How did you become a proghead?

In 6th form college I was mainly into Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Scorpions etc. A friend did me a mix tape with Genesis Hogweed and the Knife plus a couple of Yes tracks, can't remember which, after that I started exploring mainly Floyd, Tull, Supertramp, Oldfield and the like.

I loved music from a very early age. My dad acquired a large amount of second hand vinyl when he bought me my first mono record player in the early 70's. It was a diverse collection of many 60's pop and some country and easy listening. I 'progressed' onto ABBA... Then in the late 70's a friend played me The War of the Worlds. At the same time, several quirky chart singles caught my ear; Germ Free Adolescents by X-Ray Spex and Making Plans for Nigel by XTC. Then I heard Another Brick in the Wall by Floyd, then at the start of the 80's I took a shine to heavy metal.

A fellow metalhead at school leant me Exit Stage Left by Rush and Script for a Jesters Tear by Marillion around 1983. Then I heard Genesis on a late night radio show, and the rest is history. So I always had an ear for quirky music, that very few other people I knew seemed to like, and prog rock seemed a natural progression from that.

The beginning of my interest in music in 1970 (aged 10/11) coincided with the emergence of prog, so it was the perfect match.

At the age of 3 until i think 7, I had a turntable and I was used to spend days playing the 45rpms of my elder brother and sister. I can remember to have listened to Animals, Creedence Clearwater Revival and also classical music. In particular a LP of Chopin. At 8 I was schocked by 2001 A Space Odyssey, and other than Strauss I understood that music could be challenging thanks to Ligety.

In 1972, a friend told me about a band named Jethro Tull. A few days later, when I went to a record store, I saw Stand Up and the cover blew my mind away. I bought the record and when I got home and played it, I was hooked, and I've been hooked since then.

When I was born, one of PA's all-time greatest albums, Kind of Blue was playing. That was all it took.

I wouldn't exactly call myself a proghead; there is too much other music I like. I got into this music via my brother Frank, who is exactly 10 years older than me. He usually had to babysit me because my parents both worked, and he always had a lot of friends around who smoked hashish and listened to all sorts of weird music, including prog, but also hard rock, blues rock, free jazz or classical music (very often the weirder compositions of classical music). Lots of Krautrock too.


Edited by BaldFriede - February 12 2021 at 09:10

I ordered a special cocktail and drank it for 40 days and 40 nights and then i went to a cave in Peru and mediated on Frank Zappa album covers for an undisclosed amount of time. Once i emerged i loved all things prog and then i shed my skin and grew a new exoskeleton.