music
- The Way It Is (1986)
- Scenes From The Southside (1988)
- A Night On The Town (1990)
- Harbor Lights (1993)
- Hot House (1995, a personal favorite… fantastic album)
- Spirit Trail (1998)
- Here Come The Noisemakes (2000, a collection of live recordings from 1998 to 2000 as the Noisemakers would become his new band)
- Big Swing Face (2002)
- Halcyon Days (2004)
- Intersections (2006, an essential box-set of loads of unreleased material, live and studio)
- Ricky Skaggs & Bruce Hornsby (2007, some freaking amazing bluegrass)
- Camp Meeting (2007, an album of jazz tracks!, very lovely)
- Levitate (2009)
- Bride of The Noisemakers (2011, another live collection I can listen to all day long)
- Rehab Reunion (2016, where Bruce spends more time playing the dulcimer, and it’s amazing)
- Absolute Zero (2019)
Francis Dunnery’s Let’s Go Do What Happens | Album Stories
Everyone calls him Frank. Let’s Go Do What Happens was released in 1998.
I’m quite sure that it was early Fall in Vermont; leaf turning season. It drew the leaf peepers and they brought their money. We didn’t turn in those circles, or any circles for that matter. We spent time at home or at school or with the baby or at various jobs. She worked at the Vermont State Department of Corrections for a time. I worked at the nearby IBM plant for a spell. I attempted another go at college. I’d like to think we failed each other.
The radio station that had to be on in the car at the time was The Point FM, de rigueur for any self-respecting AAA aficionado. Where else was one to catch up with the latest singles from Big Head Todd & The Monsters, R.E.M. or Dave Matthews Band, note the dates for a coming Phish show, or score a tip on hemp floor mats or locally roasted coffee (yes, that Green Mountain Coffee.)
I honestly don’t recall the track from this album I heard on the radio that caused me to suddenly know I had to own it, but it could have been any of them. Normally, I have at the very least, a sense of which track, but not this one. All I know is I got in the car, drove down to the Sam Goody (I think, might have been a Wherehouse) off the 189 at Shelburne, and bought the cassette. I slapped it into the tape deck and listened to it all the way home.
Thank you, Auto Reverse.
Little did I know at the time, but Francis Dunnery was to become a very important figure in my one-person chapter of Tyler’s Music Appreciation Society. In 1998, however, I didn’t place as much importance on music as I would later in life, specifically in regard to my progressive self-education. Hell, at the time I hadn’t yet come to grips with The Blues and still had a stunted understanding of Jazz.
I knew at the time, however, that Dunnery spoke to me with his lyrical content, compositional style, sound, and his distinctive vocal quality. I’ve come to understand this as Storyteller Syndrome; my principle thesis on progressive rock. In a nutshell, that one thing that sets progressive apart from its core genre is story telling. Most people think that “Prog Rock” is epic long tracks with soaring guitars, complex beats, and tales of space ships and wizards. I propose that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Rocks songs are about love and loss. Prog rock songs are about stories. — Tyler Regas, 2020
Even the most epic prog rock band of all time forever and ever, known to mortals as Rush, moved away from 15 minute long tracks and tales about hobbits and dragons to more socially conscious fare packaged into tighter, radio-friendly formats. In 1973, Yes released Tales from Topographic Oceans, four songs stretched over two albums, and completely radio-hostile. Just a decade later, and Yes would have a huge radio hit with Owner of a Lonely Heart. I don’t think anyone would argue that Yes should be disavowed. That would be absurd.
Now, I won’t try to suggest that any song that tells a story is progressive. No. It’s more than that. It has to be something new but retain principle elements of rock music, to take that music in a new direction, and evoke a reaction in the listener, one that provokes new avenues of thought or introspection, through storytelling or other narrative structures. This can even be done instrumentally. Just take a listen to any of Simon Phillips’ Protocol albums, Plini, or Arch Echo.
In a way, we get to witness Dunnery’s trajectory through the late stages of the Golden Age of Progressive through his stint as frontman for influential UK band It Bites and into his solo albums. Not well known outside of the UK, It Bites is what I personally recognize as the last of the original progressive rocks bands of the golden era of prog. Most notable of his solo efforts is 2016’s Vampires release on Band Camp where he makes what he had originally intended for certain It Bites tracks quite clear, if you know what I mean. They have since come to terms.
The late 90’s, however, were different for me. Not having the benefit of hindsight, we carried on with whatever priorities we had at the time, and that was taking care of Leah and making sure we could pay the bills. The writing work had started to take off and the local clients we consulted for were stable. We only had the issues facing us at the time and had no idea that, in just a few years the Twin Towers would fall and seven years after that America would experience the biggest financial collapse since The Great Depression.
It seems that time really doesn’t have an impact. We’re still facing disaster, only it’s different and worse and our fault since we let that buffoon Trump get elected in the first place, but that’s beside the point. These days there’s plenty to be concerned about and for. We don’t know what’s going to be coming around the next corner, and it seems like we come to a new one several times a day. Even as we turn into 2021, we’re still exhausted by the chaos of it all, everything a question mark.
Back then, however, I just enjoyed listening to the music. Not that I knew at the time, but I had that luxury. We all did. I think we all can again, at least for a few moments.
Just start up the album. It’s at the top of the page in case you forgot. Sit back in a comfortable chair and just listen.
Think about the chord progression.
Think about the beat.
The rhythm.
Tonality.
Think about the lyrics, the story being told. Don’t worry about understanding it all just yet. Instead, let yourself sink into the music and just enjoy it, and nothing else, for a track or two. Do this once a day for two weeks.
Doctor’s orders.*
* I am not a doctor.
America's most underrated musical genius | Bruce Hornsby
Bruce Hornsby with The Grateful Dead performing at Soldier Field on July 4, 2015 in Chicago. Jay Blakesberg/Invision for the Grateful Dead/AP ImagesI’m not going to go into a long, winding diatribe about how and why and when Bruce became a humble god living among us mortals. He’d just deny it. Instead, I’ll show you.
Hell, this is from 1999. There’s another 20 years of new stuff to take in from there, and he’s still going. Not now, of course. Pandemic, anyone?
You certainly know him from the title track from his debut album, The Way It Is, but that was back in 1986. What did he do from 1986 to 1999? Hmm…
Not to mention countless live shows, playing with the Grateful Dead (a lot.)
So, after this show, what more can you expect to find? Take a look…
For a more complete listing of almost everything Bruce has done, check out his discography on Wikipedia.
Bruce is a freaking space wizard. He’s a master at two-handed piano, and incorporates that skill into many tracks, like Spider Fingers from the Hot House album, and he loves to improvise when playing live, as you can see here…
Here’s the album version. See if you can pick out how each hand is playing…
Then, there’s all those times Bruce played with The Grateful Dead, and The Dead were always great with bootlegging, so here’s a show from 1990… with Bruce on the keys…
Set 1 Feel Like A Stranger, Althea, It's All Over Now, Ramble On Rose, El Paso, Brown Eyed Women, Greatest Story Ever…archive.org
All in all, Bruce makes fantastic music and I think you’ll love it all as much as I do, considering there’s tons to choose from. And if you love live shows as much as I do, then check out Nugs.net where you can purchase official “bootlegs” that are simply wonderful. There are numerous free shows to pick from, and they offer a lot of FLAC versions for most shows, all recorded from the board and sounding FABULOUS!!
If, when you look up from a five hour binging session are surprised that so much time has passed, I’ll happily take the blame ;)
XTC. You know. The band...
I'm not a music critic, and I have a shitty memory, but there were some really interesting bands coming out of the late 70's and 80's. One of them was a little group called XTC. You likely know them for this...
It's just the audio version, so feel free to keep reading. When I was sort of growing up in Pasadena (long story) I spent many years listening to the then influential KROQ 106.7 FM. Back then KROQ was probably the single most powerful New Wave/Alternative station, driving much of what was getting heard back in the 80's. I was certainly tired of the pop and junk and had gotten into Progressive Rock with albums like Yes' Fragile, Jethro Tull's Aqualung, and Rush in general.
From the New Wave perspective, there were certainly a lot of very interesting acts, but most were trying to exploit the new, cheaper synths of the time, and while I liked some electronic, it wasn't something I liked to deep dive into. Instead I was into the Pet Shop Boys, The Cure, Echo and The Bunnymen, REM, The Smiths, early U2, Tears for Fears, Midnight Oil, Talking Heads, X, The B-52's, Madness, Oingo Boingo, The English Beat, The Specials (yeah, I was into Ska) and others.
One band that I liked but never seemed to get into, however, was XTC. How disappointing.
In the last few years, I've been revisiting my foundations in 70's and 80's music and have started to re-collect some of the better stuff I was listening to back then. It's easy to get new copies of most of the stuff I used to listen to, though. It's not so easy to start digging into bands without knowing their albums, so I started poking around YouTube to refresh my memory. I've discovered an amazingly rich, eclectic, and forward-thinking band that could be easily placed in the same category as Talking Heads and other influential groups that started in the late 70's. Take this track from 1979 as an example...
1979? Really?! This is some tight alternative that sounds more at home in the late 80's, not early on in the 2nd British Invasion. Radio was really everything back then. I felt I was an adventurous musical soul. I was into progressive, new wave/alt, hard rock, heavy metal, jazz, jazz rock, funk, some punk (I loved X), some pop, and even some movie soundtracks. I bought albums, tapes and later CDs. Radio and friends, however, were the only real sources of what was coming out. Back then, kids didn't think about Rolling Stone magazine and the Internet wasn't even a dream.
So, now I'm a couple of years away from turning 50, and I find out about XTC.
Lucky me. Really :) Check out one more...
1980. Yeah. Amazing.