How old were you when got into prog? how

I grew up with prog. My brother, who is 10 years older than I, was a big collector. I think the first song that really got me was "Carpet Crawlers". And all that other weird stuff he listened to - those early Tangerine Dream albums and other weird Krautrock stuff. I had never known such sounds were possible, and I was fascinated. There was always some sweet smoke in the air too in my brother's room. No-one bothered about me; it was ok for my brother and his friends that I hung around and listened. It was I who discovered Van der Graaf Generator for him when I was 7; I saw "Godbluff" in a record shop and liked the impossible letters of the VdGG logo..
 Prog has always been a part of my life.

I was 7 years old...my dad has the whole Yes collection on vinyl and used to play it all the time.  He basically brought me up listening to prog, it's the first music I remember listening to.

I was 16 when I was introduced to the Cult of Prog.  Another drummer in the HS marching band brought in a couple Rush tapes and I was hooked.  Prior to that I mostly listened to Iron Maiden and a lot of speed/thrash metal, but those tapes introduced me to another world.  From there I discovered old Genesis, Crimson, Yes, ELP, etc. and the snowball kept rolling...

I'm pretty sure I was born playing King Crimson's Larks Tongues part 2

Well, my exploring of prog is more strange.
At first I was listening to roots reggae and ska and some day I heard Queen on the radio. It sounded good so I decide to download some of their material. Over time I became their great fan and because on wikipedia I read they played some of prog I read the article and discovered prog elements. For me it sounded like an extremely intellegent music so I download ITCOCK and some PF albums and forced my self to like this stuff (it unusual to listen it for the first time if you're used to pop or reggae in my case). After a while I started to like this kind of music and I discovered ELP, Hidria Spacefolk, Hawkwind etc. At the same time I "discovered" jazz and rediscovered classic, because of progressive elements. And this is very important, because I already liked classic before but I didn't know much about it, because I wasn't so interested in music. But because of prog I read a lot of articles and reviews and I even started to play piano because of it.
For example I started to interest in musique concrete because PF were using some of it on DSOTM, Ummagumma and others. And because this music is very hard to listen I've chosen another genre of hard-listening music: neoclassicism.

This is in fact offtopic already, but what I'm trying to say is, that all the time I was listening to progressive elements not prog rock or prog jazz (=cool jazz) or ...
So I'd recommend to others that u try to listen some of other progressive genres. Maybe you'll like it (even if you're already listening to fusion genres such as symph prog or jazz fusion).

Edited by wailingwailer - May 05 2007 at 17:54

If you look at the list of bands on PA, the first ones I listened to were Purple and Led Zep when I was 11 (it was in December 1970). I can go on with Santana (Abraxas, my first album) in January 1971 when I was alost twelve (I was born in February 1959).

My sister (seven years older than me) used to have Deep Purple and Pink Floyd as favourite bands. By the age of 9 or 10 I started going mad for Deep Purple, while it took me a little longer to acquire taste in Pink Floyd. During my early teens I used to be a metal freak, dressing in black and letting my hair grow (my hair, where is it now? If you see it around, please contact the local police department), with Rush, Mercyful Fate and King Diamond as idols (as well as early Black Sabbath). Therefore, having a foot into 1970s rock, it was very easy, when I was 17 yo, starting listening to something more from that period; so I discovered (in the right order) Genesis, Yes, Le Orme and PFM. Final step: when I started studying German at the University I discovered also Krautrock and Kosmische Musik and I went mad for Tangerine Dream and Popol Vuh. Since then, I've been delving deeper and deeper into prog rock, and I wonder if I ever find its bottom...

I was about 11 IN 1973 when my cousin played me Foxtrot - Genesis.

I was about ten going on eleven.My Dad showed me ELP first....& it wasn't until a couple of months later that I had really "aquired the taste"( Gentle Giant reference....LOL) & had a desperate craving for more! It actually took me longer to get into Pink Floyd than ELP......& my first prog album ever was Pictures at an Exhibition!

maybe 16 or 17, but somehow earlier, like age 13 or something (didn't know prog exists until at highschool )

Music teacher showed Tull's With yuo there to help me and Yes' heart of the sunrise. I had listened Metallica and had searched for other band like Metallica.

But it's been maybe 3 years now, 300 albums.. what?.. Yeah, it's the library (I don't mean it's much, but before that I had about 20 albums. And I don't buy them a lot. Or shop anything. Not downloading or collecting all)


Edited by progressive - April 05 2007 at 19:07