Codifying definitions; progrock vs postrock.

[/rhethorical flourish]

tell that to dave q.

I wish the board could muster the strength for a concerted effort to kill this meme.

It's fairly easy to grasp: prog and punk aren't mutually exclusive because both are universals, apply them to any style you like. However, both had canonical expressions that reified them as genres, or styles. Genesis fit into one, the Clash into another. Pere Ubu fulfill and transcend both.

Now for postrock: please, forget about the term altogether? It's the sort of stuff that comes up when editors have to conquer a dry patch. The music has been around for longer than rock orthodoxy, so calling it post anything is simply stupid. Nestmanso locutus, causa finita, ok?

Isn't that basically his point? (even if he has an annoying way of putting it...)

Yes Prog is about proficiency.

Well, what about Van der Graaf Generator Prog then? Look how often Peter Hammill tried to hit the strings of his guitar. Or think of the poor guy who had to play bass on "Formentera Lady".

Can you explain how it makes him a "progger" at all?

None of which are solely the preserve of Prog Rock but you did miss out the fetishization of musical technique and complexity allied to a sneering disregard for "non-complex" musical forms.

My point.

the concept of prog had yet to be invented

By the Nice, or by the Moody Blues?

(And haven't ISB actually been post-rock? I believe they were formed as a conscious reaction to urban musics. Full circle!)

the cultural demolition of prog coincided EXACTLY with the political demolition of the pre nu-labour left, and operated in exasperatingly similar ways: a purge by zealots of the old and the goofy and the naff and the slow, leading to HEY!! surprise surprise the marginalisation and defeat of the entire movement!!

dadaismus is green gartside to geir hongro's robert wyatt in this discussion: antithesis and thesis treating each other as phantoms or anomalies or merely stubborn *moral* failures, instead of necessarily difficult complementary-contradictory components within the radical avant garde

As for this Prog/Labour Party analogy - well thanks for the comedy for this is the most ludicrous tosh I've ever heard.

the cultural demolition of prog coincided EXACTLY with the political demolition of the pre nu-labour left

Well actually no, because no cultural arbiters ever liked Prog - read thru some back issues of NME if you don't believe me. Prog was always unfashionable and it was always uncool. I don't know when and where exactly you place the "political demolition of the pre nu-labour left" but unless you're placing it sometime around 1974-76 (which is when just about everyone wised up to the shitness of Prog, including Fripp, Gabriel, Hammill) then you're talking out yer arse.

Don Caballero's 'american Don' and King crimson's 'red'.

Then take it elsewhere. Has there been a prog-related thread recenly where you haven't droned on with this same old shit? Shut the fuck up, and talk about what you actually like, for chrissakes, I think we all have a pretty good idea of yer opinions w/r/t yes, genesis etc.

At the peril of not getting the point at all, because the two strands have seldom been closer (if they are separated by anything more than two decades of ironizing--"The Peter Criss Jazz" indeed). That a rather competent power trio like the Don could be filed under post-rock makes the term even more questionable. I doubt that "Red" would have been counted as prog if it had been Crimson's first, too. (Still, both are excellent, so the recommendation is fine with me.)

These kinds of statements makes me warm to it.

If prog were the dominant music form, I'd probably hate it too (but then, I'm just a contrarian). But since it's so marginalized, what would make someone go out of their way to unleash the same tired old criticisms over and over again (as on this thread)?

I'm not sure about this "profundity" thing. Why not level those accusations at classical, jazz, etc, too? Why is it bad if rock bands (allegedly) attempt some different level of complexity? What was "profound" about it? Because it occasionally mimicked symphonic musical structures? Impenetrable lyrics? In this latter case, why don't -- say -- the Cocteau Twins attract more ire?

There seems to be a kind of snobbery at work in the wholesale dismissal of "prog" as a genre. Is it class-based? It's hardly an original observation, but Yes were far more working class than the Clash (or even, arguably, the Pistols).

I don't know, I'm genuinely curious about the whole ILM collective take on this, partly as I've been revisiting some early 70s music lately, including some prog, and finding some surprises.

(And I ask this as someone who swallowed the UK punk party line for years.)

Right, I'm on a mission. I believe the term "prog" has been usurped, and pop history has to fetch it back. How can a genre call itself progressive if it is both politically reactionary (lingering between esoteric escapism and elitist libertarianism) and aesthetically regressive (built upon conservatory classicism and second-hand third stream models)? I propose a concept of prog that has plenty of room for both Henry Cow and Oval and where ELP are the footnote.

And of course, there are achievements in core prog as we know it. Genesis could be brilliantly inventive, Yes could play (you might even argue that they took it far more serious than your friendly service operation, Steely Dan, who were virtuosic enough to throw it away--good call in this context). And fingers off "Larks' Tongues", it's a classic.

Of course it does. Why shoudn't it be a universal? Wilfully and consciously going places. That's exclusive and it suggests criteria to find a tentative order (Henry Cow included more forms and more diverse forms than Yes –> they're more prog.)

2) Tsk. Others will find out. escapist libertarian / conservatory classicist music is useful for a start.

post rock will occur mostly in the future

Ha ha, there are lamp-posts on the cover of G!YBE's "F*** a**": post rock lives!

Countdown to Ecstasy = prog
Gaucho = post

(just kidding really, but the sound of each respective album could arguably have influenced artists of each so-called genre)

nevermind.

..the hilarity continues

"Prog Rock is largely shit"

Note the use of the word "largely", note the non-use of the following phrases: "Prog Rock is shit" or "Prog Rock is all shit". It's fairly easy to follow.

i'm just mimicking yr own dismissive attackmode really, i'll stop if you will

i think the 70s is the most complex decade ever in music (and politics), so i'm just v.suspicious of pat summaries which i've heard 20 millions times before: probably i trust my own boredom too much

(Except me.)

nothing wrong with a bit of prog now and then
*ducks*

Especially when he tries a pirouette and his aged hips snap like dry tinder being trod on by elephants.

progressive rock is to post-rock as modern is to post-modern???

prog rock takes rock to another plane through complexity like james joyce did with fiction... while post-rock attempts to be antithetical to rock (a poster post-punk?) by destroying some of the standard elements of rock and fusing (oh god, fusion!) jazz and other cultural musics into rock.

sorry for bringing "modern" and "post-modern" into the conversation.
m.

Ooh, priceless comedy. Next time there's a thread on Prog and I somehow miss it can someone remind me so that I can go along and do my best annoy this person above.

i don't find either to be profound. so shoot me?