Prog Digest – An Xperience Column

Prog Digest – An Xperience Column – by Klyde Kadiddlehumper.

New York.
London.
Paris.
Munich.
Everybody Loves….M – Pop Muzik.
How many of you actually recall that song? A particular time and a particular sound. Very synth and strangely prog for its’ time. Some think it is the precursor to Let’s Dance – but who knows….
Once upon a time, ol’ Klyde and a bunch of college kids (yup, Klyde was a kid once – in college even_) trekked to New York City. Well before it became part of the house of the mouse…. when Times Square was still hookers and peepshows and dealers and junkies. You know – the good old days from around 1980.
Tower Records was king – and there was Crazy Eddies (Our Prices are INSANE), White Castle on every corner and the cheap utility slice.
Of course, there was still disco – and, if you were of a mind – every 12” disco single on the planet was available in Tower. I will admit to actually having a couple 12” Disco hits in the old collection. The Message (Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five), No More Tears (Donna Summer and Babs) and the king (or is that queens) of them all – the Paul Shaffer penned – It’s Raining Men (The Weather Girls). I mean, come on, we all have a little place in our hearts for a couple of these. Not as a steady diet, more like a very small, very light, thin mint. How bad could it be when one of the biggest disco labels, Casablanca Records, was also home to KISS.
Well, my friend Bob went a little overboard. Maybe not a little. From that fateful day to this day, long after his untimely young passing, he is known among us as simply – Disco Bob. We were all unaware just how many 12” disco singles one man could buy in one sitting.
These times and places are what get us here. Now, would I posit that perhaps disco was the Gordon Gekko of the music world? Sure. Did anyone throw The Stones over when they went disco?
No.
Or the Dead – Shakedown Street anyone?
The worst thing about the disco era was, to be perfectly honest, the clothes. Seriously. Multi Inch high platforms. Clothes as likely to cause a major fire as Mrs. O’Leary’s cow……with all the advantages of napalm. Ozone destroying amounts of hair products.
Tailpipe emissions – phooey. Climate change is a direct result of Aqua Net. This is satire people, so don’t go claiming that this is fact.
In many ways, this was the seed of that which became known as New Wave. A synth barrage that, again, is reviled in many corners… but it’s the hook… and I ran, I ran so far away… that she blinded me with science…
Yeah – and Mozart put too many notes on the page.
Progressive is what you make it. It’s not all ELP all the time. Or King Crimson (btw, by account the BEAT tour of Crimson music is the bomb). Or Spock’s Beard. Or Edisons Child. Or Hawkwind. It is what you make it.
What do Constant Companion and I both consider progressive? It’s when we are driving around and there is a lull in the conversation with her teenage nephew in the back seat. And from his mouth come these now famous (in our world) words…….
So. There we were. Naked.
Covered in soy sauce…
And somewhere, in a parallel universe, Mozart is reviled and Barry Manilow has a Nobel for Music.
Until next time.
Klyde

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