Original position in magazine: p 3
Better Listening through Imagination…all I can do is make Sound Projector a personal statement. The extravagant claims and flights of fantasy simply reflect the effects I believe music is having on me, but that’s no reason that you, gentle reader, should adopt them. But we hope to show you other ways in which to exercise your own imagination when selecting and listening to records, and aim to enhance the listening experience for all. We could apologise once again for the scarcity of hard facts, but there it is…anyway there’s enough factual information in the world, surely there’s a place for a little creative thinking on the subject! If the mainstream music press are the High Priests of orthodoxy, then Sound Projector is a charismatic evangelist.
Naturally this is a tricky area, as we do not wish to descend to the level of the callow music journalists who to this day consider their own personality to be more interesting than the music. Easy enough to pattern one’s writing style after the great Lester Bangs, but for those writers who lack his generous personality, the results can tend to resemble dull diary entries. At The Sound Projector we still think the music is the most important thing, but maintain there must be way to refract its light through the prism of the soul, and not just the mind. If we can do this, what kaleidoscopic delights might ensue.
Herein this issue are two self-indulgent wallows in the illegal pleasures of progressive rock by John Bagnall and myself, perhaps only to be expected from thirty-somethings who grew up in Liverpool - notice my reproduction of the Virgin Megastore (Liverpool branch) bag circa 1978, which turned up in my collection of junk. The Japanese seem to adore UK Prog also - bend an ear to Cinorama for a King Crimson lyric-check, or Che Shizu for a musical quote from Fripp and Co’s first LP. The Ruins live on stage in London April 1997 regaled the audience with a hilarious and brilliant medley of 30 progressive rock tunes played in 3 minutes flat; I almost thought it was a joke until I caught a fragment of a Tony Banks ‘Firth of Fifth’ solo. ‘Do you rike Progress Rock?’ asked the drummer, ‘I rove it!!!’
Yours eccentrically
The Editor
Thanks to kind reviewers in The Wire and Ptolemaic Terrascope, and to supportive folk at Cargo, Real Time, Chris @ Compendium Books, Mick @ Helter Skelter, Darryl @ Rough Trade, Peter Pavement, These Records, Fisheye distro. Editor’s Note - in spite of the Skipload of Tapes column and other reviews this issue, please note it is not current Sound Projector policy to review cassette releases by amateurs. Submissions are emphatically not welcome at the editorial address, nor are reviews or mentions guaranteed for unsolicited material.
Contributors
The Sound Projector 2nd issue is written and illustrated by Ed Pinsent, with contributions by these great fellows:
Edwin Pouncey
John Bagnall
Cindy War Arrow
and Harley Richardson
Also many thanks to Norbert Schilling
Back cover drawing by John Godbert, as is the Starlit Mire drawing used on Discurator’s Den page. John Bagnall provided his own line drawings for his Prog Rock article, and also sketch of The Can p 30.
Other picture credits: ‘Head of a Native Woman’ 1948 by Luis Arenal, p 55 Matt Fox (monster about to eat The Dark bassist), p 52 Thomas Hart Benton and Andrew Wyeth (on Van Dyke Parks collage) p 64