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This was my experience with the synth 9
Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
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11-24-2021 07:15 PM
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Here are a couple of vids that may help to define what good (great) prog rock was. The first guy is actually a composer and judging by a brief listen to a (choral IIRC) work of his, knows what he's talking about. The second video is the man himself.
Supper's Ready will continue to amaze people for generations to come because of its creative energy and surprising twists and turns, attention to detail, dedication to the art etc etc. OTOH, anybody seeing that Scorpions video is likely to think what a bunch of poseurs. Annoying, buzzy guitar tones, not serious music. IMO, of course. It's like saying Kenny G is jazz.
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An entertaining set of essays about Prog can be found here: Progressive Rock - TV Tropes.
I discovered Prog as a college freshman, mere months after first delving into my Dad’s jazz record collection (1983-1984). It was a short step for me to go from Brubeck to Yes and then Brand X and beyond, especially since I started playing guitar at that time.
I never did “get over” Prog. I see it on a continuum with jazz and jazz rock: RTF is a Prog band to me. At least one algorithm agrees. I played some National Health on YouTube music and the next thing that came up was Mahavishnu followed by RTF.
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That was MY experience with the B9 organ pedal… Originally Posted by Christian Miller
Actually, I do use the B9 a bit to provide a little background for my guitar playing. And to get in touch with my inner Jon Lord.
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Supper’s Ready is certainly peak Genesis and peak Prog. Though I like the late-Prog/early New Wave coolness of The Lamb Lies Down as well. Originally Posted by Peter C
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I still like a lot of prog. I listened to the latest Crimson album, recorded live this fall, just yesterday. I partied like it was 1982! Originally Posted by L50EF15
KC has aged very well, IMO.
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1971-74, I feel, were peak (or the "only") years for both Genesis and Yes. Gabriel, Banks, Hackett, Collins and Rutherford produced Foxtrot and Selling England by the Pound while the latter band put out Fragile and Close to the Edge. I still remember how the opening tracks Watcher Of The Skies and Close To The Edge completely took my breath away on first hearing. I learnt to play along with Watcher but to this day still get lost trying to follow Bruford's drumming in Close To.
Robert Fripp, OTOH, has always been very crafty and remained consistently interesting throughout his career. Belew complemented him beautifully, I think.
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I saw Fripp with the League Of Crafty Guitarists. Seneca College. The power went out during the show and Fripp calmly, without words raised the semi-circle of 20 or so Ovation players and motioned them to the front of the stage where they completed the concert acoustically.
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^Fripp: what a pro!
A bit more on the above two pieces:
The moving Mellotron chords underpinned by the staccato "Morse code" line must have been inspired by Holst's Mars. Their genius was how they developed this into a mind-blowing polyrhythm towards the end of the piece.
After the blistering free form opening to Close The Edge, the thematic development is right off the charts and, by the way, Jon Anderson was more concerned about how the words sounded and blended in with the music, rather than their meaning. So maybe not really fair to judge him for something wasn't even attempting to do!Last edited by Peter C; 11-26-2021 at 05:55 AM.
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This is quite good
the band is best known perhaps for its collaboration with Italian horror movie director Dario Argento, but also released several prog albums in the 70s
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Another Seventies prog band from Italy:
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i'm a Fripp/Crimson fan.
AAL too... it's almost a logical extension, really.
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Ah yeah I quite liked this when I heard on radio a while back (BBC Radio 6) Originally Posted by BWV
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Those two guys were my two favourite guitar player when everyone else was into Vai and Satriani. And then I heard McLaughlin and Holdsworth... I was a dork haha. Originally Posted by Peter C
Funnily enough my appreciation of Hackett came only much later. I wasn't really playing guitar well enough to understand what he was doing back then, and by the time I could play a bit of rock and getting into jazz I wasn't listening to Genesis any more. Hackett, definitely underrated and not much imitated despite young Eddie swiping the finger tapping thing.
Anyway I was listening the other day and heard the solo that starts at 3:50; I wasn't expecting this in my New York Hipster music haha, esp the end lick, maybe a coincidence? Who knows lol.
The guy who I think sounded quite Hackett-esque was Tim Smith, here at 3:00ish - the tone, something about the way he composes/improvises melodies and the way he goes from note to note, not quite legato...
Last edited by Christian Miller; 11-26-2021 at 07:59 PM.
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This theory, which belongs to me, is as follows... This is how it goes... The next thing that I am about to say is my theory.
Having given the question due consideration, The Beatles paved the way with songs like I Want You/She's So Heavy, A Day In The Life, Blue Jay Way I Am The Walrus, though a lot of it probably veered more towards Psychedelia / Stoner. Tomorrow Never Knows is just too damn cool. They were a great influence on Genesis, I know that.
Anyway, I suppose objectively, King Crimson would be the most globally influencial band, especially for their groundbreaking album In the Court of.
That is the theory that I have and which is mine and what it is, too.
PS I saw Genesis in London (Drury Lane, I'm pretty sure) c. 1973 and Hackett played all of his tricky Selling England parts seamlessly and with great aplomb, as I remember.
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The A section in Frame By Frame kills me every time.
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Phil Miller is an underrated guitarist. Hatfield and the North are perhaps the least influential prog band, but no less brilliant for it.
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Thanks to this thread, I'm checking out Henry Cow from this period (Legend and Unrest albums, I believe). They obviously went under my radar as a teenager, but one has bigger ears now.
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Straight outta Cambridge.
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One of the best Prog bands, a Canterbury supergroup. Originally Posted by Litterick
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The Beatles were prog, but more accurately might be called “art rock”, a term which would also apply to the very influential Velvet Underground. The Beatles were more complex than most bands of the day and certainly had more interesting structures, but they were musically not virtuosos (I watched part of the new Beatles doc last night where George says again and again “I just do what I do, I can’t play like Eric [Clapton].”) Of course one of the reasons they were so successful is that they knew the limitations of their technical skills, and spent more time with the craft and arrangements than with general instrumental noodling. They did make the most of their skills. Originally Posted by Peter C
It was kind of like every prog group listened to the Beatles and similar bands, and thought, I am a MUCH better instrumentalist that these guys. I will take what they do to the NEXT LEVEL. But it’s not always a good idea—too many notes, as it were.
Yep—GREAT album. Blew me away at the time, and to see it live… Originally Posted by Peter C
I cannot think of any other bands that used guitars like this. Well, Television was somewhat close, but to interplay arpeggios like this…really one has to go to Baroque music like Bach’s Brandenburgs or maybe some bluegrass ensembles to find something similar.
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Yes I remember listening a lot to that record actually.
I feel there was a heavy systems music/post minimalism vibe in that tune. Not sure what the influence was on Fripp, or how much it was an independent thing, but his music fit into that, and as so many of the New Wave bands in New York were sort of overlapping with the scene with musicians like Reich, Branca and LaMonte Young it fit very well for the vibe with Talking Heads.... I grew up with Fear of Music and Remain in Light, Fripp on the first, Belew on the second.
Of course this was a few years before Reich's Electric Counterpoint, right?
I have written vaguely similar things myself. I forgot about King Crimson though lol, thought I was channeling Reich. Can't get away from those formative influences, now I hear it strongly....
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Since I was on a King Crimson kick recently and made my way through their entire catalog (of studio albums at least), I thought I'd try something different...ELP.
ELP was my absolute favorite band in high school. I literally wore out a copy of Brain Salad Surgery. I listened to them for hours a day.
But...after the execrable Love Beach, I grew disillusioned. I moved away from music with heavy keys and long, meandering solos. ELP kind of became emblematic of the dinosaur in the rock-pop world, destined for extinction.
Nevertheless, I gave them a chance again.
So...does the older music hold up? Well, my ears don't like the bombast nearly as much as they used to, since I've lost my upper hearing registry. When you have tinnitus, loud organ music is not your friend. But...it's not too bad really. The keyboard noodlings of Mr. Emerson go on a bit too long. The lyrics are a bit more trite or at least overdramatic than they seemed at the time. But the songs are solid.
And what really knocked me out was Greg Lake's singing and bass playing. He has got to be one of the best singers in the prog universe, if not heavy metal. Sure Robert Plant is more famous and iconic, but Lake actually has a smoother voice. Peter Gabriel would be another contender, but his voice is, as they say, unusual, and he lacks Lake's range. Lake can belt it out over Tarkus and Karn Evil 9, while singing as pure as a schoolboy on the ballads. An underrated singer for sure.
And his bass playing...he wasn't quite a Jack Bruce or Tony Levin, but he's pretty good, and no slouch at the fast stuff either. He also had a very good sound on the bass.
How he could keep up with Keith Emerson on the big pieces like Toccata and Barbarian is a mystery, especially since (as I've read) he couldn't read musical notation. So he had to learn all that tricky modern orchestral stuff by ear...
Anyway, RIP Greg and Keith. You were great for the time. Thanks for the music.
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Greg Lake was very talented. For me he is up there with Paul McCartney as it relates to being able to play guitar and bass, and sing.
I saw ELP many times and one of my favor parts of the show was when Lake would come out with an acoustic guitar and sing songs like From the Beginning. (the others would also go solo but neither were as interesting to me). While all 3 members of the band were fine musicians, Lake would have been the hardest to replace.
When I was in high school, I had the Quad album of Brain Salad Surgery, and I had a true Quad system. My bedroom was a fold out couch bed, a rack for the stereo system and 4 large JBL speakers; My place was THE place to party (only mom live with us and she worked as a bartender so she would be gone from 8 - 2 PM).
Anyhow that Quad album was really specific in that for some of Emerson's effects only specific sounds would go to one of the 4 speakers. There was one song that would rotate these effects from one speaker to the next creating a rotating effect. Quad died rather quickly. I only had one other quad album and that was of Johnny Winter.
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Somehow, in a stadium their show seemed intimate. I saw them in the 70's and they were really good.
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