When were you infected by Prog?

I'm 62 so I grew up with the Beatles, Stones , Doors, Jefferson Airplane, Who, Moody Blues, etc and all the other great classic bands of the time but in Aug 1969 I started college at Indiana University in Bloomington IN....that spring of 1970 I was visiting my brother on the dormitory floor below me and we went to listen to music in his friends room next door and he played KC-ITCOTCK......that was it for me..I immediately was hooked and went hunting for music in that style and just eventually got into all kinds of prog rock.

My addiction to progrock began in 1971 at the age of 15 with the first time I heard "I've Seen All Good People, I. Your Move II. All Good People"  by Yes on the local FM rock station in Dallas. My interest grew with the subsequent release of "Fragile" and "Close to the Edge" in rapid succession. I had never heard such music before and it intrigued me to no end. Truly a life-changing event. My interests spread out from there to encompass the standard spectrum the top prog acts thru the 70s.

Somewhat related topic:
I saw Yes perform at Austin, TX in 2002 and they were great. It was the Anderson, Squire, Howe, Wakeman and White lineup. Sounded as good as they ever did in their peak days of the 70s. Sad to see so many of the musical heroes of my youth are now quite old, in bad health or already deceased. Makes me realize I'm not too far behind them. SIGH! 

In the past, childhood through adolescence my hearing was...shall we say distorted and most music genres were intolerable to me.  Instrumental music, mainly New Age with a bit of a rhythm was the only thing I could listen to that didn't hurt.  Badly.  So although my New Age listening was relatively varied, my entry into prog started with Kitaro and Vangelis.

I listened to very little music with actual lyrics, since words sounded and still sound fairly garbled to me (though it's not nearly as bad as it used to be).

Vangelis worked directly with Jon Anderson, and likewise Kitaro did as well on one album (Dream).  And so one day I was watching TV and heard background music with a voice I actually recognized.  So began my listening to Yes and Jon Anderson independently of New Age music, though at that time the sound was still fairly abrasive to me for much of Yes's music.  Journey and Asia drew me with their cover art, too, but I didn't get into them until much later, when my hearing finally shifted *(see sidenote at the end if you want to know how and why my hearing changed).  I believe I listened to Rush at that time, too, a little.  Tracked down a Far East Family Band CD (Japanese prog group that Kitaro started as a member of).  

I didn't have a term for it at that point, not in a community or family of proggers, rather small town where it's either Gospel, Country Western, or Metal that is popular.  It wasn't until I was a grad student and taking Italian classes that the bug finally took over in a big way.  Not with the introduction of English prog, no, but with hearing Italian prog on vinyl.  PFM, Le Orme, etc.  About six years ago.

At the time I had little money, but I had internet access, discovered, rather late, Emerson Lake and Palmer (by way of their connection with PFM), Camel, Renaissance, a few others that they had on CD at the local library. 

Built a very small collection then (yes, the poor college student pirated music which he has since replaced with actual legal CDs now that he can afford it), and now with a decently paying job my collection has grown.  Interestingly, I've since seen other groups I've was drawn to at various points occasionally categorized loosely as prog--Nightwish, Tangerine Dream, etc.  So apparently I was a progger for a while without realizing it.

And in the last year, by way of market saturation with some CDs, and by way of new releases on MP3, I've acquired (for an American) a moderately sized collection of the Italian prog that first got me truly into the genre.

*Sidenote: If anyone really wants to know, it seems that the malabsorption issues that are associated with gluten intolerance can for some people affect neurological function, I found some of the nutritional issues before figuring out th gluten intolerance,a nd at that point some of the hearing issues resolved themselves (about 5-7 years ago, over time).  When I discovered the gluten sensitivity, within six months my hearing all but normalized.  Long drawn out tones still....make me twitch a little, so slow violin playing is uncomfortable and likewise high pitched abrasive sounds, alto sax was up until the last year or so problematic, and during childhood it hurt so bad it made me cry...now it's fine and I'm acquiring a bit of a jazz collection in addition to prog.

When I was a kid around 9 or 10(I know) I used to listen to the local alternative rock stations that would play bands like Bush, Nirvana,Puddle of Mudd and Nickleback(yeah I know those post grunge bands are lame especially Bush and Nickleback). Later, I was turned on to Heavy Metal bands like Rage Against The Machine(by my sisters) and Metallica(on my own), this soon evolved into other Classic Metal bands like Sabbath, Maiden, and Priest who have a prog sensibility, ever since I obsessed over Maiden's Seventh Son album I've been hooked onto Prog Rock or Prog Metal, I was always searching for that lost chord something not suitable for the radio and I found it in Rush when I heard the Spirit of Radio(although I heard it on the radio) at where I used to work I have never gone back to the radio, 4/4 is so boring to me and useless after a while that I want to explore weird time signatures like 9/8 6/4 7/4/  7/8 or 5/4. I love Prog from Rush,Pink Floyd, Genesis, Yes, Mastodon, Dream Theater, ELP, VDGG, GG, and many more nowadays I can't live without it. Looking back there has always been a Prog sensibility in my musical tastes

Edited by ProgMetaller2112 - January 13 2013 at 01:01

My folks had lots of opera, classical, and musical soundtracks that they'd play all the time, and my mom served as a music appreciation teacher in school when they still cared about things like that. So I gained the ability to deal with complex compositions and themes early on.

Then the 80s hit, and since I was old enough to start making my own choices, I mostly got into new wave stuff. Something about the quirkiness of some of the bands appealed to me a lot. Not that I'd qualify any of that as prog, but I tended to be drawn to the more unique artists, although I have a serious desire to acquire as much new wave crap as I can now. And, hey, let's not forget the legitimacy Bozzio gave the genre. 
Oingo Boingo also became a lifetime favorite during those early years. My sister bought albums like "Abacab" and "Duke" by Genesis but she wanted them for just the pop stuff. I found I liked a lot of the rest of the songs as well and played them more than she did, but I didn't really explore older albums or bands until later.

A few more years passed, I branched out into metal, started hanging out with musicians who started really helping me reach back to the roots of prog, and I began looking forward to everything new. Still do.

I began listening to Progressive music at the start of my highschool years, and it swiftly took over my best interests in music. I am now in my 20's and feel like I will continually search for more tasty prog for the rest of my life. 
My band is even taking off too!

Sorry if I've already told of my "infection" in some topic here...  Anyway, I think I was 13 -in the middle of 80's- and I was following music lectures in the junior high school and our teacher introduced us different forms of rock music and played maybe two minutes "slice" of the beginning of Genesis' 'The lamb lies down on Broadway' and it was love at first hear! From then on I have mostly listened to progressive rock. 

I got infected by prog in 2006. I had just graduated from elementary school and I was still listening to what was on the radio. I've yet to develop an individual taste in music.
Although I've been listening to all kinds of music from a very early age, prog always stood out to me the most. There was something about the elements of prog that got to me.
I got into the works of Queen (I consider them somewhat progressive), listening to their music religiously, from their first album all the way to the last one. I noticed Queen was way more than Bohemian Rhapsody and Another One Bites the Dust.
But in 2007... that was the turning point. I began diving into the works of Pink Floyd. Growing up, I heard their usual songs (obvious hits as I call them), but it wasn't until middle school was where I began to really listen to the Floyd. I had a musical awakening. I was studiously listening to the Floyd and studying their history, from the Syd Barrett era to their Live 8 performance in 2005. I began listening to their back catalog and lesser-known songs. I began to appreciate every aspect of Pink Floyd, from the guitar of Syd and David Gilmour to the drumming, production, instrumentation, texture, Roger's lyrics, but one aspect stood out the most: Richard Wright's style and approach to keyboards.
Since that time, progressive rock did more than introduce me to different bands. It changed my perspectives and aesthetics to music. The ideas and concepts of prog introduced me to a completely different approach to how songs are made. It also showed me the way to discover experimental composers, most of which influenced prog one way or another.

I've got to give my older brother credit for that one.  My first exposure was Rush - Moving Pictures.  My birthday present was to see them on the Grace Under Pressure tour.  A great gift indeed.  Thanks bro for introducing me to Rush and prog rock music.  Long live Prog!

infocat wrote: progbethyname wrote: You know it's funny that when prog effected me at 15, I didn't buy my first prog album till I was 17. Why did I wait 2 years? What a crazy kid I was. You didn't have a job, your parents didn't give you an allowance, and you didn't want to turn to a life of crime.

Ha ha Nailed it!! Guess I should have begged more to get what I want, but I'm no beggar. I have too much dignity for that. Nobody likes a brat.