Quebec's Prog: The Best Prog in North America?

Hey Svettie,

I think you over-estimate La Belle province's prog band's influenceness even inside the rest of canada, let alone the North Am continent or even French-speaking Europe. Few of those bands ventured out west, and when one if them reached Toronto, it was almost an exploit or lifetime achievement.

The 70's were difficult time for Canada & Quebec with the sovereignty crisis looming over the second biggest land. There was much resentment over Quebec's will to separate, because it threatened the country's land continuity and losing the Maritimes Provinces (out east) to the US was a possibility many Ontarians dreaded. Furthermore, at the height of the crisis (75/77) in the middle of the cold war, the US amassed troops along the Quebec border in the possibilty of interference from Cuba and the Soviets.

Soooo, there was resentment towards anything french/Quebec, not just in Toronto, but out west (Alberta mainly). Whatever French-speakers outside Quebec were in small cities or villages or countryside of New Brunswick (45% of the population) and Northern Ontario (40%), but elsewhere it was rarely over 5%. Sure, at the height of the crisis (75-77), the 400K Montrealers that oved towards Southern Ontario made Totonto's economic power ever since (Montreal had been #1 until then), but it didn't make it a bilingual city (despite the province being officialy so).

I had many buddies and non-buddies that resorted to the "they lost the late XVIIIth C and early XIXth C wars, so f**k them froggies" type of argument. You can easily imagine that's +/- less what happened between Belgrade and the rest of the Yugo republcs in the early 90's, but thankfully, the Independance referendum was delayed until things had cooled down - and the unofficial economic embargo weakened wills. 

What I'm trying to say past this political context is that there was little any interest for anything Frencho-Quebec in terms of cultural matters; especially that if Montreal looked a lot at Paris (despite denying it), Toronto was getting the flu when London was sneezing. Worlds apart really, despite thousands of young Totontonites moving out to Montreal to party every week-ends (looser alcohol laws and promiscuous women).

Of course in artistic circles, this was much less a problem, but I can't say that I saw many of those Québécois bands in Toronto during the 70's, and once I was mobile in the early 80's, most of the Quebec prog scene had vanished into oblivion, as the disco tsunami killed everything over-there.

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Now sure, we can discuss about those band's influences nationally or worldwide, but none were Genesis, Crimson or Yes or Kansas.

Sooo, yes, Quebec was the main point of entry for bands like VdGG and GG, but also Supertramp and Genesis.

Outside The Prog-Quebec team (two anglophones from Montreal), there is little interest in reviving that era's music, because it brings out a sense of defeat (or so methinks) to the population. Sure Harmonium's Fiori is a living God on TV nowadays, but most of the crowd still think of the hippie attitude as negative.

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Personally while I'm responsible of lobbying PA's quebecois owners of this site to include most of the Quebec bands here, few were really groundbreaking.

FTM, I'd even tend to think that the most inventive aspects of the "scene" was into "electronic prog" with Michel Madore (the Komuso), Dionne-Brégent and Pascal Languirand (though he was often in Paris), rather than the symphonic, folkish or JR/F aspects. Sadly, only D-B has been reissued on CD, which gives you an idea about the "influence" the whole scene might've had.