The PA Happy Birthday Thread

poetic-killer joined our brotherhood/sisterhood (strike one according to gender and/or personal preference) in January 2005, and actually hung around until 2018, since when nary a syllable. Shir Deutch celebrates his 39th birthday today. His surname is quite interesting as it is, of course, translated as German, and indicates that his family hails from that land and likely emigrated to Israel following the terrible events of the last world war.

Shir did contribute to the general forum, but his main purpose here was to promote the activities of his band, Solstice Coil. Here is their site entry SOLSTICE COIL discography and reviews Now this lot, as you will see from their page, are a pretty rare beast in that they are listed here as being prog-related, an honour usually bestowed upon artists who were basically click-bait for the site such as Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, and etc. Shir makes an amusing point in one of his posts when one of the brethren asks him why they are listed as such, and he states that “I think it's because we reserve the right to write non-progressive songs on occasion”. Good on him!

So! How prog are our friends? Well, their blurb states that they were the first “alt-prog rock” band to be formed on the web. So far, so Radiohead.

Let us visit their ElasticBand site and have a listen to their last album, Commute, which has a fine cover, by the way. Solstice Coil Our friend is the vocalist, and also plays guitars. It’s not half bad, but has not attracted any reviews on the site, whereas Natural Causes has, and I am listening to it as I type this ▶︎ Natural Causes | Solstice Coil This one is a wee bit more, as was mentioned in reviews, akin to their favourite prog metal band, namely Dream Theater. In fact, our heroes have more than a passing connection with everybody’s favourite hairy prog steel band. This is because in 2011 the band released a parody of DT, a band who you would have thought were pretty full of self-parody themselves without any assistance, but it was quite a big hit on the old intertit, and made such an impression that their heroes actually played it when they toured Israel later that year.

Here it is, in all its glory. The Natural Causes Carries On, a parody of The Spirit Carries On, and absolutely bloody hilarious https://youtu.be/hEMA3Ptoo5Q 

The band have done nothing since 2015, and our friend’s Twittterwoo site https://mobile.twitter.com/shirdeutch/media/grid  states that he is still a singer/musician/screenwriter/professional translator, and mostly records rock covers of Israeli children's songs. He does have a YouGoggle site, and here is one of his recent efforts, which can only really be described as so utterly mad and bad, it is genius https://youtu.be/e2_WNb_2v3w 

Lastly, you can read here the interview Mr Camel undertook with the band in 2011 http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=80312 

So! Let us wish a Yom Huledet Sameach to our very good friend! Keep prog-related rocking, sir!

Elsewhere, Hugh, or Ugo as Mama and Papa named him in Italia 68 years ago today, celebrates his special day. Our beloved friend joined our throbbing throng in 2015, and continues to bless us with his presence, although he does demonstrate a clear “must improve” prog performance marking with his measly three posts in those six years. Happy birthday, sir! Talk to us! 

And on that theme, why don’t we consider the affairs of plenain? Philippe Lenain, for it is he, joined our glorious gathering in November 2006, and stayed with us for a whole day without providing any form of financial advice to the poverty stricken hordes. For Phillippe disclosed his occupation as every right minded personages favourite profession - a banker. What’s more, he disclosed his location in said banking industry in that steaming cauldron of capitalist communism, Vietnam! So. Is it power to the people, or is it take the money and run for our friend, who celebrates his 59th birthday today?

Now Phillippe gave his location as Ho Chi Minh City. For those of you old enough to remember those harrowing scenes of Robert De Niro clambering into a helicopter at the toe end of the Vietnam War, Ho Chi Minh City was formerly known as Saigon when it was under American control, acting as a bulwark against those damned godless commies. Regrettably for The Land of the Free, said godless commies placed a rather large size 12 boot up the rectum of the capitalist pig dogs, and the city was renamed after their glorious leader.

How is it today? Is it a workers paradise still? Well, let us take a look at its website to find out. Home - Website Ho Chi Minh City In news that will gladden the heart of every merchant banker reading this, the communist paradise is seeking to attain the eye-watering figure of $108bn in exports, which I am sure will be comfortably and fairly redistributed to the assembled masses. In true Soviet Dictatorship of the Proletariat fashion, the city even has its own stock market, which you can also catch up on here. However, those of you still residing in The Home of the Brave can take a great deal of comfort from this site, because I could not see one mention, not even a snippet, of their recycling and refuse collections, so definitely a home run for American Capitalism there, I feel.

And our departed silent banker? Well, he has moved. Fancying a wee bit of a change to reside in a lovely peaceful, committed to democracy and human rights environment, he moved to, erm, Myanmar. Here is our glorious comrade in all his glory flogging the locals his new business venture, Rent2Own “No Challengers for Renting Motorbikes” - Myanmar Insider And here is his business venture, which I am extremely comfortable in the knowledge of those of you wishing to travel to Myanmar to protest will take advantage of the motorcycle  hire with which to efficiently riot against the evil soldiery Mr Philippe Lenain – Rent 2 Own

Having said all of that, our Phillippe does actually have a little bit of a history of agitation, and financial chicanery, demanding, as he did, government compensation for the forcible closure of his insurance business in Cambodia Former Indochine Director Seeks Indemnity Compensation - The Cambodia Daily He’s been about a bit, we’ll give him that! In fact, he even returned for a wee while to his native France after said closure, as this interesting news site makes clear, and might place a little bit of a different slant on events French money fails to rescue Indochine | Phnom Penh Post He is, however, now very much on the straight and narrow, and here is the website where you can contact Phillippe and get all sorts of “consumer durables” (cars, bikes, and household appliances to you and I) Rent 2 Own

So! Happy birthday, Phillippe. Mind those bullets, my friend! Whatever you do, don’t shout out about all those fridge freezers you flogged to Aung San Suu Kyi. They’ll lock you up!

Elsewhere in Proggerland, it is a pleasure to wish my very good friend Eric “E-Dub” a happy 54th birthday. Eric is a SC hereabouts, and was the custodian of Prog Archives finest Marillion Appreciation Thread. He doesn’t visit very often now, but all the best to him.

Another SC, who isn’t coming any longer, is Chamberry. Ruben Dario is 32 today, and celebrates with a tequila or six in that throbbing heart of progdom, Puerto Rico. Happy birthday, sir! 

Jesus did not distribute coins, but did, very kindly (kindly bring a pretty strong prerequisite for being classed as a Messiah, rather than a common or garden naughty boy) wash his disciples feet, this including kissing Judas’ bunions, something after which being placed on a cross could conceivably be a wee bit of a blessed release.

It is, therefore, very appropriate at this holy time that we celebrate the birthday of a genuine sky pilot. Someone who touches the sky and, thus, becomes rather closer to The Almighty than us mere mortals.

So! Let us wish our very good friend Starfighter a very happy 55th birthday. Axel Osterman (or Osterperson as we rightly should call him in these far more enlightened times) joined our hungry delegate party in June 2009, and actually kept visiting us until December last year, bless him. In that time, he posted a mere 17 times, but this was clearly because he was a busy chap, as we shall see. Axel made it clear that he was a huge fan of the PABT’s most popular artist, namely that glorious loon Nik Turner, now making his umpteenth appearance in this hallowed thread. 

He drew our attention to Jackdaws Birthday Party in 2009, and this was a real event in Kelvedon, Essex, which some of you more fruity sky psych lovers may well have attended. Here it was; Jackdaws Birthday Party 2009 - eFestivals.co.uk It was headlined by Space Ritual, that band led by, yes, Mr Nik spaceritual.net

Now, you would have thought that if you were entrusting aeroplanes worth untold millions of Deutschmarks to a pilot, you might want the pilot to be someone who preferred coffee to, say, the extraordinarily powerful psychedelic drugs required to truly appreciate the music and antics of Nik. Well, you would have thought wrong. For Axel is a genuine pilot. Have a look see at him flying a 916 Starfighter 916 Starfighter Hence his forum name, by a glorious coincidence! Very excitingly, Axel was a member of the Navy Demo-Team “The Vikings”. Here he is being hailed by a fan https://www.flugzeugforum.de/threads/navy-demo-team-vikings-f-104g-starfighter.78367/And here they are in action https://youtu.be/jQasfk3LcTw When I was a wee Space Cadet back in the day, I used to love going to flying displays like this.

So! We wish a very Alles Gute Zum Geburtstag to our glorious pilot! And, as a very special treat for the massed ground lovers of PA, have a watch of a track our friend would surely have been grooving to whilst piloting his F-104 https://youtu.be/bihO7cQChEc  Beautifully barking! I’m Walking Backwards For Easter! Let’s hope Axel was flying straight ahead, though!

Elsewhere in Proggerland, we celebrate the 64th birthday of one of our glorious former admins, a certain Mr Dean Cracknell. Dean served and protected the masses from n’er do wells such as Svetonio and Wallace for many years. Unfortunately, Dean was a Remain voter during the great 2016 Prexit vote, when the throng were asked to decide whether to stay within The European Prog Union, formerly The European Prog Community, or leave. The vote went against Our Dean, but he would surely be exceptionally pleased to note that under the Withdrawal Agreement negotiated by Steve Howe and Jon Anderson, the hairy masses of Europe do still allow us to post on PA, albeit not as fully participating Frippsters. Happy Birthday, Sir!