Get New Erik Norlander Release Now Ahead of August Release

I don't think I have posted This Link before, but even if I have I don't really care because these two CD/DVD sets are absolutely astounding. In fact, The Queen's Speech for the current session of parliament included legislation making it an offence NOT to own a copy of both releases, so I am actually doing you all a favour...

The official release date for the DVD/CD sets, Erik Norlander: The Galactive Collective "Definitive Edition" and "Live in Gettysburg," is August 6th, 2012 when the titles will be available at retailers worldwide, but you can get them NOW from Gonzo Multimedia in the UK and on June 21st from Think Tank Media in the USA.

In 2009, master keyboardist, Erik Norlander, went into the studio with a new set of virtuoso musicians to record re-imaginings of his favorite instrumental compositions as a project called "The Galactic Collective." In 2010, Erik released a preview of the project on CD-R through Chian Productions in Ohio. In 2011, Erik took the project on the road and recorded the results.

Now in 2012, we finally have the complete document of Erik's massive undertaking in two remarkable releases, one in studio, the other on stage. Each title includes a video DVD and two audio CDs released by Erik's company, Think Tank Media, in partnership with UK prog giant, Gonzo Multimedia. All discs are replicated -- not CD-R or DVD-R -- and each contains deluxe, full-color 5x7" booklets with extensive liner notes written by those directly involved with the project.

The Galactic Collective: Definitive Edition: The long-awaited DVD/2CD studio release from symphonic rock keyboard master, Erik Norlander, is now here. The Galactic Collective is a brand new take on the best of Erik's vast instrumental compositions written for Rocket Scientists, Lana Lane and his own solo albums over the years. Recorded on an amazing arsenal of classic analog synthesizers (including 6 Moog instruments), Hammond organ and an incredible Steinway model B grand piano at Cleveland Ohio's prestigious Magnetic North Studio with engineer Chris Keffer and executive producer Dena Henry along with bassist Mark Matthews, drummer Nick LePar and choral vocal sections by Lana Lane and John Payne along with a suite of guest guitarists including John Payne, Mitch Perry, Mark McCrite, Ron Redfield and Freddy DeMarco, THE GALACTIC COLLECTIVE is a must have for all fans of keyboard - oriented instrumental progressive rock. The DVD and 2CD set includes the complete album, ERIK NORLANDER - THE GALACTIC COLLECTIVE, both on CD and DVD with the complete in-studio video shot during the actual sessions (as seen on YouTube). The DVD includes extensive interview footage of Erik discussing each song, its conception and new interpretation for this project. A second disc of well-crafted (not filler!) unreleased alternate versions and a new recording of Erik's classic arrangement of 'Space: 1999' makes up the second CD as Echoes from the Collective. Full color, detailed booklet with liner notes by Michelle Moog, Executive Director of The Bob Moog Foundation and daughter of maverick synthesizer pioneer and inventor, Robert Moog.

Featuring Erik Norlander (keyboards), Freddy DeMarco (guitars),
Mark Matthews (bass) and Nick LePar (drums) with special guests:
John Payne (guitars, choral vocals), Lana Lane (choral vocals), Mitch
Perry (guitars), Ron Redfield (guitars) and Mark McCrite (guitars)

The Galactic Collective: Live In Gettysburg: First came the studio version, now here is the live version! The DVD and 2CD set includes the complete album, ERIK NORLANDER - THE GALACTIC COLLECTIVE, performed LIVE at The Rites of Spring Festival 2011 along with the 'Into the Sunset Suite' and the Norlander-penned Lana Lane songs 'Capture the Sun' and 'Secrets of Astrology' creatively woven into medleys to complete the celestial sojourn with guest vocals by none other than Lana Lane herself! Erik's Modular Moog synthesizer 'The Wall of Doom,' was used extensively at this concert, and band is introduced with an excellent and informative monologue from Michelle Moog, Executive Director of The Bob Moog Foundation and daughter of the late maverick synthesizer pioneer and inventor, Robert Moog. Full color, detailed booklet includes not only beautiful photos from the concert but also liner notes by Erik's synth tech, former Moog Music designer and ELP keyboard tech, August Worley, along with an additional article written by Erik himself especially for this release. LIVE IN GETTYSBURG is the inevitable companion to its partner release, THE GALACTIC COLLECTIVE - DEFINITIVE EDITION, that contains the complete studio recordings along with extensive video interviews.

Featuring Erik Norlander (keyboards), Freddy DeMarco (guitars),
Mark Matthews (bass) and Nick LePar (drums)
with special guest vocalists Lana Lane and Debrissa McKinney

Order NOW from Gonzo Multimedia:

The Galactic Collective - Definitive Edition (UK/Europe) here

The Galactic Collective - Definitive Edition (US) here

The Galactic Collective - Live in Gettysburg (UK/Europe) here

The Galactic Collective - Live in Gettysburg (US) here

LINK: Erik Norlander review

http://getreadytorock.me.uk/blog/2012/07/erik-norlander-the-galactic-collective-live-in-gettysburg/

ERIK NORLANDER ‘The Galactic Collective: Live in Gettysburg’

Posted on July 4, 2012 by jason

(2CD/DVD) Think Tank Media/Gonzo Multimedia

Keyboards wizard Erik Norlander pre

sents a lovely live double CD and accompanying DVD. The Galactic Collective allows Erik Norlander together his own personal ‘best of’ from his solo works, the Rocket Scientists and with his wife Lana Lane.

The show is introduced by Michelle Moog-Koussa, the daughter of Robert Moog whose instruments Norlander adopts and uses to the max. He has a beast of a Moog inspired monitor behind him and he really does get some otherworldly sounds from his Moog and other synths. The DVD adds between song commentary from Erik Norlander plus a bonus live version of the Lana Lane song ‘Garden Of The Moon’ (which strangely is recorded in Cleveland yet the rest of the DVD was recorded in Gettysburg). The two CD’s lose the intro speech and the between song background commentaries.

Here is much to enjoy from the synth/guitar heavy ‘Neurosaur’ (with guitarist Fredy DeMarco playing some seriously heavy riffs) through to the epic musical delights of ‘Sky Full Of Stars’, with Lana Lane on vocals. The playing on ‘Fanfare for Absent Friends’ is amazing and drummer Nick LePar lays down some classy hard rock/metal beats. It’s not all instrumental pieces as Lana Lane pops up a couple of times and ‘Hymn’ features wonderful harmonies. The music on here will please prog rock fans plus those who enjoy Tangerine Dream and Rick Wakeman.

A fine introduction to Erik Norlander’s various musical guises and works. As this is a live set there are little changes here and there to the original studio versions.

****1/2

LINK: Fanfare for Erik Norlander

http://www.progarchives.com/Review.asp?id=781109

THE GALACTIC COLLECTIVE LIVE IN GETTYSBURG (DVD) Erik Norlander Neo-Prog 5.00 | 1 ratings

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From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

SouthSideoftheSky

Fanfare for Erik Norlander This brand new live concert DVD and two CD set features a full show recorded at The Rites of Spring Festival in 2011. The amazing set list consists of the very best of Erik Norlander's instrumental works that originally appeared on his solo albums, his works with Rocket Scientists, and his works with Lana Lane. As such, this brilliant performance sums up Norlander's whole career as a keyboard player, composer, and producer; long may it continue. These compositions were first re-recorded live-in-the-studio in 2010 resulting in The Galactic Collective studio album. That album gave a very convincing snapshot of Norlander's immense talents as a composer and instrumentalist, but it is on this excellent live recording that these tunes really come to life. In addition, this live performance offers more great content as well as a visual element. Fans of people like Rick Wakeman, Keith Emerson, and Patrick Moraz should sit up and take note. Norlander will blow you away! The concert opens with Arrival and Neurosaur that originally opened Norlander's first solo album, Threshold from 1997. This number has since become something of a signature tune for Norlander and it fits perfectly as a show opener. Next up is Fanfare For Absent Friends that originally was on Erik's Progressive Electronic solo album Seas Of Orion from 2004. This live version is clearly more rocking than the original version and an improvement on an already great tune. They carry on with Sky Full Of Stars, originally from the conceptual Music Machine album from 2003. This symphonic instrumental is creatively merged with the Lana Lane song Capture The Sun which features Lana Lane herself on lead vocals. This is the first out of four vocal numbers in this otherwise entirely instrumental show. Lana Lane is an amazing singer and adds great value to this performance and the presence of a few vocal numbers among the instrumental ones brings a very nice variation to the whole. Lana Lane appears on lead vocals again on the next number, the superb Secrets Of Astrology. While on the studio version of The Galactic Collective only the instrumental introduction Astrology Prelude was recreated which felt a little truncated without its natural companion in Secrets Of Astrology. On this live performance, the whole Astrology Suite is restored the way it should be and the way it was on the excellent Lana Lane album of that same name. Another tune from Threshold follows in Trantor Station, another wonderful, spacy instrumental. After The Revolution is the first out of two Rocket Scientists numbers, this one originally appearing on the 2006 Revolution Road album. Like almost every track here, this is the ultimate version. The 20 minute plus The Dark Water was originally split up into shorter introductions and interludes on the Rocket Scientists albums Brutal Architecture and Oblivion Days, but here they are presented as one long piece as on the studio version of The Galactic Collective. While on the latter I felt that it was a bit too long for its own good, this live version justifies the great length of the song. In addition to all of the tunes from The Galactic Collective, Norlander also treats us to an extended suite from his very good solo album Into The Sunset containing two vocal numbers again performed by the wonderful Lana Lane. This amazing suite constitutes a very valuable addition to the set. However, the piano-driven Dreamcurrents is the only tune that I think is better on the studio version of The Galactic Collective (due to the middle section on that extended version being present neither here nor on the original Into The Sunset version). Still, this truncated version is not bad at all and contains simply brilliant piano playing. For some reason, the recording of Garden Of The Moon is taken from a different show and is a bonus track on the DVD but part of the main set on the accompanying CDs. Another difference between the DVD and the CDs is that some of the in-between-song-banter has been appropriately edited out on the CDs. This is I think a very good idea and justifies the addition of the two CDs in the package. The CDs are preferable for repeated listening. In conclusion, this is nothing short of a live masterpiece and there is no doubt about the rating here. Very highly recommended!

Two Deluxe Multimedia Releases From Erik Norlander And The Galactic Collective Now Available!

Email: SergeEnt@aol.com
Website: http://www.thetank.com
The official release date for the DVD/CD sets, Erik Norlander - The Galactive Collective "Definitive Edition" and "Live in Gettysburg," is August 6th, 2012 when the titles will be available at retailers worldwide, but you can get them now from Gonzo Multimedia in the UK and on June 21st from Think Tank Media in the USA.

In 2009, master keyboardist, Erik Norlander, went into the studio with a new set of virtuoso musicians to record re-imaginings of his favorite instrumental compositions as a project called "The Galactic Collective." In 2010, Erik released a preview of the project on CD-R through Chian Productions in Ohio. In 2011, Erik took the project on the road and recorded the results. Now in 2012, we finally have the complete document of Erik's massive undertaking in two remarkable releases, one in studio, the other on stage. Each title includes a video DVD and two audio CDs released by Erik's company, Think Tank Media, in partnership with UK prog giant, Gonzo Multimedia. All discs are replicated -- not CD-R or DVD-R -- and each contains deluxe, full-color 5x7" booklets with extensive liner notes written by those directly involved with the project.

Read on...

ERIK NORLANDER WRITES...

As threatened, I have released the second video from my forthcoming Live in Gettysburg DVD. It's the song "Neurosaur" that opens the show:

Neurosaur

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r78YC973cgs

This song originally appeared on my debut solo album, Threshold, in 1997. I released two other live versions in 2003 and 2004 from Germany and Russia, respectively. Then we did a re-record of the song for the Asia Featuring John Payne EP, Military Man, released in 2009 by Voiceprint / Gonzo. I play this song with AFJP as part of my solo set at all shows, and it's likely my best-known piece. Oh ... and here's an odd factoid: The song appeared in a P. Diddy MTV show called "If I Were King" in 2008 where P. Diddy / Sean Combs documented his mens fashion line. Yes, really! It was the soundtrack used for the models walking the runway under huge gothic chandeliers in this castle-like setting.

Also, one should not forget that Erik has already released one video fropm the forthcoming package:

ERIK NORLANDER'S AMAZING UNIVERSE

The other day when I interviewed the massively talented Erik Norlander about his Galactic Collective projects I found - almost by chance - that we had more in common than I had originally imagined.He, like me, is a Science Fiction buff. So I decided to dig further. I put Erik on the spot. What were his favourite Sci-Fi books? And how many of them had inspired his magnificent compositions.

5. Neuromancer - William Gibson
William Gibson will go down in history as the man who invited the cyberpunk genre. He invented the term cyberspace in 1982 and a few years later wrote this his debut novel which tells the story of a low-level hustler called Henry Chase living in the distopian underworld of Chiba City in Japan. He falls foul of his rather dodgy employers and gets involved with a shadowy mercenary underground. My son-in-law Gavin is particularly fond of this book, as is Erik Norlander, who says:

"Neuromancer, I haven't written anything based exactly on this book, but my oft-played instrumental, "Neurosaur," also originally from my 1997 Threshold album, borrows a bit from the title, of course. I think "Neuro-anything" must at least make a slight bow from the waist in the direction of Mr. Gibson".

4. Foundation - Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov is usually considered to be one of the ‘big three’ science fiction authors, together with Arthur C. Clarke and my personal favourite Robert Heinlein. Possibly his greatest series, and certainly my favourite, are the the Foundation Stories; seven novels published between the 1940s and the 1990s, which tell the story of Professor Hari Seldon who formulated a new discipline called psychohistory which used the statistics of human behaviour over the massive canvas of the entire galaxy to predict the future. These are marvellous books, and it is not surprising that they have been influential within rock music. Paul McCartney claims that the second version of Venus and Mars from the eponymous album is based in part on reading the Foundation Series. Also very much inspired was Erik Norlander:

"Foundation, of course links to the song, "Trantor Station," on The Galactic Collective DVDs. This song first appeared on my Threshold album in 1997. In 2003 I released a super deluxe special edition version of the album called "Threshold - Special Edition" where the original album was thoroughly remastered and many bonus tracks added. One of the bonus tracks is called "Return to the Ruins of Trantor" and is based on a story later on in the Foundation series."

3. The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag - Robert Heinlein
Now we come to my personal favourite author, and surprisingly Erik chose quite an obscure book from Robert Heinlein’s remarkable canon of work. Quite a few people ( including me and – believe it or not – Charles Manson) have written songs based on his 1963 visionary novel Stranger in a Strange Land. However what Erik has done is – as far as I’m aware – a first:

“The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag, there is a wonderful short story therein called "And He Built a Crooked House" where a forward-thinking architect builds a 4-dimensional tesseract house in the Los Angeles suburb of Laurel Canyon (very close to where I grew up, actually). I wrote a song for Rocket Scientists in 1995 called "Brutal Architecture" based on that short story, and that is also the album title. We reissued a re-mastered version of Brutal Architecture in 2007 on a 5-disc set called Rocket Scientists - Looking Backward. The 20-minute epic, "The Dark Water," that appears on The Galactic Collective DVDs (along with the "even more epic" 24-minute "The Darker Water" ;-) began on the Brutal Architecture album as the Berlin School atmosphere pieces, "Dark Water Part One" and "Dark Water Part Two" ... and having absolutely nothing to do with the Robert Heinlein story that inspired the "Brutal Architecture" song and album title.”

2. Dune - Frank Herbert
Dune by Frank Herbert is described by Wikipedia as being the world’s best selling science fiction novel and like the Foundation Series – it is set more than 20,000 years in the future when humanity has settled upon countless habitable planets. The most valuable substance in the galaxy is a spice called melange which is only found on the desert planet Arrakis which is covered in a hostile desert populated by ferocious fighters and giant sand worms. If you want to know more, buy the book.

Unsurprisingly, there are many links with rock music. Alejandro Jodorowasky, the man behind the immensely wonderful ‘El Topo’ planned a version of the film in the mid-70s. This would have featured Pink Floyd, Magma, H R Geiger (the dude who designed the cover for Brain Salad Surgery) and Salvador Dali amongst others. Sadly it was never made. However, some years later it was eventually made featuring Sting.

It has inspired songs by Iron Maiden and Dream Theatre amongst others, and unsurprisingly, Erik Norlander has also gone in on the act:

"Dune, I've written two songs based on this novel, or rather series of novels to be perfectly accurate. The first one was "Forever Nights" on the Rocket Scientists - Revolution Road album from 2006, co-written with guitarist / vocalist, Mark McCrite. The second was "Jessica" from the Lana Lane - Red Planet Boulevard album in 2007. And then in a very odd turn of events, in 2008 I was asked to write and produce a progressive rock album with latter-day Dune co-author, Kevin J. Anderson. The album was not about the Dune universe at all, but instead based on a new series of novels Kevin was writing called "Terra Incognita." The album that I worked on was called "Roswell Six - Beyond the Horizon." It has nothing to with Roswell, New Mexico, but I came up with "Roswell Six" as the working title of the project for a variety of then relevant and humorous reasons -- never intending for a moment that the name would be permanent -- but the others on the project loved the name so much that I was overruled, and that became the project name."

1. The Demolished Man - Alfred Bester
I have to admit that I have never heard of this man, but his 1953 The Demolished Man is a police thriller set in a future world in which telepathy is relatively common. Just reading the synopsis on Wikipedia has inspired me to go out and get a copy.

Erik writes:

"The Demolished Man ... I haven't published anything based on this one yet, but one day I just might!"

The books are all available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk (often remarkably cheaply).

EXCLUSIVE: Erik Norlander interview (Part Three)

And here is the final part of the interview that I conducted with the massively talented Erik Norlander late last week. If you missed the first part you can find it here. Or if you want the second part you can find it here. I really enjoyed my chat with Erik, and very much look forward to doing it all again soon. Read on chaps and chapesses:

Jon: Are you planning to record with the Collective again in the future?

Erik: I don’t know. The purpose of the project was really to take songs from my catalogue and re-imagine them in his one singular production. Now I am kinda a prolific bastard and I have a lot of instrumental songs that I have written so to do a second volume there’s more than enough material to do that, so that’s a possibility.

It’s also a possibility to do something, God forbid, original and that would be for me and the guys even to write some new instrumental material in this style, this kind of synthesiser oriented progressive rock with some heavy rhythm section elements.

Obviously I like the prog metal guitar and drums going along with the more classic and vintage keyboard styles so in my music you’ll hear furious double kick bass drums and low tuned Mesa Boogie guitar and then beautiful Mellotron and grand piano and Moog synthesiser going over the top of that. That’s the sound I really like so it would certainly be possible to do some new music like that. So the future is open and I love working with the guys. We get along great both personally and musically and we still have this economic downturn here so studio time is cheap so who knows we may go in and do it all again.]

Jon: I like the way that it appears that you don’t think too far ahead with your career, and you just do all these different things. I think that’s fantastic.

Erik: You know, that’s something that I feel really lucky. As a musician you really want to be doing new things all the time. I mean it would be wonderful to be a band like Yes for example that has been around for 40 some years and all the opportunities that that provides, but you know bands like Yes really have to go out and play 'Roundabout' night after night don’t they? You can’t really go to a Yes show and have them play all new music. You would be disappointed if you didn’t hear 'Heart of the Sunrise' and even 'Owner of a Lonely Heart' or something like that.

They’re kind of obligated to do that and even – you know I work with John Payne from Asia with his version of the band. Even with John Payne we do concerts with him we have to play 'Heat of the Moment' which is a song from before John Payne was in the band, but when you have the name Asia, even if it is the Asia with John Payne and we are focussing on his involvement, you still feel kind of obligated to play those classic songs as well.

John of course has his own take on the song and does it the way he’d always done it in his era of the band, but pulling it back into the conversation I really love the fact that I have so many opportunities to do things.

We have just released an album with my wife Lana Lane called 'Eldorado Hotel', which is her.... I am not even sure what number it is.. number 10 maybe, and that was just a fantastic experience. We think we did the recording in about 3 months, the writing had gone on longer than that of course, the writing and pre-production, and we used a lot of the current musicians that I’ve been working with...the guys from the Galactic Collective, the guys from John Payne’s band.

It’s very nice to keep music very ephemeral and fresh. I think it would be sad and frustrating as an artist if you had to sit in the studio and think, ‘Oh I have to do this album but I must be done by numbers, I must have a song like this and I have to make these fans happy, and I have to make this record label happy, and oh this journalist will give me a terrible review if I don’t do this.’

There are so many artists that are in that box and that would, I am glad I’m not, I am glad I have the freedom to keep doing new and exciting things, so I’m 44-years-old which is not all that old in the greater scheme, but in musician years that is pretty far along, but I feel there is opportunity to go on for years and years from here, and I hope it keeps going in the same way.

Jon: Well I hope you do. Thanks very much for talking to us Erik.........

EXCLUSIVE: Erik Norlander interview (part two)

And here we have part two of the interview I conducted with the massively talented Erik Norlander late last week. If you missed the first part yesterday you can find it here. Read on chaps and chapesses:

Jon: I noticed the science fiction theme somewhere there

Erik: Well science fiction runs throughout the album and throughout my music. I am a huge science fiction fan.

Jon: An Asimov fan I noticed

Erik: Yes, there’s a song called Trantor Station that is off of my first solo album, Threshold, from 1997 and of course Trantor Station is a reference to the Asimov Foundation series and Trantor is the centre of the galaxy and you can imagine that the big international airport – the big interplanetary spaceport of course – would be Trantor station. And the approach to this song was to create this kind of frenzied manic environment much like a busy airport would be like Heathrow of JFK or Port of New York, or LAX in Los Angeles.

But that frenzy is created by the modular moog synthesiser doing these various pulsing modulating patterns and this kind of frenetic percussion played by Nick LePar on rototoms and the additional drum kit. So you have all this energy on this freneticism - if that is even a word - and then over the top of that you have this very wistful, almost peaceful melody going on, and what that represents is the traveller going through the Trantor Station space port and perhaps you as the traveller you are going on holiday or going to visit a loved one or going on a job.

Meanwhile all of this chaos and energy is going on around you but you as an individual are looking at your trip and you are looking forward to your destination and you are very peaceful and placid during this, and that’s really the spirit of Trantor Station. I think that I was very much influenced in my own travels to create that song when I would tour over the years. Obviously I spent a lot of time at airports and my mind is always on where I am going and what I am going to be doing, and very seldom do I dwell on the chaos that is going on around me, which I hope is a healthy attitude towards it all.

Jon: Airports are very strange places aren’t they? They are a very odd environment.

Erik: They definitely are. In some ways they represent the city that you’re in, if you’re in Phoenix, Arizona you’ll have pictures of cactus and tequila bars and that sort of thing, but they’re kind of these little bubbles, and because you have people coming from all over the world going through them they don’t really feel like they are in the city they are in. I was joking with John Payne the other day about Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam that of course you know the announcements are in English first, then they are in Dutch second and when you’re on the motorised walkways there’s this very posh, scholarly English woman’s voice that says,’ Mind your step, Mind your step, Mind your step,’ that repeats a little too often, and whenever I’m there now, I’ve made such a joke of it for so many years that it just makes me laugh now when I hear it whenever I get off the plane there.

Jon: There’s one at Dallas Fort Worth that a woman over the intercom sounds the way I’ve always imagined, if there actually was a heaven, the sort of voice the angels would have, ‘Move along the moving walkway towards the light’. It always sounds like a mechanised angel at the Pearly Gates.

So what are you going to be doing next? Or is this it for the Collective?

Erik: Well we are releasing two products. The first is the Galactic Collective Definitive Edition, which was a name coined by our friend Rob Ayling, and it’s the studio album that we recorded in Cleveland, plus a DVD of the whole series of sessions that was shot by the video crew. So we have start to finish video of the entire album which is a pretty neat thing. I’ve made so many albums over the years and you’re lucky if you have a few snapshots or a little video clip from them , but to actually document the entire recording is pretty cool and I am pretty happy about that. And then there is a second CD on there as well containing some alternate versions of the songs and one other track that didn’t make it on to the first CD simply because there wasn’t any room. I think the main CD is something like 79 minutes and 45 seconds which I guess leaves a glorious 15 seconds extra space on the CD. So that’s the first project; The Galactic Collective Definitive Edition with the two CDs and the DVD of studio material.

And then the second set is another two CD and DVD set that was recorded at a concert we played last year about a little over a year after the studio recordings were done. And we played the entire album live, and that is of course documented in the DVD and then it took two CDs to of course fit the complete 2-hour set on there. And so this is the same music plus a few other songs as well but done live in front of 500 or 600 actual live bodies and on stage and so it has a little different feel. You have the urgency of a live concert and some of the unexpected turns that happen, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse – hopefully more for the better. And that just kinda gives a different perspective on the same music. So really these two products are meant to go together as a set. There’s a studio version, and there’s a stage version so we’re going to be releasing those in June and then we are looking forward to doing some more touring later in the year.

And so it ends for today. Tomorrow we will post the third and final part of this interview with this extraordinary man, and massively talented musician.

EXCLUSIVE: Erik Norlander interview (Part One)

Well, I suppose we start off with the biography, and where better to pinch a biography from than Erik's official site. It reads:

"Erik Norlander is a progressive rock keyboardist, composer and producer from California. He has written and produced over 30 albums since 1993 with his chanteuse spouse Lana Lane, his band Rocket Scientists, his own solo albums and numerous guest appearances. Erik's evocative keyboard technique is reminiscent of the legendary Keith Emerson, Rick Wakeman, Patrick Moraz and Jon Lord while still very unique and forward-moving in its own right".

What it doesn't tell you is quite how cool and emotive Norlander's music is, how he somehow takes the vintage 1970s analogue keyboard sound, and reinvents it for the 21st Century, without being either glib or retro, and - perhaps most importantly - what a damn nice fellow he is..

Jon: I have just been listening to your album. It’s really, really good. I am really impressed by it.

Erik: Thank you, I appreciate it.

Jon: So tell me. How did The Galactic Collective come about?

Erik: I would say it started in around 2000.

I had been asked to do several shows as a solo keyboardist and what I would do is take a bunch of you know my favourite classic analogue synthesisers and put together a kind of electronic oriented progressive rock set, or a progressive rock oriented electronic set, depending on how you want to look at it. I would take the best songs; instrumental songs that I had written for various projects and then perform them solo in set. And I had actually done this for nearly 10 years all over the world really - in the US of course at various festivals and concerts, and then in Japan, in Europe and it started becoming a regular thing where I was doing the solo bits almost as much as I was doing band concerts and proper 4 or 5 piece band shows.

And there wasn’t really a recorded representation of it. I had a few videos here and there, but whenever I would do these events and people would say oh this so great I’d like to get a CD of it, there wasn’t really any specific product to point them to. I would say oh well that song, that’s from the Lana Lane 'Secrets of Astrology' album, that song’s from the Rocket Scientists 'Oblivion Days' album or that song, that’s from the 'Erik Norlander Music Machine' album, and so you’d have people combing through 15 or 20 different releases to try to get a representation of the set that I played.

So I started working with a concert promoter in Ohio in the kinda middle of the United States, in 2008 and this is a woman named Dena Henry. I met her at the 'Rites of Spring' Festival which is the big prog festival in Pennsylvania in the north east US which is a kind of big hotspot for prog rock.

Its also completely the other side of the country from where I live. In fact Pennsylvania is actually closer to England than it is California.

Jon: Wow I didn’t realise that

Erik: Yes geographically its about 3,000 from California and about 2,500 miles from England.

Jon: Good God

Erik: I know, it’s a huge country this one. In any case Dena started doing some concerts in Ohio and in Canada, and kind of just the general north eastern part of the US. And we brought my band Rocket Scientists out there a few times and I had done a couple of these solo keyboard shows like I mentioned and Dena said to me, ‘ You know you should really meet some of the musicians out here in Ohio.’

And again Ohio is quite a ways away from California where I live –I think it’s over 2,000 miles. She said you know well you do the full band concerts it obviously has so much power and drama and such a nice theatrical element, but when we have to bring out 4 or 5 people from California, it costs us several thousand dollars in air fare and arranging back line equipment rental, and all that before we play the first note on stage or before we even sell one ticket. And this is kind of the curse of progressive rock because we want to put on these great theatrical productions but it’s not like we can go out and play for 100,000 poeple every night or even 1,000 people every night.

You know, a typical successful prog show you’re talking maybe 150/200 people who come to a club date. So I wanted to do a lot of these things, but it just wasn’t financially possible and I just kept turning down show after show because the budget just wouldn’t allow it. And so Dena started introducing me to these excellent musicians out in Ohio and I played with a lot of them, and just kinda got to know the guys and then decided to put a band together. And the purpose of the band was to finally come up with this project called the Galactic Collective that would take the very best of my instrumental catalogue that I had been performing for nearly 10 years at that point.

And we would start doing full band shows of this music. So I ended up settling on the three main guys Freddy DeMarco on guitar, Mark Matthews on bass and Nick LePar on drums, and we set up in this typical American Ohio basement – you know this concrete room underneath some of the guys’ house, and we just started working up these songs. And it sounded so good that Dena and I thought we need to make a record, we need go record this and kind of make a definitive statement for this collection of songs because even if you took recordings of those various albums it would really sound like a hodgepodge because they expand a period of 15 years and they’d come from all kinds of different albums so sonically they would sound different and they wouldn’t really have the continuous feel as these concerts that I was doing.

So we found this beautiful studio in Cleveland, Ohio which thanks to the economic downturn as I believe the politically correct term is, we were able to get for a very good price and the studio had this beautiful 9-foot Steinway concert grand piano that they had purchased from the Cleveland Symphony and they also had a very nice Hammond organ there. These are two things that are kinda big to bring from California so it was nice to find a studio that was kind of built around those instruments. And then I brought in my usual rogue’s gallery of analogue synthesisers, I think I brought in 3 mini moogs of various vintages and my Alesis Andromeda analogue synthesiser. I was actually one of the designers of that instrument so that one has been fairly near and dear to me, and then a few other things.

And we set up in this beautiful studio and basically recorded that album live in the studio, with a few overdubs, but for the most part it was all done live, just like we’d been playing in the Americana concrete basement for weeks before that, and we of course brought in a high definition video crew to document the whole thing. And that’s really how the project came into existence. I looked at it as sort of a way to document this work that I’d been doing for the previous 10 years, and kind of as a milestone release and rather than doing the traditional kind of best of hodgepodge album I really thought this was the right way to do.

So there’s a very long-winded answer to your question.

And that seems a good place to break for today. We will be back tomorrow (and quite possibly wednesday) with more from this remarkable man. In the meantime, check this out:

ERIK NORLANDER - Phew, this guy is good! (EXCLUSIVE NEWS)

What a way to start a Monday morning!

This is a picture of our beloved leader. But who is it with him?

I woke up to an email from our beloved leader telling me that we will be selling two projects by Erik Norlander exclusively by mail order only from the Gonzo website.

For those of you not in the know, Erik Norlander (who was born in 1967) is an American musician who, according to his own website, describes himself as a keyboardist, composer, producer, engineer and artist. Since 1993 he has produced over 30 albums with his wife, Lana Lane, and his band Rocket Scientists. In the last few years he has formed another loose ensemble; The Galactic Collective, and it is two albums by this fantastic group that we are going to be selling from early this summer. Check out this track – it features John Payne of Asia on guitar and vocals…..



The Galactic Collective: The Definitive Edition
This DVD and two CD set includes the complete album Erik Norlander – The Galactic Collective both on replicated CD and DVD, the latter including the complete in-studio video. The DVD also includes extensive interview footage of Erik discussing each song, its conception and its new interpretation within the context of this particular project. There is also a second disc of unreleased alternate versions (Erik is keen to insist that these are well-crafted songs and not filler) and a new recording of Erik’s classic arrangement of Space:1999. There is also a full colour detailed booklet written by a lady with the ultimate prog rock synthesiser name of Michelle Moog (who is, indeed, the daughter of Bob Moog, the man who changed music forever).

The line up is:
Erik Norlander (keyboards)
Freddy DeMarco (guitars)
Mark Matthews (bass)
Nick LePar (drums)

With special guests:
John Payne (guitars, choral vocals)
Lana Lane (choral vocals)
Mitch Perry (guitars)
Ron Redfield (guitars)
Mark McCrite (guitars)

The Galactic Collective: Live in Gettysburg


This DVD and single CD set includes the complete album Erik Norlander - the Galactic Collective, performed live at RoSFest 2011 along with the Into the Sunset suite and two Norlander-penned songs sung by his lovely wife Lana.

More news as we get it. Watch this space…