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I just saw this band play a most excellent show here in Boston. Was chatting to some members of the band afterwards, and my buddy was wearing a Frost T-shirt... Turns out they are all big fans of Frost. Which is only right and proper, really.

I saw a vid with Jem playin the new Roland Fantom. So

Just started watching the lates Sonic Talk (a music tech podcast) and was delighted to find that Jem is a guest for the first time in a long time. Morning made! I have yet to watch it, but I thought this would be of interest to the folks here :-)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MBrQMWUTQvc

Haven't been by here for a bit. Life and all that. G'day folks.

Aussie prog gets Southern Empire have been getting a bit of good press with their latest album Civilisation, so I got it and gave it a spin. If you are here on the Frost* board there is pretty good chance this will be your biscuit and cup of tea. check 'em out.

So... we got a piano a few months ago. A beautiful Yamaha grand now lives in my lounge, to my utter astonishment.The kids started plonking away on it, and adamantly did not want me to show them anything. Imagine my surprise walking into the house hearing Mr 8 year old playing what was recognisably an attempt at Hyperventilate! Not exactly right, but I knew exactly what he was attempting. He had even enlisted Ms 5 Year old sister to "play this low note" because he couldn't get to it in time, but he felt it should be there.

Now Ms 5YO has a boom box and a selection of CDs she requested (Ayreon, Frost, Steven Wilson, etc) but Milliontown and Falling Satellites are pride of place. In fact the awful cacophony from yesterday turned out to be a music war where both kids were in their own bedrooms attempting to drown each other out with Milliontown (about 2 minutes out of sync).

So Jem, you are inspiring a new generation of kids in the same way Floyd, Zeppelin and Yes inspired me as a youngster

Thanks guv.

So lest you all think I am a fair weather Frostie, I must remind you that I was here through the dark days of frost disbanding and website deletions and all that and remained a steadfast Frostie. But more important things intruded (more important than Frost? 'Tis true!), and I had some very dark days. Long sickness of my father (cancer) and his care, and the toll that took nearly destroyed my family. He finally passed in September. Family is stoing now, I have a new job ( n a lab doing DNA extraction and sequencing), wife's career going bonkers, I'm back studying (math) and 3/4of my band has an acoustic side project with a residency doing covers of PROG and metal dongs. Dammit autocorrect, I saw you change songs to dongs just then! Finally got a Sound if Muzak added to the set, Snowman is on the list to learn and arrange

I'm also buying a new house which is nigh on a mansion with lots of renovations to do, but space (and budget) for a proper commercial studio!

And now a new frost album! Days are looking brighter again!

Love from your friend down under,
Reuben/Rook.

Did a quick search of the forum, and didn't see mention of this: The boss on Sonicstate (again) the other day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhHKTesS8n0

Apologies if it has been covered...

Just stumbled across "Snarky Puppy" on youtube and thought some here might appreciate it. This song - imagine solid 70s style funk (complete with horn section) that somewhere along the way ventures into Chic Corea territory before crashing headlong into an amazing 4 minute display of jazz fusion keyboard pyrotechnics that remind me a touch of the highlights of Patric Moraz' finest moments (not to mention Chic Corea and Jan Hammer)

http://youtu.be/L_XJ_s5IsQc

Just found an amazing guitar arrangement of Stravinsky's Rite (or part thereof). I have been getting into this piece recently and did a YouTube search for a guitar version, fully expecting to hear nothing but dire travesties. I was mostly right, but there was this:

http://youtu.be/Sh2i4gGEO0s

If you don't like Stravinsky you probably wont like this, but conversely if this sounds like it might be interesting you should give it a listen

In my search for unusual sounds and uncommon instruments, I just bought this:



Now I just have to learn to play it!

Just a heads up for the DAW users here

http://www.eventide.com/News/Product%20News/UltraChannel.aspx

This kinda made my day...

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1400947701/drumpants-an-entire-band-in-your-pocket

A little strangeness to make your day a little weirder, courtesy of the boys in Tull:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQCTe_50Sy8

Imagine you had a friend who revealed that they had no idea what Prog was. After the spluttering and shaking of head in disbelief, you undertake to educate them. "But wait," they say."I am just about to go on a long road trip. Give me ten albums that will educate me about this Prog stuff".

What albums do you give them, and why?

...are doing this:

http://www.korg.com/us/news/2014/0217/

Bit of a big deal to lovers of old synths.

A drug called Valproic Acid has been to shown to increase the capacity for test subjects to learn perfect pitch. Not quite sure what to think of that, but it sure is fascinating from a neuroscience and developmental psychology standpoint.

Abstract from the paper:

"Absolute pitch, the ability to identify or produce the pitch of a sound without a reference point, has a critical period, i.e., it can only be acquired early in life. However, research has shown that histone-deacetylase inhibitors (HDAC inhibitors) enable adult mice to establish perceptual preferences that are otherwise impossible to acquire after youth. In humans, we found that adult men who took valproate (VPA) (a HDAC inhibitor) learned to identify pitch significantly better than those taking placebo—evidence that VPA facilitated critical-period learning in the adult human brain. Importantly, this result was not due to a general change in cognitive function, but rather a specific effect on a sensory task associated with a critical-period."

(rest of the paper: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3848041/ )

Just had the premiere of my first feature film scoring job.

http://www.theatreofthedead.com.au/

T'was a lot of fun, and I hope to do many more

In case anyone here missed this, this is the final word on best man speeches.

http://youtu.be/sxpLiQgdTI0

(from the youtube info): "At his wedding we pleaded for our brother not to leave us, in the only way we knew how to say it; through the the medium of 80s music and video."

... And don't we all?

http://youtu.be/2rjbtsX7twc

A while back, maybe a year ago... The boss put a YouTube link of a scary technical fusion band up in the blog. Due to his blog hopping, I can't find the link. I seem to remember they were Russian, but plugging in variations of this into the YouTube search didn't cough up the vid I remember. Anyone else remember any details?

Cheers,
Rook.