When were you infected by Prog? - Progressive Rock Music Forum

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Slartibartfast View Drop Down

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Posted: April 26 2010 at 15:30

I kind of like to think I was vaccinated by prog...

Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened...

Rasvamakkara View Drop Down

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Posted: April 27 2010 at 14:28

In my teen years I was a big metal fan and had become familiar with some prog metal bands like Evergrey, Pain of Salvation and Ayreon. I wasn't a prog fan then, I hardly knew the term 'progressive'. Then, about four years ago, I was in a record store buying some cd's and trading in some mispurchases. I had seen the limited edition box thingy of Spock's Beard's Snow on the shelf and connected the name to Ayreon's The Last Man on Earth, which I really liked. At the counter I realised I had just enough money to buy Snow and, as a blind purchase, bought it. I absolutely fell in love with the album. I hardly listened to anything else for a month or so after buying it. My second SB cd was The Beard Is Out There and after hearing The Light there was no turning back. After SB came Transatlantic, The Flower Kings etc. Pretty soon I found this site, a discovery that has turned out to be a pretty expensive one...

moshkito

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Posted: April 27 2010 at 17:09

Hi,

Easy to answer ...

NEVER!

Basically our house already had several thousands of lp's of classical music from the earliest you could conceive of, and by the time I had heard any of these I had already heard Stockhausen, Heinemman and other modern "composers", including Davies, Russell, and the Bartok's and Orff's.

And I was around during Sgt Peppers and Days of Future Passed and Their Satanic Majesties Request and the White Album and Abbey Road ... and by the time I heard Yes, Nektar, Jethro Tull, Fairport Convention, and so many other things, none of this, absolutely NONE of this stuff was progressive.

All of it was done with musicians that wanted to break the constraints of "popular music" and the "3 minute song". And musicians that wanted a lot more satisfaction with music than ... just pop music! And many of these people did what they felt was right, for what they were doing and HOW they wanted to do it. It had nothing to do with some idealistic vision about "prog" ... Close to the Edge was not a hymn to "prog" and neither was "Echos" or "Atom Heart Mother" ... it was the expression as they saw fit with the feeling and expression of the time!

And last night I dreamt something else ... the sound effects things with Pink Floyd ... were not "incidental" ... in those days, a lot of the effects and setups for keyboards were not easy, and it took several moments to change them to get things done. ... voila ... sound effects in between songs. A year later they were setting up songs around the sound effects and in the middle of it. The following year, they had Dark Side of the Moon. And a couple of years later The Wall ...

And Hawkwind also did this later with a famous science fiction writer!

And so many other examples!

All of a sudden the creativity is actually the mother of all inventions ... necessity! ... and 40 years later we call it "prog".

Weird ... I think Voltaire was right. History is the lie that is agreed on! Or was it Moliere?

Edited by moshkito - April 27 2010 at 17:15

Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
www.pedrosena.com

presdoug

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Joined: January 24 2010
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Posted: April 27 2010 at 17:39

moshkito wrote:

Hi,

Easy to answer ...

NEVER!

And Hawkwind also did this later with a famous science fiction writer!

And so many other examples!

All of a sudden the creativity is actually the mother of all inventions ... necessity! ... and 40 years later we call it "prog".

Weird ... I think Voltaire was right. History is the lie that is agreed on! Or was it Moliere?

A famous quote from Voltaire-"I may disagree,sir, with what you say, but i will defend to the death your right to say it!"

The Wrinkler View Drop Down

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Posted: April 27 2010 at 23:03

I notice a lot of people got into prog from Pink Floyd LOL

Rottenhat

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Posted: April 28 2010 at 11:26

The Wrinkler wrote:

I notice a lot of people got into prog from Pink Floyd LOL

Yeah, Pink Floyd seems to be a gateway drug, eeh gateway band I mean...

Language is a virus from outer space.

-William S. Burroughs

thechrisl

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Joined: April 23 2010
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Posted: April 29 2010 at 19:53

Hmm... Some signposts along the way...

Pre-teen years -- Religious upbringing taught me "acid rock" was bad news...

1982 -- Asia (and John Cougar) are my first 2 purchased cassette tapes.

1985 -- Started playing guitar. This leads directly to Zep, Kansas, Hendrix, Rush, Purple, some Floyd, some Tull. But I remember hearing "Roundabout" on the radio and just not getting it. Kind of boring, jazzy (says me in 1985).

Local corporate classic rock station starts a new late night show. They describe it as "free form, progressive FM". I started staying up late with headphones on school nights. Heard things like "ItCotKC", "Karn Evil9", "old" Genesis (Duke), Billy Thorpe, Uriah Heep...

I pick up "A Young Persons Guide to King Crimson" and begin to digest...

Started smoking pot. Came home from school (baked) one day & heard "Roundabout". ...OK... It was like a veil was lifted & I could hear all that stuff. Going on. Epic. Got way into Yes. Did the sponge thing for a while but stuck mainly to the better known symphonic stuff.

BTW I actually got tired of being a stoner after a year or so but remained hooked on the strange music.

1992 -- Played some music I recorded for my brother. He kind of pulled a face and says, "um, not bad, it's kind of... progressive". I realize that's a general term for my kind of music.

1995 -- Discovered the Internet in college. Did some searches (Netscape) on "Progressive Rock". Found this thing called "Rock.Music.Progressive" on Usenet. Also found the Gibraltar Encyclopedia of Progressive Rock. I am a long way from owning my own PC so, I print it out. I mean I print the whole thing out. At school. 20-30 pages at a time. It's a phone book.

1996-97 -- Read the GEPR cover to cover. Discovered online music sites like Wayward and M&M. Developed a bit of a problem with the old credit card (no downloading music back then). Bought a few bad prog CDs (and really, except for bad fusion, there's not much worse than bad prog). But this is when it all kicked in. Discovered some of the best stuff so far. Anekdoten, Porcupine Tree, Univers Zero, Steve Hillage, Steve Tibbetts, Ozric Tentacles, Zappa, UK, Happy The Man, PFM...

Oops, turning into a memoir...

Hoodlum

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Posted: April 29 2010 at 20:07

Tool - 2001
Pink Floyd - 2002
Can - 2004
King Crimson - 2005
Yes, Genesis, ELP - 2006
Caravan, Soft Machine and all the rest - 2007

Kinda gradual. But as I say, it's hard to draw the line between what is and isn't prog. You might say Soft Machine isn't prog at all. They're a super-complex jazz fusion band, at least on that amazing Third album which still sounds great 3 years after I first heard it.

Is Traffic prog? I've heard them described as that before, other times as just 'psychedelic'. I eschew strong genre classification, but things that kinda are within the progosphere including psychdelic rock, experimental jazz/fusion, noise/ambient and so on are often of interest to me as well.

Edited by Hoodlum - April 29 2010 at 20:10

the_1_gavo View Drop Down

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Posted: April 30 2010 at 20:17

When I was younger (9-12 y/o) I was a huge fan of all the current pop music like Eminem

. My dad always hated it and at one point even banned me from listening to stuff on his sound system (he's a bit of an audiophile). I had always liked rock, and my dad decided to show me some classics, but the first was Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon. The effects and the epic "spaced out" feel got me hooked. Especially shocking was Money; I had never heard a song in 7/4 time before! Later I got in to metal and prog-metal as well as some of the classics and I have been hooked ever since!

Calculate900 View Drop Down

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Posted: April 30 2010 at 20:37

Some key events include seeing a Pink Floyd laser light show at the local planetarium, renting Pink Floyd's and Rush's greatest hits, and stumbling on this site (eventually leading me to Genesis, Yes, Gentle Giant, and, more recently, King Crimson).

verslibre

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Posted: May 02 2010 at 06:55

Slartibartfast wrote:

I kind of like to think I was vaccinated by prog...

I think I'll go with that.

First I received my "electronic" inoculation* (Tangerine Dream, Jean-Michel Jarre, Synergy), then a couple years later came the "rock" inoculation* (Rush, Yes, ELP, King Crimson, Saga).

*Yes, I know "inoculation" = the injection of disease into the body to begin building an immunity, but allow me a little creative license here.

eBay

cacha71

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Posted: May 02 2010 at 15:59

I had gravitated towards 70's hard rock and Prog at an early age, but I think my first album was Jeff Wayne's War Of The Worlds when I was about 13 or 14. I was really into sci fi (and still am) so when I saw this I immediately grabbed it and listened to it over and over again.

http://www.last.fm/group/Progressive+Folk

octopus-4

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Posted: May 11 2010 at 03:58

To the webmaster: I have received a topic reply notification which contains hidden links to a porn site. I don't think the author is aware of that, however I don't find his reply here, so it may be just spam or fishing. I didn't follow the link, but "asian escorts" make me think of that.

The user is "jonusb2".

octopus-4

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Posted: May 11 2010 at 04:00

I have received a similar one from another post. The user is still jonusb2 and the link is now to westchester escorts.

@jonusb2. If you exist you likely have a virus on your PC.

Draknov

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Posted: May 11 2010 at 17:08

Opeth. I enjoyed their albums and got interested in their Influences, and it has led me to Pink Floyd, and my first listen of the Wall blew my mind. It also got me interested in Jethro Tull,King Crimson and Camel.

But due to Opeth's music i opened up also to Jazz,Death Metal,Blues,Black Metal.

Before that it was either Classical for me, or Rammstein,Skinny Puppy,Queen and Depeche Mode.

Ronnie Pilgrim View Drop Down

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Posted: May 11 2010 at 19:28

Last year, when I found out we were now calling the music I grew up with "progressive rock."

Edited by Ronnie Pilgrim - May 11 2010 at 19:28

Pilkenton

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Posted: May 14 2010 at 00:40

Ronnie Pilgrim wrote:

Last year, when I found out we were now calling the music I grew up with "progressive rock."

I always thought it was called Art Rock.

My junior year of high school, sitting in the backseat of a buddy's car at lunchtime listening to Dark Side of the Moon and Brain Salad Surgery on his 8-track. Cry

Ronnie Pilgrim View Drop Down

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Posted: May 14 2010 at 09:07

Pilkenton wrote:

I always thought it was called Art Rock.

My junior year of high school, sitting in the backseat of a buddy's car at lunchtime listening to Dark Side of the Moon and Brain Salad Surgery on his 8-track. Cry

I remember those moments. And when Houses of the Holy came out, with the mellotron and synths, I thought it was Zep's finest hour. Music will never (and should never) be like that again.

drmfreek

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Posted: May 14 2010 at 11:29

About when I was 14-15, my mom bought my dad some albums he had as LP's when young for his birthday. Genesis: Wind and Wuthering, Seconds Out, and Then there were Three. He showed them to me and I can basically say I've never been the same since. My very own Prog-day.

motrhead

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Posted: May 15 2010 at 23:07

I'm a newbie here, but I've been listening to Prog Rock for almost three decades. I can't remember my first real brushes with Prog, but the one event that left a lasting impression was hearing April Wine's cover of "21st Century Schizoid Man"(on my new copy of Harder,Faster) in 1979. My best friend's older brother was frequently playing DSOTM in the bus that he lived in (amid the requisite cloud of smoke Cool

) at around the same time,and I really liked that too. I bought "The Wall", Jefferson Starship's-"Freedom At Point Zero"(for 'Jane',but the rest of the album was pretty progressive), Queen, Heart, Triumph, Deep Purple and a bunch of hard rock staples.

In school they were playing Rush and The Police over the cafeteria intercom, New Wave and Punk were almost everywhere else, and AC/DC and VH were blasting from car stereos in the parking lot , so I was listening to all of that too...until another buddy with good taste came home from summer vacation with cassette copies of his brother's Elvis Costello, Elton Motello, Nash the Slash, Zappa-"Joe's Garage", Nazareth-" Fool Circle"(incredible progressive, unlike-Nazareth album worth checking out!), and Iron Maiden(the debut) albums, most of which I copied for myself. Eventually I went through a screaming guitar stage ( Scorps, MSG, Deep Purple and early Queensryche -all of this long before Grunge came around)...and then came my blues (SRV) period.

I think it was mostly Rush "Moving Pictures" and Nash the Slash, plus Zappa, Asia, 90125, the little-known Leggat-"Illuminations", and eventually Saga, that finally steered me away from most hard rock/metal/blues...but THE big influence was meeting my wife, because she had a huge collection of prog rock. She introduced me to early Genesis, Uriah Heep, Meddle, the mighty Tull, King Crimson, Golden Earing, Focus,and old Yes, and *I liked it*. She is a smart woman with great taste!

I still listen to a bit of almost everything...from the occasional classical and Latin music, to blues, punk, alternative, grunge, folk-metal, rockabilly/psychobilly/Grady (who calls himself country-metal, but I hate country, so he can't be), and a lot of prog rock (and lately Muse). I frequently listen to ProgRockRadio on Live365,and I try to catch Symphomania on Radio Seagull to hear what's new .