentious tale of Alexander while Demis Roussos went a little more pop sound with We Shall Dance and From Soveniurs to Soveniurs by cross-dressing and singing like a greek version of Pavarotti. Concept album based on the apocalypse of hell? Pure fucking insanity right here!

Ash Ra Tempel - Ash Ra Tempel

Germany's answer to Pink Floyd and Hawkwind. There is one band to take these two prog bros. into the outer limits and in the black hole with their Freak Out sinister epics that will make you scream for mercy. Krautrock's space cadet trio Ash Ra Tempel. Released on the Ohr Label in 1971, Ash Ra Tempel's self-titled debut album is the ultimate solar system trip. Manuel Gottsching on Guitar, Klaus Schulze who left Tangerine Dream after their first album Electronic Meditation on Drums to join with Manuel in 1970, and Hartmut Enke on Bass Guitar were on a cosmic roller-coaster ride that was beyond the atmospheric music with Heavy Metal jam sessions, experimental sounds similar to TD's early days in the late '60s. No wonder Julian Cope dug this band so much!

The opening 19-minute stoner rock track Amboss, starts off as a egyptian ambient guitar sound from Gottsching as it sets the mood for this explosive hard rockin' sound that is set towards the Monolith. The next 3-minutes featuring Klaus and Harmut, are following Manuel into a maximum space metal adventure into hell and beyond as you turn this motherfucker up LOUD on your iPod. Traummaschine (Dream Machine) a space rock beyond space music that is similar to TD's Journey through an Electric Brain, this reminds me of 2001: A Space Odyssey on this last number. They are on a sonic new age sound with Planet sounds on the Guitar and female vocalists setting the scenery by harmonizing the voices in an isolated scenery in a darken room. Klaus is doing an Indian tribe on the percussion instruments while they travel the Universe for the last 13-minutes in a raving light speed ride into Planet Tempel. Space Metal and Krautrock going together in the Milky Way? They never dissapoint!

Second Hand - Reality

The London Scene in the late '60s from the Underground-era was an amazing time period for bands such as Pink Floyd, Family, Traffic, and The Soft Machine. But there was one band that took the Psychedelic and Prog-era into a full proto-metal version of Procol Harum. That band was Second Hand. Formed in 1965, they were known as The Next Collection until they were signed by Polydor Records and changed their name to Second Hand and released their debut album in 1968 called Reality. This is humor, political, post-apocalyptic, and almost a Fairy tale quality of their first album.

Unlike their musical influences from The Creation, Small Faces, and The Who, Second Hand were a combination of The Action meets The Who meets Procol Harum with their first album. The opening track, A Fairy Tale starts off as a mellotronic homage to The Who's 1965 classic I Can't Explain and starts off into a childhood wonder about a mother telling her son a story before bedtime while Rhubarb! is a rumbling hard rock political statement into hell. The homage of the circus and '30s big band jazz music with the one and only Denis James the Clown. Steam Tugs is a bluesy mellotron number that shows that you can have a good time at a house party with the sexual soulness inside to be covered with the blanket of steam tugs and looking back the childhood-era of the 1950s with the Traffic/Dave Mason pop sound of Good Old '59 (We Are Slowly Getting Older).

The World Will End Yesterday is another proto-metal number set into a ballad that takes place in a post-apocalyptic world in a fictitious planet; A tribute to Denis James again with him being a DJ in a ballad; An emotional garage classic psychedelia music to Mainliner is almost bizarre and tiwsted that would make the band almost take an acid trip. The 8-minute piece Reality becomes more symphonic prog in a Deep Purple way and the finale of The Bath Song is another rock opera that is mysterious of the killing of an innocent vicitim while taking a Bath. Second Hand would release two more albums before calling it a day in 1971. The two members from Second Hand Kieran O'Connor and Ken Elliot would later form the Sci-Fi band Seventh Wave in 1974. An X-ray cover of a skeletal hand at a London Hospital that is twisted and weird? Who would have thought about that!