Peter Hammill::Soiled Dove Underground::10-3-08

Impressions from a Peter Hammill Noob:

I have to admit that prior to this week I was a borderline Peter Hammill/Van der Graaf Generator fan. That is until I won some free tickets from Twist and Shout to go see PH in person. I wanted to hone up on some of his solo material, but was advised by those in the know in regards to his extensive back catalog I'd probably be rather overwhelmed in trying to do so, especially since PH usually changes up his set lists night to night making it nearly impossible to familiarize oneself with any of his material he might pull out. So, I found a few of his solo albums online, "Singularity", "Enter K" and "Patience" just to get a flavor of his style. I gave them many spins over the week and have to admit I found them really enjoyable. Where have I been in regards to Hammill's music?

I was also advised to just go and get in the mindset of seeing a master singer songwriter. Robert Fripp is quoted as calling PH the Jimi Hendrix of vocals so expect some extreme vocal acrobatics. OK, I can hear that in his recorded material for sure, how will it translate live? I'm not much of a singer songwriter guy, that is I generally find attending shows where it's just one guy and a piano, or in this case, also a guitar, to be rather boring. Chalk it up to my short attention span I suppose. Give me a band with lots going on. Well, that concern turned out to be rather non-valid to say the least. Peter Hammill is no standard singer songwriter guy! His performance was very captivating. His use of dynamics and nuance is top notch and lyrically I found myself really engaged. A standout example lyric for me was, from which song I have no idea, "The birds don't know which way to sing, my friend, and neither do I". I found myself applying many of his lyrics to the current world and political situations. I'm sure many of these songs are 30 years old or so, but still have a certain timelessness. I am definitely looking forward to exploring more of his back catalog.

Overall, Hammill seemed very appreciative of the audience. Sadly, there was only about 50 folks there, but it didn't deter him from playing his heart out. After the show he came out and signed autographs and was very fan friendly mingling and even joked around with us. He mentioned to us this was his first time in Colorado, believe it or not considering his long career.

I have a collection of photos on my photo site and have three digital videos shot with my digital camera, so they are nothing too fancy, on my YouTube Station.

Streaming Audio

Some of my original music:

Shortwave IraQ (2003) 19:09
M2 Dreams(2003) 11:35
Demo of 2006 Project Idea Side 01 17:32
Demo of 2006 Project Idea Side 02 10:31
Tutelary Authority(2008) 10:28

(Hit the "play" button. A media player will automatically pop-up)



Shortwave IraQ: "Shortwave Iraq" is a piece I did during the first week of the war on Iraq. I recorded Bush's speech and various shortwave radio snippits from around the globe over a couple nights right after the war was launched and added electric bass, programmed rhythms, field recordings and real percussion instruments to make this, perhaps reactionary piece of music.

M2 Dreams: "M2 Dreams" is an experiment with an old Hammond M2 organ I acquired for $35 at a local thrift store. All the organ parts/sounds are from this 50+ year old treasure in which I recorded a ten minute organ part holding down various chords and then utilized the draw bars to give the amazing textures. I then added programmed beats, field recordings and a former bandmate, Wayne Martein added the guitar part.

2006 Project Demo: The first three pieces on Side 01 are "Are You Popular", "Pixel Shift" and "Epiphany". They are a combination of synthesizer swatches I developed then added various other elements to them, such as, recordings from old stock movies and ham radio recordings, programmed drums, etc. The rest of the project consists of untitled pieces/sketches segued together. Unfortunately, this project won't be completed due to a surprise hard drive crash. These mp3's are all that remain. The project was tentatively called "Enigmatic Oddysses".

Tutelary Authority: An electronic/ambient piece I've been working on over the summer. It combines shortwave radio recordings, synthesizer pads, Jazz bass, tubular chimes and percussion loops. It's also the soundtrack to the "A Kite's Plight" video below.




A Kite's Plight by Steve Navarre from Steve Navarre on Vimeo.

Lunar Jam: An original, partly improvised electronic spacey piece performed live with a couple Pindral bandmates:


Lunar Jam @ 5th C.A.R.S. Prog Music Fest. 11-18-07 from Steve Navarre on Vimeo.

Steve Navarre: Bass, synths, effects
Gretchen Kunz: Guitar, flute, vocals
Jamie McGregor: Drums

Awe Shucks!

What a great guy Fish is! I'm honored to be mentioned in his thank you note in his blog after the 2008 North American tour:

want to sincerely thank everyone who bought tickets for the shows and the shirts and albums as you made it all possible. I especially want to thank Mo and everyone who put together the meet and greets which added another dimension to the tour. Special mention goes to Carlos Loera, Steve Cozart, Larry Schorr, Scott (Fish forum: raingod42), Steve Navarre, Jeff Kuhns, George Soltis, Rich Catena, Brian J. Walton, Denise (Fish forum: jigsawangel), Frederic Thaure, Richard (Fish forum: ranger), Shanley Driscoll, Mel Huang, David Gargano and everyone else who played a part in setting up and organising the meet and greets. I thought they were a huge success overall and I sincerely appreciate all your efforts.
Thanks also to Lori Hehr for working the media so well and giving us the umbrella coverage and the reporting on the achievements we managed on the tour.
A huge thank you goes to Rob LaDuca and Chad Hutchinson and all the guys at NEARFest without whom we would never have been able to get across, to Larry Webman for putting together a great tour and to Yatta who did a fantastic job holding it all together in the paper and form blizzard and in organising all the nuts and bolts that kept the ship together when we were out there. He is the master! =D>
Finally thanks to Frank, Gavin, Foss, Chris, Vince, Paul, Billy and Steve, who went through the pain barrier to create some memorable shows on an unforgettable tour!

Let's all do it again next year! ;-)

Fish's entire BLOG entry

Monofog Live @ The Hi-Dive Denver 5-10-08

Zombi Love Song by Monofog @ The Hi Dive Denver 5-10-08 from Steve Navarre on Vimeo.

Pindral Is Opening For Fish!

RIP Gary Gygax. Dungeons and Dragons co-creator

I remember the first time my friends and I first heard of D&D. It was probably 1976. I was at Mike Jones' house, my best bud back in the day, and he got this phone call from a friend of ours who had moved from Bowling Green, OH. to Ann Arbor, MI. Kevin was the guy's name and he was describing to Mike how he was playing this game and they were battling orcs and shit in a dungeon. It was the craziest thing we'd ever heard! We had to find out what the hell he was talking about. Next time Kevin came down for a visit he taught us how to play...there was no turning back after that! The love affair/obsession lasted until 1982, when we graduated from high school. Life changed somewhat for our core party of gamers. Some had somewhat steady girlfriends, some joined the military, some found other activities, not to mention we became of legal age to buy alcohol.

At the peek of our gaming years in Jr. High and High School, my mom predicted we wouldn't be playing D&D into our adulthood. I remember looking at her as if she was speaking in a foreign tongue or something. "Impossible! What are you talking about? D&D is the coolest game ever!" was probably my reply. It was a lifestyle really. At that time I could not imagine life without D&D and the other Role Playing Games we played such as Traveller(Star Wars like game), Boothill(western gunslingers), Top Secret(James Bond-type action) and the countless other strategic board games. Of course mom ended up being right, but the six or seven or so years we immersed ourselves into the games was pure geek heaven. On March 4, 2008 D&D co-creator Gary Gygax passed away. Thanks for the great times Mr. Gygax. Even though it's been 25 years since I've played I still hold those memories in very high regard. I have an album of photos of the original D&D books and other items we used in the mid-1970's over on my Photo Web Site.

Bob Drake's Cabinet of Curiosities 1-19-08

First show of 2008. Very fun evening at The Mercury Cafe!
Blapathy, with members of Hamster Theater et al, opened the show with an all improv set followed by Bob, Dave Kerman and Dave Campbell and others performing Bob's songs.

Check out Bob's blog for details and links to pics and videos I took.

Goodbye Film - End Of An Era

I've worked in the photo lab industry for over 20 years. The last 12 at a pro photo lab Qube visual, formerly know as Cies Sexton or Photobition. The other day was the last run of film processing for this business. I wrote this note to the other employees who may not have realized how much the photo industry has changed because of the digital revolution.

Hey, all. Thought I'd share some history of this place we call the Qube.

As most of you know the film department is being shut down today for good. It’s truly the end of an era for this place, and Denver really. Sign of the times though, like the music industry facing changes with digital music, the photo industry must change also. Face it, our life styles are ever changing as certain aspects become more and more convenient with digital cameras and mp3 players, etc.

(If some of my numbers are off here I apologize-Ray and Brent can maybe correct me). This place has been one of the most respected and largest professional photo labs in the country for the last 25 plus years. The film processing and photo services carried this place financially a good deal of that time. When I started working here 12 years ago we had 5 people working 2 shifts in the film department alone. I believe we averaged taking in $100,000 a month at times...just the film department! We had over 100 employees here, about half of which worked only in the photo side of things processing film, making photographic prints or taking in film related orders. The Customer Service department had over 10 folks (?) alone mostly taking care of the 100’s of photographers that used our services. I just checked that plastic slide mounter in the film department and over 58,600,000 35mm slides had been mounted on that machine alone in the last 10 years. Holy crap! That’s a lot of film! That’s not even counting the other formats that have gone through those machines.

So, I bid the end of that era a fond farewell here and look forward to what the future brings us. I’m still proud to be part of this place even though the times, they have a changed...and will continue to do so. Change is good as they say. :)

Best of 2007

Happy New Year! To wrap up the year thought I'd list some favorite recordings:

In no particular order:

Porcupine Tree - Fear of a Blank Planet (Another classic in my book)
Porcupine Tree - Nil Recurring EP (Fantastic companion release to FOABP)
Sleepytime Gorilla Museum - In Glorious Times (Perhaps SGM's "proggiest" release yet)
Future Kings of England - The Fate of Old Mother Orvis (Their 2nd CD. A wonderful blend of early era Pink Floyd and Gabriel era Genesis)
Ian Neal - The Lake EP (Prog-tronic? Cool blend of prog and modern electronic stylings)
Saturation Point - Three (Post-rock with electronic elements)
Riverside - Rapid Eye Movement (Wow! These guys can do no wrong. Bookend to their Reality Dream Trilogy)
Saga - 10,000 Days (Send off to Michael Sadler. Done right!)
God Is An Astronaut - Far From Refuge (Post rock with keyboards and piano added)
Radio Massacre International - Rain Falls In Grey (Tribute to Syd Barret. Awesome!)
Flower Kings - Sum of No Evil (Roine said they were going to do an overtly prog album...nicely done!)
Marillion - Somewhere Else (Another fan polarizing CD. I' m on the side who likes it!)
Tuner - Pole (Pat Mastlotto and Markus Reuter's latest. "Modernistic rock")
Steve Moore - The Henge (Zombi Keyboardist's first solo CD. Great electronic effort)
Hiromi - Time Control (Super fusion album for this Japanese keyboardist)
Alan Pasqua - The Antisocial Club (Another great fusion album)
The Gourishankar - 2nd Hands (Interesting modern prog from the Russian Federation)


Best show would have to go to Genesis. Never seen them in person before. The guys can still bring it. Even though we sat way in the back of the Pepsi Center, the sound was great and the visual effects mind boggling. I thought they did a fantastic blend of their pop and more "artful" material. The Rockies won their playoff round against the Phillies that night too, making the evening even more enjoyable!