Lev - nice post on previous page, well written, you have a skill my friend. I don't agree with you that "proto-prog" is a distinct music style, sorry. Please read the rest of this post for for explanations.
You were right, Trane. As soon as you mentioned 90s, something clicked in my mind.
On old progressive rock newsgroup rec.music.progressive, the bands like Cressida, Gnidrolog, Graciius were referenced as proto-prog, but this was indended a shortcut, a label, not a subgenre or distinct musical style.
Here is the quote taken from R.M.P archives - response to the question "What is proto-prog?":
"On one hand, it refers to the bands that rose to prominence during the
psychedelic era that most foreshadowed the sound of later "mature"
symphonic progressive bands. The principle players here would be the
Moody Blues, Procol Harum and the Nice.
The term is also applied to the numerous also-rans in England who
recorded between 1969 and 1971, who ran the gamut between the symphonic
sound of King Crimson, the folk rock of Fairport Convention, the blues
rock of the Groundhogs and the hard rock of Deep Purple (who tended to
run the gamut themselves) with sometimes of pinch of country/roots rock
as well (which tended to imbue most rock of that period.) The more
notable acts in this area include Gracious, Gravy Train, Gnidrolog,
Spring, Beggars Opera, the Web/Samurai, East of Eden, May Blitz,
Quatermass, T2, Mogul Thrash and so on."
Because the term proto-prog includes different set of bands for different prog fans, I would suggest (again) to change the name of the list and I agree with Trane that we need to separate 60s proto- bands from early 70s bands.
As Lev stated in his post above, all these bands can be examples of what we are looking for. The questions is are they essential? I think most of these bands didn't make the list because nobody thought of them as being indispensable examples of early 70's prog. I believe that what happened to Aardvard too.
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