Proglucky his mini-guide to Progrock!

Hello progrock readers, here is my review about Proglucky (Ronald Couture) his brandnew book about progressive rock:

 

Title: Essential Mini-guide To PROGRESSIVE ROCK Past & Present

Sub-title: Forty Years Of History 1966 – 2006

Author: Ronald Couture

First Limited Edition

Official release date: June 20st, 2006

 

This paperback version book (seize 15x23 cm) contains 176 pages and the lay-out (except the front and back cover) is in black and white and only features some album cover photos, the rest are words about progressive rock.

The first page is a dedication to Prog Archives collaborators Ian Alterman, Bob McBeath (Easy Livin’), Peter Rideout and Lise Brault and Tommy Schonenberg, Lucas Biela and Greg Walker for their help, then we go to a personal story by Ronald about his experiences with progressive rock, starting around the mid-Seventies with Genesis, a further exploration at Sherbrooke University in Quebec and finally (in the following short chapter) at Prog Archives with M@X (the other founding member of Prog Archives) featuring a word about Prog Archives. Before we go to Contents (Index A/B/C/D/E) Ronald tells something about the making of his mini-guide.

Index A opens with the defintion about progressive rock, how many threads on The Forum are not dedicated to this subject! It’s a short but decent and comprehensive explanation about structure, elements and bands.

Index B is about The Development, written by Frenchman Lucas Biela.

In my opinion this chapter is a bit too short, it’s mainly based upon naming bands with some additional information.

Index C is focussed on The History:

1. Proto-history - 1960’s

A short look on the development and bands (like Zappa, Syd Barrett-Pink Floyd, Caravan and VDGG, I only miss Vanilla Fudge (a progressive Hammond drenchded blend of jazz, soul, rock and classical), a USA band on which Deep Purple, Uriah Heep and Yes pointed at as an important source of inspiration.

2. First Wave – 1970’s

      Here you find fine descriptions from all known progrock bands, not only The Moody   

      Blues, King Crimson, Jethro Tull and Genesis but also Banco, PFM, Eloy and Rush.

3. Second Wave – 1980’s

A very brief look at Marillion, IQ and Pendragon but unfortunately not Twelfth Night, in my opinion this excellent UK neo-prog with their distinctive sound belongs between the other above-mentioned neo-prog bands!

4. Third Wave – 1990’2 to Present

This chapter is about Rebirth: Porcupine Tree, The Flower kings, Arena, Spock’s Beard and New Progressive Metal – Resurgence Or Revival with Dream Theater, Ayreon and Pain Of Salvation.

Then Index D entitled Top 20 Albums - Vintage Progressive Rock & More by Norwegian Tommy Schonenberg. His style of writing is constructive, warm and enthousiastic about albums from both famous bands like Genesis (SEBTP), Yes (CTTE) and VDGG (Pawn Hearts) to Rush (AFTK), Le Orme (Felona E Sorona) and Eloy (Ocean). A pleasant chapter!

Finally Index E – The A – Z listing with thanks to Greg Walker for providing in band information.

Looking at the more than hundreds pages with short descriptions. Sometimes a bit too short, I  even notice the influence of Greg Walker his Syn-Phonic catalogue because in the Nineties I ordered every month many progrock gems! I can find lots of interesting progrock bands from all over the world, from Italy, Spain and Germany to Argentina and Japan. I am sure that this very interesting chapter will please many longing and searching progheads! On the other hand,  I won’t complain about missings bands here like Providence (Japan), Zombie Woof (Germany) and Sensitiva Immagine (Italy) but I surely miss the acclaimed Brasilian progrock band Bacamarte, Spanish progrock gem Cai, the unique Spanish/English formation Carmen and the UK symphonic jazzrock band Colosseum II featuring Gary Moore at his pinnacle and Deep Purple current keyboard player Don Airey. And a few personal notes about two Dutch progrock bands: Cliffhanger is not ‘Marillion meets Genesis’ but UK/Yes/Genesis influenced and Plackband is not neo-prog but mid-Genesis inspired (most members have seen the ATOTT and W&W tour 7 times!).

 

My conclusion:

This book is clearly a mini-guide, made to show you the ‘gateway to Progheaven’ so don’t expect a book in the vein of Edward Macan’s ‘Rocking The Classics’, it’s more an encyclopedia with some additional information about history and bands. Despite a few small failures and missing bands, I recommend this well set up and comprehensive progrock mini-guide to those music fans who have just discovered progrock and wants to read a little bit more about history and bands. And especially to those progheads who wants to explore the progrock universum for the lesser known bands from countries like Japan, Argentina, France or Sweden.

Congratulations Ronald , I am sure you will sell out your first limited edition very soon!

 

 

I very much enjoyed the early sections - I didn't necessarily agree with every word, but then that's the point, so no criticism for me there.

 

I do feel that these early sections could do with some input from a trained copy editor with English as a first language.  Some of the phrases used are a little odd, and some of the lanuage used is conversational rather than what you'd expect in professional prose.  Some may quite enjoy this informal approach, but I didn't quite so much and I think it needs looking at.  This is not a complaint about the content - just about the style.

 

The final section is a wonder of knowledge and research, and a lot of work has clearly gone into it.  The comments are VERY inconsistent, though.  Some of the points are excellent - for instance the entry about Magenta gets the description just about right whereas the description for ACT (for instance) "Great Prog!" while being very complimentary, tells us nothing.  Also, there is no key to this section.  Many band and names are in CAPs in the description, implying that they will be cross referenced, yet many aren't. (no entry for It Bites, for instance, or Patrick Moraz) Now I realise that this is a work in progress, but if so, why publish it? Are we expected to buy the book again in 6 months?

 

Sorry - minor rant there, but to make this section more useful, I'd standardise this section, by having:

 

BAND NAME AND NATIONALITY

PERIOD ACTIVE

DESCRIPTION OF MUSIC INCLUDING SIMILAR BANDS

DISCOGRAPHY

 

I think it's important NOT express an opinion about quality, since you run the risk of damning those that you don't enthuse about with faint praise. You COULD maybe have a star rating based on how "essential" the band are. This isn't vital, though. 

 

I'm very pleased that someones had a bash at bringing this up to date, though.  A good book, which will, I'm sure be a great one in future editions!

 

Stephen  

I do hope the reaction to this book has been good, because Ronald deserves praise, and we deserve a second edition at a future time.

Sadly I have the impression that despite the ambition and encouragement to produce it, the sales haven't been what's expected. Say it isn't so....

 

ps this book is till my "loo time reading". Much to the annoyance of my good lady.....