Flower Kings Appreciation Thread

rushfan4 wrote: I am 41 and also share many similiarities.  The first two rock albums that I owned were Def Leppard's Pyromania and Quiet Riot's Metal Health (Christmas presents).  The firm record that I bought with my own money was Judas Priest's British Steel.  We had a radio station that played top 40 music and basically spent the entire day counting down from 40 to 1 and starting over again, so the same songs got played over and over again.  I remember Owner Of A Lonely Heart and Tom Sawyer being part of this group.  I didn't really care for either of those songs.  I remember really liking DL and QR from above, and Foreigner, and Styx's Mr. Roboto.  Probably one of my favorite songs from that period of time was Golden Earring's Twilight Zone.

infandous wrote: Well, my favorite song at age 5 was "I am The Walrus" by the Beatles, so I think I was destined to like strange music  I'm turning 43 this month, so not much of a different history than you guys, other than what I mentioned above about the Beatles.  Them and The Rolling Stones got a lot of play from my brother and I when we were little kids, my dad had a good amount of 70's rock like that, as well as blues and some REAL country (Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, that sort of stuff). The first album I bought was a Cheap Trick album, One On One.  It has some hits on it that were on MTV at the time.  They were the first band I really loved and listened to religiously.  I bought their entire discography, but lost interest after their 1986 album.  I guess in my early double digits (10 - 12 or so) I listened to whatever was on the radio and like it well enough.  By the time I got that Cheap Trick album though, I was starting to listen to my dad's collection more and stuff my brother had that included Zeppelin.  At that point I got very into 60's and 70's rock, and never really listened to anything else until college.  First year of college, 1987-88, I heard Comfortably Numb while lying on the floor drunk at a party and dug into Floyd.  I also took my brothers cassette of Rush "Archives" (which is just the first three albums)  to college with me.  I was only familiar with their radio hits at that point, and decided to learn all the songs, in order, from those two cassettes on guitar.  About half way through Fly By Night I realized that this was not typical "classic rock" music.  Floyd and Rush carried me through the next year or, then friends introduced me to ELP and Yes.  Towards the end of College (1990, 91) I discovered that Genesis used to be really good, and that a band called Gentle Giant had once existed and created the best music I'd ever heard.  Also heard Lark's Tongues around that time and loved it right away.  It's still my favorite Crimson album, love it all start to finish. I was pretty much a 70's only proghead for the next 10 years, until I got on the internet and found Camel and Eloy.....who were also 70's bands.  Listened to some neo prog, and then stumbled on an intriguing band called The Flower Kings in 1999.  The interesting part about my discovery of them was that it was mainly from people on a prog email list I got on dissing them.  Their put downs of the band made me interested, so I found their web site that had glowing reviews on it and ordered two albums without having heard a single note.  The were imports, Retropolis and Stardust We Are, and cost $20 and $25 respectively at a time when most CD's were $10 or $11, with doubles being a couple dollars more.  I was hooked after hearing the Retropolis title track just once, and have loved the band ever since. Then came Nearfest, Italian prog, Norwegian prog, other Swedish prog, and eventually prog archives and many, many 70's bands I'd never heard of but came to love along with more recent stuff. These days I don't buy as many CD's and not very often.  I mainly stick with FK related stuff, but occasionally pick up other stuff.  Not as much time to listen now either, so I've slowed down considerably in the past few years.

Just wanted to say that I appreciate The Flower Kings...

zumacraig wrote: rushfan4 wrote: I am 41 and also share many similiarities.  The first two rock albums that I owned were Def Leppard's Pyromania and Quiet Riot's Metal Health (Christmas presents).  The firm record that I bought with my own money was Judas Priest's British Steel.  We had a radio station that played top 40 music and basically spent the entire day counting down from 40 to 1 and starting over again, so the same songs got played over and over again.  I remember Owner Of A Lonely Heart and Tom Sawyer being part of this group.  I didn't really care for either of those songs.  I remember really liking DL and QR from above, and Foreigner, and Styx's Mr. Roboto.  Probably one of my favorite songs from that period of time was Golden Earring's Twilight Zone. oh, i forgot about def lepperd.  i cut my teeth on photograph.  i had a bit of a def lepperd era with hysteria.  that was a great album.  i so much wanted to see them in concert.  had to wait about 15 years though.  i saw them with journey a few years ago.  they still rock.

Funnily enough, despite my history I outlined earlier, Def Leppard was the first band I ever saw live (besides local and lesser known bands in my home town...mostly covers outfits).  Actually, technically the first band I ever saw live was Queensryche, as they opened for Def Leppard when I saw them.  So I guess my prog credentials are still (somewhat) intact

Actually, I recall that I enjoyed them alot more than DL.  I went because a buddy had tickets and asked me to go with him.  Having never been to a real, big arena type concert before, I agreed to go.  The second band I ever saw live was Rush, twice, on the Presto tour.

dtguitarfan wrote: Just wanted to say that I appreciate The Flower Kings...

infandous wrote: dtguitarfan wrote: Just wanted to say that I appreciate The Flower Kings... Hey, we fans appreciate that.  I appreciate Dream Theater as well, even though they aren't a favorite.  I have all albums from Scenes through the latest one (but not Train Of Thought, as I've always been afraid of that one )  and the Score DVD, which is probably my favorite thing of theirs that I own.

Well, thanks - it's nice to hear that around here.    And between you and me, I am not a big fan of Train of Thought either - it's is the least played DT album in my collection.  What's your favorite Flower Kings?  Mine is... Meet the Flower Kings... but that's live, so it's cheating, haha!  So I'll go with Flower Power, because Garden of Dreams is so amazing!

infandous wrote: Well, if we're talking the first CD I ever bought (as opposed to vinyl LP), then that would be..............Dark Side Of The Moon!  Which my dad liked more than I did at the time.  I was 18, and left the CD with him when I went to college.......only to take it back a year later.

The day that I bought my first CD player I also bought Van Halen's OU812 and Cinderella's Long Cold Winter; not much prog cred to be found on any of my earliest purchases.  

I like DT a lot, they're one of my favorite bands, and an important one in my explorations in prog rock. They were the band that helped me get acquainted with prog as a genre back in 04/05, and they are the band that got me back into prog rock back in 09 after a 2 year hiatus away from almost all forms of rock music, particularly prog.

I go back and forth between DT and TFK as my overall favorite prog bands, right now I'm kind of back into DT, mostly 90s DT (Listening to FII right now, probably my least favorite DT album besides the debut, but I'm really enjoying FII right now). I like all their albums to a certain extent, as I do with TFK. I have my favs of course. I think Systematic Chaos is a great, though flawed, album.

DT - It's hard, but I think SDOIT, BC&SL, and ADTOE are my 3 favorite albums; but I love them all (except the debut, which I think is only ok sometimes.). Before ADTOE came out, the 3rd album would have probably been SFAM. Octavarium is their best composition, imo.

TFK - It's hard, but I think UTF, SR, and TSONE are my 3 favorite albums; but I love them all. GoD is the best TFK composition, imo.


Edited by darkshade - May 04 2012 at 14:46

Yea TFK albums are hard to rank. There's a couple that I'd put at the bottom of my list, but the remaining 8 (9) albums would all tie for #1

I have When Dream and Day Re-Unite, and while it's nice to have James singing on those songs, which makes it a lot better, the songs themselves are just not as good as almost everything they'd release from I&W onwards, even FII or SC.

Besides, Live at the Marquee has a better version of Killing Hand and A Fortune In Lies, Budokan has a better version of Only A Matter of Time, and Score has a better Afterlife (and includes Another Won, which is an awesome thrashy song).


Edited by darkshade - May 04 2012 at 14:59

Roland, I may have read that before, but it's always a good read.
 
Hey, A Trick of the Tail is my second favorite Genesis album, behind Selling England By The Pound.


Edited by darkshade - May 04 2012 at 15:09