Hei på dere

A middle aged FOB from Norway signing in. I've been enjoying the sound clips from this site for years now and discovered quite a lot of new interesting prog that way, so I thought it'd be nice to join the forum.

My musical preference is the old school prog (if such a thing exists) and hard rock, but I enjoy a lot of other styles as well, for instance british folk rock artists. The key thing for me is a good melody, interesting chord changes, and intricate rythms, if at least two of those elements are present, I prick my ears up. But then again, sometimes a great melody with a good lyric is enough....

Favourite artists from the past: Gentle Giant, Genesis up to 1978, Yes (though some of their stuff is weak indeed), Jethro Tull, Rush (not Vapour Trails!!!), Spock's Beard pre "Snow", Purple, Transatlantic, Thin Lizzy, XTC, Richard Thompson, Fairport Convention + the great Steves and Al's: Hackett, Morse, Howe, Vai, Ray Vaughn, Holdsworth, Lifeson (yes, I do play guitar, surprise, surprise).

From the present: The Flower Kings + Roine Stolt, Pain of Salvation, KINO, Porcupine Tree, Kroyt (great Norwegian band), Echolyn, Glass Hammer (love The Inconsolable Secret), some Opeth, some Enchant

I've stopped listening to: Marillion, IQ, Kaipa, The Tangent, Fish, instrumental prog made by keyboardists and guitarists from Dream Theater, ultra fast guitar players with no musical ambition except showing off technique (the list is endless and the music bores me to tears, Vinnie Moore is worse than Britney!)

'Nough said!