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Julian Cope presents Head Heritage

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Prog Britannia
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keith a
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Re: Prog Britannia
Dec 30, 2008, 12:26
IanB wrote:



"Jehovahkill" is pure Prog in terms of the sheer scale of the ambition and reach though perhaps you find the term Art Rock less offensive.



Not at all. I might, tongue-in-cheek, refer to Wire as an 'arty punk band' but 'art rock' just sounds silly, pretentious and pompous. Like prog itself I guess!

I just don't see why Jehovahkill has to be labelled as either. It's a Julian Cope album, and all that that entails. And a good one at that. I really don't see how an album has to be classified as prog just because it's ambitious. Was Sgt Pepper prog? You probably think it was. That anything with ambition is prog.


IanB wrote:


It's Prog like Kevin Ayers is Prog. Same impulses. Same palette. Different branding.




But is Ayers really prog? I have only a passing knowledge of his solo stuff, but from what I have heard it's more whimsy than prog, old fashioned songs with an English charm, and it's his Soft Machine antecedents more than the actual music that leads to any prog comparsions. Would anyone class Peter Skellern prog? Not unless he was previously a member of, say, King Crimson!


IanB wrote:


What made Cope and Devoto occasionally great, often brilliant and always worthwhile is their devotion to being extraordinary.



Sure. But it doesn't matter how often you tell us differently - that doesn't make them prog!!


IanB wrote:

Which is why I find the Velvets fixation of the early 80s especially perplexing. The Velvets wrote that book and closed it again. Why does anyone feel the need go back there and with such slavish devotion to the template? If the only reason is because it's easier to play that way than come up with your own scene then you need another reason.


Why does anyone need to go back anywhere? It's becasuse there are very few visionaries in life? In the meantime going back to the Velvets is no more a sin than goiung back to anything that you consider more worthy.

It stands to reason if someone likes the Velvets more than VDGG, then they are more likely to like a band that is influenced by the VU than one by Hamill's lot. And vice versa.

It's been a long time since I last listened to the Shop Assistants and I have no particular desire to do so, but whilst I would hardly expect to be blown away by them, I would expect to prefer it to anything by, say, Marillion with their obvious Genesis influences.
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