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Evan 
Forum Groupie 
Joined: April 13 2009 Location: California Status: Offline Points: 98 |
 Posted: May 14 2009 at 03:43 |
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Camel?
Followed their heyday with mediocre output into the eighties, then seemed to dissolve over legal and personal disputes. Then, out of nowhere came Dust and Dreams followed by a delightful series of albums including their last release A Nod and a Wink, which IMHO rivals their early records in quality. |
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SouthSideoftheSky
Special Collaborator 
Symphonic Team Joined: June 29 2008 Location: Close To The... Status: Offline Points: 1946 |
Posted: May 14 2009 at 04:46 |
Dust And Dreams was indeed a great come-back and both this and the follow-up, Harbour Of Tears, are excellent and among Camel's best albums ever. Rajaz and A Nod And A Wink are good too, but not as good as Dust And Dreams and Harbour Of Tears IMO.
I agree that it was quite unlikely that they came back with such a strong series of albums after a few years away and after some not-so-good albums in the late 70's and early 80's. Though I do like Stationary Traveller too.
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SouthSideoftheSky
Special Collaborator
Symphonic Team Joined: June 29 2008 Location: Close To The... Status: Offline Points: 1946 |
Posted: May 14 2009 at 04:55 |
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I have now reviewed Kayak's Close To The Fire (and I gave it four stars!)
I have also downloaded (legitimately, of course!) Kayak's Merlin: Bard Of The Unseen and Proto-Kaw's Before Came After.
Thanks all for the inspiration!
It is amazing how many bands from the 60's and 70's came back from the dead in the late 90's and 00's to tour and make new music, often up to par with their classic stuff. I know that there are many more examples, so keep those suggestions coming.
The natural follow-up question is, of course, why this happened? Why did they come back and why at this particular moment in time? Is it because Prog is once again popular? Or is it because the musicians feel old and that this is their last chance to get back together? Other reasons?
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: May 14 2009 at 06:11 |
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Francis Lickerish - left The Enid in 1980 after recording the first 4 seminal albums with them.
 After a couple of false-starts with other bands he disappeared from the music scene completely for personal reasons in the early 80s. There were a few rumours as to why, but nothing from the man himself. About 5 years ago he saw an oil-painting on my old website and made contact:
 We exchanged a couple of emails were he said he was discovering medieval music, then a couple of years later he announced he was putting a band together under the name Secret Green and launched a MySpace page to promote it with a couple of teaser tracks. http://www.myspace.com/secretgreen
He has now completed and released the first Secret Green album "To Wake The King" with ex-Enid band mate Willie Gilmour on keyboards and featuring the wonderful classical-folk vocals of Hilary Palmer, The album also has "Enid" guest appearances by Dave Storey on drums and Robert John Godfrey contributing Church Organ on one track. I received a copy of the album last night and cannot stop playing it (I'm on my 6th listen ... which equates to something like 8 hours of continuous play) - I honestly haven't been this excited or moved by the release of an album since Wish You Were Here back in 1975. It sounds like a real 1970s Prog Rock album and is a masterpiece of Symphonic Prog and Prog Folk - there are obvious and very deliberate Enid references on the album, including 4 hidden 'easter-eggs', but the inclusion of medieval folk influences has lifted this beyond anything he recorded with The Enid. If you ever saw The Enid live and got swept up in the majestic grandeur of their performance, but felt a little let down by their studio recordings then this album will change all that - Lickerish has pulled off the unexpected and recorded an album that captures the mystical essence that made those gigs so captivating and achieved something rare and special.
One word of warning - the opening track (Prelude) is an aural depiction of a sunrise, so it starts off extremely quietly - I mean really really quiet - well below the threshold of human hearing and builds over the next 3 minutes into a monstrous crescendo of orchestral pomp (but not pompous). Set the volume wrong at the beginning and you'll blast out all the windows in your house! But get it right and it is magnificent
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What?
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Slartibartfast
Collaborator 
Honorary Collaborator / In Memoriam Joined: April 29 2006 Location: Atlantais Status: Offline Points: 29630 |
Posted: May 14 2009 at 07:12 |
I think several factors are involved. There is certainly a new generation of prog fans that are there because their parents had prog in their music collections. As people seek out alternative to the boring pop pablum that is being churned out, prog is a good place to go, musicians seeing that prog can actually make them some money. The fan base for prog may have waned in the '80's but many of us old folks have not gone away and there are new fans out there. For others it may just be the joy of making good music. |
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Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened...
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moshkito
Forum Senior Member 
Joined: January 04 2007 Location: Grok City Status: Offline Points: 17748 |
Posted: May 14 2009 at 08:45 |
Same ... but if you transcribe the majority of Keith's stuff, it is fairly conventional playing to my ears. Of course, that would lend itself to accoustic playing real quick and easy ... but it will probably take away from the song ... I'm not sure that "Oh Lucky Man" would sound as good without a synthesizer ... on a piano ... not sure that one could exactly transcribe what amounts to one note being bent out of shape through a couple of LFO's and VCO's ... but I agree with you and think that this would be a massive challenge that would bring out the musicianship in them ... instead of the showmanship!
So much of their shows was built around showmanship that I am not sure this could be done ... I tend to think they don't have enough patience for it ... that's my thinking though ...
If it can be found the show "Behind the Music" with The Police years ago had a bit by Andy Summers talking about a song, and he played the same couple of chords straight ahead without effects ... and it was plain and not recognizeable. And then he added the effects ... and you went ... wow ... that's nuts! I would think that for an accoustic version of that song the transcriptions would be totally different and melody/voice based, instead of anything else ... ELP could be a problem in some material, as it is not always voice driven ...
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Easy Money
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin Joined: August 11 2007 Location: Memphis Status: Offline Points: 10652 |
Posted: May 14 2009 at 20:56 |
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I don't know if any of you guys ever listened to Mandrill, but they were an early 70s American band that mixed African fusion, Latin jazz, psychedelic rock with prog rock type arrangments, that disbanded in the mid-80s.
I had just put their bio on PA when one of their leaders, Ric Wilson, let me know they had been back since the first part of this century and sent me some new CDs and DVDs. They sound great, strong and agressive, not an oldies band at all. Re why they came back, I think they were able to come back because a combination of the world beat scene, the American jam band scene and psychedelic rave/acid jazz culture made their music more relevant to young people again. |
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moshkito
Forum Senior Member
Joined: January 04 2007 Location: Grok City Status: Offline Points: 17748 |
Posted: May 15 2009 at 12:40 |
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Hi,
Easy Money ... do you have a link for them somewhere ... that sounds interesting ... we don't have enough out of the way mixes in the "world music" scene ... most of it is copykat stuff.
Nektar ... luckily, or unluckily, I saw them on their first tour in America ... I also know that they almost killed themselves and quit after their unbelievably massive tour with Golden Earring ... I don't think that Roye ever recovered from that.
VDGG ... I would love to see them or Peter ... few writers have helped me understand about writing ... AND expression ... than he has on my own ... that said, one of his latest did not impress me, and in fact I was starting to think that the organ sound was wearing thin in my ears ... and I had never, once before, ever, felt anything like that "repetitiveness" in any album of his or VDGG ... together of which I have over 30 of them ... Would I like to see them? Probably ... is it really necessary? I don't know. Would I like to say hello to a friend again? Yeah ... sure!
Edited by moshkito - May 15 2009 at 12:51 |
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verslibre
Forum Senior Member
Joined: July 01 2004 Location: CA Status: Offline Points: 17432 |
Posted: May 15 2009 at 13:02 |
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Frank Bornemann is supposed to be working on a new Eloy album, so hopefully we'll be able to add them to the list down the road!
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Easy Money
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin Joined: August 11 2007 Location: Memphis Status: Offline Points: 10652 |
Posted: May 15 2009 at 13:04 |
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Hey Moshkito, just go to myspace.com/mandrill
Mandrill is sort of 2 different bands in one, there is the original proggy world beat Mandrill, which morphed into a more funk/dance version of Mandrill in the late 70s. These days their music varies with the gig. On their recent DVD they are at their most progressive/world jazz for the Montreaux Jazz Festival, and then down and funky at a gig for a young American crowd in Philly. |
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sleeper
Prog Reviewer
Joined: October 09 2005 Location: Entropia Status: Offline Points: 16449 |
Posted: May 16 2009 at 03:18 |
Stonebeard did at the top of page 2. maudlin of the Well. They've been gone 8 years (I know, not as long as many other bands mentioned, but they all moved on to very different music) and yesterday released an excellent album in Part the Second. |
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Spending more than I should on Prog since 2005
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Werneflo
Forum Groupie
Joined: May 12 2009 Location: Sweden Status: Offline Points: 51 |
Posted: May 16 2009 at 06:13 |
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Comus.
I was really surprised to see that one. They played at Melloboat Festival thanks to Opeth's Mikael Åkerfeldt who had even named an album after a part of the lyrics in one of their songs (My Arms, Your Hearse). Loads of videos of their performance on YouTube, and they still seem to have it in them. They are also working on a new album, I've heard.  |
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Unlikely, late, great come-backs
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Evan wrote: