Your first prog experience?
 

I remember well mine, it was listening to Genesis's "Seconds out" live album. I swapped it plus a Rory Gallagher album and Supertramp's "Crime of the century" for what I can't recall, but I remember listening enraptured to the whole of SO, absolutely drowning in the deep majesty of it all. Up to then, my knowledge of Genesis had been limited to the single "Follow you follow me" and snippets from a schoolfriend's cassette of "Foxtrot", but listening to the likes of "Squonk", "The Carpet Crawlers", "The Musical box" and "Afterglow" I was entranced.

Then I flipped the record over (ask your parents, young 'uns!) and the stylus hit the grooves (again, ask ....) to pick out the opening strains of "Supper's ready". When it was over I felt almost like I had gone through a religious experience. SO started my love affair with Genesis, and then Supertramp, (via C0tC and on into Paris), dabbling in bands like Yes and ELP (who never really affected me the way Genesis had, and still don't) and thence to Rush and on from there.

When "Script for a jester's tear" hit the shops in 1983 I snapped it up, as Marillion seemed to be the closest thing to Genesis I had ever heard, and of course THAT began a lifelong love affair with Marillion, which has persisted to this day, even though they're not really what you could call prog any more. I do recall being so blown away by Script that I remained silent for about half an hour after "Forgotten sons" had faded for the first time into my ears and my brain, just lying there, soaking it up, and I felt like I had when I had first listened to Seconds Out, a mere three years prior. Of course, "Grendel" put me in mind of my beloved "Supper's ready", but then, I wasn't the only one to make that connection, right or wrong...

Quite an interesting story. My "prog journey" started with a big exposure to Dream Theater. I was on another forum at the time, and I had seen that name being dropped quite a few times. I hadn't heard of the name before so it was unfamiliar territory. A few weeks later, a friend of mine starts to mention him, and I sort of knew what he was talking about because I had heard the name before. Without any question or anything, he lent me a DVD and the "Systematic Chaos" CD to listen to. Needless to say, as soon as I heard the end of "In The Presence of Enemies Part 1", I just couldn't help but listen to the rest. And I am happy I did, that album is full of amazing prog energy, it just led me to dive into more Dream Theater and expand my prog library. And now today, it's one of the main genres I listen to.

I saw Rush's Moving Pictures album in a charity shop for about £4, and having heard their name before I picked it up to see whether they sounded good enough for me to want to listen more. They did.

I have tried a few other prog bands since, but I cant stand most of what I've heard. Its pretty dull to me, and just meanders along not really going anywhere, but because the players are really good technically its like you're supposed to enjoy the music, or seem like you have less of an understanding of music.

Yeah, Trollheart, as we move on it`s easy to forget just how vivid some of those early musical experiences can be. Thanks for the reminder.

For me, it all started in my teens, when my older brother brought home an album by Yes. I could hear bits of it coming from his bedroom and was intrigued by Jon Anderson`s powerful but unusual vocals, so when my brother went out for the evening, I sneaked into his room and was soon lost in the beauty of Time And A Word .

Today, it seems to be a rather overlooked gem in the Yes catalogue, but it still speaks magic to me. Well, it`s their only album with lots of driving, soaring violin - what could be better ?

Hm, my first encounter with prog must have been Pink Floyd, without even knowing it was prog. It was when I was 16 or so, maybe 17 (quite late), and I had got a handful of vinyl records from my brother, two of which were "Dark side of the moon" and "A collection of great dance songs". I was instantly hooked on DSOTM (of course) as well as on songs like "Shine on you crazy diamond". Shortly thereafter I burned a copy of "The wall", but I was still to be initiated to the whole concept of prog rock.

My second encounter was Rush, still not aware what "prog" was. It was further into my senior high years and I was heavily into hard rock like Zeppelin, Purple and all that stuff and had heard of that 'power trio from Canada with a legendary drummer", so I blindly bought a couple of records ("2112" and "Fly by night") and once again, I was hooked. The title track off "2112" just blew my mind and I thought it was just great that they had the nerve of putting a 20-plus minute song on an album.

My third encounter I think was Jethro Tull, still not aware of whatever "prog" meant. It must have been about a year after finishing senior high when I borrowed a couple of albums from my other brother, "This was" and "Thick as a brick". If the lengthy Rush pieces were awesome, then how great was it that Tull actually made a whole album out of just one 43-minute song! And it was shock-full of all these tricky passages as well. Now that I think about it, I actually bought the "Aqualung" album during my senior high years, but I never got into it back then.

My fourth encounter was still about a year ahead, and not until then I started to become aware that there was a style in its own rights that was called "progressive rock", with bands like Yes and Genesis doing these lengthy complex songs not suitable for the faint-hearted average listener. Swell, I thought and bought "Close to the edge", "Relayer" and "Tales from topographic oceans" and the transformation was complete.

Thanx guys for your replies (now why doesn't anyone take my "prog lyrics" quiz??) :banghead:

Now that I think of it, although Genesis were my first recognised trip into the wonderful world of prog, I was into it before through Mister Lynne and His Most Effecicaious Orchestra Run Off Electricity, though I did not realise at the time this was prog of any sort (indeed, like Dotoar says, in many ways I was unaware what prog was, or even that it existed --- weren't we happier back then, when we could just listen to music because we LIKED it, and not because it was a genre we had/needed to be into?) --- I just loved "Out of the blue" and played the full "Concerto for a rainy day" over and over, leter going back to earlier efforts like "Face the music" and "El Dorado" (still one of my alltime favourite ELO albums, and a prog classic if ever there was one!), but the whole thing of OotB hooked me from the start, from the colourful gatefold sleeve with the weird spaceship on the front to the concerto and right up to the closer (and hit single) "Wild West Hero" --- what a way to finish such a sublime album!

Sad to see they're no longer with us now: I thought "Zoom" was not bad, but in fairness their last real release for me, as ELO, was "Secret messages", and like "Time" before it, was to me a fitting swan song.

Does Deep Purple count as prog? If so, my father used to listen to a ****load of Deep Purple.

Personally I'd say no. I've never heard anyone describe the Purps as anything other than hard rock/heavy metal, and ditto for the spinoff bands, Rainbow and Dio, even though the latter could certainly be considered prog in terms of lyrical content for some songs, and the former produced "Rising", which I would consider a candidate for a prog album...

Marillion's Misplace CHildhood was my first prog.

I later moved on to Yes, Pink Floyd, Genesis, King Crimson.

These days I'm heavily into Gentle Giant.

It was 30 years ago hitch hiking home one night as I got picked up in a Porsche 924 and the guy had Fragile cranked on his stereo(what I remember, I think it was either an Alpine or Blaupunkt) and torched up a fatty for the ride home. I yelled at him, "What is this?" He screamed backed, "It's Fragile by Yes." The song was "Roundabout" as the acoustic guitar and the bass line really caught my ear.

The driver went out of his way to take me home. As he stopped to let me out I asked if I could see the cassette cover. He passed it to me and said, " I could see that you were really digging it. Here. It's yours." I thanked him and he booted out into the rural night.

I was immediately a Yes fan and had acquired thier entire discography within about six weeks which at that time was 1980 so it included thier s/t debut to Yesshows.

Prog is my main listening preference with all it's sub-genres except for Zeuhl.