The Strange Omissions of the Archives

this is of course a personal opinion, but there are a lot of strange omissions in the archives. I know many will disagree; please feel free to add your 5 cents' worth.

psychedelic rock is arguably one of the roots of progressive rock, so I would expect to have the foremost bands of that genre in here. Jefferson Airplane can indeed be found, but other important artists are strangely missing. let me list some:

The Grateful Dead. I have seen derogatory comments about The Grateful Dead in here like "they were just a jam band", to which I would say "so what? many short-lived Krautrock bands were nothing else". anyway, just one listen to the amazing "Live/Dead" album from 1969 should be enough to blow that opinion to smithereens.

The 13th Floor Elevators. why the first two albums of this amazing band are not celebrated as forerunners of progressive rock on this site is completely beyond me.

Steppenwolf. one of my absolute favorite bands that started out in the 60s and definitely forerunners of prog rock, with "Born to be Wild" and "The Pusher" being two songs from one of the most famous cult movies ever, "Easy Rider".

Big Brother and the Holding Company. another band that does not get the credit it deserves on this site. featuring one of the most prominent members of the "Club 27" on their first two albums (Janis Joplin) that can rightly be named cornerstones of psychedelic rock.

again, this is just my opinion, but since I am a trained historian I think the omission of some of the historic roots of prog rock is a bit weird

My take has been that the whole "progressive" thing is centered on English rock journalists, and since they "created" it, foreign bands can not be selected to the top because it will cause problems ... like England can not be a part of an "Euro...." this or that and has to split, to show its personality and individuality!

I have, for a long time, stood up for a lot of scenes, and the American one is special, but it was hacked to death by the media and the English media let it, and laughed along the way, and ended up making stupid comments about the music, the most visible of them all would probably fall to the GD, but by that time they did not care, and it wasn't about Rolling the Stones, or Melody Masturbate, and just kepot on doing their thing, and when their 2 eponymous albums came out, of course they were not "progressive" ... almost no keyboards, and no loud organ telling you that this is what "progressive" is all about, which kinda tells you right there that the whole thing was not about the music, but about the loudness of the organ player, and how it was added/matched to the band.

JA deserves to be there, almost right from the start, if anything, by their attitude towards a lot of things, specially the business, which ripped them off a lot more than most bands out there ... and no one ever talks about the second level of bands under them ... that had some absolutely lovely material ... and PA will never check out even something like Hot Tuna ... because it ain't progressive and that guitarist is free forming from here to heck and back in the early days!

Big Brother and Janis, is a story that hurts for me ... I liked, loved!, JJ, and she could sing like no one ever has since, and the closest to her strength and power in words in music, is probably Renate ... the one we love to hate, because it's like ... you call that singing? But the strength of the work behind it, makes it spectacular, and their album with "BALL and CHAIN" still stands up as one of the greatest examples of what STEVE HOWE ended up doing ... but not a single "progressive" fan, will even bother listening to that album anyway ... it's not progressive and besides I like my metal!

After that, I think there were a lot of different things in America that should have gotten a lot of attention, but it was not going to happen, because hit radio ruled America until 1970/1971 and by that time, the attention went to the Europeans, and a lot of American bands lost the attraction on the radio hit scene, although FM radio kept many of the bands alive, however, they were all new and different, even if some of them had their roots several years before during the free form days.

Steppenwolf ... I still have their first 2 albums! Enough said. 

Iron Butterfly ... were it not for their famous long song, this band might have been considered "progressive", just for its style, and loud keyboards. However, they had some bad situations within the band, that really hurt their ability to get stronger and better ... but still put out a nice amount of music. Like most American bands, their links were more to rock and blues, with extended pieces, but that's a laugh ... like that did not happen in England!

13th Floor Elevators ... to my shame, I have not heard them!

A few others ... RAM, IT'S A BEAUTIFUL DAY (which played several shows in Europe with PF and many of the "progressive" sound. You can get a taste of it in the film STAMPING GROUND), SANTANA in the early days, was extremely progressive, as their "fusion" was really original and their shows, in the early days, were massively exciting and explosive ... Santana's set in WOODSTOCK, is almost nothing compared to the one in STAMPING GROUND ... 

The Midwest was an incredible ground for more experimental music ... and you can always check out IDES OF MARCH for something very different (they had their hit ... Vehicle), and a far out version of Eleanor Rigby! There were more bands, that bordered that far, the one with the hit Green Eyed Lady (SUGARLOAF) was also a very good album, and quite a bit less known, but a band that kinda tried to sound like CHICAGO, was THE SONS OF CHAMPLIN ... which also had some nice stuff.

For that matter, the Midwest biggest band of all will never be considered "progressive" and their first 5 or 6 albums had some magnificent material that made a lot of "progressive bands" sound and be just another pop band out there! And this is also to say that their 1 and 2 albums are absolutely fantastic, but again, the lack of a loud keyboard sound ... oh my gawd .... horns? ... means this music is sh*t and not progressive!

NY, I am not good enough and versed in it to discuss well enough ... I, personally, do not think that THE VELVET UNDERGROUND is progressive at all ... more like a typical NY'r just doing whatever they wanted at the time and everyone thought it was great ... a veritable Andy Warhol ... you put up a soup can and everyone goes WOW ... and I go ... you must have been seriously stoned, talking about a chair just like Aldous Huxley did in a book! I thought it lacked flavor ... though it had style, and later Lou Reed kinda took care of it on his own ... the album "rock'n'roll animal" is excellent and would fit a "progressive" listing, but will never get it ... a song about heroin? ... nahhhh ... a nothing song about spirituality is more progressive!

XTC gets the award for favorite band that no one will ever listen to properly ... such a wonderful catalog, that yours truly can not even figure out how to write a book review of the band and Andy Partridge. It's just so far out there and wide ... that trying to bring it down to "progressive" is almost a serious come down, and insult to their music and specially Andy's visions and designs in music, and how he comes up with them, as explained in the book.

I kinda feel like I can not write a review until I listen to at least 2/3's or 3/4's of the material listed (it goes song by song kinda listing!), but too much of it is the early stuff, and I thought the band was way better later than earlier. I'm a great fan of the material from Mummer to Nonesuch, and a lot of folks will tell you that their earlier material is better, and so far, for my ears, it isn't ... maybe more "psychedelic" (so to speak!!!), but not as clear and outstanding, and focused as the material in that middle period.

I am of the opinion that the work they did with Rodd Tungren was not as good as it could have been, considering how well focused and defined their previous album (The Big Express) was, and how it contained outstanding material in it ... and even though there is one or two things in it that seem fine, I thought that Drod Untgren missed the point and the idea of the band, and it is kinda of one that slowed my enjoyment of the band ... I did get one or two more albums and that was it ... but XTC was done for me, and I really thought/wished they had gotten better attention and credit to some of the great work they had.

But XTC is not going to get in or get appreciated because someone decided that "progressive" music must have lout keyboards, and Andy is about the song, not the f**king keyboards! It's about the music, not the f**king sound!

 

The upshot is that there is a lot of wonderful music out there beyond the progosphere.