The Perfect Holiday Gift Gift Now

THE SENSATIONAL ALEX HARVEY BAND

Prog

Issue 162

As his stint with late 60s psychedelic act Giant Moth and his largely spoken-word documentary/concept LP Alex Harvey Presents: The Loch Ness Monster attest, Alex Harvey's long, eclectic career was studded with prog-friendly episodes. It was in 1972, though, that the singer recruited the group that were his passport to all kinds of versatility. With The Sensational Alex Harvey Band, prog, hard rock, and a slightly sinister strain of mime and Weimar Republic-inspired theatricality were go.

- JAMES MCNAIR

When Alex first met them at the Burns Howff pub in Glasgow, guitarist Zal Cleminson, keyboardist Hugh McKenna, his drummer cousin Ted and bassist Chris Glen were playing in Tear Gas, a thunderous and virtuosic prog fusion act whose set included a super-charged take on Jethro Tull's Love Story. Cleminson loved Jeff Beck and Frank Zappa, and Hugh McKenna could match Zal's solos on Moog synthesiser or electric piano. When Alex dubbed his youthful new bandmates "sensational", it gave them a broad and ambitious remit to aspire to.

Diese Geschichte stammt aus der Issue 162-Ausgabe von Prog.

Abonnieren Sie Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierter Premium-Geschichten und über 9.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.

Sie sind bereits Abonnent? Anmelden

WEITERE GESCHICHTEN VON Prog

Alle

Prog

BIG BIG TRAIN

British prog classicists honour absent friends, look to the past and forge a new future with their very first narrative concept album.

3 mins

Issue 166

Prog

Steeleye Span

Fifty-six years on and still going strong; Steeleye Span released their first album this decade in 2025. Conflict was a record of our times and contained a mix of original material and reworked traditional songs. Longtime vocalist Maddy Prior explains the story behind it and how she came to unleash her inner Tom Waits.

7 mins

Issue 166

Prog

BLACK COUNTRY, NEW ROAD

Black Country, New Road have always been full of surprises. When frontman Isaac Wood bowed out days before the release of their second album, Ants From Up There, most groups would’ve found a new singer or simply folded.

2 mins

Issue 166

Prog

Solent Area Prog

Celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2026, the live music promotions company led by Geoff Tucker has helped put Southampton on the prog map, and bring an even more eclectic mix of music to its largest independent grassroots music venue, The 1865. We caught up with the accidental promoter to discover why the British port city is rocking the prog boat.

4 mins

Issue 166

Prog

Steve Rothery

Marillion guitarist Steve Rothery embraced his more electronic side this year with Bioscope, his soundscape project with Tangerine Dream's Thorsten Quaeschning. But he's not ditching the day job: work is well underway on Marillion's next studio album, and there's his long-awaited collaboration with a certain Mr Hackett still to come.

7 mins

Issue 166

Prog

JORDAN RUDESS (DREAM THEATER)

The great and good of progressive music give us a glimpse into their prog worlds.

3 mins

Issue 166

Prog

BE PROG! MY FRIEND ANNOUNCES LINE-UP

Soen and The Ocean will headline the 2026 edition of the Barcelona-based festival.

1 mins

Issue 166

Prog

Rush

“Geddy said from the stage [in 2015], how they’d see us down the road some day. And now, before we even know it, that day will be here again.”

5 mins

Issue 166

Prog

MARTIN BARRE

Every month we get inside the mind of one of the biggest names in music. This issue it's Martin Barre. From the shy kid who learned music to avoid having to ask girls to dance, he conquered the world with Jethro Tull, a band that sold out the Los Angeles Forum five nights in a row in 1975, shifting some 100,000 tickets in the process. The guitarist reflects on not letting fame go to his head, his guilt at staying with Ian Anderson in Tull at the start of the 1980s, and his enduring hunger for new music with the Martin Barre Band.

12 mins

Issue 166

Prog

MOON SAFARI

It was only two weeks ago that the promoters had to shift a prog gig by Germans RPWL upstairs at this venue, such was the demand for tickets, and tonight, Swedes Moon Safari are probably knocking on the door of something similar. It's busy here; not uncomfortably packed, but it's getting there. And while tales of gigs being cancelled due to poor ticket sales are rife these days, both these London Prog Gigs shows provide a crumb of comfort.

3 mins

Issue 166