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When July rolls around, suddenly there are no new albums worth buying being released. The world has gone on vacation, and it’s time to explore the back catalogue. Each year I develop a summer obsession to guide me through the season. Two years ago it was Frank Zappa. It works like this – read the biography, see the documentaries, listen to all of the albums. Except, with Zappa, there were a lot of albums. And I listened to ALL of them. It didn’t help that this spawned to simultaneous obsessions – a Sun Ra addiction (collossal back catalogue) and an emerging interest in Progressive Rock, manifest initially by an obsession with Soft Machine. Indeed, I think the Soft Machine thing  preceded the Zappa thing.
“Summer” of 2012 struck, the weather stunk, and I listened relentlessly to ECM jazz, until the autumn new release calendar drew me back in.
So, what about summer 2013? For a change the weather is good, and I have been listening more to audiobooks than music, but it looks like Prog time again. The advantage this year, is that I already have a relatively abundant Prog collection, much of which I have not listened to in the last 2 years.
Although many believe Prog to be an exclusively 70s phenomenon, derived from Psychedelia as an alternative to blues or boogie rock, Prog has survived and, in fact, thrived over the past 3 decades. Many of us are, unknownst to ourselves, Prog fans.

What is progressive rock? Popular music generally is structured around simple structures, call and response, verse-chorus-bridge-verse-chorus, often derived from the blues. Frequently 3 to 5 chords are used. Progressive rock includes complex song and chord structures, with variable (though usually not syncopated) rhythms, often without choruses, incorporating elements of classical music, jazz, folk and “world” music (other people’s folk). Often songs are very long – 20 minutes (or a side of vinyl), may be instrumental (with lots of improvisation), and may be wrapped up in an “overarching concept” (the “concept” album). As Prog emerged during the vinyl era, LP artwork is highly valued – usually gatefold LPs with detailed illustrations. The double album is common. Well known Prog albums are “Dark Side of the Moon”, “Wish you were here” and “The Wall” by Pink Floyd, “Tubular Bells” by Mike Oldfield, “Ok Computer” by Radiohead, “Out of the Blue” by ELO, “Pictures at the Exhibition” by Emerson, Lake and Palmer, and myriad others. Many Prog acts emerged in the Psychedelic era, and often in record shops they are found in the Psychedelic section – principally because that term is considered “cooler” than “Prog” which acquired a bad odour due to publications such as the NME, Sounds and Record Mirror, in the 1970s.

Growing up – I was brainwashed to believe that “Prog” represented a small series of overpaid, overdressed, over-hyped, stadium acts singing about gnomes and fairies, consuming lots of drugs and generally being self indulgent. As a young punk, I was led to believe that the ability to actually play your instruments polluted the message of “sex and drugs and rock ‘n’ roll”. In reality, by 1967, pop music had gone as far as it could using basic song structures and artists needed to branch out and develop to push the boundaries. What resulted was Psychedelic/Progressive Rock – Sgt Pepper  was one of the first Prog albums. Abbey Road, side 2 is classic Prog. The punk-new wave ‘revolution’ of the late 70s and 80s was revivalism-retromanic for 60s era garage rock (Rubber Soul Beatles) which devastated the development of ‘serious’ rock music for more than 20 years. Or, maybe, the kids just moved on. I find it interesting that critics often talk about “20 minute self indulgent instrumental noodling” by Prog bands, while continuing to rave about bands such as Led Zeppelin – 30 minute drum solos and Neil Young and Crazy Horse – 30 minutes of mind numbingly feedback. Indeed, anybody who has ever gone to a concert featuring real musicians have been exposed to extended jams, solos or instrumentals. The 3 minute pop song exists 1. because that is the duration of a 78/45 rpm single, 2. radios only want short songs, 3. pop musicians run out of ideas. The arrival of LPs and subsequently CDs allowed for long musical passages and was a tremendous advance in musical recording. That is why there were so many great jazz albums were released in the 1950s. Further – the majority of Prog acts made sod all money, they were journeymen musicians, mostly in the UK, who never found fame and fortune, never played stadiums or threw TVs out of hotel windows.
There are many types of Prog: The Canterbury Scene – describes a series of interconnected bands that sprung up around Canterbury in the late ’60s principally Caravan and the Soft Machine. There have been many many off shoots (Gilgamesh, Henry Cow, Matching Mole, National Health, Soft Heap, Gong etc. I confess, I love virtually everything derived from this scene. Then there is Symphonic Prog (ELP, Yes etc), Jazz Rock Fusion (Weather Report, Return to Forever, In Cahoots, Al Di Meola etc), Prog Folk (Grateful Dead, Incredible String Band), Crossover (Supertramp, ELO, Radiohead, Muse, Elbow), Prog Metal (Tool), Prog Electronic (Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream), Space Rock/Psych (Pink Floyd), Math Rock (Tortoise), Krautrock (Can, Magma), Italian Prog (Le Orme), and eclectic or undefinable Prog (King Crimson, Gentle Giant, Van Der Graff Generator). I figure that there is a type of Prog for everyone.

For what it’s worth, here is my list of current prog favorites, not in any particular order:

1. DSOM – Pink Floyd

2. Third – Soft Machine

3. Hot Rats – Frank Zappa

4. Nucleus -We’ll talk about it later

5. Isotope – Isotope

6. Little Red Book – Matching Mole

7. Book of Invasions – Horslips

8. Asleep at the Back – Elbow

9. Red – King Crimson

10. Valkyre Suite – Collosseum

11. Atom Heart Mother – Pink Floyd

12. AJA – Steely Dan

13. Land of Pink and Grey – Caravan

14. Aqualung – Jethro Tull

15. Grand Wazoo – Frank Zappa

16. Oxygene – Jean Michele Jarre

17. Snow Goose – Camel

18. Hatfield and the North – Hatfield and the North

19. National Health – National Health

19. If – If

20. Egg – the Polite Force

21. Magma – Mekanik Destrukti w Kommandoh

22. Phaedra – Tangerine Dream

23. Le Orme – Felona E Sorona

24. Steve Hackett – Beyond the Shrouded Horizon

25. Fish Rising -Steve Hillage

26.  Space Shanty – Khan

27. Pictures at the Exhibition – ELP

28. Aqualung – Jethro Tull

29. Lateralus – Tool

30. WYWH – Pink Floyd

31. Ok Computer – Radiohead

32. Per Uno Amico – PFM

33. On and On – Syd Arthur

34. Another Green Earth – Brian Eno

35. Feels good to me – bruford

36. Tango Mango – Can

37. Out of the Blue – ELO

38. Chris Squire –

39. Ocean – Eloy

40. Collateral – Passport

41. Ninesense – Elton Dean

42. In Cahoots – Phil Miller

43. Centepede – Centepede

44. Brain Salad Surgery – ELP

45. Bundles – Soft Machine

46. Fields – Fields

47. Focus – At the Rainbow

48. No Pussyfooting – Fripp & Eno

49. A trick in the tail – Genesis

50. In the Court of King Crimson – King Crimson

51. Close to the Edge – Yes

52. Lark’s tongue on aspic – King Crimson

53. Get the Blessing – Get the Blessing

54. Absolution – Muse

55. Another fine tune – Gilgamesh

56. Ginger baker’s Airforce – GBA

57. Pierre Moerlen’s Gong – Espresso II

58. Greenslade – Greenslade

59. Unrest – Henry Cow

60. The Tain – Horslips

61. King Kong – Jean Luc Ponty

62. Eleventh House – Larry Coryell

63. Mahavishnu Orchestra – Inner Mounting Flame

64. Tubular Bells – Mike Oldfield

65. Elastic Rock – Nucleus

66. The End of an Ear- Robert Wyatt

67. 2112 – Rush

68. Lotus – Santana

69. Sigur Ros – Med Sudi Eyrum

70. John Barleycorn Must Die – Traffic

71.  Solar Fire – Manfred Mann’s Earth Band

72. Io Sono Nato Libero – Banco Del Mutuo Soccorso

73. Area(zone) – Area

74. The raven that refused to sing – Steven Wilson

75. Selling England by the Pound – Genesis

76. Small craft on a milk sea – Brian Eno

77. Birds of Fire – Mahavitsnu Orchestra

78. Fields – fields

79. Returns – Return to Forever

80 Five Piece Band – John McLaughlin/Chic Corea

81. Metallic Spheres – the Orb featuring David Gilmour

82. Sleep Dirt – Frank Zappa (LP or 2012 CD not the one with the crappy vocals!)

~ by Pat Neligan on July 18, 2013.

Posted in Current Listening, Music Biography