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fuxi View Drop Down
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Points: 2488 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 31 2009 at 06:34
Originally posted by Atavachron Atavachron wrote:


Originally posted by fuxi fuxi wrote:

Originally posted by Raff Raff wrote:

It is quite interesting that, when some of us said that prog was huge in our respective countries, our posts were more or less ignored - probably because our countries are seen as irrelevant in comparison with the 'big ones'. However, in countries like Italy prog was not only big news in the early Seventies, but even now, in its much-diminished, underground nature, continues to spark off a lively (though struggling) musical scene, with some authentically original acts. 


As far as I can tell, Italy must be seen as one of "the big ones" in prog terms! Italy's population is virtually the same size as the U.K.'s. In the early seventies Italy already had a thriving prog scene at a time the U.S.A. (the original source of rock music) still had to get started (Zappa excepted).
I don't know if the U.S. has ever really gotten started with Prog in a big way, and yet the small number of progressive artists go way back and were crucial-- Beach Boys, Blood,Sweat&Tears, Touch, then into Pent**ter, Happy the Man, Cathedral, Hands, etc.


I won't deny that the Beach Boys or even the Mamas and the Papas were crucial - to say nothing of Albert King, Leonard Bernstein and myriads of other artists who influenced 1970s prog! I was thinking mainly in terms of what we now call "symphonic prog". There, Italy played a central role in a way U.S. did not, until bands like Happy the Man made their mark.
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Points: 3596 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 31 2009 at 07:05
Originally posted by fuxi fuxi wrote:

Debrewguy, you make me SAAAAD!
Is THIS the way to describe Richard and Linda Thompson, who have recorded some of the most sublime rock known to mankind?

"I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight - Richard & Linda Thompson db - a perfect example of the worst kind of pop music. music that is popular because it is popular with people."

Does your definition ("music that is popular because it is popular with people") make ANY sense at all? And if it did, wouldn't it apply to... AC/DC?


 I was being very sarcastic. But you do note the comment is limited to saying that pop music is music that is popular with people.
And that's something that often forgotten - because you can include many a prog album in that definition.
Aqualung is a "pop" album because it was & still is popular with people.
After all , the main Billboard charts are just that - the top pop charts. Not Reggae, Prog, Metal, Country, or whatever. It seems that they have less of a hang up about genres than we do.
"Here I am talking to some of the smartest people in the world and I didn't even notice,” Lieutenant Columbo, episode The Bye-Bye Sky-High I.Q. Murder Case.
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Points: 451 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 31 2009 at 08:34

I didn't pay much attention to American bands after I started buying European import LPs. But some bands that do come to mind would be Crosby, Stills and Nash (two Americans and an Englishman), the first LP by Quicksilver Messenger Service, some early Jefferson Airplane and a band from Texas called Electromagnets. This last band featured Eric Johnson before he went solo.

Also, even though Ted Nugent was known as a wild Detroit rocker, some of the earlier Amboy Dukes work would have to be called "progressive".
The Allman Bros Band were all excellent musicians and some of their longer jams like "In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed" progressed beyond conventional southern rock.
Some people thought Zappa/Mothers were just a bunch of stoned musicians making weird music and didn't realize what talented composer Frank Zappa was. I liked his Apostrophe/Over-nite Sensation period.
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Points: 29630 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 31 2009 at 11:10
Originally posted by GaryB GaryB wrote:

I didn't pay much attention to American bands after I started buying European import LPs. But some bands that do come to mind would be Crosby, Stills and Nash (two Americans and an Englishman), the first LP by Quicksilver Messenger Service, some early Jefferson Airplane and a band from Texas called Electromagnets. This last band featured Eric Johnson before he went solo.

Also, even though Ted Nugent was known as a wild Detroit rocker, some of the earlier Amboy Dukes work would have to be called "progressive".
The Allman Bros Band were all excellent musicians and some of their longer jams like "In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed" progressed beyond conventional southern rock.
Some people thought Zappa/Mothers were just a bunch of stoned musicians making weird music and didn't realize what talented composer Frank Zappa was. I liked his Apostrophe/Over-nite Sensation period.

I can't top that other than to say once again that prog may have had a heyday in the '70's, but it's far from over.


Edited by Slartibartfast - May 31 2009 at 11:10
Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened...
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Points: 4 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 01 2009 at 06:11
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

Originally posted by Rare Bird Rare Bird wrote:

Prog wasnt known as Prog back then & was far from popular.
...released in 1969:
Various Artists (Label Samplers) Wowie Zowie! The World Of Progressive Music album cover
 
So what, look at the back of your Floyd 'Ummagumma' Vinyl albums, says filed under popular music, Since when has 'Ummagumma' been pop music.Just cos some cock put Progressive on the front of a Compilation album don't mean hoot.


Edited by Rare Bird - June 01 2009 at 06:14
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Points: 37575 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 01 2009 at 06:40
Originally posted by Rare Bird Rare Bird wrote:

Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

Originally posted by Rare Bird Rare Bird wrote:

Prog wasnt known as Prog back then & was far from popular.
...released in 1969:
Various Artists (Label Samplers) Wowie Zowie! The World Of Progressive Music album cover
 
So what, look at the back of your Floyd 'Ummagumma' Vinyl albums, says filed under popular music, Since when has 'Ummagumma' been pop music.Just cos some cock put Progressive on the front of a Compilation album don't mean hoot.

The term Popular Music encompasses all forms of music acessible to the general public (excluding Classical Music and but including Jazz) - Pop Music is regarded as a seperate genre within Popular Music. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_popular_music_genres) Prog is Poplular Music, but not Pop Music. EMI used the "file under" tag to aid record shops place albums in the correct department to sell them, not for the buying public to file them in their collection.

The question you would have to ask is why would someone want to use the word "Progressive Music" to sell an album in 1969 if the phrase was not in common use and had no actual meaning until 10 years later? When I was in High School (between 1969 and 1973) the phrase was in common useage.
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Points: 451 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 01 2009 at 09:47

Slartibartfast...You are certainly correct that there was a lot of great music after the seventies. I keep hearing about it since joining this forum.

I must confess that my prog music is limited to that period because in '77 I left the record store and raising a new family left little money for record purchasing.

Today, I am again limited because having a dial-up internet connection I am not able to listen to all the music that has come out since the seventies.
So, until that situation changes I'll have to be satisfied with what I have and what I know about.
But I do like hearing the rest of you discuss newer music.
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Points: 3577 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 01 2009 at 10:02
Originally posted by Negoba Negoba wrote:

 
Prog was hugely influential, more than at any other time in it's history. But I would say that interest in complex rock is hitting a second peak right now. Things like this run in waves and the taste for complexity took the form of the shredder worship in the 80's, again had a backlash with grunge, and has been steadily growing for awhile.
 
 
 
i BUY THIS!!!
 
AgreeClap




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Points: 570 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 01 2009 at 10:16
Prog was popular enough back in the early1970's that even King Crimson had a TV commercial pimping Lark's Tongues In Aspic. Just imagine seeing that one in between commercials for Rice A Roni and previews for the latest episodes of Mannix and Barnaby Jones
"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." - HST
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Points: 4287 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 01 2009 at 11:10
Regarding the Punk thing - where i come from, scandinavia, punk didnt sell much records, but if you say "new wave" stuff like Simple Minds, U2, Bowie (new wave at the time), tALKING hEADS ect ect. ; it took a lot of focus away from Prog and Heavy.
 
Regarding the "how big was Prog", around here it would come down to what prog.
Floyd was and is HUGE
Yes & ELP Jethro Tull was well known, but never as big as Black Sabbath or Led Zeplin.
Genesis was small until they started doing POP songs.
Gentle Gaint and Crimson, was never more than "underground" rarely played on TV or Radio.
 
Regarding Rock on Radio, forgotten acts like Slade Sweet or Susi Quatro, was played more on the radio than Zepplin was. Simpler Rock you might call it, appeled more to the Media.
 
NB:
Roxy Music was suprisingly big, at there prime. Hitting top ten several times. 
The Eno/Byrne Gost in the ...., was played a lot too, pretty strange when you think of it ?
 
 
 
 
 
Prog is whatevey you want it to be. So dont diss other peoples prog, and they wont diss yours
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Points: 18585 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 01 2009 at 11:44
Originally posted by KingCrimson250 KingCrimson250 wrote:

By Heyday I mean that late 60s-early 70s phase when Prog was really taking off. I'm sure everyone's got all sorts of different opinions as to when the musical heyday of Prog was/is but that's not what I'm talking about.

So for those of you who were there when Prog happened, how popular did it actually become? I seem to recall hearing Thick as a Brick, for example, peaking at #1 on the American Top 40, for example. So were bands like Genesis and Yes a household name at the time? Were they superstars, just plain stars, or cult heroes? I'm curious.
 
It was fine, the same as today ... with the same lame critics, just like this board.
 
But we know who played it and who didn't ... and we know who believed in it then and still do now ...
 
No biggie ... don't worry ... people that love music and want to do a heck of a lot more than 4 bars and a radio hit song will always be there ... it's all a matter if you will find it or not ... the biggest issue is usually getting past the conglomerate and corporate kissers ... the ones that always find that the top ten band is worth the discussion ... and the rest is not.
 
You decide ... you really think that people never knew music? ... and still don't know?
 
You're kidding, right?
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Points: 19557 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 01 2009 at 11:59
Each country has it's peculiaritioes Tarijo.
 
For example in the early 70's each store had exactly this albunms (Remember them all)
 

1.- DSOTM

2.- Animals

3.- Atom Heart Mother

4.- Trilogy

5.- Brain Salad Surgery

6.- Six Wives

7.- Journey to the Centre of the Earth (Quadraphonic version)

8.- Myths and Legends of King Arthur & The Knights of the Rund Table

 
Nothing more.............Except for ............Believe it or not................TRIUMVIRAT
 
Illusions on a Double Dimple and Spartacus were huge here, two of the few Prog albums that El Virrey Records printed in Peru
 
Thre was also a Kraftwerk album and Greenslade, but the same copies old and torn were for ever in the same place.
 
Later, Kansas (Leftoverture and Point of Know Return), of course The Wall, ATTW3,  Oldfield and Alan Parsons Pyramids came to the stores. No Yes, Prog Genesis, Tull, King Crimson, etc.
 
Iván
            
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Points: 37575 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 01 2009 at 13:01
^ That's a depressing read Iván - in a small provincial town in Middle England the story was the polar opposite of that - practically my entire 70s vinyl collection (including non-English bands such as Amon Duul II, Faust, Focus, Ekseption, Can, PFM, Le Orme, Tangering Dream, Alquin, Far East Family Band) was purchased in fairly average mundaine regular record stores. On my walk to school I use to pass by one shop window and can remember seeing full-width 3-D displays for albums such as The Least We Can Do Is Wave, Yessongs and Focus III.
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Points: 13872 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 01 2009 at 13:25
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

^ That's a depressing read Iván - in a small provincial town in Middle England the story was the polar opposite of that - practically my entire 70s vinyl collection (including non-English bands such as Amon Duul II, Faust, Focus, Ekseption, Can, PFM, Le Orme, Tangering Dream, Alquin, Far East Family Band) was purchased in fairly average mundaine regular record stores. On my walk to school I use to pass by one shop window and can remember seeing full-width 3-D displays for albums such as The Least We Can Do Is Wave, Yessongs and Focus III.


It was exactly the same with me, Dean, and, I suspect most of the other British members of the forum. Nowadays, I get all of my music either from the internet stores such as Amazon, or directly from the band sites. However, I really miss the fantastic experience of walking into a "mundane" record store and browsing at will until I purchased an album. Sometimes, just the experience of looking at the covers was enough. Those days are well and truly gone - the only record stores left, aside from some specialists, are the massive HMV & Virgin stores, and even then, I have to travel 30 miles to get to one of them.
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Points: 19557 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 01 2009 at 13:46
That's the reason why travelling to USA was a party to me, I always took like 350 dollars for albums (Prog vynils costed an average of 7 bucks in the 70's), this allowed me to buy at least 60 albums (Some Lps were sold one for $6.99, two for $7,00, as a fact I bought W&W in 2.99 bucks, for one extra cent they gave me Genesis Live, both fo 3 bucks was a bargain even then) 
 
Then I divided the LP's in my mother and sister's bags, because each person was allowed to bring 20 LP's without paying tax.
 
Ahh, good old days!!!!!!!!!!
 
Iván


Edited by Ivan_Melgar_M - June 01 2009 at 20:48
            
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Points: 13872 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 01 2009 at 13:49
Perhaps we should start a special "Things Ain't What They Used To Be" thread for those of us who can state "The Good Old Days"LOL
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Points: 22989 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 01 2009 at 14:20
Originally posted by lazland lazland wrote:

Perhaps we should start a special "Things Ain't What They Used To Be" thread for those of us who can state "The Good Old Days"LOL


That's what The Ranting Room is for! Wink
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Points: 81 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 01 2009 at 15:17
To go back to the question, I was there (in Calif.) and in the prog heyday, rock had two main schools: the real rockers, as exemplified by the Stones (followed by Led Zep, Deep Purple, and whoever else you care to put in that category) and the sensitive singer-songwriters (Cat Stevens (Yusuf Islam), Neil Young, Jackson Browne, and especially Van Morrison-"Moondance" was the anthem of these people and I can't tell you how many thousand times I heard it). The second genre, was heavily female in demographic, by the way.
 
Prog was the third rail: it was considered more the "thinking person's" music and the adherents were overwhelmingly male, and I think, tended to go to college. Our love of prog was part of our definition of who we were, and it was as much saying "no" to the other "mass appeal" music as yes to ours. As was said, bands like ELP and Tull were commercially very successful because there were enough people like us, who found identity in prog, just like there are/were for people who like metal.
 
There were radio shows devoted to prog where the really interesting bands like Caravan and Camel were aired. I attended a concert at Berkely in 1974 and KC was the warmup band for the Eagles! A weird billing, and I only went to see KC, who were at their very peak in my opinion. Their set was just incindiary, and when the Eagles came on, who at that time were the most popular band in the US (being in category #2 above) Glenn Frey said they had no business following what KC had just done, and indeed it was a huge lightweight letdown.
 
So yes, people who liked prog may have thought they had more sophisticated taste than the masses, but there was a small mass of us too.
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Points: 573 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 01 2009 at 16:35
Originally posted by moshkito moshkito wrote:

Originally posted by KingCrimson250 KingCrimson250 wrote:

By Heyday I mean that late 60s-early 70s phase when Prog was really taking off. I'm sure everyone's got all sorts of different opinions as to when the musical heyday of Prog was/is but that's not what I'm talking about.

So for those of you who were there when Prog happened, how popular did it actually become? I seem to recall hearing Thick as a Brick, for example, peaking at #1 on the American Top 40, for example. So were bands like Genesis and Yes a household name at the time? Were they superstars, just plain stars, or cult heroes? I'm curious.
 
It was fine, the same as today ... with the same lame critics, just like this board.
 
But we know who played it and who didn't ... and we know who believed in it then and still do now ...
 
No biggie ... don't worry ... people that love music and want to do a heck of a lot more than 4 bars and a radio hit song will always be there ... it's all a matter if you will find it or not ... the biggest issue is usually getting past the conglomerate and corporate kissers ... the ones that always find that the top ten band is worth the discussion ... and the rest is not.
 
You decide ... you really think that people never knew music? ... and still don't know?
 
You're kidding, right?


I'm sorry, I have no idea what this post is trying to say.
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Points: 451 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 01 2009 at 21:24

Like Drummerboy, I was also around the music scene in So California "back in the day". I didn't see many prog related bands live because I was still into hard rock and blues rock at the time.  I was starting to get into imported prog albums but the bands I was buying wouldn't be doing any U.S tours.

I did see Procol Harum headlining a large outdoor festival in Palm Springs in the late sixties. The original Jeff Beck Group was scheduled to headline but dropped out at the last minute due to the fact that they were in the process of breaking up.

In the summer of '75 I had a backstage pass for an L.A. Coliseum concert put on by the Chrysalis label that included Starcastle and Jethro Tull (the other two were Rory Gallagher and Robin Trower).
 
I also saw the Edgar Winter Group opening for Jeff Beck. I don't know how people here at the site categorize Edgar but he was definitely more progressive than his brother Johnny.
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