Ideas for a Prog Radio Show

The local NPR station in my town has done a promotion for a number of years where they let people play DJ for an hour if they donate a certain amount of money.  Me and two buddies of mine have made it a tradition to buy an hour and do a Progressive Rock hour.  We really like some of the more modern (and heavier) stuff (Dream Theater, Seventh Wonder, Symphony X, Rush, etc.), but we've been thinking about next year buying two hours, and using the first hour for a historical overview of Progressive Rock, leading up to the second hour in which we'd play more modern stuff.  So I'm curious - what would you guys do with an hour in which to give a historical overview of prog leading up to the modern era?  What songs would you play, and what bands would you talk about?

No ads.  The actual NPR DJ we've gotten doesn't seem to care if we go a little over 60 minutes.

Are you serious about not knowing Dream Theater, Symphony X, Seventh Wonder, or Rush?  Guess you're not into the heavier side of Prog?

But I'd love to hear any suggestions - I've already made a long playlist of stuff from the 70's through the 90's for ideas but I'd love to hear suggestions.


Edited by dtguitarfan - March 03 2012 at 08:43

Well, I guess what I'm asking is - what would your hour look like?  I'm interested in seeing how people would divide it up.  I already have some of my own ideas of what I'd do with an hour for a history lesson, but I want to hear other people's ideas to see what the general consensus is as to what is important to cover and how they would do it in an hour.

Here's an example of a dilemma - we HAVE to cover Yes, for sure.  In my opinion, Close to the Edge is one of, if not THE, most important compositions in Progressive Rock history.  But it's almost 20 minutes long, and would make it difficult to squeeze other things into an hour that we'd want to cover.  SO, I'd probably go with something like Heart of the Sunrise or maybe Long Distance Runaround/The Fish or I might even choose to represent them when we cover the 80's with Tempus Fugit.

You're lucky, you got invited to do it for free - we payed money to play our music on the radio, haha!  ;-)  But it was worth it, we had a blast and got a lot of friends to listen who would've never been exposed to Progressive Rock otherwise.

That sounds a lot like what we're gonna try to do! Hey, noticed just now you're from Israel, Sagichim - do you like Orphaned Land? We played Olat Ha'tamid by them this year.

Sagichim, another tradition I have with my two buddies is going to Prog Power USA every year, so we've seen Orphaned Land twice, and yes, they put on an EXCELLENT show. Though I've seen the Road to ORShalem dvd and it looks like they bring more of the traditional instruments into the show in their home country, which I'd love to see. But the song we played on our show this tear added some really cool flavor to tge show, that's for sure. :-)

dtguitarfan wrote: Well, I guess what I'm asking is - what would your hour look like?

mongofa wrote: Play some Gentle Giant

Manuel, that would be AWESOME...but it would cost a FORTUNE! A fortune we don't have. Remember we're making a big donation to NPR for each hour.