Where Worlds Collide

I picked up a copy of the new magazine “Classic Rock Presents Prog” at the weekend, and here are my thoughts on the thing.

First, the price. I cannot honestly say that £7.99 for a magazine with approximately the same number of pages as Classic Rock, which retails for a little over half that amount, really represents value for money in these recessionary times. The price is printed in such a tiny font many people aren’t realising the damage to their wallet until they reach the till. It’s even been suggested that that they’re betting on people being too embarrassed to change their mind at that point. It also seems to have fairly limited availability; smaller newsagents that stock Classic Rock don’t seem to be selling it, and the only place you can buy it appears to be W.H.Smiths.

There are some good articles on artists like The Reasoning, Steve Wilson, Pendragon, Coheed and Cambria, and good (if somewhat sexist) piece on Women in Prog mentioning Mostly Autumn, Breathing Space and Panic room, among others. The recent London gigs by Panic Room and Mostly Autumn also get glowing reviews.

But there’s also a lot of recycled material from the past. The cover story on Pink Floyd doesn’t really tell us anything we haven’t read many times before, as do the similar retreads on Rush and ELP. Worse still, the magazine contains too much very obvious space-filler. The worst offender is the 10 page article with Phil Jupitus discussing Genesis album covers, mostly taken up by large images of the album sleeves themselves, pure padding with little or no worthwhile content. One wonders how future issues will fare if they’re struggling to fill the very first one.

There’s also another serious concern. While it’s great to see bands like Mostly Autumn, Panic Room, Breathing Space and The Reasoning get some very positive reviews, I can’t help thinking that there’s going to be a very much reduced coverage of anything remotely “Progessive” in the parent magazine. This makes me wonder if shunting progressive music into an overpriced, limited availability low circulation ghetto magazine will ultimately be a net loss.

Another of those ‘actual play’ threads from the Dreamlyrics forum.

This scene covers the interrogation of the major villain, Guruinath Zalyn before his superior and the acting commander of the Legion. The two PCs are Kolath, a relatively junior kandar Legion officer, and Hollis, a powerful if unstable human psychokinetic who’s been, who are major witnesses to his wrongdoings.

[GM]

The prisoner sits in a wooden chair, constrained by leather straps. There’s an ugly bruise across his face that wasn’t there when Hollis saw him last. His face is twisted to an ugly snarl. He’s accompanied by two immense Legionnaires, both human, who Kolath recognises as as two of the guards from the Legion’s military prison.

Apart from Guruinath’s chair, the chamber is empty. Everyone else will have to stand.

Lavuyl, the senior Karazthani, takes a small spherical device from his pocket, and places in the floor a few paces from Guruinath.

“Recording eye”, he says, “Everything that happens in this room will be on record. This will form part of the official investigation”.

“This is an imposition!”, says Gurinath.

“Shut up”, says Nir-Urileyr Kavarluis, “You are not to speak except to answer questions”.

“I demand independent representation!”, says Guruinath.

“This is not your trial”, says Lavuyl, “This is your interrogation. You will just make things harder for yourself if you you do not co-operate”.

[Kolath's player]

The tall, thin Kandar legionnaire nodded as Lavuyl placed the recording device on the floor and activated it, relieved that the interrogation would be recorded.

“Requests would possibly be considered, Guruinath, but your demands no longer impress us overmuch.”

[GM]

“Don’t listen to him”, snaps Guruinath, “Can’t you see that human wizard is mind-controlling him? She’s making fools of you all. Known terrorist, she is. You know her brother is in the cells, don’t you? Accessory to murder. Don’t try to deny it woman, you know it’s true”.

[Hollis' Player]

“Let anyone ask the questions,” Hollis said, maintaining a steely demeanor despite the spike of fear this revelation engendered. How much did he know? How much could he know?

“If you fear me so much, I will leave the room and let anyone ask the questions. Besides, if I could mind control anyone, why not just mind control you into admitting your complicity in treason?

“I suppose they could bring in someone from the Academy, who could check for my presence in their minds. Face it, Guruinath; You’re whining is so transparent. You are a traitor who’s been caught, and you are trying to blow enough smoke to conceal your treason and confuse your interrogators. You are so used to bullying everyone to get your way, you keep trying it even when the truth would clearly be best. Who’s in prison has nothing to do with your guilt or innocence.”

[Kolath's player]

His expression did not change much, but he did wonder about the brother statement. Now was not the time to delve into that subject, however; Hollis was right.

Kolath cocked his head slightly to one side and looked at his associate and, yes, friend and he nodded before turning his attention back to Guruinath.

This is a scene where powerful NPCs are in opposition to each other, but I have to remember it’s got to be about the PCs. So I’m treating the it as a conflict between Guriunath, who’s currently down but not out, and the two PCs. The stakes are simple, it’s who’s story Kavarluis and Lavuyl, the two high-level NPCs believe.

So far, we’re just scene-setting, and I have yet to roll any dice.

If you’re not interested in the Kalyr RPG or the Fudge system, stop reading here. The rest of this post will not make any sense.

I’ve finally had a few hours to spare to work on the Kalyr RPG. I’ve been working on the Gifts section of the character generation chapter, one of the sections I’ve never really been happy with.

The end result is quite crunchy - I think the gifts I’ve ended up with are reasonably balanced. The big change is that I’ve eliminated Talents as a separate type of Gifts. Previously talents were a crude way to trade gifts for skills, in that each one gave an extra level in four different skills. What I’ve done now is turned most of those talents into specific gifts, and they no longer all work the same way. Some still give extra skill levels at character creation time, others give a +1 bonus in play in particular situations, or let you substitute one skill for three or four others.

I’ve cut-and-pasted the whole draft to The Fudge Forum to try and get some feedback and comments.

This isn’t really much of a gig review I’m afraid. And it’s certainly not one of the glowing fan reviews I usually write.

I love Pure Reason Revolution’s first album “The Dark Third”, a superb album mixing atmospheric heaviness with wonderful vocal harmonies. So I jumped at the chance to see them live in Manchester, at a new venue to me, Moho Live in Tib Street. But the evening turned into something of a disappointment, which I attribute for more to the venue than the band.

To start with I turn up at the venue at 7pm as printed on the ticket only to find that the gig had been put back to 8pm. Not only that, there were two support bands, and the headliners wouldn’t take the stage until gone 10pm, which meant an expensive taxi trip hope unless I wanted to miss more than half of PRR’s set. Bollocks!

Then there was the confusion about the stages. There were actually two stages two different rooms; the two support bands on the main stage, and a whole host of what I presume were unknown local bands in a little room at the side. Early arrivals were directed into this small side room. There wasn’t any explanation at the door, but the list of set times making no mention of Pure Reason Revolution made me wonder. It wasn’t until I went to the loo that I actually realised there was another hall with a much bigger stage where PRR would actually be playing. In the event, this side room’s bands were timed to finish before PRR started, so in effect you had a choice of support. But it would have been nice if someone told us this.

The main hall was clearly a nightclub trying to pretend it’s a live venue. Converted from the ground floor of a warehouse it has a low ceiling meaning the stage is ridiculously low, with only the front three or four rows having a chance to see the band. From further back the view was obstructed by pillars and a bloody great staircase intruding into the middle of the room.

I positioned myself about three rows back from the centre of the stage for the start of Pure Reason Revolution’s set. While you don’t always get optimum sound down the front, what we heard was absolutely awful, very bass-heavy and muddy, with the vocals so low in the mix that those wonderful harmonies from the records were all but lost. PRR tried their best, and certainly rocked hard in places, but all the subtleties of their sound just got lost in the horrible mix. With sound that bad, their music didn’t really have much of a chance.

The band themselves really deserve another go - I’m not going to write them off as a band who sound good on record but can’t cut it live until I’ve had the chance to hear them in a proper venue with decent acoustics. As for Moho Live, I have no intention of going there again in a hurry.

From the blog of John Grubb, bassist for Railroad Earth

The record industry used to exist because recording was very expensive. It was expensive to record a song, it was expensive to reproduce the recording of the song, and it was really expensive to warehouse, distribute, and sell the recording of that song. Thus a whole industry cropped up to take advantage of the fact that the barrier to entry for your average recording artist, say Ma Carter out of the hills around Bristol VA, was so astronomically high that nobody really thought about releasing their own music. Show up, play my tunes, get paid for them? Okay! This worked great for long enough for the basic oligarchic framework of the major label system to rise to power.

And nowadays with recording technology being so much cheaper, it’s possible to record a great-sounding album on a very limited budget, which means bands can self-release without having to sell their souls to a record company. Albums like The Reasoning’s “Dark Angel” and Breathing Space’s “Coming Up for Air” didn’t cost a fortune to record, but sound as good as many major-label releases.

I have to ask whether there’s any point to the majors any more, when all they seem to churn out are formulaic acts who are all hype and no substance. With their track record of ripping off creative talent, suing their best customers, and generally throwing their weight around in order to block technological changes that threaten their existing heavily-flawed business model, I think artists, fans and music in general will be better off when the whole lot of them go to the wall.

Meanwhile I’m getting frustrated with Helienne Lindvall’s weekly column Behind the Music in the on The Guardian Music Blog. While sometimes an interesting read, she doesn’t seem interested in anything that doesn’t revolve around the major record companies. It’s too much about what will shortly become the record industry of the past, rather than looking to the music business of the future.

For those of you living in Manchester, there’s a blogmeet, organised (again) by Kate of The Manchizzle

I’ve sorted things out for our blogmeet. Unfortunately Trof NQ couldn’t give us a dedicated space that would be big enough, but Centro can give us their whole basement area. Centro is on Tib Street towards the northern end heading away from the city centre.

We’ll be meeting there on Tuesday, March 10 from 7-9pm. Just come downstairs. They do very nice beers and drinks as well as coffees and non-alcoholic bevvies. They don’t do food as far as I know, so maybe grab something nearby (Hunters BBQ?) beforehand if you’re coming straight from work. I’ll bring the nametags.

I’ve missed the last couple of blogmeets due to clashes with holidays, gigs or just having the wrong date in my diary. May see some of you there.

Although I’ve seen Mostly Autumn nearly thirty times now, this is actually the first time I’ve seen the band two nights in succession in two different cities. Both the Manchester and London shows on the 27th and 28th of February were rescheduled from September last year due to Heather Findlay’s maternity leave.

Mostly Autumn had not played Manchester since a low-key date at Jilly’s Rockworld back in 2004, which happened to be the very first time I ever saw the band. This time they played Academy 3, on a stage where I’ve seen the likes of Michael Schenker, Paradise Lost, It Bites and Blue Öyster Cult over the past years.

A big surprise when the band took to the stage was that Gavin Griffiths was back behind the drumkit, replacing Henry Bourne. I’d always liked Gavin’s drumming with his previous stint with the band in spring 2007, and while Henry was in many ways an ideal drummer for the Mostlies, if anyone could replace him, it was Gavin. And he didn’t disappoint.

Unfortunately Heather had caught a very nasty throat infection the day before the Manchester gig, and although she managed to sing for something like two thirds of the set, backing singer Olivia Sparnenn stood in on lead vocals for a few songs. It’s a tribute to this band that they can still put on a highly enjoyable show despite having their lead singer partially incapacitated, and hats off to Livvy for standing in at virtually zero notice. If it wasn’t quite one of the best Mostly Autumn gigs I’ve ever been to, it was certainly one of those for the Mostly Autumn history book.

Saturday’s showcase gig at Shepherd’s Bush Empire was their first London appearance for more than a year. With fans descending from all parts of the country, including a busload from York, there was a real buzz of anticipation before the gig, and a lot of faces I hadn’t seen for a long time. Nice to meet baby Harlan, who gave me an enormous grin! I met up with a couple of gaming friends who were seeing the band for the first time. I decided it was wise not to mention Heather’s vocal problems of the night before to anyone before the gig.

While I love the intimate atmosphere of many of the small clubs I see the band play, it’s great to see them on a big stage before a sizeable crowd. And they rose to the occasion with an absolute barnstormer of a performance. Heather’s voice turned out to be in far better shape than the previous night, with little evidence that she was suffering from any throat problems at all. And the rest of the band were also on superb form. This was as tight and powerful a performance as I’ve ever seen them do, and at least as good a show as from any band I saw last year. From the now-traditional opener ‘Fading Colours’, the energy level barely dropped for the next two and a quarter hours. The only glitch was the rattling snare drum on ‘Above the Blue’ forcing a second take of the song.

The setlist contained a few surprises, with oldies like ‘Winter Mountain’, ‘The Last Bright Light’ and ‘Half the Mountain’ which haven’t featured in the live set for several years. ‘Winter Mountain’ was especially powerful live propelled by Gavin’s drumming, as was “Passengers” favourite ‘Answer the Question’. The rest of the set was pretty familiar to those who’s seen the band at the tail end of last year, Glass Shadows songs ‘Flowers for Guns’, ‘Unoriginal Sin’, ‘Above the Blue’ and ‘Tearing at the Faerytale’, alongside perennials such as ‘Nowhere to Hide’, ‘Evergreen’, ‘Spirit of Autumn Past’ and of course ‘Heroes Never Die’ (That flute intro always gives me goosebumps). The final encore was unexpected, a cover of Genesis’ 1980 hit ‘Turn It On Again’, and I have to say Heather is a far better singer than Phil Collins.

Although the band had intended to release the recording of Shepherd’s Bush as a live album, the band have decided that although the gig itself was great for those present in the hall, the recordings aren’t quite good enough to release as an album. So they’ve postponed the album and plan to record a few dates on the upcoming spring tour. With the band on great live form, with what might just be their best ever live lineup, the tour will be one to see.

Very sad news from Cardiff.

To all customers, promoters, fans, bands and supporters of The Point Cardiff Bay

It is with deep regret that we announce the closure of the venue today. On 27th February 2009 the Director of the Point Cardiff Bay Limited signed the appropriate notices to call a meeting of creditors pursuant to S98 Insolvency Act 1986.

A number of factors have contributed to this situation. Many of you will be aware that during 2008 we began receiving noise complaints from one or two neighbours that had moved into the new apartments that have been built next to the venue. After some difficult negotiations with the Cardiff City Council we undertook a huge amount of work to soundproof the venue in an attempt to secure its future. While that has largely been successful, the burden of the debt that we took on, together with greater restrictions in our banking facilities and more difficult trading conditions in the last few months, as well as the loss of revenue whilst the refurbishment works were undertaken, has meant we are unable to meet our current liabilities and have been left with no option but to seek voluntary liquidation.

Many people have put their heart and soul in turning the Point into the magical venue that it is and we have received huge and loyal support over the years from fans and bands alike. We would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for that support. It is a very sad day for us and for the live music scene in Cardiff.

If you have bought tickets for shows in advance, we must advise you to seek compensation from your credit card company. If you are a supplier to the Point, there will be further news about a creditors meeting in due course.

This venue seems to fallen victim to a nasty combination of the credit crunch, the preceding property bubble, and some Cardiff council politics that have a whiff of corruption about them.

The venue had existed for years in what had been a run-down commercial district of the city. Then during the property boom the area got yuppified as property developers started converting empty buildings into luxury flats. Then the new neighbours started complaining about the noise. From a business that had been operating in the area long before those occupants moved in.

I haven’t heard any valid explanation as to why the venue itself had to bear the full costs of soundproofing work, rather than the property developers who made this soundproofing necessary in the first place, and presumably walked away with fat profits. Thinks like that do make me wonder if backhanders to council members might have been made (with the legally required “allegedlys”, of course).

Sadly, all too often the bastards win. Cardiff loses a superb music venue, while a bunch of pretentious yuppies get to enjoy their negative equity.