Did You Think Prog Was Dead?

First off the bat, the following description is I admit overly simplistic, but does serve to illustrate a point:

The nucleus of the 1st classic wave of prog was populated to a remarkably high degree by ambitious musicians who learned their trade in RnB during the 60's eg; Jon Lord, Arthur Brown, Keith Emerson, Rod Argent, Brian Auger, Graham Bond, Dick Heckstall-Smith, Manfred Mann, Dave Greenslade, Carl Palmer, Chris Farlowe, Lee Jackson, Brian Davidson, proto Floyd, Ritchie Blackmore, the Sulman brothers, Pete Townshend etc . A similar lineage is evident from the origins of much RPI.

The so-called Neo-Prog renaissance of the 80's was hardly a rebirth (more like induced labour) as I cannot see what contemporaneous musical genre it drew upon and advanced as an equivalent to it's forbears RnB platform (apart from referencing the original classic prog bands themselves that is)

Before we reached the eighties, the prevalent contemporary flavour was the aggression of punk, and to be consistent with my first argument, it is those ambitious musicians who learned their trade in punk who are perhaps more deserving of the term progressive i.e the so called post punk bands like Magazine, Pere Ubu,Television, Siouxsie & the Banshees, the Cure, XTC, Talking Heads, Echo & the Bunnymen, Wall of Voodoo, Devo, Patti Smith, Joy Division etc. These bands sprouted from punk soil yes, but they produced music that at its peak, bore little resemblance to the original source of their inspiration. Ain't that what progressive really means ?

So I guess that what I'm babbling on about here is that without a prevalent contemporary musical platform to jump off, in the noughties what we call progressive is tantamount to a backwards looking retro-progressive y'all. Until such time as there appears a style of popular music that serves to inspire the current generation of ambitious musicians, Prog ain't dead, it's status is just that of.... to be continued

Time for my nap now...




Edited by ExittheLemming - October 27 2009 at 04:17

I thought prog was pretty dead in the  80's and early 90's. But the truth is, I wasn't really looking in the right places. What I did know is that Yes, Genesis, Banco etc had reformatted themselves to a more "radio friendly" style, and for completely understandable reasons. Radio had changed, and audience tastes had changed (or at least the bulk of the record buying public, anyway).

Slartibartfast wrote: What was the middle part?

Oh, yeah, forgot about that one

That is the middle section of an 18 minute piece.  Not the best recording, and lacking a significant number of other instruments/parts.

Toaster Mantis wrote: On a related note, I would not mind hearing his band. What's it called?

Well, you can't   We called ourselves Rain (not terribly original I know, but the drummer insisted it be 4 letters and start with "R"  )

However, I have some of my music up at www/myspace.com/gusrain.  This is mostly more recent stuff, though the third and forth tracks are old recordings from the Rain days that recently were digitized.  None of my most epic stuff is there though, I'll warn you

On a related note, I would not mind hearing his band. What's it called?

I dearly hoped it had died.

Let me explain

At the end of the 80's, beginning of the 90's, my friends and I began discovering "prog".  All of it was from the 70's, with the exception of a couple Rush albums.  When I looked at MTV, listened to radio, it seemed to me that prog had died long ago (even on college stations I didn't hear symphonic prog......though I heard lots of weird and interesting stuff, much of which may well have been music now on this site).

I decided to turn my band into a prog band.  I thought that it was up to me to single handedly revive prog music and bring it back to world acclaim and popularity.  In retrospect, this was pretty silly, but I was young and very idealistic (and quite fond of fragrant green flowers that are dried and smoked through various devices purchased in "head" shops ).  And you have to admit, the pretentiousness of it was all so very "prog", don't you think?  It was terribly naive to think that epic length songs with exotic metres and multiple, named sections would somehow take the country (USA, of all places) and the world by storm.  After a few gigs, it became apparent this was not going to be a viable endeavor (though I noticed that half a dozen teenage boys would stare, with mouths agape, at my fretboard as I tore out my often several minute long guitar solos..........though the corresponding females were nowhere to be seen).

But for years, I plugged away, writing longer and more complex pieces, only now with no other musicians willing to undertake the arduous task of learning these monstrosities (let alone getting them to a state of perfection) for absolutely no monetary gain.

I was actually a bit disapointed, when in the late 90's, I got on the internet and started to discover that there had been bands making prog (and generally superior prog to what I had been doing, at that) straight through the 80's and 90's.  I was quick to criticize every new band I heard.........not as good as Yes, or too much like Genesis, or a poor rip off of Gentle Giant, etc. 

But as I got over my pride issues, I started to realize that all these bands were a good thing (for the most part).  Finding musical compatriots showed me that I wasn't alone in my love of this thing called prog (or in my obsession with writing my own version of it).  I've made great new friends and discovered great new music.  I came across this site back in 2005, when I was firmly entrenched in modern prog and obscure older prog.  Imagine my surprise to find there was EVEN MORE prog than I had thought!  Best prog related discovery I've ever made, no joke.

So now, I'd say no, it's not dead, never was dead and probably never will be dead.  But yes, there was a while (almost 10 years actually) when I thought it really had died at the end of the 70's (with the brief blip of Marillion in the early 80's, and the anomaly of Rush making a few prog albums in the early to mid 80's).

I dearly hoped it had died.

Let me explain

At the end of the 80's, beginning of the 90's, my friends and I began discovering "prog".  All of it was from the 70's, with the exception of a couple Rush albums.  When I looked at MTV, listened to radio, it seemed to me that prog had died long ago (even on college stations I didn't hear symphonic prog......though I heard lots of weird and interesting stuff, much of which may well have been music now on this site).

I decided to turn my band into a prog band.  I thought that it was up to me to single handedly revive prog music and bring it back to world acclaim and popularity.  In retrospect, this was pretty silly, but I was young and very idealistic (and quite fond of fragrant green flowers that are dried and smoked through various devices purchased in "head" shops ).  And you have to admit, the pretentiousness of it was all so very "prog", don't you think?  It was terribly naive to think that epic length songs with exotic metres and multiple, named sections would somehow take the country (USA, of all places) and the world by storm.  After a few gigs, it became apparent this was not going to be a viable endeavor (though I noticed that half a dozen teenage boys would stare, with mouths agape, at my fretboard as I tore out my often several minute long guitar solos..........though the corresponding females were nowhere to be seen).

But for years, I plugged away, writing longer and more complex pieces, only now with no other musicians willing to undertake the arduous task of learning these monstrosities (let alone getting them to a state of perfection) for absolutely no monetery gain.

I was actually a bit disapointed, when in the late 90's, I got on the internet and started to discover that there had been bands making prog (and generally superior prog to what I had been doing, at that) straight through the 80's and 90's.  I was quick to criticize every new band I heard.........not as good as Yes, or too much like Genesis, or a poor rip off of Gentle Giant, etc. 

But as I got over my pride issues, I started to realize that all these band were a good thing (for the most part).  Finding musical compatriots showed me that I wasn't alone in my love of this thing called prog (or in my obsession with writing my own version of it).  I've made great new friends and discovered great new music.  I came across this site back in 2005, when I was firmly entrenched in modern prog and obscure older prog.  Imagine my surprise to find there was EVEN MORE prog than I had thought!  Best prog related discovery I've ever made, no joke.

So now, I'd say no, it's not dead, never was dead and probably never will be dead.  But yes, there was a while (almost 10 years actually) when I thought it really had died at the end of the 70's (with the brief blip of Marillion in the early 80's, and the anomaly of Rush making a few prog albums in the early to mid 80's).

I dearly hoped it had died.

Let me explain

At the end of the 80's, beginning of the 90's, my friends and I began discovering "prog".  All of it was from the 70's, with the exception of a couple Rush albums.  When I looked at MTV, listened to radio, it seemed to me that prog had died long ago (even on college stations I didn't hear symphonic prog......though I heard lots of weird and interesting stuff, much of which may well have been music now on this site).

I decided to turn my band into a prog band.  I thought that it was up to me to singlehandedly revive prog music and bring it back to world acclaim and popularity.  In retrospect, this was pretty silly, but I was young and very idealistic (and quite fond of fragrant green flowers that are dried and smoked through various devices purchased in "head" shops ).  And you have to admit, the pretensiousness of it was all so very "prog", don't you think?  It was terribly naive to think that epic length songs with exotic metres and multiple, named sections would somehow take the country (USA, of all places) and the world by storm.  After a few gigs, it became apparent this was not going to be a viable endeavor (though I noticed that half a dozen teenage boys would stare, with mouths agape, at my fretboard as I tore out my often several minute long guitar solos..........though the corresponding females were nowhere to be seen).

But for years, I plugged away, writing longer and more complex pieces, only now with no other musicians willing to undertake the arduous task of learning these monstrosities (let alone getting them to a state of perfection) for absolutely no monetery gain.

I was actually a bit dissapointed, when in the late 90's, I got on the internet and started to discover that there had been bands making prog (and generallly superior prog to what I had been doing, at that) straight through the 80's and 90's.  I was quick to criticize every new band I heard.........not as good as Yes, or too much like Genesis, or a poor rip off of Gentle Giant, etc. 

But as I got over my pride issues, I started to realize that all these band were a good thing (for the most part).  Finding musical compatriots showed me that I wasn't alone in my love of this thing called prog (or in my obsession with writing my own version of it).  I've made great new friends and discovered great new music.  I came across this site back in 2005, when I was firmly entrenched in modern prog and obscure older prog.  Imagine my surprise to find there was EVEN MORE prog than I had thought!  Best prog related discovery I've ever made, no joke.

So now, I'd say no, it's not dead, never was dead and probably never will be dead.  But yes, there was a while (almost 10 years actually) when I thought it really had died at the end of the 70's (with the brief blip of Marillion in the early 80's, and the anamoly of Rush making a few prog albums in the early to mid 80's).

I have to agree that this site has opened my eyes to a hell of a lot of bands that would have passed me by.

Yes, I thought it was dead.  But I didn't really think of myself as a prog guy when I was heavy into Rush, Yes, Kansas, Floyd, Alan Parsons and some others in the 80's.  I bought a bunch of used stuff and a lot of it happened to be prog (also got TAAB on vinyl for $2 new).  I went thru a heavy metal phase and then soured on that; got into the whole grunge thing but as the years went on, I bought less and less music because nothing appealed.  It never occurred to me that there might be prog bands still out there, making music that I would love.

Thank goodness for Vapor Trails.  The album is not one of my favorites, but I bought it on Amazon at the end of my dry period and got Dream Theater, then Transatlantic and Flower Kings recommendations off that shaky album and it was a short step to buying hundreds of prog albums from there.