It's Saturday, it's hot, and all Woolton's on his feet. In the small garden of St. Peter's Church, between the drinks stand and the barbecue, there is a flatbed truck. At a quarter past four on that July 7, 1957, a few adolescents with guitars climb onto the loading area and off they go. They are one of the many skifflebands shooting out of the herb at that time in England, in this case even from the direct neighbourhood, and they are hardly better or worse than others. Their leader, a shirt-sleeved guy with an Elvis shirt and a checkered shirt, hammers on his cheap guitar and plays the usual popular tunes: the ancient folkkracher "Maggie Mae", "Rock Island Line" by Lonnie Donegan and "Come Go With Me" by the US group The Del-Vikings.
He was as British as one could wish for in the selfish, extroverted world of pop. This was not least reflected in his ironically imbued self-perception. He never took his job and his merits as a producer as an opportunity to put his own person in the foreground. He preferred to step back behind the work and praise the artistic genius of his clients. At a time when he was helping to establish the studio as a musical instrument, he saw himself, he once said, in the tradition of those foolhardy men in their flying boxes who had once conquered the airspace as "daring pilots, without a plan and in the open cockpit". Very British, indeed.
YES
eclipsed shopping list SPECIAL
The rumours are still spreading: Yes will go on tour in 2010 - in two independent bands!? Yes go to the studio in 2010 - with Anderson replacement Benoît David!? What is clear is that something is happening this year at the glorious Prog institution. We asked Yes-Urgestein Chris Squire for more information and delivered an eclipsed shopping list SPECIAL.
The drama of "Let It Be":
THE BEATLES and their latest studio album
PORCUPINE TREE
The next big thing
The new album is here! It's called "The Incident." As with every new recording of Porcupine Tree, the expectations of fans and critics are enormous: The band has long since earned a reputation as an innovator of art rock. Will the album be the next big thing? Or is it a lot of smoke for nothing? According to bandleader Steven Wilson, "The Incident" is one of the best things he has ever created.
FLEETWOOD MAC
Metamorphosis of a Band
THE BEATLES
It's certainly a thrill: How the Beatles invented the prog
In the sixties a whole generation of musicians hung on the Beatles' rock lofts and eagerly picked up on their impulses - in the relatively short span of their work the Fab Four became the most influential band of the pop era. How did this happen?
THE MARS VOLTA
Slimmed!
DREAM THEATER
Controlled Chaos
With "Systematic Chaos", the first album by the new label Roadrunner, the New York Prog-King Dream Theater has once again hit the bull's eye. The sterile hardness of "Train Of Thought" has been forgotten, the "Auf Nummer sicher"-Prog of "Octavarium" has been swept away. "Systematic Chaos" finally creates the optimal bridge between aggressive metal sounds and atmospheric-progressive elements. Reason enough for an exclusive conversation with the triumvirate Portnoy/Petrucci/LaBrie in Cologne.
DAVID BOWIE
The man without qualities?
On 8 January, David Bowie, one of England's most dazzling, avant-garde, hedonistic and not least richest pop artists, reached the age of 60. Its status is inviolable, but the characteristics of the restless are difficult to grasp. Does the artist character David Bowie not have any characteristics at all in the end?
