Craig Blundell (drums), Steven Wilson, Nick Beggs (bass), Adam Holtzman (keyboards), Alex Hutchings (guitars).

The Steven Wilson band has been rehearsing like mad and now are ready to start their US tour for the album To The Bone. I will miss Nick Beggs on the CTTE 2018 (he usually plays with Steve Hackett) but I'm seeing the tour twice in NYC in April so all is good.

New tour promo out today. It should be his best tour ever. 2 NYC dates!

Steven Wilson on digital streaming. It's the way of the world now and artists have to adapt to remain in contention:



5 songs from To the Bone have now each had over 1 million streams on Spotify, with Pariah at over 2 million, while the album has a whole continues to rack up approximately 50,000 song streams every day. By Spotify standards these are actually still quite modest numbers, but they are increasing for me all the time. As someone who believes very much in music presented as a physical art-form I resisted making my albums available on streaming platforms until relatively recently, but my feelings have changed somewhat. There are a lot of arguments for and against streaming, but the reality is that for those of us who make and want to share music that we believe in we need to acknowledge that there is now a whole generation of listeners for whom if the music is not on streaming services it simply does not exist.

There's no simple answer to the issue of lost revenue to the musicians, but I believe that people who listen on streaming platforms fall in to roughly 3 categories: Firstly, those who never buy physical product and for whom if the music isn't there they will never hear it at all - as many of these people still presumably go to see live music, discovering a new artist might mean instead they will buy a ticket to see the concert and perhaps a t-shirt while they are there. The second category is the people who use streaming to discover new music but subsequently buy the CD or vinyl if they like it enough (I would fall into this category). Finally there are the people who have bought a physical copy of the album and simply use streaming services as a way to conveniently access the music they already own. In none of these scenarios can I see how revenue is lost to the artist that would otherwise be made, except to say of course that if streaming didn't exist the people who don't buy physical product would have to buy it to hear music. But it does, and it's not going to go away, so there doesn't seem much point dwelling on that.

As a musician working in the current era I feel I have to recognise streaming as a convenient and flexible way for people to find music, because there is a vast amount of it available, more than at any other time in history (some might say too much). And anything that enables listeners to discover the magic of music has to be a positive thing. The brief "golden" era of the second half of the 20th century when a living could be made by selling physical recordings of music appears to be over, the rest will just be mourning that fact and manoeuvring for position while we move into the next era. I think it is important to respond to the undeniable shift towards “on demand” media and to fight against it is to fail to recognise it’s potential and ultimately to be left behind.

I'm sure these thoughts will provoke some hopefully constructive discussion, and I take the opportunity to thank all my listeners for their support no matter how they choose to listen!

As you can read, he speaks of the "golden era" back in the late 80s and into the 90s when physical formats ruled the music world (as people rebought their collections).

But in a way we have another golden era where music is available at your fingertips with no need to go to stores or buy physical discs. The whole gamut of modern music is now available without any worry of how to find room to store things.

This is the world we now live in and the world of the young who have never played a record.

The thing about hi-res digital streaming that people & the start ups (there are several in addition to Neil Young) forget is it requires a sound card that costs considerably more than a standard pc sound card and way more than built in sound on the motherboard.

The "To The Bone" worldwide tour is in Glasgow and I think Steve has a few fans. His tour hits NYC starting on April 27.

From Steven Wilson:

Tomorrow myself and the band play the first of 3 nights at what is probably my favourite venue in the world, The Royal Albert Hall in London. I know many of you are coming along to one or more nights, and in some cases travelling in from abroad, so I welcome everyone and hope you will enjoy the experience as much as I plan to! It's nearly always magical at the Royal Albert Hall.

Linda, should we start a "Steven Wilson" thread, since many of us are posting here items not related to the album?

Yes. I'll split this off into the ICEbox later tonight, beginning from the tour posts.

Thanks! BTW, I wasn't picking on John, as I'm just as guilty!

Okay, this is now our official Steven Wilson general discussion thread.

(While here in the ICEbox, I also merged the handful of short Wilson topics which had been posted over the years into the appropriate release threads.)

Things are getting crazy over at the Royal Albert Hall! Prog rockers are an unique species.

The former Kajagoogoo bass player is not "too shy," that's for sure.

Nope, he is a pisser! We missed him greatly on the CTTE 2018. A real life of the party.

I saw him tour with John Paul Jones a couple of times which was when I realized what a major talent he was, but it was his appearance on VH1's Bands Reunited with Kajagoogoo when I discovered what a fun lunatic he is. So glad he's become a staple on the prog scene.

Hide your eyes!

More fun with Nick (and his embarrassed wife) backstage at the Royal Albert Hall.

While I love Deep Purple & classic Uriah Heep, calling them prog is kinda pushing it, imo.

I became a Steven Wilson fan when I found a copy of Porcupine Tree's Signify in 1998, although I first heard him a year earlier via Fish's Sunsets On Empire album, which he produced, played on & co-wrote six songs. Following the very disappointing Suits, which I've since revisited and appreciate a lot more than I did when it was released, Sunsets... was a return to form, and I'm sure Mr. Wilson has a lot to do with it. I played both albums again this week and figured I should mention it here in case some PT/SW fans are unaware of his contributions. Here's the album cover followed by the video for "Brother 52," which shares a lot in common with P-Tree from that era.

Thanks, I did.not know Steven was involved in that FISH album.

Okay, my work here is done.

Mr. Wilson also plays guitar on several cuts on the follow-up album, Raingods with Zippos.

Yep, along with Bruce Watson from my beloved Big Country.