JON MIRSALIS: MUSICAL MAESTRO OF A THOUSAND TALENTS

SUNRISE is simply one of the best movies ever made: period!   Silent or not, if you have not seen this F.W. Murnau classic you're no movie fan.   This powerful story of lust, betrayal, hatred, love and redemption had both me and my wife weeping with joy when we saw it screened at the Lawrence Arts Center several years ago, accompanied by the live music of the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra.

Well, last night in Topeka, at the 19th annual Kansas Silent Film Festival I saw two fabulously funny and entertaining comedy 5-reelers.  The first was Harold Lloyd's 1922 "Grandma's Boy," and the second was Buster Keaton's 1927 "College."   While there was no Mont Alto this year, the great Californian polymath, protean genius (I'm really not exaggerating) and Renaissance man Dr. Jon Mirsalis (scientist, researcher, patent holder, Lon Chaney Sr. expert, silent film expert, composer, musician, and accompanist extraordinaire) played piano and keyboards to the Keaton masterpiece.  And I WAS THERE!   I would have gone up and gotten his autograph, but with limited funds (i.e. no money) I was unable to purchase any of his scored DVD silents that were for sale.

   While not Prog in the sense of Rick Wakeman or Keith Emmerson, Dr. Jon Mirsalis' playing last night was truly progressive in expressing ideas, emotions, and a wealth of other plot devices and manifestations.

   If you ever have a chance to hear Mirsalis play--TAKE IT!  

Mellotron On!

LONELY ROBOT - Airlock (Teaser)

Do you like science fiction?  OF COURSE YOU DO!

Do you like rich, lush, prog music with concept-themes and incredible melodies?    DUH!

Are you a "thinking man?"     WELL..............?



Surf over to The (n)EVERLAND OF PROG on wordpress https://fatherwatson.wordpress.com/

to read my review of this singular 2015 mega-release.



And since you're a "hard case," here's a snippet to hook you like a large-mouth (Mickey's) bass



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New Post sorta

I've got a brand-new album review posted on our doppelganger site (....hmmm...or is this the simulacrum site?)

check it out:
https://fatherwatson.wordpress.com/    

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BIG BIG TRAIN: Thursdays

   What a perfect little gem of a tune to put a smile on your face (especially if you're in a wintry and frigid part of America or the UK).

   'Uncle Jack' (written in honor of lead vocalist David Longdon's uncle) is the second track on BBT's 2012 album ENGLISH ELECTRIC PART ONE.  It appears as the third track of disc one on their Double album (with extra tracks) of 2013 FULL POWER.

   This is a song totally immune from the criticisms sometimes leveled at bands like Mumford & Sons as being only tepid ersatz folk rock or roots-rock.  No!   This song is so genuine and earthy that you can taste the 'bangers & mash' and smell the stout (or coffee).

   That first 20 seconds, once the banjo (Dave Gregory) takes off, has one grinning, bopping the head, and tapping the foot. Then when the vocal harmonies join in with the lead of David Longdon you're in heaven--which is fitting since Longdon truly has a voice of an angel.

   This song has one thinking of the perfect meld of Jethro Tull and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, only far better than both!

   What a salutary love poem to localism, rootedness, and earth; GKC would be smiling...heck, Wendell Berry too.



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You know what, I'm happy

First Droopy (love me that Daws Butler)







Then the reason thereof:

   I have long drooled over, and thumbed through, PROG on the newstand--or, at least the magazine section of my local HASTINGS (which has been like a ghost-town for the last several years...no one reading or BUYING magazines anymore it seems).  I would buy every issue of PROG but for the too-high (for me) cover price.  Heck, for $3.99 I can buy that Cars album I don't have or the Geo. Lynch Dokken masterpiece that's on sale (HASTINGS is pretty slim pickens when it comes to actual Prog Cds :(  )  So I just can't seem to part with the $15 bucks that this journal requires.

   But my best friend in the universe, Reliops of California (the Spoiler of plebian music), bought me a subscription for Christmas.  My first issue just arrived.  I can't wait to listen to the free Cd sampler on my way to Kansas City tonight.  I also can't wait till March 4th when Steven Wilson's much lauded new album drops.  Stay tuned.



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The Flower Kings - Pipes of Peace

  Due to my other, other gig (i.e. my full-time vocation) I'm probably not going to be able to post as often as I had hoped during this period of "re-launch."  We'll see.

  But in the spirit of my vocational music (no, I'm not an organist but I'm married to a musical lady who can play the organ) I present a marvelous little "minute-plus" piece by the amazing TOMAS BODIN, keyboard wizard extraordinaire of The Flower Kings.  This virtuoso snippet would be well suited for our Lententide services...just sayin'   :)



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New Post

A new text-post has been posted on the mirror Wordpress site.
Check it out:  https://fatherwatson.wordpress.com/   

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Moody Blues: House of Four Doors~Part 1

TUESDAY AFTERNOON (with the MOODIES) #1

    Although not considered prog my most progologists (and rightly so, I think) this was THE band that opened it all up for me.

    Here (and hear) is part 1 of one of my favorites which definitely has prog elements.



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Marillion - The Invisible Man - Out Of Season DVD

   How can I handcuff a bloomin' shirt?

   H.G. Wells' Dr. Jack Griffin (Claude Rains too) would absolutely love this tune (I know I do!!! but then Marillion has become my favorite band) even in his own chemically induced insanity

New Post...but you've got to point your mouse and click :)

Surf over to the "mirror" image (sort of, sideway, backwards....) blog of this blog at Wordpress:

https://fatherwatson.wordpress.com/ 

for the most recent post.

In a short while this blogger site will cease and all content will only be available at the Wordpress url.

There's a few more YouTube videos to post here first  :)

Mellotronally,
jww

Man Of A Thousand Faces (So Good Lon Chaney is Foot-Tapping)

EVERLAND

   So why do I have a new blog name?  As a huge fan of Al Stewart (my favorite singer/songwriter) and an admirer of the fiction of Kurt Vonnegut, I wanted to go with The Sirens of Titan. As that title was already taken on blogger I used a spelling variation. It was to be an all-purpose musical blog primarily directed at a very limited audience.  Now that I’m going to focus primarily on progressive rock music I decided to change it.

  I had purchased Brave by Marillion back in 2005 and while impressed with its scope and emotional depth, was not as overblown as I had hoped.  Limited funds (the universal cry of all music nerds and especially progheads—dang double albums and bonus editions ;) ) kept me from buying more of their back catalog.  It wasn’t until Dr. Thomas Woods had Marillion vocalist Steve Hogarth on his podcast http://tomwoods.com/blog/marillions-steve-hogarth-on-the-past-and-the-future/    that I dipped back into Marillion.  I followed Dr. Woods’ suggestion to view the live version of Neverland and I was hooked.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWFuzjqJYpY

   I think my credit card was humming the amazon.com theme song within minutes of that YouTube video.  The performance was everything and more that Woods said it would be.  Now, several Marillion albums later (only “several”…dang limited funds) Hogarth and company are in heavy rotation and enshrined in the Beatific Tonalities Pantheon.

   The current blog title is a “take” on that song title Neverland with the added twist that the letter “n” is put in lower case in parenthesis.  A bit of a play also on J.M. Barrie’s Neverland (magical, mythological, fantasy lands seem to be very prog friendly in my mind) but also a bit of theological/teleological commentary on the inaugurated eschatology of “now/not yet.” We live in a broken world where all around us everything decays and dies…even our music.  Our attempt at lasting fulfillment in the here & now is a Lenten trek through a “Neverland.”  But beautiful and melodic music (prog) need not be some inane Hegelian game of Sisyphean pop culture.  Lovers of the transcendence that comes from the best of prog (Yes, Camel, Genesis, Spock’ Beard, Flower Kings, the Tangent, Big Big Train) and yes, Marillion’s Everland, believe, teach, and confess that in heaven (or whatever afterlife they may posit) we will be not only be in Everland, but that we will have found all the lost chords.

Small We Begin

  I would like to begin at the beginning, but this is only the initial blog post to restart an inconsequential blog and not a bloated autobiography.

   My love for music comes from my Dad. Though our musical tastes were not identical he did help shape my love for melody and an appreciation for beauty in music.  He loved to whistle; that says a lot.

   I was very unmusical in Junior High at a time when watching too much television had me missing out on the golden age of mid to late 60’s rock and pop.  I knew the Beatles of course, watched the Monkees on the tube, and had friends who liked the Doors, Simon & Garfunkel, and Dylan, but I did not become a regular listener of music until my Junior year in High School. My clock radio introduced me to AM top forty but also to the almost prog sounds of Procol Harum’s Conquistador.  Thanks to the Midnight Special and other sources I also became acquainted with Three Dog Night (remember, melody) and the Bee Gees (ditto) pre-Saturday Night Fever.  I also loved the Guess Who.

   It was at a party that a friend introduced me to a band that forever has changed my musical life.  PD who helped provide music for the party brought her collection of Moody Blues’ albums…and she loaned them to me to re-listen to at my leisure.  Have I mentioned melody?  While this is not a post about the magnificent Moodies I can honestly say that the succeeding 40 years has been a quest in finding bands that might touch me with the supernal joys that I first experienced from journeying from Days of Future Past to Seventh Sojourn. 

   I quickly discovered Queen and Electric Light Orchestra (there were things on AM radio worth pursuing) and my cousin Dave introduced me another band that would forever mold my musical tastes—Genesis.   I also started exploring the discographies of Yes and Jethro Tull, two bands I met via their top forty hits: Roundabout and Aqualung.

    And now decades later, I re-launch this music blog originally started in early 2014 under the name Seirenes of Titan (even though blogs are so 2009) because my long-time best friend “the Spoiler” has re-kindled my love for prog which had dwindled and burned out back around 2005/6.   I also acknowledge a debt of gratitude to both Dr. Thomas Woods and Dr. Brad Birzer.  The love these two marvelous Christian scholars and amateur prog musicologists have for progressive music, and the joy in which they share their passions, caused me to discover BIG BIG TRAIN.  This band alone can fuel a plethora of future posts.  But I have also been diving back into the Flower Kings, Marillion, and Steven Wilson.

    I only scratch the surface here.

    That’s why there will be more posts to come.

    The Moody Blues were only the beginning in this trek to The (n)Everland of Prog.  I continue searching for lost chords.

New Blog Title Test

the

n/EVERLAND of PROG

(Incorporating Seirenes of Titan)