"I've got Books That I've Never, Ever Read"

The title for this blog is from a song by a band called Porcupine Tree (PT) and was one of the prompts for deviating slightly from writing about books and instead writing about some of the music I like.

When I used to read the Pink Floyd Fanzine 'Brain Damage', I always saw adverts for the band Porcupine Tree, although I never listened to them simply because I wasn't interested in a band that sounded like the Floyd. Naturally, my interests in Pink Floyd resulted in me being recommended Porcupine Tree once again when I started using LastFm a few years ago and together with online streaming services like Grooveshark, it was possible to listen to the band without immediately parting with cash. By then PT were producing more of the kind of music I was getting into, a heavy progressive rock and metal and not the kind of prog rock perpetuated by Genesis and Yes etc.

I searched out what I thought would be the best PT album to buy first and duly went for'In Absentia', which has a rather scary cover of a man with white make up and contact lenses on, obviously to symbolise the theme of absence referred to in the title. The first couple of tracks, 'Trains' and 'Blackest Eyes', are very accessible, upbeat rock songs but the second half of the album is not only more interesting but also quite heavy in places. It's successor, 'Deadwing', is a more cohesive and consistent album and features my favourite track 'Halo', a bass driven song with distorted vocals and massive chorus from Wilson.

I ended up getting a few more albums called 'Lightbulb Sun', 'Stupid Dream' and'Fear of a Blank Planet' and am now going further back and trying out some of the more psychadelic Floydian material. Lead singer, songwriter and svengali Steven Wilson has said that on those early records he wasn't trying to sound like Pink Floyd and yet fans have a hard time believing this. Even on their latest album, 'The Incident', the epic track 'Time Flies' is in the same key and vocal style as 'Sheep' from Pink Floyd's 'Animals' album.

The second disc of 'The Incident' also features some tracks that show a clear Beatles influence, but then you could say that about most bands. Wilson is an excellent vocalist and whilst not as versatile as Maynard James Keenan from Tool, he is a very melodic singer in the same vein as Lennon and/or McCartney.
Although PT started off as just Wilson, they are very much a band nowadays consisting of ex-Japan keyboard player Richard Barbieri and one of the best rhythm sections in rock music, Gavin Harrison on drums and Colin Edwin on bass. Left to Right: Harrison, Wilson, Edwin, Barbieri Listening to PT in turn introduced me to Polish band Riverside and a solo project by their front man Mariusz Duda, recording under the name Lunatic Soul. Again, there is a line drawn back to Pink Floyd as their guitar player is clearly influenced by David Gilmour. The title track of their second album, Second Life Syndrome is my favourite at 15 minutes in length and features the most sublime guitar solo ever. I thought I had been quite diverse in my listening lately and yet LastFM tells me otherwise: http://www.last.fm/user/carsten_doig From this I can see top artists in the last few days, weeks, and months are consistently as follows:

A Perfect Circle
Tool
Nine Inch Nails
Porcupine Tree
Pearl Jam
So basically, lots of rock and prog metal!