Who do you think was really the first "true" Progressive Artist and who is better. 

 

Better? Ah, I prefer Zappa.

 

By the way, it's funny you just posted this since yesterday evening I was playing with my dad bits of Uncle Meat and saying how ahead of his time he was.

Keith Emerson's "Off The Shelf" compilation CD has a recording of The Nice playing an excerpt from "Lumpy Gravy" on a rodio show.  I presume that indicates some sort of influence.

 

I would argue the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix,  and Brian Wilson were more essential to prog than Frank Zappa. No one band is solely responsible for it's creation. Frank Zappa was a musical heavyweight but I don't think his music was overtly prog well especially on the first two albums. Frank innovations consisted of merging Edgar Varese into doo-wop, blues, rock, classical and jazz you name it. He used musique concrete techniques and tape manipulation also into his mix. He does sound unique but I honestly  think he was more interested in being composer rather than writing tunes which the Beatles, Hendrix and Brian Wilson were able to convey their music to a larger audience..  

 

Robert Fripp has stated many times the Beatles "A Day in the Life"  very prog related was the reason he went into rock music. Now the Beatles weren't overtly prog except for a few songs that can be debated.  The Beatles were progressive, the most popular, and great songwriters. You can combine that and you can see why the Beatles basically influenced every rock artist at the time. By experimenting with classical orchestration with rock stylings, musique concrete,  backward music and vocals, sampled looped noises, ambient sounds by the use of looping,  various timbre on vocal, instruments, Indian instruments, their use of delay and switching time, mellotron all to create to intentionally  what they thought  the  psychedelic experience  should sound on record. That type of approach was different than say Phil Spector or the Byrds, and Yardbirds style of eastern influenced guitars with rock. There was nothing that sounded like Revolver that preceded it. That type of experimentation even influenced people in other genres like Stevie Wonder, George Clinton,  etc.

 

Also, Jimi Hendrix blew barriers with his guitar playing by reinveting the rock guitar sound with his virtouso use of electronics and studio techniques.

 

 

 

 

 

 Yeah.

Yeah that was big, but seriously people.  How haven't music fans realized yet that 1)  It's music, there was no first of this, last of that... and 2)  If you look at things like classical and jazz you could find ANYTHING that quantifies progressive music.  Therefore it'd be very hard to point towards a specific individual.  And if you ever found someone, they're just progressing from those before them, who would in actuality then be the first, but then theres those before them who would actually be the first........going nowhere....

Really?  I think the jazzier side of prog had a lot of Zappa influence in the 70's.  Many acid jazzier sides of prog groups (some canterbury) seemed to reflect Zappa's mark.  On top of this relatively the entire Finish prog scene of the time was VERY Zappa influenced, such as Samla Mamma's Manna, Jukka Tolonen (all incarnations), Pekka Pohjola, and Tasavallian Presidentti.  

You're definitely dead on about Phish.  They're also very acknowledged Zappa fans.  (they do a fantastic Peaches en Regalia)

 

And now you know the rest of the story.

PS Hey guys, dont forget Mike Bloomfield and THIS song by him, which was also an instant inspiration for many of that later British progrock movement (especialy for these bands who started as blues rock acts aswell) : amazing 13 minutes long instrumental "EAST/WEST", 1966

 

The thing is, prog as we know it was founded in England and quite rapidly spread all over Europe. It took years before any band in the US dared to do something alike (I think Kansas was the first in 1973 but you may know better). The way I see it there are 3 milestones in the birth of prog :

1. Moody blues - Days of future passed : Not the first prog album and not even the best of it's time but probably the first prog album that had success and therefore heared by others (you can't be influencial when unheared).

2. ITCOTCK : For me, much weaker than what KC acheived quite soon after but again for it's time it was revolutionary (and again successful).

3. Pink Floyd - DSOTM : Maybe the album that brought prog to the masses. Again, personally I find it weacker than other PF's albums.

Zappa influenced more jazz artists at the time and though he is definitely progressive was not part of the prog movement. The way I see it Zappa is kind of a lonley wolf in his own private world.

Now, IMO none of these milestones are even close to prog peaks but their success aloud record companies to take risk with very strange music and therefore made the needed atmosphere to create much better music.

 

This is a tough one all around ... since both were important in different ways.

 

One group helped bust the radio controls and bring more rock music to the forefront at a time when someone even said ... this garbage will never sell ... check out the 10 top worst business decisions of all time, and the Beatles and Rolling Stones are two of them! It could be said that pirate radio helped a lot, but if the music was not there, it would not have happened, and the fact is ... that the music WAS there.

 

The other, was doing some different things in Los Angeles, and the only people that gave them any credence was the Los Angeles Free Press ... until one day John Lennon said something and all of a sudden ... everyone knows Frank ... how Hollywood'ish that is, no?

 

In the end, they are both important ... one for busting radio open, and the other for helping improve the material that was being played.

 

I often think that Frank helped the psychedelic era more than the Beatles did, even if the Beatles were more show'y or artistic about it than Frank was, whose tastes were less around the word "art", and more ... let's do this ... which tends to dilute the value of the work a little bit, and ... this is the saddest thing of the Frank Zappa groups and Family trust ... they don't believe in the art of it all ... and I'm not sure that Frank is ever going to get his due as the composer and arranger that he was, that he deserves. He had, just as good, if not better work, where he did not play the guitar, but the only stuff we know is his guitar stuff!

 

No one is worst represented in 20th century music than Frank Zappa ... and it makes it harder that he was satirizing everyone else for their stuffiness overtly and overblown word'i'cisms that made everyone think that it was more important than otherwise! ... we must be stupid if it is not that word'y?

 

I would have said Beatles many years ago, but today, I would say Frank, because his music is lasting and still stands out fresh after all these years, and too much of the Beatles material just comes off as song that Billie Holiday sang ... or Bobbie Darin ... so to speak! And I certainly do not think that in the end, Michelle is a better spokesperson for our generation than 200 Motels is ... one is a nice song, thank you , so what ... but the other? Busted up video and film and eventually created processes that are still being used to day in film! One has much more importance in the physical dimention of the world of music in that it helped flesh out some new technologies and ideas ... Michelle was just another nice song that sold millions and made money!

 

Frank for me!

 

I love Proto-Kaw's "Early recordings from Kansas" but it was not released at the time cause no record company in the US dared taking a risk with that kind of music (that was already quite big in Europe).

Velvet underground were interesting and progressive in their own way but not connected to the prog movement in Europe and was based mostly on minimalistic melody and strong lyrics (sanged awfully on purpose by Nico).

Would you mind if I re-phrased this?

 

Without ITCOTKC ... a lot of the work that Frank Zappa would NOT have been validated for its value, I don't think ... and it took more bands taking it to the experiment and doing completely different things to help ... make things like Frank Zappa more viable to audiences ... he was very tough to listen to ... and even I did not get into his work until the Chunga's Revenge album and even then ... it was because of Babe Ruth's version of King King! However, a lot more of this experimentation was all over Europe than the Anglo-American minded commercialism in music.

 

Frank Zappa was a very tough acquired taste because it was an incredible mix of everything and the kitchen sink, and what not ... where as even the work by King Crimson, is much more "conventional" and "compositional" than what Frank was doing ... and consequently ... much easier to listen to!

 

KC's album is one of many that helped show that ... rock musicians were capable of excellent music as well ... and this happens to have been the "group" that we have come to call "progressive" of which Frank Zappa is an early member and should be an honored member ... but too many of us are to hung up on his parodies and social satires that sometimes make our knees ... not like it! KC's material, by comparison? ... not even worth discussing! Invisible intelectuality -- disguised as "music".

 

But satire and sometimes stuff that makes  fun of the seriousness of some things out there ... including the PA board here by some folks like me ... is not something that most people like, and have a tendency to think that people are insulting them ... we're not insulting anyone ... we're simply asking that you take a look at a couple of different things and look left once in a while instead of right all the time ...  very simple!  You're such a good Draenei!

Although Were Only In It for the Money is one of my favorites