Pink Floyd or King Crimson

I've taken the liberty to ask a professional rock historian and author to take a gander at the correspondence associated with this thread, and offer a more studied opinion. Further an author who is researching the early days of British progressive rock and written the definitive book on King Crimson, In The Court of King Crimson, i.e. Sid Smith.

This is Sid's succinct response:

Velvetclown wrote: Some info please? When was the tape recorder invented? When was it first commercially used? In 1798

AD or BC

Crimson were more influential in forming the prog sound. Their 69 debut changed the world of music as far as I'm concerned.  In 69, Pink Floyd were still trying to come up with their sound. And it wasn't really till "Meddle" that they achieved that.  Of course, by that time Crimson was on the way to something totally different.

Pink Floyd for sure. Although many believe King Crimson made the first prog rock album, Pink Floyd was experimenting long before anyone else. "Saucerfull of Secrets" is a perfect example of this, the orgy of sound effects and "music" was the first of its kind and is arguably the only effective one to date.

I love Floyd to bits but (and I'm sure this comes as no surprise), the Crims for me are the quintessential prog band. There is a case to say that Floyd were experimenting with prog by way of psychedelia but at the same time Fripp was doing similar things with Giles, Giles & Fripp albums around the same time.

To be fair however, KC & PF were approaching the prog genre at opposite ends so If I'm being REALLY  honest, I'd call it a draw.  

gdub411 wrote: Ok...fair enough Mr Heath.But with all due respect  let me present the question this way: Could Pink Floyd exist without any of those bands and King Crimson of course that you listed? Undoubtably yes since they predated all but Soft machine and Soft machine was considered the 2nd act during those times. Now could have those bands exist without Pink Floyd Maybe, but one cannot be too sure of that either which leads me to once again come to the conclusion that the biggest influence on Prog was Pink Floyd.

It is clear we are going to continue to disagree - something like eye (ear) of the beholder??? But please answer my question: which bands did Floyd influence before they did Meddle or DSOTM, i.e. before 73 or so?? Machine had far more influence on European bands in that period, and I would argue spawned the sub- genre of RIO.

> Soft Machine was considered the 2nd act during those times. depends on who agreed to go first - at one of those Roundhouse gig the played simultaneous at each end of the hall!! And of course Machine toured the US some time before Floyd.

I think a problem here with people having quite distinct ideas about history and developments, stems from the quality of writing on the subject of early day prog. This has ranged from poor (inaccurate, thirdhand, incomplete) to a few being excellent (but usually the subject matter is very selective). However, but can you name a critical  book that actually puts things into a chronological order, especially the first 10 years? Too many opt for the encyclopaedic entry approach (i.e. bands listed in alphabetal order, with little inter-connectivity) or erudite  essays (e.g. Holme Hudson's and McCann's books). What we need is a well researched book by somebody who was there at the time - Krimson biographer Sid Smith was most certainly doing that, however, he is currently finishing a project on musicians from the NE of England. (I even got pulled in by Smith to describe the record retail side in the late 60's).  The Syd Barrett biog Lost In The Woods and Graham Bennett's forthcoming Soft Machine (and I must stop plugging this) give some clues, but obvious both are mainly focussed on the named subject, rather than giving an unbiassed analysis/review of the times.