Rip off bands of the 70s/80s? - Progressive Rock Music Forum

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Finnforest View Drop Down

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Posted: October 05 2015 at 22:17

What does the first track of this album remind you of LOL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cc2Qe773Of8

Not a bad album

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Posted: October 05 2015 at 22:41

Finnforest wrote:

What does the first track of this album remind you of LOL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cc2Qe773Of8

Not a bad album

not bad at all!

smart enough to not clone the vocals Tongue

Flight123

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Posted: October 06 2015 at 06:47

The first prog band I ever saw was Druid - very close to Yes!!

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Posted: October 06 2015 at 11:23

Edhels were quite a take off on the instrumental side to Steve Hackett. I loved Edhels! Maybe their ideas were not intentionally molded around Steve Hackett's style...as sometimes that will occur, but it is very obvious on their first four releases.

Ozric Tentacles are are very similar to Gong and Hawkwind. Ozric Tentacles fuse a funky Jazz Rock with Space Rock like Gong did in the 70's. They also bring forth the vibe in Hawkwind's music.

Solaris are a Jethro Tull rip off. I love Solaris and it doesn't seem to bother me.

Lucifer Was, a band originally formed in the 70's ...also imitated the Jethro Tull style/sound.

PFM entered Genesis and ELP and made it quite obvious. As a matter of fact,,,they often copied YES as well.

Far East Family Band are a rip off of Pink Floyd....Dark Side Of The Moon period.

Ivan_Melgar_M View Drop Down

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Posted: October 06 2015 at 11:23

Germany had a lot of ELP inspired powee trios, some very close to clones like:

1.- Tritonus (1975)

2.- Trilogy (1979)

This two come to mind

Edited by Ivan_Melgar_M - October 06 2015 at 11:47

presdoug

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Posted: October 06 2015 at 11:55

^thanks, Ivan, for introducing me to these two bands. I like them both, especially Trilogy. Thumbs Up

cstack3

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Posted: October 06 2015 at 15:50

fudgenuts64 wrote:

I'm looking for bands that ripped off the prog giants, I'm not really talking about stuff like Marillion and Genesis, but stuff like Starcastle and Yes which is my example of a "rip off" band. How many of these bands are out there and what records do I need? Mind you, I don't enjoy this stuff too much... but it's sorta fun to listen to.

Hey!! Starcastle were friends of mine in the mid-1970s!!

They were heavily influenced by Yes, but did strive to take that classic sound (strong keyboards, guitar and bass with vocal harmonies) and give it an American spin. I think they largely succeeded on their first LP, not so much on the second and third.

RIP Gary Strater, one of the best bassists I've ever know.

Many of the "ripoff" bands were highly influenced by the classic bands, so I don't consider them as ripping off the sound as trying to run with it and making it their own. Marillion comes to mind right away, but other bands could include Magenta, Glass Hammer and many others.

Interesting how few bands took the King Crimson formula forward, the one I often think of is the French band Nebel N'Est.

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Posted: October 06 2015 at 18:59

Mastermind started up in the '80s and their melody lead lines (not the vocals) were very reminiscent of ELP/Keith Emerson, but Bill Berends played them all on guitar and guitar synthesizer...no keyboards! The first album, of course, exhibits ELP's influence more so than the rest (though they all do, up until Angels of the Apocalypse).

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Posted: October 06 2015 at 22:20

TODDLER wrote:

Edhels were quite a take off on the instrumental side to Steve Hackett. I loved Edhels! Maybe their ideas were not intentionally molded around Steve Hackett's style...as sometimes that will occur, but it is very obvious on their first four releases.

I love Edhels too. Definitely Hackett's guitar style. Not Hackett's composition style, though. Everything in Edhels is a vehicle of support for the guitar, which kind of appeals to me, since I am rather guitar-centric in my tastes. It's like Steve Hackett without Banks, Magnus, and King. There are keyboards, true enough, but the guitar really drives everything.

Edited by HackettFan - October 06 2015 at 22:21

TODDLER

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Posted: October 06 2015 at 22:58

Happy Family took the King Crimson formula just as other bands from the R.I.O. period. Some people in the past have said that Univers Zero took over where the King Crimson from the '69 to '74 period left off. To condense this theory more precisely I would say that the influence of the King Crimson formula to Univers Zero is not such a extreme measure unlike what these people are saying. In the case of Univers Zero and I had to put all my eggs in one basket, I would say Bella Bartok more so than King Crimson.

I think it's ridiculous that Free System Project, John Dyson/Wavestar, and Michael Hoenig all went to extreme measures to sound like Tangerine Dream...when Steve Jolliffe, Johannes Schmolleing , Klaus Schulze, and Florian Fricke did not. I could probably come up with 10 or 15 artists who copied the T.D. of the 70's and most likely 20 artists that copied T.D. of the 80's. Nightcrawlers were not the only obvious ones.

Kansas copied ELP for particular sections of their music. The instrumental section in the center of "Songs From America" is taken from ELP's "Take A Pebble." The band GRACIOUS practically imitated King Crimson. Refugee were a combination of ELP, The Nice, and Genesis. The very early Barclay James Harvest was a rip off of The Moody Blues in the same way that Badfinger were a rip off of The Beatles. Beggars Opera were a total rip off of The Nice and Deep Purple. This is what I've always dreaded about Prog. It was too extreme! Genesis, Yes, King Crimson, ELP, and Jethro Tull sounded nothing a like, but everyone else ..with the exception of a few, sounded exactly like them. Gentle Giant..I respected because they only sounded like King Crimson in short sections of their songs and mostly on the early albums. Brand X were a rip off of Mahavishnu Orchestra. Not every track, but on the tracks that DID reveal the influence of John McLaughlin's writing, it was a waste for them to put that much energy into it. Time and time again...I would put on a Progressive Rock album and hear someone playing the chords John McLaughlin wrote , being placed into something a little less complex and I thought that was cheap. Another ridiculous rip off of ELP is on AS YOUR MIND FLIES BY ....by ..RARE BIRD. Graham Field was a fine keyboardist, but the music is ELP to the max and the vocals SOUND like Greg Lake regarding the tone and phrasing. It's just silly. It just seems like a silly thing to do when these people had great talent and they were wasting it by trying to sound like someone else.

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Posted: October 06 2015 at 23:28

Sometimes things just happen to resurface too without any overt attempt to copy. Peter Gabriel is known for his incorporation of Wold Music, but Jade Warrior had done it long before. Steve Hackett has done his share of World Music too and was unfairly accused of copying Gabriel (anyone who knows Hackett's discography knows he had long ago set out to incorporate EVERY style of music).

Big Ears

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Posted: October 07 2015 at 04:21

- Early Birth Control, with an emphasis on the organ, sounded like Atomic Rooster and ELP, although they had a distinctive lead singer.
- Skin Alley, with Nick Graham, were also a lot like Atomic Rooster.
- The aforementioned Druid were a good live band, but they suddenly disappeared from the club scene.
- Happy the Man were an American band that sounded like the Canterbury bands. I remember one of the Soft Machine musiicans saying there are Canterbury bands all over the world!
- Bob Calvert's Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters is more like Hawkwind than Hawkwind.
- Illusion were really the original and best Renaissance.
- Isotope, with the amazing Gary Boyle, were the poor man's Mahavishnu Orchestra.
- Klaatu were hyped as a Beatles copy.
- Barclay James Harvest were called 'the poor man's Moody Blues,' but it was a compliment.
- Osibisa copied Santana without the guitars, surprisingly successfully.
- Rush, Montrose and Beckett ripped off Led Zeppelin in the early days and weren't bad either.
- UK were an ELP copy but soon developed their own style.

TODDLER

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Posted: October 07 2015 at 04:46

Big Ears wrote:

- Early Birth Control, with an emphasis on the organ, sounded like Atomic Rooster and ELP, although they had a distinctive lead singer.
- Skin Alley, with Nick Graham, were also a lot like Atomic Rooster.
- The aforementioned Druid were a good live band, but they suddenly disappeared from the club scene.
- Happy the Man were an American band that sounded like the Canterbury bands. I remember one of the Soft Machine musiicans saying there are Canterbury bands all over the world!
- Bob Calvert's Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters is more like Hawkwind than Hawkwind.
- Illusion were really the original and best Renaissance.
- Isotope, with the amazing Gary Boyle, were the poor man's Mahavishnu Orchestra.
- Klaatu were hyped as a Beatles copy.
- Barclay James Harvest were called 'the poor man's Moody Blues,' but it was a compliment.
- Osibisa copied Santana without the guitars, surprisingly successfully.
- Rush, Montrose and Beckett ripped off Led Zeppelin in the early days and weren't bad either.
- UK were an ELP copy but soon developed their own style.

True

TODDLER

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Posted: October 07 2015 at 04:47

HackettFan wrote:

Sometimes things just happen to resurface too without any overt attempt to copy. Peter Gabriel is known for his incorporation of Wold Music, but Jade Warrior had done it long before. Steve Hackett has done his share of World Music too and was unfairly accused of copying Gabriel (anyone who knows Hackett's discography knows he had long ago set out to incorporate EVERY style of music).

True

TODDLER

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Posted: October 07 2015 at 11:00

If you are a musician and you are not productive, you're gonna get hurt. So what do you do? Copy the next guy and especially if you are too stupid to figure it out on your own. For example, I can't grow a third arm and play like Keith Emerson, so I'll just copy what I can. The idea has been around for a long time.

Sagichim

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Posted: October 07 2015 at 11:50

TODDLER wrote:

Solaris are a Jethro Tull rip off. I love Solaris and it doesn't seem to bother me.

What are you talking about?

timothy leary View Drop Down

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Posted: October 07 2015 at 12:52

Sagichim wrote:

TODDLER wrote:

Solaris are a Jethro Tull rip off. I love Solaris and it doesn't seem to bother me.

What are you talking about?

I don't hear that when I listen to Solaris

Big Ears

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Posted: October 07 2015 at 12:54

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
- Hamlet (1.5.167-8), Hamlet to Horatio

verslibre

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Posted: October 07 2015 at 13:07

TODDLER wrote:

Kansas copied ELP for particular sections of their music. The instrumental section in the center of "Songs From America" is taken from ELP's "Take A Pebble."

Kansas famous used Journey's "Cookie Duster" as the basis for "Carry on Wayward Son."

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Ivan_Melgar_M View Drop Down

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Posted: October 07 2015 at 13:17

Talking about ELP clones, this ones really crossed the line

Bondar & Wise......Even the photo of their album is a copy of Trilogy

And their music LOL