News Bytes For October

• Magma is recording a new disc titled E-Re which will be released the 1st week of November. It will also include a 60' making of' DVD.It will be NTSC, no region coding and with English sub-titles.
• Eloy "Visionary" is to be released on November 20th

GENESIS Preps Live Collections As Hall Of Fame Vote Nears

Genesis keyboardist Tony Banks isn't taking his tuxedo to the dry cleaner yet. But he's hoping that the British prog rockers, who are on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ballot for the first time, wind up collecting trophies at the March 15 induction ceremony in New York City.

"It'll be great if it does happen," Banks tells Billboard.com, "but I can't really tell whether we're going to be one of the ones that goes there. It would be good to happen, I think. It would be nice."

A Genesis induction would, of course, create the potential for a reunion of the Peter Gabriel-fronted 1970-75 lineup, with Phil Collins on drums, that's been rumored for the past five years. Collins recently announced he has a back condition from years of wear and tear that prohibits him from drumming and could complicate such a performance, but Banks says "we'll face that particular hurdle when we get to it." It does, however, render any other future Genesis reunion "a long shot," according to the keyboardist. "I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it."

While the Hall of Fame announcement looms, Genesis is giving fans plenty to tuck into. A new 10-disc box set, "Genesis Live 1973-2007," comes out Sept. 29 featuring four of the group's five concert sets, an open slot for "Live Over Europe 2007," unreleased material from 1973 and 1975, and video footage, all remastered.

Banks, who's been active in compiling Genesis' series of box sets since 2007, says he "wasn't so sure about doing the live stuff" in this fashion but is happy with the result. "I think it's fun to hear the (music) in different versions for fans who like the stuff, anyhow," he explains. "As a first introduction to Genesis I think the studio albums are definitely better, but it's quite interesting to hear how we did these very complex pieces live. They take on a bit more fluency, I think."

Genesis' next release will be a 2010 box that compiles the group's concert videos. There will be no duplication from the box sets, Banks says, but there will be some previously unreleased material, including 40 minutes of "home movie" footage that Collins shot during the making of the 1983 "Genesis" album. Like the new live box, it will feature an empty slot for the "When in Rome 2007" DVD.

Banks, who's also releasing a remastered version of his 1979 solo album "A Curious Feeling," adds that Genesis is still planning to start making individual concerts from the archives available on its web site, though no firm plan is in place yet. "At some point we will do it," he promises. "We've just spent a lot of time recently doing all this other stuff, but I think it will happen. Whether any quality control goes into it, I don't know, really. Perhaps you hang it out, dirty laundry and all. Maybe somebody can get ahold of all this stuff and make a compilation of all the worst bits and stick them together and see what it sounds like. I think it would be quite funny!"

RNR Cola

Jacofest To Be At Iridium Jazz Club In Late October

JACOFEST - A Tribute to Jaco Pastorius at Iridium Tue - Sun, Oct. 22 - 25, 2009
The late great bassist-composer Jaco Pastorius, an undeniable force on contemporary jazz during the '70s as well as a towering influence on two generations of musicians, will be feted at the Iridium Jazz Club in New York from October 22 - 25.
Included in this all-star gala, produced by impresario Charles Carlini, are Pastorius colleagues and former bandmates like trumpeters Miles Evans and Lew Soloff, saxophonists Alex Foster and Butch Thomas, trombonist David Bargeron, keyboardists Gil Goldstein and Delmar Brown, guitarist Billy "Spaceman" Patterson and drummer Kenwood Dennard. Featured bass players are Victor Bailey and T.M. Stevens. Other featured players include trumpeter Tim Ouimette, percussionist Pedro Martinez, bassist Andrew Sheron, and vocalists Falu and Gracie Finnigan.
For tickets, please call the box office at (212) 582-2121 or visit Iridium Jazz Club.

It's back... Prog rock assaults album charts (BBC ARTICLE)

By Tim Masters Entertainment correspondent, BBC News

Observant chart watchers may have noticed an unfamiliar - and unusual - name in the UK top 30 album chart this week.
Among a flurry of new entries from Peter Andre, Jay-Z, Pixie Lott and David Gray is an album by a band that has been around longer than any of them: Porcupine Tree.
Porcupine who?
If you see someone in the NME talk about progressive rock it's not immediately followed by a snigger. Although largely unknown to mainstream audiences, the Grammy-nominated band's 10th studio album The Incident went straight in at number 23.
No mean feat considering The Incident is a 55-minute song cycle in 14 parts.
Along with Muse's entry straight into the number one slot, it's a combined assault on the charts by two bands who are often tagged "progressive rock".
"I have less on an issue with the word 'progressive' than I did even five years ago," says Steven Wilson, Porcupine Tree's founder and frontman.
"I think it's been legitimised again. If you see someone in the NME talk about progressive rock it's not immediately followed by a snigger."
Wilson is currently in the US where Porcupine Tree have just embarked on the first leg of a world tour which will see the them playing The Incident in full every night.
"It's not an easy piece to pull off live," says Wilson. "In the first 15 minutes I have five or six instrument changes. It's getting better. I'm sure by the time we hit Europe we'll be able to pull it off beautifully!"
Porcupine Tree started life as a creative project for Wilson in 1987 - in Hemel Hempstead.
It wasn't until 1993 that a full band was in place, including keyboardist Richard Barbieri - formerly of 80s art rockers Japan.
The current line-up of Porcupine Tree is completed by Gavin Harrison (drums) and Colin Edwin (bass).
Trojan horse
Prog rock, which grew out of 1960s psychedelia, was originally associated with 70s bands including Pink Floyd, Genesis, Yes and King Crimson.
It flourished again in the 80s with bands such as Marillion, and Porcupine Tree have helped carry it into the 21st Century.
"To see someone like Muse and Porcupine Tree cracking the top 25 together shows the huge shift in terms of where people see progressive music is coming from, and also how popular it is becoming," says Jerry Ewing, editor of Classic Rock Prog Magazine.
"Progressive music is such a broad category from Muse to Radiohead all the way across to Mastodon and Dream Theater," he says. "It's drawing in a whole younger audience which has never heard of Yes or Genesis, and they don't have the preconceptions that they used to have."
Wilson concurs: "It's no coincidence we are seeing bands like Muse, Porcupine Tree, Sigur Ros, Flaming Lips and The Mars Volta having top 30 albums, because I don't think ambition is a dirty word any more.
"Radiohead were the Trojan Horse in that respect. Here's a band that came from the indie rock tradition that snuck in under the radar when the journalists weren't looking and started making these absurdly ambitious and pretentious - and all the better for it - records.
"And Muse have very much consolidated that. They make records that Queen would blush at - and I totally applaud them for it."
Muse's Dom Howard told the BBC last week he'd always been a bit confused by the progressive rock tag.
"I associate it with 10-minute guitar solos, but I guess we kind of come into the category. A lot of bands are quite ambitious with their music, mixing lots of different styles - and when I see that I think it's great. I've noticed that kind of thing becoming a bit more mainstream."
Download culture
Porcupine Tree's new record - The Incident - was inspired when Wilson became caught in a traffic jam near the scene of a road accident. He noticed a sign saying "POLICE - INCIDENT" and was struck how such a "cold expression" was often applied to destructive and traumatic events.
The album (which includes four standalone songs on a separate CD) demands to be heard as a linear experience. Wilson compares it to reading a book or watching a film.
"My favourite period of music is the great album era, from Sgt Pepper through to punk rock," he says.
"That 10-year window is still the most inspirational. There was a tradition at that time of the album being elevated much higher than the individual song.
What's interesting now is that we are moving back to that tradition as a by-product of download culture."
And he had no fears about making such a conceptual piece with a 14-part suite.
"Our last record had an 18-minute track on it and people loved it," he says.
"The more self-indulgent we became, the more people liked it. It gave us this confidence to do something even more absurdly ambitious."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8266922.stm

Bozzio/Holdsworth/Levin/Mastelotto West Coast Tour Dates

BOZZIO HOLDSWORTH LEVIN MASTELOTTO
WEST COAST USA TOUR
TERRY BOZZIO drums & percussion
ALLAN HOLDSWORTH guitar
TOINY LEVIN upright bass, bass guitar, Chapman stick
PAT MASTELOTTO drums, electronics
January 2 - Seattle, WA (The Triple Door)
January 3 - Seattle, WA (The Triple Door
January 4 - Portland, OR (Aladdin Theater)
January 6 - Santa Cruz, CA (Kuumbwa Jazz)
January 8 - Oakland, CA (Yoshi's)
January 9 - Oakland, CA (Yoshi's)
January 10 - Oakland, CA (Yoshi's)
January 12 - Whittier, CA (Whittier Center Theater)
January 13 - San Diego, CA (Brick By Brick)