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paragraph7 
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 Posted: February 19 2015 at 19:51 |
 SteveG wrote:
I'm not sure this will have the effect I'm hoping for Todd. But I'll relate the story anyway. A brilliant keyboardist I know had an argument with a guitarist over this same subject. After a few minutes of patiently listening to the guitarist's rant, he played brief excepts from Rachmaninov and Mozart and asked the guitarist "what do these pieces of music have to do with each other besides the fact that I played both on this piano?" The guitarist couldn't answer. The keyboardist then said "perhaps you should take up the piano and study some of the classics." The guitarist silently walked out of the room without saying a word. The idea of music always being similar or merely copied disappeared from my mind. Just like the guitarist from the room.
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The only problem here is that if the gap between most bands would be as big as Rachmaninov and Mozart then we'd be certainly dealing with some completely different and alien forms of music. The guitarist couldn't answer because he probably had no background or knowledge in classical harmony, how Mozart basically sticks to the Wien Classical functions like a baby on ice scream, while Rachmaninov pretty much does whatever he wants - hell, the add9/ninth chord didn't even exist in Mozart times, in terms of the rules and chord function the composers were going by. At least we are at a point where basically same musical theory/chord function is being used in the modern age as it was in the 70s.
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What you cannot speak of, you have to pass on in silence.
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HackettFan
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Posted: February 19 2015 at 21:12 |
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Random thought 1: It is possible to be influenced by material without being a clone or overly derivative. Some 70s Prog bands themselves did it. Jade Warrior were definitely influenced by Jethro Tull. It doesn't negate their originality (I'll presume I don't have to elaborate until someone tells me otherwise). I'm guessing Focus may have been Tull influenced. It doesn't negate their originality either.
Random thought 2: The problem with Neo bands was/is not that they were influenced too much by the 70s. The problem is that they were influenced too much by the 80s.
Random thought 3: I have to remember to get gas after I leave this restaurant.
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richardh
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Posted: February 20 2015 at 01:37 |
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I suppose it about this point I say something like 'if I like it and it sounds good then it must be good'. Do I care whether the keyboardist studied Mozart or Emerson? No not really and I'm not sure why so many want to second guess what they are listening to. If it sounds good then it is good.
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paragraph7
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Posted: February 20 2015 at 05:35 |
richardh wrote:
I suppose it about this point I say something like 'if I like it and it sounds good then it must be good'. Do I care whether the keyboardist studied Mozart or Emerson? No not really and I'm not sure why so many want to second guess what they are listening to. If it sounds good then it is good. |
Sure, but what I've encountered in music has been the fact that it isn't always black and white, good and bad. At least to me, there's 1. Bat sh*t crazy good "YEEESSS!" 2. "Great, I like this" 3. This is fine music to listen to once in a while and so on. I wouldn't say that I cringe when listening to Steven Wilson or Haken, but it's far from "OMG IN THE COURT OF THE CRIMSON KING AAAAAHHH". If that makes sense :D
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dr wu23
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Posted: February 20 2015 at 08:41 |
richardh wrote:
Apocalypse in 9/8 seems to crop up all the time with Squonk a close second. But as said before they are never the real deal. Its one of the reasons I don't rate IQ's Dark Matter album as highly as some others and I do count myself as an IQ fan. Harvest Of Souls was just too close in structure to Suppers Ready for comfort for me. However what it just doesn't have is the 'feel' of that times and that is a very difficult thing to achieve. Astra on the other hand have managed to get the feel of the seventies using analog equipment and recording techniques (as I understand it) but to their credit never sound like a clone of anything (more like the b*****d love child of early Floyd and Sabbath if anything).
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Had to comment on your post Richard being both an IQ and Astra fan. I never thought Harvest sounded anything like Suppers Ready...other than being a long song with multiple sections I don't see the connection....and many prog bands have done that over the years . For me IQ has just enough of the classic sound married to a newer one. But both bands certainly harken back to that older retro sound and Astra has captured that murky ominous mellotron prog sound quite well. In their case one could easily think they were a band from the early 70's if they didn't know better. Regarding the OP question, I think a talented group could easily 'clone themselves' to write in that early 70's style if they wished. But then everyone would say ....'they are just clones of so and so...'. 
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One does nothing yet nothing is left undone.
Haquin
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paragraph7
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Posted: February 20 2015 at 08:53 |
dr wu23 wrote:
Had to comment on your post Richard being both an IQ and Astra fan. I never thought Harvest sounded anything like Suppers Ready...other than being a long song with multiple sections I don't see the connection....and many prog bands have done that over the years . For me IQ has just enough of the classic sound married to a newer one. But both bands certainly harken back to that older retro sound and Astra has captured that murky ominous mellotron prog sound quite well. In their case one could easily think they were a band from the early 70's if they didn't know better. Regarding the OP question, I think a talented group could easily 'clone themselves' to write in that early 70's style if they wished. But then everyone would say ....'they are just clones of so and so...'. |
I agree that Astra has a quite 70's murky sound going for them. Nice one. Btw, try comparing the main riff on Aphrodite's Child 666 "Aegian Sea" with the main riff on Astra Black Chord "Cocoon". These things happen 
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twosteves
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Posted: February 20 2015 at 09:04 |
Early groups were listening to a wide variety of music they site as influences---say Les Paul, Rhinehert Vivaldi for Howe, Simon and Garfunkle and church music for Squire, Stravinski and Beach boys for Anderson, Bach Mozart for Rick---not to mention who KC and Genesis members who site a wide variety of influences from every genre, jazz, classical, R&B etc---today's guys when asked who they are influenced by will ususally say Yes KC Rush, Zep whoever----so the outcome isn't going to sound very original. 
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dr wu23
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Posted: February 20 2015 at 09:11 |
paragraph7 wrote:
dr wu23 wrote:
Had to comment on your post Richard being both an IQ and Astra fan. I never thought Harvest sounded anything like Suppers Ready...other than being a long song with multiple sections I don't see the connection....and many prog bands have done that over the years . For me IQ has just enough of the classic sound married to a newer one. But both bands certainly harken back to that older retro sound and Astra has captured that murky ominous mellotron prog sound quite well. In their case one could easily think they were a band from the early 70's if they didn't know better. Regarding the OP question, I think a talented group could easily 'clone themselves' to write in that early 70's style if they wished. But then everyone would say ....'they are just clones of so and so...'. |
I agree that Astra has a quite 70's murky sound going for them. Nice one. Btw, try comparing the main riff on Aphrodite's Child 666 "Aegian Sea" with the main riff on Astra Black Chord "Cocoon". These things happen
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I give credit to Richard for mentioning Astra first but I will ck out that Aphrodite's Child riff today.
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One does nothing yet nothing is left undone.
Haquin
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moshkito
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Posted: February 20 2015 at 09:12 |
paragraph7 wrote:
Here's what I mean: there have been many attempts by several "Neo-prog" or other artists to capture the same sort of essence which was included in the early records of King Crimson and Genesis and so on. Yet it has felt to me that such efforts have been extremely hit and miss; they've written songs with a similar song structure, yes, used Mellotron, the Hammond Organ etc, but more often than not the result actually feels like a modernized homage/tribute to the classics rather than a personal and artistic work.
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(I hope I got this right!)
The history of music has not been kind to imitating someone, and nowadays, you even get Tom Petty's lawyers knocking down your door. I'm not sure I want Beethoven at my door, or a drunk Mozart at my door, or ... collecting money I don't have! They can have my litter for free, though!
The software instruments these days are far more flexible than the originals ... with the exception of the huge pipe organs, that are more of a "feel" thing on the pipes than they are about anything else, and that personal feel can not be duplicated in the software.
Anyone, trying to compare these with the original is crazy ... first of all, the original mellotron's were too difficult to tune and had issues with them not doing well in certain situations ... like Mike Pinder's melotron, at the LA Forum (of old!) and it not only sounded horrible, it sounded like it was out of tune! A lot of the really old synthesizers were also nearly impossible to duplicate. Tangerine Dream could not duplicate a whole lot past the basics, which were a nightmare to keep track of ... cord 1 to c, cord 2 to b, cord 3 to d, cord 124 to a, cord 34 to d and we're talking just the cords on the front of the moogs! And then change some of them between different pieces while playing or preparing the next piece! And their live concerts from the area, are all different and is the reason why there were so many live performances recorded and released!
The only issue with it all, for me, is not so much the equipment itself and the cords going all over the place so you could get one sound ... and now you don't need it anymore and the rest of the performance is tied up because you can't go swipe the cords to get a different sound? WEIRD!
This was, ALSO, a period that required learning and experimentation to have the time to be able to fiddle with the instruments ... today, by comparison, all of the bands talked about here are about the notes, the chords and the "music", and has nothing to do with the ability to experiment and learn something from the outer layers of the universe ... we have become the old line roman catholic folks that told everyone the world is FLAT! ... Just like we are with our own music! We can not even appreciate a lot of the music listed here that is experimental, because it does not sound like Genesis, ELP and some other BS/media hyped band listed in the top ten of the PA or other list of progressive idiocies!
What you ask is interesting from a comparative perspective, with one problem ... there were no computers in those days, and the equipment was not that good compared to today and it's abilities that all music stores, "assume" you know how to use buried in those modules and buttons! Synthesizers, these days, are being wasted because less that 5% of its abilities and uses. At least you could say TD was trying to find more on them than Genesis!
I doubt, otherwise that the different "sound" mattered that much yesterday as today ... you don't go around talking of harpsichords because of Bach or Handel, so I think the whole thing is weird otherwise!
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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
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TODDLER
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Posted: February 20 2015 at 11:03 |
Jade Warrior were influenced by Jethro Tull and King Crimson in their early incarnation. According to their bio, members of Jade Warrior attended King Crimson shows in London. On a personal note...I felt that the influence of Jethro Tull in the early days was too obvious. I am a dedicated follower of the band and believe the band found their own voice in music during the Island period. Aside from the influence of Jimi Hendrix' playing through David Duhig, their writing style for the Island period was totally original. The sound and style they developed for the Island period was present on the debut, Released, and Last Autumns Dream , but was also shared with the Jethro Tull style. It is much easier to compose a piece of music that is directly influenced by another artist than it is to discover your own voice. There was a percentage of people in the 70's who were disappointed in the band FOCUS due to their influence of Jethro Tull and Emerson, Lake & Palmer. People actually felt a bit cheated by that. People sometimes felt a bit discouraged by bands like REFUGEE and only because the obvious influence of ELP became ridiculous. I suppose they felt cheated because they could play Pink Floyd's Meddle and not hear signature lines derived from other writers. I don't believe using a flute or a harpsichord can be attributed to sounding like someone else if the writing is unique. King Crimson, YES, Genesis, ELP, and Jethro Tull were not similar to each other regarding composition or sound. I believe that many guitarists, drummers, and keyboardists from the 70's who had training and were skilled sometimes felt intimidated by the big 5 or 6 and lacked confidence to enter the realm of discovering their own voice. This is not the case with Popol Vuh or Mike Oldfield. They were open to experimenting with the course of life along with music. They combined the experience of surrounding themselves with nature and I'm guessing that based on the many photographs I've seen of Florian Fricke and Mike Oldfield. They didn't seem to be the type of artists that would invest their energy and creative levels around what some other innovative Progressive artist created in the 70's. Krautrock artists seemed to incorporate a Pink Floyd sound. Ashra Tempel, Guru, Guru, Amon Duul II, Cosmic Jokers, and even Tangerine Dream seemed to reproduce the essence of Ummagumma, More, and Meddle. Krautrock is fascinating to me , but it does contain the basis of sound created and produced by the early Pink Floyd. Evidently it wasn't totally a duplication of Pink Floyd and as a result...produced a new kind of music for people to enjoy based on the originality of it....on another note Progressive Rock bands in the 80's pieced together sounds, structures, and ideas directly from other artists. One prime example would be an EDHELS album sounding like a Steve Hackett album. This indication of a more direct duplication was more evident in the 80's than it had been in the 70's...but yet in the 70's we arrived to the ridiculous point of every keyboard player stacking their keyboards, playing one keyboard with their left hand and reaching across with their right hand to play another, leaving their body posed in a dead center position for the crowd to see.....just like Keith Emerson and Rick Wakeman had done years before and not leaving much originality to the presentation or music performance of Progressive Rock. Stage presence and the style of keyboard performance was stylistically based on Emerson and Wakeman's originality. David Greenslade, Patrick Moraz, and Rod Argent were ideal candidates. The album by Argent titled "Nexus" was a take off in the direction of Wakeman and Emerson aside from Russ Ballard's writing. We even had characters like Michael Quatro with his In Collaboration With The Gods on United Artists. All ridiculous emulation to extreme points of exhaustion.
Edited by TODDLER - February 20 2015 at 11:07
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Davesax1965
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Posted: February 20 2015 at 11:13 |
paragraph7 wrote:
Davesax1965 wrote:
There's a quote from an old Greek philosopher - Heraclitus - who said
"You cannot step into the same river twice".
So, basically, unless I forget everything I've heard before I sit down, crack the knuckles and start playing....... no. You can't exactly recreate the period. Playing music is subliminal, you create melodies based on a back catalogue of thoughts, ideas, styles..... I'd have to forget the back catalogue and live through the 70's again.
I couldn't cope with the trousers again, frankly. |
There's also a quote from Ludvig Wittgenstein, who said, and I'm paraphrasing here: "I read Hercalitus who said 'You cannot step into the same river twice', but this is not true, since I just did on friday." (or something along those lines)
But you are correct, at least in my opinion.
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Yep, and don't forget that the world is, indeed, a collection of facts, not of things. :-)
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TODDLER
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Posted: February 20 2015 at 11:22 |
twosteves wrote:
Early groups were listening to a wide variety of music they site as influences---say Les Paul, Rhinehert Vivaldi for Howe, Simon and Garfunkle and church music for Squire, Stravinski and Beach boys for Anderson, Bach Mozart for Rick---not to mention who KC and Genesis members who site a wide variety of influences from every genre, jazz, classical, R&B etc---today's guys when asked who they are influenced by will ususally say Yes KC Rush, Zep whoever----so the outcome isn't going to sound very original. |
This.
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SteveG
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Posted: February 20 2015 at 14:24 |
paragraph7 wrote:
SteveG wrote:
I'm not sure this will have the effect I'm hoping for Todd. But I'll relate the story anyway. A brilliant keyboardist I know had an argument with a guitarist over this same subject. After a few minutes of patiently listening to the guitarist's rant, he played brief excepts from Rachmaninov and Mozart and asked the guitarist "what do these pieces of music have to do with each other besides the fact that I played both on this piano?" The guitarist couldn't answer. The keyboardist then said "perhaps you should take up the piano and study some of the classics." The guitarist silently walked out of the room without saying a word. The idea of music always being similar or merely copied disappeared from my mind. Just like the guitarist from the room.
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The only problem here is that if the gap between most bands would be as big as Rachmaninov and Mozart then we'd be certainly dealing with some completely different and alien forms of music. The guitarist couldn't answer because he probably had no background or knowledge in classical harmony, how Mozart basically sticks to the Wien Classical functions like a baby on ice scream, while Rachmaninov pretty much does whatever he wants - hell, the add9/ninth chord didn't even exist in Mozart times, in terms of the rules and chord function the composers were going by. At least we are at a point where basically same musical theory/chord function is being used in the modern age as it was in the 70s.
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And that was the entire point of this post, and those facts that would have not been lost on someone as musically knowledgeable as Todd. Congratulations and have a cigar P7. Oh, and the main point of the story was about the different backgrounds and perspectives that the two musicians had.
Edited by SteveG - February 21 2015 at 08:54
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HackettFan
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Posted: February 20 2015 at 22:14 |
TODDLER wrote:
Jade Warrior were influenced by Jethro Tull and King Crimson in their early incarnation. According to their bio, members of Jade Warrior attended King Crimson shows in London. On a personal note...I felt that the influence of Jethro Tull in the early days was too obvious. I am a dedicated follower of the band and believe the band found their own voice in music during the Island period. Aside from the influence of Jimi Hendrix' playing through David Duhig, their writing style for the Island period was totally original. The sound and style they developed for the Island period was present on the debut, Released, and Last Autumns Dream , but was also shared with the Jethro Tull style. It is much easier to compose a piece of music that is directly influenced by another artist than it is to discover your own voice. There was a percentage of people in the 70's who were disappointed in the band FOCUS due to their influence of Jethro Tull and Emerson, Lake & Palmer. People actually felt a bit cheated by that. People sometimes felt a bit discouraged by bands like REFUGEE and only because the obvious influence of ELP became ridiculous. I suppose they felt cheated because they could play Pink Floyd's Meddle and not hear signature lines derived from other writers. I don't believe using a flute or a harpsichord can be attributed to sounding like someone else if the writing is unique. King Crimson, YES, Genesis, ELP, and Jethro Tull were not similar to each other regarding composition or sound. I believe that many guitarists, drummers, and keyboardists from the 70's who had training and were skilled sometimes felt intimidated by the big 5 or 6 and lacked confidence to enter the realm of discovering their own voice. This is not the case with Popol Vuh or Mike Oldfield. They were open to experimenting with the course of life along with music. They combined the experience of surrounding themselves with nature and I'm guessing that based on the many photographs I've seen of Florian Fricke and Mike Oldfield. They didn't seem to be the type of artists that would invest their energy and creative levels around what some other innovative Progressive artist created in the 70's. Krautrock artists seemed to incorporate a Pink Floyd sound. Ashra Tempel, Guru, Guru, Amon Duul II, Cosmic Jokers, and even Tangerine Dream seemed to reproduce the essence of Ummagumma, More, and Meddle. Krautrock is fascinating to me , but it does contain the basis of sound created and produced by the early Pink Floyd. Evidently it wasn't totally a duplication of Pink Floyd and as a result...produced a new kind of music for people to enjoy based on the originality of it....on another note Progressive Rock bands in the 80's pieced together sounds, structures, and ideas directly from other artists. One prime example would be an EDHELS album sounding like a Steve Hackett album. This indication of a more direct duplication was more evident in the 80's than it had been in the 70's...but yet in the 70's we arrived to the ridiculous point of every keyboard player stacking their keyboards, playing one keyboard with their left hand and reaching across with their right hand to play another, leaving their body posed in a dead center position for the crowd to see.....just like Keith Emerson and Rick Wakeman had done years before and not leaving much originality to the presentation or music performance of Progressive Rock. Stage presence and the style of keyboard performance was stylistically based on Emerson and Wakeman's originality. David Greenslade, Patrick Moraz, and Rod Argent were ideal candidates. The album by Argent titled "Nexus" was a take off in the direction of Wakeman and Emerson aside from Russ Ballard's writing. We even had characters like Michael Quatro with his In Collaboration With The Gods on United Artists. All ridiculous emulation to extreme points of exhaustion.
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I agree with all this. I made my earlier observations to temper and massage the discussion a little, since even the most original artist is influenced by something. But I agree, definitely. An artist has to find his own voice. I think what helps is if there is some diversity among influences. There's nothing wrong with being influenced by Symphonic Prog as long as there are other important influences outside it so that it combines to make something different. I want to add to the Jade Warrior discussion that they were also one of the first to incorporate World Music, African rhythms especially. So, yes they were influenced by JT, but that wasn't all they were about. You and I both know that of course. They also didn't use a mellotron. I don't know if it was by design or just because they were unable to procure one (they never had very good support from their record company). In the end, they didn't need one. They got a grandiose enough sound without one. But it was a hardware difference that helped them remain distinct. BTW, I enjoy Edhels too. They are definitely derivative of Steve Hackett in terms of guitar leads, which is what certainly appeals to me. They had a very primitive, paint by the numbers rhythm section. All the talent was all confined to the guitar.
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rogerthat
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Posted: February 20 2015 at 23:05 |
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An old discussion to which I am going to add points I have made before. Wetton basically nailed the issue in that 90s interview when he said, if not in as many words, that the problem is in approaching prog as a genre and simultaneously having of said genre-fied prog high expectations with regard to creativity, innovation, etc. An artist like Bjork most certainly has an unique style. But she is so different from the 70s reference point of prog that people have a hard time accepting her as prog. And the mainstream indeed doesn't regard her as prog. This is little more than the inevitable outcome of the maturity and age of prog as a genre. The 70s are four decades in the past at this point. Music built on the foundation of electric guitars, arpeggios, mellotrons and odd time signatures is going to sound at least a bit reminiscent of the 70s. Take one or two of these elements away and some people are going to say it's not prog. Prog metal released prog from this dead end but even that event is now two decades old. One of the bands we recently cleared for addition, Twombley Burwash, found a way to combine conventionally accepted hallmarks of prog with elements of techno/electronic music. Something also done by, who else, KC on Power to Believe. Therein lie possibilities for the regeneration of prog. But it's not going to get exciting again without expanding the box. Rock of all music forms is infected by the"this ain't rock" puritanism. It needs to break free from such ill conceived barriers to really rock again.
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Svetonio
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Posted: February 21 2015 at 02:34 |
rogerthat wrote:
An old discussion to which I am going to add points I have made before. Wetton basically nailed the issue in that 90s interview when he said, if not in as many words, that the problem is in approaching prog as a genre and simultaneously having of said genre-fied prog high expectations with regard to creativity, innovation, etc. An artist like Bjork most certainly has an unique style. But she is so different from the 70s reference point of prog that people have a hard time accepting her as prog. And the mainstream indeed doesn't regard her as prog. This is little more than the inevitable outcome of the maturity and age of prog as a genre. The 70s are four decades in the past at this point. Music built on the foundation of electric guitars, arpeggios, mellotrons and odd time signatures is going to sound at least a bit reminiscent of the 70s. Take one or two of these elements away and some people are going to say it's not prog. Prog metal released prog from this dead end but even that event is now two decades old. One of the bands we recently cleared for addition, Twombley Burwash, found a way to combine conventionally accepted hallmarks of prog with elements of techno/electronic music. Something also done by, who else, KC on Power to Believe. Therein lie possibilities for the regeneration of prog. But it's not going to get exciting again without expanding the box. Rock of all music forms is infected by the"this ain't rock" puritanism. It needs to break free from such ill conceived barriers to really rock again. |
Great post Rog! 
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paragraph7
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Posted: February 21 2015 at 10:37 |
SteveG wrote:
And that was the entire point of this post, and those facts that would have not been lost on someone as musically knowledgeable as Todd. Congratulations and have a cigar P7. Oh, and the main point of the story was about the different backgrounds and perspectives that the two musicians had.
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Alas, I'm a tad retarded and hence immune to sarcasm, so I went and had that cigar. Was good. Thanks!
Edited by paragraph7 - February 21 2015 at 10:39
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paragraph7
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Posted: February 21 2015 at 10:42 |
TODDLER wrote:
Jade Warrior were influenced by Jethro Tull and King Crimson in their early incarnation. According to their bio, members of Jade Warrior attended King Crimson shows in London. On a personal note...I felt that the influence of Jethro Tull in the early days was too obvious. I am a dedicated follower of the band and believe the band found their own voice in music during the Island period. Aside from the influence of Jimi Hendrix' playing through David Duhig, their writing style for the Island period was totally original. The sound and style they developed for the Island period was present on the debut, Released, and Last Autumns Dream , but was also shared with the Jethro Tull style. It is much easier to compose a piece of music that is directly influenced by another artist than it is to discover your own voice. There was a percentage of people in the 70's who were disappointed in the band FOCUS due to their influence of Jethro Tull and Emerson, Lake & Palmer. People actually felt a bit cheated by that. People sometimes felt a bit discouraged by bands like REFUGEE and only because the obvious influence of ELP became ridiculous. I suppose they felt cheated because they could play Pink Floyd's Meddle and not hear signature lines derived from other writers. I don't believe using a flute or a harpsichord can be attributed to sounding like someone else if the writing is unique. King Crimson, YES, Genesis, ELP, and Jethro Tull were not similar to each other regarding composition or sound. I believe that many guitarists, drummers, and keyboardists from the 70's who had training and were skilled sometimes felt intimidated by the big 5 or 6 and lacked confidence to enter the realm of discovering their own voice. This is not the case with Popol Vuh or Mike Oldfield. They were open to experimenting with the course of life along with music. They combined the experience of surrounding themselves with nature and I'm guessing that based on the many photographs I've seen of Florian Fricke and Mike Oldfield. They didn't seem to be the type of artists that would invest their energy and creative levels around what some other innovative Progressive artist created in the 70's. Krautrock artists seemed to incorporate a Pink Floyd sound. Ashra Tempel, Guru, Guru, Amon Duul II, Cosmic Jokers, and even Tangerine Dream seemed to reproduce the essence of Ummagumma, More, and Meddle. Krautrock is fascinating to me , but it does contain the basis of sound created and produced by the early Pink Floyd. Evidently it wasn't totally a duplication of Pink Floyd and as a result...produced a new kind of music for people to enjoy based on the originality of it....on another note Progressive Rock bands in the 80's pieced together sounds, structures, and ideas directly from other artists. One prime example would be an EDHELS album sounding like a Steve Hackett album. This indication of a more direct duplication was more evident in the 80's than it had been in the 70's...but yet in the 70's we arrived to the ridiculous point of every keyboard player stacking their keyboards, playing one keyboard with their left hand and reaching across with their right hand to play another, leaving their body posed in a dead center position for the crowd to see.....just like Keith Emerson and Rick Wakeman had done years before and not leaving much originality to the presentation or music performance of Progressive Rock. Stage presence and the style of keyboard performance was stylistically based on Emerson and Wakeman's originality. David Greenslade, Patrick Moraz, and Rod Argent were ideal candidates. The album by Argent titled "Nexus" was a take off in the direction of Wakeman and Emerson aside from Russ Ballard's writing. We even had characters like Michael Quatro with his In Collaboration With The Gods on United Artists. All ridiculous emulation to extreme points of exhaustion.
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This was very insightful. Cheers.
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What you cannot speak of, you have to pass on in silence.
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moshkito
Forum Senior Member
Joined: January 04 2007
Location: Grok City
Status: Offline
Points: 16148
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Posted: February 21 2015 at 10:51 |
HackettFan wrote:
Random thought 1: It is possible to be influenced by material without being a clone or overly derivative. Some 70s Prog bands themselves did it. Jade Warrior were definitely influenced by Jethro Tull. It doesn't negate their originality (I'll presume I don't have to elaborate until someone tells me otherwise). I'm guessing Focus may have been Tull influenced. It doesn't negate their originality either.
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Listen to CARMEN's last album. There is a bit of Jethro Tull in there, but the "link" is not the sound, but the bass player that Ian promptly stole and sadly, it ended the life of Carmen as a band. And that album (The Gypsies) is fantastic! Inspired by both classical spanish music and rock music and Jethro Tull ... and in all ways possible, the band was better than all of them!
NP: Bullerias
Toddler wrote:
... REFUGEE ...
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I always thought that Refugee, with Patrick Moraz, was quite different from ELP, and I NEVER/EVER got that album because of anything else, but I was impressed seeing a listing of 2 long cuts, and I bought it without having any idea of what it would be like.
Moraz, was not Emerson, and the comparison is very bizarre and silly. Moraz, in many ways was much more technically minded and he obviously knew EQUIPMENT, where Emerson was more interested in the sounds he could get, and what to transpose in them some of the music he liked.
I find Patrick's work there excellent, and when he did RELAYER, even more impressive, although in there, you could tell he was not interested in classical chops that both Emerson and Wakeman reveled in! And i thought that was gutsy and intelligent and valuable ... and quite different.
Folks not listening to "Refugee", are simply comparing oranges to apples and not wishing to listen to different artists do different things. In many ways, I found a lot of the ELP work and Wakeman's work after that time, as not innovative and simply about showing how smart you were with your classical knowledge.
Edited by moshkito - February 21 2015 at 10:57
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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
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SteveG
Forum Senior Member
Joined: April 11 2014
Location: Kyiv In Spirit
Status: Offline
Points: 20497
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Posted: February 21 2015 at 10:53 |
paragraph7 wrote:
SteveG wrote:
And that was the entire point of this post, and those facts that would have not been lost on someone as musically knowledgeable as Todd. Congratulations and have a cigar P7. Oh, and the main point of the story was about the different backgrounds and perspectives that the two musicians had.
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Alas, I'm a tad retarded and hence immune to sarcasm, so I went and had that cigar. Was good. Thanks!
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No sarcasm was intended. I really wanted you to have a cigar as you're quite perceptive. That's something I really admire in people. Cheers!
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Can the early 70s prog sound be cloned nowadays?
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