Category: Reviews & Commentary

Progressive Rock Returns WXPN 7-Hour Marathon

I’m just hours away from WXPN‘s Progressive Rock Marathon.  I’ll be joining Dan Reed, Biff Kennedy and Star’s End pilot Chuck Van Zyl  bringing Progressive rock to the airwaves of Philadelphia, Central PA and the world Saturday, January 7 from 10AM-5PM.   Since the show is a special segment of XPN’s “Highs in the 70s,”  it…

Sam River’s Final Note R.I.P.

Jazz Giant Sam River’s Passes Away. I was so sad to hear of the passing of Sam Rivers at 88 years of age on December 26, 2011.  He was an iconoclastic musician who came up in the free jazz days and cut through that scene with music blazing in serrated slices.  I got to see…

These are the 100 Greatest Guitarists?

M.I.A from The Rolling Stone 100 Greatest Guitarists 100 Best Whatever-lists are designed to engender debate and outrage and 100 Greatest Guitarists is likely to create even more of a firestorm than usual.   Of the millions who followed the Byrds’ dictum to “get an electric guitar and learn how to play,” many are bound to be…

NEARFEST Apocalypse

After announcing that they were resurrecting NEARFEST in 2012, the festival organizers have decided that 2012 will mark the last NEARFEST.  In true ProgRock fashion, they’ve labeled it NEARFEST APOCALYPSE.  Prog was never known for understatement.   Well, like just about every classic prog group they’ve presented over the years who were resurrected from the grave,…

NEARFEST RETURNS IN 2012

Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, or maybe King Crimson rising from Robert Fripp‘s mind, NEARFEST, the venerable progressive rock festival, will return in 2012 after cancelling the 2011 show due to poor ticket sales.  With the original founders back at the helm, look for the festival to return to it’s mix of vintage…

Mike Oldfield Mentor David Bedford Heads for Star’s End

Composer, keyboardist and Mike Oldfield Collaborator David Bedford Passes I was sad to hear of the passing of David Bedford, the English composer who had a deep engagement with progressive rock in the early 1970s.  It actually started a little earlier in Kevin Ayers and The Whole World, a rollicking post-psychedelic, pre-progressive rock, musically insane…

Ólafur Arnalds’ Living Room Songs.

Ólafur Arnalds releases a new song every day for 7 days, all recorded in his living room.   The songs will be recorded and filmed live in the living room of his Reykjavík apartment and released instantly for FREE as streamed videos and MP3 downloads.Did he take a page from Echoes‘s Living Room Concerts which he…

Johanna & The Dusty Floor Sweep In.

Tonight on Echoes (01/06/2012) I’ll be interviewing an exciting new singer-songwriter, Johanna Cranitch who records as Johanna & the Dusty Floor.  When I heard her new album,  Northern Lights, I was immediately enticed by this Australian born singer, who first reminded me of Kate Bush.  She even covers Bush’s “Cloudbusting.”  But the more I listen,…

Hype Machine Building for New Sigur Ros Live!

Okay, that’s a little cynical, but the whole leaking out of free tracks, tantalizing fans with little tidbits and generally treating us like greyhounds chasing rabbits is getting a bit tedious.  But then this is the iconic, beyond hip band, Sigur Rós who have released some of the most idiosyncratic and uniguely intoxicating music in…