H IG H FIVE HEATHER DUNCAN, general manager of the BT Scottish Ensemble, chooses her
favourite winter warmers.
1 BT Scottish
Ensemble’s Candlelight Christmas Concerts Real music with a seasonal glow.
2 Champagne cocktails Always hit the spot.
3 George Square Eating chestnuts and watching other people ice-skate.
4 It’s A Wonderful Life Anyone know where it's on this year?
5 Hot croissant breakfasts from Sansiro The biggest in Glasgow (that l‘ve found).
FAITH LIDDELL, new director of Dundee Contemporary Arts, selects her five favourite buildings.
1 The Famous Spiegeltent A beautiful semi-permanent 19208 wood and mirrored antique building. structured to be slotted together in a day without a single nail.
2 The Jewish Museum in Berlin Daniel Liebeskind's astonishing Jewish museum drew huge crowds before a single exhibit was housed there; a building that moves and disturbs and remembers.
3 The tenement The classic Scottish town habitation. A shared space. a shared yard. a shared stair where once-shared lives would mix. The building I have almost always made my home in.
4 The Palais Royale, Paris 80 grand and yet so fully and pleasurably inhabited by the peOple of Paris. Grace a la Revolution!
5 Dundee Contemporary Arts There‘s a generous sense of light and space and beautifully constructed perspectives and connections throughout DCA‘a award-winning building.
THE OPINION
.il takes a lot of listens -,before it makes sens ,f
If it’s OK for the Orb, Radiohead and Oasis, why are the original prog-rockers still left out in the cold?
Words: David Robertson
rog-rock dinosaurs Yes are playing Glasgow
this isstre. supporting a new album.
Magnification. It will be entirely ignored by the music press. while they revere everything else British: ’aul Weller's latest. for example.
From 72 until punk broke in 77. prog was the biggest thing in the world but. when everything else came back around in the 90s. it just wasn’t cool enotrgh. Not even as cool as country! Seems like it will never he cool . . .
Most editor‘s working
today grew tip dtrring punk.
which rejected 'dinosaurs’ such as Zeppelin and lil.l’ doesn’t
who'd dominated the
spotty. lank-haired. sci-ii fans.
OK. the prog tune got longer as the decade went along. but so what‘.’ No complaints when the ()rb go on for half an hour. What about Love‘s ‘Revelation‘ ( 19 min). Bowie‘s ‘Station to Station‘ ( l() min). or the ‘Long Medley" on Abbé’)‘ Road? It even has a drum solo! The criticism of endless solos belongs with groups such as Zeppelin or Metallica: prog sought the complexity of classical music. not the freedom ofjazz.
Your average pop listener doesn't have the commitment that prog or jazz or classical demands. They need whistleable tunes. Prog is music of the head; it requires a leap of faith. a lot of listens before it makes sense. Most insist that music be listened to with the heart. The rejection of intellectual art by the masses is beyond this article. but it exists.
As for pompous. if you mean ‘overly solemn and grand'. listen to Genesis‘ '1
industry since the frayed Know What I Like (In Your
end of the (i()s. This rock
viewpoint is still dorrrinant.
Wardrobe)’ and tell me they're not having a laugh.
twenty-odd years later. But If you mean ‘self—
prog and punk shared artistic aims: to escape stagnant musical forms. So why assume they are ideologically opposed'.’ To me. it‘s all just music.
There was more crossover in the [S New wave groups coming out of legendary venue (‘BUBs had the energy of punk and the complexity of prog: 'l‘elevision‘s ‘Marquee Moon’ was a ten»minute track and largely a rambling guitar solo: Robert l‘r'ipp guested on Blondie‘s l’uru/lr'l [.I'rrr's. But then. Stewart Copeland of the Police was in (‘urved Air and Andy Summers in Soft Machine.
What are we told about dinosaur bands: 1) they don't have ttrnes. at least not catchy ones: 2) they draw them out pornpously with 3) endless guitar solos and 4) they are only listened to by
aggrandising‘. Oasis are worse offenders.
But the real reason that prog can never be cool'.’ Here is a genre beloved only of adolescent boys and awkward adults. For men. a large part of adolescence is losing that awkwardness: adolescence becomes an embarrassment: and men still make the decisions in record companies and the press. We don‘t even have the excuse of irony. If we did. those Roger Dean gatefold-sleeves could be proudly displayed. It stays as embarrassing as our adolescence. Prog can never be cool because teenage boys will never be cool.
Fundamentally. we embarrass ourselves. Isn‘t it time we just grew up'.’
Disagree? react@list.co.uk
D l N Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone Ster Century. Leith
Celeste Gryi‘frrrddr Ithihk it's; more for older children even though all of us
liked it
8 THE LIST 29 Nov- 11% Der; I/‘fiiil
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