Story of your first prog album

The first LPs in my collection were two Rick Wakemen's: Journey To The Center Of The Earth and King Arthur.  Also had Kraftwerk's Autobahn about the same time which I didn't think was prog when I got into prog until I saw the group as Krautrock on this site.

The story is that I got them through Columbia House record club when I was a teen.


Edited by Slartibartfast - January 11 2012 at 21:32

No real story

I commandeered Fragile and Aqualung from my dad

I had bought Floyd's DSOTM when I was 12 and had some Rush albums (considered them hard rock back then) but it was Fragile by Yes that opened the flood gates to progressive/art rock. I was hitch-hiking home from my girlfriend's place when I was 14 or 15 as I lived "out in the woods" and a guy picked me up in a Porsche 911. He had been "partying" and he pulled off onto a gravel road and asked me if I wanted to try this "stimulant". I didn't refuse (haha). He threw in a cassette into his tape deck and asked me if I wanted to see what this car could do? "Absolutely!", I said. Travelling at high speeds and the tunes cranked, I screamed at him, "Who is this?". He passed me the cassette. Fragile by Yes as "Roundabout" blasted away. After about a half hour he drove me home and passed me the cassette and said, "Here, take this".

^ the Porsche driver grew up to become Jeremy Clarkson. I think the first Prog album I heard was Selling England by the Pound circa 14 years old (ish) which I have to confess took a while to click with me. Brain Salad Surgery was maybe the first prog album I truly adored but again, it wasn't love at first sight/listen. These things take time to gestate in a young critters psyche.

ExittheLemming wrote: ^ the Porsche driver grew up to become Jeremy Clarkson. I think the first Prog album I heard was Selling England by the Pound circa 14 years old (ish) which I have to confess took a while to click with me. Brain Salad Surgery was maybe the first prog album I truly adored but again, it wasn't love at first sight/listen. These things take time to gestate in a young critters psyche.

Pink Floyd - The Wall, in 1982. I was about 13. I had heard it at a freinds house, one day after school, and it captivated me. I was already into metal, and didn;t really know what prog was. I just liked the Wall.

Then in 1984 someone leant me Exit Stage..Left, and the rest is history.

I always had a big interest into music. I was used to play my brother's and sister's 45rpms since when I was 4 years old. I think I've learned to read in that way trying to distinguish a disk from another.

As octopus-4, i'we allways been into music.

Edited by tamijo - January 12 2012 at 05:02

Early 70's me and my friend went to have after school tea and some sandwiches to his home. In those days there were only few weekly radio shows playing rock music and when we opened the radio one of those one hour nonstop programmes had just started. I sat in their living room waiting for the tea and suddenly I heard something new and very different compared to Beatles, CCR etc. I'd been listening. The song was South Side Of The Sky, and it changed my whole life.  I think that SSOTS is one of the best songs in Yes catalogue. So, it was everlasting love from the start. My 4 first albums included Close To The Edge, Fragile and Larks' Tongues in Aspic, so it was quite a good start.

I got introduced to progressive rock (as most music I ever listened to) through my father. I've been under the influence of his immense record collection (a little over 1500 LPs, and some 900 CDs) since I was a kid of three, listening to whatever music was playing in the house (at that time it was MTV Unplugged performances taped off satellite TV and Metallica's self-titled), but didn't really hear a progressive album until the age of thirteen (I had been listening to some Zappa before, but didn't acknowledge it as something different). The album 'to blame' was, stereotypically, King Crimson's début, and it scared the hell out of me. With the last bars of the title track I sat in my chair, completely motionless, startled. I managed to gather just enough strength to flip the side and play the record again.

Edited by Ludjak - January 12 2012 at 06:56