Tell me about your prog journey

I had a comment for this thread but f-u-c-k-ing "Captcha" deleted it. Whatever.

Edited by The Dark Elf - June 05 2017 at 13:40

Rednight wrote: dr wu23 wrote: .....but I enjoy the classic early prog the best...from 1969-1979. Amen to that, brother.

Edited by AFlowerKingCrimson - June 05 2017 at 18:21

AFlowerKingCrimson wrote: ^It sounds like you're around the same age as me(teen in the eighties). The eighties were a weird time to discover prog weren't they? :)

I made the transition from heavy metal to prog around 1983.

My actual first prog album was The Wall in about 1982, but I didn't really know what prog rock was. It was just an album that I heard round a friends house and happened to like. I was intrigued by the fact that the whole album told a story, and loved the way the songs flowed into each other.

Then a friend of mine said he thought my tastes were 'too heavy' so he leant me Exit stage..left by Rush, and then Script for a Jesters Tear. Next thing I knew I was listening to Genesis at Knebworth 1978 on the BBC Friday night rock show, and that was that. I went out and bought everything I could by Genesis, Rush, Marillion and Floyd. I graduated onto Yes and various neo-bands and before I knew it, I was a progger and rapidly losing interest in Motorhead, Maiden, Metallica et al...although I do listen to a bit of metal now and then these days.

I guess you could take it back to 1978 when I first heard Jeff Waynes War of the Worlds. It had a similar effect on me, aged 10 or so, that The Wall did when I was about 13.

Although I'd been listening to Stand Up and tyhe Hair Musical OST ever since I was six, it wasn't really until the unavoidable Harmonium's debut (spring 74) in Montreal and later on Crime Of The Century in Sept 74, once we'd moved to Toronto that I really plunged into rock music...
The record shop next to my school had Supertramp's COTC in the indow ... and because of that intriguing artwork, I just had to listen to the music ... Within weeks or a couple of months, I'd bought DSOTM, ITLOG&P, SEBTP, ITCOTCK, LSOHHB and a few more, like you'd guessed it Aqualung and TAAB.

Hard rock would wait afterwards

Kepler62 wrote: Went on the train from Two Mountains to Sam The Record Man in downtown Montreal. The Sam's in Toronto was even better. I We would take the train to Toronto from Montreal just to go to Sam's to get all kinds of crazy stuff. Glad I kept all my vinyl from the seventies. Last time I counted was close to 2000 Lps.

Mmmhhh!!!... sam was hardly the only record store on the Yonge strip between Dundas & Bloor, including the Vinyl Museum and a Records On Wheels within 25 yards. 

I would take the Go Train from Clarkson until Union Station and raid all them stores , starting with Record Peddler on Queen St E than walk all the way to Record On Wheels of Bloor than back down.
Vortex Records (used only) was my fave...

 

dr wu23 wrote: Hmm....I started when it wasn't called prog but just different music. I suppose The Moody Blues , Traffic, and Procol Harum, Tull... were the first proggy things...then I discovered Crimson's first (early 1970) and kept looking for unusual music in that vein. Yes...Genesis...ELP...etc. No one called it prog then...it was simply more adventurous music.

yup, we (Ontario & Quebec) called that music either Art Rock or Symphob-nic Prog or Jazz-rock... I only heard of prog rock in the 90's in Europe

Edited by Sean Trane - June 06 2017 at 09:12

Well, I was born in the very late 90s, first of all.

When I was very young, I didn't listen to music really. But I liked playing computer games. However, it turned out I enjoyed the music of the computer games more then the game itself. I started downloading it and making mixes for my room. Often, the music was by John Williams and so and such. But you can normally call video game soundtracks progressive.

It wasn't until middle school when my parents got me into more normal music. Of course, this being classic rock. I was obsessed with The Beatles. But most Beatles songs I listened to were the experimental ones like I Am the Walrus, Blue Jay Way, Within You Without You, etc. I even formed a guilty pleasure for Revolution 9!

After The Beatles I got into Led Zeppelin, and then Pink Floyd. My parents weren't so sure about Floyd for me because they were often associated with drugs (which I personally do not associate with prog, I care strictly about musical intent and not drugs). But no matter my parents remarks, I still got into Floyd.

I guess you could say if any song had changed my life, it would have been Echoes. This was basically my first prog epic. I remember it being around the time of my first heartbreak, and I listened to it every night before I would sleep for about two months. I soon realized that I needed to find more music like this.

My cousin helped me get into Yes, and soon, my mom got me into Jethro Tull and my dad got me into Genesis. After I found out that all these bands were within the same genre, I knew what my favorite type of music was. I still listen to prog today, now being more modern prog. Now I am older and almost done with High School. I guess my favorite music has now branched out to classical and I like modern indie rock too. But of course, nothing can replace prog.

Moody Blues first in 1967 (I was 16 years old), then Pink Floyd in 1968, then Yes, King Crimson...

I had a phase in which I loved the Beatles aged 9 or so but dropped them somewhat stupidly. Then in 1979 my father played a tape in the car with Watch by Manfred Mann's Earthband and this got me totally hooked. I started buying all their stuff and then very quickly discovered others, Pink Floyd came second (of course they had Another Brick in the Wall II in the charts at the time so I they came to me quite naturally), I read Ingeborg Schober's book on Amon Düül II and my father had some Novalis flying around, so I started to get into Krautrock and then Electronic like Tangerine Dream, my best friend was into Barclay James Harvest, Supertramp, Genesis, Alan Parsons and we exchanged lots of stuff; I got into piles of things in 1980, Jethro Tull, Can, Yes, Oldfield, Grobschnitt, Gong, you name it. Also I became a big Eloy fan.

Most of these early discoveries are still dear to me. I fell out of love with Eloy and became far more critical of some more commercial end 70s/early 80s stuff that I had liked at the time (BJH and APP are pretty much gone, I hate Genesis after Abacap; on the other I still like quite some Supertramp), but I still love many of my very first albums such as Nightingales and Bombers, Animals, Rubycon. I always listened to quite a bit of other stuff; in recent years I listen more to experimental soundscapes, field recordings and the like. I always expected jazz and classical to gain more ground in my taste but they're still pretty marginal though existing. Somehow prog and prog related stuff still make about 50% of what I listen to. 

I grew up in a three-generation household, and an unmarried younger brother of my father had his room next to mine, and he listened to lots of rock music. That was in the 70s, so the classics of rock provided the soundtrack to the adventures of my LEGO starships.

Later, in school, I had a very modern young music teacher who played to us various versions of the Pictures at an Exhibition, including that by ELP. However, back then I was more impressed by Isao Tomita's synthesizer version.

Yet later, my brother introduced me to Pink Floyd, and soon after that, some classmates of mine introduced me to Rush, Marillion and Asia; I also heard of Yes at that time, but did not buy any records of them.

It really kicked off in the early 90s, when three key events happened. One was the discovery of Yessongs in my uncle's record collection - my gateway into the fantastic world of classic-era Yes. The second were some guys handing out handbills of a prog fanzine at a Rush concert, according to which two English neo-prog bands - Jadis and Shadowland - were playing in my town later that year, and I attended that show. The third was the discovery of the rec.music.progressive newsgroup on the Internet.

Since then, I have always heavily been into prog, and in 2011 I founded a prog round table. Now I am even in a prog band (see avatar)!

Didn't like popular music growing up in the mid 80s. I was lucky my dad had a Hammond organ, Rhodes piano and Micro moog in his lounge room though. So I was destined to have high standards for sound and composition. My younger brother played drums in a band and he started listening to the zeps after his band mates showed him. I dug a few of their tracks. Then he brought home some purple and sabbath. I liked them more so bought their albums. Then one of the band members played me some yes and I heard some Floyd so I went out and bought their albums. I rated Yes from 70-72 as my fave band at the time but didn't rate them much after that. My dad played oblivion express and elp so I grabbed their stuff too. Elp were a fave like Yes from 70-72 but not much after. I came across Hendrix, Cream and The Doors and grabbed their stuff. I heard larks, red and debut by crimson but Poseidon was the one that really interested me. By the time I was 21 my brother told me to check out tull. After grabbing aqualung I was loving side 1 but not so much side 2. Then I heard taab so I had to grab all their albums. LITP filled any holes that I found on the early albums. I loved their early and late 70s and wondered what the hell happened in the mid 70s. But those holes were also filled with the great bonus material on the recent remixes. My other brother was into the old movies and got me into Goblin and other soundtrack bands. I found prog ears around 1998 and got into gentle giant, camel, rush etc. Found many other bands since visiting prog ears and archives.

Edited by dr prog - June 12 2017 at 17:23