Prog Rock

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

at least Gentle Giant is in there! to me the bigger omission is the fact that an article about the persistence of progressive rock doesn't mention any modern prog bands, implying that the genre is essentially dead now. you'd think at least a couple sentences about what Steven Wilson is up to might be in order. still a great read though.

Opeth get a mention! And they sort of do fall under Wilson's canon haha

Animals as Leaders is a newish band that makes the playlist at least

The Sanneh review is good on the '70s bands (the absence of VDGG is a bummer, but I like that he agrees with me that Mahavishnu Orchestra - and Return To Forever, for that matter - were prog), but the purpose of including Lester Bangs' thoughts eludes me. And I say that as someone who devoured both anthologies of his work. Also, no mention of the Mars Volta in the concluding section is just bizarre.

totally

Coheed and Cambria also have some level of popularity but weren't mentioned. Looked at their wiki page and was surprised to see they formed in 1995.

Weird that mainstream critics never picked up on Coheed. I wrote about them for Alternative Press and featured them when I edited Metal Edge; to me they had the same mix of air-guitar complexity and big singalong choruses that Rush had in the '80s.

Don't know anything about Frank Ocean, is it proggy?

seems like the Zappa milieu is more or less the american rendition of prog… virtuosity, allegedly elevating dumb teenage twaddle into real music…only impediment is that he reveled in conveying his sneering jerk persona, which I don't think comported with the high-minded english prog ideal…

american prog soul shared between beefzappa, hendrix, cheer-accident, mr bungle and the allman brothers band (or something)

captain beyond

the fiery furnaces

pharaoh sanders

santana

joanna newsom

mandrill

The music on the Grunt label was a prog equivalent, or at least the JA spinoffs were.
So was the rest of PERRO.

Seems like there was a bit of RIO dotted around the States too.
& something like Hampton Grease Band, not sure what else there was like that or is that Zappa orbit.

Oho too.

Don't know anything about Frank Ocean, is it proggy?

― Robert Adam Gilmour, Monday, 12 June 2017 19:23

seems like the Zappa milieu is more or less the american rendition of prog… virtuosity, allegedly elevating dumb teenage twaddle into real music…only impediment is that he reveled in conveying his sneering jerk persona, which I don't think comported with the high-minded english prog ideal…

― veronica moser, Monday, 12 June 2017 20:52

Thought you were describing Frank Ocean for a minute there

"Don't know anything about Frank Ocean, is it proggy?

― Robert Adam Gilmour, Monday, 12 June 2017 19:23"

no. he can be weird but just being weird doesn't mean proggy.

I remember lamenting on some prog forum about the lack of good American prog from that peak era and they mentioned the Muffins, whom I hadn't heard of. I checked them out and was pleasantly surprised.

Might have been a lack in the 70s but surely there's loads of great American prog bands by now.

Echolyn, Glass Hammer, and IZZ come to mind

there's a fuckload of metal that's prog if you don't mind stuff getting harder & more aggro than normal prog

Battles and Deluge Grander were first American bands to my mind.

I think that article maybe should have spelled it out that prog found a nice refuge and place to grow within metal.

Agree with JCLC there, but outside of metal (and even within) the problem with most nowadays prog is that it sounds more inspired by neo-prog than the 70s stuff or anything with a bit of genuine experimentation or adventure to it. Even a lot of avant-prog could have easily been released at any point in the last 40 years.

I don't have a point btw I'm just grumbling

You could also argue that prog found some relevance in the 90s again through math/post-rock I think, I've never seen any prog documentary/article that acknowledges this.

phish are prog and they're one of the biggest bands in the US

The math rock connection is easier to make but did any post-rock bands namedrop much prog aside from Pink Floyd and some krautrock?

80's crimson

xp I think that still counts, though afaict math/post bands are mostly reluctant to admit any influence from prog, though Krautrock seems to have always had more indie cred than Yes et al

the first album by Todd Rundgren's Utopia is prog, I guess he was an anglophile though

regarding the lack in the 70s -- reposting this from just upthread because there is cool shit in ashratom's rundown that deserves to be heard

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

reluctant to admit any influence from prog, though Krautrock seems to have always had more indie cred than Yes et al

― ultros ultros-ghali, Monday, 12 June 2017 23:45

I'm curious if this is a fear of music journalists? Something more? I find it really weird that apparently lots of bands are embarrassed to admit their influences. Wouldn't journalists be likely to omit mention of bands that were too uncool to their readers?

Subhumans said there was lots of prog bands they would never admit to liking but I don't know if that was to their friends or to journalists and fans.

way too many people are frightened of coming out of the prog rock closet and it's really kind of sad

Well they were talking about back in the early 80s

no. he can be weird but just being weird doesn't mean proggy.

Hallelujah. Zappa is surely prog. And Utopia until they started getting poppy.

As usual, everyone pretending VDGG didn't exist

― imago

pretending VDGG _don't_ exist

seems like the Zappa milieu is more or less the american rendition of prog… virtuosity, allegedly elevating dumb teenage twaddle into real music…only impediment is that he reveled in conveying his sneering jerk persona, which I don't think comported with the high-minded english prog ideal…

― veronica moser, Monday, 12 June 2017 20:52

Thought you were describing Frank Ocean for a minute there

― Robert Adam Gilmour

new username time

prog is so entertaining and satisfying to listen to and expensive to record that critics and record companies needed to intervene to restore the extremely profitable commercial 3 - 4 minute pop song model. that's really what the supposed punk rock revolution was all about