Educate me on "real" Prog Rock.

[Deluge Of Sound]

I've been falling into kind of a musical rut recently, and to combat it I've decided to delve into one of those genres that has always held kind of a flirting interest with me: Prog.

Now, I love King Crimson, early The Mars Volta, Mahavishnu's first record, and Tool. Dream Theater, Opeth, and the like have always left me cold (though Porcupine Tree is pretty cool), and usually my taste runs more towards the raw and psychedelic (Acid Mothers Temple, Boris, stuff like that) than the structured.

So what should I check out?

[Nivlem]

Selling England by the Pound (by Genesis) -- it is quite structured, but very musical.

Musicmagic (by Return To Forever) -- in the border between prog and jazz-rock, with plenty of cheesy lyrics as a bonus

[Valerus]

What era of Opeth have you listened to?

[Deluge Of Sound]

I saw them live in 2008, and left after the third or fourth song. I know they opened with a track called Heir Apparent (because I saw some dude type it into his phone ), but the other few remain a mystery to me.

[Blackbird]

Early Genesis (With Peter Gabriel) is a good place to Start. The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway is considered a great achievement.

One band I'm planning to look into is Gentle Giant. Apparently, they were musically complex even by Progressive Band standards - Most band members played multiple instruments to the point of having 30+ instruments listed in the credits, all played by the actual band members. They also delved into musical territory nor usually associated with prog rock, such as soul music and jazz.

[thirtypoint87]

Am I really the first person here to mention Rush?

One of their recent live albums will give you a sampling of their various eras. (Some were, um, better than others, y'dig?)

[Barkless Dog]

Soft Machine, Brand X, Happy The Man, Caravan, Ozeric Tentacles, Oceansize, The Lucky Bishops, Zappa- Roxy & Elswhere lp. Jean Luc Ponty.
Anything with Alan Holdsworth on it.

[21niko21]

Everyone's covering the bases well, but I'm going to mention one that might get left out otherwise.

Check out Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. We recently took a friend to see them (who didn't realize he was in a musical rut until the show started), and he described them as a musical colon cleansing...which is perfect.

[stratovani]

Get some early Moody Blues, especially Days Of Future Past and To Our Childrens' Childrens' Children. Arguably one could consider them the fathers of Prog Rock.

[Din Of Win]

To name a few....

Magma, Univers Zero, Zao (not the metalcore one), Combat Astronomy, Amon Duul II, Thinking Plague, Za!, 5uu's, Present, Art Zoyd, Shub Niggurath, Eskaton, Faust, Dysrythmia, Admiral Browning, Area, Ruins, Weidorje, Dun, Premiata Forneria Marconi, After Crying.


...just a few

[king rew]

Check out Yes.
Chris Squire is an amazing bass player, my favorite

[somegeezer]

Originally Posted by Blackbird

Early Genesis (With Peter Gabriel) is a good place to Start. The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway is considered a great achievement.

One band I'm planning to look into is Gentle Giant. Apparently, they were musically complex even by Progressive Band standards - Most band members played multiple instruments to the point of having 30+ instruments listed in the credits, all played by the actual band members. They also delved into musical territory nor usually associated with prog rock, such as soul music and jazz.

Are you kidding yeah? You do know that Jazz is probabaly the most popular style studied by Progressive musicians? That's be like saying Symphonic Metal bands didn't understand a thing about Classical scores.

[Jim Carr]

I always liked Family's 2 albums and Gentle Giant. But then again, I also liked Leif and Leige by Fairport Convention and forgave Traffic for their "baseless failure," so call me an Anglophile "Jeff Beck Truth loving pro-Yardbirds/Mayall/Kinks acid tripmeister," OK? OK? OK?

[PhR]

Van Der Graaf Generator and Peter Hammill. Start with "Godbluff" or "Still Life".

Hatfield & The North and National Health. Great jazzy prog, very English stuff. Great bass players: Richard Sinclair, Mont Campbell, Neil Murray and John Greaves.

[Arthur Strand]

Hi! I did not obsess on Prog but I met Genesis when they were reasonably new, witnessed King Crimson's debut at the London Marquee Club, went to several YES gigs,went to see Van der Graaf Generator in the neighbouring county on the wrong date and now Dave Jackson lives around the corner. I spoke to Peter Gabriel and did they not do well? Mike Rutherford was the Bass man then & the drummer was to remain an unknown. I followed Camel with the now late Peter Bardens around the region. I met the Enid and one or two similar bands. I do not obsess on any genre especially since I started playing Lute tablature and Flamenco on just acoustic guitar. I reserve bass work for recording my own material. By all means check out prog rock. Rick Wakeman's stuff like the 6Wives of Ling Henry VIII - apparently I know the bassist if it is Les Hurdle who started in the same Brass Band here in UK as I did and I have met the Strawbs guitarist , Dave Lambert who has moved to our town - Wakeman was formerly a Strawb.
Strawbs were named after Strawberry Hill, a district West of London where there are no strawberries and certainly no hill.!!!

[Blackbird]

Originally Posted by somegeezer

Are you kidding yeah? You do know that Jazz is probabaly the most popular style studied by Progressive musicians? That's be like saying Symphonic Metal bands didn't understand a thing about Classical scores.

I think that the operative word in your statement is studied. While progressive rock musicians may have studied Jazz, that influence may not be as obvious in their recorded output. My point was that the style is more evident in Gentle Giant recordings than in other so-called Progressive Rock groups.

[neurotictim]

Mastodon is a particular favorite of mine, especially with the release of "Crack the Skye".

Porcupine Tree, you said, left you cold... Have you listened to their earlier stuff? It's much less guitar-oriented and more atmospheric.

I like Liquid Tension Experiment, some Mogwai, some Don Caballero, and anything by Gordian Knot, for instrument "proggy-sounding" stuff, and Tribal Tech, though that's heavily jazz-influenced, might be more correct to say "Jazz/Progressive" than rock.

On the "sorta-kinda-proggy" front, Mudvayne has several songs with odd tempos and structures, Coheed and Cambria can fall into that category.

[PhR]

Originally Posted by Blackbird

My point was that the style is more evident in Gentle Giant recordings than in other so-called Progressive Rock groups.

I don't see much jazz in Gentle Giant. Medieval stuff, folk, soul, hard rock, funk even, but not much jazz.

Canterbury prog bands like Soft Machine and Hatfield & The North were very jazzy, or even Camel during the "Rain Dances" era. King Crimson circa "Lizard" and "Islands".

[john turner]

hey, what the heck, check out my band, in the myspace link in my sig. there are 10 tracks from our 2 cds there, sorta 70's era classic prog style.

7-15 part vocal harmonies, lots of long song, odd times, multiple changes, self-indulgent instrumental passages... yep, we have it all .

[Blackbird]

Originally Posted by PhR

I don't see much jazz in Gentle Giant. Medieval stuff, folk, soul, hard rock, funk even, but not much jazz.

Hm, maybe I was thinking of another group. At least I got the soul bit right...