Prog Rock

Anyone watching the prog rock BBC archive footage, followed by documentary this evening?

answer to original poster's question -- Triode On n'a pas fini d'avoir tout vu (with proto-disco flutes!). it played between almost every outside set at terrastock in june and had people a little wiggly

Stuck this on in the background, we're gonna probably play Scrabble

Nice barnet, Moody Blues frontman.

Hardcore flute action, yes it's the Tull!

Wishbone Ash sound like Polvo!

But look like Creme Brulee.

Hang on, I didn't think any of this kicked off till 10pm? For fuck's sake.

An hour of archive footage with what seem to be Steve Wright penned glib captions, followed by the docu, in which Rick Wakeman will no doubt be aloowed to drone on.

Pretty entertaining so far though!

Ah, right. Bugger, missing the archive footage, then (and still up to eyes with work and reluctanct to give up just yet. Tits).

:-( sorry! First capes sighted too...

have any of these put in in an appearance on the archive footing of the show

John Peel / Alan Freeman / Tommy Vance

...and whispering Bob Harris

Not yet, but Jimmy Saville did one of the intros.

Hmmm Emerson Lake & Palmer suck the big one, sadly.

Soft Machine a lot better!

lol Bob Harris!

does Bob Harris look like a long haired hippy?

love Caravan.

i bet Comus are too obscure for this program

any sign of the van der graaf generator yet?

Harris looking well groomed. Genesis now, I think.

radiohead

Genesis - The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway - Live Bern 1975

Robert Wyatt on the documentary :-)

I'm watching the arse end of Big Brother and taping the start of the doc.

Pretty good set of talking heads thus far. Some of the usual "greatest era" stuff, although most contrbutors seem to be able to analyse things a bit more than that.

Scored 321 in a 3-player game against hapless gf's mum (142) and gf (120), who won last night's triple-header and incurred the fitting response. I am the GODLIEST, she the BARMAID. Bam. All this to a lovely soundtrack too. :)

lol you so cool prog rock and Scrabble!

i know right it's totally happening here

at least King Crimson are sounding pretty good.

Jonathan Coe reckons Crimson is "progressive rock at its most melodic" Geir to thread!

Or actually on second thoughts...

uugh "thoroughbred musical statement" fuck you ELP guy.

Swallowing the "punk year zero" myth wholesale. Bit of a shame, except for Wyatt being reasonable and funny!

Yeah, Robert Wyatt came off very well on that.

I might actually have to download some King Crimson & Soft Machine after watching that.

A little bit annoyed at constant reiteration of the canard that anything using 3 chords is unsophisticated, whereas all "prog" as narrowly defined is the epitomy of questing musicianship. Also total lack of acknowledgement that anything punk or that came after punk could be in any way considered "progressive".

That's to be expected though really.

yeah fair point.

Funny, I'm playing Facebook Scrabble and listening to the new Enslaved as I peer in on this thread...

A little bit annoyed at constant reiteration of the canard that anything using 3 chords is unsophisticated, whereas all "prog" as narrowly defined is the epitomy of questing musicianship

Hmm: with the exception of Carl Palmer, I thought everyone was actually quite reasonable about it. Rick Wakeman made the point well, I thought: it's a very British trait to be embarrassed about/dismissive of technical skill. I mean, using three chords is unsophisticated, really. Trouble is, sophistication does not equate to quality ... the way it seemed to me, watching that, the music just got worse and worse until by the mid-seventies a lot of it wasn't just irritating, smug and showy but irritating, smug, showy and completely and utterly shit. I mean, there was a good reason why Tales From Topographic Ocean became an (unwieldy) byword for all that was awful about music ...

But some of the earlier Yes stuff actually sounded quite interesting, which is something I never thought I'd say. And it reminded me of how much I love King Crimson (Bill Bruford's explanation of the difference between playing in Yes and KC was one of the highlights of the entire programme).

Dude from Egg is a little ... intense, isn't he? And Carl Palmer really is a complete and utter tool. Fucking stainless-steel drum kit. Bell-end.

my 'radiohead' comment was a reference to that crimson song introed by annie nightingale. uncanny.

"Bill Bruford's explanation of the difference between playing in Yes and KC was one of the highlights of the entire programme)."

i couldn't bear to watch the doc so i'd appreciate knowing what this was.

I haven't heard the very earliest Yes albums but Fragile and Close to the Edge are good fun, and very pretty.

Yeh, it was Close to the Edge that piqued my interest. Bruford reckoned he'd achieved everything he wanted to do with Yes with that album, and left straight after.

"Bill Bruford's explanation of the difference between playing in Yes and KC was one of the highlights of the entire programme)."

You'd need to watch it to appreciate the arched-eyebrowed subtletly of his delivery, but his point was that Yes was basically a hippy democracy where absolutely everything was discussed at great length (eg should the bass be F natural with the organ in G# on top, or vice versa) whereas in King Crimson there was none of that: "You were just meant to know". He also said that with KC one was expected to develop a style unique to that group: ie they didn't want Bruford in the band because of what he'd done with Yes, but because what he'd done with Yes suggested that he could do something new and specific for KC.

Interesting, cheers.

Bruford and Wyatt were great, esp the latter - just loved everything Wyatt said and it was worth watching for that alone (the laughed hurt as he talks about he 'failed' as a pop star showing some real hunger there, great little take on the punks who followed on). Shame I never really could get on w/Soft Machine. Crimson rule. I wanted someone to ask Bruford about Cobain. Eno should've been on it as a link between glam and prog. No van der Graaf Generator mention wtf?!

The other people on it were a pathetic bunch, fucking hypocrites, talking about how uncompromising they were and crying when they couldn't get enough groupies! Little Richard knock offs were 10x more 'sophisticated' than most of the music on it.

No mention of anything German either, and Pink Floyd seemed to be the prog elepehant in the room, for whatever reason.

Well, its Prog Britannia. I think the German bands were better because they liked Stockhausen and acknowledged that riffs were good and sonatas were a dead man's game.

They cast Floyd in a pre-prog psychedelic/surrealist mode, along the lines of Pepper.

It was fun but flawed. A discussion of prog's lyrical limitations without a mention of Hammill is pretty much sacrilege, for instance.