Prog Rock

“I feel,” he wrote, “like 2009, Bitte Orca/Merriweather/Veckatimest, was the last time there was a fertile strain of ‘indie rock’ that also felt progressive w/o devolving into Yes-ish largesse.”

what does that even mean? that yes used to give away too much free shit?

"Please - I couldn't possibly accept one more guitar melody! It's too much!"

“like 2009, Bitte Orca/Merriweather/Veckatimest, was the last time there was a fertile strain of ‘indie rock’ that also felt progressive w/o devolving into Yes-ish largesse.”

GAPDYes

d-longstreth had no taste for yes back then

http://www.avclub.com/article/dirty-projectors-david-longstreth-doesnt-think-the-35143?permalink=true

or so he claimed . . . but merriweather totally sounds like an homage to "lightning strikes" on the ladder (which starts out with a bite from the kinks ("phenomenal cat"))

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9R0vQryCqw0

is that really a Kinks sample or did they sample it from the Melltron? I never really thought of that particular soundbite as a Kinks thing.

all those people (fleet foxes, dirty projectors, animal collection) are fucking charlatan cunts

My fave prog at the moment is southern rock prog of barefoot jerry

Mojo had at least one prog special that I have somewhere. Didn't they cover Patto recently too?

i swear Mojo did an article on Van Der Graaf Generator once

"Pretty sure Mojo did a thing on Genesis too." Yes, they had Gabriel wearing a face stocking on the cover.

they've also done about 1000 paul weller covers. nothing against the jam or style council or anything

“I feel,” he wrote, “like 2009, Bitte Orca/Merriweather/Veckatimest, was the last time there was a fertile strain of ‘indie rock’ that also felt progressive w/o devolving into Yes-ish largesse.”

I suspect that Robin Pecknold was simply qualifying his use of "progressive" as being not of the symphonic type. Still, the roots of GAPDY had more to do with the efficiencies of art rock than the lofty ambitions of progressive rock. I guess comparisons to the former (e.g., Roxy, Bowie, etc) were too obvious and boring to use as comparisons.

Prog issue of Mojo (or Uncut)? All I remember was the free prog cd, which was not bad. But I stopped seeing those magazines maybe 7 years ago.

Been dipping into Supersister - Iskander, Saint Just - Saint Just, Shub Niggurath - Les Morts Vont Vite. Good times.

The actual prog magazine is such a mixed bag but it pleases me that there's a magazine in newsagents that even mentions Supersister, PFM and checks in on Jon Anderson to see how he's doing.

The prog issue of Mojo i have is pretty early, format of magazine is noticeably different to current.
Covered the main prog bands with an article each. may have had some more general overview.

There's a live set by Shub Niggurath around too. From June '86. I think it's pretty good but haven't listened in quite a while.

Just found out that last year Robert Jan Stips released a live dvd of him playing the first three Supersister albums on pianos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0gaKit6UjM
https://robertjanstips.bandcamp.com/merch/present-to-the-highest-pudding-dvd-100-minutes-cd-75-minutes-robert-jan-stips-plays-supersister

... simultaneously?

It says that in one of the descriptions but it probably varies

I liked the second film but I totally missed this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_Warriors_III:_Canterbury_Tales

I listened to Gentle Giant's Acquiring the Taste for the first time in years today, and man it's fucking great.

yeah I'm astounded how pretty that record gets at times - "Edge of Twilight" and "The Moon is Down" in particular

http://www.mojo4music.com/3110/mojo-issue-222-may-2012/

they did a thing w/Hammill here but I swear they did a VDGG thing once (like I remember learning the band was super popular in Italy? does that sound familiar?)

that is true

I knew they were popular in Italy but it wasn't Mojo that told me that. Having said that, I'd be surprised if they hadn't been featured before.

One of the five main features and not even mentioned on the cover.

When was the major remastering? Would probably tie in with taht.
I'm remembering that Pawn Hearts gatefold image of three of them on a plinth heiling presumably Hamill as being a lead image for an article. Thought that was Mojo but could be Uncut.
I presumably still have it somewhere, not been through my old copies in a while.

"Prog rock should get an additional pass because it spawned nothing. It came and then it went. Subsequent generations weren’t saddled with nutty synthesizer solos and odes to each and every one of King Henry’s wives. Prog rock remains a curio, eminently easy to avoid, to disregard.

...Kelefa Sanneh does not, wisely, make the case that prog rock is deserving of critical gravitas."

That Counterpunch piece is bs, such astounding ignorance. Prog's influence can be found everywhere, from post-punk to Janelle Monae to tons of metal bands.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/06/19/the-persistence-of-prog-rock

This piece isn't as bad. The book referenced, The Show That Never Ends: The Rise and Fall of Prog Rock by Dave Weigel is pretty good -- I'm almost finished with it. Despite going into a lot of detail on lots of key albums, for some reason he skips over King Crimson's Starless and Bible Black and Red albums.

Any surprise bands/albums in there?

I love Six Wives Of Henry VIII

The book covers most of the biggies, plus mentions in passing a bunch of obscure Italian and other European bands. Do you mean bands that are questionable whether they're prog? I guess it spends more pages than I expected on Voivod. It excluded Henry Cow for some reason.

xxp

“We want our albums to last,” Robert Fripp, the austere guitar scientist behind King Crimson, said. In a literal sense, he got his wish: although the progressive-rock boom was effectively over by the end of the seventies, it left behind a vast quantity of surplus LPs, which filled the bins in used-record stores for decades.

lol that's p assholish

Also isn't true?

Also there was a lot more about Hawkwind and Magma than I'd expected.

In the sense there weren't vast quantities of surplus LPs, which filled the bins in used-record stores for decades. (xp)

you could say that about any rock records that sold in large quantities

King Crimson OG presses seem to hold their value on discogs

https://www.discogs.com/King-Crimson-Red/release/702337

https://www.discogs.com/King-Crimson-In-The-Court-Of-The-Crimson-King-An-Observation-By-King-Crimson/release/2287669

https://www.discogs.com/King-Crimson-Starless-And-Bible-Black/release/1345783

crimson albums are not cheap used anymore, but they certainly were throughout the 80's and 90's.

you could say that about any rock records that sold in large quantities

Yeah, it was equally true of Born to Run or Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits.

The era of prog rock was a much, much smaller world. Ignorance—denotatively—abounded.

Yeah, this Counterpunch piece sucks.

crimson albums are not cheap used anymore, but they certainly were throughout the 80's and 90's.

― akm, Tuesday, June 27, 2017 3:42 PM (twenty-eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is also true of any rock records that sold in large quantities!

hell i pulled out my OG press of Love's Forever Changes (NM condition) and it cost me $8 back in the day!! the sticker was on the polybag

what a world. you could have beat the stock market buying records 20 years ago

Yeah, I got those Springsteen and Dylan records for a buck or two at most; no more than a few bucks for the first Clash, Jam, Joy Division/New Order, etc.

when I collected vinyl in college a lot of those prog records outside of Yes and ELP were really quite difficult to find. KC records were fairly rare (outside of In the Court and Discipline), only saw one Gentle Giant LP, never a single VdGG or Magma. then again this is in Green Bay. but still.

VdGG and Magma were always pretty rare, at least in Mpls

maybe in nyc or something? i dunno

records are weird, you can always tell certain bands sold strongly in certain regions

Ha, Montreal was a good place for prog records in the early 00s. I picked up Pawn Hearts for a few bucks iirc.

I think I got a portion of one old proggers collection out of a bookstore in Bloomington back in the 90s. I got most of Tangerine Dreams' Virgin records, a Gentle Giant, Babe Ruth and three VdGG vinyl for probably $25 bucks.

Ha, Montreal was a good place for prog records in the early 00s. I picked up Pawn Hearts for a few bucks iirc.

― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r)

when i went to quebec in the late '90s (gatineau, not montreal) my friend took me to a record store called "the musical box". still got some stuff i picked up there. "pawn hearts" as well, soft machine's "triple echo" (at a time when finding that first single was utterly impossible). lost my copy of "in the court of the crimson king" though. :( also managed to pick up both "happy the man" albums in dc, where they were fucking everywhere used back in the day.

magma albums were hens' teeth - i don't know that there were ever any us pressings of them on vinyl. back when i was a major proghead i knew some folks who had magma lps, but it was super rare. they were a lot more accessible once they came out on cd, though again it wasn't until the late '90s when your average person had a chance of actually _hearing_ _mekanik destruktiw kommandoh_. so it was a little surprising to walk into a local record store a couple weeks back and find out they had multiple copies of most of magma's '70s albums (no mdk) on 180g vinyl. not as surprising as it was to find out that harvey mandel was still alive and had a new record out, but close.

I finished the prog book last night, and then remembered that King Crimson are playing tonight down the street from where I work at the Chicago Theatre. Is it fate? The question is, do I want to pay $50 for a last-minute ticket to set in nosebleeds seats in the balcony. The setlist from the Mpls show has a pretty nice mix:

1 In The Court of the Crimson King
1 In The Wake of Poseidon
2 Lizard
3 Islands
2 Larks' Tongue
2 Red
1 Discipline
1 Beat
1 The Power To Believe

5 Unknown Newer Songs

http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/king-crimson/2017/state-theatre-minneapolis-mn-53e4e75d.html

it's totally fate

in will romano's prog FAQ from a few years back, explaining the ongoing charm of these guys

http://www.themusicalbox.net/

and the still strong french-canadian prog scene, the real peter "rael" gabriel says that quebec may as well be a european country, and without early success in montreal, genesis maybe never would've been able to tour the states and blow up

Huh, Discipline and Beat? Curious about what they will do to those belew era songs.

crimson albums are not cheap used anymore, but they certainly were throughout the 80's and 90's.

Pink label Island copies?