This past week saw a study in Progressive Rock contrasts when two bands from the classic progressive rock era, Three Friends, A.K.A. Gentle Giant and Styx came through the Philadelphia area. Gentle Giant represented the adventurous experimental side of Progressive Rock, mixing jazz, blues, madrigals and classical music into a heady mix of time signature…
Category: Reviews & Commentary
Reviews & Commentary
A Lesson in Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin Celebration Day returns for 1 screening nationwide November 13. Go to Led Zeppelin Website for theater listings. Did you ever have trouble explaining the appeal of Led Zeppelin to someone? Maybe your kid, the smart ass heavy metal dude in your office, the alt-rock snob college friend or your new girlfriend who thinks that…
Interview Podcast, Reviews & Commentary
Samsara-What Goes Around….
Here the Echoes Samsara Interview on Echoes weekend stations. Echoes Samsara Echoes Podcast: Listen Here. Samsara is the third feature film from director Ron Fricke and producer Mark Magidson. Like their previous movies, it explores grand concepts with grand images and grand music. Samsara is Sanskrit for “continuous flow”, the repeating cycle of birth, life,…
Reviews & Commentary
Andy Williams Crosses Moon River to the Heavens
I always thought of “Moon River” as the first space music song. Even in 1961, when Andy Williams recorded it, I knew this was music from another era, but something about Johnny Mercer’s lyrics and Henry Mancini’s sweeping orchestration always suggested something beyond this earth to me. Just now I had a new spacey ambient…
Reviews & Commentary
Progressive Rock Awards.
I didn’t even know they had these and it seems a little late in the game, but Prog Magazine, a journal in the UK with a reported readership of about 25,000, sponsored their first Progressive Music Awards show. As the first, they understandably acknowledged a lot of the pioneers in the field, granting awards to…
Reviews & Commentary
Sshhhhhhh. John Cage at 100.
John Cage would’ve been 100 today. He died in 1992, but his influence continues to echo through music. Many of the musicians on Echoes still cite Cage as an inspiration. As recently as yesterday on Echoes, Franco Falsini of Sensations Fix recalled hearing Cage in the early 1970s. John Cage had this concept, “I wanted to…
Reviews & Commentary
Pitchfork Speaks; And So It Must Be.
The People’s List Top 200 Albums from the First 15 Years of Pitchfork Pitchfork has put their imprimatur on the best albums of the last 15 years. So many curious things about this list. Only about 10 of the artists are musicians we’ve played on Echoes, which on one hand, doesn’t mean much but on the other,…
Reviews & Commentary
It’s An Eno World: Roxy Retro and Documentary
Some interesting news in the Eno World. They’ve just released a eluxe box set of all the Roxy Music studio CDS, The Complete Studio Recordings 1972 – 1982, which gives us a chance anew to hear how groundbreaking this group was, especially on the first two albums and Avalon. But cooler than that is the Brian…
Reviews & Commentary
10 Greatest Rock Songs
Every year Echoes affiliate WXPN, 88.5FM has listeners vote on their list of the Best885 whatever, albums, road songs, artists, etc. And every year they ask hosts to submit their top ten choices. This year, they’ve made the impossible task of listing the 885 Greatest Rock Songs. I mean, come on! This list could go…
Reviews & Commentary
New Albion Records Heads Out to Sea
People talk a lot about Indie labels and music these days, but back in the 1980s when Indie required a real commitment, New Albion Records sailed against the winds. Like its namesake, the ambiguous spot on the Pacific Coast where Sir Francis Drake landed in 1579, they found new musical lands, releasing avant-garde contemporary music…