7/29/11 Update

Didja miss me? OK, I know, it's been more than a year since the last major GEPR update. But I have been busy. At work, on the home front, and, yes, even working on the GEPR as time permitted. Hopefully you've been keeping up with some of the new stuff via the Gibraltar Blog. What, you didn't notice it on the main page last time? Well, maybe not. It's sorta odd where I put it. Still, it's been getting enough hits that I know at least a few dozen of you have found it (are there any more than that? E-mail me and let me know). However, for the last month or so I've been focusing on finishing up the main GEPR release, so Gibraltar Blog entries have grown sparse. That will pick up again soon. Well, now here you are, with a fresh update. And it's a BIGGIE! As well it should be after a year. As always, there are several more things I wanted to get in before updating, but at some point you have to just let it go. Perhaps I'll do a few more things and do one of my "mini-updates" in a few months. We'll see. NEARfest Cancellation I guess I wanted to mention I was major bummed about the cancellation of NEARfest this year. I've attended it most years. For 2011, I had front-row center seats lined up on the patron program for me and my wife. I'll admit that I was a bit uninspired by the "old-guard" prog bands this year ... New Trolls and Supersister (later replaced by Curved Air) didn't really speak to me much. Umphrey's McGee, Gösta Berlings Saga, and the Friday night line-up of Half Past Four, vonFrickle and Jeavestone were all of interest to me, but nothing really called out to me and said "you just HAVE TO BE THERE!" Unfortunately, I think many others felt the same (my informal survey of acquaintances that usually attend said pretty much the same thing). Still, I think it would have been a good show, and I'm bummed that it didn't "make" this year. As of this writing, the future of the festival is still up in the air, as the new organizers call back originators Chad Hutchinson and Rob LaDuca to see if they can rekindle the magic. If you have any opinions about how to do so, drop by the NEARfest Facebook Page and express your opinion. Why didn't you attend? What would it take to bring you there? Live Prog Marcel Haster has started doing something I've wanted to try for years now. Video reviews. Not reviews of videos, but video album reviews. They're quite nicely done, and you get to hear samples from the songs in between his opinions of them. I'm not going to try to post all of his video reviews ... that, after all, is what his Live Prog site is for. But for this release, Marcel has been kind enough to allow me to embed his reviews for Big Big Train (Far Skies Deep Time), Declan Burke (Destroy All Monsters), Jeavestone (1+1=OK) and Tinyfish (Big Red Spark). As I find more that I like, I'll add them as well. Of course, Live Prog now becomes a "friend of the GEPR" with a permanent link to the site. Who knows, maybe some day maybe Marcel will let me do a "guest review" on his site. It could happen. Poll Results I put in two informal polls in the last update. Here are the results: Where should I go from here with the GEPR? -- Most people just said keep on going as it is. A few said they would like to see smaller updates that were more frequent. For myself, I'd like to try to make it mobile phone aware so that when I use my iPhone to look something up it doesn't show up in microscopic fonts. The "Handheld GEPR" link in the window at left uses a method that's horribly out of date with current SmartPhones. I don't think a GEPR iPhone App is in the cards, but at least I'd like to have it look better as a web site. If you think this would be good for you too, let me know. The more people that ask, the higher the chances I'll do the work I need to do in order to make this happen. I basically need to change the formatting to cascading stylesheets ... a tremendous amount of work doing it by hand the way I do the GEPR. I need a good reason to do it. Should GEPR have a Facebook presence? -- Nobody really cared about this. I'm playing with a Facebook page, but I don't really see how the style of the GEPR makes that very worthwhile. I think the Gibraltar Blog page is a far more useful interactive extension of the web site. Apology Seventeen albums in the "Editor's Choice" window to the right is a bit too many. Sorry you need to scroll up and down to see them all. But there were lots of good releases I wanted to spotlight in this very large GEPR release. These are my favorites from more than a year now. You may scratch your head at a couple of my choices. Some of them aren't going to make anyone's "top 10" or even "top 100" albums for the year. They're just the ones that spoke to me the most for some reason. Because it's fun A recent press photo of Magma levitating about a foot off the ground. Click the photo for a large version. Final words So, if you want me to think the GEPR is worth keeping up, drop me a line and tell me you love me. No, not really. Just tell me you think the GEPR is still relevant to you. I'll definitely settle for that. Keep on Proggin', Fred Trafton Here's what's new in the 7/29/11 GEPR update: GEPR Editor Fred Trafton (USA) contributed new entries, reviews, updates or news items for Abacus, Ad Infinitum, Adrenaline Mob, Agents of Mercy, Akin, Algebra, Alphataurus, Amoeba Split, Anima Mundi, Anima Obscura, Animal Couch, Argos, arK, Arrakeen, Ars Nova, Asia, Aviva, Big Big Train, Black Country Communion, Blind Guardian, Declan Burke, Caamora, CAB, Camel, Dirk "Mont" Campbell, Centric Jones, Cheer-Accident, Ciccada, Contraluz, Cue, Nick D'Virgilio, Daymoon, Days Between Stations, Deep Purple, Devil's Slingshot, Distinguished Panel of Experts, Djam Karet, Electric Sorcery, Enchant, Eris Pluvia, Factory of Dreams, Farpoint, Fibonacci Sequence, The Fibonaccis, First Band From Outer Space, Final Conflict, Fonya, French TV, Frost*, David Gilmour, Glass, Glass Hammer, Godsticks, Gösta Berlings Saga, Grey Lady Down, Grimskunk, Grindlestone, Gutbucket, Harald Grosskopf, Mike Henderson, Herd of Instinct, High Wheel, Humble Grumble, Hyperion (Olivier Freche), Indukti, IQ, Iris, Isildur's Bane, Isotope, It Bites, Jeavestone, M. Judge, K2, Karmakanic, Jimmy Keegan, Bernd Kistenmacher, Kistenmacher and Grosskopf, Legend, Magenta, Magic Pie, Magus, Mandalaband, Marillion, Merzbow, David Minasian, Mr. So and So, Mist Season, Mistral, Steve Morse, Mystery, Nervewerks, Nightwish, Clive Nolan, Nyl, The Orb, Ozone Player, Ozric Tentacles, Pendragon, Persephone's Dream, Phideaux, Richard Pinhas, Planet X, Platypus, Poor Genetic Material, Popol Vuh (Norway), Project Creation, The Red Masque, Renaissance, Kurt Rongey, Runaway Totem, Salim Ghazi Saeedi, Sanhedrin, Derek Sherinian, Spaced Out, Sphere3, Spiral, Symphony X, SzaMaBa Trio, Sándor Szabó, t, The Tangent, Tangerine Dream, Robin Taylor, Taylor's Free Universe, The Tea Club, Thieve's Kitchen, Tinyfish, Torman Maxt, Trapeze, Twenty3:Fifty9, Ukab Maerd, UKZ/Ultimate Zero Project), vonFrickle, The Vow, Oliver Wakeman, White Willow, The Winter Tree, The Wishing Tree, Witthüser and Westrupp, Yes, Michelle Young, Yugen, Zen Rock and Roll, Zenit and Zip Tang. Fred Trafton also created a new page for Progressive Rock Artists and has started with two artists: Roger Dean and Matt Howarth. I already know of a bunch more I'd like to see. Who are your favorites? Let me know at webmaster@gepr.net. Other contributions this release: Mark Boyden corrects an error in the entry for Buon Vecchio Charlie Dirk "Mont" Campbell updates his own entry (via his web site bio) Marcel Haster contributes video reviews for Big Big Train (Far Skies Deep Time), Declan Burke (Destroy All Monsters), Jeavestone (1+1=OK) and Tinyfish (Big Red Spark) via his Live Prog web site and . David Helin (Denmark) contributes a major new article, "How To Define and Classify Progressive Rock?" Mark Hermitage contributes new entries for Indian Summer and Tamam Shud David Marshall updates his Progressive Rock Moments blog Juan Carlos Rangel adds an entry for Surprise Yuri updates the entry for Color

New bands or artists added	Reviews/news added to existing entries	Updated discographies, added or fixed links
Update 7/29/11
Adrenaline Mob Akin Arashk (indexed to Salim Ghazi Saeedi) Argos Black Country Communion Declan Burke Caamora Centric Jones Ciccada Cue Daymoon Days Between Stations Roger Dean Devil's Slingshot Factory of Dreams Fibonacci Sequence Frost* Godsticks Harald Grosskopf Gutbucket Mike Henderson Herd of Instinct Matt Howarth Humble Grumble Hyperion (Olivier Freche) Indian Summer Jeavestone M. Judge (The Nerve Institute / Sinthome) Jimmy Keegan (Project) David Minasian Project Creation Project Moonbeam (indexed to Fonya) Sanhedrin Derek Sherinian Spiral Sándor Szabó (indexed to SzaMaBa Trio) Tamam Shud Ukab Maerd vonFrickle Oliver Wakeman Salim Ghazi Saeedi Surprise Tinyfish The Winter Tree Yugen Zen Rock and Roll	Agents of Mercy Algebra Alphataurus Animal Couch arK Ars Nova Aviva Blind Guardian Buon Vecchio Charlie Camel Dirk "Mont" Campbell Cheer-Accident Contraluz Darwin's Radio Deep Purple Distinguished Panel of Experts Djam Karet Electric Sorcery Enchant Eris Pluvia Farpoint Final Conflict Fonya David Gilmour Glass Glass Hammer Gösta Berlings Saga Grey Lady Down (several addenda) Grindlestone IQ Isotope It Bites Karmakanic Legend Magenta Magus Mandalaband Mr. So and So Mistral Steve Morse Mystery Nervewerks Clive Nolan Nyl The Orb Ozone Player Persephone's Dream Phideaux Richard Pinhas Planet X Popol Vuh (Norway) The Red Masque Renaissance Runaway Totem Sphere3 Symphony X The Tangent Tangerine Dream Robin Taylor Taylor's Free Universe The Tea Club Thieve's Kitchen Torman Maxt Twenty3:Fifty9 UKZ/Ultimate Zero Project The Vow White Willow The Wishing Tree Yes Zip Tang	Abacus (discog, links, formatting) Ad Infinitum (Mindawn & Kinesis links) Agents of Mercy (discog, links to Nick D'Virgilio & band web site) Algebra (discog update, new band photo) Alphataurus (reunion news, links, ) Amoeba Split (discog update) Anima Mundi (discog, indexing, Mindawn links) Anima Obscura (discog, link) Animal Couch (link fix) arK (discog, band photo, links) Arrakeen (discog, photo, links, formatting) Ars Nova (discog, links, new photo) Asia (discog updates) Aviva (discog, photo) CAB (discog, links to Devil's Slingshot, Niacin, Planet X) Colin Bass (fixed broken link to web site) David Bedford (discog, formatting, internal links) Big Big Train (discog, link to Frost*, ) Blind Guardian (discog, band photo, links, formatting) Buon Vecchio Charlie (discog update) Camel (added photo, internal & discog links, formatting) Dirk "Mont" Campbell (discog, photo, web site link) Cheer-Accident (discog update, dash insertion) Contraluz (discog update) Nick D'Virgilio (link to Frost*) Darwin's Radio (discog, link to arK, Declan Burke & Frost*) Deep Purple (links to BCC, Dregs & Steve Morse) Distinguished Panel of Experts (discog update) Djam Karet (discog, photo, links) Electric Sorcery (discog, add photo) Enchant (discog, link to The Wishing Tree) Eris Pluvia (discog update) Farpoint (discog, link to 10T Records) The Fibonaccis (improved photo, format, link fixes) First Band From Outer Space (discog, band photo, links) Fonya (discog, Mindawn and Centric Jones links) Freefall (formatting, links) French TV (discog update) David Gilmour (discog, link to The Orb) Glass (discog update) Glass Hammer (discog update) Gösta Berlings Saga (discog, links) Grey Lady Down (link to Thieve's Kitchen) Grimskunk (discog, links) Grindlestone (discog, links) High Wheel (discog, formatting) Indukti (discog update) IQ (link to Sphere3) Iris (discog, formatting) Isildur's Bane (discog, format, link to Daymoon) Isotope (discog, photo, links) It Bites (discog, band photo, links) K2 (discog, links) Karmakanic (discog, links, ) Bernd Kistenmacher (spelling fix) Kistenmacher and Grosskopf (spelling fix) Legend (discog, formatting, links) Magenta (discog, new photo, links) Magic Pie (discog update, Mindawn links) Magus (discog, Mindawn links, link to The Winter Tree) Mandalaband (discog, photo, web site link) Marillion (discog, band photo, links) Merzbow (discog, photo, link to Richard Pinhas) Metaphor (fixed broken link to Mary Doria Russell's web site) Mr. So and So (discog, photo, links to Legend & The Wishing Tree) Mist Season (discog, link to CD Baby & SoT review) Mistral (link to Syn-Phonic) Mystery (discog, 2nd photo, links to Spaced Out & Yes) Nervewerks (link fix) Nightwish (discog update, formatting) Clive Nolan (discog, links to Caamora & Oliver Wakeman) Nyl (news, links) The Orb (discog, link to David Gilmour) Ozone Player (discog, links) Ozric Tentacles (discog, link to Steve Hillage) Pendragon (discog update) Persephone's Dream (discog update) Phideaux (discog, links) Richard Pinhas (discog, link to Merzbow, formatting) Planet X (discog, links) Platypus (links only) Poor Genetic Material (discog, links) Popol Vuh (Norway) (photo, format, ) The Red Masque (discog update) Renaissance (discog, photo, links) Kurt Rongey (discog, formatting, Mindawn links) Runaway Totem (discog, formatting) Spaced Out (discog, formatting) Sphere3 (link to IQ, formatting) Symphony X (discog, links to Sea of Tranquility reviews) SzaMaBa Trio (discog update) Sándor Szabó (indexed to SzaMaBa Trio) t (discog update) The Tangent (discog update) Tangerine Dream (discog update) Robin Taylor (discog, link to CD Baby) Taylor's Free Universe (discog, fixed link to CD Baby) The Tea Club (discog, links, additional photo) Thieve's Kitchen (link to Grey Lady Down) Torman Maxt (discog, band photo) Trapeze (formatting, link to Black Country Communion) Twenty3:Fifty9 (discog, link to CD Baby) UKZ/Ultimate Zero Project (discog, link to John Wetton) The Vow (discog update) White Willow (news, added photo, web site link fix) The Wishing Tree (discog, photo, links to Legend, Enchant & Mr. So and So) Witthüser and Westrupp (links, formatting, spelling fixes) Yes (discog, links, additional band photo) Michelle Young (fix web site link) Zenit (discog update) Zip Tang (discog update)