Has the flame finally gone out?

I failed to mention that these narrow-minded attitudes about music exist in many generations of people. It's some sort of snobby attitude existing between the performer and the audience for centuries. Imagine being like a Mozart and putting up with jealous attitudes from your peers and disregard that observation for a moment and consider the high percentage of Classical music community who have taken it upon themselves to form harsh attitudes about energy forces that flow through a musician playing a DIFFERENT style of music. The disrespect for Progressive Rock, Folk, Jazz and Blues revolving around their personal belief that music must be perfect in the Classical world. Other styles of music dismiss these practices because the musician's goal to obtain is found through experimentation. When I was a kid and grew up around Classical music teachers it was extremely difficult to have a conversation WITH them on the subject matter of other styles of music. I would often be told ...by them..that the music I listened to was primitive and additionally that Keith Emerson was a disgrace to the Classical world because of his fusing Rock music with music of the fine Classical composers. Most of them thought he was a "rocker" with antics and a complete fool. This attitude existed in 70' and 71' when ELP were becoming part of the norm. 

Guldbamsen wrote: I've been thinking about this thread. It's brought back a lot of memories I've shared with friends and like-minded souls. -Listening to music whilst being drunk or high or nothing at all but still completely taken aback by the sheer force of music. I'd hate to think that the ritual of sitting down silently and immersing oneself into music, on some kind of a spiritual level, is a fading fad. Then again, whenever I pay a visit to Copenhagen to see friends and experience music, rock, jazz or a huge electronic event in the woods, I still bump into people who share my passion for music. Often they're only attuned into one kind of style though, but the will to explore is certainly there.

Boy am I with you in spirit David.  Years ago, several friends and I would gather every weekend at one dude's house for either a jam (we all played instruments), or, just to kick back and listen to an album and party.  Or watch a live DVD.  And the thing is, while the music played, there was respect for it.  You didn't talk,  you listened.  After the album was over, then you talked.  So there would be this great dynamic of partying with a group of people and experiencing music together, almost like a live show, but in his enormous basement with an amazing stereo system and killer speakers in 4 corners.  The large room was free of any objects and rock posters adorned the walls.  Active listening music is the term. 

Naturally, someone's overly drunk friend would also show up who didn't care about music, and that guy would try to blab over the loud tunes....so you'd be like....what?  what? what?  Eventually our none too bashful host would tell the guy....hey, pipe down man till the music stops. 

That group has mostly scattered now but I keep the spirit alive.  When I listen to music it is as reverential as it always way.  Music is as important to my happiness as food, almost.  If I were ever cast into a jail cell with no access to music....I would access the jukebox in my head all day long.  I have such a large collection in there I could rock out for a life sentence

Star_Song_Age_Less wrote: Finnforest wrote: Years ago, several friends and I would gather every weekend at one dude's house for either a jam (we all played instruments), or, just to kick back and listen to an album and party.  Or watch a live DVD.  And the thing is, while the music played, there was respect for it.  You didn't talk,  you listened.  After the album was over, then you talked.  So there would be this great dynamic of partying with a group of people and experiencing music together, almost like a live show, but in his enormous basement with an amazing stereo system and killer speakers in 4 corners.  The large room was free of any objects and rock posters adorned the walls.  Active listening music is the term.  There is no one - absolutely no one - within six hours of me (that I know) who would be willing to do this.  And that makes me sad.  I have to sit in a room alone with headphones to get the musical experience. I even had a music teacher (a university music teacher who conducts band and plays instruments, etc.) say this to me: "You listen to music with your eyes closed and headphones on?  That's too intense for me."  I was too surprised to respond.  Maybe he was pulling my leg.

Even back then it wasn't exactly easy.  Some human beings are almost physically incapable of active listening for 40 minutes, let alone listening as a group with others for 40 minutes without speaking.  Those were some exquisite evenings.  Following the music came hours of good conversation and then trying to pilot home at 3am.  I miss those days.  Sentimental hygiene to borrow a phrase from Warren Zevon

Just got the latest issue of Gaffa, a non-genre-specific Danish music magazine.

Their "top 30 of 2014" list includes Mogwai and Swans, as well as Sunn O)))'s collaboration with Scott Walker there's the regular mentions of Mastodon and other newer hybrid genre bands with a certain degree of mainstream crossover popularity. Among the positive reviews include those of some more experimentally minded. The one of the new Pink Floyd album is somewhat lukewarm.

I think the issue is that while 1960s/1970s-style progressive/psychedelic rock has experienced a surge in popularity, it's still as a niche audience except a handful of crossover artists compared to the high level of mainstream popularity it had back in its "golden age". What further complicates the whole question is whether to include distantly related genres, or musicians that might have a similar avantgarde/experimental ethos, into the "progressive music" category even if their music does not bear much of an apparent resemblance to the origin in terms of actual style. If you want to be glib, you could call it the difference between "progressive" and "prog". The former would refer to the ethos, the latter to the style.

When it comes to the metal scene doing much of the heavy lifting (pun not intended) with keeping instrumentally complex or interesting guitar music alive, there's also the further complication that it's currently going through a major retro/oldschool revivalist phase which often takes a rather anti-intellectual turn, or at least suspicion towards bands whose aesthetic frame of reference gets too close to "high culture". The consequence is that the prog/avantgarde metal scene now seems to be increasingly segregated audience-wise from the "regular" metal scene as much as from the prog rock scene, with the exception of those bands who either have enough street cred through connection to the old school (e. g. Virus) or are sufficiently "true" in their imagery/aesthetic (e. g. Morbus Chron). I think rogerthat mentioned that earlier in the thread...

Yes, the flame has finally gone out; fortunately, we have other technological means -- someone hand the gentleman a flashlight!

Prog has as many lives as it has potential movements per song. :)

Skullhead wrote: There are a lot of prog bands and so many prog albums coming out all over.  But how many of these bands are regularly playing live or better yet, touring? If I want to go out and see live prog tomorrow night, I won't have many options.  Probably none. Musicians like performing for an audience.  It's harder and harder to convince good musicians to learn challenging complex music, endless rehearsals, then play for free to 12 people.  That only happens if each band member can get 3 friends to promise to show up.  Only two show up, but there are a couple of waitresses, as sound and light guy and a bouncer so it seems like 12. Building an audience can take a long time especially starting from ground zero.  A prog band has a big challenge because the ears of today's listeners outside of this forum are pretty dumbed down, and you can't dance to too many prog bands.  Clubs aren't booking new prog acts very often because they know they don't draw.  It's a vicious cycle that doesn't lend itself to a healthy growth rate of the genre in the real world of live music.  Reminds me of Anne Haslam singing "Cold as Being" off "Turn of the Cards".

Would it be an argument for "the flame that finally gone out"? I don't think so, because prog never was primarily a live phenomenon.

Edited by Svetonio - December 20 2014 at 02:20

There actually seems to be a similar underground network here in Denmark around psychedelic music, see the Bad Afro and El Paraiso record labels for two examples and the Copenhagen Psych Festival for another, which does have some overlap with progressive rock though the prog-rock scene would eventually branch off into its own identity.

I've also noticed that some prog rock groups have been able to piggyback unto metal's underground(-ish) network, through record labels like Inside Out.

Would it be an argument for "the flame that finally gone out"? I don't think so, because prog never was primarily a live phenomenon.

I don't understand this comment.  Please explain.

When I think of the great Prog Bands I think of the bands that executed the material live often taking the music to a whole new level.

Jethro Tull had amazing live shows as did Yes, Genesis, ELP, King Crimson and Gentle Giant. Pink Floyd was totally over the top staging and theatrics.
Back in the golden age of prog, it was required of the bands that they were able to pull it off live.
I remember wondering how Rush would execute 2112 or La Villa Strangiato when in concert.
Even a modern prog like Dream Theater is out doing their thing live and amazing fans with their ability to perform the pieces competently in a live situation and not just worked up on the computer with studio trickery.

Would love to hear why you think prog was never primarily a live phenomenon.

Svetonio wrote: ^ You was written "If I want to go out and see live prog tomorrow night, I won't have many options". Well, if you are not resident in a major art & musical center as e.g. New York, London or Paris where every night something happens somewhere, you will hardly listen to some young, virtualy unknown but good prog rock band in a small town or a village and yet so often that you can just "go out and see live prog", simply because prog never was something like a pub rock.     If you or somebody else can not see a live prog rock band, say, 'down on the corner', and yet almost everynight, it is not a valid argument that "the flame has finally gone out". I can see that you want to prove it so feverishly but then have to find a valid argument for that.