Takacsy, Stephen (ProgQuebec) (January 2006)

Bringing Back The Music

Progressive music is a passion for most of us, yet rarely do we get involved beyond listening We all do our part to support the scene by purchasing the music of our favorite artists, but for Stephen Takacsy and his staff, they have taken their love for music and gone to the next level by forming a label and getting some great music reissued for us to hear.

Eric Porter: I guess the first obvious question is: what is the mission of ProgQuebec and ProgresSon Music?

Stephen Takacsy: ProgresSon Music's mission is to help preserve and promote Quebec's rich progressive musical heritage. Lots of beautiful and unique music was created during the 1970s, inspired by British groups like Genesis, Gentle Giant and Yes, who received their initial warm North American welcome in French speaking Quebec of all places! Combined with jazz, rhythm and blues from the USA, and local traditional music and folk, highly talented classically trained musicians from Quebec, influenced by British progressive music and inspired by French nationalism, blended all of these styles into a creative cocktail that had a profound impact on Quebec's music scene for more than a decade.

It was only a few years ago, when I was rummaging through used vinyl shops trying to complete my Genesis, King Crimson, etc. collections, that I discovered this treasure trove of incredible progressive music from Quebec from the '70s. I was astounded to find lots of Italian progressive rock CD reissues in Quebec music stores, but nothing from our local artists. It was a tragedy, and meanwhile used vinyl prices were escalating beyond control because of collectors, and labels like Tachika were bootlegging our music! Something had to be done. These musicians not only deserved to be remembered, but properly paid with royalties for their hard work, and given a chance to be known by new generations of music fans, as well as given a chance to get back on stage and re-launch their careers. So our mission expanded from simply reissuing this music on CD, to helping eradicate piracy by a multitude of foreign labels, and promoting live performances by these artists.

EP: How long has the label / organization existed?

ST: ProgresSon Music and its label ProgQuebec were formed in January 2004, and our first reissue was released in July of that year. It is a non-profit organization, with around 20 Founding Members.

EP: How many people are involved in the label's operation?

ST: We are 5 on a part time basis. I oversee the company from Montreal, seek out the content with the musicians, negotiate the contracts, arrange the remastering, design the artwork with graphic artists, etc... Sean McFee, whom you might know, as he hosts an Internet radio show called Progressive Shores on Aural Moon, handles our foreign sales and promotion out of Ottawa, while Robert Dansereau, who recently joined us, handles our local marketing and promo as well as the website www.progmontreal.com which provides information on live shows. We also have a webmaster for our www.progquebec.com website which also has a webstore, and someone who handles our accounting and administration. Our Canadian distributor handles all the manufacturing, warehousing and distribution in Canada. We also started a "Live" division to help organize live performances by our artists. While not a person per se, we owe a huge debt of gratitude to Canadian Heritage and The Audio-Visual Preservation Trust for providing us with additional funding for some of our projects.

EP: It appears that you have about seven bands/artists who have CDs out on the label, are there plans for more releases?

ST: Yes, we have released 7 CD reissues: Ville Emard Blues Band and Toubabou, both double CDs; Contraction's self-titled album and La Bourse Ou La Vie, L'Orchestre Sympathique's En Concert A La Grande Passe, Pollen, and Maneige Livea L'Évêche, plus 1 new release, Molignak by Jerome Langlois, co-founder of Maneige. We are also the exclusive distributor for Dionysos' 3rd album Change D'adresse and their compilation Pionnier. We have lots of content to work with going forward, including unreleased material, which is a real bonus. We have a full slate of releases for 2006 and beyond.

EP: How are you promoting the artists/cds/and the label?

ST : As our marketing budget is limited, we mainly promote through our website, and relationships we have on the Internet. That's where most of the progressive music community hangs out. We advertise in specialized trade magazines, at festivals, and have started to produce some live shows to help re-create awareness for our music. We are also fortunate to have received excellent newspaper coverage locally.

EP: I think all the recordings (except J&ecuate;rôme Langlois) are from the 70s and early 80s. Do you have any artists that are currently playing live or recording?

ST: No one is currently recording. Our involvement with releasing J&ecuate;rôme Langlois' new album Molignak, was on an exceptional basis, as a favor to him as he is such a talented composer and musician, as well as a great guy. In October, we produced a very successful show with J&ecuate;rôme, where he teamed up with an all-star team of progressive musicians from the '70s, like former Maneige bandmate Gilles Schetagne, Bernard Cormier of Conventum, Mario Legare of Octobre, and Francois Richard of L'Orchestre Sympathique. They played some early Maneige and new material from Molignak. It was a memorable show, recorded and videotaped. We are planning more shows with this incredible formation. We also helped organize a unique 30-year reunion show by Toubabou in October 2004 with Michel Seguin and Lise Cousineau, and many other original members. That too was a tremendous success, which was recorded and videotaped. So, in a way there is some "new" live material we will eventually release, maybe even on DVD.

EP: What type of success did these artists achieve during the time they were together.? Were any of them on major record labels?

ST: Contraction was on the Columbia label (now part of Sony today), probably because Franck Dervieux's Dimension "M" album?was (predecessor album on which most of the members of Contraction played). "Ste-Melanie Blues," from the band's first LP, was a minor hit on the Quebec radio. Columbia wanted to market the band in English Canada, so they made them record an English version of their first album, with different song titles and lyrics. I don't think it sold many copies. Contraction's second album, La Bourse Ou La Vie was much less commercial, and sold poorly (but we love it of course!). They never made it outside of Quebec.

Maneige, was?one of the?best known and was longest lived progressive band (7 albums in 10 years). Maneige's 1st two albums (self-titled and Les Porches) were huge sellers and were on EMI's progressive Harvest label. They appealed to the student/intellectual crowd, as they were stealing shows from Soft Machine and Ekseption. J&ecuate;rôme Langlois left the group, and Polydor released the next 3 albums, but they didn't sell as well. The group toured Canada, and a little in the US.

EP: One question that is going through my head is, how old are you? The reason I ask is because I am wondering if you were old enough to have seen these bands perform?

ST: I am 46. I was old enough to see these bands, but never did. I was raised in more of an Anglophone environment and was more into Rush, Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith and the Doobie Brothers at the time.

Of course I listened to lots of progressive stuff and had many Yes and Gentle Giant albums. I was familiar with Harmonium, Octobre and Morse Code, but that was it on the French side.

EP: How is the live music scene in Quebec today, and are there any current progressive acts that the label would possibly consider releasing material from?

ST: The scene is vibrant with lots of new talent like Karcius, Virtual Max, and of course Hamadryad, and seasoned veterans like Miriodor still recording exceptional music. We have a strategic alliance with Michel St-Pere of Unicorn Records, which is the label that's focused on the new wave of progressive musicians here. We only plan on being directly involved with artists from the '70s. The challenge is to find a way to draw-out and mobilize as many progressive music fans as possible, to make them aware that there is so much great musical talent in Quebec, not just from the 1970s but new artists as well, to bridge the generations and demonstrate that we haven't lost our progressive heritage. On this front, we hope to be able to make an announcement soon.

EP: Do you have releases planned for 2006? Please tell us about them.

ST: In 2006, we will reissue Maneige's Ni Vent Ni Nouvelle and Libre Service, which was recently bootlegged by Witness, along with some more unreleased live material by Maneige. This will be followed by Conventum's A L'Affut D'un Complot and Le Bureau Centrale Des Utopies. We also plan on releasing material from Lasting Weep, Maneige's predecessor group, which never released an album on vinyl. I think there will be a big demand for this. There is also Yves Lafferiere's solo album La Cuisine Rouge, which contains material that was destined to be on Contraction's 3rd album. There is also Jacques Tom Rivest's solo album, which is sort of a continuation of Pollen, and Charles Kaczynski's Lumiere de Nuit, both of which have also been bootlegged by Tachika. As you can tell, we are currently focused on releasing legitimate reissues of albums that have been bootlegged in order to curtail this unethical activity.

EP: Can you describe the process that you have gone through - from finding out about these artists and their recordings, contacting band members, and getting the rights to releasing the material.

ST: It's a tedious process that has its many rewards at the end. At first we went searching for the artists, but now it's much easier because we are known, and they are starting to come to us. We always start with the musicians, as we would never do anything without their involvement. So the first step is locating the masters with them and licensing these, then finding out who owns the publishing rights to each song. This process is made somewhat easier with the help of various agencies that represent composers and publishers. The most frustrating part is dealing with the major labels in cases where they own the recordings. It is a long bureaucratic process. This music is not a priority for them. There is no money to be made selling so few copies, so they don't have time for us. Often they can't even find the masters or the contracts. But we keep pushing them. We're slowly making progress. And once the music is finally out on CD and in the record stores, it is such a reward to see how happy and proud the musicians are.

It makes the process all worthwhile, to know that we have done our job.

EP: What is your vision for the future of ProgQuebec and ProgresSon Music?

ST: To reissue as much music as we can from these wonderfully talented musicians, and finally put an end to the bootlegging of Quebec artists by labels like Tachika, Poor House, Estrella Rockera, Witness and others. We also want to help re-launch the careers of those musicians from the '70s who are still active. This is our focus for the foreseeable future. Our dream is to bring this music back to the mainstream. But our vision is more realistic of course. If we can get as many young people today interested in all types of progressive music, then it should proliferate. So we will also help, to the extent we can, young new talented musicians playing progressive music, by helping to produce live shows where they can also showcase their work, alongside the great ones from the 1970s.

I wish Stephen and his staff the best of luck. Please read my review of Jérôme Langlois' Molignak to go along with this review. I really enjoyed the CD, and it was one of the reasons I wanted to do the review, to make more people aware of the music that was available from ProgQuebec. I would suggest that you give the bands on this label a listen, there is some really interesting music to be heard. Check out the website listed in the interview, there are soundclips available.

Links to all our ProgresSon/ProgQuebec reviews to date (that being as of Aug 2011) are below

· Bregent - Partir Pour Ailleurs
· Conventum - Le Bureau Central Des Utopie
· Ville Emard Blues Band - Au Complete 1973-1975
· Kaczynski, Charles - Lumiere De La Nuit
· L'Engoulevent - L'ile Ou Vivent Les Loups
· Laferriere, Yves - Yves Laferriere
· Langlois, Jérôme - Molignak
· Maneige - Ni Vent ... Ni Nouvelle
· Maneige - Libre Service
· Morse Code - Procréation

Discography: