Time for IZZ to come back to Progday, if you ask me.
I have to chime in here, just to say that Everlasting Instant is one of my favorite releases of last year. (And I buy a lot of cd's). Starting with I Move, I own 6 Izz releases. And not only do I love their music, but also their recordings. It's so great to see groups that refuse to play the "loudness" wars in this day and age. So refreshing! I live in Atlanta, which used to be a great prog town for concerts. Wish that were true today! Only the classics seem to play here (looking forward to Steve Hackett again!). Wish more current groups would visit!
By the way, I also have both Mars Hollow releases....and Heliopolis, and both Advent releases. What a great time for progressive rock! Like I've said before: So much music, yet so little time!....... But I sure do enjoy it!
Brian, I ordered Everlasting Instant as soon as I heard about it (was there a pre-order? I can't remember). I was listening to it within a week of its release. It's a great album, like all of your albums. I actually think the first album of the trilogy is my favorite, and My River Flows is still my absolute favorite album by Izz. Again though, I think they are all pretty great.
I bought the first album about a year after it was released, on the advice of a good friend. I liked it okay, but wasn't blown away. I bought I Move around the time it was released, but for some reason didn't care for it. I didn't pay attention for a while, but in a year or so before The Darkened Room came out, I picked up My River Flows and was just completely blown away. I then re-listened to the first two albums and while my feeling about the debut didn't really change, I found I absolutely loved I Move. I bought Darkened Room on release and have done so with the following albums as well. I will buy whatever you guys release, as you have proven your talent and quality to me without doubt. I have seen you guys live only three times; Nearfest 2003 pre-show (which for some reason I didn't care for the performance all that much...possibly because Miriordor opened and just blew my mind, and I was pretty drunk by the time you guys came on), Nearfest 2007, and the last (still hoping not final) NJ Proghouse reunion weekend. Both of those last two performances were incredible and I will definitely see you guys again if I get the chance.
Kerry, Heliopolis is excellent and I can't wait to hear the next album.......you've really got me exited for it now!
As to the rest of the discussion, it's very interesting and as something of a musician myself I totally understand Kerry's feelings. I haven't released anything and haven't been in a band for several years, but I just don't feel like I want to add my stuff to the huge masses of music that are our there right now. I doubt it's of the quality of the bands we've talked about here anyway, but it gives me great pleasure to write and record it and play it for close friends, so I'm happy with that. Maybe if I was 20 years younger I might make more of an effort to get it out there and get something going, but now the market just seems so saturated and the rewards for doing this kind of music seem rather small, especially for a newcomer.
But the rest of you guys keep doing what you are doing and I'll keep buying and coming to shows!
Boundless love for IZZ.
Sleeping at home is killing the hotel business!
An interesting question. In all honesty, I relied a lot on Progression magazine to inform me of new bands or new albums from existing bands, but I recently decided to let my re-subscription pass (a decision I might have to reverse; I miss it). By no means a substitute for the magazine, I have an RSS feed to the DPRP news blog, but either they missed the IZZ release or somehow I missed their ...
Yep, I missed it. http://www.dprp.net/wp/?p=11305
I have no excuse. I would have to have seen that post come through, so the only explanation is that I saw it and got distracted from adding it to my buy list. Ugh.
Believe me, it is now solidly in my queue to purchase- along with the Heliopolis album and Mitchell's Lonely Robot!
I swear, I am getting too old and too busy with life's rat race; I knew about Heliopolis from way back and actually thought I HAD bought that album! I went looking it for it a while back and ... nope. What the hell? I'm the only one to blame. Forgive me, Kerry!
Additionally- this thread has done me good, as it led me to the "discovery" of 3RDegree - which is another completely amazing thing to me. How can a band that good and that have been around for that long, completely escaped this progressive nut's radar? It makes no sense!
I'm very much liking what I'm hearing off their Bandcamp page though, so most likely they'll be in the purchase queue too.
The important point is that it makes me wonder what else I'm missing and how I can remedy it. My first thought is a Progression re-subscription.
Thoughts?
It takes various ways to find new music and I know Izz's Brian won't mind you found 3RDegree here. Lord knows I mention Izz in my various evangelizing about awesome American Prog when asked!
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Of course IZZ doesn't mind! Anything to get the word out about great bands. This is what has to happen: we all need to be very vocal about the talented bands and great new releases in our scene. No matter how hard someone works to promote himself / herself (or their band), there are always going to be interested parties who miss the announcements. It's just not possible to reach everyone, so any help is a good thing.
And it sure as hell don't hurt when we team up and play shows together....unless our open-minded musical friends only catch one band's set. That's totally missing the point. I find for the large part when 3RDegree puts together it's occasional "Prog Nights" (for lack of a better description) in NYC teaming up with other bands, that most attendees stay for the majority of the bands that are on the bill.
Speaking for myself, but probably some others too, there's a bit of a delay in interest resulting in sales. I purchased a download of the latest Advent when it was released, hadn't listened to it much, then heard a track on a show on House of Prog a few days ago. So now both Advent and IZZ are on my "investigate further" list.
It can take a few years for each album to pay dividends is what I'm saying. I'm sure it's a long wait though.
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