Best Prog Rock?

[mb94952]

Lordradish said
Going to a prog rock concert still looks like a celibate-middle-aged dude convention.

Since this has morphed into a prog thread... anyone here think that a lot of neo-prog still sounds tainted by the 80's? I know they're not big anymore, but I remember thinking that about Spock's Beard, and it's why I can't stomach Dream Theater. There's something about the vocals and some of the guitar and production in neo-prog that sounds straight outa 90125 or some hair band. Anything that Billy Sherwood seems to be involved in has that sheen, too. I've always been of the classic prog mindset. The genre just stopped appealing to me when the big 80's sell-out happened.

Of course, I fully expect a tirade of arrows coming my way after this one. I've just seen the 80's as the decade where music got crappy and it really tainted the prog genre in ways I don't like.

All just taste and opinions, though, your mileage may vary.

Agree 100%. I was going to say I'm glad that DT kept prog alive, but as I was typing I realized it would've kept itself alive because we would've sought it out and like this thread has done, I now know of bands I had never heard of. My old guitar player from the 90's, (old friends growing older. Thanks Neil Peart) has the HUGEST collection of vinyl of the most obscure prog bands. He is my hero.

As for the first statement, I guess I fall into that category. The only porn I watch is bass porn. It would be nice to meet a Geddycorn.

 

[Richland123]

If you want some other types of prog stuff, here are Liquid Tension Experiment, Transatlantic, and
Bozzio Levin Stevens.

Liquid Tension Experiment - John Petrucci, Jordan Rudess, Mike Portnoy, & Tony Levin



Transatlantic - Neal Morse, Mike Portnoy, Roine Stolt, & Pete Trewavas



Bozzio Levin Stevens - Terry Bozzio, Tony Levin, & Steve Stevens

 

[LBS-bass]

We all make mistakes, such as me not including Yes on the list initially (as well as many other notable bands it seems ...)

Yep, we sure do. The problem so many of us have is not forgiving them, either our own or those of others But I am appreciative that you did start this thread because it's been interesting to see some of the bands being named. Some of them are new to me and others are a trip down memory lane

 

[Richland123]

How about some prog with a jazz fusion bend to it by Kittyhawk?

 

[Jeff Scott]

How about some prog with a jazz fusion bend to it by Kittyhawk?

I saw them in Columbus when they toured the first album.

 

[jerry]

I saw them in Columbus when they toured the first album.

They even played out here, small club, great show.

 

[Richland123]

Big Big Train is doing some cool, prog stuff.

 

[Btbp]

Thanks for that reminder, Big Big Train is on my NeoProg To Check Out list, having heard only a little of them and not recently, and because they have a reputation for good music, as do The Pineapple Thief which was mentioned earlier.

I humbly suggest we leave Fusion off this thread as that genre, of which I am also a long-time fan and practitioner, is also deep and wide and deserving of its own thread. Fusion ≠ Prog.

 

[Sid Fang]

I humbly suggest we leave Fusion off this thread as that genre, of which I am also a long-time fan and practitioner, is also deep and wide and deserving of its own thread. Fusion ≠ Prog.

And yet...

After a Fripp/Wetton/Bruford/Cross King Crimson gig in 1974, I interviewed Bruford for my college radio station. The cassette was lost long ago, but the two things I remember were (a) Bruford's snark about Jon Anderson having all of Yes "banging on things and calling it percussion" (Tales from Topographical Oceans tour), and (b) his out-of-the-blue comment that "In America, you have this 'fusion' problem". Yet tell me - is this prog, or is this fusion?

 

[Lee Moses]

And yet...

After a Fripp/Wetton/Bruford/Cross King Crimson gig in 1974, I interviewed Bruford for my college radio station. The cassette was lost long ago, but the two things I remember were (a) Bruford's snark about Jon Anderson having all of Yes "banging on things and calling it percussion" (Tales from Topographical Oceans tour), and (b) his out-of-the-blue comment that "In America, you have this 'fusion' problem". Yet tell me - is this prog, or is this fusion?

I'm not sure what you are asking. Bruford (the band) is clearly fusion. Phil Collins played drums in Genesis, a prog band, and also in Brand X, a fusion band. Sometimes the two genres do meet, but they are generally distinct.

 

[Btbp]

Back to Prog. Other Prog.

Either schlocky or brilliant or both, but fun and great musicians and production, EuroZappaSpaceMetalSciFiFantasyProg – the kind of thing you leave on in the background to play a few times until the silliness wears off and the catchy music remains. Great vox including those of Sir Russell. Great synth solos, and, those fantastic Jansen sisters. Great harmonies towards the end. Star One (Ayeron / Arjen Lucassen) - Live


Other NeoProg

Arena (with Clive Nolan keyboardist of Pendragon)




Porcupine Tree - mentioned earlier of course, but not this which is where I stared before working backwards in their catalog


Shadow Gallery - Rock-like ProgMetal
Killer synth solo


(32nd and 64th note warning)


Jordan Rudess solo album, with Steve Morse, Terry Bozzio, Billy Sheehan, and closing trading 8s solos to die for

 

[Btbp]

And yet...

After a Fripp/Wetton/Bruford/Cross King Crimson gig in 1974, I interviewed Bruford for my college radio station. ... Yet tell me - is this prog, or is this fusion?

Lucky you! Enviable.

But I am with Lee Moses on this.
I was at that concert, or that tour anyway. LI NY I think. I see it as only Fusion, as with all of the Bruford Band material (with Earthworks he went on to do more straight-ahead Jazz). If there is one Bruford Band piece that approaches anything Prog-like, would be this. (I used to play the crap out of this and 5G on the same album, a bass player's dream song).

But nah, Fusion.

If you haven't read Bruford's book I highly recommend it, I read it twice, there is a lot of materiel and it's well-written.

 

[roccobass]

Lucky you! Enviable.

But I am with Lee Moses on this.
I was at that concert, or that tour anyway. LI NY I think. I see it as only Fusion, as with all of the Bruford Band material (with Earthworks he went to to do Jazz). If there is one Bruford Band piece that approaches anything Prog-like, would be this. (I used to play the crap out of 5G on the same album).

But nah, Fusion.

If you haven't read Bruford's book I highly recommend it, I read it twice, there is a lot of materiel and it's well-written.

All things Bruford are way cool.

 

[Sid Fang]

I was at that concert, or that tour anyway. LI NY I think.

In my case, it was the Columbus, Ohio gig. It was pretty cool to have that one later mastered and published from the DGM live archives and hear some of the Fripp banter I remembered.

I see it as only Fusion, as with all of the Bruford Band material (with Earthworks he went on to do more straight-ahead Jazz).

OK, but do you have any objectively expressible rationale for that statement? I mean, yes, Earthworks (which I also saw a couple of times - great ensemble) was a jazz group, but the Bruford/Holdsworth (or Clarke)/Berlin/Stewart band wasn't all THAT different from U.K. in the compositions and arrangements. There's been some half-assed discussion of what makes prog prog on this thread, but nothing that would put Bruford's early solo albums outside prog that would not also exclude a lot of the prog canon. And, as I said, Bruford himself disapproved of 'fusion'.

If there is one Bruford Band piece that approaches anything Prog-like, would be this. (I used to play the crap out of 5G on the same album, a bass player's dream song).

It's a fantastic album. I chose Abingdon Chasp, even though it's a Holdsworth song, because the dropped-fractional-beat counting on the chorus is very un-jazzily perverse in a very proggy way.

And there's the minor fact that that band (or at least the incarnation where Clarke replaced Holdsworth to tour the US) performed the song that was later performed by King Crimson as "Indiscipline", only without the vocal. The band comped on that loping rhythm while Bruford soared around it in accelerando and decelerando fills. Are you suggesting that all it takes to turn fusion into prog is an Adrian Belew spoken word voice-over?

 

[Btbp]

OK, but do you have any objectively expressible rationale for that statement?
I'm taking the Pornography analogy / 5th on that one.

And there's the minor fact that that band (or at least the incarnation where Clarke replaced Holdsworth to tour the US)
Aha, that is the tour I saw, he referred to himself as "The Unknown John Clarke". Totally forgot, thanks for reminding me.

Are you suggesting that all it takes to turn fusion into prog is an Adrian Belew spoken word voice-over?
Er, no...... But Porno. I will now post something indisputably Prog.....

 

[LBS-bass]

Thanks for that reminder, Big Big Train is on my NeoProg To Check Out list, having heard only a little of them and not recently, and because they have a reputation for good music, as do The Pineapple Thief which was mentioned earlier.

I humbly suggest we leave Fusion off this thread as that genre, of which I am also a long-time fan and practitioner, is also deep and wide and deserving of its own thread. Fusion ≠ Prog.

What if you were in a band that was a fusion of fusion and prog?

 

[Btbp]

Examples of the often-overlooked American Prog great Utopia at their Proggiest peak in this incarnation of the band:





But I really want to delve more into a lot of the late 60s/early 70s classic British and German Prog that I overlooked over the years, and, catch up on the newer NeoProg since 2008 or so.

 

[Sid Fang]

Taking the 5th? Surely, this being a prog thread, you're either going to take the 6th or the flat 5!

 

[Doctor Intrepid]

I'm finally getting the chance to listen to some of the other stuff posted. Great stuff!

 

[Sid Fang]

But I really want to delve more into a lot of the late 60s/early 70s classic British and German Prog that I overlooked over the years,

While this isn't the proggiest of Amon Duul II, the matching to the old silent movie footage starting at 0:37 is marvelous: