First Prog Experience

When did prog first draw you in? I remember sitting in school when I was about 10 by myself with a crappy mp3 player i got off ebay that could only fit about 10 minutes of music on it and I just listened to Roundabout by Yes over and over again and that was a truely magical time, I unfortunately didn't really discover Yes for another 3 years

I always listened to classic rock with my parents.  Within that there was alot of Rush and whatnot.  I am the only really big fan of music in my family.  My parents just listen to the radio and stuff...no CD's.  I randomly bought a Dream Theater CD (Systematic Chaos).  I didn't know anything about it really other than the fact that I had heard of them.  Now, well I lost track of the number of CD's in my collection now...I would say 250+ would be an estimate.  I want to start collecting vinyl someday.  I know that around half my collection is loaded onto my Windows Media Player and I have about 15 days worth of music.  HAHA.

Lazy Sunday morning, break out my ipod and listen to The Wall all the way through for the first time. Definitely a defining moment, if not the defining moment, in my journey towards prog. That was two years ago.

 I have an uncle with cerebral palsy who had the biggest record collection (talking vinyl now...) back in the mid- to late-60's, and it was mostly Beatles, The Who, Rolling Stones, etc. Then came bands like The Doors and Iron Butterfly. It was all really fascinating to me.

 I think I got my first "stereo" (turntable on top of an AM/FM tuner with detached speakers) in 1971. I bought my first album that year as well: "13 Greatest Hits" by The Doors. I also bought the first album by Santana (the white one with "Evil Ways" on it). Using money from my paper route, I bought every album by The Doors and Santana (probably 10 or 11 albums total) before I bought an album by another band.

 The next two albums I bought were "Every Good Boy Deserves Favor" by The Moody Blues and "Fragile" by Yes. Both were pretty much brand new. The Moodys scored with "The Story In Your Eyes" on the radio, while a shortened version of "Roundabout" made Yes a known commodity. So this was my foray into the realm of progressive rock. Among my next purchases was "Lizard" by King Crimson, and this album really challenged me. My younger brothers were pretty much right with me in what I was buying. They were digging it too. But Crimson kind of threw a monkey wrench into the works. Here was some offbeat, sometimes a little twisted, pieces of music that were hard to fit into the extended mold of pop music. I reveled in it, while they reviled it.

 My son plays bass guitar for Between the Buried and Me. He is interviewed occasionally by the local music beat writer who tries to keep tabs on local musicians (like the singer from Train, who is from Erie, PA), and he did a phone interview with Dan once and asked him, "Where do your musical influences come from?" He answered, "Well, when I was little, my dad was listening to stuff like Pink Floyd, Frank Zappa, King Crimson, and other nutty, nutty stuff like that." I didn't know if he was complimenting my musical taste or just putting the best words he could to it. I know he truly loves listening to all those bands, but when it came to describing it, the words "nutty, nutty" were all he could come up with.


Edited by beebs - August 12 2010 at 20:15

when i was 13 i was sitting in my brothers room and he was listening to chop suey (system of a down) i liked the band  so i searched it  on the internet and i saw a whole world of rock and metal music in front of me so i searched and searched 'till i found all the great and famous bands  and my cousin were into music and especially prog so he had all the bands downloaded and he had  pink floyd too so i listened to dsotm and that's how i went in the world of prog


Edited by sydbarrett2010 - August 13 2010 at 05:47

I was actually into prog before I was really really into prog.  I remember really liking the Who's instrumental Tommy theme.  Hocus Focus Pocus.  ELP's Toccata (A cousin had BSS).  My first two prog albums in my collection were Wakeman's King Arthur and Journey.  I was enjoying other stuff on the radio like Genesis Follow You Follow Me, Mangione's Feels So Good.  I think the thing that finally tipped it over for me was my brother, three years older, and his friends were all big into prog.  My brother had this double album that was a combo of Nursery Cryme and Foxtrot.  (Didn't have the original cover art, boo!!!).

I forgot I had Autobahn in my collection before I went prognuts.

  Me too.  But I bought mine at a record store when I was a teenager in 1970 just because I liked the cover. 

My dad used to have a huge record collection (Which he gave to me ).  I remember being obsessed with Deep Purple's Machine Head, Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, and Moody Blue's In search of the Lost Chord.  I was always into Meshuggah but never made a prog connection.  I always thought of them as Tribal Metal.  Same with Emperor whom I just thought was a diverse Black Metal band (Never made a prog connection).

 I was and still am more into Jazz (Which inspired me to go to school for music) then anything so I didn't really get into Prog. until about six years ago when I was 20.  I was sitting in a circle of friends passing the doochie around and a friend put on LTiA by King Crimson.  Maybe it was because I was high when I heard it but that became my favorite album for that year and got me hooked into prog.  I started researching the band members and the albums. 

Listened to ITCOTCK and found out Greg Lake was in ELP.  Researching Bill Bruford led me to UK and Yes.  Researched ELP then found out Emerson was in The Nice.  Listened to Relayer and found out Patrick Moraz was from The Moody Blues (Which I already knew but didn't really know)  It seemed like every time I researched a band I would find reference to another band.  It was a domino effect.

 In 2006 I stumbled upon this site and it was like a door opened for me.  I never got interested in posting on the forums until now because there seems (at least to me) to be a bit of an elitest mentality with some of the big wigs on here.  For someone whom identifies themselves with Jazz first and then Prog second I felt a little out of place. Still do a little bit.

wow, as far as i read you all look lucky guys whose at least parents were interested in prog music. my parents, unfortunately, are not even related with rock music, they always listen to some sh*tty turkish folk music or some arabesque influenced weird kind of music.