NYC newbie

peskypesky wrote: "Well, in my experience, the one thing that seems to characterize the guys I've met who like Yes and progressive rock is that they are all highly intelligent. So I think it's just a matter of IQ. You have to have a high one to appreciate this music." That made me feel a lot better. About myself, prog and other prog fans.

as it does myself, need to have that framed and put in my office ha hah hah.

Greetings from NYC.

I'm a long-time prog fan and all-around music freak. My older brother turned me on to prog back when I was just a kid in the 70s, growing up in San Antonio, Texas. It all started with "The Yes Album", which turned me into a Yes fanatic. I went on to discover and love Genesis, King Crimson, Gentle Giant, ELP, Tull and other prog heavyweights.

Since I was learning both classical and rock guitar at the time, prog just made sense to my brain. My older brothers were also classically-trained guitarists, so we appreciated the complexities and musical virtuosities of these bands.

I'll never forget the excitement of those days, waiting for the release of a new album by one of the great prog bands. Of course, since I only started to get into this music in 1976 (when I was 10), most of the greatest albums had already been released, but there were still a few masterpieces to come. I can still remember when my brother came running home with Yes's "Going For The One" and how we just sat back and got blown away.

I remember a similar sensation when the newly-reformed King Crimson released "Discipline" and blew us away with "Elephant Talk", "Thela Hun Jinjeet" and the rest. I saw them in Austin on that tour and my God was it incredible! Like nothing we had ever seen before.

All these years later, I'm psyched that bands like Yes and King Crimson are still alive and kicking and that there are still other people on this planet who can appreciate and love albums like "Topographic Oceans".

Over the years, I've taken a lot of abuse for liking prog (especially because I got into punk and indie rock and grunge and played in those types of bands). But I always try to remember what an ex-girlfriend said about it. I was telling her that it made me sad that prog and groups like Yes got so much abuse and disrespect, always being called "pompous" and "self-important" and "overblown". And she said, "Well, in my experience, the one thing that seems to characterize the guys I've met who like Yes and progressive rock is that they are all highly intelligent. So I think it's just a matter of IQ. You have to have a high one to appreciate this music."

That made me feel a lot better. About myself, prog and other prog fans.