When were you infected by Prog?

I have a different angle....back in the very early 70's for me it was not a "rock" artist. I was into funk/funkadelic and hard core R&B. I have always felt funkadelic was the soul music reply to psychadelic rock. Groups like Parliament, Earth Wind & Fire, Bootsy Collins....who were stretching the music all over the place. But what I liked most was long songs that these artists were making....I also liked Zeppelin, because they are a blues band with attitude and their harder songs got me exploring other rock artists.

I was a freshman in high school, a big Beatles fan when a friend handed me Thick as a Brick, said, "listen to this in one sitting and tell me what you think." I did as instructed, 4 times in a row! It changed my entire view of music. From there I started exploring more-heard a cover band do an amazing version of Watcher of the Skies, bought all the early Genesis albums. Saw excerpts from Yessongs on Don Kirschner's Rock Concert, bought the album and CTTE. Realized that one of our local radio station used part of Karn Evil 9 as an intro.....you get the idea! I became sponge, soaking in every prog band I could, going to every concert I could!  

Edited by yanch - April 15 2010 at 14:21

yanch wrote: I was a freshman in high school, a big Beatles fan when a friend handed me Thick as a Brick, said, "listen to this in one sitting and tell me what you think." I did as instructed, 4 times in a row! It changed my entire view of music.

Dark Side of the Moon, at around 14-15.

Atavachron wrote: my first exposure was seeing that sci--fi cover of Tarkus when I was about 9 in my buddy's Dad's LP collection and being immediately drawn to it.  Didn't understand the music but loved the imagery.  Then a couple years later I saw Hemispheres at a record store and bought it.  Again I was primarily drawn by the images and fantasy atmosphere,

ProgressiveAttic wrote: when I was 13 and took The Dark Side of the Moon from my father's collection and was so impressed that I listened to it twice and went to grab some more albums, in this exact order: In The Court of the Crimson King (which I listened to 4 times in a row), ELP's Trilogy (another one I listened 3 times) and Yes' Relayer (which I listened 5 times).

As many, I started developing my music taste with classic rock. I think I was around 14. Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Pink Floyd (they were a classic rock band to me at that time), Led Zeppelin, The Who, The Doors, AC/DC, Santana, The Kinks, Jethro Tull... they were all classic rock bands to me. After a year or so, I started to digg jazz. My dad is a big jazzer, and an audiofil, and jazz (and classical music, mostly) was always on his stereo. But it still missed something, that jazz. It was... I don't know, too boring, too... can't find the word. So I asked dad, if he knew any band that mixed jazz and rock. He replied with a loud yes, starting with Weather Report, continuing with Mahavishnu Orchestra and Return to Forever and finishing with Gong (he described them as a crazy-ass weird-sounds band). I youtubed Weather Report, of course clicked on the first link, that was Birdland and... I was stunned. As many of others before me said, it was magical. I immediately downloaded their whole discography and continued with other mentioned bands. After that, I started to download jazz fusion albums like crazy. Through Gong, I discovered Canterbury scene, downloaded a few albums, and was again stunned. And later on, I discovered that Canterbury scene is a part of a major rock subgenre, progressive rock. So, as many before me, I became a prog sponge. At 17/18, I had already listened to a whole lot of prog music, and was enjoying every part of it. So I truly got into prog rock genre through jazz fusion and Gong, if I remember correctly.

About a year ago when I first started listening to Pink Floyd 

When I was about 13th year old I started to listen good old 70' hard rock like Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Rainbow. A bit later also Judas Priest and Nazareth. But definituve moment when I've started listen to prog-rock was the 1st year of University when one of my friend (guitarist anyway) introduced me Pink Floyd. He also said about "Yes" that they played prog rock...but so weird that he doesn't like it (in fact I like Yes much mroe than PF now!). At the same time another firiend gave me to listen Uriah Heep "best" album. I really dig this Hammonds in July Morning, Gypsy, Look at yourself etc. Later I listened to Colosseum "Valentyne Suite" and early "the Nice" albums...and that time was already sunk by prog rock until these days :-). So about 6-7 years of prog-rock facination

In the mid 1970s I was into heavy rock in a big way (looking back, the first album I bought was 'The Best Of Uriah Heep'), & I was berating my sister's boyfriend (later to be my brother in law) at his collection of soul albums - I asked him if he had anything 'heavy' so he lent me 2 albums...

Dark Side Of The Moon
Genesis Live (turned out he'd seen Genesis on the Foxtrot & Selling England.. tours)

Cue Damascene moment!

A couple of years later I was at Earls Court, London for the first UK performance of 'The Wall'


Edited by Jim Garten - April 16 2010 at 06:16