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Pursuing The Himalayans
This quiet weekend began with me stepping up to house sit for my sister. My sister and her husband live not too far from me and recently had major work done to their house. They needed to get away. 2 additions can be stressful. The house with tarps, loose electric wires and plastic sheets began to wear thin throughout the Autumn/Winter/Spring. If you ever saw Monty Python’s The Meaning Of Life, the beginning of the movie shows the hostile take over internally of the old guard against the new blood in the company. The accounting firms’ building began moving(literally) through the corporate world and took over every competitor, invading like pirates. Well that’s what their house looks like. Like it could have taken off from its foundation and sailed away. Something right from The Money Pit. It’s gotten better. It looks civilized now. Rob gave me his key that refused to let me in. You needed a book on quantum physics to open the freakin door. Meanwhile, while I am trying to get in, Dana’s cat Max, a Himalayan, was yelping like someone was murdering him. It’s 92 degrees, my lower back is sweating which NEVER does, small animals are exploding on the blacktop of the street, and there are kids riding their skateboards and bikes circling like Vultures wondering if my nephew Dylan is home. I finally get in, and feed Max. But he’s staring at me with those big, bright blue eyes. You see, his dishes sit on top of the washer and dryer so the dog Zach doesn’t get to it. There’s only one problem. Max wants YOU to pick him up and put him at his dishes. Like personal service. Max talks constantly so I gave in. Dana insisted that I eat things in her refrigerator. You don’t have to ask me twice. And so, the love affair began with her Maple Smoked ham and 7 grain bread. As I ate and picked up children’s finally dried clothing off the back deck, I turned to notice that Max was looking at me quite intently. Like I forgot something. I played with him, petted him, still….wasn’t enough. It was then I realized what the deal was. He wanted my ham. No way bub. I went back to the fridge and learned I was so right. He wanted ham AND cheese. What a genius. Dana rubbed off well on him. But I began my sister’s addiction to salty things. Many years ago when I didn’t know what prog rock was, I would get an allowance and almost immediately run to the 7-11 on Church Road and get my usual. Mad magazine and a slim jim. But this wasn’t enough anymore. I later moved on to harder things like Spam, Deviled Ham, and ultimately smoked oysters. Dana became my enabler. She rubbed off on me too ya know, I now have an eye for exotic olives. MMMM brine.
My Clothes Never Smelled So April Fresh
Before I left, Dana offered me to do my laundry. Sweet! But I never knew you had to take a course to do laundry in her house. First of all, you don’t put detergent in with the clothes. It now comes as a dog toy with a soap ball you just throw into the wash. It does like 30 washes or something like that. Fabric Softner? You now pour it into this little container that disperses it evenly throughout the wash while it runs. I left the house and headed to the studio for what I thought would be a powerful show. I arrived ahead of schedule and started fine tuning the script. I opened things up with Billy Cobham’s Glass Menagerie titled Stratus. Excellent album and totally overlooked. Incredible line up as well. Innovator gets the nod for that one. I put heavy emphasis on new music tonight. Eclectic discs has just reissued what some proggers call the forefathers to progressive metal, (Don’t know if I agree with that) in British outfit High Tide. This band, to me anyway, is more of a Psychedelic band that does a lot of extended hard jamming. But I actually liked some of their material. They had two albums in the Sea Shanties from 1969, and the self titled from 1970. The band featured Simon House, who you may remember we did a spotlight on over a year ago. The response was great. Eclectic also released the finally on CD, self titled release from Colin Scot. This album featured Rick Wakeman, Peter Hammill, Phil Collins, Robert Fripp, and other excellent musicians. All of their new reissues feature bonus tracks that are sure to make a collector smile and wander into the unknown. Chad handed me the new Steve Roach CD from Nearfest 2005 titled Storm Surge. (One of the only CDs I got last weekend) Steve has an incredible catalog that showcases him in many different lights. This album was his 45 minute performance as the solo spot at Nearfest that was entrancing. We spotlit this in our 4th Hour Space Out segment which over really, really well. Our Cuneiform records new releases have been evenly spread out over the last few weeks, with this week being a look at Hamster Theater’s new double CD titled THE PUBLIC EXECUTION OF MISTER PERSONALITY / QUASI DAY ROOM: LIVE AT THE MOORE THEATER. The second disc, a live disc, was recorded at the Progman Cometh festival. Hamster Theater features a little more than 50% of the Thinking Plague lineup. Excellent new studio album as well. Dave Willey should be very proud. A few weeks back I received a disc from ReR in the album E M from IZ. This features Dave Kerman on Drums, Michael Lance Serviolo who is the main composer and plays guitar, and Tom Sublet plays bass & synthesizer. This album without a doubt, kicks my ass. It’s experimental, it’s dark, it’s minimalistic, it’s scary, it’s awesome. Another excellent new disc we featured is from Canada’s Karcius and their Kaleidoscope CD. This is a project that will make their way to the Montreal Progressive Music Festival in September. I loved their debut, and can’t say a bad word about this one. They should be fun to see live. And our main spotlight tonight went to Pure Reason Revolution, our most responded disc in The Dark Third. This British band has made some serious headway and has already been labeled by non prog reviewers as ‘New Prog’ music. The response was very fascinating. Some hated it, said it had no business being on the show, while others, loved it and said they fall into that grey area of placement as The Mars Volta did last year. Oh I ain’t done yet. This will be getting a lot more spins. Hostile response to new, good music is fuel for me.
I’ll Have A Glass Of Your White Willow
As our 50 weeks to 1000 rolls on, tonight we went back to July of 2001 when Norway’s White Willow joined us in studio. Ken came up big to get the gang to come down and do some stuff live. It was unmercifully hot, and there was like 13 of them. (Not really) But at any rate, they came in and chatted about their most recent album at the time, Sacrament. They gave us a great interview, while then singer Sylvia Erichsen sang Endless Science, a song that would later show up on the 2004 album Storm Season, the #1 voted best CD of 2004. That week that they were in New Jersey involved me taking these guys to Philadelphia and show them around. What a nightmare. I had the serious hots for Sylvia but she showed no interest. But we playfully flirted all week long but sadly, never executed. I banged my Oldsmobile up parking, and drank lots of obscure beer. I am officially 0-1 with Norwegian women. Whoa am I keeping track??
Jacka Breaks Backa
Saturday before the show, I had gotten word that Jack had finally given in and got a Jeep. I waited to see if the Jeep had made its way to Pemberton, but unfortunately no. Jack was excited, as was I. After the show I drove up the street and looked the new mean machine. Its electric lime green, 5 speed, 6 cylinder, fully loaded, with a smoking stereo. I was so happy, I wanted to drive it. None the less, jack and I made plans to get this bad boy out in the woods the next day. I called Jack and wasn’t getting him on the phone the next day till about mid afternoon when I learned the worst possible situation had happened. Jack tried moving the back seat in the Jeep back, but learned the hard way that they don’t go back. HIS back paid the price. My poor friend now lays in bed, unable to move on his vacation with a beautiful Jeep winking at him in the driveway. I even shot for a rain check the next day, but this wasn’t going to happen. Jack did some damage. I thought I had bad luck. Sheesh. I returned to my sisters on Sunday and finished my 14th load of wash. Just kidding. I actually have to say though, my clothes, no matter how much I sweat, smell april fresh. God that’s awesome. Upon returning home Sunday night I started going through some emails and noticed that you people actually read my blog. I think it’s hilarious. After getting through some emails, I had an email from a close friend that said, “Dude, did you quit Nearfest or something?” I read other emails just the same from casual listeners and close friends. I think there was a serious misconception. I never said I quit Nearfest. At all. In a nutshell, the question was, do we need to be a part of Nearfest every year? A close colleague said, “Why kill yourself every year if no one is noticing?” That didn’t mean I was through with Nearfest. Those that know me well, know I don’t go down that easy, and step up to the plate when needed. Last weekend was a lot of frustration with me standing at a crossroads…and not necessarily totally with Nearfest. It was time to cut the chord with some situations, and time to take stock in others. I was also disappointed in some former staff members that walked away and didn’t give another shot, while others can’t seem to get their life on track. I didn’t have a bad time, or get the blues about Nearfest. I vented, and needed too. I later had direct talks with Rob and the situation is ironed out. It was nothing personal, jeez. Nearfest would roll whether I was involved or not. It was my time to stop and say, hmmm…did we wear out our welcome here? I don’t hate those guys or have a bad word to say about them. In fact, I adore both of them. So many of your emails were totally wrong, friends. It’s the exact opposite. I love those guys and trust very few at that level to be consistent. On the road to big events like this and others, there are several speed bumps. I just wanted to see that both sides of the world of the gagliarchives on the outside were satisfied and will have the right tires to go over those bumps without ruining the machine. And I think, we are there. So all in all, we are ready to roll for 07, 08, 09, 10, etc. I hope this clear things up for most of you.
Independence Day
This used to be one of my favorite days. One I used to really look forward too. Although I haven't disclosed much about the topic, I was engaged 12/26/04. It was kinda cool actually. I was in a spot I never thought I would get to. Well, wait. Let me strike that. It's not that I never thought I would come to that point, I just never thought of how it would be. We loved going in the pines and she was related to the landmark Bozarth family that settled there. It was a lotta fun learning and teaching her family history. I felt this was one of her favorite places and decided that it would only be fitting to ask her to marry me in the middle of Wharton State Forest. It was one of the pinnacles of my life. I finally found who I wanted to be with, and couldn't wait to spend my life with her. We had met in the spring/summer of 2002 while I was working at my buddy's bar. I couldn't wait to see her come in. She was best friends with the girl I worked with at the bar, Stacey. I used to bother Stacey every day about her friend. As much as I liked her, I didn't make a move. The exact opposite happened. She had asked me out 2 seperate times to go out, and I declined. I had something come up everytime. The third time was the charm. A casual date led into nearly 4 years of being with one person. Our anniversary was July 4th so the day was really special. Obviously things didn't work out, which I still scratch my head at times and ask what happened.... and although you move on, you'd be an idiot, or I'd even go as far as saying 'not a man' to recognize that there are things you are never going to forget and feelings you are going to feel. Today was that day. Riddled with memories. You can't look back and you must roll forward. Sometimes you spend extended time questioning what went wrong....the what ifs....then the dissapointment of knowing no matter what, it's over dude. You can't go back to that. Move on. But today, it occurred to me that, I spent so much time detesting her for what she did to me, that I forgot how much I loved her. Hey it is what it is, and people aren't always what they appear to be. But one thing I realized was, I was ready. The outcome was not what I wanted nor expected, but one thing is for sure....I was there. So today was a day of reflecting. For me to ignore it would have been like ignoring a pink elephant in a pure white room. Hey it's there. You felt it, knew what it was like...walk on. Outside is blue, and green.
Happy Independence Day

Tonight's Broadcast Ran 3 Hours and 59 Minutes