Psychedelic Rock Revisted -- Proto-Prog

Lot of great late 60's psych prog out there..one of my favorite obscure lp's.

Edited by dr wu23 - March 08 2014 at 12:19

a little contemporary California psych;  Mammatus

The thing about psychedelic rock that makes it so interesting and proto-prog

Dean wrote: dr wu23 wrote: Back in the day the first 2 Moody Blues and the first 2 Procol Harum lp's all had that proto prog thing going on...as well as the first Family lp...and Touch was one of my favorites also. The Magnificent Moodies proto-prog? Really? Only Go Now stands out as being the embryonic beginning of the Moodies foray into Baroque Pop, the rest of the album is (as I recall) typical English Whiteboy R&B.  I would also call Procol's first two albums Baroque Rock though they have one foot at least in Blues Rock territory on their first four albums.  Good call on Family, they don't get enough shout-outs on this forum, a truly great band - In A Doll's House is also heavily laden with Baroque Rock.  Baroque Pop/Rock is not Psychedelic Pop/Rock, though they are related, I would cite Baroque Pop/Rock as being the other ingredient that with Psych Pop/Rock and Jazz Rock that formed the basis for the emergent Progressive Rock back then.

I ignored Go Now...I was referring to 'Days' as their first....bit of an omission there on my part.. I think Shine On and perhaps even the first by Procol is  proto-prog and baroque rock by..imo.

dr wu23 wrote: Back in the day the first 2 Moody Blues and the first 2 Procol Harum lp's all had that proto prog thing going on...as well as the first Family lp...and Touch was one of my favorites also.

Everyone here should know this one and it was also covered by Arthur Brown apparently......

Gandalf recorded their album in 1967 (although it was released in 1969)  and it suits perfectly to the topic. Also Cream was playing in that time, but these bands aren't listed in PA :/



and obviously this one ;)

brainstormer wrote: Moogtron III wrote: And also Buffalo Springfield's "Broken Arrow" from Buffalo Springfield Again. A great song for American ProtoProg but it came in October 1967.   I think a lot of Prog's influence came from a more rock version of what was already happening in things like soundtrack music, Herb Alpert, and Brian Wilson's influence: Phil Specter.  I still say, as much as it sounds funny, Donovan's Sunshine Superman is probably the most ProtoProg thing happening, even if I probably won't like a lot of it. It's combining classical instrumentation with rock, as well as exotic instruments, and odd, very slow meters  He even has that "royal court" imagery that Genesis would later revel in.  I imagine there might have been a lot of "droopy" folk  going around that might have influenced Donovan, maybe some "Beat"  culture music.  That's an interesting topic (!): what was the most progressive folk  happening at the earlier times?

For a few years in the early to mid 60's..it became a popular idea to fuse classical melodies with Pop music or what would have been defined then as....a "Rock Hit". Most Pop Rock American bands that charted with a #1 hit had musically schooled backgrounds. Bands like The Box Tops and The Lovin' Spoonful wrote some very hokey charted tunes..but were surprisingly excellent musicians doing their job. Well....that was the first time I heard about it and I must have been age 10. How scary..but classical written lines were borrowed for Motown #1 hits. The Ventures ..the instrumental guitar oriented band recorded many sci-fi themes like "The Outer Limits" and "The Twilight Zone" and produced their own arrangements for guitar...which! was a progressive thing to do in the early 60's. The idea was later produced to represent a different meaning by fusing it with a serious religious subject and it's significance to the on going times of war. These ideas were often presented through theatre and to be taken seriously while the industry kept looking for the next Beatles. The one that lasted from 63' to 65'? Then they bought The Monkees. It was interesting even if people did borrow from Bernard Hermann

Let's not forget H.P. Lovecraft. Although their 2nd album is better, you've got to hand it to them for putting a Gregorian chant on their debut album (Oct. 1967). It's so regressive as to be progressive:

Hi,