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Joined: February 01 2011
Location: Michigan
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Points: 13049
Posted: March 03 2014 at 21:30
Svetonio wrote:
earlyprog wrote:
^Svetonio, I have read your post several times and continue to understand only a minute fraction of it. (Perhaps you should stick to the "Svetonio's suggesting new bands" forum ). Please help me:
For instance, what theory are you referring to when you say "that theory is also valid in..."?
And the Beatles were never proto prog but progressive rock?! when did they become progressive rock?
You didn't understood what I said? Oh, your English is worst than mine (just kidding, of course).
1) There's a main theory that the Progressive Rock was started with ITCOCK the album; ITCOCK the album as a corner stone for Progressive Rock.
2) The Beatles become prog with Strawberry Fields Forever along with Penny Lane at the same single; before that single, the Beatles were recorded psychedelic songs.As you can hear, the Beatles' "proto-prog" (original 1967) version is more proggy than Gabriel's cover which was recorded ( i think ) in 1976 for a movie soundtrack. the Beatles were recorded some proggy songs later, but imo & although I love them, there's not their song which is proggier than Strawberry Fields Forever.
The Beatles never were sounded proto prog.
This is proto prog sound
Ummm...Svetonio, how can a band be "proto-prog", by any definition, if they were not formed until 1969 (the band did not function as a full group until August, 1969) and they did not release an album until the very end of 1969? If, as you stated, the theory is that King Crimson began the progressive rock genre with their debut release in October, 1969, wouldn't that make Rare Bird post-proto-prog?
And your limited definition of proto-prog does not fit within any accepted general delineation of the term. The Moody Blues release of Days of Future Passed in December, 1967 is not only proto-prog, I daresay it is downright progressive in hindsight. So too is Procol Harum's debut release. Neither of them have a "heavy, greasy and Hammond organ driven sound" (which sounds more like something one gets indigestion from). The Hammond organ is not the single most important aspect of a proto-prog song. If that were the case, King Crimson's mellotron would be disqualified and they would be listed as a pop band.
Additionally, your view that "Strawberry Fields" is somehow the only Beatles song that deserves a "prog" or "proto-prog" stamp of approval is clearly in error. You claim before that The Beatles "recorded psychedelic songs", when in fact "Strawberry Fields Forever" was, by anyone whoever defined the composition, a "psychedelic song". You really think a song like "Eleanor Rigby" is not proto-prog? It is certainly not psychedelic, which runs counter to your mystifying conclusions. I suppose "Norwegian Wood" could be designated as "psych-folk" or "raga-folk", but there is, as other posters have identified, elements of proto-prog that definitely influenced the genre. How about "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite"? Not only is a Hammond organ played (quite greasily, I might add), but a Lowrey organ, a harmonium, and a friggin' glockenspiel!
I believe you should be a bit more expansive in your definition of proto-prog because, as it currently stands, it makes little sense.
...a vigorous circular motion hitherto unknown to the people of this area, but destined to take the place of the mud shark in your mythology...
Joined: September 20 2010
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Posted: March 03 2014 at 22:40
The Dark Elf wrote:
Ummm...Svetonio, how can a band be "proto-prog", by any definition, if they were not formed until 1969 (the band did not function as a full group until August, 1969) and they did not release an album until the very end of 1969? (...)
Because 'proto-prog' was a term that was created by vinyls dealers to mark the sound, not a genre. Knobby, as a serious LPs collector as well, already explained to us what 'proto prog' really was.
Originally posted by Knobby
(...)
What has happened here is what I call "cow bird" - the cow bird waits till another species builds it nest then takes over that nest.
The true meaning of "proto-prog" was laid down maybe as much as two decades before Progarchives came up with vastly generalizing the term to mean basically anything that developed out of psych (not "psyche" guys - psyche is "the soul"), pop and ROCK and embryonically began to wiggle towards what was to be progressive rock.
Think - where you think the TERM first came out of: web forums? I can assure you it did not.
Books on prog?
Of course not - it predated all that.
I lay odds it came out of those old (in some cases, yellow-brown paper) lp dealer catalogues that came in the mail to (serious) collectors.
The true meaning of "proto-prog" is it is simply a DISTINCTIVE SOUND that was pushed to make it easier for collectors to get what they were after.
It is NOT a genre (as progarchives would have it). It was mainly Hammond-organ-driven. (General rule, I would say - if its got synth in it, its not proto.). Mellotron can be there also. It was mainly a UK thing, but American proto CAN be identified.
It was mainly A VERY SLIM PERIOD in music's history, usually '69 but you CAN have clearly identifiable proto in '70 and even further on, due to fact that some countries were bit back in time - remember we are stressing THE SOUND here. The INITIAL appearance of the SOUND on vinyl. So you have "backward" countries like Denmark with (compared to the population number) a surprizing wealth of proto being put out as late as '71.
I repeat. Progarchives has taken the dealer-term , built their nest there, gave it their own spin ; made something other of it.
Perfectly alright, I expect. But I wish they would call it something else other than PROTO prog. (Maybe Burgeoning Prog?)
For instance The Who would NEVER be considered proto - they never had the Vertigo,Dawn,Nepentha - etc record label sound.
And for Progarchives in their "best proto lp " picture section to stress something like Deep Purple "Machinehead" and overlook the only one that is remotely proto, "Book of Talysein". (spelt wrong- yeah, who f**ks) is misleading in the least.
What you are speaking of in this thread is simply pop ,bluesrock , psych and ROCK wot began to merge into the oncoming prog.
Your speaking of something very broad, a parameter . Something that varies in different cases.
Whereas the origional, REAL meaning of protoprog is something extremely select and finite.
I dont want to go into it right now, (because it takes some digging on my part and I gots a lawn to mow), but if you seriously want to know what the proto sound is and why it is IMMEDIATELY recognizable on hearing (although difficult to pin down in words) search old Progressive Ears posts for the list of 100 protoprog lps.
Joined: July 13 2005
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Posted: March 04 2014 at 03:03
Svetonio wrote:
Because 'proto-prog' was a term that was created by vinyls dealers to mark the sound, not a genre. Knobby, as a serious LPs collector as well, already explained to us what 'proto prog' really was.
As I believe Dean already said, you can't believe everything Knobby said and, regardless of what it might or might not be, it is defined on PA as follows, and therefore this is the definition we should be using -
"These bands normally were formed and released albums before Progressive Rock had completely developed (there are some rare Proto Prog bands from the early 70's, because the genre didn't expanded to all the Continents simultaneously"
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Posted: March 04 2014 at 03:14
One of the things the Beatles did that marked a progressive direction
was the juxtaposition of time signatures, an early example would be 'We Can
Work it Out'.
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Posted: March 04 2014 at 03:18
Svetonio wrote:
The Dark Elf wrote:
Ummm...Svetonio, how can a band be "proto-prog", by any definition, if they were not formed until 1969 (the band did not function as a full group until August, 1969) and they did not release an album until the very end of 1969? (...)
Because 'proto-prog' was a term that was created by vinyls dealers to mark the sound, not a genre. Knobby, as a serious LPs collector as well, already explained to us what 'proto prog' really was.
For the very last time. It is not a genre, it is not a sound. It is just a non-denominational category.
Such a narrow definition of Proto Prog as being just "a sound" is not even widely accepted among record dealers. Every other music site on the internet uses the broader non-genre, non-"sound" definition.
As Robert has tried so very hard to explain, the prefix "Proto" is an academic term used to define any early instance of a trend in all the arts, it has a very specific meaning that you cannot change. In a specific musicological sense it is a prefix applied to a genre of music to identify its historical origins in terms of style and chronology, such as proto-baroque, proto-jazz, proto-metal, proto-punk etc. - none of them are "a sound" and none of them post-date the actual genre they are "proto" of.
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Posted: March 04 2014 at 03:31
Anyway,
Ignoring Psych Rock and Psych Pop for a moment, Baroque Pop¹ is one of the stylistic progenitors of Progressive Rock (more so than Psych if the truth will ever out²) and The Beatles have an abundance of Baroque Pop moments that begin on Rubber Soul and progress through to The Beatles (aka the white album).
¹ Aphrodite's Child, Bee Gees, David Axelrod, Emitt Rhodes, Harpers Bizarre, Lee Hazlewood, Left Banke, Love, Margo Guryan, Nick Drake, Pop Tops, Procol Harum, Sagittarius, Scott Walker (and The Walker Brothers), The Beatles, The Byrds, The Free Design, The Kinks, The Millennium, The Rolling Stones, The Zombies, Van Dyke Parks.... The Beach Boys...
² Perhaps then we can seriously consider The Beach Boys et al.
Joined: February 01 2011
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Posted: March 04 2014 at 12:26
Svetonio wrote:
The Dark Elf wrote:
Ummm...Svetonio, how can a band be "proto-prog", by any definition, if they were not formed until 1969 (the band did not function as a full group until August, 1969) and they did not release an album until the very end of 1969? (...)
Because 'proto-prog' was a term that was created by vinyls dealers to mark the sound, not a genre. Knobby, as a serious LPs collector as well, already explained to us what 'proto prog' really was.
Originally posted by Knobby
(...)
What has happened here is what I call "cow bird" - the cow bird waits till another species builds it nest then takes over that nest.
The true meaning of "proto-prog" was laid down maybe as much as two decades before Progarchives came up with vastly generalizing the term to mean basically anything that developed out of psych (not "psyche" guys - psyche is "the soul"), pop and ROCK and embryonically began to wiggle towards what was to be progressive rock.
Think - where you think the TERM first came out of: web forums? I can assure you it did not.
Books on prog?
Of course not - it predated all that.
I lay odds it came out of those old (in some cases, yellow-brown paper) lp dealer catalogues that came in the mail to (serious) collectors.
The true meaning of "proto-prog" is it is simply a DISTINCTIVE SOUND that was pushed to make it easier for collectors to get what they were after.
It is NOT a genre (as progarchives would have it). It was mainly Hammond-organ-driven. (General rule, I would say - if its got synth in it, its not proto.). Mellotron can be there also. It was mainly a UK thing, but American proto CAN be identified.
It was mainly A VERY SLIM PERIOD in music's history, usually '69 but you CAN have clearly identifiable proto in '70 and even further on, due to fact that some countries were bit back in time - remember we are stressing THE SOUND here. The INITIAL appearance of the SOUND on vinyl. So you have "backward" countries like Denmark with (compared to the population number) a surprizing wealth of proto being put out as late as '71.
I repeat. Progarchives has taken the dealer-term , built their nest there, gave it their own spin ; made something other of it.
Perfectly alright, I expect. But I wish they would call it something else other than PROTO prog. (Maybe Burgeoning Prog?)
For instance The Who would NEVER be considered proto - they never had the Vertigo,Dawn,Nepentha - etc record label sound.
And for Progarchives in their "best proto lp " picture section to stress something like Deep Purple "Machinehead" and overlook the only one that is remotely proto, "Book of Talysein". (spelt wrong- yeah, who f**ks) is misleading in the least.
What you are speaking of in this thread is simply pop ,bluesrock , psych and ROCK wot began to merge into the oncoming prog.
Your speaking of something very broad, a parameter . Something that varies in different cases.
Whereas the origional, REAL meaning of protoprog is something extremely select and finite.
What, are you Knobby's doppelganger? Who in the hell was a troll like Knobby to ordain what a term is, particularly when the prefix "proto" is, academically speaking, a specified definor used musically to refer to "that which came before". Please provide detailed citations that bolster your point (or Knobby's, rather).
When someone says "proto-punk" that does not mean three bands located in Birmingham, England who all had inverted mohawks and played with cheap Squier guitars during the period of 1972 to 1977 (because, obviously, one can be proto-punk after the fact), all because some London used-record reseller sought to spruce up his album bins, while ignoring Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground, The Kinks, The Stooges, The New York Dolls, The MC5 and The Who, which he simply placed under the "rock" category -- because they did not have the proper sound and the wrong hairstyle.
As far as this entire idea that Deep Purple is the end-all, be-all of the "proto-prog sound", don't you find that a bit laughable? Sure, they had their proggy moments, like Led Zeppelin did, but in the end none of the great prog bands emulated that sound; on the contrary, Yes, ELP, Genesis, King Crimson, Jethro Tull, Floyd or whichever prog icon you wish to name ever sounded even remotely like Deep Purple, even when using a Hammond organ.
And that leads me back to the topic, in that The Beatles certainly had heavy proto-prog credentials. Listen to the elements of "A Day in the Life" (1967), with its changing time signatures, the chiaroscuro of dark and light elements, the novel use of heavy orchestration that takes the place of standard electric guitars:
Or the Baroque pop of "For No One" (1966), and the use of French horn and clavichord:
"Tomorrow Never Knows", "Eleanor Rigby", "Norwegian Wood" -- these all had inherent elements that became part of the progressive rock lexicon. Certainly, they were forced to compress these elements into the record industry standard 2:30 minutes, but they even broke that hurdle when they had the audacity to release "Hey Jude", all 7:11 minutes of it, as a single, which naturally went to #1 in 1968. I think the song allowed for a greater variance, industry acceptance and marketability of longer rock songs ("In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida", released earlier the same year, was 17:05 minutes on the album but the 45 single was edited down to 2:53, not so with "Hey Jude").
...a vigorous circular motion hitherto unknown to the people of this area, but destined to take the place of the mud shark in your mythology...
Joined: July 13 2005
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Posted: March 05 2014 at 07:13
King Crimson776 wrote:
Tomorrow Never Knows is much too simple. Nothing before Pepper can be seriously considered here.
It may be simple in terms of one chord and repetitive drum pattern but it was quite complicated to record, as it was mixed live with a number of people operating the various tape loops.
Joined: January 20 2008
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Posted: March 05 2014 at 17:29
Svetonio wrote:
dr wu23 wrote:
Talking about proto prog there is a proto prog thread here;....your favorite proto prog album and the Beatles were mentioned several times on the thread.
I never really thought of the Beatles as doing any 'proto prog', since it did refer to a specific type of style and sound as many have already mentioned, but they certainly used psychedelic rock with many new approaches to recording and sound effects as in orchestration , etc. But then Tomorrow never Knows, Strawberry Fields , and I Am The Walrus could certainly fit into one's definition of proto prog.
I agreed. Imo The Beatles never was proto-prog. Proto-prog were heavy, greasy and Hammond organ driven sound of early Deep Purple, Rare Bird, Iron Butterfly and so on.
But this isn't what prog rock came to mean. There are many gentle prog bands. Just look at the bands
included at this site and put a Proto (Latin word?) before them. You can't say prog is "heavy, greasy, and Hammond
organ" driven completely as a genre.
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Posted: March 05 2014 at 17:52
chopper wrote:
King Crimson776 wrote:
Tomorrow Never Knows is much too simple. Nothing before Pepper can be seriously considered here.
It may be simple in terms of one chord and repetitive drum pattern but it was quite complicated to record, as it was mixed live with a number of people operating the various tape loops.
Joined: September 20 2010
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Posted: March 05 2014 at 21:58
The Dark Elf wrote:
Svetonio wrote:
The Dark Elf wrote:
Ummm...Svetonio, how can a band be "proto-prog", by any definition, if they were not formed until 1969 (the band did not function as a full group until August, 1969) and they did not release an album until the very end of 1969? (...)
Because 'proto-prog' was a term that was created by vinyls dealers to mark the sound, not a genre. Knobby, as a serious LPs collector as well, already explained to us what 'proto prog' really was.
Originally posted by Knobby
(...)
What has happened here is what I call "cow bird" - the cow bird waits till another species builds it nest then takes over that nest.
The true meaning of "proto-prog" was laid down maybe as much as two decades before Progarchives came up with vastly generalizing the term to mean basically anything that developed out of psych (not "psyche" guys - psyche is "the soul"), pop and ROCK and embryonically began to wiggle towards what was to be progressive rock.
Think - where you think the TERM first came out of: web forums? I can assure you it did not.
Books on prog?
Of course not - it predated all that.
I lay odds it came out of those old (in some cases, yellow-brown paper) lp dealer catalogues that came in the mail to (serious) collectors.
The true meaning of "proto-prog" is it is simply a DISTINCTIVE SOUND that was pushed to make it easier for collectors to get what they were after.
It is NOT a genre (as progarchives would have it). It was mainly Hammond-organ-driven. (General rule, I would say - if its got synth in it, its not proto.). Mellotron can be there also. It was mainly a UK thing, but American proto CAN be identified.
It was mainly A VERY SLIM PERIOD in music's history, usually '69 but you CAN have clearly identifiable proto in '70 and even further on, due to fact that some countries were bit back in time - remember we are stressing THE SOUND here. The INITIAL appearance of the SOUND on vinyl. So you have "backward" countries like Denmark with (compared to the population number) a surprizing wealth of proto being put out as late as '71.
I repeat. Progarchives has taken the dealer-term , built their nest there, gave it their own spin ; made something other of it.
Perfectly alright, I expect. But I wish they would call it something else other than PROTO prog. (Maybe Burgeoning Prog?)
For instance The Who would NEVER be considered proto - they never had the Vertigo,Dawn,Nepentha - etc record label sound.
And for Progarchives in their "best proto lp " picture section to stress something like Deep Purple "Machinehead" and overlook the only one that is remotely proto, "Book of Talysein". (spelt wrong- yeah, who f**ks) is misleading in the least.
What you are speaking of in this thread is simply pop ,bluesrock , psych and ROCK wot began to merge into the oncoming prog.
Your speaking of something very broad, a parameter . Something that varies in different cases.
Whereas the origional, REAL meaning of protoprog is something extremely select and finite.
What, are you Knobby's doppelganger? Who in the hell was a troll like Knobby to ordain what a term is, particularly when the prefix "proto" is, academically speaking, a specified definor used musically to refer to "that which came before". Please provide detailed citations that bolster your point (or Knobby's, rather).
When someone says "proto-punk" that does not mean three bands located in Birmingham, England who all had inverted mohawks and played with cheap Squier guitars during the period of 1972 to 1977 (because, obviously, one can be proto-punk after the fact), all because some London used-record reseller sought to spruce up his album bins, while ignoring Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground, The Kinks, The Stooges, The New York Dolls, The MC5 and The Who, which he simply placed under the "rock" category -- because they did not have the proper sound and the wrong hairstyle.
As far as this entire idea that Deep Purple is the end-all, be-all of the "proto-prog sound", don't you find that a bit laughable? Sure, they had their proggy moments, like Led Zeppelin did, but in the end none of the great prog bands emulated that sound; on the contrary, Yes, ELP, Genesis, King Crimson, Jethro Tull, Floyd or whichever prog icon you wish to name ever sounded even remotely like Deep Purple, even when using a Hammond organ. (...)
Just find this in a bio of an obscure greek prog band who was released two LPs in late 70s, now re-issued as digital albums as well:
(...) With that exquisite basement feel encountered in the early ‘70s British proto-progressive bands, it is one of the essential Greek progressive albums of all times (...)
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Earliest ProtoProg Beatles Song?
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Svetonio wrote:
). Please help me:
