Prog Rock

looking forward to this book but weigel's a bit glib in that interview. "carouselambra" is one of the last great prog epics of the '70s

if nothing else, they completely destroyed the boundary of what rock bands sounded like, just on the production front. Nobody sounded like them, and yet everyone who came after them had to contend with their sound.

As far as the music itself, they played blues (obv), proto-metal on their early stuff, folk rock, brought in Middle Eastern elements, orchestral arrangements, played James Brown beats (in 7 no less), tacked reggae, samba. Zep were about as progressive as a rock could be without actually being considered prog. Compare their output to, say, ACDC mentioned, Foreigner, BTO, Ted Nugent, Aerosmith. As straight up rock music goes, none of those bands could really compete with any aspect of Zep's sound or reach.

Compare their output to, say, ACDC mentioned, Foreigner, BTO, Ted Nugent, Aerosmith. As straight up rock music goes, none of those bands could really compete with any aspect of Zep's sound or reach.

Absolutely agree, 100%. But compare them and their tricks* to, say Yes, or King Crimson, of Soft Machine and they seem pretty straight forward.

*feel like 90% of their tricks are Bonham based, i.e. the fucking awesomeness of the drum sound, his different beats etc

I agree that he's off base w/r/t Zeppelin, but I like this quote:

I’d start with King Crimson’s Red or In the Court of the Crimson King. Both of those have really accessible riffs and rock structures and then zoom into outer space. And if you listen and say, “I wish they’d just get rid of the violin and flute sections,” then maybe progressive rock is not for you.

"They were just a very loud rock band." (xp)

xp
Sure, and compare them to Magma, and they're just a boring blues rock band. They weren't a prog band -- but I contend they certainly could have been if you nudge them one or two degrees in any number of different directions.

carouselambra" is one of the last great prog epics of the '70s

see, Carouselambra sounds pretty straight forward to me, not proggy at all.

Was just listening to "Down By the Seaside," and even that weird-ass song goes from kind of lazy river country to this strange minor key hard rock bit before going back to country.

Question: is Led Zeppelin more or less prog than Pink Floyd? imo, yes.

omg no

Yeah, I dunno! I know PF gets tagged prog, but a lot of the things I think of as prog they don't really do. Proto prog?

Bluesy space rock? Can a band be prog without a virtuoso drummer? Is that a prog paradox?

they may or may not be prog but they are way more prog/have more prog elements/leanings than zep!

The Who are proggier than both.

(ok, probably not, but there's no "Baba O'Riley" or "Who Are You" equivalent in LZ or PF's oeuvres)

"stairway to heaven" is one of the catchiest three-movement prog rock suites, right up there with "starship trooper"

"But I think John Wetton’s lyrics for King Crimson were dark and interesting."

what? king crimson is your favorite band and you wrote a book on prog. when did john wetton write lyrics for king crimson?

weigel whiffed that interview imo.

Oops.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starless

I think that interview does a good job at highlighting some of the contradictions inherent in "defining prog" in 2017. Because prog's defenders, on the one hand, have a strong interest in defining progressive rock as a uniquely creative musical form, and on the other hand feel compelled to draw those lines so as to defend the definition created by, I don't know, the early '80s, a definition which was not based around "creativity". And the reason Zep got left out was not because they didn't employ the genre tropes associated with prog - mellotron, instrumental virtuosity, long songs, songs in odd time signatures - but because throughout their career they worked in a style defined as antithetical to prog: Blues. This is how Robert Fripp gets to be a prog avatar, because he's one of the least bluesy electric guitarists of the 20th century. This is why one of the unsigned reviews of Weigel's book questions his assertion that Jethro Tull were a prog band, on the grounds that they played blues.

So we have a situation, with prog, where the key signifier of the genre is exclusionary, and none of the genre's defenders will acknowledge or even recognize this.

Said it many times but a lot of neo-prog and prog for the core audience since then just sounds like generic rock.

If you think Soft Machine (whom I adore) are the really weird, hardcore, difficult stuff then you probably have no business writing a book about prog

I embrace the core sentiment that prog is the sibling of punk though

I know there's a lot of people who stick to the English stuff and a few other heavyweights but it seems to me that a lot of prog fans try to have an international grasp of the genre.

He never said Soft Machine were at the far edges, he just said they're less accessible than King Crimson and Yes.

I like this clip of Dan Britton explaining what makes "Stairway" sound so proggy, I love these kinds of breakdowns

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jK1bpJvmVc

jimmy page and jp jones were both virtuosos. the key signifier of the genre is sci-fi / fantasy exploration, i'd say, with transportive/transcendent/progressive (as in political) lyrics and trippy (oftentimes virtuosic but not exclusively) music framing those expeditions. zeppelin is 'not prog' when they sing about banging chicks. they're prog when they're fighting the battle of evermore, moving through kashmir, watching the mighty arms of atlas hold the heavens from the earth

they're dorks either way. sometimes they stumbled on decent tunes

More than that, Zep were progressive because they had a total willingness to step beyond of the trappings of blues rock. In fact, there's an old John Paul Jones quote how about when III came out, he was glad nobody was ever going to compare them to Black Sabbath anymore. They were a band who wore "eclecticism" well, even when wrongheaded critics of the time thought they were just stealing stuff from other artists. The way I see it, Zep seemed a lot more open minded about music than, say, Yes, who would spend months recording every possible permutation of a chord sequence just to appease the various egos involved.

i have one of those archival soft machine cds, i forget which one, there's like a million, and in there is an interview with mike ratledge in which he expresses interest in moving into areas that are "not necessarily 'progressive'". this is an interview from 1969. from what i've read i kind of take from that that what we think of as "progressive rock" is not necessarily in line with what people thought about it when it was new. particularly the primacy of gabriel-era genesis, who don't seem to have been any more popular than van der graaf generator when nursery cryme came out, and were at some point elevated to the level of stadium bands like ELP and Yes.

zeppelin is 'not prog' when they sing about banging chicks. they're prog when they're fighting the battle of evermore, moving through kashmir, watching the mighty arms of atlas hold the heavens from the earth

― reggie (qualmsley)

the riff for "achilles last stand" came out of live versions of "dazed and confused", a "mah woman done me wrong" song. the thing that makes zeppelin interesting is that you can't draw a clear line between those things.

by the hammer of the gods, i swear lots of things make zeppelin interesting. they were eclectic as fuck. bands like iron maiden can still be "prog" (to me) even if not every single one of their songs is "heart of the sunrise" or "supper's ready". don't know why discourse around this musical mode is so touchy. maybe if i were older or british i'd have a better handle on all the stigmas

of course zep was inventive, he's defining invention and pushing boundaries on prog's terms which is one of the achilles (last stand) heels of prog

wire was inventive and pushed boundaries with pink flag just as much as king crimson did, booker t & the mgs were just as much virtuosos as yes

but prog has always been myopic about defining what constitutes virtuosity, boundary pushing and invention

was gong or nektar pushing boundaries more than, say, throbbing gristle or giorgio morodor? roxy music? neu?

What usually happens is that those bands will be claimed for Prog.

roxy music and neu! were claimed For Prog when the canon was established - neu! are krautrock, and the canon-makers unilaterally declared that Krautrock Is Prog. roxy music there has been a little more debate regarding, with some people claiming that they are not prog but "art rock", but the boundaries between "art rock" and "prog" are sufficiently nebulous, and "art rock" vaguely enough established as a genre on its own (i think now they call it "zolo"), that they've been grandfathered in, especially with eno working on the lamb and so forth.

throbbing gristle and moroder aren't and won't be prog - since they weren't working in the early '70s they can be conveniently be ignored on chronological grounds.

I thought zolo was more pogo-stick rhythm stuff, like early Cardiacs or Oingo Boingo

to me, "art rock" is essentially prog for people who think they are tool for prog

also many of the bands who are called Krautrock hate the term

esp i think Neu

my point is these labels are arbitrary and fun but i doubt the bands think about em all that much

Musicians generally don't like labels.

the arbitrariness of genre labels is greatly exaggerated. yes, "krautrock" is a derogatory term coined by an english music journalist, "zolo" was invented by some internet music nerd who wanted a genre that described both the cardiacs and kate bush, but at the same time even saying "labels are arbitrary" doesn't authorize me to describe momus as zamrock.

no no it's cool, i get it. i love thinking about this kind of stuff

manning the gates and drawing boundaries is fun and all but there's still so much obscure prog to rediscover that i hope someday they enter the conversation as seems to happen in every other genre

http://rateyourmusic.com/list/ashratom/usa_midwest___ontario_progressive_rock__1970s_early_80s_/

oh, man, ashratom is just amazingly knowledgable about prog-rock, i've picked up so much stuff from reading his reviews and lists. i don't quite understand why it is he has such a fondness for '70s midwestern semi-comm. aor but i'm certainly not going to question it. whenever i think i've heard all the '70s prog rock any sane person would want to hear in a lifetime, guys like ashratom will bring up a record like kracq's _circumvision_ and i realize that there is not ever an end to the great music out there even when you try to restrict it to something that should by rights be finite, like "1970s prog rock".

yeah that list in particular really turned me onto a lot of cool stuff

he used to run a few great blogs back in the day. while I don't share the enthusiasm for some of this stuff I don't think he's really led me wrong yet

momus as zamrock.

― Cyborg Kickboxer (rushomancy), Thursday, May 25, 2017 1:08 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

welcome to zamrock

. i don't quite understand why it is he has such a fondness for '70s midwestern semi-comm. aor but i'm certainly not going to question it.

you mean like starcastle and early styx and kansas etc? chuck did some good writing on that

starcastle are awesome, idk about the other two though

i mean i like "totus nemesis" ok but most people seem to prefer the kansas songs that don't devolve into noise-rock. and their understanding of christian doctrine is awful enough that i'd prefer it if they didn't promulgate their ignorance so widely.

ah Yezda Urfa on that list! wish Yes had it in them to make a stripped down gem like Sacred Baboon by '76

new sufjan / nico collaboration is pretty nice

http://www.salon.com/2017/06/03/sufjan-stevens-bryce-dessner-nico-muhly-planetarium/

Kelefa Sanneh on the Weigel book

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/06/19/the-persistence-of-prog-rock

As usual, everyone pretending VDGG didn't exist