to the old folks

Aaron wrote: how did all of you old farts on this board learn of many of the prog bands not played on the radio, some of the more underground bands, krautrock bands and what not, or italian bands, you know what i am getting at you see, i have the intertron, what did you have? Aaron

As one old fart, I was a young fart back then and Prog was still played on the radio, so it made things somewhat easy to get an introinto bigger prog acts. For more unknown, I used methods similar to VIBE but missed out on a lot of stuff.

A good deal of the hidden early 70's gems , I discovered in the early 90's through small record label such as Repertoire, Cuneiform , Second Battle , Musea, Mellow etc... Just got into their catalogue and recouped my infos with encyclopedia (fairly general ones at first) and then I discovered Borderline Books that are fairly exhaustive. Vernon Joynhson and Dag-Erik Asbjornssen have made the most complete books in British , American , German, rest of Europe prog dating from 65 to 75. If the Joynhson books are very factual, his description fairly acurate but rarely gives an extended review or opinion, Asbjornssen is IMHO highly trustworthy if you know how to read him and have read him lots. Some group/album Asbjornssen highly recommends is for me almost like gold. I made those Borderline Books my "livre de chevet" (night table book). But I am not certain Borderline books are easy to find now because the site disappeared last May.

In the mid-90's, I read GEPR before Gnosis was created and now the Archives to which I love contributing.

Older brothers and sisters and we organized with friends not to buy the same records. I have the impression that it was far more easier in the seventies to keep track of Rock in general.A new Genesis, Pink Floyd or Tull record was really a big thing.We changed a lot of records in class and and all of the bands were touring back then. There was nearly every week  a good concert.I saw most of the better known bands and the concert tickets were really cheap. I listened a lot to "In Between" and "RockIn" on WDR a german station who,played lots of Prog.  I don't remember when I heard the word PROG for the first time but for me it was just Rock back then. It is about 10 years now that I try build up a Prog Collection and thanx to Internet I found a lot of Information and people to share the Prog Virus.

Dick Heath wrote: To answer you question, by having DJs who were rarely personalities caring for themselves, rather aiming to put good music out on the air, without seeing/hearing boundaries. Dispite the late John Peel's declaration all prog was bollocks before he died,  for 10 years his 2 or 3 hour shows per week kept me fed with a wild variety of eclectic music. And then magazines like Melody Maker and the underground magazines like International Times and Oz - subsequent the excellent Zig Zag (which Mojo 20 years later tried to fashion itself upon). Then being near colleges or unis or clubs, who put on some very obscure bands (they were cheap). They also played the  headliners cheap as well!!  The (now) boring Kid Jansen (a Canadian in the Uk) playing 3 hours of anything after midnight on Saturday on R Luxembourg - T2, Lifetime, High Tide coming from that. And it helped working on and off in a record shop through the end of the psychedelic period into the early 70's - and seeing the press releases and record trade literature...................... Then working in ENTS Committee when I went to University - one of the first to put on Be Bop Deluxe!

And should have added: I also had this embarrassing and increasingly expensive habit of  following up on virtually every spin-off band, of favourite bands - e.g. Flash and Badger from Yes. Blind Faith (okay),  Airforce (oh dear), Derek & The Dominoes (yes!), Delaney & Bonnie (nope), Clapton solos (not many), Jack Bruce (lots), Lifetime(the one off was good) , Baker Gurvitz Army (mixed catalogue of music), from stemming from Cream in the 70's. Following the so-called 'rock family trees' worked better with jazz rock bands - Lifetime,  Miles,  MO, RTF WR,  Dimeola, Shakti - but by the end of 70's jazz rock had largely collapsed into staleness, jazz soul,  fuzak - and it needed the likes of Holdsworth and Metheny to do some thing fresh.

Aaron wrote: old farts Aaron

score points for calling old folks old farts, Aaron.

Fitzcarraldo wrote: Vibrationbaby wrote: I got into this crazy music just by being adventurous. I would go into record stores and just buy anything that looked wierd. After a while I noticed that I couldn`t go wrong if it was German. Roger Dean covers were also a good indicator and this is how I got into Greenslade, Midnight Sun, Babe Ruth and Budgie to name a few. I feel sorry for all the young guys who have been spoiled by the internet. Back then it was a challenge to discover the next "new" band. Couldn't agree more. But I also had friends and acquaintances who enjoyed the same type of music, and I discovered a lot that way too, as we'd borrow LPs from each other or sit around together listneing to the latest on-spec purchase. Also, the record department of the local department store had a lot of Prog LPs - they were big sellers at the time and available in mainstream stores in Rio and Níteroi - and the buyer could listen to LPs before buying, which I often did (that's where I discovered Greenslade, Triumvirat and Iron Butterfly and Mahavishnu Orchestra amongst others). As VB says, the Roger Dean covers were often a good indicator. I also used to pass a small record shop in Praça XV at the ferry station on the way home from school every day and would often browse through the LPs there and could also ask the attendant to give them a spin. We never seemed to find it difficult to discover new Prog and other rock - the stores seemed to have plenty of it in stock. And later when I went to the UK to study, Melody Maker, NME and Sounds were, as plodder says, indeed a good source of information on all things Prog.

Curiosity and challange. When a musician leaving one band for another it was normal to research what was going on. Keeping track of line-ups was another way to learn more. The media in Brazil was pretty generous and did provide quite a lot of info on prog musicians. As Fitzcarraldo points out; the record shop at Praça 15 was well supplied and there was another one (My personal Mecca) called Modern Sound, and what they didnt have you could order. Talking to Mr. Miguel 20 minutes and you were the most well informed prog head on the block. By the way he (Mr.Miguel) is still there.....

Hords of kids walked the blocks back and forth with stacks of Lp's under their arms, visiting eachother and having sessions just listening to great music and enjoying the albums with friends. You dont se any of that today.

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Lunar