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In our first Great Debate we talk to Matt Goodluck, prog rock obsessive (check out Matt’s bio below). The topic is obviously prog rock, the debate occurs on multiple fronts, including what makes good prog rock, who the true greats are and even some gear talk.
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Content mentioned during the show (links will open in new tab):
Pet Sounds – Beach Boys
Freak Out – Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention
Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – The Beatles
King Crimson – In The Court of the Crimson King
Ready Player One – Ernest Cline (highly recommended!)
Keith Emerson official website
Overview of prog rock keyboards
Watch Rick Wakeman live, on ice
Pink Floyd – Dark Side of the Moon
Pink Floyd – Meddle
ELP – Brain Salad Surgery
ELP play Fanfare for the Common Man
Haken
Frost
Big Big Train
Desert Island Discs: Lamb Lies Down on Broadway – Genesis, Hemispheres – Rush, Close to the Edge – Yes, Wish You Were Here – Pink Floyd, Discipline – King Crimson
Matt’s biography:
I grew up in Adelaide and by my early teens I had developed an obsession with music, starting with 80’s heavy metal. After discovering Rush, everything changed and it took me down the rabbit hole of prog rock. This led to reading everything I could get my hands on about the 70’s heavyweights like Yes, King Crimson, Genesis and ELP as well as the new wave of 80’s bands like IQ, Marillion, Pallas and Pendragon. I was hooked!
At age 20, I decided to leave home and I flew to the UK for what was intended to be a 6 month working holiday. I stayed in Europe for 7 years!
Due to connections with a number of independent English prog bands that I had become a fan of, I found myself on the doorstep of Pendragon/Arena keyboard player Clive Nolan and ended up living with him for the duration of my time in England. I became the go-to merch guy for a number of prog bands in the scene including Arena, Threshold, Pendragon and IQ and would regularly tour throughout Europe with them. Outside of this, I began working as an assistant for Clive’s record label Verglas Music, formed with ex-Marillion drummer Mick Pointer. Essentially a cottage industry formed to release albums by their band Arena, this was a pioneering business model at the dawn of the internet age in the early 90’s. My role included promotion, marketing, graphic design and helping to book tours for the band.
After 4 years in the UK, my visa had become an issue and so it was time to move on. I then moved to Germany and became a record label assistant for InsideOut Music, Europe’s premier label for progressive music. Here I worked with a wide array of artists including members of Dream Theater, King’s X, Toto, Marillion and Genesis as well as the new wave of prog bands like Spock’s Beard, Devin Townsend, The Flower Kings and Symphony X.
I returned home to Adelaide at the end of 2001 but retained my connections within the prog scene overseas. I continued to take on small projects for my old colleagues from time to time. One such job was working on the liner notes for various classic album re-issues for a number of Krautrock artists such as Klaus Schulze, Amon Duul II and Holger Czukay.
In 2009, I was asked to be the tour manager for Swedish band Pain Of Salvation who were supporting Dream Theater on their national Australian tour. This was an intensive role that involved booking accommodation and travel, instrument and equipment hire, publicity and promotion, merchandising, budgeting and finance, graphic design, stakeholder liaison and much more. It was very stressful but ultimately rewarding and a good chance to reconnect with both bands, who I had previously worked with.
That early obsession with prog fueled a desire to be involved in (a fairly niche area of) the music industry and I feel incredibly lucky to have been a part of it. I’ve been very fortunate in my life to meet and work with many artists that I grew up listening to as a fan.
Today I find myself on the stage rather than just backstage as I now get to tour the country as lead vocalist for Echoes of Pink Floyd – Australia’s premier Pink Floyd tribute act.
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