Stairway to Eleven Episode #27: Party Like It's 1999

00:00:00There's a podcast that's sure all that rocks hard is gold. And they're climbing the stairway to 11. When they get to there they know the record stores are all closed. But online they can get what they came for.

00:00:33And they're streaming

00:00:35The Stairway to 11

00:00:39Hello and welcome to Stairway to 11. My name is George.

00:00:43This is John. And I'm TR.

00:00:46And today on episode 27, we are going to talk about some of our favorite albums from the year 1999.

00:00:54Now whenever I hear 1999, I think of Prince.

00:00:58And while Prince did have an album in 1999, it was not the album 1999. So. I don't think a Prince would think of 1999. Kind of erotical. Oh, you say 1999. That's all I think about is Prince. I think about the world ending based on digits. Yeah. There was that. There was that. I remember staying up and watching for when, what was it?

00:01:28New Zealand and Australia, the time changes. Like, well, if they go under, we're all going under. Yeah, I did that too. I was like, they're alive. They made it. We survived. And I was like, oh, wait a minute. We got like 20 hours for this to get screwed up on my end. Still, it was like the Al Capone's vault of the 20th century, you know? Fine by me, man. Yeah. Fine by me. I totally didn't care that nothing came of

00:01:58Yeah, maybe it should have happened, and maybe we wouldn't be dealing with this AI bullshit right now.

00:02:03Yeah, who knows.

00:02:05AI is going to become the new Steel Panther for me.

00:02:07Uh-oh.

00:02:07Oh, boy, here we go.

00:02:12All right, so we thought it had been a while since we'd done an episode about a particular year, and it seemed like a fun thing to do, so here we are doing 1999.

00:02:25And I'm going to kick it over to TR to start us off.

00:02:28All right. So I'm actually gonna, something I typically don't do is go like in reverse order. Uh, but I think I'm gonna do that this time because I, I ranked them even though this probably isn't a strict ranking and I probably would change my mind. But anyway, uh, I, I picked 10 albums and my 10th album is an album. Probably neither of you has heard of, and it's called the John Faye power trip. Um, so if you're a

00:02:58It was May of 1999 when I went to the Theater of Living Arts in Philadelphia with my then-girlfriend to see the John Faye Power Trip. I was surprised to see Cliff Hillis playing guitar in the band as I knew him from his other band, Starbelly. This is power pop, and the whole album rocks. It's got catchy songs, clever lyrics, great energy, and the actual... John Faye is the leader of the band and the songwriter, and

00:03:28It was his power trip. And so he later formed a band called Ike and released music in the duo John and Brittany and then solo as John Fay. His new album, The Long Game, was released last year and he still got it. So John Fay Power Trip is my number 10 album for 1999. Right on. John, can you do 10?

00:03:58of mine are on TR's list. Hey, I specifically avoided

00:04:03one that I knew

00:04:05I wasn't going to take that one from you. I'm still sure. So I may have to

00:04:08wing it towards the end. Well, we'll see.

00:04:11I have a long list of honorable mentions, but I don't have

00:04:14anything about them. I just have them listed. That's all.

00:04:16Well, that's all I've got is a list. So I'm

00:04:19frantically going, okay, what are 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10?

00:04:22But I have like 20-odd on here,

00:04:24so I'll be fine.

00:04:26Yeah, I have 10 written up, and we'll just see how it goes. Where should I start first? Because I don't have them ranked, because there's one album at the top, and then there's everybody else in 1999. I wonder what that is. That's the one I didn't mention. Yeah, 1999 is one of my big years. You know, I'm going to start with a big-name band. Do it. First off, there's a common theme for a majority.

00:04:56of my 10 that I have here. And that is, there's some connection to them being the fourth or fifth release by a band. And I didn't stumble onto this theme until I went through and say, huh, that's weird. This is also a fourth album. This is a fifth album. And I went through, I was like, six of my 10 are like that. So I didn't plan on it. It just worked out that way. But I'll start with this one, which is actually the fourth album from this band.

00:05:26It's actually called Number Four. And that is Stone Temple Pilots and their album, Number Four. I remember that one. Yeah, I was a fan of this band Up Through Four. I kind of faded with them after that, I think. And I liked each one of those albums for distinctly different reasons, because all four are kind of different from each other. They are. It's very interesting. It's kind of cool. Although this album kind of is a combination of

00:05:56the first three and it's some new stuff on it but it's an album that came out later in the year October of 99. I would say this is um it gets listed still as a grunge album I don't think it really is it's more just kind of like an alternative rock hard rock album I think there's there's quite a few mellow songs on this album and there's quite a few heavy heavy hitters big time I think it's probably their most underrated album this album seems to take a lot of heat for some reason I'm not sure why

00:06:25I guess everyone wants core purple every album and there's a reason why core and purple are what they are so but that's just my opinion on it but I think it's sorry I forgot I would go I guess I'd go one more I forgot about tiny music tiny music which is a really good album really good I think it's a forgotten album actually of the four I think number four is closer to tiny music don't you think probably yeah and so

00:06:55I would say two and four are my favorites. Sorry, two. Purple and Tiny are my favorites. Actually, for whatever reason, I know I like four, but it's I don't for whatever reason, it fell through the cracks and I never listened to it all that much. But I remember liking it when I heard it. Yeah, I think that's probably for a lot of people. I think a lot of people didn't like that. Oh, it's the same thing you're doing over and over. I'm like, really? I think every album is almost kind of different than the previous. So for whatever reasons, they got

00:07:25got this tag grunge. They got tagged as a Stone Temple pilot or a Pearl Jam ripoff. But if anyone knows their history and anyone who watched Beavis and Butthead back then knows that Eddie Vedder used to live in San Diego where Stone Temple pilots are from. And a lot of those songs off of core were demoed long before Pearl Jam's first album ever came out. So you go pound sand people. And once he wasn't able to copy Stone Temple pilots anymore,

00:07:54All the Pearl Jam albums sucked. Just saying. I honestly cannot. I mean, I guess I'm glad for them that they're still around and all. But I can't imagine how they keep putting out music when after like the first three albums, everything sucks hard. Yeah, I'm not a big fan. It's like first three I like. Yeah, I agree. I'm like, oh, let me buy another album of songs with no hooks. It just rambles. And then.

00:08:25I don't get it. I've tried so many times to go back and get into some of those mid to late albums and I just don't get them. It's too bad too because I think both guitarists are really good. I think they're solid to good players. They know what their strengths are and they use them really well. And I actually like Eddie Vedder. I mean, you know, I'll pick on him, but you know, I don't really truly have any beef with him other than the fact that I keep buying his music and it doesn't,

00:08:54I'm not enjoying it. So quick sidebar, if I can remember, I'll send it to you guys. I ran into this guy who was dressed up like in a, he had like a sport coat on and a dress shirt, but no tie. And he was how fans who are not Bob Dylan fans here, Bob Dylan, how fans here, Bruce Springsteen are not Bruce Springsteen fans. And he's singing into a mic and the music's playing in the background. He's just like, just like that. And I'm like, holy smokes, that's exactly what I'm doing.

00:09:25He's right. He's right. And then he, I think he does Eddie Vedder too. It's like, even flow. And then the only words you hear are even flow. Something about a butterfly. And then he, he does Bob Dylan, which is, and it's, and it's, and it's, and it's, and it's like, oh my God, this guy's awesome. And he sounds just like them too. So anyway. Yeah. So back to the album real quick. I think it's a really cool album of, like I said, very hard, heavy,

00:09:54with a lot of alternative mellow songs. Songs like Down, Heaven, and Hot Rods, and No Way Out are really cool heavy songs, but then they have these kind of cool mellow alt-rock vibe songs like Sour Girl, which I hadn't listened to in a while, and I went back and was like, man, it's a great song. It's the song Glide, I Got You. I love the whole album. The last song, Atlanta, is awesome. Although, albeit I think it's a little forgotten or it's a little underrated in their catalog, but that would be my first one.

00:10:23One that I spun a lot in 1999. Nice. Double pilots number four. All right. So for my number 10 album, I'm going way out of like the district and the state and going all the way up to Michigan. For Mr. Eminem.

00:10:54And his breakout second album, The Slim Shady LP. I didn't know you were an Eminem fan. I have gotten more so in the last year or two. His most recent album, I thought was really good. It's freaking crazy. And that's what I like about him. He's, you know, it's not just that he's like the white guy rapper. I like black guy rappers too. Actually, they don't even think of him like that. He earned so much credit for how good he is.

00:11:23is. And I don't listen to stuff, but I know that he's respected for being badass.

00:11:28He is just crazy. And, you know, the Slim Shady stuff. And on this one, My Name Is Role Model and Guilty Conscience were the singles. And it's just like, it's nuts, you know. And I actually first finally decided I liked him when there was the song from 8 Mile. That like one moment, I'm going to take my shot song. I was like, that's a really cool song.

00:11:53Do you like that movie? It's alright. Yeah, I thought it was decent. Yeah. I liked

00:12:01I liked

00:12:02I liked, what's his name, send up of

00:12:06you know

00:12:07Weird Al's send up

00:12:09of the

00:12:11what's it, Amish Paradise, I think.

00:12:13Yeah, that's not

00:12:15Eminem, but

00:12:17No, but like it was that 8 Mile

00:12:19Wasn't that an 8 Mile?

00:12:21Was that song? Oh!

00:12:24I think that was from... Oh, no, you're right. It was a different movie. But it was like around that time, wasn't it? Yeah. I don't know. I'm sorry because this is not my milieu, but it just... Anyway, that's what I thought about. I just saw the movies here. Not mine either. Dangerous Minds, I believe. Okay, all right. So I'm off base, but that's what... And that was in 95.

00:12:52Oh, wow. Okay. Way earlier. Okay. That's what I was reminded of. Yeah. But, uh, I don't, he's just got such a distinct voice, even though it's can be vaguely annoying if you listen to it long enough. Um, it just, it sticks out to me and I'm like, yeah, all right. You know, this guy really knows what he's doing. Well, yeah. And he's not like a suck up. He's, he says what he's thinking and I appreciate that. So. Well, in a rapid fire manner too. Like I remember, I remember,

00:13:22hearing some of those tracks and thinking,

00:13:24I don't know how this guy can say all this physically.

00:13:27Oh yeah.

00:13:28In at that speed.

00:13:30Yep.

00:13:31That is,

00:13:32that is a skill for sure.

00:13:34Yeah.

00:13:35So,

00:13:36but this will be my only hip hop album on this list.

00:13:40I can tell you right now,

00:13:41George.

00:13:42I,

00:13:42you just took away my number one.

00:13:44If on my list,

00:13:46Oh,

00:13:47on my list.

00:13:48So if you're here to hear the hip hop,

00:13:50uh,

00:13:51to 11 podcast. You can leave now. I'm done. Wait. Although I am hip hop adjacent. I mean, it's not like he's not going to be in the rock and roll hall of fame at some point. Well, exactly. Of course. Well, well, other other rock and roll acts are dying in squalor somewhere. Yeah. That belong in there. Kind of surprised he's not already. I mean, well, actually, yeah, that started in the 90s. So he's. Yeah, you would think he is. Although.

00:14:22It's got to be 25 years. It's been at least 27. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is his second album and it came out in 99, so. Yeah. He'll be in. Yeah. Alrighty. Well, back to you, TR. All right. Well, my number nine is a band that I've talked about in the past and it is Mogwai. Mogwai. The album is Come On, Die Young.

00:14:57The Hawk Is Howling. But this is definitely a good album. It's got a bunch of mostly mellow tracks on this. And again, I don't dislike this album. It's not my favorite, but it's a very good album. But yeah, Mogwai, Come On Die Young, and that's my number nine.

00:15:21Cool.

00:15:23Nothing to say about it?

00:15:25Well, not a lot, because again, like I said, there's just not really, I mean, it's a good album. A lot of the songs are pretty mellow.

00:15:34Now, were you into this when it came out, or did you circle back to it?

00:15:38Yeah, kind of circle back to it. So this wasn't one I spun a lot in 99. I didn't really find out about them until probably sometime in the early 2000s.

00:15:48So it's not like it was

00:15:51Unlike

00:15:52Well, there

00:15:53Let's see

00:15:54Like my top five

00:15:58Were albums

00:15:59Well, almost five

00:16:01Were albums that

00:16:03I had at the time

00:16:05And really got into at that time

00:16:08But some of these are albums

00:16:10That I kind of discovered later

00:16:12That happened to come out in 1999

00:16:14Where I, you know

00:16:19I certainly did not know about them in 1999. I didn't really get into that whole post-rock movement until well into the 2000s. So I had no idea that these guys even existed or that kind of music was around in 1999. Certainly if I had known, I probably would have been all over it.

00:16:45And again, this is a very good album. And I kind of wish I did know about this back then, because it would have been kind of cool to have an introduction to this music and know about it kind of before I found out about these other bands. These guys were really kind of at the beginning of, not the very beginning, but certainly in that first wave of post-its.

00:17:17that kind of set the stage for a lot of these other bands that I actually got into that I really liked in the early 2000s that, you know, not that they wouldn't have existed without Mogwai, but certainly Mogwai kind of paved some of that road for some of those guys. So anyway, that's just my two cents about it. But yeah, this was not an album I listened to in 1999.

00:17:44I'm sure I've got some on my list too, same thing. I know for a fact I do. But most of these I did listen to when they came out in 99. All right. So again, not in any order. I'm just randomly picking and waiting to see how long before I have to start digging deeper. So my ninth one that I'm going to talk about is an album that probably,

00:18:14Nobody really knows about. Maybe TR's heard of them. I don't know if George, if you have. Nope. And I can tell you they're not getting in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Just saying. However, as musicians, they should be. So my band is an international band that hails from both Norway and the U.S. Although I think the U.S. member was already just living in Europe.

00:18:43And so that is the band ARK. And the album is called ARK. And it came out in 1999. And ARK is made up on this album of three band members. One being, I'll say his name wrong, Tor Oatsby, who was the guitarist in the band Conception from Norway. John Macaluso, who is a drummer from the US, but has played in bands like TNT, Yngwie Malmsteen, and a gazillion other.

00:19:13bands. And then Yorn Laundi, who is a credible singer. Yes. Who for years, I tried to fight the comparison to David Coverdale. And I finally just gave in and said, yeah, he sounds like David Coverdale. And then now I'm like, he's a thousand times better than David Coverdale. But he's also 20 years younger. But if you don't know who Yorn Laundi is, he's got his own band called Yorn. He's in this thing called Alan and Laundi. Oh, I know him. Yeah, I'm sure you've heard him. I mean, he's a ton of stuff beyond Twilight, Master Plan.

00:19:43Etcetera, et cetera, et cetera. And I heard about them because they were playing Prog Power. And I picked up the album and or listened to them, whatever the minimal places we could listen to online. And I saw them, I think at 2000 at Prog Power. They're just this great progressive metal band that doesn't follow the template that was set in the early nineties, you know, by bands like Dream Theater.

00:20:14which became like the if you're gonna play like um they were the van halen of you know heart of

00:20:21progressive metal everyone wanted to sound like them and thankfully there were bands that weren't doing

00:20:25that not that i didn't like that it's just you want something different sometimes this band

00:20:30definitely brings something different it's like a darker version of conception if you could say that

00:20:36it's a little heavier and you've got this guy who sounds like david coverdale from white snake

00:20:43And Deep Purple, too. And it's amazing stuff. Tor Oatsby is... I can never say his name right. I think that's how you say it. He's just a phenomenal guitar player that I think more people should know about, but they don't. It features classical guitar playing, flamingo playing. It's heavy. The drumming is great. People kind of beat on the production. They give it a bad rap. But apparently, the album is all the pre-production demos.

00:21:13that they were so satisfied with that, that they just released those as is, or almost as is, which is pretty rare. A lot of people like their second album better because they added two more musicians to it. But I think this album's good. And I got to see him play, you know, half of this album. And yeah, I got to see the guitarist pull out his classical guitar and jam on a classical guitar and then rip into some heavy soloing on his electric. And so, yeah, arc.

00:21:43with the self-titled arc was released sometime in 99 and then again in 2000. It's one of those things at that time when there was a lot of labels that were releasing stuff, you know, like in Europe first, like a month or two months or in Japan first. Or it might be, it was the States had it earlier and there was never any consistent dates back then. But this did come out in 99 on Century Records, actually, from our friend Ken Golden at Laser's Edge. Yeah. Cool.

00:22:13All righty. My number nine. John's going to go, I called this one. This is a metal album. This is the eighth album from Testament called The Gathering. Nice. This is a bit of an anomaly in the Testament catalog because the only original members are Chuck Billy and Eric Peterson. Well, who's filling out the band, you might ask?

00:22:43I was just about to say that George

00:22:45well some players

00:22:47well okay guys well you've got Dave Lombardo on drums from a little bit you might have called Slayer and everyone else yeah and everyone else and then I don't know two of the guys that have been in death

00:23:00what James Murphy and Steve DiGiorgio

00:23:05what I know right I can't believe it's not Potter I can't believe it's not Death Slayer

00:23:10I'm not gonna argue with that lineup might be their best lineup ever talent wise right and wait there's more it was engineered was co-produced by Chuck and Eric but who engineered it well James Murphy engineered it but who else engineered it Andy Sneep what what what I can't even go high enough to get the proper what okay there you go thank you

00:23:40Yeah, so, I mean, how could you not like this album? Other than, you know, it's a little heavier than most Testament albums. But... That's saying something, right? Yeah, I mean, you know, they're a thrash band, but I mean, they did go through this a little bit of a vaguely death period. Yeah. Like Demonic and The Gathering, and they were a little bit heavier, because Demonic had Hoagland on it. Oh. So, yeah. Yeah. Had a plethora of good musicians during that period. Would you say...

00:24:10I have a plethora of good musicians. Yes. Okay. That's a Three Amigos joke there. Thank you very much. Nope. Nobody's wearing any hats though. You need the visual there. I can't see. Yeah. George just reenacted the scene from Three Amigos where they turn their head and cough. Alrighty. Yep. That's a good

00:24:40I picked that's good album. Yeah. Yeah. I saw that. I was like, well, okay. It wasn't, you know, I made a top five. It wasn't in there. But as soon as he said, he's got 10, I'm like, boom, you're making it in there. All right. Back to TR. Okay. Well, this next album is by a guitarist that I think we all know and love. And this is a solo album he did. It's called Away With Words. And the guitarist is,

00:25:10Jim Matheus from Fates Warning. Who? Yeah. Kidding. It's the second solo album from the Fates Warning guitarist. A pretty mellow affair. Acoustic guitars with violin work provided by Charlie Bichara. Bass by Michael Manring. And drums from fellow Fates Warning drummer Mark Zonder. The album was mixed by Terry Brown of Rush fame. If all you know of Jim Matheus is Fates Warning, you owe it to yourself to check out this release, to hear

00:25:40the creative diversity of this genius. So this is a pretty mellow album and kind of like not what you would expect to hear from him if you are only familiar with Fate's Warning, but if you like instrumental and so it's kind of a joke title because it's like away with words, meaning like not a way with words, it's away, like away, go away.

00:26:09Begone Words. Yes, Begone Words, because there are no words on this album. It's a completely instrumental album. And so it's different, you know, if you have never really... I mean, you hear hints of what he does in Fate's Warning, because there are various mellow parts or other things, like there are certain things that he does where this stuff shouldn't come as a surprise.

00:26:38And if you know some of his other material from OSI and other places where, I mean, even though a lot of that's kind of heavy, they're just kind of things that are uniquely Jim Matheos that are on this album. And so anyway, I recommend it. It's a very good album. It's probably, I mean, nowadays you can find anything anywhere, but at the time this was kind of hard to find. But anyway, yeah, Jim Matheos, Away With Thee.

00:27:08Right on. Nice. Most of his stuff outside of Fate's Warning and OSI is very post-rockish, ambient. It's mellow. It's acoustic guitar. He doesn't really go crazy in a lot of his outside of those two bands, I would say. So, I mean, Archmotheos to me is really just another version of Fate's Warning. Yeah, exactly. It's heaven and hell. Yeah.

00:27:38It really is.

00:27:40Yeah.

00:27:41I mean, and I don't, and I like having that as part of the Fates Warning, you know, what, the Sography, Lexicon, whatever you want to call it.

00:27:50You know, it's part of their aesthetic as far as I'm concerned.

00:27:53Oh, yeah.

00:27:53I mean, he's, as the sole, you know, one of the main writers in that group, I mean, it's hard to, it would be hard to pull it apart.

00:28:01I mean, obviously, the tonality of the singers is completely different, and the style of their vocal delivery is different, but musically, it's... To the main guys from the first three albums, Fates of Mornings. Yeah, exactly. That's why I look at it. All right, so time for my eighth album, and I'm going with a live album here, which I haven't been doing. Ooh, okay. But I am for this, because I really feel like this is a great live album for various reasons.

00:28:32from a band that I was really into at the time and for a few years after that, which I have not really been into for the last 20 years because it just became too much. But my next pick is the album Alive on Planet Earth by the band The Flower Kings, which is a progressive rock band out of Sweden that has a lot of retro sounds to them, but they're also kind of a forward-moving

00:29:02in the progressive rock slash symphonic prog sound. So think yes, but on a modern sound or a modern take. And modern prog really is not modern prog anymore. Because modern prog started like in 1990. Which is really kind of weird. So now there's modern prog, then there's modern post-2000 prog.

00:29:31It's hard when that stuff was 35 years ago. Yeah, it's crazy. Oh, man. You know, you just get so crestfallen when you start counting the time. Yeah. And this album is, it's two discs. It's recorded all around the world. The first disc recorded in two different places in the U.S. and the second disc recorded in Japan, including one as Prog Day, which I've never gone to Prog Day in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. But it's outdoors. I probably would, you know,

00:30:01get sunburned and get cancer from it because I have fair skin.

00:30:06That's a personal joke. That's not, I'm not being serious.

00:30:10But I probably would get red like a lobster out there.

00:30:12So I'm probably glad I didn't go to Prague day, but just,

00:30:16I think it's a really good representation of the band up to that point in their career.

00:30:21Technically they only had three albums out at this point,

00:30:25but it really is four because the first album is actually Royne Stolt,

00:30:30who's the main person from the Flower Kings. He put out an album called The Flower King a year before the first technical Flower Kings album came out. Kind of sounds like Derek Sherinian a little bit with Planet X. Same thing. But it's all the same players. And so it's almost like it's a Flower Kings album. But they cover all the best stuff from those albums. Those first three or four albums, however you want to say it.

00:30:59There's a great cover of The Lamb Lies Down at Broadway by Genesis. They do an actual song from the keyboardist Tomas Boden, one of his solo albums. They do a song from that. There is a cover of a, is it Kaipa? Is that how you said the name? It's an old progressive rock band from the 70s that Royn Stolt was in, in Sweden. They do a cover from that. And like I said, two of the songs are from his solo album that came before the Falcons, but it's technically that.

00:31:29I read a comment that the album's all killer, no filler, and it's true. It's a long two-discs. No Flower King's album is short, ever. Ever. And that's the reason why I don't listen to them that much anymore, because it got to be too much. But if you're a fan of Genesis and Yes, Camel, from the 70s, and if you like bands like Spock's Beard, and of course, if you know who Transatlantic is, because Roy and Stoltz in Transatlantic,

00:31:58It has a lot of that feel, but it's one of the few live albums I go back to all the time because I just like the renditions of the songs. I like the songs they picked for it. And it just takes me back to that period when I first heard it. I was like, oh man, this is great. And I really was into this band. But, you know, after every double disc, you know, and every disc is like 75 minutes long, you're like, what is going on here, man? You know, they're incredible live. They're really good band live. You know?

00:32:29They are a big name still in the prog world. A lot of younger prog fans than me really like them a lot because of the connection to Transatlantic, which is like a super prog group, which features members from Dream Theater and Marillion and Spock's Beard and obviously Flower King. Anyway, I picked one live album just because I really like everything on there. And I was really into them during this period.

00:32:58Excellent. All right. My number eight. Don't worry. You're not going to have to strike this one off your list. This is the fifth album from Typo Negative called World Coming Down. I love me some Typo Negative. I miss me some Peter Steele. However, this is not one of my favorite albums. Although,

00:33:28I mean, I like them all pretty well, but you know, like Bloody Kisses or October Roast probably hang a little higher than this one, but it does have some songs that I do like. They're happy songs and just in time for the holidays. The first one that I really dig on here is Everyone I Love is Dead. Not to be outdone by the single from the album, Everything Dies.

00:33:58So, um, yeah, you may have heard that one. I don't know. Slightly darker album. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but, uh, yeah, given, given the, uh, small amount of material that we ultimately got from typo negative and Peter Steele at this point, it's all gold. So. And one of the, I would say godfathers of the kind of gothic metal sound. Oh, absolutely. And with a male singer. Yeah.

00:34:28time because it flipped quickly right after them. I can't do his voice justice so I'm going to try this out. Everyone I love is dead. Pretty close. That's my Peter Steele impersonation. Wow. Yeah they were the American version I guess of what Paradise Lost and Anathema for the clean side of vocals. They don't sound anything like each other. I'm not saying that. No. Just saying

00:34:58All the gothic metal stuff was coming out of England, and yet here we have a band from the U.S.

00:35:03It's interesting that they ended up in that place because they started out as a hardcore punk band.

00:35:10Isn't it?

00:35:10You know?

00:35:11They kind of just slowly drifted into that.

00:35:13Yeah, I don't know.

00:35:14I mean, Bloody Kisses, as I recall, was the first album that wasn't really hardcore punk.

00:35:22You know, oh God, I'm so old, I can't remember things.

00:35:27Slow, Deep, and Hard, The Origin of the Feces. You know, those were... In case you hadn't heard that one before. Yeah, no, I hadn't heard that. Those were... He said hard. He said feces. Yeah, so with Bloody Kisses, you know, they completely changed their style, and it really took off for them, you know, with Black Number One and Christian Woman and some of those other ones.

00:35:58And so, you know, seeing a good thing, knowing a good thing when they see it, or seeing a good thing when they know it.

00:36:06I think it works both ways. I don't know.

00:36:08They said, hey, this goth thing might work out. Let's do some more of that.

00:36:11Let's get on this train. Yeah.

00:36:13Just a little bit. And of course, it's so funny, too, because the album cover from Bloody Kiss is so goth. I don't know what to say. You know, the two women on the cover?

00:36:22Yeah.

00:36:23It just kind of spoke for that period.

00:36:25Oh yeah, he was, he was definitely, you know, uh, pandering to his audience there.

00:36:31Just a little.

00:36:33But, uh, yeah, you gotta love it. I gotta, I gotta love it. You don't have to love it, but I do.

00:36:41All right.

00:36:41Very cool.

00:36:42Yes.

00:36:43All right.

00:36:44All right. So number seven, um, this is a debut album from, uh, a band that was really

00:36:55Mostly one dude, but he actually did make a band. And it is all India radio, and the album is The Inevitable. As I said, the debut album from this lo-fi, chill, down-tempo Australian instrumental band led by Martin Kennedy. Many have compared the guitar work to that of Ennio Morricone and Angelo Badalamenti. If you're looking for chilled-out music, this is for you.

00:37:24Sweet.

00:37:25Yeah, so, you know, John, I know you're a big Boards of Canada fan. This stuff isn't quite like that, but it's kind of got that same kind of feel and ambient kind of sound. And they just released their newest album literally like a week ago or at the end of October. Literally. Called the Unified Field. And it's excellent. So they just continued to get better and better.

00:37:55This is a very good album to start off, but they even made themselves better along the way. So if you like that kind of thing and you check it out, go listen to their, not only listen to this, but listen to their latest album, Unified Field, because it's really good. So yeah, All India Radio and The Inevitable is the debut album. That's my number seven.

00:38:25Nice. Nice. All right. I'm going to go to a very dark place, like depressingly dark with my next album. Oh, you could do in type of negative too. Okay. And it's not Catatonia either. Yeah. But it's a band that is part of the surge of gothic metal bands that came out of England.

00:38:55However, this album has zero goth-related listening points. My next album is Anathema Judgment from the English band, part of the Peaceville Three with My Dying Bride and Paradise Lost. By this point, and this is their fifth album, we're back to the theme of four or five albums. At this point, they were pretty much doing alternative rock, hard rock kind of things.

00:39:25And we're becoming progressive now at this point. But up to this, they ran the gamut from Death Doom to Gothic Metal to Slit Your Rest Metal, because that's what this pretty much is, this album. It is so depressing. It's really hard to listen to this album, but it's unbelievably gorgeous at the same time, the songs. Songs like Deep, Pitiless, which I've seen them play both those times.

00:39:55songs a few times. Make it right. And in parentheses, FFS, which means what it means. Yeah. Yeah. Really? Uh, the song one last goodbye, which is extremely hard to listen to them play that live when they're doing the song, I believe about their mother passing away. Uh, it's just brutally hard, uh, of an album. Uh, they, they were kind of a band that had some issues for a number of years and they, they

00:40:25and became like prog darlings at some point like all the prog nerds got into them big time and i was like yeah really have you listened to the silent enigma yet have you listened to alternative four i don't want to hear it um no i i love this album and i still when i go back and listen to it it's kind of an album you have to listen to it from start to finish it's the first album for the for them without a core member duncan patterson who kind of brought the uh

00:40:55the other style of darkness, you know, through the heavier side. I had the good fortune of seeing them in England twice. I saw them when they were opening for Porcupine Tree. I've seen them in the States a number of times. I was very lucky to hang out with Vinny from the band once after a show at a bar. They played the TLA. T.R., I think you were there. Yes, I was there. Yeah. That was a good time. And that was them.

00:41:24I think just him and his brother right too yeah just them on acoustic guitars I believe right yeah and he hung out with us for I don't know how many hours yeah like we were all just hanging out and he was he couldn't have been nicer yeah you know and uh and nobody in the venue knew we were over there it was right next to the venue so it was very cool but it's if you want to get into kind of the depressing side of prog rock at that time they would and it's really not necessarily prog rock but you could hear

00:41:55They really blew up. They went from this to happy prog. Uplifting prog. They were like, hey, this is too dark. We gotta turn this ship around like you said. Then I'm just like, oh, come on, man. This is too happy. The hell. Where's the depressing stuff? Yeah. What happened to all those songs like A Dying Wish and all that crap? Where's that? So anyway, that's my seventh pick.

00:42:24Anathema. And of course, great title. Judgment.

00:42:27Yes. And you know, in case I haven't said it before, I just want to thank you every episode for making sure that the prophecy doesn't come true. Sorry, you know the prophecy, right? Go ahead, tell us the prophecy. What is the prophecy? Okay, well, it's a good thing. I guess we better get this on here then. Yeah.

00:42:51So there's a prophecy called the cryptic foretelling of the end. It's one of those, you know, end of the world kind of prophecies. And surprisingly, it involves us. Here now the riddle whispered in ruined halls, scratched in the margins of a forgotten set list. When the stairway climbs to 11, three voices shall anchor the turning world. But should they gather one dark circle and speak

00:43:21No word of the progrot ones. No saga of shifting meters. No hymn of cosmic odysseys. Then tremble, for the final chord is struck. When prog is absent, the end is present. Let no episode pass in silence, lest the world fade between beats. So, thank you for making sure that doesn't happen. Yeah, well, George, there's plenty more to go, and so you didn't have to worry much. No, no, no.

00:43:52We're only on album number seven here. I know. It only gets better. Yeah. All right. Well, if you're starting to sweat, you know, about the end of the earth, don't worry, because we got it covered. Just keep that in mind for your future episodes. We want to make sure the world keeps spinning. All right. Because you're not going to find any on my list. That's for darn sure. My number seven is an English rock band formed in Liverpool.

00:44:21The Pool. What? In 1978. So it's not The Beatles. And it's not Anathema. And it's not Anathema. It's Echo and the Bunny Man. I knew it! And their eighth album, What Are You Going to Do With Your Life? I want to rock. Exactly. Formed in 1978, did I say that?

00:44:51Yeah, that's what she said. Yeah. But I did not, while I was aware of the band in the 80s, I was too metal to give it the time of day. And so it wasn't until 1999, 21 years after the band started, that I finally listened to an album and it was, what are you going to do with your life? You know, I was kicking the can down the street, hot up, down on my luck. And somebody threw a copy of this album at me.

00:45:21and said, what are you going to do with your life? And of course, as you said, I want to rock. And yeah, no, but I picked this up and I was like, hey, this is kind of good. And so this was my intro to Echo and the Bunnymen. As such, I felt it needed to be represented here. That's really funny because so I do this rock trivia night once a month on the first Wednesday of every month at a place called

00:45:51Double Groove Brewing. There's a guy that comes in, his name's Mike, and he's the trivia host. And he does a bunch of rock trivia questions and we all compete. And he's a big Rush fan, but he's also a big Echo and the Bunnymen fan. Nice. And so I remember the name of this band, but I literally know nothing else about them other than I did find out

00:46:21you know based on these questions that he's asked like he asked these questions and like literally nobody knows anything about echo and the bunny man or sometimes a few people do but like and so it just cracks me up because like because of this rock trivia night and the questions like i have to bone up on my echo and the bunny man stuff before i go every month because i know there's going to probably be a question about this stuff and um and so that's that's my that's

00:46:51That's my Echo and the Bunnymen, you know, tale. Yeah. I wouldn't exactly call them goth, but they might be goth adjacent or something to that effect. I don't know. I mean, were they like, I mean, were they kind of new wave? Yeah. Like, were they new wave kind of sound? I thought, like, I mean, rock too. I mean, like early 80s British post-punk rock, maybe. Yeah. I don't know. But by the time you get to this album in 1999, it's just kind of a chill rock music.

00:47:20And so if you were going to, you know, like say TR was like, maybe I should listen to some Echo and the Bunyanmen. What are you going to do with your life would be a good place to start. What are you going to do with your life? Because, you know, it's, it's a pretty easy lesson. So. All right. Well, I got to put that on my list so that, you know, I can, you can surprise Mike with a little. Yeah, exactly. I'll be like, dude, what are you going to do with your life? Oh yeah. Echo and the Bunyanmen.

00:47:50on your lips when you do it.

00:47:54John knows a thing or two.

00:47:56Oh, yeah.

00:47:58That's why he's in this group.

00:48:00Yeah.

00:48:01Okay.

00:48:04So number six.

00:48:06Number six.

00:48:07It's another instrumental album, folks.

00:48:10I'm pretty sure.

00:48:11He hates the lyrics.

00:48:13Yeah.

00:48:15So much that he wasn't even wanting anybody to sing them.

00:48:18Of the four albums I've already covered,

00:48:20Three of them were instrumental. So here's another one. And this album is by the band Karma to Burn. And this album is called Wild Wonderful Purgatory. This is the second album from this mostly instrumental West Virginia band. This is their first fully instrumental album after their record company forced them to put vocals on their debut album. Their song titles are numbers in the order that they wrote them.

00:48:50So don't go looking for any meaningful names to the songs because they're all like 20, 22, 30. So they write heavy, hard-driving instrumental songs. And this album really rocks. To me, this is the best incarnation of this band, just guitar, bass, and drums. And I was lucky enough to see them in 2010 when they opened for the Sword at the TLA in Philadelphia.

00:49:20Purgatory. Just an album full of hard drive and rock tunes that are instrumental. Cool. How many albums do they have? I think it's only like six or seven. Well, actually, they did do a few in the 2010s. I'd have to look real quick. My reason for asking is if all their songs are named after numbers. Yeah, they got up into the 50s.

00:49:50Okay. Yeah. All right. Like their songs, like, uh, so by the time they got to, uh, so then what the reason I say, they have eight songs on the first album, those are numbered one through eight or whatever. No, no, no. They actually, so there were a lot of songs. So do they have repeating numbers? No, they don't have repeating numbers, but there are gaps because presumably some of these songs aren't good enough to make it. So, um, so there are gaps.

00:50:19And so by the time you get to. But the numbers go up every album, right? Oh, yeah. Because that would really suck if you went to a concert and you're looking on set list FM and you see like three listed like nine times. You're like, what album is it from? Wait a minute. No. So I mean, yeah. So by the time they got to 2016 and their EP called Mountains Czar, they were up to 60, 61, 62 and 63.

00:50:48But yeah, all their songs are literally numbers.

00:50:53Yeah.

00:50:54So, yeah.

00:50:56I mean, their first album, which was called Karma to Burn, had real titles, real names to their songs.

00:51:07There were a couple that were actually numbers, but they also had vocals on that first album, which, eh, you know me.

00:51:17I'm all about the instrumental stuff. So I was glad when they dispensed with the singer. Not that he was bad, but it's just like, to me, the songs just seem, I don't know, when you don't, not that their lyrics were terrible, but like when you put kind of lyrics with like rock and music, it just, it ruins it. And so they kept the rock and music and dumped the lyrics. And, you know,

00:51:47So anyway,

00:51:51Carmen to burn a wild,

00:51:53wonderful purgatory.

00:51:55And that's my number six.

00:51:58Coolio.

00:52:01All right.

00:52:02You don't get to be the only person talking about instrumental.

00:52:07Oh,

00:52:08I know what this is going to be.

00:52:09Cause it's on my list too.

00:52:11You sure about that?

00:52:12Maybe.

00:52:13All right.

00:52:14Maybe not.

00:52:14I have a lot of instrumental albums that came out.

00:52:16Okay.

00:52:17But I'm going to go with the one that

00:52:21kind of changed things for me, for my listening. There's two albums actually

00:52:25in this year that did that. But I'm going to go with this one first. This is the one I can't pronounce that well.

00:52:31So my album is from a band that literally no one who's listening to this podcast has heard of. I'm sure of it.

00:52:41TR is the only other person who's probably heard of it. Maybe George has heard me talking about them.

00:52:46This is a band that if you like instrumental music, you should listen to them. But I'm going to go ahead and say that you probably would never be ever in this realm. So this band used to be called Something Else. Then they changed their name, although both names are the same. Something Else is a strange name. I knew it. This is my number five. And I've waited a long time to get to this.

00:53:16We're going to match on, but my album is from a band called Morgable. Yes. Ben, the new Morgable land, which my French is terrible. That translates to welcome to Morgable land originally released by the band Z Morgable trio. Then they, but then they're French. Yeah. Then they decided, nah, we'll just go with the name Morgable that nobody knows how to spell. Yeah. Which is spelled M O R G.

00:53:46G-L-B-L.

00:53:47With an umlaut over there.

00:53:50Just for those of you that are like, wait, what did he say?

00:53:53Mouthful of marbles.

00:53:54What?

00:53:55That's the long version.

00:53:57Yes.

00:53:58Yeah.

00:53:58Or what it looks like when you're like, I don't know how to pronounce that.

00:54:02So this is a three-piece band that is from France that I had no clue who this band was until, you know, it's the late 90s.

00:54:11You're going to websites looking for music and people are posting like 30 second clips or 15 second or 20 second snippets of songs and you hear this and you're like, oh my god, I'm buying this. It's amazing. Then you get the album like, this album's crap. Like the best part is the snippet. That's happened to me a couple times. But not this album. Not this album. I heard the song Ben Viola, I think is how you say it. Or Ben Viola.

00:54:41which is just this. Oh yeah. Yeah. It's a Ben. Voila. Yeah. This crazy insane mixture of metal. It's proggy and it's jazz fusion all meshed together to make this jazz metal insanity from these three guys that are absolutely phenomenal musicians. The guitarist Christophe Godin.

00:55:12I never would say he's underrated. That's not fair. He's unknown. Because if you knew who he was and you heard him, you'd be like, what am I listening to? He is absolutely insane. He must have chosen the life to be able to do what he wants and play with who he wants and not succumb to a label because he should be more known.

00:55:41amongst fans of heavier music.

00:55:45This album, their first two albums are very heavy.

00:55:48Metal, heavy, I don't want to say heavy metal.

00:55:51They're heavy comma metal albums.

00:55:54They become more jazz fusion-y with metal in their later albums.

00:55:59But the first two, and with production, that's not great.

00:56:04It almost sounds like this album's live.

00:56:05Like they recorded it in the studio.

00:56:08I wouldn't doubt that that's what they did.

00:56:10It has a live feel. The snare drum just pops. The bass pops. It's just insane. I'm not even going to try to do any of the song titles. I've tried to look some of these words up in the French to English translations and those words don't even show up. I don't know. Some of them are kind of corruptions of French. It's like joking, tongue-in-cheek jokes of words. It's not slapstick, but they're a funny,

00:56:40But it's very serious. I've seen them live twice. And I've seen them in two small places. Like, so real quick story. I saw them. They were playing the Wednesday night Prog Power show, which was at an upstairs venue. It wasn't the main venue. They only had two bands. It was them and a cover band, Operation Mindcrime. And they were playing like two Queensryche albums. Anyway, no one cared about them when they started Morgable.

00:57:09And I was literally standing right in front of the stage. I didn't want to stand on top. I was about five feet back. And the place holds about 700, this version of, there's three venues where Prog Power has their event every year. Is that the loft? It's the loft. Yeah. Okay. By the time they were done, I was about 25 feet back because so many people all was like, well, who is this band? Yeah. And I'm looking around, I'm like, you fools. You fools. I've known about these

00:57:39guys since 99 and i was mad that i missed the first album i hunted for that album i could not find it anywhere until again we've mentioned his name earlier ken golden from laser's edge released this and the first album is a double disc he got a hold of it and he got the rights to it and released it in the states and now i think they're all this stuff has been released through him yeah so just insane but what this this band did for me is they kind of opened my eyes to the kind of

00:58:09A term that Derek Sherinian, former keyboardist, a Dream Theater coined, called Metal Fusion, which it is. It's Metal Fusion. Yeah. And it's just insane stuff. If you like instrumental jazz fusion and you like it heavy with metal, then this is a band to go to, especially the first two albums, because the first two are incredibly heavy. Riffage. There's a lot of riffage on it.

00:58:38When they get to the later albums, it becomes more

00:58:41free-flowing

00:58:42guitar playing. It sounds more like

00:58:44fusion. Still

00:58:46heavy, but it's a little different.

00:58:49And if you ever get to see

00:58:50them live, which you probably won't.

00:58:53Well, they really come over here.

00:58:54They hardly ever come over, and when they

00:58:56do come over, they only play the East Coast.

00:58:59Great stuff.

00:59:01John, if you don't mind,

00:59:02this was my number five, and I just have a

00:59:04couple of comments about this. Jump on it, man.

00:59:06I'm telling you this I love these guys so much and you're right every every one of the guys in the in this band not only on this album but on you know future albums extremely talented and and like you said the style runs from rock to funk to progressive to fusion to completely absurd I mean they're they're they're definitely French because there's some like goofy wacko stuff in there and it's a

00:59:36A little vaude-villish at times. Yes. And it's kind of like almost it's goofy, but like without being cheesy or over the top. Yeah. I don't know how to like, it's hard to describe, but it's kind of silly. But because the music is so good, it doesn't take away from that. It doesn't become like this goofball act. It's just... So an example, if you see them live, there'll be times when the guitarist will be playing this absolutely

01:00:06a heavy crushing riff, but he'll get in this like kind of squatting pose and puts his guitar between his legs. And he kind of puts like this Cro-Magnon look on his face. Like he looks like he's a Neanderthal and he pushes out his jaw. He pushes his chin out and he's like, yeah, like I can't. And he makes these weird gyration faces. And the whole time he's not missing a note. He's totally shredding it. Like he's destroying it. Yes. Destroying the guitar. And yet he looks like he looks like a Cro-Magnon man.

01:00:36But he is playing like a genius. Right. And he's in there with, and he's playing with like cargo shorts and a t-shirt. Exactly. They don't take themselves seriously at all. No. He's like a circus or a vaudeville showman, too, when he talks. He talks like, he's very French when he talks. He's like, and it's, he's hard not to like them. It really is. They are very lovable. And, you know, I guess you weren't at the Near Fest show.

01:01:06No, I saw them at Orion Studios with like 20 people. Oh, Orion. Oh my God. And then I saw them at Prog Power. Oh, man. It started out with just 20 of us and then like 500 people decided they wanted to watch. Well, let me tell you, I saw these guys at the... I've watched the... Art Rock Fest. I watched the video to it. Okay, yeah. So, Nier Fest in 2008. And, you know, I was blown away along with the whole rest of the audience who you could tell, like,

01:01:36Nobody knew who these guys were prior to this, but the minute they got done, everybody was completely in love with them. And at Near Fest, after the show, the bands would go upstairs and then you could line up and buy merch and get them to sign stuff and meet the band. Well, literally, everybody left the theater to run upstairs to get everything that you could buy from this band and meet them because they were all completely

01:02:06completely enthralled and this was one of the only bands i think that that they let do an encore because um typically at near fest bands didn't get to do encores but but they did just the headliner was the only one allowed yeah yeah but but they had an encore on this because everybody was so into it and just went bananas um do you remember his best quote from that night from that what at the afternoon he has a quote after they play a song and everyone's just going to go to the next one

01:02:36going crazy. And it's only like the third or fourth song. People are just cheering like nuts. He says, okay, relax. It's early. You don't want to hurt yourself this early in the day. Because literally everyone there is an old fart. Yeah, well, all the prog hobbits are bananas. And we say that because we're prog hobbits. We've gone. We are. I don't know how many times. Look, yeah. So they just, you know, speaking of more

01:03:06They released their last album in 2019, and then they went on to form a band called The Prize with Maggie Luton in 2020, which apparently just disbanded last year. And Christopher Godin released solo EPs Dancing in a Minefield Volumes 1 and 2 this year. So those are out there. If you look for him on Bandcamp, you can find his solo music.

01:03:33And I believe there's rumblings that... So there's... The bassist and him are the original members. They've had two drummers. The first incarnation of the band was the first two albums. Then they took like an eight or nine year break and they came back and it's been... It's with a different drummer. Ariel, who's insane how good he is. He's so good. So I think they're jamming again. I hope they get back together because honestly, like, the world needs another Morgobol.

01:04:05The world doesn't know it.

01:04:07Yeah, they don't know it, but they do.

01:04:09And I definitely need one.

01:04:12What the world needs now is love, sweet love.

01:04:15Yes, and George, you've probably been waiting patiently in your corner of me.

01:04:19Well, I have to say, my very first ever...

01:04:24Was it the first one or second one?

01:04:27Top 25 episode on the Metalheads podcast.

01:04:30They're on my list.

01:04:33George's response right now, but she's not saying anything, was literally everyone just staring at me when I'm talking about that. Well, yeah, you'd be on an island, you know. Oh, yeah, I wasn't even an island, dude. That was a raft from a sinking ship. Yeah, well, not on metalheads, although he is very metal. I mean, like, there's stuff that he is freaking, like, to me, like, if you like Joe Satriani, I've always said,

01:05:02He should have gone on one of these G3 tours. Without question. He should. Morgable should have been on a G3 tour. He's better than most of the opening acts on G3. Yeah. That would have been a perfect setting for that. That would have been perfect for that. And I really, I regret that that's never happened because like that would, I would, I would go to Europe for that if they were on the G3 bullet. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. I will say one last thing about him.

01:05:32Just to give you an idea of the kind of playfulness and silliness on stage, they do a metal swing, as in swing music, a metal swing version of Highway to Hell by ACDC, where he sings. I'm not even joking. It's like it's a swing version, but metalized. And you're like, is that even possible? How do they do it? Well, it is possible because Morgable's playing it. That's right. It's insane. So anyway. All right. So, gentle listener, if you're like,

01:06:02Oh my gosh, I'm having a Praga OD. I'm here for you. I got the cure for what ails you. Just in time for my next Hip Hop Adjacent album, we have the third and final studio album of original material by Rage Against the Machine, The Battle of Los Angeles. And before I say anything else,

01:06:32Tom, Zach, I don't know what the beef is, but we could really use you guys right about now. So the Battle of Los Angeles, as I mentioned, the third of four albums, the fourth album was Renegades, a covers album. And I've been listening to a lot of rage lately because of my rage problem. And, you know, shortly after

01:07:02Rage came out. I sort of kind of pushed them to the side because of all the other rap metal stuff that came out after Rage, inspired by Rage probably, that kind of bothered me a little bit. But in retrospect, Rage Against the Machine is a phenomenal and unique band. And the Battle of Los Angeles has three really good songs, aside from the Battle of Los Angeles.

01:07:32from everything else on the album, but three singles that were released. Gorilla Radio, which won the Grammy for Hard Rock Best Performance. Testify, which I would think just about anybody would have had trouble avoiding that song. And then one of my favorite rage songs, Sleep Now in the Fire. Oh, I thought you were going to say Calm Like a Bomb. Well, okay, that's stupid. It wasn't released. It is on there, yes, but it's not, it wasn't one of the singles apparently. But yeah.

01:08:02Yeah, I mean, I liked them at the time. The first album was amazing. It blew me away when it came out. Yeah, I remember just like being floored by that whole thing. Tom Morello is an amazing guitar player and, you know, the key to this band. He could be on a G3 tour. Just trying to make you guys relate a little. But yeah, love me some Rage Against the Machine.

01:08:31And this album, I saw this, I was like, yep, it's going on there. Yeah. So I know, probably not your thing, but I gotta be me. I gotta be me. George, I'm with you there. I have that album. All right. I pretty much have all their stuff, which is kind of out of place for me. Definitely. I will say, and I think on a previous episode, I talked at length about their debut album. Interesting.

01:09:02Yeah, I remember hearing that and just being completely floored. And it was unlike anything that had come out. I mean, nothing sounded like that. And I know, like, if you've listened to Tom Morello, like, in terms of, like, some of the guitar stuff he's capable of, he can shred like a metal guy, but he just chooses not to. Like, he does at times, and he can, but he, you know,

01:09:31chooses to kind of, he took a different path, which I, you know, I feel like, you know, good for him, right? Like he could have easily just been one of these other shredders, but he didn't want to just do that. He wanted to be somebody that, that actually, you know, we talked about reinventing the guitar, right? Like how you play guitar. Well, he certainly got sounds out of a guitar that I'd never heard out of a guitar.

01:10:01That whammy pedal, man. Well, the whammy, but other than that, he found ways to make very strange sounds come out of his guitar, but controlled. He knows how to make those sounds, and he can do it in a controlled manner. I've always been impressed by that band just because, first of all, their name is completely appropriate,

01:10:30because it's pure rage. I don't completely espouse everything that they lyrically talk about, but I came away from that first album going, wow, this is incredible. Just being blown away by the earnestness, the talent, and just the incredible heavy sound of it.

01:11:00wallops you on the head and crushes you. Yeah. That was a band that really kind of redefined a whole bunch of things. Yeah. And I tried to do a cover of Killing in the Name. Because, I mean, that riff. You know, I mean, that's just so cool. But, you know, I mean, I got the music down, but I was like, like, I can sing this.

01:11:30Yeah. So I never finished it. Somebody would have to step on your foot or something. Yeah. I don't know how you would do it, George. But yeah. So just in case I never said it before to you, I love you. It's mutual, my friend. I love you too, John. Weirdos. Yeah. By the way, I have the first two albums. I just got bored with it after a while. Yeah. Well, I'm having a, what do you call it?

01:12:00Not a rejuvenation, but a... Yeah. Like kind of a... You're digging through your archives. A resurgence. A resurgence. There you go. You open the vault and you're like, hey, look at all this shit I got here. Exactly. You know, which I could never buy new music again and I would just be, oh, hey, look at this. Yeah. Trust me. Yeah. Actually, you're probably better off. I could go, what, 10 years not buying a list of new albums? Yep. Right. Ridiculous. I've forgotten more albums than most people will ever like.

01:12:30And we liked it. Don't get me started. All right. Well, John, you took my number five. So I am going to do a quick swap-a-roo and one of my honorable mentions in for my number five. And that would be Liquid Tension Experiment 2, the sequel. This was the vehicle that got Jordan Rudes into Dream Theater in 1998. Magna Carta gave Mike Portnoy the freedom to do whatever he wanted.

01:13:00to, so he got Jordan Rudess on keyboards, Tony Levin on bass and Chapman's stick, and John Petrucci on guitar. They released their first album in 1998 and followed it up with this in 1999. All instrumental, progressive, rock fusion jamming. There are some very Dream Theater-esque tracks on here, as you can imagine, as it was really kind of the preview of what was to come for

01:13:30theater with Jordan and the band. So I'm substituting this as my number five so that I have something to put in here for my number five. So Liquid Tension Experiment 2 by Liquid Tension Experiment. Nice. Actually, it was the second go around for Jordan Rudis with those guys. Well, yeah, that's what I said. No, the second go around overall. Oh, yeah, that's right.

01:13:59He played them in 94. He was actually the first replacement for Kevin Moore, but it didn't work out. He couldn't do it. Well, he couldn't do it because he had his Dixie Dregs stuff. Dixie Dregs, yeah. But it actually worked out for a reason. Because it's going to take us to my next pick. Oh. Let's keep with the prog and the instrumental, man. George, are you ready? Yeah, we are staving off the prophecy.

01:14:30Yeah, if you need to go to the bathroom and get something to eat, now's a good time. So I mentioned earlier there was two albums that helped shape my love. And I mentioned this album last episode, but I'm going to mention it again. It shaped my love for metal, prog, and jazz fusion melding together into a cauldron of the most unappreciated, unknown,

01:14:59Who gives a crap style of music ever? Except for the few people that listen to it. There's a few of us, but not many. Anyway, my next pick is a former keyboardist from the band Dream Theater who actually replaced Jordan Rudis, who was only there for one live show. And then became a member of the band, and he got booted from the band because he took some of the brunt for Dream Theater's most

01:15:52The Flower King.

01:15:56Anyway, so this is an album that Derek Schroding put out after he got booted, after he took all the heat for Dream Theater, succumbing to the label, which is probably the best thing that ever happened to the band because they stopped doing that. And Derek Schroding getting booted opened up his door to a thousand musicians and bands. And I think he's done all right for himself. But this is his first album. He was pissed off like you would not believe. And he put out this incredible instrument.

01:16:26Like I said, a progressive metal jazz fusion. And he assembled this all-star band that it's, it doesn't get better than this. He has Brett Garset on guitar. He's an Australian guitarist. Probably don't know the name, probably wouldn't know the name, but he's a fabulous fusion hard rock player. Tony Franklin. Anyone heard of the band called The Firm with Jimmy Page and Paul Rogers? A little bit. Maybe you've heard like, you know, his fretless bass guitar work. Yeah, probably.

01:17:00He's been with a bazillion other bands he's sessioned with. And then the drummer, to end all drummers outside of Neil Parrott, Virgil Donati, who... If you don't know him, go look him up. I mean, he's just... There's nothing you can say. I mean, I feel like he's reduced his talents by playing in Asia, because he's now part of Asia. And while Carl Palmer was...

01:17:26a fabulous drummer with them better when he was in Emerson, like in Palmer. I just feel like Virgil's, maybe he's taking a break. It's like, ah, play some Asia, you know, it's kind of cool. I kind of, I kind of hang out for a little bit. But if you don't know who Derek Sheridan is, you might know him from Black Country Communion if you like hard rock, which is a kind of a super group band of musicians. You might maybe hear the Sons of Apollo, maybe not. He's played with Whitesnake. He's played with the Michael Schenker group.

01:17:59He's played with Alice Cooper, Yngwie Momstein, Billy Idol. He's been on all their albums. He's toured, I think, with Kiss. I believe he has with Kiss. So he's gotten around. But yeah, that's my next one. Derek Sheridan, Planet X. I remember when Magna Carta had a website, it's the record label, and they had these little 15-second clips on all of it. And I remember I would just go and constantly play all of them for each song.

01:18:26So I was only getting like, you know, three minutes from the album or whatever. But I was like, this album is going to be amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, yeah. And then I got it and I was like, this album is insane. It rules. I loved it. And I have been, I would say if I had to pick like 15 or 20 bands, you know, my desert island bands, no, my, my distant planet bands, like that's it. Earth is blowing up. You got to grab a few and go.

01:18:55They're in your lockbox or your firebox. You might be going to Planet X if that's happening. Yeah. Derek Sherinian would be in there. I have loved everything he's released. George is like... Yeah, whatever. Glad the world's still here, but come on. Let me tell you, the prog ain't going away for the rest of the list. Yeah, it's only going to get heavier. It's only going to get worse. Yeah. Jeez. Your prophecy is well in hand,

01:19:25my friend. Oh, geez. Well, I can guarantee you that there. Hold on. Let me count how many prog or instrumental albums I have on here. Zero. So I will I will hold the line for the non prog nerds. Do it. All my oh, my half of my honorable mentions list is not prog. All right. Oh, all right. So go pound sand. Yeah. Well, maybe not.

01:19:55Okay.

01:19:57All right.

01:19:58Well, I'm going with the heaviest album on my list.

01:20:01Oh, wait.

01:20:03The Testament album wasn't the heaviest album.

01:20:05No.

01:20:06What?

01:20:08We got to go to Norway.

01:20:10Oh, do it.

01:20:12We got to go to Fillmore Silver Spring a few months back.

01:20:19Yeah.

01:20:20Yeah.

01:20:20Yeah, we gotta go with the third album from Emperor 9 Equilibrium. Yeah. They only put out four albums. This is probably my second favorite. Anthems to the Bucking at Dusk is the high water mark. Oh, you're a weirdo when it comes to Emperor fans. Nightside. Okay. If you count in the Nightside, the remastered, remixed, whatever it was. Yes. It's way better. Way better.

01:20:50Okay. But chronologically speaking, when they originally came out, I liked this better because the production was way better. And as Curse You All Men. Love that song so much. Yeah, so good. There's only four Emperor albums, so sort of like I said with typo negative, you gotta love it all. I mean, Eson, of course, is still doing wonderful things.

01:21:20Crazy, weird, wild, and wonderful things. But in terms of Emperor, these four albums, I heard it not. They were so good. They were so good when we saw them. It's unreal how good they were. Yeah, you can't go wrong with Emperor. Nice. That's about as metal as I get on this show. You know, it's funny. I think I forgot them actually on my honorable mentions too. And I love that album. I'm just like, God, you know, hold on. I'm going to add it real quick. You put it on there.

01:21:50I'm putting it on there. I'm going to act like I didn't say that. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. We'll all go, wow, gee, that's a good call. Oh, yeah, good one. Oh, I didn't think of that. Other than my number, was it five? Four? Was it four? No, wait, I'm about to do four. You're about to do four. It's five. I am about to do four. All right, my number four. Get ready, George, because it's another progressive metal band. What? Oh, my God.

01:22:20to the Edward Munch scream. What? Edward. Well, but this is a band that most people other than John probably don't know. It's a band called Ice Age and their album called The Great Divide. This is the debut album from this New York progressive metal band. Soaring vocals and dream theater style songwriting. This is a strong album and I was really excited when these guys released a new album.

01:22:50in 2023.

01:22:52Their first two albums were on Magna Carta, primarily progressive rock and metal label.

01:22:57The Great Divide is a fantastic album.

01:22:59Listening to it again, preparing for this podcast really brought that to the fore.

01:23:04I highly recommend this album.

01:23:06Outstanding songwriting.

01:23:09Josh Pincus's vocals are incredible.

01:23:13Every one of the guys in this band sounds phenomenal.

01:23:18Just really love this band.

01:23:19And I really don't understand how they didn't get bigger because

01:23:23The Great Divide is a great album

01:23:25and

01:23:27they really should have been

01:23:29a lot bigger than they were. I really don't understand

01:23:31that. And their new album

01:23:33in 23,

01:23:35what was it, Progressions of Power

01:23:37or whatever it was, Waves of Loss and

01:23:39something or other. Isn't that a Triumph album?

01:23:42Yeah, Progressions of Power is Triumph.

01:23:44Yeah, that's it.

01:23:45It was something like Waves of

01:23:47Loss and Power or something.

01:23:50Another phenomenal album.

01:23:52And just what I wanted to hear from them.

01:23:55And so, anyway, really love this band, Ice Age.

01:24:00I don't know that they've really...

01:24:02They probably don't tour outside of New York.

01:24:04I mean, I don't think I've ever seen anything where they've played or done anything.

01:24:08They were supposed to play Prog Power, was it last year or the year before?

01:24:12And they backed out.

01:24:13So I was not happy.

01:24:14Yeah, I would have been upset with that too.

01:24:16because I mean, I would love to see these guys. I can't imagine. They played Nierfest actually for their first album. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Well, and that was kind of before. So, you know, my friend Marty got me into Nierfest and I didn't know him till like the early 2000s. And so I didn't really know about Nierfest. I can't understand how I didn't hear about Nierfest earlier than that. But he was the one that kind of got me into that. And so I kind of missed those early Nierfest years.

01:24:46I regret it because, you know, Porcupine Tree, you went to the one where Porcupine Tree was there. That was the third one. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And I just really wish I had been at that. You know, that would have been tremendous. Yeah, it was. So, yeah, they go ahead, George. I'm sorry. I was just going to ask if he like screwed your list there because I know what a big Ice Age fan you are. No, I actually. So I purposely put some albums as my honorable mentions for that reason. Yeah, I love Ice Age. Now, I would say.

01:25:16I think part of their problem is that they are a second at the end of the second wave of Prague metal which is from 93 to 99 yes black metal has their first and second and third waves and so does Prague metal there's the first wave second wave in modern Prague and modern Prague now is 25 years old which is really funny so I need some post-modern Prague yeah oh it's coming they had too much of a dream theater sound I think was part of their issue

01:25:46The difference between them and a lot of bands is that they had basically Dennis DeYoung from Styx as their singer. He sounds better than Dennis DeYoung to me. He's unreal how good of a singer he is. I would take him over Labrie any day. I would take him over Dennis DeYoung any day. This guy has vocals that are way better than both of those guys. But what about Zach De La Roca? That dude's setting up his rig for him.

01:26:16Yeah, he's that good of a singer. Yeah, and he's like, Zach, set up the stuff, and Zach's like, F you, I won't do what you tell me. Want to get paid? Okay, I'll do it. Okay, fine. Yeah. No, he's, there's, that's not hyperbole. He really is that good of a singer. Yeah, he is. He really is. Yeah, and, yeah, so, cool. Yeah, it's all my honorable mentions. I'll act like TR didn't say it. All right. All right, what'll we on, four? Four. Yep.

01:26:46Number four? See, this is where it's getting dicey now. Yeah, I know. It's getting real. We're going to start crossing over each other here, I think. Don't cross the streams. Well, I think it's going to be hard not to do. Oh, not for me. Well, for me and John, it's going to be. I think he's going to... Where am I going to go? Yeah. All right, I'm going to go with a band that George probably was into long before I was. That's the case with everything. No, it's not.

01:27:16That's not broad. A lot of things. But not everything. But this band, I think, George, you definitely were into them before I was, because I did not get into them until, like, I think 2001, which was not the greatest time to come into this band. So, but this is a band that Tiara and I both love. And George, I think you like their stuff. But I will say, they have a formula, and they stick to it.

01:27:46No, it's not Catatonia. ACDC? Wait a minute, it's not ACDC either. However, on this album, they sort of aren't doing the formula, even though it still sounds like them. My next album is Amorphous. I think you say as... Yeah. I don't speak Finnish, Yanni. Correct me once again. So this is... Thank you.

01:28:16Do you have one more for Yanni? Jay is my bitch. Thank you. Thank you very much. Yanni from Finland everyone. Yes we used to have those. He used to be in the Van Perihelium ship. Maybe the greatest interview we've ever done because he came with receipts and he was prepared and he dropped some serious sound bites. We still I mean how many years has it been? And we still use sound bits. Jay is my

01:28:47And I like to put those two together. Jay is my bitch. Jay is my bitch. Jerking the penis. I love that guy. He's so funny. So yeah, Amorphous. So this is their fourth album. Again, another one of those four or five things going on. And it's a band that up to this point, George, I'm sure you were into them with Tales from the Thousand Lakes. Actually, it was... Or Elegy. Or was your first? Elegy.

01:29:16Allergy was when I got on board. Okay. As you know, at this point, they've had four different, four completely different albums up to this point. They went through a huge, and then the following albums after this are different. And then they got the formula when Tommy joined the band, and they put out, I really don't want to say this because I love all these albums, but they put out the same album eight times or nine times in a row. But they're all great. They are. If you want the diversity of this band, it's during this period.

01:29:45This is definitely one of them. So this is when they actually had their first actual real singer. Somebody that actually took on the, while they had somebody singing for the first two albums, I think it was one of the guitarists, they started treating the vocals with Elegy as actual a vocalist in the band, you know, a singer in the band. And that was, is it Pasi? Pasi? Kassin? I can't say his name. I can't pronounce his name. He was the singer. Yes.

01:30:15And the music, it's more clean vocals. There's really not much of their harsh vocals on this album. There's a couple songs that have it, you know, like the song Greed. And there's another bonus track called Northern Lights. But it's this really kind of unique combination of folk rock, folk metal, progressive metal, melodic death metal without the harsh vocals, all mixed into one. Not a lot of blast beating going on in the drums, but they just create this really unique.

01:30:45sound that it's amorphous sound nobody else does what they do it's just what it is and i came into them

01:30:53with the album after this am universum and i'm like oh my god how did i miss these guys and then i went

01:31:00back to everything i was like every album is different and they're all awesome and i've been a fan since you

01:31:05know i guess 2001 so i missed out on some of this but i should go back and review those because after elegy

01:31:13the next couple albums to me were like, eh? What is this? Yeah, it does. It changes. It really does. But I thought this was the best of the next three before they, they didn't take a hiatus. They took a few years. And that's when it came to what Tommy is, their singer, who's now just, he's one of the best two-way singers. And we'll move that as harsh vocals and clean vocals, you know, and they have it there. The sound is on every album is, it doesn't change much, unfortunately. Until this time. Yeah.

01:31:43Last One's On, you know, we'll save that for the other podcast. Yeah. I don't know. I like the new album. It's good, but I've heard it before. That's the thing. Well, yeah, I'll say that. And it's, you know, now I hate to use the expression. You have to be wowed by it. It's like Catatonia. Same thing. I keep poking at them. I love Catatonia, but it's the same album. Come on. I tapped out on this one. Yeah, I like it, but I don't believe it at that. It's like Overkill. Overkill for thrash fans. Yeah. I like Overkill.

01:32:13Overkill. Everything's cool. But do I have to have every album? Correct. Probably not. You know, so it's nothing against them. I mean, I've seen them a couple times. I've enjoyed their shows. I think they're great. So anyway, Amorphous is my next one. Again, it's got this unique folky vibe, Finnish folky vibe. Okay. With some Middle Eastern sounds are, you know, mixed in there, which is kind of cool. And it just kind of ebbs

01:32:43and flows. It's very ethereal. It's very atmospheric, this album. There's some psychedelic vibes to the music. It's definitely an underrated album, their discography. I think this period gets kind of trashed because of what they put out before and after it. There's some great albums in there, but I think this is kind of one of their hidden gems. So. Nice. Amorphous to Nolo. Yes. All right.

01:33:13Let me just go ahead and hit this before I get started.

01:33:19Okay, here we go.

01:33:20At least in terms of you guys.

01:33:22It's not a prog album.

01:33:23I think I know what this is.

01:33:25No, you have no clue what this is.

01:33:27I bet.

01:33:28Well, let's see about that.

01:33:30This is a punk band from Hermosa Beach, California.

01:33:34Nope.

01:33:35Not what I was thinking.

01:33:37Named after the bad guy in the horror novel It by Stephen King, my second favorite Stephen King book, is Pennywise and their one, two, three, four, fifth album, Straight Ahead. Do they even have crickets for this? The crickets were like, where's our crickets? I know, actually, and I'm not being flippant. I really don't know this name. I've never heard it before.

01:34:07So, have you heard the band Bad Religion? Perhaps. Yes. Yes, of course. All right, well, okay, well, Pennywise is from California. It's Bad Religion adjacent. To me, it sounds at least sometimes vaguely reminiscent of Bad Religion. Okay. And some of their albums were put out on Epitaph Records, which is Brett from Bad Religion.

01:34:36That's his label. So I was not a Pennywise fan, particularly back in the day. Their first album came out in 91. It's only been in the last few years that I kind of went back and said, you know, I remember that band Pennywise and people said they were good. I should check that out. And the last few weeks I've been buying their physical CD releases used on Discogs and Amazon and anywhere else like rampantly.

01:35:07because you can't get them on Bandcamp. And Cobas is like, oh, we would like your liver and one of your pinky fingers for that album. So I don't buy albums from Cobas anymore. Just FYI, I don't endorse them because their prices have gotten stupid. But I still stream stuff on there. And so, you know, I've been going the genre out and buying CDs so that I could rip them once I get them. And yeah.

01:35:36Straight Ahead, one of their best albums. Some people say About Time. It's good, too. It's good, too. But, yeah. I'm really digging these guys, and I'm not going to keep talking because it's not going to convince you. No, I just don't know them. If you know, you know. If you don't know, Crickets. You don't know. I have heard of them, but I don't know what they sound like. Sound like Bad Religion. Do you know what Bad Religion sounds like? No.

01:36:06But I know I've heard of them too. Well, all right, then. Just check out both of those bands. Okay, I guess I must. Because they're both kind of relevant these days. All right. Well, I think this, I don't know, John, what is on the remainder of your list, but this might be one of them. This is a British band, and it's a band that I've liked a long time. And they are an instrumental band.

01:36:36You don't say. Yeah, go figure. And this band is Osric Tentacles, and the album is Waterfall Cities. This is one of my favorite albums by this British space rock band. It's got Rad on drums, Seaweed on synths, Zia on bass, and John Egan on the flute, and of course the primary songwriter, Ed Wynn, on guitars and synthesizers. I saw them live in 2000 at the Trocadero in Philly, not too long

01:37:06after this. I love these guys and will actually be seeing them in the UK in early December. So if you like space rock, you like instrumental kind of semi-out-there music, Osric Tentacles is the band for you. And this album, Waterfall Cities, I think is one of their better albums. I think like in the late 90s, early 2000s, they really kind of, to me, they had the right

01:37:36at the time. And they were making some really good music, even into the mid-2000s. I like all their stuff. And I'm like, this is one of those bands, like, regardless of what they put out, I'm going out there and I'm going to buy it. Like, that's just, I can't help myself. I love these guys. And I like some of the offshoots of this band. Like, Ed Wynn has done some solo stuff. He's done a band called Nodon's Ictus. So there's some other kind of offshoot bands that he's been

01:38:06part of that I've also liked. Um, but, uh, always loved Osric tentacles and, um, you should too. So that's my number three. This is not on my main 10 list. It's a notable album. Yeah. Um, and yes, I agree. This is my favorite album from them. I like the period with Zia and seaweed. Yeah. That's their names. When they were in the band, they, they created that kind of

01:38:36really cool, funky,

01:38:38or no sound between the drums and bass.

01:38:41They just did.

01:38:44Yeah,

01:38:44they really did.

01:38:46And I always appreciated that because I always felt like the early albums were very thin on the bottom end because Ed's guitars are so kind of,

01:38:56I don't want to use the word whiny,

01:38:59but they get kind of abrasive,

01:39:01even though he's just crushing it.

01:39:04I always felt like there was no bottom end to

01:39:07he made

01:39:08I think part of that was production

01:39:11yeah he made Injustice

01:39:12For All look like there was four bass players

01:39:16and I'm not knocking them

01:39:18I mean no I think it was

01:39:20just poor production and poor recording

01:39:22at the time I don't know

01:39:24if it was budgets too on top of it

01:39:26I don't know but yeah you're right that those

01:39:28early albums sound very thin and

01:39:30like completely no

01:39:32bass on them at all. But then those guys joined the band and you've got this whole unique... Keyboards, bass, and drums, when those guys all joined, it had just this unique kind of cool sound. They're kind of like a space rock jam band, you know, with some progy elements. And I love this album. It's got some ties to Wayne's World, you know, with the song Zingu. That's right.

01:40:02I mean, opening track, Coily's great. I will say though about this band, they've got like 452 albums. You literally could just pick five and you would cover more than enough ground to be happy. They've got like 15 or 17 other albums too. I had to stop at some point. I was like, this is the same damn album every time. I couldn't help myself. I bought them all. So basically they're your chew root. Yeah, pretty much. I can't help myself.

01:40:31For anyone who's got a cat, you know what a churu is. Yeah. Freaking crack cocaine. I like cocaine. AKA chicken and cheese churu. You know, so, which is what my cat just is like, oh, oh, oh, you know, get out of my way. She just slept for five hours, but all of a sudden now she's faster than, you know, this land speed test. 20 ninjas. Bonneville. It's like, who's out there?

01:41:01I'm doing a land test. That's my cat.

01:41:03Yeah.

01:41:05All right. So, wow. I'm, I'm at a dilemma here because we've got three left to go with.

01:41:13Yeah. And I'm sure you have pretty much the last two that I've got.

01:41:20Jeez. Who do you go with?

01:41:23All right. I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to go with this one because we've talked about one of the other ones here before.

01:41:29So my next one, which I guess is number three, getting on in order, although I would say these next three are probably my three favorite albums from the year. That makes sense. No, they're not really in order, but for some reason, the top three are actually in order. But I will say this album is far from my favorite album from the band, and I know it's absolute heresy to say that, because this is when a lot of the prog nerds showed up. I knew it.

01:42:00And then things just changed. Then, you know, the carnival showed up and, you know,

01:42:08doing solos. I was there in the old days.

01:42:12Actually, I'm not even there from the old days. I'm from the mid old days.

01:42:16I'm a little late. That's what I meant.

01:42:18I was in the old days. TR was there before me.

01:42:23So my number three is Dream Theater Metropolis Part 2.

01:42:30Which is their

01:42:33highly regarded

01:42:36concept album that everyone was waiting for

01:42:39after what some people felt was a total disaster

01:42:43with Falling Into Infinity, which I actually like a lot. However,

01:42:46could have been a thousand times better had they swapped a few songs out

01:42:49with the unreleased stuff that was part of those sessions.

01:42:53I don't want to name any names on songs like Raise the Knife.

01:42:58Shoulda been on the album, folks. Just saying. Just saying. You could have knocked off two or three of those other songs because that's a long song. Anyway, yeah, this was their album that they were already big to some degree because of images and words and Pull Me Under on MTV. But this is the album that really catapulted them to big heights for them. Yeah, especially amongst their fan base. Right. Well, the fan base expanded big time with this album.

01:43:27Because like I said, a lot of prog nerds, and it's funny because a lot of the prog nerds don't like the heavier stuff from them. They like the more proggy stuff from them. And I'm like, nah, you're just all so wrong. It's unreal. You want the heavy crunching guitars. That's better stuff. But that's just my opinion. Everyone has their own opinion. This is also their fifth album, by the way, to come out. Oh, right. It's weird, you know? So I think it's a great album. It's actually fallen down my list a little bit over the years because I'm a little,

01:43:57over-saturated from hearing it all the time. But it does have some of their biggest songs ever, like the song Home, Dance of Eternity, The Spirit Carries On, which everyone goes crazy for it shows. I mean, there was a dude sitting in front of me the last time I saw him crying during that song. I was like, okay, dude, how many times have you seen this? Just saying. Would you believe I've never listened to this album? No, George. You probably, I don't know if you'd like it, though. I mean, it's a way. I like Dream Theater.

01:44:27generally speaking. You might. You know what I think you would get from this? You would probably pull songs from it that you liked. And there'd be others you'd be kind of like, okay, I'm getting a little tired. Like, I get tired. Why? It's like, okay. Hey, I surprise you sometimes. You do. You do. It's not that I haven't heard it because I don't like it. It's because I just haven't listened to it. This is where they, I think the wanking that everyone complains about with them,

01:44:58starts to become prominent here.

01:45:02Whereas in the early stuff, it was there, but it was part of the song.

01:45:10It was written for certain parts.

01:45:13And now it's like, I always said, what do I, like their album, Train of Thought would be their best album if they just, every song was seven minutes long.

01:45:21Yeah.

01:45:22I'd be like, they would have,

01:45:24nothing would top it because, you know,

01:45:26you open up a song with a guitar solo, you know,

01:45:29and three minutes and you're like, oh, now we can start.

01:45:32Oh yeah.

01:45:33And I love that out. Don't get me wrong.

01:45:35Yeah.

01:45:36Anyway, back, back to this one. Yeah.

01:45:37This is a big concept album.

01:45:39I remember seeing them at the 930 club for this, which was, you know, what?

01:45:44Maybe 1200 people max, you know, which was awesome.

01:45:48It's a, it's a,

01:45:49There's not a bad place to see the band in that venue. Right. And I saw the whole album play. It's great. Their biggest show ever was this tour when they played Radio City. Is it Radio City they played? No. Where did they play? Which has got the infamous cover. Oh, yeah. So that was... Where did they play that show? Was it Madison Square Garden? It was... I can't even remember where they played that show.

01:46:19Oh, was it Beacon? Beacon Theater? Yeah, probably. I think it was Beacon Theater. They played the big three-hour sets, three discs long. Yes, right. Really, if we were doing 2000. No, if they were doing 2001, that would be on my list as a live album. Yeah. I've rambled enough about it. I mean, if you're a fan of Dream Theater, you know this album. This is always in the top three or four for fans. Generally, it's a lot of fans number one. For me, it's...

01:46:49No, it's down a little bit. Just because I'm burned out on it, but it's a great album. Yeah, so John, this is my number one. Not anymore. Yeah, not anymore. I had to choose between this and another one, and I was like, well, which one do I do? Well, and yeah, the other one, you'll probably have to do that next. But yeah, I agree with you on pretty much everything you said, really. I mean, it's definitely

01:47:19an ambitious concept album for them.

01:47:25And I kind of felt like, like you said, in a lot of ways, this was their 2112.

01:47:31You know, following Rush's example after an album that did not do well with immense pressure from the record company.

01:47:39They were allowed to do what they wanted to do on this album.

01:47:44And without any record company interference.

01:47:47And the results, you know, to me, were outstanding. Yeah. And it's, you know, to me, it's clear that they also did their homework on the topics of reincarnation, past lives, regression, all that stuff. Because, you know, it's actually handled very well lyrically and from a storyline. And as you said, this album kind of set the blueprint for much of their future work for good or bad.

01:48:17I mean, you know, Jordan entering the band after the liquid tension stuff, he comes in, he does this album with them. It's their first album with him. And like you said, the circus music begins on this album with Jordan doing his, you know, stuff of excessive, crazy keyboard stuff that for the most part, like, you know, I always felt like if he kind of toned that down, this would be a perfect band.

01:48:47with him.

01:48:49But, you know.

01:48:53It's funny because so many fans think he's their best keyboardist.

01:48:58And that's fine if they like him the best.

01:49:00So many fans diss on Derek Sherinian.

01:49:02Like, well, Jordan went to Juilliard.

01:49:05I'm like, well, Derek went to Berkeley.

01:49:07Yeah.

01:49:07It's not like he went to the slouch school.

01:49:09He's not a slacker.

01:49:10Yeah.

01:49:11I mean, Juilliard is the classically driven style.

01:49:16You know, it's the rock slash jazz. You know, I mean, it's not like jazz musicians are clowns or something, you know? He went to Berkeley Community College. No. So, yeah, I love this. I love, you know, I still, well, I've, you know, at the time when this came out, it was, I remember just feeling like this was incredible. Like, I,

01:49:46I was waiting for this to come out. And when it did, it was like, oh man, you know, like this is so cool. Like I felt like they finally were able to do what they've always wanted to do. And you could kind of feel it. Like the band really felt like, okay, we're calling the shots now. This is what we're doing. This is the way we want to be. But like, like you said, you know, some of it,

01:50:16was a little excessive.

01:50:19And that kind of became what we would hear on the next bunch of albums.

01:50:25And I kind of miss some of the stuff from those earlier albums that was a little more reined in.

01:50:37where they kind of had like more of a kind of a Pink Floyd kind of a sound where they could do something like Peruvian Skies, which was kind of a chilled out, cool tune that they kind of don't do anymore because they feel, I don't know if they just felt like they had to fill all the space with notes, but like, you know, it just got to be almost too much in terms of like everybody kind of playing at this excessive level.

01:51:07And at the time, I was excited about it, but after a couple of albums of that, you kind of start to feel like, okay, guys, maybe you need to dial it back a little bit. But in terms of albums from 1999, this was probably the album I played the most in 1999 and that I loved the most in 1999.

01:51:34Sorry, which band are we talking about still?

01:51:37Just kidding. I know. Just kidding. Sorry, I stole your number one. That's okay. It's going to happen. I mean, the top three were, you know, were there. This is it. Yeah. All right. George. It's a me for number three. It's a me. Mario. Okay. So this was probably the first album that I was like, yes,

01:52:05This has to be on my list. As soon as I saw this, I was like, absolutely. And my... Now I think I know what it is. No, you don't. You don't. If my metal brother Will could hear me now, he would stab me in the neck and tell me he was doing me a favor. From Germany. Oh. Not what I was expecting. I think...

01:52:35Like John has an idea. This is the, oh, it's eighth or ninth album. I looked it up and then you were so long. I forgot. From the band creator. Endorama. I knew this was coming. This is probably the most reviled album in the creator catalog. And it's one of my favorites. Wow.

01:53:05I understand that this is a complete departure for the band and they like did this album and then they were like oh that was a mistake and they went back to doing really thrashy heavy metal but it's kind of it's the creator's gothic metal album and taking it for what it is it is I loved it when it came out I loved it I was like oh this is really cool you know I mean I liked creator before and I like creator after but this is like a little a little easter egg

01:53:35in their discography that's just kind of like oh that's so cool it's it's i don't know it's it's just it's amazing i love it will hates it most creator fans hate it creator probably hates it um but i love it huh so just gonna say that i'm just gonna leave that right here and i'm just gonna say that so yeah right who did was was that your guess john

01:54:05As soon as you said,

01:54:07Jeremy,

01:54:07I was like,

01:54:07Oh no,

01:54:11if we'll actually listen to this podcast,

01:54:13it was driving in his car,

01:54:14you being a ditch.

01:54:15Yeah.

01:54:15I spoke to him shortly before this podcast and I,

01:54:19I meant to mention it to him just so that he could get angry.

01:54:22Um,

01:54:23but I forgot.

01:54:24So why don't you make that your,

01:54:26uh,

01:54:27your pick from the crib?

01:54:29Ooh.

01:54:30Yeah.

01:54:31I don't have one yet.

01:54:32I could do that.

01:54:33There you go.

01:54:34Because technically it is a pick from the creator.

01:54:36It is a pick from the creator.

01:54:37It's 26 years old.

01:54:39And this won't post before Saturday, so I'm going to do that.

01:54:42Do that.

01:54:44It is.

01:54:44Wow.

01:54:45So, Will, I got this great album.

01:54:46I think you'll like it.

01:54:48Well, I don't know if Will's.

01:54:49I don't think Will's going to be there, actually.

01:54:52Well, he'll hear it.

01:54:53And then we'll get a message in Facebook Messenger, you know, with all explicits and him telling me.

01:54:58He doesn't listen to all the episodes.

01:55:00Come on.

01:55:00Either of them.

01:55:01He doesn't know neither of them. I know. I'm trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. Yeah. No, he said he would be on for the year end though. So that's for Nick. You know, hey Nick, Will's going to be on the year end. Yeah. All right. Wow. Hey, well, it's getting real. Really real because John, I'm going to take one here. So my number two is another bridge.

01:55:32And this band is Porcupine Tree. And the album is Stupid Dream. Night takes queen. Yeah. So we covered this pretty extensively in Stairway to 11 episode eight, where it was John's album pick. And as I said, then this is a great album by a great band. And I love this period from them that the band, you know, kind of calls transitional. But I, I think this is an outstanding album.

01:56:00And really, I'm so grateful that, you know, a bunch of the extra tracks from this album ended up on recordings so that there is, you know, extra music from this period that we all got. But I wouldn't have minded if they kind of dwelled in this space for another couple of albums. But yeah, Stupid Dream, that's my number two for 1999.

01:56:30Yep. I had to choose between that or Dream Theater. And since I talked about Porcupine Tree as one of my albums during that early episode, I was like, I'll let T.R. steal it. So it's not a technical steal because you didn't list it. Well, it's on my list, but I passed. Okay. Yeah. Do you want to, what game show is that where you can take the option or pass to the next contestant? What's behind door number two?

01:57:00I'm going to pass. So you want door three? Oh, crap. I don't know. There's a donkey. So bachelor number one, are you from England? All right. So I have to go to my honorable mentions list and go with something that I wasn't prepared to talk about. I got one though. Hey, that's what I did just now. I got one. And I don't think I'm stealing this from anybody.

01:57:30I think would be on my top 10, but I had to draw the line somewhere. So I'm going to go with Nevermore's Dreamy Neon Black, which is the third album. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Sorry. Yeah, they're progressive metal. They're also thrash metal, a U.S. power metal band that features the fabulous singing of Laurel Dane, who's no longer with us, and the guitar playing of Jeff Loomis. Jeff Loomis, yeah. Yeah. This is more on my wheel.

01:58:00house though I'm good I'm tuned in yeah I'm with you here yeah I love this is my second favorite album from Nevermore they only have I think what seven studio albums if I'm not mistaken this Godless Endeavor is my favorite but this is a great album with some great hard driving songs and it's not progressive metal like the dream theater style it's a little different it's it's a mix there's a lot of thrash they have it Nevermore has their own sound also just

01:58:30like some of the other bands were talking about. But this album just cranks out just heavy tune after heavy tune, fast paced, driving, in your face. But then they have a couple, you know, slow down songs to let Worrell kind of croon and do his thing. You know, like actually the song Dreaming Neon Black, which is a fabulous song. But, you know, songs like Beyond Within are great. You know, that's George's actual opener because he doesn't count the 46 second.

01:58:59intro that he skips over. But then songs like I Am The Dog is great. The Death of Passion, the whole album's great. So pulling from my honorable mentions list, but really could easily have been on my top 10. Nevermore, Dreamy, Neon Black. Excellent. All right. So my number two fulfills a much lesser known prophecy that every couple of episodes at the very least,

01:59:29I have to mention this guy. This is the one I've been waiting for. This is the 13th album from Tom Waits. Mule Variations. Finally. I was waiting and waiting. Took you long enough. Well, I wanted him higher up the list. Okay, that's fair. I saw that there was a Tom Waits album that came out in 99 and I was like, yeah, this is going to be on Georgia's Best. Yeah, you know it. No Nick Cave this year, but some Tom Waits.

01:59:59Tom Waits, yeah. Yeah. This is a latter era, obviously 13th album, latter era Tom Waits album. It's in his what the heck period. Really weird stuff, but also so very, very tasty. Tracks like Big in Japan, which is just kind of funny. I'm big in Japan. And the song that will never leave my brain.

02:00:59just amazingly awesome and anything Tom Waits is a prize so you know I've talked about him before I'm sure I'll talk about him again you know just to satisfy the minor prophecy the other prophecy that says that a Tom Waits album will be discussed yes yeah love me Tom Waits all right

02:01:29Yes, I'll defer to you for number one. All right. Well, number one. So John took my number one, which was the Dream Theater album. But I'm going to defer to my honorable mentions list and pull up something that was not even close to your number one. Yes, exactly. Because I'm leaving number one for John because I know that he's going to take that and he needs to. He better. He does. Oh, he will. Yes. It's like taxes, death. Yes. John's number one. Yeah. Good.

02:01:59Okay.

02:01:59Okay.

02:01:59Because that's what I'm, I'm leaving that for him.

02:02:02Yeah.

02:02:03Um, so my number one is like you said, completely not my number one, but it'll be,

02:02:11um, it's actually not an album.

02:02:13It's a single song.

02:02:15And this song came out in 1999 and it's a song that had come out before in 1974.

02:02:24And this song is Genesis Carpet Crawlers 1999.

02:02:29So in 1999, Peter Gabriel, Steve Hackett, Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford, and Phil Collins re-recorded this song from 1974's The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway album. It was released on the compilation album Turn It On Again, The Hits. And I think it's a cool version, and I think the band always felt it should have been more popular than it was, but, you know, obviously it didn't really, you know, while the song was kind of popular in the terms of

02:02:59of Genesis fans liking it. I think they thought it probably should have been more popular or that it would somehow get into the collective consciousness of everybody. And it didn't obviously do much either in 1999. But I like the version that they did and I like the fact that Phil sings some lyrics and Peter sings some lyrics and they harmonize together. It's kind of a cool version.

02:03:28So I'll go with that as my number one. All right. Nice. All right. So this is definitely my number one. You guys have alluded to it. Maybe you haven't. I'm going to go with Lacuna Coil. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Yeah, right. I'm going with TLC. Yeah, psych. No. My number one is my favorite album.

02:03:58of all time that hasn't broken for a long time, and that is Opeth, Still Life. Yes. Yeah, I don't shut up about this album on either podcast. We all have our albums, and my two favorite albums are ones I will never stop talking about, no matter what. They're kind of locked in at one and two, and two can never be one, and one will never be one.

02:04:28So,

02:04:31but if you're not familiar with this band there,

02:04:35oh boy,

02:04:35here we go with that prog crap again.

02:04:38Their version of progressive death metal,

02:04:41not death,

02:04:42the band's version of progressive metal or atheist or any of those early bands or corner doing the progressive thrash,

02:04:50which is,

02:04:51they're not that type of metal when they do this.

02:04:54They're not that type of prog.

02:04:56So if you don't know Opeth, it's a whole, they're their own sound. Bands try to copy their sound. It just doesn't work all the time. So it's just, no, I buy an album, which I'm like, oh yeah. And I'm like, yeah, see, I can't go for that. Yeah. Little hollow notes. That's right. No, no, no, no. I can't go for that. No, can do. No, can do. So, um, yeah, I'm not

02:05:26The reason I like this album so much is because it melds the whole progressive death, the progressive metal, there's prog rock, there's even jazzy moments on this album. They actually have some jazzy guitar interludes in places, and it's cool. It's a little more raw and aggressive than what comes after this, where they get more polished their sound, when Stephen Wilson comes in and kind of takes them to new heights, where, you know, all the prog nerds think that he helped create Opeth

02:05:55And it's just like, just stop. Stop it. He helped move them further, but he didn't. He channeled them a little, but yeah, it was. He helped focus them on their sound a little, you know, so I may give him all the credit in the world, but he's not writing the songs. So, and I swear, if you go back and listen to In absentia, Blackest Eyes, telling you that riffs from the Blackwater Park period. But anyway, nonetheless, it's my favorite album. There's not much more to say.

02:06:26every song I love. I've seen every song live and I cherish those moments except for Moonlapse Verticon. I'm still pissed. And I even told Mike that. I was like, really? You can't play it once when I'm out of show? One time. Once. So anyway, I don't want to belabor it anymore. That's all I got to say about that. Still life. Yes. You know what it is? It's the red cover album. Yeah. There you go. Yep. Every show. Do you have the red cover?

02:06:55album.

02:06:59Yep.

02:07:00That's some jackass yells out Black Rose Immortal.

02:07:03Yeah.

02:07:04It's not from this album, though.

02:07:07Wait, that was you.

02:07:09No, I've never yelled that out.

02:07:11Hell no.

02:07:13Yeah.

02:07:14So, all right.

02:07:16All right.

02:07:17Well.

02:07:18My number one.

02:07:19Yeah.

02:07:20Let's hear it.

02:07:21Uh.

02:07:23Well.

02:07:24Um.

02:07:25This is the fourth album from this band. And I forget what I was going to say. It's my favorite album, but I don't know what it is. No, I mean. Oh, okay. No, I thought I had something squirreled away, but I guess not. Yeah. This was the other album that I was like, absolutely. Boom. Number one with a bullet. Nine Inch Nails, The Fragile. The fourth album.

02:07:55Double Album.

02:07:57Yeah.

02:07:59You know, when Pretty Hate Machine came out in 89, I was like, what is this?

02:08:06What's he building?

02:08:07What's he building?

02:08:09What's he doing in there?

02:08:11Nah, the meatloaf.

02:08:12Actually, technically, this is their third album.

02:08:15Now that I'm looking at the discography, Broken was an EP.

02:08:19Yeah, but was it like 40 minutes long, though?

02:08:21I can't remember how long that was.

02:08:22Maybe it was.

02:08:23Maybe they consider that's why they're considering it an album. It's 31 minutes. It passes the Slayer rule. So, okay. That's fair. The Rain and Blood rule. It's got to be at least 28 minutes to be an album. Yeah, like Diver Down, right? It's a triple grindcore album. Yeah. Yeah, Jay, I'm still going with that. There's 22 songs on that album, right? No, 44 songs on that album. Oh, okay. Oh, I beg your pardon. They're all 20 seconds long. All right. Yeah.

02:08:53But yeah, I mean, I was a Nine Inch Nils fan from the beginning. But this one, this was like one of those hallmark moments. It's like, you know, Downward Spiral, Pretty Hate Machine, and The Fragile. It's got tracks like The Day the World Went Away, We're In This Together, Just Like You Imagined, Into the Void, and, sorry mom, Starfuckers Inc.

02:09:23And yeah, I love Trent Reznor so much. He inspired so much of what I do. And so George, just a quick question. Have you listened to the Tron Aries? I was literally just listening to it yesterday again. Yeah. So I'm curious, like what you think about that? I like it. I like it. Yeah. I like it. You know, I like it very much. I mean, because I like a lot of different things and this is very much. There's a few.

02:09:53Three, Four songs that are like actual Nine Inch Nails songs with vocals and stuff. Most of it is instrumental stuff, which Trent gets off on. And it's so, you know, I like instrumental, electronic, synth wave. I wouldn't call this synth wave, but it's adjacent anyway. And yeah, it's very cool. For the most part, this is not a Nine Inch Nails album that you're like, yeah, Nine Inch Nails. It's more of a put it on.

02:10:23Listen to it and chill kind of yeah right but Tron not yeah right yeah yeah I just wanted because like you know I just curious like what you thought about it oh no I love it it's great obviously just it just came out recently and you know yeah yeah no Trent what I don't care what Trent Reznor does he can crap in a brown paper bag and start it on a fire on my porch and I'll be like genius

02:10:52While you're stomping it out. Yes. I'm like, this is awesome and on fire. Yeah, no, he's amazing. John's like, what? You got poo on your shoes. Yeah. No, no, flaming poo. Yeah, even better. Yeah. All right. Yeah. I mean, what Mark

02:11:19What can I say? Trent Reznor. God. Nice. See? You had 10 albums from 99. Yeah. And I have more to discuss in lesser detail. All right. So we're going to just rip through each one of our lists. So since I had to dig into my honorable mentions because some of my stuff got taken. So the only thing I have less are dishonorable mentions. I can guarantee you that there's only maybe

02:11:49One and mine.

02:11:51Okay.

02:11:52All right.

02:11:52Well, here they are.

02:11:54And I'm just going to go through them.

02:11:57These albums released in 1999 by some of my favorite bands, and I really wish they hadn't.

02:12:05So here they are in all their glory.

02:12:09ZZ Top put out an album called Triple X.

02:12:13That just was not very good to me.

02:12:16I just did not care for that.

02:12:19I kind of like the concept of having studio with live like they did on the whole Fandango thing. But yeah, it just didn't quite move the needle for me. The next one, Queensryche Q2K. Yeah, I went back because at the time I think when it came out, because you got to remember, I was a big Queensryche fan.

02:12:49You know, from really early on, like when The Warning came out pretty much, and stuck with them. And, you know, every album after Empire just got worse and worse, and it was like, okay. Wait, they released albums after Empire? Yeah. Not that I listen to. That's the last one I'll listen to is Promised Land, and that's pushing it. I can't even bring myself to do that. So I thought, okay.

02:13:19Maybe I just gave them a hard like I just didn't give them a chance so

02:13:23I went and listened to Q2K I brought it up and I was like okay

02:13:27I think like when it came out whatever the song was I can't remember what the big

02:13:31quote hit unquote was but it you know didn't do anything for me

02:13:36at the time so I thought well your needle yeah at all

02:13:39what was the song was it you um I was a song I don't remember now but

02:13:45but I went I actually thought okay let me give this album a fair shake let me

02:13:49Let me just kind of listen to this and see like how it sounds like, you know, without all the, you know, the bias from 1999 surrounding it. It just isn't that good. So I just yeah, that was not couldn't do it. And so another album that came out in 1999 by one of my favorite bands, Scorpions Eye to Eye.

02:14:19So I thought, well, let me give this a chance. Because I had always kind of like when some of that stuff came out, I was like, this is garbage. I listened to the whole album. No, this album is not good. It's garbage. I mean, I don't know what they were trying to do. It sounds like they're trying to be a pop band. I don't know. It's just, it's not who they are.

02:14:48And it's just like, what are they doing? And then my final dishonorable mention is yes. Or no, as you like to say. Yeah, when this album came out, it was like, no. And that album is the latter. This was another one that I really wanted to like, but it just was not good.

02:15:17See, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't have a song called Hep Yada. It's probably not going to be too good. I didn't think it was as bad as you, but no, it's not something I go back to ever. Yeah. Right. Exactly. Like I will never, yeah. I will never reach for the latter. No. You know, if I'm going to listen to a Yes album. Yeah. The song I was thinking of, by the way, TRU was from Here and Now in the Future. Here and Now Frontier. Here and Now Frontier. Sorry. Another album I'd never listened to.

02:15:47I don't even know the album the song is on I can't even remember the album title yeah don't yeah

02:15:53don't worry because yeah no don't look for it it's not there anymore just not a good period so those are my dishonorable mentions and that's all I have all right I'll do mine really quick I have a lot of honorable mentions so I'll go through fast and they're all in alphabetical order first one control denied the fragile art of existence which was

02:16:17was Chuck Schoner from Death. I missed that. His next band, which basically was just a continuation of The Sound of Perseverance, the last Death album, which he wanted to not be a Death album, but the label made him do it. So cool progressive metal album, whole different type of progressive metal coming from the dude who kind of is one of the early progressive Death Metal guys. What label's got to be jerks? I'm sorry.

02:16:47If I was a label, which I should be, I'd let people do what they want to do. I'd be like half a jerk. No, I'd be like, you be you. You be you. You be you until the bottom line comes into it. Yeah, right. Until the bean counters come in. There is no bottom line these days for the labels, so I mean. No kidding. No kidding. All right, let me run through this. Next one, Dolly's Dilemma, Manifesto for Futurism. There's crickets there, but. Oh, I remember them. Great, great single album.

02:17:17only, unfortunately. George mentioned Emperor earlier. IX Equilibrium. Nine. Nine Equilibrium. I don't have any idea whether that's IX or IX. I'm assuming IX, but it doesn't really read. Like, why? I don't know. So, yeah. Or it's just IX. X Equilibrium. X. Yeah. The Flower King's Flower Power, which was...

02:17:47started to get long songs but i like the album a lot uh back to the

02:17:54instrumental stuff gordian knot self our debut tr mentioned i forgot about them shoot uh george this is one

02:18:02neither one of us had on our list immortal at the heart of winter i left that off because i thought you would

02:18:09I thought you would.

02:18:14It's like in Bob and Doug McKenzie when they're like,

02:18:17I'm letting go of this beer.

02:18:18I'm letting go of the beer.

02:18:20Oh, and then the beer falls.

02:18:21Yeah, he's just like, what are you doing?

02:18:23Bring me my beer.

02:18:24And they're like, oh, crap.

02:18:25That was the last one.

02:18:26Yep.

02:18:27God, I love the McKenzie brothers.

02:18:29I know.

02:18:30Strange Brew is the greatest film of the 80s.

02:18:32It's a beauty, eh?

02:18:35I mentioned as a joke earlier, but I do like this. I'm Lacuna Coil and a referee. They're a debut album. My Dying Bride, The Light at the End of the World, Neurosis, Times of Grace, Nevermore was on my list honorable mentions, but I bumped them up. TR mentioned Osric Tentacles, Waterfall Cities, The Band Saga, Full Circle, Spock's Beard, Day for Night, Fandom Plas,

02:19:03That's for you, Jay, from Metalhead's Podcast. On The Verge, Serious Young Insects. So that's Virgil Donati's band before he was in all the Derek Schminin stuff. And I got two more. Zero Hour, self-titled Zero Hour, which is a technical progressive metal band from California. And then TR mentioned it. I'll drop into my honorable mentions, Porcupine Tree, Stupid Dream. So when we discussed doing 99, there's a lot of stuff I like.

02:19:33$2.99.

02:19:35Nice.

02:19:36And as I predicted, only one of mine was mentioned.

02:19:41Though it was not the one I thought.

02:19:42Is it that X equilibrium?

02:19:44No.

02:19:45No, because that was already on my list.

02:19:47No, I'm joking.

02:19:50All right.

02:19:51I actually cut some from my list before we started, so they're not on here anymore.

02:19:55I cut like four or five because I was just like, eh, this is long.

02:19:57I don't need these.

02:19:59But I have Demi Bourgier Spiritual Black Dimensions. Nice. Dropkick Murphys, the gang's all here. Love me some Boston Celt punk. Guar, we kill everything. We, oops, that's not it. We kill everything. Yeah. That or the needle scratchy either way.

02:20:29either way. Children of Bodum, hate breeder.

02:20:35Come bringing it back down a little bit.

02:20:37Ben Folds 5, the unauthorized biography of Reinhold Mesner.

02:20:43The Chamber Pop album.

02:20:44Right next to Children of Bodum.

02:20:45Right? Right? That's how I roll.

02:20:48That's how I roll, baby.

02:20:50On your shelf. It's right next to it, right?

02:20:52Yeah.

02:20:54Oh, wait. No, this one.

02:20:56Wait, was this the one? This was the one that was mentioned.

02:20:59Neurosis, Times of Grace. Yeah. Surprised you didn't mention this one, John. In Flames Colony. Big secret. I don't really like In Flames. Oh, I like early In Flames. I don't like. I don't dislike them. I just never get into them. All right. Okay. Heading down the Punk Avenue, the completely commercial. What the heck are you talking about, George Avenue? Blink-182, Enema of the State. What's my age again? Sorry, but I love that.

02:21:30Well, it was really popular and it was catchy stuff. It's catchy. I like catchy punk music. Yeah, sure. I mean, it's bubblegum pop punk music, but you know. Yeah. It's no Ramones. But Red Hot Chili Peppers, California Cajon. Love me some chili peppers. This one's on here because I listened to it. This is a guilty, like, I don't listen to it anymore, but I liked it at the time.

02:21:59This is my shameful admission, Limp Bizkit Significant Other. Oh boy. I want to break some stuff. Yeah. But you got to put your tracksuit on first. Exactly. Exactly. The first Slipknot album was like the only one I actually cared for. Self-titled. Yeah, a lot of metal hits say that. You can't see California without Meli Pando's eyes. You know, that kind of stuff.

02:22:29That's another nod to Nick because he's in Iowa. This one, I'm curious if you guys know it. I'm guessing most people don't remember this band, but they are local from Annapolis. So you may have heard of them. You probably didn't like them. But I have seen these guys because I am friends with friends of them. And this is Jimmy's Chicken Shack. I've seen him before. Bring Your Own Stereo.

02:22:59their second major album release. I'm like, whoa, Jimmy. That's like blast from the past. I think I saw them at the DC Chili Fest. Aren't they still around? I think they're finally done. Oh, did they? Okay. I feel like it wasn't that long ago that they actually played, right? It wasn't that long ago that they put something out, but I don't know if they're still around. I've not heard about them in a very long time, but

02:23:29That is like very nostalgic for the late 90s early 2000s for me is Jimmy's Chicken Shack. You know just a big band in this area in terms of local bands they were a very big band and you know they were for a little while national and I met some of the guys they're very nice. Not exactly my thing I liked a couple of the songs a little bit but anyway this is the one that I thought could possibly be mentioned.

02:23:59It wasn't. Chris Cornell's Euphoria Morning. Then we have Sting's Brand New Day. Love me some Sting, Police, anything like that. And then lastly, The Helicopters, Grande Rock. Or Big Rock. Grande. Yes. Venti. All right. Nice. That's what I got. Very nice.

02:24:29A lot of albums covered. Yeah. If you couldn't find something on this episode, I got nothing for you. Yeah. So I got two things I want to say before we wrap it up, unless you guys have something to do with. I've got nothing that isn't off the cuff. Cool. All right. So I originally had one thing, but I have two now because I started this. First one was, I don't know if any of you guys are Joe Jackson fans. I love Joe Jackson.

02:24:59Well, he just announced he's going to do his first rock album in a gazillion years.

02:25:08For those of you that can't see, George just did the two pointers out.

02:25:13Nipplius Erectus.

02:25:15Or as we say, what do we say at Prague Power?

02:25:19Like a little girl.

02:25:22So, yeah, so Joe Jackson, he's going to go back on tour.

02:25:25Oh, I got to see that.

02:25:28If you hear about that, you tell me. Yeah, the dates are announced. What? Yeah, July. End of July, I think, in D.C. Where's he playing? God, is it the film war? I can't remember now. Oh my gosh. I don't remember. I saw, you know, I get all those emails from Ticketmaster and whoever, Live Nation, everybody else. Yada yada. Yeah, I saw a post from him, and I was just like, ooh, nice. I love Joe Jackson.

02:25:56I so love him so much. And I don't see anything here. Yeah. It's a huge tour, actually. Yeah. It looked pretty big. But nothing here. Dang it, Joe. He's playing here. He's not. I see nothing. No, I'm pretty sure he is. New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, Rhode Island, New Jersey. Oh, DC. Lincoln Theater. I was looking for Fillmore. Ah, right. What the heck is Lincoln Theater?

02:26:27Is that the one on U Street TR? Or is that the one? Yeah, that's exactly where it is. Okay, yeah, it's nice. It's a nice theater, yeah. And tickets are on sale already? I don't know that they've gone on sale. No, it's pre-sale. All right, well, we have to get tickets, guys. I mean, TR, do you like him? I like his Tucker soundtrack. That's about it. Okay, John, we gotta get tickets. Yeah, I'm probably not gonna go to that. And who knows? It's like, when is that? July? July.

02:26:567th. Which... I tend to go out of town around then, but... Yeah. If I have tickets, I can't, can I? Well, there you go. See what I'm doing. I think I got something going on that weekend, too. It's a Tuesday, so... No, not that you were. No, I do not. Probably won't be me. I like Joe Jackson enough to, like, you know, he's a cool dude and everything, but I probably, I don't know that I need to see him. You obviously have not read your Sunday

02:27:29It's just biology. Guess what, George? T.R. doesn't have the, he hasn't got the time. So yeah, that's stranger than fiction. Yeah. Hold on. Exactly. Verdict's in. T.R.'s not going. Anyway, and the last thing I want to mention real quick is our good friend, Zach, from the band Utkiaru from the Metal Edge podcast, and also a listener of this podcast, because he does send me stuff once

02:27:56in a while. And a very, very sexy man. We like our friend, Zach. And he's always, he and I go back and forth. He'll send me something. I might send him something. I think he sends me more. I apologize. I get, I have to take a lot of time outs on social media contact. But I do love to hear from him. And he sent me a message the other day and said, Hey, have you ever heard of this band? They have sharing members with the band wizard. Wizard is a jazzy

02:28:26a prog rock band from Norway. And he sent me this band called Soft Fog, with two Fs, by the way. So Soft FFOG. And the album's called Focus. He said, you got to check this out. This is really cool, kind of 70s sounding, but modern, you know, jazz rock, prog rock, instrumental stuff. So I checked it out and I was like, wow, this is amazing. He didn't tell me about this. Well, I don't know.

02:28:55He and I kind of like this band called Wizard. So, because I turned him on to this band Wizard. He was digging it. So, my reason for bringing it up is one, it's a great album. You should check it out if you kind of like it. And it's got blistering solos. They're kind of like a prog jazz fusion instrumental jam band. They kind of just go crazy with their instruments. And they have this incredible drummer whose name is Axel.

02:29:26I guess I first he's in wizard also and I first heard about wizard in January and I remember I mentioned it to you TR I may have mentioned to you too George but what I did not know was that in June he passed away oh oh he's 32 years old ouch he died he was in an accident and died and I was just like crushed because I was like here's this new band I got and now

02:29:55Zach's telling me, hey, there's another band that some of these guys are involved with.

02:30:00And now both bands might be done because he was such a driving force in both bands.

02:30:06And if you've never heard these bands, I mean, his drumming.

02:30:09And he's playing on a four-piece.

02:30:12That's all he's got.

02:30:13He's got a bass snare, a tom, and a floor tom.

02:30:16That's it.

02:30:18And he sounds like he's playing on 4,000 pieces of drum equipment.

02:30:25So I just discovered this band a couple weeks ago. And now I'm like, ugh. You gotta be kidding me. That's crushing. So, but I will say, if you don't know the band Soft Fog with two Fs, which I don't understand that, but. Yeah. And it's got great 70s inspired artwork. Yeah, it is actually. I'm looking at it right now on Bandcamp and it's pretty cool looking. Four songs on each album. I don't think they cracked the 36.

02:31:18I really like the band wizard which is the other

02:31:23I think there's two members that are between both bands.

02:31:30Cool. I'll definitely check that out. Thanks for the tip. And thanks, Zach.

02:31:36Yeah.

02:31:38But then you'd end up thanking me for telling Zach about Wizard.

02:31:42See how this works out?

02:31:43It all comes around.

02:31:44It's all a big circle. And I'm sure Zach told me something that before, because he does send stuff to me every so often.

02:31:53Cool.

02:31:53Yeah. Good.

02:31:571999 boys.

02:31:59It's in the books.

02:31:59It's in the books.

02:32:01Lock it down.

02:32:02I'm surprised TR doesn't have anything.

02:32:04You haven't had any shows in the last month.

02:32:06So I do want to actually,

02:32:07I do want to clean up something that I,

02:32:09I misstated in our last episode.

02:32:13Um,

02:32:14I said that I was going to see howling giant with a band that they

02:32:19aren't touring with.

02:32:20So howling,

02:32:21I am going to see both of the bands that I mentioned, but they're not touring together. So I'm seeing Howling Giant with Ancients coming up this weekend on Sunday, the 16th at, let's see, up in Baltimore here at the Mob Town Ballroom, which is a place I've never been. But Ancients is the headliner, Howling Giant,

02:32:51and Hayes Magee are all playing at that show. And then in December, I'm seeing All Them Witches with King Buffalo. So that was the, I had paired Howling Giant with All Them Witches and they're not touring together. So I want to just clarify that. All Them Witches is touring with King Buffalo. I'm seeing them in December on the 12th in Philadelphia.

02:33:19So just some upcoming shows. And then I'm going to the UK to see Osric Tentacles in the beginning of December with a buddy of mine who actually introduced Osric Tentacles to me many, many years ago. So it should be pretty cool to see them, especially since they really aren't doing a lot of touring in the US anymore. This may be it for them or, you know, I don't know.

02:33:49you know how much more they're going to do but I doubt they're going to come to this

02:33:53country because it just doesn't pay nobody knows who they are here so um yep so that's it I don't really have any

02:34:00other shows other than that okay cool all right well uh we will hopefully be back next month with

02:34:12something new and improved or at least new and same as usual. Uh,

02:34:18because our, our audience wants consistency, George. Exactly. Consistent.

02:34:22All right. We don't want to improve. We'll just be consistent.

02:34:28Yeah. For the 22 people that are listening, we just want to.

02:34:33Where are you optimistic? Oh boy.

02:34:37I've completely overestimated our crowd. Wait, crowd.

02:34:41How many is in a crowd? What's less than a crowd? A gathering? A group? A handful? A bunch? A bunch? Yeah. Well, but we love you. We love you all. That's right. We do. I mean, it's like, you know, look, and I'm pretty sure, well, I don't want to speak for you guys, but I can speak for myself in that I don't give a damn how many people we reach, but if the people

02:35:11If people we reach really enjoy what we do, then we've succeeded, in my opinion. Why don't we test that out? Let's say, hey, why don't you send us a couple of your favorite albums from 1999 on social media sites? Right. Let's do it. We dare you. Yeah. But no, I honestly, I want to know. I'm very, I have to say, I have a number of friends who always tune in.

02:35:41And I really appreciate the fact that they do. I don't want to name them all because I'll miss somebody, but I do know that there are a number of my friends who listen to this on a regular basis. And I appreciate them and that they listen to this. And, you know, they always, you know, whenever George drops the issue or the episode on the site, they're all over it. And I'm getting phone calls from my friend David or Matt or whoever.

02:36:11and they're like, dude, how could you say that? Listen to this. And they tell me that they're talking back to us while we're doing the episode. Yeah, give us crap. No, no, but they're playing it and they're talking in their cars to us as they're listening. So they really enjoy what we do and I'm glad about that because honestly, that's really what I'm doing this for. I mean, the main reason I do this is because I enjoy talking rock

02:36:41and rolling rock music with you guys. With my boys. Yes. And, you know, even though, you know, we all don't always see eye to eye on everything. We're not that far off on anything ever. Exactly. And that's the thing. And so, you know, obviously we could do this like till the cows come home on pretty much any topic, regardless of what it is in terms of rock. Yep. And that's what I really enjoy, like taking the time with you guys.

02:37:11And just being able to do this is such a pleasure. And, you know, for the first time in my life, I've got homework that I really like to do. Yeah. Like, you know, doing homework for this is like a true joy. Exactly. So, so thanks to all our listeners out there. Definitely. Thank you. Yeah. That guy and that guy and her over there. All three of you.

02:37:42We see you sitting at that table. Yeah. Alrighty. Well, before we go, I just want to say John and I are going to see Joe Jackson on July 7th in Washington, D.C. at the Lincoln Theater. We hope to see you there. Hell yeah, man. Now I have to go tell my wife that I'm doing this. Surprise. Surprise. It's a week after I see Rush.

02:38:14It'll be the first time on this tour. That doesn't tell me anything, though. Yeah. Which part of the world? Yeah. Fort Worth. Okay. Texas. Yeah. Okay. Yep. Yeehaw. All right. All right. Well, until next time. Yes. Happy Thanksgiving to all of you. Happy Thanksgiving. And we hope to see you before Christmas. Yes. Peace out. Peace. Rock on. See ya.