Last year Spock’s Beard and Transatlantic were creeping up on Porcupine Tree’s immense popularity. This year we’ve seen the return of heavyweights Yes, Peter Gabriel, Van der Graaf Generator, Jon Anderson and Kate Bush, alongside impressive new material from Steven Wilson, Dream Theater, Touchstone and Opeth, bookended by the bumper Pink Floyd reissues EMI/Superball’s Prog Rocks! campaign. But what have been your highlights?

Summer’s End, Fused, Cambridge Rocks and High Voltage once again delivered live thrills as Anathema, Pallas, Mogwai, Radiohead, Nightwish, Primus, Magenta, Mastodon, Symphony X and more gave us cause to raid our proggy piggy banks.

And we’ve not even started on the wealth of newer talent such as Lost In Thought, Von Hertzen Brothers, Phaedra, TesseracT, Wobbler, Cranium Pie, Matt Stevens and Sanguine Hum jostling for our attention.

Ready to ballot? Have a look at the categories listed below, stick your choices on an email with Readers’ Poll in the subject field, and email your entries to: voteprog@futurenet.co.uk.

If snail mail really is your thing, then simply scribble down your entries on the form below and send it to: Readers’ Poll, Classic Rock Presents Prog, 2 Balcombe Street, London, NW1 6NW.

The choice is yours. Get voting…

CATEGORIES

BEST BAND

BEST ALBUM

BEST FEMALE VOCALIST

BEST MALE VOCALIST

BEST GUITARIST

BEST BASSIST

BEST KEYBOARD PLAYER

BEST DRUMMER

BEST REISSUE

BEST DVD

BEST EVENT

NON-EVENT

BEST VENUE

BEST NEW/UNSIGNED BAND

PROG HEARTTHROB 2011

PROG ICON 2011

We are now offering you the chance to save up to 40% on the price of your fave rock magazine. For a limited time we have some very special subscription rates available.

So you can subscribe to Classic Rock quarterly for £10.79 (direct debit), or get an entire year of issues for just £46.49.

When you consider that a single copy of Classic Rock costs £5.50 in the newsagent, those are some seriously good savings.

Just click here for full details.

Classic Rock Presents Prog subscriptions offer savings of up to 35% on the cover price.

You can subscribe quarterly to Prog for £11.69 (direct debit), or get an entire year of issues for a bargain £50.39.

Click here for all the details.

These offers are only open to people in the UK.

Both magazines will initially be on the iPad and iPhone as straight digital replicas of the print mag (ie. not interactive app versions), but without covermount items or supplements you would find with printed copies.

Both magazines retail for £2.99, $4.99 or €3.99, or you can subscribe for three months for £8.99, $12.99 or €10.49.

To download Classic Rock go here http://goo.gl/z4Yhu (in the UK) or here http://goo.gl/YUnR9 (for the US).

For Prog go here http://goo.gl/TLY22 (UK) or here http://goo.gl/RMw3s (US).

Got a question about how it all works? Go here for our extensive list of FAQs.

This issue Prog presents a 40th Anniversary celebration of Meddle, the album that changed the sound of both Pink Floyd and prog rock forever, with brand new interviews and exclusive interviews with Nick Mason, engineer John Leckie and more.

The magazine also discusses the forthcoming mega Pink Floyd campaign, with Nick reassessing every Pink Floyd studio album as Floyd/Gilmour engineer Andy Jackson takes us behind the scenes of unearthing the hidden treasures that make up the new reissues. Plus, Storm Thorgerson has exclusively designed our front cover for us!

Elsewhere in the magazine, there are interviews with Gentle Giant, Dream Theater, Opeth, Primus, David Bedford, The Flower Kings, TesseracT and more. There’s also a free nine-track CD as well.

Find Prog at all good newsagents, or here.

Alongside our guide to this month’s High Voltage Festival, the newest addition in the prog festival calendar, we interview every prog band on the bill including:

Caravan, interviewed by snooker loopy Steve Davis!

Curved Air’s frontwoman Sonja Kristina, interviewed by Rise Above/Cathedral mainman Lee Dorrian.

Prog’s biggest ever roundtable as Jon Lees’ Barclay James Harvest, Anathema, Mostly Autumn and Amplifier collide at Prog Towers – and contribute to our renaissance-inspired cover masterpiece!

We also bring you:

Ian Anderson’s editor’s message, hotly-tipped new band and reissue review picks.

Chris Squire and Trevor Horn present the new Yes album Fly From Here.

Jan Akkerman discusses the major event of Minor Details.

Jon Anderson on how every day counts in Survival And Other Stories.

Dave Greenslade keys in with tales of Colosseum, Count Basie and new Roots.

New bands Cryptex, Moonwagon, Wobbler and the Ian Anderson-approved Dogma.

The Prog eye view of that reunion at Roger Waters’ O2 Wall show as well as Rush, Pendragon, Tangerine Dream, Von Hertzen Brothers and more on tour.

Plus our essential guide to prog festivals, tours and releases in the coming summery months. Yes, we said summer (puts away umbrella and wellies).

Did we say there’s a free nine-track CD, too? With an exclusive Big Big Train track? And a bumper 19-page review section featuring Yes, CCLR, Mostly Autumn, Carl Palmer, Andy Sears, Queensryche, Devin Townsend, John Wetton, Marillion, The Flower Kings and more?

We don’t half spoil you…

The new issue of Classic Rock Presents Prog – out now!

Kaboom! The latest issue of Classic Rock Presents Prog gets inside 1971, the year that prog rock broke. Interviews with Jon Anderson, Roy Harper, Gentle Giant, Caravan, ELP and more profile the birth of prog, as Fish, Steve Hogarth, Peter Nicholls, Nick Barrett, Brian Devoil, John Mitchell and Steven Wilson describe how their young lives were shaped by the sights and sounds that came out of this year, and how it changed music forever as they carried the torch on. To cap it all, we’ve collated your votes in our 1971 Readers’ Top Ten. Is your favourite in there? Grab a copy now and find out… 

Also in the issue:

Jon Anderson on ABWH – the band that said no to Yes! 

John Wetton returns – healthier, happier and ready to spread his wings. 

Jakszyk, Fripp & Collins – what the Schizoid men did next. 

Kate Bush stars as our maverick – through the eyes of brother John Carder Bush. 

Devin Townsend – the mad professor of prog metal gets experimental. 

Plus: Symphony X, Mogwai, Caravan, …Trail Of Dead, King’s X, Blackfield, Marillion, Yes, Arbouretum, UK, Nektar, Moon Duo, Michael Giles, Blood Ceremony, Touchstone, Roger Waters, Comus, Amorphis, Neal Morse, Wobbler – and, of course, Rick Wakeman’s regular Caped Crusades column. 

There’s always the free CD too featuring 11 artists from Solstice to Graveyard with an EXCLUSIVE Jon Anderson track on as well. 

If you can’t get to a newsagent, find Prog here. 

It really is the dawning of a new era.

Be it The Yes Album, Alpha Centauri, Islands, Aqualung, Tago Mago, Tarkus, Meddle or something even more strange and wonderful, tell us your 10 favourite 1971 albums now by emailing Prog HQ on prog@futurenet.co.uk. The closing date is Friday, May 6.

 Never mind Thursday¹s referendum, here¹s the poll you¹ll have to say, er, yes to. Cough. We¹ll get our (Afghan) coats!

 The results will be revealed in all their glory in the next issue of Prog, on sale Wednesday, June 1.  Get scribbling.

The current issue of Prog – featuring Rush, The Nice, Roy Harper, Judy Dyble, It Bites, Mastodon, John Renbourn, Pendragon, two free CDs and loads more in a lavishly illustrated Time Machine wallet – is available now at all good newsagents.

By the way folks, don¹t post your votes up here, we can only count what you
email in. Ta!

WHERE: London Borderline

WHEN: Thursday, April 21

Following the release of new album Living With The Ancients on Rise Above, the Toronto band are playing a special show sponsored by Classic Rock Presents Prog. The band’s combination of flute-inspired 70s prog, folk and classic occult rock has already made them firm favourites over here, and they’re promising to make this something special.

“Our new set list will showcase a number of songs from our upcoming release that we’ve never performed live, alongside selections from our Rise Above debut,” says guitarist Sean Kennedy.  “As this will be our only UK date on this run, we welcome you all to come to the sabbat.”

The first time the band – also featuring vocalist/flautist Alia O’Brien, bassist Chris Landon and drummer Andrew Haust – played here was over a year ago, and Kennedy says they’re ready for this headlining return.

“It amazes me that it’s already been a year-and-a-half since our first London appearance supporting doom legends Electric Wizard.  That was a very memorable show for us so we’re thrilled to announce our return to the UK.  In the meantime, we’ve been honing our live ritual.”

Also on the bill are highly rated young Brits Wolf People.

Find out more at www.myspace.com/bloodceremony

WHERE:Sheffield Corporation

WHEN: Tuesday, March 1

Sponsored by Classic Rock Presents Prog, this tour features three of the currently fastest rising stars among the young UK progressive bands: Touchstone, Jurojin and Enochian Theory.

Says Touchstone singer Kim Seviour: “These bands are all changing prog’s direction, but keeping the ethos”.

“We’ve had a lot of fans asking when we’re going to play up there,” adds Touchstone keyboard player Rob Cottingham of the chance this tour gives the band going to the north of England and into Scotland. “So it’s fantastic that we’re finally going to be able to do it. Playing Sheffield again is going to bring back a lot of memories. We did one of our first shows there, supporting Arena.”

“It’s a really cool line-up,” says Jurojn guitarist Nc Rizzi. “Even though we’ve all got some common ground in prog, we each take that in a completely different direction.”

“This tour is a challenge,” adds Enochian theory singer/guitarist/keyboard player Ben Harris Hayes. “But hopefully we’ll win over some new fans”

After Sheffield, the tour continues to:

Wed. 2: Glasgow Classic Grand

Thu. 3: Manchester Moho Live

Fri. 4: Bristol Tunnels

Sat. 5: London Islington O2 Academy

Find out more:

Touchstone: www.myspace.com/touchstonemusicuk

Jurojin: www.myspace.com/jurojin

Enochian Theory: www.enochiantheory.co.uk

Happy New Year!

I have emerged from my months of hibernation rejuvenated, re-vitalised and ready for 2011!

This is going to be a good year. Like everyone else I know, I’ve made the necessary and unattainable New Year’s resolutions, like daily scale practising to a metronome, watching less CSI, at least three trips a week to the gym and at least one day a week with no alcohol consumption. But already two weeks into the new year and my expectations have slipped. Nevertheless, it promises to be a good year!

It is the first year since I was 22 years old where I haven’t started the year with a nice pot of gold in my bank account courtesy of Father Christmas (i.e. Paul O’Neill and the Trans-Siberian Orchestra). It is also the first year since I was 22 where I have started the year without the chronic back/neck/knee pain, which I associate with January after three months of hardcore touring.

This will be the first year where I realise exactly what it truly means to be self-employed without the security blanket of guaranteed work – which is a rather daunting prospect. It is like splitting up from a six-year relationship, and realising that suddenly you are on your own! You can acknowledge all the things about that other person which made you into who you are, but you realise that they no longer define you and suddenly all the decisions in your life take on a new depth of gravitas. Suddenly my list-of-things-to-do is important!

This Christmas was the first year I spent it with my family in Ireland. I almost didn’t quite make it after being caught in the winter freeze chaos. I got stuck in Berlin for an extra few days after my flight was cancelled. This in itself was not such a big deal because I was able to stay in my own apartment, but I had been mugged the day before and had no cash or cards!

My last five euros had been spent on a sandwich during the six-hour wait at Berlin airport, where the flicker-timetable screens teased passengers with incremental delays of an hour at a time before telling us the flight was cancelled. I was then an official ‘Schwarz-fahrer’ (illegal traveller?), as I smuggled myself on the night bus back to my flat without a valid ticket.

Luckily, neighbourly spirit still exists in the Berlin quarter of Friedenau, and for the next couple of days the lovely Sonja, who lives in the apartment below, fed and watered me and even accompanied me to the airport a couple of days later. It wasn’t quite Orwell’s Down And Out In Paris And London, but 72 hours with no money was almost enough to poetry and songwriting. Almost.

Instead, I opted for a rural retreat in southern Ireland. My parents live down a country lane in a converted barn. After a month of freezing temperatures it looked like one of those ultra-kitsch winter wonderland Christmas cards – beautiful blue skies, icicles hanging off everything and the entire countryside covered in white frost. A real getaway – especially since they have no internet and no television – where days are spent walking through the countryside, sleeping, reading books, playing music and drinking wine. Bliss!

However, it was made slightly more rural than expected, as two hours after my siblings and I arrived, the water pipes all froze and we had no running water for six days. Now, you really have no idea how much a household depends on running water, until you don’t have the luxury of all those simple things associated with modern living – like flushing the toilet, taking a shower, brushing your teeth, filling the kettle, etc.

The first day we went through about 40 litres of bottled water, supplemented with tankards filled up from the nearest neighbours, and broken up chunks of ice from the frozen stream at the bottom of the garden which we melted down into buckets. Indoor camping at its best. To top it all off, a friendly neighbour came on the third day and helped my dad cut one of the trees in the garden for firewood, and after a triumphant call of ‘TIMBER!’, they realised the falling tree had snapped the telephone line! The first thing I did when I returned home to London was take a long, hot bath, check my emails and spend the evening in front of the TV.

So, that was my Christmas period and now 2011 has begun! I’m looking forward to a year of music making.

Right now I’m on a train heading to the countryside to visit Jon Lord for an afternoon of tea and music. I’m also finishing a bunch of songs written with Nic Rizzi from Jurojin which we’ll be turning into an EP before the summer! Actually, if you haven’t seen Jurojin live yet, they’ll be touring the UK as part of a Classic Rock Presents Prog tour. I’ll be joining them for the Sheffield and London dates.

Until next week!

Anna x

Inspiration Track for the Week

Deep Purple – Concerto for Group & Orchestra’ Movement I

www.annaphoebe.com