I knew all the answers of course (ok, I got one wrong – I thought Hugh Padgham produced Trick Of The Tail B-<).

I was pleased to see that progressive rock was finally getting some air time, but disappointed that it was limited to the usual, sneering look back, implying that Prog died out in 1977 and hadn’t been heard of since.

There was no mention of the early/mid ’80s ‘Neo-Prog’ revival, which gave us bands like Marillion, IQ etc. and no mention of the current ‘Third Wave’ of Prog, which has been going on since the mid ’90s, with such bands as The Tangent, The Flower Kings, Spock’s Beard, Riverside and Porcupine Tree.

The current revival is a vibrant, exciting thing and it didn’t even get a mention.  I was very disappointed that the BBC fumbled the ball so badly on this occasion.

Why was there no program on these current bands?  It would have been an ideal opportunity for the BBC to give some publicity to what is still seen as an underground musical genre.  Think of all the original fans of Prog who may have watched these programs, yet haven’t heard any modern Prog – this would have been an ideal opportunity to let people know that Prog isn’t dead.

Gone are the excesses of the mid ’70s – the focus now is virtuoso musicianship and making good music.  Some of the bands listed above have charted in the album charts in many European countries (Holland and Germany aren’t as elitist as the UK – Prog is quite popular in these countries) – Porcupine Tree even charted in the UK album charts last year, yet still no coverage.

I would like to request a follow-up program on modern Prog, but I doubt you’ll take much notice of this comment as it’s much more entertaining to point a the dinosaurs and snigger.

I don’t expect anything back from them, but I feel better having let that rant out.

As the year draws to a close, all good Prog fans turn their attention to compiling a top ten CDs from the past year.

Here is my list:

1: Unitopia – The Garden

2: Believe – Yesterday Is A Friend

3: Mariusz Duda – Lunatic Soul

4: The Tangent – Not As Good As The Book

5: No-man – Schoolyard Ghosts

6: Quidam – Alone Together

7: Steve Wilson – Insurgentes

8: Karmakanic – Who’s The Boss In The Factory?

9: Beardfish – Sleeping In Traffic Pt. 2

10: Ephrat – No Ones Words

In the list above, the band name links to the band’s homepage or their MySpace page, while the cover image and the CD name both link to a review of the CD, in case anyone wants to investigate further. My thanks to Prog-Nose and ProgArchives for the reviews.

No surprises that Unitopia are at number one – definitely my CD of the year. Anyone who knows me will know that I’ve been raving about the band and this CD since I first heard it.

Here’s looking forward to 2009

Happy New Year, everyone!

I mean, seriously, wow.

I’ve been listening to the new CD ‘The Garden’ by Unitopia, who are an Australian, yes, Australian Prog band!  They’ve recently signed to Inside Out and this is their second CD.  Let’s hope IO do the right thing and re-release their debut, if they can get the rights.

It’s a wonderful slice of Prog, taking their influences from the best bits of Spock’s Beard, Genesis, Porcupine Tree and Peter Gabriel’s solo work and crafting this double CD of enjoyable, melodic, symphonic, but never repetitive music.

I was researching the band (a six piece, from Adelaide, including that rarest of lifeforms, a female bass player!  With serious chops, too) when I saw their list of influences on their MySpace page – I’ve copied it below – I hope they won’t mind.

Have these guys been stalking me?  All my life?  From Adelaide?  B->

If you see more than a couple of acts you like in that list, I urge you to go out and buy this CD – you can thank me later!

</cliff>

PS: Check them out on YouTube.

Keith – are you reading this???  B->

Warren Cann, Chris Cross, Billy Currie and Midge Ure – all four members of the 1980s lineup – are coming together for the first time since performing at Live Aid in 1985, for a UK Ultravox reunion tour in 2009.

Tickets will go on general sale from 9am GMT on Wednesday 12th November, but if you sign up to Live Nation’s site (link below) they have a pre-sale from 9am GMT Tuesday 11th November for members.

For those without web access, either the credit card booking line or the telephone numbers for each venue can be used to book directly.

CREDIT CARDS:
0844 847 2530 (24 hours)

WEB BOOKING LINK:
www.livenation.co.uk/ultravox

EDIT: Bristol date now Saturday 18th April

APRIL 2009
10  Edinburgh Playhouse
      (0870 606 3424)
      18-22 Greenside Place, Edinburgh, Scotland EH1 3AA
11  Glasgow Clyde
      (0870 040 4000)
      Finnieston Street, Glasgow, Scotland G3 8YW
13  Newcastle City Hall
      (0191 261 2606)
      Northumberland Road, Newcastle Upon Tyne NE1 8SF
14  Manchester Apollo
      (0844 477 7677)
      Stockport Road, Manchester, Lancashire M12 6AP
15  Sheffield City Hall
      (0114 278 9789)
      Barkers Pool, Sheffield S1 2JA
17  Birmingham Symphony Hall
      (0121 780 3333)
      Broad Street, Birmingham B1 2EA
18  Bristol Colston Hall
      (0117 922 3686)
      Colston Street, Bristol BS1 5AR
20  Cardiff St. David’s Hall
      (0292 087 8444)
      The Hayes, Cardiff, Wales CF10 1AH
21  Nottingham Royal Theatre
      (0115 989 5555)
      Theatre Square, Nottingham NG1 5ND
23  Brighton Dome
      (0127 370 9709)
      29 New Road, Brighton, East Sussex BN1 1UG
24  London Hammersmith Apollo
      (0844 844 4748)
      45 Queen Caroline Street, London W6 9QH
26  Bournemouth International Centre
      (0844 576 3000)
      Exeter Road, Bournemouth BH2 5BH
27  Plymouth Pavillion
      (0845 146 1460)
      Millbay Road, Plymouth PL1 3LF
28  Portsmouth Guildhall
      (0239 282 4355)
      Guildhall Square, Portsmouth, Hampshire PO1 2AB

If posting these details to another website or publication, please ensure that you quote Ultravox.org.uk as the source. Thank you.

I’ve moved on from the loyalty company I was contracted to at the beginning of the year. I then worked for an online dating company for a few months, adding some new functionality to their sites and now find myself on a three month contract for a major financial institution here in Belgium! This is my first contract outside the UK and so far it’s going well.

I’m working with a nice bunch of people, the work is fun and I’m renting a nice house, about 10 minutes from the office.

I have some new toys: on the musical side of things I have added a 24″ Apple iMac, an Akai MPK49 and Native Instruments Kore2 & Komplete to my studio. The iMac is dedicated to running Logic and is simply wonderful. The MPK is a really nice control keyboard. I looked at quite a few, but settled on the Akai mainly down to the features and it’s build quality – built like the side of a barn! The NI kit is a never-ending source of really usabale sounds and was well worth the investment. I’ve also been using Spectrasonic’s Atmosphere and am looking forward to their new updated offering, Omnisphere, which was released this week.

My Studio

I’ve also just received a Nokia N800 Internet Tablet and it’s just rocking my world! B-> When I was younger, Sci-fi programmes were full of people using these wireless, handheld gadgets to communicate and receive messages etc – that’s what this does and it does it so well! I now have the gadget I always dreamed of owning! It works seamlessly with either wifi or via Bluetooth to your phone and whatever 3G network you happen to be connected to. It really looks the part too.

Nokia N800 Internet Tablet

I’ve been learning some new skills too, both on this contract and on my own time. I’m currently grappling with JQuery and have spent quite some time recently working with SQL Server 2005, rather than 2000, which I know so well. I’ve had some ‘issues’ with the Studio (I’ve been heard to say: ‘I know where this thing is in Enterprise Manager, but where have they hidden it here!’ quite a few times).

At home our bathroom has been ripped out and is being rebuilt from the ground up – we’ve had all kinds of fun finding tiles, finding a bath and shower that would fit, rebuilding walls, knocking those new walls down again, so we could replace the bath with another one that fitted, but was more appropriate for my wife, building another wall – the usual things. We’re also about to have the whole house rewired, including CAT5 cables to every room (At last!).

Recent discoveries in Film & TV include the wonderful film Hairspray – not my normal cup of tea, but a really enjoyable ‘feel good’ movie. I’ve also been quite gripped by an early 70s animated french film called ‘Fantastic Planet’ – quite simply the freakiest, trippiest film I think I’ve ever seen – lots of psychedelic images and sounds. Also worthy of note is ‘Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace’ – a parody of all that was bad about TV shows in the early 80s – great stuff! I’d thoroughly recommend any of these.

Beardless!

Final news: The beard is dead, long live the face! Yes, I have shaved off my beloved beard – after 15 years, I decided it was time for a change, so off it came. I’m left with a moustache and a ‘Soul Patch’ beard (a small, triangular patch of facial hair just below my bottom lip – sometimes called Brazilian Velcro or a Soup Catcher! B->)

Thats all for now – I’ll post a few more details about some of the things I’ve mentioned over the next few days, if I get the time.

All the best

RustyBadger

Having played with it for the weekend, I'm very impressed and will be having lots of fun with it over the next few months.

At least they had the sense not to put their names against this video! B->

The show was being recorded for a DVD release, so I look forward to watching this show again and again, like I do Bill's other DVDs.

There are a few video clips from the show on You Tube, but I did spot this classic moment from Bill's Part Troll show:

Wonderfully talented chap!

As a developer, you sometimes get to have fun during the long hours coding by using silly words as variable names or adding funny comments that the end users never see, but yesterday I surpassed myself!

I was helping a fellow developer complete a system which automatically built a form from entries in a database – something I've done before and am about to start working on for my current client.

We needed a name for the main control component, which called several 'Builder' components (one to build a select field, another for radio buttons etc.), so I suggested we call it 'MasterBuilder'

(Note for the techies in the audience: Right about now, most of the Prog fans are laughing or going 'Yeah!', but you have no idea why that's funny! B->)

Basically, for the uninitiated, the stand out track on the 1974 album 'You' by Gong is called MasterBuilder.

More information about this stunningly good album can be found in this review.

It's just a pity I couldn't get a comment into his code about 'Pot Head Pixies'! B->