New here!

Hello!

My name is Rob Harrison - I'm a musician, composer, prog artist, and, obviously, a huge prog fan as well!

My first exposure to prog was as a child, when my dad used to play me his Jethro Tull and Rush albums. Songs From The Wood was the first album I really loved, but moved swiftly on to Thick as a Brick and A Passion Play. Then when I was a bit older I was rifling through my dad's record collection and found a very strange looking album with a brilliantly compelling picture of an octopus on it. I had no idea what it was or what it would do to my brain. It blasted everything I knew out of the water, and became the catalyst for my own musical journey. Then of course I began exploring more widely, discovering King Crimson, Mahavishnu Orchestra, and Van Der Graaf Generator. The stranger the music, the better! And of course, being a curious young fellow I began exploring outside the realms of prog as well, developing a love for prog-adjacent Groundhogs, some heavy metal, the great jazz improvisors, and psychedelic space rock as well.

Then quite a long time later, in 2016, I heard a band called Gong. I'd heard of them before but never really delved into them. Unbeknownst to me at the time, they were entirely comprised of a new line up, but that didn't stop them blowing me away with their force, creativity and power, once again changing how I thought about music and what it could be! It was like medicine. So then I delved into the fascinating histroy and back catalogue. A few years later in 2019 I was asked to form a jazz/rock/prog instrumental band, with the intention that I would play flute. I'd just gotten hold of a saxophone, and told them I could try playing that instead. It turned out I could not. In a huge blow to the world, but a small boon to me, the pandemic struck. I saw the sax player from Gong was doing online lessons, and took the opportunity to delve headfirst into the instrument (not literally - that's no way to play a saxophone!) I practiced like hell, and learned many valuable lessons from my new teacher before rejoining my bandmates in Z Machine. We released our first album last year (I think it's on this site somewhere!), and this year, I've just released my first solo record - 'Explode My Head'.

That was longer than I intended, so, in summary, hello!