Keith Emerson's Gear being auctioned

[David Emm]

I want the ribbon controller he was playing in concert when the fireworks attachment blew off a thumbnail. I'll enshrine it in a tastefully-lit shadow box, in a place of honor. Yeah, its a bit ghoulish, but then, I need a modular Moog like I need a third ear on my forehead.

[Ensoniq]

Where can we view the results?? Thx.

 

Start here at lot 436

 

https://www.julienslive.com/m/lot-details/index/catalog/261/lot/102451?uact=2&aid=261&lid=102456&current_page=138

 

At the bottom of the page you can click the next 437, 438. There are around 12 lots final prices are listed

[TommyS]

Thank you.

[Ivan May]

I wonder who actually bought most of Keith Emerson's old synths, and how much they made off of it. Greg Lake's equipment, fur coat and flokati rug got auctioned off too around 2019-ish, and given how much of an influence Greg Lake had on progressive rock, it's very likely that that made some money too.

 

Maybe when I get older, I'll save up some money, repair an old Moog synth and teach myself to play Karn Evil 9 in its entirety.

[GRollins]

I gave semi-serious consideration to buying something...maybe stage monitors, I don't remember what. It would be fun to have something of Keith's, but in the end common sense prevailed when I realized that I could buy the same whatever-it-was used off of Reverb or eBay and save money; potentially a lot of money. It just wasn't worth the premium to own something of Keith's. Over time, as much as it pains me to admit it, Keith will slowly be forgotten. Prog, as a genre, is not as popular now as it was and his name is likely only of interest to people "of a certain age." As those people die off, the value of a piece that he owned will decline also, so it's not as though it will be a good investment. You'd be lucky to sell it to a memorabilia outfit and break even.

 

Grey

[JohnH]

I saw a Dead auction recently where some hollowed out speaker cabinet with nothing in it was going for $6,000 dollars and similar things a lot more. Couldn't believe it. It was insane.

[Tom Williams]

Unfortunately, I agree with Grey -- Prog is all but dead, unless it's rediscovered after the next apocalypse....

 

The one Emerson hardware that I woulda bid on (had I the resources) would have been to find out what the heck a "worfulator" was/is, as was once shown in a KB magazine diagram of his rig.  I suspect it was an outboard device that took a poly-synth input and phased it like a Leslie speaker, if that Leslie had been reverse-engineered by demons.  The effect to which I refer shows up in the intros to Pirates and The Score, and shows up towards the end of the jam on Fanfare for the Common Man.  Also shows up prominently in Mars. 

 

Previous inquiries on the subject have resulted in suggestions to use a heavy LFO on a PWM wave, but this effect strikes me as being external, just 'cuz it was used in such differing contexts.

[GRollins]

I have said elsewhere--and still believe--that prog will come back, very likely when the economy drops and people suddenly have more time on their hands. To appreciate prog, you have to actually sit and listen to it. It's not like simple thud-thud dance music, where a deeper listen does not yield more understanding of greater complexity because there is no complexity there to appreciate. For now, though, life is still too fast-paced and superficial, and people have not the patience for a layered musical experience.

 

Grey

[jerrythek]

The very cool place EMEAPP bought up a lot of Keith’s gear. 
 

Jerry

 

 

[Bosendorphen]

2 hours ago, Tom Williams said:

Unfortunately, I agree with Grey -- Prog is all but dead, unless it's rediscovered after the next apocalypse....

I would strongly disagree. Young people all over the internet are playing covers of prog classics. I can't tell you how many young people play the opening to Genesis' "Firth of Fifth" or all the homages to ELP and Keith's music. Prog is far from dead - it's metastasized throughout the world via YouTube and the like. And I for one am glad of it!

[Leroy C]

I've had a number of students over the years who were big fans of classic prog, despite having been born in the late 80s, 90s, or later.

[GRollins]

I'm not sure how to equate 'Young people all over the internet' with real world popularity expressed, say, as a percentage of total music listeners who listen to prog. Yes and ELP used to play to sell out crowds in arenas. Nowadays, a new prog band would be lucky to sell out a small bar, at least anywhere in this part of the world.

 

Someone playing in their bedroom can potentially reach anyone with a computer, all the way on the other side of the planet. If you take ten...or even fifty people and put them on the internet, it may seem like an army, but it's still only fifty people, even if each one has a channel with ten or twenty songs on it.

 

Trust me, no one wants prog music back more than I do, but when I saw Yes in 2017, they were playing for maybe three or...let's be generous...four thousand people...and that's one of the top prog groups, ever. (And most of the audience had gray hair...if they had any hair at all. Very few young people, and I was looking for them.) Carl Palmer was reduced to being an opener for Yes instead of filling a decent-sized venue in his own right. Worse yet, a lot of people were there to see Todd Rundgren, who was also on the bill. I don't know about you, but I don't think of Rundgren as prog.

 

If the combination of Yes and (one-third of) ELP can't even fill an 8k seat venue, prog ain't a major force at this time.

 

Grey

[Tusker]

9 hours ago, Bosendorphen said:

I would strongly disagree. Young people all over the internet are playing covers of prog classics. I can't tell you how many young people play the opening to Genesis' "Firth of Fifth" or all the homages to ELP and Keith's music. Prog is far from dead - it's metastasized throughout the world via YouTube and the like.

+1 Sometimes the spirit of a thing takes a different shape while retaining an essence.
 

Quite directly we can see bands like Dirty Loops and Snarky Puppy channeling aspects of prog. More indirectly we can see the spirit of prog in movies. Dozens of Hans Zimmer’s Remote Control Productions composers are orchestrating prog’s neo-classical idioms into blockbuster action flicks. Classical and rock sensibilities are electronically fused by composers of the likes of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross and Max Richter and Lorne Balfe to name four.

 

You’ll have to listen for the spirit of it. It's there. It’s just wearing a different shape, (or cape?) that’s all.

[Al Coda]

1 hour ago, Tusker said:

+1 Sometimes the spirit of a thing takes a different shape while retaining an essence.
 

Quite directly we can see bands like Dirty Loops and Snarky Puppy channeling aspects of prog. More indirectly we can see the spirit of prog in movies. Dozens of Hans Zimmer’s Remote Control Productions composers are orchestrating prog’s neo-classical idioms into blockbuster action flicks. Classical and rock sensibilities are electronically fused by composers of the likes of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross and Max Richter and Lorne Balfe to name four.

 

You’ll have to listen for the spirit of it. It's there. It’s just wearing a different shape, (or cape?) that’s all.

 

 

True this !

 

 

A.C.

[GRollins]

This may or may not be heresy, but when I listen to Snarky Puppy, I hear more Spyro Gyra than prog. It doesn't sound like prog to me at all--just a sort of pop/jazz fusion.

 

Yeah...I'll probably get banned from the site for saying that.

 

Part of the problem is that there's no accepted definition for prog. I don't hear Jethro Tull as prog--just an eclectic medieval rock band that happens to have a flute lead. So they did two long albums...big deal. If length is the criterion, In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida was roughly the same length as Close To The Edge, but it's called psychedelic rather than prog. To me, Santana has done some things that are prog-ish, but I'm probably the only person on the planet who thinks Europa leans that way. Led Zeppelin's Kashmir is obviously prog...to me. Others look at me oddly when I say that.

 

So...give me a widely accepted definition of prog and perhaps we can have a fruitful discussion. As far as I can tell, prog is in the ear of the beholder. I think most people would give Yes and ELP as examples of prog, then, say, Genesis, and then...what? Tull? Uh, I don't really buy that. Kansas? Focus? Uriah Heep? We're getting far afield. The thing people have trouble with is that giving examples is not the same thing as a definition. This gets close to a problem that I've been noticing over the last few years, in that people don't answer the questions that I ask.

 

Put on your thinking cap. There are six fundamental questions: Who, what, where, when, how, and why. I've noticed a strong tendency for people to 'answer' a what question with when, or answer why with what. Then, when you point out that they haven't really answered the question, they get mad and insist that they have.

 

The question of "what" prog is tends to elicit a lot of words, but I never really get an answer. Lacking a definition, we'll have a hard time coming to a consensus as to whether something new is or is not prog. Incidentally, I don't consider covers of old prog evidence of strength in the genre. Show me something new. Something you've written that's clearly prog. Something fresh and exciting. Impress me.

 

Grey

[StickMan393]

17 hours ago, Tom Williams said:

The effect to which I refer shows up in the intros to Pirates and The Score

It's good that you saved your money, because I think what you describe is modulation standard on the Yamaha GX-1, not the mysterious "worfulator".

[Tusker]

12 hours ago, GRollins said:

This may or may not be heresy, but when I listen to Snarky Puppy, I hear more Spyro Gyra than prog. It doesn't sound like prog to me at all--just a sort of pop/jazz fusion.

 

Yeah...I'll probably get banned from the site for saying that.

 

Part of the problem is that there's no accepted definition for prog. I don't hear Jethro Tull as prog--just an eclectic medieval rock band that happens to have a flute lead. So they did two long albums...big deal. If length is the criterion, In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida was roughly the same length as Close To The Edge, but it's called psychedelic rather than prog. To me, Santana has done some things that are prog-ish, but I'm probably the only person on the planet who thinks Europa leans that way. Led Zeppelin's Kashmir is obviously prog...to me. Others look at me oddly when I say that.

 

So...give me a widely accepted definition of prog and perhaps we can have a fruitful discussion. As far as I can tell, prog is in the ear of the beholder. I think most people would give Yes and ELP as examples of prog, then, say, Genesis, and then...what? Tull? Uh, I don't really buy that. Kansas? Focus? Uriah Heep? We're getting far afield. The thing people have trouble with is that giving examples is not the same thing as a definition. This gets close to a problem that I've been noticing over the last few years, in that people don't answer the questions that I ask.

 

Put on your thinking cap. There are six fundamental questions: Who, what, where, when, how, and why. I've noticed a strong tendency for people to 'answer' a what question with when, or answer why with what. Then, when you point out that they haven't really answered the question, they get mad and insist that they have.

 

The question of "what" prog is tends to elicit a lot of words, but I never really get an answer. Lacking a definition, we'll have a hard time coming to a consensus as to whether something new is or is not prog. Incidentally, I don't consider covers of old prog evidence of strength in the genre. Show me something new. Something you've written that's clearly prog. Something fresh and exciting. Impress me.

 

Grey

 

 

Dear Grey,

 

You have some excellent ideas here. As you point out we probably won't have a definition of prog we can agree on. Verbal definitions are often insufficient when dealing with a creative musical idiom where one of the goals is to stretch boundaries and so re-define them. We could discuss boundary examples to help flesh out the definition I suppose. Is the Nighthawks Soundtrack prog? Is the Romantic Warrior Album prog? What about the Abbey Road album? Each of these questions could be a long and fun discussion for us. I would enjoy that. But I don't think any of that is germane to what I wished to express.

 

What I meant to I say is that the spirit of prog is alive and well. I hear this influence in the examples I mentioned and I love hearing it. It's a wistful feeling similar to the sentiment Michael Rutherford expressed when talking about his dead father in the song "Living Years."

 

"I think I caught his spirit
Later that same year
I'm sure I heard his echo
In my baby's new born tears"

 

It's great to know that so many are being influenced by the music legacy of people like Keith Emerson.

 

So, what's your poison? Beer? 🍻 Caffeine? ☕ Let's chat about this in person sometime and kick some ideas around. 👍

[bill5]

On 11/7/2022 at 1:26 PM, JohnH said:

I saw a Dead auction recently where some hollowed out speaker cabinet with nothing in it was going for $6,000 dollars and similar things a lot more. Couldn't believe it. It was insane.

You're not surprised, are you?

 

What cracks me up is wondering how much of this stuff is even legit (and even if it was, like you said, madness). Reminds me of that signed football scam from years back where guys made a ton hocking allegedly signed footballs from guys like Marino etc.

[jazzpiano88]

On 11/7/2022 at 4:53 PM, Tom Williams said:

Unfortunately, I agree with Grey -- Prog is all but dead, unless it's rediscovered after the next apocalypse....

 

The one Emerson hardware that I woulda bid on (had I the resources) would have been to find out what the heck a "worfulator" was/is, as was once shown in a KB magazine diagram of his rig.  I suspect it was an outboard device that took a poly-synth input and phased it like a Leslie speaker, if that Leslie had been reverse-engineered by demons.  The effect to which I refer shows up in the intros to Pirates and The Score, and shows up towards the end of the jam on Fanfare for the Common Man.  Also shows up prominently in Mars. 

 

Previous inquiries on the subject have resulted in suggestions to use a heavy LFO on a PWM wave, but this effect strikes me as being external, just 'cuz it was used in such differing contexts.

 

I'm happy to live with his recordings as they speak for themselves.   There wont be another Keith, just as there is no one on the horizon that will do anything comparable in Jazz to Chick, Keith J, Herbie, etc.   People like SP,  JC, the retired organ player, and the like truly are mouse noodlers in comparison (thanks to Theo for the apt term).   

 

 

(Note:  this is the only known video of a stringed instrument player (Will Lee) jumping to emphasize the beat on his apex, rather than his landing)

[Leroy C]

JP88, thanks for that video.  I remember watching it as it aired way back then, what a treat.

[GRollins]

7 hours ago, Tusker said:

 

 

Dear Grey,

 

You have some excellent ideas here. As you point out we probably won't have a definition of prog we can agree on. Verbal definitions are often insufficient when dealing with a creative musical idiom where one of the goals is to stretch boundaries and so re-define them. We could discuss boundary examples to help flesh out the definition I suppose. Is the Nighthawks Soundtrack prog? Is the Romantic Warrior Album prog? What about the Abbey Road album? Each of these questions could be a long and fun discussion for us. I would enjoy that. But I don't think any of that is germane to what I wished to express.

 

What I meant to I say is that the spirit of prog is alive and well. I hear this influence in the examples I mentioned and I love hearing it. It's a wistful feeling similar to the sentiment Michael Rutherford expressed when talking about his dead father in the song "Living Years."

 

"I think I caught his spirit
Later that same year
I'm sure I heard his echo
In my baby's new born tears"

 

It's great to know that so many are being influenced by the music legacy of people like Keith Emerson.

 

So, what's your poison? Beer? 🍻 Caffeine? ☕ Let's chat about this in person sometime and kick some ideas around. 👍

 

The point I was striving for is that if you're saying that the spirit of prog lives on in music by X and I don't hear that same spirit, then...er...we're not going to get anywhere. We need objective criteria.

 

I've said elsewhere and will say again here that I think prog, as a genre, is the bin critics throw music in when they can't decide what it is. It makes it easier to hate.

 

I've heard some stuff that people claim is prog where the label appears to be based on fast playing. Only on fast playing. This, to me, is problematic. Yes and ELP featured some fantastic musicians who frequently played fast, but Jethro Tull, for example, didn't really do a lot of that. If playing fast is a (the?) criterion, then Romantic Warrior gets through the gate, easy-peasy, as does a lot of Al DiMeola's solo stuff. But then we should consider Joe Satriani, who can tear off some blindingly fast riffs, and Eddie Van Halen...whoa, wait a minute...I don't think anybody's going to buy the notion of Van Halen as a prog band. So, to me, fast playing doesn't cut it as a defining element, at least on its own. Yet there are people who think "shred" is the veritable essence of prog. I think they kinda missed the point of what Yes and ELP were doing.

 

Lest anyone get the wrong idea, I am very much for fast playing--if you have anything musically valid to say! A bunch of fast scales do not impress me in the least. Show me a damned melody, not just an Em scale at light speed. A lot of musicians deemed promising by others don't even get off the ground with me because they took lessons wherein they learned a bunch of scales, but there's nothing in their hearts. Go home, kid. You're disqualified. Come back when you can do something like Carlos Santana does with Europa. Or, for that matter, a tenth of what Joe Satriani can do...god, that guy can play fast, but there are melodies there worth listening to.

 

Whatever prog is, I'm dying to find people who want to play it (I could really use a keyboard player), because I strongly suspect that a hypothetical critic would toss my music into the prog bin without a second glance.

 

I like Belgian triples, British barley wines, cabernet sauvignon or other big body reds, single malt Scotch, and rum...which is still relatively affordable, not having gotten as popular as Scotch. Or tea.

 

Grey

[analogika]

22 hours ago, GRollins said:

Show me something new. Something you've written that's clearly prog. Something fresh and exciting. Impress me.

I didn’t write it (just played Hohner Electra on a few tracks), and I have no idea if it fits your personal criteria for „prog“, but check out a band called „Wired Ways“. 
 

They‘re usually billed as „Prog Rock“ and made their live debut at a festival opening for Colosseum this summer. 
 

The album is great, in any case. 

[Tusker]

Grey, this will be my last post in this thread, out of respect for Keith Emerson, whose contribution will always remain unmatched. 

 

I'd be happy to discuss what prog is and whether it exists today in a separate thread that doesn't tread on Keith's memory. Thanks. I'll join you on the Cabernet. 😊 🍷

[Leroy C]

As a random anecdote, a student came to office hours today wearing a Led Zepplin t-shirt.  She's a huge fan, also loves PInk Floyd, the Beatles, and a lot of other 60s and 70s music. 

[KuruPrionz]

Now I'm wondering how various people define "prog"? Below are a few bands that I would consider to be in the genre.

The Dregs (including the Dixie Dregs). I saw both bands, I forget the name of the violinist who sat in with the Dregs.

UK - the lineup I saw was Eddie Jobson on keys and violin, John Wetton on Bass, Terry Bozio on drums.

Frank Zappa - some of his work but not all of it.

Kittyhawk - I saw them but it isn't clear in my mind anymore. I think they opened for the Dixie Dregs.

King Crimson - some of it but not all of it.

 

I'm not wondering about Yes or ELP, I saw both of them twice. Keith Emerson was an amazing artist, add in Greg Lake and Carl Palmer and fantastic stuff. 

The Brain Salad Surgery tour was one of the best shows I've seen ever. 

[Mr -G-]

Triumvirat!!

[jerrythek]

There's no doubt that prog has receded into a small, specialty area that is dominated by the older music of its heyday. But there are certainly newer bands, many of them Scandinavian that continue to create new music in the genre. Wouldn't you all say that Steve Wilson has more than a toe in that area? Dave Kerzner? What about the popularity to the core fans of ProgStock, and Cruise To The Edge? Sure, it's a small niche area, but it's far from over.

 

Jerry

 

 

 

[Leroy C]

I just remembered this gem from the 80s.  The video is so wonderfully terrible!    Keith's having a good time, though, which is nice to see.

 

 

 

[Ivan May]

[Leroy C]

More 80s Keith -- now with walls o' keyboards!!