Overture: The Rehearsals

WWith the weight of expectation positioned squarely on the Talbot Bros shoulders, the reality hit the duo that this was not going to be easy.

Progressive rock is a misunderstood genre of music born from the sweet womb of the late 1960’s English music scene. It is characterized by its lengthy compositions, intricate instrumentation, conceptual lyric writing and fusion of all styles of music; not to mention its high emphasis on presentation in both live performance and album artwork mediums.

The mean duration for a prog song is approximately nine minutes. The lone song they could “play” successfully was Purple People Eater coming in at a sparse two minutes and twenty seconds.

With this limited amount of music, the brother’s risked losing our audience quicker than a radio station for the deaf.

But where there’s a will, there’s a way, or so they say.

With the determination of a women’s rights activist, the Talbot Bros hit the studio and rehearsed to within an inch of their instrument’s lifespan.

The instruments of choice for the band were Adam on keyboards and Ned on drums, both powered by the ingenious invention of electricity.

The initial results were meager at best. At first, both members thought the other was attempting a new style of music, a style placing huge emphasis on silent minimalism and subdued moods.

After ten minutes of playing the novelty wore off, both members eyeing the other in looks of perturbed confusion. The question was asked, what the hell are you not playing? For amongst the chaos of human motion, fingers on keys and sticks on drums, little music was being made.

Neither member had heard anything of this kind, mostly because they hadn’t heard it at all. A quick inspection of both instruments revealed the problem; the cord to both machines lay unplugged.

After mastering The Sound of Silence, Adam and Ned kicked off proceedings in style, never before have keys been tapped and cymbals crashed in such a momentous cataclysm of musical euphoria in the face of musical adversity, all to produce a live performance worthy of a single listen.

Confidence levels were soaring. Instrument and man became one in a musical exorcism. There was more charisma than Jon Hamm, attitude greater than Trump and the innocence of a bored Buddhist monk.

Soon the band were exploring new territory in a mission for musical supremacy. With the juices flowing profusely, songwriting became the name of the game.

The music was suddenly their own, a byproduct of unparalleled creativity not seen since Bach and Dogbang Mozart. They became a conveyor belt of ideas involving alternating cords and conflicting tempos.

But soon the ideas began conflicting, both member’s fighting to the death to keep their ideas alive. Debate raged on which passages should be included within a new song and which ones should be put in the waste.

Damage control proceeded as both Ned and Adam cracked the shits and stormed away.

With tempers flaring, a new direction needed to be taken. All momentum had been quashed, a truce simply had to be made if the dream were to be rehabilitated, kept alive! And in true prog style, a new approach was explored.

Out went the drum and keyboard, in came the guitar. Those strings copped a hammering, bending and wilting into different shapes and stanzas, that baby purred. New, collaborative ideas emerged. Crunchy riffs and smooth harmonies anchored the project.

Unlike the titanic this vessel had dodged the iceberg and was alive and well, sailing toward Port Victory.

Within the space of twenty minutes a full six songs of eight minutes length were engineer designed. From the mire of doubt and disillusionment, the Talbot Bros had set up a foundation to conquer America.