I hadn’t been back to the flat since forever. Partly because I was grazing in Barnet over the weekend, but also because the place was in a mess from the post-gig hangover that lasted about half of last week. But starting a new week I resolved to get my act together.
Actually I tidied my desk at work too. There was a load of crap left over from the end of last term which was now irrelevant, and for that matter a load of crap from the last few years that was now irrelevant.
Under my desk there are a number of old books. Mostly old library stock that has been withdrawn from the system. We’re having a big clear out of obsolete material at the moment in advance of the library being closed down next year. I’m limiting myself on the number of books that I allow myself, because I’ve already put aside too many from previous stock clearances – hence the books under the desk. There was also other stuff down there: cans of Giraf beer beyond its use-by date, trousers, coloured paper, Californian magazines, and a small collection of 70s vinyl.
My colleague Judy gave me the trousers and records a few years ago. Can’t remember when. I’d already taken home some Iggy Pop and Nico discs, but yesterday I found a Yes gatefold amongst them. Fragile from 1972, the year I was born. So at the end of the day I put it in a bag and took it home.
I recognised a few of the song titles from the Yes triple live album, Yessongs. Okay, okay, stop sniggering, fat face! Triple live albums are funny, but the idea that Yes and prog rock are inherently amusing would probably suggest that you bought NME or Melody Maker in the 80s and 90s. There’s an unexamined consensus amongst music journalists from this period that anything prog is bad, because that’s what punk came along to destroy, didn’t it? And these ageing punks, who are now as fat and balding as the prog rockers they came along to replace, are just *so* fucking dynamic that naturally you’d prefer to follow their lead than that of a goofy hippy with a twin-necked guitar.
Problem is: most of the people who unthinkingly follow this consensus have never listened to any prog. They might have *heard* some. They might have heard enough to recognise it as the enemy and not punk derived and therefore devoid of interest. But what struck me when I was listening to Fragile was just how dynamic and spiky the music is. Okay, there’s a small suite by Rick Wakeman based around a piece by Brahms, and each of the musicians contributes a mini-epic to the mix. But they are literally mini-epics. What was surprising was how concise they were. In fact this was true of the whole album – everything was so dense and exactly constructed. There wasn’t really much room for expasive self-indulgence.
In the last few decades Krautrock, whatever that is, has seen something of a revival of interest. It became okay for journalists to namedrop Can, Faust and Neu! and get into that extended freakout groove. Fragile wasn’t a hundred miles removed from these bands – technically much of it resembles Faust, but with Hobbit-orientated lyrics. But hell, Faust’s lyrics can be pretty woolly too!
The audience that has arrived since the Great Prog Prohibition that lasted from about 1979-1999 may be free of such prejudices. They are free to reinterpret generic niceties as they like. I can’t imagine what the kids get out of electro or acid house, which I found repugnant when they originally arrived, but this lack of respect for history is exactly where musical progress is made. Before the 90s it would have been impossible to consider easy listening as cutting edge, but the last generation to scour charity shops for forgotten vinyl bought this stuff up, firstly ironically and then because they started the recognise the merit of a lot of the material and how it could be recombined and reinterpreted knowing the place for the first time.
For my next trick I shall justify the existence of the Catholic Church and Thatcherism.
