I was greatly saddened to learn of the recent death of Guy Babylon. I had only just started to talk about how influential Babylon Bleu was to me as a writer and keyboard player. Sometimes it seems there is no justice.
I guess it is somewhat fitting that he did leave us with one last example of his brilliance – with video too.
Here is the video of a Guy Babylon composition Las Vegas Twister which once again he displays his mastery on all instruments. Yet again he plays some excellent synth guitar via his clavinet with the Castlebar tremolo arm. The world of music needs more of this kind of genius.
Keith Emerson is to appear at a special Moog Exhibition Reception at the Museum of Making Music in Carlsbad, California on 29 Aug 09. The Museum is presenting a ‘demonstration and music’ by Emerson and Erik Norlander. Emerson is to demonstrate his Moog Modular system. More details…
The demonstration is part of the The Waves of Inspiration Exhibition: The Legacy of Moog, which is dedicated to the work of Robert Moog, and amongst other things has the first public display of some ‘artifacts from Moogs archives ‘.
Personal Highlights
The Oval 1972 – Photos from the gig ELP played at Londons Oval (the cricket ground) with the real cardboard Tarkus ! photos from David Buckley
Maple Leaf Gardens in 1978 – nice shots of Keith and Greg – from jlacpo
The Atlas Fireworks Show opened with a shortened version of Karn Evil 9. After the voice introduction to the show Karn Evil kicks in. It has a brief edit to the ‘See the Show’ end sequence to launch the fireworks show.
After that it goes straight into the original version of Carl Orffs Carmina Burana which ELP fans will recognise from the last lot of Keith Emerson tours.
ELP’s keyboard version of Canario is a brilliant adaptation of Rodrigo’ piece and is a classic ELP instrumental without question. Carl Palmers guitar arrangement (being the only version to appear live from any of ELP) captures all the energy that ELP caught in the studio.
What a shame (another one alas) that ELP never performed this track live – it really rocks. Sure the original is great too with classical guitar and orchestra, but the Emerson Lake and Palmer arrangement is awesome with all the new colour /sound palette which Emerson had available at that time including the Yamaha GX-1 and the Korg PS 3300.
Imminent Release of Working Live Vol 3
Carl has also announced the imminent release of another live album called …wait for it…..Working Live Vol 3 which is to feature amongst other things his ‘guitar’ version of Bitches Crystal from Tarkus which was performed on the last ELP Tour and Keith Emerson Tour.
It should be another interesting album with guitar versions of the ELP classics. Most of the previous guitar arrangement of classic tracks for were Trilogy (from Trilogy) and Canario (from Love Beach).
For me Love Beach has a lot of good moments. Despite the poor concept and packaging etc a lot of the songs are actually very good. OK they are not all Emerson, Lake and Palmer classics but Taste of my Love and The Gambler are good ‘pop’ songs but of course a lot of ELP fans can’t handle this kind of stuff. (I’ll do more ranting about/defending of Love Beach another time).
35 years or so after Carl Palmer got his first stainless steel drum kit it seems that he has done it all again! His website shows him sitting behind the new 100th anniversary kit manufactured by Ludwig and apparently given to Carl for his ‘return’ to Ludwig (that’ll be a freebie then).
A little smaller than the last stainless steel kit (the one featured on the ‘Welcome Back my Friends’ tour and live album) this one looks like it has two bass (kick) drums, two mounted toms and two floor toms.
Not being a drummer I don’t know all the technical details but they all have shells, heads, tuning bolts and are no doubt very loud when you stand next to them.
Sometimes you find an artist (Guy Babylon in this case) who you just wish would release more music as you know they are so capable of producing great stuff. Keyboard Magazine in the late eighties used to run readers songs competitions. If you were an unsigned artist you could submit a song or tune to the competition. They would release the winning track on ‘fexi-disc’ (gasp!) which, to be fair, was fairly adventurous at the time as it still cost a lot of cash to produce music on proper vinyl etc or CD, which at that time as only a few years old. Kudos to Keyboard Magazine for trying. (it was good mag in those days – now it is a small pile off …erm…advertising.)
The winner of the competition was a bloke called Guy Babylon with a track called Babylon Bleu.
The track was an awesome demonstration of a progressive instrumental track. With some very adventurous sounds (for that time) and some great playing Babylon, in less than 3 minutes, takes you through a range of musical motifs sounding like a true 5 member prog band.
You can hear the track on a download at KVR Audio Forums along with most of the other Keyboard Mag flexi disc release – some great stuff there!
With organs, sampled voices and an excellent synth/sampled guitar (expertly played) Babylon shows how to really rock on keyboards. The track has great riffs, great programming, super funky piano and organ and very neat playing – especially the Jan Hammer like pseudo-guitar. A truly awesome piece of music. I wish I could get a modern digitally produced and mastered version of it. Guy, my cash is waiting!
The irony is that is the only piece of music I could ever find from Guy Babylon despite years of searching. He has been part of the Elton John gigging band for many years but doesn’t seem to release any of his own music. A real shame since (in my opinion) we really lack keyboard playing standard bearers.
He does have his own fab website at www.guybabylonfan.net website but is mostly dedicated to touring with Elton John and other session stuff he has done. C’mon Guy write a few solo albums and let us hear what you can really do with today with modern recording technology.
Whatever the ‘ageists’ say about rock and roll being a youth phenomenon they got blown out of the water tonight at the Ferry with an astounding performance by Focus. With original drummer Pierre van der Linden and band mainstay and flag holder Thijs van Leer Focus proved they can still rock.
You just can’t beat a few blokes on stage playing good music with good technique performing for a crowd of enthusiasts. Excellent. No big lights, no stadiums with monster delay, no rip off tickets, no corporate sponsorship: just four guys up there doing it. Thats all fans want.
I have seen Focus at the Ferry 3 times in past few years Thijs van Leer’s clever and humorous quips and friendly dialogue with the audience. He is definitely more engaging than a lot of performers and gives the audience good value.
On previous occasions Focus played a shortish set with a mixture of classics and modern compositions – man the will soon reach Focus 43 if they cant think up better names for tunes! Apart from song overly long guitar solos (and also the obligatory bass and drum solos it was a great nights entertainment with an almost 2.5 hour set.
Highlights were the versions of Focus 3, Eruption and a Thijs Van Leer solo section on organ, flute and ….vocoder with a great choir setting. So many people thing a vocoder can only be used for Video Killed the Radio Star synthesised vocals, or Cher pitch shifting but kudos to Focus for more innovation here
Overall a good evenings entertainment – keep coming back lads!
I went to an It Bites gig a few weeks ago with my prog ‘confidente’ Harry. We used to go to It Bites gigs fairly frequently when It Bites were at the height of their ‘power’ in the late 80′s/early 90′s.
Despite not having the original singer Frank Dunnery the band were on fire. Although John Mitchell’s voice is a little harsher it fits the bands sound very well and he does a fine job as a singer. He may not have Frank’s stage presence or personality but then he is not supposed to: he is there as a new member, not a clone of Frank.
It just proves that there is no justice in the world of music. Whilst the masses watch Amercian Idol a superlative band like It Bites seem to perpetually struggle to gain any sort of momentum. It is a total shame. To me they are the epitome of the modern prog band. Their music is very catchy, very well arranged, innovative and well played by skilled musicians. Songs like Oh My God, Memory of Water, Farenheit are so eminently singable I have been singing them since the gig.
Unfortunately the gig at Glasgow ABC was cut short (we didn’t get the encore of This is England) due a club curfew or some other nonsense which was a joke. It was not the fault of the band but it was not well received by the fans and rightly so. However It Bites are finally back with us after many years in the wilderness and the prog rock world is better for it.