What was new at 'Beyond the Pale'

January 2000

January 31:

Added a slightly flawed history of the band from The Great Rock and Pop Nostalgia Book (thanks, Tormod)

Procol Harum : Beyond the Pale Claes Johansen's book can now be ordered at Amazon. Just follow this link

January 30:

'Learn to fly ... '

Added a page about Peter and the Wolf which, it must be admitted, is not the most thrilling record that Gary Brooker has ever contributed to! (thanks, Fred)

January 29:

Added a new feature to BtP : the FAQ page, a compendium of the most Frequently Asked Questions at this website.

January 28:

'... We stand ready to assist in any way that will prove successful in reuniting Procol Harum and to bring them back out on the road and to the USA ... '

Remember this? Here's more!

Do you think Procol Harum will play live in 2000? Most fans are positive, if not positive ... give your honest beliefs on the BtP poll.

"Bamse" informs BtP that his album Stand by Me, featuring a cover-version of A Whiter Shade of Pale, has now sold 150,000 copies.

January 27:

Added a concert report and an illustration to our recent page about the Gary Brooker Band's Hamburg concert in 1983 (thanks, Paul)

Added yet another update to this page … but before you look, can you name two musicians who both played on all the first three solo albums by Gary Brooker (one is quite obvious!) (thanks, Frans)

Did you know that Gary's Within Our House was an album of the year in 1997? (thanks, Sam)

January 26:

Added an early set-list from from Philadelphia (thanks, Randy)

January 25:

Added the setlist for a concert at Toronto, 1992: even with their stand-in organist the band cover material from nearly all their eleven albums ... (thanks, Anthony)

Following our recent, well-received series of pieces about Obie Clayton (starting here), added a letter to BtP from the hitherto-elusive Clayton himself (thanks, Michael)

January 24:

Added a link to a fine, new feature for Keith Reid fans: from our search page you can now access a searchable concordance of the Procol words as shown at this website (not all verified by the author, yet!) (many thanks, Peter)

Added to our recent PH Video CD page, (it's not a DVD, as we implied earlier (thanks, Hermann)) with links to a brief review of the concert, some photo excerpts, and multitudinous additional screenshots which you can click to enlarge.

Added links here and here to Miguel Terol's 'Musicians' Olympus' for two latter-day PH guitarists.

Many orders have been placed for the Whalers' double CD containing ten new PH covers : the more who order, the cheaper the price, so please visit the page now.

Thanks to the various Palers who wrote in saying how much they'd enjoyed our Obie Clayton thread over the last three days: such feedback is much appreciated.

January 23:

Adding quite a bit of background to the last three days' Obie Clayton pages, the author of the spurious essay about the lost Matthew Fisher album owns up …

January 22:

Added a page of fine sleuthing clarifying …. indeed abnegating … all the recent thinking about the Lost Matthew Fisher album (thanks, Claes)

January 21:

'Taking on faces and changing them round / everyone thinks that I'm six foot under ground …'

Added a page purporting to reveal the truth about the Lost Matthew Fisher Album: '…he's worked hard to make us not think it's him, unless it really is not him, but someone trading on his name and reputation …' (thanks, anonymous person: we shall unmask you later this week)

January 20:

Added a page concerning the only gig we know of by the Gary Brooker band: as ever, please mail us if you know more ... lately we've been getting lots of great responses from Palers (thanks, folks!)

January 19:

Continuing our focus on Procol Harum's sometime guitarist Tim Renwick, added some interview excerpts that ring true in all sorts of Procolian ways (thanks, Sam)

Further enhanced our head-transplant page (thanks, Per)

Finally got round to adding a page for the PH Video CD

January 18:

Many nations have written new, non-English words for Procol Harum songs: it has to be said that the Finns do it rather well. Have a look at the Finnish Pandora's Box (thanks, Rainer)

Added a second Repent Walpurgis to our covers page (thanks, Tony)

January 17:

Added a review of Ian MacDonald's Driver's Eyes on which Gary Brooker sings a track (thanks, Greg)

Added a pagelet mentioning Ian MacDonald in the context of Vanilla Fudge's guitarist and his version of AWSoP (thanks, Tony)

Added a link to our friends at the Bill Lordan (ex-Trower drummer) website (thanks, Dave)

Do you want to receive the 'Beyond the Pale' Newsletter, which will be e-mailed to subscribers if and when we have hot Procol news to share with you? Full details here.

January 16:

Did you ever dream of that rare double-album containing ten new covers of the choicest Procol Harum songs, interspersed with original music from people all over the world that you had written to, but never actually met?

Did you dream that it was being offered for sale at a price that would actually drop the moment you decided to buy it?

The dream became reality : all this and more in tonight's new page : order now! (thanks, Mirek, Jens B, Charly ...)

BTW yesterday's pages (here and here) have already been updated with additional submissions (thanks, Alick, Frans, Joan)

January 15:

Trower, Ball, Grabham ... but who was the fourth guitarist to play with PH in the 1970s?

Added a fascinating and surprising page compiled from the recent speculation about head-transplants on the Procol list, with an authoritative, illuminating conclusion (thanks, Frans)

Added some good information to our Tim Renwick page (thanks again, Frans)

Do you want to receive the 'Beyond the Pale' Newsletter, which will be e-mailed to subscribers if and when we have hot Procol news to share with you? Full details here.

January 14:

Added four superb portraits of Barrie Wilson from 1976 (thanks, Régis)

Added more praise for Barrie Wilson (thanks, Joe)

January 13:

Added another compilation to our compilation of compilations and illustrated a further compilation (thanks, Per)

January 12:

Added two large colourful front pages from Disc and Music Echo in the glory days: one concerns chart success of AWSoP and the other concerns chart success of Homburg (thanks, Beverly)

Added a link to a page about the album In Strauß und Bogen featuring Procol Harum (thanks, John K). We have the single picture-sleeve: is anyone able to send us a scan of the cover of this album?

January 11:

Added a page about Tum ho mere dil ki dhadkan, the Asian AWSoP from the film Manzil: another piece of original sleuthing from one of the Saints of BtP (thanks, Sam)

January 10:

"You've got to remember something: I'm making this book for me because nobody else did, and I'm making it my way because I think Keith, as well as his fans, deserves this."

Added a long, detailed and (we hope!) fascinating BtP interview from which fans will learn more about the man and the motives behind the luxury anthology of Keith Reid's words that is due to appear within a few months (thanks, Joe)

Do you think Procol Harum will play live in 2000? Give your honest beliefs on the BtP poll.

January 9:

'I do hope that one day Procol Harum will play live again. I'll be there,' said Tormod Ringvold in his story from Redhill, published here at BtP for the first time today. But will Procol Harum come back on stage again? Give your honest beliefs on the BtP poll.

Added a little information about Tim Renwick (thanks HanDs)

Corrected a teeny financial mistake here (thanks, PDC)

January 8:

Added an authoritative earwitness / eyewitness account of the Paramounts in the days of Southend's Shades club (thanks, John)

January 7:

Added an interesting illustration to this Matthew Fisher page (thanks, Phil)

Added a little about Original Sin, another Keith Reid non-Procol collaboration (thanks, Frans)

Added scans of the CD cover of Broken Barricades (thanks, Per)

January 6:

Unveiled the names of winners in our Christmas Prize Competition!

Also added a page reiterating all the questions with full answers : hope you enjoy reading this.

If you're a winner, congratulations: now please send us an address to post prizes to! If you nearly were, commiserations: we had a very exciting couple of hours seeing the answers coming in and hope that everyone enjoyed taking part for its own sake.

Do you want to receive the 'Beyond the Pale' Newsletter, which will be e-mailed to subscribers if and when we have hot Procol news to share with you? Full details here.

January 5:

Please note that there was earlier an unintentional error (!) in one of our Salty Dog statements, which we have now removed. You might want to read them again? (thanks, Richard!)

Unveiled our last dose of quizzes: senders of the first nine correct answers to reach 'Beyond the Pale' will be soon be sent their fab Procol Harum prizes ! It's been quite a race the last couple of years.

January 4:

Unwrapped our penultimate batch of quizzes: have you selected what you want from the list of fab Procol Harum prizes ? Tomorrow it's a race against the clock ...

So we assure you that we will do our very best to update BtP tomorrow at exactly midnight Central European Time.

Please note that there was earlier an unintentional error (!) in one of our Salty Dog statements, which we have now removed. You might want to read them again? (thanks, Richard!)

January 3:

Revealed our antepenultimate collection of prize quizzes ... and it's downhill from here

155 Palers have already subscribed to our 'Beyond the Pale' Newsletter: make sure your name gets on the list: full details here.

January 2:

Disclosed our ninth clutch of prize quizzes ... not too late to start if you didn't log in over Christmas: just go back to page one and work forward.

January 1: Happy New Millennium to all who visit this site and create the music that it celebrates!

Made public our eighth consignment of prize quizzes ... if you missed a few days, don't worry: you can join in any time over the twelve days of Christmas and catch up easily.

This page updated exactly as Tonga and Kiribati Islands enter the New Millennium, the very first places in the world to do so ...

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