The Nice--   Some like 'em, some don't, but how important were they?   Not very, I guess, I mean they only created symphonic prog from kitsch English pop, spawned the most successful prog rock act ever, influenced Lemmy Kilmister who roadied for them and went on to do some significant things, and I have little doubt one Ossie Osbourne was catching them from time to time.  

So let's see: This little psych band was responsible for Symph as we know it, Heavy Metal, Space Rock, and the larger progressive rock movement generally.   Not bad.  

Do you agree?   Have you listened to The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack lately?

Not even close. They did fine at rocking the classics but they followed both The Moody Blues and Hansson & Karlsson as far as symphonic prog is concerned and there's nothing space rock about them. There were dozens of psych space rock bands before them.

Heavy metal? Seriously? LOL

I made an http://rateyourmusic.com/list/siLLy_puPPy/ultimate-timeline-of-metal-music-milestone-moments/" rel="nofollow - Ultiamte Timeline of Metal Music beginning with proto-forms from the 50s and The Nice isn't on it.

I can't say i get that excited about The Nice. They were definitely instrumental in adding the classical keyboard parts to the prog world but other than a proto-prog standing i can't say they were nearly as innovative as you seem to believe.

Of course they weren't Space or Metal or Symph, but they surely informed all the artists I mentioned (and then some).  

Again, listen to the first two or three albums--  along with Giles,Giles &Fripp and a handful of others, they illuminated what could be done in the rock 'n roll format which allowed people like Hawkwind and Sabbath to flourish creatively and commercially.  

Nogbad_The_Bad wrote: The Nice were a great band but you overrate their influence.

That was kinda the point, get a few raised eyebrows.

The Dark Elf wrote: It wasn't heavy metal...It was Heavy Myrtle, a groupie with rather large appetites.

I just saw her at the Lyle Lovett/Dave Matthews reunion show.

If you would've claimed they invented hip hop, psytrance and were responsible for The Beatles breaking up, i totally woulda believed ya!

^ No but I will claim many musicians who were soon to do great things were surely seeing the Nice live and listening to the records--  the gothic cathedral sounds of Keith's organ and the funereal atmosphere surely must've provided some inspiration, take Deep Purple for example: though they were contemporaries, cuts like the Nice's treatment of Brubeck's 'Rondo' has early organ/guitar interplay that would become a trademark of DP.  Not plagiarism as much as mutual influence, but the Nice would seem to have been just a bit before others, and just a bit better.

Thoughts of ED  is great proto-prog album and one of the very first one too.

But TBH, it's the only album of theirs that I kept for any length of time in my shelves and I still own it - thpough I made sure the bonus tracks on the CD were including the America recorded with O'List). However, I got rid of Ars Longa (my entry moint) and the other three during the later 80's before crossing the pond (they were all first pressings, too) and never got them back.

As for their "symph" roots (they were really more psych with their first two), FBS and ALVB are both "very symphy", and not some "rocking the classics"' like all those Dutch bands or Sky would do later on. Elegy and their s/t are more of a mixed bag of live and bottom of drawer stuff, though.

Nogbad_The_Bad wrote: The Nice were a great band but you overrate their influence.

Well, certainly not in the range of their contemporaraneous Velvet Underground for sure, but Nice were influential enough (if only to ELP and all of their clones), if only because of their place in the Prog timeline. But it's obvious this never translated into mega sales (ELP-scale).

.

Hi,

The sad thing, is folks looking at this music, and specially the time and place, with today's eyes and ears ... in which case a lot of it seems poor and not very good, but we forget that at the time it was all that there was about it. No one, really was playing the keyboards full throttle, and the Moddy Blues you could say only used one instrument for keyboards, which was not in tune many times, btw, depending on where they were playing. In LA at the old Sports Arena, it was not bad, but poor!

I think of Nice/ELP as more of a classical attempt at doing things, but the real issue is/was ... how can we get the fans into the stand when you don't do fun stuff? And this ended up being a lo of the material that a lot of fans wanted to hear from ELP, namely the hits and the fun song about the sheriff! Always a crowd pleaser! The rock audience will never be the quiet bunch that never does or says anything until the end of the concert when they walk out whispering, lest someone takes offense to the comments! That's exactly what you see in the colleges and universities these days with over rated classical musicians that aren't half as good as many of the rock folks out there!

Serious music began taking a serious hit in the late 60's, as soon as the "rock media" took hold, probably starting with Melody Maker and the other one, though in America, the only thing we got was the bunch of fanzines, and not many of them wanted to show faces of people that did not look good, or did not have some make up! All of it, added to the "fan-driven" market as the record companies insisted and tried hard and harder to get even more folks into the concert.

Sadly, you can see in the REFUGEE album some of the "classical" motifs that the other two members of the NICE likely wanted to do, and both of them, as much as the whole album were excellent, even with Patrick Moraz kinda adding something different from Keith Emerson, though I am not sure that PM was as highly educated in an academic musical sense, compared to Keith Emerson. Thus the more "classical" pieces would be better represented on ELP, than the NICE, although at the time, there was a major need for these to sound as close to the pop/rock idioms of the sales, in order to get something from it. 

We can say that THE NICE did really well, and it is still doing well these days, courtesy of the Internet and a thread like this. The only sad thing is the understanding of where/now the music integrates to THEN in its time and place, as opposed to hearing it out of context completely in most of today's listeners.

It's the part that will make or break "progressive" music, though many don't want to bother and think that having "numbers" show more than any intelligent definition and appreciation of the music itself ... and this is the part that we're missing ... I call it "the soul of the music"! (Since it likely would not have happened as it did otherwise.)

Atavachron wrote: Do you agree?   Have you listened to The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack lately?

Not lately, but I'm relistening now. I't somewhat as I remembered - as in not very memorable. I do love the opener, but to me it's mostly downhill from there. I've never enjoyed any of those rockin' the classics prog rock compositions... ever - and Rondo is this album's supposed highlight + also main claim to the "inventors of prog" fame. Not the best selling point for me. I don't love the vocalist either. He's kind of awful. But there's no denying they were influential back in the day. Their thee top five album entries in UK alone speaks volumes about that. They were heard by "everyone".

-Do I think that their music is still relevant, or that any band formed in the new millenium (or in the last 30-40 years) is directly inspired or influenced by them? No, not really. It doesn't seem that many people care much about their music at all anymore. I don't mean to be this negative really. Hang on to a Dream is very pretty.

I recall both Genesis and Yes name checked them heavily early in their career.. I think its not so much that their style of music itself influenced, i think it was more because they (amongst a few notable others such as Family and The Pentangle) showed the next tier of bands coming on the scene what COULD be done, what could be achieved particularly Live.

I think this is absolutely right. In this regard, they were a huge influence on what followed.

^ Which was my point.   It's the musicians that witnessed what the Nice were doing regardless of whether that player went on to do "Prog" or "Heavy" or whatever.

One aspect almost completely forgotten (but that I like to occasionally annoy everyone about) is that heavy metal was considered a part of the progressive rock movement, or at least was welcomed as an iteration of the new spectrum of Rock, being born of the psych and prog of the time. Hard to believe, I know, but if you look at the British music scenes, or if you were to ask Ozzy if Sabbath was creatively influenced by a band like The Nice, I'd bet good money he'd say "Definitely".   It wasn't just the Beatles and Hendrix and Floyd and Zappa that were moving rock music forward, it was a kaleidoscope of guitar and organ-based music.

          As I discovered classical music at the same time as progressive rock, the two music worlds have always gone hand in hand in my interest and estimation.

           

               

You say the Nice aren't on your 'Ultimate Timeline of Metal' ?   Why would they be ?   They had nothing to do with metal.   You misinterpreted the OP.   It's not that they were some sort of 'proto metal' band like, say, Blue Cheer (surely Blue Cheer are on your list, right? I hope so), it's that at that moment in England the Nice were among the most innovative rock bands in the world, and brought a goth graveyard to the scene waaaaay before Sabbath or anyone else... not to mention awesome chops.   It's what they, among others, contributed to the growing progress of rock music that then inspired other heavier, proggier, spacier, and jazzier bands.

^ Mahavishnu, huh.  Interesting.   I certainly would say they were on the same influential level as the Nice, maybe even larger in the grand scheme of Rock as Art.

Even without The Nice it's a Nice list (I've only looked at the first page so far). I've got a few suggestions that at least would have made my timeline:

First I noticed one obvious omission that you sort of got to include. Which is Love - Seven & Seven Is. A (for the year) lightning fast, sonic assault released in the summer of 1966. I dare say heavier and goes faster than any of the 1967 and 1968 inclusions on the list. As it was included in the "famous" Nuggets-series as well as several earlier compilations, it was quite influential for punks and metallers alike. It has since been covered by Alice Cooper, Ramones, Rush, Deep Purple...

As I notice you've included some bands and songs that are undeniably heavy (such as Icecross), but were hardly heard/discovered by anyone until decades later, you might want to consider this slice of thundering death metal with bagpipes from 1969. Cro-Magnon delivers the goods in the lyrical department too:

Fleetwood Mac you say? A bit of a one-off from them, but that riff is arguably heavier than anything on Led Zeppelins debut (released the same year). Listen, and find out exactly why Judas Priest covered The Green Manalishi (With The Two Prong Crown) a decade later

First slice of genuine Power Metal? I think so. I don't know what else could rival this 1970-banger:

I'd also consider either Dust's doomy http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Po4YPUYOXCQ" rel="nofollow - From a Dry Camel   (it picks up in speed) or maybe the more Danzig-like http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4nrtAxY32Y" rel="nofollow - Love Me Hard from their 1971-debut Hard Attack. Dust features Marc Bell aka Marky Ramone on drums btw. And he's really good.

-also Jerusalems self titled 1972 album - the whole thing really, but listen to http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QclSTWfJrk" rel="nofollow - Primitive Man I don't think you would have guessed early 1970's for this album, if you didn't know it*

(I've had my proto metal early heavy stuff-face attemnting to locate every overlooked gem on the planet - and could go on forever, but I'll stop here:)

*seems I'm not allowed to link to youtube but if you're curious, you got the bandnames and songtitles.

  

Well  you're theory is interesting. I'm sure there were some artists who were ignited by The Nice's energetic drive. Not sure it's provable but when any given artist provides a list of influences it's usually much larger and unexpected than many would guess. One thing IS for sure and that The Nice were very influential for prog.

^ Right