Progressive Palaver

SCS30 – Seal and The Buggles in Houston, April 2023 On a trip to Texas, Paul and Ken had to opportunity to catch a concert of Seal with The Buggles opening. Falling squarely in the prog-not-prog category, this show provided ample opportunity to the group to appreciate top-tier songs and musicianship. From the dual role of the Buggles band through the staying power of Seal’s voice, this concert was...

Episode 146 – Sound of Contact Part 1, Dimensionaut The Palaver finally gets to discuss an album that has changed our views of the world. Sound of Contact are deep in Palaver lore even if we didn’t know it at the time. We “discovered” this album long after SoC had gone their separate ways, but the impact is not in the least diminished. The quartet of Simon Collins, Dave Kerzner, Matt Dorsey, and K...

Episode 145 – Tears For Fears Part 1, The Tipping Point The group goes to the edge of prog-not prog for their first episode on Tears for Fears. A sublime album that was 18 years in the making. The group marvels in all aspects of this recording, amazed that such a gem exists. The Tipping Point find Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith in a fertile collaborative zone creating meaningful and catchy songs wh...

SCS29 – Porcupine Tree, Philadelphia & Dallas, September 2022 The group relives some of the highlights of seeing Porcupine Tree on the Closure/Continuation tour in the fall of 2022. Ken saw the show in Philly and Joe saw it in Dallas. The C/C tour was a sheer powerhouse of sound and sight. Excellent stage production and the addition of Randy McStine really pushed these shows over the top. The Pala...

ProgStock 2023 Part 5 – ProgStock The group relives their experiences at ProgStock 2023. Rutherford NJ seemed to be an inspired choice of venue. We cover all the highlights that we saw throughout the weekend. A huge shoutout to Tom and Ann and the whole ProgStock crew. It was a marvelous weekend! X: @progpala Email: progpala@gmail.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/ProgPala YouTube: www.youtube.com/ch...

Episode 144 – Porcupine Tree Part 1, Closure/Continuation Despite the Palaver’s general love affair with Steven Wilson, we have never officially covered a Porcupine Tree album. This segment on (relatively) newer records opens the door for us to correct that. Closure/Continuation is a monumental album from a talented group of musicians that manifest music that is greater than the sum of their parts...

SCS28 – Yes in Lititz PA, 2023 In this Special Concert Series episode of Progressive Palaver Paul and Ken share their experiences seeing Yes in the dress rehearsal for their The Classic Tales of Yes Tour. The show was, as usual, performed at Mickey’s Black Box in Lititz, PA. Friend of the Palaver Ken Fuller has previously described the experience at MBB and Paul and Ken’s descriptions match perfec...

Episode 143 – King’s X, Three Sides of One It was 14 long years between King’s X albums. That amount of time can create several different outcomes. We here at the Palaver were eagerly awaiting 2022’s Three Sides of One. We were not disappointed. Three Sides finds King’s X in an excellent creative and expressive place resulting in a truly delightful album. Songwriting, tone, and delivery are all on...

SCS27 – Kansas, Nashville TN with Len and Dave Boclair Joe’s brothers Len and Dave join the show for an all-Boclair palaver! A rare face-to-face discussion in Nashville a day after Len and Dave saw Kansas at the Ryman Auditorium on their 50th Anniversary tour. Kansas has been a shared understanding amongst these brothers for nearly 35 years and it was nice to share the experience with our audience...

Special Episode – ProgStock 2023 Part 4, Matt Dorsey In our final installment of pre-ProgStock 2023 episodes, we have the chance to catch up with friend of the Palaver Matt Dorsey. We have a great conversation with Matt about the upcoming ProgStock including his own set and working with Dave Kerzner including the Sound of Contact special. Matt is, as always, very gracious and informative about his...

Special Episode – ProgStock 2023 Part 3, Tom Palmieri and Ann Rinaldi In part 3 of our special ProgStock 2023 series, we manage to score some time with the duo responsible for all the wonderfulness that is ProgStock - Tom and Ann! They are able to provide their usual delightful level of insight into what it takes to make a prog rock festival happen. How they are able to maintain such pleasant deme...

Special Episode – Progstock 2023 Part 2, Joe Deninzon of Kansas In this special episode, part 2 of our Progstock 2023 series, the group gets to meet Stratospheerius and new member of Kansas Joe Deninzon in anticipation of his performance at Progstock 2023 with the Dave Kerzner Band. Joe proves to be a thoughtful musician with a lot to say on his own works as well as Kansas and other projects he’s...

Special Episode – Progstock 2023 Part 1, Dave Kerzner In this special episode, the group gets to catch up with Friend of the Palaver Dave Kerzner in anticipation of his performance at Progstock 2023. Dave is his usual forthright self, letting us in on some of his myriad projects. We talk about the series of albums he is planning as well as plans with Sound of Contact bandmate Matt Dorsey and even...

Episode 142 – Marillion Part 15, An Hour Before It’s Dark Regardless of what season it is, Marillion’s An Hour Before It’s Dark is a powerful experience. As the Palaver considers this collection of songs born of the pandemic, we struggle with where to put the meaning. Hogarth and company provide us a rich tapestry to consider. From the power of the opening of the album to the sometimes-confounding...

Bonus Episode – Foundation Season 2 Preview SPOILER ALERT – This episode contains spoilers for Foundation season 1 and all of Asimov’s published Foundation novels. On the eve of the second season, Joe and Sarah revisit the world of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation to celebrate the return of the Apple TV series. Our season 1 recap episode had some knowledge gaps that we have since closed. Armed with more...

Episode 141 – Steven Wilson Part 5, The Future Bites Another pandemic-impacted album with Steven Wilson’s The Future Bites. The group has an enjoyable time exploring Steven’s commentaries on modern life, presented over a more sparse and electronic musical bed. We continually play “spot the influence” and “what is the message” with this fantastic collection of songs. There is a wide range of opinio...

Episode 140 – Yes Part 22, The Quest The Palaver returns to the glory days of the pandemic to discuss The Quest from Yes. Other things kept some members away, so Paul and Joe take a stab at this record. While many have praised this record, we at the Palaver had a somewhat difficult experience. There are obviously some shining moments here, but we also find some aspects not to our liking. Regardles...

Special Episode – Interview with Kevin Mulryne, Author of Yes - The Tormato Story In this special episode we have the chance to speak with friend of the Palaver, host of The Yes Music Podcast, and now published author. Kevin provides us some insight into his new book, Yes - The Tormato Story. We go into all the usual Palaver corners covering his motivations for writing this particular book, his me...

Episode 139 – Yes Part 21, From a Page The group returns to the late-model Yes catalog with From a Page. This release is a very welcome look back at the lineup-that-never-really-was. These tracks which were ultimately put aside for the sweeping (and wonderful) Fly From Here give us a glimpse of what the Oliver Wakeman, David, Howe, White, Squire configuration could have been. These tracks retain t...

Special Episode – Interview with Matt Dorsey, April 2023 In this special episode we have the opportunity to learn more about Matt Dorsey (former Sound of Contact, Progjekt, and others) and his first solo release, Let Go. We greatly enjoyed getting to know Matt, hearing about his process and inspiration for his songs. He was kind to share some of his journey that led to this brightest of solo debut...

Episode 138 – Yes Part 20, Awaken On the heels of our episode ranking Yes epic songs, we thought we would take some time to dive deeper into (perhaps) our favorite Yes epic, Awaken. We considered five different versions spanning some 40 years. While there are many more that we could have ranked (and that we listened to), we focused on the original studio recording and the live versions from the Un...

SCS26 – Yes Close to the Edge 50, October 2022 with Ken Fuller Friend of the Palaver Ken Fuller shares his experiences attending a rehearsal by Yes for their 50th anniversary tour of the Close to the Edge album. The rehearsal took place at Mickey’s Black Box in Lititz, Pennsylvania. Ken F enjoyed the drive out to Amish country and scored himself some first row seats in front of Billy Sherwood. In...

Episode 137 – Queensryche Part 12, Best of the Rest The group finishes out (we think) our Queensryche segment with this free-flowing episode where we explore the band’s general catalog post Promised Land. There is no format and each Palaver member brings up the things that caught their attention from Queensryche and related projects. Twitter: @progpala Email: progpala@gmail.com Facebook: www.faceb...

Bonus Episode – Marillion Weekend Musings As Joe prepares himself to attend the 2023 Marillion weekend in Montreal, he is deeply immersed in the band’s music and has some thoughts to share. From past Marillion weekend experiences to the size and care of the Marillion catalog, this is just a fun, short collection of thoughts on various topics. Twitter: @progpala Email: progpala@gmail.com Facebook:...

Episode 136 – Queensryche Part 11, Take Cover Given how Progressive Palaver has chosen to review Queensryche, it may seem surprising for them to tackle a late-model covers album like Take Cover. This episode actually came about because Ken and Joe wanted to fill a hole in the recording schedule. The original plan was to review Take Cover and then review some of the information that is available ar...