Stuff you might know about The Heroes and Heroines of Prog Rock, Part I

OMG!  There are more interesting stories about prog rock artists and prog rock songs than we can fit into a single show.  So here are some bits of trivia we don’t have room for when we take the stage for our tribute to The Heroes and Heroines of Prog Rock.  Catch us 2:00 PM Sunday afternoon, January 11th at the Metropolis Performing Arts Centre in Arlington Heights.

PHIL COLLINS and YES

In the very early days, when Yes was still putting itself together, they had everything for a band except a drummer.  Phil Collins caught wind of this and spoke to frontman Jon Anderson about the position.  Anderson was definitely interested and invited Collins to come audition the following week.  But Collins didn’t show up.

EMERSON, LAKE & PALMER

Keith Emerson’s synth solo on “Lucky Man” was completely spontaneous.  He was only noodling around to check out his brand new synthesizer, trying to figure out which sounds might work well with the song.  At the time he was experimenting as they were playing the tune for him, he didn’t even know he was being recorded.

ASIA

Steve Howe provided a guitar army to start the Asia track “Heat of the Moment.”  He pulled out his Gibson Les Paul Junior and played the power chords that drive the song seven separate times each through a different amplifier until he had amassed the “grungy” sound that he wanted.

PETER GABRIEL

Peter Gabriel could take forever to finish his lyrics.  On one occasion, his co-producer Daniel Lanois for the So album had to take Peter’s phone into the nearby woods and destroy it so that he wouldn’t be distracted from completing a song.  On another occasion he had to nail the studio door shut to seal Peter in until the words were done.