This can serve as an introduction, though it is also a thank you to the site in general, as I have discovered a whole heap of great music as a result of this site.
I guess I am mainly a baroque pop, art rock, psych folk, experimental, funky soul, big band, world music fan, but a few months back I stumbled across some canturbury scene music, loved it, and came here to read more about it. In the process I discovered two genres which were more or less new to me, zeuhl and r.i.o. and I fell for those as well.
Ironically (I suppose) though I hadn't heard of r.i.o. before I did know Fred Frith from his work with Naked City, as well as the Beefheart / Zappa / Bungle / Praxis / Boredoms / Cheer Accident / Ruins catalogues so it was easy to adjust into it.
I would also say that I always considered bands like Gong and Pink Floyd and Hawkwind psychedelic space rock and never called them prog at all before seeing this site.
It is also kind of funny to me that I hated Genesis and Yes as a kid and after reading the near constant gushing about them I have given them chances again, and I have grown to like them pretty well, especially Foxtrot and Topographic Oceans. To be fair though, the records I heard as a kid were only thier 80s material.
Two other bands I have known about for some time but not listened to, were Gentle Giant and Van Der Graph and both have leapt into my favorites also.
Thanks also for: Magma, Ahvak, The Enid, Henry Cow, Supersister, The Tangent, Echolyn, Aksak Maboul, Gilgamesh, National Health, Rational Diet, Begnagrad, Dün, Present, Samla Mammas Manna, and Etron Fou Leloublan all of who I found through this site.
My prog collection is still small, and I defer to others when my knowledge is exceeded in an area, so I may not post very often.
edit: oh! recommendations are also accepted especially groups with a lot of complex vocal harmonies/ lyrical counterpoint / epic storytelling and or unusual instrumentation / nuance... funny how passages that would be standard on electric guitar sound so much better if you play them with a marimba and a contrabass clarinet.
Thanks again everyone!
Edited by smashwagon - August 13 2009 at 00:26