Your introduction to Prog Rock ...

[Dave Bryce]

I thought I didn't like Gentle Giant until I saw Three Friends on cruise to the edge - blew me and everybody else away.

They were the most popular non-headliner.

That album is terrific though I'm not a fan of the folkbased albums.

Musically they are spectacular.

 

For sheer musical virtuosity, weirdness, and diversity of ideas, no prog band can beat Gentle Giant. They are the "proggiest" of the proggers. They used to open up for Tull in the States back in the 70s, and on many an occasion, they completely stole the show from good ol' Ian.

 

I saw them open for Rick Wakeman on the King Arthur tour in the 70s. GG was promoting Free Hand at the time, if memory serves. Amazing show.

 

dB

[Losendoskeys]

The Schulman brothers had a band before Gentle Giant. Check out their British Top 10 hit from 1967:

 

[video:youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0svzLY-u7E

 

Yes - one of the pioneers of the lovely Mellotron

At one point Elton John was a dep keyboard player for them (as Reg Dwight)

[SteveCoscia]

Watched this again today. Prog Rock Britannia - BBC. Never gets old.

[miden]

Pink Floyd

[Husker]

Interesting topic. I grew up in a super religious household - we weren't allowed to listen to anything other than hymns or classical. I developed a love of classical music as a child, but I was surreptitious in my radio listening, and gained a good knowledge of the pop/rock that was popular form 85-90. As a freshman in college, I was walking down the dorm hall, and heard a racket that I couldn't identify. I popped in, and the guy told me it was "Yes." I mentioned that I knew Yes - they did "Owner of a Lonely Heart." The guy shook his head dismissively, and gave me the tape to listen to. We talked about music for a bit. Later that night, I put it on the headphones - I hated it. I took it back the next day, and told him I didn't care for it. He mentioned that I should give it another listen, and interpret it as a symphony. I took it back, and listened to it again, and again, and again. I finally "got " it.

 

It was Close to the Edge. Still my favorite Yes album.

[CEB]

Never heard of Prog Rock until the 2000s. Back in the day it was just Rock or FM or album Rock. It"s what they played on 95 KSHE Real Rock Radio. I swear that all these little categories were invented after the fact.

[KuruPrionz]

I saw Emerson Lake and Palmer on the Brain Salad Surgery tour - spectacular. Saw them again on the infamous tour where they hired an orchestra for the tour, lost tons of money along the way and ended up on the West Coast as a trio, defeated and downtrodden. Not so good.

 

I saw Yes twice, once was the Tales From Topgraphic Oceans tour. Amazing both times.

 

I saw Jethro Tull 3 times, one of those times UK opened - Eddie Jobson, John Wetton and Terry Bozio. Great stuff.

 

Saw the Dixie Dregs and the Dregs. Herbie Hancock and the Headhunters. Paul Winter Consort. I realize these artists are not usually considered in the Prog Rock pantheon but they deserve to be, fantastic music.

 

Add Kittyhawk to the list, they opened for the Dregs. Also, maybe, Asia. Didn't enjoy that show much, Steve Howe had so much reverb on his sound you could barely tell what he was doing. The songs felt insipid and uninspired. Carl Palmer stole the show with a stellar drum solo.

 

It is something I hugely prefer live. I don't listen to any prog rock on recordings, just doesn't do it for me...

 

[mate stubb]

I listened to Jethro Tull, Yes, and ELP in high school. But Court of the Crimson King was the one that came from another planet.

 

I agree with CEB, it was all rock to us.

[KuruPrionz]

I listened to Jethro Tull, Yes, and ELP in high school. But Court of the Crimson King was the one that came from another planet.

 

I agree with CEB, it was all rock to us.

 

Thanks for the reminder!!!!

 

My high school band got to play a rock mass at a Catholic church. They had a pipe organ and allowed us to use it.

Our guitarist was good on keys too so he played the organ, I played guitar (was the bassist) and the singer/strummer played bass. We played the Court of the Crimson King as best we could, amazing in that reverberant room with the pipe organ and a very early performance in our lives.

 

We should have kept at it instead of just rocking out but it's been fun playing music

 

[jazzpiano88]

My older sister (by 3 yrs) introduced me to Jethro Tull and Boz Skaggs when I was 15, before I was ready.

I had just been given a record player by my parents and was trying to make sense of her albums.

 

Around that time, Reeling in the Years came on the radio, as well as You Are So Beautiful. I begged my parents to buy me these albums (I think Chicago 25 or 6 2 4 was in the mix).

 

Then my Aunt sent me a record Weather Report Night Passage,.

 

I ( being a pianist) immediately went nuts trying to recreate Zawinul and went into debt on a Rhodes Suitcase 73.

 

I've been hooked since and loving all Prog music!

 

[Marzzz]

I was 13, at a party where someone gifted a copy of Brain Salad Surgery to the guest of honor. I was immediately mesmerized. Next thing I know, I was borrowing money for a Minimoog and asking my parents to resume piano lessons...

[Biggles]

Yes

 

[pawelsz]

The first prog rock piece I listened to was King Crimson - Starless. I was so impressed I started searching for more and listening to the music album after album. I got to know quite a few of those bands. All the Yes, Genesis, Pink Floyd, Camel, ELP, Jethro Tull. I think my favourite discovers are Rare Bird, Gentle Giant and Kansas. All of them from years ca. 1969-1977.

There are (or were) also great Polish artist or bands playing prog rock like SBB or Exodus. CzesÅaw Niemen, Budka Suflera and Skaldowie also have some great prog albums but those prog albums aren't what those artists are most-known from.

[jeffincltnc]

I was in high school in the mid and late 80's. My older brother was a bass player and our neighbor played drums in a local cover band and they recruited me as a keyboardist as I was coming up. Normally, I would hang around rehearsals and gradually started playing more, but then I would stick around afterwards with the drummer and my older brother and we would play stuff like ELP, Rush and Yes.. and more obscure things like "Hell's Bells" by Bill Bruford, Marillion, Zappa, King Crimson (from the era with Adrian Belew/Bill Bruford/Tony Levin) after the other guys went home.

 

Funny, but to this day, I am still asking bands that I play with if we can do Bill Bruford's "Hells Bells" as one of our instrumental/filler songs to give the vocalist a break. It's not exactly something that you find in a lot of players repertoire and when you find someone who knows it, you instantly bond with them more.

 

[GRollins]

My father lost his job when his entire department was replaced by a computer (late '60s...a lot of that going around). There was a time lag, then he found another job and we moved, which was a big upheaval for me after spending nearly all my childhood in one place. The new town actually suited me much better than the old one and I quickly fell in with some neighborhood kids. One fellow had a stereo of his own. It was cheap, but he had complete control of it rather than having to deal with parental control and such. On that P.O.S. stereo I discovered Yes and Jethro Tull, and possibly ELP, although I may have picked up on them after hearing Lucky Man on the radio--it's been a while and the details have blurred a bit.

 

Anyway, this was all in a six month period. Musical horizons opened that I had never even known existed. For Christmas that year I remember getting the Aqualung album. I played that album until the grooves wore through from opposite sides to meet in the middle. Yes and ELP were growing on me, but not as quickly as Jethro Tull.

 

A couple of months later my father died and we moved out almost exactly one year to the day from moving in. Another upheaval, even bigger than the first. The next town was not as friendly at first, but I eventually found a group that I more-or-less fit in with and they were big on Yes. By that time Close To The Edge had come out and...well...that was it. I was committed. I had been playing bass a year or three and was ready for the challenge that Chris Squire represented, simply by his very existence. Along with Squire came the other guys, one of whom was Rick Wakeman. Even though I wasn't playing keys at that time, he and Keith Emerson managed to capture my imagination in a way that no one else had, then...or since. From then on, I began to pay closer attention to keyboards as an integral part of a band, analyzing how they fit into the music.

 

This whole thing of "prog" lumping Yes, Jethro Tull, ELP, Pink Floyd, et. al. into one bag doesn't sit well with me. I can hear enough similarity between Yes and ELP that I can see grouping them together, but Tull? Pink Floyd? I can't see it. Nevertheless, I understand the human tendency to want to categorize things and since I tend to like a lot of the things currently classed as prog, I guess I can live with it.

 

One thing--well, two things--I've never understood is why Iron Butterfly isn't classified as prog. Surely they're at least as closely related to, say, Yes as Tull or Pink Floyd--arguably moreso. The other thing I can't understand is why they've been forgotten. Okay, In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida is too long for today's 3-minute radio format, but then Close To The Edge doesn't get played either. I mean, come on, if a radio station can play an instrumental like Frankenstein by Edgar Winter, they damned well ought to be able to justify the air time to try out Iron Butterfly Theme, right? A lot of songs from Ball or Heavy were psychedelia and might not work in today's culture, but some of it was good (proggish) rock. Doug Ingle might not have been the virtuoso that Wakeman and Emerson are/were, but he was better than some who achieved more lasting fame.

 

Oh, well.

 

Yes and ELP prepared me for Weather Report and Return To Forever, who also should be considered prog rock if there was any logic behind this system, but there isn't, so they're called fusion jazz. Okay. Fine. Have it your way. Fusion jazz it is, then. Yes, there was a lot of boring, aimless noodling presented as fusion jazz, but Weather Report and RTF shouldn't be blamed for the groups that couldn't cut it any more than people blame Yes and ELP for bands like Starcastle. Actually, it's been thirty years or more since I've listened to Starcastle so maybe it's time to try again. Maybe they'll be less saccharine-sweet, Yes-pop-wanna-be to my ears after the passage of time.

 

Or maybe not. Won't know until I try.

 

After all, Triumvirate was better than I remembered when I gave them a listen a few months ago. Some good music there, even if they tended to run the good riffs into the ground by repeating them unto death.

 

Grey

[mate stubb]

 

LOL Starcastle LOL

[S_Gould]

Grey -

 

I'm with you on Iron Butterfly; they were a huge influence on my musical direction. I even ended up being their Tour Manager and FOH engineer. I'm still in touch with Ron & Doug.

[Dr88s]

I can credit the early days of the internet for developing my interest in Prog; I was an early user and enthusiast.

 

A high school friend introduced me to Rush. in those days, I avidly read USENET discussion groups and the folks there pointed me to Yes, ELP, and Jethro Tull. Interestingly, no one seemed to mention Genesis on the Rush boards and it would be about four years later when a friend introduced me to Selling England By The Pound in my first year of university.

 

I still can't stomach some heavy prog; I bought a few Yes and Gentle Giant albums which I just couldn't get into. I'll give them a try every two years or so to see if my musical tastes have matured, but - nope. I just can't find merit in the note soup.

[GRollins]

Grey -

 

I'm with you on Iron Butterfly; they were a huge influence on my musical direction. I even ended up being their Tour Manager and FOH engineer. I'm still in touch with Ron & Doug.

 

 

Speaking as a bass player, I found their music refreshingly different from the normal thud-thud, I-IV-V grind--something that I personally find pretty damned boring. There are plenty of bass players out there that don't mind that sort of thing. Let 'em have the repetitive blues crap. Give me something that's got more meat on its bones.

 

Grey