The PA Happy Birthday Thread

Mitsubachi joined our symphonic throng in July 2006, and hung around on and off until 2015, and in that nine plus years only ever posted the once. Yep, a single solitary, extraordinarily lonely wee post. Given that our hero resides in the Land of the Hairy Arse, you would naturally be a little surprised that he was kept so busy up there so as to not fulfil his PA posting duties.

Marc Carlton, for it is he, is 42 years old today. In October 2008, he made his only post to inform the assembled masses the rather exciting news that his opus, “Reflex Arc”, had been re-released, and this drew a very appreciative comment from a Prog Reviewer, Mr The Rain Man http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=52628

On that post, you will find a link to his Prog Temple page, but here it is for completeness MARC CARLTON discography and reviews As you can see, he has been rather prolific over the years, although the assembled throng have not really got stuck in aside from two collabs, Mr Rain Man and the legendary Easy Living, with one other chap who also liked the music, and that is it.

Marc’s website is called The Madrigal Project, and you can eyeball it here The Madrigal Project - Marc Carlton Music Works On this, our departed brother informs us that he is influenced by some classic stars of prog and those titans of video game soundtracks, Messrs Nobuo Uematsu, Yasunori Mitsuda, and Hitoshi Sakimoto.

As with many other musicians, Marc has his own BandCramp page, and here you can listen to, and purchase, his wares Music | Marc Carlton

So! To the music! Degrees of Freedom got a five star review from our glorious collab, Mr Dustin Hoffman, so let us take a listen. One of the tracks on this, Interlocutor, is dedicated to a certain Mr Chris Squire, and is a nice little attempt to channel the great man’s oeuvre onto this piece of work. There is an epic ten minutes plus track, the intriguingly titled Pesmerga Finds Uber, and this is where the gaming influence comes in. Pesmerga is a terrifying looking chappy from Suikoden, and Marc’s forum name is a member of a honey bee sect from another game. I haven’t posted links to these, because they are fully of buggy wuggies, and made my iPad go bonkers. This is an excellent track by the way, and would certainly appeal to any fans of that prodigy of Mr Beardy Branson living in The West Indies these days.

So! A rating! Well, I am afraid that it is not a masterpiece to the PABT critical lugholes. It is, though, pretty good, and would attract a 3.5 star rating if we had such a creature on PA, so 7 stars in the PABT hallowed halls. Good stuff, not quite enough to rattle the monetary timbers of excellence, but most certainly worthy of more attention than it has had prior to this induction post. Go on! Give it a listen!

Happy birthday sir! Make sure you wear your mask when you get in your Uber!

Elsewhere, no present collab news to report to you. 

Today’s departed hero to be installed into our hallowed halls was a wee bairn when he registered in January 2012, staying for 11 months, but owing to his tender years was obviously far too in awe of the assembled prog masses to utter even a syllable in our den.

genesissinceseven celebrates his 23rd birthday today, which means that he was a mere 13 years old when he joined us, bless him. So, just who is Griffin Tripp, and how has he matured into a young man, from boy to yoof?

Griffin did not register an occupation when he joined, child labour having been outlawed in Americaland some decades ago, although rumour did have it that Mr Trumpalot was in favour of cracking the whip to get the ne’er do wells of modern yoofdom out to do a spot of manual work. He gave his interests as gaming, music, and history.

Our departed hero hails from Mechanicsburg in Pennsylvania, which sounds as if it should be a motor capital of the esteemed place where sucking diesel is a full time passion, not just a soundbite on a popular tv cop show (last episode tonight. Mr Laz is SO excited). Let us consider this prior to discussing our lost brother. Well, it is a borough in Cumberland County, so probably founded by lost brethren of the hairy arse variety. It was a settlement of mechanics who made and repaired Conestoga wagons back in the day. In what must be a relief to residents of this fine upstanding town, its website declares that Mechanicsburg is a “fine place to live”. Having said that, it lists more rules on criteria to have your rubbish collected by those fine chaps at Penn Waste than we have for acceptance into a sub-genre on PA https://www.mechanicsburgborough.org/ If you should be thinking of relocating, the town offers exciting opportunities to become a school crossing guard or a park security officer, although fans of Messrs Gary Glitter and Jimmy Saville need not apply.

So, just what is our lovely hero up to these days? Well, extremely satisfyingly for a post on a forum dedicated to music, he is a musician! Yep. He practices 2-3 times per week, so a wee bit of a slacker there, but is available to gig 2-3 nights per week, although anyone considering hiring Griffin will have to lend him your drums, as he seems to have misplaced his, bless Griffin Tripp - Musician in Mechanicsburg PA - BandMix.com This site not only features a rather lovely photo of our boy wonder, but also in the music section some serious Genesis tracks, so kudos here. His TweetyPie page also provides us with a clue as to his maturing development. He declares himself proudly Jewish, as opposed to the embarrassed variety, an Anti-Tankie left libertarian, which given the office of Uncle Joe Stalin over there would appear to be a contradiction in terms, and CompSci.

Now, I have no idea whatsoever what “anti-tankie” and CompSci are, not being of such tender years. Well for the first, I should have done, because a tankie is a pejorative term to describe those members of The Communist Party of Great Britain (still going, although split into about 30 factions as we speak) who defended the Soviet use of tanks to crush the popular revolt in Hungary in the 50’s - well, he did say he was into history! CompSci is, I am afraid, nothing more exciting than Computer Science, but a really good nerdy subject for an upstanding commie to be into. https://twitter.com/griffintripp1 

And, here is the biggy. Your introduction to Griffin’s music https://soundcloud.com/griffin-tripp-5009851/following I have taken a listen to his cover of Me and Sarah Jane, one of my favourite latter day Genesis tracks, and I think it is really good in a charming way, and that is not meant to be sarcastic or patronising. His voice is not the strongest (there is a nice female vocal at the end, though), but his basic musicianship is really not all that bad. Good on him, because I rather wish I wish I had the guts to do this. It usually takes me about five or six pints to get up to a microphone at the local boozer karaoke! There are piles more covers on here, so please do add to his titanic eight followers.

It is, by the way, awarded 5.5 stars on The PABT ratings system.

So! We wish a very happy birthday to our departed brother, Griffin! Rolling, rolling, rolling. Keep those wagons rolling. Keep those wagons rolling, Griffin!

Easily one of my favourite subjects to date!

Elsewhere in Proggerland, no current collabs to report. Mind you, you have all had more than enough excitement for one day. 

Frans Keylard joined our proggy throng in June 2006 and hung around for 8 years, and posted just the 5 times. He celebrates his 54th birthday in Kent, Washington in the glorious Home of the Brave today. Kent is part of the Seattle metropolitan area in that Pacific washed area of Yankeeland. Those of you who follow Lurgy News will no doubt be utterly relieved that this fine place wears its masks because it cares, which is undoubtedly better for the residents than not being bothered, I suppose. It is also an extraordinarily Greta-friendly town, given that its website details not just two mini-recycling events in May, but also a TeamUp2CleanUp for the town’s annual spring clean. Brooms to the ready, chaps! City of Kent | Home 

Frans used to present a prog rock podcast, namely The Rogue’s Gallery. He describes himself these days as a “recovering prog DJ”, and the podcast is no longer live, although he does maintain a SadBook page still, which you can view here https://www.facebook.com/groups/41904173340/ he also has a small collection of stuff on BandyCramp, including an album I really must buy, namely Rick Armstrong’s work fransk's collection | Bandcamp His prog radio site The Dividing Line is no longer extant, sadly, but Frans does still do some producing on the West Coast.

These days, Frans is “a data-driven marketer who relentlessly finds ways to get more customers for a product, and how to keep them. He owns real-estate at the intersection of where marketing creativity and quantitative data meet, and always seeks more effective ways to achieve revenue goals”. All this, and more, can be viewed at his LinkdEstate page Frans Keylard - Senior Director of Insights and Optimization - Reflektion | LinkedIn For those of who who are desperate to contact a digital experience agency obsessed with getting results, and why indeed would you not be, then get yourselves over to this lot quick before prog pent up demand overloads the site Digital Customer Experience Agency | R2integrated

So! We wish a very happy birthday to our dear brother! Get back to the prog experience, and ditch that customer journey baloney, sir!

Elsewhere in Proggerland, we celebrate the 36th birthday of Ozzy_Tom, a Prog Reviewer in these parts. Have a great day, Tomasz!

Also, it is SC Trotsky’s 48th birthday in Malaysia today, although he is hopefully not celebrating near any ice picks! Happy birthday, Martin! 

On 16 October 2011, Orianoskin joined our happy gathering, and stayed with us for all of two months without troubling the admin censors hereabouts or even attempting to send us a Latin verse. The chappy who registered celebrates his 34th birthday today, and hails from Catasauqua in Pennsylvania. Let us first consider this wonderfully named metropolis, in true PABT fashion. It is known locally as Catty, so plenty of pussy no doubt to be found in town. It’s mayor is the altogether wonderful Barbara A. Schlegel who is responsible for keeping the good citizens safe and well. On its website, I really would heartily recommend that you take a wee gander at The Iron Works, which thankfully is not a smelting plant thingy, but a wonderful shopping and dining destination, or at least will be when it is complete. Catasauqua – Welcome to the Borough of Catasauqua

Our dear departed brother did not, in fact, come here to wax lyrical about whether Rush are prog, and not even to annoy Ivan, regrettably. Nope, he is simply the latest in a long and proud line of capitalists attempting to flog the prog masses his wares, but what a service he purports to provide. For his homepage is a link to The British Food Depot where you can order all your favorite English and British foods online right here in the USA! Yes, be still your beating hearts! Ditch the Bog Mac! Don’t transition to The Burger Queen! On this site, you can buy Oxo cubes! Oh yes, that crucial component of all stock right over there in Brave Land. Here it is British Food Depot - Shop For British Foods In The USA And don’t just take it from them, oh no, because  250,000+ Orders, 35,000+ Reviewers and 170,000+ Customers Can't Be Wrong!

Well, just how true is this bold statement? Well, before you rush out to order your Walkers Crisps (go for the beef and onion - delicious) or Aero bar (an orgasmic experience, believe me), you might want to pay a visit to one of those public rating site thingies. I have, and I really would be in two minds if I were a freeborn American housewife/husband. Take a look at this site, where 60% of reviews are “bad”, although with only 10 reviews we really should take it with a pinch of Saxo Salt The British Food Depot Reviews | Read Customer Service Reviews of britishfooddepot.com

The Key Principal of the business, or owner to you and I, is a certain John O’Reilly, and I believe that this is our dear departed brother. And in a service unparalleled anywhere else in Prog Forums, you can actually ogle our extraordinarily handsome Blighty brother here British Food Depot - Prepress Services - Catasauqua, PA I would certainly buy a used pork chop from this chap! He used to run a Proper Little Pub in Allentown, but regrettably this closed after no more than a year’s trading. Quite predictable, really, given that 98% of our American cousins prefer the piss water of Bud to good old fashioned English ale. Staggering! I have also found a hit for our friend on a deaf personages site, namely this Orianoskin | Deaf Community but it would appear that he hasn’t posted there, believing instead that the prog masses are more amenable to buying Blighty gravy than those who are hard of hearing. But he has spread his seed on other sites, including one for hairy bikers in The Philippines, of all things Orianoskin | Motorcycle Philippines 

His adventures in Proggerland did not even finish there. He also registered as Walkcotte about the same time, trying to tempt the masses with those aforementioned Walkers Crisps. The ready salted are also quite good by the way. I had some with lunch today.

So! We wish a very happy birthday to our spammy brother! Actually, he flogs spam as well! But I don’t like spam!

Elsewhere, we have no current collabs to report, but if we did, they would almost certainly have expressed their opinion that the position of those three gods from Canada, Rushland, are safe and secure on the site, as they are, indeed, prog, but probably properly situated in Canterbury Scene rather than Heavy Prog on account of the fact they played there live in 1977.

Pip pip!