Join Together With The Bands

It has been quite a while since I last posted here; in fact it is the best part of a year, I am loathe to remind myself. The last time, it was to register my disappointment about something close to my heart but on this occasion, it is to celebrate and congratulate.

At the heart of all this are two gentlemen, both of whom have shown incredible stoicism and total dedication to making a dream of theirs come true, and now, the days of reckoning (July 7 and 8) are just over a week away. But it has been far from being plain sailing. They have overcome some enormous obstacles en route, but for the mostpart, they have remained cheerful even if their "to do" lists are growing longer by the day.

What makes this all the more remarkable is that they are doing all this for the love rather than the money, a fact not lost on those who will be coming along to witness the fruits of their labours. I cannot begin to comprehend the hours that both Jon Patrick and Geoff Banks, affectionately known to one and all as Twang and Chairman respectively, have put into making the progressive rock festival Celebr8 a reality.

Both of them have something in common with all of us. We are all fans of prog rock, that most maligned of musical genres, but which still carries on regardless, refining and reinventing itself along the way, moving with the times in its own idiosyncratic fashion.

What Jon and Geoff have done is simply, and I use the word advisedly, brought together nine of the best "happening" bands on the scene and made Celebr8 a showcase of their own individual talents and styles. No two of these bands sound or look the same which puts paid to the myth that every progressive rock band sounds like Genesis, Marillion or Pink Floyd, which is always one of the most misguided misconceptions.

From the intricate theatrics of IQ's Subterranea performance to the very English prog pop of It Bites, the dramatis personae is diverse and frankly quite thrilling..... which is a great place to start with Sean Thrillkins, sorry, Filkins, who has two reasons to Celebr8 that weekend. As well as it being his 50th birthday (sorry Sean) on the Sunday, he will be performing songs from his debut album War and Peace & Other Short Stories for the very first time. For many of us, this could prove one of the highlights. I first "met" Sean on Facebook when he was in the throes of recording the album and I remember how uncertain and doubtful he was about the reception it would get. (That is Sean pictured below with Lucy the mannequin).

He need not have worried because there were few albums last year which ticked all our respective prog boxes the way War and Peace did because of its beautiful, thoughtful and often semi-autobiographical songs based on himself and his family, past and present.  Since then, he and I have become firm friends and could bore for the British Olympic talking team about prog rock! What is more, he possesses all the qualities which are prevalent in most prog musicians in being a lovely and humble guy, who is always approachable and ever friendly.

The Tangent is another band with whom I am honoured to have struck up a close relationship over the past couple of years. Again, it was their breathtaking album COMM which said all they needed to say when it came out last year, the band's mainman Andy Tillison totally "on message" with his wonderfully crafted, compelling compositions based on how modern forms of mass communication have changed our lives, both for the better and the worse.

But much more than that, in the current Team Tangent are two of the finest of the upcoming generation of prog rock stars, the remarkable Luke Machin, a right hander who plays his Strat left-handed and oozes musicality like no other axeman of his age and the very funky Dan Mash who continues to grow in stature as a superb bass player.

And then there is Pallas, whose astonishing XXV album was my favourite album of last year for all sorts of reasons. The fact they are from Scotland's Granite City, Aberdeen, reflects so well in their music which is hard and gritty, but always inspired. With an eclectic range of day jobs such as wedding photographer and legal eagle, they are one of the most exciting live bands especially with the addition of Paul Mackie, who is the most expressive and dramatic frontmen around.

Headlining Saturday are IQ, one of the legendary prog bands who started in the 80s and have one of the most loyal and devoted fan followings for whom they stage their annual Christmas show. This is a band I have long wanted to get more familiar with having heard Dark Matter and Frequency.  Seeing them perform Subterranea in its entirety can be no better live introduction.

And so to Sunday when the very polished, debonair guitarist Dec Burke and his band open proceedings for the day. We saw them at Summer's End last year and the man really puts the rock in prog.

If Tinyfish were an actor, it would have to be one of the great British eccentrics such Terry-Thomas complete with the flying helmet and goggles he wore in Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines. With enigmatic "master of ceremonies" Robert Ramsay and Leon Camfield, the human embodiment of The Muppets' drummer Animal, they are one of the greatest exponents of English prog at its mad genius best. Unfortunately, due to frontman Simon Godfrey's ongoing hearing problems, this is their last live performance for the foreseeable future and the prog landscape will be all the poorer for their absence.

The next two bands on the bill both have lady singers which is a welcome growing trend in prog music. Sometimes the intricacies of the music demand a specific style of voice as proved by Sonja Kristina with Curved Air and Annie Haslam of Renaissance both of whom are still going strong. Magenta have always been a leading exponent of elegant, melodic prog to which an incredibly pure voice such as Christina Booth's is so beautifully suited. They again were one of the joyful high points of Summer's End last year with Godsticks' rhythm section of Steve Roberts and Dan Nelson now giving their sound a really robust quality.

Due to an Spinal Tap moment, Mars Hollow (more about them later) had to withdraw from the festival so taking their place is the exciting, upcoming band Touchstone fronted by the Brenda Lee of prog, Kim Seviour. Their high energy style of prog rock is both infectious and so very contemporary, and I predict they will be one of the bands literally blowing the roof off (in the words of the Twangmeister) during the weekend. And in 21-year-old drummer Henry Rogers, who also hits the skins with DeeExpus, they also have another upcoming stars of prog.

Rounding off the festival are It Bites, another of those prog bands who have re-invented themselves in the most spectacular style. Having lost their iconic guitarist Francis Dunnery, they became a band without a rudder, then along came John Mitchell, one of prog's great multi-taskers, who has played with Kino, Frost* and Arena, to steady the ship and set them back on course. Tall Ships was the album on which he first appeared with the band with  Lee Pomeroy, now bassist by Royal Appointment who was in the backing band for most of the performers at the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Concert. For this gig, John will be jetting back from Germany after playing at another festival (Loreley) with Arena the day before.

And in Map of the Past released in March, It Bites have produced one of the great contemporary works, a concept album which is so beautifully balanced with memorable melodies and a production
of forensic precision. But do bring a box of tissues as both The Last Escape and The Ice Melts will be two of the emotional highlights along with their canon of butt-kicking rockers.

Well, there is the main cast of characters, but it does not stop there as Twang and Geoff have managed to find windows of opportunity to bring more music into the mix through an acoustic stage. And there is a very special story to be told about two of the performers. When Twang and Geoff were putting together the initial line-up for the festival, they contacted Mars Hollow, who are based in California, who came back to say they would love to take part in the festival. Heading up the Mars Hollow representation was their bass player, the very affable Kerry Kompost, who, to say was keen to come over and perform, would be one of the understatements of the year. However, following a shift in dynamics, Kerry found himself without a band and was absolutely heartbroken to find himself sidelined with no prospect of getting over to England to take part.

But due to forward thinking by Twang and Geoff, the acoustic stage was created, so Kerry will be coming to the ball after all, accompanied by acclaimed Californian keyboards player Matt Brown and rumour has it, he will also be joining Touchstone which should be one of the defining moments of the weekend. No-one else will get a warmer welcome than Kerry who never stopped believing.

And also performing will be the wonderful Matt Stevens, the one man band who does not need a flying helmet to loop his guitar loops in his own inimitable way. Gary Chandler will also be previewing some of the forthcoming material from his band Jadis and finally, Alan Reed, the erstwhile singer with Pallas will be teaming up with Mark Spencer of Twelfth Night and now Galahad to create some entirely new prog magic during the weekend.

So are you all going to come now? How much convincing do you need? Okay, as Pink Floyd said in  "See Emily Play", Let's try it another way.

It is not just the bands who make these happenings what they are. To a huge degree, it is the fans and supporters of prog rock who make it what it is. Before the arrival of Facebook, none of us knew any of the others existed. But what happened so quickly and spontaneously was a coming together of all prog-orientated people. It was as though we all recognised each other on sight and now, there is a huge tight-knit community of fans who all get on famously and respect each other. What is more, all the bands know who we are and the added value we bring to all of them and their respective brands. And this is what makes the whole prog community such a special place to be within the entire musical spectrum.

There will be so many "friends" attending Celebr8 both onstage and offstage and I guarantee it will make the atmosphere there warmer and more welcoming than any other events happening in London this summer.

Thank you Twang and Geoff - from all of  us. It is going to be a blast.

Matt Brown and Kerry Kompost rehearsing for Celebr8.

Grounded

How do I start writing about an issue so fundamentally painful as observing something wonderful - an integral part of your life in fact - that you have seen develop, grow, evolve and progress over the past 40 years suddenly come crashing back to earth, its engines misfiring after attempting to follow a flight plan which is now 30 years out of date?

Even now, as I listen to Fly From Here for the countless time, I feel such a sense of disbelief that this is indeed the latest musical permutation of Yes, the unique, heart-wrenchingly, soul-searchingly, proud and inspirational band I have loved with a passion since 1971.

Fly From Here I have tried so hard to love, but it is  not loving me back the way so many of their previous albums have done. In fact, the more I hear it, the more I feel air sickness and turbulence setting in.

Their greatest gift  has been to create and present unique soundscapes, full of soaring dynamics and multi-layer instrumental textures, enabling the individual members the freedom to take off on flights of fancies especially through using the extended compositions as their vehicles. All were individual journeys, full of beautifully, brilliant crafted passages, which took you to the higher stratospheres of your imagination and dreams. Most Yes songs had a flight plan and a direction, and as a result, the majority reached their destination safely, smoothly and often spectacularly.

It has now been 10 long years since the last Yes studio album Magnification, admittedly not one of their strongest collections, but again a bold directional move using an orchestra to fill in the sonic space which became available due to the departure of three key band members.

Fast forward to 2009 and as well as the continued absence of Rick Wakeman, Jon Anderson is no longer in the ranks for reasons discussed elsewhere in a previous blog. No more will be said about these two omissions as they are not integral to this plot, nor will any comparisons be drawn as have been made endlessly elsewhere.

The introduction of Benoit David and Oliver Wakeman to take their places did result in an extraordinary first night of the British tour in Birmingham in November that year. It was Yes, but not as we know it.

So to the album: to my mind, there has always been something very special about the distinctive Roger Dean-conceived Yes logo.  Yes is a musical quality mark which tells you that what you are getting under this particular banner is something out of the top drawer and therefore, always worth having. It might vary occasionally, but overall, it does give you a bigger bang for your buck, especially if you are a prog rock fan. They are, after all, right up there in the holiest of the holies among the true legends within the prog pantheon. 

So here, we have both the time and the word, so to speak.

Then along comes a blast from the past in the shape of Trevor Horn, such a key figure in helping to change the direction, shape and sound of Yes, and most of it for the good. From his involvement along with Buggles partner in crime, Geoff Downes, Drama still holds its own in the Yes timeline. He then shook the commercial Yes tree with 90125 and had a hand in the production of its less well-received follow-up, Big Generator.

So thirty years later and Tempus Fugit, to coin the title of one of the better, inventive songs from Drama. So one wonders if bringing him back at such short notice to produce Fly From Here was really more of a quick win for the current line-up now with Downes back in harness in favour of Wakeman Jnr.

On the back of this latest team shuffle comes the reconfiguration and lengthening of the title track from the Buggles' back catalogue along with another Life on a Film Set which are essentially the backbone of the album along with the new whole band effort Into The Storm.

So, overall, the whole offering sounds retro and refried. Even ELP, when they decided to record another composer's songs, it tended to be someone of the stature of Mussorgsky or Aaron Copeland rather than a former producer with a few offcuts to shift. This in essence is why I think Fly From Here is such a disappointment. For me, it never ever takes off or spreads its wings; and instead of moving forward, it puts on the reverse thrusters and lurches into a holding pattern somewhere between clear skies above and a dark, foggy airport below.

The greater part of Fly From Here is pleasant enough- uplifting in part, building well with some stunning harmonies, but it so lacks that spine-tingling magic and wow factor, which marks out some of its predecessors.  And on the issue of whether Benoit David is capable of filling the vocal responsibilities, he has a fine, pure strong voice which slots perfectly midway between the Anderson and Horn pipes, so the casting probably could not be better for this particular piece.

But the moments which kill it for me are contained within the ghastly Bumpy Ride which goes right to the top of most hideous Yes of all time track list. What were they thinking! Consciously or unconsciously, these moments of Keystone Kops prog madness appear to either parody or mock the  great sonic musical motifs which have been at the cornerstone of all Yes music. And positioning it in the middle of one of the most haunting passages of Fly From Here throws the whole lot out of balance.

However, what is apparent throughout is far from allowing the music ever to cut loose and get some height on the dynamic or sonic altometers, air controller Horn has contained it within the confines of a flying machine, the result being it sounds too compressed, pressurised and hermetically sealed. Those fantastic instrumental textures disappear and became flatpacked in the mix. This is particularly evident for the guitar sound which does not do justice to the terrific licks and runs for which Steve Howe is so renowned. He sounds here as though he is playing from the depths of the departure lounge.


The official side two also has its low spots. Both Chris Squire and Steve Howe have added their own "solo" spot, Squire's coming through The Man You Always Wanted Me To Be, an acoustically-led five minutes of not-a-lot which would have been better as a filler track on one of his solo albums rather than a full-blown Yes work-out.

And Howe, well, indeed how! Again, it is the production which reduces his solo Solitaire into a tinny, trite exercise instead of one full of deep resonance and passion.

Life on a Film Set could have been a much better song if the instrumentation better reflected the repetitive "riding a tiger" but at least mid-section here has a great melodic hook to which Benoit adds the vocal overlay that does at last harken at previous greatness, albeit predominantly from the Buggles canon.

Hour of Need is another track which gets half-strangled by the packed-down production with both the jangling guitars and piping keyboards sounding too restrained against some very tight harmonies.

Into the Storm is probably the only song on the whole album which does offer any resemblance of flair and originality, probably because it is an original group effort and so does travel forwards rather than backwards. All the trademark little flourishes are there including an extended Howe workout and the lyrics even have a dig at being as stupid now as they once were; but I hope the rumours circulating that some of the more barbed lines are aimed at a former key band member are untrue. That would add to this album being even more budget-airline, ie cheap and charmless.

Believe me, this has not been an easy assessment to write. Having to bite back at the band which has fed, nourished and sustained you for most of your life and written most of its soundtrack does not feel like a fair deal so late along the line. And not even an original lush Roger Dean cover can disguise what lies beneath.

This flight feels as though it was engineered by contractual or business obligations. Rather than being initialled with loving care, the current Yes is existing through this strange device, an amalgamation of what has gone before rather than a brand new adventure into the possibilities ahead. I shall not be taking off with them if they decide next time to again choose the former rather than the latter.

Just One Man

There has been much talk, conjecture, sadness and sometimes anger in recent weeks, mainly on dedicated Facebook pages about Jon Anderson. Much of it centres on the fact that the current incarnation of Yes will be releasing a new album this year, produced, it is said, by Trevor Horn, an erstwhile band member and overseer of 90125, followed by a British tour. The message is overwhelming - that Yes cannot even consider being a bona fide band without the presence of the Accrington Alto.

I share some of this anguish, but I cannot help but feel that now is the time to look at the bigger picture and move on.

Jon has been my prime musical and spiritual inspiration, mentor and teacher for the past 40 years - back to when Fragile came out in 1971. At the tender age of 13, my life had been irrevocably changed.

Without going into too much detail, my world has been influenced by him more than any other human being but, unlike a recent posting on an FB page, I would disagree with him being declared a messiah. I would rather equate him with the title of one of the beautiful songs on The Living Tree, his recent collaboration with Rick Wakeman: Just One Man.

The song reflects his continuing faith in higher spiritual powers, a theme which has been one of the main pillars of his music, lyrics and poetry, along with his perpetual wonderment and love of life. As Mr Wakeman once so eloquently summed it up: "He is the only person I know trying to save this planet whilst existing on another one."

Well, from the outset in the early 70s, he has seemed to be operating in a completely different dimension - the angelically pure voice coupled with those ethereal looks - through those sometimes unintelligible words on which books have been written that have tried to find their true meaning. In fact, we each have our own true meaning to the words so why seek a third party interpretation?

I have seen Yes a number of times over the years and Jon was always central to the cast, always the focus of attention. There have been many hiatuses and fallings-out over the years within the band but even these resulted in some sensational by-products such as the AWBH album, which is filled with some gorgeous New Age themed compositions such as The Order of the Universe.

Jon's solo career has been prodigious and has charted his spiritual and philosophical discoveries along his unique path, from the cosmically charged fantastical worlds created in Olias Of Sunhillow to Angel's Embrace, his paean of love for his exquisite wife Jane.

But perhaps three albums in particular stand out: firstly In The City of Angels, which was the album which helped me through a very dark and difficult time in my life. Another was Toltec, inspired by the book The Power of Silence by Carlos Castaneda, which feels like entering a new powerful, spiritual reality.

Thirdly, Change We Must contained two reworked songs from City, plus one from 90125 and the iconic State of Independence, one of the most poignant affirmations ever of life, love and belief. However, it was the eponymous song which has created the most resonance, based on the book by Hawaiian spiritual teacher Nana Veary. A life-affirming video, based on this glorious song and featuring beautiful people and voices from around the globe, was released last year, creating huge waves of appreciation and love for all those involved. It sounded like a call to arms.

Meanwhile, Jon's well-documented brush with death in 2007, caused by a chronic asthma attack, has changed his life and indeed those of his fans, forever. The new version of Yes was assembled in time for the 40th anniversary tour, allegedly without Jon being informed. Like other fans, I was mortified to hear of this if indeed there had been no communication between him and the other members of the classic line-up.

But it was more out of curiosity than zealotry that my brother and I went to see the current line-up on the opening night of the British tour in Birmingham the autumn before last. And it was clear the dynamic of the band had shifted from the traditional centre to the left side of the stage. And there were no programmes, which was a glaring omission! But we will be seeing them on the upcoming tour to hear the new Yesmusic taking shape.

So where are we now? Having seen Jon and Rick in their Anderson/Wakeman Project tour in downtown Basingstoke in September, it is abundantly clear they are in a completely different space musically. Jon's voice has changed discernibly and this can in no small part be due to the effects of his respiratory break-down. It is still as beautiful and clear as ever but it now bears the traces of trauma, which only adds to the poignancy of the lyrics of the songs written since then.

Jon is now working in different areas and, on my part, it is the thought of him working with young musicians and choirs in the USA which really gladdens the heart. Well, can you think of a better teacher for these kids - someone who embodies love, goodness and positivity? There are not many role models possessed of these inherent qualities these days, and perhaps his experiences with them led to him writing the words to The Living Tree that teach young people to love and value themselves. I would like to think so.

To see him and Rick performing together was simply amazing. I had seen them on their previous two-hander in 2006 and met them afterwards. All I could say to him was thank you for the music!

To bring it up to the present, let us remember Jon is 67 this October, a time when many people would have been putting their feet up and reflecting on life's labours. I think Jon will never stop making the music and creating the art which brings him and so many of us such mutual pleasure. We will never stop reading his posts on FB and hearing about his latest collaborations with songwriters and musicians across the globe.

But putting it into context, it is highly unlikely we will ever see him with Yes again. Though he looks as beautiful and together as ever, his health would probably not be able to withstand the rigours of a full-on national or international tour. Even now, his wife Jane, "his angel", is there for him at every concert and he looks to her throughout. Would this be welcome on a band tour? If you need any convincing, remember the scene in This Is Spinal Tap!

It has nothing to do with wanting to please the fans, but has everything to do with what is physically possible - and anyway, he appears to be loving what he is doing now, spreading his unique brand of joy and positivity wherever he goes.

There is so much more I can say about this remarkable and incredibly special man, but hey, you know that already, otherwise you would not be reading this. "Change we must to live again." That is just what Jon is continuing to do and so must we.

Proud to be Prog

Having made dozens of wonderful friends through Facebook, most of them due to a mutual love of prog, it struck me that like the average Rush concert - and Rush of course can never be described as average - the men outnumber the women by about 30 to one. And that accounts for my perennial joke about there never being a queue for the ladies' loo at a Rush gig!

However, it does make me wonder why so few sisters are progging it for themselves.

While my sisters were getting steamed up over David Cassidy and assorted Osmondpersons, my prog world became full of astonishingly beautiful men with long hair and languid features who played just as spectacularly as they looked. So I retreated to my bedroom for about three years to listen and learn from this extraordinary music, and tuned in every Saturday afternoon to Radio One for the weekly gospel of prog according to the Rev "Fluff" Freeman. He even wrote me a letter starting "Dear lovely Alison" after I sent him a missive about the virtues of Patrick Moraz joining Yes.

That is heavy stuff when you are 16, rather than deciding which member of the Bay City Rollers you fancy the most. Which reminds me: I had a male friend who was a bouncer for the BCRs so I went over to say hello when the Rollers roadshow came to Southampton. Somehow I managed to get myself into a newspaper photograph with a bunch of screaming tartan-clad fans while yours truly was wearing a fully visible Yes tee-shirt! What a result for sanity!

The very first prog band I embraced was Curved Air and bought their astonishing second album from the proceeds of six weeks babysitting money. I wanted to be Sonja Kristina and, if the truth be known, I still do as she has always beem surrounded by prodigiously talented music men, which must be the nearest thing to prog heaven.

From there, I suddenly plunged myself into some heavy Pink Floyd, which culminated in my writing a prose poem based on Echoes from Meddle involving a stricken submarine and astral projection. I so wish I had kept it.

Then along came Fragile and suddenly life made perfect sense. Here was the music which was to form the soundtrack of my life, along with Emerson Lake and Palmer 1 (though it has taken me over half a lifetime to get into Tarkus, but we finally got there)!

So the foundations were set in prog stone in an early age, crystallised by seeing Yes for the first time on the Relayer tour and the subsequent seven or eight times in the various permutations. They will always be my torch-bearers for prog because of the way they have fused so many styles and influences to produce something totally original and memorable.

There have been some long intermissions since because of matrimonial tensions but the prog ideology within was always there, albeit temporarily snuffed out by sadly more superficial tendencies.

Doing one such interlude, I do remember listening to The More We Live/Let Go from Yes's Union album and crying for the first few times I heard it because it reminded me of where I wanted to be rather than being in a doomed marriage.

And when my marriage broke up, Jon Anderson was there with In The City of Angels to tell me it was all going to be okay through Top of the World, For You and Hurry Home.

Prog has saved my life, restored my sanity and informed my reality every step of the way since.

So how do I explain it? Easy, really. Prog rock is a journey and an experience which is totally personal to the listener. It lets you decide what you want it to be and every definition you give is right, because there is no wrong. It is all down to perception and interpretation, and the wonderful musicians who provide it never tell you how you should think or feel while listening to it. That makes all prog fans free thinkers who find their own level in the music and then celebrate it with other aficianados. It is a totally unifying force of expression.

And there is much more. Without Sonja Kristina, I could never have had an early perception of what it means to be a liberated, independent and creative female. Without Jon Anderson, I could never have understood and interpreted the wonders of life then formulated them into a lifelong philosophy. In his words "I count my blessings, I can see what I mean". And without Keith Emerson, I could never have appreciated a man who attacks his organ with knives (and he did make some pretty good music too)!

Prog has been my backbone, my philosophy, my fun and my passion. It has been so influential in who I am and the way I think.

And so far as I am concerned, prog rock chicks will always like it over 20 minutes long with three tempo changes and an organ solo. My case rests!

The Christmas story from hell - how I arrived at God's waiting room 30 years ahead of schedule

This is a true seasonal story which will make you all shudder.

About seven years ago, my now ex-husband, (this story should give you a few clues why) said he would be booking a Christmas break for himself, yours truly and his mother. How considerate, I thought. It sounded like a plan.

All was going swimmingly well until about three days before our departure. I was walking down Regent Street in London with a friend when suddenly I had one of my occasional "premonitions" which caused me to jack-knife. This holiday is going to be a disaster, the gut feeling told me which I told my friend by way of explanation to my slightly eccentric behaviour.

Well, the day arrived and we got a taxi into Winchester to pick up a mini-bus on the first leg of our journey. It sped down the A34 and onto the M4, where it turned off at Membury Services but not into the main public area; instead it headed around the back, where the full horror of the situation suddenly came into view. This was the Shearings Superhighway and there was no turning back.

For those of you not in the know, Shearings Holidays are coach holidays taken by people, who are, shall we say, in the autumn of their lives. True, I should have checked the booking forms beforehand, but then we would have been in a Mexican stand-off as I would have refused point blank to go and this was Christmas....the season of goodwill.

Well, there I was strolling among the assortment of Zimmer frames and walking sticks, thinking "Beam me up Scotty". There really was no escape. Then after folding up mother in law's wheelchair into the hold of the coach, we set off.....bound for Newquay.

Five hours later, we finally pulled up outside the hotel and that was not before I realised that coach drivers talk to more mature people in a completely different way to other passengers.

But a bad situation suddenly got worse when we were allocated our room. Now, I have to say at this point that my ex never understood why it was a totally weird idea for a mother-in-law to share the same hotel room as a married couple. That is all I want to say on the subject, but I had the pleasure a couple of times! However, the room they allocated us was immediately above the kitchen from which all manner of noises - voices and clanking pots and pans were coming -and we could not turn off the radiator in the room so we were evaporating in the heat. I think there were some complimentary miniature bottles of a certain liqueur on offer in the room which quickly disappeared -guilty as charged!

We had to tough it out for the first night but complained and got moved to twin rooms the next morning. (Phew)! However, the first evening also revealed the choice of entertainment would either be bingo or olde tyme dancing.

Well what can I say? I was rather conspicuous among the clientele - my ex was 12 years older than me so he blended in better having almost reached the qualifying age for one of these holidays. So the conversations with other patrons tended to centre on medical issues though one gentleman and I did have an interesting conversation about a piece of public sculpture in Manchester whose shards had a habit of becoming detached putting anyone walking underneath at risk of decapitation.

There were two day trips out to both Truro and Padstow, but at that time of the year, the latter proved to be an extremely bone-chilling experience.

One other slightly worrying factor was the food, which was rather rich and creamy; unlike the rather strict diet to which I now adhere.

So what happens? It is Christmas Eve and I am taken ill: Montezuma took his revenge that starry night in Newquay. I was absolutely wiped out that Christmas morning, so much so, that the hotel manageress thinks she has the makings of an epidemic as someone else in the establishment is also suffering.

So Christmas Day turned out to be one of the miserable experiences of my life: I was weak and the last thing I needed was the dinner "and all the trimmings".

Feeling a little bit better on Boxing Day, my ex, who was a sports journalist by profession, decided we ought to seek out a pub to watch a football match. I think I had probably lost my will to live by then, but oh no, there was one more final twist in the tale.

That was our final evening at the Bates Motel and we joined the rest of the happy throng for a session of community bingo. Unfortunately the radiators in the room that night were turned up to stun level and my mother-in-law who had an irregular heartbeat suddenly shorted out in the heat of the moment. She completely passed out and I distinctly remember my ex telling me to finish her bingo card while he single-handedly removed her from the room under the intense gaze of seemingly dozens of prying eyes.

Fortunately, she came to again about ten minutes after her fainting fit but she had no recollection of what happened. I wish the same had happened to me.

As we boarded the coach to return to the normal world, it turns out she also thoroughly hated her holiday and said it was a total shambles. So how to make two women unhappy simultaneously? Take them on a Shearings holiday.

Scrooge may have Marley to haunt him. I have Newquay!

Air quality

It all started during a family holiday in Majorca when I was 12.

There, I met an "older man" of 15 called Andy from Watford with whom I subsequently corresponded by letter for several years (it was a long time ago) and met up with occasionally. He was into his music and kept mentioning a band called Curved Air which was his particular favourite at the time.

Now, I cannot remember the sequence of events which followed, but what I do know is that a copy of Air Conditioning (alas, not the valuable picture disc version) was passed on to me from him. Then I bought Curved Air 2 - my first ever album purchase - from the proceeds of six weeks baby sitting.

What I do know was I was totally hooked. Even at such a tender age, there was something special about their edgy art prog rock which struck more than a few chords with me. Like all great prog, its leanings were towards the classics so discovering Vivaldi through them was a revelation. And years later, I found out that the spoken sequence from CA 2's epic Piece of Mind was an extract from The Waste Land by T S Eliot.

The exquisite Sonja Kristina was my heroine: she was beautiful, sultry, talented and down to earth judging by a photograph of her I remember at the time in which she was wearing a pair of Scholl sandals! (To this day, men of my acquaint and of a certain age still sigh at the very mention of her name). On top of that, she was surrounded by a group of ethereally lovely men.

And then they had a smash hit with Back Street Luv in 1971 which resulted in the usually quite mainstream Jackie magazine publishing a pin-up photograph of them. That remained on my wall for months.......

Somehow, album three Phantasmagoria totally passed me by, probably because I had by then become infatuated with Yes. (Such is the fickle nature of teenagers!) But personnel changes then ensued and both wonderful violinist Darryl Way and guitarist/keyboard maestro Francis Monkman departed, so Air Cut, their fourth album, possessed a different kind of energy thanks to successors Eddie Jobson and Kirby. For my part, their first two albums remain the definitive testimonies to their brilliance and ground-breaking prog sound.

Anyway, fast forward about 25 years and I was getting over the break-up of my first marriage to a clairvoyant medium who lost his way by doing a David Icke, believing he was a modern day prophet who had come down to save us all. Another long story there.

A few weeks afterwards, I linked up with a group of friends who were going off to a New Age happening in West Sussex. En route in the car, I suddenly had one of my occasional premonitions and said to them I would meet someone there that I knew. My first reaction was that it was going to be my ex and nearly asked them to turn the car around.

We got to the parish hall where the event was being held and went to the kitchen to get a coffee. There, we were introduced to a particularly striking-looking couple, first Christine....then Florian. I heard myself gasp because my premonition was coming true. This was indeed Florian Pilkington Miksa, Curved Air's excellent drummer, last seen on my bedroom wall. And he was flattered when I said I knew who he was. As a result, we talked music on and off throughout the day in between the Reiki healing sessions. I also caught sight of him again a few weeks later at a Peace On Earth Day at Wembley Arena.

Fast forward again to last year and thanks to Facebook, I became a friend of Sonja Kristina. This proved very opportune because around the same time, the excellent Classic Rock Presents Prog appeared and in its first edition, there was an extensive spread about ladies in prog rock. And I was pretty mortified to find it only had a photograph and a brief couple of lines about Sonja, who in my humble opinion, was the first lady of prog.

So I wrote a letter to the magazine to this effect which subsequently appeared in the second edition....and I let Sonja Kristina know via FB.

To bring the story to a conclusion, finally after 40 years, I saw the current Curved Air incarnation play at the Brook in Southampton last Thursday. It was a very emotional evening to experience all those incredible, unique and powerful songs which formed the very early soundtrack of my life. I will never tire of hearing "It Happened Today" or "Young Mother" because they have such a resonance even now.

Sonja Kristina is as vibrant and lovely as ever, looking like a gorgeous gipsy queen with Florian on drums the only other original member. But again, she has surrounded herself with some very distinctive and gifted performers, none more so than Paul Sax on electric violin who attacked Vivaldi full-on while guitarist Kit Morgan provided some excellent fluid lines and flourishes. Bassist Chris Harris and Robert Norton on keyboards were also superb in bringing the Air tradition to life and it was fully justified that they were called back for three encores.

Afterwards, the band came out to sign autographs and having purposely hung back to last in the queue, I finally met the great lady saying I was Alison from Facebook - and she knew who I was! We talked about the band and then shook hands. Andy from our pub quiz team, (not the one from Majorca) who was also there brought along a programme from their gig at Southampton in 1971 which she happily signed.

A true heroine....

Fifteen Albums in Fifteen Minutes

As an obsessional user of Facebook, (understatement of the year), it is always interesting to participate in some of the viral quizzes and opinion-seeking notices that are posted, especially the musically inclined ones.

By the strangest quirk of fate, I bought a swanky new notebook a couple of weeks ago and decided to "christen" it by jotting down my top ten albums of all time with a reserve list of five. Amazingly, yesterday, a posting appeared initially from Mr Derek Dick, the piscatorial former lead singer of Marillion, asking for people to compile the 15 albums which will always stick with you - to be compiled in 15 minutes which meant instincts had to come into their own.

Well, as they say on Blue Peter, here's one I made earlier so with no apologies for being a tad self-indulgent, below are my fab 15 with the reasons behind them.

1) Fragile by Yes was the first album I ever heard by them and it totally changed my life - a tall order when you are only 13 and all your friends are into Slade, Elton John and the like. That made Roundabout my first-ever Yessong and I still consider it my signature tune. Then miraculously, I saw its words come to life three winters ago when we were en famille in the beautiful French town of Annecy which has the most spectacularly picturesque lake. Suddenly, there appeared the vision of "in and around the lake, mountains come out of the sky and they stand there." It was one of life's defining moments. My brother also has strict instructions for it to be played at my memorial service (along with the Ying Tong Song by the Goons).

2) Curved Air 2 was the first album I ever bought in 1971 from the proceeds of six weeks' baby sitting. A gentlemen from Watford whom I had met on holiday in Majorca told me about the band and got me enthused. So I got Curved Air 2 before Air Conditioning and then bought Backstreet Luv when it was a hit. Sonja Kristina was my heroine because she was probably everything I wanted to be then (and maybe still do even now) - talented, beautiful and surrounded by men! It is still an astonishing album especially Piece Of Mind and I only found out later from where the spoken poetry came (The Waste Land by T S Eliot).

3) Images at Twilight by Saga. I was originally going to select Silent Knight, but IaT was the very first album of theirs I heard which I received as a review copy when I was the "entertainment" writer for the brilliantly named Beds and Bucks Observer in Leighton Buzzard. I spent about three weeks just looking at the cover and one day, when washing up at a boyfriend's house (not a common occurrence), I put it on.....and literally dropped all the crocks in the sink. It was another eureka moment - the most stunningly sophisticated collection of prog rock songs with flashes of Yes and again, it all made perfect musical sense. I was so enamoured by them, I nearly started their British fan club.

4) Moving Pictures by Rush is the band at their very zenith with a wonderful pun of an album cover. Tom Sawyer is one of the best opening songs on any album with fantastic, mind-blowing lyrics, moving swiftly into a paean about an old banger, to a highly complex quicksilver instrumental, to a commentary on why being famous is not all it is cracked up to be, to a stunning musical snapshot of two cities, rounding off with two more superb standards majoring on prejudice and the human condition. That is just about the universe covered in one album!

5) Queen 2 is pure heavy metal heaven. Having seen the band on The Old Grey Whistle Test performing Liar, my initial thought what the hell is that!! Then along came Q2 with its black and white sides - totally overblown, magnificent and pretentious, with some absolute gems such as Ogre Battle, Seven Seas of Rhye, Father to Son and the marvellously silly Fairy Fella's Masterstroke. Check out the painting in Tate Britain. I saw them on this tour and then on the Night at the Opera tour where I had a front row seat. There will never be another Freddie - nobody did it better.

6) ELP 1 was another life-changing album from the early 70s with all that heavy duty, industrial strength jazz, rock and classical pomp and bluster alongside the more delicate spoonfuls of Take a Pebble and Lucky Man. This was taken in isolation because afterwards I did not get Tarkus at all at the time and only now finally appreciate its excellence.

7) Discipline - King Crimson only because it is the most stupendously difficult and wonderful album of all time, which takes my mind to some very complex places. I saw them on this particular tour and it was one of the best concerts I have ever attended because of all of the above and because it was the first time I had ever seen a Chapman stick being played.

8) The Whirlwind by Transatlantic has plugged a huge gap in my musical inventory because it has moved me on from my 70s timewarp, documented elsewhere. And it is all thanks to Martin! This album is the true essence of prog rock and the more you hear it, the more you hear. I cannot stop playing it (and as it is Martin's copy.....)!

9) Four Symbols by Led Zeppelin, another of my early album purchases along with a French single comprising Black Dog and Misty Mountain Hop. It is all the tracks which are not Stairway to Heaven which make it so memorable especially the ethereal beauty of Battle of Evermore and the pure, dirty blues of When the Levee Breaks, probably their finest ever.

10) The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway was the first Genesis album which I really wanted to play time and time again. It was a crazy, surreal story but with some classic songs like The Carpet Crawlers, The Lamia, Fly On The Windshield and the title track of course.

11) Sabbath Bloody Sabbath was the only Sabbath album that really cut it for me because it had sensational tracks like Spiral Architect and Looking For Today, which had fantastic arrangements and melodies.

12) Spectral Mornings just showed what Steve Hackett was really made of once he had cut loose from Genesis. His albums have always been full of variety and virtuosity, and this one had everything - a crowd pleasing anthem in Everyday, a beautiful acoustic ballad in The Virgin and the Gypsy, an achingly lovely instrumental in the title track and a total rhythmic riot with Clocks- Angel of Mons.

13) Olias of Sunhillow by Jon Anderson. I remember first hearing when on a stay with the then boyfriend in the wilds of Rutland. There had been nothing else like it before and with Jon playing all the instruments in this incredible tale from another galaxy about an alien race escaping to a new world, it just broke new prog musical ground.

14) Ra by Utopia was a work of genius and that genius just so happens to be Todd Rundgren. This album completely intrigued and confounded me, because it was such a rich cocktail of themes ranging from the edgy Hiroshima, to the quirky Magic Dragon Theater to the downright bizarre Singring and the Glass Guitar. And the production of the album is just sublime.

15) Audio-Visions by Kansas is one of those albums which has two huge plusses - there is not a duff track on it and the singer is the awesome Steve Walsh. An absolute gem of an album on which No One Together is the outstanding track.

So there it is and it deliberately includes only one album per artist (apart from the Genesis/Hackett and Yes/Anderson tie-ups). And not a Pink Floyd album in sight. We shall save that debate for another time.