Let's Talk About Progressive Rock

[P-Belly Evans]

2 minutes ago, P-Belly Evans said:

Yes, but maybe Bon is admitting the fact that by using bagpipes it is indeed a "long way to the top", thus exposing a long standing personal existential nightmare over his ability to actually "rock and roll"......

 

Do I win a prog prize or should I try to explain through dance or gatefold sleeve art???

Sorry for the double post.....or am I???

Edited January 18, 2023 by P-Belly Evans

[pfretrock]

2 hours ago, Dad3353 said:

 

These lyrics are by Richard Thomson, as it happens; I agree that Ms Denny had more than just a great voice.
Off the subject, but Martin Lamble was my first inspiration for playing drums, having listened to the eponymous first album. Sober, tasteful; spot on for the genre. A sad loss.

Indeed. "He would of had a great life" - Simon Nicol, Cropredy,  two thousand and something.

[Franticsmurf]

16 hours ago, fleabag said:

 

 

I saw Crimson at Friars in Aylesbury during the Adrian Belew era when their album Disicpline was out.  Monstrously good gig.  Levin was fab, as you might imagine, but Belew was a madman. Brilliant though.

 

Just the one drummer, Bill Bruford, natch

I saw one of King Crimson's 'Projekt' improvisation gigs at the Jazz Cafe in Camden back in the 90s. I happened to be in London for work and discovered on the night that they were playing. Being a KC fan, I shot down and scored a ticket. It was all improvisation. Mr Fripp started with his Frippertronics, but this was brought to an early end when someone in the audience used a flashgun. The line up was, IIRC, Levin, Trey Gunn and Bruford. It was an incredible night's music. Not 100% brilliant but when they hit the groove (which was probably 75% of the time), it was amazing.

 

 

Edited January 19, 2023 by Franticsmurf

[Barking Spiders]

Most of my fave bands are from the electronica genre but I feel a slight shudder if I read an article where it's said such and such was influenced by Pink Floyd or...gulp... Prog!!!.  This heinous accusation is sometimes levelled at The Orb and at Banco de Gaia. Utter tosh though as both acts owe a much bigger debt to dub, Kraftwerk, other krautrock bands and Arabic music.

[Kitsto]

I withdraw my insistence that AC/DC's use of bagpipes should be allowed. It took just three words to make me see sense: Mull of Kintyre. You're right: no exceptions, even for heavy metal. Otherwise we'd have borderline cases - is Metallica doing a cover version of MoK allowed? (Obviously not. Not because of the bagpipes but because of the song.)

Edited January 19, 2023 by Kitsto

[wateroftyne]

BAGPIPE BONANZA

 

 

[Ricky 4000]

[Dad3353]

10 minutes ago, Ricky 4000 said:

 

[ezbass]

3 hours ago, wateroftyne said:

BAGPIPE BONANZA

 

 

Damn it! I love that song, but I have nailed my anti bagpipe colours to the mast and should not budge from my position. 

 

Damned fine album is Us, often overlooked.

[Waddo Soqable]

6 hours ago, Franticsmurf said:

I saw one of King Crimson's 'Projekt' improvisation gigs at the Jazz Cafe in Camden back in the 90s. I happened to be in London for work and discovered on the night that they were playing. Being a KC fan, I shot down and scored a ticket. It was all improvisation. Mr Fripp started with his Frippertronics, but this was brought to an early end when someone in the audience used a flashgun. The line up was, IIRC, Levin, Trey Gunn and Bruford. It was an incredible night's music. Not 100% brilliant but when they hit the groove (which was probably 75% of the time), it was amazing.

 

 

Myself and a mate ( our drummer of the time who was very into the Frippertronics thing) saw Mr Fripp in the League of Gentlemen guise, must've been circa 1980, it was a good night but tbh my main memory of it now is RF's amusing badinage with the audience.. 

Edited January 19, 2023 by Waddo Soqable

[Conan]

On 15/01/2023 at 21:15, Bassfinger said:

I'm too deep in naval contemplation to talk about it.

 

[pfretrock]

On 17/01/2023 at 17:00, Dad3353 said:

 

Here's the Sandy Denny rendering...

 

 

Backstory..?

 

'A beautiful and moving song. Richard Thompson said it was about the deaths of his girlfriend, Jeannie Franklyn, and the band’s drummer, Martin Lamble in a van crash in 1969. The bruised and beaten sons is a jocular reference to Martin’s drums. Jeannie was a successful dressmaker which explains the reference to cutting of cloth. Drinking the light is probably some sort of ceremony, perhaps marriage, and swearing a year probably refers to the standard feudal Morganatic trial marriage contract of a year and a day. Thompson appears to be lamenting that Jeannie can no longer make a commitment to him or any other mortal but she perhaps jocularly suggests the only one of them now available to her is Martin who also lies dead beside her. Then the cold North wind beckons the minstrels back on the road.'

 

Do you think Mattacks was emulating Martin's style (one of many)  in this track as a tribute? Wd like a drummer opinion, is it my imagination?

(Sorry for the continued folky thread hijack - I am a huge prog fan of ELP, Yes, Rush and others over the other side - Allman, Dead, Doors, Airplane, blab,blab... ). The last time I saw Emerson, he said prog would never die. So there you go.

[Dad3353]

3 hours ago, pfretrock said:

Do you think Mattacks was emulating Martin's style (one of many)  in this track as a tribute? Wd like a drummer opinion, is it my imagination? ...

 

The Great Man would have to answer for himself, but I'm of the same opinion, and would like to think it to be so. Mr Mattacks is capable of creating many styles, but one could quite easily believe the sobriety shown here to be in homage of the subject. He certainly embellished the Fairports in all of their later collaborations, and I have much respect for him.

Edited January 20, 2023 by Dad3353

[Waddo Soqable]

Couldn't resist this.... 

 

[Dad3353]

1 hour ago, Waddo Soqable said:

Couldn't resist this.... 

 

I found it very easy to resist. 

[Waddo Soqable]

23 minutes ago, Dad3353 said:

 

I found it very easy to resist. 

You should have stayed for the yodelling, truly epic stuff 

[Dad3353]

34 minutes ago, Waddo Soqable said:

You should have stayed for the yodelling, truly epic stuff 

 

That was the final straw. I surprised myself with the alacrity with which I was able to turn it off. 

[miles'tone]

I Prog.

I Prog with enthusiasm as much as to to match our intrepid explorer here, Geddy Lee, as he rockets of full of delight, headlong into mystery.

Well, up until that moment where he realises the error of his ways that is...

 

"Spageddy Lee"

 

If you get this then you too, Prog.

 

 

Up until that point where the Prog community started wearing suits in the 80s also.

 

Edited January 20, 2023 by miles'tone

[Conan]

Aye, Geddy always possessed memory and awareness. It was the "shape and form" side of things that he exerted limited control over.

 

Vaguely Canadian. We all have our crosses to bear I suppose 🤔

Edited January 20, 2023 by Conan
Sausage fingers

[Waddo Soqable]

1 hour ago, Dad3353 said:

 

That was the final straw. I surprised myself with the alacrity with which I was able to turn it off. 

If you'd just have persevered there was some astonishing whistling after that, I dunno how he did it, talented them Dutch.. 😁

[Rib13Bass]

Heres one of my favorite Prog Bands ( I guess Symphonic Folky Prog if there was a box to put them in)....Ethos.....Couldve been the USA answer to Yes imo but that didnt happen lol....the unknown Brad Stephenson on Bass with awesome pick playing on an Alembic Series I (I think)
 

 

[pfretrock]

3 hours ago, Dad3353 said:

 

I found it very easy to resist. 

 Me also, never got to their gig due to fog.

[Gasman]

Prog - oh yes! Long improvs, multiple themes, quiet bits with poetry competing with my baritone sax (sounding like a rhinoceros having an enema) and a cymbal tinkling away- they lapped it up at the jazz club I ran in Oxford at the Cape of Good Hope pub... but no money in it, of course and not popular at the local Working Man's Club

 

More recently I was delighted to find that the guitarist in my current band has solid platinum Prog form - Francis Lickerish was a founder member of The Enid, an ironic symphonic prog band from the early 80s

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Enid

Since then he's composed two epic symphonic/prog rock albums ('To Wake the King' and 'Far and Forgot') in the Arthurian vein (on YouTube). I asked him why he was in now our covers band. "Keep the fingers flexible, have a bit of a laugh while I complete the third album!" seemed to be a very reasonable explanation...

[Oopsdabassist]

.

38 minutes ago, Gasman said:

 

 

More recently I was delighted to find that the guitarist in my current band has solid platinum Prog form - Francis Lickerish was a founder member of The Enid, an ironic symphonic prog band from the early 80s

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Enid

Since then he's composed two epic symphonic/prog rock albums ('To Wake the King' and 'Far and Forgot') in the Arthurian vein (on YouTube). I asked him why he was in now our covers band. "Keep the fingers flexible, have a bit of a laugh while I complete the third album!" seemed to be a very reasonable explanation...

That's cool to know, me and the good lady were big Enid fans back in the day, seen em quite a few times now probably last saw them with Francis about the time of 'Six Pieces'

[Cairobill]

Haven't read through the thread as yet but just noticed Tim Quy from Cardiacs passed away yesterday. Such a shame about both Tims (band leader Tim Smith died in 2020 after a long illness).

I saw them in the tiny Herne Hill Half Moon as a kid in 86/88 and they blew my brains out. Such an incredible band and probably my preferred variant in the prog rock arena. Amazing.

Edited February 3, 2023 by Cairobill