First post at the age of 55...

I've been listening to progressive music since I was 12, when a trendy neighbour (or at least I thought he was) who was quite a few years older than me started playing some records he had bought. I remember one of these records was the inaugural Roxy Music LP, which had been released earlier that year (1972). To be honest, I “borrowed it” (he lived next door) simply because I thought it was a grown-up thing to do. But when I started playing the music I loved it (!), and did not do it to please anyone other than myself. I really got into the music: other LPs he lent me included Jethro Tull, Quintessence and Van Der Graaf Generator. I remember talking about Van Der Graaf Generator to a science teacher at my local comprehensive school: I'm not sure if he was impressed or appalled that I knew of this band. None of my class mates had any idea what I was talking about. I would like to think (secretly) impressed. In subsequent years I continued listening to progressive rock principally Genesis, Yes, ELP, Focus etc… and  Roxy Music (their first two LPs were certainly worthy of being labelled as progressive rock). I also listened incessantly to the various incarnations of David Bowie. I remember queuing outside of a record shop in Lewisham High Street, South East London (do you remember record shops??) for Alladin Sane, which I adored – and still do. Music continued to be incredibly important to me – perhaps because there was less to do in those days? – but I did go to the "dark side" for a while and became influenced by punk rock (I was 16 at the time), listening intently to John Peel every evening; I was eventually won over by the sheer energy and of it. I was also part of “Rock against Racialism”, probably if I'm honest a fashion statement as much as anything else, although I did believe in the movement. Anyway, I've always had a penchant for the melancholy and as a consequence favoured Joy Division and the Cure. Some of their works were hauntingly beautiful, which is perhaps an odd thing to say about punk music, although I now realise they were much more than that.

From there followed respectively: studying, a career (of sorts...) and fatherhood, but I continued to listen to music throughout and made sure my young son had a “good education” as far as this was concerned. I remember one day noticing that he was singing away to a piece on BBC Radio Six (Fatboy Slim I think) when he was about 4 or 5, something I'd never noticed before- he was after all listening most of the time to his Smurfs CD! I immediately went out and bought some Best of 60s and Best 70s CDs, as I thought this would be good introduction –  happy, uplifting tunes. I thought that what I was listening to with my wife in those days wasn't the easiest - or the most appropriate - music for a 5-year-old. Unfortunately, I had not taken into account that when he was at junior school in the 1990s, he would be singing Manfred Mann/Herman's Hermits’ etc…songs - this would definitely have singled him as an odd kid, which was not my intention at all. (I should add that my wife and I did move on to Best of 80s, but I'm not sure this made him any the trendier...) I'm pleased to say he subsequently learned to play the guitar, something I encouraged him to do when from the age of 10,  and he has gone on to play lead in a couple of amateur rock bands with his friends - although very much as a side line. Still, it made me very proud. (I just imagined how happy I would have been as a teenager playing a Fender Stratocaster! Seeing him on onstage/in videos was the next best thing. I definitely lived this side of my life vicariously.)

Anyway, to bring things up to date I find that the progressive music scene is now as good as at any time in the past. Thanks to the wonders of (legal) streaming, I can – and do – access “new” progressive rock music not only from the UK, but also from places such as Italy, Norway and Russia to name but 3 countries . There is still so much out there that I have yet to hear. It is the thought of discovering great pieces of work that excites me so. As much as I love symphonic progressive rock from the 70s (my era), it is finding and listening to new stuff that excites me most.

I am not ready yet to live my life in the past, and to "over indulge in nostalgia". The very thought appalls me.

 Anyway that's more than enough for a first - and most probably last - post from me. < id="_npfido" ="applicationpfido" height="0" style="line-height: 1.4;">