About composing, Progressive Rock, me:

One thing I have noticed about most prog-rock bands is that “very few” have strong songwriting skills, so the songs tend to be more of an orchestral proggy jam instead of strong, epic, memorable songs…. One of the very few prog-rock bands that have good songwriting is “Spock’s Beard”, and that is mainly because they HAD Neal Morse who is considered one of the best prog-rock song writers out there. One of my favorite proggie new bands was Transatlantic, and again, most of the songs were written and arranged by Neal Morse, and when he left, they also disbanded… The Flower Kings have their moments, but again, to date they have nothing memorable that stays in people’s psyche(I have all their CDs and I get so angry when I hear something ALMOST get there and not)….

Even the older, venerable 70’s bands suffered in different degrees from that problem:

- ELP: They had Keith who was an outstanding composer in his own right, he could have written straight classical compositions and become famous just in that arena, but I’m glad he went the other route ! One of the aspects that made ELP so enduring is that “for the most part”, they had strong compositions that were beyond just playing well…. “Trilogy” is very Rachmaninovian and Stravinskian, and you could just play the piano parts and it would still sound good. But there were Ego problems with the band and a general lack of interest once they became VERY rich, and I mean they ALL owned castles in England at one point !!!

- Yes: Was such a disappointment for me, I really kept hoping for the next “Fragile” and “Close To the Edge” albums !! Their unique thing was that none of them “alone” was a good composer, but combined they were awesome. All you have to do is to hear their solo albums and realize their strength was writing together, although Rick Wakeman did do well with his first solo albums, and had a huge influence with his Stravinskian type motives and leaning in his Yes parts, particularly in “Fragile” and “Close To The Edge”, every time he left the band, a big black hole appeared in their music… The other albums were OK, “Going for the one” has some moments like Awaken…. But they never had another classic like “CTTE”… Every time Rick came back in the band they did great albums, and I bet if Bruford and Wakeman would have never left the band, we would have had more “CTTE” masterpieces… Perhaps is then our duty to write the next one !!

- Genesis: Believe it or not, they were the “better” composers of the lot, but just not too great as instrumentalists and victims of Ego….. They managed to create a unique sound or style in their compositions VERY epic and grand, like “Pictures at An Exhibition” from Mussorsky, and their arrangements were very tasteful and classic. Albums like “Selling England by The Pound”, “A Lamb Dies down in Broadway”, “A Trick of The Tail”, have some beautiful and memorable moments, and have some of the BEST compositions ever written by proggies, too bad Ego again reared it’s evil head and made Peter Gabriel make his move…. Although “Trick of The Tail” was the first “Phil Collins” excursion, he had not yet decided to make this a pop-prog band, and that album is INCREDIBLE… I honestly don’t know what happened to them, the composition skills were there, but they did not continue to produce the quality material they had in the past… Peter Gabriel did IMHO, follow with that tradition, although he was not the most gifted composer, but had a great ear for modern textures and a finger on the pulse of the upcoming musical trends…

- Kansas: Although a little less proggy and more of southern rock flavor to them, Kansas is indisputably one of the most consistent and talented composers of the prog-rock arena. In every aspect, one of the best prog-rock bands ever: When you count all the blockbusters they wrote until they had a major band breakup, it beats all the above hands down. They had everything you could ever want in a prog-rock (or any band) band: Epic compositions, great musical taste and lyrics, incredible playing, memorable hooks, solos, and melodies, and just perfect arranging, just listen to “Point of Know Return”, not a single flaw in that album I can think of. And they really wanted to be heros, they took their music seriously and understood their resposibility as leaders influencing the psyche of their listeneners ! I saw them once in a very small club live and they brought me to tears through the entire concert, was like a life changing experience for me… I do miss them so….. Kansas had two modern musical geniouses in their wings: Kerry Livgren, and Steve Walsh, and maybe they were too big to belong in one band, but their legacy still lives on as some of the best music on Earth.

As a result of my studying this genre(and I mean years of studying, buying prog-rock research books, collecting every prog-rock album there ever was, studying the composition methods), my philosophy with writing progressive rock music, is that you must first have a strong composition that stands on it’s own before you add complexity or any instruments, and the songs must be memorable, not just a fast jam… The closest thing to a band jam I would write would be “Sherwood”, and if you listen to that, it still has a charm to it that makes it more than just a vehicle for jamming. If you can play the piece on a piano and it sounds good, that is a START !

Why do I LOVE Progressive rock you may ask ?? Because prog-rock, IMHO, IS the PERFECT music genre; Jazz is nothing but an empty EGO MASSAGE for good players who know great chords, and have some composition skills, but are too caught up in themselves to write anything except vehicles for their own playing. Classical suffers from high roller snobbery, the rich would love to steal this genre for themselves, as evident as it was while I played in many halls and saw nothing but rich debutants there !! The other problem with “most” classical music, is that it is thoroughly pedantic and pedagogic; mostly about all these “Rules” you should follow in the music, what is correct orchestration, voice leading, all the shit they rammed down my throat at school that now I can laugh at !! Interesting Anecdote: When the “Impressionistic” movement started in France, most musicologists blasted it pretty much the same way prog-rock was blasted by rock purists: the impressionists threw out all traditional composition rules out the window and did not care for “tried and true” forms of music, nor did they follow traditional tempos, meters, or even musical notation, the critics hated them !! BUT the most beautiful and compelling composers and music ever, came from that very group !! In there you had giants like Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Eric Satie, all following the painters like Degas, Van Gogh, Monet !!! That is why; PROGRESSIVE ROCK WILL LIVE FOREVER, it contains the energy of rock, and the best qualities of those impressionistic composers..

Allow me to share some of my background with you; I have been wanting to be a composer and writing music since the age of ten !! I STILL REMEMBER my first tunes I wrote then, my mom used to think I would copy them, until my biology teacher(where I went to play, the only acoustic piano around) went home and told my parents I had written all these pieces and they should place me in music school long term… Well, they were NOT thrilled about that, my dad had already been in many pro bands as a percussion player, and knew first hand about all the drugs and the money problems musicians had(even the successful ones), so although they did enroll me in private lessons, they never encouraged me to pursue music (until I grew up and my mom knew I was not going to be a bum, so now she wants me to pursue it full time !). I auditioned at the Julliard Academy of Music in NYC, and although I did not get a scholarship, they wrote a very nice letter to prospective sponsors about my skills and promise. At that point I auditioned for a recording progressive rock band looking for a keyboard player and got the gig, I moved to Florida because they were recording their first album there… (long story).. The band finally broke up and I found myself in a new place with no money or friends, so I tried getting into the local colleges while my wife worked… I finally won a music scholarship to a major music college in the area (University of Central Florida, and Stetson), so I embarked on a music major in composition for two years and went as far as giving recitals of my original work plus doing years of study with Alan Mason, a well known Carnegie Hall pianist and music professor.

At that point I was already 25, and had a daughter, and I knew I would have to do more than just music to make a living, so I talked with my professors who suggested I changed my major to computer programming instead, but if I stayed in the symphonic and jazz bands, and kept a few music credits, I could still keep my music scholarship… At the time that was such a defeat for me, it hurt a lot, I took it personally, but looking back it was the right advice….. And to make a l-o-n-g story short, at one point I decided to drop out of playing live with bands although I continued to write music in every genre, I have written hundreds of country, classical symphonies and sonatas, ethnic folk music, jazz, latin salsa, ballads, sambas and bossanovas, hard rock, electronica, pop, prog-rock(of course), fusion, pieces I am really proud of.

I hope this tells you a “little more” about my “big detour” in my life, but, if I am to “Awaken” and become a hero again, it will be doing the only thing I do best in life, that thing that flows through my veins and feeds my heart and soul, and that is to write and perform music, and in doing so I pray and hope my ultimate destiny will unfold. Know that when you follow your purpose, the Universe will open all doors….

Here hoping you join me for this wonderful ride… -Steve

Here is a piece Called “RagaJam” I wrote for a Fusion band I played with briefly in Bronx NY, waaayyy back in time. We were into John Mclaughlin, Chick Corea, and we all knew the guitar player was from another planet, which was evident by all the times he admitted seeing silver rush through his veins ! We had tabla players, and the guitar player was unbelievable, jaws dropped when he played, for some reason we were not too popular, anywhere we played we left people with these blank stares on their faces. This was remixed by some idiot years later, dont blame me !! raga_final

This was an unpublished piece I composed for the sadly defunct progressive rock band Azureth. In our heyday we sold CDs all over the world, as far as Brazil and Japan, and we still sell about one CD a month from our last 2006 CD. Features Kenneth Aspeslaen from Norway on bass and drums, Mark Connors from Texas on guitar, and me on keyboards… quantum_energies

Here is a new song I wrote for an upcoming Progressive Rock project, it is called “Looking Onwards, Looking Upwards, Features Steve McAndrew from Scotland on vocals and guitar, Mike Kosacek from Texas on drums, Roddi Chappell from Canada on Bass, me on Keyboards, its all abouta guy, very much like the guy in “Office Space”, who is looking out his cube window and wondering(WTH) !!! Hope you enjoy !! looking1-4

Since I can find nothing better to spend my money on, I bought a new keyboard synthesizer called Plugiator this week and I am having a ball finding new sounds and arranging old ditties I used to play in my days…

Here is a nice one I expanded form a piano piece I play into a quartet, Mozart’s Quartet for oboe in F major, k370, all the sounds you hear were recoded one by one using only the Plugiator:

mozart-k370-pt1.mp3

Thought I would share with you the result of our three hour meeting, I call this a lesson in dealing with the “really” rich; To protect the innocent(and avoid having my limbs removed) I will leave out the names(well, not the Prince, he isn’t from around this country anyways, hehe), seriously, this is not official or public knowledge yet !

We were four; One manager famed with having successfully managed four restaurants and nightclubs into profitability, one of those notably Bizarre Cafe, another fella(the guy who dreamed up this thing) who built Roxie’s in WPB, our “restaurant/nightclub” real estate agent who has a very “Ivy League, Queen’s English” accent, and …drum roll… me.

They were six; The owner of the club we are looking to lease(I thought initially buy but I was wrong), the two co-owners of City Place, one notably Qatari Prince Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad (his name is even longer but heck if I remember), the other a rather impatient gentleman who just flew in for this, a fifth guy whom we’ve met before when scoping the club who is an accountant. The last fella seems like a concierge to the, obviously much richer than the rest of us, guy….

Our crew is waiting outside the City Place Starbucks across from the old Toy Store, then first owner arrives with his concierge(who is in a a very expensive looking Gucci black sports jacket), says he just flew in and wants a coffee, looks in the Starbucks and mentions “no, there is a huge line, I’ll pass”, I look in behind me, there are THREE people on line, his concierge says he will get one, not to worry. We head over to that area in the middle of City Place where you go into the garage, just under the escalator, on the left there are dark, industrial doors with no other marking but a small white plate that reads “Area 51″, I joke about aliens flying out as we open the door, no one thought I was funny, a dead silence ensues as we walk in, the first “Faux Pas” of the day is chalked up by yours truly…

With our teams facing each other, we proceed to explain our plans and the vision for this line of nightclubs, the manager tells them of all the celebrities that frequented his clubs including Ozzy Osborne, and how he hopes to attract more of the same into ours…. I thought their team was going to fall asleep, not one facial expression from them. I finally get my chance so I whip out my laptop and go through my presentation which I had been practicing and by now have become familiar with, and all of a sudden their team got very talky and interested, they really liked the concept and felt I gave a compelling presentation, OK, I balanced out for the corny joke. Things look good, after all we do have the funding, but my understanding is that we “have” to get this commitment from City Place for the 300,000 and ONE YEAR(that is correct) free rent, but it seems they are warming up to our proposal, so far so good right ?? I figured they all had their poker faces on and did not want to seem to enthusiastic although I did see their face light up with the presentation, maybe it was all the gorgeous girls we used in the slides, who knows !!

In the middle of our meeting waltzes the Prince with an entourage, and the nightclub owner, all laughs and giggles and we all wondered why we were not invited to that party ! The entourage leaves, the Prince and the club owner remain… Anyway, he seemed a bit rude and condescending, more so than in NY(only met him briefly for about 30 seconds there) where we met with our other investors(the ones putting up the REAL $$), one of them the best friend of our fella and the CEO of a very well known Investment Firm. The prince proceeds to ask in a rather rude way; “Well we get the technology part and that was exciting, but I want to hear about the club, inside the club, I am only interested in that. What will be unique and what will keep all these people who will be flocking in the first time, coming again?” - Since that was a question for our other two partners the realtor and I did not reply, but astonishingly, neither one of them (the manager of the clubs and the builder) had a good answer, I can only imagine they were totally intimidated by this guy, discreetly the realtor and I looked at each other in a bit of horror as we realized they were both stumbling and neither one of us could throw in a life saver, that was their baby and we knew nothing about that end. The looks in the room got very different and I felt a tinge of embarrassment as I could sense the change of mood in there….

While all this is taking place the fella who flew in had been paging the business plan and stops cold, almost slams the plan closed and half laughing blurts out; “Oh, so you are here to ask for money !!”, and we say, “Well yes, I thought you all knew that !”

Apparently our realtor had sent them our request asking for 300,000 and TWO YEARS free rent for this place and he claimed he never(or so he says, I think he was playing poker with us) read it, he proceeded to stop the meeting by saying this was a “non-starter” and maybe we should go back, decide what we will be that which separates us from the rest(well I thought we just explained this, our software integration WAS the hook), he picked up his Blackberry(oh do I want one of those), started making calls, so at this stage we had our cue and commenced our farewells as we exited having been handed our hats…..

Our main principal felt he had been literally slapped in the face with the business plan and simply took off, and we all headed to the nearest exit….

2 hour class, please dont forget !!

dont miss it !

dont miss it !