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Topic: Punk: A Logical Extension of Prog? Posted: March 24 2015 at 10:41
They have fallen out certainly. Even if Rat didn't like Curtain Call they still did it live with him on drums - I saw them do it much to my surprise (and delight).
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Posted: March 24 2015 at 10:03
Pure speculation of course but since the drum track is often the first part of a recording to be laid-down he did his bit under protest (a stroppy drummer? heaven forfend!) and buggered off to bed.
Tell me about the song 'Curtain Call'. Paul Gray once told me that it was only worked on in the early hours. Is that true?
[C]Yeah but only because Rat hated it, so we could only work on it when he was in bed. That's why there's the dawn chorus on there it was "Oh no Rats getting up". One Morning I heard the dawn chorus outside the window and said " Listen to that ". So we just stuck the mike out of the window.
Judging by the interview with Burns I lifted that quote from there is no love lost between him and Millar (Scabies) so perhaps anything he says is a tad jaundiced.
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Posted: March 24 2015 at 09:21
News to me! On the Black Album Rat Scabies plays guitar on 'Drinking About My Baby' and is credited so, it would seem likely if someone else played drums on Curtain Call, it would say?
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Posted: March 24 2015 at 06:56
^ He also played all the keyboards. According to Mr Burns, Rat Scabies hated Curtain Call so they recorded it at night while he was asleep, when they heard the dawn chorus they knew it was time to stop recording (hence the bird-song intro).
The Captain could indeed be considered something of a closet shredder i.e. he is an astonishingly adept guitarist who can solo like a virtuoso (when music journalists ain't around) To be fair to Mr Burns, he didn't exactly hide this in the Damned - check out his guitar on Smash It UpParts 1 & 2 (how Prog is that...)
)
By 1980's the Black Album, Raymond and his cohorts felt sufficiently emboldened to put out their own 'Close to the Edge of Goth Rock' extravaganza in the form of the (frankly spiffy) Curtain Call, a 17 minute tribute to the career longevity afforded by mortuary cosmetics. Of course by this time, Punk was but a distant speck on the event horizon
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Posted: March 24 2015 at 05:22
richardh wrote:
Dean wrote:
Tom Ozric wrote:
I do believe Punk to be in opposition of technically demanding music - however, it was revolutionary at the time, and more adept musicians took the style to further heights. It HAD to happen, eventually.
I believe that view is too simplistic.
Punk Rock was not a reaction to Progressive Rock (or any other form of technically demanding music). As we have shown, its origins (Protopunk) run a parallel course to the emergence and development of Prog Rock. Since both timelines have their roots firmly embedded in the mid-60s underground and homeground music scenes, there is even evidence of a shared appreciation of some of the psychedelic bands of that time.
Any opposition to more technically demanding music was an after-the-event justification for what already existed, however, it was not a reaction to the technical complexity of the music, but an anti-establishment rally against the status quo. Pink Floyd were not singled out because they were technically demanding ('cos they ain't) but because they represented the Music Industry establishment, just as Pejr's points out in his example of a few years later from Yugoslavia: the"rural" music of Riblja čorba represented the established music scene and not necessarily a more technically demanding style of music. Basically, Prog was an easy target with no inclination to fight back.
The reason they went for Prog as opposed to Glam, Funk, Hard Rock or Disco or any of the other even more popular forms of music prevalent at that time is because none of those styles of music were being covered by the "serious" music press (they could be found in teen magazines such as Jackie, Blues & Soul or Disco'45 - not quite the readership demographic that was going to appeal to Punk Rock and vice-versa).
That readership demographic is key (and vital). Just as today with people who like hip-hop or R&B music are never going to buy a Royal Blood album, the people who bought records of the more popular styles of music in the late 70s would never have bought a Prog record and they would never have liked Punk Rock. The adoption of Punk by the "serious" music press should have sounded the death-knell for Prog, and in the "public eye" it certainly did, yet the genre continued regardless.
The divergence of Punk into New Wave and Post Punk created two briefly related audience demographics, yet it didn't take long for those two audiences to become completely separate: the "serious" and the "pop" if you like.
The idea of punk ( if there was one) was to allow anyone to pick up a guitar and start a band without being that good as long as they had one decent idea or a song or something to go on. Captain Sensible stated that before punk you had to be a genius like Emerson, Lake or Palmer to be a in a band, That was an interesting comment because he recognised that ELP had genius which few around here would agree with! Punk was commercially driven and they set out their stall as being more socially relevant (prog bands only wrote about pixies and trolls) and playing music that was more biting less fussy. It wasn't an attack on prog but it was an attempt to change the musical landscape and principles to something that was very anti prog. Bad musicians are better than good musicians was one of their mantras.
My issue with punk is that it as a bit of a lie. Good musicians played in the best punk and new wave bands. Bad musicians disappeared into oblivion pretty quick. The music scene though did eventually rebalance itself partly through a general dischantment with bands whose producers were more famous and the realisation with Live Aid how wonderful it was to see bands like The Who and Queen performing in all their glory. Geldof still managed to ban prog though!
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Posted: March 24 2015 at 03:20
richardh wrote:
The idea of punk ( if there was one) was to allow anyone to pick up a guitar and start a band without being that good as long as they had one decent idea or a song or something to go on.
Actually this description fits rock 'n roll more than punk; punk was a touch more sophisticated.
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Posted: March 24 2015 at 02:52
Dean wrote:
Tom Ozric wrote:
I do believe Punk to be in opposition of technically demanding music - however, it was revolutionary at the time, and more adept musicians took the style to further heights. It HAD to happen, eventually.
I believe that view is too simplistic.
Punk Rock was not a reaction to Progressive Rock (or any other form of technically demanding music). As we have shown, its origins (Protopunk) run a parallel course to the emergence and development of Prog Rock. Since both timelines have their roots firmly embedded in the mid-60s underground and homeground music scenes, there is even evidence of a shared appreciation of some of the psychedelic bands of that time.
Any opposition to more technically demanding music was an after-the-event justification for what already existed, however, it was not a reaction to the technical complexity of the music, but an anti-establishment rally against the status quo. Pink Floyd were not singled out because they were technically demanding ('cos they ain't) but because they represented the Music Industry establishment, just as Pejr's points out in his example of a few years later from Yugoslavia: the"rural" music of Riblja čorba represented the established music scene and not necessarily a more technically demanding style of music. Basically, Prog was an easy target with no inclination to fight back.
The reason they went for Prog as opposed to Glam, Funk, Hard Rock or Disco or any of the other even more popular forms of music prevalent at that time is because none of those styles of music were being covered by the "serious" music press (they could be found in teen magazines such as Jackie, Blues & Soul or Disco'45 - not quite the readership demographic that was going to appeal to Punk Rock and vice-versa).
That readership demographic is key (and vital). Just as today with people who like hip-hop or R&B music are never going to buy a Royal Blood album, the people who bought records of the more popular styles of music in the late 70s would never have bought a Prog record and they would never have liked Punk Rock. The adoption of Punk by the "serious" music press should have sounded the death-knell for Prog, and in the "public eye" it certainly did, yet the genre continued regardless.
The divergence of Punk into New Wave and Post Punk created two briefly related audience demographics, yet it didn't take long for those two audiences to become completely separate: the "serious" and the "pop" if you like.
The idea of punk ( if there was one) was to allow anyone to pick up a guitar and start a band without being that good as long as they had one decent idea or a song or something to go on. Captain Sensible stated that before punk you had to be a genius like Emerson, Lake or Palmer to be a in a band, That was an interesting comment because he recognised that ELP had genius which few around here would agree with! Punk was commercially driven and they set out their stall as being more socially relevant (prog bands only wrote about pixies and trolls) and playing music that was more biting less fussy. It wasn't an attack on prog but it was an attempt to change the musical landscape and principles to something that was very anti prog. Bad musicians are better than good musicians was one of their mantras.
My issue with punk is that it as a bit of a lie. Good musicians played in the best punk and new wave bands. Bad musicians disappeared into oblivion pretty quick. The music scene though did eventually rebalance itself partly through a general dischantment with bands whose producers were more famous and the realisation with Live Aid how wonderful it was to see bands like The Who and Queen performing in all their glory. Geldof still managed to ban prog though!
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Posted: March 19 2015 at 05:52
Dean wrote:
he means "rural" as the opposite of "urban", "primitive" (peasant) as opposed to "educated" (elite), [which shows how much he understood of the UK music scene and social-culture]. He certainly does not mean it in a literal "pastoral" or bucolic sense.
Both bands were "anti-elitist" and yet in the same time period. That punk hit-song "Zlatni papagaj" ("Golden Parrot") for which the Električni Orgazam became well known (and latter declared by NME as "the most interesting non-British band") says, for example, the worst things about at that time newly open, very nice and modern designed Italian-like cafe named "Zlatni papagaj" where many young people gathered in the evening in downtown Belgrade (mostly journalists and artists were drinking their expresso there but during daytime), though not the punks who were sitting and drugged at the benches in a nearby park. If the same song sung by Riblja Čorba, Gojković would say like, "Riblja Čorba sung it because they were rural".
Simply put, Gojković misses the target when mentioning Riblja Čorba in the same context with the prog-related band Bjelo Dugme which was at the peak of popularity in 1975 / 1976. In fact, i know why he do that. Gojković has some another, political conflict with Bora Đorđević, leader of Riblja Čorba. However, it was during the 90s Balkan wars and latter and that's another story. In early 80s, Električni orgazam and Riblja Čorba actually shared the same audience (i mean the wider audience who were buying LPs by both bands, not strictly their hardcore fan bases.)
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Posted: March 19 2015 at 03:56
he means "rural" as the opposite of "urban", "primitive" (peasant) as opposed to "educated" (elite), [which shows how much he understood of the UK music scene and social-culture]. He certainly does not mean it in a literal "pastoral" or bucolic sense.
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Posted: March 19 2015 at 03:44
Svetonio wrote:
Komandant Shamal wrote:
Svetonio wrote:
tamijo wrote:
To answer the OP, there was a lot of diffrent music, not just Prog and Punk, (...)
Of course, there was Funk, Disco, Disco-Funk, Funk-Rock, Pop Rock, Glam Rock, Adult Oriented Rock, Hard Rock and so on, but it was especially Prog that symbolized something for punks that they should be against. Well, it's not so difficult to imagine why
It's true.
Srđan Gojković Gile, the front-man of the band Električni orgazam, defines his own view of the Yugoslav music scene in the early eighties: "We thought of Bijelo dugme [a great band, already in PA prog-related section] or Riblja čorba as rural (primitive) bands. We viewed them in the same way in which Sex Pistols probably viewed the bands like Yes or Genesis. We were just kids, punkers and our main philosophy was that everything before us was sh*t, that history began with us. It was not true, of course, but it was what it looked like to us back then. The sensibility that both Bijelo dugme and Riblja čorba possessed was too rural for us but that was precisely the key ingredient of their success"
Bijelo Dugme had their great pastoral ("rural", "primitive") moments, especially at the first three albums which are prog. But, Riblja Čorba - rural? No, especially not in early eighties (btw, Riblja Čorba was released their debut single in December 1978; "Riblja Čorba" means Danube river fish soup which is pretty red colour due to tomato juice ingredient and it was Belgrade' slang for menstrual period); maybe more like when Bruce Springsteen sings about the darkness on the edge of town, that kind of topics, but "rural" they weren't for sure. Mr Gojković, as a punker as well, usually like to add some bullsh*t in his statements.
Yes it could be, though slightly less romantic.
^ the album cover of Riblja Čorba debut "Kost u grlu" ("The Bone In The Throat"), released 1979.
And Riblja Čorba, at least at their first 3 LPs, had more socially critical lyrics (in Rock genre) than Električni Orgazam as a Punk band - throughout the whole career.
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Posted: March 18 2015 at 16:27
Dean wrote:
Tom Ozric wrote:
I do believe Punk to be in opposition of technically demanding music - however, it was revolutionary at the time, and more adept musicians took the style to further heights. It HAD to happen, eventually.
I believe that view is too simplistic.
Punk Rock was not a reaction to Progressive Rock (or any other form of technically demanding music). As we have shown, its origins (Protopunk) run a parallel course to the emergence and development of Prog Rock. Since both timelines have their roots firmly embedded in the mid-60s underground and homeground music scenes, there is even evidence of a shared appreciation of some of the psychedelic bands of that time.
Any opposition to more technically demanding music was an after-the-event justification for what already existed, however, it was not a reaction to the technical complexity of the music, but an anti-establishment rally against the status quo. Pink Floyd were not singled out because they were technically demanding ('cos they ain't) but because they represented the Music Industry establishment, just as Pejr's points out in his example of a few years later from Yugoslavia: the"rural" music of Riblja čorba represented the established music scene and not necessarily a more technically demanding style of music. Basically, Prog was an easy target with no inclination to fight back.
The reason they went for Prog as opposed to Glam, Funk, Hard Rock or Disco or any of the other even more popular forms of music prevalent at that time is because none of those styles of music were being covered by the "serious" music press (they could be found in teen magazines such as Jackie, Blues & Soul or Disco'45 - not quite the readership demographic that was going to appeal to Punk Rock and vice-versa).
That readership demographic is key (and vital). Just as today with people who like hip-hop or R&B music are never going to buy a Royal Blood album, the people who bought records of the more popular styles of music in the late 70s would never have bought a Prog record and they would never have liked Punk Rock. The adoption of Punk by the "serious" music press should have sounded the death-knell for Prog, and in the "public eye" it certainly did, yet the genre continued regardless.
The divergence of Punk into New Wave and Post Punk created two briefly related audience demographics, yet it didn't take long for those two audiences to become completely separate: the "serious" and the "pop" if you like.
I still get email alerts for this thread and this caught my eye.
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Posted: March 18 2015 at 12:45
Komandant Shamal wrote:
Svetonio wrote:
tamijo wrote:
To answer the OP, there was a lot of diffrent music, not just Prog and Punk, (...)
Of course, there was Funk, Disco, Disco-Funk, Funk-Rock, Pop Rock, Glam Rock, Adult Oriented Rock, Hard Rock and so on, but it was especially Prog that symbolized something for punks that they should be against. Well, it's not so difficult to imagine why
It's true.
Srđan Gojković Gile, the front-man of the band Električni orgazam, defines his own view of the Yugoslav music scene in the early eighties: "We thought of Bijelo dugme [a great band, already in PA prog-related section] or Riblja čorba as rural (primitive) bands. We viewed them in the same way in which Sex Pistols probably viewed the bands like Yes or Genesis. We were just kids, punkers and our main philosophy was that everything before us was sh*t, that history began with us. It was not true, of course, but it was what it looked like to us back then. The sensibility that both Bijelo dugme and Riblja čorba possessed was too rural for us but that was precisely the key ingredient of their success"
Bijelo Dugme had their great pastoral ("rural", "primitive") moments, especially at the first three albums which are prog. But, Riblja Čorba - rural? No, especially not in early eighties (btw, Riblja Čorba was released their debut single in December 1978; "Riblja Čorba" means Danube river fish soup which is pretty red colour due to tomato juice ingredient and it was Belgrade' slang for menstrual period); maybe more like when Bruce Springsteen sings about the darkness on the edge of town, that kind of topics, but "rural" they weren't for sure. Mr Gojković, as a punker as well, usually like to add some bullsh*t in his statements.
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Posted: March 18 2015 at 09:40
ExittheLemming wrote:
Dean wrote:
The adoption of Punk by the "serious" music press should have sounded the death-knell for Prog, and in the "public eye" it certainly did, yet the genre continued regardless.
Good post certainly but just for clarity: although it is demonstrably true that Prog continued regardless of its flagellation at the hands of the 'serious' UK music press (e.g. Sounds, NME circa '76 onwards) the actual quality of this music was, even by the partisan views of nostalgic apologists, more than a bit sh*t by that stage surely? i.e. practically every acknowledged Prog masterpiece was recorded long before 1976 and most of what came after was a rather unconvincing assimilation of late 70's zeitgeist 'economy' and 'energy' buzzwords as realised by slumming virtuosos with nervous record labels to appease. The game was up and a demographic had voted with their feet. Ergo, the Punk ethos clearly impacted very profoundly on every single facet of the music industry. Prog musicians simply did not have the option to 'carry on regardless' with their esoteric oeuvre post '76 as niche markets are notoriously poor payers (Try buying flared jeans, platform boots and a wide tie in 1978 etc)
I'm not saying that the marketplace should be the ultimate arbiter of taste here, but unless you countenance subsidised arts, we invariably get the popular culture we deserve
Absolutely. Thou' it wasn't a case of carrying on regardless but of continuing on regardless (of the lack of press and/or popular support). Irrespective of anyone's opinion of the quality of music represented by Progressive Rock in the period from 1977 through to the early 80s it didn't suddenly go through a drastic overhaul or period of self-examination. Trends that had been prevalent since the hay-day of 1973 continued, whether that is seen as a decline, a simplification or more displays of excess (erm, that's sounds like a potted history of the decline and fall of ELP, but it could apply to any of the bigger names in prog). With or without Punk I suspect that trend would have continued. I have no proof of that of course, other than natural entropy that afflicts most forms of music that have been around for any length of time - they stagnate or they decline but are rarely able to replicate their former glory. That all of the "big six" (or whatever the number currently is) continued on into the 80s with a modicum of commercial (if not critical) success without becoming self-tributes or embarrassing parodies of themselves is indicative of something - while some decry the pop success of Yes and Genesis, they didn't completely divorce themselves from Prog Rock. The point is (if there is one) is that they didn't simply shrink back into the woodwork.
The adoption of Punk by the "serious" music press should have sounded the death-knell for Prog, and in the "public eye" it certainly did, yet the genre continued regardless.
Good post certainly but just for clarity: although it is demonstrably true that Prog continued regardless of its flagellation at the hands of the 'serious' UK music press (e.g. Sounds, NME circa '76 onwards) the actual quality of this music was, even by the partisan views of nostalgic apologists, more than a bit sh*t by that stage surely? i.e. practically every acknowledged Prog masterpiece was recorded long before 1976 and most of what came after was a rather unconvincing assimilation of late 70's zeitgeist 'economy' and 'energy' buzzwords as realised by slumming virtuosos with nervous record labels to appease. The game was up and a demographic had voted with their feet. Ergo, the Punk ethos clearly impacted very profoundly on every single facet of the music industry. Prog musicians simply did not have the option to 'carry on regardless' with their esoteric oeuvre post '76 as niche markets are notoriously poor payers (Try buying flared jeans, platform boots and a wide tie in 1978 etc)
I'm not saying that the marketplace should be the ultimate arbiter of taste here, but unless you countenance subsidised arts, we invariably get the popular culture we deserve
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Posted: March 18 2015 at 08:00
Tom Ozric wrote:
I do believe Punk to be in opposition of technically demanding music - however, it was revolutionary at the time, and more adept musicians took the style to further heights. It HAD to happen, eventually.
I believe that view is too simplistic.
Punk Rock was not a reaction to Progressive Rock (or any other form of technically demanding music). As we have shown, its origins (Protopunk) run a parallel course to the emergence and development of Prog Rock. Since both timelines have their roots firmly embedded in the mid-60s underground and homeground music scenes, there is even evidence of a shared appreciation of some of the psychedelic bands of that time.
Any opposition to more technically demanding music was an after-the-event justification for what already existed, however, it was not a reaction to the technical complexity of the music, but an anti-establishment rally against the status quo. Pink Floyd were not singled out because they were technically demanding ('cos they ain't) but because they represented the Music Industry establishment, just as Pejr's points out in his example of a few years later from Yugoslavia: the"rural" music of Riblja čorba represented the established music scene and not necessarily a more technically demanding style of music. Basically, Prog was an easy target with no inclination to fight back.
The reason they went for Prog as opposed to Glam, Funk, Hard Rock or Disco or any of the other even more popular forms of music prevalent at that time is because none of those styles of music were being covered by the "serious" music press (they could be found in teen magazines such as Jackie, Blues & Soul or Disco'45 - not quite the readership demographic that was going to appeal to Punk Rock and vice-versa).
That readership demographic is key (and vital). Just as today with people who like hip-hop or R&B music are never going to buy a Royal Blood album, the people who bought records of the more popular styles of music in the late 70s would never have bought a Prog record and they would never have liked Punk Rock. The adoption of Punk by the "serious" music press should have sounded the death-knell for Prog, and in the "public eye" it certainly did, yet the genre continued regardless.
The divergence of Punk into New Wave and Post Punk created two briefly related audience demographics, yet it didn't take long for those two audiences to become completely separate: the "serious" and the "pop" if you like.
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Posted: March 18 2015 at 04:40
I do believe Punk to be in opposition of technically demanding music - however, it was revolutionary at the time, and more adept musicians took the style to further heights. It HAD to happen, eventually.
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Punk: A Logical Extension of Prog?
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Tell me about the song 'Curtain Call'. Paul Gray once told me that it was only worked on in the early hours. Is that true?
)
he means "rural" as the opposite of "urban", "primitive" (peasant) as opposed to "educated" (elite), [which shows how much he understood of the UK music scene and social-culture]. He certainly does not mean it in a literal "pastoral" or bucolic sense.
No, especially not in early eighties (btw, Riblja Čorba was released their debut single in December 1978; "Riblja Čorba" means Danube river fish soup which is pretty red colour due to tomato juice ingredient and it was Belgrade' slang for menstrual period); maybe more like when Bruce Springsteen sings about the darkness on the edge of town, that kind of topics, but "rural" they weren't for sure. Mr Gojković, as a punker as well, usually like to add some bullsh*t in his statements.
