When did the "Prog Door" open for YOU?

[iguana]

SAGA in 1982. didn’t realize that this was called “prog(ressive) rock” until some years later.

[GentleG]

1972 , East of Eden,Quatermass,Heep,Zep ,Sabbath,Purple,Grand Funk ; 1975 GG,VDGG,KC,Yes,Genesis,MMEB

[walt]

I had heard ITCotCK,ELP,The Yes Album.. at college,circa 1971-'73 but the true scope of progressive rock didn't really start to sink in for me until around '75 when I was (re) introduced to a dude I had known slightly in junior and senior high school but had lost touch with.He was a musician and musical omnivore who turned me on to a whole new world of music I had never heard of(much less heard).Zappa, Beefheart,Family,Genesis,Soft Machine,Heldon,Tangerine Dream,Hatfield/North,on and on and on.Not only progressive rock but jazz,the modern stuff, the out cats,Coltrane,AACM,the European free jazz and free improvisors..on and on..That's what he was into and that's what he played.Contemporary classical music also, Messiaen,Bartok,Stockhausen, Cage, Steve Reich,Glass, on and on.......To say this was overwhelming to me would be an understatement.He was equally enthused about everything!.He played me Egg, then played Coltrane.He'd play Messiaen, then he'd play Robert Wyatt;Tangerine Dream...then Art Ensemble of Chicago;Steve Reich,then Family.......get the picture?

I'm living in(with) the aftershocks of all these musical earthquakes.Things were never the same for me after exposure to these musics.

[folkjokeopus]

After going to the Bath Progressive Rock & Blues festival and, later in the year in September, seeing Yes on The Yes album tour, at The Brangwyn Halls in Swansea, I was hooked.

I love music of all kinds, particularly live, but Prog will always be number one for me.

Bath-Festival-70-joe-poster.jpg

[Trane]

September 74... (I was just 11, and had been in Canada for just over a year)

Before that, I knew mostly the Stones, The Beatles, and a bit The Doors, The Who and the whatevers (i'd developped an idea that rock groups could only starte with "The" before)... but I had never bought an album >> I played/toyed around with a cassette deck

Next to my school, there was a record shop and I saw that amazing Crime Of The Century album artwork... I was stunned!!! Next day, I brought enough money (I was delivering newspaper) to buy it and take it home!!

I had had, the previous school year, an English teacher that gave the newcomers kids courses, ad he'd given us the lyrics of Sgt Pepper to teach us the language.
And fuck!!! Did COTC ever strike so bloody hard!!! I was totally hooked by those lyrics that seemed to be written for me...
Was there more of that kind of music??? Ooooh fuck, yessssssssssssssssss!!
DSOTM, SEBTP (that one took me a while to "grasp >> musically as well), ITCOTCK, ITLOGAP, TAAB etc... Bought within 12 months, I'd say ... These represent more or less a big part of my first 15 albums bought. Of course, I was also a hard-rock nut and Runes/Zoso, Machine Head and Paranoid were also in my first few albums.



So I plunged in prog almost right away, though my first concert outings would date from 76 (high school friday evening concerts)

[scags]

I guess I was in Junior high, and when Tarkus, Aqualung and Fragile came out around the same time, I got hooked. They all were reviewed in the local papers, and got a fair amount of airplay in NYC.

[Progtopia]

I was into Genesis and Peter Gabriel in the summer of '86 when both had albums out, so I started diving into the back catalog. PG3 was something of an eye-opener, but then when I got Foxtrot, mind was blown. That led to Yes, Rush, KC, Marillion, and all the rest.

[Troopers For Sound]

Summer of 1989 and Genesis and Phil Collins were mega stars and generally everywhere. I was more a fan of typical 80s stuff like Ultravox and Duran Duran, but had seen the tune Paperlate on an old Top of the Pops VHS I had and the weird piano chords had intrigued me. So I taped an edited version of the Invisible Touch Tour at Wembley that was shown on late night TV in the hope they might play that tune. Again, I loved Tony Banks' strange keyboard sounds...but it was the tune Los Endos that totally warped my tiny 11year old mind!

I had to go on holiday with my family the next day, but that tune haunted me and I literally ran through the door when we got back home to play it. A few weeks later I bought a cassette of Seconds Out from my local shop and that was that. I had completely separate introductions to Floyd and Yes over the next 2 years with absolutely no idea that there was a "scene" that connected them.

Matt.

[Rarebird]

I don't really know. When I saw Kayak for the first time, I loved them, but I'm not sure it was a gateway to other prog.
I loved Uriah Heep, but didn't buy any albums.
When the English teacher played ELP at school, I loved the music and bought Welcome back my friends.
When a class-mate brought a Nektar album to a party at my house I started looking for this and other Nektar albums. This way I discovered Novalis, which was also filed under 'N', Hoelderlin, Streetmark and other German groups, that were filed under 'Kraut'.

[JKL2000]

When I first heard 2112 was pretty much the moment - specifically listening to the overture and realizing that the 1812 overture was quoted in it, but also listening to the whole thing, taking in the story (also being familiar with Ayn Rand's "Anthem").
Basically, it's Rush's fault. This was Autumn of 1981.

[Garyhead]

Yes - Fragile 1972 Junior High School Lunchroom. A guy a year older than me was allowed to set up a stereo on the stage of the lunchroom and play "his music". He played mostly prog but it was Roundabout that struck me. He was also Stoner #1 at school. The supplier of the bulk of the Weed for us 12 - 15 year olds in the early 70's. I never partook but got plenty contact highs....ahh the days....amazing no one was caught as they toked behind the Gym....but I suppose that is fodder for another thread.....

[No Pride]

Though my dad was a professional orchestra musician and classical music was always being played in the house, I didn't get interested in music until I saw The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show. I was ten years old. It was a natural progression at the time to get into The Byrds, The Hollies, The Monkees, The Association, The Turtles, etc. Then the heavier rock/blues/psychedelic thing started and it was Hendrix, Cream, Zeppelin, etc. I had read that Jimi Hendrix's favorite band was The Nice, so I bought their debut. I guess that was the beginning, them, Deep Purple's first couple of albums, Touch... you know, what we now call "Proto-prog." I started getting into jazz by my junior year in high school and by senior year, stuff like ItCotCK and ELP's debut were coming out. Around the same time, fusion was starting to develop and I was into Tony Williams' Lifetime and Miles Davis' "Bitches Brew," which would soon be followed by The Mahavishnu Orchestra, Chick Corea's RTF and Weather Report... and of course, Genesis, Yes, Gentle Giant, etc. It was like a barrage; all of this great music just coming down on my head like an avalanche. Ah, those were the days!

Oh yeah, I saw Soft Machine open for Jimi Hendrix too. I like to brag about that to the young'uns.

[Gladiator1634]

Summer of 74' I was 15 at the time my next oldest brother room was in the attic of our house on Long Island where our stereo system was located. He exposed me to Floyd, Yes, Zappa,Crimson,The who,Bowie,ELP etc... That November I attended a Zappa concert with him (Roxy & Elsewhere era) my very first concert. The one event that really sealed the deal for me though was when a friend bought me a ticket for the Genesis Lamb show in December. I had only knew a few of their songs by then from Tresspass,NC,Foxtrot,SEBTP and he had only gotten the new Lamb album on the day of the show so we had a couple of listens before we left. After seeing that show I became obsessed with Genesis music. I even went back a week later and saw it again in Passaic NJ. Yes for sure with out a doubt that's when the prog door fully opened for me!

[julioscissors]

Bought 90125 and enjoyed it, so I went to the record shop to pick up another Yes album. Didn't know a whole lot about them (was familiar with the tunes they played on FM radio like Roundabout, etc.), so I just grabbed the one with the coolest cover, which I thought was "Drama". Got home, heard "Machine Messiah", and I was hooked.

[Vic2012]

For me it was Kansas. I'd gotten into them in the very early 80s. I also was listening to Return To Forever and some other eclectic music but I was mostly listening to hard/rock (I avoided heavy metal back then). Then I went through a good 10-15 years where I wasn't actively listening to music or buying albums. Then in the late 90s I found a bargain cassette of Leftoverture and Point Of Know Return. When I'd heard those albums originally I liked the rockin' numbers a lot more than the busy, proggy numbers like The Spider, Magnum Opus, etc. I was only familiar with those albums, and Vinyl Confessions and that was about it. When I played LO and POKR in the late 90s again after many years of not hearing those albums something just blew my mind. The Spider and all those other proggy bits just took hold. From there I started surfing the internet and joining Kansas fan forums. That's when I started seeing this word "prog" being bandied around. Well, from there I started buying YES albums and that was it. A whole new world of music opened up for me.

[WHORG]

I was 15 in the spring of 1974 - an older friend was at Berklee and invited us down for a show at the Orpheum: Selling England by the Pound.

I loved music well prior to that - but that show took the cake.

[webbcity]

I've told my story, too... the year was 1985. I rather liked Yes's "90125" when I bought it, but my roommate told me that I should hear some REAL Yes. He played me their seventies selections, and I can even nail the moment when I fell in love with Yes of old and prog in general... it was when I heard the pipe organ come in for the first time after the "I get up, I get down" chorus in "Close to the Edge."

"Wow," I said, meaning it.

"Isn't that nice?" asked my roommate.

Nice?! With that one pipe organ bit... I was prog's bitch forever and ever.

Haha. This is awesome!

I wish I could point to one specific moment, but I really can't. It was a gradual process. My older cousin introduced me to Yes, ELP, and Genesis when I was about 9. Yes and ELP clicked for me especially. I don't think I really knew what "progressive rock" was yet though. And at the age of 12 I started playing bass...thank you Chris Squire. Gradually I did get more into Genesis, then King Crimson, then Marillion somewhere in there... then years later it was discovering all the more "obscure" bands I had never heard of from Italy and other realms beyond...wow! These guys were all exploring the territory too! There were lots of moments of exciting new discoveries along the way, but I couldn't point to just one. Sometimes I wish I could go back and relive some of those moments of discovery though, like the first time I heard Gentle Giant's "The Power and the Glory" or KC's "Starless and Bible Black"!

[webbcity]

I had heard ITCotCK,ELP,The Yes Album.. at college,circa 1971-'73 but in a sense the reality of the true scope of progressive rock didn't really sink in for me until around '75 when I was (re) introduced to a dude I had known slightly in junior and senior high school but had lost touch with.He was a musician and musical omnivore who turned me on to a whole new world of music I had never heard of(much less heard).Zappa, Beefheart,Family,Genesis,Soft Machine,Heldon,Tangerine Dream,Hatfield/North,on and on and on.Not only progressive rock but jazz,the modern stuff, the out cats,Coltrane,AACM,the European free jazz and free improvisors..on and on..That's what he was into and that's what he played.Contemporary classical music also, Messiaen,Bartok,Stockhausen, Cage, Steve Reich,Glass, on and on.......To say this was overwhelming to me would be an understatement.He was equally enthused about everything!.He played me Egg, then played Coltrane.He'd play Messiaen, then he'd play Robert Wyatt;Tangerine Dream...then Art Ensemble of Chicago;Steve Reich,then Family.......get the picture?

I'm living in(with) the aftershocks of all these musical earthquakes.Things were never the same for me after exposure to these musics.

That is fantastic. It took me a while to get to the AACM, Coltrane, Ayler, etc... I started with prog. And for a time I think I had trouble reconciling those two worlds. Because the European free jazz and experimental music never clicked with me, but I did like European prog...and then African-American jazz. They seemed very disconnected to me at the time (20 or so years ago when I was discovering some of these things). But now I find there are a lot of people who like both Yes and the Art Ensemble of Chicago, so maybe it's not that weird.

[Gerardo]

When I was a kid, probably 6-7 years old, I used to listen to a rock station in Puerto Rico called Radio Rock (it doesn't exist anymore) that had a show hosted by Sunshine Logrono, now a renowned comedian/actor/tv producer, who used to play this type of music, especially the Italian bands like Banco, PFM and others along with the usual suspects of the British scene like ELP, Jethro Tull, King Crimson. etc. I don't ever recall him referring to this music as "progressive rock". To me this was rock music back then or classic rock if you will. Also, my aunt had a boyfriend back then that was into this music and used to visit the house bringing with him some of his LP collection which included Caravan, Camel, Pavlov's Dog, and Starcastle (I remember when he brought the 'Fountains of Light' album with him vividly). My aunt and his then boyfriend also took me to my first concert ever, U.K. @ the Roberto Clemente Coliseum in 1979 (my aunt has no recollection of taking me to this concert, LOL!). Again, to me it was just a rock concert and I wasn't aware this was "progressive rock".

The first time I heard the term "progressive rock", believe it or not, was in 1996 when I got internet and joined the old ASIA forum that Dave Gallant used to run. The 'Arena' album by ASIA was their newest release at the time and people were referring to it as their most "progressive" of all their albums and people saying that the Payne-era of the band was more "prog rock" than the Wetton era. Then, in that same forum, people began referring to bands I liked like King Crimson, ELP and Camel as "progressive rock". I was baffled at first because I thought of them as classic rock bands and didn't know about the term "prog rock" so I had my education on that forum. Through that forum I learned of Progression magazine and subscribed to the magazine and then the "Prog Door" opened wide and so was my wallet I was a fan of Dream Theater already (which I just considered them to be a heavy metal band) but then I discovered The Flower Kings, Spock's Beard and Porcupine Tree and from then on so many other fantastic bands/artists.

[progmatist]

For me it was Kerry Livgren's first solo album Seeds of Change. I was a sophomore or junior in high school at the time. I was particularly taken aback by the composition prowess of Ground Zero. I still have the vinyl record I owned back in the early 80's.

[Jefferson James]

Summer 1974, on family holiday in lovely Edmonton, Alberta, Canada; I heard "cold and misty morning I heard a warning borne in the air" blasting out of my older cousin Dori's bedroom. She was the same age as my oldest sister, Kim. I instantly loved the music and I knew it would be awhile before I ever got back 'round to my Herman's Hermits, Monkees and Cyrkle 45s.

[Just Eric]

October, 1976 - I won Kansas' POKR and Rush 2112 within the same week from the local FM radio station. I was hooked immediately and jumped right away into ELP, YES, KC, Gentle Giant, and on and on.

Progmatist said:
For me it was Kerry Livgren's first solo album Seeds of Change. I was a sophomore or junior in high school at the time. I was particularly taken aback by the composition prowess of Ground Zero. I still have the vinyl record I owned back in the early 80's.

That's awesome! I bet you are the only one here, or maybe in the world, who was turned onto Prog through Seeds of Change.

[bill g]

For me I think it was about 1972, and someone put on 'Meddle'. I was VERY into music already, grown up on Beach Boys, Beatles, and was into Black Sabbath and a ton of other stuff. But this album floored me. I remember saying several times, 'I didn't know music could sound like this.' Then, someone played 'The Court of the Crimson King', and I liked it even better, and got every King Crimson album. Yes, ELP, Genesis and Bo Hansson quickly followed. I didn't care what it was called, all I knew is I LOVED the music, it just resonated with me-sounded like home to me, if that makes sense.

[Jeremy Bender]

After going to the Bath Progressive Rock & Blues festival

That's a really terrific lineup for both days, that Zeppelin gig is considered pivotal in their career. Did it rain?

I was a 14-year old total Zep/Sabbath/Who/Stones/Beatles type in mid-1974, when I started buying this rock magazine called Circus. They had their Top Albums chart where you would write them in a small form and mail it off to the Circus office (ah, the pre-Internet days!). This band Emerson, Lake & Palmer were popular in the magazine and their album Brain Salad Surgery was popular, usually in the Top 3 with Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and Burn. One day I was at my older sister's house, going through her records when I saw this gray album with a dove forming part of a man's head on it. I had heard about this song Lucky Man, so I put it on and thought it was pleasant, I really liked the Moog solo.

I flipped it over and after The Barbarian was done, I had one of those "Ah HA!" moments. I got Brain Salad Surgery for Christmas in 1974 and was totally blown away by the whole thing: the music, the album itself that had the album cover printed in the middle, the cover with fold-open sides, the poster. Within a few months, I had all of ELP's albums to that point (debut > WBMF). Again I was at my sister's house and saw the greatest album cover ever, ITCOTCK, in her stack of wax and put that on because Greg Lake was on it. 7:21 later I was a Crimhead. I heard Relayer in a record store so was off on a Yes thing too, I got TFTO after that. Seeing Yes at the Hollywood Bowl on the Relayer tour in 1975 is still one of my great concert experiences. Too bad I hadn't heard Close to the Edge yet, that song and And You & I were blanks for me.

Nowadays, I only listen to BSS tour live recordings, The Gates of Delirium once in a while and live stuff from the 1973-74 King Crimson, I'm simply burnt out on all those albums, too much new stuff to listen to.

[Jubal]

Middle July 1972. My older brother Ronnie's birthday. One of the presents a friend bought was a copy of ELP's Trilogy. He excitedly opened it and immediately played "Hoedown". I then saw my first "air keyboards" performance. That was incredibly cool to me. I got punched several times for playing his copy over the next several months. One of my Christmas presents that year was a copy of this album from one of my aunts.
I also received a Panasonic radio on which I listened to WRAS, 88.5 FM, the "Stereo Oddysey" Progressive station at GA State University constantly.