In 1966, THE VELVET UNDERGROUND AND NICO brought together the worlds of avant-garde art, European cool and downtown rock’n’roll in one explosive package. Sixty years on, the survivors share tales of drugs, breakdowns, burnouts, blocked toilets and hospital beds – and, of course, the creation of some of the most important music ever made. “We only did things our way,” learns Tom Pinnock . “We were arrogant, perhaps, in thinking we knew best. We were also right. We did know best…”

Praise be! Prog’s most devout figure, Neal Morse, gets the gang back together, dials back the sermonising and reaches for the stars on his band’s sparkling first album in five years.

The Accidental EARMUSIC

NEAL MORSE

Retracing Our Steps (2007–2014) KSCOPE

They emerged from a Virginia university in 1973 with great acclaim, but Happy The Man never reached the heights of their UK and European counterparts and disintegrated six years later. Thanks to a very generous friend, their self-titled debut and its follow-up, Crafty Hands , have been revamped and reissued to sound exactly as the band intended them to all those years ago. Co-founders Stanley Whitaker and Rick Kennell tell Prog about their unexpected journey.