MOTM

I thought of one more group which deserves mention IMHO.  
Echolyn.  Although this group was around in the 90's their style is 
much closer to 70's prog rock.  I think they're from Philly.  Superb 
musicianship, vocals and production.  I would recommend "As the 
World."  
When I'm engineering or producing in an unfamiliar studio I use this 
CD and "Stereotomy" by Alan Parsons to check out the monitors.

Hi Paul,
 Good call. Echolyn would probably be of interest to Gentle Giant 
fans too. There are intricate vocal harmonies and a fiar bit of the 
instrumentation is of a similar style. The sound is much 
more "polished" though compared to GG (imo). That could be a good or 
bad thing, depending on your tastes. They put on a good show at 
Nearfest as well. :)

 Andrew


--- In motm@yahoogroups.com, "paulhaneberg <phaneber@o...>" 
<phaneber@o...> wrote:
> I thought of one more group which deserves mention IMHO.  
> Echolyn.  Although this group was around in the 90's their style is 
> much closer to 70's prog rock.  I think they're from Philly.  
Superb 
> musicianship, vocals and production.  I would recommend "As the 
> World."  
> When I'm engineering or producing in an unfamiliar studio I use 
this 
> CD and "Stereotomy" by Alan Parsons to check out the monitors.

>  Good call. Echolyn would probably be of interest to Gentle Giant 
> fans too. There are intricate vocal harmonies and a fiar bit of the 
> instrumentation is of a similar style. The sound is much 
> more "polished" though compared to GG (imo). That could be a good or 
> bad thing, depending on your tastes. 

Each time I listen to that Echolyn album I wonder how nice it could be
if only they didn't play digital keyboards and have this overall sterile
sound. They are such good players, but I can hardly listen to the album
from beginning to end because of the sound. (And they could be a little
less verbose in their lyrics (;->) )

Slightly related: There's a song from Spock's Beard (if you don't know
them, make sure you check out their first album "The Light") called
"Gibberish". It's much like Gentle Giant's vocal acrobatics a la "Knots".
The studio version is excellent. In a live version I've heard, the original
instruments (I think I remember a Wurlitzer) are replaced by a thin ROMpler
sound, so the live version sounds much less alive than the studio version.

JH.

-------------------------------------------------
debitel.net Webmail

OK, I'll bite... :)

With Gentle Giant being mentioned by multiple members, I thought
I'd throw Saga into the mix.  Saga was heavily influenced by GG
in the early days and you can hear the similarities.

Great keyboard player (Jim Gilmour) and great use of Moog, CS-80,
and (later) PPG.  Highly recommended.

mark meier