How did you find Prog?

timesignature wrote: i thought i invented it. well more particular, i thought i invented jazz fusion metal. ive played jazz piano since i was 5. when i turned 14 i started playing guitar. the popular music was metal not jazz, but then i thought 'whoa! wat if u combined the ideas'. so i started writing all forms of jazz prog metal, and then googled it to see if i had invented it but instead i found a band called Extol and their song Confessions of Inadequacy. later found DT, BTBAM, and Opeth.

i don't know whether I found prog or whether prog found me.  There I was, completely minding my own business for the first 45 years of my life, when I came across this mildly amusing web site, wherein I discovered the music that I loved was the focus of this website - strange but true. 

the Who and Purple are considered Proto Prog here, not a full prog category but bands that impacted the prog movement .. Tull have always been prog, one of the crown princes, and I don't think Priest has a PA entry

enjoy, and welcome to the site










Edited by Atavachron - January 18 2009 at 20:06

For me Prog has been both a blessing and a curse.

Blessing in the light that it's brought me some great sounds, and something to play in my head when I'm in boring meetings, or waiting in an elevator, or just generally somewhere I don't want to be, with people I don't want to be with, listening to something I don't want to listen to. In that light, its wonderful. It's also a great escape from modern day Pop music that is just a god awful pile of dung, that untalented "artists" sh*t out after their morning cup of coffee.
It's also a Curse in the light that it's a total Social kill. I find myself not going out nearly as much as I did in my younger years. I mean, you don't see adults listening to Blink 182 countless times analyzing each song over the course of a few hours (maybe they do... ), i mean where else can you do that but in Progressive Music. Currently (as we speak) I'm trying to hear the greatness inside of Clepsydra's album "Fears". It's fancy, but Im not getting much here, ah well, a few more listens and I'll be satisfied.

With all the above mentioned, I got into Progressive Rock without even Realizing it, at first. I've been into Pink Floyd since the beginning of my time. I just remember thinking, there couldn't possibly be anything better then THIS. I mean, I could listen to the Wall all day and still keep getting so much from it. At the time my other interests were Greed day and Stone Temple Pilots, other bands of that nature. I was going through those like a Roll of toilet paper. I remember feeling that there HAS TO BE MORE. Then one day, my older brother came over with an Album entitled "Foxtrot", by GENESIS? Isn't that Phil collins? "Pft, I'm not going to like this" I told myself... boy was I so ever wrong. Watcher of the Skies, my delicate flower. Still my most treasured Progressve-Rock song. You were my golden doorway to everything that is beautiful.
Thanks for Reading. Have a wonderful day fellow ProgRockers.

I got into prog partially through my father and partially through a good friend of mine.

My dad listens to Jethro Tull, Blue Oyster Cult, Kansas, Genesis, Yes, and Pink Floyd and was always playing these CDs or listening to them in the car or on the stereo. Eventually I started borrowing his CDs and listening to them on my own and really enjoying what I was hearing. I liked the technical musicianship and the epic songs.

When I was in my junior year of high school, a friend of mine and I would jam together and try to compose some songs. I would play bass and he would play drums. We never really got anything together but one time after jamming he showed me the Dream Theater "Live at Budokan" DVD which made me want to seek out that band and other talented musicians.

Quite enjoyable.

A friend recommended a (mostly) prog show on the local radio to me.

My older brother, even though he was not all that Prog, bought a few when they came out

I hate to be boring, but when I was a little kid, my dad had Wish You Were Here, along with Thick as a Brick, and Deep Purple's self titled album from 1969 (with the extended orchestral piece April), and In The Court Of The Crimson King.

That's all it took. Heard it around the house growing up, and by time I was old enough to think for myself, I was already a prog fan.

Edit: oh, forgot to mention, this all happened in the late 80's early 90's I guess. I was born '86.


Edited by Eapo_q42 - January 22 2009 at 17:45

I’m 20 now. When I was 12 most of my friends listened (and played) to Metallica, Nirvana, Linking Park, Blink 182 and so on (they still listen to it, well less rap at least). I never really liked any of these bands and other mainstream music.

I discovered Nightwish and really liked all of their work. I have always had a passion for symphonic sound. Before I discovered Nightwish I liked (and still does) classical music, Bach, Vivaldi, Beethoven, Mozart and those. I listened to Nightwish for about 1 year (still listened to classical music, but more Nightwish).

 

I was a fan of them, until I started borrowing random albums from random artists at a library. One day I found Black Sabbath’s “Heaven and hell” album and I absolutely loved it, I quickly discovered all of Ronnie James Dio’s work, from Rainbow (also the elves ) Black Sabbath and Dio. I loved all of it! The Ozzy era just sucked I thought and still think. Songs like “Stargazer”, “Gates of Babylon, “Tarot woman, “Temple of the King” really grow on me. In ca. 1 year I only listened to Dio‘s work with Rainbow, Black Sabbath and Dio (I was 17). I also went to see Dio live.

 

By a coincidence I discovered Manowar, Saturnus and Eloy. Eloy sounded a lot like Dio I thought and I liked it. Then I started searching on you tube and found King Crimson in a related video when searching Eloy’s work through. It was King Crimson’s album “In the Court of the Crimson King” I discovered first. I was Scared to death! I had never imagined that music like that existed, and I couldn’t believe that it wasn’t more known today!

 

I didn’t like Jazz and preferred songs “normally” constructed, (like mainstream music is) (all I had heard at this moment was Big band Jazz (I think it's boring) (what you hear in TV and on the Radio), and I thought that all Jazz was like that) so I didn’t like “un normally” constructed songs with jazz elements in, like king crimson’s “21st century schizoid man” and all of Gentle Giant’s songs (except their songs without hear able jazz elements in, like “Nothing at all“).

 

When I discovered King Crimson I started searching for other music a lot! After 1 month I started to like jazz and “un normally” constructed music very quickly became normal to me. So Gentle Giant’s jazzy songs, King Crimson’s “21st century schizoid man“ and all other prog constructed songs with Jazz elements in, was pure gold.

 

Now ca 2 years after prog is still what I like most (it also tends to bore me less than other music and prog groups sounds very different from each other (rap sounds pretty much the same to me)). I didn’t know that there was something called prog until I found the word in lots of my searching’s for music that I liked.

 

None of my friends like prog (well I’ve gotten them a little into Led Zeppelin, Judas Priest, and Budgie), but it was also a long process for me, to get into the different elements used in prog, especially Jazz and the way the music is constructed. So it’s very natural that my friends/other people don’t like the sound of it.