The Interdependence of Prog Bands

 

To what degree did the first batch of progressive rock bands (late 60s - late 70s) rely upon each other, influence each other, and inspire each other?

 

Or, did they not have any dependence on their contemporaries at all?

 

Obviously these bands had listened to The Beatles, The Stones, and everything that came before them; the rock, jazz, blues and classical influences are not what I'm wanting to discuss here though. Surely they listened to each other as well, and were they at all interdependent?

 

For example, King Crimson impressed a lot of people when they played around the clubs in '69, including bands such as Yes and Van der Graaf Generator.... and I remember reading that this influenced the former to rehearse their sound more, but did it also inspire the way they went about creating music? I would love to know.......

Yep ... I think that Peter realized at that moment, that they had to do better than just "America" or a couple of songs ... and if they wanted to be original and get it on, they had to work their work ... and make it stand out ... and yes, to his credit he did help establish that in the group ... which YES expanded on even further afterwards with a couple of people that had a bit more studied music in their background.

A poor assumption based on zero evidence I think

 

Bowie was more appreciative of Brecht's lyrics than Weill's music. I believe the only Weill songs covered by Bowie were Alabama Song (a Doors favourite) and The Drowned Girl, all the other Brecht songs he recorded had music by other composers.

All the great ones, KC, Genesis, Yes, ELP, Floyd, Camel, Tull, Renaissance etc had a clear idea of what they wanted to do and their style remained very personal regardless of surely paying attention to what the others were doing.

None of them attempted to simply clone what the other succesful guys were doing.

In the court of the Crimson King, making him aband the idear of short radio friendly tracks, and wanting to make more of a conceptual and unitied aproach to the albums.

 

King Crimson, perhaps unsurprisingly, are partially responsible for the sounds of early 70's prog rock bands.

 

I'm not sure if touring together would create such a big influence; if anything the two or more bands in question would be competing for a great reception, refining the sound the fans wanted to hear in the first place and building on their individuality.... but that's just a theory.

 

It seems apparent that none of these groups were silly enough to completely imitate their contemporaries, but I bet many bands did (and probably never became famous!).

 

Regarding Yes, I think Jon Anderson was inspired by pretty much everything he heard by the time Yes were becoming known, hence the random theme tunes inserted into their songs, and of course the song structures themselves were becoming more complex and long, because others were doing it I guess. By 'Close to the Edge' though, we have a band that have sucked up all their influences and created something original, which they kept held tightly. I think that Tales and Relayer show the band in their own world continuing this style while only recieving inspiration from Jon's readings of the time.

 

It also depends on the area and how they work and do their thing ... it's hard to think that no one knew each other around the Fillmore in the mid 60's ... and that they also did not have a sense of what they wanted to do with their own music. It's likewise hard to think that NY did not have its own "group" ... of which a lot of movies have been made and they all seem to point to Andy Warhol -- who was not really an artist per se in the conventional sense, but a "media artist" ... which is perfect for the world of music ... and film and ....

 

One other scene that had a lot of people working together, but doing different things, is the scene in Germany ... at first the common thread was the "commune" thing, but right after the Amon Duul bust down and satirical tone about the commune business (Phallus Dei is the example), things kinda became small groups that went their own way ... but it's hard to imagine that Wim Wenders, Can, Peter Handke and other playwrights in the big city did not know each other or had a cup of coffee together. On top of it, at least 2 members of Can had a famous teacher named Stockhausen ... and these people went on to discuss and do some serious experimentation (read about Tago Mago on Can's website) ... and results. Later the music became a bit less experimental but it did not lose its identity. The other side of this was the bunch of folks that went to become synonimous with "krautrock", all of whom became excellent improvisers and were specifically into free form music ... in its "free-st" design/concepts possible, to the point of just thropwing things together (Faust) ... to create something.

 

There is also another "academic" group around Peter Michael Hamel, and Agitation Free ... who apparently even got a grant to find time and place to mix electronics and eastern music idioms ... which they did very well.

 

I think that it is not so much the inter-dependence on each other as much as it is the things that they are common about and on ... in 1968 we didn't go to Chicago to see the Cubs (well, once in a while!) ... we went to catch Sly and the Family Stone, Chicago (the band), The Sons of Champlin, The Crow, Ides of Mardh, Sugarloaf, Man of La Mancha with Richard Kiley, Yehudi Menuhin with Ravi Shankar (East meets West), to see Mason Profit, and maybe catch a Creedence or Grateful Dead or Steve Miller if they were around  ... and also to get your head bashed in by some really nasty folks!

 

So, yeah ... we were into it together, against the war, against the corruption, standing up for the Chicago 7 ... and in some cases, some of us had long hair! But to say that these bands depended on each other for inspiration, I would say it is the same as it is for all of us ... we're in the same bucket I think. We just express things differently!

But what's also interesting is that John Wetton once said in an interview that Robert Fripp disbanded the Red era lineup because he didn't want them to turn into a Yes or Genesis.