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Thread: What is your gateway prog song?

  1. #1
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    What is your gateway prog song?

    I am just wondering what was the song that really grabbed you and sucked you in to the NEW-ERA of prog?

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    Mine was, "June" by Spock's Beard.
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  3. #3
    Hmm, that's a tough one... If memory serves, it was probably "At The End Of The Day" by Spock's Beard, the first thing I heard by them. I don't think I had really heard any "modern prog" bands before that one.

    June is a beautiful song, btw.

  4. #4
    How are we defining "new era of prog?"

  5. #5
    Member since March 2004 mozo-pg's Avatar
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    Marillion - Script from a Jester's Tear

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by mozo-pg View Post
    Marillion - Script from a Jester's Tear
    Huh! Could be mine as well ... I can still remember putting the cassette (borrowed from a friend) into my walkman and hearing it for the first time. I had never heard such a complex structure/arrangement in anything up to that point, and on headphones it was unbelievably powerful.

    The next one that occurs to me is 'Watcher of the Skies', but I heard it later.

  7. #7
    Forgotten Sons off of Script...

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    My gateway to prog back in the day was probably either Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”, Styx “Suite Madam Blue” or Kansas “Carry On My Wayward Son”. As for the latter day era it was definitely Illuvatar’s first album. A friend discovered it for me and I had no idea music like that was being made any more.

  9. #9
    If we're being general about it, then the answer for me was Thinking Plague's In Extremis.

    I'd heard of a "prog revival" probably around 1997 and 1998, but when I actually heard the bands cited as being responsible for it (Flower Kings, Spock's Beard, Dream Theater) I was not at all impressed.

    Then I remember seeing a review for the Thinking Plague album in a non-prog publication and tried it out, and that helped me discover the world of more interesting prog that was also happening around that time, albeit more under the surface.

  10. #10
    Highly Evolved Orangutan JKL2000's Avatar
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    If Marillion counts as New Era, then it was "He Knows You Know," which I heard on the radio about a week after I saw Marillion open for Rush in 1983.

    But since I'd already been listening to Prog for a few years, including new releases by Genesis and Rush, the New Era thing seems a little arbitrary.

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    Member Vic2012's Avatar
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    Leftoverture by Kansas put me on this prog kick in around 1998. Then I started surfing the www and read about Spocks Beard. The very first note of music I ever heard by Spocks was a cover song called Beware Of Darkness. Dave Meros' bass sucked me in.

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    Parrots Ripped My Flesh Dave (in MA)'s Avatar
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    Member Paulrus's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by DeadwingRM View Post
    I am just wondering what was the song that really grabbed you and sucked you in to the NEW-ERA of prog?
    "New Era"?

    If you're talking everything 80s and later I was already a proghead by then. I'd been exposed to Marillion around '85 and IQ shortly after that. I liked some Marillion but IQ was the band that really made me think something new was happening.

    But if we're talking what song originally made my brain grok on prog then it was probably The Beatles' "A Day in the Life". My older brother also used to play the crap out of Fragile when I was 8 or 9 years old, so that definitely made an impression. "South Side of the Sky" is indelibly etched into my synapses from those early days.
    I'm holding out for the Wilson-mixed 5.1 super-duper walletbuster special anniversary extra adjectives edition.

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    Member Sputnik's Avatar
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    Hard to know what is meant by "new era," so I'll just give my experience.

    I was a Prog fan back in the 70s and into the early 80s. Mid to late 80s I sort of turned to other things, but in the early 90s when I stared buying reissued music on CD, I was made aware that there were some new bands playing music hearkening back to the 70s stuff. The first of these I hard was Echolyn, and I picked up their first album probably in 1992 or so, and got Suffocating the Bloom the year after. It was those albums that got me looking for more modern bands playing Proggy stuff, it wasn't really specific songs. The next one I discovered was probably Nuova Era.

    Bill

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    In my case, it was a show by a live band, not a single particular song.

    Seeing Idiot Flesh (the band that later became Sleepytime Gorilla Museum) back in 1994 or thereabouts. I'd heard a mangled rumor about them, but knew nothing of their music. I saw them at a Eugene punk-rock dive bar, and spent the entire show in amazement that such music was still being made. The next night, I went to Portland to see them again.

  16. #16
    How can it constitute a "new era" if the creative virtues inherent in the "initial" era aren't even remotely upheld by 90% of the "new" artists in question?
    "Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
    "[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM

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    new era.... i guess it'll have to be Neal Morse
    it was over 2 years ago when i heard Alive Again
    i realized that someone can still write prog epics

  18. #18
    I can't remember for sure, but probably either:

    Flower Kings - "Stardust We Are"

    or

    Spock's Beard - "The Light"

  19. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by Scrotum Scissor View Post
    How can it constitute a "new era" if the creative virtues inherent in the "initial" era aren't even remotely upheld by 90% of the "new" artists in question?
    Because the more obvious aspects of the sound those initial artists forged were upheld. Many fans were in love with that sound, perhaps not entirely aware of the creative virtues that engendered it, and far more interested in a particular result than the process that formed it. Also, consider that those same creative virtues had not remained dormant within artistic circles, but had kept on developing, and that what they had currently evolved might be almost unrecognizable to those particular fans.

  20. #20
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    Bob Drake "Building with Bones -or - a Thing"

  21. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by Baribrotzer View Post
    Because the more obvious aspects of the sound those initial artists forged were upheld. Many fans were in love with that sound, perhaps not entirely aware
    Exactly. The only problem with the whole idea then being that progressive rock was in all historical, cultural or musical fact NEVER a question of a specific "sound". And FWIW, Colosseum, Man, Soft Machine, Nucleus, Third Ear Band, Traffic, Caravan, Can, Amon Düül II and several dozens of other widely celebrated international progressive acts predated the harbingers of that given "sound" but were not channelled their apparent "new era" disciples.

    'Not aware' is a most diplomatic manner of presenting it, I suppose.
    "Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
    "[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM

  22. #22
    That's Mr. to you, Sir!! Trane's Avatar
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    I'll speak of album, rather than song...

    for the "new era" prog, Hybris for sure... I totally lucked out checking out entry per pentry my library's paper catalogue: SAw the track list & length, saw the line-up and especially the Mellotronen label. three weeks later I had received my copy from Sweden

    70's: I woud say Crime Of The Century, my first album ever bought

    Quote Originally Posted by mozo-pg View Post
    Marillion - Script from a Jester's Tear
    Well, I'd consider that as intermediary or old wave because of its date.... but yeah, that album sounded really sweet in the 80's... Too bad that's the only one that achieved that (IQ's The Wake, a very distant second)
    Last edited by Trane; 04-30-2017 at 07:08 PM.
    my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicts to complete nutcases.

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    I share Paulrus issue which is that I was already a big prog fan, so no "gateway" was needed when the NEW-ERA began. The two new-era bands that knocked my socks off from the get-go were Anglagard and Djam Karet. Echolyn came soon after. But, again, it was no specific song. It was entire cds, which very much made sense to me as artistic statements, being a prog veteran.

  24. #24
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    Quote Originally Posted by Scrotum Scissor View Post
    ....several dozens of other widely celebrated international progressive acts predated the harbingers of that given "sound" but were not channelled their apparent "new era" disciples.....
    I'd argue that some of them - particularly the Krautrockers - do have "apparent 'new era' disciples". But most of those disciples aren't recognized as "prog" or included within the "prog" umbrella, and in many cases they intentionally resist such inclusion. Krautrock continues within electronica, and various sub-sub-genres of indie rock. Traffic certainly have a legacy in the R&B-oriented side of the jam band movement - but that counts as white-guy funk, not prog. And the jazzers are, well, considered jazz.

  25. #25
    Member sergio's Avatar
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    if memory serves me well mine was Rush 2112 and then Misplaced Childhood. Cant' remember when Stairway hit me... before or after
    remember travelling in public bus with tape Walkman listening Tales From Topo Oceans, haha!

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