About that age poll...

19 for me college freshman, first got into prog as a high school freshman but high school had a bunch of music for me

Now 18. Got into Prog at 16 thanks to Dream Theater.

Twenty-four and have had the prog disease for some six years now. Got into it thanks to recommendations of DT, Porcupine Tree, King Crimson and Pink Floyd. Also thanks to prog I started appreciating jazz, jazz-rock, fusion and some weirder genres.

Before that it was heavy music of all shapes and sizes. I remember listening to Black Sabbath at the age of five and absolutely loving it. Then I got into classic heavy metal and bands like Europe. I expanded my metal taste during the next few years, but then I dropped almost all of it and started flirting with punk and NYHC. At about sixteen I rediscovered metal in a huge way, and focused on its extreme forms that time around. And while the prog/jazz revolution showed many of my metal favs the door, I've found myself unable to kick the death- and doom metal habit completely... 

FuzzyDude wrote: I'm assuming the much older fans were all killed during the Genre Wars of '77-'78.. *sighs* Damn the punks... *shakes his fist*

=45
I got into Prog properly(buying albums)when I was 12/13
I was listening to a friend's brother's Prog collection from the age of 11 (1971)

Now.A lot of people are going to hate me for this but,I think that Punk did a lot of good.Prog was becoming IMHO too self-obsessed and stale.I still bought prog albums but I also bought Punk records.Robert Fripp and Brian Eno
moved to New York and produced and played with members of the then Punk/Post Punk bands of the time i.e.Talking Heads,Richard Hell,Devo.Even Peter Gabriel's band at the time looked Punky especially Sid McGinnis who resembled Sid Vicious.

47, got into prog belatedly at age 23, due to a friend playing Genesis and Pink Floyd. Still my favourite genre, although my musical taste is very broad.

I'm now 17, got into prog when I was about 14/15.. I borrowed Jethro Tull's Aqualung and Kingston Wall's 1 from my friend. After that I realized my father was a huge fan of JT also and he started showing me many great bands..Before that I basically listened to bands like Red Hot Chili Peppers and so on..

43 (,some round here think I'm 16-well I act that age)

First prog album I bought was:

Wait for it.........

 

This is the absolute truth,ok!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tarkus-ELP

24.

My parents got me to play cello at the age of five, and years later (at 12/13 maybe) I was intrigued by the changes in time signatures that contemporary composers use. I felt that rock music in general lacked a lot, especially in the use of different (if not necessarily weird) time signatures, arrengements and, to tell a long story short, variety. Me and my friends actually had our first 'prog act' running before I even got to know that prog existed...
The first record that actually struck me as 'what I want to hear, listen to and play' was Czestaw Niemen's Aerolit (although I never fancied the polish vocals I couldn't understand...). After finding that one from my fathers pile of records (chose to listen to it because of the album art...), my father helped me out a bit - giving me records to listen, giving hints what kinds of groups I might be interested in (also buying such albums for himself, I think, although those records are "mine" now... My father and my uncle gave me a push to the right direction by introducing bands like Jade Warrior, Gentle Giant, Nucleus, Camel and the Finnish groups (Wigwam, Tasavallan Presidentti, Pekka Pohjola among others). My friends' found some records of the "greats" from their parents' records, but I was never too fascinated with them (and still am not). Maybe it was because I came to prog with a background of almost no rock at all (I remember listening to early Queen, 'Madman across the water' -era Elton John, Fleetwood Mac and Cream before I found prog, though). My parents listened to a lot of jazz and a lot of classical music, but I cannot remember a time when radio had been turned on (80s radio - any good memories, anyone?).

I could write pages and pages about this, and find that there's nothing of interest to anyone that I could say... So I better end this message before itäs too late...

Cheers

-Beau

[QUOTE=Reed Lover]

43 (,some round here think I'm 16-well I act that age)

First prog album I bought was:

Wait for it.........

 

This is the absolute truth,ok!

Tarkus-ELP

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Karnevil9

MY GOD! I'm almost scared to tell my age in this kid-circle here. If it's still tolerated to join over 40, well I'm 40+4. But I'm still listening to almost anything, if it's not commercial pop, especially hip-hop,rap or techno, or even worse: country music. And "music" which is defined more by its loudness and evilness, rather than its musical qualities like extreme Death and Black and most of the Thrash Metal. My favourites are Pain Of Salvation, Threshold, Spastic Ink, Sieges Even and Ark in the Metal genre, Isildurs Bane, After Crying, Genesis, Yes, King Crimson, Citizen Cain in the symph.Prog and Alamaailman Vasarat, Hellborg/Lane/Sipe, 7 For 4, Brand X, Kenso, Discus, Iceberg and Nathan Mahl in the Fusion sub-genre. These are the three fields of my main interest, apart of this some Art Rock, some RIO (not all) and very little NeoProg (if it's something like Thieves' Kitchen).

When did I get into Prog? Well, I've got to think long way back, must have been 30 years ago or so with stuff like Jethro Tull, Floyd, Wishbone Ash and so on. Later on in my 20's and 30's I listened a lot of Indie, Punk and Alternative. Only recently after discovering this site Prog became my absolute top favourite and I found more and more interesting bands I never heard of before and learnt to love more intricate and demanding kind of music.

I was really positively surprised to find that many very young people here listening to prog music. Honestly the younger ones I usually know personally listen only to the  well-known commercial radio-crap.That's giving some hope for the future.

KEEP ON PROGGING!!!!