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IanB wrote: Yes, lots of it was crap and very little of the musical output was worthy of the seriousness with which it was approached by its creators* but you have to respect the sheer scope of the ambition and the lack of me-me-me singer songwriter pablum.
i've been intrigued for years by a buzzword(?) term used in some of the forcedexposure reviews back when it was a zine - garage-prog. Since my understanding of garage is as an ongoing process mimicing the more seriously researched work of current icons and substituting a great deal of energy for po-faced research demonstration I've wondered what this would sound like and apply to. I'd think immediately of the bands I think of as avant-garage Simply Saucer, Debris, MX80 and the Cleveland scene esp RFTT/Pere Ubu but wonder about others. Key focus would probably be a level of irreverence to the 'sacred texts' and ingestion of more Link Wrayesque rocking. Possibly the idea of VU influence would enter too so you'd get bands like Eno & the Winkies, Roxy Music with Eno plus several of the Krautrock scene.
Would love to know more since what I've heard from the area has been amongst my favourite listening. Just reminded that I've got a copy of Cold Sun's cd arriving when I return to Galway not sure if that fits.
& possibly the whole d.i.y. scene which I know less about than I should(&maybe should've tried keeping up with the Mutant Sounds website)
IanB wrote:
For the doubters look at it this way.
Without the musical and economic climate produced by Prog then there's probably none of these ....
"Nadir's Big Chance"
Magma's MDK
"Stormcock"
John Martyn's echoplex guitar
"Correct Use oF Soap"
Fripp's "Exposure"
"Liege & Lief"
Stereolab
Spiritualized
"Jehovahkill"
"Sons & Fascination"
"Tago Mago"
"Bat Chain Puller"
PIL
Radiohead
Eno's Ambient releases
Kate Bush
Thomas Koppel's piano music
"Low"
"Yellow Shark"
Nonesuch
Not sure about that list. might depend on an understood chronology. When did Prog start ferrinstance. My understanding would have Psychedelia as a buzzword in advertising through (US meaning) '67 therefore getting tired by '68 when Progressive Underground came in
but I'm not sure when prog started being used would think it was a bit later. thought 'Prog' capital P wasn't til early 70s, at least partially because of vaguerie of the duration of 'proto-prog' which seems to go up til at least 71 in several usages I've seen. In short things like Liege & Lief from '69 would appear to be before the big wave of prog so unlikely to be a result of. & when did John Martyn start using echoplex? Would think possibly as a result of trying to emulate new thing jazz which he was into -Solid Air being based on Pharaoh SAnder's Astral Travelling amongst other things. Though possibly he was doing slightly better financially thanks to Island's success elsewhere.
IanB wrote:
and that's just off the top of my head. Not a bad legacy even if Prog itself makes you want to choke on your snakebite.
Not all of it anyway. & some of the bigger names have tracks you might rethink if you isolated them from the bandname & the rest of their ouevre. Genesis seemed to be getting a bit of a reassessment here a while back but I guess they did put out a fair amount of toss at certain points. Even Yes have the odd moment when they don't smell of wee, odd moment though, oh & great guitarist. & ELP were interesting live early on I guess.
I'm left thinking that with the remix culture that cropped up over the last 20 years, how much would be better served by going back and remixing. Though re-editing might be better idea. Sacred Cows who needs them.
Well the nostalgia market though they seem to swallow a lot of shite as long as the signifiers are there.
I ought maybe to go into the area of european Prog where some ideas picked up/started in the UK scene were explored more satisfactorily & you at least don't understand how trite the lyrics are. (At this moment I'm thinking of East Of Eden a UK band who were quite great instrumentally but lyrics sucked the big one as I was reminded recently by seeing their POP2 performance & I would think that symptomatic of a lot of bands from the time. Trying to expand the range of influence without a bullshit detector or whatever)
IanB wrote:
(* you can say the exact same thing about any genre that is serious about pushing the frontiers)
I've edited this so I've lost the asterisk source but yeah does seem true that experimentalism does tend to lose its way quite a bit.Not sure about ratios one thing one of the lecturers saiud when I started college was the 20%/80% thing that only 20% of anything is ever essential(possibly by definition, won't go into etymology here) whereas 80% is at least/best context providing. Hopefully the essential 20% is aware enough of the other 80% thatr it knows where to re-explore and what to consciously avoid/work around.
I think also that a lot of the greatest bands ever have had the tightrope walk effect of either you're going to see one of the greatest gigs you ever saw or you're going to see an unmitigated disater, but either way it would be memorable.
Stevo
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