Prog Fans in Our 60's

Though it was my brother's album collection that sealed my conversion to "prog" with his In-a-gadda-da-vida, Beatles, Stones, Uriah Heep, Alvin Lee, Brian Auger, Blue Öyster Cult, and Nektar, but I was a Detroit-born Soul/R&B radio fanatic (I lived for CKLW's weekly countdown of their Top 30). it was the arrival of the album-friendly FM radio stations in Detroit, WABX and WRIF, that captivated me--where I was able to hear non-Top 40 Billboard songs from various albums as well as the album versions of some great AM-edited "hits" (like The Moody Blues's "Nights in White Satin," Argent's "Hold Your Head Up," many Led Zeppelin songs including the full version of "Stairway to Heaven," Rod Stewart's "Maggie May," Grand Funk Railroad's "Closer to Home," "Aqualung" and "Locomotive Breath," Deodato's "Also Sprach Zarathustra," even multiple full-length versions from Marvin Gaye's What's Going On) that's what lured me into album consumerism and alternative musics. 

While I loved my radio days, my records shop days in the 45s section at Kresge's, buying my first Supertramp, Genesis, Nektar, and Yes albums from Record World in the Hollywood Arcade in Petoskey, flipping through bins of cut-outs at Boogie Records in Kalamazoo or Schoolkids Records in Ann Arbor, there has been no greater learning or exciting period of musical growth than I've had here in the eleven years I've had at ProgArchives. But I would have never found this place had my same brother not introduced me to the fact that Prog was alive and well in the 21st Century as he slipped me a CD mix of Porcupine Tree songs around 2004. I was floored! I had no idea! I truly thought prog had died in the 1970s! Though my musical tastes had remained fully attracted to off-the-beaten path non-Top 40 indie music, I had also ventured into classical and jazz music history to satisfy my sad loss of progressive rock. Who knew there were prog bands popping up all over the planet throughout the 80s, 90s and 00s? I certainly didn't. My "prog" had been XTC, David Sylvian, Ryuichi Sakamoto, The Church, Depeche Mode, New Order, The Cure, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, and Bill Bruford's Earthworks. Little did I know . . . So little.

Thanks, Bob! I still think Steven W. did more to resuscitate Prog than anyone. That 90s stuff was awesome! And those concerts look so polished. Just as Floyd would have wanted them.

Can't you just let it go? Oh, you can't?

I think you were at the wrong place at the wrong time. 

You've given them the thumbs down yet you gave the Script album 5 stars? Presumably they played much of that album at the gig?

Anyway I'm 60 now and first discovered prog when my older sister borrowed a copy of Nursery Cryme off a friend of hers. I then bought Genesis Live when it came out. Prog was pretty big amongst my school mates (although nobody actually called it prog then) - we were all into Yes, Genesis and ELP as well as rock bands like Rainbow, Deep Purple etc.