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Make Progressive Rock Progressive Again (2016)

by Frank Rothkamm

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Catalog No: FLX53
Title: Make Progressive Rock Progressive Again
Sound Artist: Frank Rothkamm
Visual Artist: Holger Rothkamm
Label: Flux Records
Length: 20:49 (1249s)
Composed: 2016
Location: Los Angeles
Instruments: Csound, Python, Ardour
Release Date: 3/18/2016
Format: Digital
File Under: It`s Complicated

XXXVI

The late Lemmy of Motorhead was once a roadie for the late Keith of Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Let's clarify this: Motorhead is not a car part supply shop and Emerson, Lake and Palmer is not a law firm. No, they were in the progressive rock n' roll business. This usually involved outdoing each other in sound volume and offering wisdom to the tune of "Welcome to the show, it's dy-na-mo." But, Lemmy wasn't there yet. As a roadie to Keith, his task was to carry heavy things around before and after the show. When everybody else was about to hit the bar or indulge in some hotel room furniture smashing, Lemmy had to stay sober and do the manual labor. But for Keith, they were all in this together. He was a gentle and sensitive soul, when he wasn't acting like he had the loudest organ. Keith started to stab his Hammond organ with knives as part of his stage performances, but he did not use any old dagger. No, Lemmy handed him a genuine "HJ-Fahrtenmesser" or a "Hitler Youth Knife" from his collection. These were actually used by young German boys. Collectors still cherish the provenance. What did the act of stabbing his organ with a "Hitler Youth Knife" actually accomplish? Is there a symbolic meaning? Perhaps the legacy that Keith wanted to impress upon his followers was the same that Friedrich Nietzsche, the philosopher and composer, saw fit for his future supermen: If you can philosophize with a hammer, you can compose with a dagger. One that belonged to a German boy who ran around with it in the Black Forest before 1945. See, the progressive rock n' roll business is not like any other business and for one Keith there are countless others who never get anywhere because, well, "competitions are for horses, not artists", as Bela Bartok once remarked. But what does Bela know? After the Nazis came to power, he refused to give concerts in Germany, broke away from his publisher there and ended up poor and dying from complications of leukemia in New York. In 1945. No, the solution for the modern composer is to follow Keith's lead and start to compose with a dagger. As a former German boy who ran around in the woods and then spent all my money on Emerson, Lake & Palmer LPs from the very, very slim selection at the local record store, I can tell you it is easy. It's just like cutting the cheese if you have the right knife. Keith always regarded his 20 minute and 39 second album "Tarkus" as one of his finest accomplishments, so I started to search for prophetic messages in the record by cutting 3333 samples from the body of this work. Then I put this pile of parts back together like any German boy armed with a knife would: completely at random, but with lots of love. I'm taking progressive rock to its ultimate conclusion. As a requiem or, as Steve Jones, member of the other progressive rock combo, the Sex Pistols, declared, "Actually we're not into music. We're into chaos."

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released March 19, 2016

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Frank Rothkamm Los Angeles, California

Prolific, L.A. based German composer & artist.

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