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.