Now on Newsstands

The new issue of Prog magazine hits newsstands in the UK today and will soon make its way to US newsstands such as your local Barnes & Noble. Better yet, try a monthly subscription at $4.99 to the online version at teamrock.com to access the magazine as well as other Team Rock magazines (and archives) such as Classic Rock, Metal Hammer and Blues.

In addition to stories about YES and Amplifier—I adore both bands and own their entire catalogs—the issue also includes a lengthy feature I wrote about Bent Knee.

Bent Knee, a six piece that formed at the Berklee School of Music, has developed a sizable following for music that they describe as existing in the "nooks and crannies just outside the mainstream."

What I love about Bent Knee, whose influences span from Sufjan Stevens to Kendrick Lamar, is that they don't sound like anyone else. That includes powerhouse singer Courtney Swain. These mid-twenties musicians don't sound derivative. A Wall Street Journal feature on the band praised their silo-smashing sound which "taps into cabaret, ’70s piano-based folk, chamber pop, industrial rock, metal and prog rock—with the snap of funk and hip-hop in some of its rhythms."

They've just signed to a Sony label and their album Land Animal is released now out. (Hear it now on Spotify or, better yet, order a physical copy.) It's excellent and should be a breakthrough for them—check out songs such as "Insides In," "These Hands," "Time Deer" and "Boxes." The hard-working band's burgeoning success is well-deserved as they're such lovely people.

Bent Knee already have a good-sized fanbase thanks to constant touring across the US. The song "Terror Bird" from the album, below, will give you an inkling of how good they are in concert. Catch them on a US tour in July and August. Dates below and more details at www.bentkneemusic.com:

7/14       Northampton, MA @ Iron Horse
7/15       Nashua, NH @ Riverwalk
7/18       Ferndale, MI @ The Loving Touch
7/20       Madison, WI @ Frequency
7/24       Minneapolis, MN @ 7th Street Entry
7/25       Lawrence, KS @ Bottleneck
7/27       Denver, CO @ Larimer Lounge
7/31       Seattle, WA @ Barboza
8/1         Portland, OR @Analog Cafe
8/2         Bend, OR @Volcanic Theatre
8/4         San Francisco, CA @cafe Du Nord
8/7         San Diego, CA @Soda Bar

 
 

Now on newsstands: Yes

One of my most fun assignments was to fly to Las Vegas to attend a Yes-themed Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy Camp and write about it for Prog magazine. (The new issue is now on UK newsstands and very soon available on US newsstands, including Barnes & Noble. Or, if you can't wait that long, just download the issue onto your Kindle or iPad via iTunes.)

You may have heard about the Rock ’n’ Roll Fantasy Camp (or seen the affectionate spoof on it in The Simpsons episode with the Rolling Stones). The institution gives amateur musicians an opportunity to get up on stage to jam with bands and artists such as Steve Vai, Joe Perry, Slash, Judas Priest, Jeff Beck, Def Leppard, Sammy Hagar, Roger Daltrey, and many other luminaries.

In decades past, this sort of thing would be unheard of. The closest that rock fans could get to their idols was a front row seat at a concert. (The exception to the rule: Attractive women with the wiles to get backstage.) Indeed, rock 'n' roll camp founder David Fishof says, “When I was touring with rock bands, the bands always went out the back stage door, and out of the back door at hotels. They didn’t want to interact with fans. They were scared of them."

More than that, bands reveled in the fact that they were inaccessible and remote because it made them seem mythical.

Yes bass player Chris Squire admitted to me, “Back in the ’70s, one often hired a publicist to make sure that there was a bare minimum of interviews with the press as it was generally thought that this would increase the artists' mystique."

Nowadays, Squire and the other members of Yes are active on social media, interacting with fans, answering questions and offering music recommendations.

As Squire put it, "In the last 10 years, we have been increasingly been made aware of the fact that we now live in the world of social media and conversely from the past we have now been recommended by our current webmasters that interaction is a part of general life."

Fishof observes, "Bands now realize that these fans are the ones that kept them alive and they’re more appreciative.”

This year, Yes met some of their biggest fans at the rock 'n' roll fantasy camp. It was wholly new territory for all the band members except drummer Alan White. He'd participated in 10 previous camps and felt very much at home. He seems to enjoy the chance to mentor amateur musicians.

"I have had people in my class who kind of noodle," said White. "They want to prove they can do all kinds of stuff but I keep telling them, ‘Stop!’ They’ve got to listen to what’s going on around them. They benefit from it by the final day by being able to get up there with confidence and play the music and feel good about it. Some people are really, really good. You don’t have to say a word, you wonder sometimes why they’re at the camp because they’re such excellent musicians."

Part of the fun of reporting the story was meeting the amateur musicians themselves. Case in point, Gary Birch, a Software application architect from St. Paul, Minnesota, who told me, " I literally have been dreaming about standing on stage and playing with Yes since 1972. I don’t know if you could ask for anything better."

His wife, Janell, observed, "I listened to Yes since we got married since 1978. I tell you, we just needed to come here because I just wanted to support this whole camp with Yes because he looks younger, acts younger when he’s around this."

The band members in Yes were all friendly and happy to chat about their camp experience. I was particularly impressed with new singer Jon Davison, a sweet guy and one helluva singer.

Yes is currently working on new material for an album. Next year, they'll tour the UK and Europe to perform their albums The Yes Album, Close to the Edge, and Going for the One each night. Here's my recent interview with Yes guitarist Steve Howe about the tour.

Now on newsstands: Elbow and Blackfield interviews

I wrote lengthy features about Elbow and Blackfield for the new issue of Prog magazine, now on UK newsstands (£5.99 in WHSmith) and very soon available on US newsstands, including Barnes & Noble. Or, if you can't wait that long, just download the issue onto your Kindle or iPad via iTunes.

I thought I'd share a few tidbits from both interviews that ended up on the cutting-room floor...

BLACKFIELD

I wrote about the new album by Blackfield, the band consisting of Aviv Geffen and Steven Wilson, which marks a new era for the band. Technically, Blackfield isn't supposed to be a duo anymore. Wilson stated that he'd only be a guest contributor on this new album because he is focused on his very successful solo career. Turns out that the situation isn't that simple - as I explain in my article, Wilson was extensively involved in Blackfield IV. The album includes guest vocals by Vincent Cavanagh from Anathema, Brett Anderson from Suede, and Jonathan Donahue from Mercury Rev. I chatted to Geffen at his home in Tel Aviv - here's a few excerpts that didn't make it into the piece.

“In a way, it’s the most balanced album," said Geffen, his accent as heavy as the black eyeliner he often wears on stage. "It has songs like ‘Pills,’ which is the classic Blackfield sound, and on the last song you’ve got some dubstep. There are many angles on this album.”

Geffen is definitely the leader of the group now and that portends some stylistic changes. As he explained, “I’m a good friend of Coldplay, for example, and I think Blackfield should go in that path.”

ELBOW

I also interviewed Guy Garvey, the singer of Elbow, about each of the British band's albums and got a glimpse into the progressive direction of their next record. Elbow is one of Britain's biggest bands but, alas, hasn't become anything close to a household name in the USA. (Elbow's "Grounds for Divorce" was, however, recently used for a jeans ad on US television.)

If you've not listened to Elbow, seek them out. Their distinctive sound consists of the Peter-Gabriel-like vocals of Guy Garvey, one of rock's most literate lyricists, and the exploration of the space between notes. Their understanding of light-and-shade dynamics (which is influenced by Talk Talk) creates an intimate grandeur. If you've never heard them, check out the videos at the end of this piece.

Garvey is always a wonderful interview (here's a link to my previous chat with him) so I thought I'd share some of the stuff that didn't make it into my story.

Guy Garvey on...

Elbow's mega-hit "One Day Like This":

"The effect is has on an audience, especially in an arena, is so overwhelming. It's an extension of the themes that we tried to include on Cast of Thousands. I think, a lot of the time, a band will shy away from big, joyous sing-a-longs. I think, sometimes that's right. But often it's wrong. It's quite vain and, in many ways, it's a little selfish to deny those moments. Thousands and thousands and thousands of people got married to that song, for obvious reasons. That's more important than the fact that it accompanied two Olympic games with the BBC, it's more important than the fact that people have covered it, that's it's blown up and changed our fortunes. The best thing about it is that ordinary people fell in love to, and got married to, our music.

On the album format:

I read some statistics the other day, 16 to 25 year olds are going back to the album as a format. It was a music industry survey. And 16 to 25 year olds are missing that feeling of ownership. They're realizing that, if you listen to an album from start to finish, you can lose yourself within it and maybe even change the way you think about something. We've always been an album band.  We're very good friends with I am Kloot. You probably know that Craig and I produced their records. For them, song is the end product. The recording is a version of the song. But the song is the art. Whereas, for us, the album is the end product and everything else is just versions of that.  

About the next album, which was mooted to have a song titled "Cold Morning" on it:

"Cold Morning"? Wow. It's actually been sidelined. I am sure it will be [a future B-side]. This is something about the album-writing process. You start somewhere, you have enough songs for a record and then you take the best one and that becomes your benchmark - everything has to reach that grade. And you keep doing that until you're told that you're out of time and that's when you start finessing your record, tying up the loose ends. We would never actually release an album without deadlines! We would just keep improving it forever.

About his song contributions to King Kong: The Musical:

3D - Robert Del Naja - from Massive Attack, I did some singing and writing for their last record. Love working with those boys. Rob's got a very free way of working. The first time I went to that studio, I sang for nine hours over various beats and bits of demo music they had. I used all the lyrics that I hadn't used on the previous Elbow record. Some woeful themes and we discovered some melodies. Rob says he's still harvesting from that one session. Every now and then, he'll be working on a tune and he'll see what he hasn't used from that session and they'll chop it up and retune it and sometimes even re-sing it and sometimes they don't. 

Rob called me up and said, 'I'm involved in King Kong: The Musical.' We both laughed for five minutes. He said, 'It looks spectacular. The ape's going to be great.' He said, 'I've never done anything like this and they're asking for a lyricist.' I said, 'Well, I have absolutely no experience of musical theater. I've never been to a musical. ' I said, 'Yeah, why not. It's a bit of a challenge.' 

The director was really enthusiastic about the song I've written for them. It was really good fun. It was so different than writing songs from my perspective for Elbow. I was given a character with a backstory. I was allowed to extend the backstory, as well, in order to find a lyric. Who knows what it'll sound like when it's finished, but Marius de Vries, the musical director, has worked with Elbow before. He's a wonderful man. I love working with him and I love working with Rob. It looks stunning. My first musical theater experience will be going to see a musical with some of my words in it!

When is Elbow going to sell a Rubik's cube modeled on the cube on the cover for The Seldom Seen Kid?

I had the exact same idea! They made some mock-ups, but Rubik's refused to manufacture a pure white cube. We got in touch with them and they said the only way they could do it would be to sell us naked Rubik's Cubes and they would sell us white stickers and we'd have to put them on by hand. No one at the record company was prepared to do that! So, the band have got one each. There's about 10 in existence. I've got one in my bedroom at home.

NEAT LITTLE ROWS


LIPPY KIDS


THE BONES OF YOU


MIRRORBALL


FORGET MYSELF