Mellotronists

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "jonesalley" <jonesalley@...>
To: "Mellotronists" <Mellotronists@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2007 10:18 PM
Subject: Fw: [Mellotronists] Re: Pinder solo


> You know, I honestly think there's a lot of truth in that statement, and 
> in
> somewhat of a corollary, that the best prog comes from Great Britain.  I
> believe the enveloping mist of ancient myth and legend, tradition and
> culture, combined with the landscape, the climate, and the wonderful
> historic places that survive to this day is the fuel that started the prog
> fire,

Have you ever been here, Jon?  :-)   Actually, bits of the country still 
keep that 'olde-worlde' charm, but identikit pedestrianised precincts in 
every two-bit town tend to smooth off the interesting rough edges.

> and when blended with the mystical sound of Mellotrons became
> something truly singular.  I've been thinking for a while now (since I
> started having the experience of being able to play one as part of my 
> daily
> routine) that if Mellotrons had managed to survive the wave of digital
> synths that prog would not have died, and that the slowly waxing 
> visibility
> and availability of the instruments is triggering this wonderful new wave 
> of
> steadily-improving prog rock.

Although it's a small minority of current prog bands that use Mellotrons, 
even sampled ones. And to get all picky on you, prog was dying a bloody 
death years before digital synths - the early '80s bands predate the DX7... 
Seems to me to be more of a cultural shift, where the generation that grew 
up with the Moodies, Crimson, Genesis et al. all got married and had kids, 
and started listening to the Alan Parsons Project and ELO, and their younger 
siblings turned to other music, perceived as current. Or am I just talking 
crap?  :-)

> Add to that the internet to provide a large
> enough world-wide audience for this wonderful genre with many things left 
> to
> say, and I think the next five years are going to see a renaissance
> (intentional prog reference) of new music tempered with the improvements 
> in
> technology and blended with some of the interesting new characteristics of
> today's emo-type and pop-punk music.

Haven't Muse already done that? In seriousness, there are some decent 
current prog bands, but most of them sound like nothing's chaged in 30 
years. I'm not actually arguing that this is a bad thing, only it has little 
to do with moving forwards, and a lot to do with recreating something that 
was once innovative. Wouldn't stop me doing exactly that, mind...

Andy T.