First Love - Big 6 and beyond

Hi,

I did not start in pop music and fan driven radio music at all. But I had already started listening to a lot of things in Brazil, as dad got a record player so he could play his collection of classical music, with lots of opera!

We did get, in Brazil, albums by The Beatles and Rolling Stones, that we kinda heard on the radio which was a treat on that record player for us, but we had to play it very low to not bother mom and dad!

By the time we came to the USA, it was Sgt Pepper's, Their Satanic Majesties' Request, Blonde on Blonde and the Paul Butterfield Blues Band ... and from then on Moody Blues (Nights in White Satin ... but it was the long piece with the orchestra that really got me going ... far out!!!) ... so that by the time, I got into what became known as "progressive" my tastes in music were varied and not strictly mandated by a song, or album that was in the top listing of nothing but imaginary sales!

One of the first things I did get ... ELP's Pictures At An Exhibition, since it was one of my favorite pieces ... and also Alan Stivell, that sister had brought from France, and that first Harp album, that was absolutely far out and neat ... and it kinda busted up the idea of "progressive music" for me ... for a long time, and when it all became known as "art rock", it was closer to the truth of it, but again, it was mandated by record companies so their own product was better, by making sure it was listed way up and above the other stuff!

Genesis (SEBTP), Nektar (ATITO), TD (Phaedra), all came on the same night by Guy Guden on one of the first apartments we shared. It was too much, and I went back to my earphones and Hawkwind's Space Ritual! At that time I was also hearing YES, and picked up The Yes Album for the song that was being played on the radio ... I've Seen All The Good People. Jt I had heard way back to their first or 2nd albums as well as Fairport Convention. Gong, Hatfield & The North, Henry Cow, Dagmar and all those folks came later during Space Pirate Radio time, after January 1974. It was during the 1972 time that we heard Amon Duul 2 and Can, on the same night, along with Kevin Ayers, and Roy Harper, as a friend of ours was housing a large record collection for someone that obviously had been involved with a radio station ... and I suppose that all became the main stuff in the very first weeks of the Space Pirate Radio shows. I had all the Led Zep albums and several bootlegs of theirs, and it was at that time that I found a lot of PF bootlegs which were all far out and led me to all their early stuff, not quite the Syd Barrett stuff at all, until the following year.

From January 1974 on, most of the "new" stuff was based on what we got as albums from various places in LA, along with my scavenging of albums in the LP used bins ... which got me Quatermass, Triad/Spontaneous Combustion, Byzantium, (one of Guy's favorites at the time), and a few other things, like Family (Anyway!) ... and these fit nicely along with my SF/LA collection of stuff ... I had all The Doors and Iron Butterfly, for example, as well as Stoneground, Coven, and several other local folks.

Peter Hammill came home from the used LP bins. H to He was the album and I loved it ... it was a poetic voice and singing that I like, as much as Jim M.

But remember, that in LA, just like any big cities, you get a lot more stuff ... and I got to go to the Aquarius Theater (In its old home) and see HAIR, and across the street got to see 2001 in the Cinerama Dome, which was an experience that you did not need to get stoned for! Both those shows in one night was totally far out! And I bought the soundtrack for HAIR ... and never touched a Three Dog Night single ... !!!

Imports, which were so much a part of SPR in the early days, dominated the new releases, and many of them were on a different time scale and released much later ... though things were changing quickly and the releases were getting in sync way better within a few years, but it made for GONG and a lot of other European bands a bit more to get into and appreciate. But we already had Banco, PFM, Vangelis and others way before they were released here.

Completely different time scale for music, and not dominated by the numbers at all ... which made it all much better and interesting ... you didn't know anything and were about to get a heck of a surprise ... and one of mine was Quatermass ... I think I wore out 2 or three copies!

I have to say I didn't always buy the best or most obvious ones first.


Yes- 90125, Classic Yes, Fragile, relayer (my dad had the yes album-that was all by them-so I probably first heard his copy of that)

Genesis - From Genesis to Revelation, Foxtrot, Selling England by the Pound, Genesis (shapes)

ELP - Same

King Crimson - Islands (yes, this was my first purchase), In The Court of the Crimson King, Larks Tongues in Aspic, A young person's guide to king crimson, Three of a Perfect Pair

Pink Floyd - The Final Cut (maybe my first prog or prog related album I bought) My uncle (RIP) was a fan so I heard most of them first through his collection.

Rush - Signals (other than that I heard them through my brother's friend who was a fan)

Gentle Giant - Three Friends, Octopus

Camel - Mirage, Snowgoose, The Single Factor (all on cassette tape and I barely knew who they were but saw bands compared to them a lot in prog catalogs so was curious)

Jethro Tull - Aqualung

Kansas - Leftoverture

Marillion - Misplaced Childhood, Clutching At Straws

Moody Blues - Days of Future Passed, In Search of the Lost Chord, On the Threshold of a Dream

Edited by AFlowerKingCrimson - 12 hours 26 minutes ago at 01:50

Well, I started with cassette tapes and can't really remember much about the order of things with those. I recall I did own Moving Pictures, Long Distance Voyager, Paradise Theater, and Three Sides Live on cassettes.

Then I do recall with more clarity that the two first vinyls I bought after getting a turntable were "Fragile" and "Dog and Butterfly." I very quickly owned the complete Yes canon in short order. Yes were my gateway band.

The first albums I bought with my own money weren't prog albums. They were The Slider (T Rex), Symphonies For The Seventies and Mozart In The Seventies (Waldo De Los Rios) and a cassette of Argus (Wishbone Ash). The first prog Big 6 albums I bought were The Yes Album and Wish You Were Here. I also had Rain Dances, Moonmadness, Breathless and A Live Record by Camel.

nice thread
gentle bump

Psychedelic Paul wrote: Strange as it may seem, I didn't own any albums by the so-called Big Six back in the seventies.

My first purchases were (between maybe '83, as the earliest, and '91):

Pink Floyd - Relics (vinyl)
The Who - It's Hard (cassette tape)
Yes - Fragile (cassette tape)
Pink Floyd - Animals (cassette tape)
Rush - Hemispheres (cassette tape)
Kitaro - Oasis (cassette tape)
Laurie Anderson - Big Science (cassette tape)
Kate Bush - The Kick Inside (CD)
Kate Bush - Lionheart (CD)
A few Clannad albums (CDs)
Supertramp - Crime of the Century (CD)

If going outside what is in PA, then I would include Bauhaus, various Enya albums, and some other things in that period. Most of the music I listened to were from my older brothers' extensive collections, and my friends and their older brothers collections when I was a youth in the 80s. And I had many albums that had been given to me (various Led Zep's, Gary Numan's, Alan Parsons Projects, The Cure's....)

Nogbad_The_Bad wrote: Psychedelic Paul wrote: Ten most memorable early album purchases back in the mid-1970's:- Blue Oyster Cult - On Your Feet or On Your Knees Camel - Moonmadness Justin Hayward & John Lodge - Blue Jays The Moody Blues - Days of Future Passed Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells Renaissance - Ashes Are Burning Demis Roussos - Forever and Ever Queen - Sheer Heart Attack Tangerine Dream - Stratosfear Rick Wakeman - Journey to the Centre of the Earth Your tastes haven't changed much have they?

Edited by Psychedelic Paul - January 15 2023 at 10:25

I lived a sheltered life apparently. Didn't know about Prog really until I was in my 40's so the purchases that stand out for me in the mid seventies which were close to being first buys for me were Rush's A Farewell To Kings and Led Zeppelin IV which I bought during a high school field trip to Toronto where we had a couple of hours to shop or do whatever. Me and a buddy went into Sam The Record Man and I picked those two up. I always remember the teacher asking me what I bought as we were getting back on the bus and showing him he almost smiled but the girl behind me had a Mike Oldfield record she bought called Tubular Bells or something like that and he made a big deal about it.