How did you get into Prog?

We've had a number of threads like this but I started in the old days being an old guy...started with bands like The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, Moody Blues, Procol Harum, Pink Floyd, Sabbath, Zeppelin, etc...and just went from there.  I liked more complex and weirder sounds...than the top 40. When I heard Crimson in very early 1970 at college ...it was awesome and tried to find bands like them.

It also may be caused by an manga and anime series called Jojo's Bizzare Adventure, the first season had characters such as Tarkus (referencing Emerson, Lake & Palmer album) & Bruford (referencing Bill Bruford the Yes drummer), and the ending theme is Roundabout by Yes. Also in the fourth season there are characters called Crazy Diamond (referencing Shine On You Crazy Diamond by Pink Floyd) Atom Heart Father (referencing Atom Heart Mother by PF) and of course Echoes (referencing Echoes by PF). These references go through the whole series it's now 8 parts long running since 1987, it's my all time favorite series. Perhaps these two situations both turned me in to prog but perhaps more strongly the second:)

It was just that I listened to a lot of music as a kid, and some of the records I had access to belonged to what one might call progressive rock (Pink Floyd, ELP, Procol Harum and Jethro Tull). This was because my sister and other family members had these on LP. But for a long time, only Pink Floyd really intrigued me even though I liked (and still like) albums such as A Salty Dog and Stand Up. I knew a little bit about Genesis, but only their 80's-90's pop production with Phil Collins on vocals, and it didn't appeal to me at all, and still doesn't.

For a long time I think I was somehow influenced by rock critics who didn't usually look at the genre with mild eyes, so I guess I had some prejudice despite my love for Pink Floyd. Otherwise I was more to art rock, folktronica, classic 60's pop/rock, singer/songwriter and things like that. Favourite artists included the Beatles, David Bowie, Roxy Music and Talking Heads, but also a lot of Danish singer/songwriter. But when I studied at musicology in Aarhus, some of my mates had a King Crimson cover band which I heard, and it intrigued me. They mostly played songs from the Adrian Belew period. And then, after reading an article about prog in an underground magazine called Geiger which discussed the genre more thoroughly, including the criticism of it, I began checking out some albums.

As an 11 1/2 year old I collected pop singles. I then discovered classic rock. One of those singles that I bought was "heat of the moment" by Asia which was probably one of the last ones before moving on to lps and cassette tapes but never thought much about who the musicians were and didn't know of any prog connection. I had heard of Yes because my dad had "The Yes album" (but nothing else by them)but didn't really know them that well. On my way to a local record store by bike I was going to pick up either the first Asia album or a Journey album. For some reason I wound up getting the Journey album(Escape). 

A couple of years later or so Yes put out the 90125 album and I bought that on cassette tape. By this point I was mostly listening to whatever was popular on the radio but mostly mainstream rock. I had stuff by Journey, Foreigner, Styx, Rush(signals), Def Leppard and also a little bit of new wave like Duran Duran and a Flock of Seagulls. I was also starting to get pretty big into Led Zeppelin around this time.

At some point I discovered my cousin was big into Genesis and I found out he also liked Yes(this was before I bought the 90125 tape though)so I eventually got more into Genesis after I realized they were similar to Yes. It was sort of a gradual process. I even had one or two Genesis singles from the days when I collected 45s(no reply at all and man on the corner I think; I might also have had abacab but don't remember). I didn't hear the album Abacab until much later though. 

Around mid to late 85 I started to play guitar and someone(maybe my ex step mother)bought me a guitar book. This book had sections on various guitarists one of which was Robert Fripp. King Crimson was mentioned of course although I also knew about them from my cousin(same cousin I already mentioned). The first KC album I got was "islands" and I hated it so much it almost put me off from the band for a long time. I eventually got some others though and started to realize how good they were even if they were a bit weird at times. I also had a rock encyclopedia book(I think also a gift from my ex step mother)which mentioned bands that I already liked(Yes, Genesis, etc) as being "progressive rock" and so at that point(85/86)there was no turning back for me. I still liked other rock forms(especially classic rock)but prog rock was my favorite(still is). A few years later I discovered the prog underground through magazines which led to catalogs which led to a whole other rabbit hole. By the time the internet came along and by the time I got on it(late 90's)I was reading about people discovering bands I had already known about for ten years or so. 

So that's it. Yes and Genesis were the first two bands that started me on this journey with King Crimson right after them. My brother's friend was big into Rush which led me to get into them more and my uncle was big into Pink Floyd so I got to hear all their old albums from him. 

Hope You didn't get invisibly touched by genesis   

small baby prog steps 1974-1976 as I went from being an 11 year old to a 14 year old

The Sweet---> Queen---> The Who--->ELP

I knew I wasn't interested in standard guitar based rock music so needed that extra colour that was apparent with bands that used some electronics. I could hear it in a track like Fox On The Run (wonderful intro) while Queen -Seven Seas of Rye was another step. That piano and drums combo is wonderful. Then I heard Baba O Riley and we were cooking on gas. The drums, piano and electronics all come together. Once I got to ELP and Tarkus I was sold. However I never had a wide interest in prog outside of the main players until the internet came along. What was it with all these Gentle Giant and VDGG fans lol.