Do you follow/have local prog bands?

Manuel wrote: HackettFan wrote: None here in Lawton, Oklahoma that I'm aware of. And none here in San Diego, Ca. At least not to my knowledge.

Astra, which has been a pretty big name, comes from there. Really good band, I think. Maybe not progressive in a sense as they have I think a really good retro sound.

There's Lethargy, a technical death metal band/mathcore, and Psyopus who are avant-garde metal. That's the closest I get to local prog. 

Edited by aglasshouse - August 08 2016 at 18:14

Unfortunately here in Amish country there are no local prog bands to speak of. It would be nice. The bars and clubs in this area require the bands to play classic rock form the 70's, 80's and 90's if you want to work. I used to play in one of those bands a few years back. The money was nice but I got so tired of playing the same old tunes for 11 years and had to give it up. I didn't feel challenged as a musician and felt stagnant. I haven't listened to anything but prog since.     

cstack3 wrote: micky wrote: HackettFan wrote: None here in Lawton, Oklahoma that I'm aware of. I once saw a prog band play Willie's in Stillwater once...  what a riot.. the bassist got in a fist fight with heckler and the band finally had to cut its set short under a barrage of beer bottles. good times...... In the mid-late 1980s, I lived in Tulsa, OK and was bassist to the amazing Lon Jones and his "CAVU" project!  Lon was one of the first Guitar Craft students of Bob Fripp, and he was a musical genius.  Of course, whenever we played in public, the Okies would sort of scratch their heads, but still, we had a great time with it!   I saw quite a few prog artists come through Tulsa back then, including Al Dimeola (who played at the Cains Ballroom), Chick Corea Band (who played at the late, great Tulsa Center for the Contemporary Arts), Adrian Belew's solo project (another TUCCA show), Pat Metheny (fantastic show), and the Moody Blues (at the Oral Roberts University auditorium!).   Chicago used to have lots of home-grown prog, I don't know where it went.  We were particularly strong in jazz-rock fusion, with local bands Apprentice, Spyro Gyra, and Kick the Cat, but it seems to have gone quiet lately.  < ="cosymantecnisbfw" co="cs" id="SILOBFWID" style="width: 0px; height: 0px; display: block;">

Tulsa ehh... loved that city. Yeah it had a lively music scene when I lived there (mid 90's).  I mainly played in Stillwater we never got too serious but yeah.... in addition to a few gigs that didn't connect with our audiences and few scuffles .. we did have a great time even if it at times was something right out of a Blue Brothers scene. My Rickenbacker was famous in Stillwater though...my place was the place for good progressive music and good dope and more Jack Daniels that one should humanly drink... I used to practice on my front porch and my god.. prog or not... my oh my did I draw some female interest. Perhaps it was the combination of a Stetson and Rickenbacker that seemed so odd.   Well I was damn good player back then. 

Good times.... the less said the better since my better half tends to read my posts.

micky wrote: here in D.C we do have a thriving experimental scene...  we have a yearly festival spotlighting those bands. Sonic Circuits and though we haven't gone in a number of years... we really did enjoy ourselves. Raff is president of the DC Art Rock society .. in charge of promoting the local prog scene here. not that she does much. I think it is pretty dead. We do go to our yearly meetings that just turn into drunken orgies of prog and high idealism. Myself.. nah.. I am not a member. I just go to yearly meetings to drink with that famous Sci-Fi writer that is on the membership board.

Magnum Vaeltaja wrote: micky wrote: here in D.C we do have a thriving experimental scene...  we have a yearly festival spotlighting those bands. Sonic Circuits and though we haven't gone in a number of years... we really did enjoy ourselves. Raff is president of the DC Art Rock society .. in charge of promoting the local prog scene here. not that she does much. I think it is pretty dead. We do go to our yearly meetings that just turn into drunken orgies of prog and high idealism. Myself.. nah.. I am not a member. I just go to yearly meetings to drink with that famous Sci-Fi writer that is on the membership board. DC is also home base for Dan Britton, the creative driving force behind some fine groups, most notably Birds and Buildings.

oh yeah.. Dan is a wweetheart and a great talent.  There are some really good groups and artists here.  The biggest and best to come out of DC would be the Muffins. I sort of was getting at .. new fresh groups to explore and promote.

The only local prog band I ever saw was at my community college east of San Diego (called Grossmont, to be exact) back in '76/'77. i had just finished my morning classes and saw these guys setting up. They called themselves Harlequin, and to some degree the dressed the part. Their whole set sounded like prog to me with mixed time signatures and lengthy instrumentals, but only knowing a few giants of prog at the time, I couldn't tell you just what they covered. Well, their set went over like a led zeppelin, and by the last few numbers with hordes of disinterested students walking past them as if they were road kill, the resorted to playing, I believe, some Steve Miller and a Boston tune. So sad.