Prog Rock

xpost Kansas' debut is from 1974. Angel started in 1975, but were more hard rock than prog. Clearlight and Crack the Sky are 1975 too, but maybe not major enough. Journey debuted in '75 and were prog at that point.

What are some other major prog bands that started as late as Rush did, in 1975?

Not counting supergroups who had made their names earlier in the decade, and possibly with quibbles about both "major" and "prog", the Alan Parsons Project?

It's also notable that I'm sure no-one considered Rush to be prog until at least 1976, maybe 1977, so in that respect they were even later to the game.

Rush's debut is from 1974 btw

Marillion started in 1979!

But that was the next wave, it was self-consciously retro at that point.

Prog took off later in the US, it took a few years for the bands influenced by Yes/Tull etc to get to the point of releasing anything. Hence the mid-70s intake. (not counting Zappa here, he was his own thing)

Hadn't listened to Camel before, the intro to that really reminded me of Rennaissance's Can You Understand (does everyone always say that?)

The Enid formed in 73 but debut album was 76. I imagine a bunch of Rock In Opposition bands were late starters too.

Are Clearlight, Angel, Crack The Sky and Alan Parsons Project a good time?

Camel are really good. I avoided them for years because I was under the impression they were dodgy symphonic slop in some sub-yes way, but they are not.

I avoided them for years because I was under the impression they were dodgy symphonic slop in some sub-yes way

exact same for me! maybe i'll give 'em a whirl

mel collins _did_ get around, he was a big session player starting in about the '80s... he's on the first milli vanilli album...

re: us prog - i just think that the us psych movement went a different direction from the uk psych movement... in the uk a lot of the psych bands went prog, whereas in the us they went, i don't know. what the fuck would you even call jefferson starship? cocaine, maybe. there isn't a lot of cocaine prog.

i always thought of camel as more sub-Pink Floyd than sub-Yes. i'm sure that's less than entirely fair to andy latimer but w/e.

Crack the Sky were an odd bird. They had a bit of Canterbury whimsy and Rush-like rocking, but there was even some proto-AOR New Wave to them. In fact the lead singer went on to make this gem:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGZImOl-6bY

Totally forgot about Crack the Sky.

Starcastle's first album is 76

Not really major prog bands though.

this has been posted elsewhere -- handy resource and tidy history for US/canadian 70s prog

https://rateyourmusic.com/list/ashratom/usa-midwest-ontario-progressive-rock-1970s_early-80s/

yeah there were a bunch of American prog acts in the mid 70s, though I wonder how many of them were just repurposed bands that weren't going anywhere. Starcastle for instance actually date back to 1969.

Styx date back to 1961! Are Styx prog? Kind of I suppose. "Pomp Rock" is probably a better descriptor of those type of bands - a mix of prog, hard rock and soft rock. Magnum would be the UK equivalent.

Little bit of Yes cosplay here from 1975

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kb4xBRvRxXU

^featuring Tubeway Army's drummer Cedric Sharpley

lmao @ the nearly perfect Jon Anderson impression coming outta THAT guy

Let's have another one from 1975

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PKrw4DAPHo

You can almost imagine fledgling punks watching these thinking "Something's got to give"

I can be sympathetic to punk if it is about DIY spirit. But the 1970s punks who expressly looked down on possessing technical chops or interest in classical music were just being anti-intellectual, and from five decades’ remove seem just as snobbish as the sort that they thought they were rebelling against.

Trace!!! I heard their first album once and was really impressed, dunno why I didn't listen again. I've heard the second is really good too, but nobody really reps much for guys like this. At its best, it kind of is just a really good ELP impression. I mean just watch keyboard player, dude looks like he wants to start humping the shit out of the Hammond but he settles for...uh just moving it around a bit. Still love it!

Anyone remember Triumvirat? I see their albums come in constantly at the local shop. Another band that maybe started a few years too late but they really do scratch that ELP itch. Double Dimple and Spartacus are both top notch in my book.

oh...and Refugee...this I think is 1974

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtfKSUyYaEU

band is the two other guys from The Nice but with Patrick Moraz filling in for Emerson. he is surprisingly good at it, in fact I think their lone album is better than anything The Nice did. unfortunately Yes poached him for Relayer before they could make a second album. amusingly if you listen to 1975 live Yes recordings you can hear Moraz play a bunch of bits from this album during his solo spots

but yeah I think it really speaks to how popular this stuff really was that you had all these bands springing up in 1974 and 1975 trying to imitate what Yes and ELP were doing. they were all kinda successful too, I think 1977 was when this stuff really hit the wall. Going For the One was a #1 in the UK and I think ELP's Works Vol. 1 sold pretty well but those were the last ones to do so.

Speaking of Patrick Moraz, I have been reading about this group he was in whilst in Brazil called Vimana with some people who later went on to be in some other Brazilian groups I am somewhat familiar with but I have yet to listen to a single note of Vimana.

they're pretty good! but way more of a disco/funk thing, nothing proggy about it at all. amusingly Moraz's first solo album has a big Brazilian funk influence, though apparently he wasn't in Vimana until 1977. something's probably not right about that timeline. I give that Moraz album props though, it's definitely the Yes solo album that sounds least like you expect it to.

I had the first Trace, Refugee, and the Double Dimple albums sold 'em all off in my big prog purge when punk happened. I relistened to both not too long ago but found that ELP-style bombast doesn't hold up well for me.

One more: Greenslade.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3K84zaHHFI

I saw the first Greenslade album in a shop window while on honeymoon in Ireland, didn't buy it but keep being reminded to check it out sooner or later.

The singing keyboard player in Greenslade, Dave Lawson, was in a band called Web whose 1970 album I Spider is quite an exceptional example of "proto-prog". Quite aggressive blues-rock with jazz touches provided by sax and vibraphone, and not unlike Van Der Graaf Generator, they're a lot better example of the genre than Colosseum, who were the source of the other keyboard player in Greenslade, Dave Greenslade himself!

It seems that Druid's keyboard player composed the theme song to Teletubbies.

...The intro of which was narrated by Fripp's other half Toyah, thus aiding the hypothesis that prog rock basically mutated into UK children's TV.

The string arrangements on the last two Yes albums were composed by the guy who wrote Bob The Builder’s “Can We Fix It?” (amongst many other childrens’ TV themes), so it can be a two-way journey.

Then you have Peter Hammill's appearance on Play Away of course.

plus in the US there's been a cute game my whole life -- 'let's make believe that like sufjan and stuff like this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y55NVGZ3ibY

isn't prog like yes, no?'

Yanni was in one of those Styx-ish "cornfield prog"/pomp type bands here in Minneapolis back in the day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=me-KiE-sVx8

Wow, these guys make Styx sound like Magma! Barely prog tbh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcBMGQXUt4k

Seems a few of the synth wizard types started out in prog bands - Vangelis, Kitaro, ehhh I'm sure there's more

Susumu Hirasawa is one of them, he was in a prog band called Mandrake for a few years before P-Model started. In fact some of the wackier bits from In a Model Room were drawn from it, kinda what makes that album so unique if you ask me. I think they transitioned to New Wave for the same reason as everyone else, prog just wasn't selling by 1977

lol yeah, living in Minneapolis in the early 80s, Chameleon was everything I didn't want in music. I never thought of them as prog at all, unless Styx were prog. Pomp-rock?

Seems a few of the synth wizard types started out in prog bands - Vangelis, Kitaro, ehhh I'm sure there's more

Vangelis is a bit of a stretch, Aphrodite's Child had released two albums and had a few hit singles before the made their one and only "prog" album.

it is however the only *good* prog album

was bullied to listen to a Rush album today. enjoyed it ffs

(Signals fwiw, I specified that it had to be from their new wave bullshit era, which was an excellent call, it rocks)

If they have an entry on progarchives.com then they're a prog band in my opinion, also if they make a double concept album about the Book of Revelations being re-enacted by hippies in a circus tent during the course of which the real Armageddon occurs. Sorry but those are the rules.

xpost

Now work your way back to the debut!

Rush not AC, sorry

Same for AC, their first album is great.

yea Demis Roussos was truly a wild singer back then. I can see why it's overlooked but it's definitely very good. don't remember much about the second. anyway I think Matt is right, the folks at progarchives are dorky enough on the subject that I think I'll defer to them on whether or not it counts. I think it's way more psych rock but that sort of narrow thinking is why modern prog is kinda dull so sure, I'll say it counts

Second album is not so good, it's all over the place stylistically plus, bizarrely, someone other than Demis Roussos sings a few song - can you imagine having Demis Roussos in your band and getting someone else to sing?

If it's the drummer Lucas Sideras he sings a bit on 666 too, he's not bad! Although no Demis true.