When were you infected by Prog?

Born a progger. When I was a kid, I thought that everyone was just supposed to know who Yes and Rush were.

I grew up listening to prog.  My dad was a big fan of legendary band like: Yes, Kansas, JTull, ELP.   Even as a kid I went to two Yes concerts, and two Kansas Concerts.  But that wasn't the defining point for me.  Unfortunately, I started listening to the appalling sounds of Punk Rock and Grunge.  I thought it made me hardcore or something, against the norm!  Yes I was an idiot, but weren't we all?  

Anyway, one day I was sitting in Art class painting.  NOTED: I was a senior then.   And this foreign exchange student from Finland came up to me and she said "here, I think you might enjoy this."  She handed me this Sonata Arctica cd.  I turned it on and the first song I heard was "My Land".  That evening I went home and burned all my punk and grunge cds.  I have been on the journey to find the most incredible song ever every since. :)

originally posted by progpositivity

So yanch... It seems that Prog hit you like a ton of Bricks?  

 I did not like prog rock at first, i found what i had heard in the early seventies, which was when i started to collect records (that started in 1971, when i turned 8 years old) did not do much for me, and at the time,  i was  drawn to heavy rock, and remained so, for a long time.
        Many of my friends liked prog, but at that time, i found it's complexity rendered it innaccessible for me, as well as a feeling that it smacked of pretentiousness.
          In the spring of 1985, when i was 22,  a friend of mine  lent me  four albums-Nektar's  Recycled, and  Magic Is  A  Child, and Triumvirat's Illusions On  A Double Dimple and Old Loves Die Hard.
         The Nektar albums were somewhat interesting, but i was really turned onto Illusions On A Double Dimple-this album really epitomised for me what i felt right from the start was what real progressive rock could  be. It appealed to me in a big way, and left me feeling, for the first time really, that ignoring prog was wrong, and that i was really missing out on something special in doing so.
 The other Triumvirat album, Old Loves Die Hard, was interesting, but could not hold a candle to Illusions On A Double Dimple.
           This got the ball rolling, and the rest, they say, is history!

octopus-4 wrote: I had my first stereo in 1975.

The very fact you call it a 'stereo' marks you as being of a certain age

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

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

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

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.

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).