Floating Love Balls

Went to see Yes men Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman last night at the Palace Theatre in Manchester. Performing an acoustic set it was pretty intriguing and musically perfect. The two have a natural onstage banter - Jon the old hippy with his tales of magical gardens and floating balls of love energy, and Rick constantly ready with a piss-taking quip when Anderson gets too cosmic. Though all in good spirit, you do wonder how well Anderson (or "Napoleon" as the rest of Yes used to call him due to his notorious domineering presence in the 70s) takes all the ribbing.

The audience was probably the most peculiar I've ever witnessed. The last time I saw Rick Wakeman was at a fleapit called the Tameside Hippodrome a few years back. That night, I'd scored decent seats but had to move two songs in because of the eye-watering stench of piss eminating from the elderly woman sat in front of me. This is true but for some reason nobody ever believes me. I swear there was a a gradually expanding pool of liquid on the floor. Anyway, I digress. Last night, there was a noticable lack of grannies- who became Wakeman groupies for a time when he first appeared in Countdown's "Dictionary Corner" - but it seemed to be comprised of old Yes fans like myself reliving their youth, spherical blokes who spend far too much time eating chips and collecting comics, and their poor wives who'd clearly been dragged there by their husbands. Oh, and if you were sat next to me - row D seat 25 - thanks for humming, sighing, burping and farting throughout the entire set. Scruff.

The Jung Ones

Managed to get my grubby paws on the new Angra album 'Aurora Consurgens' today. Musically, it's pretty much as you'd expect, though there's a distinctly heavier edge to the tracks that's strongly reminiscent of Maiden.

The worst part of this job is that you become a cynical old bastard after a while, and it's the blurb on the inner sleeve that made me twitchy. For example, how's this for pure Spinal Tap?

"Aurora Consurgens is also the title of an old book written by Saint Thomas Of Aquin. Such book was used by Jung to establish the relations between dreams and different mental conditions"

Ah, you see. They're all clever lads in Angra. I can just see them all, perched around the studio in Sao Paulo discussing and dissecting the minutiae of Jung's theory on the collective unconscious and hero archetypes. Beats talking about lager, gigs and groupies. But hey, come on, at least they're original. And the highly innovative subject matter? Cough . . .

"It is not a concept album. However all lyrics do have a common theme: the various mental issues including suicidal tendencies, schizophrenia, manic depression, sociopathy etc"

Blimey. Once upon a time that would be called plagiarism. Now where did I leave my copy of Dream Theater's "Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence"?

Back To The Grind

No updates as I've been away for a couple of weeks, enjoying the peaceful seclusion of the Isle Of Mull. Just a cottage, a remote loch, and fine local whisky by the bucketload. Perfect really. The tranquilly was only shattered for two days when the Island was invaded by amateur drivers taking part in the annual Rally. I'm sure many of these individuals were decent enough- as were the the few locals who were taking part - but the ones I had the misfortune to bump into were a breed apart. Driving around like they owned the island (ie like twats), reeking of Hai Karate aftershave and talking like lobotomised versions of Liam Gallagher, they were a joke. Factor into this image the fact that many were driving Vauxhall Nova's (big exhaust pipes, small cock - you know the type), and were under the misguided belief that they were somehow important. Apparently, there were rumours that some locals had taken to placing piles of gravel on the route at perilous corners to induce accidents, such is the resentment from the islanders. I'd have preferred landmines.

Anyway, I guess now I need to contemplate getting back to work and try to re-awaken my brain in order to come up with a few juicy feature suggestions for Classic Rock. Frankly, I need the money. Tobermory Malt is damned expensive. Obligatory holiday snap at the top.

Book Release Date Info

OK. It looks like the earliest the book will now be out will be around February / March 2007. The reasons for this are too protracted to go into in depth, but it will give everyone involved the opportunity to make sure that this is a high-quality product and not a rush-job. Of course, I would ideally have wanted to get this out there sooner, but at least it should be out before the next Dream Theater album which will ensure that the text remains current.

It's funny, once you've finally completed something like this, there's such a burning urge to get the thing printed up and actually out there. Out into the public domain to get slated or praised, and hoping that people actually enjoy reading it. Waiting another few months is going to gradually drive me insane, but I'm just gonna have to get used to it and source another major project to work on. Offers of work from major bands wanting biographies written are welcome. Send 'em my way . . .

So future DT book updates may become a tad sporadic from here on in, as the days turn into winter weeks with basically cock-all happening. But I still intend posting my random thoughts, and even if no-one is actually reading this, it has a soothing effect and takes my mind off the delay!

Oh, and btw, the photo on my last post showed Charlie Dominici in his youth. He's on the far right.

Tick Tock Tick Tock

Apologies for the lack of updates over the last couple of weeks. Really that's due to the fact that there's nothing new to report. Although the text of the book was completed a couple of months ago, things seem to still be in limbo. That isn't anyone's fault, but it seems to be the reality of getting a book published. But at least we seem to have located a printer who can produce the book in the quality we want for the right money. Plus, I've still been busy sorting photos as more unexpected ones came in to my paws last week, as well as making sure the tourography was in a suitable form for printing. Which actually meant changing the date format from the American format of month/date/year to the British date/month method. Sorry. I am just very English about these things.

My main concern now is that we manage to get the book out asap, especially given the band are slaving away in preparation for recording the new album in New York. The last thing I need would be for the band to get their album out before the book, as the last chapter covers last April's Radio City gig. It would be instantly out of date!! So please guys, take your time in writing the album. Hell, I'm begging you to take a few months off to hone the sound . . .

Anyway, here's a bit of fun for ya. See if you can spot/name a character from DT history in the photo at the top of this post! You can click to enlarge.