I have taken a radical step.
Last night, in a fog of rage at the wateriness of Porcupine Tree's Fear of a Blank Planet, I collected together every album and CD I possess by King Crimson, Marillion, Yes, The Mars Volta, Jethro Tull, Mike Keneally, Genesis, Can, the Soft Machine, and the Moody Blues, opened my second-story window, and heaved the whole stinking lot of them into the flowerbed below.
This event will henceforth be known at Jingo Acres as The Defenestration of Prog.
No, not the Tull too!? Oh, the humanity...
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorite words.
ReplyDeleteDefenestration.
Right before Merkin.
"Defenestration" sounds so filthy, doesn't it? A Latinate euphemism for something you'd have to pay a pro extra to do...
ReplyDelete"I'd like to start with a little frottage, move on to lingual stimulation, and finally, when I'm good and ready, the defenestration!
"And would you mind wearing this merkin while you work?
Tom, I had a sort of a satori moment somewhere in my mid-thirties, when I forgave myself for liking Jethro Tull when I was 13.
You'll regret it. I got rid of all those albums a long time ago, and found myself, in recent years, buying a few of them again. Especially the Tull, in fact, Thick as a Brick being one of the soundtracks of my teenage years. But also Close to the Edge, assorted Genesis, and others. I still find Crimson to be ahead of its time too (at least early Crimson.)
ReplyDeleteNever actually been much of a prog-head, actually -- I don't actually own most of those records. I was just in love with that awful pun.
ReplyDelete"Songs from the Wood" still has its moments. "Thick as a Brick" was kind of ruined for me when a college friend (who comments here occasionally, come to think of it, hey, Jerry!) mockingly la-la-la'd the section that links "teach him to play Monopoly and how to sing in the rain" and "The Poet and the Painter..." Ooog. Let's put on the B-52s....
Funnily enough, I only just remembered something from yesterday:
ReplyDeleteMowing 3 acres gives a man a lot of time to think. I noticed that the pokeberry bushes had begun to spring up -- another thing I've got to run around pulling out. Pokeberries meandered into the subject of poke salad, which led to the song "Poke Salad Annie" (a song I've never heard). That led to "Cross-Eyed Mary" but with "Poke Salad Annie" where Mary once was ("Poke Salad Annie goes jumping in again!"). Then I flashed on an image of Jack Black doing a vocal rendition of the flute solo as he might have done in "School of Rock."
Then I wrapped the mower around a tree...
Like I say, a lot of time to think.
Tired of wateriness?!?
ReplyDeleteGo ahead. Take exclusive comfort in your Earth Wind & Fire then. See how long that'll be enough for you. You'll be picking jewel cases out of the azaleas sooner than you think.
not the King Crimson!
ReplyDeleteNedddiiiieeee......
(Plus you missed the chance to pun on the Frippery of prog-rock. Maybe a few too many lawnmower fumes?)
Dude admitting that you _had_ Marillion is th' sort of brave 'n' cathartic breakthrough that blogs were MADE for.
ReplyDelete'kay, I feel emboldened. I have...mmm...let me lean over and regard th' collection...I have "X&Y" by Coldplay.
But I can probably trade it in for a UK Subs import.
I was walkin' through the park
ReplyDeleteDreamin' of a spark
Till I heard the whisper nee-nee-nee-nee-nee
The age of summer long
Then I heard the children singin'
They were runnin' through the rainbow
They were singin' a song for you
Well, it seemed to be a song for you
The one I wanted to write for you
Foooooor you.
You.
You.
Lavender's blue
Dilly dilly
Lavender's green
When I am Queen
Dilly dilly
You will be King
A penny for your thoughts, my dear
A penny for your thoughts, my dear
Are you you for your love?
Are you you for your love?
Are you.....Jeddie? ARE YOU??!!
Uh, you might want to take XTCFan to one side and have some quiet words with him. He's trying to turn me onto King Crimson.
ReplyDeleteWere you wearing an Adrian Belew-esque jumpsuit while mowing the lawn or were you hopping on one foot ala Ian Anderson?
ReplyDeleteAre you serious? You've never heard "Poke Salad Annie"?
He's trying to turn me onto King Crimson.
ReplyDeleteProbably not a difficult thing to resist. I've always found it hard to find a warm, beating heart at the core of Crim music.
Are you serious? You've never heard "Poke Salad Annie"?
Not consciously, no. Having read up on it, it appears to have been part of the Late Elvis' repertoire, and so it's actually very likely that I have, and were I to hear it I'd recognize it.
(Three minutes later...)
Well, this being the Internet Age and all, I popped over to the iTunes Store and listened to a couple of 30-second extracts, and it's confirmed. Never heard it. I can say that if Tony Joe White's version predates 1968 or so, then John Fogarty's got a lot of 'splainin' to do: Looks like the entire CCR career was lifted lock, stock and Gibson ES-335 from that one recording.
the Defenestration of Prog
ReplyDeleteoh, ouch. Ow, ow, ow.
Ouch.
oh, ouch. Ow, ow, ow.
ReplyDeleteFinally the reaction I was trying to provoke instead of "Dude, 'Karn Evil 9: 1st Impression, Pt. 2' off Brain Salad Surgery does too not suck!"
Thank you, Julia, for actually getting the joke.
under the circumstances I suppose I should have said "the pane"
ReplyDeleteProbably not a difficult thing to resist. I've always found it hard to find a warm, beating heart at the core of Crim music.
ReplyDeleteOh, fuck all y'alls. Of course, it depends what version of the band you're listening to -- the '72-'74 band pumped plenty of red corpuscles through its musicular heart.
Come to think of it, the war between Prog and Punk started about 30 Years ago, did it not?
Oh, fuck all y'alls.
ReplyDeleteWeird! Not just yesterday, I had occasion to relate to some people how a girl I knew in college, a true Georgia Peach, used to walk into a room and say "Aw, fuck all o' y'all."
My purpose in relating the story was to actually convey the concept, "Fuck all of y'all." They needed to hear it.
Come to think of it, the war between Prog and Punk started about 30 Years ago, did it not?
ReplyDeleteWhat was Television? Punk or Prog?
What was Television? Punk or Prog?
ReplyDeletePrunk
and here i finally bought my first copy of Think As A Brick this past weekend. coincidence? maybe there is a fixed number of copies of TaaB allowed to exist in the universe at any one time - until you destroyed your copy, mine could not come to be.
Thick as a Brick also lost quite a bit of interest for me when they stopped pressing it with the complete newspaper it used to come in. Ah, those pre-Vinyl-Shortage boom days, when a truly extravagant album cover was de rigeur!
ReplyDeleteIronically, someone sent me this post as an example of such a great pun...
ReplyDelete...and I'm about to go see Porcupine Tree tomorrow.
Sigh.
Madeline: I've never heard a note of Porcupine Tree. I grabbed their name out of a Wikipedia article on Current Prog Bands.
ReplyDeleteEnjoy your concert.
I don't know that I would have bothered to throw out the albums--even if I owned anything by any of the listed bands, which I don't--because, after about half an hour listening to, say, Judas Priest, I'm not sure that I could even hear prog rock. (The sole possible exception would be "Aqualung"--just the title track, not the entire album--which is sort of metal, IMO.)
ReplyDeleteYou threw out your Soft Machine collection? They count as the dreaded prog? Even The Concise British Alphabet Pts I & II?
ReplyDelete