Story of your first prog album
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Topic: Story of your first prog album
Posted By: progprogprog
Subject: Story of your first prog album
Date Posted: January 11 2012 at 15:19
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I hadn't been listening to any kind of music for roughly one year(17-18).I was in my classmate's suite, lying on the bed.I heard "Si on avait besoin dune cinqueeme siason-Harmonium" from her speaker, the song( I think it was "histoires sans paroles" ) pretty surprised me. I asked about the music, and she said it's a classic progressive rock album from 1975. After that I started reading about that era of music. And the wonderful journey began. Which album was your first true prog album?(If you remember) ------------- Always thinking in extremes.That's my way to beat boredom. |
Replies:
Posted By: Gerinski
Date Posted: January 11 2012 at 15:44
| Difficult to say, I grew up with prog being played around by my family. Even what do we mean by "Prog" then becomes relevant (should I consider The Who's Tommy? or The Nice albums?), but I would say that the fist proper prog-rock album that I really keep on my mind as the first to impress me was ELP's Tarkus, when I was around 6 or 7 years old. Or maybe Jesus Christ Superstar if you consider that a Prog album (I do). I only learned about King Crimson's ITCOTCK some years later, maybe around 1975 when I was 9. |
Posted By: The Neck Romancer
Date Posted: January 11 2012 at 15:49
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Pretty sure it was some Rush album. I don't really count Pink Floyd as a prog band though.
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Posted By: DreamInSong
Date Posted: January 11 2012 at 15:56
I'd heard the song "Comfortably Numb" in the film The Departed and really loved it. I was listening to Pop-Rock at the time, and had gotten a compilation CD of Staind. On the disc there was a live acoustic of "Comfortably Numb," and so for about a year I foolishly thought it was a Staind song  I'd heard of Pink Floyd and found Dark Side of the Moon in my parents CD collection. However, instead of listening to it, I did a bit of research on Pink Floyd. When I found out "Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2" and the real "Comfortably Numb" were both on the same album, I immediately bought it. The Wall. The next morning was a lazy Summer Sunday. The sun was streaming through the windows and the bird were chirping. I often go to bed listening to music, so my iPod was lying next to me. I put my headphones on, picked it up, and scrolled through. I decided I'd listen to The Wall. By the end of "The Trial," my eyes were swelling, a single tear came streaming down my cheek, and I couldn't stop thinking, "he tries so hard, he tries so hard." Needless to say... ------------- 
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Posted By: progprogprog
Date Posted: January 11 2012 at 16:05
The real prog, one that you could easily feel difference while listening to it.
------------- Always thinking in extremes.That's my way to beat boredom. |
Gerinski wrote:Posted By: HolyMoly
Date Posted: January 11 2012 at 16:11
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It was a real gradual move into prog territory for me, hard to pinpoint any particular album. But I think the floodgates opened up when I was reading the liner notes to Camel's "Snow Goose" CD (I'd been a Camel fan for years, but the CD had just come out) and saw references to all the Canterbury bands. One by one, I collected anything I could find by Caravan, Soft Machine, Hatfield, etc etc.. "In the Land of Grey and Pink" was a huge hit on my turntable around this time. From that point, the more I read about prog, the more I realized just how many bands were out there to discover. It wasn't just Camel, Genesis, Yes, and King Crimson any more! ------------- My other avatar is a Porsche It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it is lightly greased. -Kehlog Albran |
Posted By: Logan
Date Posted: January 11 2012 at 16:17
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I can't say with any degree of certainty, and it would depend om what can be considered Prog. When I was young, Prog albums were commonplace in record collections I knew of various people who were about a decade older than me, though I don't remember hearing the term until about 1984. Like I remember my best friend's older brother had both Hamburger Concerto and Trilogy alongside Kiss and Sonny and Cher albums. As did the older brothers of various friends of mine, my older brothers had plenty of Prog albums mixed into their record collections. I knew Pink Floyd at an early age, but even though albums of the band can be considered Prog, I never, like Polo, thought of the band as a Prog band, unlike say, Yes and ELP. To me Prog was more what we call Symphonic Prog here when I became aware of the term (or rock with fiddly bits). Still, before I knew the term, I think maybe the earliest I can think of is The Snow Goose. My brother had that album when I was very small. I didn't hear it again until the first half of the 2000s which was when I started to actively seek out many Prog albums, and recognised the album cover, and then upon playing it I recalled the music. I would guess that I first listened to it when I was about five years old. ------------- Watching while most appreciating a sunset in the moment need not diminish all the glorious sunsets I have observed before. It can be much like that with music for me. |
Posted By: progprogprog
Date Posted: January 11 2012 at 16:42
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Interesting, my first albums were Camel too!
I think they're lika a prog magnet
 ------------- Always thinking in extremes.That's my way to beat boredom. |
Posted By: JJLehto
Date Posted: January 11 2012 at 16:59
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Band class, we usually had time at the end and would just BS around. A friend of mine said "hey try this, it's a metal band that has like an opera singer" and gave me his CD player. The album was "The Odyssey" by Symphony X At the time I was just curious about entering the prog world, and that was the first whole prog CD I've heard. |
Posted By: darkshade
Date Posted: January 11 2012 at 17:06
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Mine was something by Dream Theater (maybe Six Degrees), back in 2003. Maybe Opeth? I had already been enjoying Iron Maiden and Metallica's longer, more complex stuff from the 80s.
------------- http://www.last.fm/user/MysticBoogy" rel="nofollow - My Last.fm 
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Posted By: AtomicCrimsonRush
Date Posted: January 11 2012 at 17:45
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Great thread! I am going to post this response on my profile it brought back happy memories... Early prog memories: I remember my dad coming home from a late night shift with a King Crimson vinyl tucked under his arm. It had the Red faced screamer on the cover and it scared me but he said I might like it, knowing I was into horror.... I loved parts of it such as 21st Century SM and parts I hardly played. I also remember the Black ELP cover of Works and I only liked Fanfare for the Common Man. I also had Take A Pebble on cassette but cant remember how I got it. Yes' Roundabout and Long Distance Runaround were Also on cassette somehow. I have no idea where I got them as I had no Yes albums. I also knew Jethro Tull's Bungle in the Jungle lyrics off by heart at the age of 8 but it was taped off radio! I had "Aqualung" vinyl given to me but too young to appreciate it though i played the title track many times. I somehow got hold of "War of the Worlds" by Jeff Wayne - birthday I think and played it ad infinitum! From there i got into Moody Blues and had 2 compilation albums. I also had JMJ "Oxygene" and played it often after seeing "Gallipoli". I had many soundtracks of movies so I was kind of into weird classical dramatic stuff. This was in the late 70s and from there i began to get hold of all Pink Floyd starting with The Wall cos I saw the film and someone at college told me it was the best thing he had ever heard. Strangely enough I didn't get Dark Side until the 80s, but did get Animals, A NIce Pair, and The Final Cut. I didn't really like them much at first but they kept my interest up and i finally grew up and loved them. When I heard DSOTM I was addicted for life! Compilations have a lot to answer for! I had one song by Hawkwind Silver Machine and also some Marillion, and ended up buying the vinyl of Misplaced Childhood and loving it. I don't know why I didn't buy anymore Marillion up till recently. I had heard of Genesis but only Invisible Touch and Duke. I was at a friends place who played Yes' Owner of a Lonely Heart and the rest of 90125 and I had to have it! My big Prog splurge happened when I discovered the term actually existed. I bought all of Rush, having discovered them in a magazine, and they became my favourite artist. Then all of Hawkwind, King Crimson box sets and individual CDs, Yes including box sets, all Atomic Rooster and all ELP and VDGG. ...and many others since.... ------------- 
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Posted By: Slaughternalia
Date Posted: January 11 2012 at 18:00
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Fell in love with Tales of Mystery and Imagination, then Thick as a Brick. Awwww yea ------------- I'm so mad that you enjoy a certain combination of noises that I don't |
Posted By: Progosopher
Date Posted: January 11 2012 at 18:51
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By the time I began purchasing albums I had already heard a lot of Prog bands on the radio at a time when the genre was popular - the early 70s. Yes, ELP, Tull, and Pink Floyd were all regulars on the air waves. So, I was familiar with the genre. The first full-on Prog album I ever heard was Dark Side of the Moon. A friend of mine had it (actually, I think it was his older brother). To hear the whole thing, instead of just "Money" or even "Time" was a real eye opener, or I should say ear opener. The second album was probably Brain Salad Surgery, at the same person's house. Or it may have been Aqualung at my cousin's place. All of this was around the same time, 1973 (I think). The first album I ever bought is listed on this site under Prog-Related, and that was Burn by Deep Purple. Really, though, it is a blues based hard rock album. The first true Prog album I ever bought may have been the above mentioned by the Floyd or ELP, but the one that really got me going was Yessongs. I bought it because I could get many of the tunes I heard on the radio that I liked all in one place. Otherwise, I would have had to have bought three separate albums. That Yessongs was a three record set is besides the point. The music on that album just took me to a place nothing else had done; the live atmosphere was exciting, and the packaging was spectacular with the double (triple? quadruple?) fold out and color booklet. Still, the core was the music itself. That album hooked me onto Prog more than anything else. I have wavered from the genre since that time, and have greatly expanded my listening horizons, but I have never left Prog entirely.  ------------- The world of sound is certainly capable of infinite variety and, were our sense developed, of infinite extensions. -- George Santayana, "The Sense of Beauty" |
Posted By: Progosopher
Date Posted: January 11 2012 at 18:53
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I love your avatar, JJ! Where can I get some more of that? RlF ------------- The world of sound is certainly capable of infinite variety and, were our sense developed, of infinite extensions. -- George Santayana, "The Sense of Beauty" |
Posted By: presdoug
Date Posted: January 11 2012 at 19:02
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In the summer of 1985, when i was 22, my friend lent me two Nektar albums, Recycled and Magic Is a Child, and two Triumvirat albums, Illusions On A Double Dimple and Old Loves Die Hard, being a newcomer to real prog, and those two bands in particular. Recycled was good, Magic Is a Child struck me as sort of commercial, Old Loves Die Hard struck me as run of the mill, but Illusions On A Double Dimple was a revelation! This album was definitely "the real McCoy"-real progressive rock-listening to it made me realise that i was really missing out on ignoring prog up to that point, and from then on, there was no more ignoring! There couldn't be, after hearing as fantastic a record as that-Fritz, Koellen and Bathelt astounded me to no end with their playing, and still do. This is the benchmark album for me, my prog guiding light, and the reason i finally considered prog worth it. Well, it is still worth it, and always will be. |
Posted By: avestin
Date Posted: January 11 2012 at 19:08
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During my childhood my father and brother would often play on the turntable three Pink Floyd albums: Wish You Were Here, Animals and Meddle (that's about the only progressive thing on vinyl my parents had, unless you consider Kraftwerk's http://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/kraftwerk/radio_aktivitat/" rel="nofollow - Radio-Aktivität a progressive album). My first recollection of hearing those albums is at about age six in our apartment. It was in the evening, around 19:00 or 20:00 and my dad put Wish You Were Here on the turntable and played Shine On You Crazy Diamond so loud that the neighbours from below called in to complain about the "noise" and ask him to lower it down. He didn't. These repeated listens left a deep impression on me (I cherish these albums to this day, particularly Animals) and after that, a long time after that, I moved on to other progressive bands (Genesis, Rush, Jethro Tull, King Crimson, ELP et al.) ------------- http://hangingsounds.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow - Hanging Sounds http://www.progarchives.com/ProgRockShopping.asp" rel="nofollow - PA Index of prog music vendors |
Posted By: HolyMoly
Date Posted: January 11 2012 at 19:53
That just brought back a similar memory for me! My dad and I were both at a record store, and he pulled that record out and recommended I buy it. He said something like, "You like Pink Floyd, you'll probably like this." I bought it and that was my intro to King Crimson. ------------- My other avatar is a Porsche It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it is lightly greased. -Kehlog Albran |
Posted By: malsader
Date Posted: January 11 2012 at 20:33
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Close to the Edge in 1971 (in Baghdad-Iraq) during a very dark and period for me. I escaped to it's landscapes from Iraq's dictatorial regime which had targeted my family. I did not know what that musical style was called. I told me friends, "it's kind of rock but more complicated and heavily classically influenced". A few year later, still in Baghdad, I was exposed to The Dark side of the moon. Then The lamb lies down on Broadway. I was a changed teenager by then and never looked back. I am now nearly 54 and am still immersed in prog. I just finished listening to Agents of Mercy and Anima Mundi.
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Posted By: progprogprog
Date Posted: January 11 2012 at 21:05
I really enjoy your stories, thank you for sharing. ------------- Always thinking in extremes.That's my way to beat boredom. |
Posted By: progistoomainstream
Date Posted: January 11 2012 at 21:07
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My first prog album. I was 12 my dad recomeded if I like complex music (I was playing really weird jazz stuff on the piano and covering Elton John songs in strange ways) that I should check out a band called RUSH. "They were a weird band in the 70s. They are Canadian. They were fairly underground but a lot of musicians like them. And the drummer wrote the lyrics and they were usually about knights fighting in battles and very cryptic." is what he told me. I went out and I asked the guy at the local record store if he had any RUSH and he walked me over to the RUSH area and I asked him what their best album was. He told me 2112. I trusted him and I bought it. I was not really a Metal fan before but the slight heavyness did not distract me. I loved the record.My first prog song that I can remember was Bloody Well Right by Supertramp. I was on a long car ride when I was 3 or 5 and my Dad's mixtape was playing. A song came on with a great intro and it progressed a lot. I liked it but I couldn't really express that. It was not until I really got into music and albums that I heard it on the radio and I asked my dad what song it was. I went out immediately and bought Crime of the Century. ------------- 
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Posted By: Slartibartfast
Date Posted: January 11 2012 at 21:31
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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.  ------------- Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened... 
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Posted By: AtomicCrimsonRush
Date Posted: January 11 2012 at 22:51
Ah aint dads fantastic! Its strange cos i am doing similar for my kids. My teenage daughter is on the brink of getting into hip hop so i played her some Mostly Autumn and she loved Heather Findlays voice, as well as early Genesis - "Selling England" and "Foxtrot" so far have appealed tho she likes watching "Genesis In Rome" - She is into them now but only borrowing my CDs.. I hope she will stick with them or I will have to block my ears if she puts Hip Hop on....  She watched a Kratwerk DVD with me and didnt move till the 2 hours were up. At the end, she said something like "Man, they are some weird guys!" Are they really playing the music? I gave her a lengthy answer about the band and soon as I mentioned Krautrock I think I lost her and she was day dreaming off with the fairies. I tried to get her to read posts on progarchives but she has no interest.I gave her 7 Mostly Autumn CDs and all the 70s Genesis last year and she put them on her MP3 player. I had no idea but she has been listening to them secretly all year! I hope one day she will actually buy a box set of early Genesis or even some of those Rush Sector box sets. That would be a dream. -------------
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Posted By: Triceratopsoil
Date Posted: January 12 2012 at 00:35
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No real story I commandeered Fragile and Aqualung from my dad |
Posted By: Canterzeuhl
Date Posted: January 12 2012 at 00:41
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The first time I heard Prog and thought 'my god this is excellent' I was on a car ride with my dad and he had a mix tape on. I remember three tunes in a row were 'Hocus Pocus' by Focus followed by 'Let's Make the Water Turn Black' then 'Muffin Man' by Frank Zappa. Those songs really do appeal to 7 year olds as they did to me. But then I sorta forgot about them and got into Queen and ELO for a bit. Yeah they're sorta proggy but not the definite article. When I was about 10 though I remembered hearing Muffin Man in particular and asked my mum who sang it and told me it was Frank Zappa so the next time she took me into town I bought two Zappa CD's; 'Ship Arriving too Late' and 'Cheap Thrills'. I was really disappointed as I'd totally neglected to check the tracks and I sorta hated them. It was only 3 years ago I realised the music I liked was under the subtitle 'Prog Rock' after my English teacher suggest I listen to King Crimson and Gentle Giant. Never looked back!
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Posted By: cannon
Date Posted: January 12 2012 at 02:38
| 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". |
Posted By: Jim Garten
Date Posted: January 12 2012 at 02:54
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In about 1977, I was listening to a lot of heavy metal & punk; looking through my future brother-in-law's record collection (mostly Motown & soul) I asked if he had anything 'heavy' (c'mon, I was only 14) & he lent me 2 albums:
Dark Side Of The Moon Genesis Live And the rest, as they say, is history
I also developed a hatred for him, as he later told me he'd seen Genesis twice on the SEBTP tour  ... swine!------------- 
Jon Lord 1941 - 2012 |
Posted By: ExittheLemming
Date Posted: January 12 2012 at 02:55
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^ 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. ------------- 
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Posted By: martinprog77
Date Posted: January 12 2012 at 02:58
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i always listen to prog in my house .my mother used to listen a lot of rush ,yes, the who ,the beatles and especially queen [she still do,anyways ] ,but the first prog album that really made me to dig prog back in 1994 was '' images and words'' ------------- Nothing can last there are no second chances. Never give a day away. Always live for today. |
Posted By: JS19
Date Posted: January 12 2012 at 03:21
On the subject of Clarkson, I'm not sure whether his love of prog and the whole 'fuddy duddy' image it gets on Top gear is damaging, funny or downright annoying... ------------- 
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Posted By: cannon
Date Posted: January 12 2012 at 03:31
Actually it was Gilles Villeneuve as he spoke with a French accent.
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Posted By: Blacksword
Date Posted: January 12 2012 at 04:32
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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. ------------- Ultimately bored by endless ecstasy! |
Posted By: frippism
Date Posted: January 12 2012 at 04:38
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My dad was quite the progger back in the day as well: the Yes, the Genesis, the Crimson, the beep-doo-bop-doo-beep. So prog was always lurking behind the corner, though by the time I was growing up my dad was more into indie and alternative and stuffs. And so I was listening to Jethro Tull and Yes and Crimson more or less since my birth, and was starting to ACTUALLY listen to them around 8th grade or so... and by then a friend of mine lent me "Fragile", and that's when I really understood that there's a whole "scene" and stuff. And so my dad finally brought me this stock pile of prog CDs we had lying around, and I started with "Red", and the rest is history... ------------- There be dragons |
Posted By: octopus-4
Date Posted: January 12 2012 at 04:47
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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. When I was 9 my syster who's 20 years older than me gave me a tape saying "They are quite difficult, listen if you like". On the sleeve there were 3 blond longhaired guys. The tape started with a subtle keyboard sound then a heavy drum, silence, keyboard and drums, then a passage and a fantastic voice singing on chords that I have never heard before, so far from the usual country/blues/pop stuff.... It was Trilogy and I think I was already a progger before The Fugue. ------------- I stand with Roger Waters, I stand with Joan Baez, I stand with Victor Jara, I stand with Woody Guthrie. Music is revolution |
Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: January 12 2012 at 04:55
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DSOTM introduced me to prog. If you insist on first 'pure prog album', then TAAB. No real background. My friend introduced me to Floyd and along the way, I also got into JT and I happened to listen to both these albums. |
Posted By: tamijo
Date Posted: January 12 2012 at 05:00
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As octopus-4, i'we allways been into music. At age 7-8 i remember listning to a combo of danish "acid-rock" and early Zepplin / Black Zabbath ect. (brothers tapes) Early prog i recal listning too (age 10-11) was Tubular bell's, Aqualong, Ummagumma, Dark Side, In a glass house. My first prog vinyl was Minstrel in The Gallery (got my first turnable age 15-16) Not long after i discovered KC, fell in love, and started collecting them, my first was RED.
------------- Prog is whatevey you want it to be. So dont diss other peoples prog, and they wont diss yours |
Posted By: Atoms
Date Posted: January 12 2012 at 05:08
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When I was maybe 9 I bought my first album which was: Paranoid by Black Sabbath, and when I was listening to it in my room, my father heard it and asked me if I was into rock. One week later he comes to me with the DVD of The Wall movie, and I didn't like it at all. It took at least 4 years before I even dared to put it on again. By this time I had explored all kinds of different rock, ranging from: Queen to Thin Lizzy to Motörhead and so on. But The Wall was different in so many ways, and I got really interested by Pink Floyd, so I went out and bought Piper at the gates of dawn. Which I loved. So, I went to tell to my father that I thought that Pink Floyd's first album was the best album ever recorded. He just told me that he had a good LP which I had to hear, if I liked early Pink Floyd. Ten minutes later I had You by Gong in my hands. Since then I've barely listened to anything else than prog.
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Posted By: akaBona
Date Posted: January 12 2012 at 05:48
| 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. |
Posted By: Slartibartfast
Date Posted: January 12 2012 at 06:19
You fiend!!! What have you done???  ------------- Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened...
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Posted By: Ludjak
Date Posted: January 12 2012 at 06:56
| 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. |
Posted By: yanch
Date Posted: January 12 2012 at 07:04
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Two memories. both good: First, my dad brought home the original recording of Jesus Christ Superstar. I got hooked and listened constantly. Second. freshman year in high school handed me a copy of Thick as a Brick and said, listen to this. I did and couldn't stop listening. From their it was explore and find as much prog as I could.
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Posted By: spknoevl
Date Posted: January 12 2012 at 07:17
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Well, I remember Dark Side of the Moon being pretty big when I was in Grade 9. My first real initiation with prog was from a drummer I was playing with when I was 16; his older brother was a huge Genesis fan and I discovered that band, as well as Yes and ELP. I think Genesis Live was probably the first album I actually owned, although it's possible I had KC's Starless and Bible Black first. ------------- http://martinwebb.bandcamp.com The notes are just an interesting way to get from one silence to the next - Mick Gooderick |
Posted By: Sean Trane
Date Posted: January 12 2012 at 08:54
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The first album I ever bought was prog (or proggy)...
I was 11-12ish and delivering newspapers in Toronto.... and I bought Crime Of The Century with my own money , almost on the day of its release... I learned a good deal of my Enfglish on these lyrics (and my English teacher's Beatles playing in class for lyrics) To this day, CotC remains in my top 10, because the album really spoke to me back then, right from the School theme all the way to the lunacy-alienation, dreaming, despair (if everyone was listening) to the revolt them (the closing t/t)....
Rudy must be one of the most influential song in my life, even if I did snap out of the vicious spiral that the lyrics send you in
BTW, my next two albums wouyld be Selling England and Dark Side, whose texts both send me into a similar trance, even if I only moderately appreciated Genesis's music back then (had to wait until toTotT to plunge in their world)
------------- let's just stay above the moral melee prefer the sink to the gutter keep our sand-castle virtues content to be a doer as well as a thinker, prefer lifting our pen rather than un-sheath our sword |
Posted By: progprogprog
Date Posted: January 12 2012 at 10:07
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How cool it would be to have a family that appreciates prog, how wonderful it is to listen to "Io Sono Nato Libero" with your dad. Since I live in Middle East, the chance of finding someone with a similar music taste is nearly zero, and even if there were someone, the odds are too low to meet them. Middle East is a beautiful place, but the religion stuff ruined everything from music to the whole structure of life. Yea, people in more privileged countries have their own problems, but still you should be happy for what you got. ------------- Always thinking in extremes.That's my way to beat boredom. |
Posted By: centum
Date Posted: January 12 2012 at 10:41
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I was all into metal. After buying Dream Theater's Octavarium and not really liking it (kinda boring) I went to buy Edge Of Sanity since I've heard a lot about them, I messed up and asked for Pain Of Salvation (I've heard their name but knew nothing about the band) and eventually bought Entropia. I wasn't really wired for that kind of music and the album's cover and design were sh*tty, but at some point I fell in love with the funky openning of Peoply Passin By with its bass slapping and stuff. I didn't really care for the song after the first couple and I had no interest in other songst. Then I compared the beginning of the song with Dream Theater's Panic Attack and I like them both, but DT's one better. I was playing those songs again and again and People Passing By became my favourite song and after listening to Panic Attack for a couple of hundred times, I found it stupid and not interesting. After writing this I remembered that around the same time, probably even earlier I bought Devin Townsend's Infinity and loved it instantly being a huge fan of Strapping Young Lad's self-titled album. |
Posted By: Manuel
Date Posted: January 12 2012 at 10:52
| The first prog album I heard was "Aqualung" at a friend of mine's home, and truly blew my mind away. I went to a record store and couldn't find it (it was hard to find that kind of music in Central America back in the early 70s), but found "Stand Up" instead, which also sent my mind to outer space, and that was the first prog album I owned. |
Posted By: Stevo
Date Posted: January 12 2012 at 11:00
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I was about 13 or 14. I had only recently discovered rock and had been searching the fm dial for interesting new music. This was the era of "Hey Jude" and "Black Magic Woman". I went to visit some friends (brother and sister)one day and they said, as if they had just discovered something really rare: "come here you have to listen to this".
They put on Yes Fragile, and I was blown away. In particular I was captivated by the bass line on Roundabout.
Also this was the first time I had heard piano played in a more or less classical style within rock music (South Side of the Sky). I guess there were a lot of firsts with that recording. I bought the album and it has been an adventure ever since.
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Posted By: Jim Garten
Date Posted: January 12 2012 at 11:11
You may want to translate that for our younger viewers, bless their CD only socks  -------------
Jon Lord 1941 - 2012 |
Posted By: MagicMoo
Date Posted: January 12 2012 at 12:24
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Hi everybody!
My first prog album was Tull's Benefit. I was 12 back then, walking into a record shop in Bavarian leather-trousers and asking for this record I read about in the German mag Sounds. I listened to it over and over, cause I had only 3 records, that one, Donovan's Universal Soldier and the Bumpers sampler. It took me on an emotional ride through and through. Inside, reflecting what was called in Germany in those heady days 'Die neue Innerlichkeit' (kind of: The new Intimacy). To cry you a Song like this flight-dream one sometimes has short before the awakening, and of course With you there to help me, this gem of a prog song. Benefit and Tull stayed, saw them last year, they're still great, even if Ian's voice is not that gifted anymore, but man he tries. So, keep cool but care, MagicMoo |
Posted By: zwordser
Date Posted: January 12 2012 at 14:10
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I can't quite remember which: either Rush, Moving Pictures or Rush, 2112. I think it was 1982 or 83 when a friend introduced me to Rush (age 12 or 13) and it didn't take me long to become a Rush fanatic, though I never heard of the term "progressive" until much later. Before that Rush introduction I only listened to some pop radio and Men at Work. After that I started expanding my musical tastes beginning with several Rush and Yes albums. ------------- Z |
Posted By: cacha71
Date Posted: January 12 2012 at 14:31
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I've always been into sci fi so when I saw Jeff Wayne's "War of the Worlds" I just had to buy it. I listened to it non-stop and drove my family nuts ------------- http://www.last.fm/group/Progressive+Folk |
Posted By: Arrested Decay
Date Posted: January 12 2012 at 16:00
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Well, I was showing my dad some music, I was into various things at the time, music was new to me. I was listening to Taproot, showed my dad, then showed him the 80's Transformers movie soundtrack, and he said he thought I'd really like Dream Theater. I listened to some samples and was really excited. I bought Images & Words, Awake, Scenes From A Memory, and Train of Thought in one trip to the store. I listened to Images & Words at the very beginning of a very long car drive to Florida with my family. I loved it, and consumed the others between Blind Guardian albums, and The Odyssey and V by Symphony X. It was a great experience. I really expanded my musical horizon that trip with Dream Theater and those other bands. |
Posted By: The_Jester
Date Posted: January 12 2012 at 18:27
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My father had a collection of prog albums but if I remember the first one I bought is Songs From the Woods because the first prog album I listened to was A Passion Play and I loved it. ------------- La victoire est éphémère mais la gloire est éternelle! - Napoléon Bonaparte |
Posted By: MoodyRush
Date Posted: January 12 2012 at 22:42
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Hm... I had been a fan of the Moody Blues for a while, and my dad had bought us a CD of Thick as a Brick. Despite that, I consider my first prog album 2112 by Rush, because after that I voraciously bought all the Rush I could, then found Yes, and then this site. The first chords of the Overture blew me away... ------------- Follow me down to the valley below. Moonlight is bleeding from out of your soul. -Lazarus |
Posted By: Kustin
Date Posted: January 13 2012 at 05:14
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I grew up listening and exploring music, searching for the right songs in the post-grunge and alternative rock territory, ever since the old file-sharing softwares such as Kazaa and eDonkey. When I finally gave in to heavy and power metal, there were some bands that had this "adventure" factor written in their music so I expanded my horizons. Shortly thereafter, I heard about Ayreon, which is obviously logical due to the seemingly "endless" guest list. The first albums I tried were The Human Equation and The Dream Sequencer, which was largely part of the musical territory I didn't explore. I suppose you call it "prog". The songs I heard had yet to grow on me, but there was something fascinating about it. It felt like I was tripping out of my head and earned myself new discoveries, rearranging my mentality that they came back to me when I, for example, laid myself in bed at night. New bands were explored, mostly by the guest lists that I checked. But after all, those were mostly the modern bands but when I found the Progarchives, I realized that I found my niche in musical taste. I wasn't familiar at all with the earlier bands, such as those from the 70's and I wasn't used to the production values of the earlier generations. But after a lush dream that I had, it gave me just the right feeling to turn on Pink Floyd's DSOTM, which was a pleasant surprise for my parents. I haven't turned on Pink Floyd by my own will since I was around 5, when I picked a cassette to entertain myself, which was " ../album.asp?id=6211" rel="nofollow - A Collection Of Great Dance Songs ". Money was such a reminder of my childhood, then... So, by now, I found many favorites from bands such as DT, Devin Townsend, Genesis, King Crimson, Frost* etc. I've realized that getting into prog takes time and gets to you even better if you've had any childhood memories with it. |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: January 13 2012 at 06:52
We never owned a stereo in the 60s so my early Psychedelic Rock and Prog listening was from late night radio or around friends houses listening to their record collections. I lived in a small English village with few people my own age so most of my friends were older than me by a year or two and my tastes in music were influenced by them playing Soft Machine, Pink Floyd, Van der Graaf Generator and Moody Blues. My dad bought our first stereogram around 1970 and the first album I bought was Move by The Move that I picked up cheap because it lacked a cover (I painted my own cover for it based on the song titles Yellow Rainbow and Mist on a Monday Morning - it was dreadful ... and still is since I still have it). With the stereogram dad also bought a secondhand Fergerson reel to reel tape recorder that I may have used when borrowing albums from school friends and may have built up a collection of every Floyd album released up to then, though I would never admit to that in public ( ). The first Prog album I got (a Christmas present as I recall) was The Moody Blues' Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (1971) and later that year I bought myself a copy of Kaleidoscope's A Tangerine Dream - a fortunate error on my part as I had heard a german electronic band on the radio and thought it was an earlier album by them (this was before TD signed to Virgin so their early stuff was unobtainable in the UK unless you bought from Branson's mail order import shop) - I instantly loved the psyche-pop of Kaleidoscope but was still looking for that illusive german band. I bought Dark Side Of The Moon on the day of its release, skiving off school and helping the guy in hte record store unpack the boxes of new deleveries so I could get my hands on a copy. Those four albums were pretty much all I owned until I left school in the summer of '73 and started earning money, spending my weekends working as a sound engineer with a mobile disco so I could get some extra cash to buy on average two albums a week - something that I contiuned for the next five years until I went to University.
This saddens be greatly Marco - I've been a committed Floyd fan since the early 70s, saw them live in 1972 and bought DSotM when it came out. The first Floyd album I ever heard was Ummagumma at a friend's house, followed by Atom Heart Mother and Meddle and then the two Barrett albums and both Schroeder soundtracks - in that period they were the epitomy of Progressive Rock, touching on practically every subgenre of Prog we recognise today - psyche, space, folk (English and Spanish), symphonic, avant, electronic, early metal... it's all there in the music to be heard - and plenty did at the time, bands using Floyd as an influence to kick-start their own Prog careers and fans branching out from Floyd beginnings to create their own collections. Everyone cites Crimson as the first true Prog band, and maybe they were, but hardly anyone ever listened to them back in the 70s - everyone listened to Floyd. You may not like DSotM or WYWH because they are popular, or commercial or over-played on the radio, but it wasn't like that in the 70s - those two albums were their 8th and 9th studio albums - compare that to any other band (Going For The One and Tormato - Wind and Wuthering and Then There Were Three - Signals and Grace Under Pressure - Discipline and Beat - Minstral In The Gallery and Too Old To Rock'n'Roll). Sorry, I'm not into revisionism - Floyd were a Prog band and always will be.
. ------------- What? |
Posted By: progprogprog
Date Posted: January 13 2012 at 09:07
I didn't know that about KC, how awful BTW I like this impression "I'm not into revisionism"  |
Posted By: AlexDOM
Date Posted: January 13 2012 at 09:08
| Mine was Octavarium when I was a freshman in high school |
Posted By: HolyMoly
Date Posted: January 13 2012 at 09:14
ULLA! I love that album too. ------------- My other avatar is a Porsche It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it is lightly greased. -Kehlog Albran |
Posted By: lazland
Date Posted: January 13 2012 at 11:57
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Being born at the back end of 1964, i was a little too young to catch the "genesis" of prog, although I do distinctly remember seeing bands such as Yes, Tull, and Procol Harum on Top of the Pops. My mother also had a love of symphonic music, so I grew up listening to some good stuff. The start, I suppose, for me were my neighbours in Harlow, Essex, who were teenagers and massive Purple, Free & etc fans. At a time when my sister was listening to The Osmonds on the stereo, I would go next door, and Ian would put on Machine Head, or some such thing. As I have posted before, my "proper" prog introduction was GFTO, by my cousin Mark. I fell in love with it in 1976, and that was the start of a lifelong love of this genre. Just a little addition about Floyd. Dean is spot on - they always were, and always will be, a prog band, but I for one definitely remember that they had a massive mystique about them. They were The Floyd, mysterious, and almost untouchable. When I bought Animals, though, I took it to school. As a member of the school brass band, I was able to use a common room, rather than go outside with the masses in the playground. Most of my friends at the time were into punk, and I just put it on the deck and said, "now....listen to a real punk album!". Happy days. ------------- Enhance your life. Get down to www.lazland.org Now also broadcasting on www.progzilla.com Every Saturday, 4.00 p.m. UK time! |
Posted By: Mellotron Storm
Date Posted: January 13 2012 at 12:12
I can't believe Hughes that Crime Of The Century,Selling England By The Pound and Dark Side Of The Moon were your first three real proggy albums.I mean you might has well stopped right there  .Classic,classic stuff. Were you into RUSH before these bands or after ? Just curious because the first real proggy album i owned was A Farewell To Kings by RUSH.I didn't even know what Prog was then but i remember thinking that Xanadu was like listening to someone on a journey,like songs within a song.I didn't know what to call it,i just had never heard a song like that before.------------- "The wind is slowly tearing her apart" "Sad Rain" ANEKDOTEN |
Posted By: Barah86
Date Posted: January 13 2012 at 12:19
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For me It was Shine On... love on first listen I tell you ------------- Death seed blind man's greed Poets' starving children bleed Nothing he's got he really needs Twenty first century schizoid man. 
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Posted By: progprogprog
Date Posted: January 13 2012 at 13:37
great one ------------- Always thinking in extremes.That's my way to beat boredom. |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: January 13 2012 at 13:39
------------- What? |
Posted By: 33rpm
Date Posted: January 13 2012 at 14:37
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I was in high school in the late 60's (graduated in 1969). I had all the Beatles LP's and already purchased The Moody Blues 45 of "Go Now" and purchased "Nights in White Satin" LP when it came out. Then I got Procol Harum's self titled LP. Purchased King Crimson's ItCotCK the first week it was released. I guess I had most all of the early Prog music and saw most of them in concert. It was a great time to be alive! ------------- Vinyl just sounds better!! |
Posted By: progprogprog
Date Posted: January 13 2012 at 18:01
You're right, actually I don't have a clue about how were people back in 70s.
 ------------- Always thinking in extremes.That's my way to beat boredom. |
Posted By: progprogprog
Date Posted: January 13 2012 at 18:08
If I were in that time, I'd even be more fanatic about prog that I'm now.
------------- Always thinking in extremes.That's my way to beat boredom. |
Posted By: bensommer
Date Posted: January 13 2012 at 19:10
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2112 when I was 14. My older brother brought me to a cool little record store in Darien, CT in 1989 and got me a used copy for my birthday. As with all those albums I was obsessed with, I played that entire thing through a thousand times on my guitar. ------------- http://bensommermusic.com" rel="nofollow"> 
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Posted By: The Miracle
Date Posted: January 13 2012 at 20:17
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Back when I was a kid and lived in Russia, I listened mostly to Russian rock and pop, that I've grown to dislike quite strongly since then. One exception is http://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=2528" rel="nofollow - Aquarium . I remember my dad singing "Kornely Shnapps" to me back when I was 3, so technically, Aquarium's http://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=12106" rel="nofollow - Triugolnik(Triangle) was my very first prog album at the age of 3. By the time I was 11-12 I was obsessed with them. Still love them today. My actual hobby of exploring and collecting music began on my 14th birthday in 2002 when I bought Dark Side with my birthday money. Soon after I bought the rest of the Floyd discography, Aqualung, Benefit, Deep Purple's Fireball and In Rock, the Yes Album, Queen II, etc, all based on my dad's recommendation. So he gets the credit for getting me into prog from the beginning. Then thanks to PA, around summer 2005 the hobby turned into obsession.  ------------- http://www.last.fm/user/ocellatedgod" rel="nofollow - last.fm |
Posted By: centum
Date Posted: January 13 2012 at 20:22
язык-то не забыл? |
Posted By: The Miracle
Date Posted: January 13 2012 at 21:13
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^Нет, и не собираюсь. ------------- http://www.last.fm/user/ocellatedgod" rel="nofollow - last.fm |
Posted By: infocat
Date Posted: January 13 2012 at 22:20
We found a cassette of 2112 out on our street when I was in high school. Perhaps that was my first prog? I don't recall for sure, but it seems likely! I know Rush was my first prog band, because I got all of their albums (up through Hold Your Fire on vinyl, and I don't think I got anymore prog until I got my first CD player (WYWH being my first CD.). Oh wait, I had Aqualung and Crest of a Knave on vinyl as well. ------------- -- Frank Swarbrick Belief is not Truth. |
Posted By: Slartibartfast
Date Posted: January 14 2012 at 09:10
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Let me tell you a story about a man named Jed...
------------- Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened...
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Posted By: brainstormer
Date Posted: January 14 2012 at 15:13
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In 1971 I was 8 and buying singles, starting with some really serious stuff like Bobby Sherman and Donny Osmond. I worked my way up by 1972 to Three Dog Night, Rod Stewart, Melanie and similar pop stuff. I bought Roundabout as a single the year it came out, which had Long Distance Runaround on the other side. I knew something was different about this music. Long Distance Runaround seemed to take me to another world, kind of like a fairy tale, but it still was related to this world of rock music that I liked so much. Yes seemed to talk to a very deep part of myself that other music didn't in the same way. My best friend, who I was in a band with at the time (mostly just talk, of course), was also very into music and bought me The Yes Album, for what must have been my 9th birthday. He didn't get me Fragile, which would have seemed like the logical choice, but I'm glad, as The Yes Album seems more solid to my way of thinking, and I think a better record for a kid. I was a big fan of Rod Stewart and the Faces, but the prog angle just took over, helped by the fact I was very much into synthesizers. The Yes Album got played a lot, and I eventually discovered Trilogy at my library. The library had put paper over the inner sleeve, that had the montage of many ELP's running around in a field at the same time. I could only see tiny bits of it at a time, but it was fascinating,and I kept trying to pry back bits of it every time I took it out. I got Yessongs for Christmas the year it came out. I must have been 12. It was a nice journey of finding other prog records in friend's older brothers' or sisters' collections. ------------- -- Robert Pearson Regenerative Music http://www.regenerativemusic.net Telical Books http://www.telicalbooks.com ParaMind Brainstorming Software http://www.paramind.net |
Posted By: sideburndude...
Date Posted: January 14 2012 at 15:44
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It was just a gradual Progression for me. I don't remember any in particular. |
Posted By: Slartibartfast
Date Posted: January 14 2012 at 15:46
Robert Fripp's And The Sunshine Band was a personal low for him. ------------- Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened...
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Posted By: thehallway
Date Posted: January 14 2012 at 15:50
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I saw Yes on TV and bought The Yes Album, out of confusion more than anything. The music was extremely strange to me then. My next two prog albums were Fragile and Close To The Edge. It was like falling in love.
------------- http://www.thefreshfilmblog.com/" rel="nofollow"> 
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Posted By: ExittheLemming
Date Posted: January 14 2012 at 17:27
Oh come now you two, stop with the Russian subterfuge. Even my flimsy grasp of that language can tell this translates loosely as: The admins are Satan worshipping puppy molesters (especially the one that looks like a undernourished ferret) -------------
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Posted By: The Miracle
Date Posted: January 15 2012 at 15:39
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^Yep, that's pretty much the translation. You're quite a polyglot.
------------- http://www.last.fm/user/ocellatedgod" rel="nofollow - last.fm |
Posted By: valravennz
Date Posted: January 15 2012 at 18:09
The first prog album I bought was when I was 14yrs old - King Crimson's - ITCOTCK. I remember walking home from school past our local record store and seeing this amazing cover (The Screaming face). Of course I had to go and have a listen. I was blown away, having never heard this type of music before. I had to have it. Prior to King Crimson, I had started taking an interest in groups such as The Moody Blues and Jethro Tull. Music appreciation has always been a big part of my life and now I had another area to explore. Not long after that I bought ELP's "Tarkus" and Jethro Tull's "Aqualung". That was the beginning of a a now life-long interest in this music genre.  ------------- 
"Music is the Wine that fills the cup of Silence" - Robert Fripp |
Posted By: twosteves
Date Posted: January 15 2012 at 20:36
| May have heard other things before--but became obsessed with Fragile---never heard music like that before. |
Posted By: CloseToTheMoon
Date Posted: January 16 2012 at 09:32
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I'm from the suburbs....so it was either 2112 or Dark Side when I was in high school. Sounds cliche, but I'm not lying when I say I was the only one in my class to even listen to older bands. One day after I finally got my hands on a Zeppelin shirt off ebay, a few teachers stopped me in the hall and got all smiles on their faces, but the other kids were like "Led Zeppelin...he's kinda okay. My dad likes that" ------------- It's funny how the colors of the real world only seem really real when you viddy them on the screen. |
Posted By: Revan
Date Posted: January 16 2012 at 16:15
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When i was eleven i got obsessed with music for the first time with The Beatles' Masters 1. My sister was quite happy about it so she gave me 5 albums she thought i'd like. One of them was Foxtrot. The rest is history. ------------- 
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Posted By: Mellotron Storm
Date Posted: January 16 2012 at 21:09
A cool story. We all could use sisters like that. ------------- "The wind is slowly tearing her apart" "Sad Rain" ANEKDOTEN |
Posted By: Ivan_Melgar_M
Date Posted: January 17 2012 at 22:07
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I have two first Prog albums: 1.- My first Prog album, when I didn't knew what Prog was: It was look at yourself by Uriah Heep, I thought it was a hard Rock band. Bought it on a record store at Lima. 2.- My first prog idol was Rick Wakeman, but his albums were almost impossible to buy in my country, so a friend went to Argentina and I asked him to buy Six Wives for me, he bought it and after a few months it was unlistenable because it was totally covered of scratches, being that I must listened it a couple hundred times in 40 days. Iván ------------- 
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Posted By: Battlepriest
Date Posted: January 18 2012 at 09:07
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Like most people of my generation (born in the early 70s) I listened to hard rock/heavy metal in the mid-80s. I became more and more interested in "classic rock". Listening to Barracuda-era Heart led me to Led Zeppelin and Led Zeppelin to Rush. For a while, I listened to bands that I already mentally identified as progressive rock (Rush, Styx, Yes, Kansas, Jethro Tull, Mike Oldfield) alongside other classic rock bands. I abandoned most contemporary bands, save for the likes of Queensryche, Voivod, Fates Warning and Savatage, who I sort of identified as some sort of progressive metal (though I hadn't heard that term used at that point). But despite that, I didn't really self-identify as a progressive rock fan (as opposed to classic rock fan) until about '94. I had a huge Steely Dan phase in-between, but one day I checked out a couple of albums I knew were "prog" from the local library: Genesis's Selling England by the Pound and ELP's Brain Salad Surgery. Despite having the likes of Hemispheres and Fragile in my CD collection, these two albums felt like the real deal. Where other albums had been sort of skirting the thin line between classic and prog rock, these two albums (Karn Evil 9's radio edit aside) stripped away my viewpoint that prog-rock was a subgenre of some mythical classic rock (which I finally figured out was a radio format and not a genre). I then got heavy into both Marillion's Misplaced Childhood (by way of the Six of One/Singles Collection CD) and Dream Theater's A Change of Seasons (I had heard "Pull Me Under" on the radio a few years before, but didn't quite click with me... ACOS, on the other hand, did). I started to think prog music didn't die in the 70s as I was lead to believe. I assumed that there must have been other revival bands besides these two. In the days before the web was ubiquitous, though, information on prog was limited to what you could acquire in books that weren't especially friendly to the concept. Eventually, I connected to the growing web, and after hearing samples of Fates Warning's APSOG (to my ears, more prog than metal) I started searching, and found pretty much everything and everyone I listen to today. |
Posted By: Zombywoof
Date Posted: January 18 2012 at 21:39
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I remember sitting on the floor as a 6 year-old and playing with toys while my dad played "Thick as a Brick" and "A Passion Play" and falling totally in love with them.
Those were the days... ------------- Continue the prog discussion here: http://zombyprog.proboards.com/index.cgi ... |
Posted By: JS19
Date Posted: January 19 2012 at 04:49
Cool story errr .... sis? -------------
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Posted By: Sean Trane
Date Posted: January 19 2012 at 06:36
I had no idea what "prog" was when I was 12, and I only became aware of "art rock" two years later... I wasn't trying to go a special style either.... it just sound fantastic to me... before buying my first Lps, I was into Beatles & Stones... and I knew a bit of Tull >> since my dad owned Stand Up, but I was taping from the radio mainly... I only learned of the word "prog" in the early 90's, if you can believe it
But outside of ITCOTCK and TAAB, I wasn't that much into some of these other "big prog bands" that early in my life... (for KC and Yes, I had to wait until I was 17, for GG, I was 25 and for VdGG, I was 30)
Well I got into Rush around the 2112 & AFTK era... which means 76-77 once I was 14 or 15... Before that I wasn't really aware of any Canafian bands (except for Harmonium, which wasn't ROCK per se in my eyes back then)
By that time early teendom, I had my hard rock period with Purple, Zep, early Sab, Sad Wings Of Destiny and Rainbow Rising... By the time I was 19 in 81, despite the NWOHMB and some superb albums (Iron Maiden debut and Heaven & Hell), I was mostly out of HR/HM, and I hated most of the electro-pop/new-wave stuff that was coming out.... and soon gliding into jazz-rock via Bitches Brew and Caravanserai
------------- let's just stay above the moral melee prefer the sink to the gutter keep our sand-castle virtues content to be a doer as well as a thinker, prefer lifting our pen rather than un-sheath our sword |
Posted By: progprogprog
Date Posted: January 19 2012 at 10:06
Interesting. See, thats the reason that mostly I wouldn't rate an album low.(specially well-respected bands)
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Posted By: Mellotron Storm
Date Posted: January 19 2012 at 11:09
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I think i'm a couple of years older than you Hughes and i got into Rush also around 1977.My first LP i bought from them was A Farewell To Kings then i bought Hemispheres on cassette when it came out and somewhere in there bought 2112.I got Crime Of The Century in 1979 and Duke from Genesis in 1980.I had heard A Trick Of The Tail from Genesis previously and kick myself for not getting it myself back then.Unfortunately i didn't pursue anything previous to Duke until much later.I didn't own any Yes but knew many of their songs from the radio.Back then i didn't know about Prog but i think i knew the term Art Rock and of course had Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon but only that from them.Like you i got into Judas Priest,Iron Maiden,Black Sabbath,Zeppelin and so on. ------------- "The wind is slowly tearing her apart" "Sad Rain" ANEKDOTEN |
Posted By: infandous
Date Posted: January 19 2012 at 13:38
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It's hard to say, but I loved the Beatles when I was 5 (1974), and I very much remember hearing Floyd, Yes, ELP, Jethro Tull, Kansas, and some others on the radio growing up (my parents always had the radio on in the car, and often at home.........though my Dad loved blues and hard rock and my mom was partial to musicals and classical music). When I was in my early teens, a friend had me listen to Think As Brick, which was one of his dad's LP's. He thought it was brilliant but I don't remember much of it because I was much more interested in the hilarious newspaper that came with the album. It wasn't until years later that I really listened to it and loved it, and by then I was a prog head. I guess the first prog album I bought was Dark Side Of The Moon, when I was 18. My dad had just bought a CD player (which were starting to become affordable at that time) and a friend gave me a gift certificate for my birthday to a local record store. I'm not really sure why I got that, other than I had heard Money on the radio. It would be a couple years before I got fully into that too though. Undoubtedly Floyd was my introduction to Prog, though I always felt my REAL introduction was through 2112, which was introduced by a friend in college when I was 20. Then someone played me Brain Salad Surgery, and I recorded it onto cassette. Then I bought Genesis Live on a whim (I was returning a Floyd bootleg to the record store because it was unlistenable........I decided I wanted something different, and didn't my friend tell me that Peter Gabriel used to sing with Genesis and dress up in weird costumes and they actually played good music and not pop crap?  ) My prog future began.In retrospect though, and having been a huge fan and knowing all their albums intimately, I'd agree with Dean that there is no question that Floyd is/was most certainly a Prog band. |
Posted By: RH
Date Posted: January 19 2012 at 17:40
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At the seventies in my youngness, I began listening Led Zep., hard rock of Deep Purple , Rush, etc !
Until one day I saw on a TV program, named here in Rio " Sabado Som" , a video of " I know what I Like" ! At first time, I did'nt like it ! Because was a shock to me , at times listen Hard Rock and suddenly a light Prog. Rock style of Genesis..
By time, how much I listen more I like it!! Until I bought my First Prog. Rock L.P "Selling England By Pound"! And passioned by this wonderful style, like "diving in a profound Prog. Rock ocean"
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Posted By: Sean Trane
Date Posted: January 20 2012 at 03:35
Well I'm 48 now...
I think I kind of "lucked out" on striking golden prog so soon in my life...
 I wrote more about how CoTC was my first album in the Rock6070 French forum a few months back
here goes - sorry, in french only (so far)
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Bien que j'écoutais de la musique avec une certaine passion en étant gosse (pre-adolescence), mon premier souvenir vraiment musique trippante, c'est à six/sept ans avec Stand Up de Jethro Tull, que mon père avait acheté principalement pour Bourée. J'ai passé des heures à l'écouter en alternant avec la bande son de Haïr (pas la version Frainche avec Julien)... beeen ouais j'ai jamais trop compris ce que celà foutait dans la collec du père  .... vu qu'il n'y avait rien d'autres en rock... Les disques de jazz du père et de chanson française (Brel, Piaf) de ma mère, me plaisaient bien, mais pas de manière transcendentale... Mais je ne dirais pas que Stand Up est l'album qui m'a fait chavirer totalement..  ... mais c'est clair que j'en redemandaisun peu plus tard j'ai écouté le radio, les Beatles et les Stones... j'aimais bien, mais toujours pas transporté  En arrivant au Canada en 73, pour me faire de l'argent de poche, j'ai commencé à livrer des journeaux, et je livrais une maison où je crevais régulièrement mon pneu (prétexte pour rester un peu et écouter la muze des hippies qui y habitaient... Grateful Dead, Floyd et pas mal de trucs psychés... Ces gars-là me fascinaient... et leurs nanas à moitié à poils  (il y en avaient plusieurs car elles se rasaient pas trop  ) et baisant dans la pelouse  n'arrangeaient rien non plus. Tjs pas la transcendance, mais déjà une solide érection  pour un rock assez "free et wild"  ...Puis un jour, à la sortie de l'école (rentrée de 74), en passant devant un magazin de disque.... une pochette cosmique avec une grille de prison et deux mains qui l'agrippent.... Fascination et fixette ... l'abum venait tout juste de sortir et deux jours plus tard je me l'offrais avec mon propre fric... de retour à la maison, je me rue sur la chaine de mon père (une Sony 3-en1) et dépose cet incroyable Crime Of The Century... sur la platine... et c'est parti Là, je chavire  et je sombre.... je crois que ma plongée a durée deux heures en apnée... J'avais jamais rien entendu de tel (enfin si... Echoes du Floyd chez mes hippies, mais celà m'avait surtout effrayé  >> les mouettes et le sonar).... mais ici, la baffe, la claque, le coup de pied au cul, l'érection et l'orgasme auditif en une seule fois!!! QUEL PIED!!!!!!!! De plus, en un rien de temps, j'ai traduis et appris les textes.... qui me concernait, moi, l'écolier un peu rebelle et solitaire (encore trop nouveau arrivé, pour avoir des potes Ontariens) .... Ce disque me parlait de moi  .... C'était moi, quoi!! Je m'appelais Rudy!! Rudy, c'était mon meilleur pote, le Rudy!!!  Puuuuutain!!... yen avait d'autres comme ça??? Been oui!!! Dark Side Of The Moon , Selling England By The Pound (çui-là, il m'a fallu un peu de temps), Thick as A Brick , In The Court Of The Crimson King , In The Land Of The Grey And Pink .... WWWWaouwwwwww!!! que du bon!!!     Au début, mes parents laissaient faire, vu que j'apprenais l'Anglais à la vitesse vv' (vévéprime), sans trop se soucier des messages ultra-anti-connerie-humaine diffusés par ces tranches de plastique noir.... Mes jeunes frères me suivaient que de très loin, mais n'ont jamais plané comme moi... si moi, j'étais precoce, mes frères furent bien plus tardifs, un peu rebuté par la guéguerre qui s'installait entre mon père (qui symbolisait les villains dans TAAB, CoTC ou 2112 de Rush) et moi, occupé à me battre pour mes libertés fondamentales je vous racionte pas la scène quand j'ai ramené Bat Out Of Hell à la prison...en fait, je crois que je ne suis jamais vraiment remonté à la surface... Je suis toujours en apnée, enterré vingt pieds sous terre, en train de faire mes 2 000 000 lieues dans les océans musicaux... mais le problème c'est que j'ai commencé par le sommet , et que j'ai eu difficile à m'adapter dans les 80's avec la daube electro-pop-new-wavienne à la con de l'époque  Il a fallu que je plonge dansle jazz-rocvk, puis le jazz, mais çà, c'est une autre histoire  ------------- let's just stay above the moral melee prefer the sink to the gutter keep our sand-castle virtues content to be a doer as well as a thinker, prefer lifting our pen rather than un-sheath our sword |
Posted By: ExittheLemming
Date Posted: January 20 2012 at 04:54
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^ so why post this in the first place?
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Posted By: Sean Trane
Date Posted: January 20 2012 at 07:30
Some people can read French in this forum, and it's rather enjoyable and hilariously-told story ... So I was told
 I know I certainly enjoyed living it  ------------- let's just stay above the moral melee prefer the sink to the gutter keep our sand-castle virtues content to be a doer as well as a thinker, prefer lifting our pen rather than un-sheath our sword |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: January 20 2012 at 07:35
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Première leçon dans la langue des peuples qui parlent français, n'est pas: firstly stick out your lower lip then simultaneously raise your shoulders and eyebrows while extending the palms of your hands to the heavens. ------------- What? |
Posted By: TODDLER
Date Posted: January 20 2012 at 10:26
| The first prog album I heard was I.T.W.O.P. by King Crimson. I heard this at my cousin's house along with a couple of "hippie wanna be" friends. I was 15 years old and immediately struck by the music. I had been listening to 20th century classical through my family since age 12 and became aware of the connection between 20th century classical and progressive rock in 71' (which was a cool thing to discover) and for a kid, I was just blown away and not in touch with reality. All I wanted to do was hear King Crimson. |
Posted By: Matti
Date Posted: January 20 2012 at 10:39
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My first memorable album listenings were bordering prog. My very first "favourite" album when I was probably nine or ten years old (I only remember I asked my sis to play it again) was ELO's New World Record. I returned succesfully to that album last year. The first album I used to play all by myself (12-13 yrs) was the ASIA debut. Especially 'Without You' made a strong impression. Other vinyls (of sis and bro's) I started to play included Love Over Gold by DIRE STRAITS, Signals by RUSH, 90125 by YES and Animation by JON ANDERSON. The epic title track of the latter was a huge favourite of mine for some time. ...In a way, I was fond of Prog before I knew anything about any rock genres.
My own vinyl collecting started with MARILLION whom I saw on TV on New Year's Eve 85/86. I persuaded my friend to buy Misplaced Childhood and I bought Fugazi. Then I realized I had seen Script months before being borrowed by my sister (who surely never liked it, I'm afraid) from her friend. I turned to the guy and asked if he'd sell it to me, which he did. During the year 1986 I bought lots of vinyls, artists including Kate Bush, Genesis, Peter Gabriel, Talk Talk, Supertramp, Yes, etc etc. Those were the days...
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Posted By: AZF
Date Posted: January 20 2012 at 13:27
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I can remember being in Primary School and when I came home my brother had lent Animals of a friend. I remember seeing the cover and probably only heard the "Stone... own.... home..." vocoder part. Didn't impress me, but I was a child, what would I know? I remember he also bought "Another Brick In The Wall (Part Two)" single, but not the album. It was also in Primary School that my class had to do a project on time. And to represent the Big Bang and it's aftermath? Teacher played the beginning of "Time" right up to last drum fill, whilst a poor child had to scream out his lungs explaining the periods of Earth formation to a hall full of children who didn't know what the hell what was going on and also to some parents who clearly must have thought "Well all right!" I was really into The War Of The Worlds album, but if you said I was listening to prog, I would have blinked and said "I like Adam Ant and Doctor Who." Later on in secondary school I was already versed in The Beatles and my brother began his still continuing Zappa phase. What bought me close to someone who is still my friend today, was a love of the Beatles. In the school textbooks, there were pictures of Atom Heart Mother and Animals. So it was only a matter of time before I bought "Dark Side Of The Moon" on a tape, from a corner store that isn't there any more. And that was mainly because I'd seen the last half of Roger Waters's Wall show and a remark by Neil in the Young Ones book about Dark Side Of The Moon. But seriously to save this being a Pink Floyd love in. Technically, it was Jeff Wayne's Musical Version Of War Of The Worlds.
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Posted By: freyacat
Date Posted: January 20 2012 at 18:42
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Though my high school years were filled with Iron Maiden, Rush, and 80's Yes, it was the experience of picking up "Close to the Edge" the summer of my graduation ('89) that gave me the experience I call "progressive rock." I was completely overwhelmed by the music. It was doing things I didn't understand, and while I thought there was something beautiful there, it challenged me, and I kept putting the album away, and then taking it out and listening to it again out of curiosity. From there, similar experiences followed with King Crimson, Genesis, Van der Graaf Generator, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Electric Miles Davis, Gentle Giant... I always recognize Progressive Rock as that music that is beyond me at the time. Of course now, I'm older, and my ears don't get surprised very easily anymore. ------------- sad creature nailed upon the coloured door of time |