Prog blog time!





Last weekend, Le Sweetie and I saw Magma, arguably one of the world's strangest, darkest prog bands. Even darker and stranger than Van der Graaf Generator. I mean, Van der Graaf had a skinny dude singing about lost astronauts and the darkness deep within his soul. Magma consists of French people singing in an invented language about refugees from Earth. They all wear black shirts with symbols on them. And along with Van der Graaf, they're a prog band that punks aren't afraid to admit they like. Reportedly, John Lydon and Jello Biafra are fans. Jello loves 'em so much he had a Magma t-shirt custom-made, complete with the logo.

Anyway, these photos are from one of the band's few NYC-area shows. They played a small club in Brooklyn that was filled with merry fans. Man, there ain't nothing like obscure cult bands with happy, loyal fans. The above photos are from this show. Since a. the lighting didn't really show their faces and b. I don't hink it's polite to use flash photography for club shows, the band images aren't always clear. However, I can say that the lady in the first photo is vocalist/manager Stella Vander. I was not able to get a picture of bandleader/composer/drummer/ex-husband of Stella Christian Vander. For one thing, he's a drummer and it ain't always easy to get a good photo of the drummer, what with them sitting behind the rest of the band.

More on Magma can be found at Seventh Records, owned and operated by Stella Vander.

And on that note...when are Van der Graaf coming to play the States?

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