When were you infected by Prog?

I was 12 when the guitarist in my Dad's Country band (Dad's a bass player) died at a ridiculously young age and left him a pile of albums, among other things.

A few weeks later I was looking through them when I found an odd green album cover with a strange swirly logo on it that just said 'Yes'!  'Close To The Edge' was my first 'real' Prog experience, although I'd been listening to Mike Oldfield, Vangelis and Jean-Michel Jarre already, CTTE is when Prog entered my life - the title track blew me away!  B->

And I haven't looked back!  I also found a compilation album with 'The Knife' by Genesis and 'Sylvia' by Focus.   I rapidly bought albums by Genesis, Hackett, Gabriel, Kraftwerk, Rush & Pink Floyd and pretty soon some more of my Dad's friends started taking me to Prog gigs - my first two big gigs were Weather Report in Nov '80, followed by Yes in Dec '80, on the 'Drama' tour.

The next two albums to have a massive impact on me were King Crimson's 'Discipliine' and Marillion's 'Script For A Jester's Tear' - both are still favourites nearly thirty years later.

The first gig I went to on my own was an Electronic Music festival (UK Electronica, I believe it was called) in 1983 in Milton Keynes, which featured Mark Shreeve, Robert Schroeder and Hawkwind!

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http://www.progzilla.com

Well as a child my dad owned a lot of blues and stuff like iron maiden. Now while this isn't prog, he at least showed me what skill and talent could be (although he did own some prog albums like zappa and floyd).  I really didn't get into prog until my friend a few years ago gave me some dream theater and ayreon and I fell in love with prog. 

1977. I was 12. Rush had just released A Farewell to Kings, and "Closer to the Heart" was all over the radio. I liked the song,and asked for the album for Christmas. I got it--on 8-track  -- and played it constantly, taking it with me between my mom's place and my dad's place. One day, when Dad and I were talking about our musical preferences, I told him that I liked hard rock. He took one listen to the music with which I had commandeered the stereo, and said, "Actually, you like progressive rock." That settled it. I had a name for it. Since then, of course my tastes have varied, but prog has been my home, musically speaking, since that conversation.

It was 5 to 6 years ago, when I first listened to Coheed and Cambria's In Keeping Secrets of SIlent Earth: 3.  A pretty poppy album but was fairly experimental and contained some very proggish elements.  They became my first "favorite band" and I was really into them... I started hearing comparisons of Rush and Coheed, so I went out and bought 2112 and Moving Pictures.  I thought these were absolutely amazing pieces of music and I listened to each dozens of times.  I eventually learned that these were considered "progressive" rock bands, so I started researching the genre.  I visited a website that said that King Crimson's ITCOTKC was the number 1 prog rock album of all time, so I thought, I HAVE to get this album.  Eventually found it and I haven't looked back since... eventually discovering dozens of the old great bands and many newer ones.  It's just such great music to listen to.

Pilkenton wrote: I always thought it was called Art Rock.  My junior year of high school, sitting in the backseat of a buddy's car at lunchtime listening to Dark Side of the Moon and Brain Salad Surgery on his 8-track.

Last year, when I found out we were now calling the music I grew up with "progressive rock."

Edited by Ronnie Pilgrim - May 11 2010 at 19:28

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I had gravitated towards 70's hard rock and Prog at an early age, but I think my first album was Jeff Wayne's War Of The Worlds when I was about 13 or 14.   I was really into sci fi (and still am) so when I saw this I immediately grabbed it and listened to it over and over again.

Some key events include seeing a Pink Floyd laser light show at the local planetarium, renting Pink Floyd's and Rush's greatest hits, and stumbling on this site (eventually leading me to Genesis, Yes, Gentle Giant, and, more recently, King Crimson).