HEAVENS CAFE' performed by ART ROCK CIRCUS [USA]

Updated 9/21/00 John Miner

If your thing is symphonic prog, ambient, electro-prog, or anything associated with keyboards, you might as well stop here. That's not what John Miner and the Art Rock Circus is all about. This is ostensibly Rock-n-Roll in the most visceral sense, guitar bass and drums. A casual listening might cause you to toss this in the "standard music" pile. But there's a catch ... the Art Rock Circus steps out of the mold with some strange twists which put this music squarely into Art Rock genre, and with many parts which can only be described as Progressive. The Art Rock Circus are a group of performers who gathered to perform the rock opera Heaven's Café as a theatrical production in Las Vegas. I'm not sure if the name refers to just the band or also includes the dancers and other performers. But the members are fluid, John says it's like a real circus where performers come and go. The ringmaster of this circus is guitarrist John Miner, who composes the songs and most of the lyrics. There's hardly a song on Heaven's Café that's in 4/4 time, John prefers 5's, 7's, 11's and more intricate structures. In addition, John is tired of the standard guitar tunings, and has invented several alternates of his own. He uses a doubleneck guitar which allows him to switch back and forth between alternate tunings and standard when playing live, or between two different alternate tunings. The impression this gives is sometimes like the guitar is a bit out of tune, but he can also play chords virtually impossible to finger with a standard-tuned guitar. Heaven's Café is a Rock Opera in the epic sense, and it's written to be performed rather than just listened to on a CD. The stage production was full of actors, special effects and dancers ... one can only imagine how they felt trying to dance to a piece written in 11/8. To be honest, the live CD's sound quality is, shall we say, less than the most slick production you've ever heard. In spite of that, Heaven's Café Live is much more interesting than the studio version. Heaven's Café is the studio version, which is basically a sketch in charcoals of the finished piece performed in a Las Vegas theater. The live recording captures the performance of Nov. 22, 1998. The sound quality and texture harks back to The Who's original Tommy, or the stage version of the Rocky Horror Show (not the Rocky Horror Picture Show, which was the movie). But the closest comparison to Heaven's Café Live would be Continental Circus or Camembert Electrique-era Gong. This is especially true of the cuts "Classical Man", "Labyrinth" and "Again". Also, "The Dark" is almost exactly the same as "Wurm" from Yes' The Yes Album. Not that this is a bad thing ... I do think it's really a case of parallel development, not a rip-off. My advice: Try out Heaven's Café Live first. If you like it, check out Heaven's Café to see how the piece evolved. I haven't heard A Passage to Clear yet, so I can't give you any advice on this one. One more thing ... Tributary Music is, as of this writing, basically John Miner's personal label. Although they have stated their intention to sign other bands in the future, all 4 of the CD's in their current catalog feature John. Tributary Music just started up in 2000, which is why all the CD's have the same release date, though they have been recorded over the last several years. -- Fred Trafton

ART ROCK CIRCUS INDUCTED INTO:

Gibralter Encyclopedia of Progressive Rock