Michigan based Progressive Rock bands?

verslibre wrote: philipemery wrote: Yeah I can't find anything on House of Usher anymore. Tried researching them but the trails are hard to pick up. And I'm an old school Prog person, myself lol. StarCastle, Pink Floyd, King Crimson (first four albums), Babylon, Gypsy, Gentle Giant, etc. Still trying to explore neo-Prog and stuff (prog metal is the absolute bane of my existence).   Fave Starcastle album? Also, if you hate Rush, you won't like Tiles. They're not a carbon copy band, but Rush is their primary influence, and Alex Lifeson plays on one of their albums.

verslibre wrote: philipemery wrote: Yeah I can't find anything on House of Usher anymore. Tried researching them but the trails are hard to pick up. And I'm an old school Prog person, myself lol. StarCastle, Pink Floyd, King Crimson (first four albums), Babylon, Gypsy, Gentle Giant, etc. Still trying to explore neo-Prog and stuff (prog metal is the absolute bane of my existence).   Fave Starcastle album? Also, if you hate Rush, you won't like Tiles. They're not a carbon copy band, but Rush is their primary influence, and Alex Lifeson plays on one of their albums.

My favorite StarCastle album is most certainly Fountains of Light (though their debut is a close second). Song of Times isn't too shabby, and I really enjoyed it, primarily as they were definitely exploring their own sound there more. I've actually met several ex-members of the band, including Terry Luttrell. Absolutely great bunch (RIP Gary Strater).

And sad. I mean I have definite respect for Rush and what they've done. Just never been my cup of tea. But I'll give Tiles a look anyways, just because I have sheer devotion to Midwest prog bands. These are my people lol.

rushfan4 wrote: Welcome to the site.  There are a few of us Michiganders bouncing around here.

If you are interested, Tin Scribble's two albums are available on CDBaby,  https://store.cdbaby.com/Artist/TinScribble.  Two of their members were also in House Of Usher.  House of Usher's drummer, Mark Evans, went on to play drums with Tiles. 

philipemery wrote: verslibre wrote: Fave Starcastle album? Also, if you hate Rush, you won't like Tiles. They're not a carbon copy band, but Rush is their primary influence, and Alex Lifeson plays on one of their albums. My favorite StarCastle album is most certainly Fountains of Light (though their debut is a close second). Song of Times isn't too shabby, and I really enjoyed it, primarily as they were definitely exploring their own sound there more. I've actually met several ex-members of the band, including Terry Luttrell. Absolutely great bunch (RIP Gary Strater).

Hey, I have no idea if you still need more information on this topic or not, but I am going to provide anyway. In the early 70's, the Detroit rock scene was almost entirely dominated by psychedelic-blues fusion rock, kind of like L.A. Woman by the Doors. There were a few progressive rock bands, but they never were able to establish themselves and failed (the fate of most American prog bands at this time to be fair) and we have no accessible recordings for most of them. However, prog still found a way. King Crimson frequently came to Detroit, (1969, 1971,72,73) and certainly left an impact as many of the blues bands such as the Amboy Dukes and Rare Earth adopting aspects of prog into their music for a time and bands like Frijid Pink and SCR even making arguable prog albums (Earth Omen and Traveler's Tale respectively). Thankfully, some of the one-shot bands did get official releases, but unlike Northwind, most of them have psychedelic/blues influences, as that was the Detroit rock scene. The first band I can think of the fully embraced being a prog band is Lost Nation in 1970, an organ heavy band that realized one album and fell away. You can find the album and youtube. Then came Northwind and a few other bands I cannot find any music from (October and Quorum). Then we have Victor Peraino's Kingdom Come, a band from Detroit started by a keyboardist who worked with Arthur Brown, They made only one album I could find (which thankfully, is easy to find) and recently started making music again. Then we have MacArthur in 1979, a band from Saginaw that made an album which can be found on youtube and another one I can't find. Unfortunately, they are the last one from the 70's and most of the bands that followed were all pretty much prog metal (which I can't stand) or Neo-prog (which I barely tolerate).