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Listened to a bunch of tunes for free via YouTube and have sent away for four LPs:
Selling England by the Pound really grabbed me. I'll probably get Trespass, Fragile, and Tarkus after I've annoyed the kids with these for a while*. :hehe:

* Funny thing is I played some Maori singing/drumming stuff the other day and my daughter moaned and groaned about it and then, after it was over, asked me to play it again. :music:


Excellent choices. I really got into full blown prog (after being into the more watered down, Rush-, Kansas-, Jethro Tull- variety for years) with almost that exact group of four. Only substitute was ELP's Brain Salad Surgery instead of their first album. Turns out I liked Tarkus better than either of them, but live and learn.
 
To draw a roleplaying parallel, modern prog (or neo-prog as I've heard it called) is a bit like the OSR. T

From time to time I see neo-prog used to describe all post-1979 progressive rock, but usually it describes a narrow band of 80s prog rock revivalists that are influenced by early Genesis, Camel, Pink Floyd and Van Der Graaf: Marillion, IQ, Pendragon, Twelfth Night, Pallas, and maybe It Bites and Saga, and their immediate sonic offspring (Arena, Frost*, Iluvatar, Enchant). Once you get into bands like Anglagard and Spock's Beard in the early nineties--with Gentle Giant again being an influence-- neo-prog gives way to "Third Wave".
 
... or swap it out for Close to the Edge by Yes.
My favorite Yes album. Not necessarily the most accessible - I usually recommend The Yes Album and Fragile first - but pretty much the high point of classic Yes.
 
From time to time I see neo-prog used to describe all post-1979 progressive rock, but usually it describes a narrow band of 80s prog rock revivalists that are influenced by early Genesis, Camel, Pink Floyd and Van Der Graaf: Marillion, IQ, Pendragon, Twelfth Night, Pallas, and maybe It Bites and Saga, and their immediate sonic offspring (Arena, Frost*, Iluvatar, Enchant). Once you get into bands like Anglagard and Spock's Beard in the early nineties--with Gentle Giant again being an influence-- neo-prog gives way to "Third Wave".

Funny story about Pallas. I went to a Magenta gig a few years back. As I was going with someone in crutches I called the venue in advance and had them reserve a seat. We get there and there is side table with a sign saying it reserved for me.

A guy joins us at the table who turns out was a member of Pallas. I guess between the sign and that fact that one organiser can to personally check that seating arrangements where OK, I guess he must have got the impression I was some sort of big shot in the music industry or something so he tries to strikes up a conversation, asking probing question to get a sense of who I might be, possibly with the hope of drumming up some business.

He was left altogether disappointed when he figured out that I was I just a nobody, and worse still, as aenthusiastic Prog fan at a Magenta gig, I didn't really know Pallas at all ( but I list Solstice among my favourite prog band who I believe are from their same musical generation). He kind of lost interest in us at that point but by then his wife and joined the conversation so he was kind of stuck with us.

Anyway, if he find this thread, sorry dude, didn't mean to mislead you!

PS: Now that I think of it, he actually gave me his business card.
 
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Roine played bass at the Steve Hackett concert I went to a couple of years ago. But I'm fairly sure Steve gets a pass on the Roine requirement.
Roine seems to be in everything prog related these days and Transatlantic did a version of Hogweed live with Hackett guesting.

How Hackett has avoided aging is beyond me. The rest of them look like shit and poor old Phil can't play anymore (not a problem for Mike Rutherford since he could never play :grin:). Old Peter Gabriel has been disappearing up his own fundament for the past few decades.

Phil's son, Simon, had a band called Sound of Contact that put out an album with a couple of really good songs and instrumentals, unfortunately that was about half the content and the rest of it was really sappy and bland.
 
There was a similar review for GTR's sole self-titled album. The review simply said "SHT."
Either two reviewers attempted similar nasty humor or you left out half the review; the one I recall was "TTL SHT." So juvenile. It's funny for about a second and then you wonder if the guy even listened to the record or just decided "I don't like it because of who made it." Either way it's a lazy cop-out and he didn't so his job. If you don't think an album is any good, lay out your case, tell me about its merits and flaws and so on. No professional music magazine should have ever let that see print, just like with the Yes review I mentioned; it's the kind of thing you show your colleagues as a joke and then write your real review. Anyway...laziness is one of my biggest pet peeves, thus the rant. I don't care if you don't like a record--do your friggin' job.

I've never heard GTR, just for the record, so maybe it is TTL SHT...or maybe not.
 
I've never heard GTR, just for the record, so maybe it is TTL SHT...or maybe not.
It was one of those 80s groups made up of some prog rock stars, supergroup sort of thing, like Asia. I think GTR was Steve Howe and Steve Hackett (I'm too lazy to Google it ... ), and they had one hit ("When the Heart Rules the Mind"), I believe.
 
It was one of those 80s groups made up of some prog rock stars, supergroup sort of thing, like Asia. I think GTR was Steve Howe and Steve Hackett (I'm too lazy to Google it ... ), and they had one hit ("When the Heart Rules the Mind"), I believe.
Oh, I've heard of GTR; I just haven't ever heard their music so I'm withholding judgment on whether their LP was TTL SHT, PRTL SHT, or N SHT.
 
Listened to all of In the Court of the Crimson King en route to and from swim class. A lot of it just sounds like "psychedelic rock" to me, not too much different from other records I have, but the separation of sounds is really good. They have a really nice mix on the record. I can hear all the percussion, which isn't true for a lot of records. The title track makes me envision a bizarre pseudomedieval "weird fantasy" D&D setting. The Yellow Jester and the Crimson King indeed! Makes me think of the King in Yellow.
 
I like how King Crimson is basically a whole bunch of different bands over the years. I like the earliest incarnation well enough, but my favorite, as Voros Voros mentioned before, is the group with John Wetton on bass and vocals, the albums being Lark's Tongues in Aspic, Starless and Bible Black, and Red. The Adrian Belew years (Discipline, Three of a Perfect Pair, Beat) are also pretty great, in an 80s sort of way.

Speaking of Wetton, I'm also a fan of U.K., one of the last of the classic prog rock bands ...

 
I've heard good things about Larks' Tongues in Aspic. When I get through with what I have I'll be checking to see if I can listen via YouTube. That's what I do now before buying anything. It's like the old listening booths/stations at record stores where you could play a record to find out if you wanted to buy the LP.
 
Roine seems to be in everything prog related these days and Transatlantic did a version of Hogweed live with Hackett guesting.

How Hackett has avoided aging is beyond me. The rest of them look like shit and poor old Phil can't play anymore (not a problem for Mike Rutherford since he could never play :grin:). Old Peter Gabriel has been disappearing up his own fundament for the past few decades.

Phil's son, Simon, had a band called Sound of Contact that put out an album with a couple of really good songs and instrumentals, unfortunately that was about half the content and the rest of it was really sappy and bland.


I actually liked Sound of Contact. To me, Dimensionaut sounded like the next logical Genesis album after Duke. But, tastes vary and all that.

Have you heard In Continuum's debut yet? Dave Kerzner's successor band to SoC, recording what was intended for their second album. Better material than Dimensionaut, but the lack of Simon Collins makes it somehow more... generic.
 
Oh, I've heard of GTR; I just haven't ever heard their music so I'm withholding judgment on whether their LP was TTL SHT, PRTL SHT, or N SHT.

My take would be PRTL SHT. "Imagining" off the album is pretty good, and "Hackett to Bits" is basically just a redux of an instrumental off of Hackett's second album, but for the most part it's diluted progressive rock in the vein of Asia. I have a high tolerance for that, but I know that many prog fans don't.
 
I actually liked Sound of Contact. To me, Dimensionaut sounded like the next logical Genesis album after Duke. But, tastes vary and all that.

Have you heard In Continuum's debut yet? Dave Kerzner's successor band to SoC, recording what was intended for their second album. Better material than Dimensionaut, but the lack of Simon Collins makes it somehow more... generic.
Not a huge fan, though he did some solo stuff that seemed interesting.

I was hoping Sound might do some more stuff, but I guess after Simon got busted for drugs that went south.
 
On my playlist today was Glass Hammer 's recent (latest) album, Valkyrie.
Glass-Hammer-Valkyrie-300x300.jpg


Glass Hammer are a very eclectic and insanely prolific band, meaning each album is very different from the next and therea are lots of them. They also more transpent in how much they borrow from classic prog band like Yes and ELP. Put it this way, at one point they had a singer who so sounded like Jon Anderson from Yes that he eventually ended up replacing Jon Anderson in Yes. They also had Roger Dean design a few of their album covers, just in case we didn't get it.

All that aside, when they are good Glass Hammer are very good and Valkyrie is one of the good ones. It's a concept album (Glass Hammer like concept albums) about a soldier's experiences going to war. The individual tracks don't really stand on their own very well, but combined they create a powerful journey filled with majesty and melancholy.

As often with Glass Hammer, the album features both a male and female vocalist who combine very well. That is actually one of the more unique features of the band.
 
Technically Jon didn't replace Jon in Yes, he replaced the other guy that replaced Jon in Yes. The Canadian boating salesman, Benoit David - who I actually preferred. Sadly, despite my love for Yes (rip Chris) their mercenary attitude to Jon #1 was fucking awful - and then to ditch Benoit. Come on guys!

They really should call it quits. Alan White looks like he's at Death's Door. Steve Howe is rapidly turning into a leprechaun whiel geoff Downes just looks permanently bored.

Their best work is behind them, Heaven and Earth, Jon #2's first recording with the band, is pretty dire. Squackett is the best thing Sequire's done in years and a fitting tribute to his awesomeness as bassist and singer.

OTOH I've never actually listened to Glass Hammer, so that was helpful wasn't it.

PS, if people want to listen to some old school sounding retro prog, check out Wobbler. If that doesn't quench the thirst for that folksy, almost medieval, retro vibe, you're probably already dead
 
PS, if people want to listen to some old school sounding retro prog, check out Wobbler. If that doesn't quench the thirst for that folksy, almost medieval, retro vibe, you're probably already dead

Wobbler has the 70s sound down to a level that makes The Tangent sound like a thoroughly modern band, by comparison.
 
I like the albums Chris Square recorded with Billy Sherwood. They aren't the best produced albums but they definitely have the Squire sound in in harmonies and general composistion. Ditto for Open Your Eyes which, though technically a s Yes album, I understand based on Squire's planned solo material. And of course Fish Out of Water is just awesome. Hey, I even kind of enjoy the "Run with the Fox" single, despite the really, really ropey "Beware of the rocks" rhyme.

Squackett however didn't really do it for me. It sounded more Hackett than Squire to me.

And the less said about Heave and Earth, the better.
 
We mustn't let this thread fade into obscurity and oblivion.

I've been reading The Strawberry Bricks Guide to Progressive Rock, a chronological overview/survey/review of the genre, the artists, and the records.
book_cs_front.png61cdDth7k3L.jpg
I'm only starting 1971 now, but my curiosity has been piqued by the surveys of the self-titled albums by McDonald and Giles, Patto, and Gentle Giant, as well as Rare Bird's As Your Mind Flies By, to name but a few intriguing entries. Who wants to tell me about these acts/records?
 
We mustn't let this thread fade into obscurity and oblivion.

I've been reading The Strawberry Bricks Guide to Progressive Rock, a chronological overview/survey/review of the genre, the artists, and the records.
I'm only starting 1971 now, but my curiosity has been piqued by the surveys of the self-titled albums by McDonald and Giles, Patto, and Gentle Giant, as well as Rare Bird's As Your Mind Flies By, to name but a few intriguing entries. Who wants to tell me about these acts/records?

Rare Bird (in general) is more of a late attempt at a proto-progressive band (ala Procol Harum, Moodies, The Nice, etc.) than the full blown post-King Crimson bands. They're most famous for a protest song called "Sympathy" ("half the world hates the other half, and half the world has all the food, and half the world lies down and quietly starves, and sympathy is what we need my friend, 'cause there's not enough love to go 'round" is the famous lyric). As Your Mind Flies By is a decent enough album.

McDonald and Giles' album is not as good a In the Court of the Crimson King, in my opinion, but is frequently lauded as such. It's okay, just nothing memorable. Dead end style.

Patto I do not know.

Gentle Giant's first album, while not as good as their later albums, is still really good. In hindsight, it has grown on me to the point where I like every track on it, Why Not, Alacard, and the title track in particular. "Isn't it Cold and Quiet" is a really quirky track that actually reminds me of walking to work in the rain and snow, which I often did while listening to it on an old Discman.
 
We mustn't let this thread fade into obscurity and oblivion.

Let this thread fade into oblivion? Never! OK, sure, eventually, but not yet!

One bunch we've not really talked about is Renaissance. They were there right at the start of prog offering a symphonic sound (a lot orchestral arrangements, I'm not sure they even used electric guitars till the 80s). In Annie Halsam Renaissance have probably the most technically accomplished vocalist in prog, in a traditional, Julie Andrews sense.

Not all their work has aged well in my view, it is very 70s even by early Prog standards, but the album Song For All Season is still has some outstanding tracks and a fun hit single to boot. The cover... not so much (sorry Annie, nothing personal).
RenSeason.jpg
 
Following on from PolarBlues mentioning Renaissance, and Magenta being mentioned earlier in the thread, there are a number of great female-led progressive bands of various types:

Curved Air is an original era band, with some really famous members. Singer Sonja Kristina was in the London production of hair, and she was for many years married to the former drummer of the band... an obscure fellow by the name of Stewart Copeland. Keyboardist Francis Monkman was later in the band Sky with classical guitarist John Williams (not the soundtrack composer). Eddie Jobson was violinist in the band prior to his tenures with Roxy Music, Zappa, UK, Jethro Tull, Yes, etc.

District 97 is a modern progressive rock/progressive metal hybrid in the vein of Dream Theater. Singer Leslie Hunt was on American Idol early on before developing a habit of wearing a duct tape bra while singing Genesis' Back in NYC.

Bent Knee is a post-progressive art rock band from Boston, with a sound that has best been described as a cross between Kate Bush and King Crimson.

That's only scratching the surface, but they are three of my favourites.
 
Heh heh...while I was driving home today in the rain, my son asked me to put on Tarkus. We managed to listen to about 17 minutes of the first track before his sister requested "spy music." She prefers Selling England by the Pound. No joke. :shade:
 
As a random aside, lat April I got to see Jethro Tull on their 50th Anniversary tour. As first dates went, it's a doozy.
 
Following on from PolarBlues mentioning Renaissance, and Magenta being mentioned earlier in the thread, there are a number of great female-led progressive bands of various types:

Bent Knee is a post-progressive art rock band from Boston, with a sound that has best been described as a cross between Kate Bush and King Crimson.

I'm intrigued now by your description of Bent Knee. I am going to have to check them out now.

And you can add Solstice to the list of progressive bands with female vocalist (and a female lead violinist).

Solistice has got to be one of the least prolific bands in history with 5 studio albums in 30 years. I really there more recent albums, but between the track Sky Path West and Solomon Bridge, the album Sprirt really stands out.

 
While these are not generally remotely considered prog bands would these individual tracks be considered Prog rock?

As I stated at the start of the thread, I'm not interested in strict definitions. If it's too long, too complicated and breathtakingly beautiful, it's prog.
 
I may have created an Emerson, Lake & Palmer fan. We've been listening to Tarkus while driving to school and driving home per my son's request and today he asked me if he can have the record. I told him okay as long as I can borrow it. He has a very small collection of records, mainly John Williams Star Wars and Jaws soundtracks. This will be his first rock album. :shade:

He was also very interested to learn we have another EL&P album he can listen to.
 
The ELP albums are all a mixed bag. The self-named Emerson,Lake and Palmer, Trilogy and Brain Salad Surgery all some good tracks. The two Works have a lot of padding, but then one man's padding in another's gem.

When I eventually replaced my ELP vynls with CD I got a boxed set anthology called Return of the Manticore which has a great selection. It also meant I could get Memories of an Officer and Gentelman without having to buy... Love Beach..*shudders*

81IVwSH9zQL._SL1242_.jpg
 
They keep naming psychedelic Pink Floyd as prog. May as well call Hawkwind or Gong prog bands.

Some people do, and some people don't. I'm in the "do" faction. I'm in the "don't" faction about Rammstein, but meh, genres are all artificial anyway.
 
Some people do, and some people don't. I'm in the "do" faction. I'm in the "don't" faction about Rammstein, but meh, genres are all artificial anyway.
Floyd used to go for extended improvisation and surreal lyrics. Neither of which are particular hallmarks of prog. Plus none of them are particularly technical players. Talented, absolutely. Technical, not so much.

Plus when the BBC did a potted history of prog, Floyd were conspicuous by their absence.
 
More to the point, is Floyd a rolepaying game or a story game or is there any difference?
 
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