Anyway, I'm curious how many people were into prog(especially the underground prog scene)twenty years ago. I'm especially interested in hearing from folks on here who weren't into prog in the seventies(although it's ok if you were). Also, I'm interested in hearing from those folks on here who were older(and maybe were into prog in the seventies)but discovered prog after 1999(or even around 1999)who weren't into it before or maybe just the most well known prog bands. Please share your stories.

I guess I have a different definition of underground than you. For me it would be bands that you would have to seek out on your own. In other words you have to do a search online to find them(or read about them in a prog book, catalog, etc). You certainly wouldn't hear them on the radio. The Red Masque are an avant gardish kind of band but just being avant or RIO by itself isn't enough to make something  underground. I admit I could have come up with better examples than those though. I was thinking of putting Djam Karet in there but nonetheless I think those will suffice. The main thing was I didn't want to mention bands who were formed after 1999. ;) So those bands might not be the deepest bands these days but back then you had to really be into prog to know about them even though they were among the most known of the lesser known.

I grew up in the Seventies with Genesis, Yes, ELP, Pink Floyd and King Crimson, then Camel, BJH, PFM, Banco, Le Orme and Ange, of course mighty Rush, also Grobschnitt, Novalis, Jane and Eloy. Then in the Eighties Marillion, IQ, Twelfth Night and Pendragon. 

And in the Nineties Spock's Beard, Porcupine Tree, Ayreon and Solaris, and the New Skandinavian Wave, featuring Anekdoten, Landberk and Anglagard. 

Then I started to scrutinize the progrock mailorder service magazines from Laser's Edge, Syn-Phonic and Musea, in order to discover interesting lesser known and unknown prog, I consider that also as a kind of underground, with bands from Japan (Outer Limits, Cosmos Factory, Gerard and Ars Nova), Latin-America (Crusis, Los Jaivas, MIA) and Spain (Triana, Cai, Alameda). Imagine, you couldn't visit websites and listen to MP3 files or stream like on Progstreaming. It was sending letters, and waiting for paper prog info! That was my situation in 1999, exciting but way more time consuming and less productive then nowadays!

King Crimson was so quirky, the one moment 24-carat symphonic rock with majestic Mellotron violin eruptions, the other moment avant garde with screaming saxophones, like a multiple personality, all those different musical faces, I couln't bare it ...

AFlowerKingCrimson wrote: ^ I think that really only applies to their first two albums though.

 

Well, in my opinion it was a KC trademark between 1970 and 1974, that quirky approach, even on Red, one of my favourite KC albums.

There wasn't any saxophone on two of the Bruford/Wetton era albums though(LTIA and S&BB). I think there was some on "red" but I'm not sure I would call it "screaming."

College came and took a break from music. Then I discovered two CDs at a local record store, the Magna Carta tributes to Pink Floyd and Genesis. Both came with inserts from Magna Carta advertising other CDs by these new, unknown bands I had never heard of. I ordered several directly from Magna Carta using personal checks (remember those?): Magellan, Cairo, Shadow Gallery, and maybe a couple others. Around 1995/1996, I came across a couple early prog sites (I think Gibraltar was one of them). By 1999, I had already had albums by Echolyn, Spock's Beard, and IQ. I even started my own little "computer prog" project that same year and loaded it up to mp3.com in 2000.

I am in the process of running out of room for my CD collection, a process that will continue until I pass out.

As a kid in the 70s, it was pretty much what was on top 40 type radio, although my dad did have a couple Zeppelin records, a Traffic album, and several Beatles albums. 

In the 80s, my family moved to a new town and through my new friends there I was introduced fully to the world of metal (primarily Iron Maiden and Queensryche), classic rock and Rush, in particular. And although I didn't realize it at the time, I was being drawn to songs that had different elements and complexities that the typical classic rock didn't have much of.

In the early 90s I got pretty heavily into grunge and ironically, Sting. Rush and Kings X always remained there as well.

I wasn't much into it in 1999, but not because I had yet to discover it or had yet to be born or anything like that.  And it sure wasn't because I didn't like prog because it had long been my favorite genre. 

It was because I wasn't in to much of anything at all, except taking care of a family. In 1999, I had a 5yo a 2 1/2yo, and an infant. In fact, the entire decade starting in 1994 was pretty much a musical black hole for me.  

I did remain in touch with some big names who were still cutting current releases, most notably Dream Theater.  Because of the Dream Theater tie, I also managed to keep plugged onto prog metal/technical metal like Aghora and Gordian Knot.  And I somehow got plugged into the whole Magna Carta crowd (Dali's Dilemma, Tiles, Under the Sun, etc).  But outside that, I didn't get out much.  And I was living in a rural are without internet, so there was little exposure to the broader prog universe.   Of course, I could always fall back on my classic stuff.  Lots of Rush, Kansas, Floyd, Tull, etc.

As the kids got older, though, I did some catching up and in recent years, my catchup pace has accelerated.  How did I get by without Spock's Beard for so long!?!  I discovered the Swedes (Anglagard, Anekdoten, Flower Kings).  I'm still discovering much more to this day.  Just now starting to feel like I'm getting a grip on that era.  

I'm glad to hear the local radio station near you plays Djam Karet, IQ, Glass Hammer, echolyn, Flower Kings etc. 

Oh yes. WVIA back then. Late, late Saturday nights . . .

Also helped to have friends of the station manager. Local public radio (back then) was very receptive to neighborhood input. :-)

And we have a very different idea of what underground is. (Spock's Beard? )

I am in the middle of the first two options… but I'm voting for the first one because by then I was just beginning to look a little beyond and also compared to what I've perceived around here in terms of bands knowledge and dates.

In 1999 I was 20. In that time it was not so easy to find new music. I remember that with a friend -a band mate really; we played little covers from Rush (tried), Soda Stereo, Marillion, The Police- we went to visit an older friend of his, that had been his scout chief or so, that also lived near me. He had an impressive collection on CD and was kind enough to lend us CD's and books that went due annotated.

This way, by 1999 I already knew one or two albums by PFM, Maxophone, Renaissance (I never learn how to write this) and Triumvirat. I also knew Gong and Soft Machine by another friend, and not sure but I think also Mahavishnu Orchestra and Zappa (or shortly afterwards) by a school friend that was also a University mate, where we were at 3rd. year.

With my two best friends from school I think we also knew Gentle Giant, if superficially… two of us bought GG's Octopus on CD as a birthday's present for our other friend.

I started with prog much earlier; around 1990-91 with Pink Floyd - Wish you were here and Jethro Tull - Thick as a brick both on cassette. I bought myself (with my dad's money of course) the former on cassette only for the title track, and I rewinded and forwarded all the time for it.. at the car to school, until... I started doing the opposite! then one of my friends that had older brothers suggested getting Classic Yes and lent me his brother's 'The Lamb...' double CD. King Crimson was introduced to me by another class mate that was such a character! … as well as ELP. Marillion and Rush by two other friends and school classmates.

Anyways I've never ventured too much from the well known bands, plus the ones I already mentioned (Gong, PFM, Maxophone, Zappa, Mahavishnu, GG), obviously I now have found out about all their albums and some other groups… and keep looking on this wonderful site for more jewels… bands and albums

 And some fusion. 

You want to hear an interesting story? Most German bands aren't very well known at all in the US(unless they are prog fans). Some hipsters know the most well known krautrock bands but not much else. Anyway, I had a friend who lived with a guy who apparently was stationed in Germany in the military. I remember looking at his cassette collection. I found all the usual rock suspects but no prog at all. Then I spotted a few Eloy tapes. In my mind it's very unlikely this guy would know about them if he wasn't stationed in Germany.  I wasn't really that surprised because apparently in the late 70's and early 80's Eloy were one of the biggest if not the biggest German band. 

BaldFriede wrote: I don't think I would call Echolyn, Spock's Beard or IQ "the underground". The Red Masque on the other hand are what I would call "underground", but they came into existence 2 years later.

 

I agree. Spock's, Echolyn and The Flower Kings were Third Wave. 

You stop that! 

Let me tell you, I was shocked — SHOCKED, I say — to hear a local station actually play Trower's "Bridge of Sighs." Never heard it before or since. Of course, there was the one jerk caller and his "Ugh...wtf was that?"

Knaves.

Third wave but still not mainstream and thus you could call them underground. Like it or not prog is still underground; not much has changed in 20 plus years. Sure, it has more exposure now and it's not too difficult to find but you won't hear about prog in the mainstream media(newspapers, magazine, tv, radio, etc)so imo it's possible to still call it underground(same thing with post rock and fusion etc.). It's just not deep underground anymore(which it definitely was in the 90's). There is a difference. The prog magazines, facebook groups, this site, festivals all helped give prog a much bigger audience than it had 20 years ago but it's still not widely known to those who aren't big fans or music geeks.

No, I most certainly will not "stop that."  If someone says something silly I'm going to call them out on that just as people do with me. We can all agree to disagree I guess. 

"Bridge of Sighs?" So people called in to complain about it? That's weird. It's not the most common song to be heard on the radio but I have certainly heard it on the radio. It's one of those in betweener songs that is maybe slightly too well known to be played on Sirius XM's deep tracks channel(though I'm sure they have played it) but not well known enough to be played often on mainstream classic rock. Now, if you said too rolling stoned that would make more sense. Very under rated tune. I actually heard a Porcupine Tree song once(and only once) on the radio and that was just before they got "big." 

No, not a misnomer at all and no I won't "take it easy." Thank you very much.

The fact that there's prog fans on here who didn't know about the current prog at the time(right now it's 20/20) yet were still fans of mainstream prog proves my point. Spock's Beard were not(as far as I can tell)played on the radio(at least not in the US)and were unknown(and to some degree still are)outside of prog circles therefore they were an underground prog band. It's not up for debate. No radio or mainstream exposure equals underground. Why is that so difficult to understand? I'm actually willing to admit there could be some exceptions to this rule, however, not at that time for prog. With the possible exception of Dream Theater most were definitely underground(even Ozric Tentacles and Porcupine Tree AT that time). If you wanted to find out about prog bands in the 90's you had to seek it out(mostly online). If there's another name for non mainstream besides underground I would like to know what it is. ;)

"Underground" does, at least for me, also mean "somewhat experimental". If not a band is just "little known" but not underground. The Deep Freeze Mice, for example, were an underground band.

Note this definition from the Urban Dictionary:

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Underground" rel="nofollow - https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Underground

Thus what I found time to listen to was only prog by definitions here; I never thought of the bands as "prog" at the time. Stuff like Radiohead's OK Computer, Tool's Aenima, SWANS' Soundtracks for the Blind, Tori Amos' Songs from the Choirgirl Hotel, Bjork in general, The Tea Party...that kind of stuff.

When I got more savvy with the internet and online communities started kicking into higher gear in 2000, my interest in a wide scope of music came back with a vengeance. 

Strange question for me ... I don't think that I was into "prog" or "progressive" any more in 1999 than I was in 1969 ... with one very important issue ... that term was not widely used then, and the definition of the stuff was not so ridiculous as to make sure that bands that also had magnificent material would not interfere with the big 5 that the music companies decided would make some money .... however much of it was stolen, of course!

In all honesty, and it may have been how we found and heard the music, I think that the year 1969 was much more dynamic and far out, than the stuff that came out later in 1999, 30 years later, and my contention is that these folks at the turn of the century were good, no question about that, however, I don't think they realized that "composition" did not have to be tied up to a format, something that the originals did not worry as much about ... look at ITCOTCK and the songs are not a repeat at all, and that is all you need to see and find ... where as almost all the 1999 things were repetitive and theme wise, even more so, which in my view of things brought the composition level down to a format ... and prevented folks from experimenting into the "unknown" and the "unknowable" ... where you can find music that could essentially define your band ... instead the "sound" became the issue, not quite the music anymore.

I do not, however, go around saying that the music in 1969 was better than that found in 1999, which also had some far out things, however, if I list a sort of top ten on 1969 and then 1999, you will find that the strength and variety in 1969 is so wide as to make the 1999 stuff look pretty weak.

I might have to give this some more thought ... it is a really head turner ... but I think that what makes it different for me, is that as a "musicologist" (so to speak), it is really difficult for me to evaluate 1999 by itself, without a comparative study of other years.

Music, just like all the arts, is not a static thing, and changes all the time ... the main issue is that us, people, are not very good at tracking and learning what other time elements had for music and how they related to it, which is, very different than our own view today.

And lastly, the "sound" was not as big an issue then, as much as the quality of the music was ... ELP was loud, but it had the MUSIC behind it to show for it. Too many other bands, ended up loud ... with very little "music" behind it. And that is a major difference.

I just took a look at your ratings list. Those bands are much more on the avant garde side of things and while I'm sure there is some good stuff in there it's not the kind of stuff I typically gravitate towards. I'm actually not even familiar with a lot of it to be honest. I like some of it but it's nothing I have yet wanted to explore more of(maybe one day). So with that in mind I can see why you would not like Spock's Beard, IQ or most symphonic prog in general. I personally think "snow" is a bit over rated but it's still good. I think TFK did better double albums though.

The part where you said(and I am going to quote you here but I'm not going to use your name because you know who you are)" an experimental, non-establishment, non-commercial OR not part of the "biz", counter-cultural music." That's exactly what prog is more or less regardless of the subgenre. So, imo, you just described the cultural(but not necessarily musical)aspects of prog. Prog is not part of the establishment. That's what I've been saying all along. Apart from the most obvious bands you won't hear it on the radio, tv, etc etc. In other words it's not "mainstream." I guess the one part we disagree with is the "experimental" factor which I suppose means different things to different people. Some folks seem to be allergic to any prog that sounds like it could possibly be played on mainstream radio(and it indeed one time was)but I'm not one of them. Radio has changed though and most radio stations probably wouldn't be caught dead playing Pallas, Pendragon or Arena let alone Magma, Univers Zero, Henry Cow or Thinking Plague. The indie stations would probably be more likelly to play the latter but I really haven't heard much of them on there either.

First albums bought in the fall of 74 (age 11, money coming from my newspaper delivery route):

Crime Of The Century

Harmonium (début)

Dark Side

TAAB

Selling England (didn't really like it at first)

I'm sure there's a lot of people who say they have been into prog since the seventies and yet they didn't discover anything beyond Yes, King Crimson, Genesis, Mahavishnu Orchestra,UK, ELP, etc until ten years ago. I'm not saying that's you just that it is possible.

In the 80's I was into Kate Bush, Zappa, 80's era Yes and 80's era KC, otherwise it was metal and (dare I Say) underground rap.

In the 90's I discovered 70's era Yes and VDGG and only after 1999 did I deeper get into prog (never really cared for PF and ELP, although I have cd's of both).

 

10 years ago, that 2009, and +/- well after the second golden age...

 

I'd say your assessment is valid in its first part, but your timeline estimation is wrong

 

Had you said 95 or 99, I'd agree with this generalisation.

Back in 1999 (as a mostly unaware 8 year old) my only exposure to Prog had been my dad's Classic Yes best of CD, which while I quite liked also went over my head. I grew up listening to lots of Phil Collins and thought Genesis was just the name of Phil's debut album  

Other than that, I had no idea what Prog was, and I would be none the wiser till I was 14...

Underground is a very apt description of prog in the 1990's and still applies today. It is totally ignored by the main stream media, nobody outside of the prog fan circle has ever heard of IQ, Spock's Beard, The Flower Kings etc not to mention the lesser known prog acts.

Prog festivals are poorly attended - for example Night of the Progs at Loreley which is probably the biggest Prog event in Europe is always well under capacity. Indoor events get a few hundred attendees at the most (excluding the big names from the 1970's,  Yes, Roger Waters, Dave Gilmore, Steve Hackett etc). We prog fans are living in our own parallel universe listening to music that the rest of the world is oblivious too. If that's not underground then I don't know what is.

well said

yes I have been to a few of those indoor festivals , ideal for those like me who don't do proper festivals. No welly boots and tents for me.

Also, I have seen a lot of bands play on late night tv over the years and I have yet to see one that could really be considered prog in the strictest sense of the word. Even in the not so strict sense there were very few. 

Anyway, about 500 people showed up to see Neal Morse but I got the feeling some of them were just there because of Mike Portnoy or because they were prog metal fans(three guys behind me were all wearing BTBAM t shirts). I doubt many actually support the scene or are really into prog(and not just prog metal).

But Genesis increasingly intrigued me. And early 80s, I collected Genesis albums. I didn't have much income, so it took a while. Funny though, before I started collecting Genesis, I had already learned about Steve Hackett when Steve Walsh and Phil Ehart of Kansas were featured on his Please Don't Touch album.