Progressive Rock, a part of a certain culture?

Not sure what kind of answer you are expecting.

"Progressive Rock" in its early days, was more about the scene and the feelings and the experimentation, than it was about the "SONG" that it is NOW. The lyrics, the attitude and the music meant something valuable, and that you agreed with and stood up for ... today, no one gives a damn about any of those lyrics, and people can not show a serious writer of lyrics that has something to say, other than inventing just another set of words for a song ... another song! You won't live and die with Janis in her words. You won't live and die on Jim's words. You won't live and die by Jimi's guitar. You won't trip and die on the Fillmore ... because the "pure" feeling and what we see on many films and videos, just is not a part of the world of TRUE MUSIC and its valuable companion to your life and mine.

Many of those bands, from those days, are still valuable and important to me, because their work was fantastic and valuable ... even the likes of Genesis, does not kiss anything on the SF and LA basins in terms of meaning and quality ... and then we talk about a hogweed ... as important and valuable ... gee, PG had talked about English politics in SEBTP and no one talked about it? And earlier too! Weird.

We don't listen, and when we do, the words go right out the other side of the mind. And when we try to study something, it ends up in the trash (not meaning the hogweed, btw) as meaningless.

Thus, in those days, the word "culture" would make good sense, but today, is redundant and almost bizarre and silly, and of course many in this board will think that the whole thing 55 years ago was about people being so stoned that no one knew what happened. A veritable "Apocalypse Now" right in your vision with bullets flying everywhere! Compare that to today, and people are so stoned (it's available easy now), that they can only remember and name their 5 favorites, as they seem to have lost the ability to list (and listen) to far more than just their "choices" which would change their thinking, when they realized how institutionalized their listening has become over the years, supporting the top this or that, which 55 years ago was something that all the (eventual) "progressive" folks wanted to take down badly, and they succeeded for a while, until the great corporate rape of the FM radio band in America that lost its independence by 1980. Not just one station, mind you, and even Roger talks about it in Radio Kaos, and THAT WAS REAL, not imaginary! 

"Progressive ____" (anything) has lost its meaning and its soul. And Maggot Brain, these days is just another crazy guitar solo, never mind what it says about someone and its meaning. And to say, and think, that so many of those guitar thrashers or slashers, or crashers (or whatever "ers" name they need) are doing something "meaningful" instead of just notes, is bizarre to me ... very few of those folks would even bother showing up at the old Fillmore (if it were alive) to put together something more worthwhile listening to than just ripping notes and scales, now on 7 and 8 strings, so you have more "notes" ... poor Mozart!

Most people don't really listen to the music, just go for a nice dancing beat and a catchy tune. Prog, as we know it, is about listening, jut like classical, most jazz, world music, etc. So it will appeal to certain type of people, and they certainly will have a few things in common, setting them apart from others. Just like with everything else. Not that prog fans are better, just different.

Usually two negative words, but it says quite a bit about a certain approach to and engagement in music/the music(Prog).

The notion of "subculture" uses to imply many different things but I use it just as a help to point at some possible things which might exist besides the music. So no need to think much about the notion itself.

Hi,

I dislike tremendously the assumption of snobs and nerds. Some call me a snob, but I have always stuck to my own LIVING, not my ideas, about it all, although it is hard to separate the two. 

The one thing that makes me a snob, is mentioning how I felt and how I experienced something in those days, which, of course, not many here on the board can say they were "there" but even then, there are fundamental things that took place that many simply do not understand. 

1. Getting head hit in Chicago because a band did not show up! Great fake band and full of crap!

2. Getting frisked all over on the way to work at the Rathskeller in Madison during Kent State by the ROTC that took upon themselves to make sure they could feel all the girls!

3. Living in a city, where the two sides were right and left and water and oil! The one side were all democratic and poor, and the other side, nouveau riche that worked for the university in some way or another. These were hypocritical, and their daughters were the fake virgins, hiding it from mom and dad!

4. Parties in Madison, were all the rage, but as a high school student, you did not party with your own school folks ... you ALWAYS went to a party on some university student or friend. Those were some serious parties, but the best? They always had great music, instead of the pop crap that the prom delivered in 1969 ... NO KIDDING!

5. Top radio station (AM hit station) saying that Light My Fire was crap, and then saying that Jimi was just a show off, not a player!

How, in hell, would you NOT fight against that bs? Today, none of these battles are anywhere close to the music and the arts that are around you, and in that sense, it makes it harder for you to connect with the whole thing. Ohh ... sure, one band ... and right next to you another car is playing some rap full of loud boom boom! 

Sure it could be said to be a culture, or a sub-culture (since the definition has changed everything), but it will never mean anything if there was no music that made sense, and explained your attitudes and ideas, like those days did. AND, that is the main reason why it is still remembered, although now we think of the other bands as the real thing, because we don't like the association with the dope and all the political crap around it, that killed Jimi, Janis and others! The "progressive" folks survived that a lot better, but, in many ways, they stayed clear of the political comments as openly as all the others did ... in that sense, you could easily say, that they cop'd out of the whole thing, although I would not exactly say that about Ian.

Dude ... if you DON'T LIVE IT ... I doubt there will be music or any art from it! Your topic is bizarre, and like my first line, I'm not sure what you want out of this specially when you changed things along the way!

As I think of it, "a subculture" will of course include the music, and it'll be the very core of the subculture.

Well, I'm interested in the present state of Progressive Rock, and sorry if my changing was a problem for you.

I certainly agree about the importance of living it.