Which band first got you into prog?

Well, we can all argue about Rush, Pink Floyd and Yes until the cows come home. Let's all agree that they were all influential and important in their own way. I think at some point it gets to be splitting hairs. I had similar debate with someone on this on facebook recently and out of Yes, Genesis, PF and Rush the guy said to me something like "yeah, but which one is still around?" Yes might be my favorite out of those but I have to admit the others are over all more popular. Most Yes fans seem to be fans from the seventies or eighties but somehow Rush and PF in particular keep churning out new fans every day it seems. Lol. They are sort of like what I call bandwagon fans. A lot of Yes fans seemed to have jumped ship after Union it seems and haven't really gained a lot of new ones(relatively speaking at least) which is unfortunate because a lot of younger fans(even prog fans)are missing out on a great band(same thing with Genesis to a degree). 

Edited by AFlowerKingCrimson - October 23 2018 at 14:05

Atavachron wrote: ^ Well they are without doubt less complex than both Yes and Genesis, Tull as well.  That's quite obvious.  You sell them short by assuming more complex music is superior.

Fischman wrote: Atavachron wrote: ^ Well they are without doubt less complex than both Yes and Genesis, Tull as well.  That's quite obvious.  You sell them short by assuming more complex music is superior. I'm not assuming more complex music is superior.  I'm not assuming anything here.  I'm going off of not only a well tuned ear, but also instruction in music composition and experience playing music (guitar and bass). I love Jethro Tull.  I mean I really love them and there are many days I'd rather listen to Tull than Rush.  But to say Tull is more complex, is just plain ludicrous. Ditto Genesis.  Yes is the only one that even has a place in this discussion and that's only because Wakeman does more with the keys than Lee.  But as to the rest?  Not a chance (and I do love Squire, but again, Lee takes it, as does Lifeson, and most definitely Peart).  What's more, the integration of the myriad complex parts is even more complex and again, anyone else other than Yes need not even apply. Now back to my assertion and the justification behind it.  I have played in a few bands and a couple of them were prog heavy. We could play, and master, most any Genesis or Tull, but always had difficulty fully integrating just about any Rush song.  Not only were the individual parts more difficult, bringing them together into a coherent whole was downright daunting.  Not so the others you mention.   So you see, this isn't about what is "better."  It's about practical, on the strings experience trying to play complex parts and make them fit together seamlessly.  Yes was also a challenge, but even them not so much a challenge as Rush.

Yes, the first song i heard from them was Yours Is No Disgrace. It was enchanting experience for me.

Atavachron wrote: Fischman wrote: Atavachron wrote: Fischman wrote: Atavachron wrote: ^ Well they are without doubt less complex than both Yes and Genesis, Tull as well.  That's quite obvious.  You sell them short by assuming more complex music is superior. I'm not assuming more complex music is superior.  I'm not assuming anything here.  I'm going off of not only a well tuned ear, but also instruction in music composition and experience playing music (guitar and bass). I love Jethro Tull.  I mean I really love them and there are many days I'd rather listen to Tull than Rush.  But to say Tull is more complex, is just plain ludicrous. Ditto Genesis.  Yes is the only one that even has a place in this discussion and that's only because Wakeman does more with the keys than Lee.  But as to the rest?  Not a chance (and I do love Squire, but again, Lee takes it, as does Lifeson, and most definitely Peart).  What's more, the integration of the myriad complex parts is even more complex and again, anyone else other than Yes need not even apply. Now back to my assertion and the justification behind it.  I have played in a few bands and a couple of them were prog heavy. We could play, and master, most any Genesis or Tull, but always had difficulty fully integrating just about any Rush song.  Not only were the individual parts more difficult, bringing them together into a coherent whole was downright daunting.  Not so the others you mention.   So you see, this isn't about what is "better."  It's about practical, on the strings experience trying to play complex parts and make them fit together seamlessly.  Yes was also a challenge, but even them not so much a challenge as Rush.   Wow, my experience as a musician was completely the opposite.   It was Rush's material that was doable ~ Closer to the Heart, Working Man, Spirit of Radio, YYZ, Analog Kid ~ songs a competent rock band could handle and sound reasonably good.   But Genesis?  Yes?   Hell no, not with any real confidence. As to Rush making more complex music than Genesis, Yes or Tull, I can't see how anyone could assert that.   It is clearly untrue by any standard: how can one compare Selling England, Lamb, Yes Album, CttE, TFTO,Thick as a Brick and Passion Play with the comparatively straightforward work of Carees of Steel, Farewell to Kings, Hemispheres, Permanent Waves or Moving Pictures ? It's just plain silly to even begin to assert that middle period Rush is "straightforward."  Whether it's the very unusual chords&chord progressions (2nds, augmented and diminished chords, etc) or the myriad time signatures and sometimes rapid fire time signature changes, that music is anything but "straightforward."  I get you may perceive it less complex than Genesis, but to call it "straightforward" is baseless and objectively false.   And again, I couldn't be a bigger Tull fan, but when has Tull ever ripped through a sequence of time signature changes? (Living in the past is in 5/4, but that's pretty much the whole song and nothing like flipping back and forth between multiple unusual time signature changes) When did Dave Pegg ever play a bass line anything like even one of Geddy's easier bass lines?  Hell, Geddy never played a standard bass line in his life! While solid, would you ever associate the complexity of Barriemore Barlow's drumming with that of Neil Peart?  And then to make it all fit together... egad! I've seen Rush and Tull live multiple times and I love watching Tull, but I'm amazed watching Rush.  As for individual gifts as players, that seems to me a different topic, one that Rush would win much of the time.   But the same could be said of Asia or Union-period Yes with less impressive rsults.   I've too have seen both Tull & Rush multiple times and as good as they were, I'm afraid both bands would often phone their performance in.   Frankly, other than setlist, one Rush concert is very much like the next, especially Neil's drum parts.   Same with Floyd on the AMLoR tour--  more like a theatrical play that was repeated each night with only tiny variations.   But if you hear bootlegs of them in, say, '75, they were much looser and spontaneous. When I call Rush straightforward I mean in the context of 1970s prog, especially in contrast with the distended though brilliant art-rock of Tales of Topo, Passion Play, and Lamb.   And I stand by it.

Fischman wrote: Atavachron wrote: Fischman wrote: Atavachron wrote: Fischman wrote: Atavachron wrote: ^ Well they are without doubt less complex than both Yes and Genesis, Tull as well.  That's quite obvious.  You sell them short by assuming more complex music is superior. I'm not assuming more complex music is superior.  I'm not assuming anything here.  I'm going off of not only a well tuned ear, but also instruction in music composition and experience playing music (guitar and bass). I love Jethro Tull.  I mean I really love them and there are many days I'd rather listen to Tull than Rush.  But to say Tull is more complex, is just plain ludicrous. Ditto Genesis.  Yes is the only one that even has a place in this discussion and that's only because Wakeman does more with the keys than Lee.  But as to the rest?  Not a chance (and I do love Squire, but again, Lee takes it, as does Lifeson, and most definitely Peart).  What's more, the integration of the myriad complex parts is even more complex and again, anyone else other than Yes need not even apply. Now back to my assertion and the justification behind it.  I have played in a few bands and a couple of them were prog heavy. We could play, and master, most any Genesis or Tull, but always had difficulty fully integrating just about any Rush song.  Not only were the individual parts more difficult, bringing them together into a coherent whole was downright daunting.  Not so the others you mention.   So you see, this isn't about what is "better."  It's about practical, on the strings experience trying to play complex parts and make them fit together seamlessly.  Yes was also a challenge, but even them not so much a challenge as Rush.   Wow, my experience as a musician was completely the opposite.   It was Rush's material that was doable ~ Closer to the Heart, Working Man, Spirit of Radio, YYZ, Analog Kid ~ songs a competent rock band could handle and sound reasonably good.   But Genesis?  Yes?   Hell no, not with any real confidence. As to Rush making more complex music than Genesis, Yes or Tull, I can't see how anyone could assert that.   It is clearly untrue by any standard: how can one compare Selling England, Lamb, Yes Album, CttE, TFTO,Thick as a Brick and Passion Play with the comparatively straightforward work of Carees of Steel, Farewell to Kings, Hemispheres, Permanent Waves or Moving Pictures ? It's just plain silly to even begin to assert that middle period Rush is "straightforward."  Whether it's the very unusual chords&chord progressions (2nds, augmented and diminished chords, etc) or the myriad time signatures and sometimes rapid fire time signature changes, that music is anything but "straightforward."  I get you may perceive it less complex than Genesis, but to call it "straightforward" is baseless and objectively false.   And again, I couldn't be a bigger Tull fan, but when has Tull ever ripped through a sequence of time signature changes? (Living in the past is in 5/4, but that's pretty much the whole song and nothing like flipping back and forth between multiple unusual time signature changes) When did Dave Pegg ever play a bass line anything like even one of Geddy's easier bass lines?  Hell, Geddy never played a standard bass line in his life! While solid, would you ever associate the complexity of Barriemore Barlow's drumming with that of Neil Peart?  And then to make it all fit together... egad! I've seen Rush and Tull live multiple times and I love watching Tull, but I'm amazed watching Rush.  As for individual gifts as players, that seems to me a different topic, one that Rush would win much of the time.   But the same could be said of Asia or Union-period Yes with less impressive rsults.   I've too have seen both Tull & Rush multiple times and as good as they were, I'm afraid both bands would often phone their performance in.   Frankly, other than setlist, one Rush concert is very much like the next, especially Neil's drum parts.   Same with Floyd on the AMLoR tour--  more like a theatrical play that was repeated each night with only tiny variations.   But if you hear bootlegs of them in, say, '75, they were much looser and spontaneous. When I call Rush straightforward I mean in the context of 1970s prog, especially in contrast with the distended though brilliant art-rock of Tales of Topo, Passion Play, and Lamb.   And I stand by it. As you should. That is certainly one measure of complexity.  From a perspective of the presentation of art, it's hard to out-complex Genesis.   As for me, I tend to focus on the music itself a little more.  So when I think of complexity, the first things that come to me are other measures of complexity like harmonic structure and nonstandard time signatures.  Nobody (at least in rock, including prog) touches Rush in this regard.  Just look at Tom Sawyer, which is actually one of Rush's more straightforward songs.  In the space of a dozen measures, it goes from 4/4 to 7/16 (highly unusual) to 3/8 (not an easy transition) to 7/8 (another potentially awkward shift) and back to 7/16 and 4/4 again.  Genesis or Tull ain't never done nothin' like that.  The song is also loaded with suspended chords, chords with no roots, augmented and diminished chords, and many transitions and chord progressions that make no sense on paper, but sound pretty special in context.   So there are many forms of complexity and we each respond differently.  Nothin' wrong with that.  Hopefully that helps you understand how someone could put Rush in the upper echelons of complexity, if not at the top, based on some objective criteria, and criteria generally associated with prog at that.   Looking at your screen name, I suspect you're probably also very much aware of at least one other artist who totally maxes out the complexity scale in astounding ways, especially with regard to tonal, melodic, and harmonic complexity... and ain't no slouch in the composition department either.

You can throw stones, but it was Kansas and then Rush (early period; Farewell to Kings and prior). Later on came early King Crimson and Eno, then Gentle Giant, then early Genesis. Later Camel, etc.

Edited by Boojieboy - October 25 2018 at 16:05

I always had a thing for epic middle age like pathetic music and music with great melancholy.
Depeche Mode was my first favourite band for Enjoy The Silence.
Then I got to know Muse which made me familiar with classic in rock and Madness (Micro Cuts)
After some years I discovered Radiohead (still not knowing about prog) which further developed my openmindedness (Kid A was my first. I loved Everything In It´s Right Place.)
Then somehow I wanted to know about Tool a rock band I had heard about before and I knew that there was a lot of hocus pocus around them.
Lateralus (The Song helped me to understand how powerful an epic could be)
So I tried more Tool and had a Eureka moment with The Patient
From then on Music had reached a new level of importance in my life and I discovered step by step.
First I heard some floyd but it hasn´t had a lasting impression.
Some months later I listened genesis The Knife... And the solo killed me so much I knew I had a new favourite genre.
Genesis became my favourite band for years. Only recently changed that to Cardiacs. But I have other favourites such as Carmen, Magma and dozens of others which I should relisten.

Yes