Touch: First American prog band?

 

Hello!!!

 

I have been watching this thread, but feel I have written about all I could say wrt (IMHO) the relevance of Touch in annuls of American prog (and certainly British prog). As a point of information, I wrote the heartfelt biograpghy of Touch for PA and I do believe I picked my words with care. I had some practice, because this biog was adapted from an essay I originally wrote for the Ghostland's website nearly 9 years ago:

http://ghostland.com/ghostland/editorials.asp?ID=1. When Mojo magazine, in their then Buried Treasures section  did to retrospective on the Touch album, then there was some (later privately acknowledged) "borrowing" from my piece.  If I was to add to PA's Touch biog, (btw, Sal I would agree with you wrt) I would mention the progression from Vanilla Fudge (now I've been listening to more than one of their albums)....but don't forget Jeff Beck is also in print stating VF's rhythm section (Appice and Bogert) was the influence for the heaviness of his first solo Truth, (then more clearly  Cosa Nostra Beckola), which in turn lead to the heaviness of Led Zep.  I would also add Don Galucci produced the acclaimed second Stooges album - according to the Stooges' biog: brought in to give an album that sounded more like their stage set. Don Gallucci was at the forefront of American garage, prog and American punk....

 

To correct: I didn't buy,  I borrowed an American import copy of Touch (different cover structure  from the UK Deram release and I don't think it had the poster - I still have a copy of the UK poster), around April/June 1969, from a colleague who would literally tank himself up on a bottle of morphine-based cough medicine around 4pm on Friday afternoons, change his lab clothes in his weekend hippy clothes, train up to London and spend his weekends at Tiles or Middle Earth, where the Touch album was played by the house jock - hence my comment that members of British bands would hear Touch afterhours, e.g. Genesis, Yes......  I bought the UK issued album about a year later when I could afford and there was the belated UK release. Somewhere I have written that there was some reciprocal agreement across the Atlantic of the sort, UK:  "We'll release Touch, if you do Pentangle in the USA" , (a memory that doesn't really hold up since Pentangle recorded for Transatlantic not Decca???).

 

Being an odd combination of conservative butwith more than a passing interest in music literally progressing, I do find arguments about Frank Zappa (or others) being the first American progressive band hard to take. In the historical context,  back in 1969 to at least the mid 70's, Frank Zappa was heard as avante rock and/or the antithesis to the hippy rock of SF's Airplane or LA's Doors, and did not sound remotely like  Yes, GG, KC, Genesis, i.e. the main stream UK proggers. Indeed the term 'underground music/rock' best suited/suits Zappa's music wrt the political use of the term 'underground'. Encompassing Zappa 's music as prog is something PA (with its ever increasing ambiguity), has done in the last 8 years. United States Of America ??? Somewhere along the line then, they got caught up psychedelic obscurities (still do!!), such as Ultimate Spinach, but because there is a degree of sophistication to composition, instrumental arrangement  people can't let go with "clever psychedelia" ,(do I feel somebody tempted to bring hippy favourite Moondog into the debate????). I've read the essay on USA in the very academic treatise on prog,  Kevin Holm-Hudson's Progressive Rock Reconsidered, arguing they were the first US prog band... but  'avante rock'  with a significant lump of psychedia could be argued closer to the truth, being again nothing like the early mainstream British prog rockers. And BTW if you have heard the follow up to United States Of America, Joe Byrd's The American Metaphysical Circus  - only released  in CD format in the last 18 months - these claims weaken. I can hear/see the parallels with some of the Scandavanian music that gets bundled into RIO, but at the same time could be taken as the extreme opposite end of the spectrum from the likes of Karl Jenkins' cross-over classics (i.e the spectrum for a hybrid of light and serious musics  tending towards the avant end of musical development, with the scale being avant garde-ness)

 

I've listen out for American rock that is closer to mainstream British prog for a very long: Touch have an album which is almost complete (although the other 1969 albums,  ICOTCK and Renaissance's  eponymous first, are closer to being 100% prog). You do hear odd examples,  often  a single track on an album, e.g. (American) Gypsy from their 1970 or 1971 eponymous album, with Dead & Gone  (and I'm sure the main riff was borrowed from a George Harrison song recorded by the Beatles),  Grand Funk Railroad 's Closer To Home/Captain Of Your Ship, and then it wasn't until Todd Rundgren moved away from his run of solo albums (containing well crafted and played, 3 to 5 minute long tunes), with Utopia, do you get IMHO the next complete(?)  American progressive rock album. The 1970 or '71 release 12 Dreams Of Doctor Sardonicus was the last shout but  near masterpiece of 60's psychedelia, with Spirit then falling apart to the harder edge rock of Randy California's solo career and the AOR of J.J.Gunne. Kansas are quoted in the Renaissance Records issue of Touch, as to the earlier band's influence.

 

When I visited the USA for the first time February 1977 for a 3 months stay, Carry On Wayward Son was to be heard on most FM radio stations as a single hit. I bought the album Point of Know Return  somewhere in Lancaster PA on the back of that hit - and I was not disappointed with the whole. The band had been able to squeeze prog-structured songs in 3 to 5 minute play times - so different from the flabbyness I heard/still hear in Top Oc - that album was this Brit's first exposure to Kansas. In the  following year Melody Maker ran a central spread on new, innovative American bands - and you'll note punk journalism hadn't quite kicked out the jams of that revered weekly - with the emphasis on American prog. Whilst MM had a sidewise swipe at the American rock scene being 5 years behind the Brit's (sic), they listed Kansas, Meatloaf, Mahogany Rush and at least 4 other bands long forgotten by your's truly. Rundgren was not listed and by that time nobody could remember Touch. And not so long after the first of the neo-prog bands, Starcastle arrived

 

Apologies for repeating myself and not using 'IMHO' nearly enough.......