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(I know, I know, but it's the way we diarylanders have done it for generations.)

2010-10-10 14:55

The Royal Albert Hall

The Royal Albert Hall has a capacity of 5,250.

Recently we have been informed of appearances there by Mogwai, Opeth and the blues-rock guitarist Joe Bonnemassa (of which the latter two(2) are available on DVD), and we find our equanimity unperturbed by these hammer blows to the established order.

It isn't going to be 1968 again anytime soon, and that's that.

2010-10-10 14:12

Moondag Review of Stuff

Music press special.

�1. Oor.

Oor is the Dutch magazine for achingly-hip indie scenekids. I'd never bought it because it looked like it was the kind of thing that would be full of adverts for achingly-hip footwear, but a colleague recommended it. It is full of adverts for (presumably) achingly-hip footwear, but musically it seems a reasonably good match for my tastes.

Since my own reference period of Unsurpassable Musical Awesomeness (i.e., my youth) was over by 1992 it is a little worrying how many touchstones are still intact, but not very.

�2. Classic Rock Presents Prog

Apparently this is a standalone title that comes out every bimonth in one of those annoying unbrowseable envelopes, but with a free CD.

The adverts are almost all for prog bands and their many CDs, although there is a Kawasaki midlife-crisis motorbike advert at the front.

As for the content, the editors opening note is enough rope and then some:

Whether it be the brain-melting time signatures we profess to love, the phastasmagorical concepts we buy into, or at the very least. the deluge of pictorial delights that abound in prog cover music, the challenge prog presents us with is very much a part of why we love the music.

This week I finally got around to forming an opinion about Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, and it is a mostly favourable one. The Grateful Dead were already approved, but they also fail to fit the above schema: while "Money" is in a funny time signature, it stays in it throughout (apart from the bit where they retreat to fours so that Gilmour can spray his Special Guitar Sauce all over it), and it has a groove.

The accompanying CD is also doing sterling work in reassuring me that I don't actually like any of the neo-proggery being perpetrated today, and the magazine's writing is reassuringly plodding and unlarded with wit.

(Mostly I bought it to read about Dave Gilmour's new collaboration with the Orb, but even the Prog review more-or-less concedes that he phoned that one in. But there's also a bonus interview with Jean-Michel Jarre's forthcoming lightshow, or something, and how can that be bad?)

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