How did you find Prog?

Growing up in St. Louis back in the 70's, we had a great radio station...KSHE 95.  It was one of the original album oriented stations on FM of its day.  As a little kid, I hated the pop/commercial stuff as I got older and finally my folks let me start buying stuff I wanted.  So I had heard a great variety of stuff , but what nailed it for me was a KANSAS concert in 1976 at Six Flags over Mid-America.  They were just incredible and such amazing players...Song For America, Belexes, Journey from Mariabronn, The Pinnacle.....just to name a few.  Got me very hooked on Prog as much as I could hear....moving to Arkansas however for college and most of my career made it pretty tough to get access to much in the 80's, 90's etc....but the internet came along and I was finally able to hear and learn that lots of stuff had still been going on..and I have enjoyed it all over again over the last 10 years or so.  

KANSAS was where it all started for me.....

Waywardson Sam

UMUR wrote: Through Metal.

I went to black metal, to technical death metal, then went to progressive death, and finally got to Dream Theater, moving to prog rock soon after. WIKIPEDIA FTW FOR FINDING BANDS

Edited by cjgone - November 10 2009 at 00:03

I was around when it started (yes I'm that old!!) One of the bands that I saw in it's infancy was the band from the public school a mile up the road from where I grew up. The school was Charterhouse, near Godalming and the band was.....................................well. you all know the answer to that one, don't you???

My story is pretty simple.  I wanted to check out "The Dark Side of The Moon" because I had heard a lot of great things about the album.  Once I listened to it, I was on hooked on Pink Floyd.  However, when I heard this album was when I truly understood what Progressive Rock was:

Prog still continues to blow my mind, even after a year.

American Khatru wrote: Replace "a year" with "terrifying scads of time" and you have my mixture of feelings more or less.  Now if only I could figure out a way to get paid for having my mind blown.

1971   I  first heard ELPs first album ,then my life changed .  prog forever.

I didn't find Prog; Prog found me.  That was before anyone used the term.  In high school I was going to see live acts like Cream, Hendrix, Zappa and Big Brother.  Here in Cleveland at that time, every act that wanted to make it in Rock had to come to Cleveland. Late 60s, early 70s we had the best FM station, WNCR; on that station is where I first heard the term Progressive.  It was applied then to acts like Super Session as well as Tull, Yes, or King Crimson. WNCR played them all.

 

I didn't find Prog, Prog found me.

I guess I've got an interesting story.  I'm pretty young for being into prog (only 17) and how I got into it was through my dad.  He was into Floyd, Genesis, ELP, Yes, the mainstream prog from the 70's.  He downloaded some albums he owned when he was a kid (Dancing with the Moonlit Knight, Wind and Wuthering, Animals, Wish you were here) and I took a listen or two, could say I was that enthused.  At that point I was listening mainly to more mainstream rock/pop bands.  I think the 2 two big ones Meatloaf and Great Big Sea.

Eventually I actually gave those prog albums a real listen because I was bored with what I had at the time.  Finally really got the music after some listening.  Still didn't know the name of the genre, but I liked the length and the complexity.  After listening to pretty much all of Pink Floyd, Genesis, and Tull (parents turned my onto aqualung),  I found Gentle Giant, and prog archives.  This site has been my way to find new (and usually old) music pretty much exclusively from then on.

Eventually got turned onto metal through Opeth

Wow what a long poorly written post...