Sociology of the Prog Rock Fan

nousommedusolei wrote: People who take Prog seriously usually have enough imagination and brain power to keep themselves entertained without the use of drugs.

This is 100% correct, but im sad to say about 1 year ago till about 2 months ago, I smoked weed a few times a month and listened to all my favorite Floyd albums. Best albums while I was high would be the ones that are the best while im sober, Animals, Meddle, Darkside, Wish, Atom Heart Mother. I very much enjoyed the time I had with these albums while I was high. Then when I came to this web site about 2 months ago and discovered all the great bands, I found out that I could listen to them and not smoke and have just as much fun.

Now that I take prog seriously and have found out how good it is to listen to it with all my concentration and brain power I know that I can be just as entertained without drugs.

O ya, I tried shrooms once and listened to Atom Heart Mother and that was probably the greatest listen to music in my life, but I wont do it agian, since shrooms can make u have a bad trip or really make u do somehting stupid. Don't recomend shrooms at all, but weed is harmless enough to have a nice sit and listen to music with, but I'm still done with it.

A lot of us were smoking up at the end of the 70's , so I imagine that in the early 70's they were too.

Compared to Metalheads (heavy drinking and a bit of smoking), Disco Fiends (uppers and coke) and Punks (mostly booze but sometimes hard drugs) , we were dopeheads! We considered ourselves as such , but this stayed only to smoking and drinking!

I read Macan's book about 10 years ago and found nothing to say on that particular chapter.

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there's some yes buckles on ebay

Hail you, Gatot and Felona! I thought people like you vanished:)
I myself have never touched drugs, even cigarette, and alcohol since my childhood (yeah, the last time I drank alcohol -intentionally- was when I was 17!) and I raised in a muslim society, like gatot; and to your surprise, I am a church going christian! (Thankfully there are people like me: wakeman?!?!?)

Despite the "hippy" image, I believe most proggers here have respected jobs (at least make enough money to buy thousands of albums) and I am a translator. Well, my money is not enough for thousand albums, sigh. Thankfully we have MP3's here.

I believe there's no stereotype of a progger, at least for the fact that it ambodies many different styles, from jazz to classical, from metal to experimental/electronic!

another fact: NetsNJfan has a point about Yes, just inspect their lifestyles!! (and consider Wakeman contrary to the rest, he is the christian one!!!!!!) Videovertigo took this further: actually indie/punks should have been classified so. Yet, we know that there are drug influenced acts, at least in the beginning of prog: does Timothy Leary suggest anything!? I just love the music produced, no matter how it came out; Light My Fire is my all time favorite Doors track, and it couldn't have come that way if it weren't for the fact that they were high!!!!

don't spend much time on prototypes, just enjoy the music! keep on proggin'

PS: if there are other christians among you, please send me a private post. I would like to meet people of my kind!

What a sanctimonious lot you young proggers are! I was around in the 70s and smoked weed, got drunk, took mushrooms and generally did the kind of stupid things you're meant to do when you're young. Not all of this was necessarily linked to listening to prog, but as a prog fan there was usually a prog album playing in the background. I still enjoy the odd toot on a bong, sometimes with an old Floyd or Gong album on in the background, and what's wrong with that?

You youngsters today are far too level headed for my liking - a spell in the Deadheads would soon sort your heads out! 

Poxx wrote: While the amount of drugs consumed by the youth, may have decreased since the 70's, stupidity has increased exponentially to such a degree that it is fashionable. Turn on the TV to be fully convinced.

but have prog fans ever really concerned themselves with what is fashionable?  certainly not, and the same still holds true (for the most part....)