Local prog bands in United States 70-80

From the time I lived in the LA CA area (1978-1989), some local proggers came to mind:

Marut: Symph prog to the hilt, featured 2 drummers, a lead singer with a Gittler Guitar, anda keyboardist who looked like Gandalf (one Wally Stoltze, funny guy too and great musician). The bassist also played very briefly with Amon Duul III (yes number 3, which was quite short lived).

Rebus: Very theatrical flute weilding lead singer and very much in the symph vein, very agressive sound. I'll never forget the bassist wearing a St Louis Cardinals uniform onstage. The keyboardist was pretty hot too (he also played some bassoon I hear).

The Fents: LA based prog-fusion outfit I saw live a few times (early 80's). Featured Adam Holzman on keyboards (son of Jac Holzman of Elektra Records fame), had organ/string ensemble/mini-moog/Yamaha Electric Grand piano type rig. Adam went on to play with Miles Davis, Chaka Khan and others as well as forming Mona Lisa Overdrive. Guitarist Tad Hall was amazing(whatever happened to him?),combined the best parts of Allan Holdsworth and Robben Ford with ZERO w**kery! The bass/drums thing had a revolving door though. Very tight playing, songs had hilarious titles and very memorable and twisted melody lines. Adam sometimes provided visual interest with things like a picture of Ho Chi Mihn taped upside down to his piano.

In the 80's, I played guitar in 2 lineups of a band called Insect Affect that got pretty prog, yet NOBODY dared call it that back then (after all, in the 80's prog was not cool and we NEVER would've got gigs using "The P-Word" back then). Some people said we sounded like a mix of Zappa, 80's Crimson and funk with some punk mixed in too.

Edited by The Owl