Generation gaps in progressive music
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Topic: Generation gaps in progressive music
Posted By: Toaster Mantis
Subject: Generation gaps in progressive music
Date Posted: October 11 2014 at 16:01
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I brought this up in the "What would you like to see discussed more?"
thread, but I think the subject deserves its own thread. I basically
wondered aloud whether the lack of discussion of newer bands that aren't
terribly informed by the 1960s/1970s prog-rock movement might have
something to do with the aesthetics and perhaps ethos/sensibility of
much music from the 1980s/1990s onwards coming across as too modern.
(for lack of a better word) Speaking as someone from generation 1988, I listen to very little music from before the mid-1960s and even a lot of 1970s or 1980s music there are some things about either the aesthetics or the way things are put together conceptually I have to more actively "suspend disbelief" about. In the entire concept of avantgarde/progressive/experimental music there will simply have to be some things that come across as cutting-edge and "out there" in ways that won't by necessity age well or seem as avant-garde to future generations. It's something I mentioned in another thread, can't remember which one: The discussion turned to how for example Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd were more popular with younger generations than Yes and I mentioned that Yes' "lots of analog synthesizer + elfin vocals + new age religious lyrics + cover art that looks like it could be spraypainted on the side of a custom van" aesthetic screams "early 1970s" in a more obnoxious way than LZ or PF's. Something like King Crimson's mid-1970s heavy power trio line-up has less of a "kitsch factor" (not sure if I'm using the K-word properly but you know what I mean), or classic Genesis because of the entire retro-Victorian aesthetic or perhaps something like Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa where the entire aesthetic's closely tied into the specific songwriter's "personal universe" more than a specific zeitgeist. In a less obvious example, there is also how many of the very earliest progressive rock groups like The Moody Blues or Traffic I don't find that interesting because while the "sound" is there the narrative structures of the music aren't quite as involved as what Genesis, King Crimson etc. would expand upon in half a generation. Which brings us to the question of how much "aged well" is a question of "being imitated by following generations": It's easier to find something like mid-'70s KC, or Rush less dated when both would be a huge influence on the metal scene of the 1980s and 1990s, or the Kosmische Musik movement respective to Anglo-prog considering it foreshadowing both modern electronic music as well as the more abstract corners of punk. I'm also curious to know if some of the younger posters coming here from the angle of distinctively 1980s/1990s music styles (prog/tech metal, math-rock/post-rock etc) feel this to an even more extreme degree than I do? In metal circles I encounter people who have trouble getting into stuff from before some point in the 1980s or 1990s for instance, especially if they started with more extreme styles and hence kind of "read the genre's history backwards". I'm feeling a similar generation gap I'm on the wrong side of in some other artistic media, like pre-1960s cinema or pre-WW1 literature (pre-Hemingway even) though I'm trying to expand my horizons there. ------------- "The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook |
Replies:
Posted By: Friday13th
Date Posted: October 11 2014 at 18:10
| I understand what you mean, but in the case of bands like Yes I think the "kitsch factor" is what attracts. I'm 20 and Yes is probably my second favorite next to KC. It's like "wow, only in the '70s could something this out there and awesome occur." To me it's the opposite. New bands like...sorry if I step on toes here...Porcupine Tree or Anathema, just don't cut it DUE to the fact that they're not kitsch in the sense that they're too polished and mundane like everyone else. Sure, Yes is considered geeky, but I'd take bizarre and colorful over crisp and sepia toned any day. I did start with Metallica for metal and Dream Theater for prog, though I did gravitate towards the formative bands quickly. One similar problem I noticed is of bands like Kraftwerk being ripped-off so hard over the years that their original sound is not nearly as impactful to newer generations as it must have been in the '70s. |
Posted By: sleeper
Date Posted: October 11 2014 at 18:15
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As a child of the mid 80's I guess I could say I span that gap. I didn't
properly get into music until I was nearly 17 with most of the popular
indie bands of the early 2000's (specifically Red Hot Chili Peppers,
Coldplay, Muse, Stereophonics etc) but within a year pretty much jumped
in head first to prog via Genesis and Pink Floyd on the classic side and
Dream Theater, Symphony X and The Mars Volta from the modern. I think
going in at both ends, with Marillion fleshing out the middle, right
from the start has meant has meant I gained an appreciation for the
aesthetics of both era's at the same time and as such, for a long time
I've been quite happy to listen to any prog music from any era. It's
true though that there are definitely bands with a sound that is so
heavily rooted in a certain time that they can date considerably, but
they may not always effect my enjoyment of a band. That said, I've certainly met several people from my generation who, despite being very open to quite experimental music, can appreciate but don't necessarily like bands from the 60's, 70's or 80's, and we've all seen the "music died in 79" people that pop here from time to time. I think in both cases a certain type of sound will click with them so completely that it shuts out all others and can be said to be a more extreme form of what it is that makes people like certain styles or genre's of music in general. (Pure speculation here, based on the fact that liking music is a genetic trait and that I assume that it's variations in this trait that determines why people will like one type of music or another, or at least be open to listening to various types of music). One thing I have noticed from the very small "population samples" I know of, those of my generation that dislike older prog are far more likely to be respectful towards the older music than old proggers who dislike the modern takes on prog, some of which can be right b*****ds. ------------- Spending more than I should on Prog since 2005  |
Posted By: The Dark Elf
Date Posted: October 11 2014 at 20:28
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^ Get off my lawn! ------------- ...a vigorous circular motion hitherto unknown to the people of this area, but destined to take the place of the mud shark in your mythology... |
Posted By: Svetonio
Date Posted: October 11 2014 at 21:28
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I'm old and I was listening to progressive rock bands in the second half of the seventies when they still were in their heydays. Aside of a certain albums from the golden decade - I mean, the stunning albums who passed that time test although there are not really that much of the great albums from 70s as it maybe seems at first glance of a young person who discovers now all of these albums instantly and all together - our beloved genre is matured, in general, in passed decades. There's no doubt about it. Therefore the new bands are different from bands from the seventies, and I listen to them in a different way. Personally, I never fell into the trap of comparing these bigs of seventies with the best new bands of nineties, '00s and '10s.
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Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: October 11 2014 at 21:51
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I can relate to that statement more on account of meeting people who have that issue with older music. You are exactly right about extreme metal fans finding it tough to get into anything pre-1980. For them, that is the quintessential guitar tone and nothing else will do. I am personally too open minded to let that affect my tastes too much. So, for instance, I can see where you're coming from regarding Yes and do feel they or Deep Purple for that matter are a lot more 70s sounding than King Crimson or Blue Oyster Cult. But I never felt like I needed to make any conscious adjustment on that account. Well, I generally find most synth sounds not the most beautiful to listen to so whether it's 70s synths or 90s doesn't make much difference to me. For my taste, I actually like performers who used a more minimalist approach to the instrument like S Wonder or Johnny Greenwood or stuck to the piano like Kate Bush (in the 70s albums) or Fiona Apple. I can see that that sort of less is more approach is not particularly compatible with prog and I can live with that. The only decade with which I felt the aspect of the music being too much of its time was off putting was, predictably, the 80s. Rather than sounds, I am interested in a certain balance as between the instruments and drums got way too intrusive for many artists in the 80s. There, yes, I have rationalised to some extent in order to appreciate great musical ideas. I find Marillion's drums pretty intrusive that way but since the songs are great, I just overlook it. In contemporary music, I have more often had to adjust to the way vocals are delivered now, in a more staid and sometimes deadpan way (S Wilson for example) without great emotional involvement and intensity. I realise that a lot of people like it this way now but not me. So, again, I adjust to that if the music is promising. But no, not any particular sounds that I dislike in the current era and adjust.
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Posted By: HackettFan
Date Posted: October 11 2014 at 23:26
| I'm not as young as the OP is looking for. I think I understand the general point, though I'm confused by the particular examples in the OP. I stated it somewhere elsewhere that I don't think that the enormous impact of Crimson's ITCOCK is really felt if one was not able to discover it when it first came out, as I wasn't. I've also made the point in the past that Hackett's early two handed tapping suffers post-hoc from sounding a bit cliche, even though it's prior in several cases to Eddie Van Halen spreading it like wildfire to nearly every run-of-the-mill guitarist. |
Posted By: Toaster Mantis
Date Posted: October 12 2014 at 02:56
Yeah, I'm aware I didn't use "kitsch" as properly defined in part because Yes were among the bands to do that cosmic comic book-y New Age mystic aesthetic first. Perhaps a better example of kitsch in that context would be a lesser band clearly influenced by Yes such as Starcastle. It's more that it's now regarded as extremely stereotypical of its era and not in a positive way, because that aesthetic was meant to be very progressive and avantgarde but for the exact same reasons comes across as rather old-fashioned. I might have used the term "campy" instead but that's not a negative. I'm referring more to why other people might perceive it as kitschy. (I don't) There is of course also something of a "they don't make it like that any more" appeal to certain movements that are very much the product of a specific time and place though, something that quite a few "retro" music groups might have problems recapturing because the world's just a different place now. Funny that you mentioned Anathema, because I think their old gothic death/doom metal output is very distinctively 1990s.
Now that you mention Kraftwerk, there is also a huge generation gap in the electronic music scene regarding pre-KW styles and artists. Most fans of modern electronic music I've met don't consider Tangerine Dream or Klaus Schulze "real" electronic music as a result of being too closely rooted in Krautrock and/or being too reliant on traditional instrumentation. Most of the fellow KS/TD fans I've met also approach them from a psychedelic or progressive rock angle... that or their connection to modern classical. ------------- "The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook |
Friday13th wrote:Posted By: Toaster Mantis
Date Posted: October 12 2014 at 03:11
Not sure if music is purely a "genetic trait". I think your music taste, or at least the rough outlines of your comfort zone, is shaped by what you listen to during your formative years which would not just include what you listen to of own free will but also your family and friends. I sometimes wonder if I'm somewhat more open towards 1960s/1970s music aesthetics than many my generation because my parents don't listen to that much stuff from after the mid/late 1970s, for instance. Of course, sometimes that's what you end up reacting against depending on how much of a generation gap in the culture at large there is. There's the entire question of how much musical generation gaps reflect those in society overall, which I haven't really gotten into. ------------- "The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook |
Posted By: Toaster Mantis
Date Posted: October 12 2014 at 05:23
I think there are several generation gaps in metal: One between the "concrete rock" that still had one foot in hard blues rock and psychedelia on one hand, the other side of the gap being Judas Priest and the NWoBHM who were more self-conscious about belonging to a distinctive genre or "movement"; then there's one between those and the more extreme subgenres coming into their own in the mid/late 1980s; a third one setting in around the mid-1990s or so after most of the genre's main paradigm shifts have happened, there's a sharp drop-off in new "classic records" artists either deliberately set out to live up to or subvert after that. I've noticed that a lot of older metallers who came of age in the 1980s or early 1990s dislike most of what came out after some point in the mid-1990s. There might be a fourth one setting in somewhere in the 21st century where "post-metal" became a thing, and the overall subculture becomes less rigid in its identity or at least more fragmented. At least the genre's return to mainstream popularity around 2009 or so means that more and more people involved in the genre have an "outside looking in" perspective I didn't see very often in say 2004-2006.
That is odd because I think Deep Purple's classic LPs sound less 1970s than Blue Öyster Cult, at least going by BÖC's first three LPs and the On Your Feet or on Your Knees live album since that's the ones I listen to the most. At least mk2 Deep Purple, from In Rock through Machine Head, sound like a pretty clear precursor to late-1970s/early-1980s heavy metal in a lot of regards especially if you also factor in Rainbow. In the case of BÖC they sound more like some weird hybrid between 1960s biker rock, proto-garage-punk (notice that Patti Smith contributed to writing several of their songs) and experimental psychedelia... there's quite a few key aspects of their signature style I haven't heard as many later metal groups pick up on as with DP. The other thing you mention is something I'm curious about, how much of music's alleged "datedness" is really hung up on production technology moreso than the content of the songwriting. There are definitely some instrumental sounds and approaches to sound engineering that were most popular in specific decades. In this case, datedness becomes a function of how much later generations take up an approach. Which brings us to another "listening to music history backwards" phenomenon I didn't mention in the OP, that being those people who get into 1960s/1970s avant/prog/psych but from a punk/new wave angle which I sometimes encounter in people who came of age in the late 1970s or the 1980s. There's more overlap between avant-prog/Krautrock and certain post-punk styles than between classic progressive rock. On one side: Beefheart, Can, Kraftwerk, Neu! etc. On the other: The Fall, Pére Ubu, Minutemen, Public Image Ltd., Sonic Youth etc. Not to mention the influence of Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd and Hawkwind on the spacier corners of new wave and gothic rock, which is perhaps less apparent except in artists with a very retro-psychedelic aesthetic. (The Soft Boys, The Teardrop Explodes etc) ------------- "The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook |
Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: October 12 2014 at 06:09
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Agreed again. There were reviews
in metal-archives which claimed that 'real metal' basically started with
Death's debut. I hope there is indeed a fourth post-metal wave.
I find some nice mixing of approaches in Mastodon. When I used to
listen to a lot of metal, I found the close mindedness of 'real metal' fans
ultimately suffocating and, as I lost interest in interacting with them, lost a
network of recommendations for good metal music.
I was thinking more
of their Don't Fear the Reaper and onwards phase, the one that's less
critically acclaimed but which I found more satisfying, barring Secret
Treaties. During that so called soft phase, BOC came up with some
beautiful melodies like In Thee, I love the night, Don't turn your back which
have stood the test of time. What I find very 70s about Purple is the
preponderance of organ, which got left out in the further evolution of
metal.
I think the production aspect is a very
big part of it because it was by using the studio artfully that the concept of
a rock/pop outfit really broke through in a big way. In the 90s, some
aspects of 80s production seem to have been abandoned and while the overall
sound was way fuller than in either 70s or 80s, the balance was closer to the
70s. That's why you have a lot more people complaining about 80s
production than 70s.
I cannot tell where youngsters with an
interest in classic 70s music are coming from. In my case, I was (and
still am) a huge fan of the Indian composer Ilayaraja who seems to have been
influenced by 70s rock (apart from classical music). So I took to prog
quite instinctively, with the exception of some bands like Gentle Giant that
took some time to 'get'. I loved tracks like CTTE or Firth right from the
first time I heard them. So I cannot personally relate to the experience
of those who had to warm up to Yes or Genesis over a period of time as that was
not my experience. |
Posted By: MariusAA
Date Posted: October 14 2014 at 14:24
This is extremely interesting in the assumption you're 25 years old not 50+. It is interesting because it hints that a great piece is timeless in any genre (even if somewhat dated by sound techniques). |
Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: October 14 2014 at 14:36
In the current King Crimson CD from their tour and in concert, they blew out a few times, and they can easily make metal circles sound like kids in the garage beating off!
Strange article for my ideas ... music is music and people are people, and we're making terms based on the fact that they wear this shoe made of leather 50 years ago, and shoes made of plastic today ... we're completely and totally ignoring the person and the artist, and this is my problem with the majority of the "metal circles" ... they are into a SOUND ... not into the music at all, or whatsoever.
I would like to suggest that you have to make a call to take the decision to define this theory of relativity in your mind, but not leave behind the rest of the world, or the rest of music out there regardless of what it is ... because, then it ain't no theory of nothing! ------------- Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told! www.pedrosena.com |
Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: October 14 2014 at 14:41
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There's a lot to take in with post but what stuck out to me was the question of music sounding dated. Generally, as someone who's in his sixties, what sounds dated in music is usually some sonic gimmick that sounds kitsch to a particular era. Electronic drums, drum programming, and synth bass from the eighties to me are obvious examples, but early Moody Blues with their early psychedelics and mass over dubbing of Mellotrons (a particularly odd symph sound to begin with) would certainly also sound dated to me. Interestingly, music that does not sound dated, barring era specific recording techniques that I can distinguish, is very often acoustic based music with instruments like acoustic guitar, drums and piano. An early 1900's Martin guitar will sound the same if recorded by Ian Anderson in the seventies or the Fleet Foxes now. It's just that simple at times. The bottom line is, barring kitsch sonics tricks or era specific instruments and tones, is that this question is very subjective. So TM, what music sounds dated to you and why?
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Posted By: MariusAA
Date Posted: October 14 2014 at 14:58
| Related story. Around 2000 I went to a Yes concert with a friend. We were on our fourties. I was surprised to find a lot of young people in the audience, leaning on the metalhead side by their looks. My friend explained it rather succintly to me: "They're here for Steve Howe." |
Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: October 14 2014 at 23:29
I am 29. Well, I am a bit of a subjectivist so I would not like to comment on whether my liking it immediately was because of its timelessness or because of some subjective, emotional association. But if you can round up a decent number of people in my age group who like a piece like Firth, it may indicate that it is indeed a classic, a timeless composition whose appeal transcends its epoch. And I think there are. Not huge numbers but certainly several youngsters who like compositions of these bands. Prog just lacks the publicity that it probably got in the 70s. I do believe, though, that with the slowing down of the pace of changes in popular music, the concept of a classic piece of rock/pop will begin to take root in music too, just as we've already had the concept of 'classics' in books for a very long time. There is still a belief in the mainstream that what is old is rotten by definition and that listeners should be compelled to follow the trends. In a few years, though, that may no longer be the case and people may become more open minded to music that's not current. Whether that is a good or a bad thing for the ongoing subsistence of music is another story.
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Posted By: Toaster Mantis
Date Posted: October 15 2014 at 04:37
That's probably because KC's mid-1970s power trio lineup pioneered that entire overtly abstract style of heavy guitar playing you'd later hear in not just modern death metal with Trey Azagthoth from Morbid Angel mentioning Robert Fripp as a main inspiration, but also the heavier end of post-rock with Russian Circles and Slint being the first examples that come to mind.
See, now I don't quite grasp the theory behind what you're saying. If you were referring to the social subculture surrounding the scene taking importance over the music, I could understand that. Are you perhaps meaning that a lot of people in metal approach music from how it fits into a pre-existing genre idiom rather than on the specific project's own terms? That I'd definitely agree with, but I'm not sure how the metal scene is any different from other music genres that also have a "cultural movement" social aspect to them. ------------- "The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook |
Posted By: Toaster Mantis
Date Posted: October 15 2014 at 04:50
You already mentioned The Moody Blues as an example, whom I find dated for the same reason as you do. Maybe it does not help for me that before hearing them very much, I'd also heard a lot of King Crimson and ELP's early songs. They show a very strong Moody Blues influence, but the songwriting's overall structure and instrumental interplay are significantly more intricate so when I get around to hearing the previous link I find it less involving. I'm used to that sound being accompanied by composition somewhat less... poppy? Again, the specific analog synthesizer sounds and hyperactive playing I hear from both Keith Emerson and Rick Wakeman on ELP and Yes' classic records strike me as very 1970s in a way the more "church organ"-like sound the late Jon Lord used in Deep Purple at the same time didn't. Maybe it's just what I mentioned with those synthesizer sounds falling out of favour in the mid/late 1970s, only brought back for "retro" sounds. ------------- "The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook |
Posted By: TheRollingOrange
Date Posted: October 15 2014 at 07:07
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I don't know if I'm answering this correctly, or even answering the question at all, but well, I'm just gonna rant a little. I'm 20 and I rarely listen to modern prog. And if I do, it's bands like Syd Arthur. But then I was brought up with classical music and I'm not really into heavier music (anymore) as I've found modern prog to be, but maybe I've just listened to the wrong stuff. Like, I loved Firth of Fifth from the first time I heard it a couple of years ago, the same with King Crimson (Discipline was the first album I heard by them). I don't think the older prog bands sound dated, the music feels 70's, yes, but it doesn't feel old, which I think a lot of 80's music do. Modern prog just doesn't appeal to me in the same way. I want to like it, because I know it's really, really good but it's hard to get into for some reason? Uh, this text maybe was a bit incoherent but I hope you get what I mean.
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Posted By: Meltdowner
Date Posted: October 15 2014 at 07:15
Me too!  I listened to many Neo Prog albums and I still can't like most of it: I don't know what I should feel when I'm listening to it  I listen to many recent albums that are not from that sub-genre though , specially RPI, there are some strong albums from the last few years.  |
Posted By: TheRollingOrange
Date Posted: October 15 2014 at 07:31
I know right! Some of it sounds just too technical, and as you said, I don't know what to feel. Maybe this sounds a little dumb, but I forget what abbreviations stand for all the time, what's RPI again?
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Posted By: Meltdowner
Date Posted: October 15 2014 at 07:35
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^ http://www.progarchives.com/subgenre.asp?style=28" rel="nofollow - http://www.progarchives.com/subgenre.asp?style=28 |
Posted By: TheRollingOrange
Date Posted: October 15 2014 at 07:57
| Ah, right, thank you! Have to check it ut someday. |
Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: October 15 2014 at 16:05
------------- This message was brought to you by a proud supporter of the Deep State. |
Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: October 16 2014 at 09:49
I have an issue with that. It's like saying that what makes music baroque is that lousy sounding instrument, or that the Romantic sound is due to having a dominant violin sound. Now, if you said "too many violins", I would immediately say Beethoven and Tchaikovsky. It so happened that the analog sounding thing was the new instrument at the time, and it could just as easily been the string off the trash can barrel bottom! There is no telling what it is, except one very specific detail ... Progressive, and popular music, at the time, had a predilection for choosing elements in music that were not used before as an expression. And we can sit and define these, and make a thorough study of the music with the context of history, instead of the stereotypical, and stupid, rock show context that is so prevalent here in these discussions. I like that ... Albinoni, Handel, Bach ... are totally "dated" ... that is just such serious crock ... please look at music in its proper context! Now if you told me that Chuck Berry is "dated", I would agree, but then so is James Dean and Marlon Brando and dearest Marilyn, but we love to keep the fantasies alive! Frigid movie images, stuck on a wall of stucco dried paint and fingerprints for your favorite fantasy! Weird! Totally weird! On top of it, no respect for the ability for those folks to compose and then play that music ... which we remember so fondly! Just like the others! ------------- Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told! www.pedrosena.com |
Posted By: Toaster Mantis
Date Posted: October 16 2014 at 13:56
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Yeah, a lot of 1980s production techniques for instance have aged just
as much: Lots of echo effects on drums, use of drum programming and
early digital synthesizers, reverbed vocals et cetera. It's just that
the 1980s overall are culturally closer to my generation so they don't
seem quite as "old-fashioned". It's also that after listening to more and more very recent music (as in from the last three decades) things like the above mentioned start standing out more. Like my horizons aren't really being expanded just shifted forwards in time and I'm not sure what I can do about that. Like I say, a lot of the "datedness" I mention are rather surface things that you just have to suspend disbelief about in a sense but maybe that's something I actually get worse about with art as I get older! One form of datedness that is more objective, though, is the cultural frame of reference of the lyrics: With quite a few of Frank Zappa's lyrics there's much of the satirical humour I don't quite understand since first I'm not American nor that familiar with US culture and politics in the 1960s/1970s as I presume his original audiences were. Same issue with some of Jethro Tull's older lyrics for that matter only applied to the UK instead. Satirical humour has a tendency to not travel that well neither in chronology nor geography. ------------- "The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook |
Posted By: Rednight
Date Posted: October 16 2014 at 16:08
You happen to what "kids in the garage" sound like? |
Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: October 16 2014 at 16:11
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Posted By: Prog_Traveller
Date Posted: October 16 2014 at 16:52
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[I brought this up in the "What would you like to see discussed more?" thread, but I think the subject deserves its own thread. I basically wondered aloud whether the lack of discussion of newer bands that aren't terribly informed by the 1960s/1970s prog-rock movement might have something to do with the aesthetics and perhaps ethos/sensibility of much music from the 1980s/1990s onwards coming across as too modern. (for lack of a better word)] Could you please give some examples of bands who fit into the "not influenced by older prog bands?" I'm not saying they don't exist. I'm just curious as to which bands are considered to fall into this category.
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Posted By: bhikkhu
Date Posted: October 16 2014 at 20:47
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I think you might find that some of the most avant grade new artists most likely have at least one classic Yes, Genesis, Crimson, Rush etc. in their collections. Even many punks of the late '70s who raged against prog later revealed they were actually fans. Henry Rollins loves King Crimson and John Lydon loves Pink Floyd. Influences run deep even if you can't hear them outright. For myself I am open to anything. I grew up on the classics and still listen to them right along with Cardiacs, Diablo Swing Orchestra, Birds and Buildings and Necromonkey. ------------- a.k.a. H.T. http://riekels.wordpress.com" rel="nofollow - http://riekels.wordpress.com |
Posted By: Svetonio
Date Posted: October 16 2014 at 23:09
I suppose that there are very few of a young prog bands and (or) solo artists who weren't listening to the classic prog bands and that they did not receive a degree of influence by the prog classics.
However, there's a bunch of great young prog bands / solo artists in which music that influence of the classic prog era can not be detected by the audience; in that case the audience accepts what is a band / artist's statement on the influences - which may be true but it is non-verifiable, i.e. such an artist / band can hide that specific influences, and to start naming well-known & big prog names that the audience / fan base is usually familiar with them. |
Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: October 16 2014 at 23:18
I just think that at the time, in the late 60's and early 70's, that there was a lot of new electric/electronic equipment available and that everyone used it as much as possible for effect, not necessarily composition. Does that make it ... progressive ... and this is not something that I agree to necessarily, but the spirit of effort and trying different things is good, and a large inspiration for the progressive design and idea. This, would not be valuable today, as much, specially with newer musicians, because the equipment is not new and for the most part unavailable. However, many of those sounds are now "canned" and anyone can use them, and my thoughts are that folks just are not as experienced and willing to experiment with these sounds, as other did some 40 years ago. The market place and its design, while excellent in terms of its open-ness to anything/everything, in many ways, forces folks to be more "acceptable" and "similar" to others, than it does to itself. This is very common in artistic scenes that tend to repeat until something new comes along, that others will copy and do something else with. Thus, in my book, there is really no generational gap per se, since the music is continually evolving, into something else, but we're comparing today's carrots to some carrots that were grown 40 years ago, and while they may taste somewhat the same, their use might not have been in the soup that you made. It's still a Fender and a Korg, or Roland, or something else, but the uses are just a bit different than they were then! It's a tough discussion. It's sort of like saying that skirts were not in vogue yesterday, and mini's are in vogue today ... there were mini's then, as well, but not many folks saw them unless you perused Playboy! Does that make those girls/folks progressive and us backwards? I don't think so. ------------- Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told! www.pedrosena.com |
Posted By: Toaster Mantis
Date Posted: October 17 2014 at 07:40
Aluk Todolo, Blut Aus Nord, Russian Circles, Slint, Virus (the Norwegian one)... basically a lot of post-rock and the more abstract-minded black/death metal groups. Well, most of them do take some influence from the original generation prog/psych with King Crimson in particular but they're usually just one source of inspiration with as much coming from the 1980s/1990s and onwards. Also progressive metal groups like Adramelch, Fates Warning and Virgin Steele who are basically late-1970s/early-1980s style traditional heavy metal except way more ambitious than usual. In terms of "ideology" or perhaps more accurately artistic ethos, they are also not coming from really the same place in terms of thinking about songwriting as the late 1960s/early-mid-1970s progressive rock movement and that's the important thing. What I'm curious to know if the older posters here have problems with more "modern" music aesthetics especially from the 1980s and onwards. Maybe progressive rock doesn't have quite as marked generation gaps as metal does, perhaps as a result of its golden age lasting much shorter (1967-1974 vs. 1976-1994) and being less motivated by a quest for extremity in sound+vision? ------------- "The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook |
Posted By: Prog_Traveller
Date Posted: October 19 2014 at 18:25
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Metal started in 1976? With what album? That's news to me. Also, I didn't know prog ended in 1974. Again, news to me. I suppose there are generation gaps in prog music in part because there were huge gaps when prog wasn't very popular(such as the eighties and nineties). For that reason there seems to be fewer prog fans in their mid twenties to mid thirties than other age groups(this is based on research I have done on this site).
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Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: October 19 2014 at 21:37
Agreed. Metal was around in the late 60's. All you had to do is be in New York! Even though Iggy, Ramones and some others could be considered a bit on the punk side, in many ways they helped make metal. It just wasn't my scene or my preferences. Prog never ended. In the late 70's and even 80's Peter Hammill was highly active, and did not fall asleep! ------------- Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told! www.pedrosena.com |
Posted By: Prog_Traveller
Date Posted: October 19 2014 at 22:23
| Well imo(but I am by no means a lone in thinking this)metal started with Black Sabbath. There were bands who hinted at it before them and had metal elements (Just like with KC and prog)but BS are almost unarguably the first true metal band. |
Posted By: Toaster Mantis
Date Posted: October 20 2014 at 04:22
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Well, of course heavy metal's been around since 1970 but I'm under the impression it didn't take off as a self-conscious movement until the mid/late 1970s when Judas Priest released Sad Wings of Destiny. Most of the heavy metal bands from then and onwards do owe more to Priest than Sabbath really. With classic progressive rock I get the impression that around 1974 or 1975 there's a sharp drop-off in the amount of highly acclaimed and influential records released, not to mention several influential musicians like Robert Fripp and Peter Gabriel leaving their respective flagship projects. If we amend the prog-rock movement's era to 1968-1977 or so and metal's golden age to 1970-1994 my point still stands that the latter genre's heyday lasted much longer. ------------- "The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook |
Posted By: Prog_Traveller
Date Posted: October 20 2014 at 06:40
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Well you can't have it both ways. If metal didn't officially start until 76/77 then you can't say that prog officially started in 68. ITCOTCK was 69 but even prog didn't become a self conscious movement(if such a thing is important to you)until at least 71. Therefore if you change the parameters for metal then change them for prog as well. However, I think most would agree that "Paranoid" was the album that started metal and not SWOD. Most music critics refer to a NWOBM(new wave of British Heavy metal). This would imply there was a first wave. The first wave started earlier than 76/77. Priest may have kicked off or actually predated(by a few years)the NWOBHM scene but they did not start it nor did they start HM. Saying a movement is conscioius or unconscious becomes tricky and even a judgement call. Prog wasn't even called prog back then in the early seventies so you could say that wasn't exactly conscious either. But back to metal for a second. It didn't even actually become popular until around 82/83(at least as far as the mainstream goes). With prog it was more like 71/72. So for metal around ten years of mainstream exposure(83-93) and for prog maybe seven or eight years(72-78). So metal still beats out prog by a couple of years. So ultimately heavy metals "heyday" lasted longer than prog's but by exactly how much is up for debate. HM has always had more "mass appeal" over all. Both genres have benefited from the internet though. It's hard to say which one has benefited more. Metal hasn't needed a boost as much as prog has so it's easy to say prog has benefited more. However, subgenres like prog metal and other less mainstream forms of metal probably have benefitted more than others. In 1992 or so metal sort of went underground due to the rise of grunge and alternative(which more or less killed off the hair metal bands)so for a little while other than a few well known bands who refused to compromise their sound(I'm thinking of Megadeath, Pantera, Iron Maiden and a few others who while not super huge or mainstream didn't die off)metal sort of languished in obscurity although not to the extent prog did. But then the European metal scene took off(or maybe never really went away)and helped to raise awareness of metal again. Meanwhile 1992 was also the year Dream Theater's "images and words" came out which started a slow brewing prog resurgence as well as a gradual awareness of something called "progressive metal." So all the dates aside it's interesting to see what became what when and how regardless of where you want to put the "cut off date" or define each genre. Also, I think it's interesting to note that many metal heads became prog heads through metal especially prog metal. I have seen this quite a bit. I am sort of the opposite(which I suppose is much more rare)in that I became more interested in metal through prog(and prog metal).
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Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: October 20 2014 at 10:21
| I tend to agree with TM about Sad Wings of Destiny. An even more hardcore metalhead would probably cite the Iron Maiden debut as the starting point, as the first true metal album. And I would like to bring into this discussion an aspect peculiar to the metal community, on which they fundamentally disagree with the rest of the rock music world: that HEAVY METAL is not the same thing as METAL. So, yes, Black Sabbath's debut is the first heavy metal album. Or even if it isn't THE first, nobody would dispute that it is heavy metal. But when metalheads use the word METAL, just metal and no prefix or suffix, it specifically refers to the particular kind of heavy metal music that came about in the late 70s/80s and is directly responsible for the rapid growth and development of metal as a separate and distinct subculture that has nothing to do with rock. Indeed, it is not unusual to find metalheads who don't listen to regular rock music of any kind (including prog rock) at all. But that, I wager, would not have been the case in the early 70s when the distinctions between heavy metal, as it was called then, and rock were more blurred. So the press were not wrong to coin the term NWOBHM. It was a new wave of heavy metal, which birthed a whole new world called metal. There's a reason it's called metal-archives and not heavy metal archives. Metal archives does not use the words metal and heavy metal interchangeably and in fact identify heavy metal as a sub genre of metal (as in, like thrash metal, death metal, power metal, etc). I am not saying they are right and the rest of the world is wrong, only that the word metal has an entirely different coinage when used by hardcore metalheads. And if we posit that they should not object to other interpretations of the word, we should also not object when bands like Muse get called prog in that case. |
Posted By: Toaster Mantis
Date Posted: October 20 2014 at 13:21
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I'm pushing back metal's heyday as beginning with the Black Sabbath S/T not Paranoid. It's just that if you look at most metal bands now they draw more from Judas Priest and Iron Maiden
than Sabbath except the most traditional or psychedelic subtypes of
doom metal - in case of the more extreme subgenres the history basically
starts with Venom and Slayer. My point is just that SWoD is where heavy metal starts to really begin separating itself from "normal" hard rock music and going away from blues influence into a more... "neo-classical" melodic sensibility I guess? Something that of course was present in Deep Purple already, but it was first JP who used that almost exclusively. With progressive rock it's somewhat trickier because it's not as clearly defined a genre as metal, and originally more a "cultural movement" I guess? General consensus seems to be that the classic British scene begun to decline in the amount of influential records coming out somewhere between 1974-1977, certainly also in popularity in the same time space. Of course, this becomes more complicated if you factor in things like the Rock In Opposition scene, which did not really take off until then, but I don't think they ever reached the popularity or cultural influence level of the prog rock bands popular in 1970s' first half. ------------- "The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook |
Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: October 20 2014 at 13:37
------------- This message was brought to you by a proud supporter of the Deep State. |
Posted By: TODDLER
Date Posted: October 24 2014 at 10:33
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Back in the 70's ..Ian Anderson, Rick Wakeman, Keith Emerson, Robert Fripp, and Tony Banks all knew exactly what they wanted to do and exactly how to go about doing it. They were completely diverse from each other. That's because in the early 70's there was the strong willed existence of "practices". One particular good rule of thumb was to not emulate another artist to the point where you sounded ridiculous. Many underground Prog bands in the 70's were influenced by the big 5 , but only to a small degree and not enough to mask their originality. Gong, Hatfield and the North, Camel, Univers Zero, ...there are many. The most disrespectful thing to do with your art..is to outright copy someone else. Original Prog masters/innovators lifted Classical music to create a new style of Rock. They studied specific composers music to create something else and not to imitate it. The idea is to study a composer's music and not the bands who incorporated it into Rock music. Get the picture? There is something very wrong here when there are more bands emulating than experimenting. The original innovative Prog musicians of the 70's spent their time studying other styles of music and beyond that...other cultures. Some bands today..are just copying what they did and not focusing on how they did it. Which would be the smart thing to do if anyone desires to be a composer and create something very original. |
Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: October 24 2014 at 10:47
| Heh, I was having a discussion on something related in an entirely different context. I would say that the problem is not so much the musicians but the way classification now happens in rock. Because fans are drawn more to the SOUND of rock music than the compositional nuts and bolts of it, there probably comes a point where they cannot accept something as rock that is too sonically removed from conventional notions of rock. In the 70s, rock was still growing and expanding so perhaps listeners just got busy discovering the music as it was unraveled. It's quite possible that that phase is over and listeners will only feel confounded by bands that defy classification. The thought that something new might be happening probably doesn't occur to people anymore. It might be a harsh thing to say but then I listen to what people say about their music and how they describe it and they describe their needs almost exclusively in terms of genres. So I can see where a comfort zone that prefers accepted stuff, the tried and tested, might develop. It's no wonder that older bands are having a revival even when releasing stuff that's at times only about half as good (at best) as the things they did in their prime. Music at all levels, whether the regular chart busting pop or even the elite genres like jazz, exists now only to fill 'needs' and entertain, not to create an experience that probably neither the artist nor the audience knows how exactly it will pan out. |
Posted By: TODDLER
Date Posted: October 24 2014 at 11:02
Depressing but true |
Posted By: TODDLER
Date Posted: October 24 2014 at 11:09
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I thought it was very beautiful how Laura Nyro influenced Todd Rundgren's chord voicings and changes. His style of vocal phrasing and his creative melodies were out of Laura's soul. It was so incredibly strange how Todd Rundgren was naturally creating his own voice musical with her sound. He came across with a uniqueness in his writing , a distinctive sound of his own, and the listener was unable to identify all the cross patterns to Laura Nyro's music. If another artist is emulated in this way, then it is totally acceptable. It's a rare experience. |
Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: October 24 2014 at 11:21
| I think there are indeed bands who are able to write in their own voice. Even if influences are evident, they rarely sound too obvious, i.e., like a xerox copy and instead get blended with other influences and some original ideas of the band's own. Just today, felt that with Snarky Puppy's We Like It Here. Everything Everything is a very creative band too. I thought ACT were on a great trip for sometime too. But as I said, I doubt there are enough listeners that relate to them for what's new about such bands. Maybe they have, subconsciously or consciously, convinced themselves that these bands do offer something they like in their music. The listening of music is often compared, on the internet, to the consumption of food. Which, as a bigtime foodie, I would respectfully submit is a deeply flawed comparison. Food only satiates an immediate and primal need at the end of the day: hunger. Music as an art form is much deeper even if its aural form makes it more visceral than literature or painting. |
Posted By: TODDLER
Date Posted: October 24 2014 at 11:45
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It doesn't help the music world when most music stores are following those steps and helping the musical youth environment to stay in the current state of things. The music stores should be discouraging them from their demands. They could easily do it through the steps taken with a student in music education, but they won't because it decreases sales and popularity. "The School Of Rock" is based on observations of icon Rock players and the study of their technique. This is a far step to accomplish something worthwhile, but it presents an extreme on the other end which tells us that Rock music wasn't originally like a school. If they take that environment away, it decreases the spiritual and musical genius of originality existing in Rock. As a teacher , you don't want to go the opposite extreme to the point you arrive at...where all and everything is constantly being observed and all that is natural seems dismissive. Rock musicians globally during the 60's and 70's had their own school. They taught each other and sometimes worked together. They created that world on their own and it does seem a little contrived to form "The School Of Rock" when it revolves around specific heroes to attract media attention. Kids playing the drums like Keith Moon or a girl singing exactly like Janis Joplin is not my answer for how we could change something about the times we are living in. Again...as I said before, you don't imitate Janis Joplin, you learn and incorporate the vocabulary of it. If you don't...it's not real music and the person who is doing it is not a real artist with a mission to be original. That's the sole purpose of music in the arts. Express what you want and hope to be creative and not following instructions derived from the writings of rules in a money game. |
Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: October 24 2014 at 11:53
| Yup. Really couldn't agree more. Well, the marketing was what originally helped rock get as popular as it did. But it also created this monstrous phenomenon of icons. I think the icons have ultimately become too big for rock and define its image almost in entirety. As you said, everybody wants to play like XYZ and such, nobody wants to find their own voice. And to push things even more in that direction, we have all these reality TV shows. So getting on that stage and performing THAT iconic song is the deal now, not writing a song of your own that households across the world would play. Of course, recorded music in any case no longer commands the cultural space to reach households on that scale. Sort of reminds me of how boring and 'also-ran' the current Mercs look. Based on looks alone, there's no reason to choose them over the competing BMW/Audi models. The 1980s Merc was a solid, stately, majestic beast. With perhaps the result that their designers now had an image to constantly live up to. That impulse, I think, is what kills originality. |
Posted By: TODDLER
Date Posted: October 24 2014 at 12:04
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When I used to teach guitar in music stores...most kids who were interested in Rap music, underground Alternative, Hip Hop, ...all wanted to play like Jimi Hendrix. At first I laughed because I knew his attraction to kids was more based on his publicity. When kids tried to learn his ballads they struggled with inverted chord changes and note passages that fell between those chords and they would ask: "What's going on here..why can't I play this fluently?" I suggested that they learn a more easy to play "Soul" song from the 60's to understand those triad chords and inverted chords and as a basic introduction to mastering that style/concept of playing. They were puzzled and didn't make the connection between "Soul Music" and Jimi Hendrix. The majority of kids in the 60's and 70's or even 80's did. Many of these young guitar students had no idea that Jimi Hendrix spent years in his career working with Ike & Tina Turner or "Little Richard" and by the time Hendrix got a hold of "Soul" style guitar playing he took it to steps above and beyond where he incorporates it into progressive Psychedelic style in "1983, A Merman I Shall Turn To Be" It's because these kids are being sold a plastic picture frame image of Jimi Hendrix and not understanding that he was not only an unorthodox type of guitarist to the extremes of extremes, but that his artistry was very natural and not 100 hundred percent to be hyped. |
Posted By: TODDLER
Date Posted: October 24 2014 at 12:23
This is all part of a psychological approach to how entertainment is represented for younger generations. It's one of those lightbulbs turning on in someone's head. I mean..this is how it started: If someone in the record company staff had a new business idea for marketing, they would set up an "inhouse" to proceed it's measure to profit. Everything revolved around money and got to a point where the commercial artist wasn't allowed to have freedom in music until they became big and bad and powerful in order to do so. Who on this earth can tell Paul McCartney that he cannot write a symphony? Fortunately artists like Keith Emerson had enough financial backing to record solo albums. Francis Monkman probably did with less financial droppings. The ultimate position is Mike Oldfield's. He's able to survive nicely and still compose at will. |
Posted By: Rednight
Date Posted: October 24 2014 at 12:25
| Modern prog I generally can't get behind, but then again, I really haven't heard much which means my first statement here indicates squarely that I need to find time to extricate my head from my nether regions. I'll need to listen to RED one more time before that occurs. |
Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: October 24 2014 at 14:17
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Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: October 24 2014 at 20:43
Yeah, I wanted to touch upon this too, sort of. The 60s/70s generation didn't just spring out of thin air. They were deeply influenced not only by classical or jazz music but also the soul, blues, country and rockabilly music of their formative years. People have forgotten today that the idols of people like McCartney or Page were actually guys like Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, James Brown etc. These were all icons in their own right but for all that they revered these legends, the Beatles/Zep generation boldly stepped out of their shadow and went out and did their own thing. What has happened meanwhile is the popular music of the 50s and early 60s has faded into near-oblivion for reasons that are probably not entirely musical and have to do with the way marketers have influenced opinions. So the natural, chronological link that actually existed has been obscured and the classic rock generation stands alone. It has to be impressed afresh on people that there was some amount of continuity even within the disruption that happened in the 60s. There won't be a new Elvis or a new Jimmy Page. People really have to stop yearning for that to happen and move on and accept new artists.
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Posted By: Prog_Traveller
Date Posted: October 24 2014 at 21:11
Forerunners yes but really no true metal band before them imo. The thing is even with BS they were unaware of anything called heavy metal at the time since the term(and thus the genre)didn't really cement until later so they are sort of like the accidental fathers to a genre that they unknowingly created. When the term "heavy metal" was thrown their way they didn't really accept it unlike Judas Priest who were apparently the first band to embrace the term.
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Posted By: TODDLER
Date Posted: October 24 2014 at 22:17
So....there'e people out there yearning for that? I 'm not consistently exposed to that to give the notion any weight. I believe it, but it's usually people in my age group and realistically that makes little sense to me when there is a simple explanation as to why. Whenever you get down to the grit with the technical side to music or the advanced or experimental side , what always comes to mind is discouraging. For example, in the 60's and 70's music revolved around the concept of a method. A natural way of following methods to compose. Taking steps that musicians don't take today because they are kids afraid of the dark. So..instead they mask the real reason with an excuse ..which evidently appears to be a critical judgement on any method or concept of writing from the 60's and 70's era. "That was then, this is now" attitude. Which is closing off their minds from the intelligent way of looking at things. A good method is a good method! If it is a method of opening doors for musical expansion to another dimension or world, (like in the 70's), what in Jesus H does it have to do with the fact that it was created/thought of, in 1969? Why not apply it now? Steve Hackett does. Happy the Man did on their last release "Muse Awakes" . I assume that members of Happy the Man and Steve Hackett are expanding more in music because they have an understanding for how certain ideas were originally invented in the day and they certainly write music as if they do, but it has little to do with the knowledge deriving from 1969. It's called "practices" aned the side of imitating someone else is in a galaxy...far, far...away. Some of these neo Prog bands today have the talent/ability to create something of their own. Not another Voyage of the Acolyte or a Crafty Hands , but something of their own and they refuse to do it. They are so perfect at copying Rick Wakeman and Robert Fripp, but have zero interest in studying and observing how Wakeman and Fripp did it themselves. They seem to careless about looking into that or observing the process or even the pattern of the process.. That's foolish! That can compare to the kid in elementary school who looked at the answers on your test just to pass without even taking a chance on the ability of their own common sense. This is sad and should be changed by adding older methods and concepts of writing to new ones. That way...the music would at least even out and people would develop hope.
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Posted By: TODDLER
Date Posted: October 24 2014 at 22:37
| John Goodsall from Brand X has the influence of John McLaughlin in his playing and to boot, he has written certain pieces with a Mahavishnu Orchestra twist. In point though...he actually doesn't play like John Mclaughlin, he is only adding reflections of that in order to give Brand X a personality. He's not on a mission to copy anyone. Too many neo Prog bands today are focusing on lifting actual riffs of Robert Fripp and that's working against the good future that music could have if they didn't... and as a result it sounds unoriginal. Create from your head and your mind and not somebody else. It's so frustrating that I'd like to tie them to chairs and give them some solid advice about originality. Too many keyboard parts in Neo Prog pieces are simply lifted and it's very lame to do that. It's frustrating to think that any Neo Prog band that will do this ..is so incredibly talented and are wasting their time along with dismissing the important or vital methods needed to be applied in order to save music. |
Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: October 25 2014 at 02:14
Not just people in your age group but even those youngsters who are nostalgic for a bygone period. What, unfortunately, fascinates them is the sound and not the approach. And that is why they would not recognise, much less appreciate, contemporary music made with a 70s approach. I have to tell people that the only way out of this is ultimately simple: just spend the time to look for those artists who do capture the spirit of that age and apply it to a modern vocabulary. They are there, go and listen to them and buy their music. Make them popular...or at least make their vocation a sustainable one. Yes, it takes too much effort to look for the proverbial needle in the haystack given the number of bands. But the fact that one is not able to make that effort does not mean lamenting about the glory days will solve the problem. It reminds me of another recent conversation I had about tennis. Guys lamenting that today's Nadal or Murray don't have the genius for unorthodox strokemaking of Marcelo Rios. I was like, folks, the champs of that time, i.e. Sampras or Agassi, didn't play like Rios either. You want something out of the way, you've got to look for it. It won't land on your lap. There's this peculiar combination of nostalgia-fuelled pessimism and lazy inertia that's quite prevalent on the internet as far as music goes.
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Posted By: TODDLER
Date Posted: October 25 2014 at 08:49
tO ME personally, capturing the spirit of an age musically is a concept based on a type of music that presents itself ...on the surface..to be too familiar to folks. Something obvious such as the riff in Cream's "Sunshine Of Your Love" where if you dismiss the dated sounding instruments in 70'S Prog, you can clearly see that the approach and formulas/elements are based on an advanced method of composing that many musicians today STILL have no real or little knowledge of. Much of the 70's approach in progressive composition is an educational process or learning experience for a musician of any age, and from any decade
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Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: October 25 2014 at 09:06
| Don't disagree with anything you said there. Yeah, when I say 70s approach, I simply mean an approach that those bands favoured. There's no reason why it cannot be used today. Completely agree indeed that just Hammonds and mellotrons don't make it 70s-like. That is precisely where retro-prog gets it wrong. |
Posted By: Toaster Mantis
Date Posted: October 25 2014 at 10:41
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This discussion reminds me of something that Mark Prindle remarks on his website in the introduction to a rundown of some big prog rock group's discography, can't remember which one though: In 1960s/1970s rock bands that branch out into other genres, the integration of styles from outside the rock framework sounds more organic than when bands from the 1980s and onwards attempt to do so; his best guess being that back then the exact norms of what constituted rock music weren't quite codified yet that it meant something in specific for musicians to come from a "rock background". I know he's not exactly an expert on progressive rock, as there's quite a bit in the genre he's downright dismissive of or otherwise rather lukewarm towards. Still, it's the first thing I thought of as a point of comparison. I remember RateYourMusic reviewer http://rateyourmusic.com/~HorseMouth" rel="nofollow - HorseMouth , who's an invaluable resource when it comes to 1960s/1970s experimental music in general extending to avant-jazz and early electronic too, make the same point several times. ------------- "The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook |
Posted By: TODDLER
Date Posted: October 25 2014 at 11:12
| One of the most interesting experiences I had was when I witnessed a Classically trained keyboardist in Philadelphia lifting accents of notes from J.S. Bach's Brandenburg Concertos. The idea at hand was not to by any means...copy the notes that were being played by instruments. His idea revolved around adapting the sound which was a rotation of swirling sounding notes played at rapid speed along with obvious notes being accented like the familiar sound of a heartbeat. He reflected the idea for one of his new Progressive Rock pieces. So in point....he borrowed an idea from a composer centuries before his existence to compose a Prog Rock piece that would flow like sections of the Brandenburgs , but resisting any emulation of character to Bach's music in the obvious sense. This kind of working concept needs to be applied more so today. Although there are obviously some brilliant Neo Prog bands out there who in fact DO find their own voice. |
Posted By: TODDLER
Date Posted: October 25 2014 at 11:36
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White Willow have always , (to my knowledge), had female singers on board with them. This simple idea to incorporate a female style of fine vocal ability divides the band from sounding exactly like anyone else in particular...although a few times they've crossed over into the King Crimson borderline, they seem to focus more on how to make an original presentation in their music. The sound of the female vocals instead of a male vocal..(like a John Wetton , or Greg Lake type), masks them in case they DO cross into too much emulation of others. Jacob's guitar doesn't sound exactly like Bob Fripp's after careful observation and it sort of tells me that there could be pre-planned ideas at their rehearsals to dismiss the entry of a sound that is too familiar. I saw a video once of Camel rehearsing an original piece where Andrew Latimer turns to the keyboardist and says..."Wait a minute, wait! wait!...that's Pink Floyd you're playing there!" "Don't add in that!" So...when people in the band are picky like that..it's for a reason. That reason is to make sure that the sound of the band is original. The most important factor in this life is the band! Even if it's Keith Emerson writing most of the material, the most vital aspect is how will his material sound after Palmer and Lake add their ideas. The wrong thing to do in this case would be to worry about how the listener is going to react to ....for example...the complexity of the piece. That's being contrived because a musician shouldn't have to change his art due to some preconceived notion revolving around what is generally accepted. The music as a whole,...will never produce it's ultimate beauty if it is dealt with like that. Most Progressive Rock recordings that P.A. members rave over are not written or recorded with that idea in mind.
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Posted By: TradeMark0
Date Posted: October 28 2014 at 23:34
| Is age a really a barrier for getting in to music. I'm 17 and I love progressive rock alongside many other genres both old and new. The funny thing is I used to be into nu metal a long time ago. Then I discovered and I liked their "different" sound. I found out that they were progressive metal and i began to explore other prog bands getting into Pink Floyd, then yes, then rush, then King crimson ect. But I don't know many others my age who like prog rock aside from pink floyd. |
Posted By: brainstormer
Date Posted: October 29 2014 at 00:15
Modern in a sense as contributions by those in the culture that indirectly creates a societal atmosphere that contributes to those who do school shootings, yes. I think a lot of us don't feel that newer prog is really from a different segment than mainstream culture. And being "mean" and dissonant and scary, isn't going to fool us. I was listening to SPK and all the rest of the major Industrial bands in 1983 on. Being sick and disgusting is a pretty old sight. Modern prog often seems like it's a product of it's times, by people that don't think all that much about things. I am 51 and got into the major prog bands while still in the 1970s. I also grew up listening to classical music. I was into some "new wave" or punk shortly after it started, and in the eary/mid 1980s was aware of the core of the Industrial bands (TG, SPK, etc.). With the Internet I got to hear many of the bands I never heard. It wasn't the Industrial bands that I sought out, because that aesthetic was very uninteresting to me. I was finding out that skillful enjoyment of music was more about developing a finer taste of what the music was doing to me. So, classical could be on the same level as good prog. Online, I would find new songwriting that was good, some old (Nick Drake) and some new (Belle and Sebastion, Stereolab, Mew). Also, mainstream pop music from France, Germany and Holland from the 1960s, as well as getting deeper into rarer black gospel. From friends, I was aware of the most current avant garde music that had an international following, but that didn't interest me as much because some of it seemed just hyped, kind of like sound design and not traditional concepts in composition. So, I still look at the older prog as being different, but NOT because I don't listen to anything else. Essentially, the best music can be abstracted into its roots -- newer prog just doesn't do anything for me, it's not that new music doesn't. My two biggest discoveries this week: Jean-Louis Florentz, La Croix du Sud (Olivier Latry) Schnittke: Concerto Grosso No. 2 / Kagan, Gutman Two classical composers of recent years I had not barely heard of before. Totally mind-blowing, expansive, innovative, and totally not "prog." old or new. ------------- -- Robert Pearson Regenerative Music http://www.regenerativemusic.net Telical Books http://www.telicalbooks.com ParaMind Brainstorming Software http://www.paramind.net |
Posted By: TODDLER
Date Posted: October 31 2014 at 09:53
It's because you have an ear for it. It naturally draws you in unlike your friends...who might have a short attention span and that alone could be based on many different points. Many youths today have adapted into their agenda ...this "so called" attitude that whatever has been accomplished in the past is NOT only worthless to discuss, but worthless to their own individuality to which cast's out a desire for them to be better or completely original and different of any...for example: composer of the past. One afternoon in the music store , I was taking a break with one of the other instructors and we heard the most outstanding piano playing that caused us to dismiss our conversation. It was a young teacher playing Classical piano in his studio until the next student arrived. His student cancelled and he played many Classical pieces that were breathtaking. He finally entered the hall, we shook his hand and told him he was amazing. We asked who was his favorite composer and if any of them in particular influenced his playing and writing. He told us that he didn't respect any of the Classical composers and that he resented the entire concept of being influenced by them. He expressed being original and that influences from anyone else in music would shatter those possibilities. I shook my head because this concept is shattering within itself and it will never work. It closes off any possible creativity to the mind. It's moronic and selfish. This pianist was 20 years old. He was gifted and stuck on a half wit theory just like many, many of the young students I've taught over the last 15 years. I don't know how or why such a awkward and unnatural theory would be accepted in society. To have an extreme caution to be completely original involves blocking out the forces of the past and the educational innovative beauty it gives to musicians? huh? It has no logical sense about it. The key to following an original path or guide in music composition does not revolve around being totally dismissive of art created centuries ago. That's ignorant stupidity. How can you cut off a force that is a foundation of education in music just to be original? How can a person walk around resisting everything from the past and believing that the motive contains a purpose in their life? Do other P.A. members notice this mentality in society? |
Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: October 31 2014 at 10:08
| The irony is that the iconic, influential musicians of the past, say the 70s, had their idols and most never failed to mention this fact and pay rich tribute to their idols whenever they had the opportunity. It is quite likely that by shutting yourself out from all pre-existing music, you end up unwittingly emulating them and perhaps more obviously than if you had been aware of music history. Because there are only so many notes and everything under the sun has already been done. Originality comes in more from the way you present your ideas; total invention of an entirely new concept like say Schoenberg's work in atonality, happens very rarely in music. |
Posted By: Rednight
Date Posted: October 31 2014 at 10:12
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Posted By: TODDLER
Date Posted: October 31 2014 at 12:04
This is all very true. I have had this conversation with you before...I mean this keyboard typed communication  ...and it all seems to be a reality of musicians banging their heads against a wall for originality. The answer to this problem is very simple. Don't try to copy what the "Big 5 or 7" did. Instead research what inspired them to write like that. Go for their resources instead. That's the answer staring young musicians in the face. The only way to gain originality is to have your own interpretation of a composer and not Keith Emerson's or Robert Fripp's. If they created something very original from it, so can we.
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Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: October 31 2014 at 14:17
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... "notions of/about music" ...
I would agree that there was an open-ness to the new things in music, but then, we have to understand that things like Janis, Jimi, and Jim, were so far and away different from anything from before, specially when considering the top ten state of radio up until 1964 and 1965 before the Beatles, Rolling Stones and Kinks and others busted through. The "phase" was never over, since I started listening to music on the mid 60's in Brazil. What is missing, is an appreciation and understanding that other people around the world, also learn to play a Fender and use it very differently from the way we think rock'n'roll should be, and this is the problem with a better defined culture via the media, which England and America DID lead in the 60's and 70's, which helped us think that we are the boss of the world and that we define music and everyone else is crap! And while there is a couple of examples on PA's top 100, in the end, it is grossly slanted towards 2 places, while all the others were obviously too stupid to play any music! See my point? THUS, it is hard to show folks that there was no "gap", because others, elsewhere were also doing something, however culturally different it might be. Of all the examples I can give you of the gross media generalization of music, is the fact that folks here consider Enia the voice of Celtic music (so to speak) and that Alan Stivell is nothing but the voice of an idiot Breton, that can't even be considered Celtic, and his group from Brittany, was a part of a gigantic genocide many years ago. But we hate to hear Alan sing about it! And his music abilities and mixes are far more progressive than at least 90 listings in the PA's top 100 ... OK ... maybe 80!
I just think that we're so ingrained with the top ten mentality that we ae losing the ability to know if something new is coming around or not, and "new" nowadays, is just a new name and a new song, that is the same as the old song! You and I, would not enjoy that, or appreciate that at all, because if there is one thing that we have learned to do, is specifically learn to listen to things that are completely different, albeit there are way too many folks that still look for a sound, and a style, rather than something that sounds like, although our definition of "progressive music" is all about what 2 or 3 bands sound like! But I question the "gap". When I saw Roger and "The Wall" the mix of young and old was 50/50. When I saw KC a few weeks ago, the mix was 60/40. And the only concert I did not enjoy that had the ugliest and saddest group of fans? ... YES, and its fad'ists! I wonder if what we call the "gap" is when you go see your favorite Taylor and the audience is all teens!!!! Then, there definitly is a "GAP" ... !!!!! But I'm not sure that all the kids in there are bothering or worrying about "music", any more than we did when we went to the Fillmore, or the Forum or MSG, or the UFO. ------------- Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told! www.pedrosena.com |
Posted By: TODDLER
Date Posted: November 05 2014 at 11:48
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The "Progressive Rock" era of the 70's influenced several generations of musicians , who BTW, were young at the time. For example musicians who traveled the world, were not successful ...even though they were recording in studios and made a living doing covers. The Beatles played covers in Hamburg, Germany and yet people in the U.S. have little respect for that calling you a loser...when in fact during the 60's, this was a means to reach a higher scale of popularity if you took music seriously and wanted connections. A perfect example to back up my theory would be this: Musicians who payed their dues playing covers and were successful with sky rocketing sales, SUPPOSEDLY..(never bothered to return to the old venues they once played) and this was society's version of the story and it's very untrue. There is a borderline and this is an actual radar line that a musician doing covers crosses into occasionally. When you cross the radar line to the other side, you're suddenly meeting folks you listened to when you were a kid. Now you are on the other side and important musicians are noticing your talent because you are briefly in the right place at the right time. This usually does not occur in a bar, but in the 70's, it did often occur in a "Rock Club" of your choice. This is a reality NOT often realized by your fans whether you're progressive or mainstream Rock...it makes little difference, but it's insulting to a devoted musician/writer who has to tip his hat and smile to everyone who misunderstands. One particular generation gap with me personally is the misinformed nature that subsides in the minds of young musicians today. Instead of being ignorant about past realities, it should be taken as either a lesson or maybe a sad lesson that you fine full of negativity, but teaches you something new about life...such as awareness and appreciation for Prog Rock history. Little do many of them know...that in 1978 you could walk on stage in a "Rock" club and perform "Close To The Edge" in it's entirety and receive a standing ovation above and beyond today's standards. Between 2 to 300 kids are packed to the walls, standing in front of the stage, drinking their beer and screaming because your band is actually performing the piece right. The devotion of the audience then was shocking. You were ONLY doing this to save money , pay for the studio and record your own Prog music. |
Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: November 05 2014 at 15:23
And the detachment of musical history from musical theory, with some people, is a complete mystery to me. Like anything else in history, if you don't know the mistakes, you're bound to repeat them.
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Posted By: Prog_Traveller
Date Posted: November 05 2014 at 16:46
| I really like it when I see younger fans comment that they like the older bands. However, it seems that they are in a minority in the US. In the US the younger fans just want to listen to hipster indie rock or post rock or whatever their friends listen to. |
Posted By: Toaster Mantis
Date Posted: November 06 2014 at 04:28
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Isn't post-rock kind of a couple generations removed spiritual successor from progressive rock, though? I imagine that someone who likes Slint wouldn't have much of a problem appreciating King Crimson's Red or a Tortoise fan would take easily to Can's Future Days. Then there's the fact that the 1980s noise rock scene (Butthole Surfers, The Jesus Lizard, Sonic Youth etc) frequently took cues from the 1960s/1970s psychedelic rock movement's more abrasive sounds. I know, not quite the same thing as the progressive rock but there's definitely some amount of overlap. Of course, then there's things like production and visual aesthetic or lyrical content perhaps getting in the way... I imagine that might be a stumbling block for a lot 1980s/1990s indie rock fans when it comes to getting into 1960s/1970s progressive rock. The last many weeks I've mostly been listening to 1980s/1990s music and as a result I'm less "attuned" to 1960s/1970s aesthetics. It's like there's this kind of cultural wavelength I have to recalibrate the way I process music to match. Maybe this is just a downside of me having a very formal and holistic approach to appreciating art. ------------- "The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook |
Posted By: TradeMark0
Date Posted: November 06 2014 at 09:44
| I have a friend who is into classic rock and likes pink Floyd and rush. I remember one time I played 21st century schizoid man for him and I think it was a bit to much for him. Maybe progressive rock is just to complex and inaccessible for most people. My mom thinks prog rock band "don't know how to play their instruments". |
Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: November 06 2014 at 19:09
Totally agreed. Too much of the "liking" today, is just "sounds like" ... if you don't believe me, check out rap some day ... while not the same in words, it is basically the same. "Fandom" these days, is about that sound, because it sells, not because people "KNOW" how to listen to music and appreciate it for what it is. This is the biggest problem with the state of "progressive" music these days. All any youngster needs to do is see the recent KC tour, and realize that what they did yesterday is just as strong today ... ------------- Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told! www.pedrosena.com |
Posted By: TODDLER
Date Posted: November 09 2014 at 20:36
This I believe is a pre-planned method of influencing the minds and mentalities of the youth. The industry first cracked down on any epic or instrumental and perceived it to be a threat to their new ideas. The short songs and the commercially contrived business concept to enforce the law of the 3 or 4 minutes song and abandonment of art in the form of great musicianship and lyricism. This was in full swing by 1980 when Prog remained underground. Radio programs played the music of Popol Vuh after midnight while commercial Pop music returned to rule the empire...just as it originally did prior to the abundance of creativity in Rock music during the mid to late 60's.
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Posted By: TODDLER
Date Posted: November 09 2014 at 20:52
| Over 3 decades ...different generations have developed a short attention span..unlike the 60's and 70's when it felt like people in general were more interested in music. People didn't take music so seriously in 1980 and it was strange doing all this road travel realizing that 2 years ago in 1978 they did! It was a huge shift of interest that was swept away over a 2 year period. It was subtle in 1975 and the industry washing their hands of art seemed to build from that particular year to a finalized act of disregarding art. This short attention vibe which seems more evident now...is a vampire feeding off everyone it can. It controls most people and it profits greatly from it. There is no reason to bring art into this. There are many outstanding vocalists in today's world of Pop music , but some people in the past have said that the music is a contrived concept based on the same patterns over and over...and having "set ideas" for breaks in the music. These ideas are worthless because there IS no creativity within them. It's an idea created to sell something and very distant from an idea to create. |
Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: November 10 2014 at 09:55
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The TOM DOWD dvd has a nice take on this and I recommend seeing it. Not quite this way, but close. Basically, though, you have to realize that the media (per se) did not exist as it does today, at the beginning of the century. You must realize the incredible sense when people first saw moving pictures, and the famous shot that was aimed at the camera ... and many people walked out of the theater and screamed, and a couple of newspapers wrote articles about how insensitive the film makers were when they did that. In Europe, however, film was considered more of an "art", and there was less of a reaction, but many folks in the upper classes were already watching film privately, and there are many jokes about it in Victorian Literature, including a famous one "... we can't show that to the lower classes ... what will they think?" Things like the first "talkie" gave folks one of the very first ideas that there were arts elsewhere, even if they were different. Everyone had their local this and that, and everyone knew the famous such and such from the picture on the paper, but no one had heard of a whole lot more. And right after the "talkies" radio became much more important as it was used as an effective tool in WW2. This started back in the 30's, and even was creating some senstational reactions, specially when you consider Orson Welles and then realize that even the US Congress considered banning him from the radio! Per Tom dowd, after WW2, mostly the film studios got their stars to sing, and they started putting out albums, which inadvertantly ended up almost single handedly killing a lot of black music that was getting very well known around the country. But the "stars" were selling! The others were not getting any play on radio, or any attention, therefore they can't be good .... SOUND FAMILIAR? .... The late 50's and early 60's brought out an amazing boom in music and it was at this time that many people woke up to the sales potential of many of these. It's really hard to discuss "progressive" within these contexts, because it was all "new", and as such, even our favorite scene is an extension of what was there before. That music got stuck on the radio/topten thing and style is another story. But music, just like theater, film, and painting in the 20th century ... NEVER ... stopped growing and showing something different. There is no GAP. Except in our view of things! ------------- Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told! www.pedrosena.com |
Posted By: TODDLER
Date Posted: November 10 2014 at 11:44
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Posted By: TODDLER
Date Posted: November 10 2014 at 12:07
What about the view that things are just not the same? There are great things to mention today...like Steve Wilson being a kid at one time, growing up on Progressive Rock and re-mixing fine Prog albums with their band leaders/main writers..producing something in the end which tells us that what we are hearing is how the album was originally suppose to sound like. He's making money...BUT!...he is giving us a gift. The scene is not the same and particularly in the U.S. In the 70's when I traveled..creativity was all around me. It didn't matter at all if you were performing with a commercial show band. In the dressing room..musicians played Classical, Jazz, and Prog. I still travel today and it's just not like that at all and the exceptional musicians on the circuit avoid compliments because everything is so disrespectful to them anyway. In the 70's when a musician auditioned for a show band, top 40, or Rock band, it was a requirement for that musician to display their diversity prior to a decision being made. They were asked to play the Blues, asked to play some Jazz/Fusion, a lead solo in a Rock song, Folk music entered into this as well. Where is all of this today? Auditions with the average band today are a joke. I remember when you had to be skilled and disciplined to get hired. That's music right out the door..more or less. Think about it. In the 70's ...no doubt there were a host of bands who were copy cats. It's always been inevitable for this to occur and no less than watching your childhood friend applying the breaks on the bike so you can learn yourself. In today's world there are TOO many clones and not enough people desperately trying to NOT be clones.
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Posted By: TODDLER
Date Posted: November 10 2014 at 13:13
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I feel abandoned by this and several exceptional musicians that I know feel the same. It's based on the independent artist forever remaining independent. Maybe a choice long ago would have been to record and release an instrumental album that was backed by a good label. That raised the percentage of possibilities to reach many people with your music. This was actually still happening around the time of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra. A much larger percentage of youths just entering college bought their music because it was artistic and left quite an impression on them. This is not allowed in today's music standards because they have to create rules derived from methods on contriving the pieces of music. Some people in the past have made statements about how they think the 70's Progressive movement was a hyped up joke. At least we had that freedom with the financial power behind it. To reach as many people as possible with your music. Even in the way that Tangerine Dream went cross country in the U.S. and gained a decent following. This whole idea of dismissing innovators in Classical music, Jazz, Progressive Rock...developed during the "Punk Rock" era, however I don't think fault can be attributed to the punks...I just believe the industry were in the midst of turning their backs on Prog during this time. What better experience to have none other than the one where you witness a dying art. I remember when Anthony Phillips released "The Geese And The Ghost" and right at that moment the industry was about to hammer on Progressive Rock. Hammer as to SLAM it into tiny little pieces. By 1978 Roger Glover released Elements with a full score for orchestra traveling into a style of Jazz mostly heard in the music of Passport. This album was composed in the vain of theatre writing techniques and expanded through a great idea to instrumentally and vocally give a presentation of the elements. It was on the Polydor label and that gave me hope that maybe Prog had not yet been wiped off the map. 1980 changed everything and it felt like an "over the night" deal. I had been on the road for only 3 years and suddenly every band was asked to change the way they looked, their lyrics, the structure of their music was to be simplified in terms of boring and nothing was ever the same after that. I left this scene and went to play in theatres for years and that's when I came face to face with Progressive Rock bands signed to major record labels and watched them vanish from the music scene. This was very sad to witness. You knew they were never going to be promoted like they were in the early 70's. At first many Prog bands like Nektar and Happy The Man were being distributed through domestic labels and the band's were basically playing theatres and clubs. When more than half of these bands were dropped by these labels..it created panic in the hearts of powerful musicians who were traveling up and down the East coast of the U.S. It was devastating to everyone who appreciated music.
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Posted By: brainstormer
Date Posted: November 10 2014 at 13:32
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It's interesting to note that you can't ever turn the hands of time backwards. What most on this board and elsewhere consider the greatest prog works were composed 35-45 years ago. That's quite a long time ago from some people's perspectives. I think some better see that level of prog rock as a lucky break to get you into classical. The escape from Rock is long and arduous. You have to pretty much go it alone if your friends don't have a clue what you are up to (besides a mere posturing that they do). I have found the level of die hard proggies to be more closer to a high schooler's mentality, and closer to say, a heavy metal enthusiast, then a broader acceptance of all music based on the virtue of the music alone. It's closer to classical than say "New Wave/Punk/Post-Punk," Industrial or other forms. "New Wave/Punk/Post-Punk," music is more like basic songwriting, whereas at least metal is closer to jazz in that it can be more a "musicians' music" (but so is finely crafted pop songwriting). ------------- -- Robert Pearson Regenerative Music http://www.regenerativemusic.net Telical Books http://www.telicalbooks.com ParaMind Brainstorming Software http://www.paramind.net |
Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: November 11 2014 at 09:48
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It's the same the world over ... listen to Guru Guru's satire song (last one on Tango Fango), and it gives you another idea. All cultures try to influence their youngsters to their way of thinking, and so does America and England! And sometimes, I think the media modulation is even worse than the gun in the old days we had to put up with in fascist days of Portugal! The media these days, has become about supporting the local economy and top ten, so they can manipulate the majority of the moneys. It's not always that exact, but it's close enough of an analogy. It's just like AT&T now saying they will sue the government if the government insists on no limits to the speed and what not, when AT$T owns most of the pipes, and American business institutions are not used to "regulation". Usually they do whatever they want! It's a very slanted point of view and discussion ... that will get all of us just screaming ... and that AT&T needs to get split up again, like Ma'Bell had to ... only to have their old owners say ... it's a matter of time, and we'll have everything again! And they do! You also want to check out the nasty battles that Akira Kurosawa had with the Japanese studios that even refused to release his films, because they were not bringing in the millions of yen that they wanted. He, instead, ended up relying on European and American folks to get his films done ... and in the end, he will be remembered, and the other jerks never heard of again! All depends on your internal constitution and how much you want to dedicate your own life to. The bigger and better artists will ALWAYS survive these political crap. ALL of the late 60's stuff, was, almost singlehandedly, very politically and socially minded, specially in America. But saying that the stuff in London wasn't, with the IRA bombs going off at the time, is also not something that today's fans are aware of, as much as we were!!!!! You can watch the film "Woodstock", and you can see the socio-political thread in it. But, already by that time, there was a nice intent to "come together", which STILL is not appreciated by many that speak out against marijuana and hippies and such, as if any culture did not have their own similar group. It feels just like 300 years ago, when the folks blazing west went on a genocide rampage in America. The media is doing the same thing! KC's first album is the ultimate statement telling you all this I am saying! We just need to fight the folks that want to keep you blind! And the majority of all the arts, in any specific designation, have always been the greatest fighters of these wrongs, even going as far back as Oedipus and Lysistrata ... even if we think those were fantasies and just stories, which they weren't. Or as Luis Bunuel would say ... 'Le Phantome de la Liberte" ... is alive and well ... and Goya gave us a snapshot! It's been the same all along! ------------- Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told! www.pedrosena.com |
Posted By: TODDLER
Date Posted: November 12 2014 at 12:39
| In the 70's you had to work twice as hard to research Progressive Rock. When comparing the 70's to technology of today, you might think there was no technology at all. It was that extreme. First you had to find a directory that would list record shops carrying obscure titles. Then you had to physically be there to purchase an album because not every store offered mail order procedures. If a new release from David Bedford entered the store, you'd be lucky to find a copy. Usually people in the city were following the underground scene in Europe and researched that kind of music . Albums by Hatfield and The North and National Health were difficult to obtain in the 70's. Daevid Allen walked into "Third Street Jazz And Rock" record shop in Philadelphia with stacks of Gong albums asking the store owner to sell his music. The albums filtered out quickly in Philadelphia, but it was an isolated situation whenever you would consider the vast quantity of people in South Jersey and surrounding areas where most of them had no idea who Gong were. Underground Prog bands of the 70's had so much to offer and it's a shame they weren't promoted extensively. Many people missed out on the meaning behind their music because of this situation. |
Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: November 14 2014 at 14:52
Surprisingly enough ... in Southern California things were not that bad. Madison was not bad either, with so many foreign students, but while I heard a lot of different and non-radio music up there, I did not get to hear any of the real foreigh bands until I was in California.
California, may not be the greatest, but that open-ness exists in there and is capable of getting some attention. However, it is a grind, either way you look at it, since the place is all about the STARS in film and everywhere else ... but you get such a variety of names and stars as to get dizzy! I mean ... you're gonna miss Richard Harris doing Camelot? You're gonna miss "An Evening with PC and DM" You're gonna miss Dianna Rigg and Keith Mitchell in a play? NO YOU ARE NOT!
Music was no different, and a lot of the foreign bands made the round, but not all of them were as open and fun as the others were. Focus and PFM did fine. Tangerine Dream just fine. But Shulze didn't because he was too isolated from it all to do his meditations no one else understood!
Compare this to up here in POrtland/Vancouver and this is a big small town that has no music taste. Their jazz thing at Mt Hood, is almost all "traditional", because there is no understanding of what the arts (any of them) really is past the picture of a tomato in your dining room!
If we call that a gap, it distorts the whole thing. But if we look at each year and the numbers of works that came out ... there never was a GAP ... we just prefer bands and our favorite did not show up for 5 years ... or whatever! ------------- Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told! www.pedrosena.com |
Posted By: TODDLER
Date Posted: November 17 2014 at 10:59
Surprisingly enough ... in Southern California things were not that bad. Madison was not bad either, with so many foreign students, but while I heard a lot of different and non-radio music up there, I did not get to hear any of the real foreigh bands until I was in California. Archie Patterson has told me the same. |
Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: November 18 2014 at 09:45
Archie WAS one of the providers for a lot of the music at that time! He should know, and DOES, but sadly, he is not writing about it, and helping a place like this get some credibility, beyond a silly and unfocused database! The same for folks like Guy Guden, and others in the LA area ... in many ways, they were the most important folks of all ... to help spread the "gospel" that far!
I've talked to Archie and had several emails to him, and have mentioned him on the other thread here on PA, but for some reason, these folks are remaining quiet ... and sometimes it feels like they were just the janitors and had no voice, and that's not true ... they did a lot more than we realize, and are willing to write about, and understand. ------------- Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told! www.pedrosena.com |
Posted By: TODDLER
Date Posted: November 18 2014 at 11:21
Yes I agree! Archie wrote great articles on "Progressive Rock" for years. Additionally he interviewed Progressive Rock bands and Electronic artists around the world and his own mail order business to sell Electronic and Prog. He is very informative in these subjects and his brain is like a encyclopedia. He's one of the original pioneers to promote Electronic music and Progressive Rock. There were other candidates like Marty from England who used to sell import albums out of the back of his stationwagon, slowly moved up a scale and settled as Jem Records/Imports in South Plainfield N.J. in the industrial park on Kennedy Blvd. Archie...at that time was somehow associated with "Green World"...so as you can see, Archie was part of this scene during the development of American distributors trying to promote/sell European underground Progressive Rock. All Gong albums were available from Jem Imports. Even rarities like Greasy Truckers Party. Andy Garibaldi , (spelling wrong, been too long), wrote reviews on Electronic music for years ..I believe in England. People were sincerely trying to push this music at a time when the music industry were about to turn their backs on it. The industry never totally turned their backs on the 60's music, but instead figured out a method to place it into a cardboard box and paste a plastic stamp on it for future generations to digest. The evidence around us tells everyone that a list was chosen Here's the list Eric Clapton Jimi Hendrix Janis Joplin Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young The Beatles The Rolling Stones The Doors .........and there are quite a few I haven't mentioned , but we don't need to ..let's get to the point Here is the list of unfortunates who will never receive the credit that the ones on the chosen list do. Canned Heat......basically internationally known as a party band that has zero stage presence. Fito..the drummer plays a Latin Jazz style in many of the uptempo Blues style songs. Blind Owl Wilson was an outstanding harp player who experimented with music that derived from other cultures. Canned Heat were popular in the 60's and The Doors used to open for them. Mike Bloomfield...an outstanding Blues guitarist and innovator that formed The Electric Flag. Unknown today...and well known in the late 60's. During this time I was 12 years old and growing up around hippies who were music fanatics. All my sister's friends, hippies in high school, the avenue, the concerts...all seemed to know that Mike Bloomfield was a great guitarist and that he was just as good or better than E.C. is God. Many of them felt the same way about Peter Green. Many of them listened to Jefferson Airplane albums in their entirety and understood the lyrics and concepts. That also includes the later albums like Bark and Long John Silver which crossed more into Progressive Rock. When the industry made this list of the chosen, Jefferson Airplane became a circus for younger generations to conceive. All we heard in the 80's was "Somebody To Love" and "White Rabbit" ..so how could such a creative band ever be taken seriously again? However generations of youths took Jimi Hendrix VERY seriously because it was being drilled into every kid's head from every generation,..that he was different, an innovator, and from outer space. So why the F--k did the industry block Jefferson Airplane's original creative intent of 60's music OFF from people and instead pronounce Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton as GODS? Canned Heat, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Electric Flag, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Jefferson Airplane, Fleetwood Mac, John Mayall, Free, Mike Bloomfield...were just as popular to the music crowds of the 60's as the industry's chosen list of candidates were. I call them "the usual suspects"...although I hold them in the highest regard for they are innovators too...but...why block out a entire chapter of the 60's that was just as creative to satisfy your need for money and as a result influence the average person to simply NOT think about these OTHER bands? In the 60's..the average person was aware of the bands on the "Black list". Blue Cheer was a very popular band on the East coast of the U.S. during the 60's. What I mean specifically by "average person" is not meant to be insulting, but related more in terms of an individual who does not concern themselves with music 24/7. It was to that extreme during the 60's. Almost everyone between the ages of 12 and 19..knew about these bands who were viciously wipes off the industry's map of appreciation. As a result these "wipe offs" had to form communities of their own to re-invest in their act which the industry neglected. Canned Heat's music is used for the anthem to Woodstock, but they won't easily allow the common person to understand the diversity in that particular band...yet they want an abundance of society to feel that way about Jimi Hendrix. That's disgraceful!
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Posted By: TODDLER
Date Posted: November 18 2014 at 11:39
| Johnny Winter was one of the greatest guitarists of the 60's. Jimi Hendrix used to jam with him. Mike Bloomfield brought Johnny Winter on stage at the Fillmore East for the first time and people couldn't understand how any guitar player could be that good and just hypnotize everyone in the audience after the first 5 or 6 notes played. Everybody knew WHO he was and it was open arms for Johnny Winter from the hippie culture. He was breathtaking and yet..most people or the average person today...does not know of him and does not connect him to the 60's in any sense of the word. In the 80's..I was on the same circuit bookings as Johnny Winter and it was evident to me that his name had been wiped out by the industry. Younger generations I performed for over many years could not attribute his innovative playing to the 60's because they had no flippin' idea WHO he was! That's ridiculous! In the 60's, every hippie on every street corner knew Johnny Winter's music. Johnny Winter and Canned Heat were NOT by any means some sort of act that had obtained even-tempered fame in the 60's. That's deadly wrong if anyone were to assume so based on record sales. Nevertheless...the industry wiped them out and gave them the same lame promotional representation, the same old song and dance of .."Well, if you want to investigate the complexity of Jefferson Airplane, do it on your own...it's a free country, we don't have time for it...we are much too busy working promotion around the next Jimi Hendrix release of rare recordings pulled from our evil little vaults. |
Posted By: TODDLER
Date Posted: November 18 2014 at 12:37
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I've always been deeply annoyed by the phrase..."Give The People What They Want". Even Jack Black from School Of Rock would clear that up for you and I do get a kick out of his observations on the band RUSH..but anyway ..."Give the people what they want". Think about it. Think really hard. What does that precisely mean? Ray Davies wrote "You Really Got Me" on the piano one day. He asked his brother Dave Davies if he could do something with the riff. Dave Davies sliced the speaker in his little green amp to give that riff a special sound and that sound, went on to define Rock music. Were they intentionally trying to give the people what they wanted? No, they were not. Were The Kinks different from The Beatles and The Rolling Stones? Yes..they were. All of those bands sounded completely different from each other. There were times when The Rolling Stones and The Kinks crossed into Beatle territory musically, but not a percentage to be often remembered. "Give The People What They Want" meant , (in my case), to tow the line and follow instructions. That's what I was getting payed to do...however the record executives who were mostly ex-revolutionaries from the 60's were controlling all levels of the music industry by the time I hit the music scene. That was disgraceful because ex-revolutionaries grew up on the creative 60's music and lived and breathed the substance of all it's expression to the arts...and suddenly...they are obsessed with the turning of all artists into Michael Jackson. So........by producing clones of another...they can reproduce an empire to feed off of for centuries and easily pass the business down to family and friends to continue this moronic method of doing business. Allow me to understand this for a moment, is this how they give the people what they want? How in God's name do the people know what they want? How is that possible, when the real artists are not allowed to express true art unless they are in a boat with Paul McCartney composing symphonies? In a lot of mainstream music today..everything seems to derive from a formula that was carefully observed and pre-planned. The hooks in Modern Country are reminiscent of Southern Rock in the 70's. Modern Country contains distorted guitar sounding like it would hail from the "Stadium Rock" era. Each element of sound has been compartmentalized into samples. The samples influences the musician to think differently about adding other styles of music to their own then how a musician would have conceived it in the 70's. The difference is we are dealing more with technology now and as a result we become less creative with the push of a button opposed to creating the sound ourselves. In modern mainstream music..there seems to be a constant repeat of 1 minor chord and 3 majors. These are the most boring chord progressions in the history of mankind, but we "Give The People What They Want".
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Posted By: TODDLER
Date Posted: November 18 2014 at 13:16
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Ronnie Kayfield was this really creative guitarist I knew from the road in the 70's and 80's ...but I have more memory of him during the "Glam Rock' era just prior to The New York Dolls breaking up and Ronny joining The Heartbreakers which included members of NYD ...That was a weird scene and I was about 18 traveling with Glam Rock bands..although I was classically trained...I sold out...and it was corporate where you would be escorted to a dressing room where upon a fine lady...(out of Playboy magazine), would proceed to cover your face with pancake goo, eye shadow, and basically the works to present you as a female to the degree of exhaustion. The musicians playing an original style of "Glam Rock" or then...better known as "Glitter Rock" were decent players. A strange scene and almost like the entry of the mid to late 70's Punk Rock scene. Glam definitely had a Punk attitude as you can hear that T.Rex's The Slider. Ronnie Kayfield was demonstrating guitars and was a fine guitar mechanic. Somehow Ozzy Osborne heard of him, wanted to purchase a guitar for Brad Gillis..who was about to replace Randy Rhodes after his tragic death. Ronnie demonstrated a guitar for Ozzy by playing all of Randy Rhodes parts. Ozzy told him to forget about Brad Gillis and that he would purchase tickets for Ronnie and his wife to fly to England and form the new Ozzy band that would feature Ronnie on guitar. When they arrived...they were approached by Pete Way , bassist with UFO in the 70's ...and he told them that Ozzy was ill and wouldn't be forming a band. Pete Way suggested that Ronnie Kayfield should form a band with him. This band was called Waysted and they ended up on a U.S. tour with Ozzy Osborne. Ozzy approached Ronnie and asked what the bloody hell happened? Things like "I paid for your airline ticket" or "you were suppose to be the guitar player in this band, I wanted you". So then Ronnie tells Ozzy the Pete Way story and how it must have been a lie and I suppose Ozzy had a few choice words with Pete Way after that. Think about it. If Ronnie Kayfield had recorded and toured with Ozzy, would that have been an act of giving the people what they want? ...or did it even matter? All the paths I've crossed , all the years of traveling in the music business...a bit like traveling in the circus in an avant-garde way, but how do you measure anything to be what the people want in any sense of the word? Music doesn't work like that. Business does. Music in the past has become popular for it's sound which was not contrived and that is the way it is suppose to work. Pure honest devotion and not placing yourself on a hot oven to further burn a hole in your butt or your mind ..over the moronic pointless vision of what the people want. Topographic Oceans was NOT what the people wanted. It was released and then you either liked it or you did not. Billy Joel was a commercial singer songwriter who loved the piano playing of Keith Emerson. He wrote crafty commercial Pop songs and gained a massive following. He wasn't giving the people what they wanted in any sense of a word called dishonesty. He was a natural and the average person related to his songs. The industry was trying to figure out how to inspire other artists to take on Billy Joel's role and it's completely pointless. Crafty singer songwriters may change with the times, but they usually don't..(as a rule), leave any source of creativity out of their songs for the sake of pressure on them to be otherwise.
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Posted By: Toaster Mantis
Date Posted: November 18 2014 at 14:02
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I start to wonder how much of a gulf there is between how specific eras in rock music and cultural history generally actually were perceived then when they happened, and how they've been remembered by the "popular culture" at large afterwards. The last handful of posts have been rather insightful in that regard, it's always interesting reading and comparing accounts from people who actually were there "back then" during an oft-romanticized (or at least mythologized) time in music history. ------------- "The past is not some static being, it is not a previous present, nor a present that has passed away; the past has its own dynamic being which is constantly renewed and renewing." - Claire Colebrook |
Posted By: TODDLER
Date Posted: November 19 2014 at 10:12
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Danny Kirwan wrote some interesting Rock songs during his time in Fleetwood Mac possibly between 1970 and 1972. I usually do not include his writing on "Then Play On" to be linked to the same style he developed for Kiln House, Future Games and Bare Trees. "Child Of Mine" I gathered was about his abusive father. It had a Country Rock sound that was subtle and creative enough to produce a haunting sound as well. The guitar solos are backed with strange chord voicings that are atmospheric and grey. "Bare Trees", "Dust", "Sands Of Time", are very melodic and have a haunting sound that is obvious in the Rock song. Buckingham and Nicks put together ideas that were very close to Danny Kirwan's ideas and his actual sound. "Go Your Own Way" is a like a Kirwan song in many details....for example: the beat, the chord changes, and the vocal melody line during the verses are too reminiscent of Danny Kirwan's writing to the point of pulling the wool over someone's eyes. Why would anyone think of Danny Kirwan's previous work with Fleetwood Mac in the year of 1976 when Buckingham and Nicks hit the big time? Think about it. Why would anyone care? Why would Danny Kirwan get the credit? Mick Fleetwood said himself that when he first heard the Buckingham/Nicks solo album..it reminded him of Danny Kirwan...except this time Danny Kirwan's formula's for songwriting were being used by others to create the same sound. Danny Kirwan's songwriting had always been praised by Rock journalists of the early 70's. I believe Mick Fleetwood felt that Danny Kirwan's writing had always been an important element to the band and when he heard that sound in Buckingham's writing....well the rest is history. To further damage his soul, many of the songs from Rumors and Fleetwood Mac (self titled) , are part of his own songwriting development which he had displayed on Bare Trees, Future Games, and Kiln House. I suppose it was like a gift from him or something noble like that and not that they took it upon themselves to foreplay his style in a devious manner. Learn all the songs I've mentioned on guitar and compare them yourself. It was definitely Danny Kirwan's formula that they were successful with in obtaining commercially internationally money-making fame. I believe his life may have been on the more positive side to progression if he had joined Wishbone Ash. I listen to Wishbone Ash songs like "Time Was", "The King Will Come", "Leaf and Stream", "Lady Whiskey" and can literally hear Danny Kirwan singing them. He also wrote in that style. If you listen to "Sands Of Time" or "Bare Trees" they are very closely related in harmony, chord structure, and overall style to the composition of a Wishbone Ash song written in 1972. Try to imagine Martin Turner as the vocalist instead of Kirwan and it becomes evident that the styles cross over. This would have been possibly a better future for Danny Kirwan than a toss off the old Fleetwood Mac tour , where he had an episode and his life went down hill and you might think that someone in the industry during the 70's would have stopped him from destroying himself and turn his life around a bit to give him what he DID need. He's in the "Rock n' Roll Hall Of Fame, but it doesn't matter you see my logic behind this? They should have done something for him then and not now. It really lacks glory. If he really wasn't that important to a mass of Rock followers ..then why was his writing so important to Fleetwood Mac? He went right down the slope and they used what he had taught them. He was a great writer and he produced Christine McVie's solo album. He was innovative to musicians around him. The industry should have backed him to be a songwriter ..just like every other songwriter who was crafty and even artistic and not some guy shifted down this slope and perceived as a threat in the mid 70's due to his bizarre actions displayed at ONE..Fleetwood Mac gig.
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Posted By: HolyMoly
Date Posted: November 19 2014 at 11:00
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Not knowing how to play any of those Mac songs on guitar, I never
really noticed too close a similarity between Kirwan's and Buckingham's
writing style. They both have a "mainstream soft rock but with an edge
and a guitar emphasis" kind of approach, but then so did the Eagles
(minus the edge). And I do agree that Fleetwood and co probably liked
Buckingham in part because he was not inconsistent with the band's
identity as established to this point (though by this time, Bob Welch's
style was much more what Mac was about). But I'd stop short of scolding
Fleetwood Mac for borrowing his style and failing to acknowledge him.
I've only read a handful of accounts (none from Kirwan himself), but
from what I gather his erratic and volatile behavior really put the band
on pins and needles, apparently. It was just very difficult to
continue to work with him, I think they were kind of afraid of him in
fact, that he might fly off the handle and hurt somebody at any moment.
That's why I think he was fired. His lack of success following Mac is indeed a sad state of affairs. I'm a big fan of him myself. And I guess your main point is that his under-appreciation on the part of the band and the music industry at large, not to mention Fleetwood Mac fans, is a sorry case of neglect for a worthy man. Why did he flip out? My personal view is that he joined the band as Peter Green's sidekick, and that was a position he was comfortable and happy with. Then Greenie leaves and suddenly he's fronting the band, and I think he didn't feel ready for that. His talent pulled him through for a couple of albums, but the stress built up, he drank a lot, and basically never had much of a rapport with the others in the band anyway (besides Green). Maybe he just wasn't cut out for the pressures of mainstream success. ------------- My other avatar is a Porsche It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it is lightly greased. -Kehlog Albran |
Posted By: TODDLER
Date Posted: November 19 2014 at 12:00
I agree totally that he could have been this way, but in all honesty..hundreds of performers were not cut out for the pressures of mainstream success and they did it anyway. Many of them went to therapy and sorted out their trials after their success and it has been a lesson to their lives. Kirwan wasn't of great interest to the industry in the same fashion if Pete Ham, Tom Evans, and Joey Molland from Badfinger had went solo that too would have been dismissed by the industry as something of a lesser known project and not worthy to invest in unlike the profit they utterly stole from Badfinger with their sales of hit singles.
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Posted By: bhikkhu
Date Posted: November 19 2014 at 20:56
A real surprise what what we got exposed to in Western Michigan. For some reason the Grand Rapids area was a bit of an art rock (that's what they called it then) oasis. Sure we may not have been exposed to all the things a larger metropolitan area would offer but still impressive for the location. I remember one station doing an evening of Jack Bruce's solo work and of course there was plenty of Genesis. First time I saw them was in Kalamazoo. In fact when Marillion was the opening act for Rush's 1985 tour, I saw them all by themselves in Grand Rapids. ------------- a.k.a. H.T. http://riekels.wordpress.com" rel="nofollow - http://riekels.wordpress.com |
Posted By: TODDLER
Date Posted: November 20 2014 at 04:46
Really interesting story! Great!
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Posted By: Atavachron
Date Posted: November 20 2014 at 04:49
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I can't believe Genesis played Kalamazoo. ------------- "Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." -- John F. Kennedy |
Posted By: tamijo
Date Posted: November 20 2014 at 05:26
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I know quite a few people, 50+ ,who dislike the sound of early 70's prog, you dont have to be young to dislike the relative "primitive" sound, most bands had in the early 70's ------------- Prog is whatevey you want it to be. So dont diss other peoples prog, and they wont diss yours |
Posted By: Atavachron
Date Posted: November 20 2014 at 05:37
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^ Many early 70s bands have a primitive sound by today's standards (though many had it even then by intent; primitive was in, man), but not most of the bigger
prog bands-- I would not call CttE or Selling England or Aqualung or Dark Side primitive on any level, even production. ------------- "Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." -- John F. Kennedy |