Progressive Thoughts - Day 6

Today’s song is called Ascension by a British progressive rock band called Arena.

The song has a theatrical feel to it, something I love when listening to music. The song is the final track on what is a brilliant album and rounds it off beautifully.

I imagine that you probably won’t have heard of Arena, nor in fact many of the bands in this blogathon and that saddens me a little. I’ve mentioned this before in previous blog posts and urged people to actually go out into the world wide web and actually seek music that is not on the playlists dictated to by record companies and people like Simon Cowell, who are in my view killing music.

The internet has opened up the entire world to everybody and we should all make use of it, rather than being told what to do. This doesn’t just apply to music; it applies to everything. Whatever you are interested in there is something out there for you.

I like to cite music as an example because this is one of the most important subjects I like to pontificate about – and I do realise, dear reader, that sometimes I do preach a bit. It’s my problem really because I tend to wear my heart on my sleeve over some subjects.

Anyway, as I have vowed to remain positive in 2017, I shall try to dwell on the music itself rather than attacking Simon Cowell and his partners in crime, as well as greedy record producers.

Let me use Adele as an example.

Don’t get me wrong, I think Adele has an amazing voice and has written some good music, albeit not to my musical taste. But in Britain, a new Adele album is met with absolute delight by the music industry simply because they know that they can rake in millions. Her latest album was apparently a triumph – I don’t doubt that – but it was basically rammed down our throats here in Britain particularly. I’ll give you an example.

The BBC pride themselves in not advertising but in many ways, they are hypocritical. When I am abroad, I watch BBC World News and, in between reports they show adverts – but I guess that doesn’t count because we are in a foreign land.

Nevertheless, in the UK we can watch television programmes uninterrupted by terrible and cringeworthy advertisements.

That is, unless an Adele album is realised.

The BBC gave Adele a one hour show where, in between songs, she chatted to one of the most famous UK chat show hosts, Graham Norton, and plugged her new album mercilessly.

It was a one hour advert for her album!!!!

I don’t blame her. If I were in her position I would also have accepted this lucrative offer.

In my opinion, television and radio in the UK is flawed in this regard.

If I had any clout whatsoever, I would not allow this – or alternatively – have programmes and shows that showcased alternative music out there. With all respect to Adele, there are lots of women who have written great songs and have amazing voices yet are never heard of because nobody plugs their music on prime time television and radio shows.

I would love to be a DJ at a commercial radio station. I would play all sorts of music from various genres.

Back to Adele, I have to admit that I like her Bond theme for Skyfall. She wrote an amazing song and sung it brilliantly. She deserves all the plaudits.

However, there are other women out there who have written better songs and have equally, if not better voices. I have an example.

A year or two ago, a Dutch symphonic metal band were challenged to interpret other people’s songs and perform their own version. They were given one week per song. The band is called Within Temptation and I have mentioned them before. Their song writing is amazing but on this occasion for fun they covered other songs. One of those songs was Skyfall.

Now I know that they didn’t write it, but the singer, Sharon den Adel, sang magnificently. Yes it is a little more rocky but concentrate on the vocals. I think you will be surprised.

Judge for yourself:

Do you agree?

If so, check them out.

This is the power of the internet, ladies and gentlemen.

Unanswered Questions

When I think about things seriously, I mean really start to think, my brain begins to hurt with pain and despair at the state of the human race.

That’s why I try not to think too deeply.

Well – apart from yesterday when something prompted me to rant again.

When I rant, my addled brain spits forth questions about the unfairness and stupidity of life. And these are questions that I simply cannot answer.  Here are some examples.

Why would anybody pay £220,000 for a bottle of brandy? 

Yes – that’s right. A restaurant/bar in Manchester has one for sale.

Why would anybody pay £1600 for a six litre bottle of vodka with a light at the bottom of it?

I asked the barman who jokingly gave us two glasses and pretended he was about to open it for us. The light at the bottom made it look like a nice decoration for a bar but nothing else.

Why do women wear shoes that cripple their feet?

Mrs PM walks to a restaurant on the night out in here plimsolls and then pulls out her high heeled foot butchering shoes just outside and proceeds to hobble in clutching on to me as if she has severely injured herself.

Why do some 60 year old women wear revealing and tight fitting clothes that are designed for 21 year olds? 

A woman in a restaurant who would have looked okay wearing normal older person clothes, chose to wear one of those short, tight fitting dresses that revealed almost everything and left very little to the imagination. What’s more she was plastered in make-up, so much in fact that it probably took an expert interior decorator about three hours to make her look vaguely young. It didn’t; she looked ridiculous as she waddled to the toilet, her blubber hanging over the strategically placed “sexy” holes in the dress. Once seen, you can never unsee a sight like that.

What on earth is the logic of having a full length mirror in front of a toilet so that I can see myself pee?

In the same restaurant, I had a perfect view of myself as I answered a call of nature. Why? I ask again: “WHY????”

Why would anybody consider having a huge tattoo? 

Cheryl Cole/Fernandez-Vermicelli (or whatever her name is) has the most enormous tattoo on her bum. Why? What on earth is she going to look like at the age of 60?

How has Katie Hopkins managed to carve out television career for herself by being offensive?

Yes, that’s right! They’ve given Little Miss Nasty her own TV show finally!



What the flump were they thinking??????

Why hasn’t anybody exiled Piers Morgan to a remote island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean? Or to the moon?

He is STILL on my tellybox despite my protestations. I thought we had exiled him to America. Well apparently he pissed them off so much they sent him back! Can we send him to Australia now?

Who gives a flying flump about Kim Kardashian or any member of her family?

I am sick of people talking about these people. Stop talking about  them and they will go away.

What is going on in the head of Kanye West?

His ego is bigger than the universe, so much so that he recently declared himself the greatest living rock star on the planet. This after he had murdered Bohemian Rhapsody:



If he’s the greatest living rock star on the planet then I am a cat from outer space.

Why does my cat shit on my doormat?

Talking of cats, my fat lazy cat, Jasper, has recently started dumping his wares on our doormat. I think he’s trying to tell me something. We have had to start spraying the mat with Feliway – a kind of cat pheromone. It’s working but now …

Why do cats wait until you have cleaned their litter tray before immediately dumping their wares back into it? 

It’s summer. The cats should go outside to dump their wares but they are too lazy and prefer to use their trays (which I hate!!!). So there I am, like an idiot, cleaning the last disgusting mess only to find it refilled within seconds!

And why do cats vomit in the worst places?

Cats eat so much of their own fur that it congregates inside their gullets as a repulsive disgusting globule of semi-digested hair which they seem to love chundering up in the middle of my freshly vacuumed and cleaned carpet. Why can’t they go outside to do it? Of do it in the litter tray (I wouldn’t mind if I had just cleaned it).

The Great British Bake Off; what in the name of all that is SANE is this terrible cookery programme doing on prime time British television?

We are all mad in Britain because we watch utter garbage on television and become so obsessed with it that it fills the newspapers and in some cases it becomes all-consuming. We have terrible trailers for this show including one that was banned for copyright infringement, which had 80 year old Mary Berry singing a terrible version of the “Sound of Music”. This programme personifies the stupidity of some of my fellow countrymen who are infatuated with cookery programmes. Put the bloody thing on its own cookery channel  for flump’s sake! What’s worse, people actually complain at so-called funny innuendos that fill the show. People have actually written in to the BBC and complained about the overuse of the phrase “soggy bottom”.

Are these people for real??? I want to complain about the programme itself being so shit. Get the programme off the air before I rant myself into a mad seizure!

Why do people believe everything they read in the newspapers?

The Daily Mail and the Daily Express are the worst newspapers in Britain. They report stories full of scaremongery and have a deep political agenda that people are gullible enough to believe. Almost as bad are the celebrity obsessed tabloids who love to tell us tedious facts like Cheryl Cole/Fernandez-Ventagli (or whatever her name is) has had a tattoo that covers her arse and that we should worry about her because she has lost weight. We are gradually going insane – of that I am convinced.

Why don’t people just stop listening to crap radio stations?

I have listened to radio stations in the car with Mrs PM because we cannot agree on the music we can tolerate, so we search for some common ground and discover that we can both mutually rant about idiotic DJs and the same old dreadful old music that they insist on playing. Please God, give me a radio station. I’ll show them all how it is done and I promise that I won’t spend the time between playing shit songs with banal quizzes and inane uninteresting banter that is not funny and only appeals to morons.

Why does Mrs PM like such shit music?

Why can’t I brainwash her with my fantastic music after being with her for 17 years? There is no depth to Mrs PM’s music. All she listens to is dreadful music including Britney Spears, Cheryl Cole/Flaminez-Vampiri (or whatever her name is). She doesn’t even listen to the words. Even I know the words to the songs that she likes and usually they go something like this:

I see you on the dance floor and I want your love.

If you take me home tonight you can show me all your love.

You can take your love and give it to me all night long.

And then we can beat up the guy who wrote this awful song

Why is the weather in Britain so bloody shit?

Take Friday for example. In the middle of summer I walked about 500 yards from my hotel to take a ride on the legendary “Ferry Across The Mersey” and when I returned, God, in his infinite wisdom, thought I needed a 500 yard shower. I was absolutely drenched by the time I reached the hotel.  I would have been dryer if I had stood fully clothed in my own shower for three hours.

I only went out for five minutes!!

Okay – that’s enough ranting for now.

Thanks for indulging me again.

I’m off to watch the Great British Bake Off and count how many soggy bottoms there are.

The War Against Crap Music

Last night I went to see my current favourite musical hero in concert and this was a euphoric experience in more ways than one.

The artist in question was Steven Wilson, a musical genius in every sense of the phrase.

First, the concert was a triumph. It was everything I thought it would be. The music was perfect and on more than one occasion, I was so lost in the melodies and songs that a tear of joy escaped from my eye and rolled gently down my cheek.

Second, I had persuaded a friend of mine to take a chance and see the concert. His musical taste does not walk hand in hand with mine, but there is an overlap. When I bought the tickets, a few months ago, I suggested that he listen to Steven’s solo music on the internet and also that of his former band (currently on hiatus), Porcupine Tree. 

There was no way he would ever hear the work on the radio so he would have to use the internet. It didn't take him long to find it and since then he has devoured the music. He loves Steven Wilson and, like me, thinks it’s a crime against humanity that this guy is not massively famous. He has already started to delve into his back catalogue.

Finally, the venue for the concert was Manchester Bridgewater Hall, a place usually reserved for classical music concerts. And the place was packed with a wildly varied audience, ranging from the odd rock lover to entire families of music lovers including kids. 

Steven’s music is basically progressive rock but, my God, does the man have an ear for melody. He has experimented with jazz, orchestral arrangements, progressive rock, pop music and heavy metal – sometimes all in the same song. 

What I liked best was the fact that there is a huge audience for his music, people who have turned their backs on shit like the X Factor and radio friendly nonsense that I ranted about earlier this year in A Rant About Music.

I am not the only one.

I have allies in this battle.

It’s not easy though. 

On Friday night, I was in a pub in Manchester, celebrating a friend from work’s fortieth birthday, when I opted to leave early. The reason for leaving was that I wanted a totally clear head to see Steven Wilson and it was the most important event of the weekend for me. 

“Who?” came the incredulous replies as I tried to leave the pub at around 9pm. “Never heard of him!”

I could have stayed and discussed this further with another pint of ale but I chose to leave rather than risking hangover. This was the big event of the weekend for me and nothing was going to ruin it.

As I lay in bed this morning, remembering the concert and trying to describe it to Mrs PM, I discovered that she too had no interest.

“But the music is beautiful,” I said. “I’m not asking you to like it; I’m asking you to listen to the concepts.”

I tried to explain a song called Routine from the latest (and truly brilliant) album called Hand. Cannot. Erase., which describes a woman who uses the routine of the mundane chores every day of her life to keep her going. I didn’t really grasp the full meaning of the song until I saw it performed live, with a very moving animated video being shown in the background. The woman, preparing meals for four, washing, cleaning, ironing to help her sane until towards the end of the song she shrieks finally:

Routine keeps me in line

Helps me pass the time

Concentrate my mind 

Helps me to sleep

And keep making beds and keep the cat fed

Open the Windows let the air in

And keep the house clean and keep the routine

Paintings they make still stuck to the fridge

At this point in the video we learn that her entire family, husband and two children, died in a car crash and the "routine" is how she copes with the loss.

Heart-wrenching stuff that allowed one of my tears to escape.

The song is beautiful, melodic with disturbing undertones and has a truly magnificent guest female vocal and a choir boy and is technically brilliant as well as very intelligent.

The whole album is the same, full of deep emotional songs transcending various genres with a progressive feel but also a couple of, what I would describe as pop songs. Of course, it is progressive rock at the end of the day, but there are no songs that I don’t like.

It is a triumph and to be absolutely frank, should be made available to a wider audience.

I’m not asking you to like Steven Wilson or his music, dear reader; I’m offering it to you as an alternative to the tired old fodder that is spoon-fed to you by corporate executive billionaires who want to peddle crap music that makes them richer. I want to fire a broadside across the bows of radio stations who claim to speak for the population by playing “the music that they love” when in reality they are TELLING the people what music they SHOULD love by limiting the amount they can listen too.

Even Madonna may become an ally in this war as BBC Radio One, the so-called “kids” radio station here in the UK, has removed her current single from their playlist. 

What goes around, comes around, eh Madge? Now you know how the rest of the struggling music makers feel.

I equate this struggle to thinking that McDonald’s is the only place to get food when there is a gourmet restaurant  hidden in the back streets of the city that is not advertised and you have to search around for. Not all these restaurants are good - but most of them are far better than the bland burgers offered by Ronald McDonald.

To complete my role in this analogy, I want to be the man who meets you off the train and says:

"Before you go to McDonalds, take a look at this book, which is full of decent restaurants to try.”

In fact, that's an even better analogy:

Simon Cowell is the Ronald McDonald of the music industry.

Later in the month I will dedicate a meme to Steven Wilson’s solo work and maybe next month, I will do the same for his band Porcupine Tree.

In the meantime, here is a song called Perfect Life from Hand.Cannot.Erase. featuring the spoken words of Katherine Jenkins, the opera singer.

Remember, I’m not asking you to like it; I’m just trying to broaden your horizons and erode the influence of Simon Cowell and his cohorts.

Equally, I am willing to listen to anything you have to offer me, dear reader, and it doesn't matter what genre the music is.

I will champion anything I feel should be out there - even if it's jazz!!

Please join me.

We can do this!

Who’s with me?

A Rant About Music

It’s still January, it’s still bloody freezing outside, it is still dark when I go to work and dark when I come home. January and February are the worst months of the year and I spend almost every day feeling pissed off and grumpy.

Yes - it's another rant, I'm afraid.

Little things make my situation worse, tiny little things that ordinarily wouldn’t bother me, things that I would just push to one side and ignore. In January these little things become a major force and infuriate me.

One such thing infuriated me this morning.

I was on my way to work and I decided to change the CD in my car. I had been listening to the new album by AC/DC and I fancied a change. Sadly, when I ejected the CD, I dropped it on the floor and I had stupidly not prepared a new CD to replace it. The car stereo defaulted to the radio, which normally wouldn’t be too bad because my radio station of choice is a local rock station.

And then I found myself listening to a diabolical R’n’B hip hop crossover dirge that almost certainly featured the now obligatory pointless egotistical rap by an artist with a stupid name like $ycho, Snoop Hen or Eminemineminemiem.

I howled in frustration; I couldn’t stop the car and I needed to concentrate because it was dark and cold and the road was full of arses, trying to cut me up. My temper rose to almost boiling point.

Mrs PM had used the car and changed the radio station so I was listening to an inane, moronic DJ with the intelligence of a slug, playing the songs that corporate arses had ordered him to play. In my rage, I couldn’t figure out how to get back to my beloved rock station so I searched the airwaves and found my ears and brain polluted by utter drivel from loads of genres – songs that are played over and over and over and over again. There were new songs, old boring repetitive songs, one hit wonders, and all manner of novelty crap.

They were shit then and they are shit now.

I find it incredible that we as free-thinking humans allow ourselves to be spoon fed by the so-called gods of music who tell us what to listen to, what to like and the styles of music we have to endure. Like mindless zombies we listen to it.

“But the music is great,” I hear you cry. “You are just an ageing dinosaur. These songs are good.”

Some of the songs that receive too much airplay have been good, dear reader – the odd one. However, we are force fed utter dross most of the time because the hidden powers behind what you hear on the radio have a playlist which is absolutely full of the latest “in-bands” who have somehow managed to gain a foothold because they are pretty boys or lovely young ladies.

I am talking about manufactured boy bands, yet another bloody rap artist, a warbling woman who happens to have a great body and can dance along to her terrible song but has little talent.

Even when I stumble across a radio station playing “oldies”, it’s still the same old songs that we have heard all the time and were bored to death by, way back in the 60’s, 70’s or 80’s.

And this subjugation has permeated into everything from adverts to weddings and parties.

Every single party or wedding I ever go to that has a dance floor, either plays modern radio-friendly garbage or old songs that are totally crap but I know all the words to because I have heard them about three million times in my life.

“OH MY GOD! NOT “I’VE HAD THE TIME OF MY LIFE” AGAIN!! SOMEBODY KILL ME NOW!”

Sometimes when I have had to endure dancing to a stupid song like “Tonight’s Gonna Be A Good Night!” for the 2000th time, I sit there with frustration building up inside, fuelled by alcohol, and say to myself:

“Right – let’s get some bloody rock music!” I say and march over to the DJ defiantly. The DJ has usually said something earlier, like “If you have any requests, please come up.”

The conversation goes one of three ways:

PM: Please – I beg you – can you play something decent? Have you got any rock music?

DJ: HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! Sit down, you devil-worshipping dinosaur.

PM: No, seriously – you must have something.

DJ: No – nobody likes it.

PM: I like it.

PM: Don’t care – now piss off!

or

PM: Please – I beg you – can you play something decent? Have you got any rock music?

DJ: No rock music but I’ve got some oldies. How about “Saturday Night” by Whigfield?

PM: AAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!

or

PM: Please – I beg you – can you play something decent? Have you got any rock music?

DJ: Sure – I’ll see what I can do.

The last conversation sounds promising, doesn’t it? Well it’s not! What the DJ means is:

“I’ll play one of three token rock songs: “Don’t Stop Believin’” by Journey, “Livin’ On a Prayer” by Bon Jovi or “Sex On Fire” by The Kings of Leon.

AAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!

I hate “Livin’ On A Prayer” because it has become the only acceptable rock song in a DJ’s collection and I have heard it about 100 million times. I quite liked it the first time but now it sends me into spasms of indignation.

I blame people like Simon Cowell and Louie Walsh – and probably many other old rich so-called music moguls – who manufacture pretty boys and girls and flood the radio stations with boring inane crap.

I want to start a revolution – as others are. Let’s boycott the radio and start hunting around the internet for fantastic music that will not get airplay.

I am not just focussing on rock music here – there is music out there that is new fresh and brilliant but never gets played because the image doesn’t fit with the gods of music who decide what we should all be listening to.

I’d like to highlight a song that describes the plight of modern music controlled by the music moguls which predicts the demise of future music.



Several lines stand out:

The music of rebellion makes you wanna rage 
But it's made my millionaires who are nearly twice your age

and

One of the wonders of the world is going down 
It’s going down I know
It’s one of the blunders of the world
That no one care enough

Personally, I think there is hope.

Dear reader, you and I have the power to seek out new tunes, new music – to boldly go where no music mogul has gone before (sorry for the Star Trek cliché but I believe it fits).

I have started already in the music galaxy that is called Progressive Rock and have already discovered two bands – one of them from Poland, a country that Simon Cowell and his ilk will totally ignore.

Whatever music style you love, the internet is your friend.

If I were a DJ I would rebel and spend my entire day scouring the internet for something new, refreshing and amazing – and I would play the songs but not over and over again so that people simply got sick of it. I would prefer people to go out and buy this music from independent record companies or buy the music directly from the band/artist in question.

I would make my radio show the greatest programme on the entire planet. I would welcome all and any music sent to me by like-minded people.

Are you sick of the same old bollox on the radio?

Are you fed up of the same old inane DJ’s who play oldies over and over again and sacrifice new exciting music in order to play “I Just Called To Say I Loved You” for the billionth time?

Are you absolutely pissed off with Simon Cowell and his bloody X Factor?

Or am I really a musical dinosaur?

Come on dear reader - let’s do this! Let’s rebel.

I’ll start the ball rolling – here is a great song by band you will never have heard of:



And it’s an utter crime that I intend to put right in my own small way.

Rant over - for now!!