Country Joe & The Fish on PA?

Hey everybody!

I would like to add Country Joe & the Fish to the archives. They have been a very important band in the psychedelic scene and made some very good proto-prog and psychedelic rock. The band also played folk-rock influenced tracks.

A good place for CJ Fish would be proto-prog or psychedelic/space rock. I think they are just as progressive as the Doors, for example.

Here are some examples.

Country Joe and The Fish - Section 43
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6MKfmjCDkU&feature=related

Country Joe & the Fish - The Return Of Sweet Lorraine
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IfK9hzsHjY&feature=related

Country Joe And The Fish "The Baby Song"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3WXQ9d-w20&feature=related

Country Joe And The Fish "She's A Bird"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvpjWPNqSW4&feature=related

No, I have all their albums and they are really a great psychedelic rock band, but just that, psychedelic.

... And sorry they've been rejected by Psych Team. 

Elliot Miller wrote: <p ="Msonormal"><o:p></o:p> <span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; -: initial; -attachment: initial; -size: initial; -origin: initial; -clip: initial; -: initial; -repeat: initial;">You have got to be kidding me. If this were still 2010 we could have a lively discussion about this, but since this discussion was five years ago I suppose I'm talking to myself. I was around since the beginning of proto-prog in 1965 with the Yardbirds and was classifying bands as "progressive" or "artistic" rock (terms I thought I coined, but great minds think alike!) since then, and there is no way, in 1967 under any reasonable definition of the term, that the first two albums by Country Joe and the Fish were not progressive rock. They were totally experimental and innovative, not just psychedelic. Nothing quite like them had been heard before. I fear a particular direction that one stream of progressive music took circa 1971-72 with bands such as Yes and King Crimson has become the standard by which all artistic rock music is judged to be "progressive." This </span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">standard <span style="-: initial; -attachment: initial; -size: initial; -origin: initial; -clip: initial; -: initial; -repeat: initial;">is too narrow and lacks historical perspective. It has the unfortunate effect of stifling true innovation because too many bands feel they have to recapitulates that one form that progressive music took in the early '70s in order to be considered progressive (e.g., the Flower Kings--not that it isn't great music, just that it is no longer very "progressive"). But hey, what do I know?</span></span>?

I totally agree here! And besides, people will just drift of to a site like Rate Your Music like I did.

Ah... "progressive" as an adjective is not the same as "Progressive" used as a noun in the genre name "Progressive Rock". If you think that Country Joe and the Fish are Progressive but The Flower Kings are not then that is the error of your misconception that just because a band was being progressive in its day it does not automatically make them a Progressive Rock band. 

Dean wrote: Ah... "progressive" as an adjective is not the same as "Progressive" used as a noun in the genre name "Progressive Rock". If you think that Country Joe and the Fish are Progressive but The Flower Kings are not then that is the error of your misconception that just because a band was being progressive in its day it does not automatically make them a Progressive Rock band.  Country Joe and the Fish are tagged as Psychedelic Rock, Acid Rock and Folk Rock on Wikipedia and Rate Your Music, and as Folk-edged Psychedelic Rock on AllMusic, none of them say Progressive Rock and that seems a fair assessment to me.

Succintly put as usual, I've never heard of them described as a prog rock band.

"Proto-prog" I can live with. So let's get a page up for them here.

Thank you for pointing that out! My case is now made. I have recently researched proto-prog as thoroughly as I could and in the process listened to the first three Jefferson Airplane albums and the first two Country Joe and the Fish LPs. In my humble opinion there is no question that CJATF were more progressive and experimental than JA. It seems arbitrary at best to include the latter but not the former. The Doors and Spirit are included, and they should be, but that also makes it harder to justify not including CJATF. I also think Love (Arthur Lee's band) should have a page on PA, but I will make that case another time.

Elliot Miller wrote: Thank you for pointing that out! My case is now made. I have recently researched proto-prog as thoroughly as I could and in the process listened to the first three Jefferson Airplane albums and the first two Country Joe and the Fish LPs. In my humble opinion there is no question that CJATF were more progressive and experimental than JA. It seems arbitrary at best to include the latter but not the former. The Doors and Spirit are included, and they should be, but that also makes it harder to justify not including CJATF. <span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 1.4;">I also think Love (Arthur Lee's band) should have a page on PA, but I will make that case another time.</span><p ="Msonormal"><o:p></o:p>

The trouble is, you're not on the site's team of specialists that go through the fine nitty-gritty of deciding what we have here (and really, they do this amazing job out of love, not duty). If I had my way, based on the track 'Introduction', I'd have included Kajagoogoo ( ) but Country Joe would be included 10,000 times earlier before these guys that everyone hates.......(except me) sooooooo..............

Sorry, but they were never Proto Prog simply because they played no part in the evolution of Progressive Rock and their contribution to the genre was zero.