11/27/12 Today's Albums: Chupacabras
Intro: I don't think I've actually named a day after a song . . . until today. I'm a little late in typing up my intro, I've listened to two albums already, but when I heard the opening notes of 'Okay', the prelude to 'Chupacabras' by Phideaux I got the proverbial tingle up my spine. Go Phideaux! In retrospect, I may have wanted to give a nod to Steely Dan as the box set will occupy the entire afternoon, but I'm sticking with the initial name.
The Albums:
- Chronologie - Jean-Michael Jarre
- Chronometree - Glass Hammer
- Chupacabras - Phideaux
- Citizen Steely Dan - Steely Dan (4 discs)
The day was dominated by Steely Dan, good stuff. Chronologie was one of Jarre's lesser efforts, more on him at a later date. The Glass Hammer CD was better than I remember so I'll count that as a grower.
On to the winner and a story of what this CD did for me.
A few years ago, I was getting ready to go to the 3 Rivers Prog Fest, a two day festival of some great prog acts, IQ, King's X, Crack the Sky, Glass Hammer, Singularity, a few others, but for the purposes of this story, Phideaux was the most important band of the festival.
To prepare for the festival, I spent a few weeks listening to the various artists and reviewing their albums for my main music site, The Prog Archives. One of the CD's that I reviewed was Chupacabras by Phideaux (review here).
Let me tell you a bit about Phideaux, Phideaux Xavier is a Hollywood director, mostly of daytime soaps. As best as I can figure out, once he had a few years of directing to his credit, he had a bit of disposable income that was funneled to his second passion and hobby, progressive rock. He effectively did what every musician turned 'something other than musician' has dreamed about and 'got the band back together'. He resurrected his old high school band, getting all of his friends together to make great music. Phideaux is the labor of his love. Not only is the music phenomenal,but it's obvious that everyone in the band, not only loves what they do, but really enjoys being with the rest of the band.
Phideaux himself is a very personable guy and also an active member of The Prog Archives. We had exchanged a few messages back and forth on the site and he asked me to introduce myself to him at the prog festival.
So, as I said, I reviewed "Chubacabras" prior to the festival. In the course of the review, I made a few disparaging comments about some of the lyrics in the title track.
When Phideaux played at the festival, they were fantastic and frankly, the song, "Chupacabras" was one of the highlights of the show. Any lyrical issues that I had were quickly forgotten. You could tell that Phideaux, the director, orchestrated the stage show. If you were paying attention, you could see the energy flow from one point on the stage to another, focusing your attention on exactly where it needed to be at any given moment. At one point, Valarie Gracious, one of the female leads, had a solo coming up, the energy was waning and slowly, subtly shifting to her. The guitar player bent down to 'fix a pedal', the keyboard player bent over to adjust his set list, someone else knelt down to grab a drink of water . . . by the time Valarie's solo started, she was the only one that remained standing. It was a mesmerizing show and, for me, the highlight of the festival.
So I came off the high of seeing this performance and now had a chance to meet the band. As promised, I introduced myself to Phideaux and was honestly flattered that he immediately knew who I was and was very friendly, even gracious. He did joke with me about the review, giving me grief for the comments on the lyrics but in an obviously joking manner. As I said, I was truly flattered that he recognized me, but I honestly started to feel a little guilty about my lyric comments after the fact. The show was fantastic, their music was fantastic, who was I to nitpick.
Regardless, I was still mostly flattered and shared the story of meeting Phideaux to anyone that would listen,one of which was my Dad. Now Dad is still a practicing musician, whereas I had been on the shelf for about ten years at that point in my life. I told him of the reviews that I'd been doing and how I met Phideaux. My Dad was pleased to hear about the encounter but he made an off the cuff remark during the story that kind of changed my life. He said something to the effect of 'wow, I've never given a lot of credence to journalists that wern't out there doing their own thing. It's easy to write about other people's music, but so much more impressive to do your own'.
Well, I took his words to heart, I stopped reviewing and a few months later, bought myself a new keyboard and started 'doing' again. Last year I played in a country band on the biggest stage I've been on in my life. I've been working with a Styx / Journey tribute band for a few months now and we're just about ready to play out. I'm writing originals again and generally playing more than I had for the past ten years, and generally happier for it.
So thanks Dad and thanks Phideaux for effectively pushing me to get off my ass and start playing again.
The Final Tally:
- Winner
- Chupacabras - Phideaux
- Growers
- Chronometree - Glass Hammer
- Keepers
- Citizen Steely Dan - Steely Dan (4 discs)
- Wibblers (no opinion one way or another)
- Moodies (Albums for a certain mood)
- Bleh
- Chronologie - Jean-Michael Jarre
PS: Yes, I realize there's a certain amount of irony that I was writing the whole story about converting 'writing' into 'doing'.
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