Simon Barrett

HIGHEST INTENTION is a vintage Roots Reggae Revival band that hails from the San Francisco Bay Area. Their sound is locally grounded and globally appealing, bringing to mind artists like Sublime, 311, and even Bob Marley. Their highly anticipated debut album UNIVERSAL LIGHT will release March 22, 2019 worldwide in stores and online. This stunning debut is a solid release that honors the tradition of Jamaican Roots music while also forging its own brand of progressive Reggae for the new millennium.  Formed in 2012 by guitar player and singer Ben “Down” Lowe, HIGHEST INTENTION has performed alongside countless Reggae greats and established themselves as a local favorite, conveying a message of love and unity with a clean and fundamentally modern Roots Reggae sound. HIGHEST INTENTION plays to wildly enthusiastic audiences in clubs, concert halls, and festivals up and down the West Coast, including the world-famous Mavericks Challenge surf competition, the Bay Area Vibez Festival, and has performed with artists

Professor Louie has emerged in the music industry as the torchbearer of the true spirit of American Roots music. As a seasoned live performer, prolific recording artist, and versatile multi-instrumentalist Louie also wears the hat of award-winning recording producer and engineer, capturing the talents of some of the world's most highly acclaimed musicians, most notably, The Band.    In 2018, Professor Louie and The Crowmatix joined the Empire State Orchestra & Choir to perform their song Melody Of Peace at The NY Capital Region's premiere holiday extravaganza CBS 6 TV Special "Melodies Of Christmas". The four night sold out performances at The Proctors Theater in Schenectady, NY was filmed in front of 15,000 people and viewed by three million on CBS 6. The show since its inception has raised over $8,000,000 for The Melodies Children's Ward at Albany Med and the impetus for the album "Songs Of Inspiration." Award winning song Melody Of Peace was recorded by Professor Louie & The Crowmatix in Prague w

This week author Joel Moore and I will be joined by musicians Steve and Lisa Ball to tell us more about the popular music during the Civil War.

During the mid-1980s Locate Your Lips made some of the most adventurous music heard in Milwaukee. They were a powerful trio but not a power trio in the classic rock sense. Built around the jazz-schooled yet rock ready drumming of Kenny Baldwin, the empathetic accompaniment of bassist Andy Cavaluzzi and fiery guitar playing by (ex - Shivvers guitarist) Jim Eannelli, Locate Your Lips emerged from the city’s punk rock scene—Kenny owned the Starship club that became its Downtown mecca—but was not confined by it. With the energy of punk and the sophistication of jazz and progressive rock Locate Your Lips broke ground and left audiences unable to pigeonhole them.   Working with tapes left from a live broadcast on WQFM and a previously unreleased album length studio recording, Jim Eannelli produced a Locate Your Lips album to be released in April, 2019. There was so much material that the project became a double CD with no slack moments.  

This weel author Joel Moore and I will be joined by Jackson McQuigg. He  is Vice President of Properties at the Atlanta History Center and manages capital projects for the History Center. The Senior Military Historian Gordon Jones and I managed the conservation, move and restoration of the Battle of Atlanta Cyclorama painting and the locomotive Texas. He has been with the Atlanta History Centeher for 23 years.   Some background on the painting and its history is available here:  http://www.atlantahistorycenter.com/explore/exhibitions/cyclorama-the-big-picture  

This week author Joel Moore and I will be joined by Robert Hicks and Shauna Devive to talk about what happened to those that fell on the battlefield

“Welcome” is Bob Beland's 4th self produced solo album release, written and recorded over 2018 at Wrong Way Works, Mar Vista, California. Extra special credit should be given to my good friend Greg Embrey for all of his help and involvement along the way. The opening track, “Rocky Up! (love theme from “The Bang Bang Theory”) is an instrumental version of a song I co-wrote earlier last year with Kevin Godley, from the UK band 10cc and Godley & Crème fame, which is called “The Bang Bang Theory” that will be included as part of his first solo album “Muscle Memory” due out soon.

Prog ensemble Shumaun will be releasing their highly anticipated sophomore album “One Day Closer to Yesterday” on February 22, 2019. The new release has an underlying concept of love gone wrong. The album begins with two souls in a state of preexistence bonded by love, and continues after they are both assigned bodies on Earth. All attempts at a blissful reunion are complicated, as only one of them can recall their state together prior to birth… and yet their connection is undeniable. “One Day Closer to Yesterday” touches on the many real struggles, conflicts, and experiences that romantic relationships might go through… the good, bad, spiritual, and terrestrial. The Shumaun sound is shaped by the soaring vocals and lead guitar work of Farhad Hossain, the pounding melodic bass lines of Jose Mora, the subtle guitar nuances of Tyler Kim, and the technical and groove-oriented drumming of Tanvir Tomal.

Andy Waskie has agreed to return to the program to look at some of the artifacts in and around Philidelphia

This week author Joel Moore and I will be joined by Steve and Lisa Ball to discuss and listen to the music that was popular with the Union. Some songs we may never know the origins of, but many are well documented and have rich stories behind them.

Let me start with a question, what is the lightest material on the planet? The answer is something called Aerogel. It is so light and so durable that NASA used it to capture ‘Stardust’. Impressive for a product that has its roots in a #2 Pencil, Carbon. Why do I introduce this Fact? Karen Biehl has created the musical equivalent of Aerogel, the music is so light yet so well composed that the listener is picked up and transported to a world of peace and tranquility, a place that is so sadly lacking in our modern world. Some music is designed to provoke, some music is designed to be ignored, and some music just picks you up and takes you on a journey. Starlight Dreams is certainly in the category of ‘taking you on a journey’. As with any musician I listen to I went digging online for information, her website is www.maestramusica.com What surprised me about the site was that it was not your usual, About me, Buy My Album, and Good Bye. She also is involved with a Youth Scholarship Program. Everyone preach

Kinetic Element, a band based in Richmond, Virgina (USA) that finally made a mark in the prog world in its tenth year in 2016 by performing at ROSfest and Terra Incognita, and in 2017 at Progtoberfest, has been through some changes in the last couple of years. Sporting a new guitarist and vocalist, and venturing into vinyl for the first time, they composed and recorded their third studio album, “The Face of Life,” during 2017 and 2018. The band, founded and led by veteran multi-keyboardist Mike Visaggio, after breaking into the genre with their first album “Powered by Light” in 2009, garnered acclaim from around the progressive rock universe with their 2015 release of their second band album, “Travelog.” They began becoming known for their epic pieces,containing spiritually uplifting lyrics and symphonic style arrangements following in the footsteps of the founders of the style like Yes and Genesis, as have other great bands like Transatlantic, Knight Area, Frost, Also Eden, and others like them. Reviewers ha

This week on the program author Joel Moore and I will be joined by Robert Hicks and Shauna Devine to discuss medicine of the civil war.

Kinetic Element, a band based in Richmond, Virgina (USA) that finally made a mark in the prog world in its tenth year in 2016 by performing at ROSfest and Terra Incognita, and in 2017 at Progtoberfest, has been through some changes in the last couple of years. Sporting a new guitarist and vocalist, and venturing into vinyl for the first time, they composed and recorded their third studio album, “The Face of Life,” during 2017 and 2018. The band, founded and led by veteran multi-keyboardist Mike Visaggio, after breaking into the genre with their first album “Powered by Light” in 2009, garnered acclaim from around the progressive rock universe with their 2015 release of their second band album, “Travelog.” They began becoming known for their epic pieces,containing spiritually uplifting lyrics and symphonic style arrangements following in the footsteps of the founders of the style like Yes and Genesis, as have other great bands like Transatlantic, Knight Area, Frost, Also Eden, and others like them. Reviewers ha

Experimental beyond expectations, HOIA is an infusion of musical interests by Prateek Rajagopal. Popularly known for being a virtuoso guitarist, budding film composer and writer/producer for death metal legions  “GUTSLIT” & Indian/Amercian prog metal supergroup  “The Minerva Conduct,” his interest in genres and art forms beyond metal gave rise to HOIA, inspired by Avant-garde, progressive rock, experimental and industrial music. After releasing two EPs with HOIA, Prateek is all set to release his debut album titled “Scavenger.” The record has a more sophisticated songwriting approach compared to his previous releases, albeit still very ‘prog,’ and also features Prateek as a vocalist for the first time. The instruments used on the album are unlike his other projects, using samples of rotating fans and vehicle sounds, analog synthesizers and digital manipulation along with organic instruments like guitars (acoustic, electric), piano and strings.

This week author Joel Moore and I will be joined by Gary Dyson. Gary is the author of A Civil War Correspondent in New Orleans: The Journals and Reports of Albert Gaius Hills of the Boston Journal. The press played an important role in the Civil War. What is interesting is that here we are some 150 years later and not much has changed. The press treats news with a bias. The coverage of the war by The New York Times was vastly different to the coverage by The Charleston Mercury. Both covered the same battles but with very different perspectices. This is an encore presentation

Kathleen Urquhart has just released her  debut novel, Pigtails and Potter's Field.. It is a sweeping story of a familly and their lives. From the outside looking in, they are the perfect familly, under the surface though, there is a very different story. The book takes on the challenge of sexual abuse

This week author Joel Moore and I will be joined by Ted Ubanski and Sue Hegman. Were they brave heroes, or terrible traitors? The answer is deternined fby which side you were one. Spying was a dangerous but very important element of the Civil War

Keyboard veteran Andrew Colyer has secured possibly one of the most difficult gigs today – covering keyboard parts made legendary by Keith Emerson, Rick Wakeman, Jordan Rudess and Tony Banks! Andrew will be performing with 3.2 featuring Robert Berry this coming spring! If anyone is qualified for the position, it's Andrew who has performed and collaborated with the likes of Tony Levin (Peter Gabriel, King Crimson), Jon Anderson (YES), The Tubes, Sound of Contact featuring Simon Collins, Ryche Chlanda (Fireballet, Renaissance), Max Flyer (CBS Records), Clark Terry, Louis Bellson among others....not to mention his own band, Prog-award-nominated Circuline!   Keith Emerson left a legacy of music. From his beginnings with The Nice in the 1960's, to worldwide fame with Emerson Lake & Palmer in the 1970's, to his reinvention in the 1980's with the #9 Billboard hit “Talkin' Bout” in the band “3” with Robert Berry and Carl Palmer, Emerson's name is one almost everyone has heard of.  

A singer and songwriter most famous for his work on the television show Scrubs, MIGHTY QUINN (aka Quinn Walker) grew up playing Rock, Funk, Soul, and Gospel, and he presently writes music and plays shows with his live Punk band, set to release their self-titled debut album MIGHTY QUINN & THE OAKLAND RONIN in stores and online worldwide November 2, 2018. The album will also be available as a Vinyl LP, and in true Punk fashion includes a ton of leftist political messages about social justice mixed with classic upbeat tunes about love, loss, addiction, depression, and a few pirate references.