Back in August of 2009, I went to see a Prog Nation concert. Dream Theater headlined with Zappa Plays Zappa, and the two opening bands were Scale the Summit and Bigelf.
Scale the Summit was an amazing, four person instrumental band which caught my attention because of their two guitarists double tapping back and forth at each other. We liked them so much that we went and bought their album right away after their set.
Bigelf was rad due to their organ-driven psychedelic rock and the fact that their frontman was playing two keyboards one on either side of him. Also a sweet top hat.
Zappa Plays Zappa was my first real taste of Frank Zappa's music, and I have been bitten. It's so weird and fun and rather different than anything else out there.
And I could talk about Dream Theater all day long (the following summer, my brother and I drove twenty hours round trip in one day to see them open for Maiden because they weren't doing the Maiden Winnipeg show).
But I'd really like to talk about a band that wasn't at that concert. Beardfish was originally scheduled to play the North American leg of that tour, but because of financial troubles associated with their label, they and fellow Swedes had to pull out. And I'm glad they did, because I watched four excellent performances that night.
More than that, I had a whole bunch of fresh music to discover. I have stuff by all four of the bands that played the show on my ipod. But I also looked up Beardfish (and PoS, but I wasn't extremely taken by their music). And today, Beardfish is likely my favourite band.
You can hear the definite Frank Zappa influence in their music when they do zany things that weren't terribly related to anything previous but they still make it fit.
To date they've got five albums out, with a sixth coming out late this month. The new one is called Mammoth and they're putting out two different special edition packages: one with a Mammoth LP and the other with a bonus DVD.
I would post a video here, but I think this post is probably long enough without. I will, however, urge those of you who think you might be interested in discovering new music to go search them out via whatever method you'd like. And my fellow Beardfish fans, what is your favourite track/album? How did you find these guys? Any cool stories?
Scale the Summit was an amazing, four person instrumental band which caught my attention because of their two guitarists double tapping back and forth at each other. We liked them so much that we went and bought their album right away after their set.
Bigelf was rad due to their organ-driven psychedelic rock and the fact that their frontman was playing two keyboards one on either side of him. Also a sweet top hat.
Zappa Plays Zappa was my first real taste of Frank Zappa's music, and I have been bitten. It's so weird and fun and rather different than anything else out there.
And I could talk about Dream Theater all day long (the following summer, my brother and I drove twenty hours round trip in one day to see them open for Maiden because they weren't doing the Maiden Winnipeg show).
But I'd really like to talk about a band that wasn't at that concert. Beardfish was originally scheduled to play the North American leg of that tour, but because of financial troubles associated with their label, they and fellow Swedes had to pull out. And I'm glad they did, because I watched four excellent performances that night.
More than that, I had a whole bunch of fresh music to discover. I have stuff by all four of the bands that played the show on my ipod. But I also looked up Beardfish (and PoS, but I wasn't extremely taken by their music). And today, Beardfish is likely my favourite band.
You can hear the definite Frank Zappa influence in their music when they do zany things that weren't terribly related to anything previous but they still make it fit.
To date they've got five albums out, with a sixth coming out late this month. The new one is called Mammoth and they're putting out two different special edition packages: one with a Mammoth LP and the other with a bonus DVD.
I would post a video here, but I think this post is probably long enough without. I will, however, urge those of you who think you might be interested in discovering new music to go search them out via whatever method you'd like. And my fellow Beardfish fans, what is your favourite track/album? How did you find these guys? Any cool stories?
