Phoenixville, PA's Ed Arnold once met Gentle Giant guitarist Gary Green ("he's great, laid back"). Now Ed wants to meet the group's leadsinger Derek Shulman, "he was an interesting vocalist; I'm gonna encourage him to play live again. He always seemed so intense... it might be intimidating."
Back in the late 1970s, Ed discovered the music of Gentle Giant, a progressive rock band whose Octopus and Three Friends are available as special digipacks on the band's label Alucard and distributed through EMI Records. These re-masters are from the original 1/4 inch tapes of these Seminal British Progressive Rock Recordings. As he did for Gentle Giant's earlier re-releases, Fred Kevorkian re-mastered these two additions to the available Gentle Giant catalog. Ecstatic music fans of many generations, most notably contemporaries of the UK-based group who recorded and toured from 1970 till 1980, have been excited about the new releases.
In the case of Ed Arnold, it was in homeroom, 1978, "I had a cool teacher who had a record player, and he always brought in interesting music for us."
This Saturday, October 1, at 2 PM, Ed will have taken the bus, train or maybe have driven in to "Philly." He hasn't quite decided how he's getting to the City of Brotherly Love, but he will be at F.Y.E. Music, 100 South Broad Street, Philadelphia, for Gentle Giant's first in-store in 30 years. Gary and Derek will be on hand to autograph THREE FRIENDS and OCTOPUS. The phone number for F,Y.E. is 215-496-8338.
The albums are available on at
http://www.amazon.com/Octopus-Gentle-Giant/dp/B005G0YP3M/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1312829910&sr=1-1
http://www.amazon.com/Three-Friends-Gentle-Giant/dp/B005G0YP3C/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1312828329&sr=1-1
One of the most renowned bands that came out of the British Progressive Rock Movement, Gentle Giant spent their decade together pushing musical boundaries and continually taking chances. Their music, while rooted in rock, had overtones of classical European composition, American jazz, British soul, medieval and even blues. They seamlessly integrated these disparate styles into the melting pot that epitomized the essence that was Gentle Giant.
Gentle Giant fans range from Ozzy Osbourne, Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson, Trey Anastasio of Phish, Mike Portnoy and Jordan Rudess of Dream Theater, Avenged Sevenfold, Kerry Livgren of American progressive rockers Kansas to guitarist Peter Banks of Yes, and--of course--Ed Arnold!
