How did you find Prog?

My dad had Fragile by Yes and In the Court of the Crimson King by King Crimson on cassette tape.  He would play it throughout my childhood and that's really about it. I started really getting into it in 9th grade however.

Petrovsk Mizinski wrote: How did I find prog? With great difficulty.

This is my first post.  Hi there!  

Edited by HolyMoly - April 01 2009 at 15:02

When I started playing guitar I had a neighbor that was very into Rush so he gave me some tapes for me to learn the songs. The first Rush song I ever learn was "Spirit of the Radio".

Well I had been listening to Pink Floyd for a good amount of time, though I did not know what I was hearing was prog. Just thought it was good music in the vein of other classic bands I liked. Listened to my father's Relayer album on tape and was mesmerized. Went out and got Fragile and gave Aqualung a few more listens and it clicked...

Great topic. 

My older brother's record collection.  (Goodness, I just had a chill: what if his album collection had consisted instead of, gulp... gasp...)  He had Genesis Live (only, oddly); Yes's Yes Album, Fragile, Close, Yessongs, Tales; everything from Stand Up to Minstrel by Tull; KC's Court, Wake, Lark's; ELP's first record, Tarkus, Surgery; Zeppelin's I, IV, V (OK, I know, not Prog, but in my young mind I took it as in the same vein, never searching out the Blues, always the, as I would learn, more progressive and symphonic elements; when I finally heard Led Zep II I did not like it hardly at all).  Can't remember others right now, maybe early Floyd?  Note: no Beatles to draw away my interest - a lucky break.

I would go down into our unfinished basement, far from the rest of the family (my brother would be off at school or a girlfriends or just generally gone, my parents were just glad I wasn't out getting injured I'm sure), and I would just play these albums over and over.  Just doing that constituted one of the most joyous times of my life.  All this took place before my awareness really began to blossom, very young.  I remember one day picking up Lark's Tongues, which I had just begun to master, and noticing that this drummer named Bill Bruford of Yes (Yes I had already devoured) was on the album.  So that's why he wasn't on Yes's Tales - wow!  Bruford and Bonham were my favorite drummers.  Anyway this all fascinated me no end.

A little later, old enough to have a bike and ride around, I would tape these albums to Lo-noise Panasonic tapes using one of those old black Panasonic desktop/portable, mono, single-speaker, auto-recording-level recorders.  I'd just set the recorder down in the vicinity of the phonograph's speakers (one of which didn't work well) out in the open like that, and I'd keep real quiet while the album played.  I'd then have a tape that I could put in the portable, pull out the handle and go.  I have a clear memory of riding my bike through local streets, carefully holding that portable in my right hand, handle bar in my left, singing "I Get Up, I Get Down."  What a geek, I love it!

You'll have noted that there are these immense gaps in the discography listed above.  This led to a second delicious period of youth: gaining just enough awareness to think, hey, what other stuff is there by these groups?  I discovered Foxtrot and Nursery Crime (oh, to remember hearing "Supper" for the first time!), later Selling and Lamb, I found the incredible Relayer.  ELP's Trilogy.  And what could have prepared me for Red?  In school one other kid had similar tastes, and he found out about (I think it was) Genesis from me while hipping me to Rush.  Great memories of a young, thinking boy.

AmK


Edited by American Khatru - April 10 2009 at 08:22

I started listening to Pink Floyd when I was a teenager thanks to my guitar teacher. I also liked Peter Gabriel back then mainly because of his videos, although I didn't start getting all his and Genesis albums until several years later. But if I have to say who really helped me find progressive music, it's definitely the Internet.

I got a copy of Pink Floyd - Echoes 3 and a half years ago.

"Can you tell me where my country lies" said the uni faun to his true love's eyes.
At the time I didn't quite realize it, but I was 'hooked on prog'.


on a completely unrelated topic, that's an absolutely wonderful signature HawkCWG.


Edited by -Radioswim- - April 12 2009 at 18:39

I was strictly into classical music until about the age of 11, when my brother played me "Wish you Were Here" by Pink Floyd.....and I was hooked!  This was in the glory days of Fluff Freeman's Saturday rock Show, so I got to hear loads of great music once I knew it was out there.