Your introduction to Prog Rock ...

[Daniel Heslop]

I switched from guitar to keyboards as my primary instrument as a teenager, and subscribed to "Contemporary Keyboard". I was a massive Beatles fan along with their solo work...especially McCartney at that time though not I"m more into George Harrison...but I digress.

I was quite into Deep Purple, Machine Head, and Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon. I kept seeing the names Emerson and Wakeman and Banks in "CK" (as the cool kids called it) so for my 16th birthday I asked for a record by either Yes Genesis or ELP.

I got Tales from Topographic Oceans by Yes and Second's out by Gensis.

I was more interested in Yes, so I intended to put on side one, but accidentally put on side three...arguably the weirdest thing Yes ever recorded. I was amused. I phoned the bass player ans drummer in my band and told them of this wierd band with a singer who sounded like Mickey mouse. I suggested they come over with whatever herbal things they might have and we give it a listen for a laugh.

They did and this time I actually put on side one. We were all memorized. My musical life was changed forever and Yes became as big as the Beatles for me.

[Piktor]

My "cool" grade nine drama teacher played Tarkus for us while the class worked on a project. Soon after I bought the album for myself and became an instant ELP fan. Funny that Marino's experience with Pictures at an Exhibition was almost exactly the same as mine.

[Paul Harrison]

As a young teenager at high school in 1971, another music student played me the first ELP album, and I was hooked. I soon had all the early albums by all the big names, my favourites being ELP, Yes, Pink Floyd, Focus, and PFM, but the work that stood out for me (and still does) was Tarkus.

[Doc Tonewheel]

My brother brought home the ELP "Welcome Back my Friends" album. That started it for me.

[Tom Williams]

For me it was initially Yes (Roundabout) and Tull (Thick as a Brick). Then Kansas (Leftoverature).

 

I had heard, but not appreciated, ELP's Brain Salad Surgery, mainly because I had assumed that it was a mass of overdubs -- one keyboardist couldn't possibly do all that. It wasn't until ELPowell that I began to go back and appreciate the genius of ELP.

 

Another thing that stunted my prog rock growth was that I grew up in a region that was more into Allman Brothers and Skynyrd. So that was what we played.

[harmonizer]

My sister is 3 years older than me, and she brought The Yes Album and Fragile into our house. Yes is one of many bands that she introduced me to while I was between 10-15 years old.

[cphollis]

And after being into prog rock in high school, I became a full-on Deadhead during my college years. Maybe it was the fact I went to school in Santa Cruz, CA. I dunno.

 

Evolution, or devolution?

[Al Quinn]

For me it started when a friend played the new album by Yes called Fragile. I was in 7th grade. The music really grabbed me. Shortly after I discovered ELP and then Genesis. In retrospect Keith Emerson introduced me to jazz and classical. Other favorites during my teenage years were Pink Floyd, Kansas, and Jethro Tull. I also listened to Styx, Gentle Giant, Starcastle, Triumverate, PFM, and Focus.

 

In '75 I saw Return to Forever (Corea, Clarke, Dimeola, White) and was floored: they defied my understanding of what was possible. That concert was the beginning of my shift from prog rock toward fusion and jazz. While listening to this artsy music I also listened to roughly the same amount of more earthy stuff like the Allman Brothers, Traffic, Santana, Little Feat, Marshall Tucker, Grateful Dead, etc.

[HammondDave]

In this order...

 

13 years old and picking up Pink Floyd's "Ummagumma" at the local KMart because the cover looked cool. Went home, smoked a joint, put on the headphones, and listened to Astronomy Domine...

 

Then going to the West Palm Beach Pop Festival and being blown away by two shows of King Crimson Mark I... heard my first live Mellotron there... thought I was hallucinating an orchestra on stage,

 

Then hearing Roundabout on the radio and being blown away by Bruford's snare sound.

 

Then picking up Quatermass at the KMart because it also had a cool cover (Hypnosis, of course),and hearing Pete Robinson's great Hammond playing...

 

And then the coup de gras... Van Der Graff Generator's "H to HE"... prog rocker for life after that!

[Markay]

I seem to have started out in a genre free zone and never caught up. Music was either mainstream charting or not.

 

My first exposure to what retrospectively seems to be classified as prog rock leant heavily on re-inventions of the classics, Brandenbuger, Sibelius Karelia Suite (with bowed electric bass) by The Nice, Mozart and Beethoven on Vanilla Fudges ' The Beat Goes On', Tull's Bouree (Bach) and Pathetique (Beethoven) in By Kind Permission Of, followed a year or so later by Pictures at an Exibition.

 

Along side this was The Piper at the Gates of Dawn but maybe that was 'pop' as See Emily Play charted in the top 40 out here.

 

King Crimson I guess would be prog, Robert Fripp definately, but not sure what genre Brian Eno falls into, Pop when in Roxy music, ambient later?

 

 

[Markay]

Karelia suite, many may be familiar with this. For those who are not this is worth watching.

[video:youtube]

[Al Coda]

My first exposure to what retrospectively seems to be classified as prog rock leant heavily on re-inventions of the classics, Brandenbuger, Sibelius Karelia Suite (with bowed electric bass) by The Nice, Mozart and Beethoven on Vanilla Fudges ' The Beat Goes On', Tull's Bouree (Bach) and Pathetique (Beethoven) in By Kind Permission Of, followed a year or so later by Pictures at an Exibition.

 

I´m following this thread for a while now and like you, the "Symphonic-Rock" bands,- I called it "classic-rock" in my former post,- were what guided me to the upcoming prog bands.

 

At least I count "The Nice" and "Ekseption" to the Symphonic Rock bands eventually followed by "Procol Harum" even I counted ´em to the Pop bands at that time already.

 

Along side this was The Piper at the Gates of Dawn but maybe that was 'pop' as See Emily Play charted in the top 40 out here.

 

Pink Ployd isn´t a prog band at all, it always was a Psychedelic Rock band and when Vanilla Fudge released their 1st LP in germany they were advertised as kind of pink floydish psychedelic rock band too.

 

King Crimson I guess would be prog, Robert Fripp definately,....

 

I agree and count YES w/ their 1st LP as well as King Crimson and ELP (as a follow up of The Nice) to be the 1st 3 real prog bands I became aware of.

There were possibly many more and at the time still unknown waiting in the wings.

 

It´s important not to mistake "prog" w/ "progressive rock" which were Led Zeppelin and others already just because their music and sound was "harder".

 

I think there were 2 mainstreams already.

The early progressive rock bands then belonged to the hard rock and later metal genre,- and the real prog moved into the direction of todays prog metal as also partially into the fusion genre when jazz elements, odd and even time signature and modal improvisation met.

But there´s lots of overlap everywhere.

While I´d say Dream Theater is prog-metal, I´m unsure if Procupine Tree is or is it some cross over of psychedelic and prog-metal and when it comes to Steven Wilson it´s much harder to define since at east Adam Holzmann contributes the fusion style (jan hammerish) keyboardwork.

 

... but not sure what genre Brian Eno falls into, Pop when in Roxy music, ambient later?

 

Eno was already an electronic/ambient musician long before people used the term "ambient" describing anything music or the genre "ambient" existed at all.

 

I´ve seen a very early Roxy Music (genre: Artrock) show w/ Eno on some EMS synth (AKS I think ...).

He was the man for the noises and soundscapes.

I think it was one of their early tours and they were performing in small german clubs summer (?) 1971.

Very psychedelic show I remember,- some flashing light show already, lots of drugs in the audience.

I still had my VOX combo organ and was saving for a Rhodes which I bought late 1971,- that´s why I know/remember it was 1971.

 

A.C.

 

P.S.:

I don´t trust the progarchives.com much ´cause they list almost everything as prog.

 

[Markay]

An early Roxy Music concert would have had a quite different set list to the direction that Ferry took once they charted.

 

I guess we should also note the embryonic Kraftwerk from 1970 prior to the electronic format that I first became aware of in about 1974. Some interesting experimental music came out of Germany in parallel with what was being made in the UK and US during the 70's.

[Tusker]

What great stories! The guys at E-prog had a formal family tree. I don't know that it is authoritative ...

 

 

 

http://www.e-prog.net/images/web/lucky.gif

 

 

 

... i reckon if we are having a family reunion, it's ok to invite all the cousins, including the one who was snippy to your little brother.

[Markay]

Thanks Jerry - I will study it closely and polish up on my genres - although I reserve the option to think of all of it as just music.

 

Actually back on the day there were just two types of music that mattered - the first type was that which your girlfriend of the moment would listen to and go to concert with you to see and second type was what she wouldn't listen to or go to a concert to see. I think the second was called prog rock.

[stillearning]

...And then the coup de gras... Van Der Graff Generator's "H to HE"... prog rocker for life after that!

[Tusker]

Actually back on the day there were just two types of music that mattered - the first type was that which your girlfriend of the moment would listen to and go to concert with you to see and second type was what she wouldn't listen to or go to a concert to see. I think the second was called prog rock.

 

LOL

[Tusker]

...And then the coup de gras... Van Der Graff Generator's "H to HE"... prog rocker for life after that!

 

I am embarrassed to admit I don't know them. But it's great that there is more prog to be discovered. Got recommendations? Should I begin with H to HE? Thanks.

 

[stillearning]

They're an acquired taste. Even too prog for some, but I love them. Think early Genesis, but edgier maybe. If Zappa and Genesis had a love child? Song wise, Man Erg is a personal favorite. We used to do it live, but you need a great vocalist to really pull it off, and we were lucky back then to have one. Any of their earlier albums are a great place to start.

 

The Least We Can Do Is Wave To Each Other

H to He

Pawn Hearts

Godbluff

[Shamanczarek]

Tonight 12/09 I'm going to see a Genesis Tribute at Crossroads in Garwood, NJ. The band is called Rael and do Gabriel-era material with Costumes, Flute, and Kick Drum.

[dje31]

Prog rock = girlfriend repellent

 

But their concerts have the shortest lines for the ladies room.

[MotiDave]

My intro was Yessongs. one of my absolute favorite 70s albums. mesmorizing is a good descriptor from above. I didnt know it was prog at the time, i was probably around 13? i didn't yet know what prog was.

 

not sure I do yet, come to think of it.

[klezman]

Having lived in a small midwest town , I had never encountered it until college ((Temple University, Philadelphia 1986). One of my roommates put on Roundabout and I was blown away.

[mate stubb]

I played a lot of Tull and Argent in my high school bands. Court of the Crimson King was a huge influence. Was listening to Atomic Rooster and ELP when they first hit.

 

Yes came next with the Yes Album. I found Genesis while on the road, and we visited a hifi shop. They were using Genesis Live to demo. I took one look at the album cover and thought "these guys are really weird, but they can play!"

 

About the time Yes was losing me after YesSongs, I found Gentle Giant (Free Hand.) Was listening a lot to Patrick Moraz Story of i too.

[HammondDave]

What great stories! The guys at E-prog had a formal family tree. I don't know that it is authoritative ...

 

 

 

http://www.e-prog.net/images/web/lucky.gif

 

 

 

... i reckon if we are having a family reunion, it's ok to invite all the cousins, including the one who was snippy to your little brother.

 

What? No Van der Graff Generator? No Quatermass? Bogus list.

[stillearning]

Another band that's missing so far, maybe beacuse they're often on the pop end of the prog spectrum is Ambrosia. Some great vocals, keys and guitar work. Great songwriting too. They're hard to pigeonhole into a single genre, as they often go from folk to prog to pop, sometimes within a single song, but great musicians. Good 'girlfriend prog'. And one can easily argue that The Beatles tastefully hinted at, and led us into prog with a few of their later offerings.

[Geoff Grace]

We were lucky enough in Phoenix during the 70s to have a progressive rock radio stationfirst in KCAC and then in KDKB. I started listening in 1971 and was hooked. I'm not sure whether my first exposure was KCAC or when Yes's "Roundabout" cracked the Top 40, but those two sources opened the door for me.

 

While KDKB was officially a progressive rock station, in practice they had an eclectic mix of music because they gave their DJs free reign. As a result, I also discovered a wide variety of music through them including funk, country rock, and jazz fusion.

 

I wish there were a station like that available today.

 

Best,

 

Geoff

[HammondDave]

Another band that's missing so far, maybe beacuse they're often on the pop end of the prog spectrum is Ambrosia. Some great vocals, keys and guitar work. Great songwriting too. They're hard to pigeonhole into a single genre, as they often go from folk to prog to pop, sometimes within a single song, but great musicians. Good 'girlfriend prog'. And one can easily argue that The Beatles tastefully hinted at, and led us into prog with a few of their later offerings.

 

So true. Love Ambrosia.

[Markay]

On further reflection if proto prog started out as experimental rock then I think Jimi Hendrix was the first artist to bring prog rock to a global audience.

[stillearning]

Another band that's missing so far, maybe beacuse they're often on the pop end of the prog spectrum is Ambrosia. Some great vocals, keys and guitar work. Great songwriting too. They're hard to pigeonhole into a single genre, as they often go from folk to prog to pop, sometimes within a single song, but great musicians. Good 'girlfriend prog'. And one can easily argue that The Beatles tastefully hinted at, and led us into prog with a few of their later offerings.

 

So true. Love Ambrosia.

I often cite 'Nice, Nice, Very Nice' as one of the greatest songs of my generation, and never tire of listening to it. Tasteful Hammond work and beautiful lyrics and vocals.