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My hello thread evolved into a nice conversation about one of favorite bands, King Crimson.
Are there any other Crimsos in Hatrack? Any Prog Rock fans? Anybody who just thought that old band that opened for Tool rocked?
Eslaine, that is so cool you found "the next step is discipline" etched into the vinyl of Exposure. I have a live recording when KC were still called Discipline.
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I followed them over the years, they're something I always return to. The complexity of the music is inspiring to me as a musician and composer. I use much of the same compositional tricks in my own works. I have all of the League of Crafty Guitarists stuff, and love that approach to music, but it evolves beyond that. I have Robert Fripp to answer for a lot of the noise I produce.
Bill Bruford is an amazing percussionist. In the 1984 show, Bruford and Belew combined in many parts of the show to form a rythym section for Fripp and Levin. Belew, as you may know, is a competant drummer, that having been his first instrument. Levin often was the only person to keep the groove going, Bruford, coming from a jazz perspective, was more concerned with flow.
But what a flow.
My interest in King Crimson has led me back to Yes. Bruford was a major part of that prog rock band as well. But, as far as prog rock goes, I cut my teeth on Rush. I was lucky enough to see many prog bands of the seventies.
In addition to Fripp, I cannot ignore the Eno side of the equation as well. Their collaberations have lain the groundwork for a whole new generation of electronic oriented music, including myself.
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I was a huge prog rock fan in high school. The first concert I ever saw was Yes. They were my favorite. I had all their albums. I could tell you what year they all came out, who played on each album, and what else they had done. I was a freak.
Since then I've diversified into some other genres. I've replaced about half of Yes onto CD, and I listen occasionally, but I'm not so crazy any more. I have replaced a few of my comprehensive collection of ELP albums onto CD too. I have a few old Genesis albums, some Rick Wakeman and several Alan Parsons Project CDs, some Jethro Tull, Frank Zappa and a few others. I've recently been getting into some Brian Eno. Rush is still one of my favorite bands, and I do have all of their albums on CD. But I don't really consider them prog rock as much as hard rock with a few albums having prog influences.
Anyway, as far as King Crimson, I got In the Court of the Crimson King in about 1988. It's a great album. I hadn't listened to it in several years, and about 6 months ago I put the tape in for nostalgia sake. I'd forgotten how good it was, and I proceeded to replace it onto CD, and I also picked up Starless and Bible Black. If anyone has any suggestions for my next Crimson adventure, let me know.
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Speaking of Jethro Tull, just as I was typing the last post I was listening to Jay Leno's monologue (if I sounded distracted, that's why). Well, according to Jay, Jethro Tull's keyboardist David Palmer just had a sex change, at age sixty-something. He's (she's) now named Dee Palmer. Quite a coincidence, writing about Jethro Tull just as the news breaks.
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I've owned Court of the Crimson King, but now I just own a best of.
Love Pink Floyd. Have owned all their major albums at one point or another.
Have owned Aqualung and Thick as a Brick by Jethro Tull.
I've owned various albums by Peter Gabriel. The Passion being the most recent.
I only own Broadway the Hardway by Frank Zappa, but have always wanted to get more just based off of that. Incredible. I rarely bother going to conerts, but I wish I could have seen him while he was alive.
I'm a huge XTC fan. I'm listening to Drums and Wires quite a bit these days.
I have a couple by Kate Bush. I think The Hounds of Love is one of the best albums ever to come out. Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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I am happy to see a few Prog fans out there. I was first introduced to it back in the 80's when I dug into the back catalog of the band that put out 90125. Sadly, it wasn't until The Great Deceiver box set came out in 92 that I first really listened to King Crimson. Since then I have been hooked.
Speed, if you like Starless, you should check out Lark's Tongues in Aspic from the same period. I have always felt that the band sounds much better live than in the studio, so you may also want to locate The Night Watch (which happens to be the live show that parts of Starless is taken from).
Of course, if you want to sample the other periods of the band, I would recommend Discipline from the 80's, THRAK from the 90's or The Power To Believe from the 00's. All excellent examples of a band taking a brave step forward.
Eslaine, I also "cut my teeth" on early American (or Canadian) radio ready/prog. I still enjoy listening to Rush. The others, like Styx or Kansas, are more nostalgic than anything else. I try not to be embarrassed by the pleasures from my youth.
I try to keep an open mind about most types of music (except American Idol style pop). My changer in the car today has Van Morrison, Willie Nelson, King Crimson, Tenacious D, Tony Rice and Steely Dan.
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Mmmmm.... Steely Dan. One of my all-time favorites. You have some pretty swell taste all around there.
I have a really hard time considering The Police or Talking Heads progressive. The Police especially. They started out straight punk and eventually incorporated some reggae and world music, but I never heard any prog influences. Talking Heads were fairly experimental, and they did collaborate with Brian Eno who worked with Fripp who was in King Crimson, so I guess the lineage is in place. But they seemed much more influenced by the minimalist movement and P-Funk than the grand sweeping theatrical type of classical music that typified prog rock.
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I am not a musician, so I can't really say definitively, but I consider prog rock to be anything that strives to have a depth of ideas and isn't afraid of playing around with different styles and rhythms. Because of this, I think The Police and The Talking Heads are much more 'proggy' than Genesis or Steely Dan, whom I consider mostly pop with a little rock thrown in.
Also, early Police were mostly Ska, not punk at all, while The Talking Heads started off as vaguely New Wave a la Devo but quickly branched out into just about everything, but I like to think of them as a part of the 'World Beat' movement that Peter Gabriel is involved in that likes to use different musical styles from around the world, ie David Byrne's Rei Momo.
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Storm, I don't think that we listed Steely Dan as Prog. I was just listing the CD's in my changer today and Speed said it was one of his faves.
As for Genesis, the early stuff with Gabriel is as Prog as you can get. I know the Phil Collins/MTV days of Genesis is not much more than rock/pop.
Have you heard the first singles from The Police? They were very punk. I would say that many of the New Wave bands were "progressive", but that is reason I like to use the term "prog" to refer to movement that many feel was started with In The Court of the Crimson King, and continued through much of the 70's.
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You might have me there. I just started listening them from Zenyatta Mendatta on, and that stuff is definitely Ska-ish. Can't say before that.
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Storm, I thought the same as you did until I got the Message in a Bottle box set. I think most of the early songs were before the lineup was set. I cannot recall off the top of my head the differences, but you can hear it.
I would like to add that I think that in many ways The Talking Heads and The Police did more to progress music than many of the "prog" bands of the 70's. Even though I love the old stuff, I can still see the irony of the term applied to too many of these bands.
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I agree with you about the New Wave bit, too. I think The Fixx is probably prog New Wave, for example.
I don't think prog rock is something confined to a particular time period. Taht is, I dont' think it's dead. Or is it?
I was thinking about this last night when I saw this thread, and what 'rock' bands have started recently that could really be said to have the same depth and range as Pink Floyd or Peter Gabriel? I like Bjork's stuff. I think she's probably electronica prog, maybe? Anything else?
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quote: ...I consider prog rock to be anything that strives to have a depth of ideas and isn't afraid of playing around with different styles and rhythms.
While you may be able to apply the adjective "progressive" to what you're describing, saying that any rock music that fits Merriam-Webster's definition of progressive is Progressive Rock makes as much sense as calling Pulp Fiction a Western because it was filmed in California. The main problem that I have with your expansive definition of the genre is that it makes a formerly useful descriptive term worthless, as just about any worthwhile rock music ever made could fit that definition. Once you start calling The Beatles, Elvis, They Might Be Giants and Nirvana progressive rock, you're left with no way of describing the genre that contains groups like Yes, ELP and King Crimson.
Anyway, I don't mean to sound grumpy. I just want to explain why I'm not lumping so many groups into the genre. The term "Progressive Rock" (a.k.a. "Art Rock" or "Symphonic Rock") has a specific meaning that is not parallel to the word "progressive." It describes a type of music most popular in the '70s that incorporated dramatic pre-20th century compositional and performance styles into rock music. While Talking Heads is one of my favorite bands, and while I think David Byrne is one of the most original, brilliant and "progressive" (m-w definition) composers of our time, their music had very little to do with the Progressive movement. It's no more an insult than saying that Led Zeppelin didn't write opera. It's just a statement of fact.
This is just by way of explaining how I define terms, which is why I don't see these issues the way you do. I don't really take issue with your ideas though, except maybe this one.
quote: ...Steely Dan, whom I consider mostly pop with a little rock thrown in.
Steely Dan is pop? There are very few more un-pop bands that have ever made it to mainstream radio. Steely Dan is really Jazz Fusion cleverly disguised as Rock so's to help album sales. They're about as much "pop" as they are progressive.
That's just my opinion, though... I may be wrong. Posts: 2804 | Registered: May 2003
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Easy, my friend. (Please let's not be snarky, o.k.? I'm sorry if I came off that way. I didn't mean to.) While you may think that I am being too expansive, I think you are being too restrictive. I admit that I am not using what may be the official Prog Rock™ definition, but I think it's pretty silly to limit a type of music to an official time period. If it walks like a duck, and talks like a duck, it's a duck, regardless of when it was composed, it seems to me. Punk 'officially' died in what? 1980? With the breakup of The Clash? I can't keep track, but anyway, the point is that you still have lots of bands out there that are putting out 'Punk'. What do you call this type of music if it sounds like Punk? Likewise with prog rock.
I realize my verbal definition is very expansive and subjective, but I hope by the stuff that I've given examples of that I've shown that I at least know what the heck it sounds like and that I am being selective. I'm not a musician. I'm just a casual listener. Can't all we prog rock enjoyers just get together and mellow out in harmony, man?
Nirvana as prog rock? Elvis as prog rock?! Yikes!
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Actually, I thought about what you just said, and, along the lines of what you are saying and the type of sound you are describing, I think you are officially right and I am wrong. Maybe the stuff I'm talking about can be prog rock with a little 'p' and the official stuff can be Prog Rock with a big 'P'.
I appreciate the fact that you threw in TMBG, as I was going to do so. Paul Simon, too.
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Storm, I have actually been trying to think of some current Prog Rock bands, and the most I could come up with are The Mars Volta and maybe Primus/Les Claypool. But to be honest neither of these are actually Prog. It is more that they admit the influence.
I can remember a phase of music during the early 90s that many critics labeled "math rock". This took the funky time signatures and complex arrangements from Prog and usually made for some fun rock compositions.
Actually, the main reason I tend to put a time stamp on most Prog is that the truly progressive bands of the Era progressed to something else. Genesis progressed to a commercial pop/rock band. Some members of Yes/King Crimson formed Asia and went the same route.
As for King Crimson, they re-invent themselves every decade or so. I would say that their current style closely resembles a Heavy Prog than anything they have tried since the 70s. They really are their own beast that seems to evolve on an isolated island. The Galapagos turtles of the music world.
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TMBG... Have anyone seen the documentary Gigantic? Is like VH1 Behind The Music, except TMBG don't do drugs or haven't had to deal with excessive fame.
Cool doc. Great band.
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Hey, I think my tone was a little more heavy-handed than I meant it. Did you ever see the Kids in the Hall sketch where Dave Foley has a speech impediment that causes everything he says to sound really sarcastic? "Noooo. Don't go. I reeeely want to be your friend..." I'm afraid I have a similar malady when I get off on a tangent. No hard feelings, eh?
Anyway, I didn't mean to imply any time restrictions on the genre. Yes are still touring and making albums (although I haven't bought one since 1990), and it's as Prog as ever. I just mentioned the '70s in the definition by way of example, as that's the era that typifies the sound. As far as I'm concerned, there's no such thing as time restrictions on musical genres. Steve Morse has written some great Baroque music in the 20th century, but I'd still describe the sound in relation to music that was being produced in the 18th century.
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I can see after reading through the thread why you would qualify that statment speed.
Ian Anderson talked about the early days in one of the numerous radio interviews I've heard over the years about Jethro Tull and their realtionship with Yes.
At the time (the mid to late 60's) the trend in clubs was to populate shows with bands that were extremely different from each other, as opposed to what we see today with groups of a certain genre play on the same bill. They apparently thought that if the music was similar, then the audience would get bored of the show. So these guys were going out of their way to be different. Yes went with the chamber music approach, Jethro Tull went with a jazz approach, etcetera.
This attempt at variation even led a certain acoustic guitarist/vocalist to pick up a flute he spied in a pawn shop one day, just to be different.
It's just one aspect of how prog rock came into being. It got influences from Pete Townsend, the Moody Blues and Led Zeppelin, as well as others that are not considered to be part of the genre. These influences and variations led to Roxy Music, Talking Heads, and other strange varients that are not considered prog rock.
The problem with classifying them is that most of these guys were just trying to be different. And though it's easy to say Rush is prog rock (definitely influenced by Yes, Led Zeppelin, and King Crimson, or so I think, anyway) really most of these bands never set out to be of a certain genre.
They just have their influences.
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I agree that we should not put a time stamp on a genre. Yes is one example of a band still making viable music that easily fits into classic definition of prog. In other ways, so is King Crimson.
If anyone does know any bands, large or small, that is still making some good prog, fill me in. I am always looking for new music.
Eslaine, I didn't realize that they used to try to vary the bill of a show like that. That does explain some things. I love it when a band will experiment with non-traditional instrumentation.
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