Summer!

As of my last exam on Friday, I no longer have any academic worries until term begins again in September. Instead, I can focus on other soul-sucking worries, like dealing with our estate agent and bills. Ah, to be a proper human being.

In happier news, exams are FINISHED (fuck you, Romantic literature) and thank the cosmos for that. No more worrying about the finer points of social concerns in Europe after the Second World War or remembering the writings of whingy, moping poets from the late eighteenth/early nineteenth century.

That's not entirely fair. "Ozymandias" by Percy Shelley and "Kubla Khan" by Samuel Coleridge are pretty cracking poems, and without them we wouldn't have had Alan Moore's Watchmen or Rush's "Xanadu", respectively.

But whatever.

Speaking of Rush, myself and Messrs. Phil Canton and Rob Dillon went to see Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage at a frankly ridiculous price at the local Cineworld. Upon entering the screen, we saw that we were probably the youngest people in the room.

I had never seen a documentary at a cinema before, so it was with some trepidation that I waited for it to start, but it was fantastically put together and never boring, although obviously you'd probably have to be a Rush fan to properly appreciate it. About 90% of it charted Rush's history and progression as a band, with the remaining 10% mainly consisting of artists gushing over how much they loved Rush. It was a surprisingly varied mix, actually: Gene Simmons of Kiss, Tim Commerford of Rage Against the Machine, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, Mike Portnoy of Dream Theater (what a surprise), Jack Black, Kirk Hammett of Metallica and Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins among others.

The film explored the strange situation Rush as a band are in: despite having a massively devoted and loyal fanbase all over the world, they haven't exactly been critical darlings. This was reflected in the choice of interviewees: everyone was either a member of the band, had worked with the band, or was influenced by the band in some way.

It was a very good film, and I recommend it to anyone who considers themselves a Rush fan.

High Voltage Festival is coming up next month! I'm going on the Sunday, and here are the bands playing that I want to see:

• Uriah Heep (performing Demons & Wizards)
  
• Wishbone Ash (performing Argus)
  
• Opeth
• Marillion
• The Reasoning
• Joe Bonamassa, if I can fit him in
• Clutch, possibly

It's going to be fuggin' ace.

Sadly, Bigelf and Focus are playing the Saturday, which means I'm going to miss them. Bigelf in particular, their live show is bombastically magnificent.

Such is life.

Doctor Who is meandering toward the conclusion of the first series with Matt Smith as No. 11 and Karen Gillan as Amy Pond. I feel that this is an appropriate time to comment on it as it's winding down.

The series as a whole has had a good quality: it has suffered from inconsistent writing, but that's true of any given Who series. The opening episodes, penned by the Grand Moff - The Eleventh Hour and The Beast Below were fantastic, although the latter suffered from a somewhat compressed storyline, and I feel it would have been better as a two parter. Likewise, The Time of Angels and Flesh and Stone definitely succeeded in being the Aliens to Blink's Alien, so to speak. So all the Moffat episodes so far have been fantastic, giving me high hopes for the finale.

However...

Victory of the Daleks was fun, if more than a little silly, and I feel that the episode to re-introduce the Daleks yet again should have had a bit more gravitas. Vampires of Venice was a good solid Who episode that didn't suck, and that's all you can say about it, really. Amy's Choice is probably my favourite non-Moffat episode of the series, with a memorable villain and an excellent plot device. The Hungry Earth and Cold Blood were frankly excreable, suffering from plot idiocy and crappy villains - not to mention killing off a major character in a way that - well, I'm going to borrow a TV Tropes term here: they Dropped A Bridge On Him. That is to say, killed off "in a way that is particularly awkward, anti-climactic, mean-spirited or dictated by producer's fiat". Vincent and the Doctor seems to be a divisive one: people either think it's a touching tearjerker or a mawkish melodrama. I fall into the latter camp, being of the opinion that it sucked great big hairy balls. The Lodger was enjoyable, but the writing of the Doctor was a bit shit, and there was not enough Amy. Also, James Corden making out. That's a mental image that will haunt me.

So on Saturday, The Pandorica Opens airs as the first of a two parter, and I'm looking forward to it immensely. The RTD era of finales is thankfully over (ever escalating and dire inescapable situation solved in the last five minutes with a magic reset button) and I'm a bit of a Moffat fanboy, so it should be rather grand.

Also, Neil Gaiman has written and submitted a script for the next series. SQUEE.

Dusting off the e-cobwebs...

Holy crap, it's been a while. Two years, in fact. Last time I posted an entry on this thing, I still liked Radiohead!

I'll thank you not to read the other entries. They're bad. Like, really bad. The pretentious ramblings of an 18 year old idiot.

So yeah. Now's as good a time as any to reboot this thing, I suppose. I guess since I went to the trouble of dusting this blog off I may as well use it.

A lot's changed since then. As I'm sure you know, if you're reading this. I'm now a grubby university student in his second year and (hopefully) almost completely unrecognisable compared to me circa July 2008. And life, exams and essays notwithstanding, is pretty damned good.

Since I mentioned Radiohead, who are a band, I may just go on to talk about music.

*ONE SEAMLESS SEGUE LATER*

I was thinking today, on the coach up to Sheffield, about what I like about what I generally consider my favourite genre of music, progressive rock/metal. More specifically, I was thinking about people's misconceptions. Lots of people dismiss all prog as being nothing more than widdly technicality combined with boringly long, vapid songs with no real substance to them.

This is quite patently not true.

Well, it is true in some cases. And those cases tend to create music that is often a cheesy guilty pleasure at best and a horrifically bloated abomination at worst. But it's such a nebulous, diverse genre that dismissing it all on the basis of a few - well, many - sore thumbs that stick out.

Consider Pink Floyd, one of the biggest progressive bands of the previous century - and my personal favourite band of all time. Pink Floyd are undoubtedly a progressive rock band - but there's a key difference between them and, say, Yes or King Crimson. And that's that Pink Floyd's music really isn't that technical. It's often intricate and has that quintessential prog sound, but it's nothing like the horrendously overelaborate, bloated nightmares that some bands generate.

In fact, I'd argue that the key thing a progressive band has to have is restraint.

"Now hold on, Adam," some of you will say at this point. "Dream Theater is one of your favourite bands, and they're as excessively technical and widdly as they come."

True on both counts. But I don't rate Dream Theater on the same level as a band like Pink Floyd or Porcupine Tree that knows how to restrain itself and create something that is a properly structured, coherent whole - and doesn't stick solos all over the bloody place like a band such as Dream Theater tends to do. And sometimes they descend into farce and self parody too much for even me to take. In short, Dream Theater is the exception rather than the rule when it comes to my taste.

What I'm getting at is that virtuosity and song length don't by themselves a good progressive rock or metal song make. Bringing me on to my next point: in some cases, they're not even necessary.

Here's the yardstick I use. The most important thing to keep in mind is that not all of these elements need to be present, and none of them are unique to the genre, obviously.

• Dynamic shifts in volume, mood and tempo
• Classical influences
• Lyrics atypical of conventional rock and metal
  
• Concept albums
• Frequently changing and/or unusual time signatures
• Incorporation of other genres
• Heavy keyboard emphasis
• High level of instrumental skill
  

There are progressive bands that fit all of these criteria - but most, I'd argue, only fit some or a few (three or four is probably the minimal limit, I'd say). But it allows for an umbrella that covers everything from Pink Floyd to Genesis to King Crimson to Rush to Dream Theater to Tool to Porcupine Tree to Opeth to Meshuggah.

You get the bad along with the good. But that's true of any form of music.