The PA Happy Birthday Thread

LOL Nick.  

Oh, Laz, you disappoint me here. Not because of your choice of today's birthday victim... Quite interesting, and in a professional way I might consider him as an assistant on my next film... But all this to get Kylie's autograph...? (if you get it, may I get a copy...?)

If you really want to make a name for yourself in the seething pit we call The PA Forum, then register and as your first ever act ask the deliberating masses what, precisely, was the first ever progressive rock album, and then don’t bother   to provide said masses with your opinion on the subject.

Who did actually make the first prog record is a question for which there is simply no answer, rather like asking what God’s dress size is. Nobody knows, although I personally go along with Bing Crosby’s Star Dust from 1940, anticipating The Flower Kings by some 50 years.

The thread started by today’s Birthday Hero is notable for producing in response a classic Wallace post, so utterly typical of this legend, it deserves to be reproduced in full here;

“We jist been thru this awl a month ago. 

Why do these threids always ha' tae be feckin' "Best of", 

"Worst of", "history of"? 

Evray time a new newbie cum here, do we have tae reguritates awl this? 

Is tha our purpose here -tae serve the 'opelessly lost newbie? (Thars eneugh VETERAN newbies on dis site as it is!) 

Yosh sayit , that makes fer a varra dull board. 

Yosh sayit, bollard-newbies are an impediment tae progress an' usefule assa spare prick at a' wedding. 

Yosh sayit, whene'er a new newbie cums oop wiv one o' these warld-shakin' posts -ignare it. 

Ortherwise thissen board stagnates.”.

Folks, there are some passages which no amount of artificial intelligence can translate, no matter how clever the algorithm, and that is one of them. There is, BTW, quite a bit more of this in that thread. Read this and enjoy, or weep depending upon your constitution http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=3493

Fr3dMc joined the prog savouring throng in February 2005, and stayed with us for a whole six weeks before disappearing into the digital ether. Rock Sobeck, which is one hell of a titanic name to contend with, and it is his real name, celebrates his 38th birthday in the Home of the Brave this very day. When he registered, he provided his occupation as car sales and his interests as “music, cars, women.......nuff said”.

So, when I started researching Rock, I was expecting a cool, handsome, drop dead f**kable hunk. I mean, you would, wouldn’t you? 

Rock hails from Vancouver, but not that cesspit of culture in Canada, but the rather more sober state of Washington. It is, apparently, the largest suburb of Portland, Oregon. Here is its website, within which there are many suburban delights, including the altogether thrilling news that the city has set up Arbor Month which has recognised Urban Yoof Program celebrating trees, and the latest updates on the waste provider, the extremely sexy Vancouver Solid Waste Services! City of Vancouver Home | City of Vancouver Washington

Rock is into car sales, and here is his JoinedTogetherLimbs site where you can all feast your eyes upon this hunk Rock Sobeck - Sales Manager - Dick Hannah Dealerships | LinkedIn As you can see, Rock has climbed the corporate gas guzzler ladder from a mere Sales Associate to a Sales Manager at Dick Hannah Dealerships. And, really, with the mission statement of said dealership stated as 

“Family. Integrity. Respect. Purpose.

These four simple words, our core values, are the guiding principals of our business. Family-owned since 1949, Dick Hannah Dealerships has grown to become one of the most well respected and trusted automobile companies in the region.”

why on Earth would you buy a car anywhere else? Guys, get yourself up to Vancouver as soon as you can, and to help you in your choice of vehicle in which to woo your female opposite sex personage in the same vein as the chap who will flog you your car, here is their website New Car Dealers & Used Car Dealers | Portland, OR Metro Area Yep. They go the extra mile, so you don’t have to! And, don’t forget, Dick Always Says Yes. Feast your eyes upon this veritable cornucopia of car sales personages, including our departed brother Meet the Team at Dick Says Yes in Vancouver, WA And of any of you ever get sick and tired of writing prog album reviews, well you can write your very own review of a Dick Car Dick Says Yes Reviews - VANCOUVER, WA | Cars.com

Our Rock also plays on the stock market, and you can read here his wonderfully concise views on tits up in said market Rock Sobeck (@Fr3dMc) | Stocktwits and here Comments by Rock Sobeck  These days, Our Rock has eschewed his shagging on top of the bonnet days, and is an Apple Pie family man. Take a look at his wonderful family on SadderBook Rock Sobeck | Facebook In addition, Rock has a GoggleTube site, where he has, until now, attracted a mere one subscriber to his cultural joyfest, although I am confident this will change as soon as the prog masses click on this link https://youtube.com/user/fr3dmc 

So! We wish an extremely happy birthday to Rock! Come back, sir! We need to know our motor industry stock news from an expert! 

Elsewhere in Proggerland, no current collab news to report. 

Edited by lazland - April 24 2021 at 10:38

Today is a far more serious offering than usual from PABT, because it has to act as an obituary of one of our finest instead of a birthday celebration, and there will be more than a few readers of this who might remember the artist and band, but might not be aware of today’s subject passing, simply because they were either not on the site, or because they missed the relevant post passing on the sad news.

Paul Macd, Paul MacDonnell joined the forum on 5th June 2010, and only hung around for a short while. He would have celebrated his 68th birthday today in England. Paul posted in response to a thread which attracted a fair bit of interest on the forum, and rightly so, that being this one http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=50945 in which a member of the faithful asked if anyone had ever heard of a band by the name of Automatic Fine Tuning, and there were many responses, all of them favourable, with good reason as we shall find out later. Paul was a guitarist with the band and posted on page two of this thread when he replied to a post from his old mucker in Glider, the forerunner of AFT, Trevor Darks. Steve Lusted had posted the sad news that another band member, Bob Cross, had passed away. Paul did invite some questions with his email address, and did respond to Tony Clarke, ClarkePegasus4001, who kept the thread going for a while, and informed us all on 7 October 2016 that Paul had passed away from an alcohol related illness. As one member commented, the thread showed PA at its best, as a repository of knowledge about prog rock, and an institution in which people can learn about its history and the people who make this the finest genre of music in the world, without any question or competition. There is a reason we are so obsessed, and it is wholly a beautiful reason, in spite of some of the arguments we might have here.

So, who were AFT? Well, here is their entry on PA. AUTOMATIC FINE TUNING discography and reviews Dean, amongst others, had posted that he remembered seeing them live, and they released just the one album, which received some mixed reviews on the site, but really enjoyed by those who rated them highly. Here is a fantastic archival site from the legendary Friars of Aylesbury showing the band playing live there in January 1977 Welcome to the Friars Aylesbury website 

 I am afraid that there is not a great deal online about Paul, but here is an interesting and amusing Maidenhead newspaper article showing him as a judge in a “Battle of the Bands” school competition Battle of the Bands held at Charters School - Maidenhead Advertiser 

So, let us have a listen to the band, this from YouTube; https://youtu.be/BBlc67lGT9c Pretty damned good stuff to these ears, and you can see why they were regarded well enough to play at Reading Festival in 1976, which was then, by a long way, the biggest music festival in Britain, and a haven for metal and prog fans until it decided to go over to the dark side. You can, by the way, still get the album, certainly on Amazon, so go for it.

Rest in peace, Paul. Let’s hope you are having a wonderful day up there.

Elsewhere, no current collab news to report.

Edited by lazland - April 26 2021 at 11:37

suitkees wrote: Great homage! Didn't know AFT so this will incite me to listen to their album. Thanks!

JD wrote: A beautiful and dignified post for today's honouree Mr Laz. Well done.

We really do get them all here on PA. Today’s hero inducted into the PABT Hall of Fame is a chap whose forum name was the extraordinarily sexy XSebbyMcMuffinX.

Our departed hero when he registered on the site 14 March 2008 went to the considerable trouble of listing his real name in addition to the stud muffin offered as his forum handle, gave us a link to his homepage, of which more soon, declared that his occupations were “keyboardist, guitarist, drummer and cashier”, although personally Mr Laz is somewhat unfamiliar with the latter instrument, and gave his interests as “music, playing, writing, listening to, video games, kinda, and some reading” and, for good measure just in case we were not fascinated enough with this new recruit provided us with this wonderfully cryptic signature “Losing control... is a treat.” Absolutely, sir, and your author is taking himself to the boozer for the first time since last December now they have reopened tomorrow night, and is looking forward to some serious losing control following a real ale fest!

Anyhoo, after providing us with all of this vital information, which reads something like a personalised prog CV, Sebastian Kurzyna, who celebrates his 31st birthday today, stayed for all of 16 minutes, didn’t post once, and buggered off never to be seen again. Which really does beg the question as to why on Earth he bothered in the first place. So, who is this departed brother?

Our Sebastian hails from New Britain in Connecticut. This is a city in Hartford County, which, from memory, is a county which has featured in our fun little thread before. Here is its website, where you can learn about all sorts of interesting legal notices, get acquainted with the altogether lovely looking mayor, a Ms Erin Stewart, and really dig this beautifully cryptic city message to its good citizens, namely “industry fills the hive and enjoys the honey”. Quite right too! City of New Britain - Home The good news for any of you wishing to visit this lovely hive this summer is that the environmental department regularly monitors West Nile Virus and Ticks and there is a huge amount of very useful information on Curbside Services, although I do wonder at the effectiveness of a garbage service which cannot spell kerb correctly.

Sebastian’s homepage is a link to that long defunct in its usefulness, MySpace, but he does have a Soundcloud page, and here it is, with a lovely photo of our hoodie hero Sebastian Kurzyna | Free Listening on SoundCloud I have listened to Supermarket Insanity which quite frankly sounds like Rolf Harris on LSD.

Sebastian is “always letting the inspirations of life flow, I fill my heart with the world around me and release.” which is really heart-droppingly Jon Anderson like, although it would have been nicer had his music sounded a wee bit more like a hippy we all love. Here is his InstantFameOGram site Sebastian Wildcard Kurzyna (@sebbyplaysmusic) • Instagram photos and videos  And he has his very own GoggleTube channel, with a huge 47 subscribers which I am sure will double as a result of this post. Here is Wisps, a rather nice piano improvisation, and, I have to say, Sebastian looking eerily like Stephen Wilson https://youtu.be/1pJfXfHaPro 

So! We wish a very happy birthday to our lovely brother! Go steady with those muffins!

Elsewhere in Proggerland, we celebrate the 29th birthday of Mr ProgressiveAttic, who is a collab on the Eclectic Team, although I am afraid he hasn’t visited for a wee while. Happy birthday sir! 

SteveG wrote: Very enjoyable Laz, as always. But when I cliked on (another word they can't spell correctly), I was informed by some all seeing entity on my PC that the Red Chinese would try to hack into my abacus if I proceeded any further. Do you suppose it was a scam? Anyhow, a good laugh for today.

Thursday 29 April 2021. A historic day in the Lazland World. Yep, the first trip to a pub since our last Welsh lockdown began before Christmas. Four pints of steaming and frothing Pedigree Ale later, well I am anybody’s! Well, probably aside from Mrs Laz, that is!

So, it is a jolly good job that today’s PABT hero was identified early this morning. Shantiq joined our artful throng in September 2006, and actually hung around for eight years, although in that time he only posted twice, so some serious slacking in his prog knowledge sharing duties.

Shan Shantiq celebrates his 63rd birthday in the absolutely beautiful city of Norwich in Blightyland, a city I am familiar with because my bestest oldest pal lives there with his gorgeous other half. The good news is that their footie team, known to locals as The Canaries, have secured promotion to that hotbed of moneyed rights, The Premier League, but, unfortunately, are as certain to get relegated back down and flat as Delia’s flatbread next year. Here is their website, where, very helpfully, you can check your bin day online. Homepage The joys of online governmental services, eh?

Our departed brother posted to see if he could find music from Tonto’s Expanding Head Band (no, nor me), but said band do have an entry in our hallowed halls TONTO'S EXPANDING HEAD BAND discography and reviews

Shan is a French chappy by birth, who moved to Blightyland. Let’s consider his BandyCramp page shantiq Not entirely my cup of tea, but those Picasso like images you see are from our hero, because his day job is an artist. Have a look at his dedicated page on the website of the chap who rather sadly gave Our Nigella a bit of a hard time when they were married https://www.saatchiart.com/shantiq This site takes us further to our hero’s further musical endeavours, which is excitingly 100% improv, namely Phunkey Kavalier, in which our hero plays percussion and guitar with “avant garde sensibilities”, code for lots of senseless noodling in the Lazland dictionary of music phunkeykavalier.bandcamp.com  

They have a GoogleTube site with loads more phunkey improv, and here is another selection which should get all panheads extraordinarily excited https://youtu.be/DUneqBSJSvI They have 757 subscribers, so please do add to this total, folks!

So, we wish a very happy birthday to our beloved brother! Don’t overcook the noodles, sir!

Elsewhere in Proggerland, we would wish to send our deepest felicitations to MoogtronIII, one of our dearly departed Prog Reviewers, who celebrates his 56th birthday today. Happy Birthday, Sir!

I might add that Mr Laz is now on his sixth pint as he writes this latest tome, and it is rather more challenging than is usual! 

Ah, nice to see the technical types behind the iron blanket get some love. And a rival for Phil Spector's mantle too. Probably in more ways than one. I wish I had some back forth with our colleagues from across the pond and back across the steppes back in the day. I never could get my sound mixing console/mine detector working correctly, that I bought from the back of a van from a honest looking chap named Ivan. He said it was "easy to figure out. Just don't push the red button". So here's to old Ivan too. ;)


Edited by SteveG - April 30 2021 at 14:43