Ian Oakley

Well, Mr Progzilla has asked me for a quick ‘bio’ and a favourite album list. Blimey where do I start?

Have had a constant love of music ever since I discovered my fathers 78RPM box set of Holst ‘The Planets’ when I was about 6 or 7 and playing ‘Mars’ over and over had perhaps most bearing on what became what dominated my music tastes as I grew up (well that and some beat group from Liverpool).

What really changed my life was at the age of 16 (late summer 1976) bunking off school one day getting on a train and finding myself at The Marquee club in London helping this long haired young band called The Enid load their gear in.

To cut a long story short, within a year I was helping to run their fan society and a whole new set of friends up and down the country.

People mainly know me now from the days I used to help and run The Flower Kings band site which, to cut another long story short, led to my involvement of forming The Tangent and then with my American business partner (Michael Gardiner) managing the band for their first eight years. We have also released CD’s for The Tangent and Po90 via our companies: ‘Progjam’ and ‘Omegatunz’.

If push comes to shove if I had to name my favourite band of all time it would be Gong and many of their offshoots.

Now favourite albums? It changes but Ill give a list of some albums which over the years regularly make their way to my player:

• The Beatles – Abbey Road
• Genesis – Selling England By The Pound
• The Enid – In The Region Of The Summer Stars
• The Stone Roses – The Stone Roses
• Steve Hillage – Green
• The Flower Kings – Unfold The Future
• Gong – You
• Radiohead – The Bends
• The Tangent – Pyramids and Stars
• Druid – Towards The Sun
• Thomas Dolby – The Golden Age Of Wireless

But to me the finest piece of music ever written is Gustav Mahler’s 2nd symphony.