RockRoast

I stumbled across this video on Morow.com the other day. It’s an interview with Porcupine Tree frontman Steven Wilson, and near the end he gives an interesting answer to one particularly interesting question. The whole interview is pretty good, but if you’re not a Porcupine Tree fan, you might as well just skip to 6:48 for the best part.

The question was, “What is your strategy to struggle against music downloading?” And as far as I’m concerned, Steven hit the nail on the head.

His first point is that Porcupine Tree is not music for “fickle” people. It’s one of the things I love about prog fans. We tend to be completists. If we love the music, we want the whole discography and the whole experience. I suppose I could have pirated Fear of a Blank Planet if I’d wanted to, but, like Steven alluded to, it’s difficult to enjoy music quite as much as listening to an album for the first time with the liner notes in open in your lap.

Which brings us to Steven’s second point: packaging. Fancy boxes, bonus DVDs and riveting artwork all make a piece of music worth owning instead of just listening to. Just yesterday, I pulled out a CD I hadn’t heard all the way through in a while and I sat there listening to it while staring at the artwork in the liner notes and reviewing the lyrics. It’s a great experience, but you need to own the CD to do it. Steven Wilson is right: you can’t download that tactile experience.

At least, not yet. I really hope technology never goes so far as to allow us to do that.

Many people are worried about the death of the compact disc in a download-oriented culture, but I don’t really think it’s a possibility. I will always want a physical, non-digital version of the music I buy, and I know there are plenty of other people like me who will continue to buy CDs. Although I have to say that I would be very amused if, years down the road, progressive bands begin to top the sales charts–not because they’re more popular, but because their fans are the only ones still willing to shell out a couple of bucks for a CD.

I don’t expect that to happen. But it would be hilarious.

Thanks to a recent blog post from the WFMU radio station, I’ve been made aware of a band who’s entire discography is available online for free.

Go back and read that again. Yeah, it’s free. Pretty much all of it, including compilations and live performances. I think there’s even a single thrown in there. But the catch is that the band is Bourbonese Qualk. It’s not like U2 decided to make their dozens and dozens of well-known, well-loved songs available for free. It’s Bourbonese Qualk.

Never heard of them? I hadn’t. Apparently they were an experimental band formed in the early eighties. From 1983 to 2000, they released nine full-length albums. They disbanded following the death of guitarist Miles Miles in 2002. Since then, former members of the band have dedicated a website to the free distribution of their music.

I’m only finishing up their second album now, but so far the music has been very intriguing. “Experimental” certainly is the easiest way to describe Bourbonese Qualk, but it’s not an exact descriptor. What I’ve heard so far is ambient music that, in places, is strongly reminiscent of funk, no wave and electronica. I’m also wondering if this stuff is one of the earlier incarnations of–or at least an influence on–post-rock. It’s weird. It really is. But it’s also kind of cool.

If you’re interested in ambient, funk, no wave, electronica, post-rock, or the broad genre of “experimental music,” you should give it a try. All nine albums are available at . Download to your ears’ content.

Although, a word of advice…if you try going through it chronologically and you don’t like the first album, Laughing Afternoon, don’t give up just yet. I didn’t much like Laughing Afternoon, either, but I found Hope to be much more enjoyable.

It seems to be one hundred percent confirmed that guitar wizard Marco Sfogli is returning for James LaBrie’s next solo album.

Of course, the fact that they’ve been “writing tunes” doesn’t mean the record will be out anytime in the near future. And that’s not a commentary on the seemingly inevitable delays of production so much as an acknowledgment that at least one of the band members has something else on his schedule. James LaBrie is committed to touring with Dream Theater from the end of April until early June.

But my hopes are high for the next record, regardless of when it comes out. Sfogli’s recent solo release has proven him to be maturing as a guitarist and as a songwriter. I’ve often criticized Sfogli for wasting his exceptional ability on unmelodic, emotionless, lightning-fast solos and tasteless distortions. But his own solo album, There’s Hope, showed a lot of improvement over his work on LaBrie’s last record, Elements of Persuasion. Amusingly enough, There’s Hope gave me a lot of hope for the remainder of Sfogli’s career. With a little luck, the record he’s working on now will prove that hope to be justified.

But now the strange thing is that, even though I’m a big fan of James LaBrie, he might not be the main reason why I’ll by his next release. It’s hard to decide which I want to hear more…more James or more Marco?