LOOKING FOR YOUR MEMORIES OF PE's HIGHLIGHTS AND LOWLIGHTS

[the winter tree]

What happened to a guy who called himself Silent Man? He was always on the site and then kind of disappeared.

[Farpoint Kevin]

I guess highlights for me would be making quite a few new friends and acquaintances, particularly meeting Brian from IZZ, who went on to be a member of Greyfeather with me and to play drums on that album. Don't know just how long I've been a member here but it's got to be close to 20 years now.

[dropforge]

Yeah, Cyndee was really cool. If I remember right I knew her at the Yahoo Yes Group. Which Jeff died? Was that his full ID?

Shoot, I forget his username. IIRC, his surname was Nutkowicz.

[Sean]

These are just countless reasons that PE is a special place. A good place.

We've always had a handful of detractors though. "Cherry pickers" that see a comment that angers them and then slag us across the board on other social media, tossing the baby out with the bathwater. You all are the "baby" in that regard. Saying PE is "bad" is in turn saying all of you are, and I know damn well that isn't true.

[progmatist]

These are just countless reasons that PE is a special place. A good place.

We've always had a handful of detractors though. "Cherry pickers" that see a comment that angers them and then slag us across the board on other social media, tossing the baby out with the bathwater. You all are the "baby" in that regard. Saying PE is "bad" is in turn saying all of you are, and I know damn well that isn't true.

In my experience, 9 out of 10 bad reviews on the internet are written by people who have no idea what the eff they're talking about.

[NogbadTheBad]

Yeah, I got fed up with arguing with people on PA about the merits of PE, it's been a lot quieter over there in the last few years but still occasionally comes up.

[Progatron]

I can respect the opinion of someone who says "That place just isn't for me" or "I don't care for this or that aspect". But when you see someone screaming into the wind about it and ranting like a crazy person on their social media to anyone who will listen to them, you can see the difference between objective opinion and personal beef. I suspect some of those people are like that in person too. Just put a giant cardboard cutout of an ear next to them and walk away.

[hFx]

I have not that much history and "happenings" to share, being relatively new... However,

High point - as I'm more interested in the creative aspects of prog than analyzing it, finding quite a few active fellow "prog" musicians to discuss and collaborate with, makes PE a natural haven for me.

Low point - the insight that fewer and fewer of the musicians and artists I've admired still remain - as well as the insight that I'm one of the younger members of PE... Prog and its fans are already red listed?

[Trane]

Yeah, I got fed up with arguing with people on PA about the merits of PE, it's been a lot quieter over there in the last few years but still occasionally comes up.

mostly one person, one that tried to "get in" (integrate) here a few times over the years, but the person has been present over a bunch of prog & metal sites and always found a way to be upset about something everywhere really.

[Mikhael]

Although I've not been as active lately (lots of family stuff going on), I've always appreciated PE. I came here from Ye Olde Days, i.e. alt.music.progressive, then rec.music.progressive, and finally here. I've had many good discussions, some ongoing arguments (like with L.Perez, when he wants to put everyone in the universe under the Prog umbrella, but it's all cool), and discovered some wonderful music along the way. Music that I would never have known about otherwise.

Now, I'm completely disgruntled; neither of my bands have ANY gigs whatsoever, and the members of my prog band have ended up a few thousand miles apart. I never got to go to any of the prog festivals, but I lived vicariously through a lot of the reviews. Now we're just trying to stay alive.

I don't have any great stories, although there have been some funny ones surrounding famous musicians who got pissed at us and left (Mr. Downes comes to mind), and me ticking off Stanley Jordan WAY back (I didn't mean to). But I do want to thank the creators of this wonderful, silly place. It's been a source of amusement, camaraderie, and endless musical discovery.

[Sunlight Caller]

What happened to a guy who called himself Silent Man? He was always on the site and then kind of disappeared.

I believe that was the name of a U.K. poster, Steve Pilkington. I’m connected to him on Facebook and he is doing well, he chopped in his old life to be a full time writer and has books out on quite a few old rockers, give him an amazon search.

[Progatron]

I believe that was the name of a U.K. poster, Steve Pilkington. I’m connected to him on Facebook and he is doing well, he chopped in his old life to be a full time writer and has books out on quite a few old rockers, give him an amazon search.

Yes, Steve was the editor of Classic Rock Society magazine and now one of the team behind Velvet Thunder online (celebrating our first anniversary this month!) Always a busy guy; editing, writing, reviewing, interviewing... he wrote the authorized biography of Gordon Giltrap as well as a handful of those "Every song, every album" books on Sabbath, Purple, etc. He even did one on Monty Python - every sketch, every show.

A while back, he was doing a phone interview with Candice Night and towards the end, he thought he'd try his luck: "Ritchie wouldn't happen to be around, would he?" ... "Oh, sure, hang on!" ... "Hello, this is Ritchie Blackmore."

[Baribrotzer]

A while back, he was doing a phone interview with Candice Night and towards the end, he thought he'd try his luck: "Ritchie wouldn't happen to be around, would he?" ... "Oh, sure, hang on!" ... "Hello, this is Ritchie Blackmore."

Does Ritchie not like to talk to the press? He does have a reputation for being hard to get along with, so being interview-adverse would certainly fit with that. Although in that case, his wife had just spent X number of minutes effectively screening Steve - finding out that he knew his stuff, was tactful enough to not make Ritchie blow his famously-short fuse, and could probably be trusted to do OK.

[Progatron]

Does Ritchie not like to talk to the press? He does have a reputation for being hard to get along with, so being interview-adverse would certainly fit with that. Although in that case, his wife had just spent X number of minutes effectively screening Steve - finding out that he knew his stuff, was tactful enough to not make Ritchie blow his famously-short fuse, and could probably be trusted to do OK.

He doesn't tend to do a lot of interviews, certainly not spontaneous ones like that. But as you said, this one probably seemed trustworthy, if unplanned.

[GuitarGeek]

Does Ritchie not like to talk to the press? He does have a reputation for being hard to get along with, so being interview-adverse would certainly fit with that. Although in that case, his wife had just spent X number of minutes effectively screening Steve - finding out that he knew his stuff, was tactful enough to not make Ritchie blow his famously-short fuse, and could probably be trusted to do OK.

Yeah, over the course of the last however many years I've been worshipping at that particular altar (close to four decades), I've only seen a handful of interviews he's done. I think he did one interview in Guitar Player back in the Machine Head era (the one where he made a crack about how "Grand Funk Railroad have supposedly sold 5,000,000 records, yet I've never met a single person who likes them"), then another during the original Rainbow era (circa Down To Earth or Difficult To Cure, I think), then the next time I remember them interviewing him was in the mid 90's, around the time of Stranger In Us All. I think I've seen one or two interviews with him in the other magazines, but that's about it. When the Heavy Metal Pioneers documentary came out in the late 80's, I remember all the Mark II band members appeared to have done new interviews for it, except for Ritchie, who's commentary is relegated two two or three comments that looked like they might have been pulled from "file footage".


I think Ritchie just doesn't like "playing the game" that everyone does, especially in the mainstream-ish realm of music, ya know, press junkets and all the rest of it. I recall in the liner notes of one of the Deep Purple archival things, there's a bit where a press conference the band did is mentioned, I guess sometime around the time of Burn or whenever, and the comment is made that the entire band showed up for the PC, except Ritchie, with a footnote that "Then, as now, he tries to miss such events whenever possible".

[the winter tree]

I believe that was the name of a U.K. poster, Steve Pilkington. I’m connected to him on Facebook and he is doing well, he chopped in his old life to be a full time writer and has books out on quite a few old rockers, give him an amazon search.

He wrote the most scathing review of one of my early albums that I have ever received. It was almost funny it was so over the top. He seemed to have an axe to grind and was quite insulting.

[Farpoint Kevin]

He wrote the most scathing review of one of my early albums that I have ever received. It was almost funny it was so over the top. He seemed to have an axe to grind and was quite insulting.

I apologize for chuckling at this, but it's only because I've been on the receiving end of several reviews like that directed at Farpoint...Maybe we should start a thread for our worst reviews. We had one in particular where the reviewer was so angry at our beliefs (which are usually just occasionally hinted at in our lyrics) that they blasted us unmercifully in the review while barely even mentioning the content of the album. It's funnier now in retrospect than it was then.

[Progatron]

We had one in particular where the reviewer was so angry at our beliefs (which are usually just occasionally hinted at in our lyrics) that they blasted us unmercifully in the review while barely even mentioning the content of the album.

Well that's just poor reviewing, there should be no such bias. Unfortunately there are a lot of lousy reviewers out there, and it makes the good ones look bad to be lumped in with them.

I'm surprised Steve gave such a scathing review though, that seems out of character for him.

[Sean]

Don't forget Rekkids.

[mozo-pg]

I think PE is the finest music site on entire world wide web. It's an amazing accomplishment to keep it running and improving for 20 years. My youngest son, now 19, was in diapers when I first started posting. Long live PE (another 20 years?).

[Mister Triscuits]

I apologize for chuckling at this, but it's only because I've been on the receiving end of several reviews like that directed at Farpoint...Maybe we should start a thread for our worst reviews.

At least you get reviews.

[aith01]

In the 7 short years I've been here, one of the things I remember most was when Kay (Progeezer's wife) passed away... The outpouring of love and concern that was shown by so many here really made an impression on me. It made me realize that PE is special, that there is a sense of community here -- and friendships stretching back years or even decades for some. I was moved by the kindness shown.

I don't feel I have much to contribute, but I have made some friendships here and been introduced to some life-changing music (like Cardiacs, to name just one) that I might never have heard on my own. Frank's yearly "Canterbury Binge" threads helped me to discover so much great stuff I had no idea even existed, thanks to everyone who shared their insights there. Had some great conversations/discussions, gotten into a few arguments too. I joined later than most I think, and unfortunately missed out on some of the crazy characters that have been discussed in this thread. But the crowd here now is pretty great, all things considered.

[MudShark22]

Don't forget Rekkids.

I still use this.

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[Dana5140]

The last time Duncan and I rode RAGBRAI together, we had finished up on the last day and like always were in early. While waiting for others to show up so we could head home, I was playing Magma's "Zombies" on my iphone, when a guy next to me shocked me by stating he loved Magma. Turned out to be the owner of one of the major prog record companies that Duncan knew as well. Small world kind of thing.

[Duncan Glenday]

The last time Duncan and I rode RAGBRAI together, we had finished up on the last day and like always were in early. While waiting for others to show up so we could head home, I was playing Magma's "Zombies" on my iphone, when a guy next to me shocked me by stating he loved Magma. Turned out to be the owner of one of the major prog record companies that Duncan knew as well. Small world kind of thing.

I still replay that memory quite often - it was so weird:

We'd just finished a 500-mile week-long bike ride, we're sweating in what little shade we could find (sitting in a tour bus's luggage compartment! ), and some random cyclist sitting next to you comments on your cool Magma music.

Turned out he was the USA manager for Insideout Music.