ELP

King Crimson

Yes

Isn't anyone going to mention Hatfield and the North?

ORIGINAL: alvie

Hi Mike.

I think "prog rock" is not only about odd time signature and technical performance. Long evolving song and great use of sound FX are part of it.

"Echoes", "Atom Heart Mother" and "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" are good example.

But most of there songs are not prog at all.

PS. About 20 years ago, I have saw a King Crimson live with Adrian Belew as a guitarist. They were mainly playing songs from the "Discipline" album .. and it was amazing.

I do think virtuoso performance is part of the formula for prog rock.I can't help but wonder if Prog might not be the one form of rock music that transcends generational shifts and become like "classical" music in that the songs and performances are often far more musically complex than the normal three chord style rock.

I wonder if Prog will be seen as the "classical music of its time" where regular rock/pop will be much as we view "traditional" music today.

ORIGINAL: ricstudioc


But look at, say, Gentle Giant - is their guitarist (name escapes me, it's early here)

Gary Green, one of my favourite players, very under-rated.

Good points about The Giant, Ric, their music didn't revolve around any one of the members, and they were all multi-instrumentalists.

Hi Ric.

The great prog groups, on the other hand, tend to be centered around the music - the piece(s) themselves, each member of the group contributing to a complex, well-defined structure that simply couldn't exist if any one of them indulged themselves on their own.

It's true that the best prog was always from bands that play together like classical music. You may have a soloist but it's the song that matter.

I consider Mike Oldfield a genius of unparalleled proportions, mostly because he plays every instrument known to man (or so it seems) and plays them well, though perhaps not as well as somebody who is specialized. He writes (or creates) music that is for me spectacular simply because of that level of ability. In many ways, it is Mike Oldfield that I most admire and is who I keep firmly in my sights as I climb up the musical ladder.

http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bedford

This guy apparently had an considerable influence on Mike. Had to dig a bit to find that info (didn't see it in his Wiki), but it was briefly mentioned here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcsGrtaMp_E&feature=related

The vid was cool (could not read the dutch stuff lol). It was interesting to see Richard Branson so young. Yep, it really does show how how far I have to climb to even see the bottom of his shoes.

Cheers
Shad

The vid was cool (could not read the dutch stuff lol).

Oops, I gave you the Dutch wiki page by mistake:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bedford

remember that it's on the left in the menu to change the availabe languages on-the-fly in wikipedia. Can't remember *not* seeing English there....

I though you were saying there was only the dutch version or I would have done as you suggested.

Nah, it's just that Bedford isn't mentioned on Mike Oldfields Dutch wiki page [checkcheck] - nope, just as a credit in his phonography somewhere.

Obviously not as complete as the English one.

I Mother Earth has always struck me as very "out there" which I kinda associate with Prog Rock. I think they are great. Another interesting one is Hidria Spacefolk. They do some very long repetitive stuff but some of it is really cool.....some very boring.

I am a huge fan of this genre and stuff close to it. It seems to me that Prog Rock has always been about letting the music flow out in whatever form it wants to take, long songs, short songs, structured, non-structured, whatever. That at least seems to be the common theme I hear between older prog rock bands like Yes and newer prog rock bands like Porcupine Tree. I use genre terms less and less these days as music I like just becomes music I like, no specific genre needed.

I think Sonar DOES encourage that prog rock type atmosphere. For me Sonar is as much of part of creating a song as my instrument. It allows me to try ideas in a way I never did before. I've never been a "sit down with an acoustic and write a song" type of person. It also allows the addition of very prog like elements such as voice and EFX loops that seem to take a seemingly simple chord progression and give it some lift.

RUSH!

Prog has many faces. I particularly like Space Rock and Canterbury Scene. I also love King Crimson, pretty much any era.

Prog Archives is an excellent resource for those of you wanting to explore more about the genre. It breaks down numerous different sub genres and has a relatively detailed listing of the bands within those.

Too many people look to Yes and PFM and ELP as the definitive Prog Rock bands. This website has so much more than the Symphonic Rock bands - those that I would also accuse of wretched excess.

Take Hawkwind - a band I happen to love (maybe 20 of their LPs - but who is counting). No one would call them the virtuosos that populated bands like Yes. Heck, I am not sure I would even call them great song writers. They had a niche - a lot of their stuff is based on Sci Fi. And a lot of their music is Synthi AKS/Putney based with loud guitars. Even their more ambitious synth works like The Forge Of Vulcan on side B of Quark Strangeness and Charm was predominantly analog sequencer based with some organ crescendos. But it was a cool intro into Days of the Underground.

Or take the Planet Gong trilogy by Gong. LSD influenced if there ever was a set of LPs. About a planet (Planet Gong) where radio signals are beamed into people's heads, they fly around in teapot taxis, and are advised by Pothead Pixies, Octave Doctors and Zero the Hero. Gong You is in my top 20 LPs of all time. My point of bringing this up is that if you listened to things like the Planet Gong trilogy and Yes, you would not associate them with being in the same genre.

I personally go back to songs that Syd Barret did like Astronomy Domine or Lucifer Sam, or later PF with songs like One of These Days or Echoes from Meddle - the LP before DSOTM and see lots of influences on these sub-genres. In that way, PF was sort of a prog rock band - but in the space rock category - not symphonic rock.

And Marah - I love you - but while I am a huge Roxy Music fan, I have to put them in Art Rock (early while Eno was still with them) or Glam in their latter days. Then again, I am a bit of a nerd about some parts of Prog.

Those of you who are Yes fans should check out PFM - an italian band who's name is too hard. Early Genesis - before they became a disco band - was in that category. Some excellent music, totally obscured by the second worst turn of any rock band in history (first being the people who did White Rabbit doing We Built This City).

There are tons of instrumental progs out there too. Tangerine Dream was a pioneer in many aspects of ambient.

There are a couple of great carriers of the flame. I love Ozric Tentacles. Jazzy Space Rock. Searing Guitars and weird AKS noises. I love Spock's Beard and Porcupine Tree.

Any recitation of major efforts in the Prog genre would be amiss without a nod to Todd. Whether in Utopia or some of the efforts in A Wizard - A True Star or Todd - Rundgren had a major impact on the popularization of his style of prog - again largely big guitars and synths. The underrated side B of Initiation - called something like A Treatise on Cosmic Fire - had excellent synth and guitar work. I have owned like 10 copies of that over the years. I can take or leave parts of side A - completely opposite of popular opinion. I have seen him numerous times and even though he probably has a pace maker and a lifetime supply of Viagra, he still rocks the house.

Zappa - had to put him in here too. Don't really know how to categorize him. Peaches and Regalia - from Grand Wazoo I think - is an excellent example of early prog Zappa style.

Anyway - a very long winded post which does little more than show I know a lot. I did not intend it that way. It is more a reflection of my passion for certain parts of the genre.

Peace Out Y'all.

ORIGINAL: space_cowboy
And Marah - I love you - but while I am a huge Roxy Music fan, I have to put them in Art Rock (early while Eno was still with them) or Glam in their latter days. Then again, I am a bit of a nerd about some parts of Prog.

Those of you who are Yes fans should check out PFM - an italian band who's name is too hard. Early Genesis - before they became a disco band - was in that category. Some excellent music, totally obscured by the second worst turn of any rock band in history (first being the people who did White Rabbit doing We Built This City).

There are tons of instrumental progs out there too. Tangerine Dream was a pioneer in many aspects of ambient.

Heheh, i have to agree... Roxy music is not what I would call prog in any way. Nor Eno, nor AON, nor 10CC/Godley & Cream (though they meet the criteria I have in many ways). They are as you say, art rock.

I am not sure I would classify tangerine dream as prog either, more electronica. Prog needs a mix of instruments, not just keys and electronic drum kits. Vocals, while not essential, are expected in some manner. I might put Enigma or Deep Forest as prog first.

Airplane... Jefferson Airplane... Jefferson Starship... Starship... from the sublime to the ridiculous. How can a band that made White Rabbit make the complete drivel that was "We built this city"? How? For twenty years its haunted me. Though I would call them psychedelia more than prog.

I grew up on what's called Prog rock now days. I used to call it Classical rock, not to be confused with classic rock. It's great stuff if you have the head for complex time signatures and harmonic complexity thrown together with truly unique sound design. That's what music is meant to be in my eyes.

ORIGINAL: mike_mccue

One thing I've always found curious... If you read interviews about how the early Yes albums were composed they seem to confirm my personal suspicions that the music was never conceived as a whole composition. It just doesn't surf. :-) By most accounts the albums were literally cut and paste together measure by measure in a desperate attempt to assemble enough material to call an album. It sounded different because it was different... it was different because they were rather arbitrary about joining motifs.

Hi Mike.

In my opinion, this is more true of the Yes music of '72 to '79 that any of their other eras.

Their first three albums were primarily shortish, pop-orientated songs, and at least 2 of those albums inclueds several cover versions.

It was only when Wakeman joined for Fragile that they began to push the envelope with regard to lengthy compositions - no more so than on albums like Close to the Edge & Topographic Oceans.

This theme repeated itself through Relayer and to a lesser extent Going for The One.
Tormato was a horrible album though, and saw them try to revert to shorter, more accessible material.