Two old farts being highly pretentious about not liking prog. Most people who hate progressive rock get it confused with avant-garde music. The first piece of music they played on that Prog Britannia documentary a few years back was an Egg song which isn't prog. Jazz rock type noodling isn't prog but unfortunately that's what many prog haters think prog is.
To be fair to Danny Baker's Rock Decades, the guests involved were all 'active' during the period under discussion. Nothing worse than listening to a 30-year old 'talking head' waxing lyrical about "remembering" music or a television show that was recorded/broadcast before they were born....
Anyway...
IMHO the 'Danny Baker Rocks...a bit' show was really well done. He eschewed the slew of clips that are usually wheeled out on 70's retrospectives and we were treated to some little before seen bonkers Eno; a Kate Bush live number (truly as rare as hen's teeth); a Specials stage invasion; a cameo from the peerless Nick Lowe; a bit of Uncle Viv Stanshall; and some Gabriel shaped fun! An eclectic mix....and to be celebrated.
It's now quite rare to see a programme on TV where there are a number of knowledgeable guests with different perspectives who just chat about a particular subject.
These programmes used to be commonplace but now they are probably deemed too boring as most of the UK's population have an attention span of about 35 seconds.
Love Danny on the radio, love music documentaries but this just didn't do it for me. It doesn't help that we end up seeing the same old footage from the past in all theese BBC 4 type shows.
Love Danny on the radio, love music documentaries but this just didn't do it for me. It doesn't help that we end up seeing the same old footage from the past in all theese BBC 4 type shows.
Have you really seen all the footage in the programme afterwards "Danny Baker Rocks the Seventies (A Bit)"?
I loved it, but wasn't it a repeat of a show shown either last year or the year before? I don't know how Jethro Tull were put into the progressive rock though. I would never have thought that Viv Albertine would have owned a copy of In The Court Of The Crimson King.
I loved it, but wasn't it a repeat of a show shown either last year or the year before? I don't know how Jethro Tull were put into the progressive rock though. I would never have thought that Viv Albertine would have owned a copy of In The Court Of The Crimson King.
"Danny Baker's Great Album Showdown" was on BBC4 this time last year, maybe that is what you are thinking of. Same format with some guests chatting about specific albums from the 70s, 80s and 90s.
How the hell did he get through the entire decade without mentioning the Cure or the Banshees? No Bauhaus, Southern Death Cult or Psychedelic Furs - I don't think they even gave Goth a mention. Instead, far too much time was devoted to the really appalling bands that gave the decade a bad name.
Why on earth choose input from Adam Buxton, who is so boring that he almost projects it into an art form. He makes Moss out of the IT Crowd seem positively trendy.
How the hell did he get through the entire decade without mentioning the Cure or the Banshees? No Bauhaus, Southern Death Cult or Psychedelic Furs - I don't think they even gave Goth a mention. Instead, far too much time was devoted to the really appalling bands that gave the decade a bad name.
Why on earth choose input from Adam Buxton, who is so boring that he almost projects it into an art form. He makes Moss out of the IT Crowd seem positively trendy.
Did you actually watch? Goth was mentioned several times, there was Goth montage and clips of the Cure, the Banshees, Alien Sex Fiend, and Specimen. And I thought Adam Buxton was great, quite endearing when he got his diary out.
For a music lover Baker has a massive blind-spot when it comes to the eighties. His previous BBC4 series was similarly dismissive of the decade and the follow-up half-hour show last night showed that he must have spent the whole decade cursing the synthesiser and all it brought with it! Glorious to see and hear Prefab Sprout`s sublime "When Love Breaks Down".
I loved it, but wasn't it a repeat of a show shown either last year or the year before? I don't know how Jethro Tull were put into the progressive rock though. I would never have thought that Viv Albertine would have owned a copy of In The Court Of The Crimson King.
Jethro Tull have always been considered a Progressive Rock band, even though Ian Anderson hated the link. Thick As A Brick was written as a response to being labeled as such.
Jethro Tull have always been considered a Progressive Rock band, even though Ian Anderson hated the link. Thick As A Brick was written as a response to being labeled as such.
I was never a Tull fan but I would highly recommend Anderson`s solo album, Walk Into Light. Baker would most likely hate it as it`s predominantly synth-based!
Have you really seen all the footage in the programme afterwards "Danny Baker Rocks the Seventies (A Bit)"?
I'd certainly seen the Genesis and Kate Bush clips before.
I've always wondered why Kate's Hammersmith Odeon footage has never been reeased on DVD as it was released on video. I've always had an irrational hatred of the dancer at the end of the song when they are holding her horizontally as well, as he has his hands quite clearly on her boobs! Grrrrrr!
I was never a Tull fan but I would highly recommend Anderson`s solo album, Walk Into Light. Baker would most likely hate it as it`s predominantly synth-based!
I many ways I share his hatred of 80s synth music.
He is like me, someone who loved the 70s German synth pioneers, such as Can, Neu!, Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk, etc, and even the early British pioneers like Tubeway Army/Gary Numan and even early Human League, Heaven 17, etc, and watched with some distain how the boundary-pushing music of those early pioneers was turned in to bland, plastic, synth-pop.
I many ways I share his hatred of 80s synth music.
He is like me, someone who loved the 70s German synth pioneers, such as Can, Neu!, Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk, etc, and even the early British pioneers like Tubeway Army/Gary Numan and even early Human League, Heaven 17, etc, and watched with some distain how the boundary-pushing music of those early pioneers was turned in to bland, plastic, synth-pop.
He seems to have something against pop in general as he made it all the way through his last show about the eighties without a single mention of that decade`s seminal album - ABC`s Lexicon of Love.
There are far too many programmes on rock and the dinosaurs associated with it on BBC4. How many programmes have we had on electronic music/synth-pop? 3? 4? (and that`d be including the doco on Krautrock) vs seemingly endless shows and concert recordings from lumbering rock acts. Has BBC4 ever done a programme solely about Gary Numan or John Foxx or aired one of their live shows? No, they have not. Even Sky Arts managed to put together a show on Numan!!
Did you actually watch? Goth was mentioned several times, there was Goth montage and clips of the Cure, the Banshees, Alien Sex Fiend, and Specimen. And I thought Adam Buxton was great, quite endearing when he got his diary out.
I did, but if I'd have blinked I'd have missed them - less than a second each I should think.
Also, Mark Ellen's memory is faulty, because Pauline Black's group photo with Chrissie Hynde, Debbie Harry, Siouxsie, et al, was of a feature of at least three pages that appeared in NME. It's possible that it was syndicated out from another magazine, but it certainly gave the impression that they were all gathered together in the NME offices.
He seems to have something against pop in general as he made it all the way through his last show about the eighties without a single mention of that decade`s seminal album - ABC`s Lexicon of Love.
There are far too many programmes on rock and the dinosaurs associated with it on BBC4. How many programmes have we had on electronic music/synth-pop? 3? 4? (and that`d be including the doco on Krautrock) vs seemingly endless shows and concert recordings from lumbering rock acts. Has BBC4 ever done a programme solely about Gary Numan or John Foxx or aired one of their live shows? No, they have not. Even Sky Arts managed to put together a show on Numan!!
Perhaps it is because BBC 4 know their audience and those "dinosaurs", to use your word, remain hugely popular to this day.
As a Rock fan these programmes are just about the only Rock music you see or hear on the BBC, it is certainly ignored as a matter of course today.
Perhaps it is because BBC 4 know their audience and those "dinosaurs", to use your word, remain hugely popular to this day.
As a Rock fan these programmes are just about the only Rock music you see or hear on the BBC, it is certainly ignored as a matter of course today.
I question the point of yet another programme on David Bowie, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys, Deep Purple etc, etc when respected artists and bands producing key work over decades sometimes have to content themselves with a passing mention on some documentary grouping a large number of disparate artists together.
I, and people like me, are BBC4`s audience and we want to see coverage of other musical genres that equals that given to rock. Electronic music and the instrumentation used to make it was and continues to be the bedrock of all truly progressive music but to watch BBC4 you could be forgiven for thinking it was something that happened in the mid-80s, was a bit of fun for a while but doesn`t really matter today meanwhile here`s another 3 hours on The bloody Beatles!
I would never have thought that Viv Albertine would have owned a copy of In The Court Of The Crimson King.
If you read "Punk: An Oral History" by John Robb, a lot of the original punks were into hippy/prog/long-hair music and felt guilty a few years later when they were forced to denounce it.
If you read "Punk: An Oral History" by John Robb, a lot of the original punks were into hippy/prog/long-hair music and felt guilty a few years later when they were forced to denounce it.
Indeed they were.
John Lydon is a huge Pink Floyd fan and Peter Hook is a huge Hawkwind fan to name but two.
This whole idea that punk "killed" prog is simply an on-going media invented myth.
Comments
The BBC have absolutely no sense of shame by calling this new programming.
Anyway...
IMHO the 'Danny Baker Rocks...a bit' show was really well done. He eschewed the slew of clips that are usually wheeled out on 70's retrospectives and we were treated to some little before seen bonkers Eno; a Kate Bush live number (truly as rare as hen's teeth); a Specials stage invasion; a cameo from the peerless Nick Lowe; a bit of Uncle Viv Stanshall; and some Gabriel shaped fun! An eclectic mix....and to be celebrated.
It's now quite rare to see a programme on TV where there are a number of knowledgeable guests with different perspectives who just chat about a particular subject.
These programmes used to be commonplace but now they are probably deemed too boring as most of the UK's population have an attention span of about 35 seconds.
"Danny Baker's Great Album Showdown" was on BBC4 this time last year, maybe that is what you are thinking of. Same format with some guests chatting about specific albums from the 70s, 80s and 90s.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01qkw54
Lo-fi old school format with some quite novel insights from passionately engaged musos n journos active at the time.
Prog and Goth.What's not to like?
Why on earth choose input from Adam Buxton, who is so boring that he almost projects it into an art form. He makes Moss out of the IT Crowd seem positively trendy.
Did you actually watch? Goth was mentioned several times, there was Goth montage and clips of the Cure, the Banshees, Alien Sex Fiend, and Specimen. And I thought Adam Buxton was great, quite endearing when he got his diary out.
Jethro Tull have always been considered a Progressive Rock band, even though Ian Anderson hated the link. Thick As A Brick was written as a response to being labeled as such.
I was never a Tull fan but I would highly recommend Anderson`s solo album, Walk Into Light. Baker would most likely hate it as it`s predominantly synth-based!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Walk-Into-Light-Ian-Anderson/dp/B004GAY2GS
I'd certainly seen the Genesis and Kate Bush clips before.
I've always wondered why Kate's Hammersmith Odeon footage has never been reeased on DVD as it was released on video. I've always had an irrational hatred of the dancer at the end of the song when they are holding her horizontally as well, as he has his hands quite clearly on her boobs! Grrrrrr!
I many ways I share his hatred of 80s synth music.
He is like me, someone who loved the 70s German synth pioneers, such as Can, Neu!, Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk, etc, and even the early British pioneers like Tubeway Army/Gary Numan and even early Human League, Heaven 17, etc, and watched with some distain how the boundary-pushing music of those early pioneers was turned in to bland, plastic, synth-pop.
He seems to have something against pop in general as he made it all the way through his last show about the eighties without a single mention of that decade`s seminal album - ABC`s Lexicon of Love.
There are far too many programmes on rock and the dinosaurs associated with it on BBC4. How many programmes have we had on electronic music/synth-pop? 3? 4? (and that`d be including the doco on Krautrock) vs seemingly endless shows and concert recordings from lumbering rock acts. Has BBC4 ever done a programme solely about Gary Numan or John Foxx or aired one of their live shows? No, they have not. Even Sky Arts managed to put together a show on Numan!!
Also, Mark Ellen's memory is faulty, because Pauline Black's group photo with Chrissie Hynde, Debbie Harry, Siouxsie, et al, was of a feature of at least three pages that appeared in NME. It's possible that it was syndicated out from another magazine, but it certainly gave the impression that they were all gathered together in the NME offices.
Perhaps it is because BBC 4 know their audience and those "dinosaurs", to use your word, remain hugely popular to this day.
As a Rock fan these programmes are just about the only Rock music you see or hear on the BBC, it is certainly ignored as a matter of course today.
I question the point of yet another programme on David Bowie, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys, Deep Purple etc, etc when respected artists and bands producing key work over decades sometimes have to content themselves with a passing mention on some documentary grouping a large number of disparate artists together.
I, and people like me, are BBC4`s audience and we want to see coverage of other musical genres that equals that given to rock. Electronic music and the instrumentation used to make it was and continues to be the bedrock of all truly progressive music but to watch BBC4 you could be forgiven for thinking it was something that happened in the mid-80s, was a bit of fun for a while but doesn`t really matter today meanwhile here`s another 3 hours on The bloody Beatles!
Well, if you insist, Director General!;-)
If you read "Punk: An Oral History" by John Robb, a lot of the original punks were into hippy/prog/long-hair music and felt guilty a few years later when they were forced to denounce it.
When he said he was born in 1969, same as myself, I found it interesting that a lot of his experiences mirrored my own.
Indeed they were.
John Lydon is a huge Pink Floyd fan and Peter Hook is a huge Hawkwind fan to name but two.
This whole idea that punk "killed" prog is simply an on-going media invented myth.