Lyrics of the week; It Bites - Oh My God

Oh My God - It Bites

             

Oh my God, the genius of it all

The way the words spit from my mouth

I'm self-assured and meaninglessly bored

and all these things straight through your heart

So when you talk to me there's nothing left to say

And only one thing can remain, so please refrain 'cause

I'm so wrapped up in writing words for you

(I got your words I got your words, I got your words, I got)

I'm so strung out that nothing else will do

(I got your words I got your words, I got your words, I got)

Oh my god, how boring I've become

I'll say this again and again

I'm self-obsesses and tedious at best

I'd wish this on no one but you

And when I talk to you I find it hard to say

You're wasting all these words again, I feel ashamed now

I'm so wrapped up in writing words for you

(I got your words I got your words, I got your words, I got)

I'm so strung out that nothing else will do

(I got your words I got your words, I got your words, I got)

Hoping these letters will carry you through in the old dramatic way

And I still recall as I bury the wall

It's a gentle reminder there's always the time to go sailing

Hey, you've got yourself to blame

And these promises spoken, like hearts will be broken

I' wrapped around your finger, your words still mean something to me...

I'm so wrapped up in writing words for you

(I got your words I got your words, I got your words, I got)

I'm so strung out that nothing else will do

(I got your words I got your words, I got your words, I got)

Copyright (c)2008 - It Bites

Notes From The Organization

Most of the DJ-gig of Sunday afternoon 6th of June 2010 :

Roger Waters - The Tide Is Turning

Roger Waters - The Pros and Cons Of Hitchhiking

Laurie Anderson - O Superman

Syd Barrett - Terrapin

Peter Gabriel - I Think It's Going To Rain Today

Steve Hackett - Spectral Mornings

Muse - Knights Of Cydonia

Glass Hammer - Empty Space / Revealer

Mystery Jets - Two Doors Down

Genesis - It's Gonna Get Better

Notes From The Organization

Ok, so May 16th 2010, Sunday afternoon : A cafe full(I mean FULL!) of people, a progrock-band playing unplugged for two hours, a pretty massive consumption of beer and lemonades, and an atmosphere you will not find anywhere else or on any other 'night' in The Organization. The audience were so quiet that you could frequently hear a pin drop. If there would have been falling pins... And on the other hand half the audience sang along to Genesis' Ripples(SAIL AWAY AWAYYYYYY!!!).

The gig started off with 'The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway" including the piano intro et al. Not a bad start at all. *grin*
  
The band played songs from ELP's first album, songs by the great Harry Sacksioni(obviously a favourite of the guitarist!). Hell, they even played stuff from 'And Then There Were Three', one of the most underrated records Genesis ever recorded. And no; it wasn't 'Follow You Follow Me' they played, it was 'Burning Rope'.

"You climb upon a burning rope
to escape the mob below
But you had put the flaming out
so the others could not follow"


But ProgRock is dead of course. That is what I hear from many many ignorant peasants so it must be true.

Serious Music Cafe 18/04/2010 Riverside Live In Paradiso

DJ Lenne and his mates 'did' a serious music cafe again yesterday. These sunday afternoons are dedicated to ProgRock, ProgMetal and related genres.

Yesterday saw a cafe very much focussed on Progressive Metal. The CD of the month was by Knight Area and the music played was mainly Progressive Metal. The video played was of a concert in Paradiso by Riverside, a band from Poland, which I must say is very much Progressive Metal. Fun to see how the long haired fierce looking gentlemen of the band took a deep bow after the show, almost modestly accepting the audience's cheers and praise. I have seen a lot of bands with a hell of a lot worse attitude.

The latest Knight Area CD was the prize in a ticket raffle so somebody went home with an extra bit of music in his pocket!

Two weeks from now there will be a much more classic progrock sunday afternoon, and on May 16th there will be a band performing.

We may be quite a while away from Tilburg or even Zoetermeer, but it goes to show again : one can play Progressive Music everywhere.




(Overheard this afternoon: Riverside, Katatonia, Knight Area, etc.)

Another day, another forum.

First : Heads up for the Dutch Progressive Rock Page !
 
The 'Now Playing' thread is very informative. Only if you like that kind of stuff of course, which I do. So much so that I don't want to discuss my tastes anymore on some other laymen's forum where people still think Progressive Rock means Yes or Marillion. How On Earth people think they can judge ProgRock without even knowing Gentle Giant or Soft Machine is a mystery to me anyway.

As an extra, here are some of the more relevant wiki-entries to ProgRock, ProgMetal, etcetera :

Progressive_Rock
Progressive_metal
List of progressive metal artists
Symphonic Rock

and a couple of useful links to some ProgRock-sites :

Dutch Progressive Rock Page
Prog Archives
Prog Rock Startpagina(dutch)

The Annotated Lamb

It must have been a very rainy day... But still, quite a nice read if you're into ProgRock and especially into Genesis.

"Hackett's guitar weavings became an integral part of the moody atmosphere, as Banks wisely kept his keyboard playing melodic and lyrical instead of succumbing to the obvious desire to create a Third World War like so many of his peers and contemporaries."

The Annotated Lamb

Fresh crop for sunday

Managed to get hold of the complete Emerson Lake and Palmer. 'Still you turn me on' and all that.

Also got my hands on some Pendragon, Pineapple Thief and some more bands like that. Quite interesting, and always good to have when you DJ a ProgRock set.

A New Life For Quality Music - And It Feels Like Coming Home

What started it all.

Quite recently I came across an article on the web that made me look at Prog Rock with an altogether different view. When I was a teenager back in the deep down dark and somewhat damp 70ies I grew up being an avid and fanatical fan of Sympho and Prog Rock. Bands like Gentle Giant, Yes, ELP, Camel, and of course Genesis, I listened to them for hours and hours, for days and days.

Of course, just like most people, I thought that this musical branch had just about died out in the early eighties.  There was Marillion, but like many musicians who had enjoyed the bands I mentioned, I always thought that this band was basically Genesis in C minor. So... I set my sights to new musical styles and if/when I played some Prog Rock it would be the 70ies bands that I loved so well.


Getting my own back.


Some years ago though, I came across Spock's Beard. A friend of mine, who happens to be the one of the biggest ProgRock fan I have ever known(Hi there Dick!) gave me a cd of these guys, and although it was well written and performed it harkened back to the old days just a bit too much to really get me enthousiastic.

So imagine my surprise when about one week ago I decided to check out what had been happening in this particular musical scene in the last 15 to 20 years. It turns out that since around the year 2.000 there has been a surge in Prog Rock that I had not been aware of. Bands like IQ(a bit older than that really), Transatlantic, Mystery Jets, The Mars Volta, etcetera, have given the scene an enormous boost. For the first time I can listen to new material that indeed is influenced by the first generation of Sympho and Prog Rock, but at the same time does not wallow in the old chord progressions and technicalities. These bands can all really play, but they have taken the style beyond what it was in its heydays. There are even a lot of power chords in that music(Alfred!)

First 'fun fact' : Although I think Radiohead are quite ok(computer...), I never understood what all the big fuss was about. Turns out that a lot of these newer bands pay homage to Radiohead because it was the first new succesful band to forget about the standard 'intro/verse/chorus/verse/chorus/solo/fade out' format. So in effect they rediscovered wat had been lost in the 80ies and the 90ies.

At the moment I am especially listening to  band like Glass Hammer, Transatlantic and Mystery Jets. After which I shall have to check out The Mars Volta in more detail.


On Retournez Toujours A Ses Premier Amour

It feels like coming home. NOT because it is the same ol' same ol' but on the contrary; these folks really went on to create the next generation of Prog Rock/Sympho. Fun fact : I have actually seen and heard quite a lot of the lesser Sympho Gods in Het Kasteel in the time that we had Dick as our programmer. Jadis, Act, Salmon, John Wetton, Colin Bass, Grey Lady Down, For Absent Friends, etcetera. In retrospect that was a bloody good job by our programmer/Prog-head.

And to top it off, Het Kasteel will very likely have its own ProgRock Cafe in the very near future. Another fun fact; I did some slightly demographic research for a cafe-evening on sunday and not very much to my surprise all the people under 24 replied that they would not be there on a sunday 'because they would still be wasted from the night before'. So... basically we have a night every week on which we can do whatever we want, and we do not have to cater to what 'the hip scene' wants to hear.  A perfect opportunity to see if we can get the more 'mature'(read 'older') cafe-visitor to drop by.


Good times are here again! And people who tell me that this music is So Last Century can go and kiss my lovely royal arse. When a band like The Mars Volta sells over 600.000 records and plays for a sold out Paradiso, what do they know?
We'll make a deal: they will get 9 out of 10 nights and the 10th is for 'us'.

And who knows : perhaps even Dick will drop by again...