Prog's perception in different countries

I've been thinking about this for quite some time...is prog at all present in your daily life? (not including listening to the music)

For example, where you live, are people sporting prog shirts? Or is there a public awareness of prog such as in the radio, TV, and the like? Have you engaged in conversations about prog in actual life? (PA doesn't really count )

A Person wrote: I've never met another prog fan or talked about prog with anyone IRL. The closest I've come to that is seeing people where DSOTM t shirts.

I teach music for a living. One day I was having a discussion with another piano teacher about how long classical concerts are hard tp sit through, and how the music wasn't originally intended to be played in such a marathon fashion. I mentioned that I didn't really have a problem with it, because of all the twenty minute prog songs I listen to. She had never heard of prog and was quite shocked at the notion of a twenty minute rock song. It just goes to show you that prog can be foreign to even musically educated people.

Check out my location, prog is practically nonexistent here! Apart from the guy in college who introduced me to prog, I don't know anyone else who's into prog. 

There are more prog fans about than is realised. I often have discussions at work and the pub about this great genre. It is only the rare idiot who dismisses it as a load of old crap and dinosaur music, without, of course, seeing the irony of still supporting aging punk rockers!

Whilst in the UK, the popular press bigs up crap such as X Factor, it is surprising just how many people realise and see it for the manufactured cobblers it is, and turn to what we would call decent music, be it prog or other forms.

When I travel to the motherland-Honduras C.A.-I don't hear or see the word prog. There is a lot of just plain old rock or metal...and the groups we call prog will fall under one of these. Now Honduras is a pimple on the worlds music a$$.....but there are some rabid fans there.

lazland wrote: There are more prog fans about than is realised. I often have discussions at work and the pub about this great genre. It is only the rare idiot who dismisses it as a load of old crap and dinosaur music, without, of course, seeing the irony of still supporting aging punk rockers!

Lark the Starless wrote: lazland wrote: There are more prog fans about than is realised. I often have discussions at work and the pub about this great genre. It is only the rare idiot who dismisses it as a load of old crap and dinosaur music, without, of course, seeing the irony of still supporting aging punk rockers!   Talking about prog at work and the pub, what could be better?!   Where do you work?   I think it's rather sad that people just listen to whatever crap is on the Billboard Top 40 for example...the songs are just like toilet paper; people just listen to them for a day and look for the next "in" thing.

Many people think that what is popular is good and what the media shows them is the best.

I've met 2 people who likes prog.

Me and my nearest family made dinner for some guests. After dinner a 50+ year old guy put on A passion play by Jetro Tull! We heard side one of the album. The old guy and I were the only one who liked it. He told me I was lucky to like bands like King Crimson, Yes, Peter Gabriel Genesis era, Jethro Tull and Soft Machine.

The second time was when me and my family and summer guests went to a concert. I was wearing a Yes T-shirt and Peter (he is also 50+ years old) one of our summer guests (he visits us every summer) told me he loves Yes and often listen to Tales from Topographic Oceans which is his favorite Yes album. I have known him for some years but never thought he might like Prog! Good thing I was wearing a Yes T-shirt. We have talked a lot about prog since

In a small, godforsaken corner of the world, which happens to be my country, I actually do have some prog around me. Not plenty, but it is here.

1. You may occasionally see people wearing prog rock/metal/related T-shirts,
2. there's small but existent prog scene (mostly prog metal and avant, some math),
3. I see people more and more talking about old bands (and new prog bands),
4. there are only 2-3 pubs I'm going into, but there could be some surprisingly good (and obscure!) prog playlists,
5. jazz scene is bigger than ever and it started slowly, shyly to dig into forgotten jazz fusion
6. electronica DJ's who were into rave, trance and stuff are more and more going retro...
7. A few days ago I complained to my boss about the radio, and he told me he has some music on his hard drive. He dug the old speakers and...to my surprise he played Crimson's 'Islands!' Further lurking on his folder revealed Magma's MDK. (!)


I said, my smallish town (200 000) nurtures avant and prog metal, while the capital, Zagreb, is more oriented towards electronic, post, psych/space and krautrock. Yesterday, a good friend of mine (we played in a prog folk band 10 years ago, and now we're recording an album together) played with krautrock veteran Roedelius from Harmonia and Cluster, a few years ago he toured with Damo Suzuki.

I am myself currently involved into five musical projects, at least two can be considered prog:

1.) doing an electronic album with aforementioned guy
2.) play in indie band which recorded its debut in Blixa Bargeld's studio in Berlin
3.) preparing an eclectic trio with my old band-mates
4.) doing absolutely sick, bizarre music with some friends of mine
5.) doing solo stuff.


I guess I have nothing to complain about.

I have met an enormous amount of people who know and even enjoy prog, however most know of it as either a curiosity that they havnt spent much time on beyond a couple (usually obscure rather than famous) bands that have played with bands in their genre of choice (usually indie or metal) or else they see it as a subset of another genre. The metal scene is verry aware of prog and the term prog, even though oftern they dont look into it that much, also indie hipsters tend to know prog as they often dig up "forgotton" or obscure music as a way to gain hipster cred, sometimes they find that they love it, other times it becomes a joke to them.