A band's second album (American: sophomore) is frequently cited as 'difficult' but should it tread the same ground as its predecessor?

I’ve just reposted, with only minor editing, the blog ‘ 100 not out ’, the story of Prog magazine reaching its 100th edition in ten...

Everything the prog fan needs to know about Milan

By 1974 I’d had over a full year of immersion into progressive rock, a term which wasn’t yet being applied to the genre, though what I...

While a live album can’t compare with being physically present at a gig, the best of them are able to convey a sense of outstanding music...

One of my recent purchases, on a short trip out to Crystal Palace, was a £1 copy of Short Stories (1980) by Jon and Vangelis, from...

One of my Record Store Day 2018 purchases, that is one of the limited editions specially produced for the occasion rather than one of the...

The Instagram and Twitter trend ‘9 albums that changed my life/mean most to me’ (#9albums) which appeared in January 2018 didn’t pass me...

BBC Four has just shown a new, three-part series Hits, Hype & Hustle: An Insider’s Guide to the Music Business where the timing of the...

I’ve just ripped a rather large pile of my wife’s CDs to mp3 for her which according to the categories ascribed by Windows Media Player...

Paul Whitehead's cover illustration for Foxtrot (1972) Though Get ‘em out by Friday (from Foxtrot by Genesis, 1972) was a piece of social...

I’ve now set up my new Rega RP3 and have started to put on vinyl in preference to my somewhat larger collection of CDs. My first record...

(A guest blog by Mike Chavez) The scene: a dimly lit village hall around 7pm in a small town in rural Wiltshire. A group of middle-aged...

The presentation of an album used to be one of the factors I took into account when I was attempting to discover new music at a time when...

Early in the new millennium, when progressive rock was emerging from underneath rocks and dragging itself out of slimy ponds, I...

Back in 2015, the lack of availability of albums by progressivo Italiano band Jumbo forced me to buy a download of DNA, the first of...

I don’t watch very much television. Broadcasting corporations don’t really cater for my tastes and commercial stations are nauseating...

I’ve been lucky enough to play around on a Mellotron but I didn’t have the foresight to buy the Beast. The instrument was in a music shop...

Neo-prog The rise of neo-prog coincided with my time at the Transfusion Centre, which largely passed me by. The absence of column inches...

Barrow Civic Hall (subsequently Forum 28, now the Forum) was a concert hall with decent acoustics and the venue for my earliest gig...