Sturm und drang, crash and bang; Van der Graaf Generator collide with the RNCM in Manchester and fashion a nerve tingling victory. This trio of distinguished looking elder gents simply do not conform and on a weekend when the Stones slickly karaoke their way around a field in Somerset, it's a pleasure to see a band nearly of their vintage splinter and twist their catalogue into a new whole.
Prog rock: so often a bucket for music critics to fill with bile (even post-Muse) is really a genre where influences from all points clash and intertwine. Yes, for example, have over their 45 years been a broad enough church to welcome everything from icy Icelandic classical sounds to 80s disco rock and make the resulting hymns sound like nothing other than themselves.
It was intriguing to see Steve Howe filter that breadth back through the prism of his formative influences of jazz and particularly flamenco. Shorn of the current origin story/tribute act version of Yes, he did cut a slightly lonely figure on stage. In addition, his bold attempts to express the many, many layers of early Yes tunes through just a simple and unadorned acoustic guitar led to the odd fret buzz and timing issue. But there was a glory to it, occasionally ragged, but definitely glorious. His own tune 'Surface Tension' was especially lovely and the piece written for his wife – selling CDs like a charismatic market trader out in the foyer – had a sentiment and not sentimentality. He also somehow imparted something new to Mason Williams’ whiskery, brown flared corduroy 'Classical Gas'. The best moment was the excerpt from Tales from Topographic Oceans, so often a big stick used to beat his group. Here it was lovely and jazzy and on which Mr H displayed a model singing voice; a surprise to many, perhaps even him.
Words: John Wigley.
Manchester experimental rock quartet Cyril Snear headline a show at Chorlton’s Dulcimer bar on Thursday. We have a quick to and fro of words with them on the subjects of genres, venues, praise from The Mars Volta and the merits of musically induced blindness.
And Lynham should have at least a fairly good idea. As a music writer for many websites and publications from Line of Best Fit to Classic Rock presents: Prog, the co-founder of Manchester based label Superstar Destroyer Records has been able to pick the brains of many a musical mind, from Oceansize’s Mike Vennart to Amplifier’s Sel Belamir. But his favourite chin wag has been with Ben Curtis, a guitar formerly of The Secret Machines and currently playing with School of Seven Bells, an interview which “was amazing,” says Lynham, “as he's possibly my biggest influence as a guitar player – I asked him all these geeky questions about past bands, effects and stuff and he humoured me, which was great.”
Prog as a genre often has to defend itself due to Steve Lamacq and other media trendsetters peddling views of two-chord punk as a saviour movement. It's no wonder many buy into the anti-‘prog’ vibes so as to avoid its overly theatrical and un-cool connotations; even Peter Hammill of 1960s and 70s prog band Van Der Graaf Generator's agreed in a previous interview with "the fundamental principle that music had got overblown with the idea that you can only be a band if you’ve got six keyboards." However, since that 1970s heyday, its genres and sub-genres have diverged and overflowed into various streams and there are those who may share the appreciation for modernist interpretations of progressive music without realising it.
Aside from writing about bands in the eye of the wider public, Lynham also champions lesser known musicians through Superstar Destroyer Records. Up to now that has manifested in EPs and singles for Ninetails, Dune (now named Peak District), Metamusic, Nowhere Again (Lynham’s band whose name was influenced by the aforementioned Secret Machines) and Black Market Serotonin, who will perform at the Now Then Superstar Destroyer show at Antwerp Mansion this week. Those records meander through many a rock sub-genre, taking in the math, alt and post-rock inventiveness. Indeed, when Lynham says he has assembled the SSD roster through “kidnapping, extortion and blackmail,” perhaps he means he has entrapped the musicians’ minds in his ‘progressive’ genres net, before conversely allowing them the free-thinking, shackle-less melodic mindset that he shares. Sort of like Captain Beefheart’s isolated cabin lock-in to free the minds of the Magic Band from societal structure during the writing and recording of Trout Mask Replica.
Whatever it means, he’s letting Black Market Serotonin loose – without demanding a huge ransom – to support Manchester favourites Cyril Snear and Liverpool’s Always The Quiet Ones on Antwerp Mansion’s stage this Thursday. There’ll be no Beefheart-esque lock-in but there will be progressive music aplenty through what Lynham describes as “a line-up so hardcore it'll rip out your eyes and piss on your brain.”