Prog Rock

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

Was in Fopp today and seen 20 Flower Kings albums and so many bands I've never heard of using Roger Dean pastiche cover art.

New Banco and PFM albums but none of the old ones. Amazed at some of the stuff stocked these days.

Didn't know the original Banco frontman was in a few Fellini films, I'll have to keep an eye out next time. He had a great look, his beard used to be inane. Need to get bloody Darwin too.

Helpful for me, I only have one of them
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iN8H7ck_mJ4

There's only really a dash of rock (never mind prog) in Escalator Over the Hill, but it's highly worth hearing. I haven't heard the Corea/Lenny White/RTF records he mentions, but the others I've heard are pretty frustrating: bombastic when they try to be intense and cutesy when they try to be lyrical.

Prog fans claim everything is prog.

Definitely happens but I like hearing about albums like this in other genres and jazz fusion has a lot of potential crossover.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siTjgLEec2w

I don't recall ever seeing a full-time French horn player in a band before (though he seems to pick up a fluegelhorn towards the end), it must be even more uncommon than having an oboist.

I've posted about this in the Yes thread but there's a bar here that does a "prog night" every month. basically a DJ brings in a turntable, a computer, and a video projector, and just plays prog rock for 3-4 hours (the joke always is, "what's that, like 9 songs?"). I always have a blast if for no reason other than how surreal it is to be at a bar that's playing my kind of music. like how many bars in the country are playing stuff like Gong and Soft Machine at that sort of volume? plus it does draw a good crowd I think.

anyway the dude who does it has to have surgery, but he still wants it to happen next month, so he asked some of the regulars if anyone wanted to take over. I immediately said "I'll do it!", half joking, but he was just like well alright then, let me show you the mixing board. he went through everything, I understood maybe a third of it, but regardless he told me "alright, you're up, let's see what you got, mix something into this record". what was playing was "Thela Hun Ginjeet" and I'm thinking okay this isn't fair, I know it's Crimson but its not really prog, and obviously I gotta play something prog. and I'm panicking because I can't think of anything, plus I'm not really confident I know how to use the board (I'd never touched one before this), also you know it's prog night obviously we were all smoking in the back so I was also high as hell. also I'm not really sure where in the song we are, like how many spoken word sections are there in this song? two? three? can't let it go to "Sheltering Sky", people are grooving back there and to tell the truth I'm super nervous. because I really do want to do this!! I have always wanted to DJ, but always thought my tastes were too esoteric and strange, so no one would really like it.

but I do figure something out! "Day and Age" by Frost, it's not quite as funky but it is fast and it rules very much. turns out to go down pretty well, and the dude just leaves me back there. so I'm playing all sorts of shit - "Communion with the Sun" by Utopia, the second half of "Emperor and His War Room", "Watcher of the Skies" of course (I had to, dude plays it every night), the funky bit of "Mister Class and Quality", "Going for the One", and the battle section of "Gates of Delirium", which fucking rips at this volume. plus a number of requests. mostly just excerpts, the good 4 minutes of this and that, but I did play one track in full, "Ship of Fools" by Motorpsycho which actually brought people out on the dance floor. totally surreal experience where I'm telling myself "is this really happening??" . I think I was there for like an hour and a half. apparently the guy thought I did a good job because he told me I should take all the equipment, bring a bunch of records, and do it next month. so uh...yeah. I gotta figure out how to hook all this shit up!!

That's so cool frobs! Good luck and definitely post what you end up playing next month.

What fun!

A Star Is Born.

That's awesome.

Jealous, frogs. I would love to dj a prog night.

welp I found my opening track

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

nice choice!