Can You Top This Prog-Rock Hell?

[swag]

I'll start

Emerson, Lake & Palmer - karn evil 9 1st impression part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-zCZKlgEEE&search=emerson%2C%20lake%20%20

[bridgit]

1. SOFT MACHINE-Theatre De La Musique 1970...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrcOEoFttWU&search=soft%20machine hey wait a minute, i used to like soft machine x(

[swag]

42. That certainly bests my entry.

[jpgray]

50. Soft Machine RULES! But not as a ho-hum jazz fusion band

Nice to see Wyatt operating the pedals though.

[Susang]

2. Sure can

How 'bout this?



Did you guess what it is?

[begin_within]

3. Is that Rick Wakeman in the front?

I think it might be "Journey to the Center of the Earth"?

[XemaSab]

Looks like the bastard child of lite opera

and a ren fair. :scared:

[CanuckAmok]

6. I'm guessing "Moody Blues, Nights in White Satin+, or Conqustador.

What do I win?

[Susang]

7. Nope

It's Rick Wakeman's Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table ON ICE!

"The album also led to a full-fledged touring fiasco, with RW throwing away a tonne of pounds on a music-and-ice-show spectacular. In retrospect, the greatest financial mistake of the venture might have been RW's decision to bring an orchestra on tour with him. The antics of the skaters reportedly elicited much applause from the audience, and the strength of Wakeman's showmanship during this time has never been in doubt ... but it's probably safe to say that the music was secondary to the spectacle. And it's certainly safe to say that the damage caused by this preposterous scheme is still hurting the image of progressive music to this day (even if Wakeman himself deserved most of the bad press which he received)."

http://www.tranglos.com/marek/yes/tr_101.html

[bbernardini]

11. Keep in mind, Wakeman was stupid drunk during the 70s.

Not that it's an excuse, but I think even he realizes this show was a bad idea. :)

[Susang]

34. Sure, hindsight is 20/20

But seriously, King Arthur on ice? I hope he was taking lots of drugs as well as being drunk out of his mind. Then I might consider excusing him. ;-)

[CanuckAmok]

41. That's just........ I............. er.............. Why didn't............

...there are no words.

[Susang]

49. It's too mind-numbing to believe

Truly.

[flamingyouth]

61. OMG

I remember that being mentioned here before and being cited as the reason punk happened. :rofl:

[SerpentX]

8. I'll see your Rick Wakeman

and raise you one Tales From Topographic Oceans.

Seriously though, Jethro Tull pwns this category.

[MissMillie]

13. There's another one I like

though the double album seemed like a bad idea. I guess they had too much material for a single, but not enough for a double.

I love "The Revealing Science of God"

[Squeech]

15. Once upon a time

I got to talk to Bill Bruford about Topographic. Of course he wasn't on it, having already decamped for King Crimson, but he told me that when he got to hear it, he recognized a lot of bits off of Jon Anderson's Revox that had been rejected when they were writing Close to the Edge.

Several years later we did a real interview, for publication, about the mechanics of that sort of collective composition-- as he described it, four or five guys staring at each other in a rehearsal room, with a lot of blood spilled on the floor. In retrospect, although he said that those guys were incredibly lucky to accomplish what they did, he was obviously unimpressed with the principle of it: he's come around to the designated composer model, where one guy hands around sheets of manuscript paper, and everybody just plays what's written.

I was such a huge partisan of prog rock back in the day, and I still have warm and fuzzy flashes when somebody translates the word "sun" into every other Indo-European language to Mellotron accompaniment :-) Nevertheless, I now recognize that there did come a point where the desire to just throw everything but the kitchen sink into a song, and then over-ornament it to boot, overwhelmed the original idea of expanding the harmonic, rhythmic, and structural vocabularies of rock in order to make more sophisticated statements-- and Topographic might well have been that point.

At least in the annals of Yes. Then I got into Henry Cow.

[tigereye]

29. and then there was the drug part

I'm guessing some drugs were involved in most of those spectacles of compositional excess, or am I wrong? ;)

there is obviously some early and later Grateful Dead stuff that is way experimentally over the top and the question is: where is the intersection of musical inspiration/improvisation and the psychdelics.

of course, one probably wouldn't ask that question about Mozart, Bach., Beethoven.... Charlie Parker, Coltrane, etc. It raises very interesting questions about creativity and one's state of mind.

Nice post!

[Squeech]

40. Good point

Big can of worms there, especially since you brought up Charlie Parker.

My own theory is that the real reason improvisers take drugs is to suppress the superego and attempt to enhance the communication channel from the Jungian unconscious. I don't smoke even the minimal recreational amounts I used to, but I'm aware that I'm a lot more hesitant when I play nowadays, and it's not just because my chops have atrophied: I'm also a lot more self-critical. I'll tell myself I can't play in certain modes because it's too dumb, too derivative, whatever, and that criticism hijacks my exploration of an area that might after all prove fertile if I could just allow myself to relax and go for it. I think creators in Parker's class know they're on to something irreplaceable and figure it's worth whatever else it costs you (medical and legal problems) to dedicate themselves to that channel. Trane seems to have ultimately decided he could do what he wanted to do without junk, through an obsessive practice regimen that verged on dervish meditation, which could well open the same channel but is apparently a lot harder.

But I've never done serious psychedelics, so I can't address that idea of consciousness expansion as applied to music, except that I do appreciate the results-- Anthem of the Sun and Live Dead are my favorite Grateful Dead records. (Next is probably Blues for Allah. I like weird stuff.) It's worth mentioning too that what the Dead were after was less individual improvisational excellence than a deliberate attempt to evolve a group mind, so the "tune in" part of the acid regimen was essential.

But I note also that Frank Zappa was rigorously anti-drug, and I doubt Beethoven had access to any really interesting intoxicants. YMMV. There's a lot to think about here.

[tigereye]

43. well, your post inspired me to think about that stuff as well

every year I get a Creativity and Madness conference brochure in the mail(bunch of arty mental health folks analyze some post-modern questions about art as symptom and beyond) Whoa, there's another fascinating debate! ;)
Zappa, Beefheart, Syd Barrett.... GG Allin, Kevin Coyne?


The general questions about creativity overall and the impact different forms of consciousness have on art, literature, music, what have you, are endlessly intriguing. Nice to see Jung referenced.


thanks for the dialogue! :hi:

[Squeech]

48. My pleasure!

Re creativity and madness, I once encountered a document on the web, apparently a doctoral thesis, comparing the wildly divergent ways Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell flipped out and attempting to use the qualities of their dysfunctions to achieve insights into their musics. The bit I remember (albeit hazily) was that Monk, who was never real talkative anyway, had become pretty much incapable of carrying on a conversation well before he gave up playing, or even composing. The insight had something to do with attempting to discern language-like structures in music, and observing that Monk's music never seemed to use these sorts of structures in comparison to Powell's. I remember it being quite profound, which I'm not able to convey in this post, where reading what I've just typed makes it look like an exercise in circular reasoning.

And even beyond appreciating the opportunity to think about these issues, I think it's impressive that a thread about prog rock has survived to fifty-odd posts-- especially since the OP was intended to dump on it :rofl:

[tigereye]

79. such is the beauty of DU

or any board, I suppose. ALthough it may be Swag, he seems to be talented at allowing discussion to develop!

I had a friend/colleague who was a grad student who studied a certain type of psychology that had a very strong post-modern and philosophical sensibility. He and others in his program were wont to analyze poetry and other forms of art in the way that you describe, i.e., I can picture him telling me that Sylvia Plath's poetry was simply an expression of her symptoms (although ironically I understand that she was encouraged to write poetry by one of her doctors.) But for me, her poetry was so much much more than that and that is why the pre-deconstructionist-era English Lit major in me always cringes at that kind of analysis or Lit Crit of other poets and writers, regardless of how common that view is in English departments these last few decades.

oddly enough, I have read that Monk actually did have conservatory training, I think. That dissertation sounds fascinating.

[tigereye]

26. yeah, but that's just the album

or were you talking about a concert version? I didn't see them at that phase....

Yes concerts were quite rococo, so to say.

[no name no slogan]

80. Heh heh, nice "cape", Ricky

wanker. :hide:

[WCGreen]

83. Journey to the Center of the Earth was cool...

For a sixteen year old...

I ran out and got KA ASAP....

Listened to it once....

Ewwwwwwwwwww.........

[begin_within]

4. Is part 2 the slower, quiet part? I can't remember. I liked the slow part.

[Squeech]

16. No

Part 2 of the First Impression is the hit single part that starts with "Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends" while the synth sample-and-hold circuit beeps on and on and on... then Emerson plays Jerry Lee Lewis licks on the Hammond.

[begin_within]

21. Oh yeah. That was way overplayed on the radio in the late 1970s. The 2nd

impression was pretty nice, I thought. The music in "Still you Turn Me On" was one of the high points of the prog-rock era, in my opinion (though the lyrics were corny).

[tigereye]

30. ELP did some great stuff

I love their version of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. Some of the excess was worth checking out!

[Mike Daniels]

51. IMHO, ELP released 2 classics (1st album and BSS)

One near-miss (Trilogy), and 2 interesting experiments (Tarkus and Pictures).

If Pictures has been strictly instrumental I'd raise it to near-miss. At it was, the concept that ELP thought they could add extra significance to the work by adding lyrics is why I place it where I do.

To be honest, I get Tarkus as a lyrical composition even less than I get Topographic Oceans. However, sonically, the 1st side is truly amazing.

Everything after BSS is codswallop.

[begin_within]

5. If you mean hell, Yes' "Tormato" album was just a big splat.

[MissMillie]

12. I liked it

Well, more accurately, I liked songs very much, but it didn't seem like they fit together. No cohesiveness to it at all.

[driver8]

96. I liked that album, too. I even saw them on the "Tormato" tour!

"In the round", no less.

[bridgit]

9. based on a theme of SerpentX = Jethro Tull - Isle Of Wight 1970

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z63FnG6IF_w&search=jethro%20tull

[CBGLuthier]

39. A good example that proves Tull was not prog-rock

They dabbled in prog-rock, Thick as a Brick and Passion Play, but the rest of their canon ranges from jazz/blues (which this is a good example of) to harder rock to english folk.

[Mike Daniels]

54. Agreed. And Tull mostly pulled it off rather well

One of the few bands from that era (besides Genesis) who I still listen to regularly vs. every few years just for old times sake.

[Squeech]

10. Don't forget

the prog-wannabe bands: Starcastle (Yes wannabes), Ethos (King Crimson wannabes), Triumvirat (ELP wannabes), Fireballet (Van der Graaf Generator wannabes)... I always considered Barclay James Harvest a Pink Floyd wannabe, except they really weren't even that good.

I just bought a Rush compilation CD for the guitar student nephew, and listened to it about three times through in the last couple days. It was too much Rush-- I like them, but right now I perceive the limitations of their style all too clearly. (But at least I did get some woodshedding in and I can once again play some of the tricky bits of "La Villa Strangiato.")

On the plus side, did you hear that Hatfield and the North reformed? (Without Dave Stewart though.)

[B3Nut]

17. I love Triumvirat and Starcastle

but then again, I'm an unashamed proggie. :D (even though most of the time I fire up my Hammonds something resembling blues and R&B comes out).

Todd in Beerbratistan

[Squeech]

24. Actually

I'm a lapsed proggie-- I'd have to be even to know the names of those bands. (Took me ten minutes to remember Triumvirat.)

But with a name like B3Nut I'm not at all surprised you'd know and love them. Do you also like Thijs van Leer? David Sinclair? Matthew Fisher? Hugh Banton?

Also do you know that the keyboard player in Starcastle had a subsequent career as a computer consultant? Wrote a column for one of those ubiquitous geek-speak newspapers, and I think had a couple books out.

[B3Nut]

28. Thijs van Leer...

is one of my favorite prog organists. Impeccable taste and sense of space, doesn't have to play a bazillion notes, very musical. Usually only played an L-100 spinet Hammond but coaxed stunning textures from it, as well as his deft handling of the flute. I know of Sinclair and Fisher, but haven't heard of Banton.

I do know of Herb Schildt's forays into computers, he still is at it as far as I know, and playing with the reformulated Starcastle.

Ever get into Camel? Their earliest stuff with Pete Bardens on keys is amazing, Bardens is another understated and underappreciated player. Tony Banks with Genesis too, restrained but always plays the right stuff. Sadly Bardens passed away a few years ago, I was deeply saddened, I really loved his music.

Todd in Beerbratistan

[Squeech]

47. Camel

I have their early stuff, up through their double live, and I kinda wish I had the next couple too, with Richard Sinclair on bass. (I'm a bassist myself, and Sinclair is one of my heroes.) But I'm not overwhelmed by them, I hear them as so much in the Caravan mold that when I want to hear that sound I tend to automatically put on Caravan instead. (See above re Sinclair, and that other Sinclair as well.) And Andy Latimer has never been my favorite guitarist or composer. I do know about Bardens' unfortunate demise. Apparently something weird happened to Andy Ward too. When Richard Sinclair started making solo recordings in the '90s he used Ward on drums, and I also got to see him with Bevis Frond, but later I heard some peculiar gossip about his flipping out (possibly under chemical influence) and having to give up drumming.

Hugh Banton played organ for Van der Graaf Generator, perhaps the weirdest band of the lot.

I should also mention Larry Young, arguably the most distortion-heavy organist ever, even more than Jon Lord. Being a jazzbo, he's not too well known among rock fans, but he should be, especially for his work with the original Tony Williams Lifetime opposite a young John McLaughlin.

Re Genesis, often Tony Banks could be described as restrained only if you use Emerson and Wakeman as your gold sequin cloak standard! For every "Firth of Fifth," where what he did was appropriate to the song, there'd also be a "Cinema Show" where he'd just go on and on, a veritable Energizer Bunny of the synth. Dredging up my old faves for the nephew (he's almost learned to play the "Firth of Fifth" arpeggio on the guitar!) I'm struck by how much of this stuff that I used to love without reservation now strikes me as excessive and/or boring-- especially the Lamb, but big chunks of Selling England and Foxtrot too, and I don't even wanna think about the Phil Collins era.

Commie Pinko Dirtbag was right to mention Marillion; I'm embarrassed to have forgotten them myself! They were the most visible of a bunch of Genesis wannabes; I was also aware of Twelfth Night and IQ.

[B3Nut]

53. Larry Young was out there

he took the organ way beyond its soul-jazz roots. Sad that he died, no telling where the Hammond would be today had he lived. Larry Goldings tips his hat in Young's direction on occasion, though. Some of the stuff with Tony Williams Lifetime was intense...

I'll have to pick up Caravan and Van der Graaf...wierd is good. :D

I own one Marillion CD..."Clutching At Straws". Some good songs on that disc, interesting observations on the human condition. Genesis during the Phil era had many a turkey, but some gems stand out, even on the We Can't Dance CD (I *LOVE* Fading Lights...they seemed to, if only for a brief moment, recapture a bit of the "stuff" that made them great in the early days.)

Todd in Beerbratistan

[Squeech]

72. Cultural values

Clutching at Straws is the one Marillion I have too. I agree, it's the most human-oriented one. I like the subtheme about whether drink supports or impairs creativity (see my own ideas upthread).

My recommendation for Caravan is In the Land of Grey and Pink-- ideal balance of post-psychedelic English whimsy and long songs with monumental organ solos!

Van der Graaf Generator is kinda like... picture Ziggy-era David Bowie, and now imagine that he really was from another planet, and assume that philosophy and/or religion gives him the Martian equivalent of orgasm, and then assume that his backing band was Tony Williams Lifetime (without McLaughlin, but throw in Rahsaan Roland Kirk tripping his brains out). The key record IMNSHO is Pawn Hearts, but Godbluff and Still Life and H to He Who Am The Only One are also real good. Note that they were another Famous Charisma Label band, like Genesis, and if you like the mythological flavor of Genesis then you should relate pretty well to Still Life in particular. (And, like Hatfield and the North, they reformed and put out a new record last year.)

You haven't mentioned Dave Stewart, of Egg, Hatfield, National Health, Bruford, all brilliant.

There's a prog fan site at www.progarchives.com where you can hear streaming audio of many of these bands.

[B3Nut]

73. Thanks for the link!

Streaming from there now...and sending the link home.

Don't forget Gentle Giant...great stuff. I have yet to find any Dave Stewart-related stuff locally, but he is a brilliant musician. I had a comp CD with a Bruford cut on it, featuring Stewart and Allan Holdsworth, tight players.

Todd in Beerbratistan

[HughBeaumont]

91. What you guys think of PFM and Le Orme?

Pawnhearts, considering what little VDGG had to work with personnel wise (quantity, not quality), is such a damned stunning album to listen to, much of it for the organ work and lyrics. "Lemmings" is still one of my favorite songs from that era, equipped with a scary theme and dark lyrics. Jackson and Banton are pretty much covering two instruments at once for a lot of the album. And what can you say about Hammill and Evans that hasn't been said already?

PFM and Le Orme are two from Italy that I latched on to in 2003-4. Per Un Amico has a lot of warmth and great sounds to it, which makes up for the lack of heaviness. The trio Le Orme doesn't have much guitar work, but has a unique sound all it's own with primarily organ/bass/drum/pedal driven sound. It's kind of like the music you'd hear in either an early Euro-soft porn movie or an early Argento horror movie.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

27. I'll add Marillion (Genesis wannabe)

Complete with "Peter Gabriel" and "Phil Collins" phases! (The first of which rocks)

[swag]

Oh, man.

Sorry I didn't see that. I duped you below.

[Tripper11]

14. Easy,.....anything by SAGA!

SAGA

[B3Nut]

18. Hell? That was great!

Emo kicked butt then, and he kicks butt now. Outstanding musician. I'd like to see today's modern rappers and boy bands and pop-tarts try and play that stuff...oh wait, they don't play instruments! d'oh!

Todd in Beerbratistan

[progmom]

19. I generally find, as a rule, that progrock = hell

or at least purgatory.

:)

[tigereye]

31. but it's excess helped spawn punk! ;)

I loved progrock when I was in high school and there is something to be said for it's classical and compositional underpinnings. But....that being said, it was way over the top!

[XNASA]

20. A flower?

IV. HOW DARE I BE SO BEAUTIFUL ?

Wandering in the chaos the battle has left,
We climb up the mountain of human flesh,
To a plateau of green grass, and green trees full of life.
A young figure sits still by her pool,
He's been stamped "Human Bacon" by some butchery tool.
(He is you)
Social Security took care of this lad.
We watch in reverence, as Narcissus is turned to a flower.
A flower?

[swag]

22. Now that was uncalled for.

Oh, excuse me. I guess that was called for.

Sorry I called for it.

[tigereye]

32. you asked for it!

:rofl:

I have to check the memory banks for more examples of excess... many of them have already been referenced.

[regularguy]

23. GG:

[asthmaticeog]

25. "2112" by Rush

A 20-minute song cycle about a guy living in a dystopian future who becomes disenchanted with the established order when he happens upon an ancient guitar and learns to play a long, tricky solo on it. LET'S DAAAAAANCE!

[eyepaddle]

35. You're always here to rain on my parade

aren't you? :cry:

[asthmaticeog]

37. Don't get me wrong, I like Rush...

...but the extended pieces they did were rigoddamndiculous.

[eyepaddle]

45. If you don't hear from me in a few miuntes I'll be on the Train

to Bangkok--Aboard the Thailand Express.

We'll hit all the stops along the way
we only stop for the BEST!

(My personal favorite from 2112!) ;)

[CanuckAmok]

88. International incident!

I love 'em, but Geddy is a pill.

Have you heard this interview?

http://nardwuar.com/vs/geddy_lee/

[tigereye]

33. but he is/was? a great keyboardist!

that's saying something. I was really into those guys in the 70s. My best friend was obsessed with them and dragged me to several of their shows.

I mean a lot of those folks could REALLY play and play and play. But they had chops...

(damn me and my open-mindedness)

[swag]

36. Look, I really liked them when I was in high school.

My then-girlfriend even did a needlepoint of their first album cover for me.

And I still sometimes pull out the vinyl of Brain Salad Surgery and slap it on the turntable. But only through headphones, unless the woman is out of the house and many miles away.

[tigereye]

38. well, when one of my young punk friends who likes prog-metal

goes on and on about Dream Theater, I say, "you know that punk was a reaction to prog-rock (well and bighair rock and such ilk) don't you?"


But what goes around comes around and other cliches. Cheers. ;)

[seemunkee]

44. My first major concert was ELPs first tour

and had front row seats to Brain Salad Surgery.

I saw Keith Emerson a couple of years ago at the Smithsonian. It was a lecture with Robert Moog and some other electronic pioneers and later a concert as a part of the centennial celebration of the piano. He talked about the cheesiness of some of the early Moog stuff and particularly hated the ending of O Lucky Man.

[Taverner]

46. Karn Evil 9 RAWKS!!!!

Don't be dissin my prog rock man!

[jpgray]

52. Only decent thing to come from Cumbersome, Flake and Embalmer

:patriot:

(the part about the computer or whatsis is fucking shit, however)

[B3Nut]

55. Oh, there's more

Tarkus kicks ass, some of Trilogy is superb, and "The Barbarian" from the first ELP album is a tour-de-force, even if it is a ripoff of Bartok's "Allegro Barbarossa" (I'm sure I've got that spelled horribly). One of those tracks that you just can't crank loud enough... :)

I'll grant that "Pictures" was a bit silly, but the "Blues Variation" vampfest in the middle has a truly rockin' boogie-woogie Hammond ride that just RAWKS!

Of course, I like Emo's earlier stuff with The Nice a lot, too. :D

Todd in Beerbratistan

[tigereye]

81. crap

I wanna play Scrabble with you some day JP! (well, maybe not, I'd be left in the dust.)

[no name no slogan]

56. I always wondered how they managed to play

with all that wank-juice on stage

...and this comes from a guy who owns all their 70s albums-- ON VINYL.

[jpgray]

57. Ask swag to post the img of the Armadillo tank ejaculating

[no name no slogan]

59. Good old Tarkus

I bet that was a hell of a show :yoiks:

[swag]

63. .

[jpgray]

64. Atsa boy!

And the tank refills with wank after every Emerson solo or lame Lake lyric.

[no name no slogan]

65. ROFL!!!!

They must bring tanker trucks on tour with them to keep up with it. WOW.

[tigereye]

82. I'm tempted to make jokes about your conception JP

but that would be oh so wrong.

[no name no slogan]

58. Hawkwind -- Silver Machine (not quite prog, but close)

The incomperable Hawkwind playing their hit single Silver Machine at the Camden Roundhouse, 1972.

Featuring the lovely Stacia (dancing) and Lemmy (yes, THAT Lemmy) on bass and vocals.

What a kickass band.

[flamingyouth]

60. I love Lemmy-era Hawkwind

cool clip :thumbsup:

[no name no slogan]

62. Yeah, I just found that one-- GREAT performance

I'm trying to convince my band to cover "Silver Machine", which has been covered by everybody from the Church to the Sex Pistols. Plus most people in the US have no clue who they are, so everybody would think it's an original, too!

[flamingyouth]

67. Yeah, that would be excellent

:D

[eyepaddle]

66. Oooohhhh MAN! That was awesome!

What a treasure trove we have in youtube.

[CanuckAmok]

86. How about Hawkwind's "Images"? Not *that's* progish.

...

[no name no slogan]

87. Good point

any one of their album covers is up there with anything by Yes.

That would be an interesting poll: Barney Bubbles vs. Roger Dean. Hmmm...

[CanuckAmok]

89. No, I meant the song "Images"...

It's about 20 minutes long, including a 3(!) minute electric violin solo.

The best part is the video, half of which has them in Druid capes in an old mansion, and half of which has them performing on stage, and some of the band are wearing... those white painter's caps. It's got lots of cheezy 80's video effects, too, like video feedback, etc.

[no name no slogan]

92. Was that Simon House doing the violin solo?

I believe he went on to Bowie's touring band after he was in Hawkwind.

There's also a video from Marc Bolan's TV show on youtube.com for "Quark, Strangeness and Charm", with Calvert singing lead. It's positively glammish. Very very wierd.

[CanuckAmok]

95. I don't know...

I'm just a Hawkwind fan by proxy. One of my ol' friends is a huge fan, and used to follow them around. He would know who it was; I can't even keep track of the members.

I have the Hawklords album though... It's great.

[no name no slogan]

68. What's a progrock wank-a-thon without Gabriel-era Genesis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5sUOtbhUSM&search=genesis%20watcher%20of%20the%20skies

Watcher of the Skies, Montreal, 1974. Considering most of the band performed seated onstage, it's about as exciting as watching paint dry.

Cool tune, though. Trespass is still one of my favorite LPs of all time (I also own all the Gabriel-era Genesis on vinyl, too).

[eyepaddle]

70. Nobody ever mentions Steve Hackett, but

I think he was the first Rock-guy to really go crazy with right-hand finger-tapping.

I'd imagine that could ruffle a few feathers as making him instrumental in both prog rock AND 80s metal circles. A fairly singular achievement I'd have to say! :evilgrin:

[no name no slogan]

78. I read that in a bio on him

He really was doing that two-handed fretboard wankery long before Eddie Van Halen was. He really is a good guitarist, technique-wise, although I really can't stomach his solo stuff too well.

(...as he rummaged through his stuff, desperately trying to find his tickets to the "GTR" show at the Minneapolis Orpheum...)

[XNASA]

74. I was in the audience for the last Gabriel/Genesis show in North America..

February 4th, 1975. Arie Crown Theater in Chicago.

They performed 'The Lamb' from start to finish, then played Musical Box and Watcher of the Skies.

It made quite on impression on 17 year old XNASA.

[no name no slogan]

75. Wow, that would have been cool

Genesis is still one of the few prog-rock groups I can still listen to (after being pretty heavily into the stuff as a young lad). "Lamb" is still pretty amazing, 30 years later.

[Squeech]

76. Nothing can cause us to part, hear me O Gods

I saw two shows of that tour, Providence and Boston. Boston was especially cool because Hackett broke a string during "Carpet Crawlers" and left the stage to get it changed, and hadn't returned yet by the time of his big theme at the beginning of "Chamber of 32 Doors"-- so Gabriel jumped down from his Rael platform in the middle of the stage and grabbed his flute, and played the theme.

One of many Genesis concert fuckups in Boston. They've always hated playing here. Fortunately it wasn't too much longer before I didn't care if I never saw them again. Now I know that one of my favorite songs of theirs, "Seven Stones," they never even performed live.

[nytemare]

85. Gabriel is the best

A bit quirky, humanitarian, eclectic, weird, supportive of all kinds of musicians.

Lamb to me is one of the best albums ever. Good to space out to.

[swag]

69. Oh no, it's MARILLION!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTr_8E28wJU&search=marillion

[no name no slogan]

71. The only "Fish Kill" I could agree to

would involve ex-Marillion singer Fish getting mauled by a pack of wild dogs

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

77. "Teakbois" by "Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman & Howe," A.K.A. Yes

Don't get me started on that one.

:evilgrin:

[jmowreader]

84. Okay, BEB, I gotta know so fess up...

What's the story about this guy in your sig line?

[CrownPrinceBandar]

90. The album was very ho-hum.......

but it was nice for a 20-year old me to see four of the original members of Yes in concert. Chris Squire being there would have been nice, but Tony Levin was no slouch. It still stands out as one of the best concerts I have ever seen.

PS: I'm lovin' this thread. But, is it safe for all the prog-rock fans to be in the same thread at once? What if some one chucks a grenade in here?

[HughBeaumont]

93. I have the VHS tape of the making of this album.

Anderson, Buttholes, Walkman and How isn't for repeated playing, indeed. I bust out the cassette of it from time to time, though. I still have a soft spot for "Long Lost Brother of Mine", even though many of the passages are overproduced wank-o-rama.

[HughBeaumont]

94. Mekanik Destruktiw Kommandoh by Magma.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magma_%28band%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mekan%C3%AFk_Destrukt%C3%AFw_Kommand%C3%B6h

No pomp-a-thon would be complete without this band. They invented their own freaking LANGUAGE for their vision, damn it. One of Herb and Jerry's weirdest releases.

As with all of their albums, Mekanïk Destruktïw Kommandöh is sung completely in their own fictional language, Kobaian. It continues to explain Christian Vander's visions about the supposedly bad future of the earth. In this case, the story of the prophet Nebehr Güdahtt. He tells the people of the earth that if they want to save themselves, they need to give up their life on earth and move to the planet of Kobaia. The people of the earth don't believe this and start marching against him. But slowly, some people begin to believe him and start marching with him instead of against him.