When were you infected by Prog?

The Wrinkler wrote:  ... Pink Floyd. I still remember, but could never get that same feeling again, listening to Dark Side of the Moon. It was so different, I was blown away

missinglink07 wrote: So here I am now, age 17, with a collection of Prog Rock about a week long (if I were to listen nonstop), ranging from classics like Yes and Jethro Tull to some buried treasures, like Happy the Man and Yezda Urfa.

Catcher10 wrote: I have a different angle....back in the very early 70's for me it was not a "rock" artist. I was into funk/funkadelic and hard core R&B. I have always felt funkadelic was the soul music reply to psychadelic rock. Groups like Parliament, Earth Wind & Fire, Bootsy Collins....who were stretching the music all over the place. But what I liked most was long songs that these artists were making....I also liked Zeppelin, because they are a blues band with attitude and their harder songs got me exploring other rock artists.   1974...Then I saw the album cover for Rush Fly By Night...it was cool, I bought it (mom did actually) I was about 9yrs old....and have never looked back since then. I knew about Yes, PF and Genesis during that time but it was Rush with By Tor that got me where I am today. So I have to say it was not the word or genre of Prog....but rather my love for long songs and the structure that made them interesting to me.

It was a few years back, maybe i was 13 or 14... at the time I was just starting to develop a musical taste of my own, settling mostly on classic rock, except for my affinity R.E.M. There were two events, however, that led to my prog addiction that has yet to quit.

First, as part of my classic rock collection, I had a few Kansas albums. I was on wikipedia one day, and I saw that they were a "progressive rock" band (whatever that meant). So i read about the genre and found out I already liked a bunch of other prog bands, like Rush and Jethro Tull. So I began to explore more of their music.

Second, and more importantly, I was over at my friends house one day, and he wanted to show me a crazy song he found. That song turned out to be "The Gates of Delirium" by Yes. I was blown away at the idea of an "epic" song, especially one that epic. So I began to explore more of Yes and any other classic band with a 20 minute song to their name.

So here I am now, age 17, with a collection of Prog Rock about a week long (if I were to listen nonstop), ranging from classics like Yes and Jethro Tull to some buried treasures, like Happy the Man and Yezda Urfa.


Edited by missinglink07 - April 15 2010 at 14:19

I always liked prog even before I knew that it was prog. When I was 9 or 10 years old I started to like Ekseption, at 11 my favourite tune was a single edit of Supersister's A Girl Named You, but I really turned to prog at the age of 13 (in '72/'73) after hearing Atom Heart Mother and Close to the Edge.

The year was 1981. I was a rather impressionable 13 year old. Phil Collins was topping the charts with Face Value. I went to a local flea market to get a copy, but they were sold out. The guy behind the counter suggested a Genesis album, ...And Then There Were Three, which featured Phil. Not wanting to go home empty handed, I bought it. Listened to the first track, Down And Out, and was convinced that the record was skipping, so I brought it back to the market. The guy then explained to me the concept of 5/4 time (which Down And Out was). It was like a lightbulb went off in my head. I then proceeded to explore more music by Genesis and the rest is history. 2 years later, Owner Of A Lonely Heart came out and I remember loving the guitar solo, so I went out to buy 90125. I also found a copy of Classic Yes with the superb Roger Dean cover art (still my favourite of his to this day). When I put  Heart Of The Sunrise on for the first time, I was totally blown  away by what I heard. From then on, prog was my music of choice.

Its all this magazines fault!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was into Pink Floyd as a kid and I adored Kraftwerk. I tried to get hold of everything they did. Beatles White Album and Sgt Peppers were inspirational. The Wall by PF was perhaps my first obssession - I still own the famous Lyrics fotonovel of the movie.

I went on my first CD purchasing with my dad. I got Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall. Both were very, very good albums, but I have yet to have known what prog even meant! So, about a year later, I get Rock Band 2, and my mother says she wants to play Aqualung with me, but she doesn't remember the tune, so maybe I could hum it for her  I said "sure", even though I didn't know the song, and managed to get myself out of the mess. I played the song a few times, and THEN I was hooked. I got into Rush through Rock Band too (sadly), but without the game, I would have never been your humble, Blowin' Free 

When I was 12, a friend of mine had told me about Dream Theater. Knowing I was a massive Iron Maiden fan, he told me they were a wee bit similar. He showed me Under A Glass Moon and I was intrigued.

A few weeks later, I had told my brother and he bought Train Of Thought. I have never looked back since.