2010s New Prog Revolution

Svetonio wrote: As in the beginning in late sixties, progressive rock is still to be underground. Now even more than in sixties when progressive rock bands were something unseen (unheard) before.

I think this is simplistic and not quite correct. If you watch the Tom Dowd DVD, and he goes back to the mastering of LP's right after WW2, you will find that there was a lot of music out there, some of it labeled "black music" that the movie studios almost killed inadvertantly.

Music was already an "experiment" then, but it was still in the classical sense, and that should be substantiated as NOT ELECTRIC. Most of it was accoustic, though some had a very basic guitar at times, but nothing as we know of jazz these days.

What, more than likely, and is my idea, brought out rock music, was ELECTRICITY ... which became the new thing for all the kids, since the classical and jazz thing was already taken up by someone else. So to speak!

That some music became "progressive", I really believe it was an honest extension of the time and the place and the ability to create something new, for which the likes of The Beatles, and the Rolling Stones, could be considered very important in helping expand everyone's ears.

But you are forgetting the MASSIVE literary efforts at the time, and the classical music elements of the time, as well as the artistic developments in the 50's and 60's that sprawled all over the world.

Now we have to factor in one thing ... TV and the media ... none of this stuff was really "visible" the world over. We did not have TV's in Assis and Araraquara in the state of Sao Paulo in Brazil. Never really saw any until the airport in Rio, and then in the airport in New York and Chicago ... culture shock ... you really think the rest of the world knew or saw anything? NO.  This was 1965!!!

America and some parts in Europe got TV's fast. Japan jumped on it immediately as you well know ... and the rest is history ... alll of a sudden you know there is a country called "VietNam", and a whole bunch of places in Africa ... not one PERSON ever heard of them before, unless they were avid readers of newspapers and then ... it was a blurb in 25 letters only! The "fame" that brought The Beatles and the Rolling Stones, and others to you, blew all this out of whack and ideas ... because all of a sudden they are the biggest machine in the business world.

But before things got "in control", there was a moment where the free form of things took off, and it was extremelly valuable and alive in the music business, which coincided with the incredible improvement in the electrical designs and work which benefited rock and jazz music, but killed classical music! And these experimentations, including the original FM radio fighting the AM top of the pops mentality, helped new music come around!

Svetonio wrote: ... Today, the bands can release the masterpieces in their own production. ... Someone said, very wisely, that the time for the independent bands has never been better than now. ...

To me this is one of the saddest things ever. Reminds me of Doris Lessing, that came through the dark ages in Rhodesia and the days of slavery ... when she said that the folks that had the most freedom had the least ability to use it ... why? ... nothing to fight for, and nothing to believe in, so you make an effort to sound relevant and almost anything you say is ... so what? Few people said that about the stuff in the 60's ... except the stupidity of the flowers in your hair bullcrap that helped gave innocent people the many diseases of commerciality and bad press!

I love to listen to a lot of bands ...but I have a hard time telling you that Dream Theater, Iron maiden and other bands are "relevant" ... they are quasi ...if anything ... and this is the only part that hurts what they do ... it takes away the true feeling and emotion that drives your "revolution" along with many folks next to you!

This is what is missing today ... and a board like this only makes it even more visible, as to how immature and obsessive we are with putting everyone and everything down because this is better than that because it sold more and has more hits! And that other album sucked! And now we're calling it dark instead of fake and with makeup! There are some great musicians in there ... but then my computer can do the same thing and faster, too!

Social upheavel of some sort is ALWAYS at the front of most artistic scenes. You don't have to be a professor to accept and see that for the past thousands of years, it was that "awakening" that brought out what we know ... so the greeks had their revelations, then the roman times, then this and that ... and the 60's, though smaller in terms of time constraint, is probably one of the most important and significant artistic times of the 20th century ... we just do not look at it in perspective next to the other stuff in the same century.

We only look at all this as just another song. And until you stop doing that (not saying you do), this discussion will likely lose its strength... we can only make it bigger and better when the perspective shows how intelligent and important it was, not how many units it sold,or how much fame it had, and what it's rating and favoritism was at PA.

Svetonio wrote: ... A present day progressive rock is like a palimpsest painting. It's a hybrid like never before. ...

So if you played baroque music, or romantic music, or cubistic music, you would not be doing the same?

Reverse your idea? It's a mute point! There is nothing to learn there that you have not already seen or learned. But it is a very good learning point for many a young musician although they might not have any idea that their music resembles anything like that.

To create originality, you have to fight "labels". The only concern I have here is that we're essentially prohibiting any band from doing "progressive" ever again, because we are going to dub them crap and copy and more copy and it doesn't sound like Genesis or ELP.

We have to stop that ... because at that point it wouldn't be progressive at all, but copy!  There is nothing more "regressive" than puttin gdown your kids' music! Kinda means you are not listening either.  Many of us, in my day did that and I thought then, it was stupid.