The Progressive Thread

[Runesmith]

I'm almost certain you know of them, stasis, but Split Enz's non-New Wave material fits the descriptor of untechnical prog pretty well. I'm not sure if I'd really consider the sound quality of their records as lo-fi or anything along those lines, but they certainly aren't the kind of polished band the average person thinks of when the word prog is mentioned.

[afterstasis]

oh, i love split enz... it's not quite what i had in mind, but i'll certainly accept any similar sounds.

[Der_Lex]

i listened to gazpacho's "night" earlier, and it had some good moments... some sections were too heavy on the symphonics and female vox for my taste, but i'll check out "tick tock" later.

May I assume that you're referring to Ohme's falsetto vocals with 'female vox'? Because he's the sole vocalist on the album. No other singers, female or otherwise, were involved in making it.

[afterstasis]

May I assume that you're referring to Ohme's falsetto vocals with 'female vox'? Because he's the sole vocalist on the album. No other singers, female or otherwise, were involved in making it.

yikes... and i thought i had a chick voice.

[Der_Lex]

yikes... and i thought i had a chick voice.

He has a pretty unique sound, but I really like it.

[Runesmith]

oh, i love split enz... it's not quite what i had in mind, but i'll certainly accept any similar sounds.

I actually can't really think of any band that sounds similar to Split Enz. Perhaps The Tubes? I'm a big fan of their first album and Remote Control (and The Completion Backward Principle, but don't tell anyone). They were pretty technically talented, though, despite "dumbing down" their playing often and surrounding their music with all kinds of quirky strangeness.

[KingProgdor]

if either of those fellows knows any bands from the genre who seem to, ummm, "struggle technically" that would be fantastic...

You mean Neo-Prog?

Lemme know what Neo-Prog bands you already know and I'll go from there.

[DethTung]

May I assume that you're referring to Ohme's falsetto vocals with 'female vox'? Because he's the sole vocalist on the album. No other singers, female or otherwise, were involved in making it.

I remember thinking there were some female vox in one song by Spacehog...turned out it was a guy. O_o...

[killer_roach]

You mean Neo-Prog?

Urge to kill... rising...

[Der_Lex]

Just came back from seeing Porcupine Tree live, with Robert Fripp opening.

Fripp's soundscapes were interesting, but I'm glad his performance only lasted half an hour, because I think it would have dragged on too much if it had lasted longer.

Porcupine Tree was good, but not great. The first half of the show as a complete performance of The Incident, which was definitely the best part of the gig. They played for another hour after that, but I wasn't too happy with the song selection... only one pre-In Absentia song (the sublime Russia On Ice so that was good) on the whole setlist, and a lot of predictable choices (Lazarus, Trains, Sound of Muzak) in what they did play. They did play the second part of Anesthetize and Sentimental, though, which was a plus.

However, the second half of the show made painfully clear to me why I don't like PT as much live: Steve Wilson is very much the centerpiece of the band, but although he's a fantastic musician, he's a pretty poor performer. He has very little charisma and his interaction with the audience is close to zero. If anything, the few words he did speak made it clear that he just wanted his audience to shut up and listen (there was also a very preachy 'no recording devices of any kind allowed, not even cell phone cameras' speech held by a roadie before the show that caused my friend to comment 'You can tell that Wilson's hit it big now, he can now afford to pay other people to do his whining for him' ).
The second problem was John Wesley, who is fine on backing vocals, but really shouldn't be allowed to do a solo bit like he did in this show, because he was actually singing off-key when doing so. His guitar work, especially the solos, also sounded very lackluster and sloppy. It seems strange to me that a perfectionist like Wilson would be content with a touring musician like him.

The 'The Incident' portion of the show had a rather impressive amount of video and visual material that more or less made up for the two aforementioned problems, but during the second half of the show they were pretty much laid bare. And although it's still nice to have seen this gig (I always like to see full performances of concept albums), it did remind me why I stopped going to PT gigs a few tours ago. They're simply better as a studio band.