The Progressive Underground Volume Four - Softcover

Rowland, Kev

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1908728965 ISBN 13: 9781908728968

Publisher: Gonzo Multimedia, 2022

Synopsis

Contrary to popular belief, progressive rock didn't disappear with the advent of punk, and the lack of media support didn't prevent new bands from forming and new music being created. It is hard to imagine these days, with everyone being permanently connected, but there was a time not long ago when communication was by word of mouth and letter. With no coverage by much of the media, it was down to fanzines and independent magazines to spread the word of what was happening within the progressive rock scene, what was being released, and who was worth going to see in concert. Most of these magazines survived for just a few issues, while others continued for many years, all having their part to play in spreading the word.

One of the most important during this period was 'Feedback'. It initially started as the newsletter of Mensa's Rock Music Special Interest Group in 1988, but when Kev Rowland became secretary in 1990, he determined to turn it into a magazine promoting music which often wasn't being written about in the mainstream press. 'Feedback' soon became one of the key promoters of the underground progressive scene, and Rowland one of the most well-known and popular reviewers. He also became a contributor to 'Rock 'n' Reel', as well as writing for the Ghostland website in the early days of prog on the web.

Rowland collated all his progressive rock reviews and interviews written between 1991 and 2006 into three volumes which have been described by Record Collector and others as "The Bible" while one reviewer called it the "Encyclopaedia Progressivica". It was originally intended to be just one book, but with the word count at more than half a million it was too big, so instead it was decided to break it into easily digestible chunks and also include all the album artwork. The books have been widely acclaimed, and questions were asked of Rowland as to when the next one in the series would be available? Originally there was never any intention to produce any others as these had captured the time when he was running 'Feedback'. However, even though he moved to the other side of the world and dropped out of the music scene, Rowland did begin writing again in 2008, and was soon as involved as he had previously been in the UK. Also, all his reviews were now saved digitally and did not have to be brought back to life from poorly photocopied fanzines, and he became convinced that it would be worthwhile to continue the series as the music had never stopped.

This brings us to Volume 4, which contains his writings from 2008 to 2013, with all album covers in full colour and cover art again by Martin Springett. Unlike the others in the series, this one volume contains the complete alphabet, along with some book and DVD reviews, various artists, and a few interviews. The foreword is by the highly respected reviewer Olav M. Björnsen, while the comments on the rear cover are from Thierry Sportouche of the French progzine Acid Dragon (one of the longest running progressive rock fanzines in the world) and Jerry van Kooten, founder of the highly influential Dutch Progressive Rock Pages (DPRP.Net). Together, these four stalwarts of the prog scene have more than 100 hundred years' experience of writing about the music they love.

Along with the other three volumes in the series, this book shines a spotlight onto a scene time which is still critically ignored by many and provides information about the music in a constructive manner. It is again possible to discover some great music from wonderful bands, and this should be used as a guide to expand collections and understand that prog rock really didn't die, it just went underground.

About this title

About the Author

Kev Rowland is a self-confessed music addict, who has never really been the same since he heard 'Sabbath Bloody Sabbath' in 1975. In the Eighties he spent quite a ridiculous amount of money on all things related to Jethro Tull and was asked by David Rees to write a piece on Carmen (the band including John Glascock, not the opera) for the Tull fanzine 'A New Day'. This simple request was life-changing, although neither realised it at the time.
 
Kev discovered he enjoyed writing about music and submitted reviews for the inaugural Mensa RockSIG newsletter, before becoming secretary himself in 1990. Over the next 16 years, the newsletter gained a name, and he put out more than 80 issues, many of them doubles, more than 11,000 pages. When he moved to New Zealand in 2006, he retired from the music scene, but was pulled back in - initially kicking and screaming until he accepted his fate. These days he can be found contributing to many magazines and websites and is thoroughly enjoying the amazing music which can be found at the end of the world, saying the gigs remind him so much of what he used to attend 30 years ago.
 
When he isn't listening to music, writing about music, or thinking about music, then he can be found on his lifestyle block with his wonderful wife Sara, and their 8 cats, 6 dogs, chickens, sheep, lambs, calves and cattle. Oh, apparently, he has a day job as well.

From the Back Cover

Kev Rowland is crazy. Crazy about underground prog rock. Over many years, he has reviewed tons of records, helping unknown bands to emerge from the fog of oblivion or the cave of indifference, a real labour of love. His guides collect those articles (many were published when he ran Feedback, a legendary fanzine from UK) and therefore are references for every curious ear. Yes, I do pretend there are many people looking for talented musicians playing far from the beaten tracks. These encyclopaedias are must haves, rich of detailed biography and line ups, complete descriptions of the music through a lot of comparisons... And fully illustrated. The purpose is always fair, never aggressive, tries to be 'objective' and helpful for the reader. Another book of dreams!
Thierry Sportouche (Acid Dragon magazine)

Progressive music is a strange little world. Except for a few names that made it, there have always been, and still are, a huge number of little players offering music that is enjoyed by a large minority. How did we get information about those names we can't find anything about, and in this day and age of information overload, how do we hear about the names of those nearly drowning in a flood of information? There have been and still are magazines, and since the 1990's also webzines. Those organisations and institutes run on people whose hearts beat for the music and telling as many people as possible about it. Kev Rowland is one of those people, and probably one of the most prolific ones at that. Let this fourth part in a series of his collected writing be the proof. Enjoy this part of history both as a reference book as well as a way to find out about bands you might have never heard about otherwise.
Jerry van Kooten (DPRP.net)

From the Inside Flap

Hello there! Let me open this book by giving my personal thanks to each and everyone of you who have chosen to read this book, as there aren't too many of you around anymore. As I'm far from being a spirited youngster, I still remember fondly when we had to buy magazines to read music reviews in order to get suggestions about what music we should possibly desire to get more engaged in, and I can recall the days when being a music reviewer gave you a position of considerable influence. Alas both me and Kev are too young to have ever been able to get into such a position ourselves, but I suspect Kev has read as many stories as I have read about how music reviewers were treated back in the day.

These days, writing music reviews is a task executed by everyone that cares to do so, and often by people with strong opinions and perhaps not as much of a factual or objective foundation as the reviewers had in yesteryear. Reading music reviews has also become a more narrow field, as a growing amount of people rely on YouTube, Spotify, Amazon and similar services and their algorithms to guide them. So those who take the time to appreciate the art of the written word and the descriptions given by someone with a strong emotional attachment to the art of music - this as opposed to music as a means of mere entertainment - is something to be appreciated. Hence why I thank you all for taking the time to read this book. The art of the music review is a dying art, and as I dabble in reviews myself I appreciate everyone that supports it.

Kev has chosen to call his series of books "The Progressive Underground". Personally I think I would have gone for "The Chronicles of Kev Rowland, the prog reviewer". This due to having a slightly dry sense of humour as well as referencing another piece of art from a slightly different field of the arts, but also one I suspect many of the readers of this book will be familiar with. That the reference will be recognized by many of the artists that have been covered by Kev's words here and is from a field generally associated with progressive rock is fitting too I think, and the fact that this particular piece of art can be as demanding as some of the material Kev has written about in this book makes it a good fit too I think. So for me, this series of books will always be internally referenced in that manner. As I know Kev hasn't restricted himself to merely covering progressive rock, I expect a similar series of books covering genres such as jazz, folk and metal to be forthcoming in the next few years. If Kev has the capacity to compile them that is.

What most people reading this book will not realize is just how much of a mammoth task it is to compile the material for such a book as this one: Tracking down cover art in decent quality for albums released in a limited edition, often with digital files only sent for review, can be daunting. Even in this digital age. And as this book covers material released at more or less the dawn of the digital age, or at least in the early morning hours, the availability online for some of this material can be scarce. If I should guess from a position of some knowledge, I would guesstimate that each page of this book has taken around two working hours to assemble. Possibly a bit more. It is a case of getting the information, text and cover art, reading through the text and looking for any spelling and grammatical errors and correcting them, then setting up the book page using set parameters to ensure that everything looks good on each and every page. And then to error check for anything to move out of place when the final file needs to be prepared for printing. It is quite the mammoth task, and much more work intensive than what most people can imagine.

The time period covered in this book is an interesting one. The years from 2008 to 2013 represent the years when physical music sales really started to decline, a decline that started in the year 2000, and now increasingly being replaced by digital options. Initially by Apple Music and their iTunes Store, which had really started taking off at this point, and with Spotify launching in 2009 music consumption gradually became more of a digital only experience for a growing amount of people in this time period. The artists started to move their own independent sales from Myspace to these and other established platforms, and when Bandcamp appeared in 2008 this became an increasingly important tool for artists and later on also labels to control their digital existence and presence, and one increasingly used for promotional purposes too.

While many reviewers would still get the majority of their promos in physical shape in 2008, by 2013 the majority of the promos would be digital ones. Unless you were a very established reviewer whose voice still had a commercial impact that is, or you had a personal attachment with an artist, a label or a PR firm that found the cost of sending you a physical copy was still worthwhile. I suspect Kev may well write a book about these and other tendencies he has observed and been a part of in the three decades and a bit that he has been an active supporter of the art of music. If he should find the time for it, and have the interest to do so.

While not as interesting for those that have read to this point of the foreword I suspect, it was in this time period where I got to know Kev too. He knew about me due to my role for a website called progressor.net, while I didn't know who Kev was at all at the time I have to admit. We first started talking with each other at a site called Progarchives, and while we both pretty much quit that site for different reasons some years back we kept in touch, and have established a friendship over the years that also goes beyond the field of music. Which is why I was given the honor of writing the foreword of this book.

I've never been a man that has had problems with words, other than probably using too many of them. But I will start concluding this foreword with the same words that I opened them with: Thank you for reading this book. Some of you will make many new discoveries while reading through Kev's reviews. Many of you will fondly recall albums forgotten about. Some of you will agree with Kev's opinions, some of you will disagree. I suspect that just about everyone reading through the entire book will encounter a multitude of artists you have never heard about, and some of you will read about albums by artists you know but with albums you didn't know about at all. And I suspect all of you who have bought this book or been given it as a gift have a profound love and affection for music as one of the creative arts. Just like me and Kev. So thank you again for reading, and I wish you a happy experience reading onward from here and getting to the important parts of this book.

Olav M. Björnsen, Norway

Edition details

• Publisher: Gonzo Multimedia
• Publication date: 2022
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1908728965
• ISBN 13: 9781908728968
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 314