One year after Banco del Mutuo Soccorso gave us the amazing Darwin!, they proceeded to give us another incredible album, Io Sono Nato Libero. Again, the semi-operatic voice of Francesco “Big” Giacomo (aka. “Mr. Chubbs) dominates, with the duo keyboards of brothers Vittorio and Gianni Nocenzi. Di Giacomo’s voice seems less operatic on this album, […] Continue reading →

Just when you thought you’ve given up on prog rock after 1978 or thereabout, there came a Swedish prog rock band in the early 1990s, in which half the band members were still teenagers, playing prog rock like the 1980s never happened. Who can blame these kids anyway? When crappy bands like Asia got called […] Continue reading →

After Brainticket released Celestial Ocean in 1973, they seemed to have vanished for a number of years, until 1980, when they gave us Adventure. By that time, the band became an all-instrumental outfit, with Joël Vandroogenbroeck, as always, handling the keyboards and flute, percussionist Barney Palm, whose been with the band since 1972’s Psychonaut, and […] Continue reading →

If you’ve ran out of Van der Graaf Generator albums to buy, let me suggest to you, Island, a Swiss prog rock band that released this one and only album in 1977, Pictures. I actually think this album is much more how I wished VdGG’s Godbluff and Still Life were like. Island’s music tends more […] Continue reading →

Everyone knows who Arthur C. Clarke is. He wrote 2001: A Space Odyssey and invented the communications satellite. Unless you happened to be watching the Discovery Channel in the 1980s and 1990s, you might not be aware of Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious World, a 13 part series from Yorkshire Television in England from 1980 on […] Continue reading →

Since Frank Zappa went through so many different musical phases with so many different bands, and he was quite outspoken on just about any subject given, not everyone took too kindly to his music (that is, both rock critics and rock fans). But you gotta give credit, he was quite prolific and eclectic. His musical […] Continue reading →

In 1969 Genesis released From Genesis to Revelation. Although opinions differ, I thought that album was crap, sounding like psychedelic Muzak to me. Of course, the band could be forgiven, since the guys in the band just graduated from Charterhouse Public School (a public school, for those living in America, is the English equivalent of […] Continue reading →

The Wicker Man was a movie I took a chance on. I never saw it before. I just saw a review on a Pagan-oriented web site (which doesn’t seem to exist any more) that reviewed books and movies with Pagan and Wiccan themes. Unsurprisingly, many of the films reviewed there only received luke warm to […] Continue reading →

Aqualung and Thick as a Brick might be Tull’s best known and most popular albums, but there’s another one of theirs worth trying, and that’s 1977’s Songs From the Wood. Released one year after the disasterous Too Old to Rock ‘n Roll: Too Young to Die, this album is a vast improvement over that one. […] Continue reading →

Julian’s Treatment is yet another forgotten and obscure gem of progressive and psychedelic rock. Not very often does a sci-fi author involve himself with music. Michael Moorcock’s involvement with Hawkwind is one of the best examples. And Julian Jay Savarin is another author who involved himself in music, with this band Julian’s Treatment. Savarin played […] Continue reading →