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Julian Cope presents Head Heritage

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Prog Britannia
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IanB
IanB
6761 posts

Edited Dec 30, 2008, 11:24
Re: Prog Britannia
Dec 30, 2008, 10:20
keith a wrote:
Stevo wrote:


IanB wrote:


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.




Understatement of the year there, Stevo!

Personally I can't see how, for example, prog is even remotely responsible for Jehovahkill (regardless of what I may or may not think of prog).

As for Magazine...well this is fast becoming one of music's great cliches.

Just because Devoto has apparently stated that he liked Yes and just because Magazine slowe d things down after the 1-2-3-4 straightahead punk scene doesn't make Magazine 'prog'. Other than one or two numbers on Second Hand Daylight I think the Magazine/prog connection is well and trtuly over-stated.


In terms of rhythmic complexity, voicings, chord choices, harmony, lyrical concerns and literary ambitions, sound of the bass guitar and non traditional use of the electric guitar Magazine owe a lot to Prog (specifically VdGG on the one hand and Crimson on the other) but nothing at all to neo-classicists like Yes or ELP.

"Jehovahkill" is pure Prog in terms of the sheer scale of the ambition and reach though perhaps you find the term Art Rock less offensive. It's Prog like Kevin Ayers is Prog. Same impulses. Same palette. Different branding.

People who think that Prog is all about mini moog concertos and ice skating dragon slayers are buying into a set of cliches that have little to do with the reality. It's like the tourist postcard idea of Punk or like that Cope anecdote about Mac running out of a record shop because the very idea of a Magma album offended his NME honed sensibilities. His loss of course but indicative of an almost Teddy Boy like mentality and a closed intellectual circuit in terms of what is, and is not, allowable in music.

What made Cope and Devoto occasionally great, often brilliant and always worthwhile is their devotion to being extraordinary. Which, when Prog was capable of greatness, was its very calling-card. Be extraordinary. Be unpredictable. I don't care whether we call it Art Rock, Prog Rock, Pomp Rock or whatever but it's a thread that runs through English music from 67 to 77 and beyond and gave license to all kinds of crimes against music as well as works of iconic genius. But you can't have the one without the other. There has to be a license to be idiotic as well as brilliant otherwise you end up in that closed loop of nostalgia where what is acceptable is what has already been done. And that's pretty much where my list came from.

Which is why I find the Velvets fixation of the early 80s especially perplexing. The Velvets wrote that book and closed it again. Why does anyone feel the need go back there and with such slavish devotion to the template? If the only reason is because it's easier to play that way than come up with your own scene then you need another reason.

Of course all genres fail pray to that dynamic (including all the ones that I enjoy the most) it's just that Post Punk gets off the lightest because the senior critics and broadcasters of the last twenty years largely come from that era and have cast that sound in bronze as an object of cultural idolatory. Just as their predecessors did with Blonde on Blonde and Exile.
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Re: Prog Britannia (keith a)
Don't be afraid to be made fun of moog-in-cape man! (Dog 3000)
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