A restaurant breakfast with musical background
That opening guitar for “Band on the Run”
Is a time-machine suddenly jerking me back
To Midwestern nineteen seventy four

I think of how impossibly serious I was
Back then, how bent on knowing precisely what
And whom to love, what and whom to hate
Everything rode on the knowing, though I clearly
Knew not the scope or depth of “everything”

Nor do I know many deeper things now

But I do know that “everything” seems too much
And it’s THESE things in all their particularity
That ride on what I know and do this moment

Now

Songs are often time machines for me
But the time they lead back to, so indirectly
Is the remembering time, not remembered time

And when I write it again right after this stanza
It will look the same, but will not be the same

Now

After spending my first afternoon at the University of Colorado, I stopped by Time Warp Comics (http://www.time-warp.com).  As it turns out, Neil Peart, Kevin J. Anderson, and Nick Robles have been producing a six-part comic book series of Clockwork Angels.

The first three issues are out, and I was even able to purchase a signed (by Anderson) copy of issue 1.

And, equally important, I found out that several of the guys working at Time Warp are proggers.  They were also just–not surprisingly–fantastic guys (and a gal).  So, a huge thanks to Clayton, Garrett, Michael, and Georgia!

What a store.  I’ll certainly be stopping by again.

If you’re in Boulder, make sure you check out Time Warp.

Time Warp Comics, 3105 28th Street, Boulder, CO 80301.

If you have occasional fond thoughts of 90s art rock bands like the Monks of Doom you may also recall, while waxing nostalgic about the dear old 1990s, that there was a golden moment, after the commercial breakthrough of punk/grunge/indie rock in America but before the advent of Napster, when bands that had been toiling in musical nether regions for years finally had their moments in the sun.  The MoD were an offshoot of Camper Van Beethoven, the most palatably inventive American band of the 1980s and early 1990s, and like the great Camper Van approached American prog — delegated generally and unfortunately to the backwater of “jam” band categorization — with a firm belief that dumping every damn thing they could think of into the musical kettle and bringing it all to boil would work.  And it mostly did.  We’re talking about music that went deeply into the spirit…

This essay first appeared on The Imaginative Conservative.  Thanks to Winston Elliott at TIC for permission to re-post it here. The graphic is by Hillsdale artist Bryan Springer.

Freud Among the Great Books:
Beyond a Monolithic “Freudian Theory”[1]

I find myself for a moment in the interesting position of not knowing whether what I have to say should be regarded as something long known and self-evident or something completely new and strange.  I suspect, however, it is the latter.  (Sigmund Freud)[2]

When Sigmund Freud wrote these sentences in the late 1930’s, he was referring specifically to some findings on a more focused topic.  They may be taken, however, as an expression of a thought which apparently occurred to him often through the course of his career.  I also take them as expressing my own sense about the impressionistic report that I intend to provide in what…

One of the most challenging parts about being a prog reviewer is trying to ascertain how many times you need to listen to a particular album before you feel confident enough to deliver a balanced, fair appraisal of what it is all about.

I have never reviewed an album on the strength of one listen, no matter how discordant or lacking it may be. A lot of work goes into every release so I feel a sense of responsibility and respect for the artiste(s) in giving their work a thorough listening before committing my thoughts to type.

On the other hand, some of the most interesting albums are the ones where you feel no matter how many times you play them, there will be something more for you to discover the next time you give it a run-out. One example came in the post in the spring all the way…

My family and I are in the process of moving to Boulder, Colorado, for the upcoming school year.  One of the terrible parts of any move is the packing.  But, there’s a plus side–things thought lost reappear!  And, so it is with this review I found in a spring issue of the University of Notre Dame student newspaper, The Observer.  Dated April 23, 1981, pg. 11, by Tom Krueger.  Forgive the quality of the image.  It’s a photocopy from microfilm run through a Scansnap.  So, in terms of image–blah!  Still, good to have it posted for historical reasons.

For the next year, yours truly (ed.-Brad) will be living in Longmont, Colorado, and teaching at the University of Colorado, Boulder.  It is my goal to make CU an all-prog rock campus.  By the end of the academic year, I’m hoping CU students will chant things such as Socrates, Petrarch, Spawton, Tillison, Cohen. . . . We’ll see what happens.

Therefore, the physical address of Progarchy, July 1, 2014-July 1, 2015, will be:

Brad Birzer/Progarchy

1710 Whitefeather Drive

Longmont CO 80504

USA

Contact email will still be: progarchy@gmail.com

On July 1, 2015, progarchy hq will move back to its normal Hillsdale, Michigan, address.  Thanks for understanding!  Yours, BB