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Punk on opposite sides of the Atlantic were completely different animals. In the US it strikes me as a bohemian, hedonistic, apolitical, lo-fi artistic 'loft' movement that drew inspiration from European literary sources like Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Genet, and Artaud etc. In the UK the focus was a much more overtly political (left leaning) agenda, a DIY ethos, anti-consumerism, the collective as a catalyst for consensual change and a cautious distrust of the written word.
All to true to various extents. But unlike the Punk movement in the UK, there was a sense of rebellion in the American movement that was not based on any ideological factors. Just rebellion for rebellion's sake. Just like many other rebellious American movements at the time.
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Still this doesn't explain that outside the UK similar things happened. Also there was TV, radio, club and dance hall culture, gigs, people listening to stuff they didn't know in record shops, lots of things going on apart from music writing.
I remember (having come to the party somewhat late in 1979/80) that punk was seen as refreshing and liberating and people actually played a lot of punk which you couldn't do so easy with prog. I started making music myself at that time and it surely helped me and others that dilettantes were tolerated and even welcomed on stage. It was fun (and the product of my own proggish taste maybe sounded more punk than prog in the beginning ). We didn't feel strongly influenced by journalists but rather by bands that achieved something listenable with simple means. And it was indeed somewhat "snooty" to tell us and others (including some really good folks) that in order to make music and go on stage you need to be able to play like Wakeman or Emerson. So the musical appeal of punk/new wave is very obvious to me, if more on the active side than just for listening, as is the observation that some proggers were/are elitist, and would praise their favourite music based on the musicians' ability on display, which to me is rather circus than essential musical quality. Obviously it's very useful to play good music as well, I'm not denying that (although I was keen to ignore it at the time). You get my point; I had already started to become a prog listener but I was in a certain sense part of the revolution against it as well. Which had nothing to do with what journalists wrote.
The boldface is mine. I don't really condone the view expressed, but I'm intrigued, because it speaks to something I've always suspected. It took awhile for Prog musicians to get to the level they were eventually. I suppose it may have been hard for even talented up and coming musicians to keep up with some of the Prog legends simply because they had a few years head start learning to be musicians.
It is probably also important that the attitude of some of the prog audience (and maybe some musicians) had changed. Or rather maybe there were various kinds of prog audience from the beginning. The end 60s and in countries that were a bit behind the early 70s were in some sense like the beginning of punk; it was a liberating and encouraging climate for everyone who wanted to play music. Take the beginnings of Amon Düül. In the beginning it was just, let's play some music, try whatever instrument you want, no skill, education and knowledge necessary. Amon Düül I's albums are all like this. Amon Düül II became more ambitious and later some of their musicians became very good, but on the Phallus Dei album they're still very pedestrian. Their beginning is the same though, spontaneous jamming out of the desire to do music and listening experience, no other background. Surely other bands that are listed here have a similar story. And the audience went with it. It was spontaneous and fun. By the way, legendary German proto-punk band Ton Steine Scherben was founded in 1970 and belonged to that same culture initially, and later became punk icons in Germany. As somebody wrote before, prog was rebellion. Later in the 70s a larger part of the prog audience went for admiring skill and complexity and part of them looked down on music that didn't have that. Probably these people looked down on early Amon Düül as well. I love a great deal of prog from later in the seventies and even early eighties, but it was pretty clear that in this way some of the prog culture had lost touch with the rebellious sentiment of the next generation. The issue is not how good some of the prog virtuosos were and that it was hard to get at their level, the issue was rather that many of those who were still proggers looked down on who didn't want to go that way. And I actually think that one thing the music press got right was to part company with these people.
Punk on opposite sides of the Atlantic were completely different animals. In the US it strikes me as a bohemian, hedonistic, apolitical, lo-fi artistic 'loft' movement that drew inspiration from European literary sources like Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Genet, and Artaud etc. In the UK the focus was a much more overtly political (left leaning) agenda, a DIY ethos, anti-consumerism, the collective as a catalyst for consensual change and a cautious distrust of the written word.
All to true to various extents. But unlike the Punk movement in the UK, there was a sense of rebellion in the American movement that was not based on any ideological factors. Just rebellion for rebellion's sake. Just like many other rebellious American movements at the time.
That sounds a bit like a disingenuous antipathy towards the music your Dad likes (even though you actually think it's perfectly fine) The Oedipus complex can probably be shoe-horned into most progressive developments in the arts but are you saying that you consider (materially successful) US Punk to be nihilistic?
Punk on opposite sides of the Atlantic were completely different animals. In the US it strikes me as a bohemian, hedonistic, apolitical, lo-fi artistic 'loft' movement that drew inspiration from European literary sources like Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Genet, and Artaud etc. In the UK the focus was a much more overtly political (left leaning) agenda, a DIY ethos, anti-consumerism, the collective as a catalyst for consensual change and a cautious distrust of the written word.
All to true to various extents. But unlike the Punk movement in the UK, there was a sense of rebellion in the American movement that was not based on any ideological factors. Just rebellion for rebellion's sake. Just like many other rebellious American movements at the time.
That sounds a bit like a disingenuous antipathy towards the music your Dad likes (even though you actually think it's perfectly fine) The Oedipus complex can probably be shoe-horned into most progressive developments in the arts but are you saying that you consider (materially successful) US Punk to be nihilistic?
Were Blondie and the Ramones nihilistic? Certainly not. I was referring to NY punk bands like the Stimulators and Agnostic Front, who are categorized as New York Hardcore. (I'm a native New Yorker, so that's who I naturally think of.) Were these NYHC bands really nihilistic? Well, one band did name themselves The Nihilistics. Take that as you will.
Edited by SteveG - December 05 2019 at 08:34
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No, Kenny Everett's comic characters, Sid Snot, Gizzard Puke, Cupid Stunt & Marcel Wave, weren't based on anyone in particular, either living or dead, apart from the French mime character, who was based on Marcel Marceau. Oh, and then there were the Bee Gees.
Edited by Psychedelic Paul - December 05 2019 at 07:43
Weren't punkers "snooty" actually? Weren't they considered themselves being something special?
No more than any other rock stars of that era.
Well perhaps, but unlike punkers, the real rock stars had a convincing "apology" for that attitude - so many great songs & albums of all genres. What punks achieved in 1976-1977, aside of all that hysteria made by the media? Nothing musically significant, I'm afraid. Just another "back to basics" that was nothing new as pub-rock went popular among hipsters already in 1973.
Weren't punkers "snooty" actually? Weren't they considered themselves being something special?
No more than any other rock stars of that era.
Well perhaps, but unlike punkers, the real rock stars had a convincing "apology" for that attitude - so many great songs & albums of all genres. What punks achieved in 1976-1977, aside of all that hysteria made by the media? Nothing musically significant, I'm afraid. Just another "back to basics" that was nothing new as pub-rock went popular among hipsters already in 1973.
I agree that 99% of the music will certainly not endure but Punk's legacy is that it changed the music industry and consumers attitudes to it forever.
Weren't punkers "snooty" actually? Weren't they considered themselves being something special?
No more than any other rock stars of that era.
Well perhaps, but unlike punkers, the real rock stars had a convincing "apology" for that attitude - so many great songs & albums of all genres. What punks achieved in 1976-1977, aside of all that hysteria made by the media? Nothing musically significant, I'm afraid. Just another "back to basics" that was nothing new as pub-rock went popular among hipsters already in 1973.
I agree that 99% of the music will certainly not endure but Punk's legacy is that it changed the music industry and consumers attitudes to it forever.
The changehad happened, but it's legacy of the media that successfully produced a mass hysteria out of nothing.
^ Which probably explains the recent surge of faded prog rock bands playing on cruise ships for retirees. Prog, this era's polka.
Gawd, that was excellent!
I've often mused about the evolution of prog, compared to other musical forms that have come and gone....big band jazz, polka for certain, barbershop quartet etc.
As a guitar player for over 50 years, I've seen the interest in the six-string razor soar at the hands of masters like Howe, Fripp and, yes, Eddie Van Halen (helped sell more wood & wire than anyone)! However, sales of guitars are plunging according to experts in the field.
Pity, that, my collection is destined to become tomorrow's accordion!
^ Which probably explains the recent surge of faded prog rock bands playing on cruise ships for retirees. Prog, this era's polka.
Gawd, that was excellent!
I've often mused about the evolution of prog, compared to other musical forms that have come and gone....big band jazz, polka for certain, barbershop quartet etc.
As a guitar player for over 50 years, I've seen the interest in the six-string razor soar at the hands of masters like Howe, Fripp and, yes, Eddie Van Halen (helped sell more wood & wire than anyone)! However, sales of guitars are plunging according to experts in the field.
Pity, that, my collection is destined to become tomorrow's accordion!
It could be worse. I play the tuba. I’m counting on Polka comeback.
(Not the current collection, but you get the idea.)
Rick “but polka crowds are younger than ever these days” Denney
Still this doesn't explain that outside the UK similar things happened. Also there was TV, radio, club and dance hall culture, gigs, people listening to stuff they didn't know in record shops, lots of things going on apart from music writing.
I remember (having come to the party somewhat late in 1979/80) that punk was seen as refreshing and liberating and people actually played a lot of punk which you couldn't do so easy with prog. I started making music myself at that time and it surely helped me and others that dilettantes were tolerated and even welcomed on stage. It was fun (and the product of my own proggish taste maybe sounded more punk than prog in the beginning ). We didn't feel strongly influenced by journalists but rather by bands that achieved something listenable with simple means. And it was indeed somewhat "snooty" to tell us and others (including some really good folks) that in order to make music and go on stage you need to be able to play lake Wakeman or Emerson. So the musical appeal of punk/new wave is very obvious to me, if more on the active side than just for listening, as is the observation that some proggers were/are elitist, and would praise their favourite music based on the musicians' ability on display, which to me is rather circus than essential musical quality. Obviously it's very useful to play good music as well, I'm not denying that (although I was keen to ignore it at the time). You get my point; I had already started to become a prog listener but I was in a certain sense part of the revolution against it as well. Which had nothing to do with what journalists wrote.
The boldface is mine. I don't really condone the view expressed, but I'm intrigued, because it speaks to something I've always suspected. It took awhile for Prog musicians to get to the level they were eventually. I suppose it may have been hard for even talented up and coming musicians to keep up with some of the Prog legends simply because they had a few years head start learning to be musicians.
I would have thought that most musicians joined bands when they are in their mid-teens whether they are Punk or Prog. Manzarek had as much of a head start over Emerson as Emerson had over Wakeman and Wakeman did over Sensible and Sensible almost did over Nieve. [Yeah, I cherry picked because Wakeman was a young puppy compared to most 70s prog musicians and there is a paucity of Punk keyboardists to chose from, however I was stunned to see how old Dave Forumla is].
Ray Manzarek 1939
Keith Emerson 1944
Dave Formula 1946
Rick Wakeman 1949
Dave Greeenfield 1949
Captain Sensible 1954
Steve Nieve 1958
Hmm..well..Just supposin'
A curse upon the heads of those who seek their fortunes in a lie. The truth is always waiting when there's nothing left to try. - Colin Henson, Jade Warrior (Now)
Still this doesn't explain that outside the UK similar things happened. Also there was TV, radio, club and dance hall culture, gigs, people listening to stuff they didn't know in record shops, lots of things going on apart from music writing.
I remember (having come to the party somewhat late in 1979/80) that punk was seen as refreshing and liberating and people actually played a lot of punk which you couldn't do so easy with prog. I started making music myself at that time and it surely helped me and others that dilettantes were tolerated and even welcomed on stage. It was fun (and the product of my own proggish taste maybe sounded more punk than prog in the beginning ). We didn't feel strongly influenced by journalists but rather by bands that achieved something listenable with simple means. And it was indeed somewhat "snooty" to tell us and others (including some really good folks) that in order to make music and go on stage you need to be able to play like Wakeman or Emerson. So the musical appeal of punk/new wave is very obvious to me, if more on the active side than just for listening, as is the observation that some proggers were/are elitist, and would praise their favourite music based on the musicians' ability on display, which to me is rather circus than essential musical quality. Obviously it's very useful to play good music as well, I'm not denying that (although I was keen to ignore it at the time). You get my point; I had already started to become a prog listener but I was in a certain sense part of the revolution against it as well. Which had nothing to do with what journalists wrote.
The boldface is mine. I don't really condone the view expressed, but I'm intrigued, because it speaks to something I've always suspected. It took awhile for Prog musicians to get to the level they were eventually. I suppose it may have been hard for even talented up and coming musicians to keep up with some of the Prog legends simply because they had a few years head start learning to be musicians.
It is probably also important that the attitude of some of the prog audience (and maybe some musicians) had changed. Or rather maybe there were various kinds of prog audience from the beginning. The end 60s and in countries that were a bit behind the early 70s were in some sense like the beginning of punk; it was a liberating and encouraging climate for everyone who wanted to play music. Take the beginnings of Amon Düül. In the beginning it was just, let's play some music, try whatever instrument you want, no skill, education and knowledge necessary. Amon Düül I's albums are all like this. Amon Düül II became more ambitious and later some of their musicians became very good, but on the Phallus Dei album they're still very pedestrian. Their beginning is the same though, spontaneous jamming out of the desire to do music and listening experience, no other background. Surely other bands that are listed here have a similar story. And the audience went with it. It was spontaneous and fun. By the way, legendary German proto-punk band Ton Steine Scherben was founded in 1970 and belonged to that same culture initially, and later became punk icons in Germany. As somebody wrote before, prog was rebellion. Later in the 70s a larger part of the prog audience went for admiring skill and complexity and part of them looked down on music that didn't have that. Probably these people looked down on early Amon Düül as well. I love a great deal of prog from later in the seventies and even early eighties, but it was pretty clear that in this way some of the prog culture had lost touch with the rebellious sentiment of the next generation. The issue is not how good some of the prog virtuosos were and that it was hard to get at their level, the issue was rather that many of those who were still proggers looked down on who didn't want to go that way. And I actually think that one thing the music press got right was to part company with these people.
I don't agree with your perspective at all. I think you're mis-identifying who the aggressors were. The only Prog musician I can think of that might have been prone to public condescension would have been Frank Zappa. I don't know of anyone who had a greater superiority complex than him, but he liked all sorts of music. His grief was directed more at execs and journalists than at other musicians:
Edited by HackettFan - December 05 2019 at 23:38
A curse upon the heads of those who seek their fortunes in a lie. The truth is always waiting when there's nothing left to try. - Colin Henson, Jade Warrior (Now)
Still this doesn't explain that outside the UK similar things happened. Also there was TV, radio, club and dance hall culture, gigs, people listening to stuff they didn't know in record shops, lots of things going on apart from music writing.
I remember (having come to the party somewhat late in 1979/80) that punk was seen as refreshing and liberating and people actually played a lot of punk which you couldn't do so easy with prog. I started making music myself at that time and it surely helped me and others that dilettantes were tolerated and even welcomed on stage. It was fun (and the product of my own proggish taste maybe sounded more punk than prog in the beginning ). We didn't feel strongly influenced by journalists but rather by bands that achieved something listenable with simple means. And it was indeed somewhat "snooty" to tell us and others (including some really good folks) that in order to make music and go on stage you need to be able to play like Wakeman or Emerson. So the musical appeal of punk/new wave is very obvious to me, if more on the active side than just for listening, as is the observation that some proggers were/are elitist, and would praise their favourite music based on the musicians' ability on display, which to me is rather circus than essential musical quality. Obviously it's very useful to play good music as well, I'm not denying that (although I was keen to ignore it at the time). You get my point; I had already started to become a prog listener but I was in a certain sense part of the revolution against it as well. Which had nothing to do with what journalists wrote.
The boldface is mine. I don't really condone the view expressed, but I'm intrigued, because it speaks to something I've always suspected. It took awhile for Prog musicians to get to the level they were eventually. I suppose it may have been hard for even talented up and coming musicians to keep up with some of the Prog legends simply because they had a few years head start learning to be musicians.
It is probably also important that the attitude of some of the prog audience (and maybe some musicians) had changed. Or rather maybe there were various kinds of prog audience from the beginning. The end 60s and in countries that were a bit behind the early 70s were in some sense like the beginning of punk; it was a liberating and encouraging climate for everyone who wanted to play music. Take the beginnings of Amon Düül. In the beginning it was just, let's play some music, try whatever instrument you want, no skill, education and knowledge necessary. Amon Düül I's albums are all like this. Amon Düül II became more ambitious and later some of their musicians became very good, but on the Phallus Dei album they're still very pedestrian. Their beginning is the same though, spontaneous jamming out of the desire to do music and listening experience, no other background. Surely other bands that are listed here have a similar story. And the audience went with it. It was spontaneous and fun. By the way, legendary German proto-punk band Ton Steine Scherben was founded in 1970 and belonged to that same culture initially, and later became punk icons in Germany. As somebody wrote before, prog was rebellion. Later in the 70s a larger part of the prog audience went for admiring skill and complexity and part of them looked down on music that didn't have that. Probably these people looked down on early Amon Düül as well. I love a great deal of prog from later in the seventies and even early eighties, but it was pretty clear that in this way some of the prog culture had lost touch with the rebellious sentiment of the next generation. The issue is not how good some of the prog virtuosos were and that it was hard to get at their level, the issue was rather that many of those who were still proggers looked down on who didn't want to go that way. And I actually think that one thing the music press got right was to part company with these people.
I don't agree with your perspective at all. I think you're mis-identifying who the aggressors were. The only Prog musician I can think of that might have been prone to public condescension would have been Frank Zappa. I don't know of anyone who had a greater superiority complex than him, but he liked all sorts of music. His grief was directed more at execs and journalists than at other musicians:
There was some verbal sparring in the late 70s though. I believe Dave Stewart voiced his refusal to dumb down and play simple stuff. Then, there was the Annie Haslam-Jilted John spat where the former said the latter was not music and should not be on the Top of the Pops show.
To be fair, it is difficult to tell who was the aggressor here and whether the prog rockers were only counter attacking because punk, and Sex Pistols in particular, did really nasty stuff like burning effigies of Emerson. I didn't live through that time but I don't find myself able to condone that under any political pretext and I guess I would have appreciated it had Sid Vicious reserved the same vitriol for the reigning political masters instead.
Weren't punkers "snooty" actually? Weren't they considered themselves being something special?
No more than any other rock stars of that era.
Well perhaps, but unlike punkers, the real rock stars had a convincing "apology" for that attitude - so many great songs & albums of all genres. What punks achieved in 1976-1977, aside of all that hysteria made by the media? Nothing musically significant, I'm afraid. Just another "back to basics" that was nothing new as pub-rock went popular among hipsters already in 1973.
Seriously? Tell that to the surviving members of the Clash and the Sex Pistols. As much as we prog fans hate to admit it, Punk (either real or pseudo) has left an indelible mark on rock music.
As far as music "going back to basics", it never had to. Bands like the Seeds, and other garage rockers from the 60s, kept it going long before 1974.
Edited by SteveG - December 06 2019 at 05:20
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Posted: December 05 2019 at 04:15
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Anstey wrote:
). We didn't feel strongly influenced by journalists but rather by bands that achieved something listenable with simple means. And it was indeed somewhat "snooty" to tell us and others (including some really good folks) that in order to make music and go on stage you need to be able to play like Wakeman or Emerson. So the musical appeal of punk/new wave is very obvious to me, if more on the active side than just for listening, as is the observation that some proggers were/are elitist, and would praise their favourite music based on the musicians' ability on display, which to me is rather circus than essential musical quality. Obviously it's very useful to play good music as well, I'm not denying that (although I was keen to ignore it at the time). You get my point; I had already started to become a prog listener but I was in a certain sense part of the revolution against it as well. Which had nothing to do with what journalists wrote.