Latecomer Needs help on AMON DUUL RELEASES
bul...@acadiacom.net
I have just bought "Tanz de Lemminge" and love it. Now where should I
go from there?
Keith A Henderson
In article <32647...@news.acadiacom.net>, <bul...@acadiacom.net> wrote:
>I have just bought "Tanz de Lemminge" and love it. Now where should I
>go from there?
Well, I'd go for any of the other early 70's albums. My favourites are Wolf
City and Carnival in Babylon, but all of them have merit. For now, I would
suggest sticking to 1975 and before...the trio of albums (Pyragony X, Only
Human, and Almost Alive) that followed were by practically an entirely new
band. Not awful albums, but not anywhere near as creative as the earlier work.
Note that 'Amon Duul' has numerous connotations. There was also an Amon Duul I
that put out 4 or 5 albums of 'material' (for lack of a better word). These
had been quite rare, but are now available on CD, so you might run into them.
I am not a fan of this stuff personally, but others here and elsewhere may
suggest some of these ones. The album you have and the others I'm speaking of
are of course, Amon Duul II (i.e., 2).
Also, the name Amon Duul II (or eventually Amon Duul, with no number) drifted
around in the 80's, ending up in Wales at Dave Anderson's music studio, where
he created from various friends and aquaintances, a new 'band' that released
four or five albums. Most of these aren't very worthwhile, although there is
an interesting track here and there...such as 'One Moments Anger....' and
'Olaf, where's my $20,000?' which I guess is a VdGG remake (Guy Evans was in
this particular Amon Duul). Robert Calvert of Hawkwind was guest vocalist on
Die Losung, which isn't too bad, but not really true to the name of the band.
Members of the Groundhogs and Ozric Tentacles also appear here and there.
More recently, four of the 'original' members, Renate Knaup, Chris Karrer,
Peter Leopold, and Lothar Meid have reformed and released a new album, 'Nada
Moonshine #', which is out in the UK now (along with the original 'Schneeball'
release in Germany)...complete with the two 'bonus' tracks that they had
previously recorded for the 'Surrounded by the Bars' compilation. This album
is quite different than their original sound, although many aspects of their
writing style remain. I'd give it a mixed review - there are parts that I just
can't stand, but a good portion of it I like quite a lot. There is also a
soon-to-be-released Live album from Japan, done earlier this year. The band
has been doing brief mini-tours and one-off gigs here and there, mainly in
Europe and Japan as far as I can tell.
As far as their catalog is concerned, there are three different labels that
Amon Duul II is on now...some came out on Mantra (France) first, but now
everything is available on either Captain Trip (Japan) or Repertoire (UK) (is
that right?? not sure about that last label). From what I've heard, these
latter releases are better quality.
Have fun....
--
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Keith Henderson-Byrd Polar Research Center (khen...@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu)
"If you think you've got an answer for everything, you're part of the problem."
(George Carlin)
Matthew Martens
On Oct 16, 1996 05:37:25 in article <Latecomer Needs help on AMON DUUL
RELEASES>, 'bul...@acadiacom.net' wrote:
>I have just bought "Tanz de Lemminge" and love it. Now where should I go
from
>there?
--Matthew
Progbear
In article <542qfi$f...@charm.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>,
khen...@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Keith A Henderson) writes:
>>I have just bought "Tanz de Lemminge" and love it. Now where should I
>>go from there?
>
>Well, I'd go for any of the other early 70's albums. My favourites are
Wolf
>City and Carnival in Babylon, but all of them have merit. For now, I
would
>suggest sticking to 1975 and before...the trio of albums (Pyragony X,
Only
>Human, and Almost Alive) that followed were by practically an entirely
new
>band. Not awful albums, but not anywhere near as creative as the earlier
>work.
Actually, _Only Human_ really *was* an awful album, commercial nonsense
completely against the grain of the band's original anti-commercial
stance. The pre-_Lemmings_ albums would probably appeal most to fans of
that album. _Phallus Dei_ is cool, if a little raw. _Yeti_ is probably the
most like _Dance of the Lemmings_, but I find the second disc too
meandering and diffuse. You can't go wrong with _Wolf City_ and _Carnival
in Babylon_, both are of the highest quality. _Vive La Trance_ and
_HiJack_ take a turn toward a more song-orientated style, but both still
offer much to recommend them. Note that there are two different versions
of _Made In Germany_, and an abbreviated single album, which for some
reason was used for the CD issue. Don't bother with it until they release
the full album on CD (or get the Nova label double LP, if you can find
it). _Vortex_, an early-80's reformation, has much to recommend it as
well.
>
>Note that 'Amon Duul' has numerous connotations. There was also an Amon
Duul
>I
>that put out 4 or 5 albums of 'material' (for lack of a better word).
These
>had been quite rare, but are now available on CD, so you might run into
them.
>I am not a fan of this stuff personally, but others here and elsewhere
may
>suggest some of these ones.
>
Not me. These are quite awful, actually. Lots of clanging and banging,
no melody or musical talent to speak of. _Disaster_ is aptly titled. I'm
sure I could gather a bunch of my non-musical friends in a room together
with instruments they don't know how to play and come up with something
quite similar (By the way, did I mention that the band's first three
albums are double LPs, making them a TRULY agonizing endurance test not
worth taking.) There simply aren't enough drugs in the world to make these
sound good.
MIKE (Pinole, CA)
David F Lynch
bul...@acadiacom.net wrote:
: I have just bought "Tanz de Lemminge" and love it. Now where should I
: go from there?
Yeti, go for Yeti. I don't have Tanz but I have Yeti, and it's cool.
I also like Phallus Dei.
--
Dave (not David) Lynch/Eligible Mutant Bachelor at large/ Email followups
dfly...@homer.louisville.edu ***** Founder, First Church of Eternal Man
ObObsoleteHomepage:http://www.rlabs.com/lynch ***** ObLineNoise:$aNi^Bft0
I'm SERIOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
zol...@flinet.com
Progbear wrote:
>
> In article <542qfi$f...@charm.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>,
> khen...@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Keith A Henderson) writes:
>
> >>go from there?
> >
hi- also if available- get the amon releases on the german repertroire
label.they have all been remastered in 1996 & the artwork is definitly
better than the french mantra label. ...rep. is also releasing made in
germany & pyragony x at the end of november.
zolumbo.
CHRIS MOON
: >Note that 'Amon Duul' has numerous connotations. There was also an
Amon Duul I that put out 4 or 5 albums of 'material' (for lack of a better
word). These had been quite rare, but are now available on CD, so you might run
into them. I am not a fan of this stuff personally, but others here and
elsewhere may suggest some of these ones.
: >
: Not me. These are quite awful, actually. Lots of clanging and
banging, no melody or musical talent to speak of. _Disaster_ is aptly titled.
I'm sure I could gather a bunch of my non-musical friends in a room
together with instruments they don't know how to play and come up with
something quite similar (By the way, did I mention that the band's first three
albums are double LPs, making them a TRULY agonizing endurance test not
worth taking.) There simply aren't enough drugs in the world to make
these sound good.
: MIKE (Pinole, CA)
*GRRRRRRRRRRR* I suppose you spend your free time beating up on Syd
Barritt too! It doesn't bother me that you don't get Amon Duul, as
much as it bothers me that you have repeatedly insulted this group
(one of Krautrock's first) time and time again. I mean, it is this
closed minded atitude that kept all non-western, non-structured music
out of the US for so long! Just take a listen to any number of the
recordings on the explorer series or the some of the folkways
ethnomusicology pieces (one album which comes to mind is the 2nd
volume of the mountain music of peru series). Now either you don't
get this music, or you have entirely missed the point that both Amon
Duul and the music on this recording get to about the same place...and
in fact AD is performed with much greater skill than the ethnic music.
In short, I understand you not liking the music, and not getting it,
but for chrissakes, if all you understand is 'complicated' music
(somehow managing to forget the purpose music has served human beings
for thousands of years) than why do you have to continuously take it
out on groups like Amon Duul. Let me be the first to say that 'prog'
fans can and often are just as closed minded musically as their
commerical music counterparts!
Chris
Tore Johnsen
>for thousands of years) than why do you have to continuously take it
>out on groups like Amon Duul. Let me be the first to say that 'prog'
>fans can and often are just as closed minded musically as their
>commerical music counterparts!
This is quite an embarassing fact yes...
Perhaps it is this close mindedness ("sound oriented taste")
that keeps true progressive rock away from surfacing.
The word "progress" is always relative..it must be seen in relation
to something that has already been, and not just the current commercial scene.
Music that conforms to old sound
and style is NOT progressive. The apreciation of true progressive music
requires to develop one's *own* listening, not just find pleasure in
new variations over old formulas. Things seem to have stagnated,
just devouring sounds and acomplishments of past days.
Any audience only get what they deserve..
Tore
Rcarlberg
Chris Moon attempted to speak:
<<AD is performed with much greater skill than the ethnic music.>>
Arrrghh. What planet did YOU fall off of? A bunch of stoned hippies
sitting around a recording studio banging on percussion and noodling with
guitars and keyboards is HARDLY more skillful than Folkways ethnic music.
It's not a difference in ethnic sensibilities. You are correct that many
"folk musics" (which by their very nature are often low on the complexity
scale) take some musical openness to appreciate - but ADI isn't an
"ethnic" music, not a "folk music", not even an attempt to create a new
musical sensibility (as were, say, Faust or This Heat). No, ADI is just
"a bunch of stoned hippies sitting around a recording studio". And this
comes from someone who basically LIKES Amon Duul I.
-RGC-
CHRIS MOON
Rcarlberg (rcar...@aol.com) wrote:
: Chris Moon attempted to speak:
Another prog head who doesn't get free noise, and feels its his job to
HATE bands he doesn't understand.
*sigh*
Chris
Progbear
In article <54au9f$d...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>, rcar...@aol.com
(Rcarlberg) writes:
>Arrrghh. What planet did YOU fall off of? A bunch of stoned hippies
>sitting around a recording studio banging on percussion and noodling with
>guitars and keyboards is HARDLY more skillful than Folkways ethnic music.
Well said. Now I don't have to. I thought anyone short of people with
sealing-wax in their ears ought to be able to tell the difference with
musicians looking toward improvisational music as an outlet for musical
inspiration (Henry Cow, Can, Faust, Tangerine Dream, etc.) and a bunch of
non-musicians taking a hit of acid and banging away for hours on end on
instruments they don't know how to play. Chris Karrer has publicly
disavowed any association with AD1. Good for him.
MIKE (Pinole, CA)
Christopher Norman
CHRIS MOON wrote:
>
> Rcarlberg (rcar...@aol.com) wrote:
> : Chris Moon attempted to speak:
>
> : <<AD is performed with much greater skill than the ethnic music.>>
>
> : sitting around a recording studio banging on percussion and noodling with
> : guitars and keyboards is HARDLY more skillful than Folkways ethnic music.
>
> : "folk musics" (which by their very nature are often low on the complexity
> : scale) take some musical openness to appreciate - but ADI isn't an
> : "ethnic" music, not a "folk music", not even an attempt to create a new
> : musical sensibility (as were, say, Faust or This Heat). No, ADI is just
> : "a bunch of stoned hippies sitting around a recording studio". And this
> : comes from someone who basically LIKES Amon Duul I.
> : -RGC-
>
> Another prog head who doesn't get free noise, and feels its his job to
> HATE bands he doesn't understand.
>
> *sigh*
Chris, has it occurred to you that maybe some of us *do*
get free noise, but that it's not necessarily always
interesting to everyone's ears? I "understand" what's going
on in free bands like Amon Duul or Faust, I'm fully
cognizant of the artistic aesthetic governing their
sound-shaping, but that doesn't mean I think they're
doing it well. There's "free noise" that I think is
good (some of Henry Cow, for instance), and there's
free noise that I think is just lazy and boring
(like the Amon Duul I've heard).
Christopher Norman
Art
In article <54ao8f$d...@o.online.no>, tor...@online.no says...
>This is quite an embarassing fact yes...
>Perhaps it is this close mindedness ("sound oriented taste")
>that keeps true progressive rock away from surfacing.
>The word "progress" is always relative..it must be seen in relation
>to something that has already been, and not just the current commercial scene.
>Music that conforms to old sound
>and style is NOT progressive. The apreciation of true progressive music
>requires to develop one's *own* listening, not just find pleasure in
>new variations over old formulas. Things seem to have stagnated,
>just devouring sounds and acomplishments of past days.
>Any audience only get what they deserve..
I couldn't agree more. Art
>Tore
>
Rcarlberg
Chris Moon said:
<<Another prog head who doesn't get free noise, and feels its his job to
HATE bands he doesn't understand.>>
Chris, you probably won't believe me, but I own and love a lot of
noisemusik. ADI just isn't one of them.... Somewhere in there, even in a
pure skronky noisefest, there has to be some skill, some perspective, some
reference to music that isn't skronk. If it's just amateurish noodling,
then it isn't very interesting.
Opinions differ. We'll agree to disagree - no hard feelings.
James Alexander Chokey
In article <54ao8f$d...@o.online.no>, Tore Johnsen <tor...@online.no> wrote:
>
>The word "progress" is always relative..it must be seen in relation
>to something that has already been, and not just the current commercial scene.
>Music that conforms to old sound and style is NOT progressive.
If you want to limit yourself to a purely abstract adjectival
definition, you are completely right. However, the fact is that the word
"progressive" and the genre of music that we call "Progressive" are not
not one and the same. The former is an adjective whose application, you
rightly note, is always relative to its context; the latter is the name
of a specific kind of rock music that arose in the late 60's and early 70's.
A lot of people, yourself included, understandably get tripped up on the
fact that this name "Progressive Rock" consists of such a commonly used
adjective. (The fact that we often neglect to capitalize "Progressive"
when using it as the name for the genre, admittedly, does add to the
potential confusion).
This sort of thing happens all the time, of course. To give an
example from outside of the realm of music: In the 1930's, F.R. Leavis,
Arthur Quiller-Couch, William Empson, I.A. Richards and a number of other
British literary critics (and a few American ones as well) pioneered a
new approach to literary criticism which they (and others) called "New
Criticism" to distinguish it from the historico-linguistic criticism
that had heretofore dominated. Since then, of course, many new approaches
to lit-crit have come and gone and there are very few New Critics still
around. But. . . they do exist, and they are still referred to as
"New Critics" and their methodology is still called "New Criticism"
even though it's no longer, in a purely abstract sense, "new criticism".
Anyway, the same is true for Progressive Rock. It's a name that
derives from the fact that it was created in a particuar time and place
where the music that it describes was "progressive" in the adjectival
sense, but it retains that name in spite of the fact that, in the grand
scheme of things, much of it may no longer be "progressive" in the way
in which it originally was. So, even those current bands who do perform
in the classic 70's style are still rightly called "Progressive", just as
those literary critics who still practice that style of literary criticism
pioneered by Leavis, et al, are still called "New Critics". I hope that
helps clear up any confusion you may have on this point.
-- Jim C., who now hopes everyone here should be able to figure
out why art from 100 years ago is called "Modern" and why
contemporary art is called "Postmodern" :-)
==========================================================================
| James A. Chokey jch...@leland.stanford.edu |
| |
| The infinite, expressed finitely, is the essence of beauty |
| |
| --- Schelling |
==========================================================================
Gordon
And the worst aspect of this is tribute bands. Talk about a waste of good
oxygen
--
*******************************************************
This is Joe Public speaking. I'm controlled in the body, I'm controlled in
the mind.
Clash :Complete Control
*******************************************************
Matthew Martens
On Oct 19, 1996 18:32:07 in article <Re: Latecomer Needs help on AMON DUUL
RELEASES>, 'prog...@aol.com (Progbear)' wrote:
>In article <54au9f$d...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>, rcar...@aol.com
(Rcarlberg)
>writes:
>
>>sitting around a recording studio banging on percussion and noodling with
>>guitars and keyboards is HARDLY more skillful than Folkways ethnic music.
>
>Well said. Now I don't have to. I thought anyone short of people with
>sealing-wax in their ears ought to be able to tell the difference with
>musicians looking toward improvisational music as an outlet for musical
>inspiration (Henry Cow, Can, Faust, Tangerine Dream, etc.) and a bunch of
>non-musicians taking a hit of acid and banging away for hours on end on
>instruments they don't know how to play. Chris Karrer has publicly
disavowed
>any association with AD1. Good for him.
>
>MIKE (Pinole, CA)
Well, remember that Rcarlberg also said that he "basically likes Amon
Duul I." Obviously it's ridiculous to suggest that ADI were more skilled
than the ethnic musicians recorded for posterity by Folkways, but I also
don't think that there's anything necessarily ignominious about a bunch of
stoned hippies working themselves into a mongoloid trance and recording
*that* for posterity. Klaus Schulze has publicly disavowed any association
with the Cosmic Jokers, which doesn't change the fact that they were the
ultimate space-kraut jam band this world has ever known. Karrer's opinion
of ADI won't change anybody's mind one way or the other, nor should it.
Cretinism crossed with spiritual uplift isn't without its merits for some
of us, at least. And, hey, ADI may be no match for authentic ethnic trance
music, but they beat the pants off of the stoned jams my group of friends
and I used to ecstatically indulge in when I was 16. Perhaps no great
achievement there, but I still dig _Experimente_ for its distillation of
the Euro-Counterculture's crude alchemical essence, circa then.
And _Paradies Warts_ is an outstanding psychedelic folk album up there
with Emtidi and Broselmachine!
--Matthew
Art
In article <54eoi9$i...@cardinal1.Stanford.EDU>, jch...@leland.Stanford.EDU says...
>
> -- Jim C., who now hopes everyone here should be able to figure
> out why art from 100 years ago is called "Modern" and why
> contemporary art is called "Postmodern" :-)
I'd accept (P)rogressive (R)ock as J.A. explains it,just based on the example
above. But what do you call something that comes out and is progressive rather
than Progressive?
Contemporary? Modern? Maybe. After all there is Modern Classical, and doesn't
that sound like an oxymoron.
Maybe Progressive Rock can truly be defined now. Then again maybe not ;>
Art
Rcarlberg
Matthew Martens sat down, took out pen and paper, and wrote:
<< Well, remember that Rcarlberg also said that he "basically likes Amon
Duul I." Obviously it's ridiculous to suggest that ADI were more skilled
than the ethnic musicians recorded for posterity by Folkways,>>
Exactly right. I *DO* like ADI, within the context of a drug-fueled
freak-out from the late sixties. I was more concerned with Chris Moon's
underappreciation of Folkways ethnic music than with any overappreciation
of Amon Duul!
CHRIS MOON
Rcarlberg (rcar...@aol.com) wrote:
NO NO NO! 1) I love the stuff on folkways...thats why I made the
comparison.
2) Please go listen to mountain music of peru vol. 2 and tell me that
they play metal tubes better than amon duul 1 plays bongos...ok, well
at least they have electricity, which is perhaps an improvement.
3) The point was that skill wasn't an issue, I mean lets look at sun
ra's cosmic tones where he takes his emmensly skilled and disciplined
arkestra and has them play music that really doesn't sound too far
from free noise. Who cares if they are skilled or not...I like the
sound.
4) Drugs: lets face it, you know what those people thought about
timothy leary and the whole drug scene. They probably thought drugs
were the fucking answer to all the world's problems. I don't see why
it matters if they are drug fueled or not...see point 3.
5) I have heard this said over and over: My friends and I could get
high and produce albums better than this. My response: please do, and
send me the copies..I want to produce and distribute them. Note that
this same thing is said about faust tapes on the on-line prog
encyclopedia.
6) My original point: I don't understand people who hate albums...I
had to say something about Disaster because I thing this was the same
person who has said the same fucking thing about Amon Duul for about 6
times in a row...and the whole impression is that he is saying it
because it kicked his ass.
I guess I don't know how everyone else listens to music, but when I
listen to music it falls into 3 catagories.
1) Its not challenging enough...I might enjoy it, I might not. I
don't hate it. It just isn't rewarding for me.
2) Its just right. This albums is both challenging to some extent,
but I am ready for it, and it is almost instantly rewarding.
3) I am not ready for it...it kicks my ass. These are the albums I
look for because albums in the #2 catagory quickly move to #1 (with a
few exceptions). Given the posters original discription of how awful
atonal anti-music etc...that disaster was, I take it that Disaster
only could have fallen into catagory #3. Once again, I don't
understand how someone can hate music in catagory 3, but then again,
must of the listening public hates #3 and have done everything to keep
music on the radio from ever falling into catagory #3 (perhaps its the
record companies or the stations that don't like #3, but whatever).
But why should anyone hear (in the progressive rock forum) be afraid
of challenging music...and if they don't even recognize it as music,
so much more the challenge!
Anyway, hope no one got really pissed off...and please remember...I
love ethnic music and all primitive music everywhere. Damn't I would
be playing a metal tube if I had a decent one (mines too thick and
heavy so I just beat on it with hammers).
Chris
CHRIS MOON
Tore Johnsen (tor...@online.no) wrote:
: >for thousands of years) than why do you have to continuously take it
: >fans can and often are just as closed minded musically as their
: >commerical music counterparts!
: This is quite an embarassing fact yes...
: Perhaps it is this close mindedness ("sound oriented taste")
: that keeps true progressive rock away from surfacing.
: The word "progress" is always relative..it must be seen in relation
: to something that has already been, and not just the current commercial scene.
: Music that conforms to old sound
: and style is NOT progressive. The apreciation of true progressive music
: requires to develop one's *own* listening, not just find pleasure in
: new variations over old formulas. Things seem to have stagnated,
: just devouring sounds and acomplishments of past days.
: Any audience only get what they deserve..
: Tore
What's really depressing is that as far as progressive music (not
prog) the 90's have already been far more productive than the 70's
ever where, in their diversity of new musics (some of which might even
be called non-musics by devout prog fans), and yet there is not much
discussion of them here. I guess I respect those who want to talk
about any band that has never really been comercially successful and
did something new, but you read this forum too much, and you would
think nothing new has happened in music since 1975, which is
rubbish...there is terrific stuff coming out right as we speak...sure
its progressive...more progressive than 'prog', and I think that
scares some people who are very comfortable with a particular sound,
instead of wanting to start all over and learn to hear music all over
again...but this is what I thought progressive music was all about.
Chris
James Alexander Chokey
In article <54hf5i$7...@crcnis3.unl.edu>,
CHRIS MOON <cam...@herbie.unl.edu> wrote:
>
>What's really depressing is that as far as progressive music (not
>prog) the 90's have already been far more productive than the 70's
>ever where, in their diversity of new musics (some of which might even
>be called non-musics by devout prog fans), and yet there is not much
>discussion of them here. I guess I respect those who want to talk
>about any band that has never really been comercially successful and
>did something new, but you read this forum too much, and you would
>think nothing new has happened in music since 1975, which is
>rubbish...there is terrific stuff coming out right as we speak...sure
Could you give a couple of examples so that we have some
idea as to what you are talking about? I mean, certainly the folks
on this group regularly talk about prog bands from the present
day, and don't even remotely pretend that prog stopped in the
mid-70's. And even if you want to discount those bands which play
what one person has dismissed as an "old style" (like Anglagard,
Anekdoten, Ars Nova, etc.), certainly the folks here are all too
happy to talk about bands from the past ten years who have been
pushing the envelope of music in ways that were not explored at all in
the 70's: Art Zoyd, Univers Zero, Dr. Nerve, Birdsongs of the Mesozoic,
the Residents, Coil, Nurse with Wound, Dead Can Dance, Legendary
Pink Dots, This Mortal Coil . . . to give just a handful of examples.
Based on your jibe about the readers of r.m.p. having a passion for
bands that are not "commerically successful", however, I get the
impression that you're not not talking about neo-classical, avant-garde
jazz, Ectophilic/etheral music, noise, Gothic, or anything else so
off-the-beaten path, but wish to call attention to more popular music.
Certainly, the more complex and experimental popular bands/musicans, like
Primus and Tori Amos, are often discussed here, so you can't be talking
performers of that sort.
So, now that we know what you're not talking about, could
you please fill us on on these progressive musics that you think
we've been wrongly ignoring here? Could you maybe give some
specific examples, rather than just make vague assertions? Hell,
if there's something good that I'm missing-- I want to *know* about
it and not just be told in a scornful manner that I look down upon
it and consider it a "non-music" (or whatever it was that you had said).
-- Jim C.
Matthew Martens
On Oct 22, 1996 03:30:58 in article <Re: Progressiveness of progrock fans>,
'cam...@herbie.unl.edu (CHRIS MOON)' wrote:
>
>What's really depressing is that as far as progressive music (not prog)
the
>90's have already been far more productive than the 70's ever where, in
their
>diversity of new musics (some of which might even be called non-musics by
>devout prog fans)
Let's get this out of the way first: this is a newsgroup concerned first
and foremost with Progressive Rock (aka Prog), and has never had any
pretentions beyond that. Nowhere in the FAQ's for r.m.p. will you find it
mentioned that any and all innovative musics are under discussion here.
Progressive rock, of course, covers a huge amount of musical terrain - far
more, I'm sure, than you've actually heard - but has never laid claim to
the whole universe of formally novel music. Nor should it.
An argument over the relative fecundity of the '70s and the '90s in the
area of innovative music is about as pointless an exercise as I can
imagine. That prog-rock, including your (and my) beloved Krautrock, came
to prominence in the '70s is the only and obvious reason why '70s bands are
discussed so often here. That is simply when the lion's share of prog
activity took place. Would you berate members of a medieval discussion
group for spending so damn much time on the Thirteenth Century? Having
said that, it is not the case that '90s bands aren't discussed here - they
are, and frequently.
, and yet there is not much discussion of them here.
You referred above to radical new musics that proggers could be expected
to reject. Yes, many of them would (obviously you have in mind the whole
array of experimentalisms ranging from aleatoric music to free jazz to
musique concrete to noise-rock to power electronics, and so on. How do you
feel, I wonder, about progressive jungle, or other manifestations of
"avant-garde" dance music?), but it puzzles me that this would surprise you
on a progressive rock newsgroup, knowing full well (right?) that open
mindedness is not a function of what genres a person is attracted to. This
can come as a bit of a shock at first, I suppose. Nobody here, to my
knowledge, has professed to liking anything and everything outside of the
mainstream. I'm certain that you wouldn't make such a claim either.
Even if, as I do, folks cared about other musics, outside or otherwise,
this remains a prog-rock newsgroup, on which discussions of other musics
come up organically and in relation (however tenuously) to some strain of
prog. We've talked about Nurse With Wound, Gastr Del Sol, Magnog,
Stereolab, Ornette Coleman, various classical composers, and lots of other
non-prog folks like, er, Thomas Dolby and Duran Duran, when the thread
warrants it.
I guess
>I respect those who want to talk about any band that has never really been
>comercially successful and did something new, but you read this forum too
much,
>and you would think nothing new has happened in music since 1975
I guess you don't read this group as much or as thoroughly as you seem to
think.
, which is
>rubbish...
That you would make such an obviously absurd claim? Well, here we're in
agreement, then.
> there is terrific stuff coming out right as we speak...
The mind fairly boggles. Even now? Right this moment as I sit here
typing? I'm getting dizzy just thinking about it.
sure its
>progressive...more progressive than 'prog',
Not only is this a silly statement right there on the face of it, it also
implicitly buys into a bogus grand narrative whereby art and music proceed
on a continuum of perpetual improvement, a notion pretty thoroughly
discreditied at this late date. Incidentally, the only rock avant-garde
that I'm aware of at this time which does not make use primarily of
decidedly non-original ideas and materials isn't really in the rock realm
at all - it resides over in dance music land, somewhere in the fissure
between drum'n'bass and abstract beat collage. None of the current drone,
noise, or post-rock stuff - great though a lot of it is - operates on
original principles. Not that I hold that against it; it's time to finally
set aside all this bullshit that equates novelty with quality, although
that's preferable by far to exalting as novel what is in fact re-hashed.
> and I think that scares some people
>who are very comfortable with a particular sound, instead of wanting to
start
>all over and learn to hear music all over again...
Are you really that much less complacent than those you're reprimanding?
If not, more power to you, but a passion for noise is no less conservative
essentially than a Yes fetish.
but this is what I thought
>progressive music was all about.
>
>Chris
Progressive rock is a vast genre, some of whose fans have exceptionally
broad tastes, in and outside of prog, but that eclecticism defines those
fans, not the genre itself. Enjoying _Zero Tolerance For Silence_ doesn't
make me a better ELP fan, or even a more "progressive" one. Just a cooler
one. Oh, OK, not really. But you get my point. Don't the industrial,
ambient, and indepentent newsgroups serve (some of) your needs?
--Matthew
David F Lynch
Gordon (gordon...@uk.pipeline.com) wrote:
: And the worst aspect of this is tribute bands. Talk about a waste of good
: oxygen
Good thing Usenet doesn't use any oxygen, eh?
David F Lynch
CHRIS MOON (cam...@herbie.unl.edu) wrote:
: What's really depressing is that as far as progressive music (not
: prog) the 90's have already been far more productive than the 70's
: ever where, in their diversity of new musics (some of which might even
: discussion of them here.
Well, usually there are other places to discuss them. I've seen some
fairly obscure modern bands talked about here; of course, people talk
much more about Camel here because Camel's a lot more popular than
current bands. "The present day composers refuse to die"- Edgar(d)
Varese. God, did I just imply CAMEL was POPULAR? Anyway, which bands
did you have in mind? Mr. Bungle? The Orb? Bondage Fruit? French
TV?
: I guess I respect those who want to talk
: about any band that has never really been comercially successful and
: did something new, but you read this forum too much, and you would
: think nothing new has happened in music since 1975, which is
: rubbish...there is terrific stuff coming out right as we speak...sure
: its progressive...more progressive than 'prog', and I think that
: scares some people who are very comfortable with a particular sound,
: instead of wanting to start all over and learn to hear music all over
: again...but this is what I thought progressive music was all about.
It's all TASTE. It's not about NOVELTY. Listening to 1970's Genesis
is not an act of radicalism. Most people are happy to find the niche
of music they like and STICK TO IT.
David Maclennan
"Progressiveness" of prog-rock.... hmmm, interesting thread. It's hard
to define what is/is not "prog" these days, at least in the original
sense of the term as applied to the music. I see a lot of references to
band with Tolkienish-sounding names, and posters say they "sound like
[insert name from the standard list of KC/Yes/ELP/GG etc]". Now I've not
really heard any of this neo-prog stuff, but frankly I think trying to
sound like the classic prog acts of 20-plus years ago is RETROgressive,
rather than progressive. The only one I've heard is Prometheus, and this
is typical of what I've just described. Who needs it when you've still
got the originals?
For my money, the truly progressive stuff these days are bands like
Moonshake, Pram, Future Sound of London, and other left-field acts of
that nature.
David Maclennan
Art
In article <326FE9...@moc.govt.nz>, David says...
>
>frankly I think trying to sound like the classic prog acts of 20-plus years
>ago is RETROgressive, rather than progressive.
I've been calling them retroprogressive for awhile now. But if people want to
call it (P)rogressive (R)ock instead of progressive music, then fine. After all
'what's in a name'(or label). You have to call it something and when you say
Progressive Rock, enough people know what you're talking about, maybe :/ Besides,
So what if a band sounds something like ELP,KC or Yes, if you like it and it's
good music, then take it for what it is. Let other people worry about labeling it.
Call it It in homage to The Lamb. When someone asks "what do you listen to?" you
just say "It" ;>
Art
Christopher Carl Heckman
Art wrote:
>
> if you like it and it's
> good music, then take it for what it is. Let other people worry about labeling it.
> Call it It in homage to The Lamb. When someone asks "what do you listen to?" you
> just say "It" ;>
>
There are only two kinds of music: good and bad.
--
Christopher Heckman, chec...@math.gatech.edu
Internet: http://www.math.gatech.edu/~checkman
"[I don't] think Richard should be turning the erosion pattern of
the Himalayas into a flute quintet at this time." - Douglas Adams
The Lighthouse Keeper
Christopher Carl Heckman (chec...@math.gatech.edu) wrote:
: --
Not so. There's the good music, the bad music, and the music you've
never heard. That's three kinds! ;-)
--
|-------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Peter | ...and though the past has its share of injustice |
| pt...@netcom.com | kind was the spirit in many a way |
| Expose'Newsletter | but its protectors and friends have been sleeping |
| | now it's a monster and will not obey. |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Visit the Expose' Web Page at: |
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|-------------------------------------------------------------------------|
John Sheehy
Christopher Carl Heckman <chec...@math.gatech.edu> writes:
>There are only two kinds of music: good and bad.
What's the other kind?
<>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>>< ><<>
John P Sheehy <jsh...@ix.netcom.com>
><<> <>>< <>>< ><<> <>>< ><<> ><<> <>><
Tore Johnsen
In article <327017...@math.gatech.edu>, chec...@math.gatech.edu says...
>
>There are only two kinds of music: good and bad.
Tore
Adam Levin
On Fri, 25 Oct 1996, John Sheehy wrote:
> Christopher Carl Heckman <chec...@math.gatech.edu> writes:
>
> >There are only two kinds of music: good and bad.
>
> What's the other kind?
The ugly, of course.
-Adam
---
"...if one strives at hearing for the sake of constant virtue,
out of seeking liberation from cyclic existence, gradually one
becomes a Hearer."
- Chandrakirti
CHRIS MOON
Examples: You arn't too far off with Nurse With Wound...or at least,
thats a good start. Of course I don't know why the electro-acoustic
stuff isn't discussed here (I know, there are better places for it, if
you want to swim through a thousand posts about schoenberg first), but
when I talk about the stuff now I was thinking mostly of the post
rock, space rock (now receiving some attention here), Free-noise,
ambient-noir (also, this has a better home, but is of course,
progressive (though not prog)), and really about anything else that is
non-commercial and exciting.
I guess the problems I see is that when I am discussing music with
people in real life, I don't just limit my discussion to prog...must
people open to music wouldn't want to just talk about that, but any
music that is eye-opening. This sort of discussion went on to
'regressive' sorts of music as well (indeed, I hardly know the
difference anymore, complexity is not what defines 'progressiveness'
to me, more than just music which forces you to relearn what music is
all about). Anyway, all I was really getting at was that it seemed
95% discussions here were about music that people seemed pretty
comfortable with, and hence I wasn't really able to distinguish what
made prog different from any genre, short of its lack of commercial
viability. I think sometimes 'proggers' give off the impression that
they are listening the cats progressive pajammas, when they are really
only listening to something they are as comfortable with as people who
listen to pop music. Is there a newgroup for people who want to
challenge themselves with music that makes them grow? Once again, I
think this is what some (such as Chris Cutler) mistook for the meaning
of progressive rock.
And as to the bands mentioned (the 'new thing') like birdsongs of the
mesisoic, universe zero, etc...etc... While they are noteworthy bands
(especially universe zero) I really wouldn't call them a 'new thing'.
The musics listed above are indeed quite new...new to this century,
while I consider much of what is generally considered 'prog' isn't so
much a new idea, as much as many older ideas taken to an extreme (an
extreme I happen to like actually...but not really challenging people
to redefine their notion of music). At best, I think we can see how
UZ has taken a lot of ideas from the first 20 years of this century
and made them into a quite bizzare and interesting rock band...same
counts for Magma.
The question then, is where are the bands that upon first listen I
literally won't recognize it as music? (a few of my examples I think
qualify for this). Thats all I was looking for...and I get the
impression that a lot of folks don't want to move out of the comfort
of prog territory to continue the hunt for progressive musics.
Of course, that isn't true of everyone here...but that was the
innitial concern.
And I of course realize I must have said something in there that will
probably be constituted as flame bait...Oh well, have fun.
Chris
Christopher Scott Owens
In my personal philosophy of music, in particular
progressive rock, the advent of punk and afterwards
the extreme commercialism in the "music" industry
put rock music in a sort of dark ages that we still
exist in today.
When technology progresses it gets more complex and
more improved. We don't throw away good ideas and
call that moving forward. Essentailly the "music"
industry has tried to erase the fact the prog ever
existed. All the great ideas and music that existed
are covered up before the general public.
So in my mind and many others, the much of the music
written 20, 25, 30 years ago that we call progressive
rock, or art rock, or whatever you wish to call it is
more progressive then the majority of music today.
The Lighthouse Keeper
CHRIS MOON (cam...@herbie.unl.edu) wrote:
: Is there a newgroup for people who want to
: challenge themselves with music that makes them grow? Once again, I
: think this is what some (such as Chris Cutler) mistook for the meaning
: of progressive rock.
I've been dropping in on this thread off and on for the past week or so
trying to figure out what and why so much bandwidth is being wasted for
a discussion of such a boring academic topic.
It's kinda like Cutler's book, that wastes entire chapters explaining
what a stupid person could pick up in one paragraph, and an intelligent
person doesn't even need to be told.
The long and the short of it is: this is your newsgroup as much as it
is anyone elses. If you want to discuss some music that isn't being
discussed already, then start a new thread about it, but that's *your*
responsibility, not everyone elses. And if you find that nobody else
wants to talk about it, you can conclude either a) nobody knows what
you're talking about, or b) nobody here likes that shit, in which case
you can a) talk to yourself about it or b) go to some other newsgroup
where people like to discuss what you wanna talk about. It's that simple.
But don't lecture everyone on r.m.p. because we don't talk a lot about
a, b, or c, and only talk about d. If you want to talk about something,
then open the discussion.
: The question then, is where are the bands that upon first listen I
: literally won't recognize it as music? (a few of my examples I think
: qualify for this).
Artis label. Try anything in the Nova Musische series. You can get CDs
of Demetrio Stratos making all kinds of weird noises with his voice
and no accompaniment, or John Cage screwing around with tapes, or David
Tudor recording found sounds and playing them backwards, forwards and
sideways. But hey, this stuff isn't new either, Cage was doing this stuff
40 years ago. It's not *progressive* anymore either.
Michael C. Feathers
In article <ptlkDzt...@netcom.com>,
pt...@netcom.com (The Lighthouse Keeper) wrote:
>Christopher Carl Heckman (chec...@math.gatech.edu) wrote:
>
>: --
>
>Not so. There's the good music, the bad music, and the music you've
>never heard. That's three kinds! ;-)
Don't know what this thread is about, but I feel like throwing someone out
in response to the last two lines.
I used to think that there was good music and bad music. I've lately come to
realize that bad music has its merits, and often it is more interesting than
good music. For me then, there are two types of music: interesting and
uninteresting. The music I've never heard before falls under 'interesting',
because I'm an optimist.
Michael C. Feathers
In article <54qn64$b...@o.online.no>, tor...@online.no (Tore Johnsen) wrote:
>In article <327017...@math.gatech.edu>, chec...@math.gatech.edu says...
>>
We 'mericans just see things the way that they are. There are two types of
people in the world. Those who divide people into two types and those who
don't. :-)
Jerry Kranitz
feat...@icanect.net (Michael C. Feathers) wrote:
>I used to think that there was good music and bad music. I've lately come to
>realize that bad music has its merits, and often it is more interesting than
>good music. For me then, there are two types of music: interesting and
>uninteresting. The music I've never heard before falls under 'interesting',
>because I'm an optimist.
Well said! I strongly believe in encouraging the creative spirit, and,
therefore am quick to find even the most primitive home recording at
least "interesting".
Prog fans will pay $20 for cd's that are discussed a lot around here,
but when a group/artist posts that they've just released their own
cassette/cd for $6 - $10, people ignore them in droves.
Hell, Quarkspace even advertised that they would send people a sample
cassette for FREE and didn't get much response. Go figure...
--
Jerry Kranitz (jkra...@infinet.com)
ProgRock Home Page:http://www.infinet.com/~jkranitz/music/music.html
Christopher Norman
Anthony Hobbs wrote:
>
> In article <Pine.SGI.3.95.961025...@ari.ari.net>,
> Adam Levin <ale...@ari.net> wrote:
> > On Fri, 25 Oct 1996, John Sheehy wrote:
> >
> > > Christopher Carl Heckman <chec...@math.gatech.edu> writes:
> > >
> > >
> >
> > The ugly, of course.
>
No, not the complete works. Anyone calling "Verklaerte
Nacht" or any of the early opus numbers ugly in 1996 would
have to have a gobsmackingly low dissonance tolerance threshold.
and most mid-period
> Magma.
Mid-period...does that include stuff like _MDK_?
I dunno, the first two albums have a lot more
dissonance than the later stuff.
Christopher Norman
Steven Sullivan
Anthony Hobbs (ant...@atlantis.actrix.gen.nz) wrote:
: In article <Pine.SGI.3.95.961025...@ari.ari.net>,
: Adam Levin <ale...@ari.net> wrote:
: > On Fri, 25 Oct 1996, John Sheehy wrote:
: >
: > > Christopher Carl Heckman <chec...@math.gatech.edu> writes:
: > >
: > > >There are only two kinds of music: good and bad.
: > >
: > > What's the other kind?
: >
: > The ugly, of course.
: Including the complete works of Arnold Schoenberg and most mid-period
: Magma.
um, ever hear 'Verklarte Nacht'?
Matthew Martens
On Oct 27, 1996 01:24:28 in article <Re: Progressiveness of progrock fans>,
'cam...@herbie.unl.edu (CHRIS MOON)' wrote:
>
>Examples: You arn't too far off with Nurse With Wound...or at least,
>thats a good start. Of course I don't know why the electro-acoustic stuff
>isn't discussed here (I know, there are better places for it, if you want
to
>swim through a thousand posts about schoenberg first), but when I talk
about
>the stuff now I was thinking mostly of the post rock, space rock (now
receiving
>some attention here), Free-noise, ambient-noir (also, this has a better
home,
>but is of course, progressive (though not prog)), and really about
anything
>else that is non-commercial and exciting.
>
>I guess the problems I see is that when I am discussing music with people
in
>real life, I don't just limit my discussion to prog...
vain, then, I'll reiterate my previous point: This is a newgroup devoted to
Progressive Rock. I commend you for your ability and desire to listen to
and discuss musics outside of the Progressive domain. I, too, listen to a
great variety of musics. It's nice that we are both so broad-minded and
special. It's also nice that Usenet provides us with multiple forums to
disseminate our opinions on the crucial musical issues of our time. Here
on Rec.Music.Progressive, those issues revolve around Progressive Rock. I
apologize for belaboring this, but it seems weirdly necessary to do so.
Perhaps you are intimidated (or bored) by the somewhat academic focus of
the contemporary classical group? Tired of the often dance-centric goings
on over at the ambient group? More than anything else, it seems that you
just can't get your head around the difference between the progressive
(perhaps better referred to as the "innovative") and the Progressive. Get
over it. If you think something should be discussed here, bring the fucker
up and see if you get any takers. That's really all we do here.
>And as to the bands mentioned (the 'new thing') like birdsongs of the
mesisoic,
>universe zero, etc...etc... While they are noteworthy bands (especially
>universe zero) I really wouldn't call them a 'new thing'.
Progressive bands are Tipographica, Anglagard, Germinale, Finisterre,
Anekdoten, Happy Family, Bondage Fruit, Hoyry Kone, Trembling Strain, Deus
Ex Machina, Ars Nova, Blast, Boud Deun, Contrevent, and Miriodor. Besides
these and many others, there is of course the contempo space-rock
contingent, which receives a lot of mention here, and plenty of other
avant-prog activity in the folky RIO vein.
The musics listed
>above are indeed quite new...new to this century, while I consider much of
what
>is generally considered 'prog' isn't so much a new idea, as much as many
older
>ideas taken to an extreme (an extreme I happen to like actually...but not
>really challenging people to redefine their notion of music).
I'm afraid that your previously articulated notion of true
"progressiveness" - namely, that new music should "kick you in the ass" due
its (at least seemingly, and initially) anti-musical nature - is perilously
close to being plain dumb and may actually get there. Really, it's about
time we jettison such macho hubris from critical discourse. I don't know
about anyone else, but the idea of turning the life of listening into a
contest to see who can hold his (not her, for sure) fist over the flame of
artless cacophony for the longer period is awfully unsavory. I say this as
a fierce partisan of Varese, Xenakis, Ligeti, and Darmstadt Stockhausen,
not to mention P16.D4, The Hafler Trio, Fushitsusha, and The Dead C. No
matter how far out you go, good music/sound/noise exists as well as bad,
and sloppy work sits in the bin right next to the carefully constructed.
Reading Nyman's _Experimental Music_ might be very helpful in this area.
At best, I think
>we can see how UZ has taken a lot of ideas from the first 20 years of this
>century and made them into a quite bizzare and interesting rock
band...same
>counts for Magma.
While this is an inexact characterization, the only real problem is the
"at best" part. Do you honestly think that utilizing formative influences
is a mark *against* UZ, Magma, or anyone else? If so, I'm afraid I cannot
shirk my responsibility to brand you quite publically as a chronically
silly man. You asked for it.
>And I of course realize I must have said something in there that will
probably
>be constituted as flame bait...Oh well, have fun.
>
>Chris
You like to rile, for a you are a provocative, not to say incendiary,
fellow of strong views, most of which bear a striking resemblance to
hogwash. Oh well, keep trying!
--Matthew
Ray Dittmeier
My friend feat...@icanect.net (Michael C. Feathers) translated from
the original Sanskrit text:
>In article <ptlkDzt...@netcom.com>,
> pt...@netcom.com (The Lighthouse Keeper) wrote:
>>Christopher Carl Heckman (chec...@math.gatech.edu) wrote:
>>
>>: --
>>
>>Not so. There's the good music, the bad music, and the music you've
>>never heard. That's three kinds! ;-)
>Don't know what this thread is about, but I feel like throwing someone out
>in response to the last two lines.
>I used to think that there was good music and bad music. I've lately come to
>realize that bad music has its merits, and often it is more interesting than
>good music. For me then, there are two types of music: interesting and
>uninteresting. The music I've never heard before falls under 'interesting',
>because I'm an optimist.
What if you simply define good music as "music that is interesting"
and bad music as "music that is uninteresting"?
David F Lynch
Tore Johnsen (tor...@online.no) wrote:
: In article <327017...@math.gatech.edu>, chec...@math.gatech.edu says...
: >There are only two kinds of music: good and bad.
:
: Tore
Wait a second! Wait.. a.. SECOND! It's YOU! You can't fool me by
varying the spelling! TOR JOHNSON! Holy shit! You fuckin' RULED
in "Bride of the Monster"! Lobo.. KILL!
--
Dave (not David) Lynch/FILLER/Eligible Mutant Bachelor Uebergeek at large
dfly...@homer.louisville.edu/FILLER/Founder, First Church of Eternal Man
ObObsoleteHomepage:http://www.rlabs.com/lynch **** Please email followups
I'm SERIOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
David F Lynch
The Lighthouse Keeper (pt...@netcom.com) wrote:
:
: I've been dropping in on this thread off and on for the past week or so
: trying to figure out what and why so much bandwidth is being wasted for
: a discussion of such a boring academic topic.
Aw, that's easy. Prog fans are pretentious and academic dullards, of
course.
OK, line four of my sig does not apply in this case.
David F Lynch
Tore Johnsen (tor...@online.no) wrote:
: In article <327017...@math.gatech.edu>, chec...@math.gatech.edu says...
: >
: >There are only two kinds of music: good and bad.
: Hehe, there seems to be no limit to this kind of american binary thinking.
Why, have they not got as far as the number two in Norway yet?
(Zing!)
The only numbers you really need are ONE, TWO, and ZERO. Two of course
is used to describe the set containing one and zero. In the end all
music is ALL-ONE OR NONE! EXCEPTIONS ETERNALLY? NONE! Psychologically,
the human race needs to draw a dividing line. Despite feeling a
simultaneous kinship and utter isolation from the rest of the human
race, it can only embrace so much. This makes "good and bad" (interpret
as "I enjoy" and "I don't enjoy") a far more meaningful personal
criterion on which to classify music than "prog", "punk", "C&W", etc.
Get my drift?
Art
In article <1782FB890...@mitvma.mit.edu>, M...@mitvma.mit.edu says...
>Now the actual progress exemplified by most of the allegedly progressive
>rock discussed in this newsgroup is not really up to snuff, again in my
>opinion. So that's where I think Chris Moon is coming from.
>
>When groups like Yes, King Crimson, and Genesis started working, they
>didn't have "prog rock" models to follow, and they had to come up with
>their own idiosyncratic solutions to musical problems. Example: how to
>convey a sense of motion and a sense of stability at the same time?
>Genesis used pedal points, with chordal movement on top of them, viz.
>"Return of the Giant Hogweed" or "Watcher of the Skies." King Crimson
>initially wrote these complicated licks derived from blues changes,
>but liberally spiced with passing tones-- the "Schizoid" lick and its
>numerous descendents. Other bands tried other things-- complicated
>flat-picking patterns of chords on guitars, or arpeggiating them on
>keyboards, etc.
Classical and jazz seemed to be their main influences. As well as surrealism.
>Now it seems these notions have become enshrined. A chordal fill or
>drum lick that Genesis might have used as a provisional, ad hoc
>solution to a specific need now becomes a technique so common as
>to practically look like a cliche in the neo-prog world.
Too true.
>Somebody else pointed out in this thread that the charter of r.m.p.
>requires that the discussion be limited to rock. I don't see this as a
>big problem. Rock has infiltrated nearly every field of endeavor there
>is. Heard any Louis Andriessen? He's like Birdsongs of the Mesozoic,
>except academic and clumsy.
I can accept (P)rogressive (R)ock and could care less if r.m.p. limits itself
to Prog Rock only, that's fine because there's still plenty to talk about in that area,
but I think its ashame to limit it. Someone stated before that all you have to
do is start a thread and if there are takers great if not, too bad. I agree, but
I hope this thread continues because I like hearing about what may be truly
"progressive" in addition to just Prog. BTW has anyone listened to Coltrane's OM.
It's a very personal statement from a gifted person who was dying and fairly
progressive for its time, or our time for that matter. Though it is diffucult to
listen to, I still find it interesting.
Art
Jeff Pletcher
>
> Tore Johnsen (tor...@online.no) wrote:
> : In article <327017...@math.gatech.edu>, chec...@math.gatech.edu says...
> : >
> : >There are only two kinds of music: good and bad.
> : Hehe, there seems to be no limit to this kind of american binary thinking.
> : Tore
>
I personally believe there to be 3 kinds of music: music you like;
music you don't like; and music you can tolerate (which includes
everything from just above 'don't like' up to just below 'like')
-Jeff
Miller
In article <555veq$e...@hermes.louisville.edu> dfly...@starbase.spd.louisville.edu (David F Lynch) writes:
> The only numbers you really need are ONE, TWO, and ZERO.
We need lots of numbers; however, the only digits we really need
are zero and one.
> Two of course
> is used to describe the set containing one and zero.
That can be represented as 10 if the only digits are zero and one.
--
Clint Miller
"When all is impossible and seemingly without hope, may we trust
the inexpressible benevolence of the creative impulse and
listen to its silent voice with a quiet ear." --- Robert Fripp
Christopher Carl Heckman
Tore Johnsen wrote:
>
> In article <327017...@math.gatech.edu>, chec...@math.gatech.edu says...
> >
> >There are only two kinds of music: good and bad.
> Hehe, there seems to be no limit to this kind of american binary thinking.
>
> Tore
The decision process still could be NP-complete; at least it's not:
"BUY EVERYTHING THAT ________ EVER RECORDED." (Fill in the blank
appropriately.)
M...@mitvma.mit.edu
I agree with Chris Moon, up to a point.
I take "progress" to mean, to boldly go where no man has gone before,
and to make an art form out of it. I don't mean raw experimentation
just for the purposes of shocking people-- but I am sensitive to the
idea of shocking people with an eye to some aesthetic purpose, as in
some of the more provocative John Cage stuff (or Marcel Duchamp).
Of course, what's a tried and true technique for someone working in an
obscure domain may be deemed experimental by laymen. Edgard Varese used
to insist, "I do not write experimental music. My experimentation is
done before I make the music. Afterward, it is the listener who must
experiment." This is IMHO exactly as art should be.
Now the actual progress exemplified by most of the allegedly progressive
rock discussed in this newsgroup is not really up to snuff, again in my
opinion. So that's where I think Chris Moon is coming from.
When groups like Yes, King Crimson, and Genesis started working, they
didn't have "prog rock" models to follow, and they had to come up with
their own idiosyncratic solutions to musical problems. Example: how to
convey a sense of motion and a sense of stability at the same time?
Genesis used pedal points, with chordal movement on top of them, viz.
"Return of the Giant Hogweed" or "Watcher of the Skies." King Crimson
initially wrote these complicated licks derived from blues changes,
but liberally spiced with passing tones-- the "Schizoid" lick and its
numerous descendents. Other bands tried other things-- complicated
flat-picking patterns of chords on guitars, or arpeggiating them on
keyboards, etc.
drum lick that Genesis might have used as a provisional, ad hoc
solution to a specific need now becomes a technique so common as
to practically look like a cliche in the neo-prog world.
>literally won't recognize it as music? (a few of my examples I think
>impression that a lot of folks don't want to move out of the comfort
>of prog territory to continue the hunt for progressive musics.
definition of what constitutes music needs to be threatened. Again,
I've heard some of the more outre Cage stuff, and-- more important--
the philosophical justification for it. But I don't think it's all
that useful, or even necessary. Incremental progress is good enough.
Just as much as I want to understand the philosophy behind a work,
I want to perceive the craftsmanship that went into it. I enjoy a
lot of noise and "musique concrete," but I prefer a sound collage of
deliberately chosen and carefully manipulated noises-- like Varese's
"Poeme Electronique," or Zappa's "Chrome Plated Megaphone of Destiny"--
to random assemblages, like Cage's "Fontana Mix."
An old comrade of mine used to equate complexity with coolness, and
this led him to conclude (abusing an idea from information theory)
that randomly generated music would be the best, because the internal
relationships between its elements would be the hardest to comprehend.
I knew that was silly, but I didn't quite know why-- and I still can't
really articulate it. But I know that I have an upper limit to the
complexity I can usually be comfortable with-- I kinda lose it with
late Schoenberg-- and I suspect most listeners have some such limit.
I believe a key issue in *any* music, but most especially prog rock,
is how the composer manages repetition and variation-- how to provide
the listener with new information, but also give him a clue about the
relationship between the new information and what he's already heard.
And I think that's where the craftsmanship lies. I don't hear much of
this in a lot of noise music. I find a lot of the Japanese stuff, or
Borbetomagus-style torrential improv, just so much torture.
>And as to the bands mentioned (the 'new thing') like birdsongs of the
>mesisoic, universe zero, etc...etc... While they are noteworthy bands
>(especially universe zero) I really wouldn't call them a 'new thing'.
on most of prog is that its techniques come from the classical music of
the 19th century. And I have a certain amount of sympathy for that view.
(I refer the interested reader to my rant on Steinway to Heaven.) But I
don't think it's the whole story; I think the existence of the electric
guitar and the synthesizer allow a different kind of articulation to be
used on the same old notes. Rick Wakeman can crib notes from Mozart,
but it comes out not like Mozart at all; ditto Emerson and Ginastera,
Greenslade and Ravel, Edmunds and Khachaturian (sp?)...
James Alexander Chokey
In article <555td2$s...@lex.zippo.com>, Art <a...@pucc.princeton.edu> wrote:
>
> I can accept (P)rogressive (R)ock and could care less if r.m.p. limits
>itself to Prog Rock only, that's fine because there's still plenty to talk
>about in that area, but I think its a shame to limit it.
Well, limits have to be drawn somewhere. If groups didn't
have discussion boundaries, we wouldn't have separate newsgroups
for different genres of music, and instead of rec.music.classical,
rec.music.folk, rec.music.progressive, etc., we'd just have one
big rec.music.misc, or maybe even just one big rec.misc.
That said, the boundaries of rec.music.progressive are extremely
inclusive-- not to mention flexible (as various folks on this thread
have noted, discussion here has ranged from classical to jazz to folk
to pure pop when appropriate). I'm rather perplexed as to what gives you or
Chris Moon the idea that any of the noise bands that have been mentioned
are in any way off-topic here. Has anyone said, "Hey get this shit off
r.m.p.?" Has anyone gone and altered the charter of r.m.p. so as
to say that such discussions are off-topic? Last I checked, the
r.m.p. FAQ listed Experimental/Industrial as a subgenre of music
wholly acceptable on r.m.p. In fact, let's zip over to FAQ #4
(located at http://www.cogsci.ed.ac.uk/~philkime/RMP/faq4.html)
and see what it has to say about the various subgenres of progressive
music that are fair game on r.m.p. Oh my goodness, what's this that
I find just a few lines above the link to Chris Moon's Krautrock
guide?:
> Experimental/Industrial
>
> Often hard core experimental material. The fringes of music where almost
>anything can happen. Almost always difficult for the newcomer. Considerable
>use of noise, found objects, music concrete and sometimes even power tools.
>Generally focusing on texture and sonority to the expense of all else.
>A fascinating area for the adventurous.
> Examples: Einsturzende Neubauten, Nurse With Wound, Hafler Trio,
>Main, Coil
Well, if there were ever any fears on the subject of whether
these "fringes" of music are outside the scope of r.m.p., this should
remove them. So quit complaining about the fact that nobody is
currently talking about this experimental stuff and start talking
about it.
>Someone stated before that all you have to
>do is start a thread and if there are takers great if not, too bad. I agree,
>but I hope this thread continues because I like hearing about what may be
>truly "progressive" in addition to just Prog.
Maybe I'm just crazy, but I suspect you'd find out more about
such other innovative musics in threads that were actually devoted
to discussing them rather than in a thread whining about the fact
that not everyone in this group is necessarily likes them or is even
interested in them. Sorry if I'm sounding a bit bitter, but I really
don't see what the point of this whole discussion is. I mean, there
are lots of folks here who aren't particularly keen on progressive folk,
but I don't lambast them for it. I'd rather spend my time actually
talking about the music itself.
>BTW has anyone listened to Coltrane's OM.
>It's a very personal statement from a gifted person who was dying and fairly
>progressive for its time, or our time for that matter. Though it is
>diffucult to listen to, I still find it interesting.
Yeah, _OM_ is very tough, but very intriguing. There was a lot
of discussion about it in the big Coltrane discussion that took place
here about a year back (about the time when the boxed set was released).
Talk about a work that challenges the boundaries of music! I'd really
like to know how _OM_ was received back when it first came out-- what
reviewers said, what other musicians said, etc.
-- Jim C.
==========================================================================
| James A. Chokey jch...@leland.stanford.edu |
| |
| Exile sur le sol au milieu des huees, |
| Ses ailes de geant l'empechent de marcher. |
| |
| -- Baudelaire |
==========================================================================
Furious Green Thoughts
You gotta be kidding me. Forgetting the math lesson, saying anything
only "sucks" or it's "cool" is lame-brained. The whole problem is
that we like too much to make nice little compartment and labels for
everything, including music.
dfly...@starbase.spd.louisville.edu (David F Lynch) wrote:
>Tore Johnsen (tor...@online.no) wrote:
>: In article <327017...@math.gatech.edu>, chec...@math.gatech.edu says...
>: >
>: >There are only two kinds of music: good and bad.
>: Hehe, there seems to be no limit to this kind of american binary thinking.
>Why, have they not got as far as the number two in Norway yet?
>(Zing!)
>The only numbers you really need are ONE, TWO, and ZERO. Two of course
>is used to describe the set containing one and zero. In the end all
>music is ALL-ONE OR NONE! EXCEPTIONS ETERNALLY? NONE! Psychologically,
>the human race needs to draw a dividing line. Despite feeling a
>simultaneous kinship and utter isolation from the rest of the human
>race, it can only embrace so much. This makes "good and bad" (interpret
>as "I enjoy" and "I don't enjoy") a far more meaningful personal
>criterion on which to classify music than "prog", "punk", "C&W", etc.
>Get my drift?
>--
>Dave (not David) Lynch/FILLER/Eligible Mutant Bachelor Uebergeek at large
>dfly...@homer.louisville.edu/FILLER/Founder, First Church of Eternal Man
>ObObsoleteHomepage:http://www.rlabs.com/lynch **** Please email followups
>I'm SERIOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Jason Gross- fur...@furious.com
Furious Green Thoughts (politics) http://www.furious.com
Perfect Sound Forever (music) http://www.furious.com/perfect
Assorted Realities (fiction) http://www.furious.com/assorted
Anthony Hobbs
In article <552n3q$i...@cronkite.seas.gwu.edu>,
Steven Sullivan <sull...@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu> wrote:
> Anthony Hobbs (ant...@atlantis.actrix.gen.nz) wrote:
> : > > >There are only two kinds of music: good and bad.
> : > >
> : > > What's the other kind?
> : >
> : > The ugly, of course.
>
> : Including the complete works of Arnold Schoenberg and most mid-period
> : Magma.
>
> um, ever hear 'Verklarte Nacht'?
It's actually the only Schoenberg record I own. *shrug*
--
Anthony "Slug of Doom" Lawless, Grand Commander, Ordo Pantheris;
musician, composer, wordsmith and amateur theoretician, Wellington, NZ.
nor...@ihug.co.nz http://shell.ihug.co.nz/~norway
Steven Sullivan
Terrell Miller (KQL...@prodigy.com) wrote:
: >In article <326FE9...@moc.govt.nz>, David says...
: >>
: >>frankly I think trying to sound like the classic prog acts of 20-plus
: years
: >>ago is RETROgressive, rather than progressive.
: Yup. Here's progressive:
: Strawberry Fields ==> ELO ==> Gong ==> P Furs ==> Dead Can Dance ==>
: Seal ==> Bush ==> ???
Bush?? BUSH?? Of 'Everything Zen' fame? Puh-leeze! Not bad of its
type (watered-down Nirvana), but not 'progressive' in any sense of the
word.
: Here's not progressive:
: Yes ====> Rush ====> Marillion ====> GTR ====> Queensryche ====> Cairo
: Bad Prog is bad music. Listen to good music, whatever the form.
Sing it!
Art
In article <5587ji$g...@cardinal2.Stanford.EDU>, jch...@leland.Stanford.EDU says...
Well, if there were ever any fears on the subject of whether
>these "fringes" of music are outside the scope of r.m.p., this should
>remove them. So quit complaining about the fact that nobody is
>currently talking about this experimental stuff and start talking
>about it.
>
>
>>Someone stated before that all you have to
>>do is start a thread and if there are takers great if not, too bad. I agree,
>>but I hope this thread continues because I like hearing about what may be
>>truly "progressive" in addition to just Prog.
>
> Maybe I'm just crazy, but I suspect you'd find out more about
>such other innovative musics in threads that were actually devoted
>to discussing them rather than in a thread whining about the fact
>that not everyone in this group is necessarily likes them or is even
>interested in them. Sorry if I'm sounding a bit bitter, but I really
>don't see what the point of this whole discussion is. I mean, there
>are lots of folks here who aren't particularly keen on progressive folk,
>but I don't lambast them for it. I'd rather spend my time actually
>talking about the music itself.
I'm sorry I missed the Coltrane discussion. Well gee I guess I'll quit whining
now, WAAAAAAAAAAH RICKY, there, I'm done.
Art
Terrell Miller
>In article <326FE9...@moc.govt.nz>, David says...
>>
>>frankly I think trying to sound like the classic prog acts of 20-plus
years
>>ago is RETROgressive, rather than progressive.
Yup. Here's progressive:
Strawberry Fields ==> ELO ==> Gong ==> P Furs ==> Dead Can Dance ==>
Seal ==> Bush ==> ???
Here's not progressive:
Yes ====> Rush ====> Marillion ====> GTR ====> Queensryche ====> Cairo
Bad Prog is bad music. Listen to good music, whatever the form.
-
TERRELL MILLER, OP KQL...@prodigy.com
"Look back, that is no escape"
np - Simple Minds, Street Fighting years
Michael C. Feathers
>An old comrade of mine used to equate complexity with coolness, and
>this led him to conclude (abusing an idea from information theory)
>that randomly generated music would be the best, because the internal
>relationships between its elements would be the hardest to comprehend.
I've felt that we for a while, but I've never been able to articulate it that
well. To me, novelty is a very real factor in appreciating music. I love
listening to something and not having any idea what is going to happen next.
I'm absolutely ecstatic if, then, I hear something that makes everything
previous to it "click." The way that an exceedingly complex structure is
revealed is very important to me.
Terrell Miller Miller
>> um, ever hear 'Verklarte Nacht'?
>It's actually the only Schoenberg record I own. *shrug*
--
>Anthony "Slug of Doom" Lawless, Grand Commander, Ordo >Pantheris;
Anthony, stop yourself before you get Pierrot Luniere. Just like
something out of a Bergman film. Trust me.
Terrell Miller, OP
Zhang Hongyu
Michael Borella
In article <55b9e3$l...@news.icanect.net>,
Michael C. Feathers <feat...@icanect.net> wrote:
>>An old comrade of mine used to equate complexity with coolness, and
>>this led him to conclude (abusing an idea from information theory)
>>that randomly generated music would be the best, because the internal
>>relationships between its elements would be the hardest to comprehend.
>
>well. To me, novelty is a very real factor in appreciating music. I love
>listening to something and not having any idea what is going to happen next.
>I'm absolutely ecstatic if, then, I hear something that makes everything
>previous to it "click." The way that an exceedingly complex structure is
>revealed is very important to me.
>
>
FWIW, I've read that some modern classical approaches white noise far more
closely than any other genre, although all music falls somewhere between
white noise (little correlation between consecutive notes) and Brownian
motion (strong correlation between consecutive notes, like a random walk).
David F Lynch
Anthony Hobbs (ant...@atlantis.actrix.gen.nz) wrote:
: He kicked serious ass in _Plan 9 from Outer Space_, too.
Well, hell yeah! That goes without saying! And in the Beast of Yucca
Flats.. Woah, man. Hey, am I the only one who would've LOVED to see him
go up against El Santo ("the man in the silver mask")?
--
Dave (not David) Lynch/(.)(.)/Eligible Mutant Bachelor Uebergeek at large
C.J. Currie
Terrell Miller Miller <Terrell...@msn.com> wrote:
>Anthony Hobbs wrote:
>>> um, ever hear 'Verklarte Nacht'?
>>It's actually the only Schoenberg record I own. *shrug*
>Anthony, stop yourself before you get Pierrot Luniere. Just like
>something out of a Bergman film. Trust me.
I second this recommendation.
The Christopher Currie
David F Lynch
Michael C. Feathers (feat...@icanect.net) wrote:
:
: Reminds me of what something that a Robert Heinlein character once said
: (paraphrasing) "You gotta get the marks to pay for it. If they don't have to
: pay for it they don't think it's any good."
And from there, of course, it's just a short step to "You'll pay to know what
you REALLY THINK".
($30 to PO Box 140306, Dallas, TX, 75214)
David F Lynch
Steven Sullivan (sull...@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu) wrote:
: Bush?? BUSH?? Of 'Everything Zen' fame? Puh-leeze! Not bad of its
: word.
Watered down Nirvana is an intrinsically bad type.
Dave
(making contentious unsupported statements since 1976)
Steven Sullivan
Anthony Hobbs (ant...@atlantis.actrix.gen.nz) wrote:
: In article <552n3q$i...@cronkite.seas.gwu.edu>,
: Steven Sullivan <sull...@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu> wrote:
: > Anthony Hobbs (ant...@atlantis.actrix.gen.nz) wrote:
: > : > > >There are only two kinds of music: good and bad.
: > : > >
: > : > > What's the other kind?
: > : >
: > : > The ugly, of course.
: >
: > : Including the complete works of Arnold Schoenberg and most mid-period
: > : Magma.
: >
: > um, ever hear 'Verklarte Nacht'?
: It's actually the only Schoenberg record I own. *shrug*
thinking it's boring, maybe I could understand...but *ugly*? You been
smoking that French dirtweed again?
David F Lynch
Furious Green Thoughts (fur...@furious.com) wrote:
: You gotta be kidding me. Forgetting the math lesson, saying anything
: only "sucks" or it's "cool" is lame-brained. The whole problem is
: that we like too much to make nice little compartment and labels for
: everything, including music.
Sorry if you think it's lame-brained, but it's human nature. When it
comes to music, we either like it or we don't. Yeah, there's different
degrees of that; I like Close to the Edge more than Hootie and the Blowfish,
but I don't particularly like Close to the Edge.
Tore Johnsen
In article <55c66d$5...@asgard.actrix.gen.nz>, ant...@atlantis.actrix.gen.nz
says...
>> Wait a second! Wait.. a.. SECOND! It's YOU! You can't fool me by
>> varying the spelling! TOR JOHNSON! Holy shit! You fuckin' RULED
>> in "Bride of the Monster"! Lobo.. KILL!
>He kicked serious ass in _Plan 9 from Outer Space_, too.
OK OK you're in my kill file now :P
Tore , not tor
By the way. Rumor has it there will be a minor gentle giant reunion in
Oslo, january 1997, including at least 2, possibly more members.
Bands like Anekdoten, High Wheel will also play.
Anekdoten will play Oslo the 15th of november.
Cy'all there!
M...@mitvma.mit.edu
In article <54eoi9$i...@cardinal1.Stanford.EDU>
jch...@leland.Stanford.EDU (James Alexander Chokey) writes:
> Anyway, the same is true for Progressive Rock. It's a name that
>derives from the fact that it was created in a particuar time and place
>where the music that it describes was "progressive" in the adjectival
>sense, but it retains that name in spite of the fact that, in the grand
>scheme of things, much of it may no longer be "progressive" in the way
>in which it originally was. So, even those current bands who do perform
>in the classic 70's style are still rightly called "Progressive"
I don't support this view. There has been "progressive" rock, progressive
pop, progressive jazz, progressive dance music, etc. etc. ad infinitum, and
each practitioner who invokes the term should be able to demonstrate what
it is about his artwork that constitutes progress.
The term "neo-prog" exists to describe what you're talking about.
> -- Jim C., who now hopes everyone here should be able to figure
> out why art from 100 years ago is called "Modern" and why
> contemporary art is called "Postmodern" :-)
Indeed. I wish the term "postmodern" would disappear from the face of the
earth, I think it's a horrible circumlocution.
Anthony Hobbs
In article <55dami$l...@mcmail.CIS.McMaster.CA>,
C.J. Currie <curr...@mcmail.cis.McMaster.CA> wrote:
> Terrell Miller wrote:
> >Anthony, stop yourself before you get Pierrot Luniere. Just like
> >something out of a Bergman film. Trust me.
>
> I second this recommendation.
I had to study _PL_ at university. "Die Mondfleck" was quite cool.
--
Anthony "Slug of Doom" Lawless, Grand Commander, Ordo Pantheris;
James Alexander Chokey
In article <178359626...@mitvma.mit.edu>, <M...@mitvma.mit.edu> wrote:
>In article <54eoi9$i...@cardinal1.Stanford.EDU>
>jch...@leland.Stanford.EDU (James Alexander Chokey) writes:
>
>> Anyway, the same is true for Progressive Rock. It's a name that
>>derives from the fact that it was created in a particuar time and place
>>where the music that it describes was "progressive" in the adjectival
>>sense, but it retains that name in spite of the fact that, in the grand
>>scheme of things, much of it may no longer be "progressive" in the way
>>in which it originally was. So, even those current bands who do perform
>>in the classic 70's style are still rightly called "Progressive"
>
>I don't support this view. There has been "progressive" rock, progressive
>pop, progressive jazz, progressive dance music, etc. etc. ad infinitum, and
>each practitioner who invokes the term should be able to demonstrate what
>it is about his artwork that constitutes progress.
Frankly, I think that the idea of musical "progress" is an
absurd chimera. What is music progressing towards, pray tell? But that
aside, the fact is that Progressive/progressive-rock/prog/your-favorite-
variation-here, as used on this newsgroup and in rock history, is not just
a generic adjectival description but a genre classification.
>The term "neo-prog" exists to describe what you're talking about.
Um . . . no, actually. Neo-prog is a very specific subgenre
of prog that developed in the UK in the 1980's (Marillion, Pallas,
IQ, Twelfth Night, Pendragon, etc.) and which has readily identifiable
characteristics (of which the most common is a tendency to sound
highly derivative of early Genesis. And while neo-prog has since spread
beyond the UK and into the 90's (Deyss, Collage, Arrakeen, Iluvatar, etc.)
there is still a fairly distinctive neo-prog sound. Anekdoten, Anglagard,
Finisterre, and countless other contemporary bands play in a style that
is very much akin to a 70's style, but they are not even remotely
neo-prog. To call them such would make as much sense, say, as calling
a band like Relayer "country" just because they come from a rural
region.
>> -- Jim C., who now hopes everyone here should be able to figure
>> out why art from 100 years ago is called "Modern" and why
>> contemporary art is called "Postmodern" :-)
>
>Indeed. I wish the term "postmodern" would disappear from the face of the
>earth, I think it's a horrible circumlocution.
Ah, I see. You just don't like the fact that some styles, genres,
and movements have names which, though seemingly counterintuitive, make
sense once placed into a historical and/or formal context. It must be tough
to live in a world in which language doesn't re-arrange itself to suit your
personal preferences. Shall I presume that you refuse to acknowledge that you
live in a part of the country that is commonly referred to by the "horrible
circumlocution" of "New England"?
M...@mitvma.mit.edu
In article <55o08m$i...@elaine44.Stanford.EDU>
jch...@leland.Stanford.EDU (James Alexander Chokey) writes:
> Frankly, I think that the idea of musical "progress" is an
>absurd chimera. What is music progressing towards, pray tell? But that
>aside, the fact is that Progressive/progressive-rock/prog/your-favorite-
>variation-here, as used on this newsgroup and in rock history, is not just
>a generic adjectival description but a genre classification.
Seriously, I think artists can make progress-- i.e. leave the familiar
solutions behind, and attempt to discover new ways of communicating--
without having a specific destination in view. In fact my point when I
first started contributing to this thread is that bands like Genesis
had no intention of spawning new styles when they did what they did,
they were simply trying out some novel techniques-- and the fact that
these techniques have become the defining characteristics of new styles
is tribute to their musical and emotional effectiveness. And I certainly
don't see anything in the r.m.p. charter that reads, "For purposes of this
discussion, progressive rock shall be defined as the sort of work done
by the following '70s bands and their aesthetic progeny..."
>>The term "neo-prog" exists to describe what you're talking about.
>
> Um . . . no, actually. Neo-prog is a very specific subgenre
>of prog that developed in the UK in the 1980's (Marillion, Pallas,
>IQ, Twelfth Night, Pendragon, etc.) and which has readily identifiable
>characteristics (of which the most common is a tendency to sound
>highly derivative of early Genesis. And while neo-prog has since spread
>beyond the UK and into the 90's (Deyss, Collage, Arrakeen, Iluvatar, etc.)
>there is still a fairly distinctive neo-prog sound. Anekdoten, Anglagard,
>Finisterre, and countless other contemporary bands play in a style that
>is very much akin to a 70's style, but they are not even remotely
>neo-prog. To call them such would make as much sense, say, as calling
>a band like Relayer "country" just because they come from a rural
>region.
Genesis and bands that take after early Crimson? I think Anekdoten is
just as deserving of the "neo-prog" label as Iluvatar (and BTW I don't
mean any of this as an insult, they're all good bands). Nor do I mean
to say they sound alike, any more than any two bands that get tagged
RIO sound alike. If you wanted to be persnicketty about it, you should
restrict the use of the RIO label to the five bands that played at the
Rock In Opposition concert in 1978, and the other three bands that were
later invited to join the collective. But I think it's a decent label
for groups like Doctor Nerve.
>>Indeed. I wish the term "postmodern" would disappear from the face of the
>>earth, I think it's a horrible circumlocution.
>
> Ah, I see. You just don't like the fact that some styles, genres,
>and movements have names which, though seemingly counterintuitive, make
>sense once placed into a historical and/or formal context. It must be tough
>to live in a world in which language doesn't re-arrange itself to suit your
>personal preferences. Shall I presume that you refuse to acknowledge that you
>live in a part of the country that is commonly referred to by the "horrible
>circumlocution" of "New England"?
the art critics who started using the term "postmodernism" rearranged
language to lend their silly ideas the patina of academic respectability,
IMHO (which you'll of course note isn't so humble). It's an oxymoron,
and like most jokes, it eventually reaches a point where it's no longer
amusing.
I like "New England" just fine; I'm as big an Anglophile as any prog fan.
And there are constant allusions to Albion in these parts, in architecture,
nomenclature, and what we laughingly refer to as cuisine, viz. New England
Boiled Dinner :-)
Jerry Kranitz
M...@mitvma.mit.edu wrote:
>Why make an arbitrary distinction between bands that take after early
>Genesis and bands that take after early Crimson? I think Anekdoten is
>just as deserving of the "neo-prog" label as Iluvatar (and BTW I don't
>mean any of this as an insult, they're all good bands). Nor do I mean
>to say they sound alike, any more than any two bands that get tagged
>RIO sound alike. If you wanted to be persnicketty about it, you should
>restrict the use of the RIO label to the five bands that played at the
>Rock In Opposition concert in 1978, and the other three bands that were
>later invited to join the collective. But I think it's a decent label
>for groups like Doctor Nerve.
Agreed. I use "labels" very loosely as a general point of reference. I
use RIO to describe just about any experiemental/new/Wayside/Nerve,
etc sounding rock band. Whatever, I'm using its just for descriptive
purposes rather than any attempt to categorize. Given the lengthy
discussions/arguments on the subject any such attempt is fruitless,
and, perhaps, pointless.
--
Jerry Kranitz (jkra...@infinet.com)
ProgRock Home Page:http://www.infinet.com/~jkranitz/music/music.html
Henry Potts
In article <55o08m$i...@elaine44.Stanford.EDU>, James Alexander Chokey
<jch...@leland.Stanford.EDU> writes
>In article <178359626...@mitvma.mit.edu>, <M...@mitvma.mit.edu> wrote:
>>In article <54eoi9$i...@cardinal1.Stanford.EDU>
>>>derives from the fact that it was created in a particuar time and place
>>>where the music that it describes was "progressive" in the adjectival
>>>sense, but it retains that name in spite of the fact that, in the grand
>>>scheme of things, much of it may no longer be "progressive" in the way
>>>in which it originally was. So, even those current bands who do perform
>>>in the classic 70's style are still rightly called "Progressive"
>>
>>I don't support this view. There has been "progressive" rock, progressive
>>pop, progressive jazz, progressive dance music, etc. etc. ad infinitum, and
>>each practitioner who invokes the term should be able to demonstrate what
>>it is about his artwork that constitutes progress.
>
>absurd chimera. What is music progressing towards, pray tell?
"Progress*" does not imply a goal...
> But that
>aside, the fact is that Progressive/progressive-rock/prog/your-favorite-
>variation-here, as used on this newsgroup and in rock history, is not just
>a generic adjectival description but a genre classification.
[...]
However, while I agree more with the view that "Prog" is now a label for
a specific genre (which is why I favour the contraction "Prog"), such
genre names are not random. In some sense, 'progress' *is* part of what
defines Prog. Thus, while a band wholly derivative of Egg, Can and/or
Yes would still be Prog while not progressing one iota, new Prog
sometimes still 'earns' its genre-title through being literally
'progressive'.
Also, literally "progressing", being different from the mainstream,
being part of what Prog is means that other music that is literally
progressive but owes little else to Prog (e.g., Bark Psychosis) is often
still of interest to Prog fans. (Sorry, that's a most contorted
sentence.)
--
Henry
NP: _The Great Deceiver_, King Crimson, disc 2
James Alexander Chokey
In article <17837E820...@mitvma.mit.edu>, <M...@mitvma.mit.edu> wrote:
>In article <55o08m$i...@elaine44.Stanford.EDU>
>jch...@leland.Stanford.EDU (James Alexander Chokey) writes:
>
>> Frankly, I think that the idea of musical "progress" is an
>>aside, the fact is that Progressive/progressive-rock/prog/your-favorite-
>>variation-here, as used on this newsgroup and in rock history, is not just
>>a generic adjectival description but a genre classification.
>
Well, the charter and the FAQ's for one. And I'm sure most
of the readers of this group would agree that this group is indeed
about what precisely those documents say.
>Seriously, I think artists can make progress-- i.e. leave the familiar
>solutions behind, and attempt to discover new ways of communicating--
>without having a specific destination in view.
Fair enough, at least with regards to the idea that a specific
"destination" doesn't have to be in mind. Still, I have to admit
to being a little skeptical as to whether a general notion of musical
"progress" is even possible in this day and age. After all, haven't
we come to appoint when we're willing to consider anything-- literally
anything-- as music.
> In fact my point when I
>first started contributing to this thread is that bands like Genesis
>had no intention of spawning new styles when they did what they did,
>they were simply trying out some novel techniques-- and the fact that
>these techniques have become the defining characteristics of new styles
>is tribute to their musical and emotional effectiveness.
Absolutely. You'll get no disagreement from me on that
point, but I really don't see how this connects to either the
previous point or the subsequent one.
>And I certainly
>don't see anything in the r.m.p. charter that reads, "For purposes of this
>discussion, progressive rock shall be defined as the sort of work done
>by the following '70s bands and their aesthetic progeny..."
Then take a closer look. Here's a copy of the charter
right here:
****** BEGIN APPENDED TEXT *******
Rec.music.progressive is an unmoderated forum for the discussion
of Progressive music. For the purposes of this newsgroup, the term
"Progressive" refers to a variety of rock-based musical forms that were
part of, or are substantially derived from, 70's era Art Rock, Canterbury,
Fusion, Krautrock, Psychedelia, RIO (Rock in Opposition), Symphonic Rock,
Space Rock, and/or Zeuhl Music. Progressive music (aka "prog") is generally
characterized as challenging the conventions of the the traditional pop-rock
song, often with long, complex compositions that emphasize musical
virtuosity, utilize experimental musical techniques, and/or borrow heavily
from non-rock musical traditions such as classical, jazz, and folk.
(A more detailed answer to the question "What is progressive
music?" is given in part #1 of the alt.music.progressive FAQ located at
<http://www.cogsci.ed.ac.uk/~philkime/amp-faqs.html>. Definitions of
the various sub-genres mentioned above-- as well as examples of musicians
who play them-- can be found in part #4 of that FAQ.)
****** END APPENDED TEXT *******
It doesn't mention specific 70's bands by name, but it does
clearly indicate that they and their aesthetic progeny are indeed the
subject matter of this group. And, of course, the reference to
FAQ #4 (which is now) was specifically intended to provide examples.
>>>The term "neo-prog" exists to describe what you're talking about.
>>
>> Um . . . no, actually. Neo-prog is a very specific subgenre
>>of prog that developed in the UK in the 1980's (Marillion, Pallas,
>>IQ, Twelfth Night, Pendragon, etc.) and which has readily identifiable
>>characteristics (of which the most common is a tendency to sound
>>highly derivative of early Genesis.
>
>
>Why make an arbitrary distinction between bands that take after early
>Genesis and bands that take after early Crimson? I think Anekdoten is
>just as deserving of the "neo-prog" label as Iluvatar (and BTW I don't
>mean any of this as an insult, they're all good bands).
Well, commmon parlance for one. Since I've been on this group
and on r.m.p. before it, folks have always used the term "neo-prog"
to refer specifically to those original English bands that arose
in the early 1980's and who did indeed borrow heavily from early
Genesis and add more popular elements to their work-- as well
as to later bands who followed the same model. (This is also
the definition to be found in FAQ #4 of the charter). I mean, if
you want to use the term "neo-prog" to describe all prog that is
heavily derivative of a 70's sound, you are welcome to do so . . .
but don't expect other prog fans to know what you are talking
about.
>If you wanted to be persnicketty about it, you should
>restrict the use of the RIO label to the five bands that played at the
>Rock In Opposition concert in 1978, and the other three bands that were
>later invited to join the collective. But I think it's a decent label
>for groups like Doctor Nerve.
I haven't listened to enough RIO to really say, but I've
always been under the impression that contemporary bands who get
called RIO, or are said to be in RIO style, are in fact strongly
influenced by the original RIO bands and their successors? Or
is that not the case with Dr. Nerve?
>>>Indeed. I wish the term "postmodern" would disappear from the face of the
>>>earth, I think it's a horrible circumlocution.
>>
>> Ah, I see. You just don't like the fact that some styles, genres,
>>and movements have names which, though seemingly counterintuitive, make
>>sense once placed into a historical and/or formal context. It must be tough
>>to live in a world in which language doesn't re-arrange itself to suit your
>>personal preferences. Shall I presume that you refuse to acknowledge that you
>>live in a part of the country that is commonly referred to by the "horrible
>>circumlocution" of "New England"?
>
>Your sarcasm is duly noted, but I think you're reading it backwards--
>the art critics who started using the term "postmodernism" rearranged
>language to lend their silly ideas the patina of academic respectability,
>IMHO (which you'll of course note isn't so humble). It's an oxymoron,
>and like most jokes, it eventually reaches a point where it's no longer
>amusing.
Sounds like you just don't understand the terminology used to
periodize the history of contemporary art, architecture, or literature
and are determined that you'd rather reject it than understand it.
This is, of course, your perogative, but surely you wouldn't expect
to be understood by members of the art community if you refused to
acknowledge "modernism" as a term describing the broad range of aesthetic
developments that took place at the turn of this century and were
called "modernism" even then. Still less would you be understood
if you then turned around and chose to apply that term "modernism"
to describe those artists from the past 20 years who have specifically
reject the tenets and the assumptions of what has had for so long been
called "modernism". Of course, I can guess from the tone of your
post that you really couldn't care less about whether you'd
be understood by members of the art community, and again-- that's
your perogative. But I also take it, by virtue of your presence
on this group that you are interested in discussing prog with
other members of the prog community, and I can only say that
you may have some trouble being understood here, if you're
going to refuse to use recognized terminology. But then again,
if you'd rather not be understood . . . that too is your
perogative.
Ultimately, of course, labels are just that labels, and
they are only useful up to a point. But lord, they do make
communication and description so much easier, and I can't
imagine why someone would want to go around calling tomatoes
"corn", and corn "beans" if we wanted to be understood by
a vegetable gardener.
Michael C. Feathers
In article <178359626...@mitvma.mit.edu>, M...@mitvma.mit.edu wrote:
>In article <54eoi9$i...@cardinal1.Stanford.EDU>
>>derives from the fact that it was created in a particuar time and place
>>where the music that it describes was "progressive" in the adjectival
>I don't support this view. There has been "progressive" rock, progressive
>pop, progressive jazz, progressive dance music, etc. etc. ad infinitum, and
>each practitioner who invokes the term should be able to demonstrate what
>it is about his artwork that constitutes progress.
>
>Indeed. I wish the term "postmodern" would disappear from the face of the
>earth, I think it's a horrible circumlocution.
I guess that the whole problem derives from the fact that people use
these adjectives to describe artistic periods. 'Modern' and 'progressive' are
both horrible monikers because they do nothing to describe the styles they
reference.
On some days I really wonder if there is a common thread to all that is
discussed in this newsgroup (one a good day everything from James Barclay
Harvest to Alfred Schnittke). I used to think that classical influence was
the strongest indicator for prog, and I suppose that I still do, although that
idea seems a bit watery at times.
I'm content to just call it 'difficult listening music.' That covers just
about all of it, i.e., prog/RIO/electronic/fusion/modern classical.
David F Lynch
James Alexander Chokey (jch...@leland.Stanford.EDU) wrote:
: Fair enough, at least with regards to the idea that a specific
: "destination" doesn't have to be in mind. Still, I have to admit
: to being a little skeptical as to whether a general notion of musical
: "progress" is even possible in this day and age. After all, haven't
: we come to appoint when we're willing to consider anything-- literally
: anything-- as music.
Who's "we"? Most people who here me playing, say, Frippertronics or
Plunderphonics or AMM or anything out of the ordinary usually say
"That's not music!" There are still plenty of musical norms to deviate
from, IMO, and there are new ones coming up all the time.
James Alexander Chokey
In article <564lep$h...@hermes.louisville.edu>,
David F Lynch <dfly...@homer.louisville.edu> wrote:
>James Alexander Chokey (jch...@leland.Stanford.EDU) wrote:
>: "destination" doesn't have to be in mind. Still, I have to admit
>: to being a little skeptical as to whether a general notion of musical
>: "progress" is even possible in this day and age. After all, haven't
>: we come to appoint when we're willing to consider anything-- literally
>: anything-- as music.
>
>Plunderphonics or AMM or anything out of the ordinary usually say
>"That's not music!" There are still plenty of musical norms to deviate
>from, IMO, and there are new ones coming up all the time.
Fair enough. I guess by "we" I mean, "people who know
something about the musical avant-garde in the 20th century". Is it
really possible, after John Cage, to conceive of an arrangment of
sounds that could not be considered music? I don't think it is
(and frankly, I think we could even extend this further back than
cage and talk about Futurist music from the early part of the
century). Sure, for folks who know nothing about music except for what
they happen to hear on their favorite radio station and who have no
knowledge of what goes on the fringes of music, there is the
possibility to discover something "new". Of course, it's not
*really* new in terms of musical history . . . it's just new to
them because they've never heard anything like it before. And
that's great, because there's a whole potential world for them
to explore. But for those folks who do know about the fringes,
I think that there really is an acknowledgement that music has
"progressed" to the point where anything can be put forward
as a piece of music and accepted as such. How is "progress" (in
the purely descriptive-- i.e. non-genre-based sense) possible
in a world where random noise or pure silence can be considered
music?
bul...@acadiacom.net
jch...@leland.Stanford.EDU (James Alexander Chokey) wrote:
> How is "progress" (in
>the purely descriptive-- i.e. non-genre-based sense) possible
>in a world where random noise or pure silence can be considered
>music?
You're still thinking in terms of the world of academia. Even
"progressive rock" can't be considered progressive if you address it
in those terms. But the problem with your approach is that you're
functioning from previously accepted definitions of what "progressive"
is, and what "noise" or "silence" might entail, so even in a purely
academic sense, you're like those professors who told Einstein that
physics was a dead field, and there was nothing more that could be
discovered about the universe.
Secondly, the world of academia means nothing to most people, and most
people haven't heard, and wouldn't like, avant-garde music. The
number of people who come home and pop in a John Cage CD to listen to
is pretty small; thus to a pop-trained ear any artist who borrows from
John Cage will be pretty progressive. But the final test of what is
progressive and what isn't is whether people steal from it to build on
it. If a composer's works are an end unto themselves, then they don't
represent progress but simply a dead end. It might be an admirable or
even an interesting dead end, but it's still a dead end. Progressive
rock is still progressive in the sense that it is still evolving,
borrowing and stealing, and becoming something else. Whether that
"something else" occasionally includes rehashes or re-examinations of
what has gone before does not necessarily make it non-progressive.
James Alexander Chokey
In article <32889...@news.acadiacom.net>, <bul...@acadiacom.net> wrote:
>jch...@leland.Stanford.EDU (James Alexander Chokey) wrote:
>
>> How is "progress" (in
>>the purely descriptive-- i.e. non-genre-based sense) possible
>>in a world where random noise or pure silence can be considered
>>music?
>
>You're still thinking in terms of the world of academia. Even
>"progressive rock" can't be considered progressive if you address it
>in those terms. But the problem with your approach is that you're
>functioning from previously accepted definitions of what "progressive"
>is, and what "noise" or "silence" might entail, so even in a purely
>academic sense, you're like those professors who told Einstein that
>physics was a dead field, and there was nothing more that could be
>discovered about the universe.
Huh? I think I understood the first half of your comment,
and I think I agree with you. I fully accept the notion that "progressive
"rock, as we discuss it here on r.m.p. is not progressive in a purely
adjectival sense. Indeed, that was my whole point several posts
back-- that many people get tripped up on the fact that the name
for this particular genre of music is also a commonly used adjective.
(That's why I brought up the whole analogy with New Criticism and
postmodernism-- to help point out that "progressive rock" is a
name with roots in a particular time and place, not a generic
formal description of any kind of rock that happens to seem a
a bit different from what's gone before).
You completely lost me with the Einstein analogy, though. What
are you talking about? If you're trying to suggest that my thinking
is conditioned by a paradigm that I am incapable of seeing beyond,
I'd say that that's undoubtedly true. Everyone is, after all.
On the other hand, I would also contend that the postmodern
paradigm of music ushered in by folks like Cage (as well as by
non-academic musicians-- including folks like Coil, Nurse with
Wound, Amon Duul I, Faust, and countless Krautrock bands) really does
presume that any succession of sounds can be considered music,
which does make any notion of musical progress (here understood
in the purely adjectival sense, rather than as part of a genre
name) difficult, to say the least.
>Secondly, the world of academia means nothing to most people, and most
>people haven't heard, and wouldn't like, avant-garde music. The
>number of people who come home and pop in a John Cage CD to listen to
>is pretty small; thus to a pop-trained ear any artist who borrows from
>John Cage will be pretty progressive.
Call me crazy, but I tend to rely upon the judgement of people
who are familiar with something, rather than upon the judgement of those
who are unfamiliar with it. Would you rely upon someone who has never
studied medicine or biology, or who professed profound dislike for all
medical developments in the past half-century, to operate on your child?
Would you trust the judgement of someone who new nothing about cars
to figure out what was wrong with your 1996 Cadillac? Would you rely
upon someone who had never listened to a note of jazz to tell you
about its history and development? I sure wouldn't, and similarly,
I don't trust the opinion of those who are ignorant of the musical
avant-garde when learning about or discussing what is innovative
or "progressive" (again, used in the purely adjectival sense) in
the current avant-garde.
>But the final test of what is
>progressive and what isn't is whether people steal from it to build on
>it.
Well, I sort of hinted at an idea similar to this two posts
ago, when I first expressed doubt that musical "progress" was even
possible. (Or at least I think I did . . .) I seem to remember
writing something to the effect of: All that it is possible to do is to
arrange different sorts of musical ideas in different combinations;
one can't push back the boundaries of what might be considered music."
If you want to think of this activity of combining, borrowing, and
stealing as musical "progress", so be it. I don't, personally . . .
I really do think progress implies a direction, or at the very least
a boundary or a frontier that can be pushed back, or crossed. So
maybe all we're disagreeing about here is the precise way one can
define "progress". *shrug*
> Progressive
>rock is still progressive in the sense that it is still evolving,
>borrowing and stealing, and becoming something else. Whether that
>"something else" occasionally includes rehashes or re-examinations of
>what has gone before does not necessarily make it non-progressive.
Oh, sure, progressive rock, as a genre, still borrows and
incorporates other musical ideas, changing with the times. Neo-prog
does not sound exactly like early Genesis but has a poppier element,
for example. Of course, the same is true of pop. Grunge does not
sound like new wave or heavy metal or punk or state-your-favorite-
flavor-of-the-month-here. To define "progressive rock" as any rock
which evolves or changes due to its borrowings, IMHO, vitiates the term of
any meaning whatsoever. What defines the genre of progressive rock
is not the fact that changes occur in it, but the fact that it either was
part of, or is a successor to, the number of kinds of music appearing
in the early 1970's which were (and still are), for better or for
worse, called "Progressive Rock".
-- Jim C. (who's beginning to wonder why he's still posting
to this tedious thread rather than about something
more interesting)
Pedro Sena
Jeff Pletcher <hh...@erols.com> wrote in article
<3276C7...@erols.com>...
> I personally believe there to be 3 kinds of music: music you like;
> music you don't like; and music you can tolerate (which includes
> everything from just above 'don't like' up to just below 'like')
From my radio days, I found that this is not exactly what one would hope
for. There are three kinds of music... that which one plays, that which one
won't and that which one tolerates.
The problem is that when one starts separating likes from dislikes, one
forgets that others also have the right to play it and say it.... and we
become close minded. I never have disliked, let's say, Gentle Giant, and
didn't play it very often, but I have to admit that the musicianship is
brilliant. It's better than tolerable, just requires a mood.
But it's hard to take an attitude that this is better than that, and one
hopes that personal favoritism does not enter the equation, or it all
becomes another academic affair, which to me is sad and boring, and hurts,
everytime, new musicians. Heck if we had taken "like" as the clue in the
70's for the new music instead of disco, half the stuff would never have
been played. There has to be a certain open-ness required in the individual
to listen to something completely different, and learn it... it's what
people, and different cultures are all about. This doesn't take tolerance,
just takes acceptance, and a certain inner beauty that can appreciate
anyone's style and presentation. It just isn't my style to enjoy the Sex
Pistols, for example.