What was new at 'Beyond the Pale'

March 2000

March 31:

Added a small mention of Procol Harum at the Roskilde Festival in 1975 (thanks, Niels-Erik)

Added an illustration to this setlist (thanks, Allen)

Read about Matthew Fisher's studio in a new Bill Lordan (Trower drummer) interview (thanks, Steve)

March 30: Happy Birthday, Dave Ball (1950)

Added a feature full of Antipodean wit at the expense of Brooker and chums in Melbourne (thanks, Chris C)

March 29:

Added some soundclips from the Matthew Fisher interview broadcast 25 March 2000 on BBC Radio 2

Added some more AWSoP covers to our list (thanks, António)

March 28: Goodbye, Ian Dury: RIP

Added the thoughts of Frans Steensma (Procol historian) to the thoughts of Chairman Copping about the recently published Procol biography, Beyond the Pale : (thanks, Frans)

Direct-click to order the book from Amazon USA or from Amazon UK

Added two illustrations to the Shine On merchandise page (thanks, Christine)

March 27:

Added two final features to Pam Quinn's Paramounts Scrapbook index : scroll down the page to find the new illustrations: we've also added a picture of Pam and Barrie in childhood (thanks, Richard)

Day Ten: assorted fan clippings (thanks for all the notes, Frans!) and four young women, two drawn by Barrie.

Presenting the Paramounts Scrapbook over the last ten days has been a real labour of love, and we truly hope everyone has found it richly interesting. Thanks once more to Barrie's sister, Pam Quinn, for supplying the marvellous memorabilia.

March 26:

Added two more features to Pam Quinn's Paramounts Scrapbook index (scroll down the page to find the new pictures)

Day Nine:

Four photographs of The Paramounts learning to sail (and you thought the nautical theme had emanated from Keith Reid?)

Vignettes of each Paramount, with likes and dislikes. Rob hates 'jokes about his natural blond hair'!

Amazon USA has finally started shipping Claes Johansen's Procol biography, Beyond the Pale which has been available in UK for a while. Direct-click to order the book from Amazon USA or from Amazon UK

Yesterday's Fisher interview clips are temporarily available here

March 25:

Added two more features to Pam Quinn's Paramounts Scrapbook index (scroll down the page to find the new pictures)

Day Eight: The famous Selmer picture, which has several enigmatic features!

Two contrasting pictures of Diz Derrick

Today at 9:03 pm: Matthew Fisher interview on BBC Radio 2 : details here

March 24:

Added two more features to Pam Quinn's Paramounts Scrapbook index (scroll down the page to find the new pictures)

Day Seven: The Paramounts beat the clock: hilarious party stunts involving three Paramounts and three girls

Two portraits of Robin Trower, without dyed hair, but looking at pinups of himself with dyed hair …

Europeans: get your tape-machines ready for tomorrow at 9:03 pm: Matthew Fisher interview on BBC Radio 2 : details here

Added booking information to some of the Rhythm King dates here.

And finally, Charnel House tells BtP that the Keith Reid book will soon be shipping: see foot of this page

March 23:

Added two more features to Pam Quinn's Paramounts Scrapbook index (scroll down the page to find the new pictures)

Day Six: a full-page pinup from Jackie, with six folds in it, and some strange inky marks on Diz's nose. Frans Steensma informs us that Jackie was 'a weekly for go-ahead teens' (it said so on the cover every week); this is probably from February 1964.

An interesting sequence of pictures of Gary Brooker

March 22:

Added two more features to Pam Quinn's Paramounts Scrapbook index (scroll down the page to find the new pictures)

Day Five: "Like the Roller Coaster in their home town, these boys have had their ups and downs." The obverse contains a story about Georgie Fame, who has 'been a long time in the pop business' …

Some nice off-duty shots of Barrie Wilson

March 21:

Added two more features to Pam Quinn's Paramounts Scrapbook index (scroll down the page to find the new pictures)

Day Four: Paramounts on a fashion page, and some interesting street-shots.

Added a fascinating note to the foot of this page: more key evidence about Barrie's drumming technique (thanks, Ken)

March 20:

Added two more features to Pam Quinn's Paramounts Scrapbook index (scroll down the page to find the new pictures)

Day Three: two highly contrasting group portraits

March 19:

Added two more features to Pam Quinn's Paramounts Scrapbook index

Day Two: a ragged magazine pinup, and a photo holding one of the keys to BJ's greatness (thanks, Pam)

March 18: Birth of Barrie James Wilson (1947)

Today BtP is proud to present the beginning of a ten-day sequence intended to give an unique insight into the musical and social background to the early life of Rock Music's Greatest Drummer

Each day we shall add two excerpts, from a scrapbook kept by Pam Quinn about the Paramounts exploits of her big brother, to the Scrapbook index page (A big thank you, Pam)

Day One: a greetings telegram to the Paramounts on tour, and Barrie's autographed drum-tutor.

March 17:

'I've never met anybody who is a happy person.'

Keith Reid is unusually expansive in this excellent interview from Hit Parader, which also contains contributions from Brooker and Copping, and deals with Fisher's leaving, Knights's playing, and Reid's organ-playing on stage (thanks Anthony, thanks Marvin)

March 16:

Added the thoughts of Chairman Copping about the recently published Procol biography, Beyond the Pale : much food for thought here (thanks, Chris)

Direct-click to order the book from Amazon USA or from Amazon UK

The Ides of March:

" ... the true highlight of the time was Procul [sic] Harum's Gary Brooker sounding smoother than ever with Conquistador, A Salty Dog and A Whiter Shade of Pale ..."

Added a link to a review of the last Oz show from GB, showing that even impartial listeners rate the Commander's work highest of the evening (thanks, Kerry)

Rejigged the Shine On merchandise page, now that there are two great new Procol Harum tee-shirts available; added a note of the quantities available of other Shine On goodies (Did you know that various Procol-related CDs are down to very small stock, but that there are new stocks of the 1970 Procol Harum video made by Robin Copping?) (thanks, Christine)

Added links to some PH posters for sale (here and here and here and here) at the rejigged Legends site (thanks, Dave)

The Beyond the Pale newsletter 'Fresh Fruit' now has 302 subscribers. Subscriber no 300 was from Ontario in Canada. If you want to sign up for a free subscription, see details here.

March 14:

Added the text of Record Collector's splendid report on the current huge upswing of Procol interest and activity (thanks, Tormod)

Added further news of the upcoming Matthew Fisher interview with the BBC : mark your diary for 25 March! (thanks, Diane)

March 13:

"Here's a song that has been played at so many births, weddings and funerals"

Added a report on Gary Brooker and assorted greats playing the Sydney Entertainment centre last week (thanks, Helen and Keith)

Amended the Rhythm Kings' European Tour schedule with three cancellations (sorry, Antonio!)

March 12:

Added a great, illustrated report on the Palers' Meet and Greet Down Under (thanks, Stephen and Steffi)

Added preliminary news of a forthcoming Matthew Fisher interview with the BBC (thanks, Diane)

March 11:

Hope everyone enjoyed 'The Surrealists of Rock', the German Radio interview with Gary Brooker that formed the basis of 6 March's Deutschlandfunk broadcast. Here's Part Four: Procol break up, the Clapton era, The Prodigal Stranger (thanks, Steffen)

Added more about AWSoP and the singing mushrooms in The Tenth Kingdom ('this insanely indulgent revisionist fairy tale') to our page of films with Procol Harum music on the soundtrack (thanks, Joan)

March 10:

'The Surrealists of Rock': a German Radio interview with Gary Brooker, that formed the basis of 6 March's Deutschlandfunk broadcast : Part Three: Sixties zeitgeist, drugs, later albums (thanks, Steffen)

Added some apt snaps to this Paramounts page (thanks, Phil)

March 9: Happy Birthday, Robin Trower (1945)

'The Surrealists of Rock': a German Radio interview with Gary Brooker, that formed the basis of 6 March's Deutschlandfunk broadcast : Part Two: Nature of Reid, Brooker's prayer for success, personnel changes (thanks, Steffen)

Added The Tenth Kingdom to our page of films that use (or abuse) Procol Harum music on the soundtrack

March 8:

'The Surrealists of Rock': a German Radio interview with Gary Brooker, that formed the basis of 6 March's Deutschlandfunk broadcast: Part One: Early days, the Paramounts, collaboration with Keith Reid (thanks, Steffen)

Added a good cake-shot to this page (thanks, Bert)

March 7: Happy Birthday, Matthew Fisher (1946)

The Surrealists of Rock ... added the German text of yesterday's Deutschlandfunk broadcast (including some Reid words rendered into German) and made an index page for the long Gary Brooker interview on which the broadcast was based (thanks, Steffen)

March 6:

" … I would like to have read more about some of the triumphs as well as the tragedies … "

Added a review of Claes Johansen's Beyond the Pale sent by one of the US Palers who won the book in this year's BtP Christmas puzzles (thanks, Bert)

Added another instalment to the correspondence with VH1 (thanks, Beverly)

Added a link to some curious Procol MP3 mis-credits (thanks, Sam) . Lots more here

Get your radios ready for the Gary Brooker broadcast today at 10.05 p.m. mid-European time: more detail here.

March 5:

" … it's good to read a book on a rock band that concentrates more on the music than on the private lives of its members …"

Added a review of Claes Johansen's Beyond the Pale specially written for this website (thanks, Peter)

Get your radios ready for the Gary Brooker broadcast on 6 March 2000 at 10.05 p.m. mid-European time: more detail here.

March 4:

Added a few paragraphs about PH and psychedelic music from Kaleidoscope Eyes: Psychedelic Music From the 1960s to the 1990s by Jim Derogatis, who has not really done his homework (thanks, Sam)

Added cover scans to our page about the Whalers' Procol Harum CD, which also contains ordering details if you have not already subscribed to this limited edition. A review of its 21 tracks will follow soon: first impressions are excellent! (thanks, Hermann)

Beverly Peyton has several times tried to e-mail VH1 with a request for a Procol Harum feature, and never got any response. So she threatened them with an open letter on BtP. And here it is

Update: VH1 have now sent an answer to Beverly Peyton. Go here and see their answer which shows that we should probably continue to tell them that we think they should broadcast some Procol Harum. At least: now they read our e-mails!

March 3:

"Anti-stars to the marrow ... no jury in the world would have convicted them of showmanship."

Added a rare PH compilation to our list of compilation albums: unusually, this one includes All our Dreams are Sold, has a marvellous liner-note entitled 'Tales of the Purple Horrors', and is liberally illustrated with umbrellas (big thanks, Clyde!)

We've put lots of links into the liner note, so do enjoy surfing sideways into related BtP pages!

March 2:

"We try and stay authentic to the original, as it is an old favourite of Roine's and Mike's and in the main organ themes you really can hear Gary Brooker, which shows Neal's musicianship and amazing feel for the organ."

This is a piece from the interview on the Transatlantic website, about their upcoming CD: SMPTe. This CD is interesting to Palers because it includes a full version of In Held 'Twas In I. Visit their website for more details: there is even a sound-clip of the recording which, although very short, sounds promising. Apparently they know the music better than the musicians. This is the recording that has previously been reported in our covers section credited to Mike Portnoy, Neal Morse, Pete Trewavas and Roine Stolt (thanks, Oddvar)

The CD will be released March 21, and can be ordered from Amazon here.

Added a page featuring some more European sleeves (thanks, Per)

Please do mail us if you have more like these to contribute

March 1:  

This is the last day to vote BJ on the Modern Drummer Poll. It would be fine to see BJ recognised there, as he recently was at Classic Rock. To vote, please click here (instructions are here). We suggest using the form 'BJ Wilson' as that is the way he is most-often written on records, and voting him in the Rock and R&B categories. The poll closes on March 1 so if you intend to vote please do so very soon!

Added an interesting French 'Procolerie' … in which Gary Brooker amusingly hiccoughs AWSoP from a worn-out record (thanks, Malène)

Sorted out a duff link that was preventing Palers from accessing this Paramounts page (thanks, davelee)

Read the current month's what's new at this website

Read what was new at BtP in previous months