Over the past four years my musical preferences have been evolving in accordance with my curiosities and learning. Several years into my music revival period (post 2007) I've explored many musical forms that were previously unknown to me. Many genres, sub-genres, and micro-genres of the global world of music was relatively unknown to me before my discovery of A) the Internet (2007) and B) ProgArchives (2008). While active at ProgArchives I became enamored and amazed at the modern, 21st Century world of both progressive rock music as well as art in general. I have also been blessed to have access, via the Internet, to the entire history of music and film--which led to my joyful and enthusiastic dive into sug-genres such as Post Rock/Math Rock, NeoProg, Rock Progressivo Italiano, Prog Folk, Heavy Prog and Prog Metal, as well as Jazz-Rock Fusion and Jazz. The weekly radio show that I started broadcasting in 2014 has morphed to become less about 21st Century Progressive Rock music in lieu of my increased preference and enthusiasm for 1970s Jazz-Rock Fusion and its Jazz predecessor. Which leads me to this post.
The End of Prog Is Alive. I've decided to give up my "promise" to promote the wonderful new artists, albums, and musics that have been appearing in this, the 21st Century. Part of my resolve to do this has come from my growing preference to musicianship over technical acumen, that is, I've come to want to hear more music in which the tracks were mostly played by real, live, human musicians as opposed to computer- or AI-generated "sounds." The other part is coming from a disillusionment of the regurgitation of old musics and old sounds by artists who are merely imitating old/past music, songs, sounds, artists, and styles. And finally, I wish to sport something that is more "free form": less bound by a certain style or form or even era.
"Feedback." In 1978 and 1979 I lived in the dormitories of Le Centre régional des œuvres universitaires et scolaires (C.R.O.U.S.) at the University of Strasbourg in Strasbourg, Alsace, France. While there I was comforted each weekday evening by France Inter/Radio France's "Feedback" radio program as broadcast by legendary French DJ Bernard Lenoir. Each episode opened with Eddie Van Halen's "Eruption," all one minute and forty-two seconds of it, and from there one might hear Jaques Brel (who happened to have died that year--while I was living there) next to Brahms or Johnny Cash, Chopin or Coltrane, Devo or Mussorgsky, or Talking Heads or Frank Sinatra, Premiata Forneria Marconi or Ghanaian drum music, or whatever. The point is that Bernard issued no compunction or excuse or regret for following a pop music song with a piano concerto or a jazz classic or modern punk rock song: there were no boundaries or barriers between songs--and often no words between them, as well; only Bernard's voice to recount whatever he was in the mood to talk about whenever he decided to talk. And I absolutely LOVED it. Feedback has always been my favorite formatted radio program, the standard to which I always compare any other program and every other playlist. Well, now I have decided that Bernard's show will become the standard that I will aspire to--that I will try to uphold and honor--with my own two hour radio show. Prog Is Alive will disappear (though all 600 episodes remain available in archival forms). A new show, with a new name, will appear in its place.
The Ides of March. For fear that I could get into some licensing trouble were I to use Bernard's call name and show opening, I endeavor to seek out my own different but similar title and show opening. Stay tuned for that: as of the writing of this post I am giving myself until the 2027 Spring Equinox to come up with the appropriate signatories. Until then, you may expect the usual three-episode rotation of one-third this year/21st Century Prog, one-third prog history, alternating with one-third Jazz-Rock Fusion. (February will, of course, be dedicated, as has become my habit, to my personalized countdown shows of my favorite songs and albums from the year just finished: this next one being 2026.)
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