A SPOONFUL OF TIME

I could not help laughing heartily while listening to this "prog's greatest hits reworked" from the improbable space rock legends Nektar , I mean I still sadly remember the 70s when the top selling albums were LPs sold by the über-commercial K-Tel Productions , the great white shark of the glory days of radio rock. Proves you can never say never, I guess. The songs proposed here are all basic classic hits from those heady days when FM radio ruled the roost. Obviously (and it was clearly not the intent) the versions here are nowhere near as evocative as the originals, I prefer to view this collection as a tribute to the giants of the past and as such I can only state that at least these songs stood the test of time and where clearly more intricate that the sugared garbage offered up by the AM crowd.

Nektar brings in a slew of prog stalwarts, looking like a who's who of progressive rock, from Rod Argent, Patrick Moraz, Edgar Froese, to the Wakeman/Howe/Downes trio , then throw in Nik Turner, Mel Collins, Simon House, David Cross and Jerry Goodman, you have the Prog Hall of Fame cornered! It would be way too easy (and therefore crass) to start blasting this as "a pile of morass, not as good as, why worse, blah, blah, blah". Let's get a life, bygones be bygones and just sit back and enjoy, for Peter Criss-sakes! I actually really put my rarely poisoned pen down and just decided to go down memory lane and let the music wash over me. By doing so I realized that these tunes really do stand the test of time, albeit as a spoonful instead of a whole buffet. There are some outright classics here, Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" is outstanding whilst featuring Tangerine Dream's Froese, Nektar being a space ?groove band this should not surprise. "Riders on the Storm is equally interesting, Argent's luscious keys combining with bass maestro Billy Sheehan to lay down some spooky justice. "Fly Like An Eagle" stays very close to the Steve Miller Band classic as Downes controls the spacey keys. Then you have Hawkwind's violinist Simon House screeching on the Stones "2000 Light Years from Home" and on Roxy Music's "Out of the Blue", funny that pairing as Ferry never forgave Jagger for stealing away the sultry/skanky Jerry Hall. Oh well, that's for the gossip column readers. Both tracks do well, in the short run. Steve Winwood penned "Can't Find My Way Home" actually works nicely with cameos "traffic" by Howe, Collins and Derek Sherinian. "Blinded by the Light" has Ginger Baker pounding the skins, how can you go wrong? Dave Albrighton's wicked wah-wah drenched solo does Dave Flett justice, but it's not a note for note cop, thankfully. Some others are plain bizarre , such as the Gamble/Huff classic "For the Love of Money" with Ian Paice doing some disco drumming and Nik Turner howling on sax, I mean it's good but weird! Mark Kelly guesting on Rush's Spirit of the Radio"? Okay! But it's not 'rushed', that's for sure! Toto's classic pseudo-prog "Africa" has original singer Bobby Kimball revisiting the mike while Pat Moraz does the ivory thing. Finally 10cc's sardonic tearjerker "I'm Not in Love" gets the Wakeman treatment , I really laughed hard at that?? Neil Young's "Old Man" is pretty awful though, crucified by David Cross's violin. Just be glad that there was no "Smoke on the Water" remix featuring Jon Anderson, hahahahahaha! "Dream Weaver" is a Gary Wright classic that gets the Goodman treatment, a Little Mahavishnu groove to "get you through the night ?..and reach the morning light". Good god what a chuckle that was!

Hey, we elitists take our fandom way too seriously most of the times and lest we forget that a strong sense of humor is what kept our beloved genre alive during the bleak years, when the mellotron was stranded in the Sinai, searching for the Promised Land. So liven up, proggers and progettes! This was pure entertainment, lots of fun, nothing worthy of five stars, absolutely no profound philosophical referencing here, just good clean revelry. Now, where are my Anekdoten albums? I need to listen to those, now. (Laugh track loop)

4 shovels of hahahas