Hair swirling bands DO NOT belong in PA

I really can't get enough of this thread... its totally awesome..

Remove Meshuggah, Evergrey and their likes!!!

They are totally not prog!!!!!!!

I would just like to say that I have nothing against someone who wants to windmill headbang; I'm a live and let live kind of person.

My only goal is to protect the Prog Archives from being infiltrated by bands that practice this act as I don't see it as a progressive music stageworthy behavior. I may be wrong, and if I am, I will accept that. But to me, it cannot rise above the cartoonish goofiness that it appears to be.

At heart prog is a serious musical undertaking (and even if the approach is humorous, it is in an intelligent witty manner, with the occaisional breach (e.g., "seven virgins and a mule" or some such thing). And I don't believe any prog worthy of the name has degenerated to the point where certain "acts" need to be performed in a circus-like manner.

That's why good prog stands the test of time, because its practicioners had the good sense to not crotch-grab or turn around and shake their booties in unison or other such crude distasteful acts. Sticking knives into the keyboard, cool; windmill headbanging, not cool.

I'll let this go now. I know it's "politically incorrect" or unhip to say these kinds of things because you risk sounding like Mary Whitehouse or someone's parents, but were trying to preserve and celebrate true prog rock here.

I'm sorry if I've offended anyone who believes a good unison headbang is the pinnacle of the prog rock experience.

bluetailfly wrote: Gentle Ronnie wrote: What are you, nazi? No, I'm not a nazi, whatever the hell that means...

You know.  Hitler, 60 years or so ago.  World War II.  It was a big deal back in the forties.  Ask anyone with a Jewish heritage and they'll tell you all about it.  Or ask Americans, French, Brits.  It was a really big deal.  Perhaps you should try to stay awake through your 8th grade civics class.

What you fail to realize, my good bluetailfly, is that windmill headbanging is an old and hallowed practice going back to the classical age: Plato condoned it, it was a massive influence on the Renaissance thinkers of the 16th-17th century, and the work of such composers as Bach, Beethoven, and Haydn could not have flourished without the enlightened practice of windmill headbanging. So it seems that the very sources whence progressive rock musicians draw inspiration did inevitably also pass down as the birthright of intelligent people the world over what you have so ignorantly termed as "hair swirling".

Which means that I am right, your opinions are all sad trash, and you owe me a Coke.

The Doctor wrote: bluetailfly wrote: Gentle Ronnie wrote: What are you, nazi? No, I'm not a nazi, whatever the hell that means... You know.  Hitler, 60 years or so ago.  World War II.  It was a big deal back in the forties.  Ask anyone with a Jewish heritage and they'll tell you all about it.  Or ask Americans, French, Brits.  It was a really big deal.  Perhaps you should try to stay awake through your 8th grade civics class.

My good Doctor,

I know what a nazi is; I just had no idea what Gentle Ronnie meant when he called me one in that context...it's a rather complex and politically-charged term to throw at someone who is merely opining that windmill headbanging is a goofy-looking spectacle.

Alagithil wrote: What you fail to realize, my good bluetailfly, is that windmill headbanging is an old and hallowed practice going back to the classical age: Plato condoned it, it was a massive influence on the Renaissance thinkers of the 16th-17th century, and the work of such composers as Bach, Beethoven, and Haydn could not have flourished without the enlightened practice of windmill headbanging. So it seems that the very sources whence progressive rock musicians draw inspiration did inevitably also pass down as the birthright of intelligent people the world over what you have so ignorantly termed as "hair swirling".   Which means that I am right, your opinions are all sad trash, and you owe me a Coke.

As for you, Alaigithil <---??? Is that name from Battlestar Galactica?

I defy you to show me a woodcut, or tapestry, or cave painting, or aged oil-painted canvas, or a textual citation from any of the thinkers you mention above that depicts a unison windmill headbang (which is really what we're talking about here; I know Plant and many other greats have thrown their hair around in defiantly cool ways; but never did they line up and in unison lower their heads and swirl their hair like some kind of girly teen act).

If the Spice Girls want to unison swirl, I say go for it, I look forward to checking it out. But if a group of musicians do it and seriously mean it, well they've just demonstrated a fundamental lack of taste, a lack so fundamental that it must necessarily affect all facets of their lives, including their music.

So that being said, you still must prove your point, my TV sci fi fan, and sure I'll give you a Coke, what the hell, I'm a good fellow.

ClemofNazareth wrote: John, While I applaud any effort to rid this archive of the likes of Triumph and their lock-swirling ilk, I fear your approach is another slippery-slope of trying to impose one's own ideals in the guise of reason.  Is hair swirling a sure-fire ticket to banishment, but fire-eating or flatulence on-stage acceptable (or even artsy)?!  What about poor grammar or overuse of bar chords?  Cock socks?  Do these get the hook? It's such a fuzzy line - what constitutes anti-prog behavior on stage?  Who decides?  Do we give unfair advantage to those who have no hair to swirl?  (okay, that's Super Furry Animals, but hey - they're in these archives too). Where would it end?

Clem,

"While I applaud any effort to rid this archive of the likes of Triumph and their lock-swirling ilk"

Thank you (though Triumph: unison windmill head-banging?)

"I fear your approach is another slippery-slope of trying to impose one's own ideals in the guise of reason.  Is hair swirling a sure-fire ticket to banishment, but fire-eating or flatulence on-stage acceptable (or even artsy)?!  What about poor grammar or overuse of bar chords?  Cock socks?  Do these get the hook?

It's such a fuzzy line - what constitutes anti-prog behavior on stage?  Who decides?  Do we give unfair advantage to those who have no hair to swirl?"

I am fully aware of the slippery slope one encountrs if one begins to extrapolate from "unison windmill headbanging" to other types of stage antics.  And my response is, we must take each one on a case-by-case basis. I have chosen to draw a line at unison hair-swirling/banging because in my experience every band that I am aware of that indulges in it is of mediocre quality at best.

If onstage flatulence  or cock socks become a fad, then we will need to assess it on its merits.

I don't mind anything done onstage as long as their is some sort of wit and cleverness behind it (e.g., Gabriel, Byrne, et al.); but if these qualities are lacking, and the band does something that simply reflects their poor taste in artistic behavior, then yes the critics need to speak up and humiliate them back to the whatever cold-water squat they emerged from. That's the way it works. And to my mind, unison windmill headbanging is one of the true signs of tasteless mediocrity. I'm sorry, but I deeply believe that. In my experience, no band that has unison windmill headbanged was ever anything but a joke.

But I am open-minded and if such a thing were to occur, I would probably begin to see things differently, but that's a big if...

Thank you.