The unsung heros of Prog thread

[smcfee]

I remember a guy named Rick who was legally blind working there. Because of him they had a lot of trouble with the grading of albums.

They had a legally blind guy grading records? This is my favorite post of 2016.

[winkersnufs]

Hello Folks -

WOW!... now we are going back a few years when talking about On Reflection. I THINK I have my issues, in a box of MUSIC memorabilia, underneath my stairwell. If memory serves - On Reflection was perhaps eight pages, non-glossy paper, and really rather 'basic'. Thrilled, to put it mildly... when I received my first issue! Progression Magazine, yes I believe, morphed out of On Reflection and kept the 'basic' format for a period of time.

Anyone else???

Chris Buckley

[moecurlythanu]

^ The publisher was a big Gentle Giant fan.

[Gravedigger]

Hello Folks -

WOW!... now we are going back a few years when talking about On Reflection. I THINK I have my issues, in a box of MUSIC memorabilia, underneath my stairwell. If memory serves - On Reflection was perhaps eight pages, non-glossy paper, and really rather 'basic'. Thrilled, to put it mildly... when I received my first issue! Progression Magazine, yes I believe, morphed out of On Reflection and kept the 'basic' format for a period of time.

Anyone else???

Chris Buckley

Spot on description, Chris!
On Reflection was by Jason Rubin. He handed it off to John Collinge.

[arabicadabra]

?! - I'm.... humbled and touched to even be thought of amidst the great, great givers in this thread. Thank you, for an honor I'm sure I do NOT deserve.

Greg Jones and his Coffee

[JKL2000]

They had a legally blind guy grading records? This is my favorite post of 2016.

He did it by smell and taste.

[JKL2000]

?! - I'm.... humbled and touched to even be thought of amidst the great, great givers in this thread. Thank you, for an honor I'm sure I do NOT deserve.

Since I only succeeded in breaching the tight NEARfest security once, I only managed to visit your cafe once, but it was a memorable event (especially seeing as Robert John Godfrey was there). Anyway, people were always talking about it, so obviously you were much appreciated. You were the Dunkin of NEARfest!

[Joe F.]

They had a legally blind guy grading records? This is my favorite post of 2016.

He did it by smell and taste.

It looked that way.

He'd hold the records up to his face so his nose was almost touching the label. Then he'd rotate that sucker around.

[JKL2000]

It looked that way.

He'd hold the records up to his face so his nose was almost touching the label. Then he'd rotate that sucker around.

Maybe he was excellent at it - the same way a lot of piano tuners are blind.

[ProggyDave]

I'll second the nominations of Mike Potter and everyone else who has kept the Orion Studios Prog Showcases going over the last two decades, and everyone who's ever helped put on a ProgDay.

Orion and ProgDay have influenced probably around 75% of the music I've bought over the past 20 years.

Mike Potter !! I agree and vote for Mike Potter!! Keep Orion & Prog Forever Please

[Calabasas_Trafalgar]

They had a legally blind guy grading records? This is my favorite post of 2016.

Glad to oblige.

[Ground and Sky's Ghost]

Anybody remember Noteworthy Music? They were a mail-order CD service that had about a 3/8" thick newsprint catalog that had thousands of CDs listed, single-spaced by artist, title and price.

I definitely remember Noteworthy. I can't remember how one of their catalogs first fell into my hands, but I ended up buying a lot of stuff from them. They were my source for a lot of Zappa CDs and hard-to-find solo albums by the various members of Yes. First time I ever heard of the Moraz/Bruford collaboration was seeing the album "Flags" listed in one of their catalogs. I also discovered Ozric Tentacles through them - they had an ad for Jurassic Shift and I thought the cover looked interesting, so I took a chance on it.

I never knew they had a web site, I bought everything mail-order via the catalogs. It was kinda sad when the catalogs just stopped arriving in my mailbox.

Another source of prog CDs for me was a book store chain called Encore. They used to stock some interesting stuff, but went out of business in 1999. They had a final sale where the prices on everything were reduced each week until all the inventory was gone, and I remember getting a ton of CDs and cassettes really cheap just before they closed their doors for good.

Another place that's gone out of business was Circuit City - the one near where I work used to have a surprising number of obscure prog CDs in stock.

And the late, lamented Media Play. I could spend days in there browsing the CDs, books and movies. Damn internet, putting brick-and-mortar places out of business.

[BrianG]

The guy behind the Gibraltar newsletter and the GEPR. Michael...something...

And their intrepid reviewer Fred Trafton, whom I got to have dinner with at NEARfest. I think he finally got too overwhelmed to keep it up. GEPR helped start my journey back into this genre in the 90's.

[StevegSr]

Neither did Roy Harper. He got more fame singing on a Floyd album or being referred to in a Zeppelin song title than actual album sales.

Yes, but everyone knows that Harper never got his due. (Just kidding.)

[Soc Prof]

Mike Taylor ran the Gibraltar digest for several years.

[JKL2000]

This is sort of tangential, but back when prog festivals in the US were a rarity, I used tolove reading people's accounts of them - especially Peter Thelen's in Expose, and other ones like his. He would often include descriptions of his arrival at the hotel, meeting up with people, what they did prior to the fest - visiting local music stores, eating, etc. Part of me was like "Why are you telling us this?," and part of me found it fascinating and just fun to read. It's a genre of non-fiction literature unto itself: Prog Travel Writing.