Fetchez la vache

Sadly, technical gremlins got in the way of the planned completion yesterday of the remix for the re-release of our first album, Goodbye to the Age of Steam. Rob ('you're paying me less than the minimum wage for this') Aubrey and Andy worked on until the early hours, but were unable to get it finished. Still, significant progress was made and we should be able to get things tied up with one more session. 

We've suddenly found ourselves with a whole heap of work to complete in the next few months. In addition to the Age of Steam remix, we need to finish off recording and mixing the Far Skies Deep Time EP that we're planning for an autumn release. The EP should come in at 40 minutes plus, so some might call it an album, but for us it's a (rather substantial) hors d'oeuvres (...betcha didn't know I could speak French...) before the release of the English Electric album, which is due in 2011.

And that's the other huge piece of work we need to do, because Nick D'Virgilio is due in England in the winter months and we need to get the whole of the album far enough along to record the

 drum sessions while he's here. So, there is much to keep us occupied.

As I'm writing this, I'm listening to the Age of Steam mixes we have completed. And mighty fine they are sounding, too. As my tweeting suggested yesterday, Age of Steam is a bit of a period piece as we were using many of the keyboard sounds which were fashionable in the early 1990's. By the time we got to 1997's English Boy Wonders, we had stripped things back mostly to guitar, organ and Mellotron, so the 2007 remix for that album allowed us to use the much improved samples of those instruments which are now available.

 For Age of Steam, though, we used a lot of sounds which lock the album into a more specific time frame. One of the decisions we had to take at the start of the remix was whether we should replace those sounds with something we might have used if we were making the album today.

After a bit of soul-searching we decided that we would stick to the orginal sound canvas for the album. This was a challenge in itself, as we no longer own the keyboards that we used back in 1994. And many of the keyboard parts for the album were not on the original 2 inch tapes, so we've had to recreate them using sounds which are as close to the original ones as possible. 

As well as a full remix of the original album, the Age of Steam re-release will feature a couple of bonus tracks. One of these is an extended version of Losing Your Way including a section of music we decided not to use on the album version. The other bonus track is a mashup of the two instrumental tracks on the album recorded by the Big Big Train of 2010 (featuring David on flute and keyboards and Nick on drums.) And of course, we use our current palate of sounds and tastes, so it is possible to get a very direct idea of

how we've changed over the years.

Finally, the new Age of Steam will also feature some beautiful new cover and booklet artwork by Jim Trainer. The original cover painting by Kev Thompson has been lost, so we've asked Jim to do some new artwork and he's turned in a magnificent set of images. 

More news on Age of Steam when we have a release date.    

Wild River

We are pleased to add Wild River, David Longdon's first solo album to the Big Big Train shop.

Wild River was recorded before David joined Big Big Train during a period of change (from one century to another). David Longon: "My old life was changing into an exciting/terrifying period in which I wondered what my new life would be like. The album is about the passing of time, love, death and the inevitable impermanence of everything. It is not a Prog album but it has elements of progressive rock within it. It's an eclectic mix and I had an interesting journey making it".

Wild River (2004) features many musicians collectively known as The Magic Club. The CD contains the guitar playing and Mellotron work of XTC's Dave Gregory.

BBT SSGB

Here is a photo from a recent BBT photoshoot on the glorious SS Great Britain in Bristol.

Left-to-right: Dave Gregory, Greg Spawton, Andy Poole, David Longdon.
Photo by Amy Mumford

The Golden Thread

Why is the band called Big Big Train? We still get asked that question, and the answers I've given over the years haven't always been consistent. In the early days, we were slightly embarrassed about admitting to showing too much of an interest in railways as we were frightened of being labelled as train-spotters, so we hid away from the obvious context. In more recent years, I've learned not to care.

The truth is, I like trains, dammit. I like railway stations and lines and all of the associated paraphernalia.

It's in the blood, you see. My grandad was a railway men and my mum was brought up in a railway cottage, a stone-throw from the line and a few paces from the engine sheds at Leicester yard, where her dad, a wheeltapper, spent all of his working life.

The picture below is of the yard (the Leicester Midland Locomotive Depot) and was taken just after the second world war. My mum lived in one of the terraced houses to the immediate left of the huge circular engine shed. She lived there for all of her childhood, only leaving in the late 1950's, when she got married.

Last weekend we took Mum back to the East Midland town of Leicester to revisit her past.

Whether you think large-scale immigration is a good or a bad thing or have no particular view on the subject, it is not a controversial point to observe that inward migration has brought major change to this part of Leicester which, in community terms, is now an area where madrassas, mosques and halal butchers have replaced the corner shops and churches familiar to my mum's generation.

The landscape has changed as well. Some of the terraces have been demolished (including my grandad's old house) and replaced by flats and industrial units, although enough of the old houses survive to get a feel for the area as it was. And many other things have also remained the same. The Royal Mail sorting office where one of my uncles worked is still a postal depot. Mum's girls' school has changed its name but not its function; the park she played in and walked across to get to the school is still there and still beautifully kept.

And down on the railway, whilst the engine sheds have gone, the sidings remain, although silent now; the rails are rusting and grass-grown and there are no engines any more.

Leicester yard in 2010, view taken from the bridge shown at the top of the previous picture. Mum's house would have been on the right of this picture, behind the trees

As we left the area, we stopped at a crossing for a little girl, maybe 7 or 8 years old. Her face lit up as she ran headlong across the road to the safety of the pavement. She may well have been on her way to play in the park. A half a century ago, that little girl could have been my mum.

Big Big Train is now a two blogs band

David Longdon has joined the blogosphere, so we are now a two blogs band. As well as BBT stuff, David will also be talking about his solo career and, like all good bloggers, will share his thoughts on life as he finds it.

You can read his blog here.

The success of Classic Prog

I was chatting to Classic Prog earlier today about our future plans 'n' stuff and I asked, with some trepidation, how well the mag was doing. It would seem that it is doing very well indeed.

Classic Prog is selling around 25,000 copies per issue now, which I think is bloody impressive for a specialist music magazine.

Long may it prosper.

Fat Billy Shouts Mine

We're hard at work on an EP for release later this year, prior to the completion of the next album, English Electric.

More news on the EP later, but in the meantime, here is an excerpt from one of the songs on the EP, Fat Billy Shouts Mine. It's a sad tale about a footballer called William 'Fatty' Foulke, a goalkeeper from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The excerpt isn't mixed or nuffink, so it's a bit rough and ready, but you'll get the general idea.

The fiery Moog Voyager solo is from Martin Orford.

Cover stars

There's a big interview with us in the new issue of German-language magazine Progressive Newsletter. Excerpts from the interview (in English) can be found here.

DPRP Poll

Another pleasing poll result in the Dutch Progressive Rock Pages poll. We came 7th in the best album category and 5th in the best individual track category with The Underfall Yard.

This is very pleasing news as we are one of the top independent bands outside of the major artists to feature in the best album poll (the major artists I'm talking about include Porcupine Tree, Transatlantic, IQ and Dream Theater. The 'independent' bands ahead of us are Riverside and Gazpacho. And, in fact, we are ahead of both of those in the best track category, only behind the four major artists previously mentioned.)

It's also worth remembering that our album only came out in December. If we'd released it a month or two earlier, I suspect we'd have done even better.

There are a number of other Big Big Train highlights in the poll. David came 6th in the best vocalist. For somebody whose voice is new to most of the prog audience, that is a brilliant and thoroughly well-deserved result. Dave Gregory came 10th in the best guitarist (he would have come 9th but somebody got confused and voted for me rather than Dave. Doh.) And Nick D'Virgilio came 5th in the best drummer category for his performances on The Underfall Yard.

Incidentally, The Underfall Yard is currently third in the best album of 2009 category on Progarchives. Voting for this poll remains open so the position does change from time to time, but we've been in the top 5 for quite some time now.

A Farewell to Bard

We're down to the last couple of boxes of the Bard CD and will shortly be saying goodbye to this release for ever, as, once the last copy is sold, it will be deleted and will not be reissued nor made available via iTunes.

Bard was our first album as an indie band and the first to come out of our own studio, so it was an important release for us at the time. But it's no longer representative of where we are or want to be and so it's time to say farewell.

This is not a moment quite in the order of Boromir's death scene in the Lord of the Rings, and certainly a long way short of Butch and Sundance's final dash into sepia-toned history. But it does make me feel a little nostalgic and so, tonight, I shall raise a glass to Bard.

iTunes Essentials: Modern Prog

On February 10th, iTunes released one of their essential compilation downloadable albums. This one rather pleasingly avoids any labels that I may have had a recent genre-based rant about, and is called simply: Modern Prog 

The album is structured into three sets of songs - 'The Basics', 'Next Steps' and 'Deep Cuts'. The complete album of all three sets consists of 75 songs, and will set you back 60 quid. 'The Basics' set of 25 songs from the album is 20 quid and features The Mars Volta, Radiohead, Opeth, Steven Wilson, The Pineapple Thief and many others. Big Big Train is also  featured on 'The Basics' set with 'Last Train' from Underfall.

There is quite a time lag in getting sales reports from iTunes so I haven't seen how The Underfall Yard is doing, but the fact that we have been selected for this release suggests that things are going pretty well.

Neo, retro, who gives a shit-o?

Lots of nice reviews about the album have appeared, which is very pleasing. However, I confess to being a little irritated by the common shorthand descriptives of 'neo-prog' and 'retro-prog' that have appeared in some of the reviews.

I do hate both of those terms. 'Neo' is normally used in a 'look-down-the-nose' kind of way. 'Retro' is less damning, but suggests that there is no sense that a band is trying to do anything original at all. And is it possible to be both 'neo' and 'retro' at the same time? Maybe it's the start of a new sub-genre: 'retro-neo'?

People do, of course, need to get an idea of what a band sounds like from album reviews, and I have to say I much prefer the direct comparisons to other bands. If someone says we sound a bit like Genesis if they'd returned to their 'progressive' roots in the 1980's, as Slartibartfast does in his Progarchives review, then I'm both pleased and flattered.

Interview with David in Classic Rock Presents Prog

Look out for an interview with David in the next issue of Classic Prog (available from next Wednesday.)

The editor of Classic Prog, Jerry Ewing, also reviews The Underfall Yard.

Does anybody have the original artwork for Goodbye to the Age of Steam?

We're just debating options for the remixed re-release of Goodbye to the Age of Steam and it is beginning to look like a CD release is viable rather than just a download-only version. However, we don't have the original painting for the cover. I know it's a long- shot, but I thought I'd ask whether anyone knows of its wherabouts?

It was painted by a chap called Kev Thompson and we know that he sold it onto somebody. Was it a prog fan who bought it (in which case we might be able to track it down) or was it somebody

who liked pictures of Cornish engine houses? (in which case we haven't got a chance.)

Can anybody help with this? (cue: tumbleweed in the comments)

Aural Moon Album of the Year

Results from the annual Aural Moon radio station poll:

1. Big Big Train - The Underfall Yard
2. IQ - Frequency
3. The Tangent - Down and Out in Paris and London
4. Steve Hackett - Out of the Tunnel's Mouth
5. Transatlantic - The Whirlwind
6. Porcupine Tree - The Incident
7. Riverside - Anno Domini High Definition
8. Agents Of Mercy - The Fading Ghosts Of Twilight
9. Unitopia - The Garden
10. Beardfish - Destined Solitaire
11. Phideaux - Number Seven
12. Touchstone - Wintercoast

The Underfall Yard on iTunes

Just a quick post to say that The Underfall yard is now available to buy from iTunes.

Happy New Year to you all.

Independent Album of the Year...The Underfall Yard

Jason Warburg, editor of The Daily Vault (one of the oldest and most well-established review sites on the web) has just announced that The Underfall Yard is his independent album of the year.

Jason's eloquent review of The Underfall Yard is here .

Re-issue news

Stocks have been running low of the Gathering Speed and The Difference Machine CD's and rather than re-order a fresh supply of the existing jewel-case CD's, we've decided to give them a makeover.

Gathering Speed will shortly be re-issued as a digipack with an 8 page poster booklet featuring previously unseen artwork and including, for the first time, the lyrics. The album has also been remastered by Rob Aubrey. The Difference Machine will be re-issued in January as a digipack, again with previously unreleased artwork.

The Difference Machine re-issue will also feature an additional track called Hope You Made It*. This song was part of the concept for the album and was recorded during The Difference Machine sessions. However, its inclusion took the album to around the 60 minute mark and we were looking for a tighter track-listing so decided to leave it off the original album.

Finally, we were looking to re-issue a re-mastered version of our first album, Goodbye to the Age of Steam, as an iTunes-only release in 2010. However, Rob Aubrey has kindly agreed to completely re-mix the original album from the master tapes so the re-issue will be of the highest possible quality. I'm not sure yet whether we'll do a limited pressing of Age of Steam or just go with the download-only version; we'll have a think about that in the next few weeks.

Anyway, the smell of mulled-wine is luring us to the kitchen, so we would just like to take this opportunity to wish all of the readers of this blog a very Merry Christmas and to thank you for your support.

Andy, David and Greg 

* If anyone has the original version of the album and is keen to have the unreleased track without having to buy the CD again, please e-mail us at bigbigtrain@hotmail.co.uk and, when the album is re-issued, we will send you a link to a free downloadable version of the song in CD quality.

USA Progressive Music Poll

We've been nominated for the top prog album of the year on USA Progressive Music, so if anyone wants to vote for us (or, indeed, any of the other albums on the list) please check the shortlist out. I doubt we'll get very far because the album has been released so late in the year and therefore will have had less reach than the others, but it would be good to pick up a few votes.

The Underfall Yard Podcast

I am very pleased to announce that David 'Wilf' Elliott's latest radio show in The European Perspective series is devoted entirely to Big Big Train and The Underfall Yard.

The European Perspective is an unmissable progressive rock show which is broadcast every week on The Dividing Line website. The show can be streamed or downloaded from The Dividing Line (the last four episodes are hosted on the site so The Underfall Yard episode will be online there for the next month.)

However, David Elliott has also kindly made available a permanent link to the show here.

The podcast is in four parts:

• A section on our influences featuring a track from 10 of the albums which have most influenced BBT
• An interview with me and Andy about the history of the band featuring some of our older tunes
• An interview with David about his background in music, including his solo career, his time in the Genesis machine, working with Martin Orford and joining Big Big Train. Some songs from David's solo album Wild River and from The Old Road are featured during the interview.
• A playthrough of the entire Underfall Yard album with commentary from me and Andy

Here are the specific details about the show from the Dividing Line website:

Duration: 282:48 minutes  - Filetype: mp3 - Bitrate: 160 KBPS - Frequency: 44100 HZ

'This week the European Perspective is given over entirely to a celebration of this uniquely English band. Starting with a look at some of the music from the albums that the band themselves say "made Big Big Train", we then talk to Greg and Andy about the evolution and future for Big Big Train, and then to David Longdon, their new vocalist. Finally The Underfall Yard gets an airing, in its entirety, with a commentary from Messrs. Spawton and Poole.

◦Genesis - Dancing with The Moonlit Knight from Selling England By The Pound, 1973

◦Prefab Sprout - Jordan: The Comeback from Jordan: The Comeback, 1998

◦Premiata Forneria Marconi - Appena Un Po' from Per Un Amico, 1972

◦XTC - The Ballad Of Peter Pumpkinhead from Nonsuch, 1992

◦Mew - Am I Wry? No from Frengers, 2003

◦Sigur Ros - Hoppipolla from Takk..., 2005

◦Anthony Phillips - The Geese And The Ghost fromThe Geese And The Ghost, 1977

◦Van Der Graaf Generator - Scorched Earth from Godbluff, 1975

◦Elbow - The Bones Of You from The Seldom Seen Kid, 2008

◦Steve Hackett - Jacuzzi from Defector, 1980

Interview with Greg Spawton and Andy Poole of Big Big Train, featuring the following:

◦Wind Distorted Pioneers from Goodbye To The Age Of Steam, 1994

◦The Shipping Forecast from English Boy Wonders (Remastered), 2008 (originally released 1997)

◦For Winter from Bard, 2002

◦High Tide, Last Stand from Gathering Speed, 2004

◦Summer's Lease from The Difference Machine, 2007

Interview with David Longdon of Big Big Train, featuring the following:

◦David Longdon - About Time from Wild River, 2004

◦Martin Orford - Ray Of Hope from The Old Road, 2008

◦David Longdon - In Essence from Wild River, 2004

◦David Longdon - Wild River from Wild River, 2004

◦Martin Orford - Endgame from The Old Road, 2008

◦David Longdon - This House from Wild River, 2004

◦David Longdon - On To The Headland from Wild River, 2004

The Underfall Yard, with commentary from Greg Spawton and Andy Poole:

◦Hope This Finds You (from The Difference Machine)

◦Evening Star

◦Master James of St. George

◦Victorian Brickwork

◦Last Train

◦Winchester Diver

◦The Underfall Yard'

All pre-orders are on their way

All pre-orders made up to 10th December are now on their way and, provided there are no postage problems, should arrive on or before release date. We will continue to post new orders within two days of purchase.

Generally speaking, long distance air-mail pre-orders were shipped first, then EEC and then finally UK (sent by first class post.) Orders requesting signed copies also went in the last batch today.

If you have any concerns about your order please e-mail us on bigbigtrain@hotmail.co.uk and we'll sort any issues out.

Permission for bottom lip to tremble, sir

The Band of the Coldstream Guards' new album, Heroes, featuring two of the intrepid Big Big Train brass players and heartily recommended by me in an earlier post, has now entered the upper reaches of the charts.

This article in the Daily Telegraph explores the attraction of the album to men of a certain age. Colour Sergeant David Desmond, who was responsible for the beautiful brass arrangements on The Underfall Yard, manages to find the perfect Black Adder quote for the article.

New interview online

There are quite a few interviews and articles due to be published about Big Big Train in the next few weeks (plus an in-depth podcast on the band - more news on this later.)

One of the first of the interviews is online now on the Caerllysi music site (Caerllysi are specialist dealers in progressive music.)

Just one week to go

The Underfall Yard will be released on 15th December. That means there is just one week to go to buy the album at the introductory price of just £8 (which includes worldwide shipping.) Pre-orders will ship to arrive on or just before the release date.

From the 15th December, the price will increase, although we'll try to keep the rise as low as we can as we know that money is tight at the moment.

Our secure online shop can be found at our homepage here. The first track on The Underfall Yard, Evening Star, can currently be heard on the music player on the homepage (replacing Winchester Diver) and the full free download of the 23 minute title track also remains available there for a limited time.

The Band of the Coldstream Guards

Two of the brass players from The Underfall Yard, Dave Desmond (trombone) and Nick Stones (french horn) are members of the Band of the Coldstream Guards* and feature on a new album called Heroes.  My copy has just arrived and it's already one of my favourite albums of the year, with the right mix of rousing tunes (eg Ron Goodwin's glorious 633 Squadron and Eric Coates' Dambusters) and adagio-style pieces (eg Nimrod, I Vow to Thee My Country).

Highly recommended.

* Our other brass players are: Jon Truscott - tuba (Central Band of the Royal Air Force) and Rich Evans - cornet (the Army Air Corps Band).