SonicVoyageFest Comes to Brooklyn, March 12

Brooklyn and music, including Progressive Rock have had a love affair with one another, and that includes how much local heroes Dark Beauty feel at one with the Scene. This Thursday night, the SonicVoyageFest rocks Bushwick with their friends Joe Deninzon & Stratospheerius, plus Potter’s Daughter.

Dark Beauty spotlights both the songwriting talents of 3rDegree’s guitarist Bryan Zeigler AND features a mystical symphonic-goth leadsinger Liz Tapia. Their album is called Fall From Grace. Stratospheerius’ current album Guilty of Innocence, features Renaissance’s Rave Tesar playing keyboard on, plus engineering some tracks. In addition to being a favorite at the State’s great events, Joe is one of the music world’s go-to session guys for live and recording work on violin. Potter’s Daughter features vocalist /pianist Dyanne Potter Voegtlin, who has performed in prestigious venues all over the world, and played in groups with Shirley Reeves, Noel Redding, Ginger Baker, Tico Torres. Recently Renaissance’s leadsinger Annie Haslam duetted with Dyanne on a new song “Blood and Water.” The group’s first album Blind Side released in 2018.

Bryan, Joe, and Dyanne spoke with Patch about what it takes to survive as a working progressive rock artist.

Patch: We noticed that when we go to concerts in the prog world that the audience is quiet, and tends to really listen to the bands on stage. What is that about?

Dyanne: The prog audience is filled with people who genuinely love music and are open to new ideas and new approaches. What more could a creative artist ask for!

Joe: What I’ve learned from working in the prog industry is that people want you to take chances. There are no rules and you can let your musical freak flag fly. The audience will take the ride with you, and the possibilities are endless… I used to be cynical, but the prog audience is really seeking out good music that is sincere and honest. They don’t want something that is contrived and over-commercialized. Prog audiences are intelligent people who are always looking to expand their horizons, musical and otherwise.

Patch: What are you learning about yourself and your band as a performer in today’s ProgRock Industry?

Dyanne: Being a performer is demanding, audiences are sophisticated and have high expectations. I try to prepare the best I can and then during the show, let all that go and focus on the music and connecting with the audience.

Bryan: First and foremost, we’ve learned that we can be accepted into the progressive music scene. While we absolutely have a lot of progressive elements in our music, key and dynamic changes, time signatures and multiple rhythms, and a focus on musicianship, we don’t necessarily have the extended musical breaks and longer songs that some people might expect. We also have some elements of pop and dance music, along with a focus on hooks and melody in everything we do. But we’ve learned that we can live up to the musical expectations of a scene that demands a lot, both from our vocals and our instrumentation.

Joe: I’m blessed to have a band of musicians who can execute my wildest conceptions. It’s crazier than ever! And so, my tendency now is to go full nerd. More odd time signatures, more fast notes and complicated, extended compositions. What I’ve learned from working in the prog industry is that people want you to take chances. There are no rules and you can let your musical freak flag fly. The audience will take the ride with you, and the possibilities are endless…

Patch: Bryan, tell us what makes Brooklyn special for you as working musicians?

Bryan: I’ve always found audiences in Brooklyn to be simultaneously demanding and open. So, there’s a certain aspect of “OK, whaddya got?” to the experience, and you need to bring it. But at the same time, if what you’re doing is something new or different, there’s an openness to that, that you don’t get in a lot of other places.

Patch: What has marriage brought to Dark Beauty?

Bryan: It took us over a decade of marriage to be able to work together musically. And part of that is just the difficulty of being newlyweds, but a big part of it is our very different musical styles. I am largely influenced by the more traditional progressive rock, the classics like Yes and newer acts like Porcupine Tree, as well as satirical musicians like Frank Zappa. Liz on the other hand mostly listens to opera, classic rock and pop. There wasn’t a whole lot of overlap. But once our personal communication got better, and we really started to work with it, we found a way to mix the complexity of prog, with the hooks of classic rock and pop, and the vocal quality of opera. And while there isn’t a lot of satire in what we do, we laugh at rehearsal more than any other band I know.