Prog Rock

Let's have another one from 1975

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PKrw4DAPHo

You can almost imagine fledgling punks watching these thinking "Something's got to give"

I can be sympathetic to punk if it is about DIY spirit. But the 1970s punks who expressly looked down on possessing technical chops or interest in classical music were just being anti-intellectual, and from five decades’ remove seem just as snobbish as the sort that they thought they were rebelling against.

Trace!!! I heard their first album once and was really impressed, dunno why I didn't listen again. I've heard the second is really good too, but nobody really reps much for guys like this. At its best, it kind of is just a really good ELP impression. I mean just watch keyboard player, dude looks like he wants to start humping the shit out of the Hammond but he settles for...uh just moving it around a bit. Still love it!

Anyone remember Triumvirat? I see their albums come in constantly at the local shop. Another band that maybe started a few years too late but they really do scratch that ELP itch. Double Dimple and Spartacus are both top notch in my book.

oh...and Refugee...this I think is 1974

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtfKSUyYaEU

band is the two other guys from The Nice but with Patrick Moraz filling in for Emerson. he is surprisingly good at it, in fact I think their lone album is better than anything The Nice did. unfortunately Yes poached him for Relayer before they could make a second album. amusingly if you listen to 1975 live Yes recordings you can hear Moraz play a bunch of bits from this album during his solo spots

but yeah I think it really speaks to how popular this stuff really was that you had all these bands springing up in 1974 and 1975 trying to imitate what Yes and ELP were doing. they were all kinda successful too, I think 1977 was when this stuff really hit the wall. Going For the One was a #1 in the UK and I think ELP's Works Vol. 1 sold pretty well but those were the last ones to do so.

Speaking of Patrick Moraz, I have been reading about this group he was in whilst in Brazil called Vimana with some people who later went on to be in some other Brazilian groups I am somewhat familiar with but I have yet to listen to a single note of Vimana.

they're pretty good! but way more of a disco/funk thing, nothing proggy about it at all. amusingly Moraz's first solo album has a big Brazilian funk influence, though apparently he wasn't in Vimana until 1977. something's probably not right about that timeline. I give that Moraz album props though, it's definitely the Yes solo album that sounds least like you expect it to.

I had the first Trace, Refugee, and the Double Dimple albums sold 'em all off in my big prog purge when punk happened. I relistened to both not too long ago but found that ELP-style bombast doesn't hold up well for me.

One more: Greenslade.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3K84zaHHFI

I saw the first Greenslade album in a shop window while on honeymoon in Ireland, didn't buy it but keep being reminded to check it out sooner or later.

The singing keyboard player in Greenslade, Dave Lawson, was in a band called Web whose 1970 album I Spider is quite an exceptional example of "proto-prog". Quite aggressive blues-rock with jazz touches provided by sax and vibraphone, and not unlike Van Der Graaf Generator, they're a lot better example of the genre than Colosseum, who were the source of the other keyboard player in Greenslade, Dave Greenslade himself!

It seems that Druid's keyboard player composed the theme song to Teletubbies.

...The intro of which was narrated by Fripp's other half Toyah, thus aiding the hypothesis that prog rock basically mutated into UK children's TV.

The string arrangements on the last two Yes albums were composed by the guy who wrote Bob The Builder’s “Can We Fix It?” (amongst many other childrens’ TV themes), so it can be a two-way journey.

Then you have Peter Hammill's appearance on Play Away of course.

plus in the US there's been a cute game my whole life -- 'let's make believe that like sufjan and stuff like this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y55NVGZ3ibY

isn't prog like yes, no?'

Yanni was in one of those Styx-ish "cornfield prog"/pomp type bands here in Minneapolis back in the day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=me-KiE-sVx8

Wow, these guys make Styx sound like Magma! Barely prog tbh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcBMGQXUt4k

Seems a few of the synth wizard types started out in prog bands - Vangelis, Kitaro, ehhh I'm sure there's more

Susumu Hirasawa is one of them, he was in a prog band called Mandrake for a few years before P-Model started. In fact some of the wackier bits from In a Model Room were drawn from it, kinda what makes that album so unique if you ask me. I think they transitioned to New Wave for the same reason as everyone else, prog just wasn't selling by 1977

lol yeah, living in Minneapolis in the early 80s, Chameleon was everything I didn't want in music. I never thought of them as prog at all, unless Styx were prog. Pomp-rock?

Seems a few of the synth wizard types started out in prog bands - Vangelis, Kitaro, ehhh I'm sure there's more

Vangelis is a bit of a stretch, Aphrodite's Child had released two albums and had a few hit singles before the made their one and only "prog" album.

it is however the only *good* prog album

was bullied to listen to a Rush album today. enjoyed it ffs

(Signals fwiw, I specified that it had to be from their new wave bullshit era, which was an excellent call, it rocks)

If they have an entry on progarchives.com then they're a prog band in my opinion, also if they make a double concept album about the Book of Revelations being re-enacted by hippies in a circus tent during the course of which the real Armageddon occurs. Sorry but those are the rules.

xpost

Now work your way back to the debut!

Rush not AC, sorry

Same for AC, their first album is great.

yea Demis Roussos was truly a wild singer back then. I can see why it's overlooked but it's definitely very good. don't remember much about the second. anyway I think Matt is right, the folks at progarchives are dorky enough on the subject that I think I'll defer to them on whether or not it counts. I think it's way more psych rock but that sort of narrow thinking is why modern prog is kinda dull so sure, I'll say it counts

Second album is not so good, it's all over the place stylistically plus, bizarrely, someone other than Demis Roussos sings a few song - can you imagine having Demis Roussos in your band and getting someone else to sing?

If it's the drummer Lucas Sideras he sings a bit on 666 too, he's not bad! Although no Demis true.

synth sorceresses

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pH7emilx8ws

Matt, post up the clip with the crazy jester singer if you can, I can never remember the name of the band.

What, this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFfwjUREHJE

They used to be called Popol Vuh so you can remember it that way!

to every nation its popol vuh

That's the one, I couldn't find it

Geir's favourite band called Popol Vuh. Seriously.

I love Popol Vuh but sadly every time it's brought up it just makes me think of "Popozao" by Kevin Federline

wait that's not sad. actually that rules

By the way the jester is Jahn Teigen of Eurovision nul points fame.

I'm not fucking surprised on the evidence of that

Anyone been watching Andy Edwards videos? I think he's interviewed Cardiacs and Uriah Heep members. He was a founding member of Frost and played in IQ and Robert Plant's band for a while.

Most interesting thing was him explaining that it's usually labels that impose that overly polished and edited sound on metal and prog records, I never knew this but it makes sense because InsideOut records often sound like that. He said he had it promised by the label that his drumming performance on the second album would not be screwed around with. So I guess I should send angry emails to the labels for polishing their bands to death? (He did also blame the insecurity of musicians)

I have not but I've seen them pop up a bunch and they look interesting. I really like Frost - but they're a good example of that unnaturally polished sound

He's only in the first two albums and I think that polish is part of the reason he left (not certain about this), but he has kept hammering the point that too much polish/editing is the biggest problem with the genre (metal is probably worse for this)

He occasionally has clickbaity titles/preview images that suggest an old stick in the mud, but he's actually very open minded

I believe this video has most of his arguments about polishing/editing but it's a subject he could talk all day about

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAdGg16OzH0

For all the complaints I could make about indie rock in retrospect, I do appreciate that it hardly ever sounded too polished to my ears.

I have now been bullied to work my way FORWARDS to Hold Your Fire. So far this is very 80s Yes, in a good way

The Patto album?

Funny reference to them here: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cv44gQ4NdB7/

Rush in fullest 80s plumage!

If they have an entry on progarchives.com then they're a prog band in my opinion

...except this leads to absurdities like Kind of Blue as one of the top 100 prog rock albums on their chart.

problem less the category than the ranking there lol