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5/31/10 Update

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2010

A little late for the "Happy New Year" you say? Hey, I've been trying to prepare a set of GEPR updates since mid-November of 2009. Then my Mom passed away, a big project at work started encountering problems, and a bunch of other general ... uh ... stuff ... hit the fan and I found myself going from little spare time to zero. The date kept pushing out and out, and now it's been just about a year since the last update. Those of you who gave up on me, don't count me out quite yet. Hope you enjoy what's new.

An interesting thing of note ... to me at least ... is that the last half of 2009 was the point at which the number of digitally-transmitted promos I received for review exceeded the ones I got that use hard media. (OK, I have to ignore my Musea Records promo pack to be able to say that, but it's almost true). I'm not sure that's a good trend, but it's an undeniable one. Next time you go shopping for CD's in a brick and mortar store (if you can still find one that carries them at all!), look around you. Is there anyobdy there that's under 40 years old? Chances are there isn't. And guess what? Young people buy the most music. Well, would you invest in a company that makes CD's for a living? Neither would I. I always guessed that Progressive Rock would be one of the last genres to switch over to digital, and it probably is. But even those old hold-outs have been forced to concede that this is the way of things. Several of these releases aren't even available as hard media (see reviews of The Coma Cluster and Electric Sorcery for example).

On the exact flip side of this observation is the fact that there's a lot of vinyl being pressed again (hehe ... get it? "Flip side" of vinyl?). The new album from Øresund Space Collective is vinyl-only, and the new album from Gong had a 2LP version released (with a CD also included). Of course, Porcupine Tree and a few others have always had vinyl options on their releases, but it seems to me like this trend is increasing. Playing an LP is such a pain for me these days that I almost never listen to any of my LP collection. It seems like my only "quiet time" to be able to listen carefully to music (and decent Prog must be listened to carefully, not just something going on in the background) is in my car, and LP's just don't do well in a car stereo. Are there still people my age (I just turned 55) who can lay on a pillow between loudspeakers and just listen to a piece of music in their homes without interruption, like I used to do in college? If there are, I envy you. That's so not what my life is like. So I'm afraid I have little patience for LP's. Except, of course, that they provide a decent-sized canvas for artwork, unlike a CD. For that reason, I got the LP of the new Gong album for an old friend for Christmas. But when we went to listen to it ... you guessed it, we played the CD.

One more observation. A person whose name you would recognize from the Prog world mentioned to me in passing that the GEPR had become irrelevant. In fact, he thought that most prog had become irrelevant. Judging from the reduction in reviews I've been receiving for publication and the reduction in fan mail, I'm tempted to agree. The GEPR is "so Web 1.0" in its look and feel. I'll be the first to admit it's really become a blog of what I'm listening to and what I think of it in the guise of being an Encyclopedia. I can't begin to keep up with all the progressive / avant-garde / experimental music being made out there in quantities of 500 CD's (or, as I just mentioned, no CD's at all, just downloads). Even when I had lots of outside contributors, I couldn't keep up with it. Now it's just absurd to even pretend I can do it. I've been doing the GEPR like this for 10 years now. Maybe it's time to re-think things. So, I would like to ask the opinion of those of you who still stop by here from time to time to peruse my pages. Where should I go from here with the GEPR? Write me at webmaster@gepr.net and tell me what I should do. Here's some ideas, or tell me your own if you have one.

  • Hang it up. Kill yourself. The GEPR is a waste of disk space and you're a waste of air.
  • Be like Axiom of Choice ... stop adding anything new, but keep the old stuff here as a historical document.
  • It's fine like it is. Keep on Proggin'.
  • It's basically fine, but I'd rather see smaller updates more frequently instead of once or twice a year.
  • Some format changes would be nice ... maybe it should look and feel more like The New York Times web site (but without ads).
  • Change to a Blog format, with links to the older material. This would allow some user interaction via comments. Maybe this could also look more like a newspaper.
  • Make the GEPR totally interactive ("Web 2.0"), like ProgArchives. Hmm. Maybe without the excessive advertising or links to nonexistent ring tones or free downloads.
Oh, and one other question: Should GEPR have a Facebook presence?
  • What's Facebook?
  • Who cares?
  • Only if you feel like it. I might look at it sometimes.
  • I live on Facebook. Blow off the web site if you have to. You gotta be there.
I dunno, what do you think? Let me know.

Keep on Proggin',
Fred Trafton

Here's what's new in the 5/31/10 GEPR update:

GEPR Editor Fred Trafton (USA) contributed new entries, reviews, updates or news items for Agents of Mercy, Aisles, Algernon, Apogee, Astra, Baraka, Amin Bhatia, Big Big Train, Cazuela de Condor, Cheer Accident, Citadel, Citadellion, Citizen Cain, The Coma Cluster, Nick D'Virgilio, Darwin's Radio, Dream Theater, Electric Sorcery, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, The Enid, An Endless Sporadic, Esagil, Et Cetera (Canada), Far Corner, From.uz, Glass Hammer, Gong Global Family, Gösta Berlings Saga, Grey Lady Down, Haiku Funeral, Half Past Four, Headspace, Here and Now, Horizont, IQ, Jerusalem, Karen Cooper Complex, Kopecky, Pär Lindh Project, Lord of Mushrooms, Lost World, Ma Banlieue Flasque, Neal Morse, Neuronium, Øresund Space Collective, Phideaux, Phish, The Pineapple Thief, Porcupine Tree, Radio Massacre International, Random Hold, Redshift, Shadow Circus, Sky Architect, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Soundscape (Rob Thorne's), Spock's Beard, Roine Stolt, Slychosis, Syzygy, Tesseract, Transatlantic, TRIO (The.Rhythm.Is.Odd), Univers Zero, University of Errors, Adam Wakeman, XII Alfonso and Yang.

Other contributions this release:


5/26/09


Gentle Giant Reunion
"This time fer sure!"
Gentle Giant has long resisted their fans pleas for a reunion, but now it looks like there really may be a reunion on the horizon. A partial one, at least. In 2008, guitarist Gary Green and drummer Malcolm Mortimore (who drummed with GG only on Three Friends) got together with a band filled out by three noted fusion musicians (Roger Carey on bass and vocals, Andy Williams on guitar and John Donaldson on keyboards) to form Rentle Giant to play GG's music. Some brief YouTube video snippets of this line-up exist, click here to check them out (note there's several more videos in the Related Videos window).

But the latest news is that, in March of 2009, Kerry Minnear has also joined. The band has re-dubbed itself as Three Friends and expanded to a seven man line-up by adding former 10cc vocalist Mick Wilson as lead singer.

Some might argue that a Gentle Giant reunion with no Shulmans (Shulmen?) involved isn't really a reunion. But the Shulmans have long said they aren't interested in any sort of reunion, so we are very much looking forward to hearing this sub-set of the old gang! And maybe a reunion gig at NEARFest 2010? We can only hope ... -- Fred Trafton and Ted Thomas

In Memoriam
Pink Floyd's Richard Wright

Richard Wright performing with
Pink Floyd at Live 8 London.
July 2, 2005
Richard Wright was born in London in 1943 and was self-taught on keyboards. He was best known as the keyboardist for Pink Floyd. He passed away in London from cancer on Sept. 15, 2008 at the age of 65. He was one of the founding members of Pink Floyd, which originally also included Roger Waters, Nick Mason and Syd Barrett. Wright's somber keyboards and backing vocals were an essential part of Floyd's sound.

In addition to his work with Pink Floyd, where he played on all albums except The Final Cut due to conflicts within the band. He released two solo albums, Wet Dream in 1978 and Broken China in 1996, in addition to playing with the reconstructed Pink Floyd of Momentary Lapse of Reason and The Division Bell. He also played on the latest solo album from David Gilmour, On an Island.

Wright was not one of Floyd's primary writers, though he did write the four-part "Sisyphus" from Ummagumma, a piano piece with timpani that included free jazz, an interlude for keyboards and percussion, and an improvisation with organ, guitar, tape effects and birdcalls. He also shared credits on Dark Side of the Moon's "Great Gig in the Sky". One can only hope that this is where he's now performing. It beats pushing a rock up a hill for all time (that was Sisyphus' fate, in case you forgot your high school greek mythology readings). -- Fred Trafton

Progressive Rock described in the Uncyclopedia

The Content-Free
Encyclopedia
 		Want to know what prog rock is really all about? Check out the Prog Archives entry in the Uncyclopedia. An absolute gut-buster if you're a prog fan, and (mostly) indistingushable from a real entry on prog rock if you're not. I especially like their built-in "genre guide" with such sub-genres as "Synthophonic", "Ecclesiastic" and "Proggish". I think that last one should actually be added to the GEPR's Genre Guide. Definitely worth a look.

Never let it be said that I take prog too seriously ... -- Fred Trafton

GEPR Hacked!
In mid-July of 2008, several GEPR contributors wrote to tell me that various virus-scan software and even Google were reporting that the GEPR was a malicious web site. Some people's web browsers even prevented them from accessing the GEPR site at all! Of course, I certainly never created any malware for the GEPR, which I've always thought was so simple that it could never be attacked by a virus.

I was wrong! Last year the GEPR's web hosting company transferred all the GEPR files to a new (and supposedly better) server. Evidently, when web hosting services do this they sometimes create ftp channels to help them to transfer the files, then leave them there with easily-guessed passwords. That's what happened here. Several ftp "back doors" were opened and then never shut, allowing someone to replace the GEPR's index.html file (the page you see when you first open gepr.net) with a modified version that redirected them to some other web site which started a piece of malware called "downloader". At least that was the name my version of Norton Anti-Virus killed when I tried to go online to the GEPR. It would have been nice if my hosting service had let me know these ftp "back doors" were created so that I could close them off, but I only found this out after the fact.

I was able to "close the door" on the new ftp accounts and re-upload the GEPR index.html page, which has so far fixed the problem. I was never able to find out exactly what had been done to the file because my own version of Norton Anti-Virus prevented me from downloading the file to inspect it.

But I just wanted to let everyone know that the GEPR was not doing the attacking, it was attacked! It's been about six months now and there's been no recurrance, so I think I've fixed the problem for now. But who knows what could happen down the road? Stay vigilant and keep your virus scanners up to date! -- Fred Trafton

Gibraltar Reviewed in The Guardian
OK, this isn't exactly news, but it was news to me that the GEPR was reviewed in The Guardian, a U.K. newspaper (with an Internet version, where I found the article). The review was actually done in 2004, but I only found it recently when Google-ing my own name just to see what came up. Click here to see the original review, or here for a local copy on the GEPR site - with my comments/answers/rebuttals added. -- Fred Trafton
Overlook
New album from Fromuz is released

The best band from Uzbekistan! OK, that's really unfair. They're one of the best bands from anywhere. And they've just released their sophomore album. It is now available from 10T Records, who also carries their first acclaimed album Audio Diplomacy. Man On Fire's Jeff Hodges did the mix. Check out some audio samples at Fromuz' web site.

The cover art is done by Ken Westphal, who admits that it's "bit of homage to one of my art heroes, Mr. Roger Dean, but ... it was not intended to be a copy of style." You can see a larger version of the cover (or even download it for wallpaper!) at this link. Let you in on a secret? The reason this release made "Prog News" while many other great new albums didn't is this cover, which I love. -- Fred Trafton



5/26/09 Mini-Update
I called this a "mini-update" because my original intent was to have just a few new things and release it around mid-February. But as usual, time passed and things evolved and grew ... new albums were received that made me want to wait "just until this one is done". Anyway, here's the not-so-mini update for May of 2009. I'm keeping the stuff in here from the 1/5/09 update too because it's still a little thin as a stand-aline update.

Don't expect to see another update for a while. I'm swamped at work with two big projects, so there's just not much spare time for the GEPR. Yes, I'm still employed, though that big layoff I predicted in the 1/5/09 update did happen. It sure looks like 2009 will be a bad economic year for just about everyone around the world. Well, last time things got tough, music reflected it in interesting new ways. So maybe something good will come of this global recession. Maybe it's just my imagination, but I think the percentage of good albums I've been receiving has increased lately ...

As I said, updates will be sparse for a while, but I'll keep on adding stuff as time permits. Who knows, maybe next time there really will be a "mini-update" with just a few additions. But don't hold your breath.

Keep on Proggin',
Fred Trafton

1/5/09

H A P P Y    N E W    Y E A R
2009

Well, here it is, another new year, and finally another release of the GEPR. Hopefully 2009 will be better than 2008, at least from an economic standpoint. The GEPR has readers all over the world, and it seems like times are pretty tough for everyone out there. Speaking for myself, times have been tough for the megacorp I work for, and though I'm still employed (for the moment), there has already been a big layoff, and I suspect another to come once everyone gets back to work in January. Not a good time to be caught updating a prog web site instead of working. So that's my excuse for the long time between GEPR releases, and a prediction that the next release won't necessarily happen really soon either. But so far, I still haven't quite given up on the GEPR.

There were a bunch of excellent prog releases again this year, and I've tried to pick and choose the ones I liked the most for this update. Some reviewers get off on tearing an album to shreds when they don't like it. I find that to be childish, and to tell the truth, I find reading such reviews boring and uninformative, particularly since I've heard many albums that were shredded in a review I read that I thought were quite good. Of course, the reverse is also true, and I've read great reviews of an album I was bored by. So the reviews I add are either reviews for bands I've heard and liked, or bands I've heard and didn't like but many others seem to think is great. I wish I could add a review for every promo I get, but there's just not time enough for that. Though the number of promos I receive has dropped off a little in 2008, I still get so many that it's impossible to keep up.

Which is a great introduction to my frequently-repeated apology to artists and labels that have sent promos which have yet to be included in the GEPR. Artists and labels, please feel free to "ping" me on these and I'll either try to elevate their priority for the next release or let you know that I don't foresee getting those albums included in the GEPR. But please, be kind and merciful ... I understand that making this music is important to you. It's important to me too, but I just can't do it all.

Finally, I want to go on record here as saying that I'm progressive not only in my musical tastes, but also in my politics. So I was thrilled with the election of Barack Obama as the next president of the United States. Good riddance to King George and his cronies. My only problem: now when things go wrong (as they eventually always do), I won't have King George to blame any more. Oh well, that's a nice problem to have, compared to how things have been. I'm tired of apologizing to the GEPR's readers around the world, having to say that all Americans aren't schmucks, only a few of them, but unfortunately the ones in power are giving us all a bad name. I look forward to better times ahead, especially for international relations. And maybe a good prog rock opera about the rise and fall of King George. I may have to write it myself ... but with my current work load, I don't see that happening any time soon. So come on all you progressive (politically and musically) rockers, how about it? It's a subject that begs for a rock opera. And I doubt Andrew Lloyd Webber will be interested. Be cruel, but be factual. That shouldn't be hard.

So, enjoy the new update. I have some changes in mind for the GEPR, but I'd like to hear from readers. Do you like it the way it is now? Would you rather I did more frequent but smaller updates? Is the format of the site OK? Should it look more "newspaper"-ish, with one article per page instead of many artists on each page? Is it taking too long to load pages the way it is now? Or maybe you don't really give a crap what I do one way or the other? However you feel, I'd like to hear it. Just send comments or suggestions to the usual address: webmaster@gepr.net.

Keep on Proggin',
Fred Trafton

Here's what's new in the 1/5/09 GEPR main update (and the 5/26/09 mini-update):

GEPR Editor Fred Trafton (USA) contributed new entries, reviews, updates or news items for Aghora, Jon Anderson, Art Cinema, Asia, Aviva Omnibus, Birds and Buildings, Birdsongs of the Mesozoic, Blast, Neil Campbell Collective, Cerberus Effect, Chaos Code, Contrarian, Dawn, Deluge Grander, Dr. Hasbeen, Echolyn, Edensong, Eris Pluvia, Exit, Fission Trip, Eloy Fritsch, Grindlestone, Hands, The Healing Road, Hermetic Science, Jade Warrior, KSIZ, Mats and Morgan, Mawwal, MultiFuse, Nil, Omni, Orenda, Overhead, Ozone Player, John Payne, Anthony Phillips, Pre, Random Touch, Robert Rich, Romislokus, Jordan Rudess, SBB, Spirits Burning, Stratus, Sun Caged, Synergy, Syrinx, Thieves' Kitchen, Thork, Unifaun, Versus X, Yesterdays, Zingale and zOmb. And in the 5/26/09 mini-update, I also added entries or updates for Anima Mundi, Apocalypse (Brazil), Being & Time, Chest Rockwell, Epica, Evolve IV, Finnegans Wake, Fripp and Eno, Cary Grace, Id Guinness, In The Labyrinth, Ivory Forest, Eddie Jobson, Kotebel, Little Tragedies, Looking Glass Self, The Mars Volta, Mind Furniture, Patrick Moraz, Nichelodeon, Øresund Space Collective, Quantum Fantay, Ragnarok (Sweden), Refugee, Rubber Universe, Runaway Totem, Sieges Even, Mickey Simmonds, Robin Taylor, The Tea Club, Teclados Fritos, TEE, Umphrey's McGee, UKZ and Unitopia.

Julio Lopez returns to add info on some poorly-documented older bands in the 5/26/09 mini-update. These are Asgard [UK], Brégent, Dionne-Brégent, The Human Beast and Kvartetten Som Sprängde.

Alain Mallette returns with new entries for Demon Fuzz, The New Age, Merlin (Argentina) and Polifemo.

Other contributions this release:

  • JK Alexandridis gives us some additional insight into Invisible in the 5/26/09 mini-update
  • Ben Bell provides an article about Fusion Orchestra in the 5/26/09 mini-update
  • Rick Boebbel (Belgium), in an unusual exception to usual GEPR regulations, tells us about himself and his bands Psychotone and Zak & Boebbel
  • Peter Huender tells us about the new Spanish band Tricantropus
  • Peter Marsh talks about the 2004 release from Fripp and Eno in the 5/26/09 mini-update (via Creative Commons)
  • David Marshall takes us on a stroll down memory lane, to a time When Prog Ruled the World
  • Edward Martland reports the results of some musical archaeology in his entry for A.C.E.M.S. in the 5/26/09 mini-update
  • Vitaly Menshikov tells us about Cerberus Effect
  • Ernie Myers, guitarist for Hands, contributes a set of "extended liner notes" for their new album Strangelet. A GEPR exclusive!
  • Armel Patanian updates the discogs for Royal Hunt and Willowglass [and adds new bands Satellite and La STPO in the 5/26/09 mini-update]
  • Gavin Reed supplies some info for his old band Windflower
  • Virgil Stoenescu corrects country of origin for Yesterdays in the 5/26/09 mini-update
  • Ted Thomas adds new band UKZ plus a news item about the Gentle Giant semi-reunion in the 5/26/09 mini-update


12/17/07


Update on Andrew Latimer

Andrew Latimer at
NEARFest 2003
Photo by Fred Trafton
 		Andrew Latimer, well-known to prog fans as the guitarist and mastermind of Camel, has suffered from a blood disorder called polycythaemia vera since 1992, which has since progressed to myelofibrosis. This is not the sort of "progressive" thing we would wish for Andrew. The fatigue suffered from this condition was why Latimer ceased touring after the 2003 "Farewell Tour".

As of December of 2007, he has received a bone marrow transplant which is hoped to improve his condition, and is doing well in the hospital. According to Latimer's wife and publicist Susan Hoover, it will be many weeks before it is known if the transplant was completely successful. As of the last Camel web site posting, Andrew is doing well, but may have a rocky road to recovery ahead. We at The Gibraltar Encyclopedia wish him a speedy and successful recovery.

Up-to-date information can be found on the Camel web site ... click to the "News" section. -- Fred Trafton

Progressive Rock Musical "O Nox Ultima"
Web site launched
A few years back (2001), a christian prog-metal band named Divine in Sight released a wonderful album called The Sorrow and the Promise. I gave it a great review in the GEPR, calling it "one of the best progressive albums I've heard so far in 2001". I've been in touch with Divine in Sight's main composer and lead guitarist Bart Boge since then, and I've known he was working on another magnum opus since about 2003. I believe I even mentioned it once in a previous Prog News item. Now he's ready to unveil this project to the public, and has put up a web site to spur interest.

The new project is O Nox Ultima, which will be a musical play and a 2CD recording. The script with stage direction will be included on one of the CD's, so I assume that any church or theater group who wishes to perform it will have everything they need to do so when they get the CD set.

The band will be updating their progress on the new web site and I'll be following it as they continue work. If you'd like to support the project, you can even pre-order a copy of the CD, which Bart says he hopes will be ready in summer or fall of 2008. The new web site is at http://www.onoxultima.com.

Robin Taylor's new Prog band
News from Robin Taylor:

"This fall I've formed a new band, Art Cinema, together with a totally unknown singer/songwriter and a very well-known guitar hero from the metal scene. At the moment we are recording our debut album together with some other fine players, and we expect the project to be ready for release in the Spring."

Progressive Rock Opera "She" debut
October 31, 2007 in Wyspianski Theatre, Katowice, Poland

Agnieszka Swita and Clive Nolan
 		Caamora is the name for a project from Clive Nolan (Pendragon and many others) and Agnieszka Swita. They have created an epic production of the H. Rider Haggard novel She. The first performance of this two hour production was held on Halloween Night in the Wyspianski Theatre, Katowice, Poland. The production was scheduled to feature guest vocals from Alan Reed (Pallas / Neo), Christina Booth (Magenta), Karl Groom (Threshold), John Jowitt (IQ, Jadis, Neo), Hugh McDowell (ELO) plus an orchestra and choir.

The She album has been recorded in the summer of 2007, with a partly staged performance which was filmed in Wyspianski Theatre for DVD on 31st October 2007. The album and DVD box set is scheduled for release on 21st January 2008.

Demise of a Prog band
News about Akacia:

After releasing three "critically-acclaimed" progressive rock albums, Akacia has called it quits. Due to medical problems, a divorce and a crisis of faith on the part of one key member (more important in a christian band than a secular one), the band has found they can no longer continue. I was very sorry to hear this, as I was one of the critics who acclaimed their music, and in spite of the fact that I found their religious message to be superfluous, I'll really miss them for the sake of their fantastic music. I can only hope to hear more later from individual members, which may yet happen. I'll let you know if I hear anything. -- Fred Trafton

New Album announced from Holding Pattern

Breaking The Silence
 		[via Press Release]
Surveillance Records is pleased to announce the reunion of the legendary U.S. progressive rock band, Holding Pattern. The new album Breaking The Silence is currently in preproduction and will be released worldwide November 30,2007.

Due to success of guitarist /composer Tony Spada's critically acclaimed 2005 solo album The Human Element and recent Japanese tour, there has been much anticipation regarding this possibility which should excite the old fans as well as all fans of instrumental progressive rock. The album features original members Tony Spada (guitars), Robert Hutchinson (drums), Tony Castellano (bass,keyboards) and Mark Tannenbaum (keyboards)along with Rob Gottfried and album cover artwork by Genesis album artist Paul Whitehead.

Please visit www.holdingpatternusa.com for additional information.

New Prog book released
The Strawberry Bricks Guide to Progressive Rock

[via Press Release]
Dig out that long lost box of vinyl records, slap on some headphones and travel back to the '70s: prog rock! The bastard child of all rock's offspring was heavy, bombastic and flashy - and all the better for it. Here's your veritable guide to progressive rock, with band histories, musical synopses and critical commentary, all presented in the historical context of a timeline. Album by album, we'll chart each release from the giant dinosaurs of the era and uncover eccentric Eurorock obscurities as we create the ultimate head music playlist. We'll trip through concept records, indulgent solos and epic album-side long compositions in a definitive reappraisal of rock's most cerebral and renowned genre. The candid prologue and epilogue offer one of the most coherent portraits of the progressive rock era, while the discography details offshoots, solo albums, side projects and more. From the British kings of prog rock, to the eclectic Italian progressives, heady German krautrock artists and European jazz fusion groups - it's all inside!

Please visit lulu.com for additional information.

F2 Music re-releases Solstice back catalog

Solstice
Silent Dance
 		F2 Music has re-released all four albums from the UK progressive rock band Solstice. These are subtitled "The Definitive Edition" because they've all been remastered and have bonus tracks added.

Their first album, Silent Dance has become a 2CD set in this edition. The first CD is the original album, and the second includes early demo recordings and a 1983 session recorded at the BBC for The Friday Rock Show, released here for the first time. The second album, New Life is also a 2CD set, with the second CD also featuring some demo recordings plus some live bootleg material recorded in 1983-85 released here for the first time.

Circles is the only single-disc re-release in the set, though even this one has bonus tracks ... demos and early versions of several of the songs on this album. But The Cropredy Set is even more interesting. The band originally performed this set and filmed it with the intent of releasing it on video. But sound problems rendered the audio portion of this recording unusable. Undaunted, the band went into the studio the following day and recorded a live version of the same set recorded without an audience. The second disc in the re-release is a DVD of the concert with the studio recording dubbed in as the soundtrack. Even F2 calls it "a little rough", but it's essential viewing for any Solstice fan.

The Solstice re-releases are available from the British Progrock Records and soon the American one as well.



12/17/07

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Here it is, in time for Christmas, Winter Solstice, Kwaanza and of course Zarathosht Diso, the new (and final) GEPR release for 2007.

When I started doing the updates for this entry, I thought I'd try something new. Releasing smaller updates more frequently. I thought I would add a few new albums and do a couple of other minor updates and maybe release once a month or so. But time has passed, and I had several unfinished reviews and half-completed sets of links, and ... well, it's just taken me five months again to complete the revision. And now it's another "major release", just like any other GEPR release. Maybe next time it won't take so long. But don't hold your breath. Life just seems to keep getting in the way.

Oh, and anyone who was waiting for my report on NEARFest 2007 will have to keep waiting. I did get some good band photos from the front row, though. Until I get a chance to finish my article, here's a nice shot of Indukti. It's actually a combination of several shots stitched together in a photo editor. Are you good enough to spot the stitch points? (Hint: the guitarist and bassist actually had four monitors in front of them, not three!):

Keep on Proggin',
Fred Trafton

Here's what's new in this GEPR release:

GEPR Editor Fred Trafton (USA) contributed new entries, reviews, updates or news items for Ad Infinitum, Advent, Aisles, Alamaailman Vasarat, Amaran's Plight, Amoeba Split, Apocalyptica, Apple Pie, Art Zoyd, Baku Llama, Mikhail Chekalin, Chest Rockwell, Coheed and Cambria, Contrarian, Dr. Z, Far Corner, Fields of the Nephilim, Peter Gabriel, Glass Hammer, Hidria Spacefolk, Holding Pattern, Jakko Jakszyk, KBB, Kingston Wall, Koenji Hyakkei, Guy LeBlanc, Le Silo, Liquid Tension Experiment, Little Tragedies, Martini Henry, Metaphor, Thomas Metcalf, Nathan Mahl, Neo (UK), Neverness Nice Beaver, Nouvelles Lectures Cosmopolites, Oaksenham, Øresund Space Collective, Outer Limits, Pendragon, Persephone's Dream, Phideaux, Pig Farm on the Moon, Porcupine Tree, Pure Reason Revolution, Radio Massacre International, Red Sand, Anton Roolaart, Salem Hill, Secret Green, Shades of Dawn, Shadow Circus, Shadow Gallery, Shakary, Solar Project, Tony Spada, The Tangent, Taylor's Universe, Tiles, The Vow, Willowglass, Yello, Thierry Zaboitzeff, Trion, Zaar, Zelta Zonk and Zip Tang.

David Marshall (USA) contributed entries for Aloha, Banco (Del Mutuo Soccorso), Coheed and Cambria, Copernicus, Cynic, Bo Hansson, Happy The Man, Heaven's Cry, Herb Heinz, Oaksenham, The Tangent, Tantra, A Triggering Myth, The Underground Railroad and Zaar, plus a new addition to his collection of articles, Progressive Rock Moments.

Julio Lopez introduces us to Eden's Bridge, Miasma and Trion, and also corrects an embarassing mistake in the Guapo entry.

Other contributions this release:

7/31/06

Well, I promised to get this thing released before the end of July, and it looks like I've just made it. In spite of my concerns that I wouldn't get much done, I think it's a pretty good release with lots of great reviews, updates and quite a few new bands this time around. The list of Editor's Choice albums is prteey big, just because I heard a lot of really good albums in the last few months. But these are merely the best albums I've heard in the last few months ... there are several more I've heard that would have certainly made the list if I'd reviewed them in more "lean" releases.

I did attend my one prog fest for the year, NEARFest 2006, and it was incredible! I've updated Tony Levin's entry with a photo of him with me grinning beside him. I hope to write an article about the whole concert weekend soon, before I forget how great it all was. But I haven't gotten around to it yet, with all the other stuff I've been working on for this GEPR release.

Well, not much more to say in this space, get on with checking out all the new stuff!

Keep on Proggin',
Fred Trafton


CD Giveaway Winners


The Pillory/The Battle
The new 2-CD release from
Jasun Martz
In the last GEPR update, Jasun Martz offered up five giveaway copies of his new 2-CD release The Pillory/The Battle. Here are the winners:

#1. David Marshall, California, USA
#2. Chris Clifford of Ontario, Canada
#3. Tom May, Missouri, USA
#4. Darren Semmen, Massachusetts, USA
#5. Eddie Lascu, Ontario, Canada

And, out of the goodness of his heart, Jasun bestowed an unpromised sixth album onto K. Ananthakrishnan, India! I've asked each of the recipients to give a review of the album back to the GEPR, whether they loved it or hated it, but so far only David Marshall and Eddie Lascu have done so. See Jasun's GEPR entry for those reviews.

Jasun considers the GEPR giveaway to be " a huge success" and would like to thank everyone who enterd the contest. If you didn't enter, or entered too late, you can still buy a copy of the album. Go to http://www.JasunMartz.com for further information. The GEPR would like to thank Jasun for sponsoring the giveaway! -- Fred Trafton

2006 Gong Family "Un-Convention" in Amsterdam

Legendary psychedelic band Gong have announced that they will be holding their 2006 Gong Family Un-Convention at the famous De Melkweg in Amsterdam on November 3rd, 4th, and 5th. This will be the only appearance by Gong in 2006. To provide superb value for money the event will offer over seven hours of live performance on each of its three days plus a number of yet to be confirmed surprises and extras.

MAIN GONG ARTISTS INCLUDE: Steve Hillage, Daevid Allen, Miquette Giraudy, Gilli Smyth, Didier Malherbe, Chris Taylor, Tim Blake, Mike Howlett, Graham Clarke, Gwyo Depix, Steffe Sharpstrings, Orlando Allen and Theo Travis.

Chris Hannam (on behalf of the Promoters) said "Gong have a long history with De Melkweg going back to the early 70s, it’s location, facilities and atmosphere offer just what is required for this event". One of the event night's entertainment has been programmed by Steve Hillage, who said: "This event is not a reunion or a farewell, after all Gong was never formed in the first place so they could never break up and have been and always will be together in terms of energy".

OTHER ACTS INCLUDE: The Steve Hillage Band - Special one off appearance, Kangaroo Moon, Hadouk, Thom the World Poet, Crystal Machine (Tim Blake and Jean Philip Rykiel), Here and Now, Mother Gong 2006, Fabio Golfetti, Acid Mothers Gong, University of Errors, Magic Brothers, House of Thandoy, System 7, Eat Static, Slack Baba and Purusha.

Jonny Greene (on behalf of the Promoters) said "The line up artists is superb and we are still only scratching the surface of what we hope to offer, the cooperation from both artists, fans, venue, contractors, suppliers and crew has been wonderful". Tickets will be available after May 1st from GAS (Gong Appreciation Society) in the UK or from De Melkweg and it's normal outlets in the Netherlands. The event is being promoted by "Gong 2006", a partnership set up by Jonny Greene of GAS and Production Manager Chris Hannam. -- Press Release

Jurriaan Hage's Axiom of Choice calls it quits

The following is an e-mail sent by Jurriaan Hage to friends and associates of his prog rock web site, Axiom of Choice on 6/10/06.

Dear all,

After 13 years of continuous work, I have decided to make an end to the activities of the Axiom of Choice website, maintained by myself with the help of reviewer Roberto Lambooy. The reasons for this action are manifold, but main reasons are that I lack time and energy to keep up the pace of review necessary to keep the website up to date, and the fact that it has rendered me immobile, in the sense that being the person responsible for the site, it is very difficult to develop new interests. Still, it is not easy to give something like this up.

The site itself will continue to exist, because I have always viewed it as a database of reviews (a small and limited encyclopedia if you like) of whatever people decided to send to us. I see no reason to remove it, and I will keep it there as long as those at my work permit it. If that stops being the case for some reason, you need not worry, I will find a home for these reviews somewhere else. I will not let all that work go to waste.

You may ask yourself, is he getting out of prog altogether? No, he is not. In fact, I will be going back to review for iO Pages again, something I stopped doing to be able to write more for the website.

With a combination of relief and sadness,
Jur(riaan Hage)

The GEPR will continue to link to certain reviews on Jurriaan's site, and has offered to be the new home for his reviews in the event he decides to shut down his site altogether. In the meantime, as long as he keeps his site going, I see no reason to duplicte his content in the GEPR. Links to his site will do nicely. -- Fred Trafton


This is where I point out my favorite new releases. Usually, these are CD's I get as promos that are so good that I feel the need to bump them to the head of the line instead of waiting their turn in my review queue. This time around, I heard so many really good CD's that I let the list get a little long. East Wind Pot, despite the questionable band name, is a truly superior Japanese fusion outfit who deserves a listen from any fan of that genre. Etcetera from Denmark's newest, and possibly final, CD is a fine example of '70's style symphonic prog, and is one of my favorites in the category. Fission Trip is an excellent band formed from members of Hands and alumni from Islands-era King Crimson with a few "face-melting" solos from modern King Crimsonite Adrian Belew. Netherlanders Fluxury's latest release, Perishable Goods, drove me nuts but it's so good that I just have to recommend it. Gígur, from Mexico, tickled my prog sensibilities with an unlikely combination of adult pop, Eno-like ambient music, progressive metal and avant-garde noise collages. Hamster Theater's whacked out double CD of RIO stylings with French cabaret and carnival music thrown in for good measure may not be for everyone, but I loved it! Then there's the remaster/reissue of Hermetic Science's first three CD's all in one 2CD set which is as phenomenal now as it was when they first came out ... a power progressive trio based around Vibraphone! K2 is a new project by former Atlantis (USA) bassist Ken Jaquess, and features guitar from the legendary Allan Holdsworth. My absolute favorite of the bunch is the 2CD New Faust epic prog opus from Russians Little Tragedies. I've shown the Russian cover here, but there's an international release with CD insert notes and album title in English. If you're a fan of ELP power and bombast, but with a little more culture and control, you need to hear New Faust. And last but not least, the legitimate reissue of a long-sought-after album Fantasy of Horses from Australians Rainbow Theatre. Click on any of the album covers below for more information about these amazing releases from all over the world.


East Wind Pot
Self-Titled
Fusion, Japan

Etcetera
Tales of Ardour
and Deceit
Symphonic Prog, Denmark

Fission Trip
Volume One
Symphonic Prog, USA


Fluxury
Perishable Goods
Symphonic Prog, Netherlands

Gígur
Fin del Tiempo
(en tus manos)
Ambient Avant-Metal AOR?, Mexico

Hamster Theater
The Public Execution
of Mr. Personality &
Quasi Day Room
RIO-styled, USA

Hermetic Science
Crash Course: A
Hermetic Science Primer
Power Prog Trio, USA


K2
Book of the Dead
Symphonic Prog, USA

Little Tragedies
New Faust
Power Keyboard Prog, Russia

Rainbow Theatre
Fantasy of Horses
(Reissue)
Symphonic Prog/Jazz Rock, Australia

So, let's now get on with the main part of this GEPR release:

GEPR Editor Fred Trafton (USA) contributed new entries, reviews, updates or news items for Absolute Elsewhere, Adachi Kyodai, Aditus, Anima (Italy), AstroVoyager, Azigza, Black Sun Ensemble, Cirkel, Cocteau Twins, East Wind Pot, Fission Trip, Gígur, Godley and Creme, Hamster Theater, Hands, Michael Hedges, David Hines, Ice (Netherlands), Inquire, Interpose+, Iona, Percy Jones, K2, Karmakanic, Karma-Kannix, Kracq, Little Atlas, Little Tragedies, Lord of Mushrooms, Frédéric Maillet, The Minefield, Montefeltro, MusicAEnchiradiS, The Nice, 99 Names of God, Olyam, Paatos, Queensrÿche, Rainbow Theatre, Red Sand, Round House, Robin Taylor, Slychosis, Tempano, Trespass (Germany), Tunnels and While Heaven Wept. I have also updated the Encylopedia of Progressive Rock Instruments with an entry for the Vibraphone. If that's not enough, I also started a new section of the GEPR to review progressive rock videos, and added write-ups on DVD's from Ange, Animusic and Glass Hammer.

Kimon Danielidis (Greece) contributes reviews for Manfred Mann's Earth Band, Pavlov's Dog and Penguin Café Orchestra.

Kai Karmanheimo (Finland) returns with discographies and other information for Ashule, Ataraxia, Bayon, Between, Black Sun Ensemble, Bloque, "Blue" Gene Tyranny, Jean Pascal Boffo, Bognermayr and Zuschrader, Eduardo Bort, Philip Catherine, Celluloid, Chainsaw Jazz, Cheiro de Vida, Guigou Chenevier, Chute Libre, Circus (Switzerland), Clivage, Contraction, Controlled Bleeding, Lindsay Cooper, Coses, Cosmos Factory, Cross, Crystal Maze, Cuixa, Decibel, Alex Degrassi, Delay Tactics, Franck Dervieux, Deus Ex Machina, Diez and Bischof and Dif Juz. There are also complete reviews for Blue Chip Orchestra, Alfredo Carrión, Celeste and CMU. There's plenty more from both categories to come in the next release.

David Marshall (USA) contributed entries for Adachi Kyodai, The Black Noodle Project, Bozzio Levin Stevens, Chardeau, Thierry Crusem, Dawnlights, Discordia, Flat 122, Forever Einstein, Giles, Giles and Fripp, Allan Holdsworth, Hÿdra, Imago, Interpose+, Kalle's Worldtour, Jasun Martz, Metagaia, Thomas Metcalf, MusicAEnchiradiS, Necronomicon, 99 Names of God, Osirys, Sebkha Chott, Secret Chiefs 3, Side Steps, Steeleye Span, Thirteen of Everything, Gerardo Ubieda and Valinor's Tree. He also contributed to the articles section of the GEPR a little stroll down his own prog memory lane entitled Progressive Rock Moment, which may be expanded upon in the future.

Other contributions this release:

Keep on Proggin'
Fred Trafton

4/1/06
APRIL FOOLS!
The springtime update of the GEPR is here

I hope my boss doesn't really read the GEPR. Because if he did, he'd be "disappointed" at the size of this revision. It's a lot more than I had intended to add for this release, but some of the additions just got away from me, and I put in more from outside contributors than I had intended. I had hoped to upload around the first of March, but it just seemed like I wasn't quite done yet. It's never "done", but the time has come to call it done for this upload.

Well, the upside (for my boss, that is) is that I won't be doing much work on the GEPR for the next few months as I start to allow projects at work to take all my time, including any "spare" time I might have had for doing GEPR work. You probably won't be seeing another update until the fall, and at that point we'll see how much I will have added. The worst part is still my promo reviews ... I still have LOTS of promo CD's that need to be reviewed and added. I'm giving my favorites priority to tell you about them quick, but even some of my not-so-favorites are still pretty good, and really should be mentioned in the GEPR. But all I can say is, as my little GIF animation at the top of this page says, "I'm typing as fast as I can".

Well, for this update, I tried to add information for those of you who were considering going to NEARFest this year. Of course, since I delayed my release, that's now a moot point since it has already sold out (in about 30 minutes). But for those of you who were lucky enough to get tickets, NEARFest related bands and artists are in red to make them stand out. Most of these are bands and artists that will be at NEARFest in 2006 or the Progressive Legends Showcase II the night before. A few of them are bands I know I'll be meeting and talking to while I'm there because they always have booths set up ... and I don't really want to have to explain why their excellent newest releases have yet to be reviewed in the GEPR. Especially not The Red Masque and Farpoint -- they both have friends in very different "high places" (Hail Cthulhu! ... Praise the Lord!). And since Frogg Café's Andy Sussman once called me "his hero" (for keeping up with the GEPR), and I'll probably see him at NEARFest, I don't want him to think I've forgotten them. So those bands are NEARFest related as far as I'm concerned.

The other big thing I did for this update is to get rid of the old Gibraltar Webzine. I hadn't really had time to do an "issue" for quite a while, so I've just given up on it. Replacing it is a new section available through the main menu under Departments. It's called GEPR Articles, and it contains all the interviews, concert reviews and news items from the old Gibraltar Webzine. I'll be adding new articles to it one at a time as they are contributed, or I have time to write things myself. Consider it to be one issue of the Gibraltar Webzine that continues to grow. The Guide to Progressive Rock Genres V2.0 and Gibraltar Encyclopedia of Progressive Rock Instruments are now available from the GEPR Articles department too, and continue to be linked to from throughout the GEPR. When I add new articles, I'll flag them for you here in the What's New section. This issue, the new article (added to the old Gibraltar Webzine articles) is a huge write-up from J. Eric Smith called March of the Mellotrons. On his music blog, he went in search of "The Best Classic Progressive Rock Album Ever". He found an answer ... for himself. I'll be interested to hear feedback from readers on how they feel about his technique for finding it, and his conclusion.

Keep on Proggin',
Fred Trafton


Benefit Album release

After the Storm
On January 17th, NEARfest Records released After the Storm, a benefit album in support of the survivors of Hurricane Katrina, which ravaged the Gulf Coast of the United States on August 29, 2005. After the Storm is a 2CD compilation of progressive rock bands, each of whom graciously donated music for this most worthy cause. The tracklisting is a venerable who's who of prog rock, featuring the likes of Kansas, Caravan, Nektar, Spock's Beard, The Flower Kings, Echolyn, Happy the Man and many many more. New Orleans' own Woodenhead also contributed to the album with a stirring live rendition of "Buzz Beat." The price for this special album is $20.00 plus shipping and all proceeds (that means all $20.00) from the sale of each CD will go to Habitat for Humanity to help the people of the Gulf Coast rebuilt their lives. All the manufacturing costs were donated by NEARfest and NEARfest Records. Please visit the After the Storm website and order a copy today!

Return of the Hatfields
Canterbury legends Hatfield and the North reformed in January of 2005, so this is hardly news (though Richard Sinclair suspects there are still a few people who haven't heard about it yet). What is news is that they are playing a series of concert dates in 2006. The first of these will be the Baja Prog festival, followed by a series of concerts in Italy in March and April, with other possible concerts being discussed for Canada and of course the UK. Best of all (from my perspective, since I'll be there) is that they'll be playing at NEARFest 2006's pre-show on Friday, June 23rd, 2006 for their first-ever U.S. concert. See http://www.richardsinclair.net for up to date information.

This incarnation consists of the original members except for Alex Maguire replacing Dave Stewart on keyboards. They are already introducing new pieces of music into their live set, and a studio album may see the light of day at some point. The GEPR will let you know about it if and when it happens. In the meantime, the Hatfields (with Dave Stewart) are working on compiling a follow-up to Hatwise Choice, another release of archive material, which promises to be released before a new Hatfield and the North album.

CD Giveaway


The Pillory/The Battle
The new 2-CD release from
Jasun Martz
Jasun Martz has offered up five giveaway copies of his new 2-CD release The Pillory/The Battle, recently featured in the GEPR's Editor's Choice picks for new album releases. Jasun will even sign them for you! But, in the immortal words of Geddy Lee, "You don't get something for nothing." Please send your answers to the following quiz to the GEPR at webmaster@gepr.net. Jasun says you gotta be one of the first five people to get three out of five correct to score your free signed copy of The Pillory/The Battle.

  1. What keyboard instrument is prominently featured on Jasun's CDs?
    1. Accordion
    2. Mellotron
    3. Farfisa Organ
  2. What orchestra performs with Jasun on his new Pillory/Battle CD?
    1. Yellow Magic Orchestra
    2. London Symphonia
    3. The Intercontinental Philharmonic Orchestra and Royal Choir
  3. What famous UK violinist played on Jasun's previous CD, The Pillory?
    1. David Cross
    2. Eddie Jobson
    3. Jean Luc Ponty
  4. Jasun toured and recorded with what Japanese space rock band?
    1. The Far East Family Band
    2. Yellow Magic Orchestra
    3. Kitaro
  5. What legendary musician did Jasun tour with as his synthesizer programmer?
    1. Frank Sinatra
    2. Frank Zappa
    3. Frank Gehry
The answers to these questions can be found in Jasun's GEPR entry or on Jasun's web site, so this should be an easy quiz. Hopefully, reading these will cause the people who would most enjoy the CD to be the first to answer. I'll forward the e-mail addresses of the first five correct respondents to Jasun and he will get your copies to you. Good luck!

One more thing: though I won't require it, I would like to request that each winner submit a review of the album for publication in the GEPR once you've listened to the album a couple of times. Just a paragraph will do, or you can go crazy and write a lot if you want. You can praise or pan the album, but I'd like to hear what you thought of it and pass it along to the progressive rock community.

In Memoriam

Elton Dean
Elton Dean

Born : October 28th, 1945 - Nottingham (England)
Died : February 8th, 2006 - London (England)
Past Bands : Bluesology (1966-67), Keith Tippett Sextet (1968-70), Soft Machine (1969-72), Just Us (1972-75), Centipede (1970-71), Brotherhood of Breath (1973-75), Supersister (1974), Ninesense (1975-77), Weightwatchers (1975-76), Hopper Dean Tippett Gallivan (1976-77), Carla Bley Band (1977), Keith Tippett's Ark (1978-79), Soft Head (1978), Soft Heap (1978-), London Jazz Composer's Orchestra, In Cahoots (1982-2004), Pip Pyle's Equip'Out (1984-95), Mark Hewins' FF (1984-85), The Music Doctors (1986-87), London/Dallas Sextet (1988), SoftWorks (2002-04) + various EDQ's , Psychic Warrior (2003) , Soft Bounds (2004-05), Soft Machine Legacy (2004-05)

[Thanks to the Calyx web site for the above information]


This is where I point out my favorite new releases. Usually, these are CD's I get as promos that are so good that I feel the need to bump them to the head of the line instead of waiting their turn in my review queue. It should be noted that David Gilmour's solo album isn't what you would usually think of as "prog", but this guy is a prog icon and his new album is really quite nice for Floyd fans ... I really liked it, so I include it in my recommendations anyway. Thinking Plague's A History of Madness is their latest studio release, but isn't that new (2003). But since I only heard it recently, it's new for me. Hence I also add it to this release's recommendations.


Forever Einstein
Racket Science
"RIO-styled" Prog, USA
_

David Gilmour
On an Island
Floydian Rock, UK
_

Thinking Plague
A History of Madness
Avant/"RIO-styled" Prog, USA

So, let's now get on with the main part of this GEPR release:

GEPR Editor Fred Trafton (USA) contributed new entries, reviews, updates or news items for Aghora, Arena, Ariel, Ars Nova (Japan), Artsruni, Keith Emerson, Farpoint, Forever Einstein, Edgar Froese, Frogg Café, Peter Gabriel, David Gilmour, Guapo, Hatfield and the North, Michael Hedges, KBB, Basil Kirchin, Land of Chocolate, Last Laugh, Tony Levin, Magnésis, Guy Manning, Michael Manring, Maschera Di Cera, maudlin of the Well, The Nice, Oaksenham, Ozric Tentacles, Phaesis, Philharmonie, Pursuit, The Red Masque, Synergy, Thinking Plague, Twenty3:Fifty9, Michelle Young, I have also updated the Encylopedia of Progressive Rock Instruments with entries for the Moog Taurus Bass Pedal, Nevborn Sleipner 8-string Guitar and Zon Hyperbass.

Kai Karmanheimo (Finland) returns with a large number of updates, only a few of which appear in this GEPR revision. This time, I've added his updates for Arena, Ariel and Asfalto, but there's many more to come.

David Marshall answered the call for a write-up on Jordan Rudess and also contributed entries for Keith Emerson, The Fucking Champs, Liquid Tension Experiment, Niacin, Thinking Plague and Touch. He also spotted a goof-up in the Craft entry (a duplicate review).

Other contributions this release:

Keep on Proggin'
Fred Trafton

1/17/06
So, here we are with another GEPR release, and of course my usual apology for not getting as much into it as I'd hoped, how it's later than I'd hoped, etc. I couldn't bring myself to upload on Friday the 13th, so I added the review of Death and put off uploading until the 17th. At any rate, it's still a reasonable new release, with lots of new stuff. There's still many albums I wish I could have gotten to before this release. But there's so many good albums coming out, and so few hours in the day to listen and review them. I'll keep on trying though, as long as I still get so many e-mails telling me I'm doing something useful here. I'll at least try to tell you about the ones that either blew me away or made me want to barf (fortunately, not many of those).

My plan for the next release is to have a relatively minor update in a couple of months. This release will focus on some bands appearing at this year's NEARFest that have no info in the GEPR, or badly outdated info. I'll also try to squeeze in a couple of bands I've promised to get online with quickly, but didn't make it in this release. Also, I intend to revamp the entire "webzine" concept into another section of the GEPR with articles, interviews, concert and book reviews etc. but no implications about when it will be updated next. I also have a massive article donated by a blogger who's searching for the ultimate prog album ever made ... but the HTML conversion is taking so long that I didn't finish it for this release. Hopefully that will make it into the next update as well, in the new "webzine" section ... or whatever I decide to call it.

Look for another "usual" GEPR update sometime this summer. I'll try again to make some inroads into my massive backlog of CD promos and get a bunch of them reviewed and online. But, as usual, both my bosses (at work and at home) have other things in mind for me to be working on, so the GEPR will be taking third priority as usual. Unless some independently wealthy progger out there would like to support me while I do this full-time. Hehe. Didn't think so ...

Keep on Proggin',
Fred Trafton


Giveaway Winner

Steve Walsh
David Tenneyuque contributed the only write-up for Steve Walsh, and is thus the only winner of his new album Shadowman. Anybody reading this that has had a change of heart and would like to get in on the giveaway, send me some info on Steve Walsh's previous albums, and I can probably still talk Mile High Productions into sending you a copy of the new album. But you'd better hurry, promotion for this album is quickly becoming pointless, as I'm sure Mr. Walsh has already gone off to other musical pursuits by now.


This is where I point out my favorite new releases. Usually, these are CD's I get as promos that are so good that I feel the need to bump them to the head of the line instead of waiting their turn in my review queue. For his GEPR release, I recommend checking out my reviews for the following recent album releases:


Glass
Illuminations
Symphonic Prog, USA

Jasun Martz
The Pillory/The Battle
Avant-Electro-Classical?, USA

maudlin of the Well
Bath and
Leaving Your Body Map
Avant Metal, USA, Re-release

Sympozion
Kundabuffer
Symphonic Prog, Israel

So, let's now get on with the main part of this GEPR release:

GEPR Editor Fred Trafton (USA) contributed new entries, reviews, updates or news items for ALU, Alquimia, Anekdoten, David Bedford, Bruford, Bill Bruford, Kate Bush, Coronarias Dans, Don Caballero, Dreadnaught, E.A. Poe, Eccentric Orbit, First Band From Outer Space, Gandalf (Austria), Glass, Pierre Moerlen's Gong, Gongzilla, Steve Hillage, Allan Holdsworth, Høst, Landmarq, Tony Williams' Lifetime, Little Tragedies, Magus, Magenta, Jasun Martz, maudlin of the Well, Maxophone, The Moor, Planet X, Sand, Secret Oyster, David Shamrock, Spastic Ink, Spirits Burning, Sylvan, Sympozion, Tonto's Expanding Head Band, A Triggering Myth and Zingaia. I have also updated the Encylopedia of Progressive Rock Instruments with entries for Simmons SDS5 electronic drums and SynthAxe MIDI guitar controller.

Ludovico Vecchione (Italy) has had a batch of reviews languishing in my "Inbox" for way too long. These are Città Frontale, E.A. Poe, Toni Esposito and Maxophone.

David Marshall (USA) contributes his writing talents to new entries or additions for Cartoon, Don Caballero, Eccentric Orbit, NeBeLNeST and Planet X.

Other contributions this release:

Keep on Proggin'
Fred Trafton

10/25/05
Just a "let's fix a few screw-ups" update ... added photos for Lana Lane, Erik Norlander and Rocket Scientists. Also updated discography for Erik Norlander and added a comment from him concerning Lana Lane (in her entry). I also made a minor change in The Fromuz' entry. Let's just pretend this is part of the 10/21/05 GEPR release, OK?
10/21/05
Erik Groeneweg, keyboardist for Nice Beaver, wrote me to ask if I had received my copy of their new album, Oregon. I told him that I had, but because of my long backlog, it wouldn't be appearing in this update of the GEPR. His response was wonderful: "Never mind, Fred. Gibraltar was build for the ages. As long as you received it, ánd liked it, we'll wait patiently." This is how I view the GEPR as well, and I only hope that other artists will be as understanding when it comes to why their albums haven't been reviewed yet. At least I've updated your discography to include the new album, Erik. That's the least I can do.

That's a far nicer way of saying what I'm thinking myself: "Hells Bells, dude! It's been March since you did the last update of this thing!" Yeah, don't I know it. But work and home pressures have kept me from finishing it and getting it uploaded. I told a lot of people it would be August before the next upload. Then August went by, September went by ... now it's October. Well, at least I've got a killer update for you. There's enough new stuff to read in here that you shouldn't be screaming for a new release any time soon.

I've finally come to a brilliant conclusion. I'm just too damned much of a perfectionist. I have CD's in my review queue that I've had for two years ... ahem ... or more ... and still haven't gotten around to adding to the GEPR. And you know why? It's because I think I owe each artist several hours of time while I craft an intelligent, witty and articulate review of their latest effort. While I still think this is true, I must admit to myself (and to you, dear GEPR readers, and also to you dedicated Prog artists) that I just don't have time to do this. I get too darn many promos for review to handle each CD in this way all by myself. I've gotta believe that an artist would rather have a short review of his album in the GEPR soon after release than wait two years for a really good review. Heck, that review is probably two albums ago by now, and really not even pertinent.

So, here's the way I'll be handling reviews from now on. I'm going to start adding new promos I get into the GEPR immediately, with just a few words to describe basically what kind of music it is and maybe some general personal impression ("it's great", "it's OK" or "it sucks" sort of level ... well, maybe a bit more than that ...). I'll concentrate my extended reviews on albums that either knock my socks off or make me want to barf (fortunately, I get very few albums in the second category. Prog musicians tend to simply have more pride than that). You'll start to see that in this release since there are more reviews of recently-released CD's in this GEPR release than 2-year-old ones. Still, I haven't been perfect even at this, and some recently-received CD's are still not listed yet.

Meanwhile, I've been trying do the same to my two-year backlog of albums and just get them the hell listed in the GEPR. It's the least I can do. I'll make stops along the way to give longer reviews of my favorites, and I'll try to keep coming back to flesh out shorter reviews at a later time. I really think this is the best I can do for all concerned, readers and artists alike. Be aware that this backlog of albums is SO deep at the moment that there's no way I can do them all yet even with this simplified technique, but I hope to make some headway by next GEPR release, at least.

Now, if I could just think of a similar strategy to get my backlog of outside reviews done. I guess I'll have to just keep plugging away at those. If you've submitted a review for publication in the GEPR and you still haven't seen it appear yet, feel free to drop me a an e-mail to remind me about it. I'll double-check to make sure it got put into my review queue. I've been known to miss an e-mail ocasionally, so it's possible I've (unintentionally) neglected you. But most likely, I just haven't gotten to you yet.

But enough yakkin' ... let's get on with some news items, and then the meat of this huge but long-delayed GEPR release.

Keep on Proggin',
Fred Trafton


In Memoriam

Robert Moog in his
lab at Moog Music
It's hard to imagine what Progressive Rock would be like without the amazing Moog Synthesizer. Robert Moog, who designed and popularized the first analog synthesizers, passed away on August 21, 2005 at his home in Asheville, North Carolina. He was 71. Bob was diagnosed with brain cancer (glioblastoma multiforme or GBM) in late April 2005. He is survived by his wife, Ileana, his five children, and the mother of his children, Shirleigh Moog.

Denis "Piggy" D'Amour of progmetal band Voivod passed away on August 26, 2005 of colon cancer. News of the illness had been first reported only a few days before. D'Amour had been with Voivod since their inception in 1982. They were working on their 14th album.

In March of 2005, Vesa Lattunen the leader of Finnish prog legends Haikara passed away. I have been unable to discover any details, but he will be missed.

Finally, though it's hardly news any more, I only recently heard that Starcastle bassist Gary Strater passed away on Sept. 20, 2004 after a long battle with liver and pancreatic cancer. He was 51.

Giveaway

Steve Walsh
Steve Walsh, most famous for his contributions as vocalist and keyboardist for Kansas, has just released a new solo album, Shadowman. I have added Walsh to the Gibraltar Encyclopedia of Progressive Rock, but his entry lacks reviews or any information about his first two solo albums.

So, in conjunction with Miles High Productions, the GEPR is pleased to offer a copy of Shadowman to the best three GEPR contributions about Steve Walsh. You can write about his contributions to Kansas or his band Streets if you wish, but I'm most interested in reviews of his other solo albums Schemer-Dreamer (80) or Glossolalia (00), or his contributions as guest vocalist on other albums such as Leonardo: The Absolute Man. The best-written three entries will be added to the GEPR and will receive a copy of Shadowman. Please note that there are no restrictions on the content ... you may praise or pan the albums you're writing about. But I will print the three best-written and most informative articles. However you feel about Steve's music, don't just say, "He's great" or "He sucks", tell me why you feel this way. Help me to understand why I need to own or need to avoid these albums.

Winners will be announced in the next GEPR upload, and their articles will appear in the GEPR at the same time. The usual GEPR review rules apply ... nobody from Walsh's band(s), his family, personal friends, his management or his record label is eligible to enter.

Send submissions to webmaster@gepr.net.

E-Mail from someone@gepr.net?

God at His Computer
Recently, I've been receiving hundreds of "bounces" from the spam filters of e-mail addresses from around the world. Somebody is sending out e-mails with return addresses along the lines of barbie_bigones@gepr.net. When they bounce, they return to me because I own the gepr.net domain. They seem to have links pointing to what is evidently a porn site. I say "seems" and "evidently" because I won't click on the link to see what it actually is. It's likely to be a pointer to a virus, spyware or adware of some kind. For every "bounce" I'm receiving, there's probably hundreds of these e-mails getting through to unsuspecting recipients. If you're one of them, take heed!

These e-mails are not coming from the GEPR! I have no control over someone who identifies themselves with a @gepr.net address. In case you didn't know, anyone can identify themselves as any e-mail address they want. If you get an e-mail from a @gepr.net address other than webmaster@gepr.net, it is not a legitimate e-mail! Delete it immediately and don't click on any links it's offering! I'm sorry, I can't do any more than warn you about it.

The picture at left shows what I hope any divine entities who may be GEPR readers will to do to the perpetrators (In case you can't see it clearly, God is about to hit the "SMITE" key. I was unaware that God was left-handed). If he or she is listening, I'll hint that lightning bolts or creepy diseases would also work. (Thanks to Gary Larson for the cartoon)


This is where I point out my favorite new releases. Usually, these are CD's I get as promos that are so good that I feel the need to bump them to the head of the line instead of waiting their turn in my review queue. For his GEPR release, I recommend checking out my reviews for the following recent album releases:


Akacia
The Brass Serpent
Symphonic Prog, USA

Glass Hammer
The Inconsolable
Secret
Symphonic Prog, USA

Helmet of Gnats
Helmet of Gnats
Fusion, USA


Little Tragedies
Return
Symphonic Prog, Russia

Rain
Cerulean Blue
Symphonic Prog, UK

Systems Theory
Soundtracks for
Imaginary Movies
Electronic, USA


Thirteen of Everything
Welcome, Humans
Symphonic Prog, USA

The Underground Railroad
The Origin of Consciousness
Symphonic Prog, USA

The Watch
Vacuum
Symphonic Prog, Italy

So, let's now get on with the main part of this GEPR release:

Kai Karmanheimo (Finland) is once again the main man for this release. Usually, I list my own contributions first, but this release is dominated by the excellent work done by Kai as he worked through the entire GEPR to add updates and corrections to existing entries. He has rooted out and fixed a lot of bogus entries, questionable album releases, unknown album release dates and just plain errors. Changes were made to the following entries: Ag A.M., Agnus, Alamaailman Vasarat, Modulo 1000, Montefeltro, Moria Falls, Morning Sky, Mujician, Museo Rosenbach, Nattura, 99.99, North Star, October, Outsiders, Bruce Palmer, Paperhouse, Pappnas, Patch, Jim Pembroke, Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Periferia del Mondo, PFS, Progresiv TM, PTS, Pulsar, Rachel's Birthday, Random Hold, Vladimir Ratskevitch, Red Crayola, Redd, Hans Reichel, El Reloj, Reverberi, Jorge Reyes, Pau Riba, Ricordi D'Infanzia, Laza Ristovski, Ritual, Rivendel (Spain), Round House, Rousseau, RSC, Sagrado Coracao Da Terra, Motai Sakuraba, Merl Saunders, Schakta, Scheherezade, Günter Schickert, Second Movement, Semnal M, Shadowfax, Shape Of The Rain, Socrates (Drank The Conium), Solstice (UK), Solution, Arturo Stalteri, Stern (Combo) Meissen, Demetrio Stratos, Strobe, Darryl Stuermer, Sub, Supertramp, Tarkus, Helmut Teubner, Threshold, Anssi Tikanmäki, Tisaris, Too Much, Topos Uranos, Tractor, Transister, Triana, Tristan Park, Twice Bitten, Twin Age, Universe (UK), Vox Dei, Waniyetula, Wejah, Wha Ha Ha, White Fang, Richard Wright, Bernard Xolotl and You And I.

Evidently, this wasn't enough work for Kai, so he also contributed the following full reviews for new bands, significant modifications of his previous reviews or some information where there was almost nothing in the GEPR before: Arpia, Mongol, Moon Fog Prophet, Nexus, Nimbus, Overhead, Seppo Paakkunainen, Peak, Jim Pembroke, Piknik, Ramses, Antonio Sangiuliano, Scapa Flow, Sepi Kuu, Slapp Happy, Starless, Armando Tirelli, Jukka Tolonen and Waterfront Weirdos.

Kai must be really bored up there in Finland, because even before I finished getting this group of reviews and updates completed, he's sent me another batch. I've put a few of the most timely entries into this group, but you'll have to wait for the next GEPR release for the remainder.

GEPR Editor Fred Trafton (USA) contributed new entries, reviews, updates or news items for Akacia, Always Almost, Anoxie, Autograph (aka Autograf) The Curtain, Deus Ex Machina, Discordia, Discus, Ian Eccles-Smith, Emerson, Lake and Powell, Don Falcone, Finneus Gauge, The Forminx, The Fromuz, Egil Fylling, Galleon, Glass Hammer, Grey Eye Glances, Happy The Man, Harrold Juana, Michael Hedges, Helmet of Gnats, Heroic Verse, IQ, IZZ, Ivory (Germany), Janus, Jeremy and Progressor, Jon and Vangelis, Kalle's World Tour, Lana Lane, Little Tragedies, Machiavel, Geoff Mann, Moria Falls, Mujician, Museo Rosenbach, Erik Norlander, Overhead, Providence (USA), Puppet Show, Rain, Rainbow Theatre, Redshift, Runaway Totem, Secret Oyster, Silver Lining, Demetrio Stratos, Darryl Stuermer, Systems Theory, The Tangent, Tangerine Dream, Robin Taylor, Taylor's [Free] Universe, Thork, 3, 302 Acid, Trap, The Underground Railroad, Steve Walsh, The Watch, Waterfront Weirdos, Kit Watkins, White Willow, Xisle, Yes, Yeti and Michelle Young, along with the usual fix-ups, error corrections and band photo searches. I also updated the Encyclopedia of Progressive Rock Instruments with the E-Bow and re-wrote and found a new photo for Saz.

Other contributions this release:

Keep on Proggin'
Fred Trafton

3/11/05
HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRACE!
(It's my wife's birthday!)

Even though this is a huge update to the GEPR, I still feel like I need to apologize. Yeah, it's a personal problem ... my wife apologizes for every meal too, even if they are spectacular. You can always find something wrong with anything if you look long enough. Still, I had hoped to do more during my "birthday week", which I took off from work. Mainly, I wanted to finish Kai's contributions (I got maybe halfway through his list of corrections) and try to do a few more reviews of promo CD's I have in my queue. But first I got sick, then my wife got sick, and I didn't really have the time to work on the GEPR that I expected. Still, there's a lot here to look at this release. But with several big projects cranking up at work again, I don't know how long it will be before the next update. Probably not until summer. But don't worry, I'll be back again as soon as I can with the completion of Kai's updates and some more CD reviews. The GEPR is not going away, but it may snooze thru Spring of 2005.

If there's anyone I promised would be in this release and isn't, please drop me a line and remind me. I took care of almost everyone, I'm sure, but one or two bands, promo CD's or reviews may have slipped through the cracks. As you can see, there's a lot of stuff in this release, and somebody may have gotten left behind in the rush. But it's time to release it, so here we go ...

I have a few pieces of worthy Prog News for you for this release, so here goes:

ProgAID recording is finished - An all-star line-up of UK proggers have put together a "single" prog tune for the benefit of Tsunami victims. It will go on sale on March 15th, and you can order it from their web site http://www.ProgAID.com. Check out the web site and order one ... when they become available, I'll probably order several to pass out to friends in the prog community here in Dallas.

Underground Railroad's second CD is complete - Guitarist Bill Pohl of The Underground Railroad has announced that UR's long-awaited (by some of us at least) second album The Origin of Consciousness is finally done and ready for release. He did say that he would be announcing information on the label later, but I'm not sure what that means.

News from Kurt Rongey - While we're on the subject of The Underground Railroad, their keyboardist Kurt Rongey has announced that he is making his first two out-of-print solo albums Book In hand and That Was Propaganda available for download at http://www.mindawn.com. Also, look for http://www.kurtrongey.com to be up and running in the near future. You'll be able to get lyrics for the above mentioned albums, plus there'll no doubt be info on the upcoming release of his NEW solo album.

Glass to release first studio recording in 27 years - The CD, entitled Illuminations, is a concept work begun in August 2004 in Seattle and finished in Southern California on the 14th of January, 2005. Lending his fuzz bass to the endeavor is ex-Soft Machine legend Hugh Hopper, and one track also features are ex-Hatfield and the North-er's Richard Sinclair and Phil Miller. Musea Records will be including it in their release schedule for June 2005.

Name that tune! - The French version of amazon.com had some audio clips which were allegedly from the latest Ars Nova release, Biogenesis. They certainly are not clips from that album, but a GEPR reader likes them anyway. If you can identify the band that is actually playing in these clips, please drop me a note at webmaster@gepr.net and I'll pass the information along. Click here to hear the clips.

This is where I point out my favorite new releases. Usually, these are CD's I get as promos that are so good that I feel the need to bump them to the head of the line instead of waiting their turn in my review queue. For his GEPR release, I want to point you to the latest (and possibly last) album from Inquire, Melancholia, one of the most exciting prog releases I've heard in awhile. Melancholia could be described as Neo-Prog, but with a bonus disc that is an 18+-minute classical piece played with prog sensibilities, it feels more like '70's prog. In a completely different vein, the new 2-CD set from Finnegans Wake is now available, and it's a fabulous foray into what happens when avant-jazz meets modern classical. Highly recommended, and easily among my recent favorite releases.

So, let's now get on with the main part of this GEPR release:

Kai Karmanheimo (Finland) is the main man for this GEPR release. Usually, I list my own contributions first, but this release is mostly for the excellent work done by Kai as he worked through the entire GEPR to add updates and corrections to existing entries. He has rooted out and fixed a lot of bogus entries, questionable album releases, unknown album release dates and just plain errors. These changes were made to the following entries: Acezantez Ensemble, Aelian, Alpha III, Alsur, Altais, Alvaro, Amber Route, Charles Amirkhanian, Amon Düül (UK), Anacrusa, Analogy, Ann Douar Bras, Anno Luz, Anyone's Daughter, Coste Apetrea, Apologia Lupi, Aquelarre, Marco Antônio Araújo, Arktis, Art Zoyd, Asturias, Aucan, Avaric, Kevin Ayers, Luciano Basso, Bijelo Dugme, Blossom Toes, Brégent, Francois Cahen, Cai, Maryen Cairns, Cairo, Camel, Can, Capability Brown, Cardeilhac, Castanarc, Il Castello di Atlante, La Cofradía de la Flor Solar, El Congreso, Cybotron, Patricia Dallio, Dead Flowers, Christian Decamps (et fils), Francis Decamps, Constance Demby, Franck Dervieux, Deutsche Wertarbeit, Deyss, Dialect, Diana Express, Drama, Duello Madre, Eastern Orbit, Eden (Germany), Graeme Edge, Mark Egan, Egdon Heath, Ekseption, Electric Frankenstein, Redjy Emond, England, Engoulevent L', The Enid, Eternidad, Extradition, Fafner, Fancyfluid, Forrest Fang, Far East Family Band, FFN, Flame Dream, Fourth Estate, Froese, Edgar, Fushitsusha, Genesis (Uraguay), Genfuoco, Ghost (Japan), Gordon Giltrap, Gipsy Love, Giraffe, Gizmo, Glaxo Babies, Goblin, Godfrey and Stewart, Godfrey, Robert John, Golden Cups, Granada, Achim Gunske, Bruce Haack, Hades, Peter Hammill, Hardcake Special, Harold Juana, Mickey Hart, Paul Haslinger, Michael Hedges, Klaus Hess, Walter Holland, Horizonte, Hyaena, Inada, Yasuo and Bemi Family, Invisible, Ishizawa, Hiroyuki (and IO), Jade Warrior, Kamaleon, Karat, Karelia, Chris Karrer, Karussell, Bernd Kirsmacher, Kirsmacher and Grosskopf, Kornet, Labanda, Last Turion, Latte E Miele, Leviathan (Italy), Lightwave, Ralph Lundsten, Magellan, Magic Muscle, Magic Mushroom Band, Magma (Korea), Malibran, Malombra, Máquina, Marathon, Marge Litch, Mastedon, Materia Gris, Matrix, Medina Azahara, Men of Lake, Mentaur, Merzbow, Might of Coincidence, Mind Over Matter, Minimum Vital, Andrei Misin, Missing Persons, Mr. Sirius, Qoph, Quantum (Brazil), Quaterna Requiem and Univers Zero. There's a lot more where those came from, too, but there was no time to get them all in for this GEPR release. I hope to finish Kai's revisions in the next GEPR release.

Evidently, this wasn't enough work for Kai, so he also contributed the following full reviews for new bands, significant modifications of his previous reviews or some information where there was almost nothing in the GEPR before: Albatros (Italy), Albatros (Germany), Alice (Italy), Alice (France), Anoxie, Apocalypsis, Apollo, Edward Artemiev, Colin Bass, I Califfi, Dark Sun, Eden Rose, Elohim, Eurhybia, Finnforest, Flamborough Head, Flyte, Freehand, Grace, Groovector, Jukka Gustavson, Haikara, Esa Kotilainen, Gianni Leone (LeoNero), Nick Magnus, Magyar, Magyar Posse, Mr. Doctor, Paatos and Progres 2. And, yes, there's more of these waiting for the next GEPR release as well.

GEPR Editor Fred Trafton (USA) contributed new entries, reviews, updates or news items for Architectural Metaphor, Asturias, Black Tape for a Blue Girl, Francois Cahen, Camel, Egg (Sweden), Electric Light Orchestra, Facade, Fafner, Don Falcone, Finnegans Wake, Fireclan, Dogstar Poets, Hatfield and the North, Index, Inquire, Kafka, Kansas, Magma (France), Odyssice, Quiet Celebration, Spaceship Eyes, Thursaflokkur, Timothy Pure, Trespass (Germany) and Under The Sun, plus correcting and augmenting the entry for Minimoog along with the usual fix-ups, error corrections and band photo searches.

Alain Mallette (Canada) contributes information on French Canadian bands Dionysos, Eden (Canada) and Offenbach.

Other contributions this release include:

  • Toby Chappell's review of the new release from Gnomus
  • Alex Davis' opinions about the solo work of Patrick Gauthier
  • Alan Freeman's overview (from the CD-ROM version of his book Crack in the Cosmic Egg) on Flaming Bess (reprinted with permission)
  • Dan Grubbs' review of Octane, the new release from Spock's Beard
  • Thomas Karr's write-up on Odin
  • Steve Moffitt's review of Proto-Kaw
  • Alex Penney's write up about Gentle Giant reassures us that there's a new generation of proggers out there!
  • Alain Ruelle's correction & discog update for Machiavel and a new entry for Ken's Novel
  • Clayton Self's review of Celeste
  • Ken Westphal's write-up on Proto-Kaw
Keep on Proggin'
Fred Trafton

ProgAID
 The Prog Rock community coming together to help where we can!

(The following information from David Robinson of F2 Music was uploaded 1/19/05 as a public service. The main GEPR upload is still the original new year upload from 1/1/05, but I wanted to share this with the prog community while it's hot. -- Fred Trafton)

ProgAID was set-up in the wake of the terrible earthquake and Tsunami disaster that tragically struck on the 26th December 2004. The sheer destruction and loss of human life was of a scale that shook the world.

We considered what the Progressive Rock community could do, even in a small way, to help alleviate some of the suffering endured, and help towards the rebuilding of lives and communities.

We have therefore decided to co-ordinate the recording of a CD single to help raise as much money as possible for those that need it. The song, titled "All Around The World", will be recorded on the 29th and 30th January 2005, and since the decision was made, we have been overwhelmed by the generosity of so many great musicians who have agreed to give their time to appear on the single. The list grows daily and currently includes:

  • Neal Morse
  • Roine Stolt - The Flower Kings
  • Anthony Phillips
  • Martin Orford - IQ
  • Pete Nicholls - IQ
  • John Jowitt - IQ
  • Alan Reed - Pallas
  • Nick Barrett - Pendragon
  • Clive Nolan - Arena / Pendragon
  • Mick Pointer - Arena
  • John Mitchell - Arena / The Urbane
  • Gary Chandler - Jadis
  • Arjen Lucassen - Ayreon
  • Oliver Wakeman - Oliver Wakeman Band
  • Steve Balsamo - Alan Parsons Project
  • Troy Donockley - Iona
  • Bryan Josh - Mostly Autumn
  • Steve Gee - Landmarq
  • Tracy Hitchings - Landmarq
  • Dave Wagstaff - Landmarq
  • Bruce Soord - Pineapple Thief
  • Stu Nicholson - Galahad
  • Magenta
  • Steve Babb - Glass Hammer
  • Daniel Gildenlow - Pain Of Salvation
  • Mike Baker - Shadow Gallery
  • Gary Wehrkamp - Shadow Gallery
  • Doogie White - ex Rainbow / Yngwie Malmsteen
  • Rob Gould - Fula
  • Fiona Ford - Fula
  • Alain Chiarazzo - Eclat
  • Steve Taylor - Strangefish
  • Danny Chang - The Fyreworks
  • Andy Edwards - Ezra
  • Colin Edwards - Ezra
  • Chris Dale - Sack Trick / Bruce Dickinson
  • Paul Davies - ex Karnataka / Panic Room
  • Jonathan Edwards - ex Karnataka / Panic Room
  • Nic Waulker - Bluehorses
  • Liz Prendagast - Bluehorses
Once recorded, the single will go on sale, which is expected to be late February 2005, and all proceeds will go to the charities that can help the victims of the Tsunami disaster.

Regular updates, including the amount of money raised, will be posted at the ProgAID web site at http://www.ProgAID.com, so please visit for the latest news. The full list of musicians participating on the single will also be listed within the "Who's Who" section of this site.

We thank you for supporting this release and please spread this news to as many people as possible!

Best Regards,
ProgAID
http://www.ProgAID.com

Please note: The official ProgAID web site has only recently been constructed, and currently emails sent to info@progaid.com are not being delivered. We hope that this will be corrected in the very near future. In the meantime, please feel free to use info@f2music.co.uk should you wish to contact us for any reason.

Now returning to the New Year's GEPR update:

1/1/05
HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Yeah, I know it's been awhile since the last update. Last year, as a matter of fact (heh). But finally, I got some time off at the end of December and have finished my "required" updates and uploaded the thing. Lots of people have written in to ask when their articles will show up online, or what happened to the review for the CD they sent me. All I can say is that I'm getting there as fast as I can. That's none too fast these days, but I'm still doing the best I can. Tell you what, start sending me money enough to quit my job and I'll spend full time on the GEPR, OK? Yeah, right, like that's going to happen. In the meantime, I'll keep on using all the time I can spare to update the GEPR as best as I can. My best guess now is that I expect some time off at the end of February, so the next update is likely to be the beginning of March. But don't hold me to it.

Let's see, one little thing you may notice, if you have a modern browser like IE5+ or Netscape 7.x+ or one of the new Mozillas, is the little "G" icon in the URL line. I've noticed more and more web sites have one of these identification icons showing up, so I looked into how to do it for the GEPR. It's not too hard, but it took several hours of research, software downloading (to create the icon) and messing around to make it work. In order to make it work in IE, I had to delete my bookmark and then re-bookmark it before the icon showed up. Let me know if you can or can't see it, and under what circumstances. If you find a problem, maybe I can learn some more and make it work better. In the meantime, it seems to work at least if you enter the GEPR through the index page, and I'm trying to make it work from anywhere (for example, if someone links into the GEPR Progressive Rock Instruments or Genre Guide from outside the GEPR, the "G" icon should show up as well as an indicator that you've been directed to the GEPR web site). One more thing, if you're a frequent GEPR visitor, you may also have to clear your cache once to force your browser to reload from the server. As my wife said when I showed it to her, "big whoop".

I have a bunch of interesting items to share with you this release, so I've created a new heading for Prog News under "What's New". Just a few prog tidbits I've had sent to me by friends and artists in the prog community.

OXYGENE8 TO BEGIN NEW RECORDING - In the upcoming weeks, Oxygene8 will begin recording their second CD with Catlan/Spanish drummer Gerard Mallorqui, Argentinean Stick player Guillermo Cides, and Primus drummer Tim Alexander on some tracks as well! (E-mail from Frank & Linda of Oxygene8)
Late breaking news! (added 1/3/05) - I've just received e-mails from Frank and Linda, and it seems they have parted ways (amicably). The new Oxygene8 CD will be a Linda Cushma solo album, though it will still feature Guillermo Cides and Tim Alexander. Frank D'Angelo has started a new band named MonkeyGod with fretless bass player Joe Sofia. They have begun working on and recording their own debut CD. Stay tuned for further updates! (separate e-mails from Frank & Linda, formerly of Oxygene8)
Further update: (added 1/10/05) - Linda has e-mailed to let me know that she will not be continuing to use the Oxygene8 name for her solo album, but that work on the album itself is continuing as previously reported, with the same supporting musicians.

NEW PROJECT FROM DIVINE IN SIGHT - Bart Boge of Divine In Sight has sent me the libretto of the new rock opera (actually, I would call it more of a "rock musical" since it is really a play with musical sections) he is writing with the rest of Divine In Sight. Called O Nox Ultima, it's an exciting project, being written more for live performance than recording, though there will undoubtedly be a CD (probably a double CD set) made at some point. The general subject matter is what you might expect from a band of evangelical christians, though the story does have several interesting plot twists. Bart has asked me to keep the story line a secret, but I just have to mention that there is a guest appearance by ... well, I'll just let you guess. (E-mail from Bart Boge of Divine In Sight)

NEW ALBUM AVAILABLE SOON FROM AKACIA - Speaking of christian prog, Akacia has completed their second CD, and guitarist Mike Tenenbaum has sent me a pre-release CDR for my perusal. As much as I liked their first album, An Other Life, the new one entitled The Brass Serpent is even better. Look for a release from Musea Records around February of 2005. This one's not to be missed, and not only by christians. Anyone who thinks that Yes put out a few good albums should love The Brass Serpent. (E-mail and promo from Mike Tenenbaum of Akacia)

PÄR LINDH PROJECT NEWS - Recovered from a serious illness Magdalena Berg is now back with PLP! The band has unfortunately been stopped in its tracks for several years but has now started to rehearse on weekly basis again and in August 2004 began the recordings for a new album to be released during 2005. In addition, PLP is releasing a reworked 10th anniversary re-edition of Gothic Impressions. Official re-release date is November 18th 2004. For more info look into the PLP homepage http://www.parlindh.com. (Press Release)

APOCALYPSE ANNOUNCEMENT - Brasilian progressive rock band Apocalypse announces changes in their line-up (the first in more than 20 years). Gustavo Demarchi (Ex The Wise, Lifeless) is the new singer and Magoo Wise (Ex The Wise) is the new bass player. The band also announced that from now on the songs will be sung in English rather than Portuguese as in the previous albums. To support the changes and to keep in constant touch with the fans, the band is launching the official web site (http://www.apocalypsebr.com). The first work with the fresh line up, the Magic EP, is available for download in its entirety, including the cover artwork made by the Brazilian artist Carolina Mylius. (Press Release)

MAWWAL RAISING MONEY FOR CD RELEASE - Former members of Paranoise along with several new musicians (including Percy Jones of Brand X) have formed a new band named Mawwal, who are trying something new in the release of their new CD. Excerpted from their press release: "Mawwal's business plan for the upcoming CD includes ... creating a publishing company with the goal of ensuring [guitarist/Laouto player] Jim [Matus] and the band retain all rights to the music. Key to making Mawwal's dream come to life is raising sufficient funds to get [the CD] released without debt to a record company. If Mawwal can raise $30,000.00, the group should be able to meet all the goals without the financial and legal compromises that most artists are faced with. It will give them the creative freedom to produce a truly innovative work of art while at the same time spreading a much needed cultural and political message." If you are interested in donating, go to the Mawwal web site for further info.

This is where I point out my favorite new releases. Usually, these are CD's I get as promos that are so good that I feel the need to bump them to the head of the line instead of waiting their turn in my review queue. For his GEPR release, Magenta's second studio album Seven falls into that category. I loved Magenta's debut release Revolutions, and have been waiting with bated breath for the new album. As you'll see in the review, I liked it a lot, but have a few reservations. Then, I got Herb Heinz' Another as a freebie, which I usually don't even feel that strongly about putting into the GEPR (it wasn't a promo from the artist or their label). But Another is one of the best things I've heard in recent memory, so I wanted to make sure you knew about it ASAP! Another led me to contact Herb, whereupon I discovered his former band Amy X Neuburg and Men, and his wife's solo works (see Amy X Neuburg) and these were also so great that I had to add them immediately. I hope you agree that these are all wonderful ... progressive rock stretches the definition of rock, and these albums stretch the definition of progressive. Isn't that what we're all here for? Last but not least is Primosfera, the latest from Stereokimono, which was released last year but heard only recently by me. This is an excellent spacey/fusiony/symphonic album that deserves a listen from any and all serious prog fans.

GEPR Editor Fred Trafton (USA) contributed new entries, news or reviews for Apocalypse, Vladimir Badirov, Il Castello di Atlante, Edition Speciale, Herb Heinz, Magenta, Metamorfosi, The Minefield, Amy X Neuburg, Amy X Neuburg and Men, Pär Lindh Project, Stereokimono, Robin Taylor, Taylor's Universe, Trap and Zingaia, along with the usual fix-ups, error corrections and band photo searches.

Robert Orme (USA) contributes a nice batch of reviews for older stuff not adequately covered (or completely missing) in the GEPR. He's also finally talked me into separating Greenslade (the band) and Dave Greenslade (the solo artist) into two separate entries, which they always should have been (one of these days I'll do the same for Bruford and Bill Bruford ... but not today). His contributions include reviews for Arcadium, Comus, Stewart Copeland, Fiction (Tony Hill's), Fields, Free Ferry, Frolk Haven, Fuzzy Duck, Greenslade, Dave Greenslade and Pussy.

Clayton Self (Canada?) expresses his opinions about 3 classic Italian bands: Acqua Fragile, Alphataurus and Cherry Five.

Other contributions this release include:

  • Philip Andrews' dissenting opinion on Locanda Delle Fate
  • Paulo Cunha (Brazil)'s line-up listing for Marco Antônio Araújo
  • Andy Doonan's corrections for Primus
  • Sol Friedman's addendum to Giraffe
  • Matthew Gibbons explains the meaning of "progressive" as it pertains to dance music in the entry on Fluke
  • Ricardo Martinelli (Brazil)'s clarification concerning Bacamarte's Sete Cidades release
  • Vitaly Menshikov (Uzbekistan)'s contribution, from his Progressor web site, on Vedda Tribe
  • Robert Ramsay (UK)'s mini-essay on the rise and freefall of Freefall
  • Anton Winkelhan (Japan via New Zealand)'s update for Matching Mole
  • Plus an announcement from the management of Stencil Forest
Keep on Proggin'
Fred Trafton

8/27/04

Gibraltar Encyclopedia killed due to "excessive bandwidth"!
Resurrection has occurred with a new web hosting service

Around the middle of August, I started getting e-mails from surprised GEPR readers to tell me that the GEPR had gone offline! Upon investigating, I discovered that my web hosting service had decided that I had used "excessive bandwidth" during the month and they shut down the site. The hosting service was unable to tell me why after 4 years I suddenly had such a huge increse in GEPR usage, but they kept repeating that I could solve the problem by "purchasing extra bandwidth". The cost for this: more than doubling my current monthly fees!

This seemed unacceptable to me. To say the least. Last time this happened, they claimed I had used up my disk space. Which I hadn't ... deleting my entire space and then re-loading the GEPR files showed I was using only about 10% of my allotted space. But when it comes to "bandwidth", I can't prove this one way or the other. So, the only choice they gave me was to spend more money to correct the problem ... until the next unexplained bandwidth spike.

The bottom line is, I really can't afford another monthly bill for a service I give away for free. This does come out of my personal pocket, you know. So, I found a better answer. I found a new web host. They have better features, 4x the bandwidth, plenty of storage space, the ability to provide streaming music downloads (if I ever decide I want to do this), and it costs ... ahem ... about one third of what my previous host charged before adding more for extra bandwdith. The choice to change suppliers was obvious.

What does this mean to you? Well, absolutely nothing. I still show up at http://www.gepr.net just like always. This is simply an explanation about why the GEPR was down for a couple of weeks. I'm so tired of this ... let's hope we can stay on the air full time for awhile. In the meantime, please accept my apologies for any problems, mental anguish or rumors of pro-pop-radio terrorism the temporary GEPR vanishing may have caused. Let me know if you detect any differences in speed, accessibility or downtime with the new host.

Regards,
Fred Trafton
Editor, Gibraltar Encyclopedia of Progressive Rock

P.S. Some of you may have seen an incomplete GEPR upload show up online as the name servers were being moved around. This was a "test" upload of a partially-completed GEPR update. The one you're looking at now is the real thing ... the long-overdue August 2004 update. Also, if you sent me e-mail at the end of August and you're not sure whether or not it got through, I suggest you re-e-mail me at the usual address: webmaster@gepr.net.

Progressive Rock Entry in Wikipedia/Wikiverse

The Wikipedia is an internet-based free encyclopedia being constructed by thousands of volunteers around the world. Wikiverse is a high-speed mirror of the site. Both versions have the same recently-added entry on Progressive Rock, "for the uninititated". It's not a bad entry, citing many of the features of prog mentioned in the Genre Guide. It also lists links for further reading on the subject, including a link to the GEPR! Click either of the two symbols (at left or right) to link to the Progressive Rock entry on their versions of the Wikipedia.

Well, here's the standard apology. In spite of the problems mentioned above with my net hosting service, the fact is that I just haven't had that much time to work on the GEPR. So, my promos continue to stack up and reviews from GEPR readers do too. All I can say is that I'm getting around to GEPR business whenever I can, and I'm afraid that will need to be good enough. There's at least a few new and interesting things to read in this release, even if it's been a long time coming.

Editor's Choice this release are Slow Gin, the latest album by by Canadian fusion gods Spaced Out (who aren't quite so fusiony this album!) and Creatures by Frogg Cafe, a great album if you like Frank Zappa-style jazz and modern classical music.

GEPR Editor Fred Trafton (USA) contributed new entries, news or reviews for Advent, Tim Blake, Cymoryl, Dream Theater, Frogg Cafe, Manning, Mythologic, Netherworld, Pangæa, Paranoise, Planet X, Red Sand, Spaced Out and The Tangent. I also added a couple of links to other prog sites, specifically Prog Archives and Israeli Prog Freaks, along with the usual fix-ups, error corrections and band photo searches.

Claudio Hernández has released another update of the GEPR for the Palm operating system. Check out the GEPR Palm page for more information and to download it for free. Note that you will need iSilo™ to read this file, and the "free" version now has some limitations. The GEPR is not affiliated with iSilo™, and in fact I have to pay for my copy of it to read the GEPR on my Treo™ too!

Gil Keltch (Israel) begins an alphabetical journey through his collection (with one "G" that seems to have been misfiled ...) to tell us more about Aardvark, Ache, After Dinner, Agincourt and Gualberto.

Other contributions this release include:

Keep on Proggin'
Fred Trafton

5/21/04

Editor's Choice this release are the incredible releases from Taal, and the solo releases (especially The Epic Quality of Life) from Shaun Guerin. Both of these albums sent chills down my spine, each for different reasons and in different ways, but both of them are high on my list of recommendations. For electronic music fans, I also highly recommend Peter Frohmader's Eismeer, reviewed this release.

So, did you think I'd forgotten about the GEPR? Not quite, but it's been over a month since I've had time to do any work on it and nearly 3 months since you last saw any changes (the last GEPR release was 3/2/04). My schedule at work has made it impossible to do any updates recently, so I thought I should upload what I have done instead of sitting on it. I keep hoping things will relax a bit and I'll get to some more reviewing, but it's just not in the cards right now. It's far from the biggest update I've ever done, but at least there's a few new things to look at, and a reassurance that I haven't given up on it yet. But every time I look at the stack of promo CD's I have for review, I wince ...

I will be at the 2004 NEARfest again this year, so come say hello to me if you're there. I'm especially looking forward to seeing Hidria Spacefolk (reviewed last release) and Richard Pinhas (reviewed this release), but all the bands look to be spectacular again. I'm also looking forward to Planet X, though I've not yet had a chance to hear them. I may be most looking forward to Friday night's Genesis tribute band, The Musical Box. Say, that begs a question ... should the GEPR include tribute bands like The Musical Box? Maybe so. Drop me a line at webmaster@gepr.net and let me know what you think.

GEPR Editor Fred Trafton (USA) contributed new entries, news or reviews for Citizen Cain (also moved it from "x" back to "ce-cm" again), Enemy From Space, Peter Frohmader, Fluke, Shaun Guerin, Mindgames, Octohpera, Richard Pinhas, Strings Arguments, Taal, Uzva and Waterfall. I also did some updates to the Progressive Rock Instruments page (addition of the Synthi AKS/VCS3 synth, Fender Rhodes and corrections to the Warr guitar entry), along with the usual fix-ups, error corrections and band photo searches.

Antonio Ceruso (Italy) contributes info on U.S. rarities Booth, Davis and Lowe, Sailor (USA) and This One Ness.

Other contributions this release include:

Keep on Proggin'
Fred Trafton

3/2/04

This is the place where I get to point out my personal favorites for this release of the GEPR. This time around, I haven't bumped any albums in my queue ahead of its proper place, though I was tempted to in a couple of cases. Perhaps this will happen next release. However, there were several albums that were favorites as I listened to them in their place. For "regular" prog rock, my favorite this release is Terra, the new album from the re-formed Portugese band Tantra. This is just all around excellent prog rock, and has seen way more time in my CD player than simply reviewing it required. The other album I'd like to highlight for this release is the second outing for Hidria Spacefolk, who will be appearing at NEARFest 2004 this summer. Space Rock can be one of my favorite kinds of prog when it's done right, and Hidria Spacefolk does it better than just about anyone else active today. That's probably why two other contributors decided to talk about them this release as well!

As for the general release notes, I'll make my usual excuses about not having more time to do more. My promo CD backlog is still horrendous, though I do feel like I've ben able to make a bit of headway getting through them this month. I did take my entire birthday off just to work on the GEPR, and I got a bunch done. With things at work heating up on several projects, though, I don't know how much time I'll be able to invest for the next few months. If I don't update for awhile, don't give up on me. There will be another GEPR update coming as soon as I can get around to it. On the other hand, you never know ... I might have to make an international flight at some point, and the only thing I can do while on that plane for 12 hours (each way) is work on the GEPR. It could happen. So stay tuned.

One other general thing I did this release was to remove all links to the now-defunct MP3.com. I'm gonna miss those guys ... this was a great way for unknown prog bands to get their stuff "out there" for people to hear. I guess they'll all need their own web sites now. That will make them much harder to find ...

GEPR Editor Fred Trafton (USA) contributed new entries, news or reviews for Atlantis (USA), Engel, 4Front, Happy the Man, Hidria Spacefolk, Jean Michel Jarre, Jeremy, Musique Noise, Olyam, Phaesis, Romislokus, Runaway Totem, Greg Sherman, Solution Science Systems, Tantra and Visual Cliff.

Jeff Park (USA) contributes four reviews of older bands: Ange, Locanda Delle Fate, Maxophone and Il Balletto Di Bronzo.

Emrah Yucelen's short but informative opinions and updates on Kraan, Porcupine Tree, Soma and Spock's Beard's V (look between Vitaly's ramblings about beards and Darryl Risinger's review of Snow, placing V in the correct chronological order).

Other contributions this release include:

Keep on Proggin'
Fred Trafton

1/27/04

I've decided to stop agonizing about the fact that I haven't been able to do as much work on the GEPR in the last 3 months as I wanted to and just upload the darn thing as it is so nobody thinks I've forgotten about it. I haven't given up on it, but I also haven't had much time to work on it. My "Holiday Season" that I had hoped to use (at least some of) for the GEPR was used instead to install some really nice wood flooring in my house. Nice for the house ... bad for the GEPR. But I have had time to do some things, and here they are.

I'm getting so behind on my album reviews ... the latest new albums are about a year old now. However, I do occasionally get some albums that I want to put ahead in the queue just because they particularly turned me on, and I don't want to wait a year to get them online. So, I'm starting a new little sub-feature called the Editor's Choice. These are albums I thought to be too good to wait for their proper place in the queue, so I bumped them up because I wanted you to know about them as soon as possible. If I had started this last GEPR release, the Editor's Choice entries would have been Hal Darling for his new album D2R and Syrinx for their debut album Reification. Those were both put ahead of their place in my queue just because they particularly turned me on. This release, I've only put one new release in ahead of schedule ... Ars Nova's new release, Biogenesis Project. I've listened to it half a dozen times since I got it about a week ago, and I think it's fabulous! Just my style of overdone keyboard bombast! Click here to jump directly to the review.

GEPR Editor Fred Trafton (USA) contributed new entries, news or reviews for Alice (Italy), Alice (France), Ars Nova (Japan), Digitalis, Galahad, Haikara, Nathan Mahl, Reportaz and Jordan Rudess.

Kai Karmanheimo (Finland)'s contributions are finally wrapped up this release with addendums and discography updates for Alice (Italy), Peter Gabriel, I Giganti, Gila, Haikara, Peter Michael Hamel, Peter Hammill, Ramses, SBB, Social Tension and Wigwam.

Tharsis (Canada) contributes a batch of reviews including Atlantis Philharmonic, Ejwuusl Wessahqqan, Garybaldi, Jail, Pacific Sound and Zomby Woof.

Other contributions this release include:

Keep on Proggin'
Fred Trafton

The following Counters section on the main page was finally deleted
after this release and the numbers are saved here for history's sake:

This page of the GEPR was accessed:
19,419 times in February, 2002
20,309 times in March, 2002
34,792 times in April plus most of May, 2002
Those jerks at my web hosting service seem to have destroyed the counter
again, so I have no idea how many visited in June and July
17,223 times in August, 2002 ... readership is dropping off?
16,351 times in September, 2002 (minus a few days)
23,381 times in October, 2002 (plus 5 days of November)
25,315 times from Nov. 5 - Dec. 12, 2002 (Counter was 65,047 on Dec. 12, 2002)
----
I don't know how many times the GEPR was accessed since last time.
The counter sits at 24459 as of Feb. 11, 2003, so it was reset at some point
arbitrarily by my web hosting service. I have no idea when this happened.
I hate it when they do that.
----
40,032 times from Feb. 11 - Apr. 8, 2003
33,936 times from Apr. 8, 2003 - May 30, 2003
(Counter was 98,427 on May 30, 2003)

11/17/03

In the October 31st release, there were several pieces of unfinished business that I decided to put off in order to get the GEPR uploaded. Today, I upload an "interim version" of the GEPR to complete some things I promised for the last release that didn't quite make it. If there's anything else I've forgotten, it'll have to wait until the next "main" GEPR update!

I'll keep the 10/31/03 release notes active as well. Due to my anticipated travels and duties during the upcoming "Holiday Season", I doubt that there will be another upload until the first of the new year. But hopefully I'll have some time to do some work on the GEPR during the holidays, so it should at least be worth the wait. In the meantime, keep those reviews coming in!

GEPR Editor Fred Trafton (USA) finished the following promised reviews and new band additions: Farpoint, Sergey Dudin, Heroic Verse, The Minefield, Nervewerks and 99 Names of God.

Kai Karmanheimo (Finland) has been found out there in cyberspace, along with his wayward review of Uzva's latest album. He has also clarified a bad e-mail transmission in the Älgarnas Trädgård entry.

Vitaly Menshikov (Uzbekistan) contributes his views on Sergey Dudin, Poor Genetic material and Taylor's Universe.

David Reusch wrote in to clarify a point in the Mick Abrahams entry, and add to his discography.

Emrah Sarpedon sent in a review a long time ago that I misplaced. The review for Assolo di Bongo appears in this update.

Finally, tremendous thanks to Claudio Hernández for a new Palm™ OS version of the GEPR. The entire October 31st release is there, indexed by the new Complete Band Listing, and including the new Guide to Progressive Rock Genres and the Gibraltar Encyclopedia of Progressive Rock Instruments.

Keep on Proggin'
Fred Trafton

10/31/03

Another long time between GEPR updates, but at least this one was worth the wait (I hope!). There's a lot of new stuff to talk about this release.

First up, I guess, is the fact that I had to cancel the GEPR-sponsored progressive rock fest known as Cattle Prog 2 this year. The reasons are many, but click the link to find out the details. That's the bad news. The good news is that we've begun a series of progressive rock concerts at the Ridglea Theater in Fort Worth, Texas. We've already featured The Underground Railroad, 99 Names of God, Nervewerks and Heroic Verse (GEPR entries for the last 3 coming soon ...), and will soon feature Thirteen of Everything, YETI and Hands. If you're in the neighborhood, check out the Ridglea Theater for who's playing and come on out and see the bands! Sunday Nights at 6:00pm, only a $5.00 cover for two bands, what a deal!

The next most important feature this release is a new Guide to Progressive Rock Genres by Mike McLatchey. This is an excellent tutorial and reference guide to all the different styles of music that fall under the umbrella of "PROG". The links in the GEPR that used to send you to the old guide's definitions now send you to the new guide. The time-consuming nature of changing these links on ALL GEPR pages is part of the reason I'm so late with this release again. But you should enjoy this new feature of the GEPR. This new guide will be a shared resource between the GEPR and Gnosis web sites, making Gnosis the latest in the list of "associated web sites". I invite any other web sites interested to link to these definitions as well ... if you'd like to, drop me a line and I'll send you a list of link points into the document, which you can use as links from your own sites.

GEPR Editor Fred Trafton (USA) contributed new entries, news or reviews for Códice, Hal Darling, Heaven's Cry, Khazad Doom, Oxygene8, Poor Genetic Material, The Red Masque, Simon Says, Script, Syrinx, Taylor's Universe, Transachetion and Worlds Collide, in addition to the usual fixups of out-of-date discographies, fixes of bad links, and finding photos and web sites to go with the new bands being submitted. I've also added a couple of instruments to the Gibraltar Encyclopedia of Progressive Rock Instruments, namely Roto-Tom, V-Drum, Theremin and Vintage Keys.

Kai Karmanheimo (Finland) has contributed 40 new entries, updates and amendments to previous contributions. Last release, we published 5 of them. The other 35 are in this release. Unfortunately, I've been unable to get ahold of Kai to fix a couple of problems, his e-mail address seems to no longer work. Hey, dude, if you're reading this, send me a new e-mail! There are new entries for Gestalt, Haizea, KBB, Mo. Do., Osiris, Theta, La Torre dell'Alchimista, Troya, Marián Varga and Wappa Gappa. There are also reviews for existing entries on Älgarnas Trädgård, Czar, De De Lind, Emtidi, Itoiz, Julian's Treatment, Lisker, Modry Efekt, Mona Lisa, Murple, Neu!, Alan Parson's Project, Pierrot Lunaire, Procession, Giles Reaves, Julian Jay Savarin, Jozef Skrzek, Synkopy, Versailles, Wind, Witthüser and Westrupp and Bernd Witthüser. The amendments are additions to Kai's previous entries for Collegium Musicum and Fermáta. He also had an entry listed in his table of contents on an amendment for Uzva, presumably a review of their newest release, but this was missing from his review text. Kai, where are you?

Other contributions this month include:

Keep on Proggin'
Fred Trafton

8/19/03

It's been too long since the last GEPR update! Yes, I'm still alive and still updating the GEPR, but between work pressures, a couple of summer vacations, and planning for Cattle Prog 2, the poor old GEPR hasn't received as much attention as I would have liked. But even with all that, I've been slowly adding stuff and there's now enough new material to warrant a fresh upload of the GEPR. Hope you enjoy it!

One of my "summer vacations" this year was trip to Trenton, New Jersey to see NEARFest with my wife, Grace. We got to leave the little one (I have a six-year-old boy) with our older daughter for the weekend and go have some fun. What an incredible show! Grace has always been moderately interested in prog, but I thought that some of the more "challenging" bands would be too much for her. Boy, was I off base! Her favorite bands turned out to be Magma (I got a great picture of her in the Marriott bar with a very grim looking Christian Vander), Sleepytime Gorilla Museum and Miriodor (at the Conduit pre-show). So that's how much I knew! Since then, she's also become enamored of Yes' Tales From Topographic Oceans and Renaissance's Live at Carnegie Hall. We picked up the DVD of Magma's Theusz Hamtaahk Trilogy and have just about worn it out already. This revitalized interest in experimental music has made her become one of the prime movers in this year's installment of Cattle Prog.

Speaking of Cattle Prog, this year's installment will be in a nice venue instead of a bar, and will feature seven of Texas' most interesting prog bands, including Hands, The Underground Railroad, Yeti, Thirteen of Everything and more. Check out the web site for more information and come on down to the Dallas area and join us on November 15th for a day of great prog. Better yet, become a patron and help to support prog in Texas and enable us to keep the Cattle Prog series going!

But enough of that ... on with the new GEPR release!

GEPR Editor Fred Trafton (USA) contributed new entries, news or reviews for Amarok, Azoth, The Bollenberg Experience, Glass, Kerrs Pink, Lord of Mushrooms, Magma, Mindgames, Miriodor, Oaksenham, Ozone Player, Parallel or Ninety Degrees, Raimundo Rodulfo, Jeff Sherman, The Vow and Pete Wulforst in addition to the usual fixups of out-of-date discographies, fixes of bad links, and finding photos and web sites to go with the new bands being submitted.

David Abel (UK) is back again with reviews of Niagara, Pluto, Achim Reichel, ZED and Zeus.

Kai Karmanheimo (Finland) has contributed 40 new entries, updates and amendments to previous contributions. Unfortunately, there wasn't time to get them all into this GEPR release. This time, we have included reviews of Laurie Anderson, Campo Di Marte, Circle, Moon Fog Prophet and Hans-Joachim Roedelius. The other 35 entries will appear in the next GEPR release.

Other contributions this month include:

Keep on Proggin'
Fred Trafton

5/30/03

Well, here I am, back again (finally!) with another installment of the GEPR. Things are still going hot and heavy at work ... I did most of these updates during the Memorial Day weekend ... but at least I have some good stuff for your reading pleasure this update. It's beginning to look like updates will only be coming every other month for the forseeable future. Of course, if I get a chance to do a big batch of work, I'll do an interim upload when I can.

A new section has been added to the GEPR ... The Gibraltar Encyclopedia of Progressive Rock Instruments. If you're not sure what a Warr Guitar or a Minimoog is, drop by and check it out. I've begun the tedious task of cross-linking mentions of these instruments in the GEPR to these entries, but so far I've only managed to link up instances of Hammond and Mellotron. It will be awhile before the cross-linking is complete. In the meantime, if there's some strange instrument (particularly one mentioned in the GEPR) used by a prog band, but you're not sure what it is, let me know and I'll add it to the GEPRI.

And speaking of the tedious task of cross-linking, the repair work to correctly link GEPR entries to Ground and Sky is now complete. If you find any broken G&S links still floating around, let me know, but I think I've got them all now. I don't have links from the GEPR to all G&S entries, but the ones I have should now call up the correct web pages.

Another new section is in the works ... the old Progressive Rock Sub-Genres page is so out-of date that it's practically useless. So, the original author, Mike McLatchey (of the Gnosis web site) is in the process of re-writing it. It's nearly finished now, and makes the original version look like it was dashed off by an amateur. Over three years in the writing, with inputs from prog fans from all over, this is by far the most comprehensive listing of prog genres and what they mean that has ever been put together. Hopefully, it will show up in the next GEPR update. If you're excited about this, write me and I'll forward your e-mail to Mike to convince him that now's the time to get it published and available to GEPR and Gnosis users around the world.

On another note, I'm really proud of the fact that the GEPR has contributors from all over the world. So this month, I'm doing something I haven't done before ... I'm identifying the country of origin for each contributor (if I know it). I think we're fairly evenly distributed all over the planet! How cool is that?

By next time I do a GEPR update, I should be back from NEARfest with many wonderful listening experiences to tell you about. If you see me there, stop over and say hi! And tell me who I'm missing from the GEPR that needs to be added. But be careful what you ask me for ... I'll probably just ask you to do a review and send it in ... unless you have a CD of your own you'd like to have reviewed, in which case I'll ask you to send me a promo. Believe it or not, I haven't heard every prog band that has ever existed, so I don't always have something to say. That's why the GEPR has contributors!

GEPR Editor Fred Trafton (USA) contributed new entries, news or reviews for After The Stranger, David Bagsby, Tom Byrne, DarXtar, Deadwood Forest, High Wheel, Last Laugh, Mangala Vallis, Na Margon, No-Man, No Man Is An Island, Spock's Beard, Triumvirat and Z-Axis in addition to the usual fixups of out-of-date discographies, fixes of bad links, and finding photos and web sites to go with the new bands being submitted.

Gil Keltch (Israel) is back with reviews of Atmosphera, Bachdenkel and Gualberto Garcia Perez.

Nenad Kobal (Slovenia) returns with new reviews and entries for Hellebore, Look De Bouk, 000 and ZNR.

César Mendoza (Peru) is back again with reviews and new entries for Hyacintus, Séru Girán and Supernova.

Vitaly "ProgressoR" Menshikov (Uzbekistan) returns with new reviews and entries for Cipher, Decadence and Runaway Totem.

Other contributions this month include:

Keep on Proggin'
Fred Trafton

4/8/03

In spite of a completely crazy work schedule, I've managed to put a few things together in the last couple of months for a new release of the GEPR. Not a huge release, perhaps, but still worth looking at. Lots of good stuff here. Here's what's new:

With this release of the GEPR, I've dumped most of the old graphics and tried to snazzy them up a bit with a new GEPR logo. The site looked better than the old original GEPR with its dinosaurs, etc. already, but I think the graphics look more polished and "pro" now. Thanks to the Flaming Text web site for the cool (free!) heading generator. The conversion to the new style isn't complete, but I'll keep working on it 'til all the pages are done.

While I was at it, I've also created a way to view the GEPR as a "no-frames" site for those with older browsers (is there really anybody left with a browser that doesn't support frames? I suspect it's just that some people don't like frames, and would rather view a web site without them. Whatever.) and a one-page listing of all the bands complete with links. Frames and no-frames options are now listed on the index page. If you come in through http://www.gepr.net, this is the splash page you see when you first come enter, so you may have already seen this. Personally, I come in directly to http://www.gepr.net/geprfram.htm, so I usually don't see the splash page.

GEPR fan and Palm™ programmer Claudio Hernández has released the latest version of the GEPR for Palm™ OS handheld computers. It's the 2/11/03 release of the whole GEPR Encyclopedia, less the pictures. I love having a copy of the GEPR with me when I go record shopping (gawds, did I really say that? I meant CD shopping of course!) to see what it has say about a band I'm not familiar with. Should I buy this CD or not? Just like you, the GEPR helps me make a choice about that, and now I can have it with me on my Palm™ handheld when I go shopping! And so can you! Go to the Palm™ OS GEPR page and download a (free!) copy for yourself! Some of you have asked if the GEPR will ever be published as a book. Evidently it was at one time, though I've never seen a copy of it (that was before my time). The answer is: No, I have no plans to do that. But the Palm™ OS GEPR is even better, since it's interactive and is updated from time to time. Go get it!

The links from the GEPR to Ground and Sky have been fixed through the "M" pages. I still need to get the other GEPR pages fixed. This is a tedious job with only a text editor. Gripe gripe gripe. I'm typing as fast as I can ...

But you're probably wondering what's NEW as far as content, not just cosmetics, right? Here ya go ...

GEPR Editor Fred Trafton contributed new entries, news or reviews for Akacia, Aside Beside, Awaken, Cipher, Gratto, IV Luna, Mohodisco, The Muffins, Nouvelles Lectures Cosmopolites (NLC), Ohm, Nicola Randone, Shakary, Synema, Tempano, Tool and Valinor's Tree in addition to the usual fixups of out-of-date discographies, fixes of bad links, and finding photos and web sites to go with the new bands being submitted.

Nenad Kobal returns with new entries for Ground Zero, Na Margon, Pataphonie and Trembling Strain.

Vitaly "ProgressoR" Menshikov returns with reviews of Drop-O-Rama, Focus, Seyminhol and Tempano.

Other contributions this month include:

Keep on Proggin'
Fred Trafton

2/11/03

Thanks to those of you who have written to express concern. I know it's been awhile since the last update, sorry about that. My life has gone even crazier than usual and I haven't had much time to think about or work on the GEPR for awhile. My wife was hospitalized for horrible leg pains (she said having a baby was nothing in comparison!), and they removed an inch-long chunk of broken disk from her spinal cord. She's doing much better now, but with a hyperactive five-year-old at home and a 5-pound lift limit for awhile, she's needed a lot of help at home. Of course, this means I've been missing a lot of work, which has now stacked up to critical mass (i.e. enough to explode), and I need to try to slog through all that. The poor old GEPR is running fourth or fifth priority at best right now. I hope this will change down the road, but to tell the truth it isn't looking very good from where I sit at the moment.

But all is not lost ... I did have some time over the Christmas holidays to work on the GEPR. I don't have too many entries from me this month, but I've managed to get through some of my backlog of reader contributions for this release. They're all at least interesting, and some of them are excellent! Hope you enjoy reading them.

On another note several of you have mentioned ... some of the links in the GEPR have indeed gone bad. The link to The Progressive Rock Web Site had suddenly become a link to The Dark Aether Project. This may have surprised some of you, but I'm not surprised. Adam Levin used to run the Progressive Rock Web Site, and is also the Warr Guitar player of The Dark Aether Project. He announced quite awhile back that he was not going to be putting out the Gibraltar Newsletter any more, and The Progressive Rock Web Site has been nothing more than an advertisement for the Baltimore Progressive Rock Showcase concert series for quite awhile now. Adam made the right choice to simply take it off the air, in my opinion. I have removed the links to The Progressive Rock Web Site site from the GEPR, though you can still access The Dark Aether Project's site from their GEPR entry. I bid The Progressive Rock Web Site a fond farewell, it was where I first found the GEPR years ago before I took it over. It has been and will be missed.

Another link problem has been reported by several of you ... all album titles linking to Ground and Sky reviews are no longer functional. This is because Brandon Wu over at G&S has revamped his site and the reviews are no longer arranged as they were before, so the GEPR is pointing to the wrong places. I will try to fix up these links in the weeks to come. I'm actually glad to see the overhaul ... Ground and Sky had gone a long time with no updates, but it's now back online and better than ever. Surf on over and check it out ... when you're done with the GEPR, of course.

Speaking of which, here's what's new this release:

GEPR Editor Fred Trafton contributed new entries, news or reviews for Aton's, Digitalis, Peter Gabriel, Galadriel, Gnidrolog, Irish Coffee, Salem Hill, Thirteen of Everything and Yeti, in addition to the usual fixups of out-of-date discographies, fixes of bad links, and finding photos and web sites to go with the new bands being submitted.

Markus Derrer contributes new entries for Lisa Gerrard and Redshift, plus a comprehensive review of Dead Can Dance's discography

Cesar Mendoza returns with a new batch of reviews of new and old bands, including Aviolinee Utopia, Dagmähr, Sithonia and Stereokimono.

Dave Wayne's reviews of Fusion (mostly) bands and artists beginning with "A" continue in this release of the GEPR with Airto, Jan Akkerman, Aktuala, Alef, Älgarnas Trädgård, Alpha Du Centaure, Michel Altmayer, Amalgam, Anima (Germany), Annexus Quam, Apocalypse (Denmark), Arakontis, Marco Antônio Araújo, Arbete och Fritid, Archimedes Badkar, Neil Ardley, Horacee Arnold, Gilbert Artman, Atlantis, Auracle, Aviator, David Axelrod and Axis (Greece). Dave has promised more to come ... and not all "A"'s next time!

Other contributions this month include:

Keep on Proggin'
Fred Trafton

12/12/02

As usual, starting off with an apology ... this update of the GEPR is both late and more sparse than I would have liked. However, I do have a good excuse. I've been spending my time and energy this month working on our own progressive rock festival named Cattle Prog. We had a wonderful line-up of bands from the Dallas/Ft. Worth, Texas area ... Magpu, Mad Jack McMaddd, Yeti, Hands and The Underground Railroad. The event went off almost without a hitch ... though the band members who got their cars towed away by an unscrupulous neighboring pub probably wouldn't say so. At any rate, the event was a phenomenal musical success, and we'll probably be doing it again next year. Watch the GEPR pages for more information and come on out and see our fantastic Texas prog acts ... next year, probably expanding to several Austin-area acts as well.

But enough about Cattle Prog. For this update, there's a number of new bands and updates on old bands as usual. Especially since this release is running so late, I don't expect to get another release done until the end of January 2003. But hopefully, with some time off for the holidays, it should be a decent sized release this time. Let's hope.

GEPR Editor Fred Trafton contributed new entries, news or reviews for François Bréant, Cinderella Search, Frágil, Lupe, Magpu, MegaXBrand, Mindworm, Olyam, Quidam, Tantra, Trespass (Israel), La Tulipe Noire and Versus X, in addition to the usual fixups of out-of-date discographies, fixes of bad links, and finding photos and web sites to go with the new bands being submitted.

Dave Wayne's reviews continue in this release of the GEPR with Aera, Agora and Ailana. There's still more where those came from. Hopefully, I will have time to get through more of the GEPR reader contributions next month.

Other contributions this month include:

Keep on Proggin'
Fred Trafton

11/5/02

I'll start off with my usual apology ... not a big update again this month due to too much other stuff going on in my life, but I did manage to take one evening off in order to make it not too bad of an update. At least there's a few new things for you to peruse this month. But both my promo queue and the queue of reviews from outside contributors is just getting too long. I hope for things to die down at work and at home so I can have another big update sometime soon. But don't hold your breath.

GEPR Editor Fred Trafton contributed new entries, news or reviews for Agustin Criollo, Er. J. Orchestra, Left Coast, Menayeri, Mostly Autumn, Phreeworld, Programme D' Experience and Soundscape, in addition to the usual fixups of out-of-date discographies, fixes of bad links, and finding photos and web sites to go with the new bands being submitted. I also spent a lot of time fixing up Frank Zappa's "broken" entry and getting his discography up to date.

Vitaly Menshikov is back again, and contributes reviews for Bubblemath, Cabesas de Cera, Er. J. Orchestra, Gerard and Hands.

Dave Wayne's batch of reviews have been sitting in my queue far too long! He contributes reviews and entries for Mick Abrahams, Abraxis, Scott Bradford, Haboob and John Serry. That's all I have time to include this month, but there's more where those came from waiting for next month's release.

Other contributions this month include:

Keep on Proggin'
Fred Trafton

10/1/02
The GEPR presents the WINNER of the

Review Contest

The first thing to announce is the winner of the Escapade review contest. I can't believe that out of about 15,000 hits this month, only THREE people wrote in to say they might want to review these guys??? C'mon, I hope I made it clear that this is a really great band, just not my personal cup of tea. Well, too bad for all of you. Because Edward Martland in the UK wrote the most compelling entry explaining why he's the best guy to write the review, so he's going to be the guy who gets the CD's. The rest of you can read all about it next month (or whenever he finishes the review), when it appears in the GEPR. Congratulations, Edward!

Ya know, I'm not too sure about the GEPR's web hosting service. It seems like they're not doing too well ... their web site is down a lot of the time, and I haven't been able to use the user page for about two months now, since they did their last "upgrade", so resetting counters and such is impossible. I'm only saying this to warn you: if the GEPR falls offline for any reason, don't worry ... it's the web hosting service, not the GEPR itself. If they go under, I'll get the GEPR back up as soon as I can on another service. Hopefully this won't be necessary.

So, we once again have a slightly sparse but reasonable update for the GEPR. The GEPR updates aren't too bad, but I've been spending a lot of time the last week working on the Cattle Prog web site, promoting North Texas' first progressive rock festival, featuring several great bands from the area, including Hands, Underground Railroad and Magpu (or rather a new band comprised of ex-Magpu members), plus two more bands. We're just getting it organized now, so tune in to the web site for further information! As they say in the South, "C'mon down!" and join us.

GEPR Editor Fred Trafton contributed new entries, news or reviews for Christian Boulé, Farpoint, Gerard, High Wheel, Bertrand Loreau, Magpu, Simon Says, Sinister Street and Thinking Plague in addition to the usual fixups of out-of-date discographies, fixes of bad links, and finding photos and web sites to go with the new bands being submitted.

Marco Antonio Gómez Urbina contributes additions to the Area, Exsimio and Mauro Pagani entries.

Other contributions this month include:

Keep on Proggin'
Fred Trafton

9/4/02
The GEPR presents the

Review Contest

I've received several promotional CD's of the space rock band Escapade from their label, Mother West, in the last couple of years. I enjoy space rock in general and I think that Escapade is an excellent and interesting band, but I must say that their albums all sound pretty much alike to me. This feeling will inevitably be reflected in my reviews. I mentioned this to Mother West and they suggested that the CD's might be better reviewed by someone who might be more into this kind of improvisational freeform spaciness than I am. After a bit of thought, I agree with them. So here's the deal:

Write me an e-mail, as brief or as long as you want to telling me why you think YOU should be the person to do a review of Escapade's last 3 albums, Due to a Faulty Premonition (99), Remembrance of Things Unknown (00) and their latest, Rule #3 (02). The only limitation is that you can't be in the band or closely associated with any of the members (relatives, managers, or personal friends, though fans are perfectly OK). Read my assessment in the GEPR and anything else on the web you can find out about them. If you think this band would really turn you on, tell me why. The one who makes the best case (in my opinion) will be sent these 3 CD's for review - I don't care where on the planet you are, as long as you have mail service. These aren't CDR copies, but the original promos sent to me by Mother West, including a numbered copy of the limited edition of Remembrance of Things Unknown. They'll be yours to keep, and all you'll owe me in exchange is a review of the 3 CD's. Interested? Then e-mail me at webmaster@gepr.net and make your case for why you should be the one! Naturally, your review will appear in the Gibraltar Encyclopedia of Progressive Rock for all to see. There's only one set of these available, so there will be only one winner, and I will have the final say of who gets the CD's, and therefore who will do the review. The contest ends on (or about) September 30, 2002 when I announce the winner in the next GEPR update, so get your e-mails in soon!

On to other topics ...

This month's GEPR update is once again a little sparse, but once again bigger than I expected it to be. I got through quite a few of my promo CD's, and this month there are also some contributions from outside reviewers. I'll give my warning once again that the next GEPR update may be even more sparse as things continue to be hectic at work. However, this month I got a few evenings off to work on the GEPR while my wife and son were travelling. That's not going to happen again next month, so I don't know if/when I'll be able to do much for the GEPR. But we'll see. Enough of excuses, though ... here's this month's offering:

GEPR Editor Fred Trafton contributed new entries, news or reviews for Cyan, Deep Thought, Fuzzy Duck, The Fyreworks, Hermetic Science, Na Margon, The Othello Syndrome, Pavlov's Dog, Sigmund Snopek III, Tr3nity, Underwater Traffic and X Religion, in addition to the usual fixups of out-of-date discographies, fixes of bad links, and finding photos and web sites to go with the new bands being submitted.

Vitaly "ProgressoR" Menshikov is back again with reviews of Fuzzy Duck and Hermetic Science.

Other contributions this month include:

Keep on Proggin'
Fred Trafton

8/1/02

The July update of the GEPR (uploaded a day late) turned out to be better than I though it would be, though it's still a relatively sparse one. I'll warn you it looks like the next few months will continue to have small updates, potentially much smaller than this one. My projects at work are really cranking up, as are responsibilities at home. Please keep sending in those reviews, they are still going into my queue and will be used as soon as I can get time to get them formatted into the GEPR. I promise, everything will get put in ... eventually.

There is one major new thing I've done for the GEPR ... I've created a web site for a great band that really needed a site but didn't have one (yes, I could have used the time I spent working on this on album reviews, but I didn't ... I did this instead). Simon Says is a spectacular Swedish progressive rock band that has just released an album on the Galileo Records label named Paradise Square, and that's also the name of their new web site, hosted by the GEPR. Check it out! It's still a work in progress, but there's enough stuff there now for you to get a feel for the band. There was already a GEPR entry for them due to their previous album, Ceinwen, and I have updated it. However, I haven't yet had time to write a proper review for this new album. For the moment, here's my review: "Simon Says' new album is great! Buy Paradise Square immediately!"

GEPR Editor Fred Trafton contributed new entries, news or reviews for Azazello, Blind Guardian, Mikhail Chekalin, Dreadnaught, Emerson, Lake and Powell, Enchant, 4Front, French TV, Looking-Glass-Self, Magus, Persephone's Dream, Quarkspace, Romislokus and Simon Says in addition to the usual fixups of out-of-date discographies, fixes of bad links, and finding photos and web sites to go with the new bands being submitted.

Vitaly Menshikov is back with reviews of Artsruni, French TV and Garden Wall.

Other contributions this month include:

Keep on Proggin'
Fred Trafton

6/28/02

Here's the GEPR update for the month of June, 2002. As promised, it's a little on the sparse side due to my life being totally out of control at the moment, with both work and personal pressures taking away any "spare" time I might have to work on the GEPR. But I've still managed to do some reviews from several of the groups kind enough to send me promos for inclusion. For those of you who've sent reviews, I promise I've got them in my review queue and I'll get them published as soon as I can. But first ... breathe ... OK, here we go.

GEPR Editor Fred Trafton contributed new entries, news or reviews for Big Big Train, Distillerie di Malto, Finnegans Wake, Muvovum, Phoenix Eye, Puppet Show, Qoph, Quarkspace, t and Wurtemberg in addition to the usual fixups of out-of-date discographies, fixes of bad links, and finding photos and web sites to go with the new bands being submitted.

There are no guest reviews this month .... hopefully, next month.

Keep on Proggin'
Fred Trafton

5/28/02

Yikes! What's happening to the GEPR? The "Q" and "M" pages suddenly vanished (thanks to those of you who let me know this!) Seems like my web hosting service is selectively deleting files again. Hopefully this upload will fix the problem.

Well, in spite of dire warnings that this update of the GEPR might not be a very big one, this may be the largest one-month update yet! As it turns out, I had to make a business trip to Singapore, and this always gives me a lot of time to work on the GEPR during the 40 hours or so (total) flight time on my round trip there and back. Thank goodness for laptops (and batteries). [You know, I can't think of a single prog band from Singapore! What's up with that?] So I've not only managed to clear a bunch of my promo backlog this month, but also added lots of reviews from my queue of contributions from GEPR readers. Maybe you'll finally see your review show up!

One caveat; I have begun work on three new projects at work. One was enough to keep me away from the GEPR before, and this should be about three times worse. So this may be the last big update you see in awhile (unless I go to the far east again). Don't give up on me, I'll still be doing as much as I can in my "spare" time. Oh well, in the meantime there's a bunch of new information and reviews here this month, so let's get started!

GEPR Editor Fred Trafton contributed new entries, news or reviews for Akacia, Animal Couch, Arcturus, Franck Balestracci, Bubblemath, Cirkus, Fluxury, Group Therapy, Klaatu, Local 7, Sigmund Snopek III, Skeem, Sombre Reptile, Trinity, in addition to the usual fixups of out-of-date discographies, fixes of bad links, and finding photos and web sites to go with the new bands being submitted.

Kai Karmanheimo is back again with a huge contribution to the GEPR. Firstly, he contributes thirty brand new reviews, with a mix of new entries and reviews of bands already in the GEPR, but many with little coverage. The full reviews are: Antares (Italy), Autumn, Catharsis, Cinema (Japan), Circus (UK), Cirkus, Collegium Musicum, Ego on the Rocks, Fermata, Fromage, FSB, Gerard, I Giganti, Grand Stand, Harlequin Mass, Holy Lamb, Jumbo, Landmarq, Leviathan (USA), Light (Netherlands), Gustavo Montesano, Novela, Progres 2, Red Jasper, Ruins, Sagittarian, Samadhi, Trembling Strain, L'Uovo Di Colombo and Zello. In addition to that, Kai contributes six amendments to previous entries, in cases where he's now heard an album he hadn't heard when he did his original reviews. Some of these are reviews of newly-released albums, so these are also discography updates. You'll find these listed twice in the table below, once under "Reviews added" and again under "Update Discographies". These bands are: Dunwich, Haikara, Moongarden, Quasar Lux Symphoniae, Sahara and Sinkadus. And if that's not enough, he also provides discography additions and corrections for the following bands: Gli Alluminogeni, Il Balletto Di Bronzo, Emtidi, Jukka Gustavson, Peter Michael Hamel (Germany), Peter Hammill (UK), Terutsugu Hirayama, MIA (Musicos Independientes Asociados), Midas, Mona Lisa, Mugen, Pablo "El Enterrador", Pekka Pohjola, Tasavallan Presidentti, Teru's Symphonia, Versailles and Wigwam.

Don McClane returns with several reviews. Egads, his stuff has been in my e-mail since October 2001! It's a good thing he wrote to ping me on it, or they would have been forever lost in my e-mailer. His reviews are for: Aghora, Dreams, Electromagnets, The Flock, Glass Harp, Gryphon, Ron Jarzombek, Philip Pickett and Rudess Morgenstein Project. Don has also answered the call to be the first to write up a review of Wishbone Ash for the GEPR after they did well in the survey two months back. Thanks Don!

Vitaly Menshikov runs the ProgressoR web site, and rather than duplicate the content from his site on these pages, I have provided links to ProgressoR reviews for the following bands: Fonya, Halloween, Iconoclasta, Kenso, Landberk, Lunar Chateau, Neuschwanstein, Noetra, Outer Limits, Ritual, Solar Project, Windchase, Xaal and XII Alfonso. In addition, I have added reviews from Vitaly into the GEPR on Group Therapy, Solar Project (review excerpt) and Priam.

Ryszard Ryzlak has gone through (at least part of) his prog collection, compared it to the GEPR listings, and come up with reviews for bands already in the GEPR but with almost no information, plus many discography updates and general corrections. These are: Air, Ahora Mazda, Blodwyn Pig, Edgar Broughton, Buffalo, Czar, Dando Shaft, The Deviants, Dr. Strangely Strange, Embor, Ensemble Nimbus, Gila, Hannibal, Jasper, Jody Grind, Krokodil, Matching Mole, MCH Band, Pink Fairies, Skeleton Crew, Soft Machine, T2, Woody Kern and Young Flowers, plus a really Awful Disclosure of Maria Monk.

Oleg Sobolev's contributions get put in (slightly) ahead of his place in my review queue just because I felt like talking about Klaatu, and I noticed he had a review of them. Also, Kai had a review of Zello and so did Oleg, so I figured what the heck, let's get these put in now. So, all three of Oleg's reviews have been included in this update. How's that for rationalization? Oleg's reviews are for: Klaatu, Transatlantic and Zello.

Other contributions this month include:

Keep on Proggin'
Fred Trafton

4/30/02

The world turns, and another update of the GEPR hits the Internet. My project at work that has been taking up all my time has fallen through, leaving me with a few days of spare time before the next big project that will be taking up all my time. You, readers of the GEPR, benefit from this by a reasonable GEPR update for once. Enjoy it while you can, because I'm not sure what next month's update will look like.

So, let's get on with it ...

GEPR Editor Fred Trafton contributed new entries, news or reviews for Combo FH, Etcetera (Denmark), Eternal Call (aka Vechni Zov), Kotebel, Henry Krutzen (aka Xeno), Kyrie Eleison, Pepe Maina, Oxygene8, Periferia del Mondo, Seven Reizh, Tempano and X Religion in addition to the usual fixups of out-of-date discographies, fixes of bad links, and finding photos and web sites to go with the new bands being submitted.

Gil Keltch has written on Israeli prog bands for the GEPR before, including his History of Israeli Prog in Gibraltar Webzine #2. Now he returns with reviews of both Israeli and other Prog bands including Aardvark, Absolute Elsewhere, Agincourt, The Ashquelon Quilt, Hugh Hopper, Magical Power Mako and Shlomo Ydov.

Vitaly Menshikov contributes reviews from his ProgressoR web site for Cliffhanger in addition to many links to his reviews throughout the GEPR

Juan M. Sjöbohm has contributed to the GEPR several times before, and now returns with reviews of Attention Deficit, Bruno Porter, Chick Corea Elektric Band, Índigo (Costa Rica) and Vertú.

Other contributions this month include:

Keep on Proggin'
Fred Trafton

4/5/02

Survey results are in!

Sorry this installment is late. I haven't had time to breathe this week, much less get time to upload the GEPR. But for those of you who've been waiting, here's the March installment a bit late.

Last month, I ran a little survey to find out whether or not several '70's bands should be included in the GEPR. The response wasn't exactly overwhelming, but then again I was asking people to actually write me an e-mail instead of just clicking on a radio button in their browser. One of these days I'll have to figure out how to create an automated survey. Still, I got enough responses that a fairly clear trend emerged. I've actually received a couple more votes since these were tabulated, but they don't change the results at all (though there may have been a few hanging chads on some of the votes for The Who. [Sorry, that's a joke for Americans only]). I wasn't particularly surprised by the results, but they are interesting nonetheless. Here they are:


Band Name Yes No Abstain
Uriah Heep
71.4%
19.0%
9.5%
Wishbone Ash
52.4%
19.0%
28.6%
The Who
23.8%
66.7%
9.5%
Journey
14.3%
71.4%
14.3%

Probably even more interesting than these raw numbers were the comments made by those who responded. Many who supported Uriah Heep did so grudgingly ("They're barely prog, but I've seen worse in the GEPR, so I guess you should let them in too") while others were quite enthusiastic supporters. Among the second category is Peter Pardo, who has written another of his epic entries all about Uriah Heep for the GEPR, seeing as how they were the clear front runners in this poll.

Wishbone Ash didn't fare quite as well as the Heepsters, but that was mostly because fewer respondants were familiar with them. The "Yes"'s still soundly defeated the "No"'s for Wishbone Ash, though nobody has stepped forward yet to offer up an entry. If you know them and would like to write about them, please do so and send it in!

Journey supporters and nay-sayers alike agree that their first three albums have their progressive moments, but the overall consensus is that this band is just too poppy for the GEPR. Also, there was concern expressed that letting Journey in would open the floodgates for other bands that had progressive moments but were mostly pop bands. Examples included Styx and Foreigner. Spinal Tap was also mentioned ...

The Who had a few ardent supporters, but most people said a couple of interesting rock operas weren't enough to warrant an entry. Besides, they point out, The Who is such a mega-band that they really don't need any more exposure on the Internet. They're doing just fine without an entry in the GEPR. I agree. However, one of these days I'm still going to work on that "Gibraltar Encyclopedia of Rock Operas" section of the GEPR, and they will certainly find a listing in that section.

Okay, now on to what's new ...

As I warned you last month, I have a project going on at work that's taking up most of my time at the moment. So once again, this GEPR update is a little on the sparse side. I've concentrated on reducing my promo queue a little and reviewing some CD's I've had for way too long. I'm hoping next month will be better. But no promises.

GEPR Editor Fred Trafton contributed new entries or reviews for David Bagsby, Greenslade, Hands, Inward Path, Sepsis, Spinal Tap, Torman Maxt and John Young, in addition to the usual fixups of out-of-date discographies, fixes of bad links, and finding photos and web sites to go with the new bands being submitted.

Other contributions this month include:

Keep on Proggin'
Fred Trafton

2/28/02

This month's GEPR update is looking a little sparse, as I warned you it would. Still, I did have one business trip (I usually get to do lots of work on the GEPR while on plane flights and waiting at the airport), so there's something new in here this month. My project at work is still cranking up, so don't be surprised to see even less for next month's update. But I hope to be able to do something at least, just to let everyone know I'm still alive and kicking.

So, let's do a little audience survey here. I frequently get suggestions from readers which amount to "why is such and such a band not in the GEPR?" This is fine if it's a new band that just hasn't made it yet, but some of these suggestions are about bands from the '70's. So I'll ask you, my loyal readers, to weigh in on the subject. Are the following bands "progressive" in your mind? Should they have a GEPR entry? E-mail me at webmaster@gepr.net and tell me what you think.

Old bands most frequently suggested for inclusion in the GEPR:
1. Uriah Heep
2. Wishbone Ash
3. Journey
4. The Who (due mostly to their rock operas Tommy and Quadrophenia)

Okay, now on to what's new ...

GEPR Editor Fred Trafton contributed new entries or reviews for ARTSRUNI, Dark Aether Project, Grey Lady Down, Kopecky and Nektar, in addition to the usual fixups of out-of-date discographies, fixes of bad links, and finding photos and web sites to go with the new bands being submitted.

Rodrigo Farìas M. returns with reviews of progressive bands from his native Chile: Dwalin, Eliomis, Entrance, EOS, Experimental, Mar de Robles, La Neura, Rivendel (Chile) and Sur Pacífico.

Doug Hebbard is back again with reviews of Dalton, Hardscore, Henry Cow, Albert Marcoeur and Samla Mammas Manna.

Other contributions this month include:

Late News (3/5/02):
I've decided to upload a few more things outside of my usual monthly upload. These were added on March 4th & 5th, see listing below. These are links and reviews from Vitaly "ProgressoR" Menshikov: Anekdoten, Arachnoid, Bellaphon, Edhels, 801, Ezra Winston and Arne Schafer (listed under Apogee)

BTW, poll results so far are running in favor of Uriah Heep (with some reservations expressed), and Wishbone Ash but against Journey and The Who. Most people have mentioned that Journey's first few albums were somewhat proggy but they still think this wasn't enough to have them in the GEPR. What do you think? E-mail me at webmaster@gepr.net and let me know!

Keep on Proggin'
Fred Trafton

1/31/02

In my previous couple of months' "What's New", I've been warning everyone that the updates may be getting sparse due to work load. Well, this time I'll warn you again, for future months, but I did get a window of time that opened up this month for me to do some work. So, it's not a bad update.

For those of you who attempted to access the GEPR on January 28-31, you probably found a "Server Error" message where the GEPR should be. My web hosting service had a major hardware failure that it took them several days to resolve. Hopefully this won't happen again in the near future. Last time I looked, the "number of visitors" counters were still busted ... hopefully they'll get these fixed in the near future.

GEPR Editor Fred Trafton contributed new entries or reviews for Crucible, Manitou (Finland), Mark 1, Persephone's Dream, Solution Science Systems, Spaced Out, THØNK and TriPod, plus a really massive and long-overdue entry for Peter Gabriel, in addition to the usual fixups of out-of-date discographies, fixes of bad links, and finding photos and web sites to go with the new bands being submitted.

Kai Karmanheimo's reviews have finally all been added into the GEPR ... this month, we have his reviews of Pale Acute Moon, Presence, Shingetsu, Stormy Six, Taï Phong, Theatre, Triton and XII Alphonso.

Vitaly "ProgressoR" Menshikov is back again with reviews of "A"'s and "B"'s: Alias Eye, Argent, Arkus, Ars Nova (Japan), Arsenal, Art Rock Circus, Autumn Tears, Bondage Fruit and Brand X, plus one "T"; TriPod.

Other contributions this month include:

Keep on Proggin'
Fred Trafton

1/1/02

The GEPR upload for this month is a couple of days late again, so instead of a Christmas present, consider this a New Year's present. Finally, after nearly a year, there's a new installment of the Gibraltar Webzine containing an interview with Iwan Hasan of Discus, an history of prog rock in Israel, and a couple of concert reviews.

Because of the work on the Gibraltar Webzine, the actual Encyclopedia updates are a little sparse this month. As I warned last time, the Encyclopedia updates are likely to be a little sparse for the next few months as a big project at work begins to ramp up to a fever pitch. I'm not giving up, though. I'll keep working on the GEPR as much as I can in the meantime. I haven't become disinterested ... but there's only so many hours in a day. Tune in the end of January again, I'll have something new to put up. In the meantime, enjoy this first installment of 2002. Happy New Year!

GEPR Editor Fred Trafton contributed new entries or reviews for Ancient Future, Apocalypse (Brazil), Deadwood Forest, Glass, Magenta, Paranoise and X Religion, plus the usual fixups of out-of-date discographies, fixes of bad links, and finding photos and web sites to go with the new bands being submitted.

Kai Karmanheimo has many more reviews in the queue, none of which I was able to get to this month due to trying to get a bunch of corrections to the "A"'s input from Vitaly. Hopefully, these can begin to happen next month.

Vitaly "ProgressoR" Menshikov is back again with reviews of Aguaturbia, Altair, Amenophis, Ancient Future, Ancient Vision, Apocalypse (Brazil) and Azazello.

Other contributions this month include:

Keep on Proggin'
Fred Trafton

12/3/01

Well, I'm a couple of days late for this release of the GEPR, but I hope it will be worth the wait. I wanted to finish several reviews in I've been promising Musea for several months now, so those are finally appearing in this release (you'll have to read them all to find out which ones they are!). I have a pretty good selection of new bands and reviews to read for the month of November, 2001.

What I don't have ready this month is the next edition of the Gibraltar Webzine which I had hoped to work on. Hopefully I can make this be a Holiday present for GEPR readers and release it by the end of December. Of course, things are getting crazy around here for the Holidays, and I may not have as much time to work on it as I'm hoping I will.

Speaking of things being crazy and not having enough time, my crystal ball into what will be happening at work is beginning to sharpen up ... and I don't like what I'm seeing. I'll be working on several major new projects in my group, and time for the GEPR will need to take a back seat while that's happening. I'll still be doing updates, but you may find they're sparse for the first few months of 2002. Rest assured, I'm not giving up on the GEPR, and I'll be doing as many updates as time permits. In the meantime, keep your comments, reviews, corrections and promo CD's coming ... I will eventually get time to have them posted online (ask Kai Karmanheimo how long he's waited for this batch to show up this month!)

Here's something that might interest you. I got a nice gift from GEPR reader Claudio Hernández by e-mail recently ... a Palm version of the GEPR! It's readable using a piece of downloadable software from a company called iSilo. So now I have a copy of the GEPR on my Palm Vx (text only) that I can refer to when shopping for CD's. How cool is that? If you're interested, drop me a line at webmaster@gepr.net and I'll send you a copy (you'll need to download the reader software yourself from) iSilo. If I get enough people interested, I'll put a copy on the GEPR for you to download from here. Let me know.

One more thing ... I take note of the passage of the old GEPR site from the web. I loved it in its prime, but it has been very confusing to have the old dinosaur still out there attracting people to four-year-old (stale) information. I'm glad to see it gone ... Stuart Dubois, wherever you are, thanks for letting it go! Welcome to the one and ONLY GEPR on the web!

Now for what's new:

GEPR Editor Fred Trafton contributed new entries or reviews for Abacus, Algebra, Cast, Fleurety, Heaven's Cry, Alan Loo, Nice Beaver, Periferia del Mondo, The Red Masque, Scenario, Smell of Incense and Xploding Plastix, plus the usual fixups of out-of-date discographies, fixes of bad links, and finding photos and web sites to go with the new bands being submitted.

Kai Karmanheimo returns with more of his wonderfully descriptive reviews. I wish I could turn a phrase like this guy! Kai's been a busy fellow ... his reviews are: Art Zoyd, István Cziglán, Dalton, Eela Craig, Fantasy, Force Majeure, Groovector, Kaipa, La Máquina de Hacer Pájaros, Minimum Vital, Morte Macabre, New Trolls Atomic System, Phenomena and Stomu Yamashta. There's more where those came from too, but that's all there was time to get into the GEPR for this month's release.

Simon Karatsoreas is back again with reviews of Canadian bands and artists FM, Ben Mink, Symphonic Slam, True Myth, Wanka and Zon.

Nenad Kobal returns with new reviews and rewrites/expansions of previous reviews: Johan Hedren, Kultivator, Na Margon and Ur Kaos.

Other contributions this month include:

Keep on Proggin'
Fred Trafton

10/31/01

This month's GEPR release isn't quite as big as last month's, but there's still plenty to see for this release. I'va also spent a bit of time working on the next Gibraltar Webzine with several great contributions from GEPR readers. Hopefully this will be ready to release at the end of November.

GEPR Editor Fred Trafton contributed new entries or reviews for Antares, Ayreon, Blind Guardian, Camel, Final Conflict, Nathan Mahl, Stealing the Fire and Yes, plus the usual fixups of out-of-date discographies, fixes of bad links, and finding photos and web sites to go with the new bands being submitted.

Kai Karmanheimo is back with reviews of After Crying, Kalevala, Second Hand, Strangers On A Train and Townscream.

Nenad Kobal returns again, with reviews of Picchio Dal Pozzo and a reworking of his Songs Between review. He's got a lot more where those came from, but they'll have to wait for the next release of the GEPR.

ProgressoR's Vitaly Menshikov returns with boosts to the GEPR's C sections: Cafeine, Camel, Caravan, Cast, Chandelier and Coda.

Peter Pardo joins the ranks of the GEPR's reviewers with his articles about Atomic Rooster, Beggar's Opera, Crucible, Pantheon, Potemkine, Symphony X and Tyburn Tall.

Other contributions this month include:

Keep on Proggin'
Fred Trafton

9/28/01

Finally, here's a release of the GEPR I don't feel I need to apologize for. I've been able to do some pretty serious updating this month, and have cleared out a bunch of my promo CD queue in addition to the backlog of reviews from readers. I don't know if it's the biggest update yet (it certainly feels like it), but it's definitely right up there with the biggest I've ever done. At any rate, there's quite a bunch of new information to find out about this month, so dig in and enjoy!

GEPR Editor Fred Trafton contributed new entries or reviews for Art Rock Circus (John Miner), Azoth, Brainstorm (Australia), Cinderella Search, Laren D'Or, Donella Del Monaco, Divine in Sight, Igor Garsnek, James Newton Howard, Little Tragedies, Másfél, Shades Of Dawn, Michael Stearns, SzaMaBa Trio, Isao Tomita, Un Known, plus the usual fixups of out-of-date discographies, fixes of bad links, and finding photos and web sites to go with the new bands being submitted.

David Abel has previously contributed reviews from the UK. Now he returns with a new batch of reviews, including Jim Bartz, Coeur Magique, Grupo Síntesis, James Newton Howard, Kerrs Pink, Ragnarok (Sweden), Rhondo Veneziano and Sigur Rós.

Betta is a semi-new contributor (he's contributed one article before), but this time has sent in a huge batch. You can tell he's into Hungarian and Italian prog ... his reviews include: Agoston Trio, AT Ensemble, Attacca, Bread, Love and Dreams, Carpathia Project, Color, Colorstar, Laren D'Or, Julius Dobos, La Famiglia Degli Ortega, Gruppo 2001, The Human Beast, Illés, Kada, Kárpát Möbius, Kolinda, Másfél, Mini, OM Art Formation, Phoenix (Romania), I Pooh, Rumblin' Orchestra, Syrius, SzaMaBa Trio, Talizman, Armando Tirelli and Úzgin Üver.

Daniel (just "Daniel") returns with reviews of Alas, Aquelarre, Traffic Sound and U Totem.

Alex Davis returns with reviews of Day of Phoenix, Glass Hammer, Kak and Zyma

Rodrigo Farías M. returns with four reviews of Chilean prog bands: Akinetón Retard, Ergo Sum (Chile), Matraz and Subterra.

ProgressoR's Vitaly Menshikov returns with reviews of Absolute Zero, Far 'n' High, Igor Garsnek, Gerard, Little Tragedies, Samkha and Vital Duo.

Other contributions this month include:

Keep on Proggin'
Fred Trafton

8/31/01

I'll just start off with an apology for this month's GEPR update. It's a pretty lame update. I'm leading a project at my workplace that's just taken over my life for the time being. So I've only finished up a few things for this release. The good news is that I'm supposed to be done with this project in another week. Well ... not done, exactly, but the extremely high pressure should dissipate. Then, I hope to do a huge batch of album reviews myself and start getting your contributions put in as well.

I did manage to do one important thing: I added a search engine capability, thanks to master.com. I've had many requests for this ... it's not the most flexible engine I've ever seen, due to the way the GEPR works, but it's far better than nothing. Click here to give it a try.

For what it's worth, here are the few things I did get around to this month:

That's it. Hope to do better next month.

Keep on Proggin'
Fred Trafton

8/3/01

Well, I'm a little late again releasing the July release of the GEPR a few days into August. I haven't finished up everything I wanted to, including entries for all the bands of NEARfest. Well, I got 5 out of 10 this time, I'll hopefully do the rest in the next update. You can tell which ones they are by the boldface entries below.

My work is currently taking about 70 hours a week from me, leaving me with very little time to work on the GEPR. If things go according to schedule, this crunch should be over about the end of August, so then I should have a bit more time for GEPR work again. For everyone who's sent a promo I haven't reviewed yet, I haven't forgotten you! For everyone who's sent a review that hasn't been published yet I haven't forgotten you either! I wish I had a staff of people (or just one other helper) to help me get this stuff into the GEPR. But it's just me, typing away HTML into WordPad. So it takes awhile. But I promise I'll get to you as soon as I possibly can.

Enough ...

Click the banners at the top of this page to check out info on the ProgDay and ProgWest progressive rock festivals. I may try to make it to one or both myself, so maybe I'll see you there! In the meantime, here's the offerings for this release of the GEPR.

GEPR Editor Fred Trafton contributed new entries or reviews for Michael Bierylo, Birdsongs of the Mesozoic, The California Guitar Trio, Gnomus, Kyrie Eleison, Porcupine Tree, Under The Sun, White Willow and Zenit. plus the usual fixups of out-of-date discographies, fixes of bad links, and finding photos and web sites to go with the new bands being submitted.

Daniel Briggs returns with reviews of Alan Davey, Eloy, King Crimson and Nik Turner's Sphynx.

Kai Karmanheimo has sent a big batch of reviews again. Most of them will have to wait in the queue for their turn to be printed ... but since he has sent a reviews of White Willow who were already featured in this release, I've bumped this one to the top of the queue. Check back later for the rest of his reviews!

Nenad Kobal is back again with new reviews from Slovenia. Included this release are new entries or reviews of: Lach'n (Lars) Jonsson, Finnegan's Wake, Henry Krutzen, Sten Sandell, Songs Between, Simon Steensland, Ur Kaos and Zut Un Feu Rouge.

Vitaly Menshikov returns with reviews of Apogee (greatly expanded) and Clear Blue Sky. He has a bunch more in queue, which I will be getting to as soon as I can.

Other contributions include:

Keep on Proggin'
Fred Trafton

7/3/01

My head is still spinning from the fabulous line-up of bands at this year's NEARfest ... what a spectacular event! Ten excellent bands over two days was almost more good music than I could handle. I had hoped to have write-ups of the ten bands that played there for this release, but I think I'd rather release what I've got for this month now and report on the bands of NEARfest next time around. Sorry, I'm a little late in releasing the June 2001 edition of the GEPR (on July 3nd) due to problems with my web hosting service (it's taken them several days to figure out why I wasn't allowed to upload to my own account!), but I've got some great new stuff for you in here. Enjoy.

GEPR Editor Fred Trafton contributed new entries or reviews for Alquimia, Aviary, Fermáta, Globalys, Hamadryad, Lack of Faith, Pink Floyd, Scythe, Dr. L. Subramaniam Andrei Suchilin (rewrite), Rick Wakeman and Zinkl plus the usual fixups of out-of-date discographies, fixes of bad links, and finding photos and web sites to go with the new bands being submitted.

Nenad Kobal is back again with new reviews from Slovenia. Included this release are new entries or reviews of: Art Moulu, Raoul Björkenheim, Etron Fou Leloublan, Krakatau, Stormy Six and Third Ear Band.

Vitaly Menshikov returns with some long-overdue (on my part) contributions from his Progressor web site, including Arsenal, Jean-Pascal Boffo, Ozric Tentacles, Kaseke, Francis Monkman, Spock's Beard and Dr. L. Subramaniam.

Other contributions include:

In addition, I've added links to Ground and Sky for albums from the following bands. These are not (necessarily) listed in the third column below: Pär Lindh Project, Paranoise, Pendragon, John G. Perry, Anthony Phillips, Phish, Pink Floyd and Popol Vuh (Germany).

Keep on Proggin'
Fred Trafton

5/31/01

Well, here's the May 2001 release of the GEPR. Once again, I apologize for the relatively small number of updates, but work pressures have been high and I haven't had the time I might like to work on the GEPR. I'll be going to NEARfest in June, so hopefully I'll have some airplane time and some spare time between shows to work on the GEPR, and also write up my impressions of the bands that will be performing there. Don't be surprised if the next update is a little late while I get everything sorted out ... I want to make sure to have something in the GEPR about each band. Hope to see you there! If you recognize me from my photo in my FAQ, come say "hi" between shows ... feel free to ask me why your favorite band isn't in the GEPR. Or, if you're in a Prog band, feel free to ask why you aren't in there (bring me a promo CD and maybe you will be!). I'll be keeping a list of notes for anything people want to tell me about.

By the way, if you're interested, there is another issue of the GEPR Webzine in the works. I already have another interview and a concert review from outside contributors, so it should be fun when I can get it all put together. Just another brick in the wall ...

GEPR Editor Fred Trafton contributed new entries or reviews for David Bagsby, Crucible and Andrei Suchilin, plus the usual fixups of out-of-date discographies, fixes of bad links, and finding photos and web sites to go with the new bands being submitted. He hopes to clear a lot more of his promo backlog next month.

Kai Karmanheimo returns with new entries or reviews of Atilla Kollár, Mario Millo, Nova (Finland), Runaway Totem, Universal Totem Orchestra and Uzva.

Nenad Kobal is back again with new reviews from Slovenia. Included this release are new entries or reviews of: Ad Vitam, Banda Elastica, Culto Sin Nombre, Dün, Decibel, Gregory Fitzpatrick, Tiemko, Uzva, and Xaal.

Other contributions include:

In addition, I've added links to Ground and Sky for albums from the following bands. These are not (necessarily) listed in the third column below: The Muffins, Multi-Story, National Health, Nekropsi, Offering, Mike Oldfield, Ozone Quartet, Ozric Tentacles, Pallas and Universal Totem Orchestra.

Keep on Proggin'
Fred Trafton

4/27/01

This month has been a little slow for GEPR updates. Not because people have stopped sending contributions or new CD releases for review, but because of how busy I've been. Between an increased load at work, tax time, a hospital stay and a family vacation during spring break, time to work on the GEPR has been limited this month. Still, looking at what I have to offer for April, 2001, I guess it's not that bad. Hope you enjoy!

GEPR Editor Fred Trafton contributed new entries or reviews for Cobweb Strange, Loreena McKennitt, Mark 1, Rumple Stiltzken Comune, Sarax, The Soundchaser Project, St. Elmo's Fire and Tea for Two, plus the usual fixups of out-of-date discographies, fixes of bad links, and finding photos and web sites to go with the new bands being submitted. Check out a humorous photo at the end of the Xang entry too.

Nenad Kobal is back with the first installment of new reviews from Slovenia. Included this release are reviews of: Alamaailman Vasarat, Anabis, Anal Magic, Aslan, Confessor, Darkstar, Robert Drake, Fulano, Flught, Höyry-Kone, Orthotonics, Ozone Quartet, Pentacle, Magma (Argentina), Psychotic Waltz, Rascal Reporters, Rattlemouth, Tipographica and Tribute.

Other contributions include:

In addition, I've added links to Ground and Sky for albums from the following bands. These are not (necessarily) listed in the third column below: Infinity, Iona, Jadis, Los Jaivas, Jethro Tull, Khan, King Crimson, Paul Kollar, Kopecky, Kraftwerk, Landberk, Pär Lindh, Locanda Delle Fate, Magma (France), Mahavishnu Orchestra, Marillion, Matching Mole, Loreena McKennitt, Patrick Moraz and Motor Totemists Guild

Keep on Proggin'
Fred Trafton

3/30/01


The Soviets invade the GEPR!

OK, so it doesn't really make any sense. How can a fallen regime invade a web site? But you've got to admit, it got your attention! In this GEPR release, I have added a bunch of releases from the Russian label Boheme, which is re-releasing excellent CD's from the former Soviet Union, including bands from Russia, Estonia, Turkmenistan and Belarus to name a few. There are some amazing bands and artists reviewed here from what I would have formerly considered an unlikely source of excellent progressive rock. There are also a couple of contemporary (post-USSR) Russian artists reviewed in this release. The Soviet/Russian reviews are in RED below (sorry, I couldn't resist).

GEPR Editor Fred Trafton contributed new entries or reviews for Azoth, Epos, Sven Grünberg, Gunesh, Horizont, Pesniary, Rainy Season, Shades Of Dawn, Ivan Sokolovsky, Soldat Semyonov, Synopsis, David Tuchmanov and Zodiac, plus the usual fixups of out-of-date discographies, fixes of bad links, and finding photos and web sites to go with the new bands being submitted.

Vitaly Menshikov is the webmaster for the ProgressoR web site, which calls the former Soviet state of Uzbekistan home. This gives Vitaly a unique perspective on the Soviet CD's being featured in this release, and he definitely has strong opinions on them. But Vitaly has strong opinions on prog rock from everywhere, and he's going to tell you about them in this GEPR release. Vitaly contributes reviews or new entries for: Apogee, Epos, J. L. Fernández Ledesma, Garden Wall, Sven Grünberg, Gunesh, Horizont, Pesniary, Mind Gallery, Natural Tension, Versus X and Xitizen Cain.

Pierre Tassone may be a little biased, as he represents a distributor of recordings in Denmark, Music By Mail. But he's distributing most of the Boheme titles the GEPR is featuring this release, and he has some useful descriptions of the albums to contribute. So why not? Pierre contributes entries for Sven Grünberg, Horizont and Synopsis.

Other contributions include:

I have also added links to the Ground and Sky web site. I didn't bother to reference these in the third column below. These are: Happy Family, Happy the Man, Harmonia, Heldon, Henry Cow, Holding Pattern, However, Höyry-Kone and Iluvatar.

Keep on Proggin'
Fred Trafton

2/28/01

I'm getting tired of saying "this is the biggest GEPR update yet", but I'm pretty sure that's what this is. Loads of new bands and updates to old entries. Just check out what's in store for you this release:

GEPR Editor Fred Trafton contributed new entries or reviews for Dalmation Car, Escapade, Forgotten Suns, House of Usher, Janus, Krabat, Panta Rhei, Spaced Out, Timothy Pure, Julie Tippets, and Xang plus the usual fixups of out-of-date discographies, fixes of bad links, and finding photos and web sites to go with the new bands being submitted. I also deleted all the links to the AMG which no longer work because they changed the way their web site works.

Achim Breiling is obviously a RIO fan. His huge selection of contributions was begun in the last GEPR update and are completed in this one, which include reviews of the following (mostly) RIO, Canterbury and Fusion bands: Lifetime, MCH Band, Michael Mantler, Andrè Mergenthaler, Miriodor, Munju, Ozz Knozz, Paper Bag, Pere Ubu, Pork Pie, Jean Paul Prat (Masal), Quoi De Neuf Docteur, Ferdinand Richard, Samurai, Ser Un Pejalero, Skeleton Crew, Spheroe, David Thomas, Keith Tippets, Virgo, Warm Dust and The Web.

Daniel (just "Daniel") is back with another large batch of reviews. This release of the GEPR features the following from him: Abiogenesi, Air, Anekdoten, Finneus Gauge, Fish, 5UU's, Hamster Theater, Hughscore, The Iceburn Collective, Iris, Motor Totemists Guild, Still Life, Realm, Roine Stolt, Tortoise, Touch and The Wishing Tree.

Jean-François Cousin contributes a batch of reviews that cover a lot of bands which previously had very tiny (or nearly useless) GEPR entries. These include: Campo Di Marte, Discipline, Eh!, Fruitcake, Genfuoco, Gizmo, Glass Hammer, Kaipa, Murple, Nuova Idea, Nyl, Il Paese Dei Balocchi, Recordando o Vale Das Maçãs and Saint Just.

Other contributors for this release include:
--> Tim Bender's review of Necronomicon
--> Lars Fahlin's corrections for the Malicorne and Matching Mole discographies
--> Alex Longo's update to the Pavlov's Dog discography
--> Theron Kousek's corrections to Panta Rhei
--> C.J.'s reviews of Munju and Mick Karn plus a Modry Efekt discog update
--> David Abel's reviews of Dracma, Fantasy, Titus Groan and Voyage, and
--> Alex Davis' comments on Coste Apetrea's Airborne

I've also added links to Ground and Sky album reviews for a bunch of groups. There's so many of these, I won't list them in the third column below, but here they are if you want to check them out: After Crying, Alan Parson's Project, Ambrosia, Anekdoten, Arena, Art Bears, Art Zoyd, Ashra, Asia, Atlas, Azigza, Peter Banks, Michael Thomas Berkley, Brand X, Bruford, Cairo, Camel, Can, Cluster, Devil Doll, Discus, Djam Karet, Double Helix, Dream Theater, Druid, Dün, Brian Eno, Errata Corrige, Eskaton, Fates Warning, Fish, French TV, Fusioon, The Gathering, Genesis, Gentle Giant, Steve Hackett, Peter Hammill, Hampton Grease Band and Bo Hansson. More to come in the next release.

Well, hopefully this will keep you busy until next month's release. I still have a huge bunch of reviews in the queue, which will start showing up next month. These include reviews from Vitaly Menshikov (webmaster of the ProgressoR web site), plus more from previous contributors Nenad Kobal and Kai Karmanheimo, and a whole lot more. All you contributors who still haven't seen your reviews published, hang in there! As you can see, I've got a lot of reviews to get through, and they (mostly) go in in the same order as I recieve them. So don't dispair, you're in the queue. (If you're beginning to doubt it, drop me a line and I'll tell you where you stand in the queue). In addition, next month I'll be reviewing a huge batch of CD's I received from Boheme Records, the Russian label which distributes "oldies but goodies" from the old USSR days, including a number of excellent progressive rock releases, plus a couple of newer Russian releases. But that will have to wait for next release ...

Keep on Proggin'
Fred Trafton

1/31/01

Have you been holding your breath waiting for the next release of the GEPR? Well, it's been a bit longer between releases this time, but the huge number of updates will (I hope) have been worth the wait. This is the biggest update yet!

ARRRGH! The All-Music Guide has changed the way they look up their band entries! That means that all the AMG links in the GEPR are busted now. And since I can't figure out how to make them work, I guess the AMG will have to do without the traffic it gets via the GEPR (I'm sure they'll be heartbroken). On the next release, the AMG links will all be removed. What a pain.

On a happier note, GEPR Editor Fred Trafton contributed entries for Alaska, Happy Family, Ozone Player, Paradox, Shakary and Starglow Energy, plus the usual fixups of out-of-date discographies, fixes of bad links, and finding photos and web sites to go with the new bands being submitted. If anyone cares, he's also updated his Biography page a bit.

Rolf Semprebon has been burning the midnight oil with reviews of Amon Düül I, Bondage Fruit, Chrome, Comus, Dedalus, The Cosmic Jokers, Current 93, Holger Czukay, Incredible Expanding Mindfuck, Kollektiv, Limbus (3&4), Musica Elettronica Viva, Mythos, Nurse With Wound, Pere Ubu, The Residents, Sand (Germany), Skeleton Crew, Spacecraft, Steven Stapleton, 2066 And Then, Xhol and John Zorn.

Achim Breiling also has a huge number of contributions for this release. These include Aera, Art Zoyd, Bondage Fruit, Brainstorm, Captain Beefheart, Codona, Domaci Capela, Dull Schicksal, Dunaj, Fred Frith, Genet-Plouvier, Golden Avant-Garde, Jean-Phillippe Goude, John Greaves, Don "Sugarcane" Harris, Honeyelk, Lacrymosa, Malicorne and Massacre [USA]. He has more waiting in my queue to be included next GEPR release.

Other contributors for this release include Phil McKenna, who fleshes out the GEPR's Flash entry by allowing us to lift parts of his reviews from his fan site. Also, from Paul R. Martin a review of Pollen and Simon Karatsoreas with reviews of both Ayers Rock albums.

There's a huge backlog of reviews waiting in the queue. Unfortunately, I'm just one guy working on my typewriter to get these put into the GEPR. Keep 'em coming, and I'll always have a steady stream of reviews to put into GEPR updates.

And if that's not enough, with this release, the GEPR presents the first issue of the GEPR Webzine with lots of interesting prog-related stuff to read about. Let me know how you like it, or what I could do to improve it! Better yet, interview a prog band and send me an article for it! They're just dying for the publicity, I promise you. (OK, don't run out and try to talk to Robert Fripp, for example. Actually, he's not looking for anyone to give him an interview. I'm talking about the less famous bands).

Keep on Proggin'
Fred Trafton

12/19/00

The last GEPR update for the year 2000! I had hoped to have more for this update, but it's still not too bad. I've spent a lot of time working on the Gibraltar Webzine in the last couple of weeks. I had hoped it would be ready to release with this GEPR update, but I'm afraid it's not quite there yet. Hopefully, this can start with the January GEPR release. Here's what we have for you with this release:

GEPR Editor Fred Trafton contributed entries for Alaska, Ankh, Azigza, Metaphor and Xen, plus the usual fixups of out-of-date discographies, fixes of bad links, and finding photos and web sites to go with the new bands being submitted.

This GEPR release completes the huge batch of Fusion band and artist contributions from Dave Wayne. These include Heiner Goebbels, Gone, Pierre Moerlen's Gong, Gongzilla, Good God, Jerry Goodman, Jean-Phillippe Goude, John Greaves, The Group, Group 87, Guadalquivir, Jukka Gustavson, Gwendal, Jan Hammer, Hampton Grease Band, Herbie Hancock and Don "Sugarcane" Harris.

Daniel (just "Daniel") contributed reviews for Tomas Bodin, Fusion Orchestra, Björn J:son Lindh, Relayer, Standarte and Roine Stolt.

Other updates include Daniel Briggs' Ozric Tentacles discography update and review of the last few years' albums. There was going to be more, but I just ran out of time before I go off for the Holidays. Have a happy one yourself!

Keep on Proggin'
Fred Trafton

11/17/00

Well, it's been awhile since the last GEPR update. But now here's a big one. Hope it's been worth the wait. We've got a bunch of great new stuff for you.

GEPR Editor Fred Trafton has included new entries on a bunch of new CD's recently released, mostly by new groups and some new releases by older bands. Also, several new releases of VERY old bands which have been released again after many years of slumber. My reviews for this edition of the GEPR include CD reviews and/or personal profiles of David Bagsby, Tim Blake, Escapade, Kedama, Lizard, Picklelegaz, Kurt Rongey, Gilli Smyth and Welcome. I've also updated discographies and added web sites and band photos for a bunch of existing entries ... check out the update table below for details.

Frequent contributor Nenad Kobal has contributed his usual reviews of RIO and "difficult" bands for this edition of the GEPR (including Discus, Existence, Maelstrom, Maestro Trytony, Nekropsi and Soft Machine), but he has also decided that us "Prog Purists" who don't know much about the Progressive Metal genres need some education. Nenad has given us a list of what he calls "Extreme Fusion" bands and recommends the best albums for GEPR readers. These reviews include Atheist, Cynic, Death, Ever, Sean Malone, Nekropsi, Pestilence, Portal, Sadus, Spastic Ink and Watch Tower. I believe this finally catches me up with Nenad's contributions. Doesn't this guy have a life? (haha, Nenad!)

Former contributor (to the original GEPR) Dave Wayne is back with a bunch of reviews from his favorite genre, Fusion. His contributions for this update of the GEPR include: Lubos Andrst, Association PC, Jules Baptiste, Andre Ceccarelli, Guigou Chenevier, Billy Cobham, Compost, Toni Esposito, William Michael Gilbert, Brian Godding and Ray Gomez. And there's a lot more where those came from which will have to wait until the next update of the GEPR. (Dave is into the "G"'s at this point, and promises to continue through his collection as time permits).

There are also contributions from Bálint Ákos (Solaris), Achim Breiling (Association PC, Bröselmaschine and This Heat, plus more that will have to wait for a later update), Hideki Konno (Novela), Phil McKenna (Fibonaccis), Rolf Semprebon (This Heat plus a bunch more that will have to wait for a later update) and Tommy Taylor (Abel Ganz). And also, two reviews of Estonian bands In Spe and Ruja from the Master of Estonian Prog Mel Huang ... where else but the GEPR can you get reviews of Prog bands and a lesson in World History at the same time?

For those of you who have sent in contributions that haven't shown up yet, including Jean-Francois Cousin, Daniel Briggs and Daniel G., I haven't forgotten you! Entries are mostly put in in the order received except for the occasional person who sends me just one contribution. Keep checking back with the GEPR, I promise your reviews will show up as soon as possible!

COMING SOON: I'm going to expand the GEPR with interviews. David Bagsby, Kurt Rongey and Paul Kollar have all agreed to do "e-interviews" with me for the GEPR. Now I just have to get with the program and start sending them questions. Hopefully, these will appear in a new "e-zine" section of the GEPR beginning next release. Keep your fingers crossed ...

Keep on Proggin'
Fred Trafton

10/13/00

Here's another good-sized update to the GEPR. It seems like I have enough to upload about once every 3 weeks. Maybe I should change to a more "magazine" format (keeping the encyclopedia itself intact, of course) and update it once a month. What do you think?

This update has the usual bunch of new bands/artists and updates to existing entries. I've added a couple of new links. I've also moved some of the stuff off this page and onto separate pages, such as the "Who Wrote the GEPR?" section, which has now been merged with the GEPR contributors list. I also deleted the "Introduction" section ... I think it's served its purpose. If you're just dying to read it again, it's saved here with the old "What's New" introductions. I'm considering adding a section for editorials and/or reader surveys. We'll see.

A few people to thank for this update: Great contributions by Nenad Kobal, Kai Karmanheimo, Paco Fox, Piotr Dubiel and Daniel Briggs. Thanks to Oleg Raygorodskiy for correcting the misspelling of "Allusa Fallax" to "Alusa Fallax". Also, there's still a bunch more reviews from Nenad Kobal and a new batch from Dave Wayne that will need to wait until the next upload. I'm getting to them as fast as I can, guys, really! And, to everyone that's sent me a promo that hasn't shown up in the GEPR yet ... please be patient. I'm listening as fast as I can.

Keep on Proggin'
Fred Trafton

9/22/00

Here comes another big update to the GEPR! This one took awhile, and I didn't have the advantage of a long plane ride to work on things this time. But there's still a lot of new stuff to be seen here. Thanks once again to Nenad Kobal for all his entries ... so many that, once again, you'll have to wait until next time to see them all.

In addition to the following new entries, you'll also see that the Index frame has changed. A couple of people have pointed out that they rarely go to the departments, and always have to scroll to the bottom to get to the higher letters of the alphabet when looking up bands. Voila, it's fixed! Just swap the two. Duh ... I should have done it this way in the first place. I was getting tired of scrolling down myself!

Another change was to add a listing of ALL the bands in the GEPR to the splash page. This is to assist web robots who are indexing sites for Search engines ... I have noticed that the new GEPR doesn't show up in many of them, and I want to remedy this. If this causes slow loading for some of you, please let me know and I'll see if I can do something about it.

8/29/00:

The biggest update to the GEPR yet! I've been out of town for a couple of weeks, but I've done a lot changes and updates to the GEPR while I was away. Thanks to Kai Karmanheimo, Nenad Kobal, Tobias Broljung, Igor Italiani and the ladies of Double Helix for their contributions. Here's the listing of what was done:

  1. Changed navigation so that moving between index frames also moves to the top of the corresponding text frame.
  2. Changed top page format, moving the contributor's info and other info to their own separate pages.
  3. Put all entry changes and updates since June in a big table under "What's New?" to make it easier to find updates. Old "What's New?" text moved to an archive file.
  4. Did a first stab at my bio page. Let me know what you think.
Here's the list of changes to the main part of the GEPR:

8/10/00

Another big update to the GEPR. Most of the new reviews are from Kai Karmanheimo, and I haven't even put them all in yet! I also have a large batch from Nenad Kobal which will need to go in next time. I've also got reviews in from Kiirja Paananen, Sal Pichireddu, Toni Agalliu and Eric Wincentsen, plus input from others on web sites, discographies and missing bands. Thanks to everyone for your contributions.

For those of you who wait breathlessly for new updates, I thought I should warn you that an out of town trip for 2 weeks will prevent my being able to upload new revisions of the GEPR for at least a few weeks (yeah, I have a "day job", which sometimes interferes with my ability to work on the GEPR). I will still be connected by e-mail though, so keep those reviews, errata and new bands coming. The good news is that I'll be able to work on the GEPR a lot while riding on airplanes for about 30 hours, so the next update should be a good one! Until then, here's what's new for this update:

New bands/artists added:
Altura, Comedy of Errors, Hands, IZZ, Maryson, Thomas Metcalf, Lou Maxwell Taylor

Reviews/news added to existing entries:
Affinity, Antonius Rex, Anyone's Daughter, David Bedford, Blåkulla, Kevin Braheny, Clepsydra, David Cross, Deep Purple, Delirium (Italy), Epidaurus, Everon, Haikara, Kenso, Magdalena (Japan), Marathon, Marge Litch, Mastermind (again), Moongarden, Steve Morse, Nosferatu, Pageant, Paternoster, Popol Vuh, Quasar Lux Symphoniae, Quidam, Rebekka, The Residents
Note: Several of these replaced entries which just said "Prog" or something equally useless, so they might almost be considered new bands.

Updated discographies, added/fixed links to AMG, web sites or offsite reviews:
Franco Battiato (again), Dixie Dregs, Kaseke, Steve Morse, Snakefinger, Terje Rypdal

Also:
Changed top of entry page to acknowledge links I'm adding to album reviews from Progressive World and Axiom of Choice.
For a list of new contributors since the restart of the GEPR, see New Contributors.
For complete details of what's changed, see whatsnew.txt.

7/28/00

I didn't quite get around to uploading last week, but this is probably the biggest update to the new GEPR since the original release. Lots of new bands/artists added plus a bunch of new reviews and updates to existing entries. Hope it was worth the wait. Here's what's new:

New bands/artists added:
Agincourt, Michael Thomas Berkley, Blind Guardian, Alan Burant, Etcetera (Denmark), Empire (UK), House of Usher, Manning, The Nefilim

Reviews/news added to existing entries:
Ashwin Batish, Franco Battiato, Cairo, Earthrise, Fields of the Nephilim, Kingdom Come (not the "Hair Metal" band!), Pär Lindh, Mastermind, Pendragon

Updated discographies, added/fixed links to AMG, web sites or Ground & Sky reviews:
Peter Banks, Barclay James Harvest, Brian Eno, Fates Warning, Fermáta, Fields of the Nephilim, Flash, Egil Fylling, IQ, Ithaca, Pär Lindh, Liquid Tension Experiment, Lisker, Mastermind, Alan Parsons' Project, Pendragon, Startled Insects

Also:
Added a link in Concert Guide to add concert dates and fixed "Next 7 days" link.
Fixed incorrect link to Jurriaan Hage's Axiom of Choice web site (Sorry, Jurriaan).
Added a link to ProgressoR, a Prog Rock page in Uzbekistan!
Thanks to Paco Fox, Jeff Mathius and Tobias Broljung for some great review contributions!
For complete details of what's changed, see whatsnew.txt.

7/14/00

Okay, it's time to stop stalling and upload this thing. If I wait until it's all done, it'll be asleep for another three years ... so here's what I've been able to finish since last release.

The GEPR now has a concert guide (last item under "Index" on the main screen). These are mostly concerts in the UK at the moment, but Progressive bands can update the listing with their own gigs, so there are U.S. bands listed too. This doesn't attempt to be a comprehensive listing of all Prog music being played in the world, but hopefully it will grow to more and more listings as the Prog world who reads the GEPR begins to upload their gig lists.

Also, you'll begin to see entries with a new, more "webbish" formatting showing up in the band listings. All of the entries will eventually be converted to this format, but it will probably take awhile. Also, I'm trying to find band photos for as many of the bands as I can. They will be added as I get permission to use them from each band one by one. This will take approximately forever. But I'll keep trying.

New bands with reviews added since the last update are Ayreon, Kopecky, LaHost, Paranoise and Manitou. I have added placeholders (beginning entries, but no review yet) for Dark Aether Project and Bob's Your Monster. I have done some major updates in many places, notably to Clearlight, Cyrille Verdeaux and Delired Cameleon Family, discographies of Dr. Nerve, ELP and Echolyn, plus added a band photo and web site update for Citadel. I've also made some other cosmetic changes, like lightening up the blue in the INDEX window to make it more readable (several people urged me to do this). For complete nit-picky details of what's changed, consult details, see whatsnew.txt.

Enjoy! Hopefully, another upload will happen next week.

6/30/00

The Gibraltar Encyclopedia of Progressive Rock has teamed up with Brandon Wu's Ground and Sky web site to provide even more in-depth information on Progressive Rock bands. The GEPR has always been the foremost web site for information on Progressive Rock bands. Now, by teaming with Ground and Sky, the GEPR provides access to reviews of individual albums as well. Brandon's site will link back to band reviews in the GEPR to complete the cross-link. Brandon and I believe this will enhance the usefulness of both sites, and we hope you're as excited about this as we are.

Many more bands have been added to the database. Existing entries have been updated with fresh or corrected discographies. Broken web site links have been fixed, and links to new sites added. If you want details, see whatsnew.txt. I've completed my first pass through the AR-AZ page (that's 3 down and 45 to go! Uggh!) and done some other updates to various other pages.

6/16/00

Right now, everything's new. The Newly Updated GEPR went online on 6/16/00.

OK, so most of the text is the same as the old GEPR. But I'll be updating discographies and entries as fast as I can, and adding new bands. Since this is an "Encyclopedia", I will also be increasing the coverage of individuals who are important to Progressive Rock, even if they have done little or no solo work. Folks like Peter Gabriel or Tony Levin really deserve their own entries, don't you think?

If you look around, you'll already see a few new bands and individuals scattered around. For example, I have added entries for Amaxis, Liquid Tension Experiment, Ad Infinitum, Sphere3, Abraxas (the German one), and Lucifer (a 1971 Electronic Music album, not a Metal band) plus a few others. You can tell updated entries by an "Updated (date)" text under the band name. I'll put this on the entry even if I just change something minor, like updating the discography. Of course, I'll also add it if I add a new band.

I'll be going through each page line by line and updating discographies, fixing dead links, and adding AMG links. So far I have only done this for AA-AL and AM-AQ pages. I'll also add random updates as I find them (and have time) to other pages, as I mentioned before.

Because I'm interested in vintage Electronic Music, and because of it's close relationship to Progressive Rock, you'll also see some of the pioneer Electronic bands and artists showing up in the GEPR in days to come. No, I'm not talking about Electro-Pop Dance Music (though I like some of that too), I'm talking about Tonto's Expanding Headband, Morton Subotnik, Basil Kirchin and the other pioneers of synthesizers and sound sculpting that influenced so many Prog keyboard players and their studio technicians later.

So stay tuned, and come back often. We've only begun to rennovate!

The original Introduction, which I've now deleted:

The Gibraltar Encyclopedia of Progressive Rock (GEPR) has been sleeping for the last three years. Now it's time to wake it up, give it a face lift, and start adding info on all the great new bands out there. My name is Fred Trafton and I'm the new GEPR editor. I'm working on the GEPR a little every day to bring everything up to date and add new information.

I always hate it when people say "Under Construction" on their web sites. It's usually just a way of apologizing for a sloppy or incomplete web site. In this case, however, I'm going to have the "under construction" sign up until I complete my first pass through the entire GEPR band database. The GEPR will always be "under construction", but the first phase will be more like "reconstructive surgery" than just a face lift. The entire look, feel and navigation style is being brought into the 21st century. Out with dead links, out of date discographies, and cute dinosaur pictures. In with an easier to navigate frame system, links to the All-Music Guide, less obtrusive backgrounds, info on where to find music, and lots of new bands!

The GEPR is an information based site. If you're looking for glitzy animations and graphics, you've come to the wrong place. If you're looking for MP3 or RealAudio files, you're also in the wrong place. Try linking to some of the band sites listed here, though, and you'll get plenty of eye and ear candy. The GEPR is for people who want information, so it's heavy on text and light on graphics. This is the place to find out what bands are categorized as "Progressive". What kinds of music do they (or did they) play? Are they metal-influenced, ethnic, keyboard-oriented, spacey, psychedelic, political, spiritual, hypnotic or maybe just silly? Here's where you can find out what others think who share a love for this unique art form we call "Progressive Rock".

- Fred Trafton, June 11, 2000