CityLife

Prog rock rises from the ashes

Promoters and DJs Terry Flynn and Dave Slack

SONGS. Some of them are quite good. Not the ones written by Johnny Borrell, obviously. Or the turgid brand of stultifying drivel spewed forth by Kasabian. But studies have shown that 38 per cent of all modern music is at least average in quality.

Nevertheless, look around the charts at the moment and you can’t help feeling that today’s songwriters (with the exception of N-Dubz) are lacking a bit of ambition.

Too many songs feature only four types of instrument (yawn); follow the traditional verse-chorus-verse structure (boring) or stick for their duration to just one time signature (WAKE ME UP WHEN SOMETHING HAPPENS).

What we need, as any Yes fan (translation for younger readers: Yes were a bit like Muse but without the spiky hair and embarrassing Radiohead-aping past) will tell you, is a return to a time when music made more effort.

Backmasked and played staccato

When producers would not rest until they had found a way to mix the kitchen sink into a track’s ‘coda’; when drummers – even they got in on the act – would mount expeditions into the darkest rainforests in search of a particular type of bark, which, if struck in exactly the right manner, would sound great backmasked and played staccato.

When Rick Wakeman wore a cape.

Thank the musical gods, then, for Phoenix Rising, which rises, phoenix-like, on Thursday, September 17 out of the still-smouldering ashes left behind by Tangled at The Phoenix (DO YOU SEE WHAT THEY DID WITH THE NAME?).

For not only is the club packing the most layered moniker we’ve heard in a long time - they’re also pitching up with the promise of being the only night devoted to progressive rock in a citywide radius.

Shirtless ravers

“No one else is currently doing a fully dedicated prog night,” says Terry Flynn, who, along with his DJing partner Dave, returns to The Phoenix after a hard dance-enforced exile. But what were they doing to amuse themselves while the shirtless ravers of Tangled were in residence?

“I moved down to Stoke-on-Trent, and had two weekly nights for some years. I came back to Bolton in the mid-'90s, and then set up a rock night at (what was) The Horse & Jockey in Bury. 

“Dave took a step back and hasn’t really done much DJing since then, apart from a benefit gig, actually at The Phoenix, about three years ago. But his knowledge of progressive rock and his collection of music are second-to-none so I’m overjoyed that we’re making our return together.”

Back in the days of their original residence at the venue, the pair ran a weekly prog night. “It was very popular back then, with the place three quarters full on a Wednesdays night!” says Flynn with characteristic humour.

Rekindled interest

“We’re both very much into prog, and feel that with rekindled interest in the genre it could take off again.”

Of the bands to fuel a renewed interest in prog, perhaps Muse have been the most influential over the past few years. Their music, along with work by the likes of hilariously overblown, structurally indecisive metallers System Of A Down, has reignited a passion for timeshift-happy danceable guitar slinging in our nation’s youth.

“We’ll be playing Muse certainly [indeed, Flynn cites the Devon band’s Knights Of Cydonia – the one that sounds like Queen scoring a Western-themed space opera in 2370 – as his top floorfiller] but we’ve also got stuff from the likes of Porcupine Tree, Dream Theatre, BigElf. The spectrum will be from the early days right up to 2009.

Various German bands

“We feel that prog has morphed into quite a number of sub genres now, and we will be playing them all. Prog Metal (of which Flynn says Opeth and Nightwish are key exponents), Space Rock (Hawkwind, Steve Hillage, and ‘various German bands’), Electronic Rock (Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk).

“Our night will be different from anything else around.”

So with prog’s new capital among young adults and the genre’s multi-directional progression into other areas of music, how does Flynn react to the (stereo)typical view of prog rockers as cape-wearing beardies behind banks of machinery?

“Haha, what about the God Of Hellfire; Arthur Brown with a full flaming head set?! Or Peter Gabriel in various guises? I may even put on my luminous space make up!”

Phoenix Rising is on Thursday, September 17 at The Phoenix, Oxford Road. 8pm-12am, £3.