Flower Kings Appreciation Thread

The Flower Kings do the 70-minute album better than anyone else. I haven't really heard anything on any of their albums that could be described as "filler" at least in way the way filler is traditionally performed and composed. If they do have filler it's some of the most interesting and amazing filler ever.

I will listen to the Garden of Dreams as I drive home from Scotland this friday, I will make sure that i'm about an hour from home - then it will finish just before I get home!

Er - Scotland an Island ?

^ .  

Edited by Roj M30 - August 19 2010 at 03:01

Great news!

Franz Keylard on Facebook wrote: Hello all, Please join us in live chat on Saturday August 28th at 10 AM Pacific (7PM Central European Time) to celebrate the CD release party for Hasse Fröberg & Musical Companion. Be the first to hear "Future Past" and win your very own copy! Hasse's distinctive guitar sound and co-lead vocals (with Roine Stolt) are well known from his 15 year tenure with Sweden's best known progressive rock band; "The Flower Kings." The Flower Kings have been on hiatus since 2008, so Hasse formed a new band called "Hasse Fröberg and the Musical Companion." Members include Kjell Haraldsson: keyboards, Ola Strandberg: drums, Anton Lindsjö: lead guitar, Thomsson - bass, Hasse Fröberg - vocals & rhythm guitar. Click the Chat button on http://www.thedividingline.com/ to enter the IRC chat room (uses Java) and click Listen to hear the live feed! Frans Rogues' Gallery - on The Dividing Line Playlist: http://www.thedividingline.com/rg.html RSS: http://www.rapidfeeds.com/?fid=113

I don't know if I'll make the live feed / chat session but I'm looking forward to listening to the archive if I can't make it.

Yes, but Brunei has a Sultan.

As I posted just now on the Marillion Round Table, Sky television showed highlights of the High Voltage festival on their arts channel last night, and the Transatlantic contribution was the Whirlwind opening section. They were spectacular and I really wish I had gone to see them.

Oh, guys, I'm telling you, you need to check out Hasse Froeberg and the Musical Companion's new release, "Future Past".  I listened to the archive of the CD release party and it sounds great.

My first thoughts in random order:

*  Definite Flower King sound in a lot of parts
*  Guitar player has some Brian May influences
*  Keyboard player is great
*  Has a nice bluesy feel at times

All in all, I really liked it and highly recommend that you all at least listen to the archive.  Me, I'm buying it.  The host of "The Rogues Gallery", Franz Keylard, has predicted that it will be on a lot of people's top ten list this year.

Good stuff,

Finally posted my Whirlwind review.  That album really has grown on me, I must say.  But as the review hopefully makes clear, I don't think it's any kind of masterpiece.  But good comfort prog for me, I must say.

Here's a very nice little interview with Roine.......


GERT: Welcome Roine and thanks for this short interview.

ROINE: You’re welcome.

GERT: The Tour has been going on for three for weeks now? Starting in mid April?

ROINE: Yes, something like that, actually we have done about 20 shows now. We've just three shows left and we're almost done.

GERT: What's like touring and performing again after so long with the other guys of Transatlantic.

ROINE: It feels good, you know the considering everything. The length of the tour. The whole presentation, the way the band sounds like, I feel like it is an improvement. At least that is what my feeing is compared to the tour which we did in 2001. In Europe but America as well. You know back then everyone was so involved in their own band and Transatlantic was put together more as a side project. Of course we didn’t know what to expect. I mean we did an album and we did not know what would be the turn out for the shows. It was a bit of a shock I think, this time we knew a little bit more about what to expect. And we did go to rehearse in America before we did our first show. The first show we did in Los Angeles, the first show was actually quite good. So far the tour has been good, great crew, big crew.

GERT: With only three shows to go what could go wrong?

ROINE: There is always something that can go wrong you know. So far there has been no problem, however, the only show I think it was in Berlin the show for at least the first set was chaos soundwise. The sound was so loud that we came to a point, where we could not hear anything, and well the only thing you could hear on stage was a beat going on. You can hear a bass but not what he is playing, you could hear a keyboard but not the notes being played, you could hear vocals but not the singing and it all becomes sort of a blur of sound - a massive wall of sound without any definition at all. I think it was the first set - at that time we had Mike set up behind the rest of the band, and that didn’t work out - that didn’t work out at all. We need the cues Mike gives you know. You have the classic Transatlantic set up with Mike on one side and Neal on the other side. Me and Pete in between. So we can all see each other. We all need that.

GERT: So real interaction between all of you?

ROINE: Yeah for the cues - and so for the Berlin show we had the drums behind us - it just felt so weird you know. And for some reason it also became louder. We actually moved the drum riser more to the front between the two sets. The second set was OK but the first just didn’t feel right. That was the only show so far that did not feel good, but apart from that every show was good.

GERT: In preparing for this interview I listened to all the Transatlantic album's consecutively and I noticed a more consistent sound on Whirlwind - it sounds more a band playing.

ROINE: Oh yeah, a lot has been improving from back when we recorded SMPT and Bridge Then we would more just make a mix, and bits and pieces where we wanted changes were changed and that was it basically. There is a lot more communication now, and a its a different time, we now send bits and pieces to each other and we could do a mix and a few hours later we could go "I like this" and "I don’t like that" - Pan it some more or take off a bit of treble and we would change and in a couple of hours could hear it again. Much faster.

GERT: You get a better sound that way?

ROINE: Yes I think its more detailed and more precice and besides that it felt good to get back and record together, you couldn’t really feel the nine years that had passed. Nine years seems like a long time but my oldest son who is with us on tour now, he’s twenty, and he was ten or eleven at the time. In that way you can sense the nine years but once we got into a room and started to rehearse and started talking about songs it felt almost like yesterday.

GERT: [I want to do a little twist in the conversation and get The Flower kings involved.] How about plans to create music with The Flower Kings?

ROINE: Sure I have plans to record with The Flower Kings again, but we all thought we needed time away from The Flower Kings. It had come to a point with The Flower Kings where people expected us to play certain song at live shows. And when albums came out there was always somebody that would say it sounds similar to this or that or I have heard that a dozen times before. So we all - Jonas, me Tomas - thought we needed this break. I mean when I write a song I write it the way I know the people I work with can play it. So you need to be around other people to change. When you really want to change, you need to be around others, every artist will come to this point where people think it is all the same, look at Bruce Springsteen he is been doing it since the seventies you know.

GERT: Looking at compositions, it kinda seems to me the Whirlwind is more of a group effort, more than the first two albums?

ROINE: Well yes it is more a group thing, everyone would come up with suggestions and we all go over it and then put all of it together The album is 12 pieces of music, but in fact is more like 50 or 60 different pieces of music patched together into these songs. In that sense it is more of a group effort and that’s more important also in a psychological sense that everybody feels more involved and more proud - that sort of thing. Instead of on the first album where all of the above is more or less a Neal Morse song with a little Pete Trewavas put in. Or Duel with the Devil which is basically Neal and me and the others playing.

GERT: Now I have a question for you about a set of shows you did a few years back - Brimstone Circus. Is this ever going to happen again?

ROINE: It might happen again, at that time it was special because Hasse the vocalist in The Flower Kings needed to do his job, him being the only one in The Flower Kings who had a regular job. He could not get time off to do a tour, but the rest of us wanted to play. We then put on a show with The Instrumental Flower Kings also the first time with Marcus Lillequist. We played small audiences, we liked it but it was special - maybe we will do it again sometime.

GERT: OK Roine, thanks for the interview and play a good show tonight.

ROINE: Thank you was my pleasure - have fun tonight.