Where to start with Gentle Giant?

[Scrotum Scissor]

Henry Cow is a great band, but get aquainted and confidential with GG first.

Yepz! GGiant stuck to the effervescent "song-form", meaning that they essentially are the perfect springboard from which to explore even more cryptically advanced progressive musics of the 70s - of which Henry Cow or Magma or perhaps Hatfield and the North or National Health were arguably the most ardent harbingers. But hey, you're only 15 and already on the rightest of tracks, so don't you worry about a single thing; you'll do just fine - and you'll love doing it.

Jeez, one comes across as some smacky pusher now !

[chalkpie]

Henry Cow or Magma or perhaps Hatfield and the North or National Health

Yummy, and may I add quite delicious, too?

[Steve F.]

Mr Triscuits made me laugh pretty hard with this!

[wideopenears]

the "sock," to be clear, RapidRefresh, is the album cover to Henry Cow's album "Legend/Leg End" (Get it?)

It's a pretty heavy duty listen.

[veteranof1000psychicwars]

Three Friends.

[RapidRefresh]

the "sock," to be clear, RapidRefresh, is the album cover to Henry Cow's album "Legend/Leg End" (Get it?)

It's a pretty heavy duty listen.

I get it now! Thanks for the info. I looked up Henry Cow on Wiki and they look like they were very radical.

[Steve F.]

the "sock," to be clear, RapidRefresh, is the album cover to Henry Cow's album "Legend/Leg End" (Get it?)

It's a pretty heavy duty listen.

For the most part, it is very structured, interesting and tunefully catchy avant progressive. IMO. But your name IS 'Wide Open Ears'.....

...and you aren't 15

[YESHEAD777]

Freehand is my fav and IMHO very accessible. Power and the glory, octopus, and three friends all great starters too. I love the S/T disc too. just wouldn't start with Aquiring the taste-the title is self-explanatory.

[wideopenears]

For the most part, it is very structured, interesting and tunefully catchy avant progressive. IMO. But your name IS 'Wide Open Ears'.....

...and you aren't 15

Indeed. I would have loved it at age 15--but probably not, say, Western Culture...now I eat it all up.


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[PROGMONSTER]

I'm listening to Octopus now for the first time in years... There are a few duds (or at least near-misses), but my biggest problems with this LP are the sequencing of the songs (there's no good opening song on here!) and my belief that the live "Excerpts From Octopus" medley represents all the best of this LP in 15 minutes time, and sounds more exciting to these ears. Octopus is a very dry listening experience. I blame Phil (Shulman)!

I don't like Cry for everyone much. River is ok but not for me.

[2steves]

Start with Free Hand. It retains their overt refinements as well as their (somewhat) eccentric approach to things, yet it's a highly accessible and stupenduously listenable record.

Then go either way. It's all good; the last two albums significantly less adventurously so, still there are some rocks going on even there as well.

Agree with this advice--start with Free Hand and work backwards--it's beautiful complicated music --sometimes too eccentric but interesting and masterfully played and performed.

[Trane]

But that's the point!

Well, Until you've heard Miles at The Fillmore, reserve a judgement to yourself

Like putting on a nice pair of slippers. My uncle had me on the Zappa train years before that so I was used to "far out" music. My parents were not into jazz really... Herb Alpert was about as close as they got to that. haha. It was electric - and jazz... win!

You gotta look at this from a 70's and parents' PoV... Fillmore is about as hard/difficult as it comes... even more for a teenager that's theoretically not in avant/free-jazz... My guess is that most parents of then wouldn't have offered this to their "little baby" if they knew how hard hitting the music was... .

I mean there are worlds of difference between Miles' EST or Kilimandjaro era and Fillmore.

Henry Cow is a great band, but get aquainted and confidential with GG first.

Indeed, even if Leg End is from far their most accessible album (with iPoL, arguably)

I get it now! Thanks for the info. I looked up Henry Cow on Wiki and they look like they were very radical.

These guys were definitely extreme (for the times) not only musically, but politically (communists)

For the most part, it is very structured, interesting and tunefully catchy avant progressive. IMO. But your name IS 'Wide Open Ears'.....

...and you aren't 15

And we're now in the 10's - not the 70's. I may be old game to some, but presenting HC ( or Miles at Fillmore) to a mid-to early teenager is risky, in terms of musical accetation anyways...
When I was 15, I bought GG's Octopus and VdGG's Pawn Hearts, and both took me 15 years before "getting it "onto them... Not saying it will be as long as it took for me (didn't have a big brother or user's manual to help me dig them),

as for "tunefully catchy", Leg End is (of sorts), but this can't be said of most of their other albums - YMMV, though.

[Scrotum Scissor]

I get it now! Thanks for the info. I looked up Henry Cow on Wiki and they look like they were very radical.

Son, there's more "know" on this topic right here in this very place than you'll ever be so lucky to find on Wiki:

http://www.progressiveears.org/forum...nry+Cow+Thread

Needless to say, they generated not only a whole clan of bands and artists, but basically influenced a whole genre of their own - which in fact continues to expand and blossom.

[Steve F.]

as for "tunefully catchy", Leg End is (of sorts), but this can't be said of most of their other albums - YMMV, though.

I was only speaking of Leg End.

[zombywoof]

I think I was 16 when I heard Octopus, maybe 17 or 18 when I heard In Praise of Learning and LegEnd. I didn't really understand Cow until I was in college and I had lived with it for a few years. Nowadays I find Cow is perhaps the more rewarding listen, because I hear it differently every single time.

[mogrooves]

Three Friends; their first fully-realized album.

[RapidRefresh]

Son, there's more "know" on this topic right here in this very place than you'll ever be so lucky to find on Wiki:

http://www.progressiveears.org/forum...nry+Cow+Thread

Needless to say, they generated not only a whole clan of bands and artists, but basically influenced a whole genre of their own - which in fact continues to expand and blossom.

Thanks for the link. Henry Cow seem too complicated for me right now. But as you said, I've got plenty of time to checkout all these different prog groups.

[Phlakaton]

Thanks for the link. Henry Cow seem too complicated for me right now. But as you said, I've got plenty of time to checkout all these different prog groups.

Henry Cow was actually easier for me to wrap my head around than Cardiacs. haha. BUT - the wiring is different for all of us. Just take a nice leisurely pace and you'll be fine. I tried to push King Crimson's Lizard too hard the first time and ended up hating it for years... then one day it clicked in. Brilliant!

[Scrotum Scissor]

I tried to push King Crimson's Lizard too hard the first time and ended up hating it for years... then one day it clicked in. Brilliant!

Yeah! Lizard remains one of the ultimate brimstones of listening transcendence when it comes to classic vintage progressive, together with Volume Two by Soft Machine and possibly something by Van der Graaf Generator. I'd suggest one tried those (or perhaps The Polite Force by Egg) before venturing into the lands of Cows and Magma.

[trurl]

Another great gateway to more off the wall prog with a good grounding in standard symph accessibility (imho) is the Pictures album by Island- get thee to the Laser's Edge website and check it out!!

[Steve F.]

Another great gateway to more off the wall prog with a good grounding in standard symph accessibility (imho) is the Pictures album by Island- get thee to the Laser's Edge website and check it out!!

It's been out of print for a decade. If not more.

[trurl]

It's been out of print for a decade. If not more.

Ah. eBay then.

[aith01]

Ah. eBay then.

Actually, I just checked Laser's Edge and they have it listed there -- it's a Japanese mini LP reissue apparently.

[trurl]

I thought it was still out in some form or other...

[Scrotum Scissor]

Either way, it's still a complete mutha of an album - and, incidentally, a record bridging many of the above mentioned influences; some VdGG, GGiant, some Egg, even a bittu Magma: