Staff Members

Cedric Hendrix – Managing Editor

My first professional occupation was that of a military journalist, which I did for five years. For the last 22 years, I have been a police officer. So it’s only natural I decided to write my very first book about … music?

To know me is to know how much sense this actually makes.

The one constant in my life has been music. It started with listening to my parent’s 45 rpm singles. Within that pile of records from Motown, Star, and Philly International was a platter from an RCA artist named David Bowie. The single was called “Space Oddity.” The sounds emanating from that tiny record player changed the way this six-year-old conceived music, and opened my mind to any and all musical possibilities.
In 1985, I was introduced to King Crimson, which completely altered the way I viewed music forever. I was done with the mainstream, and off on an adventure that anchored itself in Crimson, Frank Zappa, and Miles Davis. The past 30-plus years has been a rollercoaster ride of amazing sounds from remarkable musicians.
Over the years, I have become enamored with many, many musicians most of my friends have never heard of. The experience inspired me to write a book called _I Can’t Be the Only One Hearing This: A Lifetime of Music Through Eclectic Ears_. The manuscript is complete, and I am working toward obtaining a literary agent and/or publisher.
There are three more music-oriented books planned. In the meantime, I am always writing on the subject. You’ll be able find those thoughts here and on these pages:

Falstaff – Reviewer

An amiable fool who enjoys fine drink, good music and is rather portly.

Jared Everett – Reviewer

Never huge on mainstream music, Jared grew up listening to big band in an era when kids didn’t listen to big band. Fortunately, his mother exposed him to Kansas and Queen on road trips from an early age. In adolescence, he was exposed to a broader range of classic rock. But his life changed forever the first time he listened to “Home” by Dream Theater. The sound was heavy and powerful yet complex and sophisticated, with a level of virtuosity that he had never heard before outside of jazz or classical music. “There’s a whole genre of music like this,” he was told. And with that, the floodgates opened. Jared began to explore the prog revival bands of the 1990s before moving on to the classic masters of the 1970s and then pushing outward toward the fringes of progressive music, including jazz fusion, instrumental rock, and various flavors of metal. The musical journey continues to this day, with the constant exploration of emerging bands, new releases, and previously undiscovered gems.  He can frequently be spotted enjoying live music near his home of Washington, DC.

Proglodette – Reviewer

It is said that two heads are better than one. This is a supposition which Proglodette has learned is not always correct. Proglodette is a two headed creature with two independent minds. While generally amiable the two heads have definite differences of opinion and taste. While one dreamed of being a musician and became a lawyer, the other dreamed of writing and became a manager of places for people to put their excess junk. Neither of these outcomes pleased either head. So once again they turned to the realm of cliches for guidance, “Those who can’t, and don’t want to teach, become critics.”

Xerxes – Reviewer

When Xerxes was a young lad, he was, like most boys of the Achaemenid court, a big fan of The Archies and the Peter Pan singers. Many an evening he could be found sitting by his record player singing along to Sugar Sugar or The Royal Guardsmen’s Snoopy vs. the Red Baron, or sitting in the royal gardens wondering whether your chewing gum loses its flavor on a bedpost overnight. Soon, he discovered more sophisticated music like the Monkees and The Lovin’ Spoonful and life was grand. Then, one evening, he was in bed preparing for sleep when he asked his evil older sister to put on a record for him so sleep to. Being evil, his sister said, “no”. Not accustomed to not getting his way, he called out to his mother, Atossa, saying that his evil sister wouldn’t put music on for him. Atossa told Evil Sister to put on a record so that the young prince wouldn’t have to get up and do it himself.

Evil Sister’s selection for her young and impressionable brother was portentous. The sounds that came from the stereo weren’t music, rather, a haunting, lone church bell in a rain storm filled the room, and young Xerxes’ mind. Then, all of a sudden, three notes burst out from the stereo, each note sustaining it’s sound until all three were droning together. The three notes formed a chord, but not just any chord. You see, the second and third notes were an augmented 4th. A Tri-tone. The Diabolus in Musica. Thus it was that Black Sabbath’s first album, took the peaceful child and turned him into the terror of Persia, Xerxes The Great. Inspired by new bands like Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and Deep Purple, he invaded Greece, overrunning Attica, Boetia, Euboea, Thessaly, and the rest of mainland Greece to the north of the Isthmus of Corinth. This included his victory at Thermopylae, which he would like emphasized that he WON and there were more than just 300 Spartans defending the pass.

It is likely that he would have continued pillaging his way across the known world if it hadn’t been for his discovery, at Athens, of a secret, lost music – a Lost Chord, even. It was in a Music Box from the year 2112 BC that was discovered by one of the elite Persian Starship Troopers during the fabled sack of the Court of the Crimson King. The Lost Chord was part of a larger work, the Leftoverture from Doctor Tarr’s 10th Symphony. Upon hearing this Chord, Xerxes was forever changed. He became contemplative, thoughtful, even profound. No longer did he march his armies across the known world, for what army can march in 7/4 time?