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SteveG View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 02 2014 at 08:50
My take is that the magazine is useless for reading but I did get a great CD out of it one once which turned me on to a couple of groups like Mostly Autumn and some great prog metal groups that the Brits seem to be very high on. Seems like they dig prog metal more than we do in the States. Anyone from the UK care to comment on that or is it just an  illusion the magazine gives off.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 02 2014 at 08:52
I have read it on and off over the years.....for me it depends on what the issue is about. If it has an interesting piece or two I might buy it. It does have nice pics and graphics but the stories are usually very basic and they tend to recycle the same artists.
As SG said they do have the odd cd sampler with some cool tracks.

Edited by dr wu23 - August 02 2014 at 08:53
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 02 2014 at 09:03
Originally posted by The Doctor The Doctor wrote:

No. I used to read Progression Magazine (it's still around I think) but I haven't subscribed to it in years now. Used to look forward to that approximately every quarter (it was a little irregular in its publishing). Great mag though and fun read. I think upon discovering the internet though...and in particular, this site...

I used to read it ans subscribed for many years, but they got to irregular for me, and by the time I got the magazine, I had read about all the articles in other places. It was a good source to know new bands and their releases, but now it has become quite obsolete. 
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 02 2014 at 09:12
Originally posted by SteveG SteveG wrote:

My take is that the magazine is useless for reading but I did get a great CD out of it one once which turned me on to a couple of groups like Mostly Autumn and some great prog metal groups that the Brits seem to be very high on. Seems like they dig prog metal more than we do in the States. Anyone from the UK care to comment on that or is it just an  illusion the magazine gives off.
The cover disc is essentially paid for by the artists and/or record labels (and the cover price of course). In this instance Inside/Out (owned by Century Media with world-wide distribution deal through EMI) plays the major part in that. The magazine will inevitably lean towards the artists and labels that pay the bills, hence the apparent emphasis on Progressive Metal. However Burning Shed also contribute to the cover discs to a lesser extend which goes some way to redressing the balance.


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Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 02 2014 at 09:24
^Ok, Thanks.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 02 2014 at 09:39
Magazines? I dropped nearly all my subscriptions years ago. The only subscription I maintain is National Geographic - Online access is free with a subscription and even more expensive if you forego the paper copy.

IMHO, magazines have been supplanted by fine sites like this one!
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 02 2014 at 09:47
Originally posted by ExittheLemming ExittheLemming wrote:

Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

a) Did this thread really need to be created in the Prog Lounge?
b) Did this thread really need to be created at all? - Why not just comment in the existing Prog Mag thread?

..and just to keep this fCensoreding post on fCensoreding topic: 

No I don't, it's written by muso-journalists, most of whom were quick to drop Prog like it was bag of dog crap as soon as Punk looked like becoming the lucrative 'flavour of the month' that would make them the doyens of the hack-world. They are to a man, a bunch of two-faced fCensoredkwitted, toading, snivelling shCensoredts. This mag is a tacky cash-in on a genre that survived in spite of a complete lack of support and out-right hostility of these hack-bozzos for the past 30 years. 


OK, the music press circa 76/77 re the maoist year zero Punk fervour as exemplified by Burchill, Parsons, Penman, Morley et al does not however disguise a musical Zeitgeist that was increasingly alienated from its consumer base. Throughout the ages people will continue to embrace sh*t music so sh*t journalism will never turn a demographic against a popular aesthetic. Yes, you can call the foregoing a gaggle of the worst c*nt sticks in history but you cannot cite an article where said  toadies lauded Prog or dropped same for the sake of expediency.. Fact is, most music journalists from that era where too young to have even  heard the likes of ELP. Yes. Genesis et al. (You gonna blame them for that?)
Yes and no. Tony Parsons is 61, Paul Morley is 57, Julie Burchill and Ian Penman are both 55 - all four of them are "my generation" (ie older than you) and all grew up on a diet of Progressive Rock in their teenage years. At the time NME editor Nick Logan was ten years their senior - he was just as disparaging of the over-blown self-important, self-indulgence of Progressive Rock as they were, he hired them after all. The journalists that followed in their wake merely regurgitated the dribble they peddled and Progressive Rock still hasn't shaken off the mother-load of the crap that was thrown by these hacks in their personal scramble for 15 minutes in the limelight.

Radio DJ's such as John Peel and Annie Nightingale achieved their fame and following by supporting Progressive Rock through the 60s and 70s - look how quickly they jumped aboard the Punk bandwagon and turned their backs on those who they'd sucked up to in the previous decade.. 

Back then late night radio and the three major music newspapers (NME, Melody Maker & Sounds) were the only source of information about music trends - of course they fed off the zeitgiest but they also fed into it and were instrumental in propagation the of it (ie it wasn't a true zeitgiest). Even the notion that there was an increasing alienation between artist and consumer was something we only read about in the music press, none of us ever were, or ever will be, in a position to experience that first hand to be aware of it.

Do I blame them? No I don't. But will I forgive them? Certainly not.


Edited by Dean - August 02 2014 at 09:49
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 02 2014 at 10:15
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

...
No I don't, it's written by muso-journalists, most of whom were quick to drop Prog like it was bag of dog crap as soon as Punk looked like becoming the lucrative 'flavour of the month' that would make them the doyens of the hack-world. They are to a man, a bunch of two-faced fCensoredkwitted, toading, snivelling shCensoredts. This mag is a tacky cash-in on a genre that survived in spite of a complete lack of support and out-right hostility of these hack-bozzos for the past 30 years. 
 
At the risk of sounding like a sad, ugly, tired old man ... I have to agree with Dean.
 
I think that some folks, like Dean, myself and others in this borad, WOKE up when the music was around, and we LEARNED to know the real music, NOT the fabricated popular articles that make Black Sabbath and Uriah Heep be more progressive or less metal or more hipnotic or less commercial ... etc ... etc ... etc ... and then yet another thread on the "fame" and "top ten" stuff!  I DID use to read Melody Maker way back when and it was mostly to see how the foreign bands did and where they were and to actually see everyone's reaction. I couldn't believe that MM was saying that Nektar was crap! That was my first clue!
 
We don't always "NEED" to read anything. All we do, and YOU CAN TOO, is open your EARS and LISTEN. In due time you will know the difference.
 
I'm not against these publications, but they are being way too selective about a handful of bands and they do not have the editorial ability or design to do anything but a fanzine about the same band that has been written before. IF, they did have a clue, some of the folks from this board and one or two other places on the Internet would get hired on the spot for their ability to know music, its history and be able to review it at the same time.


Edited by moshkito - August 02 2014 at 10:23
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 02 2014 at 12:04
I used to read it for free at the bookstore I worked at last year. In all honesty, I never found much value in those magazines. It wasn't anything you couldn't read or learn about online, and I despise magazine subscriptions.

Edited by PrognosticMind - August 02 2014 at 12:04
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 02 2014 at 12:15
The only time I read a magazine of any sort is when I'm waiting to get a haircut. I guess the 60 year-old Russian barber is not into prog. He does like boobs though.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 02 2014 at 12:46
Originally posted by The Dark Elf The Dark Elf wrote:

The only time I read a magazine of any sort is when I'm waiting to get a haircut. I guess the 60 year-old Russian barber is not into prog. He does like boobs though.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 02 2014 at 12:51
Originally posted by sleeper sleeper wrote:

I lost interest. I found it was focusing too heavily on Neo/Retro Prog bands, the old guard without really giving us any new information and the monoliths of the current scene, the type of prog bands I listen to were barely even mentioned.

I never was subscribed but this seemed to be the trend every time i saw the new issue's cover. 
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 02 2014 at 14:52
No, because I can get information on the Internet.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 02 2014 at 15:40

Originally posted by Horizons Horizons wrote:

Originally posted by sleeper sleeper wrote:

I lost interest. I found it was focusing too heavily on Neo/Retro Prog bands, the old guard without really giving us any new information and the monoliths of the current scene, the type of prog bands I listen to were barely even mentioned.

I never was subscribed but this seemed to be the trend every time I saw the new issue's cover.


 
We, actually, had to drive down to the LA area to get things like Melody Maker and ANYTHING that had information about the IMPORT bands in 1972/1973/1974 all the way to 1978 that my roomate and I did this at least once a month, as well as helping him get new material for his shows. Mostly we went to Moby Disk, Tower on the Strip and the Warehouse in Westwood at the time. For the magazines, there were a couple of really good magazine/paper stores that had everything from Europe ... !!!

But our main grace for getting into French, Italian, Spanish, German, Japanese and everything else was almost, exclusively, Moby Disk, as there were no distributors that did a whole lot of mailing in those days. This, btw, made for the showing of NEW MUSIC a heck of a lot more attractive, because no one had heard anything like it before, as opposed to today's ways, when everyone has heard everything and everyone is an expert on everything!

There were many nice things in it. I still have the foldout middle section of MM talking to PG about leaving Genesis and how disappointed he was with the general response to the work, including band members. 30 years later he is vindicated, but you felt like you saw an artist being stripped naked and beat down because of it. I did not feel his next work, the solo stuff was going to be that good, and the first album was not that positive for my tastes, but it was terrific all the same.

I still have several articles from the magazine.

Today, for example, I rely on mostly having to ignore the commentaries here, because it will interfere with my objective listen to YES, for example, or even King Crimson. You kinda have to learn to get your own FEEL for the music so you know how to review it, or it will always sound like something else, or a cheap version of something else on the top ten of the prog numbers. And that hurts the ability to identify positively and help an artist. It's like saying that Tchaikovsky sounds like Mozart because the violins sound the same, just playing different notes, and there is a few more of them in Tchaikovsky than Mozart ... and that is not really a good discussion about music and its development. Of course today a keyboard or organ still sounds the same, but that has nothing to do with the music of 50 years ago except for its "sound" ... and the sound is not the music, in general, though we get stuck to it so easily!

Edited by moshkito - August 02 2014 at 15:47
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 02 2014 at 18:12
Way to go Dean!
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 03 2014 at 03:21
No...never got a chance to put my hands on any prog magazine..
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 03 2014 at 12:47
nope, though i would love too, especially this month's issue.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 03 2014 at 17:19
Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:

Originally posted by Horizons Horizons wrote:

Originally posted by sleeper sleeper wrote:

I lost interest. I found it was focusing too heavily on Neo/Retro Prog bands, the old guard without really giving us any new information and the monoliths of the current scene, the type of prog bands I listen to were barely even mentioned.

I never was subscribed but this seemed to be the trend every time I saw the new issue's cover.


 
We, actually, had to drive down to the LA area to get things like Melody Maker and ANYTHING that had information about the IMPORT bands in 1972/1973/1974 all the way to 1978 that my roomate and I did this at least once a month, as well as helping him get new material for his shows. Mostly we went to Moby Disk, Tower on the Strip and the Warehouse in Westwood at the time. For the magazines, there were a couple of really good magazine/paper stores that had everything from Europe ... !!!

But our main grace for getting into French, Italian, Spanish, German, Japanese and everything else was almost, exclusively, Moby Disk, as there were no distributors that did a whole lot of mailing in those days. This, btw, made for the showing of NEW MUSIC a heck of a lot more attractive, because no one had heard anything like it before, as opposed to today's ways, when everyone has heard everything and everyone is an expert on everything!

There were many nice things in it. I still have the foldout middle section of MM talking to PG about leaving Genesis and how disappointed he was with the general response to the work, including band members. 30 years later he is vindicated, but you felt like you saw an artist being stripped naked and beat down because of it. I did not feel his next work, the solo stuff was going to be that good, and the first album was not that positive for my tastes, but it was terrific all the same.

I still have several articles from the magazine.

Today, for example, I rely on mostly having to ignore the commentaries here, because it will interfere with my objective listen to YES, for example, or even King Crimson. You kinda have to learn to get your own FEEL for the music so you know how to review it, or it will always sound like something else, or a cheap version of something else on the top ten of the prog numbers. And that hurts the ability to identify positively and help an artist. It's like saying that Tchaikovsky sounds like Mozart because the violins sound the same, just playing different notes, and there is a few more of them in Tchaikovsky than Mozart ... and that is not really a good discussion about music and its development. Of course today a keyboard or organ still sounds the same, but that has nothing to do with the music of 50 years ago except for its "sound" ... and the sound is not the music, in general, though we get stuck to it so easily!

And this has what to do with the posts you've quoted?

Absolute sod all I think is the answer.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 03 2014 at 17:28
Originally posted by SteveG SteveG wrote:

My take is that the magazine is useless for reading but I did get a great CD out of it one once which turned me on to a couple of groups like Mostly Autumn and some great prog metal groups that the Brits seem to be very high on. Seems like they dig prog metal more than we do in the States. Anyone from the UK care to comment on that or is it just an  illusion the magazine gives off.

It's an illusion. It's also been sometime since I picked up a Prog magazine but in their first 1-2 years only once did they put a prog metal band onto the cover CD, and even then it was Haken's acoustic version of Black Seed, not the full electric version.

There have been precisely 2 attempts at a Prog Metal festival in this country, ProgPower UK was canceled before it's 3rd event and Fused before it's second. The audience you'd expect in the UK is about a quarter of the size of what turns up in Europe (Germany, Poland and the Netherlands pull in particularly large crowds) but the bands ask for the same amount of money so gigs tend to be few and far between, and home grown groups tend to struggle for support unless they have at least 1 already established member (probably from a Neo band).

The exceptions tend to be the more extreme bands. Opeth and Mastodon regularly tour here with big crowds, as did Isis before they split in 2010, but other acts tend to be few and far between with midling crowds. 
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 03 2014 at 17:50
^ agreed.
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