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AFlowerKingCrimson View Drop Down
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    Posted: October 02 2023 at 12:18
Kite Parade is the musical outlet for English musician and songwriter Andy Foster. Kite Parade has two official releases so far which include Retro from 2023 and the Way Home from 2022. Retro features drumming from Nick D'Virgilio (Big Big Train and Spock's Beard) and prog musician Steve Thorne among several others. 





Edited by AFlowerKingCrimson - October 02 2023 at 15:13
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yam yam View Drop Down
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Points: 5822 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote yam yam Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 02 2023 at 14:57
^ Hyperlink hasn't been properly inserted (https://kiteparade.bandcamp.com/album/retro). Absolute shoo-in for Crossover imho, but they'll probably insist that you provide a biography and band pic before they'll start an evaluation. Already added to AwesomeProg by rushfan4 back in March this year: https://awesomeprog.com/artists/20325.
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AFlowerKingCrimson View Drop Down
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Points: 16288 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote AFlowerKingCrimson Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 02 2023 at 15:04
^Sorry about that. I'm not sure how that happened. I tried to fix it but wasn't able to. 

Anyway, I believe there's already a bio on the bandcamp page. I don't see why I would need to re-write what is already out there. 


Edited by AFlowerKingCrimson - October 02 2023 at 15:14
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yam yam View Drop Down
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^ Cool. If it's any help, you'll find plenty of info to put together a perfectly useable biography here: https://theprogressiveaspect.net/blog/2022/02/10/kite-parade-the-way-home/.

I'd probably go with this as the band photo, since it's essentially Andy's solo project: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=615216694116824&set=pb.100068854976638.-2207520000.



This is a fine project indeed. We need to get these guys on here asap!

Edit: The bandcamp bio is really too brief, and the PA new suggestions guidelines state that any biography has to be an original biography written by the suggester, and not simply a copy/paste job via the artist's page (except where permitted by himself/herself/themselves). See: https://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=122381.

If this matter of the provision of a useable biography turns out to stall the evaluation (Crossover team member Cristi is one of the guys who almost always insists on it before he will take a suggestion to the team) then I'll post something here for you based on what's written in that review of the debut album, but it would be better coming from you rather than me. Embarrassed


Edited by yam yam - October 02 2023 at 15:32
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AFlowerKingCrimson View Drop Down
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Points: 16288 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote AFlowerKingCrimson Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 03 2023 at 07:02
I'll see what I can do. I might not be able to get around to it until tomorrow though.
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yam yam View Drop Down
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In order to possibly speed up the evaluation, here is some information I have pieced together to help in the creation of a biography for Kite Parade:

Kite Parade is the solo project of Andy Foster of Bridgwater, Somerset, UK, who has been a working musician ever since leaving school in 1981. His first instrument at school had been the violin but he subsequently switched over to clarinet, and after leaving school at 16 Andy joined H.M. Band of the Grenadier Guards - initially as a clarinet player - but he found the role of clarinet player in the band to be somewhat boring, and soon switched to playing alto saxophone instead.

After 8 years of playing ceremonial and private functions around the world he decided to leave the Army, and in 1988 began working for a couple of years in a music shop in London. In 1990 he was approached to play sax and guitar in the touring show 'Grease the Musical', and he played the theatres of the U.K. and Northern Ireland for the next two years. In 1992 he started working in the Middle East organising contracts for various covers bands, and he continued to do this for the next 5 years, spending time in Dubai, Oman, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan and Israel.

Since then Andy has performed solo around the world visiting many countries, including Austria, Spain, Scandinavia, France, Greece, Tanzania, Cote D'Voire, Cyprus, Faroe Islands. He has completed a tour of rock clubs in British Columbia, Canada and has recently also started to perform on cruise ships.

While all this has been going on, Andy has also been writing his own songs for a good many years - his influences as a youngster being hard rock (UFO, Boston, Thin Lizzy, Def Leppard, Van Halen), prog (Genesis, Yes, Supertramp, It Bites), as well as bands playing a multitude of styles that featured on Top of The Pops in the '70s (particularly Tears For Fears), classical (Ravel, Stravinsky, etc.) and also jazz fusion while he was in the Army.

He previously lived in Brighton for 20 years, and made demos on a Roland XP50 and an 8-track recorder in between trips to the Middle East. Andy says: "At the beginning they were more pop-rock type tunes, but they soon morphed into basically whatever came into my head! Maybe listening to such a wide palette of genres means that for me melody is king".

After finishing in the Middle East he was introduced by a mutual friend to renowned producer Rob Aubrey (Big Big Train, IQ), who listened to the instrumental demos and decided they were worth pursuing, so some vocals were added. Finally, around a couple of decades later, he decided the time was right to create an album (or albums) from these demos. Sufficient tracks for around three albums have been written musically over the years, but vocals still need to be added to some of them, and Andy is already working on material for a fourth album.

Although essentially a solo project (with Andy handling vocals, guitars, bass, saxophone and keyboard programming), he has collaborated with a number of other musicians in the creation of the finished tracks. Nick D’Virgilio of Big Big Train played drums on five tracks of the debut album 'The Way Home', with ex-Pendragon drummer Joe Crabtree, now formally of Wishbone Ash, contributing on the other two. Elsewhere, friends have added bass, piano and extra guitar parts to give additional sparkle where necessary. Rob Aubrey handled the mixing and mastering of the album.

'The Way Home' was released on White Knight Records in March 2022, and the follow up album 'Retro' on the same label a year later in March 2023. Once again, guest drummers Nick D’Virgilio and Joe Crabtree have contributed to the 'Retro' album, and all the mastering and mixing duties were again carried out by Rob Aubrey. After starting out as a studio based project, Andy is happy to announce that he's now in the process of putting a band together to get Kite Parade playing live at festivals and in support slots.

'The Way Home':
1. Letting Go (7:16)
2. Strip the Walls (6:05)
3. This Time (5:57)
4. Suffer No Longer (4:57)
5. Going Under (4:35)
6. The Way Home (4:45)
7. Stranded (14:47)

Total Time 48:22

- Andy Foster / vocals, guitars, bass, saxophone, keyboard programming

With:
- Nick D’Virgilio / drums (1-3, 5, 7)
- Joe Crabtree / drums (4, 6)
- Russell Milton / bass (2, 6)
- Andy Marlow / bass (4)
- Roger Xavier / guitar (6)
- Steve Bradford / piano (4)
- Phillipa Sen / female Voice (5)

Music – Andy Foster
Lyrics – Andy Foster (1-3, 5, 7), David Thwaites (2, 4, 5, 7),  Steve Thorne (6)

CD White Knight Records - WKCD0222 (2022, UK)
Digital album


'Retro':
1. Retro (5:53)
2. Speed of Light (7:14)
3. Wonderful (6:24)
4. Shadows Fall (9:14)
5. Under the Same Sun (6:33)
6. Merry-Go-Round (14:35)

Total Time 49:53

- Andy Foster / vocals, guitars, bass, saxophone, keyboard programming

With:
- Nick D’Virgilio / drums (1-4, 6)
- Joe Crabtree / drums (5)
- Russell Milton / bass (5)
- Vladimir Kurganov / fretless bass (4)
- Steve Bradford / Hammond organ solo (5)
- Daz Atkinson / guitar solo (5)
- Jessica Chambers / backing vocals (6)

CD White Knight Records - WKCD0323 (2023, UK)
Digital album
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AFlowerKingCrimson View Drop Down
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Points: 16288 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote AFlowerKingCrimson Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 07 2023 at 09:20
It looks like you have it done. Thanks. Sorry I didn't get around to it.
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yam yam View Drop Down
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Not a problem. Let's hope the Crossover team will now get the evaluation under way. The only member of that team who regularly visits this part of forum these days is Cristi, so it's most likely going to be him whose support we'll need to get this moved forward.
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ok, noted Smile
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AFlowerKingCrimson View Drop Down
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I can do a small blurb (like I did in the first post here) but I'm really not very good at writing comprehensive band bios (maybe I lost my mojo or maybe I never really had it). So I guess this will be my last band suggestion then. Oh well. 

Edited by AFlowerKingCrimson - October 07 2023 at 20:24
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yam yam View Drop Down
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Points: 5822 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote yam yam Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 08 2023 at 02:35
^ Please don't say that. Bios don't have to be anywhere near as comprehensive as the detailed info I posted here for Kite Parade. I included just about every bit of info I could find about Andy Foster's career in those paragraphs, but the biography could be considerably condensed from that and still be perfectly useable.

Former admin Andy Webb posted a useful guide to writing biographies back in 2013 when he was trying to get a biography writing team set up in an attempt to make the process of adding newly cleared bands easier for the sub genre teams, but it seems that no volunteers stepped forward.

Andy's guide to writing a biography used to be pinned here, but it was replaced by the post Keishiro wrote in 2020 insisting on the biography being provided by the suggester right from the outset. You can view Andy's previous guide here: https://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=94331, but to summarise the important points contained within it:
------------------------------------------------------
1. Introduce the band name and genre
2. Give a list of the founding member or members if possible
3. Explain band beginnings (ex: "they played live for 10 years before releasing their debut album in 2003")
4. Explore their career - well-established bands may have a lot of this material, but often for new bands this may be a sentence or two or not exist at all. Make sure to mention line-up changes, significant changes in style, or other important events.
5. End with a conclusion that elaborates on the style of the band and bands with a similar sound or obvious influences.

Biographies should be about 2-3 paragraphs. New bands may only have bios of a few sentences while older bands may have lengthy biographies.
------------------------------------------------------
Quite a few people still suggest bands here without providing biographies, and usually one of the appropriate genre team members will drop a link to Keishiro's pinned post into the thread to advise them that they need to provide this information before the suggestion will be considered.

However, if the suggestion is for a band or artist who I feel definitely belongs here, then if nothing is added to the thread by the suggester within a few days, I will often chip in with something to help out. I'm not much good at writing clear and succinct text myself either though, so this is nothing to be ashamed of.

What I am generally pretty good at is digging out information that's quite well hidden on the Internet, and my biographies are just patched together from edited selections of text from the various sources of info I have stumbled upon rather than being written from scratch. However, they usually do the job. Embarrassed

Edit: You have written more than 20 quite excellent reviews for this site, whereas I have written precisely zero reviews, since I just don't have the necessary writing ability to be able to create clear and concise original text out of nothing. I can waffle on aimlessly like this in a forum post, or patch together a biography out of bits of text copied from elsewhere, but that's my limit. Don't talk yourself down!


Edited by yam yam - October 08 2023 at 05:42
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Cristi View Drop Down
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added
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yam yam View Drop Down
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^ Thanks!

I have to apologise again for not spotting a couple of apostrophes in the text of that biography that aren't the standard keyboard 0027 (alt 39) character, and unfortunately they have again been reproduced by our software as question marks (Nick D'Virgilio in each of the last two paragraphs).

You have fixed this issue yourself previously when it happened with one of my biographies, so I'm hoping you can do so again. If not, I'll get the E&O team to do it. Embarrassed
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Points: 41381 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Cristi Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: October 25 2023 at 05:02
Originally posted by yam yam yam yam wrote:

^ Thanks!

I have to apologise again for not spotting a couple of apostrophes in the text of that biography that aren't the standard keyboard 0027 (alt 39) character, and unfortunately they have again been reproduced by our software as question marks (Nick D'Virgilio in each of the last two paragraphs).

You have fixed this issue yourself previously when it happened with one of my biographies, so I'm hoping you can do so again. If not, I'll get the E&O team to do it. Embarrassed

I'll do the necessary edits as soon as I can. Smile
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Cristi View Drop Down
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I think I fixed it, tell me if I missed anything. Smile
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yam yam View Drop Down
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^ Yeah, all looking good now, thanks. Thumbs Up
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