Wednesday, November 17, 2010: Spock's Beard - There Was A Time

For me, one of the many great things about the band 10,000 Maniacs, was that I always expect a band called 10,000 Maniacs to be hardcore punk, death-metal, thrash, really LOUD band.

Just goes to show you how important a band's name is.

Apparently, the name Spock's Beard came up as a bit of a joke: From a 1999 Music Street Journal interview of [founding member] Neal Morse:

"Al and I were having this really weird night out one night, just one of those bizarro David Lynch type evenings. Al said "wow, it's like we're in a parallel universe. It's like Spock has a beard. Wouldn't that be a funny name for a band, Spock's Beard." That was about 89 or 90. Then when we were choosing names, around 92, Al made this list, like 2 pages of names. We all voted on them. He snuck Spock's Beard in as a joke, and it won. Then we were all like, are we going to commit to being known as Spock's Beard for all eternity, hopefully?"

Sure, Spock's Beard are labeled as "Progressive Rock", but it's not the scary, obtuse Progressive Rock that most non-musicians turn their nose up to.

They really are a modern version of old Genesis. In a good way. Or the more agreeable parts of Yes.

Obviously some of SB's stuff can get out there, but even most of the longer stuff is quite listenable (translation: you don't have to be a complete muso to get SB)

And, yes, There Was A Time is so far into Pop that it's hardly worth mentioning Progressive in the same breath.

But, I think it's extremely cool, nonetheless.

Please enjoy, I really like this band.