Hello, all you beautiful Proglodytes.
The year of 2016 is drawing to a close. I’m going to guess that most of you would agree that this hasn’t been the greatest year in history, but it was a great year for Proglodytes. I wanted to share a brief retrospective on the first year of Proglodytes and what we’ve been able to accomplish.
My brother and I created Proglodytes one year ago, not because we had a solid business plan or aspirations to conquer the world. Instead, we just shared a common goal to take our private musings about Prog and bring them into the world. Creating a Prog blog would allow us to contact our musical heroes, network with fantastic people and musicians, and express our senses of creativity and humor. I feel that, in terms of our aspirations, we have achieved all of that. We have even recruited a solid and entertaining team of staff members and guest writers (Iris, Xerxes, Falstaff, Rylee, Jared, Proglodette).
My favorite thing about our blog is getting to know fantastic musicians – not just the heroes we’ve been able to interview on our podcast, but also the amazing and interesting people we’ve more recently learned about. For instance, I didn’t know Advent Horizon in 2014, but now I consider those guys friends and colleagues.
There have been low points and “growth areas” as well. Our output isn’t that steady, and our podcast has been plagued by some technical difficulties that we’re still trying to work out. Creating a podcast and website is also expensive, and at this point I’m doubtful that I’ll ever break even.
However, here are some of my personal highlights from 2016 that I’ll never forget.
Podcast Ep. 11: Interview with Emma Hardelin
Emma is a personal musical hero of mine, and has been since the ’90s when I first heard of Garmarna. I’m absolutely shocked that I was able to interview her personally for the podcast. It was an honor I won’t forget. She was engaging, kind, and extremely articulate.
Most Disturbing Prog Face – Poll
Okay, this was just funny.
This was one of the articles that kick-started the blog. To my surprise, I was able to have a brief exchange with Kevin Moore (Chroma Key, OSI, Dream Theater) as part of my research for it.
Album Reclamation Project: ELP, Love Beach
The Album Reclamation Project was a really good idea that I can take no credit for. This review is fantastic.
Podcast Ep. 07 – Nick DiSalvo from Elder
This guy is really cool and talented.
John Wesley, a way you’ll never be (Review)
Xerxes does a great job reviewing an album that I really liked.
Podcast Ep. 05 – “Beav” Waddell from Devin Townsend Project
This was our most heavily-visited post in 2016 and for good reason. Beav is such a nice, funny guy, and has a ton of really cool insights about being a musician and playing with Devin Townsend. So glad we were able to get this interview.
What’s Next For Proglodytes?
We’ve added some advertisements on the site – hopefully this won’t slow things down or get annoying, but I need to recoup some of my costs of maintaining the site. We will keep looking for new writing talent, musicians, and albums to review, and we hope to keep the podcast going (although our output will likely continue to be unsteady, at least until I get out of my doctoral program).
Here’s to a fantastic, proggy 2017!
Proglodytes 