Obscure Prog Facts

These are hardly obscure but hey ho...

STEELY DAN - Named after a dildo in the William Burroughs novel Naked Lunch. According to Burroughs, the Steely Dan was a metal dildo that an evil German bulldyke prostitute crushed using her nether regions.

SUPERTRAMP - Named after a book called Autobiography Of A Supertramp, written by R.E. Davies in 1910.

aginor wrote: Roger Hodgson was asked to replace Jon Andersons role as lead singer,after Jon left the band in the 90s, he also co-wrote a track on the album Talk - called Walls   but he said no

and Trevor Rabin played electrical guitar on Roger Hogson's track The more I look, appeared on the album Open the door.

The Runaway wrote: ExittheLemming wrote: These are hardly obscure but hey ho... STEELY DAN - Named after a dildo in the William Burroughs novel Naked Lunch. According to Burroughs, the Steely Dan was a metal dildo that an evil German bulldyke prostitute crushed using her nether regions. SUPERTRAMP - Named after a book called Autobiography Of A Supertramp, written by R.E. Davies in 1910. Soft Machine was named after a William Burroughs novel, I believe.

The Runaway wrote: I wanted to open this thread for fun and to enrichen my prog knowledge, and maybe yours too! Let me start: When Anthony Philips left Genesis Peter Gabriel offered Peter Banks to join as their guitarist but since Yes were making five pounds more Banks refused

I've never heard this before but even so it doesn't make sense. Peter Banks left Yes before Anthony Phillips left Genesis. I'm sure if at that point Gabriel offered the job to Peter Banks he would have taken it.


I do know that Fripp turned down an offer to join Yes. Also, Phil Collins turned down an offer to join Yes as their drummer when Bill Bruford left briefly early on.

There are two prog groups from the late sixties period named Andromeda, and both initially released a single, self-titled, debut studio album.
     The UK Andromeda were a guitar driven trio fronted by John du Cann
         The German Andromeda were keyboard based in the manner of The Nice and also looking a bit towards Le Orme

Captain Beefheart RIP edition.  Don's parents moved to Lancaster, CA, at least in part to get the teenager Don away from the "weirdo" artists he was involved with.  Of course, in Lancaster he promptly met Frank Zappa. 

Rune2000 wrote: Both Bill Bruford and Tony Levin have directly or indirectly played with the big three. Bruford as a member of Yes, King Crimson and touring drummer with the Genesis quartet (before Chester Thompson took over). Levin as a member of King Crimson, ABWH and Peter Gabriel's backing band. They can officially be considered the luckiest men of prog!

All this is even more amazing when you consider that Levin appears on Lou Reed's BERLIN, David Bowie's HEATHEN, Alice Cooper's WELCOME TO MY NIGHTMARE and literally dozens of albums by other major stars. (My favourite is probably David Torn's CLOUD ABOUT MERCURY, although I guess you can't call Torn a star.)

Don't know how obscure this is, but I remember Wetton expressing frustration in an interview over the fact that when he originally wrote Starless, the rest of the band shot it down. Then at one point when they were preparing to tour, they kind of turned around and said "Hey, what was that Starless song you wrote? That was a good one, let's do that."

I'm not sure what the other side of the story is but I thought it was kind of interesting that what arguably became their defining moment was originally rejected.

In 1978, just after Keith Moon died, Phil Collins said to Pete Townshend that he likes to be seated at that hot Moon's chair, but Townshend refused that Collins' offer, so Kenny Jones has to be invited to The Who. That's why Phil Collins has to be named "Phil-I-Wanna-Be-Your-Drummer-Collins" by diehard The Who fans in England..

Edited by Svetonio - December 20 2010 at 03:05

Agitation Free apparently played at the 1972 Munich Olympic games.