ProgressiveWorld.net

Ruminations: July 21, 2024
by Stephanie Sollow

Reflections

This editorial started out as a divergent thought from listening to Riverside's ID.entity CD... and a review of that CD (among others) is forthcoming... but I'll push all that aside because I've got other thoughts that seem more pressing.

As I posted in the news page, two contributors to ProgressiveWorld have passed away, so it is with a heavy heart that I am writing these thoughts down. But also, that I have been so out of the loop, that I didn't know until today - July 21, 2024 - that Vitaly Menshikov passed away on July 7, 2017!

Vitaly was a music reviewer based in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, with his own website Progressor.net. But he also contributed a few reviews to ProgressiveWorld.net... and we reviewed two titles he was a part of, and two that he was a producer on.

Here is a list of the reviews Vitaly contributed:

And my reviews of Vitaly's work:

Al- Bird - Sodom And Gomorrah XXI - performer
X-Religion - Dances With Gobelins - performer
Flight 09 - Rifflections - producer
Flight 09 - Forbidden Lullabies - producer

Then today, already bothered by learning of Vitaly's death, I read that John "Bobo" Bollenberg had passed away in January of this year. I was just checking to see what he was currently up to. Bobo had been quite involved in the prog and music community -- reviewer, interviewer, journalist, radio show host (his program was On The Rocks), festival organizer... I'm sure there are roles I've forgotten. Aside from here at Progressiveworld.net, you can find Bobo's writings in many publications -- Mellotron (Argentina), Aloha (Holland), iO Pages (Holland), Stage (Belgium/Holland), and Euro Rock Press (Japan). You will have to dip into archives or order back issues, but...

The kernel of ProgressiveWorld began in 1997, but in late 1999/early 2000, I was introduced -- via email -- to Bobo as we sought permission to reprint some of his reviews and interviews. The "we" at the time being myself and John Gabbard. This soon turned into ProgressiveWorld being his primarily outlet for reviews (most interviews went to Progression or elsewhere). But more than just contributing CD and DVD reviews (more than 800 of them from 2000 to 2007), live reviews (23), and interviews (24), Bobo also helped shape what ProgressiveWorld.net became. And while we haven't reached the lofty goal of being the ultimate resource, for a time we were ... known. I like to think, at least in the progressive rock world, that Bobo played a huge part in our prominent profile.

I couldn't possibly list every review he contributed here, but I encourage you to flip through our pages (so to speak) and read -- or re-read -- his work. You can start here: CD/DVD Reviews.

Other passings I made note of -- not PW contributors: keyboardist Vitalij Kuprij (Artension, Ring Of Fire); Max Werner (Kayak), Mike Pinder (Moody Blues) (which I had been aware of); John Hawker (Strawbs, Renaissance); Peter Collins (producer, including four of Rush's albums).

All this and other discoveries has put me in a very weird headspace. About how eras are ending. I was already there thinking how last weekend (July 12-15, 2024) was the last Night Of The Prog Festival. I'd never been but still the fact that there will be no more is rather sad. In fact, when I first saw that it was the last, I didn't really read it correctly, thinking the news item was announcing who was closing the weekend - the last day of the festival. But no... it meant the last day of the last festival.

My life has been getting increasingly complicated since... well, really since 2008. And while I won't put everyone to sleep with the whys, the short version is the nature of my "day job" changed when my employer technically changed. More responsibility... in that we just kept adding on tasks... and adding on tasks... and again and again... until and through Covid-19, which made us pivot so much... Ugh. I hope to never hear that word again -- except it's in my head again now. And I made some personal life changes in 2012... And then some other life changes happened that I didn't make choices in: My father took ill, then passed away in 2017; my mother then declined and passed away in 2022 -- in both cases I was caring for them.

Anyway, all that to say, my active involvement with ProgressiveWorld.net came in fits and starts. Updating content yeh -- releases, concert listings, festival focus pages. But a lot of what was going on in the prog world was in my periphery. Not totally unaware... those fits and starts weren't totally frivolous... but... not laser focused either.

But in that time what else has disappeared in the prog world? Well, NEARFest held their last festival in 2012. I was there, as the total chaos of my work life hadn't yet begun in full flower. I had been to every NF from 2001 to 2009; couldn't afford to go in 2010... 2011 was cancelled and so I was determined to go in 2012. I also was not able to attend RoSfest from about the same time -- darn if I didn't have work commitment the same gosh-darn weekend as RoSFest. And then for many reasons, but I think mostly Covid... it was even hard for them to put on a festival. I think the last one was 2023 (even after a gap before). The point is... no more RoSFest (though I hold out hope... even as I continue to have the same yearly work commitment).

That isn't to say there aren't prog festivals still happening -- ProgDay is set for Labor Day Weekend, for one. ProgStock in October is on the horizon. That's just the US. There are smaller festivals -- and by smaller, I mean fewer bands, fewer days -- in Europe/UK: MidSummer Prog comes to mind. A New Day Festival. ArcTanGent. HRH Prog. And for those with a taste of the harder edged, those massive European festivals are still kicking - Bloodstock, Wacken, Sweden Rock... sure, the lineup is diverse and not necessarily progressive rock... or even progressive metal. No, more traditional forms of metal and... hard rock/metal hybrids-- which was going to be part of my commentary... thought explosion... I'll save that for later. But hey, I think there are prog elements in Iron Maiden (and I think Adrian Harris is prog fan, or so I read).

But in reflecting that Progression ceased publication in 2018... my subscription had lapsed and... given where my life was at, didn't get renewed. Like Bobo, I was once a contributor to Progression. I had a column for a while... then the publication schedule was disrupted after the attacks on 9/11/2001... and then in... 2008, I think (2004? I forget now)... John Collinge wanted to go in a different direction, so my tenure concluded. But anyway, no Progression anymore. Supplanted by Prog? (I uh... well, my subscription to that hasn't lapsed.)

What else has gone? No, a better question is, what I am I happy to see is still kickin'? ProgArchives.com -- which is, to be honest, what I had hoped ProgressiveWorld.net would be. Oh well. And the ProgressiveEars messageboard is still active. It's how I noticed that Duncan Glenday -- another PW alum -- is still with us. And a version of Perpetual Motion messageboard is still active (recent postings by one time PW prog metal expert Larry "LarryD" Daglieri means he's still with us). But wither some of the other PW alum? Well, Keith "Muzikman" Hannaleck still writes reviews, so that good to see; and Marcel Haster looks to be posting video reviews. But others I've not been able to find online beyond their reviews here - Joshua Turner, Clayton Walnum, Marcelo Silveyra, and perhaps Richard Zywotkiewicz (but I think he's in real estate now, so maybe I have...). Those are the names I've looked for today... How depressing though as to why I was checking for them, yeh? Not just the grim reason behind it, but that I had otherwise lost touch with all of them.

But I'm not so out of the loop that... wow, Mike Portnoy rejoined Dream Theater? Like I remember the whole ... whatever you want to call it... in picking a new drummer. In an editorial here or on my blog or both, I likened it to the whole LeBron James decision extravaganza... or the NFL draft. Something like that.

So, what started all this? Behind the scenes, I am prepping all the content to move to a different CMS. I'm taking the time to fix all the extraneous question marks that have appeared when I did an update a few years ago... So, I was validating links as well... discovering what doesn't exist anymore. Or, sadly, who doesn't exist anymore.

Published on: 2024-07-21 (1011 reads)

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