Why old prog - for me - is better than new prog

Davesax1965 wrote: (Oh dear, stirring the pot here !! ) Hi folks, and now !! A thread where I tell you why - for me - old prog is better than new prog. Really simple reason.... Association. When I stick on "Dark Side", I'm sitting around at my uncles' house in 1975 with a Mathmos oil lamp on. I stick on King Crimson, and I'm back with my mates in the early 1980's, smashed out of my mind and talking complete gibberish in a selection of grotty flats in Manchester at 2am. I put on something like Hawkwind and I'm back at UMIST rock night with my mates in the mid 80-'s, full of beer and, er, herbal tobacco, officer.  And so it goes. Not just the music but the memories. I am knocking on the door of 50, so I have very few associative memories concerning "new prog". Really, it's not just about the music but the scene that the music evokes.

(Hopefully now someone will actually reply saying "Ah yes, see what you mean, saw Floyd at Earls Court but haven't seen The Cardiacs live as I'm now 103 and can only get around in a bathchair with an oxygen cylinder and a nurse with enormous..... prospects."  

Edited by Davesax1965 - January 11 2015 at 05:07

Davesax1965 wrote: I don't get that (obviously) with new prog...

infernalfrog wrote: I think it's maybe because the new bands try to sound like the classic bands, not better than them.

Some do, but there's bands that do not. TMV, Kayo Dot, Maudlin of the well et al don't sound like anything I'd heard before.

You could argue that they're not actual prog bands, but that comes down to what you personally consider to be prog rock. I consider them all to be prog due to the simple fact that they are progressive and they are rock bands. Simples.

I do actually prefer 'old prog' I prefer the production and the songwriting, but modern prog bands have plenty to offer and we should be thankful to them for carrying on the tradition of progression in rock music..

Hi,

That's really strange ... I do not go "back in time" at all.

In so many ways, my time with SPR included, i'm having the best time now, and even then, it was a lot of work, and not as much "fun" as otherwise one would expect.

There were a lot of good things, but when you take 3 of those years and you are doing UCSB and getting a degree, you don't have time to spend on as much music as I had before, and all that, and it dropped things out some.

All in all, let's see ... and lyrics do not always second the music ... don't forget that!

KC's -- the images I see are an "old movie" showing a time and place and how bad it really was. But it also had very good things ... like music! There is nothing else to go after ... there is no girl to wish you had spent time with and all that.  They lost a lot of that later, but still had excellent music to cover.

JT's -- TAAB and PP -- TAAB has never given me visuals or images, and I will have to listen to it again to see if I can determine why. PP, is by far, one of the things that I love listening to the most, and even though some of the lyrics are down right vicious, the album makes sense to me. I've talked about it many times, and the ballerina is the cue!

YES' -- TFTO -- Still one of my top albums in rock music ever. From beginning to the end, if you have ever done a heavy duty meditation, you know where this fits and why you can enjoy it. The rest is all words. CTTE was one that I listened to many times along with AHM and TAAB and it was a very nice listen for me, but it does not illuminate me inside like TFTO eventually did.

Quatermass -- The odd album that we found, that I got because that cover was absolutely great (and Jefferson Airplane copied it later!) turned out to be a massive trip and fun to listen to ... and Guy Guden made it even better by joking over it, and then adding some comedy behind it ... I knew nothing about an English show! But it's visuals -- for me -- are not at all related to the music and its lyrics, but the "burning" organ/synth (my words) in the massively famous cut is still tops in my book.

PF -- ATM and Ummagumma -- Probably the first 2 albums that really helped me learn to trip. Before that it was always about the silly notion that you had to watch the colors change and what not, and for me, it was never that, but it was not a discussion about studying a chair or listening to Mozart either (Huxley). It was a sort of sci-fi world of sorts, and some music that could/should have been used in more sci-fi films!

Lastly ... no music out there gives me more visual content (that doesn't mean memories, btw!!!) than Popol Vuh's first 6 or 7 albums, and Ash Ra Tempel's first 6 albums, and then ... the Cosmic Couriers ... the unending quality and quantity of visuals, and I don't mean that Join Inn sounds like a sexy experience (with or without Kati!), is amazing and still, after all these years one of the best.

FZ -- 200 Motels. As time goes by, and people fail to enjoy this, it becomes more and more an insane image of nowhere land and ohh lala land. As such, it is amazing that anyone put this together, and make Alice in Bullpucky land look and sound like just an idiot commercial spoof, and not a literary piece of work. Each and every time I catch glimpses of it, your head turns in different directions, because you have no point of reference as to where this is going, or where it's coming from, and THAT is its strength ... it's for you to work your experience.

I don't think there is a greater gift by any artists out there ... than that!

Edited by moshkito - January 11 2015 at 10:27

ExittheLemming wrote: Blacksword wrote: infernalfrog wrote: I think it's maybe because the new bands try to sound like the classic bands, not better than them. Some do, but there's bands that do not. TMV, Kayo Dot, Maudlin of the well et al don't sound like anything I'd heard before. You could argue that they're not actual prog bands, but that comes down to what you personally consider to be prog rock. I consider them all to be prog due to the simple fact that they are progressive and they are rock bands. Simples. I do actually prefer 'old prog' I prefer the production and the songwriting, but modern prog bands have plenty to offer and we should be thankful to them for carrying on the tradition of progression in rock music.. I agree that The Mars Volta and Kayo Dot (I've never heard Maudlin of the Well) are certainly truly original and cannot be accused of retreading the same ground as the 1st Gen Proggers from the early 70's so yes, they are by your own estimation, rock bands that are demonstrably progressive. However, although your criteria is refreshingly simple, would it encompass the likes of Television, the Smiths, Magazine, Echo & the Bunnymen, XTC etc? (and that's just from so called Post Punk, I could list similar from other rock genres) as the prevailing wisdom would consider such as also being rock bands that are progressive. I don't think it's quite as subjective or straightforward as stating it comes down to what you personally consider to be Prog Rock as the genre teams are tasked with finding a 'best fit' for the submissions they receive and do this as objectively as humanly possible using the definitions they have at their disposal. Can you clarify if you consider any demarcation between Prog Rock and rock bands that are progressive is even any longer useful for the purposes of PA?

I do consider some demarcation, yes, but the lines are fine and subtle I guess. I consider the likes of The Smiths, Magazine et al as progressive pop in a sense, because they didn't present as rock bands. Indeed, many of those bands made a point of saying how much they disliked rock music generally and what they beieved it stood for. That was the ethos of punk, out of whch those bands emereged. The likes of TMV etc are actual ROCK bands with a progressive element and a sometimes conceptual approach to song writing.

I have often said that I consider the likes of The Future Sound of London and The Orb as progressive but their exclusion from the archives I imagine is based on the fact that they emerged from the dance music/rave scene and not rock. Same prnciple applies to those 'alternative pop bands' you listed.

Progressive rock in iteslf is such a broad church anyway. What exactly relates Caravan and King Crimson for example? Both are regarded as prog rock, but also reside in different subgenres because essentially nothing relates them.

I think that better or worst are concepts and therefore cannot be sensed. The variables involving in such a claim (A is better than B) are so many that its empirical imposible in practice to reach a better or a worst being objective.

Edited by Free like an Hydra - January 11 2015 at 14:42

To me, the newer stuff fails in the engineering and production department.  Why do a I say this?  Because a recording should be a recording... meaning to record a band or artist at a particular point on their time line.  The recording should represent the band or artist more accurately than the virtuosity of the guy editing in pro tools. 

The other part is that the modern bands fail because they come across and being influenced by prog of the past and it feels either copy catish or desperate to sound progressive or modern.

If you look at Steve Howe or Steve Hackett, they were not listening to prog guys, they were listening to guys like Wes Montgomery, Merle Travis, Les Paul and various classical music.  Bill Bruford and Phil Collins were listening to Buddy Rich, Elvin Jones, Max Roach, Joe Morello etc.

The prog keyboardists were mostly studying classical music, not learning the into to Lamb Lies Down.

This is the problem as I see it. The bar was raised much higher then.

If people think Steve Howe is a great classically minded folk guitarist, have a listen to Merle Travis.  You'll hear stuff that leaves The Clap light years behind on every front.

That was a regrettable argument.  It boils down to saying "I felt better when I was young."