While the album contains a significant amount of keyboard, in the main it is a guitar driven album, with many of the songs riff based and much of it having something of a "retro" feel, harking back to the progressive rock of the 70s and early 80s, but mostly without the long introductions that were a feature of the prog rock of that time.
"Time to Face Up to the Void" begins the album's journey by exploring the sense of emptiness we at times feel and the role of fear in maintaining it.
The album then explores the problems of overcontrol in the song "Move Out of Your Head", which starts out with the lyric "You've got a beautiful body, pity no-one lives inside", after which the album goes on to look at the loss of the magic of childhood as we get caught up in the world of work and technology, though the track "What Happened to the Magic", a track that starts out acoustic and becomes heavier in the middle, returning to an acoustic feel in its final resolution.
"Heading Deeper" sets the scene for a deeper exploration of our psychology, taken further in "Prepared to Suffer" which looks at our need to go through pain rather than run away from the difficult things. "When You Try to Choose Your Own Reality" looks at the effects of overconfidence in our ability to control the world.
"Don't Know How to Grieve" explores the role of grief as a process in coming to terms with what life throws up, and it all comes together in "Internal Light" which attempts to summarise a journey of growth, ending in the experience of an outflowing of internal light.
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Martyrs to Misinformation
Martyrs to Misinformation was released 26 Nov.
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"We Don't Want to Look" explores the relationship between humans and nature, our exploitation of the environment, our disdain for history, our arrogance, and our difficulty breaking free from the traps involved.
The trauma and bustle of life can wound us and leave us struggling with a fragmented sense of self, so that we yearn to find out who we really are and want to prove our own worth, or even our own existence. "The Answer That You Seek" explores the relative futility of that enterprise, and the inadequacy of logic for tasks that are more relevant to feeling and spirit, but leaves us with hope that letting go of logic can lead us to the discovery of something of profound underlying importance.
Imagine being at school, many years ago and in modern history, you've been
studying two world wars, separated by the great depression, punctuated by
communist revolutions in Russia and China, culminating in the unleashing of
the atomic bomb, leading into the nuclear arms race and the cold war (not
that different, really, from our current times, with the war in Ukraine,
the fallout from the pandemic and the renewed threat of nuclear was). Against
this backdrop, you are wondering about the future of humanity. You are in
your second last year of secondary school, and you scribble down in the back
of one of your school exercise books the words of a song describing the way
the world seems to you... Well, that secondary school student was John
Cologon, and the song was "This World Today", the opening song on
the album. "Reality?", released in December 2019
This album contains a mix of songs that fit the theme "Reality". That is,
they examine different aspect of the question, "what is reality, and how do
we know about it?" Some of the songs take a political angle - fake news,
hype, post-truth world, etc. Other take a more personal view, looking at
mental illness and personal realities. These songs were all recorded over the
last year or so. The album includes songs written in 2019, but also contains
songs written as far back as when John was still at school. The album
consists of 1 hour and 8 minutes of meaning-packed rock music.
Have you ever felt like you've just had enough? You've reached the last straw
and it's all too much? The second song on the album "Reality?" sums
up the feeling. Like most art, it's based on a mixture of personal experience
and observation of others (John was working in a psychiatric ward at the time
of writing it). The song is called "Sick".
If you search the internet for "avoidance coping" you'll find a
heap of literature about how avoiding things is generally a bad idea and
tends to make everything worse, rather than better. Unfortunately, though,
it's very tempting, because it's easy. The third song on the album,
"Reality?", explores this issue. The song is called
"Trap" and it begins...
Don't turn away from the pain, don't keep trying to hide
Don't keeping running away from what's hidden inside
If you don't face your pain, if you try not to choose
There's so little to gain and there's so much to lose
The fourth song on the album "Computers Can't Feel" is actually more about the dangers of elevating
logic over feelings than about computers
per se. However, given the current ubiquity of computers, it may have more than one meaning. The song opens with the
lines:
They said, "The computer is a model of the human mind"
I read - all the books on maths and logic I could find
I tried - to stop being subjective and think rationally
Inside, I felt an unseen power taking hold of me
There was something missing - Could my information be wrong?
Life was slowly ebbing and I felt I'd soon be gone
1833 is the year slavery was abolished in the British Empire. It's also the
year the British parliament legislated that children under 12 could not be
made to work longer than 9 hours a day in its factories, and put a limit of a
12 hour day on children over 12. So maybe Britain didn't need to buy slaves
from slave traders any more - they could be bought from their own families!
Track 5 on the album "Reality?" is about the ways we've all been
sold into slavery in such a way that we don't even realize it. The track is
called "Wage Slaves".
The sixth song on the album, "Art of Deception",
explores the need to remove the log from our own eyes before addressing the
splinters in the eyes of the rest of the world.
The 7th song on the album is a remix of John's 2017 single "Living in a
Fake World". This song explores the effect of our our post-truth world on
our perceptions of reality and the angst this causes. Despite the potential
for despair in this topic, the song overall takes a hopeful view of the
ability of human beings to transcend the unintended effects of our technologies
The 8th song on the album, "Fly Against the Wind", was written for a
young woman who'd had multiple suicide attempts, but kept on living. It explores
the internal game she was playing with herself and its effect on the external game
she was playing with those around her. It ultimately uncovers a slow, but sure
progression of personal growth
You Need Somebody to Love", is a song about the dangers of avoidance, how easily we can get our
priorities confused, and the importance of community. This song was written and recorded in 2019.
The 10th song on the album, "Survivor", is about retaining personal
autonomy in the face of adversity, transcending "victim
consciousness" and embracing post-traumatic growth.
The album's 11th song, "Within the Stillness", explores our inner
worlds and the mystery of life.
"Mandala", the 12th song on the album, is about facing mortality,
pain and illness and finding hope.
The 13th song on the album, "Let it Shine", is about not letting
fear and self-consciousness get in the way of sharing ourselves with others.
Life is a journey, sometimes desolate and lonely, sometimes rich and
interesting, always unpredictable. Whether in its highs or its lows, it is a
journey that is richer when shared. The song "Let's Grow Together",
which is the final track on the new album "Reality?" explores the
process of that shared journey. This song was written, recorded and mastered
in 2019.
You may have noticed that this music was described earlier as "A deep and meaningful, blend of progressive rock, power pop, and progressive metal, with occasional touches of pop rock, blues rock and folk rock".
That may be the right description, or not, depending on which song you're talking about, and what you understand "progressive rock" or "progressive metal" to mean (or the power pop, pop rock etc, for that matter. To mangle an old saying, the genre is in the eye of the beholder. This music could also be described as rock, progressive pop, 70s rock, 80s rock, indie rock, or any number of other genre descriptors. Some of it, for example "Within The Stillness", and "Computer's can't Feel" to my mind clearly fits the progressive rock genre. Other songs may better fit other genres. From my point of view, it's the music that I feel moved to write, expressed as best as I can express it. If you have views on what sort of music it is, I'd love to
hear from you!
Rock developed from rock'n roll, which developed from blues, rhythm'n blues and possibly country (it also, arguably, developed partly from jazz, which in turn developed from blues). As rock came of age, musicians began to experiment and try to stretch it to encompass areas that had previously been covered by classical music, opera etc., as well as incorporating elements of other genres, such as Jazz. Rather than the snappy single of the pop scene, there was a movement towards the "concept album", such as the MOODY BLUES "Days of Future Past", released November 1967. Arguably, the most stark example of this trend was the advent of the rock opera. Probably the best known example of this was the rock opera "Tommy", released by THE WHO in 1969 - an obvious stretching of rock into the arena of opera, previously a purely classical domain. THE WHO were not necessarily the first in this area, just the most well known. For example, THE PRETTY THINGS had produced an album the previous year, entitled "SF Sorrow", which was kind of a rock opera, although much of the story was told by notes on the album cover, rather than in the songs (on the other hand, THE WHO had done "A Quick One, While He's Away" which could be called a proto-rock opera, in 1966, on the album "A Quick One"). THE NICE (a band that included Keith Emerson, who would go on to form EMERSON, LAKE AND PALMER (ELP) in the 70s) also produced "Ars Vita Longa Brevis - Symphony For Group And Orchestra" in 1968, another excursion into fusion of rock and classical influences.
Around this time - from 1968 onwards - many other bands, perhaps inspired by the changes in The Beatles music after they stopped touring and began experimenting in the studio, also started writing longer songs, with more complex arrangements, and often with a greater proportion of instrumental sections. This may have also come from the increasing tendency of musicians to jam together, and then turn the jams into songs. Bands like YES, KING CRIMSON, PINK FLOYD and JETHRO TULL began turning out albums that were more than just a collection of songs. At times (as in "Thick as a Brick", for example) the whole album was like a single song. At the same time, there was a much greater emphasis in writing meaningful lyrics, so that rock music became the poetry of the 70s. As the 70s dawned, bands such as GENESIS and THE ELECTRIC LIGHT ORCHESTRA (ELO) had also begun putting out concept albums which continued the experimentation.
Progressive Rock vs Progressive Pop
Some bands, such as SUPERTRAMP, are considered by some to be examples of Progressive Rock, and by others to be examples of Progressive Pop. What's the difference? Well, again, it's somewhat in the eye of the beholder, but essentially, Progressive Pop is Progressive Rock that is also catchy and commercially successful. It could be said to have one foot in the progressive rock camp and the other in the pop music camp. To some extent, this distinction is born of a tendency for some progressive rock fans to be a bit elitist, and to have a horror of anything that might be seen as commercial or mainstream. Paul McCartney and Wings, Procol Harum and the Moody Blues are all sometimes put in this category. Maybe some of my music might also fit here - I'm not sure. People have also come up with categories like "proto-prog", "art rock" and "psychedelic" rock, which all have overlaps with progressive rock. The Beatles, for example, are sometime described as "proto-prog" in the sense that they often moved in the direction later described as progressive rock, yet many of their songs did not fit this description. The creation of other categories like "art punk" (essentially an overlap between late punk and prog rock) further increases the potential for overlap and confusion, again leaving ample room for "the eye of the beholder"!
Progressive Metal
During the mid 1980s, a number of bands began to merge some attributes of Progressive Rock with the heavier, guitar driven sounds of metal music, developing a style that has been described as Progressive Metal. Some notable Progressive Metal bands are Queensrÿche, Fates Warning, Dream Theater, Symphony X, King's X and Opeth.
Just as some of my songs fit more into the "Progressive Rock" label than others do, some of my songs also incorporate elements of metal and could possibly be labelled "Progressive Metal"
Power Pop
Power Pop is considered to be a subset of Pop Rock, but one that is based more on guitar riffs, instrumentation generally involving guitar, bass and drums, with occasional keyboard, and featuring melodic harmonies. Power Pop originated in the 60s with the music of such bands as The Beatles, The Beach Boys and The Who, and continues to influence musicians to this day. The term “Power Pop” is said to have originated with Pete Townsend, the guitarist from The Who, as a description of their musical style. However, it is very much associated with bands from the 70s, such as Badfinger, The Raspberries, The Knack and Cheap Trick.
Although Power Pop was swamped other genres during the 1980s, it continued to influence artists, leading to something of a resurgence in the 90s and 2000s. 90s bands such as The Posies, Jellyfish, Weezer, Matthew Sweet and Teenage Fanclub revived the influence, which can also be seen in later artists such as Red Vox, The Beat, Brendan Benson, The Nerves and Paramore, for example.
So, after all that, what kind of music is this?
Well, I guess this is rock music that contains elements of progressive rock, elements of power pop, elements of progressive metal, elements of progressive pop, elements of art punk, art rock, pop-rock and maybe elements of power-pop or even folk-rock, depending on which song you're talking about. In the end, the real question is, do you like it?
This album contains a mix of songs that fit the theme "Reality". That is,
they examine different aspect of the question, "what is reality, and how do
we know about it?" Some of the songs take a political angle - fake news,
hype, post-truth world, etc. Other take a more personal view, looking at
mental illness and personal realities. These songs were all recorded over the
last year or so. The album includes songs written in 2019, but also contains
songs written as far back as when John was still at school. The album
consists of 1 hour and 8 minutes of meaning-packed rock music.