When were you infected by Prog?

Formentera Lady wrote: Formentera Lady wrote: I remember it was 1982. Until then I only listened to Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, Sweet and some german 'Schlager' (I don't know what it is in English). My seven year older brother accidentally dropped a cassette tape in the room I was playing. On the cover was handwritten 'Genesis Three Sides Live' and I thought it was something biblical. I was a very curious child then, ecpecially when it is about music, so I put the cassette in the cassette player... and was immediately blown away. I had to see this band. So my brother took me to my first rock concert. The opener for Genesis at that time I did not know at all. Some 'King Crimson', and I was not very impressed. The music was too strange. I only remember a funny bald guy playing a strange looking bass, who made photos all the time from everyone. Later, Genesis started a for me unknown song with acoustic guitars and vocals and it seemed, as if a story was about to be told. When it came to ' A flower?' I sat on my brother's shoulders because I couldn't see a thing. My brother had an aching back after that, but I got the full blow of the Supper's Ready virus... I corrected some mistakes, sorry.

That is a brilliant story. Thanks for posting.

^ You'd get my vote for best username!

Edited by irrelevant - September 29 2010 at 10:14

i wasn't exposed enough to prog until i saw RUSH for the first time a couple years back. now this saturday i'm going to see them for a third time. LOL

i got into music with system of a down when i was 13 after that i was into heavy metal nu metal so i got a metal dvd from my cousin there was some ayreon and dream theater in it i still didnt know what it was then one day my brother took cross eyed mary from my cousin and brought it home  i listened to the song and i loved it but didnt search about it and then the magic of PINK FLOYD got me like anyone else thats pretty much it so my cousin's the one that got me into prog 


Edited by sydbarrett2010 - October 08 2010 at 00:38

Without a doubt, when I was 5. That was 1968, and my dad brought in an 8-track tape of the soundtrack to 2001: A Space Odyssey. I was absolutely mesmerized by Ligeti's Atmospheres and Lux Aeterna. Still crazy about it, after all these years....

Easy answer-  in 1974, before I owned any albums, my friends played "Roundabout" for me. I had heard it on the radio before but never paid attention until then.  It was the bass parts and Bruford's drumming that hooked me. I listened to the rest of Fragile and was not dissapointed.  It was what I had been waiting for since discovering rock music in my very early teens.

Discovering prog rock was the best things that i had ever done in my whole life...i was in the basement with a couple of friends about 7 years ago, when i was 13 or 14 years old.  We were talking, and then my friend decides to put on a CD...and that CD was Hawkwind.  I thought it was the wierdest thing at first....sounds that that truely came from space, hypnotic riffs, laid back clear vocals, LSD induced rythyms...it couldnt get much better.  That same album, Space Ritual, i have since bought and kept for safe keeping in my CD shelf...then everything just seemed to fall in place.

I was...let's see...15.  I had saved up to buy a copy of Martina McBride's "The Way That I Am" (I was heavy into country at the time).  My stepdad took me to the CD store, but being that I didn't have a CD player at the time, I had to settle for cassettes.  I saw the McBride record, but something on the far wall (where the tapes were kept) called out to me.  I walked over to it.  It was a used copy of Rush's "Chronicles"; 2 tapes for $10.  Excited, I bought it.  I was even more excited to get it home and play it.

I think I was about 15, and a friend of mine brought King Crimson's Thrak and Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon to my house. They both floored me initially, and I was instantly a fan of both bands despite not necessarily understanding what these guys were actually doing. That's been over ten years ago, and I'd say that nearly everything I listen to has prog elements now.  

Before I got into prog I had been listening to alternative rock (Radiohead, the Smashing Pumpkins, the Killers). One day I decided to check out some metal, see what it's all about. I found Dream Theater, and I was intrigued by Octavarium. Who would've thought a 24 minute song actually existed? At first, even though I liked them, listening to their longer songs in one sitting was hard for me. Gradually, not only did I get used to it but I actually started looking for long songs. At the same time, I started looking into symphonic, operic and neo-classical metal. Had I become a metalhead? Well, not really, but these metal songs had the complexity I looked for in music. Eventually I learned that this kind of metal is called progressive metal. So I looked into progressive rock. At first I mostly listened to the Beatles and the Mars Volta. I couldn't get into Pink Floyd. I liked a couple of their songs, but that was it. After a while, I decided to give them another shot. Surely, there had to be a reason they were so famous. I had grown musically, so this time not only did I like them, they became my favorite band. After listening to their whole discography I was ready to enter the world of prog.

So yeah, I actually went straight from alternative rock to progressive metal and THEN to prog rock.