Tom Woods: The Year in Progressive Rock

[Occam's Banana]

Ep. 310 The Year in Progressive Rock
http://tomwoods.com/podcast/ep-310-the-year-in-progressive-rock/
Tom Woods (22 December 2014)

Tom and guest Brad Birzer love progressive rock. Here's Brad's overview of the best music of 2014. Not to be missed! Scroll down for show notes and mp3.

Find out about the best, and typically overlooked, music of 2014 in this great discussion with Brad Birzer!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJ1_fCEsh7A


Guest’s Websites

Progarchy (Brad is editor-at-large)
The Imaginative Conservative

Episodes Mentioned

Ep. 110: The First Money Bomb (Steve Hogarth)
Ep. 74: The Episode of the Year (Brad Birzer)
Ep. 3: Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson (you can hear the raw sound of the early episodes on this one)

Articles Mentioned

“Hit by a White Car: The Best 8 Albums of 2014,” by Brad Birzer
Brad’s discussion of the new Pink Floyd album

Videos Mentioned

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfOADav8bAE


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czgRIvcnTeE


(This is just part 1; if you like this, you should buy English Electric Full Power.)

Brad’s Top 8 Albums of 2014

Cosmograf, Capacitor
John Bassett, Unearth
Fire Garden, Sound of Majestic Colors
Tin Spirits, Scorch
Fractal Mirror, Garden of Ghosts
Andy Tillison Multiplex, Electronic Sinfonia No. 2
Salander, Stendec
Newspaperflyhunting, Iceberg Soul

Other Albums Mentioned

Big Big Train, English Electric Full Power
Yes, Going for the One
Jethro Tull, Thick as a Brick
Ian Anderson, Thick as a Brick 2
Ian Anderson, Homo Erraticus

Special Offers

If you enjoy the Tom Woods Show, my new book — Real Dissent: A Libertarian Sets Fire to the Index Card of Allowable Opinion — is for you. Check it out! And get a free copy of the audiobook version, with me reading it, at TomWoodsAudio.com.

Black Friday pricing for gift subscriptions to LibertyClassroom.com is still in effect, for Tom Woods Show listeners only. Take 50% off our 12-course bundle — perfect for that liberty lover on your list. The link with the special pricing is LibertyClassroom.com/secret.

 

[Brian4Liberty]

Thanks Bananaman! Some bands I need to check out from that list.

Woods even name dropped the band "Riverside" in there. Great band, best summarized by this concert:

Take your time. This is a full concert...

 

[Natural Citizen]

Meh. I don't really care for the "new" prog bands. Germans are still putting out the best stuff in my view. Of course, it is only my view. The new age hippie stuff that the anarchists seem to like a lot, I can't stand. It misses the large hooks and power vocals that I like. Besides that, this new prog stuff just seems like an evolution of grunge to me which was, in my view, the worst thing to ever become introduced to culture next to gangster rap.

 

[PaulConventionWV]

Meh. I don't really care for the "new" prog bands. Germans are still putting out the best stuff in my view. Of course, it is only my view. The new age hippie stuff that the anarchists seem to like a lot, I can't stand. It misses the large hooks and power vocals that I like. Besides that, this new prog stuff just seems like an evolution of grunge to me which was, in my view, the worst thing to ever become introduced to culture next to gangster rap.

I'm interested in what your favorite German stuff is. I like Rammstein, but I don't know much else from there.

 

[Brian4Liberty]

I'm interested in what your favorite German stuff is. I like Rammstein, but I don't know much else from there.

Let me guess! Natural Citizen is a fan of melodic metal and power ballads. I'll have to say that his choice is the Scorpions.

(Where's that picture of Rudy and me...)

 

[PaulConventionWV]

Let me guess! Natural Citizen is a fan of melodic metal and power ballads. I'll have to say that his choice is the Scorpions.

(Where's that picture of Rudy and me...)

Oh, an 80s hair metal band? I thought he was talking about modern stuff.

 

[Natural Citizen]

Let me guess! Natural Citizen is a fan of melodic metal and power ballads. I'll have to say that his choice is the Scorpions.

(Where's that picture of Rudy and me...)

No, I never really cared for the Scorpions. Their sound seemed too Americanized to me. I probably like maybe two of their songs at most.

But, I was just giving my own opinion of what I see prog rock/metal evolving into. And from where. It seems like it is picking up in the wrong place and is sort of redifining itself from the worst time in culture.

 

[Natural Citizen]

Oh, an 80s hair metal band? I thought he was talking about modern stuff.

Don't listen to Brian4Liberty. He's making an assumption. I'll pm you a list of what I have.

I'll say this since the term was brought up, though. Younger people who use the term hair band don't know anything about that era. And the use of that language is demonstrative. The majority of the best stuff was coming from the Germans and other Europeans back then and it was really AOR more than anything. But then you get people who didn't live it and just don't know and so they just use that term.

Now, the American stuff? Sure. Most of that bubblegum shit you could probably call hair metal. Of course, there were a few really good American bands/sonwriters from that era that got thrown into the hairband mix and were really mislabled in that way. But that is really all that the new generation knows to compare anything from that era to.

Ah well. If folks didn't live it then they didn't live it. And they have no idea what they missed. None. That era was one of the best times to be alive on planet Earth. Economy was right, culture was right, people were happy. Man, I could go on and on. Heh...

 

[Brian4Liberty]

Meh. I don't really care for the "new" prog bands. Germans are still putting out the best stuff in my view. Of course, it is only my view. The new age hippie stuff that the anarchists seem to like a lot, I can't stand. It misses the large hooks and power vocals that I like. Besides that, this new prog stuff just seems like an evolution of grunge to me which was, in my view, the worst thing to ever become introduced to culture next to gangster rap.

Speaking of keeping the genres straight, there is not much "new age" or "hippie" about progressive rock or progressive metal. And grunge is the opposite end of the spectrum from prog. Grunge is an evolution of punk, keeping it simple, without need for mastery of an instrument or music theory. Prog is the opposite of that.

This is New Age:



This is hippie:



Now you could say that early Genesis and Pink Floyd had some of the hippie elements, but original fans of the hippie genres didn't really care for anything that evolved from that point onward.

 

[Natural Citizen]

How old are you, Brian? Roughly. You don't have to tell me your exact age or anything. I'm just curious. I'm 50ish

 

[Brian4Liberty]

Don't listen to Brian4Liberty. He's making an assumption. I'll pm you a list of what I have.

LOL. Come on, you love the Scorpions, admit it!

(FYI for the casual observers: whenever anyone talks about German metal, always bring up the Scorpions as the best German band ever. )

 

[Natural Citizen]

LOL. Come on, you love the Scorpions, admit it!

(FYI for the casual observers: whenever anyone talks about German metal, always bring up the Scorpions as the best German band ever. )

No, not really. They just never appealed to me. I don't know if it was because they were so commercial or what. Even their sound, I didn't care for.

 

[Brian4Liberty]

How old are you, Brian?

Classified.

 

[Natural Citizen]

Classified.

I had went back and edited my question. I didn't expect you to tell the world your age. I was just wondering roughly. Are you at least younger than 30? That's the impression that I have.

 

[PaulConventionWV]

Don't listen to Brian4Liberty. He's making an assumption. I'll pm you a list of what I have.

I'll say this since the term was brought up, though. Younger people who use the term hair band don't know anything about that era. And the use of that language is demonstrative. The majority of the best stuff was coming from the Germans and other Europeans back then and it was really AOR more than anything. But then you get people who didn't live it and just don't know and so they just use that term.

Now, the American stuff? Sure. Most of that bubblegum shit you could probably call hair metal. Of course, there were a few really good American bands/sonwriters from that era that got thrown into the hairband mix and were really mislabled in that way. But that is really all that the new generation knows to compare anything from that era to.

Ah well. If folks didn't live it then they didn't live it. And they have no idea what they missed. None. That era was one of the best times to be alive on planet Earth. Economy was right, culture was right, people were happy. Man, I could go on and on. Heh...

I kinda get that, even though I was born in 89. The movies from that decade seemed pretty light-hearted and fun (not to generalize, but it just felt different. Sometimes I wish I would have lived through that. Oh, well, I guess you gotta make your own life...

 

[Natural Citizen]

(not to generalize, but it just felt different. Sometimes I wish I would have lived through that.

When I had posted that last bit I was trying to find the right way to explain living in that era (and especially given the evolution of rock in culture during that time) but what you mention here is probably what I was getting at. It really did just feel different. And I just don't think we'll ever be lucky enough to experience such an energy. Everything about it was positive.

Of course we hear young people these days talk about going back to the days of Reagan and an 80's way of conservative life but most of the folks who talk about this do it in a political way and are guided by people who seek to revert politically as opposed to culturally. They never really talk about the culture of the era which was extremely conservative. But, yeah. It is just something that you had to experience in order to really know. American culture was very nostalgic back then. I think that some of the music and arts today are trying to recapture that but I don't think that they'll ever succeed because the demograph is misguided by political people who long for a political rewind only. The people/culture that they are trying to escape from never really discuss the cultural rewind that is absolutely necessary in order to pull off old school conservatism as a lifestyle. And, so, in that regard, making their own way is almost like spitting into the wind. It's one of those things where you really just had to be there in order to understand.

Something else that I'd mention (which may be off topic) is that the liberty movement that we see today is a product of that era. I just don't think that it's realized. Back then we we're hitting the pavement in real time the old fashioned way and kind of establishing that which would ultimately go mainline in an evolving era of information technology. Of course, today, we like to claim ownership of what the movement has become which kind of goes back to what I was saying about just not knowing how it used to be and how we get where we are.

 

[Natural Citizen]

Ah, well. This is probably one of my favorite topics to discuss (meaning culture/arts with regard to the liberty movement timeline) and so I start to babble. I'll leave the thread alone for others. Heh..

 

[PaulConventionWV]

Don't forget I want that list.

 

[Natural Citizen]

Don't forget I want that list.

Yeah, I'll go through my stuff and write some good stuff down for you. I used to have a command line that I could use to generate albums and titles and so I could just copy and past but I don't remember it at the moment. I probabably have close to 10,000 albums or so. And not all have been digitized so I'd have to pick through my cds in the music room. Yes, I have a music room. Weird, huh.

You know, had you decided on moving to Japan to teach instead of China you'd have a front and center view of a phenomenon that still lives today over there. They're really big into their metal/rock. In fact, I've only bought Japanese releases for years just because they're always mastered in much better quality and they tend to have bonus tracks on them. Here in the states we just get the bare bolts basics and most of the time the quality sucks too.

But, yes, I'll make sure to get a good list of what I have from German bands for you. I don't know what kind of music you like, though. You'll have to tell me so I can thin it out a bit. There are some good swedish bands too.

 

[Brian4Liberty]

Don't forget I want that list.

Ah, well. This is probably one of my favorite topics to discuss (meaning culture/arts with regard to the liberty movement timeline) and so I start to babble. I'll leave the thread alone for others. Heh..

Just a few of us here in this thread, go ahead and post your top 5 German bands of all time. I have to admit my ignorance of most of the German bands, even though I used to hang out with a German who was a huge music fan. Seemed that most of our favorite European bands were Scandinavian rather than German.

Rammstein are great, and Scorpions are classic, despite their over-popularity in the US (and corresponding blow-back). I had a couple of albums by a band called Vanden Plas that were pretty good (and Tom Woods would certainly know about them). There were a couple of others, but I can't remember their names at the moment...