Prog Youtube!?

(history, not politics)

moshkito wrote: cstack3 wrote: I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the Daily Doug!  This review of Close to the Edge is a scream! ... Hi, I like DD and I dislike DD ... the main thing for me is ... too much vanilla stuff in the milkshake! And the sweetness is making me want to turn it off. I like some of them, considering that he is not man enough to label some of the music what it is ... as an example, TARKUS as a piano concert specially if you listen to Rachel Flowers' version, but in those days, just taking that score for a "piano concert" to a professor? You would be laughed off and sent home to write something else, and probably be given a lower score if possible ... same for RW and many others ... they all pretty much told the academic folks to go play with their fuzzy keys somewhere else. The worst part of it all, is him not being classy enough to actually say that some of that stuff is the "classical music" of today, and instead, he tells you a chord or two, or change that supposedly makes it better music, for these rockers, and in the end, it is just denying them their ability ... it's all just a song ... has no value within classical music and its history ... and to me that's a problem ... and he does not recognize that the difference between today and 100 years ago, is that no one knew any music, and only a handful of rich folks ever did!  But, the only thing that bothers me some ... DD has little courage, to take a look at some real music ... instead of some pop-rock favorites that show up in all kinds of lists by folks that ... both you and I would probably think ... is this about music, or that person's favorites? When you listen and study so much music, you do not always have "favorites" ... because you look at music for the experience that it is and gives us, not as a song!!! But I don't think we can see that at all! The shows, all in all, are fine, with one exception ... of those I have heard ... I got more than halfway through the listing with at least an hour each ... were all a copy of the radio stuff that we disliked 50 years ago, that helped FM radio come alive and bring new music to the front ... and we still do not accept that reality and think that it was all just another hit song! It was on the FM radio dial, but it was considered trash on the AM radio dial ... if you never heard a couple of those ash-wholes in Madison WI at the time ... that was abuse, and not about the music. I find it really strange that the folks that are doing this, have not themselves, defined the music of 50 years ago, and how it came alive, so their show would be a lot more than just a play of three hits, or four, and many times, even five of these ... by which time, I would have already turned it off anyway. I wish there was an appreciation for music way out in left field, and a show that presented things very differently, but in my book there is only one, and I'm sure Guy Guden gets tired of me talking about it, as do fans here, that intentionally do not read and ignore what I write as anti something and negative, when all I'm asking for is a new presentation, not a copy of the same thing that we disliked and tried to get away from. One last detail ... too many of those folks think that their voice is the gift to radio and the music, and they make their comments ... and sometimes, it is just better to let the music speak for itself, and many of those shows think the music can't exist without their voice and announcement! You really want something new? Or do you care? New is good for me, but getting fake radio trying to make you believe that all the stuff 50 years ago were the hits of the airwaves, is way too much for me ... at that point, I don't think that person cares about the music as much as they make it look like!

So what would you do if you had a YouTube channel and reviewed Prog? Would you say nice things in favor of getting more ratings or would you be honest?

No offense...I'm just curious.

Just recently I heard a Prog reviewer state that Kiss were a better band than Montrose. That's very comical ...but also disgraceful to a Progressive player like Ronnie Montrose. That's shameful! These people are shameful!

Four Prog revisionists making a video to put GONG YOU on a chopping block? Huh? Then one particular Prog revisionist says that all Prog bands should have sold out like Genesis because then we would have had more great songwriting. Where is this ideology coming from?

What about bands like Maneige, Conventum, Julverne, Goblin, Solaris, Anglagard,...were they suppose to sell out too? Is that why we have revisionists in Prog?....so that we can observe how great it is for Progressive Rock bands to sell out?

Why don't they leave that in the hands of people who know how to write commercial music in a fine way? Like 10CC, Supertramp, Kayak,Todd Rundgren ...?? They know how to write commercially viable music that is creative. Prog bands generally don't. Why criss cross the two? Why...because record executives pressured Progressive Rock bands to sell out in the 80s? As if that was a good thing? Gentle Giant Civilian and Giant For A Day are highly recommended as Prog albums? What are we talking about here?

A very interesting post moshkito!

Originally the style of music which was labeled as Progressive Rock was first referenced as Art Rock. I was a young teenager then.

At the time I wasn't thinking of the Art Rock bands as a marketing business. I acknowledged that The Moody Blues and Procol Harum held popularity status because my sister and her hippie friends talked about both bands a lot...and of course as years passed and chance meeting with other people 7 years ahead of me praising these bands it became common knowledge that they were legendary by the early 1970s.

The marketing aspect surfaced widely when Hit Parader had Keith Emerson on the front cover or Circus had Rick Wakeman....or Creem with a shot of Ian Anderson....and let's not forget Rolling Stone.

In the back pages you might read a review for a Can album...or Gong...or Passport. Obviously I had more interest in Hatfield And The North or anyone for that matter who was part of a European Progressive Rock scene...or gathering...which in America...aside from the hard-core supporters these bands were not promoted enough.

As I grew older I could see the presentation of Progressive Rock being a marketing concept. ELP at California Jam for example. The underground Progressive Rock bands were played on after hour radio shows in Philadelphia and New York.

I started playing in Rock bands ...in Rock Clubs in 1976. I was in my late teens. Rock Clubs were designed like Concert Halls. The drinking age was 18 and the crowds were vast with kids pressing up against the stage and no way of getting through. Completely opposite of what you see today. If you can imagine packed halls with totally drunk kids screaming for THICK AS A BRICK or THE LAMB LIES DOWN ON BROADWAY.

In 1978 NEKTAR and HAPPY THE MAN were the same Clubs but evidently not profitable enough and HAPPY THE MAN were dropped from the Arista label.

By early 1980s I was playing the national circuit and then it was plain to see that the industry was crushing Progressive Rock. First they put pressure on the major prog bands to sell out. When that didnt work out or not everlasting as Genesis were the industry decided to push them aside .

It was sad because the theaters were packed!! People wanted to see Steve Hackett and Renaissance. The industry was very greedy and wanted all of their investments in NEW WAVE. Several bands returned to Europe to start over with a new label or just disbanded completely.

Around this time I traveled with musicians who committed suicide. They were lost. They were young and under the impression that once they played the national circuit that their entire life would change and unfortunately it doesn't work that way. We all traveled together on a bus and the bassist and keyboardist died from a drug overdose.

Other musicians I knew ...at that time we're depressed by restrictions. Corporate agents and managers were under pressure to make musicians in our tri state area conform to commercially viable music...be it...cover material or original...and some musicians I had known for years became very disillusioned by it all and committed suicide. Though some people believe that my experience was isolated and that I was in the wrong place at the wrong time with a chosen few schizophrenics...I strongly believe they killed themselves when getting wiped out by an industry that they had worked for..for years and had profited enough to support their families and all by being creative..

moshkito wrote: Jacob Schoolcraft wrote: ... Around this time I traveled with musicians who committed suicide. They were lost. They were young and under the impression that once they played the national circuit that their entire life would change and unfortunately it doesn't work that way. We all traveled together on a bus and the bassist and keyboardist died from a drug overdose. ... Other musicians I knew ...at that time we're depressed by restrictions. Corporate agents and managers were under pressure to make musicians in our tri state area conform to commercially viable music...be it...cover material or original...and some musicians I had known for years became very disillusioned by it all and committed suicide. ... Hi, Sad ... but we know that the truth is always something else, and sometimes it isn't pretty and with flowers in one's hair! And that's when you and I would probably think that the media is corrupting too many things and folks, and not helping the music ... but just like here, folks defending their "favorites" and polls, don't want to hear that they are doing the very thing that many of us wanted to get away from when "art rock" came about ... the commerciality of it all ... but as time went by, it felt like some forgot what they liked the music for ... I didn't feel that it had any more substance or meaning, and it was very clear in the radio station in Santa Barbara that Guy was on. Later the great example was LA ... the story that gets hidden and not appreciated ... a bunch of groups filed a lawsuit against several radio stations because they would not play their material or any local bands ... and a few months later those bands WON the lawsuit in huge fashion, the same way that the small version of FM that also won their lawsuit. Some stations in LA added an hour or two since the lawsuit had no way to determine how much should be played and it worked ok for a month ... probably at 2AM so no one would hear it ... besides the DJ not mentioning who some of the bands were! The following week (so to speak) there was a massive earthquake that we ignored completely ... KMET fired everyone and the next morning they were new age. And the media ignored ... so you even know which side the LA Times was on! The fact was that the FCC had setup a few rules that were in favor of the owners ... one was the change of format ... and since they didn't want to play the local bands, they were not about to give in to a bunch of street kids with no talent or money ... they closed shop ... and became something else ... and to this day the FCC has allowed that to happen, but most folks these days can not fight the stations much anymore, since they are all a part of huge corporations that do whatever they want and they run the FCC. (And folks think Radio Kaos was a joke and just another complaint by RW) You literally can see the movie line now ... "no one from the streets and a fudging bum is going to tell me what to do with my money", complete with puffing a cigar, desk and 30th floor office overlooking the whole city! And you knew, more than ever, who controlled what ... but no one gave a darn, and within months the other stations closed down their extra showing of local bands, since their name was now cemented as dogs and crap and disgusting folks with no talent ... at least in England it took more than a couple of weeks with the punk thing, but LA took a beating, and the fans? They disappeared! Those stations still make millions each month courtesy of the national accounts, like Coke, Pepsi, the Army and the Navy, I imagine! Your very tax dollars are used to keep you in line, and not have a choice anymore. Guy Guden, for a long time had an amazing list of stuff on his Blog ... and it had a lot of his adventures with the radio station, and specially some very undesirable folks ... Guy was not always the easiest person to deal with, but we know one thing ... he was very honest about the music and what he played, and it was not a case of not giving a damn about the band he played and the blatant commerciality in many of the voices on the air, who tried to be cool instead of correct and honest. And some stories were scary and so bad that you wondered what kind of monsters were in there trying to tell you what to listen to! I'm not exactly against all the polls and numbers, but I find it sad that these endup being shown as the important things for the year ... while so much else is out there, and at least Mike has posted two other alternative lists, but I much prefer the way JMA does things ... any new albums are simply added to the area they are listed on ... and the number of additions in this listing is huge and clean ... you see the stuff right there, and it's not about numbers ... ITS ABOUT THE MUSIC ... and I find that better ... and the care and detail with which it is done, is incredible ... and really shows the music, and you won't check that one area because it isn't your thing, but any other areas are updated regularly, and numbers are not necessary ...  The sad thing, that the very thing that we started out against, is now dominating things ... and I can't help thinking that we can't remember what got us into the music in the first place! I know it wasn't "favorite" in my story ... but I'm not sure about others!

Fascinating history!!

Hi,

Edited by moshkito - 14 hours 18 minutes ago at 12:30