A team for Proto Prog is impossible?
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Topic: A team for Proto Prog is impossible?
Posted By: Mandrakeroot
Subject: A team for Proto Prog is impossible?
Date Posted: August 04 2007 at 11:22
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I am secure of what I say(!!!), for the Proto Prog has been correctly to
create a team because is an autonomous and real sub genre. Clear this
team should create a genre bio. Who is your opinion? ------------- 
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Replies:
Posted By: Easy Livin
Date Posted: August 04 2007 at 11:41
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Proto-prog is not a sub-genre of prog for two reasons.
1. By definition, proto prog comes before the advent of prog.
2. It is a grouping of bands and artists who influenced the prog bands who followed.
This second reason is important, as it means that there may well be no musical link between the bands who are classified as proto-prog. Bands assigned to a prog sub-genre will of course always be linked musically in some way.
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Posted By: Mandrakeroot
Date Posted: August 04 2007 at 12:01
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Ok... but also Art Rock isn't a true sub genre. I think that only a specific team and a specific (but clear) new definition of Proto Prog we can avoid unpleasant quarreled how are it happened in past (I think, for example to Hendrix). -------------
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Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: August 04 2007 at 12:04
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(I started posting this in "the other" thread before seeing Bob's comment there - my comments were written against what Mandy wrote there, but I *think* the question is the same)
Proto Prog is not a defined Genre but a selection of unrelated bands and therefore a genre Bio would be near impossible to write.
Progressive music grew from a wide variety of disparate sources, drawing its influences from anywhere and everywhere (across the Universe) and pushing the boundaries of what was acceptable in the standard Pop song. The Proto Prog bands started this trend, while never truely becoming (what is described as) Progressive themselves.
Admittedly many of the bands currently in PP ventured into Psychadelic Pop, even that was not a defined genre in its own right, but a trippy variant on what those bands were doing before. A lot of the artist who produced Psychadelic Pop songs only did so to "jump on the bandwagon" of the latest fad.
From a distance, Proto-prog may look more coherrant than the miasma of Prog-Related but there is little or no similarity in the bands listed other than they probably all started as white R&B bands (Rhythm and Blues, not Rum and Blackcurrent).
From what I have seen, bands are selected for inclusion into PP (and PR) on their own individual merit and achievment, not because the "belong" to a genre. A Genre Bio would open the "If X then Y" debate wider. ------------- What? |
Posted By: Ivan_Melgar_M
Date Posted: August 04 2007 at 12:11
I'm not sure about this Bob, I always seen that the Proto Prog term is to widely used here as everything that comes before Prog, what is linguistically correct but I believe too wide, specially because we have a limit called PSYCHEDELIA.
For me proto Prog is the natural linlk between Psychedelia and Progressive Rock, has elements of both but is one step more advanced than Psyche but sttill not 100% Prog, so it should be limited to the period between late Psyce and early Prog.
Arthur Brown is a perfect example, more advanced than normal Psyche bands but still not 100% Prog, another one is Laghonía because they cover all the period between Psyche and Prog.
But when we admit that anything before Prog is Proto Prog, well we could go up to Bach and loose the identity of this sub-genre, not categoryu as Art Rock and Prog Related.
Iván
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Easy Livin wrote:Posted By: Sean Trane
Date Posted: August 04 2007 at 12:34
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In either case, I think the gestion of proto-prog and prog related should not be handled by a special tam, but by the collectivity and a veto by the admins and mailto:M@X - M@X
Just the way it is now! not saying this is perfect, but these two categories are too ensitive to have them abandoned to one tream, no matter how trustworthy they are! ------------- let's just stay above the moral melee prefer the sink to the gutter keep our sand-castle virtues content to be a doer as well as a thinker, prefer lifting our pen rather than un-sheath our sword |
Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Date Posted: August 04 2007 at 15:03
"Proto" does not just mean "what came before" ... it rather means "what came before and would eventually become". 
------------- https://awesomeprog.com/release-polls/pa" rel="nofollow - Release Polls Listened to: 
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Posted By: Raff
Date Posted: August 04 2007 at 15:13
Well said, Mike!  As I pointed out in another thread a few days ago, if we wish to refer to what came before prog, we should use the term 'pre-prog', or even 'ante-prog' (as in 'antebellum'). 'Proto-prog' refers rather to something that, in some way or the other, WAS already prog before the latter came into existence. |
Posted By: Ivan_Melgar_M
Date Posted: August 04 2007 at 15:20
Exactly
 Proto Prog has already elements of Prog, maybe didn't turned into 100% Prog, but the esense is there.
Iván -------------
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Posted By: Easy Livin
Date Posted: August 04 2007 at 15:37
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Out of interest, I had a look at the bands defined here as Proto Prog. I don' t think they all lend themselves to the Psychedelia description by any means. Prog took it's influences from many different sources Psychedelic being just one of them. Perhaps psychedelic was more obviously close to prog than others, and some psych bands such as Pink Floyd became prog bands, but I think the notion that prog developed only from psychedelia is misleading.
Jazz for example is a completely separate genre from psych, yet its influence can be seen clearly in much of prog. Perhaps this indicates that there is an absence of other influences from the PP category which needs to be addressed.
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Posted By: Logan
Date Posted: August 04 2007 at 15:52
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ProtoProg could be taken to mean original or primitive Prog. Just because I've seen this said before: To say it, and Prog-Related for that matter, is non-Prog presents some problems. For me, I think ProtoProg should be seen to be a sort of prototypical Prog (providing the original model/template on which the more refined later Prog would develop and refine). If it didn't have elements of Prog, then it wouldn't be proto. Tangentially, I see Prog Related as a sort of quasi Prog, it has elements of Prog and some bands in the category are considered Prog by some, and have Prog compositions. So-called Prog bands released non-Prog music for that matter. Ideally, if one is to keep the name, ProtoProg should be subcategorised to show better where the bands had influence (Proto Prog Folk, Proto Symph, Proto Psych, throw Genesis in Proto Neo-Prog  ).I agree with Mandrake's comparison to the Art Rock category -- really used as a substitute for eclectic prog (though prog bands tend to be eclectic -- fuse genres -- anyway). Art Rock is a category, not a true subgenre as it's used (too diverse). A special team might be warranted, but, on the other hand, it's better for the "experts" of various sub-genre teams to judge the influence on their respective subgenres (e.g. This band was important to the development of progressive folk because...). Sorry, just thinking aloud and adding to others thoughts. ------------- "Questions are a burden to others; answers a prison for oneself" (The Prisoner, 1967). |
Posted By: Hirgwath
Date Posted: August 04 2007 at 16:34
| The reason I would be against having a proto-prog team (not to the point of zealotry, mind you) is that the genre (as defined as mid/late 60s, relatively experimental rock music) is so wide-ranging and universal that really any prog fan should be able to point out to you something that is proto-prog. It doesn't take an expert or a specialist to see that the Beatles were making music before 1970, had some avant-garde elements, and yet were a rock group. Pretty much any prog-head should know that and acknowledge their influence. |
Posted By: Ivan_Melgar_M
Date Posted: August 04 2007 at 16:54
Bob, my interest in Proto Prog is not from today I checked each and every band in our Proto Prog lñist, and EACH AND EVERY ONE HAS A PSYCHEDELIC COMPONENT, YOU CAN DO IT, THERE ARE VERY FEW.
But don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying all Prog comes from Psychedelia, of course there are other roots as Jazz and Blues, but the Proto prog scenario is essentially coetaneous to Psyche, only that this bands were opne tep ahead than the San Francisco and Carnaby Street Psyche.
Even The Beatles, if they are here is not for Love Me Do or Please Please Me, they are here for their more explorative albums which are precisely close or part of the Psyche movement.
The reference I make to Psychedelia is just as a frame of time, because there are older forms of Prog, Canterbury started much before but it's a genre of their own.
Fusion bands start directly from Jazz but they never completely split from their mother genre, any Prog Fusion band can be found in a Jazz database.
What we now as Proto Prog is mainly Psyche or post Psyche.
Please, take a bit of time, check each and every band in proto Prog, maybe except Pan & Relgaliz (Despite they are very trippy) and The Who (Who IMHO are closer to prog Related than to Proto Prog), you will find that the only constant is PSYCHE.
Cheers
Iván -------------
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Posted By: Atkingani
Date Posted: August 04 2007 at 17:09
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Maybe the list is incomplete... we still miss proto- or pre- bands/artists connected with the folk, experimental, etc, genres and also from other countries.
At least, in Brazil, around 1966-1967, many artists were doing works that could fit in the proto- or pre-prog definition: Hermeto Pascoal, Theo de Barros, Geraldo Vandré, Eumir Deodato, Arismar, Edu Lobo, Sivuca, Egberto Gismonti, Ronnie Von, Leno, and only the 2 latter had some psychedelics in their work, the others were basically fusion, folk or experimental.
I'm quite sure we had similar scenarios in Italy, Germany, France, Argentina, etc. ------------- Guigo ~~~~~~ |
Posted By: Easy Livin
Date Posted: August 04 2007 at 17:11
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Well, I suppose we could debate the individual bands and how psych they were but perhaps we'll agree that there is certainly a predominance of psych bands in the PP category at the moment. That was one of the points I was making, perhaps we need to look for bands and artists who laid the foundations for prog in other ways, and encompass them within the proto prog category.
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Posted By: micky
Date Posted: August 04 2007 at 17:15
I couldn't agree more... but since Psychedelic rock ruled... in order to go past that, to jazz influences... you might have to consider ... in fact should consider an artist I proposed over a year ago...but got little to no attention. Again, I didn't push it. The Dave Brubeck Quartet.... whether I like it or not, and I don't hahhaha. Most people think metric complexity is a large part of what prog is.... and Brubeck pretty much pioneered that in popular music. Nothing like hearing a hits like Blue Rondo in 9/8 or Take Five in 5/4 to break people out of standard 4/4 hahhah. The downside obviously is there will those who will call for classical artists... but is that a downside though???? ------------- The Pedro and Micky Experience - When one no longer requires psychotropics to trip |
Posted By: Ivan_Melgar_M
Date Posted: August 04 2007 at 17:24
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Atkingani wrote:
Of course there are bands missing, Guigo, but if you search all this bands, you will find:
It's a Beautiful Day, who created a fusion between Folk and Rock, but they have the experimental tripy clearly Psyche background
Deep purple: Yes, they are mainly a Blues Hard Rock band, but listen The Book of Talyesin, which is clearly influenced by Psyche as every band in 1968.
We can add Folksy or whatever bands but in this period the influence of Psyche is undeniable, because is precisely this movement the one that started to be really explorative and interested in folk music of different cultures and blend it with Rock.
Easy Livin wrote:
Not a predominance, the component is present in all the bands listed here or in any other Prog site as proto prog.
Of course it's not an appendix of Psyche, but the relation is undeniable, it's mostly the link between the two genres.
And i go further, I believe Proto Prog is a sub-genre of Prog, not like in the case of Prog Related or Art Rock.
Iván -------------
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Posted By: micky
Date Posted: August 04 2007 at 18:13
hmmmm.... you are in the minority on PP...and there's nothing wrong with that... If it is prog.. it should be classified as prog.. in it's proper sub-genre here, even if it before 1969.. which silly me...would be an arbitrary date if there was indeed prog.. worthy of being a sub-genre of prog.. before 1969. and AR not a prog sub-genre here... was that a mistype Ivan. thanks for showing again what the AR team has to face and why we must have that broken up and defined better. I'm just used to that from kids that read about Art Rock being a parallel to progressive rock.. and wonder why King Crimson is in a non-prog category. It gets tiring after awhile  ------------- The Pedro and Micky Experience - When one no longer requires psychotropics to trip |
Posted By: Ivan_Melgar_M
Date Posted: August 04 2007 at 22:24
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Posted By: Sean Trane
Date Posted: August 05 2007 at 05:19
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OK, the proto-prog name was proposed by me at the time and it didn't turn out as I expected it be. Right now, we are misusing the term; the way it is generally understood is not what we do with it
I imagine a change of name is in order and I can agree with pre-prog.
Should we do this:
We can eventually take as a starting point 60's psychedelia (which would include The Beatles and eventually Incredible String Band) in there and have as a flagship Vanilla Fudge, but to have artistes whose career comes after the 60's in there looks too awkward. Looking at the list Bob posted:
1- Deep Purple can go in prog-related (I'd see Uriah Heep following them in there). DP's ffirst four albums are an excellent reason why they would be prog-related!
2- BTW, now that The Nice has been taken out of PP, Procol Harum looks ridiculous in there>> I can think of fewer bands that could fit better Art Rock than them..
3- Another thing is having The Who in there seems preposterous, since their whole "prog" era is 70's, outside a small mini-opera.
4- Arthur Brown as well, since only his first album is pre-70's. ------------- let's just stay above the moral melee prefer the sink to the gutter keep our sand-castle virtues content to be a doer as well as a thinker, prefer lifting our pen rather than un-sheath our sword |
Posted By: Ivan_Melgar_M
Date Posted: August 05 2007 at 12:42
We took The Nice being that their similarities with ELP are so obvious and their sound was so Symphonic that it was incredible to keep them as it was ridiculous to keep Refugee (The nice with Moraz instead of Emerson) or Hayward & Lodge in Proto Prog, because they were The Moody Blues for all facts.
Now Procol Harum has a clear Proto Prog nature and Arthur Brown also because if we are honest, the only album that really had an impact on Prog was The Crazy World of Arthur Brown.
There I agree with you, Tommy except for Overture, Underture and Amazing Journey (Which have SOME relation)is only Rock and Pop, great Rock ad Pop, even outstanding, but not Prog.
Even Pete Townshend in "The Kids are Alright" says clearly somethjing like "When Pimball Wizard was recorded I was sure it was less a Rock than a Pop Opera".
On the other hand Quadrophenia is related to Prog, that's for sure, maybe not enough for an addition, but now they are here, and having a long career in the 60's and 70's tgheir place is Prog Related not Proto Prog, but that's not our call.
The problem is that we are giving priority to 3 or maybe 4 songs than to a full serious album like Quadrophenia because we want to see influence where there's a great iconic Rock band that received influence from the early 70's Prog, in other words more a Prog influenced than a directly Prog influential band.
My two cents.
Iván -------------
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Posted By: ClemofNazareth
Date Posted: August 05 2007 at 15:05
Just for fun Bob! 
 ------------- "Peace is the only battle worth waging." Albert Camus |
Posted By: Easy Livin
Date Posted: August 05 2007 at 15:30
Brilliant!
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Posted By: ClemofNazareth
Date Posted: August 05 2007 at 22:23
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I suspect Pan & Regaliz and Maquina are related somehow, probably through Maquina's bass player. He also played with Chick Corea and I think Al Di Meola, so those two bands should have some circutuous route to the rest of proto-prog, probably through someone like Steve Howe or maybe Tony Levin. Nirvana (UK) connects somewhere but I got tired of looking. Sweet**ter is pretty self-contained but their drummer got around a little. I can't find any other bands he was officially in though. I have no clue about Salamander.
------------- "Peace is the only battle worth waging." Albert Camus |
Posted By: Ivan_Melgar_M
Date Posted: August 05 2007 at 23:03
Sweetwater was pretty self contained because their career was stopped when after ipening Woodstock (They were the first band, there was a soloist before, I believe it was Rabi Shankar) their vocalist Nansi Nevins had a car accident and the emergency dopctor performed a tracheotomy that destroyed her vocal chords, so the band went down without her.
Some of them died, others returned to classical music (August Burns went to Germany to study Orchestra Conducting and also died in an elevator accident) and only Harvey gert (Guitar and Backing vovcals) has a previous histiory as songwritter for The Byrds.
The drummer Alan Malarowitz as you mention was starting a promissing career but he died very young in a car accident.
Very unlucky band.
Iván -------------
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Posted By: Sean Trane
Date Posted: August 06 2007 at 04:28
Both these Spanish (actually Catalan) groups are post 70 releases but in terms of Spanish prog history, I thought it would be better to have them in proto-prog, because their sound is very much 60's. P&R sounds between Tull's Time Was and Stand Up ans Maquina! is hard psych, but wouldn't fit well in psych/space! ------------- let's just stay above the moral melee prefer the sink to the gutter keep our sand-castle virtues content to be a doer as well as a thinker, prefer lifting our pen rather than un-sheath our sword |
Posted By: Tetragon
Date Posted: August 09 2007 at 06:41
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All this babbling for nothing.If you cast your body back to when prog first surfaced you will know it was caled the Progressive movement, nothing more nothing less, there was no proto,No Symphonic, Art rock etc word used it's just something listerners & press alike have created to try catergorize certain bands.They may have found this entertaining but it's near on impossible to correctly catergorize.
If you must just think of Proto as Proto(type) progressive.& forget about the Rock bit cos it was'nt.
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Posted By: Tony R
Date Posted: August 09 2007 at 06:54
So we avoid categories/genres etc and just call it Progressive music, do we? So if one is looking for bands similar to Yes, what might one do? Why not just call it all music and file from A to Z. Should make things easier shouldnt it? Wonder why libraries bother having sections like "biography", "crime", "thrillers", "history" etc? Why not just shelve them A To Z by author? It's wrong to over-analyse the genres but they have some use as a general reference aid. |
Posted By: Tetragon
Date Posted: August 09 2007 at 07:19
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You got an issue of Pink Floyd 'UMMAGUMMA' on vinyl? Look on the back where the catalogue number is! It says filed under popular music.Seemed irellavent in those days...Prog did'nt last too long so why bother spliting the different so called styles up?
But that's another argument for another time...
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Posted By: Ivan_Melgar_M
Date Posted: August 09 2007 at 11:22
You call it babbling, we call it DISCUSSING a theme that is a passion for most of yusand....this is a DISCUSSION FORUM.
No, Tetragon it was not called Progressive Movement, it was called, ASrt Roc, Symphonic Rock, Progressive Music and later Progressive Rock.
But you can't compare the reality of the early 80's with the actual reality, Prog has grown and became diverse, in the first years lets say 90% of Prog was sym´phonic or had a Symphonic element,. there were a couple of Folk bamds with Tull at tyhe headwho was not purely Folk but a blend opf Symphonic and Folk or reneissance, and some Space bands, ecven Fusion was seen as an appendix of the genre.
Now the reality is different, since the late 70's when Neo Prog appeared as a different approach, things changed radically, Prog is vast todaym, there's no relation between lets say Henry Cow, Pink Floyd, Los Jaivas, Jethro Tull, Marillion and Queen, so sub-genres are required.
And sub-genres are not our invention,. theyu are used in each and every site, written text and film material, so learn to live with them , they are here to stay and there's nothing you can do.
No, we talk about PROTO as in the real definition:
The first form of music that conmtained the essential elements of what would later be known as Progressive Rock.
A Prototype is merely an experiment to see if a product can be merchandized, that may or may never see the market if it's not profitable.
Proto Prog was a defined genre with it's own characteristics and all the potential to become Prog, a recently born genre that could not be sto´ppede, no matter what the musical indyustry or anybody would want to do..
But that's another argument for another time...
[QUOTE]Well, under popular music we can group Michhael Jackson, Madonna, MC Hammer,. Eminem, Pink Floyd etc.....Don't you beliieve it's a little bit empty to call Art Zoyd Popular music and even contradictory with reality?
Now Prog didn't lasted so long???
Hey pal Anglagard, Par Lindh, Magenta, Dream Theater, Glass Hammer, Magrathea, Steve Hackett, The Mars Volta, etc etc all exist and all are from the 80's, 90's or 2000's, so Prog is not dead, as a fact today is healthier than ever.
Every day we receive mails froim hundreeds if not thousands of new bands asking for their inclusion, bands about who obviously you don't have the slightest idea if you say Prog is dead.
Please...STOP BABBLING.
Iván -------------
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Posted By: thellama73
Date Posted: August 09 2007 at 17:34
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He may be in Peru, but his English is still better than yours. ^
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Posted By: Ivan_Melgar_M
Date Posted: August 09 2007 at 18:09
Tetragon wrote:
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Posted By: Tony R
Date Posted: August 09 2007 at 19:00
| I think we'll take a time out. |
Posted By: Tony R
Date Posted: August 09 2007 at 19:20
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Ok, Tetra-gone... welcome back my friends to the show that never ends.... |
Posted By: micky
Date Posted: August 09 2007 at 20:57
we're so glad you could attend.. step inside..step inside ------------- The Pedro and Micky Experience - When one no longer requires psychotropics to trip |