Are there rivalries between prog bands?

mellors wrote: Another rather vague one, since Andrew Lloyd Webber has a variations album under various artists on here, Roger Waters has that lyric on his Amused to Death album (Its a Miracle) in response to the similarity between the Phantom of the Opera intro and parts of Echoes. We cower in our shelters, with our hands over our ears Lloyd Webber's awful stuff runs for years and years and years An earthquake hits the theatre, but the operetta lingers Then the piano lid comes down and breaks his f**king fingers It's a miracle And in related/crossover terms, there always seems to be Radiohead vs Muse arguments, though I dont believe there are any disagreements between the band members themselves.

I'd not heard that before!

All of a sudden, I am Waters biggest fan.

BaldFriede wrote: I don't know about feuds between bands, but when it comes to feuds within a band no-one can beat Amon Düül 2. Threats with revolvers and knives were quite common in their heyday."My song gets on the album, or else.." or something like that.

So that's another way in which they inspired Hawkwind...

ELP fans vs. Camel fans

Tull and Zep.

aparantly Plant werent that happy when Anderson talked about his lyrical abilities.

I think in the days before Peter Grant sorted out the promoters, Robert Plant complained about being paid like a brick layer and Ian Anderson said that it was fair enough because LZ wrote songs like brick layers and the bands got a little huffy at each other.

Apparently:  Wolfgang Flur (ex Kraftwerk drummer), had some issues with the founding members in the late 80s, Kraftwerk founders Florian Schneider and Ralf Hutter even said the comments in (Flur's) book I WAS A ROBOT as rubbish and lies.  According to the NME, Hutter even called Wolfgang Flur and KarlBartos idiots. 

Flur and Bartos are quite open about their time in Kraftwerk. 

Edited by PROGMAN - December 17 2009 at 08:11

Also there's a current fight between Andy Powell and the rest of the cofounders of Wishbone Ash.

And, ofcourse, there's been lots of feuds between band members of different groups when they separate. Roger Waters vs David Gilmour and Richard Wright (and even Nick Mason); as far as I know they really hated each other. As far as I know, Steve Howe is very critical of other guitar players, specially if they have been involved with Yes: I've heard accounts of his disliking Peter Banks, and with more "reason" Trevor Rabin (I don't know, I guess there should have been a kind of Feud between Yes "West Lineup" and Asia); and certainly Howe really hates Jimi Haun (he's the one who really plays the guitars on the ABWH songs from Union, even though he's not credited at all; not even mentioned on the album notes). There must be more rivalry issues between Howe and other Prog guitar players, anyone knows any?

Edited by Dellinger - December 17 2009 at 22:31

Frippertron wrote: No

Seconded!

Here's something from Van der Graaf Generator’s The Box:

VDGG ‘s manager Tony Stratton Smith founded Charisma Records in 1969 to record “The least We can do ..” due to the lack of interest from other labels. During the recording of H to He Who Am The Only One, bassist Nic Potter left the band half way through the sessions, so Potter was on three tracks and Banton played bass on the rest, with guest appearance from KC’s Robert Fripp:

“We met him at the Speakeasy, he just dropped in one day because he liked what we were doing” Peter Hammill

In 1971 Stratton had the idea to send out three of his most promising acts on a package tour, it was known as the “Six Bob Tour” and comprised Genesis who opened the show, followed by Lindisfarne and the closing band was VDGG. During the first of these shows Nic Potter was in the audience to watch his old band mates, Banton’s bass pedals crashed, so Nic found himself on stage having borrowed Mike Rutherford’s rickenbacker bass.

“The bands were always checking each other out, we always trying to blow each other off, a friendly rivalry, of course ….” Peter Hammill

“People outside the industry often assume that bands mix a lot and are aware of each other’s music. This was certainly not the case for us especially back in that period. Band members tend to be very wrapped up in their own careers, and more likely to see the other groups as rivals. However on this tour because we were all travelling together, it gave us the opportunity to see another group’s set from night to night and to get to know the music. I think we all learned from each other, you could see what made one night’s performance so much more effective than another one” Tony Banks



Edited by rosenbach - December 18 2009 at 17:14

Yes, between one of my bands and the other of my bands.