British Proto-Prog

I'd better take out shares in Butterkist (that's like the British equivalent of Smartfood).

But yes, you are correct, the addition of Miller (or the Beach Boys) into Proto Prog would be as revisionist as declaring Punk to be Prog and adding John Lydon. Point well made.

popcorn anyone?

When Serbtonio draws the Steve Miller card you know it's his last shot.

Next up: Tomorrow

They were another band that perhaps more people have heard of than have actually heard, now they are perhaps remembered more for who was in the band than anything they released. Featuring Keith West of "Grocer Jack" fame and John 'Twink' Adler who later went on to join The Pretty Things, The Pink Fairies and less famously Syd Barrett's short-lived post-Floyd band Stars, they are better known in Prog circles of course for being the band that featured Steve Howe before he joined Yes. 

Rather than post their most famous single (as covered by Nazareth in the 70s), here is a Howe/West composition that pre-dates the Beatless tune of the same name:

 

At least we got a cool video of Tomorrow to watch, out of all these diversions from the topic.  (Mmm, chili powder.)

What is the point? Seriously. What is the point of you making all these snide (or is it witty? I always get them mixed up) comments while contributing exactly zero-point-zero percent of sod-all to this thread? How often have Wire been rejected for inclusion here? How many times have Wire been suggested for inclusion here? How many times have Wire been discussed in the forum for possible inclusion? How many subgenres have Wire been suggested for? To save you the effort of actually doing something like, huh, I dunno ... looking maybe - I'll tell you the answer to all those questions - Zero. A big fat bloody zero. Isn't that a crying shame. In ten years no one has thought it necessary to suggest them for listing here. Not one single person. Not even you or some other Hose has had the brrrriiiliant idea of suggesting that an experimental art-punk band that was signed to the Progressive imprint of EMI records could possibly be suitable for addition here. Over the past ten years 52,94x people have signed up to this site and the total number of those who managed to find the Suggest New Bands thread and create a thread suggesting Wire is precisely zero. Isn't it odd that not one of those 52,94x members has even bothered to suggest shoe-horning them into Prog Related given that guitarist Bruce Gilbert is included here under Progressive Electronic? ...and just to add to the string of zeros that this post already contains - with exactly zero ratings and zero reviews for every single one of the twenty releases we have listed in Gilbert's discography. But as you say Wire are a popular band so quite a few of those 52,94x members will know who they are, some may even have vinyl copies of Pink Flag, Chairs Missing or 154 sitting in their record collections, so it's a safe bet that Wire will garner a few more than the 5 reviews and 16 ratings that Šarlo Akrobata's two releases attracted. I won't be one of them of course because I don't write reviews but those three Wire albums will still be good albums in my estimation whether I write reviews for them or not.

So sure I'll be haunting around here for as long as I can, though 50 years is a bit of a stretch. I'm not Cerberus the three-headed dog guarding the entrance to this kingdom of Prog, I have no power of veto over any suggestions people make and just like everyone else who isn't on an Eval team I don't get a vote - if a band is suggested, evaluated and accepted then there is nothing I can do to prevent that. All I can do is state the case in favour or against any suggestion that catches my attention, because if I don't speak up before the addition then I certainly cannot complain after it. However as Iván says: you can complain before an addition but once a band is in they cannot be removed so you might as well keep your mouth shut. It also helps if you restate that every time the band whose addition you disapprove of is mentioned.

 

Back to the actual subject of this thread, British proto-prog. I must say S.F. Sorrow is a really remarkable album, and doesn't get near the attention it should. Having been young at the time of its release, and in America, I didn't have access to it (or know of its existence) until the mid-70s. But I think it fit right in at that point in time with the morose works of Floyd and Sabbath that were popular. I guess it didn't fit the happy, hopeful, hippy dream of 1968, hence its lack of album sales.