I saw Selling England and Lamb Lies Down live.  Then I saw Trick.  They were a pop band when I saw them do Trick.

Today'skids are trying ... no worries there ... but when someone tells themyou have to look inside for what they can find, they look at you andwonder what you are saying ... meaning that they are so disconnectedfrom that inner world that we lived at and fought for, that theirability to do something as good as what we heard, is not likely tohappen ... it might be totally different, but it won't have theidealistic care, love, attention and detail, that the work ourgeneration had was responsible for.


What an amazingly insightful well thought out post.
Thank you.

 

And this is where, most of us, have to draw the line and close the book ... and we didn't, because we were too comfortable following the top ten ... at the same time, many of us were kissing up to Fleetwood Mac ... and that was the same thing as the rest of the popular circuit.

 

All in all, the age of individuality was killed ... this is what the 60's were fighting for ... the individualistic design and artistic work ... but most folks quit and gave up ... and became just a mirror of something they were not. There are 3 ladies I still know from those days, and if I was to write it, or mention it some of the words they use these days ... and you can see ... their dreams died ... and I have, at the very least ... realized that the dream was just a dream, and I'm not bitter about it, because that was the dream that taught me ... and the internal trip and learning and writing I do, has become my solace and heaven ... that those people never learned or followed in their life ... they did not believe in anything except what made sense for them ... but the sadness and anger in teir words ... is ... not pretty at all ... there is no grace, there is no love, there is no beauty ... there is no appreciation for anything ... it was all wrong ... and that kind of thing.

 

Classic Prog never died or faded ... it just was no longer heard by people that never had an ear for anything except top ten anyway ... and this is still the case today ... just do a cursory listen of 15 minutes in 10 different "progressive" stations on the internet ... and you will hear the same beat in at least half of all those minutes ... and that specifies to you that people have lost the ability to know what the inside and individual is all about ... they can only echo the popularity of things and the top ten ... and that road, will rarely lead you to the land of the great artists, you would have wanted to spend your time with, but never did! And never learned the difference!

 

Today's kids are trying ... no worries there ... but when someone tells them you have to look inside for what they can find, they look at you and wonder what you are saying ... meaning that they are so disconnected from that inner world that we lived at and fought for, that their ability to do something as good as what we heard, is not likely to happen ... it might be totally different, but it won't have the idealistic care, love, attention and detail, that the work our generation had was responsible for.

 

I do not believe that you can do what was done, by kissing the establishment, regardless of who they are ... and in so many ways, this echoes a writer that I love reading quite often ... Doris Lessing -- a woman, no less! -- saying that the country that has the most freedoms, doesn't use them!

 

And guess what we got here? ... too much freedom, and now we count freedom as just having toys and CD's! It has nothing to do with the music and the place, and the time, and the people anymore! I'm not a collector of music and CD's or LP's ... or waste time in ProgArchives ... to me, this is my life's work, and the CD's the LP's and the books and everything else are my records of it. Did you, or anyone you know, ever, think of life that way? I have my bits and pieces, but in general, from my posts you know there is a lot more ... and it will never fade ... and I came from that day ... so what makes you think that KC will fade? or ELP? ... they won't! Because folks like you, won't allow it to happen ... they meant to much to our life to be ignored and is the reason why they are remembered!

Completely beside any points you've made, I just gotta say thanks for turning me onto Circle. It was your reviews that did it. 

Haven't seen you around the forums, so I just thought I'd say it now that I have a chance.

Cheers!

David

Every genre needs to die, it's not a bad thing, really. There's always something new hidden behind the next corner.

 

There shouldn't be, either ... but in the end, too many of these are just a media thing, and not talking about that and keeping it quiet is better than saying anything and losing the sales potential.

 

In general, the world of progressive music has not discussed, or needed to, the person's orientation ... which is not something that America is capable of doing when you look at the magazine stand covers and headlines!

 

American media and folks still use the Scarlet Letter ... and it is bigger than ever!  But there is a HUGE difference that you are missing ... in NY, being gay is no big deal if you sell 75K cd's ... you become a "hit" ... but in Pukeahola, N Dakota, or Blahdewhatever in Utah ... this won't get a single listen! And if it does, there will be 10 parents screaming!

 

But ugliness is a strange thing ... and sometimes it goes much further than music ... that recent example in soccer ... is one of the saddest things I have ever seen in my whole life!

I wouldn't say there is any correlation between sexual orientation and prog and their fans. But to a punker (teenager in the late 70's maybe), who knows what they thought. Appearances alone might have been enough to cause them to make judgements...

Anyway, good music and appearances likewise show no correlation. :) And the punkers influence on the demise of classic prog is probably not worth discussing much. Classic prog was fading anyway, was degenerating into simpler but still theatrical music, and the theatrics was like candy for the brain rather than real sustenance. its a hell of a lot easier to look cool than to sound cool....

aldri7

I live in NYC--I work in show biz in an arty field--I have met many gay people of all ages---not one has ever heard of  Yes, KC, GG or knew what prog was  And I've yet to go to a Steve Hackett concert and seen a group of Lady Gaga fans---Prog has always been associated with smart people and people who like classical, jazz and other types of music that challenge the mind--I think the world began to react to everything and by the 80's --was just getting dumber and simpler and the music has reflected that---

well, this all was on a TV program i saw a while back. Glam metal bands (Motley Crue, Van Halen, Twisted Sister, etc) were kind of like you described.  But they also might have been referred to as "Gay LA metal" because band members adopted the teased hair, makeup etc from glam rock (which was more gay) so that they looked gay even if they were't. But I don't think the punkers liked either one....even if the guys were straight, the way they dressed might have infuriated the punkers even more than if they were actually gay :)

aldri7

I'm not disagreeing with you, but I find it interesting, because the narrative of punk is often couched as a reaction again the overt masculinity of the hair metallers with their long hair, open shirts, hairy chests, fondling and stroking their guitars, and rumors of all kinds of deviant transgressions with groupies backstage. I think you're right, it can be argued that the punkers (not the New Wavers) were putting forth their own kind of hyper masculinity.

Really? why would they think that? 

No, I don't deny sexual orientation issues in music (seemed Bowie was pretty open about it). Personally, my ears are color blind and sexual orientation blind. In other words, I don't care. I mean, the music is all that matters. So I'm not suggesting when I say "I don't share their (the punkers) point of view that I disagree that gay culture was a part of the rock scene I'm talking about. I just disagree that anyone should feel that rock "needs" to be heterosexual as opposed to any other orientation.  And since I was never a fan of punk rock (I'm posting here, not on a punk site), clearly if they were putting themselves and their music out there as being better or more legitimate than what they perceived as being "gay" rock, then I'd have a problem with that :)

On the other hand, if the theatrical rock music suffers at the expense of costumes, makeup, overblown stage shows etc, or maybe it doesn't suffer but just isn't as inspired as it could be, then any attitude that comes with it to the effect that gay's are artists and everyone else isn't good enough - well, I vote with my ears. 

aldri7

 

I think there might be a bit of truth to that ... but it won't last 5 minutes.

 

However, there is a side of the artistic scene in Europe, not just music, where being bi, or at least having tried the other side, is almost a mandatory rite of "graduation" ... and I can not think of an area, other than literature, where the gay thing was actually glamorized for way longer than this rock/glam thing, because it helped "free" the internal animal and artist. It became a symbol of "freedom" of expression.

 

This was a huge thing in the 20's, 30's and 40's and you can go from Anaiis Nin to Henry Miller to the French scenes right after it and such ... and even as far as Burroughs, Hesse and Genet ... when all hell broke loose. I doubt many folks in this board can handle even reading the first 50 pages of "Our Lady of Flowers"! Rock music is not even that "flowery" or that powerful and impressive! It's just another colored song ... and advertising to tease you with nothing behind it ... !!! It may have a pretty body, but it also has an ugly person to go with it! Of course, this also happens in our midst ... we would never want to suggest that we are any different!

 

A lot of the punk thing, was not about "expression", because many of them do not have any! So to speak. But they also had a great point, in that we were taking for granted everyone else, because we now were looking at everyone that looked gay or bi-sexual ... as being more of an artist ... and thought that anyone else in any art, wasn't good enough ... and rock music, or pop music, are WAYYYYYYYYY bigger a fad ... than just about any other group o artists! Even my sister in Paris, has been had issues with this, by the way!

 

But confusing this with "classical prog" is a bit scary, but to suggest that no one in the prog circles had ever known or learned or was not connected to many of these art scenes, is the same thing as saying, we're all naive, and stupid!

Rush were one of those band that actually benefited from the demise of classic prog as it allowed then to truly become themselves and stop trying so hard to be a 'prog band' .Some bands need that. The problem was that there were few other bands as good as Rush. Possibly some gave up during the carnage of the punk era. Could being Canadian have helped them? Was there actually a punk scene in Canada??!

 

Who is "everyone"?

 

That was the question we kept asking in Santa Barbara, since I was near radio, and the "move on" became the fame and greed is good generation instead of good music?

 

See where that takes us all? Nowhere.

 

The only thing there was to "move on" off of, would be the flower in your hair bs and the over rated dope thing ... though it went on to kill a lot of folks that would have helped cement the generational artistry! Instead ... it was gone ... how appropriate and interesting that it happened that way ... so much easier to make money that way and not pay these famous people any more! And prices that the record companies do not want to work with ... so, something cheaper and newer is likely to get more attention, to help the Beatles look older and out of time and place!

 

In the end, what I got tired of, was the media onslaught that all of us were stupid stoneheads, and that all the women in my generation were just sluts ... and I got tired of that attitude ... but the cynicism did not die ... it continued in disco (picking up girls and getting sex was still there!) ... and then punk (picking up girls and getting sex was still there!) ... and then Michael and color (picking up girls and getting sex was still there!) ... and then ... .

 

The more things change, the more they stay the same ... haha ... the only thing that changed is t-shirt today, and pants hanging out yer butt tomorrow! ... big deal ... music is the same!

 

Agreed.

 

  

Agreed. And I think that MTV pushing George Benson and the softer "Easy Listening" folks, had a tendency to wash down the quality of the music. However, I can also say, when looking at KTYD in Santa Barbara, that the biggest issue is that too many folks in radio were not interested in the music at all, but the other things that were around it ... which was a lot of dope, a lot of women, lots of goodies and stupid stuff ... and other things that "impresses" the younger fans. Creativity was no longer the issue ... it was the "fame" that mattered most!

 

  

And this is the part that is hard for folks to see when they post today about their favorite metal band ... seeing it from a historical perspective ... and gets lost in the shuffle of the "fan" thing, and "popularity" thing. Thus, it makes for a much more difficult comparison relationship between the earlier days' progressive music and more modern pieces of work.

  

  

In some ways, the comments work, but Frank is not quite a good example, in that he never once paid attention to any of them, but the difference was just about right. But it made no difference for him, although I did think that he enjoyed the more commercial side of his work that eventually made him a more mainstream artist and more accepted than he was prior to his album that "made it".

  

 

But the thread, for example, even makes the suggestion that the "cycles" can not exist, or continue, or change ... like music history never happened and no one never heard of it before, and that is very much ... what "kids" are about many times ... and it's ok ... because they can (sometimes) create a lot of music that rivals the history ... and that is what happened to those days!

 

And then Woodstock buried it all in garbage! And MTV glorified even more garbage!

 

Prog got too big for its boots ( over-pretentious etc ), record companies starting to interfere, music tastes changed etc etc

 

 

 

For the same reason any other musical genre fades away: fashion, plain and simple. For a while prog was the fad, then it wasn't.

Which isn't to say that the classic bands never made any missteps or there was never any dysfunctional forces within the scene or hostile forces from without who helped end the golden age, but the point is nothing is cool forever and most musical scenes sooner or later stagnate and need to go dormant for a bit before they are revived.

 

Hi Neelus,

Good question really, I have no idea  and have been wondering this many times too.

One thing is true, Prog Musicians in those days most had quite a good education, came from middle to upper-class families, however they rebelled against the whole education system instead to persue a music career (girls/groupies might have played a decisive role too).

With the above said, many bands made it big and became difficult to handle considering that many were smart, also many bands decided to own their music inc. own their record label. This made the music industry nervous, therefore I think the corporate suits who owned the whole music marketing world decided that they must do something or they will lose business thus opted to invest and promote the punk artist movement knowing that their main goal was to perform and be famous (knowing how to play an instrument certainly doesn't seem to me that it ever was a priority).       

Music Industry gave prog a bad name, many artists decided to dissocialize themselves from it. Also I think that many of the prog artists decided that they wanted to play live less complex music, just wanted to have fun without the stress of getting all the elements for the show and music spot on.  

Another hug

 

Jazz fusion saw a similar fate around 1975 or so. It was like it was too good to be true. Along came Grover Washington and George Benson, and fusion was never the same again to be replaced by what eventually came to be known as smooth jazz. And you saw the changes everywhere else and sensed that someone on high was clamping down on all innovation and creativity in music. That period from 1975-1980 (post 60's and pre MTV) was incredibly depressing for a guy like me. 

And then there's lots of other things to consider. Historically, creative musical periods usually coincide with the exploitation of some new sonic potential, new instrument or technology, etc. its like the ears are hearing something totally new, and without any prior knowledge or experience with it, you have a blank slate to work on, an opportunity to define a completely new music or style. This always leads to an unusual amount of creativity. You become like an inventor, and people always hunger for something new. This happened twice for sure in my recent memory - in the 60's early 70's when electric guitar (distorted), electric piano, analog synth, mellotron, etc were exploited for the first time. Then in the 80's there were a lot of fresh new sounds and creativity when sampling, digital synths, electric drums, etc came on the market.

And then boredom sets in, people get use to the latest new thing, and they pressure you to outdo what you did the last time or else they threaten to go away and latch on to the "even newer new thing". And so it becomes more and more difficult for you to maintain that edge, sell records etc, excite, enthrall, etc. And at the same time, you have all this gear now, money invested and a commitment to put out music. You still have fans. You are trapped and probably doing what you love sure beats waiting tables! And so you continue to make music the best that you can, cashing in on your earlier success, resorting to formulas, etc and trusting that your good name will help you to maintain a decent income.

Anyway, regarding the record industry and their role in all of this. Frank Zappa once lamented about how the music industry changed so much between the early 60's and the mid 70's. It was a totally different environment. According to Frank, in the early 60's, company execs were like these cigar chomping old guys who were like "lets just put it out there and see if the kids like it" when it came to his music. In other words, they felt relatively free to experiment with something new. But by the 70's, the record companies had grown huge and cautious. Somehow they had to continue to survive and pay out all those huge salaries now, so they also went the formula approach. Execs in the 70's would tell Frank that they knew what was best for him. They dictated to him based on this formula approach. He felt hogtied. Its funny because he describes the later execs as being these hip younger guys compared to the cigar choppers, but paradoxically the hip younger guys were the ones that were afraid to put out anything really innovative. 

Anyway, so I don't see what happened to prog as necessarily being a negative indictment of the genre. It was that basic cycle at work here and could be seen across the board in popular music. I suppose It could be the stage shows got more grandiose because it was felt necessary to maintain fans who were already drifting away to the next latest thing. And those shows got a bad rap and the pretentious label stuck. BTW - it always seemed curious to have punk described as some sort of alternative to prog  

Thankfully today, we have the internet and a whole different environment for making and sharing music. Everything is so accessible, and we can enjoy obscure, experimental stuff that the record companies might have squashed in the 70's. Prog lives on.....do you younger guys have any idea what it was like? :) I spent a huge amount of time and effort back then hunting down obscure prog, traveling into the city (NY), combing the gloomy recesses of dingy record stores never knowing if I would succeed or fail. I remember what it took for example to find Magma, the french prog band in a record store. Today its just point and click. All that listening I never got a chance to do back then I can gloriously do now without getting off of my chair....:)  Total bliss........

aldri7

Ha!  I went to see Bob Fripp on his "Drive to 1981" tour, where he played solo Frippertronics in record stores & small venues!  He played a KILLER set in a suburban record shop in Chicago, with perhaps 50 to 75 fans showing up.  

At the conclusion, he excused himself to go into the back to "wash his hands," and EVERYBODY left, except for me!!  

When Bob came back out, he had a huge grin, with his right hand extended, and he asked me "Did you like it?"  

Well, I smiled back, shook his hand, and spent the next two hours with him (until his roadie Fred induced him to leave). 

You'll know the moment when you have it in front of you, believe me!

Well he doesn't really get away, it's just that he doesn't sound too bad in spite of cigarettes.  He hasn't aged as well as the late Dio who sounded very close to his 70s records right till his last gigs.   Certainly, if you want to hit an open, powerful "Take hold of the FLAAAAME", cigarettes don't help. The throat should be relaxed and 'neutral' at all times; though I am not a smoker, I imagine it would cause inflammation?

 

It's really hard to explain this to folks ... but you end up learning more than you think, if you were not there for the fan thing ... sometimes it's a pull of sorts, and these people are your "teachers" ... even inadvertantly!

 

To me, it was not about "learning" or "follow" my heroes, since I had met many folks that were way more famous and a part of history of the arts, than almost ALL of the rock musicians you can mention ...and the effect of their artistic work, was much more visible, past the "favorite" attitudes and reasons.

 

But, by the time I met some "big names" they also had heard of me, and were aware of my poetry, film reviews, music reviews and photography. I didn't exactly meet them because I wanted to meet a star, because I already knew that many of them were so vain as to be the most boring idiot you ever met! And I am too stuck up to put up with that vanity ... a massive waste of time! ... I've been known to give some folks a mirror and tell them they need make-up! And I did NOT photograph that band!

 

Think of it this way ... you can't even have breakfast without someone bothering you ... specially when you are looking for a bit of quiet time so you can go over (in your head) the bit on that song, you messed up last night!

 

I can understand it from the point of view of a fan ... but sadly ... that usually precludes ... a person!

 

But, it is a tough price to pay for fame, and Carl should have known better! That is not good PR at all ... and hurts in the end, more than it will help!

Not sure about that ... depends on them and what they do and how they communicate. Or what their work is about!

 

Ex: I already knew from the early days, when Daevid was hiding out in Santa Barbara that he was aproachable and a friendly guy ... but it was hard to have a conversation with him, when he was in public ... because he has to be nice and say hello to everyone ... and be his "Zen" self. But if you got him, up close and personal, away from the public, either on the bus, or on the hotel room, or sitting on the sidewalk in Portland watching the river go by ... it changes ... he's very open and will talk about anything you can think of ... and humerous ... even in his guitar shops, doing meditation music, he wanted people to do fun stuff also!

 

Then you go meet Gilly ... earthy as all earth ... and nice. And it was fun walking around Fred Meyer and watching her make comments about Halloween in America ... something that is not foreign to her at all ... but a "fun" holiday in America that is used to disguise the hatred for all internal and spiritual paths -- by making them all look bad and evil.

 

Many others I have had a chance to sit and talk to ... and probably the one person that was the toughest to talk to, and I think he felt he had an image to live by, was Damo Suzuki, so far, the only person and artist I have met, that was very disappointing. He would not talk about his artistry, which would be a welcmoe treat to give what he did some credit, instead of showing it get old and die!

 

Writers, at our house, and other artists, were more interesting, though discussing these here is crazy and some folks don't get it ... because they are too infatuated with fame. To hear Hemingway swear at American publishers, to have Aldous look you in the eye and ask "what you thinking little boy", or to have Sartre not like kids and always look like he thought they were the devil disturbing his concentration, and many others from Latin America and Brazil ... is very different ... maybe I was too young to "know" about the fame thing ... and thus the whole top ten and fame, and blah blah thing was never important for me.

 

The way the media is setup, it is all about the biggest numbers and the fame ... and you are supposed to support it, or you are not cool ... and I already knew since my kid days, that this was the pressure of the commercial world and its advertising ... but it's really hard to show people, and tell them that many of the artists that we love here, went against the grain of the social populism, to try and create change ... but years later, we're not capable of accepting that reality and realize that the hope we had, died ... but then, I agree to an extent with Dean, that it was a nice idea, but in the end, we all fell just like Revolution and the Beatles and then John Lennon ... selfish motives won out, and a month or year later we had the greed is good folks show up with flowers in their hair (so to speak -- more advertising!) ... and that was that ... life goes on!

 

Impressionable youth --- but some of that music was awesome! We still discuss it! We can compare it to some rap folks in 20 or 30 years ... hopefully!

The point I was making is when you meet your idols you cannot be 100% certain how you will react - most of the time you try to be cool yourself and that can come over as indifferent, other times you cannot control your wide-eyed fan-boyish emotions and end up grinning like an idiot, or become completely tongue-tied, forgetting the carefully rehearsed questions you planned and blurt out "Oi fink your grate - hahahahaha" before flushing crimson and running away as quickly as possible.

 

I have to say that I'd only approach artists who put themselves in a situation where they want to chat - at a signing session or in the bar before, after or during a gig. If I recognised someone "in public" I'd not intrude on their privacy.

 

 

Back to Bruford - I know a guitarist who was tutored by him at the Guildford Academy of Contemporary Music, by his account Bruford was a decent bloke and was more than happy to talk about his previous work with Crimson and Yes.

 

No it did not affect my love for his music, ELP will always be one of my fav bands and Carl one of my fav drummers. I guess we are all humans and we are not always in our best mood.