Simple statistics, misconceptions disproved.

I would disagree there ... Italian bands were much more influenced by the orchestra and many of them did a lot of orchestral type of work ... simply with electric instruments. You can say Keith did the same thing, but you can not argue with Italy's history of music next to England ... opera alone would render you crazy and ethnocentric.

 

The European versions were all over, except that too many folks were not able to listen to them ... or worse ... "they singing in French ... or Italian" ... and this has happened here on this board!

 

Ange was as good, if not better than Genesis will ever be. Mona Lisa and the school that came out of that group that were Ange copies. Italy had so many of them, it's hard to even mention it, and you might even sit and listen to Aqua Fragile one day ... so you get the idea. Spain had a massive number of bands that looked up to YES ... almost to a ridiculous point, but they did some awesome things ... Granada, Azahar and others. Germany had many of them, like Wallenstein, as part of the Cosmic Couriers (not intentionally I don't think!), but many bands also copied Nektar, like Message. Jane/Eloy were/are sister bands that shared some members. Grobbschnitt could be considered symphonic in their use of the leyboards ... though Mr. Eroc was quite different and crazy on his own ... and fun!

 

There were many in America as well ... but not many of them made it to the radio by the time that the FM band went commercial in the mid 70's. I can go over my record collection easily enough and list bands that you never heard off ... and then you say that the music didn't exist!  MUSIC WAS ALWAYS THERE ... it's our ears that weren't! Plain and simple. And it's still a hard battle to open up ears here, specially in a thread like this! Yes, Genesis and ELP were not the front runners ... they were a part of it all just like everyone else. It was a continuing process ... but for you to say that no band had a keyboard at the Fillmore ... you know you are incorrect ... though the place was so cheap that no having keyboards was much easier ... but even Santana was highly progressive already at the time! It's a Beautiful Day! Jefferson Airplane ... and many others.

I also believe that a range of prog's hallmark features directly stems from the very American jazz-rock fusion. Such as: effortless fluctuation of time signatures, complex melodies and texture, pure instrumentals, emphasis on musicianship, open-minded choice of musical instruments and style diversity. 

Like they say, you give me an apple, I give you another one, and both of us will still have one apple each. But, if you give me an idea, and I give you mine, both of us will have two ideas. 

 

Dean ... that poll applies to THIS BOARD ... whose fans and folks are much more educated about this than otherwise, which would lend a very slanted eye to that poll.

 

 

We were there ... and in LIVE RADIO ... with BIG fm STATIONS, and in that commercial environment, you never heard ... a foreign word ... well, in LA you heard some folks make fun of the spanish speaking thing, but even then, those were toned down severely because of the sensitivity of the issues ... and the fact that LA DID have spanish speaking stations that would gladly unload on the big name money if they abused the priviledge! AND, at least folks like Wolfman Jack made a point of closing down the barriers in between these ... but even he did not play a lot of the spanish stuff ... as he was more centered on grabbing the english-speaking spanish population ... which many years later, was the audience that gave you Univision, and Galavision ... that grew up during the World Soccer games ... by blowing out ESPN/Disney and others by making 10 times the money! Respect!

 

Bands like PFM, Banco, Le Orme, Ange and others ... were kind of a miracle ... that they got heard ... and Guy in Santa Barbara was one of the folks that played these indiscriminally. And many folks in LA KNEW that ... specially at JEM, Moby Disk, Tower and the Warehouse in Westwood -- probably the biggest importers of foreign stuff in those days ... I think that Archie Patterson (Eurock) can give a better discussion of the LA market than anyone else we know ... mine is just an overview by comparison! Archie was/is part of the importer business and he would know the demand and what worked and sold.

 

Again ... please read this comment ... while Golden Earring is being played ... "it's not rock'n'roll" ... and Guy replies ... "who cares! It's great music ... " and the song is "Are You Receicing Me?" ... this defines "progressive music" and what you and I are doing a lot more than anything else!

 

Stop comparing this board to events that happened 30/40 years ago. The music we love "made it" a lot more than the reasons that you and I know ... and not just because of a place where they all can have coffee and crumpets and tea and .... you WELL KNOW that we did not have a board like this, THEN (to quote PC and DM!) ... and we found the music ... it was 10 to 20 times harder in Southern California!