Brooke Waggoner - Sweven (2015-2016)

1/08/16 1:55PM
Link to STREAM the WHOLE album

The whole thing is there, but I haven't had the chance to check it out yet. I hopefully will be able to later today/tonight.

Hopefully the preorder download links will show up soon, othewise, it's only 7 days away.

12/11/15 11:01PM

New track is quite good. I'm thinking Brooke is going back a bit to her symphonic/classical influenced compositions somewhat for this album, which is definitely a good thing.

Also the track list is now below.

Link to stream "Ovenbird"

Vinyl Preorder

CD
Amazon

10/14/15 10:37PM



1. Fink
2. Widow Maker
3. Egg Shells
4. Pennies and Youth
5. Proof
6. Sweven
7. Two of a Kind
8. Ovenbird
9. Adults
10. Fellow
11. Cherry-Pick
12. The Splitting of Yourself in Two


https://instagram.com/p/80yy11yPK4/

brookewaggoner_What do splinters, mochaccinos, harvest moons, undertakers, and silver scopes have in common?

They all make an appearance as text & story in my new album, SWEVEN.

I'm beyond ecstatic to finally share news about the full-length project I've been culling & crafting this past year!

Link to teaser in my profile.

FIRST SINGLE RELEASES 10/23. 
Stay tuned!

As the little clip shows there, Sweven is to be released on January 15, 2016 via Swoon Music.

Her last record, 2013's Originator I did enjoy a lot of, although it was pretty different in from the previous record I fell in love with, in 2009's Go Easy Little Doves and it's chamber/classical style of songwriting.

The little clip makes me wonder if this is going to be more of the classical/chamber/baroque instrumentation.

REACT TO: All Songs Considered Turns 16 (16 songs since 2000)

NPR.ORG LINK with their list

But as I posted over there:

I'll pretend I never saw the list above, and just give my list:

2000: Kevin Gilbert - Imagemaker
2001: Transatlantic - Stranger in Your Soul
2002: Pain of Salvation - Beyond the Pale
2003: John Arch - Cheyenne 
2004: Marillion - The Invisible Man
2006: Pure Reason Revolution - Twycyn / Trembling Willows
2007: Between the Buried and Me - White Walls
2008: Apes and Andoids - Riverside
2009: dredg - Gathering Pebbles
2010: Emanuel and the Fear - Jimme's Song
2011: Hotel of the Laughing Tree - Bad Canterbury
2012: Anathema - Untouchable Part 1
2013: The Reign of Kindo - I Hate Music
2014: Fjokra - Infinite Loops
2015: Small Leaks Sink Ships - Building Blocks

And these are certainly among if not my favorite tracks from each year since 2000. But of course I could choose 100 or more songs probably from each year that could be on MY list, and certainly I and probably a ton of other people would likely prefer to this All Songs Considered sheep-ish track list. Hipster, boring, uninspiring, un-interesting, non-engaging, and really in no way progressive.

Into the Machine Ep 1: OPETH (new modern prog doc)

So here's the debut episode of this new series done by Freqs TV (or Frequency TV?), which is a feature on Opeth. It's only a 5+ minute piece, which may be standard length for these, I dunno. Pluses and minuses to that, in that to get the YouTube and Social Media audience, as I have come to learn and struggle with still, the shorter length videos work.

I also don't know if all of these will feature interviews as it seems this one does. Time, resources, etc with said artists. I could see interviews being done per Google Hangout or just on Skype, but then again, those are rarely short.

Anyway, great to see the 1st one up; although it probably is worth adding how Freqs TV's YouTube channel has a lot of docs and footage of many musicians, including people like Steven Wilson and God is an Astronaut, so perhaps this is just a new style of video for them, but just focusing on modern progressive rock exclusively.

Edit: also cool to look forward to Between the Buried and Me next week!

Random Artists Feature: Dream Theater (2 YouTube Videos, 5 and 15 mins)

Well here's 20 more minutes of me babbling on, but still relatively as briefly as I could about my history and the history of Dream Theater. From Train of Thought-Present.

I'm starting to get my footing with these, and I do think if I end up making more about artists with shorter history/catalogs, the length and content may be more to my liking and/or detailed. I dunno.

I was thinking though, with Dream Theater and Fates Warning, they have large catalogs, and so at the point if I were to feature an artist like Rush or many other classic bands I love, they likely could end up in multiple parts like Dream Theater.

But that also may dictate what goes next, etc.

1/5/16 Blogdate

Short as possible:

Things are slowly but surely getting done. Namely the 2015-2016 preview, as I spent a good chunk of time New Years weekend on it, but, of course there's still some blurbs to do. I may do the lazy route soon and just throw it up and rename it as Part 1, lol And then possibly later edit-in more details and releases..

And the 2nd part of the Dream Theater video hopefully can be made soon.

Ovetime at work has kind of usurped my extra time of late, otherwise that video and some other things might be done.

I'm seeing the Charlie Kaufman animated film Anomalisa tonight finally, and waiting, I didn't have to pay the Twin Cities Film Festival price of $20 thankfully.

the calendar: wtf, I'll just throw it up here

January 3rd Galavant returns
January 7th Into the Machine Prog Doc on YouTube premieres
January 7th Angel from Hell premiere date
January 10th Golden Globes
January 14th World Dog Awards on the CW
January 14th Academy Award nominees announced.
January 19th All Things Must Pass ON-DEMAND (redbox?)
January 26th Meet the Patels DVD and ON-DEMAND (redbox?)
February 7th Superbowl Sunday/Puppy Bowl
February 11th Godspeed You Black Emperor
February 15th Grammys
February 16th Better Call Saul S2  premiere
February Vektor/Voivod
February 27th Spirit Awards
February 28th Academy Awards
February 28th Ne Obliviscaris
April 3rd Mutemath
May 2nd Dream Theater

othewise, I told the Fiancee I need to get back to some of those projects, namely the Retro Favorites. And Lists Watchmojo won't make, etc/

Plus I may be due for both an update on YouTube and Podcast subscriptions soon. Hopefully sooner than later...

The Woods Brothers - The Woods Brothers (2015-2016) ft. Casey Crescenzo

1/2/16 12:06PM

New track "The Beginning"..sounds darker and more piano driven, although I like the guitar solo towards the end. I do feel still, given the variety of vocalists and I imagine style of songs to a point, this could come out a bit like Neverending White Lights, which certainly could be a good thing. I say that, just per the different singers especially. I mean the style of music may not end up sounding like NWL, but just the approach to the whole album with contrasting styles of voices. A little like Nordic Giants too I suppose.

from Facebook

Happy New Year from The Woods Brothers! Enjoy our new and final single before our full release! "Terra Firma" was the end of the story, and now we present "The Beginning" with vocals written and performed by our former Brother in Arms Toby Forrest from Cityzen, our first band we played in together back in the day. Complete with Lead Guitar by the uber talented Alex Potts who rocked with Chris in The Memorials for a couple years, and backing vox by Morgan Jones and Ciara Budds. You will also hear some nice acoustic guitar and rhythm guitar by our Producer Casey Crescenzo from The Dear Hunter. We hope you like it, and once again, Happy New Year!!!
https://soundcloud.com/thewoodsbrothers/thebeginning


12/16/15 2:20PM

I somehow forgot I posted about The Woods Brothers back in July when they released their debut single "Terra Firma" (see below), but now I am reminded of that.

But the short little documentary tells a bit more of their story and their working with Casey Crescenzo of The Dear Hunter and the frontman from The Fall of Troy on this debut album of theirs.

And they announced a couple of months ago how it will be Self-Titled and coming out in 2016.

Anyway, I'll of course add more details when they are available, but for now I still really love "Terra Firma" and have great hopes for this record that Casey also produced I guess.

The Woods Brothers on Facebook

PROG Magazine Top 100 Prog Artists of All-Time (per Subscribers Votes I guess)

I saw this list on progressiveears.com here
yesterday. And while there are countless amounts of lists on many sites and magazines, for whatever reason, readers, including people into progressive rock, gravitate towards them. I'll confess, I do enjoy looking at them and then criticizing them.

Given my lunch break is about up, I don't have the time right now to write-out a detailed commentary and give what I would include instead, or makeup my own, lol.

Maybe/probably later time permitting..

1-Yes
2-Genesis
3-Pink Floyd
4-King Crimson
5-Rush
6-Marillion
7-Jethro Tull
8-Steven Wilson
9-ELP
10-Gentle Giant
11-Dream Theater
12-Camel
13-Vander Graaf Generator
14-Cardiacs
15-Porcupine Tree
16-Opeth
17-Peter Gabriel
18-Frank Zappa
19-Transatlantic
20-Kansas
21-Kate Bush
22-Anathema
23-Tool
24-Big Big Train
25-Hawkwind
26-Gong
27-Renaissance
28-Steve Hackett
29-Spocks Beard
30-Moody Blues
31-Soft Machine
32-Riverside
33-Flower Kings
34-Caravan
35-Focus
36-IQ
37-Neal Morse
38-Thinking Plague
39-Magma
40-Gryphon
41-Haken
42-The Enid
43-Henry Cow
44-Mike Oldfield
45-Pain Of Salvation
46-Supertramp
47-UK
48-Brian Eno
49-Pendragon
50-PFM
51-Robert Fripp
52-Alan Parsons Project
53-Peter Hammill
54-Rick Wakeman
55-Arjen Lucassen
56-Mahavishnu Orchestra
57-Mastadon
58-Nektar
59-Roger Waters
60-Fish
61-Muse
62-Tangerine Dream
63-The Nice
64-Anglagard
65-Arena
66-Eloy
67-Enchant
68-Oceansize
69-Saga
70-Strawbs
71-The Mars Volta
72-Anekdoten
73-Ayreon
74-Devin Townsend
75-Knifeworld
76-Steve Hogarth
77-The Plastic People Of The Universe
78-Mostly Autumn
79-Sigur Ros
80-The Beatles
81-Asia
82-Grpbschnitt
83-Haze
84-Magenta
85-Ne Obliviscaris
86-Public Service Broadcasting
87-Robert Wyatt
88-Sanguine Hum
89-William D Drake
90-Can
91-Dave Stewart
92-Frost*
93-Galleon
94-Grateful Dead
95-It Bites
96-Ian Anderson
97-Pallas
98-Queensryche
99-And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead
100-Amon Duul II

Random Artist Feature Video: Dream Theater (Part 1)

So after a failed 1st attempt at this, I made the 1st part of the Dream Theater video. It came out okay, save for a couple of issues, maybe 1st being my right arm is cutoff at times, along with some of the records I was showing.

It's not the 1st time this has happened to me, but after having made another video like this, and not having the time/energy and desire to make another video talking about the same things again, I don't have enough issues with how this came out, to go ahead and  to try to make it again, at this point.

Also per the notes on YouTube:

-The song I meant to say off "The Dark Side of the Moon" is "The Great Gig in the Sky" I believe.

-The movie I couldn't think of with Angelina Jolie and Winona Ryder is "Girl Interrupted"

Top 10 Lists Watchmojo.com Wont Do: Kevin Gilbert Songs

Kevin Gilbert, my favorite musician of all time. The odds WatchMojo ever even mentioning his name on any list are about as good of a chance I end up playing some of his music on 89.3 The Current.

They may some day do a Jeff Buckley Top 10 songs, although that kind of seems silly since Jeff only had 1 official album in Grace, but he has a ton of other unreleased songs, live tracks, and of course the double LP of demos on Sketches (For My Sweetheart the Drunk).

But Kevin and his many projects, that spanned about 11 years while he was alive, and approaching 20 years since he died, that a ton of which has been released posthumously (I count 5 releases that are studio, including the 2015 Thud Deluxe/Anniversary), has a plethora of music that was just in those official releases; per a Top 10 and Honorable Mentions for him wouldn't be all that difficult to do. And that's not even including some of the covers, namely the Genesis ones from ProgFest 1994 which was officially released as well.

And there's of course a lot of stuff that still has not been released, although with the Nuts, Bolts and Deluxe Thud, a lot of that stuff now has come out, but given how prolific he was recording, every year, month, week, day, I still suspect there's more that could come.

But other than 1 selection on this list, I chose just to focus on the studio releases from his different work. And of course this is like splitting hairs in ranking, as I could easily stick more than half of the Honorable Mentions below in the Top 10 (or 11 as I took a liberty). In other words, take every track I chose, and even throw in another 10-20 others, and throw them in a hat and pick any of those 10 and I would have no problem with those being included and ranked in whatever order for the most part.

But I will say, #1 really is the song that made me become a huge fan. I knew his name, some of his story and even some of his music before 2004, but it was that Summer or early Fall where I fell head over heals and found his music to call to me. And it has ever since.

Blurbs? not now, or maybe not ever really. I dunno. I may at some point, or maybe do a YouTube video for them. I think the songs speak enough for themselves, so much, I doubt anything specific right now I could write, would add more to them initially.

But maybe down the road I can try and find the time to..I may do the previously mentioned Jeff Buckley though with a slightly different Entry title, lol.

10. Because of You from The Power of Suggestion, 1987


9b. Goodness Gracious from Thud, 1994



9b. Water Under the Bridge from The Shaming of the True, 2000




8. Air Dance from A View From Here, 1988



7. Finally Over You from Nuts, 2009



6. Things She Said from Toy Matinee, 1990



5. Best Laid Plans from The Shaming of the True, 2000



4. Imagemaker from The Shaming of the True, 2000



3. Tired Old Man (Puppet Suite) unreleased, 1984-85?



2. Home/Progress from The View From Here, 1988




Honorable Mentions:
The Ballad of Jenny Ledge (Toy Matinee, 1990)
Turn it On Salvador (Toy Matinee, 1990)
There Was a Little Boy (Toy Matinee, 1990)
Queen of Misery (Toy Matinee, 1990)
City of the Sun (The Shaming of the True, 2000)
Long Day's Life (The Shaming of the True, 2000)
Staring Into Nothing (The Shaming of the True, 2000)
Suit Fugue (Dance of the A and R Men) (The Shaming of the True, 2000)
Shrug (Because of Me and You) (Thud, 1994)
Joytown (Thud, 1994)
Shadow Self (Thud, 1994)
Waiting (Thud, 1994)
Welcome to Suburbia (No Reasons Given, 1985)
When Strangers Part (No Reasons Given, 1985)
From Here to There (The Shaming of the True, 2000)
The Sultan of Brunei (The Kaviar Sessions, 2002)
Indian Burn (The Kaviar Sessions, 2002)
This Warm Night (The Power of Suggestion, 1987)
The World Just Gets Smaller (The Power of Suggestion, 1987)
Kashmir (Led Zeppelin, Kashmir EP 1995)
Childhood's End (Nuts, 2009)
The Best of Everything (Bolts, 2009)
Big Heart (Thud Remaster/Anniversary Edition, 2015)
Until I Get Her Back (Demo) (Thud Remaster/Anniversary Edition, 2015)



1. Last Plane Out from Toy Matinee, 1990

Random Artist Feature Video: FATES WARNING (16 minutes)

So obviously time permitting, I am trying to do something new with my YouTube channel. I sort of did it with Subterranean Masquerade earlier this year when I made a video for them and featured their new album The Great Bazaar.

And even some of the collection videos like my Marillion Collection video I made, which covered a lot of ground, but still wasn't covering all the history/my history, etc.

So this new video I just made covers for the most part My History and THE history of Fates Warning, vaguely.

Of course a band like Fates Warning, who have 11 studio albums, to cover every album in detail, and also include John Arch's stuff, would take a lot more than even the 16 minutes this video was made in.

So, what I may at some point do is do individual videos or Reduxes that are more in-depth. But for now, this is how I'm going to try and make these.

They may be artists with small catalogs, or artists, with 1 album (Apes and Androids or The Stilletto Formal?) or artists with large discographies.

Or I may just go random into just 1 album in-depth, or the whole Retro Favorites historical calendar year thing. I dunno, but the random-ness part of it makes it kind of fun.

I mentioned dredg, Oceansize and The Dear Hunter, but I may not get to them next as Downfall already commented with a request for Dream Theater, who actually someone else asked me to do the same thing a couple of months ago, so I may just do it.


As for the actual video, it came out well, except for some stuff like getting the drummer's name wrong and not having all of my collection to show exactly. That and some notes that were a little out of order. But as I know, the more you do this stuff, the more you learn and try and improve them.

2016 Rock Hall Class includes Deep Purple and should have had YES

Deep Purple
Chicago
Steve Miller (and not The Steve Miller Band?)
Cheap Trick
N.W.A.

Eddie Trunk's Twitter post

Hearing the RandR HOF inductees for 2016 are Chicago, @cheaptrick , Deep Purple, NWA, Steve Miller. Officially announced tonight/tomorrow

this is not official of course, but Future Rock Legends just included

http://www.futurerocklegends.com/2016_Inductees.php

Additional Inductees still to come...

but that more than likely is referring to stuff like "Early Influence" and "Musical Excellence" instead of the "Performer" category which the 5 listed are included for (and voted on).


Yes did not make it, as I actually predicted back in back in October
although I did not guess the Chicago interest, especially ahead of Yes.

I am quite happy to see Deep Purple finally get in, as I am a fan, and I've seen them live twice. And they have been LONG OVERDUE, but that speaks as much about the Rock Hall process, as much as whether they would merit being inducted (Metallica even mentioned them not being in, in their induction speech in 2009).

See 55 seconds-in


Now who they induct from Deep Purple (and Chicago as well), is a whole other can of worms and could turn into a huge drama-fest. Steve Morse is unlikely, so might be Joe Lynn Turner, David Coverdale, Glenn Hughes and Tommy Bolin possibly as well.

This new interview with drummer Ian Paice kind of dramatizes it up somewhat, but may at least still raise some valid concerns. The Kiss thing from a couple of years ago might seem tame. DP may not agree, like Kiss, to actually perform, which would suck, but we'll see in April.

But at least Deep Purple now are finally in thank freaking gawd. But Yes? I'd be lying if them getting in wouldn't mean a ton more to me, than even Deep Purple. And as evidenced below, they finished 2nd in the Fans vote (narrowly ahead of 3rd-5th) , which while the top vote-getter since the Fans Vote began has I guess always got in, usually most of the top 5 get in, but both Yes and The Cars didn't get in. Deep Purple and Steve Miller did though,

Chris Squire's death, like Jon Lord's for Purple a few years back, didn't mean enough to the voters I guess to vote for Yes ahead of some like Cheap Trick, Steve Miller, Chicago, and N.W.A.

And N.W.A. of course finished way down on that poll, but must have done considerably better with the 800+ other individual voters. Which I think their induction seems almost entirely based on that Biopic that just came out earlier this year.

And I'll confess, N.W.A. I did like back in the day when I was a youth. But they have no business getting in ahead of many of the names on the ballot this year, including Yes.

But whatevah..I'll be curious to see what some of the press releases say tomorrow and I suppose those "Musical Excellence" and "Early Influence" inductees happen to be.

But as I said in that entry I wrote back in October, their whole voting and nomination process and system really needs to change. 30 nominees, 15 inductees + a veterans committee; and the fans get 1/3 of the vote and 1/3 or more of a say on who gets nominated.

Otherwise the likes of Yes, Jethro Tull, The Moody Blues, ELP, Kansas, and King Crimson will never end up getting in (among many other 70's bands alone...I'd add Iron Maiden and Judas Priest as well), for what it actually is worth (which it shouldn't be much, but the ranting itself I suppose is worth something I suppose, lol).


http://rockhall.com/voting/2016-rock-and-roll-hall-of-fame-nominees-vote/?flavour=mobile

Chicago 23.41%
Yes 16.20%
The Cars 16.14%
Deep Purple 15.87%
Steve Miller 15.85%
Janet Jackson 5.88%
Cheap Trick 1.45%
The Spinners 1.28%
Chaka Khan 1.16%
Chic 0.84%
The J.B.'s 0.59%
N.W.A. 0.42%
Nine Inch Nails 0.35%
The Smiths 0.30%
Los Lobos 0.25%

New Videos: 2014-2015 Albums of the Year and KG's Shaming BOOK

Not spectacular, but at least both in reasonable length.

Playlist Subbing for Modern Kicks 12/16/15

Here's my playlist from last night/early this morning subbing for Modern Kicks on KFAI, and the link to hear it for the next 2 weeks (until 12/29/15 at 11:59PM CST)

It was just me as both Joyce and my friend John weren't able to join me.

As far as the show, 2 of the biggest issues being:

-Playing the Carts on the automated DDS system. The TIMES listed they are played, are either not clear, or are in Military Time. The problem is, when it says ":23" when you are doing a Midnight-2AM show, how am I to be clear if the ":23" means at 12:23 or 23 minutes after the hour, OR 23-seconds?

I have an idea next time to just play every cart on the board all at once, or even all at once in both hours, lol, but that could be months from now, so I hope I can remember it.

-I did BABBLE on a bit, which isn't unusual, and I have not checked it out yet; I may wait until I go back to work next week to. But I suspect I prattled on the diarhea-of-the-mouth train more than I'd prefer. However, it is kind of my personality, and the personality of this blog and my YouTube channel in a lot of ways.

I just wish I could find a way to make it not sound too diarhea-of-the-mouth, and still be able to include every footnote and what I see relevant factoid. A happy balance if you will. Hopefully in due time.

And there were 1 or 2 snafoos just with dead air, and I'm not certain about the levels on the background music, until I listen to the stream, namely with headphones.

But the playlist is by my accounts, still pretty good. I still mean to do at least 1-hour if not an entire show of all Epics; hopefully at a future show, maybe in 2016.

That and the fact I quite likely will be doing a special Wave Project in June for my 40th Birthday. I just need to hear back from the Wave Project people soon. Maybe I'll try and get in touch with them in the coming weeks just to see where they may be at with my application.

"Save Link As" or Click to Stream

http://kfai.org/archive under "Modern Kicks 12/16/15"

Shadow Gallery/Christmas Day/Tyranny/Magna Carta Records
Marillion/Carol of the Bells/Racket Records
Anathallo/A Holiday at Sea/Anathallogy/Artist Friendship
Timbre/O Come Emanuel/Silent Night
Brooke Waggoner/Ovenbird/Sweven/Swoon Moon Music
Falling Up/In the Woodshop/Falling Up
Anakdota/Girl Next Door
Subterranean Masquerade/Tour Diary/The Great Bazaar/Taklit Music
Native Construct/Mute/Quiet World/Metal Blade Records
The Faceless/The Spiraling Void/Summerian Records
Gatherer/High Fives/Heavy Hail/Red Tape Records
dredg/Hungover on a Tuesday/Catch Without Arms/Interscope
The Woods Brothers/Terra Firma/The Woods Brothers
The Dear Hunter/This Old Haunt/Act IV: Rebirth in Reprise/Equal Vision Records
The Dear Hunter/Waves/Act IV: Rebirth in Reprise/Equal Vision Records
XTC/King for a Day/Oranges and Lemons/Geffen
Pretty and Nice/Stallion & Mare/Golden Rules for Golden People/Equal Vision Records
Bullet Height/Bastion/Superball Music
The Pneumatic Transit/Lioness/Concerto for Double Moon


Background:
The Galactic Cowboy Orchestra/Various Clips from Tracks off "Earthlift"/Loud Folk Records

Falling Up - In the Woodshop [Official Video]

Great tune, and nice video. The ending kind of references Excalibur and King Arthur I suppose, but in a neat way. That and sort of Where the Wild Things Are or Chronicles of Narnia in the whole wandering off into a portal or wormhole in the woods, etc.

But that very much fits a lot of what Falling Up and Jessy Ribordy is about at times.

Blackfield News: 5th LP Info

A couple of updates about their next record, which I suppose if Steven Wilson is more involved than on Welcome to My DNA or Blackfield IV, that could be a good thing. Those last 2 albums were honestly pretty forgettable; but the 1st 2 records are terrific.

And having Alan Parsons involved, along with being at Trevor Horn's studio are at least notable.

But it seems their next record could be coming in 2016.


Blackfield on Facebook


It was a good week.
I was recording with Steven some more new songs for the Blackfield 5th album.
Sounds promising.
I would like to thank Trevor Horn who gave us his home studio.

A

Blackfield 5 updates
Hi to all our fans.It’s been a while…
We currently working on our 5th album.
Next week me and Steven are about to get in the studio again
and continue recording some more new tunes in London.
This album produced by Alan Parsons.
Musicians:
Tomer Z- Drums
Eran Mitelman - Piano,keys
Steven Wilson - Guitars,Vocals
Aviv Geffen - Guitars,Keys,Pianos,Vocals
Alan Parsons - Guitars,Keys,Vocals
More info to follow soon.
Aviv Geffen