Was there a defining musical moment when you "went thru the door" and realized you really
liked this stuff, and subsequently would be looking for more of it?
I suppose the transition to Prog fan could happen gradually for some people.
But for me, it was fairly sudden...
Cut to the Spring vacation of 1970.
I was visiting a friend at Stony Brook University on Long Island, NY.
At my school upstate (SU Geneseo), I was super into Cream, Hendrix, and a newer band called, Blodwyn Pig.
Also, I was starting to listen to Jazz seriously for the 1st time (but traditional jazz, not the modern stuff, yet).
So I suppose the stage was set for me to "cross over". My sense of tonalities (that I found pleasurable to listen to)
was expanding, and my mind was opening. I was a guitar player who worshipped Clapton/Hendrix/Beck.
Stony Brook U at that time was a hotbed of drug activity (far more so than my quieter upstate school was).
My friend (a longtime buddy, very accomplished guitarist, who won't even smoke a joint nowadays, 40+ years later), was, at that time,
going thru a heavy drug phase (pot and psychedelics, with some of the milder speed, like BiPhetamines).
So, it is maybe 1:30 in the morning, and I am sitting on the edge of a bed in his dorm-room in
a dorm called "Learned Hand College" (a psychedelic name, if you ask me),
with a bunch of very high people in the room.
We had smoked hash and grass, taken Biphetamines, and split a multi-tab of acid.
So, um, I guess, I was a little vulnerable at that moment.
Anyway, somebody puts the LP cover of the first King Crimson album (Court Of The Crimson King) in my hands, and says,
"Listen to this"!
10 minutes or so later (after hearing "20th Century Schizoid Man" for the first time), my life had changed, forever.
I was hooked on that music, or anything like it.
But lest you think it was the drugs, I assure you, it certainly was not (although they added a definite extra-intense
edge to the experience, for sure).
No, it was the music.
And I have never changed back.
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