categorically speaking?

Hello all, I new to this group. I've been lurking about for a while- and had a few laughs watching slight debates turn into rants, and so on and so forth. But it is okay. I do not get upset by redundant posts because I ultimately have the power to turn it off.

I am a "progger" with difficulties in my musical life. The ones in my age braket are much more influenced by "radiohead" and what not. Me I'm a straight ahead progger! In the true sense of the word. I will only listen to music from 1970-1979, actively anyway. Maybe a little 1968 here or a little 1969 there, but I like to keep it mid to late 70s if ya know what I mean.  I write and record in a fully 70's analog multitrack studio! (70s drums, analog synths, organs, 70s mics, etc)

I am laughing to think that radio-brain got in the archives but this is where I feel stupid by saying I like "prog rock". There is no such way to categorize a band in a mythodical way that will reflect its true purpose. There is no point in that to me. What the hell does prog rock mean anyways? I mean I definitely know the music I like is creepy, weird, trippy, dissonant, complex, etc etc. But never would I think to myself "wow this Pulsar album sounds progressive" 


  But I dont care because I have given Radiohead a very generous and fair listen, and my thoughts were "well its better than brittney spears" and true, I am glad that dudes like radio head even got a chance. But on the big big picture, they have no chance at holding my respect or attention because they just aren't musically competent enough, particularly in the "arranging". But I dont want to get too far off track, I want to know something...

 Is there anyway I can narrow my "prog searching" on this webwsite down to dates? It's so very frustrating to click on all these band-links and seeing the album date begin at "1981" or "1992" when in fact I am just looking for more 70's stuff. Any way I can isolate all the albums from 1978 ?? There should be a more "archival" approach to searching if this is to be an archive, not that I am bitching or anything.

I like 1970's bands like FM, Mona Lisa, Egg, Yes, Jumbo, etc etc. This music is able to be extremely artsy without seeming extremely contrived (which is how radio head comes across to me)

Anyway, best to all and I just felt like dropping a line.

Best,
John

Hello, 70sSoundquality!

Well, being a schoolboy (till 16-17 years old maybe - it was till the mid-90s) I also remember how I didn't listen anything post-70s-recorded (except Queen only). I think the main cause was in my lack of information at that moment, but suddenly I started to disappear some newer excellent bands like Dire Straits, Marillion or Peter Gabriel solo albums. Time-by-time I grew more open-minded and got more and more necessary information - it was a great amazing for me how wonderfull some newer experimental records by Peter Hammill, Robert Fripp and Brian Eno are!

Internet (and such forums) also provide a lot of good knowledges about as rare bands from 60s and 70s, as about modern Progressive Scene. By such forums I've got to know and to listen a lot of less-known "continental" and non-european bands.

From 70s: Samla Mammas Manna (Sweden), Omega (Hungary), Cai (Spain), Zao, Magma and Pentacle (all France), Tibet and Popol Vuh (both Germany), Popol Vah (Norge), Univers Zero (Belgium), Asia Minor (Turkia), Supersister (Netherlands) and a lot of great Italians - Lucio Battisti, Banco Del Mutuo Soccorso, Locanda Delle Fate, Il Balletto Di Bronzo, Quella Vecchia Locanda, Arti Et Mestieri...

Excellent and really innovative modern bands: Citizen Cain (Scotland), Cast (Mexico), Garden Wall and Taproban (both Italy), Solaris and After Crying (both Hungary), Inquire (Germany), Saga (Canada), Present (Belgium), Halloween (France), Djam Karet (USA) and several Swedens - Isildurs Bane, Anekdoten, Anglagard, Landberk, Sinkadus, etc...

 

chorus of one wrote: Why not be a little more open minded? Not giving music a chance because it was recorded in the wrong decade is immensely stupid in my opinion...No offence.

Emperor wrote: Hello, 70sSoundquality! Internet (and such forums) also provide a lot of good knowledges about as rare bands from 60s and 70s, as about modern Progressive Scene. By such forums I've got to know and to listen a lot of less-known "continental" and non-european bands. From 70s: Samla Mammas Manna (Sweden), Omega (Hungary), Cai (Spain), Zao, Magma and Pentacle (all France), Tibet and Popol Vuh (both Germany), Popol Vah (Norge), Univers Zero (Belgium), Asia Minor (Turkia), Supersister (Netherlands) and a lot of great Italians - Lucio Battisti, Banco Del Mutuo Soccorso, Locanda Delle Fate, Il Balletto Di Bronzo, Quella Vecchia Locanda, Arti Et Mestieri... Excellent and really innovative modern bands: Citizen Cain (Scotland), Cast (Mexico), Garden Wall and Taproban (both Italy), Solaris and After Crying (both Hungary), Inquire (Germany), Saga (Canada), Present (Belgium), Halloween (France), Djam Karet (USA) and several Swedens - Isildurs Bane, Anekdoten, Anglagard, Landberk, Sinkadus, etc...

see theres some bands Ive never heard! I would like to listen to some newer stuff I guess just to see what Im missing. The last new band I heard was supposed to be one of the better modern prog bands. They are called "glass hammer" and it was just aweful to me. I could do much better

BMS is cool to me, remember that song "paolo moledetto!" ?? Wasn't that from 1979 or 80. Thats a good little numberthere. I just wish i could understand Italian.
Of all of those modern bands, what would you say is the best?

Best,
John
www.freewebs.com/octavecat

Welcome to the forum 70'sSoundquality.

You mentioned Egg in you first post and I'd quite forgotten they existed. If memory serves me well, Egg had Dave Stewart and Barbara Gaskin as members. I owned 'The Civil Surface' for a while but along with the majority of my prog collection, it was stolen in a burglary.  

Not sure I would confine myself to a specific period in time for music listening (it's like having a huge garden and only walking on the path) but if you know what you like and you like what you know, then who am I to to tell you otherwise?

Anyways up, I hope you have a good time here.

James Lee wrote: Welcome- great nick, interesting stance. I always had a good laugh at the audiophiles out there who seem to think that anything not recorded in a state-of-the art facility is less worthy of consideration. I'm still happy with my car's tape deck, and though I'm just as happy with DAWs and mp3s, I tip my hat to you for knowing what you like and saying *&!@! off" to the rest. I don't suppose you've noticed how often digital remasters actually end up crappy.

lollol I hear ya man. Back into the 1970s, albums were mixed for records. That was the analog mixing "philosophy". Vintage mixes have more dynamic differences in depth and volume range because the maximum headroom of vinyl was +4db.

Now on to the future......CD’s are able to handle headroom of absolute 0 db fullscale which is about  +10 db analog. You might not know this, but +10db would melt or destroy a vinyl record. Now with CD's, everything is mixed SOO loud  (which is why I have a big problem with listening to anything new, take a "glass hammer" mix for instance. Uckk) but in order to make all that volume fit on a cd, compression is used with extreme force. Tube compression is my friend. Solid state and plug-in modernized compression is my enemy so I choose to keep it 70s.

best,
John

PS-worst remaster Job might be "tales" or "relayer". Ohhhh no no, the worst remaster job is "Triumvirat" (A la Carte) from 1979. Awesome album, terrible broadband freq range and upper mids are almost non existant. Its just click and presense to me. Why didnt I get that remaster job????

mirco wrote: I simpathize with 70soundquality felling. In fact, I bought a lot of 80 stuff (that was the decade when I became economically independent, and have a little extra-cash for my hobbies) and those records are recollecting dust in some box. The creativity, the sound, the magic of the early seventies has never been achieved again, as far as I know. I give you the fact that there were some oasis in the music desert, like Marillion, but the balance is very negative. About the nineties, well, I became a father and my time was absorbed by the kids, so I hadn't the chance of knowing what was going on those days.

i agree
nothing can replace the magic of the late 60's/70's
there are VERY FEW good prog efforts since the late 70's
nothing to do, that's a fact
even if Radiohead and others today band are not too bad , it has NOTHING TO DO with the real bands.
The problem today with poular music is that it's so poor and musically weak, that when a band just know playingn they are considered "prog"...
For example "Dream theatre" is a very bad and poor band...
Sorry guys!

And among mentioned above 70s bands I especially recommend to you the following:

Lucio Battisti ANIMA DE LATINA (1974), Pentacle LES CLIEFS (sorry, I don't remember this French name exactly, anyway this band released this one album only - in 1975), Il Balletto Di Bronzo YS (1972), Banco Del Mutuo Soccorso - their debut self-titled album (1972) and DARWIN (1972, only be careful buying it - the band rereleased the same album in 1991 with modern synths!) (BTW, I didn't heard the song you mentioned, because I haven't 79-80 records by them), Premiata Forneria Marconi L'ISOLA DI NIENTE (1974), and any album by Locanda Delle Fate and Asia Minor.

arcer wrote: can I come and record there?

My question, exactly...



I understand and share the views presented in this thread. But in my opinion, not only did the 80s bring the worst out of recording, the 80s also turned out to kill all inspiration from arrangements. Not having lived the 70s myself, it's hard to step in the shoes of someone who's "brought up" with the atmosphere and sensibility of the vinyl record.

When it comes to stuff like recording or mixing an album (/a song/whatever), I'm all lost and lonely, 'cause I have no clue, whatsoever, on that field. IMO albums should be recorded live - if not in front of an audience, but anyway. This is one of the reasons my own prog rock band decided not to have any quest "stars" on our yet-to-be-recorded album, and I even insisted (not that anyone opposed to it, nor that I had to tell anyone about it) to drop myself from playing the cello, it being impossible (for me) to both sing and play cello adequately at the same time...

I think that closing everything that's made after 1979 out of your "listening spectre", you lose a lot, but that lot is a lot less than the lot you lose if you keep yourself from listening anything made prior to 1967, or even 1867.

most of the s*it done in the 80s, 90s and since isn't crap because of the instruments or the recording or the mix. They are crap because it is what they are "meant" to be. It isn't a complicated matter. By saying this, I  do not mean that ppls tastes have developed in such a sh*tty direction, but that such a direction is the only one provided to an average listener. I do not have the guts to claim that the amount of good (read: prog) music recorded hasn't decreased since the 70s, but I dare to say that people with a taste for "the different kind of music" (whatever that difference is) are too ready to give up and quit the search of such. This is (IMHO), the sole reason why all the prog acts that are noticed are closely (or at least rather closely) related, one way or another, to "The Acts" of the (early) 70s.

It is funny that the music which was undoubtedly progressive (in the actual meaning of the word) in the 70s, and that is still named progressive rock, wouldn't be progressive 30 years later (read:today), and despite this fact the music that is "all around" today is much more simpler and regressive than the music progressive rock progressed from. (sorry, I'm too lazy to check if I can use the verb progress in such a manner...)

When it comes to Radiohead, I am (after a rather lengthy consideration and despite the fact that I have earlier stated otherwise) ready to entitle the named band as being progressive (I still have no idea, whatsoever, what they have to do with progressive rock, though). On the whole, the term progressive rock cannot be used when talking about a piece of music that is forgotten by tha majority (if not all) of the (future) composers (and/or musicians). A progress that doesn't lead anywhere (is forgotten or left unfurthered) isn't a progress at all. As progressive rock wasn't a term to describe the music known today as such, we shouldn't disable our contemporaries of the word progressive.

To be progressive doen't have anything to do with progress anymore. However, what we call progressive rock hasn't died (it is almost death-bound, though). It is our job and task, as fans and even more so, as musicians (those around here), to make good music, to listen to such music, to purchase such music, to appraise (even with "bad grades") such music - music that suits (or comes close in suiting) our ears. Even though that music can hardly be evalueted as progressive music having heard the progressant (am i developing new words?) elements used in music decades ago.

Gee, I'm happy to be a bit drunk - I'm able to write some of my thoughts down. They might be worth nothing, but anyway...

Now, those of you using soulseek; I'd be more than happy if you'd even consider listening to the music I am/I've been a part of. I'm found in the slsk under the name Beau Heem (hit me w/ a msg, plz). Thanks in advance.

-Beau

wait a minute, you guys are in finland and ireland!!! how the hell are you going to record at my pad???? You guys can fly out, LOL