NOT YOUR DADDY’S PROG-ROCK SHOW, or, WHY IT’S NOT "THE TRIP"

I was asked to "right a bio" of my show for this edition of RIFLE, so I’ll try not to get it wrong… In 1995, WRFL Program Director, Will Burchard, was enrolled in the broadcast performance class I was teaching for the UK Journalism and Telecommunications Department. Upon discovering that I had a background in underground radio, and a large collection of LP’s not available at WRFL, he asked me to do a show. I turned him down citing family and job responsibilities. But Will was persistent, and was joined in the recruitment effort by Tom Owens, who was then the WRFL Station Manager. I caved in ’96 and started producing "The Trip with Clay Gaunce" that May.

My specialty has always been progressive rock, so doing that kind of show represented a major dilemma: how does one program music now that was cutting edge in the 70’s and not make it a nostalgia show? I didn’t want it to be "The Trip Down Memory Lane", but there seemed to be no avoiding it. Then, the Internet became widely available at UK. Problem solved. I did a search using the keywords "progressive rock", and was amazed to find a plethora of links to both official and fan sites for established artists like Yes, King Crimson, and Jethro Tull, as well as sites put up by, of all people, independent artists carrying on the prog-rock torch! And, amazingly, these young indies weren’t just poseurs, rehashing the works of the masters. They were – and are – making some excellent worldwide efforts at creating the kind of rhythmically challenging and lyrically thought provoking music that put prog-rock on the map. Groups like Thinking Plague, Discipline, and Louisville’s own French TV. But the most useful sites of them all were The Progressive Rock Web Site and The Gibraltar Encyclopedia of Progressive Rock. PRWS is no longer up, but GEPR is, and I consider it to be an essential resource on the genre. If you’re just becoming familiar with prog-rock, it’s a good idea to visit the site (www.gepr.net), scroll down to What’s New?, and click on Guide to Progressive Rock Genres. Or, just click on the Genre Guide link in the left frame. Either way, you’ll find a comprehensive report of everything you need to know about the music on my show.

Well, that’s pretty much it in a nutshell, although I suppose I’d better answer the frequently asked question, "What radio stations did you work at?" Started in 1972 at WIVY-FM in Jacksonville, Florida. We were the first station in the southeast to play album tracks that weren’t dictated by the Billboard charts. Our format, and others like it around the country, later became known as AOR (Album Oriented Rock). From midnight until 6 AM, we would go free-form with programming called, naturally, Radio Free Jacksonville. Famous people I have known (sorry, Ed!): became good friends with a few of the guys in Lynyrd Skynyrd and watched them develop their style before they had even settled on a group name...

Moved on to WSAC-FM – Radio Free Ft. Knox – where I was Music Director until 1975. One fond memory from that period was partying with the members of Yes (except for Rick Wakeman, who kept to himself in those days) in Steve Howe’s hotel room following their Louisville Gardens performance of Tales from Topographic Oceans …

Having decided to return to school and finish my degree, next stop was WBKY-FM, the UK station that eventually changed its call letters to WUKY and, strangely, began calling their Americana format "progressive radio". But during the station’s truly progressive days, Dan Fisher, Phil Miller and I took turns hosting a show called "Clear Spot" (named for the album by Captain Beefheart). The very open-minded station manager then, Don Wheeler, liked having capable students doing shows there, and we were given complete freedom – within FCC rules of course – to program things as we wished. Don even spent some funds on telephone hookups so that I could produce live remote broadcasts of the UK Jazz Ensemble from Memorial Hall, and shows by Rahsaan Roland Kirk, McCoy Tyner, Sonny Stitt, Earl Klugh, and others who performed at a downtown Jazz club known as O’Keefe’s. Fond memory #2: having Jaco Pastorius live on-the-air following the Weather Report concert on campus in April ’76, and doing a true interview with him and Wayne Shorter at their hotel the next day…

Got married in ‘78 and took a job at WLEX-TV, then one doing communications for a department in State Guv’ment, before embarking on my current career at UK in 1984. An adjunct faculty member for 13 years, I taught audio production and, as stated earlier, the broadcast performance class in which Will Burchard was enrolled…

Now that we’ve come full circle with this little tale, you’ve probably figured out why the show is called "The Trip with Clay Gaunce". If it was just called "The Trip", people might get the mistaken notion that it’s another nostalgic show of psychedelic music. And, although psychedelic music did play a part in the early days of British prog-rock, and is occasionally manifested by prog-rockers even today, it’s but one small component of the genre. (Again, see GEPR’s Guide to Progressive Rock Genres.) So, to be perfectly obvious, the program is a musical trip around the world, sampling the prog-rock genre and myriad sub-genres it has spawned since the late 60’s, filtered through my own broadcasting trip through time. Incidentally, since there’s nothing quite like hearing the artists speak for themselves, I’m still doing interviews to include in my show, traveling for that purpose each year to the ProgDay Festival in North Carolina, and occasionally to the North East Art Rock Festival (NEARfest) in Pennsylvania. I also record phone interviews at my home studio.

Playlists for "The Trip with Clay Gaunce" are posted every week at my spartan Web site: www.uky.edu/~wrfl/trip/trip.html. It contains no fancy graphics or special effects because its purpose is to provide information, not to entertain. If you want eye candy with your info, check out the prog-rock links on my "Contributors" page. And if you want sophisticated musical entertainment that remains outside the mainstream, tune to 88.1 FM when you’re in Lexington, Saturdays at 6 p.m. Out of town? Take "The Trip with Clay Gaunce" live online at http://128.163.156.148:9000/listen.pls.

A PROG-ROCK PRIMER

Here’s a list of prog-rock CD’s that I recommend, all of a fairly recent vintage. It represents a broad sampling of the many genres under the prog-rock banner; so, you probably won’t like them all. But by referring to the GEPR Guide to Progressive Rock Genres, and reading about the artists in the other GEPR pages, you’ll quickly figure out what might appeal to you. You’ll also find reviews of these albums at GEPR, or posted at the artists’ official Web sites. Damn!...you’re thinking…another reading assignment! It’s the price one pays to save money while building a collection of music that stimulates head, heart, and feet.

INDEPENDENTS:

Alamaailman Vasarat: Vasaraasia

Crack the Sky: Ghost

Discipline: Unfolded Like Staircase

Echolyn: When the Sweet Turns Sour

French TV: The Violence of Amateurs

Frogg Café: Creatures

Gongzilla: Suffer

Andy Jackson: Obvious

Land of Chocolate: Unikorn on the Cob

Ed Littman: Splatt

Magus: Echoes from the Edge of the Millennium

Maximum Coherence During Flying: S/T

MohoDisco: Kaloomith

Neapolitan Orchestra: Almost Syrup

Salem Hill: Catatonia

Smokin’ Granny: Sirius Matter

Species Being: Yonilicious

Star People: Genius

Tempano: The Agony and The Ecstasy

Tunnels: Progressivity

…These artists’ works are typically available only by ordering through their Web sites, or from a Web-based distributor of progressive music such as ZNR Progressive Music in Louisville (www.znrcds.com).

ARTISTS WITH DEALS:

Attention Deficit: The Idiot King

Ayreon: The Dream Sequencer

Banda Elástica: Ai Tencargo

Adrian Belew: The Guitar as Orchestra

Birdsongs of the Mesozoic: Petrophonics

Tomas Bodin: An Ordinary Night in My Ordinary Life

Bozzio Levin Stevens: Black Light Syndrome

Bruford Levin: Upper Extremities

California Guitar Trio: CG3+2

Cast: Al-bandaluz

Djam Karet: The Devouring

Finisterre: Storybook

The Flower Kings: Stardust We Are

Steve Hackett: To Watch the Storms

Heon: Electro-Acoustic Requiem

Hughscore: Delta Flora

King Crimson: The ConstruKction of Light

Krakatoa: We Are the Rowboats

José Ledesma: Designios

Pär Lindh Project: Mundus Incompertus

Phil Manzanera: Vozero

Miriodor: Mekano

Porcupine Tree: Signify

Samla Mammas Manna: Kaka

Sotos: Platypus

Thinking Plague: In Extremis

Uncle Moe’s Space Ranch: S/T

Univers Zero: Rhythmix

Robert Wyatt: Shleep

Yes: The Ladder

…These individuals or groups are associated with record companies, most of which specialize in prog-rock. Unlike the big labels, these guys mainly sign artists to distribution deals, not to oppressive contracts. You should be able to order this stuff locally through your favorite CD shop.

Back to "The Trip" Home Page