Strike Up the (Marching) Band

High school football starts today, which means it's time to get excited about watching kids I don't know play a game about which I don't care so I can enjoy the marching band for fifteen minutes during half-time.

Our Daughter marched in the band during her four high school years. We marched along right behind her, loading trucks, chaperoning special trips, hauling pit equipment onto the field, and volunteering at band competitions across central North Carolina every fall. There's nothing like six consecutive Saturdays eating band competition concession pizza, combined with six Fridays eating football game concession cheeseburgers, to help ensure you won't need a belt to hold up your pants by the end of the season. If the concession food isn't bad enough, then there's all the tailgating.

People don't bring health food to tailgating. You bring five boxes of Little Caesar's pizza and a basket of home-baked pretzels, or buffalo chicken dip and chips, or deep-fried jalapeno poppers. You bring the Colonel's chicken, or Mexican black been taco salad, or bowls of pulled pork barbecue and cornbread. You bring sliders, or pigs in blankets, or cookies and cakes. The family that brings vegan hummus-stuffed lettuce coils in a balsamic chanterelle reduction does not get invited to the next tailgate party because you don't need all that fiber and roughage coursing through your colon when you're facing four-hours of bleacher squatting on a hot night.

Weight gain aside, marching band season is a manic, sleep-deprived time filled with dramatic highs and emotional lows. Instruments will break, uniforms will tear, notes and steps will be missed, and the weather will gradually change from hot and humid to freezing damn cold. Concurrently, awards will be won, routines will be flawlessly executed, camaraderie will blossom, and important life lessons will be learned. The kids somehow manage to keep up with school work while dedicating weeknights and weekends to performing and practicing. The adults somehow manage to make it all happen football game after football game, band competition after band competition, without killing one another or their kids.

Tonight's season opening home football game marks our return to the marching band scene as our sons, both rising freshmen, take up their instruments. The German plays the sax, the Italian the trumpet. By all accounts, the German is loving it and will probably stick with it all four years. The Italian is enjoying himself, but has his eyes fixed on other interests, so this season might be his only marching band experience. Regardless, the two of them have spent the past few weeks immersing themselves in a demanding group activity and developing friendships with kids from all grades.

As the usual suspects gather at the high school auditorium this evening, we will follow the double-line of uniformed marchers to the stadium to take our seats and wait, as we do every year, for the football teams to get off the marching band field.



2016 Mark Feggeler

A Note in Support of Mr. Collins

Phil Collins!

There, I said it. You read it. Phil Collins.

For those of you nearing the age of AARP membership, or who have recently scheduled colonoscopies, there was a time when, love him or hate him, Phil Collins could do no wrong -- acting career aside. Hit after hit during the 1980s catapulted him from little-known drummer/singer of Genesis to mega-superstar of galactic proportions. For decades, the workaholic churned out album after album, project after project, and I'm not just talking about hit singles.

The guy made a concept album with Flaming Youth before The Who popularized the idea with Tommy (and a couple years before his future Genesis bandmates got into the act). He played drums on five albums with jazz/fusion group Brand X in the late 1970s while simultaneously and successfully taking over lead singing responsibilities in Genesis. He's been responsible for producing, collaborating with, and inspiring numerous artists throughout the years. And his inhuman drumming helped elevate the early fairytale music of Genesis out of English gardens into rock arenas and, ultimately, onto FM radio. The guy was a multi-talented, adaptable, unstoppable, impressive, all-around-enjoyable musical machine.

Then he became a commercial success and it all went to hell. Not because of him, though. He was just doing his thing and had enough business smarts to get paid good money for it, a fact that apparently pissed off some people and branded him a sell-out.

Now, after years of self-imposed musical exile, the guy's recent announcement that he plans to release a new album has certain critics freaking out like the devil is crawling out of hell to steal our children (or our chocolate, whichever scenario you find more terrifying). Honestly, what's the worst that can happen -- a crappy album? Or, perhaps, a really good album that you simply don't care for because it doesn't satisfy your taste in music?

I, for one, am looking forward to a new Phil Collins album. It doesn't matter if it's better than the best batch of songs he's ever pressed to vinyl or worse than the most middling soft rock he's ever been accused of compressing to MP3 format, I'm going to give it a listen because that's what a diehard fan does.

A diehard Genesis fan goes to see Peter Gabriel in concert even though Peter Gabriel hasn't released a decent album in 20 years. A diehard Genesis fan owns Mike Rutherford's solo albums (but is excused from anything after The Living Years). A diehard Genesis fan owns the three-and-a-half albums Tony Banks attempted after creatively flaming out in the early 1980s. A diehard Genesis fan owns all 473 Steve Hackett solo albums because he's the only former member of the group apparently not embarrassed by his progressive rock past.

Now, while I am looking forward to whatever music Mr. Collins chooses to release, I do have a small wish list I hope he takes to heart:

1. Get over it: You were overplayed and overexposed. Not your fault. You think Adele has never heard one of her songs on the radio and thought: "Good God, not her again." Your music would not have sold if people didn't like it, so stop being apologetic for your success. As for the critics who will never like anything you do, tell 'em to go screw.
2. Get out of your rut: Like many artists who achieve pop-star success, your sound essentially stopped developing when you struck it big. Maybe you think you know what people expect from you, or maybe you think every song you write that doesn't break the Top 40 is a failure, or maybe you just don't hear it. Whatever... Shake things up and forget about commercial viability. After all, you're wealthy enough to not have to worry about it.
3. Collaborate: Not that you haven't written some fantastic tunes, but some of your greatest achievements in music were in support of other people's ideas. All I'm saying is you don't have to do it all by yourself. Make new friends, call up some old friends, and get others involved in the creative process. (That doesn't mean rehashing your old sound with a young, hip producer -- please don't do that.)
4. Arena tours suck: Take a cue from your former bandmates and visit venues that are more intimate. My Lovely Wife and I took Our Daughter to see Peter Gabriel in Fairfax, VA, a few years ago with a few thousand other people and it was awesome. I got to see Steve Hackett's superb Genesis Revisited tour in a medium-size hall in Atlanta last year and it ranks as the greatest concert I've ever experienced. Much better than squinting from nosebleed seats a football field away just to see the Jumbotron.
5. Genesis Reunion: Stop thinking in terms of the trio versus the quintet. If you aren't up to the drumming, hire someone to fill in. We're cool with that. And just because Gabriel might not be interested doesn't mean we wouldn't like to hear Hackett tear through Firth of Fifth or pluck happily away on I Know What I Like. You could always do a one-off guest spot in their tours, or vice versa.

And, if you can't adhere to any of my other requests, please just try to have fun.

© 2015 Mark Feggeler

Progeny Perfected

You might think your children are special, but mine really are.

I know all parents believe their kids are beautiful, handsome, smart, talented, witty, mature and precocious. Problem is, only one pair of parents can believe that and actually be correct. My intent here isn't to tramp muddy footprints all over your dreams of being the perfect parent. You've tried exceptionally hard to raise perfect children and your kids genuinely appreciate your efforts. I'm here to point out the simple fact that our kids make yours look like they came from the reject bin at Big Lots. No offense.

Take the Italian, for example. The Italian has read more books this year than I have in my entire life, which really isn’t much of a comparison, because my reading skills loosely match those of an underdeveloped Gibbon monkey.

He's also a blossoming computer whiz. The Italian's idea of light entertainment is to prepare point-by-point comparisons of this year’s Apple Worldwide Developers Conference to last year’s Apple Worldwide Developers Conference. He’s thirteen. When I was thirteen, I was more concerned with which episode of Gilligan’s Island would be on after school than I was in getting the inside scoop on the latest advancements in world technology. When I was thirteen my brothers and I were content with playing Dig Dug off five-inch floppy discs on our Commodore 64. The Italian has been breaking out the laptop each morning to teach himself HTML coding over breakfast. And, well, why wouldn't he?

Then there’s the German. The German is sweet natured to a fault, he's an ace hockey goalie, and he plays saxophone as soulfully as a sixty-year-old in a smoke-filled night club. And he enjoys practicing. When I was his age, I recorded myself playing the trumpet for ten minutes and hit play twice to fill out the rest of the half hour I was supposed to be practicing.

The German also is our Lego master. I’m not talking about the 30-piece police car Lego set we got for Christmas forty years ago that I'm still trying to figure out how to put together. I’m talking about 2,000-piece movie prop replicas that are half assembled before the wrapping hits the floor. I’m talking about sitting at a laptop to program code for a WiFi Lego robot that recognizes different colors, utilizes touch sensors, and performs complex tasks.

Between the two of them, the twins have the necessary knowledge and access to technology to hack our online banking and transfer our assets to offshore accounts, all while holding us captive in our own basement with a robotic Lego army.

The ring leader of our perfected progeny is Our Daughter. If I even attempted to maintain half the busy schedule Our Daughter keeps on a daily basis, I would have been dead three-and-a-half years ago. I can count on one hand the number of clubs I joined during my K-12 years, yet this girl's resume reads like an alphabetical listing of every possible extra-curricular activity available.

She's also taken more AP classes than I have clean pairs of underwear. I'm lucky I know how spell AP. She wants to graduate with honors, get a bachelor's degree in biology, a master's degree in dentistry, and ultimately become an orthodontist. At her age, my only goal was to pass the next test and avoid anyone at school who might be interested in giving me a wedgie. Our Daughter has the next ten years of her life planned out whereas my long-term goals include gassing up the car and making sure I leave enough time after getting out of bed each morning to reach the toilet before I wet myself.

I'm certain many of you reading this are making all kinds of mental notes in preparation of a rebuttal of my assertion that my children are better than yours. You're wasting your time listing out your childrens' grade point averages, academic accomplishments, personal triumphs, and tallying the number of times they've been Snapchatted or re-Tweeted. Please, if it makes you feel better, go ahead and launch a well-prepared defense of your children. So long as you're prepared to eventually acknowledge the unquestionable superiority of my kids, we won't have any trouble.



© 2014 Mark Feggeler

Please Stop...

We had a great vacation last week.

Pennsylvania is lovely and the countryside surrounding the city of Lancaster particularly so. Over the course of seven days, we managed to visit historic Philadelphia, HersheyPark, the Julius Sturgiss Pretzel Factory, Luray Caverns, and we even found time one morning for breakfast at IHOP. Incidentally, blueberry cannoli pancakes should be permanently emblazoned on every IHOP menu from now through the end of eternity. If you haven’t tried them yet, what the hell are you waiting for?

For some reason, the soundtrack to our family “Road” movie included quite a bit of Journey. 

Turn on the radio and there’s “Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’.” Pull into a gas station and get greeted by “Wheel in the Sky” from overhead speakers. Sit down in a restaurant booth and you’re tapping along to “Any Way You Want It” before you consciously acknowledge the song is even playing.

Now, if Journey had never formed as a rock band and later devolved into a lightweight video power ballad band my life wouldn’t be any the lesser for it, but I am not a Journey hater. I don’t hold a grudge against Carlos Santana for suggesting to Neal Schon that he start his own group, and I don’t harbor ill will toward MTV for the thousands of times it replayed the horrifically horrible video for “Separate Ways.” 

I freely admit to enjoying the group’s music. Show me any person in his or her forties who claims to never have attempted to match Steve Perry’s wailing voice in “Faithfully” while sitting alone in a car and I’ll show you a big fat liar.

Regardless of my enjoyment of the bands numerous hits, there was one Journey song that kept popping up round every corner during our trip, most especially during our two days at HersheyPark. You couldn’t hide from it, shut your ears to it, or put it out of your mind because the song, continuing its rise up from the ashes of clichéd eighties pop culture, refuses to die.

“Don’t Stop Believin’” -- apart from being one of several song titles that suggest Journey had a passionate distrust of the letter “G” -- is one of the more commercially successful covers by the cast of Glee, a show single-handedly responsible for convincing teens around the globe that all high schools have the budgets and technical ability to stage professionally choreographed karaoke competitions. This has led to all cover bands everywhere, even Death Metal cover bands, adding the song to their portfolios of musical butchery.

There was the Dueling Pianos show at HersheyPark that featured the song. Three talented pianists in bright suits who worked it into their 30-minute performance of piano-based pop tunes. Passable.

Fifty feet away was the all-girl cover band, Patty and the Peppermints, that featured the song. Six or seven young women in dire need of a properly functioning sound board and at least one band member with the ability to tune an instrument. Mildly annoying.

Then there was the roaming street trio that attempted the song. Three aspiringly disengaging waifs with instruments on loan from the Toys ‘R Us throwback collection. Intolerable.

At this point, I’m just happy to be home where I have more direct control over the soundtrack of my life. Until, of course, Our Daughter hops in the shower and cranks up the teenage tunage. What are the chances that’s actually Journey singing "Don't Stop Believin'?"

© 2014 Mark Feggeler

What's In a Name?

Our Daughter is a singer in a band. Six kids, all roughly the same age, singing and plucking and drumming and tickling the ivories together, with an interest in playing local gigs and making a few bucks.

So far, they've gone under the name Dogwood Knoll, which was sufficient to provide an early identity, but is now in a state of flux as all six band members weigh in on what they should call their capriccioso collective.

Although no strong contenders have been presented, there has been some focus on bits and pieces that should be included in the new band name. Like using the word "six" since there are six band members, or the suffix "hurst" since we are in Pinehurst. The only problem with hurst is it sounds too much like "hearse"depending on your elocution, which seems more suitable to a death-metal band than preppie teens covering pop tunes.

However, some quick searches using an online band name generator and the suggested words have yielded interesting, if not entertaining, results. One of my early favorites was "Quick Fix Six," but it doesn't appear to have much appeal to the group. Then there are "Rocking Six," "About Six," "The Sixtones," "Deep Six," and "Pick Six."

Somehow, even though I had asked for random names with the word "six" in them, the generator offered a few wildcards. They might not be appropriate, but you'd be hard-pressed to find band names more memorable than "Nasal of the Brazen," "Indecent Viking and the Shimmering Treat," or "Placenta Boathouse." Just imagine the varied directions a band with any of those names could steer its musical journey.

Hurst has also resulted in fun names such as "Hurst Skillet and Adolescent Payday," which strangely sounds almost fitting. "Hurst Voices" also isn't bad, but I doubt "Hurst Rejection of the Wasting Truck" will make the cut. Nor will "Groovy Hurst," "Hurst Gumbo," "The Incredible Hurst," or My Lovely Wife's favorite "Trousers of the Disappointed." My vote for a hurst-inclusive name is "Nitro Hurst and the Misfits."

Of course, given the number of chocolate cookies the band has eaten the past two nights of rehearsals, it's only appropriate to search for names with "cookie" in the title, such as "Trouser Cookies" (too potentially perverted), "Putrid Cookie" (best for a neo-punk band), "Cookie Acid and the Asian Rider" (too... I have no idea), and the best one: "Cookie Venom."

Something tells me Dogwood Knoll will stick around a little while longer.




© 2013 Mark Feggeler ("Rusting Feggeler and the Fisting Logic")

Thread Count Audio

Some people spend big money on car audio systems.

When I was a kid, every other vehicle that cruised down our Long Island street had speakers the size of steamer trunks clogging up the rear dash and reverberating pounding bass at levels loud enough to rattle the rafters. It didn't matter if your car leaked a line of oil down the parkway, or the air conditioner made your car hotter, or the tires were bald, so long as you could treat the neighborhood to some righteous rhthyms.

As we aged, many of us came to understand it isn't the size of our speakers that matters, but rather the quality of their performance. Clarity and range became more meaningful than bombast and wattage. It's now just as important to perceive the tinkling acoustics of guitars and pianos as it is to thrill to the bravado profundo of primitive bass lines and techno-synth drum sequences. Few things have aided the appreciation of a full range of sound than the digital age. Beginning with compact discs in the 1980s all the way up to the latest iTunes downloads, every last sonic detail that goes into the making of a song is discernible for our enjoyment.

Our Toyota Echo didn't have a CD player when we bought it in 2002. It didn't have anti-lock braking, or power steering, or intermittent wipers. Hell, it didn't even have a clock. Thanks to a birthday gift several years ago from my family it has a high-tech radio with USB input for my iPod. The car might not be cool, but it gets forty miles to the gallon and the audio system is awesome.

Our Honda Odyssey, however, relies on a traditional 20th Century audio jack for input to an auxiliary channel. Not as efficient for sound transference, but we made it work until some time last year when the left speaker started cutting out at whim. We replaced the cable connecting the iPod to the stereo and that seemed to do the trick for a while.

Then it started in again, most noticeably during sharp turns to the right, and only with the auxiliary input. I repeatedly checked the cable, searching for kinks in the cord or frayed wires that might be the cause of our trouble. Nothing. I even slapped the dashboard while cursing -- the tried and true method of fixing any car-related trouble -- to no avail.

Normal people would have called the dealership by now. After all, the vehicle is still under warranty. But who has the time for that? Far too efficient, far too effective, and far too sensible.

All technical problems, regardless of venue or importance, require a six-month period of ridiculous home remedies before one should feel justified contacting the condescending geeks at tech support or, in this case, the condescending grease monkeys at the dealership. Our ludicrous solution took advantage of the fact that pressure applied downward on the plug at the console seemed to do the trick. Heavy jackets, sweaters, windbreakers, umbrellas, shopping bags, bits of string. Anything handy that could weigh down the plug and reconnect the signal did the trick.

Gradually, however, heavier and heavier objects were needed. Just a few weeks ago, only the highest thread count materials were sufficient to guarantee a quality audio performance, but I daresay even that no longer is working. Looks like it's time to suck up my pride, stick my tail between my legs, and lie like a rug to the condescending grease monkeys at the dealership.

"The auxiliary jack suddenly stopped working," I'll say.

"Can you describe what it's doing?" they'll ask.

"If you have a heavy sweater I can show you."



© 2011 Mark Feggeler

March On By

Sitting in the shadows of towering pines on a raw North Carolina Saturday, the autumn sun setting low behind chilled metal bleachers as our boys struggle to keep from spilling hot chocolate on their lap blankets, the impending end to our first season of high school marching band lies only one week away.

Like many of the phases in the lives of parents, our introductory season as marching band volunteers in support of Our Daughter and her classmates came upon us with a bang, only this time the literal bang of a bass drum. The responsibilities ahead appeared daunting at first. Then, before we knew it, we were in the thick of things, learning as we went. Now that we feel as though we have finally figured it all out, it is time to forget everything we've learned and move on to the next phase.

If the hours and days dedicated to the marching band seemed long to us, they were twice as taxing for our diligent flautist. She learned to march in step with more than one hundred bandmates without missing a beat of the fifteen-minute program they all memorized. My Lovely Wife and I learned how to manage parking at band competitions, prep water stations, and set up pit equipment such as marimbas and drum major stands. We dedicated a few Saturdays and Friday nights. She forfeited several hours after school twice a week since the beginning of the school year. She had to choose between band and ballet. So long to toe shoes and "Nutcracker" recitals, hello to marching in the cold and rain on muddy fields.

The amount of preparation and work that goes into a single marching band performance at a single high school football game is remarkable. One week of summer camp for incoming freshman. Another week of summer camp for the entire band. Monday and Wednesday after school rehearsals until 6:00pm, if not later. Finally escaping home football games at 10:30pm, or returning from band competitions at 11:00pm, only to meet up with friends over tater tots and milkshakes at Sonic Drive In for another hour before wending wearily home.

I can say that while I will miss the activity, I'll appreciate the newfound down time. Frantic flurries of activity can be fun, but they are weak substitutes for quality time. The time has come for the kids to put down their instruments, shove aside the extra workload, and return to the already challenging task of being high school students.

And despite how impressed I have been with the quality of the music the band has created, I will not miss the "Sound of Music" medley they have performed so incessantly that they all surely must be afflicted by nightmares in which a green-and-gold clad Julie Andrews chases them across Austrian mountainsides with a Sousaphone. I've heard "Edelweiss" so many times it makes my butt itch. I can only imagine how the high schoolers who have to play it over and over must feel.

So, although an important chapter for our high school freshman is coming to a close, we will savor a final performance this coming Saturday as the marching band competes one last time. The friendships Our Daughter has forged will carry her through the remainder of the year. And before she even realizes it, we'll be driving her to the 2012 marching band summer camp.



© 2011 Mark Feggeler

Mini Proggers

Anyone who knows much about me might know I am an avid Genesis fan. I love their newer material, which means the albums that are 19-36 years old featuring Phil Collins as lead singer. And I really, really love their older material, which means the albums that are 37-42 years old with Peter Gabriel as lead singer.

I don't care if loving the band dates me, or makes me incredibly uncool by most, if not all, modern standards of coolness. Go ahead. Judge and mock me. I can take it. I'm also a Mets fan, so I know a lot about hanging tough with an underdog and cheering for them at the top of my lungs no matter how vehemently the masses might ridicule them. Friggin' Yankees...

Most of the solo works by the individual members of Genesis from its many incarnations grace my collection in one form or another. Master guitarist Steve Hackett is my favorite, but I've already written that blog post. And yes, my Lovely Wife, he has a new one coming out this fall. (I'll try to be considerate during my 6-month period of obsessive replaying after it arrives special delivery from the UK.)

As time travels forward, my love of the band's music remains constant, even though the daily lust for it might wax and wane. From time to time, I put the discs aside, skip over the playlists on my iPod, and gravitate toward other genres. But never for very long.

Something about the overwhelming wall of sound from the melotron, the tinkling intricacies of the acoustic guitars, the screaming cries of the electric guitars, the simplistic complexity of the keyboards, the controlled chaos of the drumkit, the bass line that travels its own path through the song while somehow still supporting it, and the audacious pomposity of the lyrics -- for some reason it all blends together and calls me back like an old friend.

Lately, I've been reveling in the prog rock classic "Supper's Ready" from the band's 1972 album Foxtrot. Not only does the song contain every possible aspect of progressive rock that makes my Lovely Wife cringe, it has a running time of just over 23 minutes. On vinyl, that side of the album had only one other song, an acoustic guitar solo ("Horizons," also a classic) lasting only 90 seconds.

While I try not to subject my Lovely Wife to prog rock, our children are at my mercy. While Our Daughter, the teenager, is beginning to turn up her nose, the boys are still young and foolish enough to idolize me and, therefore, believe I have good taste. The Italian's standard response to seemingly every song I play is: "Can you put that on my iPod?"

So, it shouldn't have come as much of a surprise to me when, after having been subjected to "Supper's Ready" several times in the past few weeks, both the Italian and the German walked through the house this morning singing lyrics from the opening sequence of the song.

"Hey, babe, with your guardian eyes so blue-hoo," the Italian crooned.

"Hey, my baby, don't you know our love is true?" the German answered in turn.

My Lovely Wife rolled her eyes. I beamed at them from behind my bowl of Honey Bunches of Oats. Let her try and twist them round, round, baby right round with her Top 40 modern disco pop. So long as they display even a little fondness for 1970s rock opera prog, I'll proudly call them my sons.



© 2011 Mark Feggeler

Radio Tease

Every now and then a local radio station changes its format. If I'm lucky, it changes from some annoying techno-pop-disco-crap to classic rock. A few weeks ago, I thought I struck radio gold when I found a station that had converted to a format focusing on rock hits from the 80s and 90s.

I hate to date myself, but if The Big Chill were remade today, it would star people my age chugging Bartles & Jaymes wine coolers and dancing around an Ikea-furnished living room to Flock of Seagulls while wearing worn-out "Frankie Says Relax" concert t-shirts and figuring out how to stream Wham and Paula Abdul videos off YouTube.

MTV might have revolutionized the music industry -- and I was one of those kids who excitedly watched it launch with the appropriately titled "Video Killed The Radio Star" -- but it destroyed excellent bands that weren't pretty enough to fit the new mold. Mainstream music in the 80s was all about big hair, spandex, fog machines and orchestrated laser shows, so to find a radio station that pays homage to the acts that actually managed to keep rock alive during the decades of synth drums and choreographed lip-synch concerts is a rare treat.

Besides, I've grown tired of the so-called classic rock stations of North Carolina. They play the same twenty songs over and over again. This one plays Aerosmith every third song. That one plays ACDC every twenty minutes. That other one must think "Freebird" is the only song Lynyrd Skynyrd ever recorded.

It's like most of these stations laid out their schedules ten years ago and haven't deviated from them since. The only time you might hear more than one song from any band's catalog is on the horribly hackneyed two-fer-Tuesdays. Talk about innovative programming. I'm pretty sure Dick Clark came up with that idea eight years before radio was invented.

So, after years of relying on my iPod for music I like, I was driving to the grocery store and searching for a little agreeable music when I paused on a station long enough to hear the guy say "rock hits of the eighties and nineties." Sure enough, they played several songs in a row that took me back to my younger days. I hastily programmed the station into preset number four on the van radio.

Over the next few days, I would dial up the station to take fleeting sentimental journeys through my teens and early twenties while toodling around town. It all seemed so perfect. Then the cracks appeared in the ice.

By the third or fourth day, I realized I was hearing "Money For Nothing" by Dire Straits for the third or fourth time. And wasn't that the second time they played Thin Lizzy's "The Boys Are Back In Town" since this morning? That song doesn't even match their format! Just because The BusBoys covered it for the 48 Hours soundtrack in 1982 doesn't change the fact the song is from the 1970s! Don't these people know what they're doing?!

Turns out, they don't. Thank goodness I always keep the iPod charged up and ready to go.



© 2011 Mark Feggeler

Steve Hackett: Prog Rock Greatness Resurfaces

Your first favorite music artist can be almost as important a factor in your life as your first crush or your first car. In fact, it might outweigh both. You likely haven't married your first crush and you probably had to push your first car into the dealership seventeen years ago in the hopes of getting $500 trade-in value.

But that first album you played until the vinyl disintegrated? It's still in its pristine sleeve hidden somewhere in your basement. You purchased the compact disc version fifteen years ago, the remastered compact disc eight years ago, and the 5.1 surround sound digitally remastered version off iTunes two years ago.

My first musical love was Genesis, right about the time they started hitting big in the early 1980s with "Abacab" and their self-titled 1983 release. From there I bought backward through the group's catalog, and then through the solo catalogs of the individual members of the group. While Phil Collins and Peter Gabriel were the popular favorites on radio and MTV at the time, I was won over by the eclectic sounds of their former lead guitarist, Steve Hackett.

The thing that drew me to Hackett's material, even as a teenager, was his mix of styles, sounds and arrangements. He worked this to great effect on his first solo albums from 1975 through 1980.

Then, when even classic rockers turned to techno-synth pop in the 1980s, Hackett unfortunately seemed to me to lose his way like the rest of them. Gone were the dramatic mood swings of the progressive era, the melodramatic wailing of the guitar, the unexpected shift to acoustics, the stately chords of the mellotron, the multi-layered vocals, the story-telling of the lyrics, and the complex bass work and drum sequences underlying it all.

However, having grown up a Mets fan, I understood the need to hang tough with my team. There were some rewards along the way. An entirely acoustic album of Nylon guitar in 1983 and then in 1986, when the Mets won the pennant, Hackett was back in the limelight teaming with Steve Howe of Yes fame for GTR. A few decent tracks, some rehashing of past glories, but more smoke and mirrors than substance. The group fell apart and Hackett was adrift yet again. The next decade saw him release several uneven albums, glimmers of greatness hidden in each, his most notable accomplishment being another acoustic album in 1988.

Then he did something unexpected that awoke the long-dormant, geeky, pimply teenage kid inside all of us prog rock fans... He went back in time 20 years to retool some of the classic Genesis songs. At first I hated it. The classic music is, well, classic. But it grew on me and I eventually learned to appreciate his take on the songs. After all, Phil Collins had reworked one of the songs off "Duke," so why shouldn't Hackett be allowed artistic freedom to put his spin on some of the songs he had helped create?

To my great delight, this project seemed to rekindle a fondness for the style of writing and playing that had brought him some measure of fame in the first place. Over the next decade he released a variety of albums that seemed to show his strengths being in the acoustic/orchestrated genre.

As enamored as I am with his abilities as a rock guitarist, his greatest accomplishment through 2005 was the acoustic/orchestrated "Metamorpheus." Anyone interested in understanding my fascination should listen to tracks 2-4 of this album. The combination of "To Earth Like Rain," "Song to Nature," and "One Real Flower" played uninterrupted and in order is breathtakingly beautiful.

Then, following up a rock release three years earlier that showed more hope than flaws, he released "Wild Orchids," his 2006 over-the-top masterpiece. The album raised the bar to record heights with its "everything-including-the-kitchen-sink" approach. Immaculately recorded and produced, in addition to featuring the strongest original music and lyrics of Hackett's career (which is saying something), "Wild Orchids" offers something for everyone. Bombast, delicacy, stylization, fiery orchestration, and the textures and intricate layering that had been missing on his electric albums since 1979. Most importantly, the story-telling had returned full force to kick out any remaining hint of formulaic lyrics.

For his latest album, "Out of the Tunnel's Mouth," my expectations were tempered, if only because I so enjoyed "Wild Orchids." I followed Hackett's personal strife over the past few years and rooted for him in his legal battles with his ex-wife and ex-partner. I've read his blog posts and listened to the sound bites offered up on his website as the album was being developed, just like a good geeky adoring fan should. As good as Hackett kept saying the album was, I had my reservations.

Well, I've owned the disc since Christmas and continue to play it over and over and over, much to my lovely wife's dismay.

You'd think I would have married a prog rock enthusiast, having lived off classic Genesis, Hackett, Yes, Peter Gabriel, Marrillion, and other similar artists since my teen years. But, no, my lovely wife is a fan of beat-driven modern disco. I'm not sure which of us thinks the other more loopy for our respective musical tastes. As a testament to our love for each other, she has learned over the years to tolerate and even enjoy some of my music -- in case she argues I would like to enter as evidence "Entangled" from the 1976 Genesis album "A Trick of the Tail" -- and I enjoy singing along to the Black Eyed Peas and Lady GaGa.

Anyway, while I still think "Wild Orchids" serves as a better showcase for Hackett's many talents, "Out of the Tunnel's Mouth" is a better album. For the first time since the late 1970s, Hackett presents a fully-conceived, tightly-knit album that focuses as much on the story-telling and composition as it does on performances and production values.

Whatever advancements come along in the ensuing decades, I can tell you now that this compact disc will be one that I keep, one that I own future re-masterings of, and one that I will never stop listening to. My apologies in advance to my lovely wife for the years of hardship this may cause her.



ⓒ 2010 Mark Feggeler