Prog Fans in Our 60's

I am 65 and I grew up in a town in South Jersey which had a redneck mentality in the social environment. However Progressive Rock became huge in the area and the youth invested their time in it. People were forming Progressive Rock bands in the area and performing regularly. Up town there was a venue called "A Place In The Sun" which was started by the original drummer of The Four Seasons. The James Gang and several other Rock bands in the early 70s played there.


The town was Vineland and its the largest city in Jersey ..not in population , but in measurement. There wasn't a lot of housing development...just a lot of wooded areas . There were groups of pthat practiced Black Magick. They called themselves witches, but they were not witches of earth magic or nature. At Menantico..which wasn't far from my house a ritualistic killing took place. Police had information that it was a considerably large group of people involved although only 2 people were convicted of the murder. They wore robes, masks, chanted, and pounded on oil barrels.

Police interrogated a wealthy organization which has been described as a kind of Bohemian Grove style gathering. Many people insist that this was an introduction to the Satanic Panic scare of the 70s and 80s. It isn't. There's no reason to believe any of that. The incident is discussed in the first 10 minutes of the film Menantico Blues which is free on You Tube.

The music of the times which was mainly Progressive Rock in our area had little to do with why the area was corrupted with cultic activity. It was a strange place to live. Progressive Rock was an escape for the youth.

Since my first purchase of PC (around 1995), my small back then CD collection was always in Excel. Easy to use, update and filter the entries.
David_D - you would love it, since you love so much Top 10 lists.
To create one, would take you no time.

My current collection - 500 CDs, 3000 digital albums - mostly progressive rock, psych-rock, avant-rock, jazz-rock/fusion, jazz, post-punk, new wave, grunge.

Edited by enigmatic - February 03 2022 at 09:26

^Or maybe (like me) he never managed to get into Krautrock?

Progishness wrote: Yep I originally kept the details of my music collection on handwritten filecards. I'd got the original idea from spending lunchtimes helping out my school's library in the early 70's, when of course every book had its own filecard. Long before computerised systems had been devised!

F#@k are we ever old.


Edited by JD - February 03 2022 at 10:16

David_D wrote: enigmatic wrote: David_D - you would love it, since you love so much Top 10 lists. Actually, my own lists contains just all or almost all the albums I own of the topic. So what I love is to tell other about what's in my collection - which I on the other hand consider for the large part as "pearls".

Well, if you want to take the plunge, I'd be happy to send you my excel sheet for you to populate. Might even have a number of your albums already on it. But, at the end of the day, people are happy with what they are happy with. (how's that for some solid philosophy)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I turn 62 this month. I heard Aqualung, Fragile, Zeppelin IV, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, Meddle, Killer and Low Spark of High Heeled Boys at age 11, and that was all I needed to continue down the disreputable path of prog. Although no one called it "prog". It was good rock, as opposed to bad rock, and you knew it when you heard it. 

David_D wrote: Actually, my own lists contains just all or almost all the albums I own of the topic. So what I love is to tell other about what's in my collection - which I on the other hand consider for the large part as "pearls".

All remaining 500 CDs that I kept are my "pearls" too. The only problem is that my wife doesn't believe me. She would prefer real pearls or even diamonds.

Edited by enigmatic - February 03 2022 at 13:05

The Dark Elf wrote: Although no one called it "prog". It was good rock, as opposite to bad rock,

And that is how I remember it too. We used different adjectives to describe it and differentiate from "regular" rock: sophisticated, ambitious, artistic, complex etc, but don't remember calling it prog.

Edited by enigmatic - February 03 2022 at 13:16

I've noticed how social media's representation of the generation I grew up in (60s and 70s) is sadly wrong , technically incorrect and based off a handpicked list of artists that they choose to network. Out of that handpicked list is Led Zeppelin. They are represented everywhere as if they are Gods. If people believe this hype then they'll never conceive that Ten Years After played for thousands because they are not on the handpicked list.

History gets changed for the purpose of making profit. This dreadful act to highlight a portion of Rock history and leave all the other chapters out is an idea of exploiting Rock history...through the publications industry.

Jimmy Page is thought to be a great guitarist and realistically he is not on the electric guitar and as a track record has played more sloppy solos than any Rock guitarist on the planet. He is in fact a fine acoustic player and masterful with open tunings and virtuoso finesse. He is a great writer no doubt.

Of course it's correct to state that Led Zeppelin sold out stadiums, but it's unjust to not promote the real truth about all the other bands as if they are secondary to Led Zeppelin. Ten Years After played stadiums...Rory Gallagher, Deep Purple, etc.
They are not...by any means...representing the generation I grew up with. I assume if anyone were interested they could research on their own, but you can't justify that as it has no merit. In the early 70s the youth craved Rock music and appreciated the art . They personalized it and wanted to see musicians play there instrument instead of stamping it on a lunchbox or a billboard so that one person seems more important than the other.

The drug culture and its theories about LSD and STP , for the most part, I don't agree with. As a teenager I witnessed several friends having a bad trip and they actually had to be restrained and strapped to a stretcher...then admitted to a mental hospital. Why did I witness that several times? Because LSD was popular . Scientific analysis does a background check with reality informing civilians that documented cases of mental illness from the affects of LSD are the signs of a condition existing within the person before taking the drug...and that the drug increased the speed of its development. I believe that disproves Timothy Leary's statement "LSD is good for everybody " I can't believe my ears After basically watching people destroy their lives with it. That's Grey area...ok moving rapidly right along...










Edited by Jacob Schoolcraft - February 03 2022 at 21:25

Jacob Schoolcraft wrote: I've noticed how social media's representation of the generation I grew up in (60s and 70s) is sadly wrong , technically incorrect and based off a handpicked list of artists that they choose to network. Out of that handpicked list is Led Zeppelin. They are represented everywhere as if they are Gods. If people believe this hype then they'll never conceive that Ten Years After played for thousands because they are not on the handpicked list. ...