When were you infected by Prog?

My parents are big prog. rock fans so I was mostly raised on it and always enjoyed it, but I remember really getting into prog. when I started playing guitar, when I was 13. It started with Yes, Tales from Topographic Oceans, particularly that my mom would listen to in the car when she drove my sister and me to school. Revealing Science of God made a huge, huge impression on me, and to this day, it's one of my favorite tracks, can't get enough of it. When the parents noticed I was enjoying the stuff, they quickly followed up with Genesis, Pink Floyd and King Crimson. Been addicted to prog. since and I've never had thoughts of quitting!

I know, I'm old, my  brother brought home a copy of Todd Rundgren's A Wizard a True Star - made me sit right in front of our big stereo console and listen to the whole thing...

Oh well, mine one was a rather... progressive story. When I was a kid, I even said I didn't like music... as a matter of fact I just wasn't interested. Perhaps because I hadn't heard much music that would be fit for me. Then, at about High School, I started listening to some cassettes my mother had of 70's and 80's pop, and listening to MTV (by then, though it mainly had pop, at least the songs they chose weren't as bad as I undertand they are now) and then started collecting songs which I recorded on cassettes.

Then, several things happened, which I don't totally remember in which order. However, first, I started getting an interest in Pink Floyd, and started getting CD's from them. A friend from High School lent me some casettes from them, as well as from Alan Parsons Project (later on, I recored some vinyls an aunt had from Parsons first two albums, which are my favourite... and now I have all Parsons CD's myself), and she had some weird Cassette she wasn't sure where it came from, nor exactly what it was, but though was interesting... well, it was Myths and Legends from Rick Wakeman, which took me a while to get to appreciate, but now is among my favourite albums. Also, my grandmother had several vinyls which I started looking into, among which she specially recomended "Hamburger Concerto", by Focus, which I really got to like too; from her, I also heard "Si On Avait Besoin D'un Cinquieme Saison", by Harmonium (which it seems she hadn't paid much attention to it), which I also like pretty much. From her I also got to hear to Yes's Relayer, and Jethro Tull's Live Bursting Out, but I didn't pay much attention to them at the time (now, of course, I really like them). And then, because of Rick Wakeman, I got some interest on Yes, and it was while looking for information about Yes albums, and their solo discography too, that I found Prog Archives, and has been a great source of information, and it was at about this time that I knew that the kind of music I had been getting into, and which I really loved so much, was Prog Rock. Now, I have got most of the albums of the already mentioned bands, plus many others which I have come to know, mainly thanks to this site... and I still feel like a newbie to this wonderful and vast genre.

2008 probably. 

First post ever!! Anyways... My first two exposures were when my dad bought a cd of Jethro Tull's Thick as a Brick and that my family owned the Time Traveler Compilation of the Moody Blues. I proceeded to purchase many full Moody Blues albums. Having mostly listened to classic rock (despite being a 90's child), I decided to look up Rush for some odd reason. Rush led to Yes, which led to Gentle Giant (and this site), and now I'm hooked! I've even been to a Rush concert!!

Hahaha that seems to be a widely-held opinion by music critics, that Muse will bring a new wave of prog popularity on the charts.  I doubt that the "Twilight"-crazed girls as a whole will dig it, but maybe their boyfriends who grudgingly go along with them to those movies will find Muse's music somewhat worth the agony of sparkling vampires. XD  Interestingly enough I have trouble listening to Muse nowadays because it reminds me too much of the drama of artsy high school girls to enjoy the music itself.

I'd say it was 1982, I was in high school when I started to scrounge used record stores in Chicago for .75 cent records - Pink Floyd was my gateway group then Genesis, ELP, Yes, King Crimson . . . .  In the early 80s i was able to see Yes, Genesis, Rush, solo's of Roger Waters (w/ Eric Clapton) and David Gilmore. The highlight concernt was King Crimson summer of 84, my two high school friends and I were the youngest people at the concert, the old dudes (people my age now 44) thought we were real cool for being Crimson fans wearing black concert t-shirts with cover of ITCOTCK on it . . . .  What was odd about my prog journey was that I missed out on the whole Canterbury Scene when I was in high school.  

I'd say I was "infected" at an early age. My father always listened to bands like Pink Floyd, Yes, Jethro Tull, and Genesis. I inherited my love for progressive rock from him and then when I was 19, I really started to explore the genre and discover bands such as Camel, King Crimson, Caravan, and many others. 

Hmm, I think it started with Muse... "Knights of Cydonia" if I remember correctly.  Then, after being a big Muse fan for a year or so, I got into Radiohead and Mew. My guitar teacher is also a prog fan, so he showed some Van der Graaf and King Crimson, and then I got into Genesis, Yes, Rush, U.K. and all the like.