Captain Beyond - Captain Beyond (1972)

GONG - Live Bremen 1974

Great space rock, prog rock!
Live with very good sound.

Non-flowery prog. is okay in my book.

New person said this thread wasn't active, so I'll put an old favorite here.
Uploaded an edited version of this 33 minute piece because there wasn't one.

THAT Grobschnitt track is about as good as it gets.

I have some 12 different versions.

Live they always - what's the word?...errr...improvised Solar Music.


"Do you like SO...LAR...Mus..ZICK?"

That "Ballerman" record has history with me:

I take it this is a Brit forum?
If so, most won't know of Toronto's "Sam The Record Man" store.

Well, I got my "Ballerman" there and was heart-broken to discover it played badly - and a double IMPORTED record was pricey for a teenage-snotkid.

As much as I wanted the lp set, I didnt want it in that shape.
I was a very shy kid ,so the prospect of returning it was daunting - back then things were a bit different (for one thing, there were very few , what you call "chazza"-type stores then. And returning unsatisfactory merchandise was not too common.

So the guy that ran the rock/jazz dept at Sam's was a negro (and there werent many blacks in this neck of the woods baclk then either. So I still remember his face.
He said no problem. I expected my $20 back, but he rooted about and much to my amazement and delight, presented me with ANOTHER copy.

Sometimes those 70s import pressings were crap - especially ones from JEM imports who supplied many a store in those days.
Sometimes you'd get a noisy Brain or Ohr release, but, yes, if you knew a nice negro, you could get a fresh copy.
You probably know that there's an enormous - and beautifully done - Grobschnitt box set.
Seventeen discs with each disc exactly 79:10 long and remastered by Eroc (whom I think is much better at it than Steven Wilson).
I have more versions of Solar Music than I can count. This version is taken from another remastered version done by Eroc
that was released about three months ago.

The forum has people from all over the world including from Toronto.

I have the first three Eroc lps.

Were there any other offshoot lps of Grob?

I have his five solo albums (all signed by him), the two he did with Hans Reichel and the one with Urs Fuchs.
Post-Grobschnitt: the only other member that did anything somewhat memorable was when Mist released
some things under the name of Yomano. It was pretty much new age goo. He died 9 years ago in his 50s.

Don't know the Fuchs or Reichel ones. Please elucidate .

Eroc 4 I've never seen. Anyways, going by Progarchives scoring, its his weakest.

The Americans here certainly outnumber the Brits. And the few Irish, like me.

Don't trust you Irish.

no prog in Ireland, you understand.

I mean...that is UNATURAL!

only good Irish proggers I can think of just now were fruupp and Supply,Curve and Demand.

Also I got a band called Winter, but that is more like unto neoprog ...and you know where that leads you.

I thought this was a pretty fantastic song though.

Are there even any other Scandinavians like me? I'm guessing Isbjørn, given his name.

So then Bat****bird, you are the one serious music-folk all ignore here, correct?

Yeah, he's Norwegian. I feel like we've had at least two Swedes in my time, but neither of them have been active for a while.

Racist :p:
(robs drink)
We have the massive drag factor of Irish Trad to contend with. Not much call for Irish prog, though I'm going to say there are one or two bands, whose names escape me at the moment. Plus, it's hard to concentrate on twenty-minute keyboard solos when it's your round. I'm sure I've heard tell though. Unless that was that time I was captured by the Little People and held until ... but that's another story.
*unnatural
Nothing wrong with neoprog...

Isn't Lija or something, the one who's always on about the Eurovision, Swedish?

Might be the other person I was thinking of, the first being Tore.

Vambo, you reveal yourself as one of those insufferable prog snobs that hang out at ProgArchives, who believe nothing after 1976 is prog or worth talking about, and are permanently mired in the seventies. Do you own a cape? :rolleyes:

I can understand people not liking, say, Marillion, but for one to call them talentless, as one member over there did, is pretty stupid. There are plenty of bands I don't rate but I'd never call them talentless. Not saying you do, but I get the feeling you may agree with the sentiment. If I'm wrong, fair enough, I apologise, but your comment about neo-prog leads me to believe I'm correct.

Oh yeah, I forgot him. Norwegian, isn't he? And don't we have a Dane here somewhere? Or is that MicShazam? Damn Scandinavians: confusing me with their three countries that are kind of all one....
:shycouch:

That was literally the entire reason this conversation started. Are you going senile?

What do you mean, "going"??? :confused:

Anyone can play an instrument or write a song, those things are not talent. Making great music is talent, and great music is very subjective, so it's well within reason to say that Marillion isn't talented if you rightly think they're garbage.

Oh and neoprog doesn't mean new prog. It means that tepid new agey bull****.

If I can tie a cherry stem into a knot with my tongue that's a talent. Not a particularly good talent, but a talent nonetheless. If someone can play a guitar at all, that's a talent, and so is being able to play a guitar well. It's not a talent that necessarily makes them talented at making music, but it is a talent.

like it takes any talent to craft highly complex and virtuosic music with exceptional instrumental proficiency

No I won't give into these people's mind games where they try to get you to admit that a ****ty band that they like is good in at least one way because they lack the confidence to have opinions without other people validating them.

I bet the argument originates back to peasants talking **** on symphonies.

There are more than enough ways to **** on prog heads without denying the dictionary. But on the other hand everybody's got talents of some sort, but I'm not gonna call them talented as that would detract from people who deserve to be called talented. I'd say that Genesis are talented players (I guess, I'm not a good judge of that), but I wouldn't call them particularly talented since they come up too short in other important ways that are essential to being a talented artist. Like making music that doesn't suck.

Total bull**** as usual. I can play keyboards but play them ****. I'm not in any way talented. To be able to play a musical instrument you have to be talented. People can spend years (as I did, once) learning and never reach any level of proficiency. This does not make them talented. You think a whole slew of bargain basement punk bands from the 70/80s were talented? Some were, but in no way were they all. Stop trying to make the word mean what you want it to mean.

I don't like your music, at all, but I will readily admit that you are not talentless. You know how to craft and create music, not just bash aimlessly at an instrument. The fact that I don't like your music doesn't allow me to deny your talent, just as a band like, oh I don't know, say Fantomas, cannot be described as talentless, even though I hate what they do. You have to accept that in order to make proper music, ie music someone can listen to NOT necessarily music you or anyone else enjoys, requires talent.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-progressive_rock

Again, just because you hate it doesn't deny its definition.

Nah, I define an artist's talent on the big picture. If that's a very foreign concept to you, then you're not going to get it even if I keep trying to explain it to you.

How does that contradict my point?

First off - thankyou for not nailing me without knowing what music I espouse.

True, I do not rate neo high -compared to the other cornerstones of wide-Prog - but I do not ignore it either. It has value.

And I think it was yourself (?) who listed the good ones. I would rate:

the first two Marillions,

Pallas-Sentinel and the 2 early EPs

IQ "Tales from the Lush Attic" & "the Wake"

Pendragon - the jewel

The four Twelfth Night lps

I have these in the collection and more - including a few terrible ones like Haze: Niadim's Ghost being the worst. And Austria's Deyss (but incredible foc art - so its a keeper.)


During the prog doldrums of 80s there was not much to explore except neo and all neo came out of UK.

But then something horrid happeded: The Netherlands started taking up the neo banner.

They had called their prog "Symphonic Prog" from the start, but when their neo came in the late 80s it was truely horrorshow.

I would buy Euro progs in the mail without any knowledge of the actual music and my biggest disappointments were 5 lps I got off of what I call the worse prog label ever: the Dutch Sym-Info label.
(No, Im not gonna mention the bands names.)


Back then there was not much to pick from. But there were lotta "neo" fanzines.Most of them quarterly and all very thin. I still have some of these:
the dutch Freia (which actually put out one thicker quarterly-maybe 25 pages), Dutch Background (the big one then), two or three from France: Acid Dragon,Mr Peach... and the best of the lot, Sophisticated Rock from Germany.


Fanzines like Background occasionally pushed quality, straight progs like Eloy and Enid, but there pages would be littered with dross neos like It Bites.

Aye, It Bites was a particular sorry favorite.


Oh yeah: Enid were a band out of their time.
I never could see them as neo -but there you have it.
Two hallmarks of neo are verbosity and emotionality of lyric . Enid exemplify neither.
They (and the Craft lp) were mainly instrumental. (And can you think of any neo lps that are instrumental; besides the one 12th Night?)

Nowhere in that definition does it mention new age, nor tepidity. So your attempt to reduce neo-prog to that, simply because you don't like it, fails. That definition tells you what neo-prog is recognised to be, your definition tells you what you want it to be.
Some good stuff there. I'm also into the earlier prog, but not all of it. Don't like early Yes too much, love Rush, love Genesis (all time favourite), try to get into VDGG but the jazzy influences keep putting me off, have heard little Camel, though I think I might like it. Didn't like the two Soft Machine albums I tried, Focus were meh, ELP I never liked at all. Tull I couldn't stand, and anyway I see him mostly as more folk than prog really. I tried Gentle Giant and was not impressed. Much of the 70s prog bores me, though I've heard some good RPI bands.

When you say Dutch neo-prog, are you talking about the likes of Epica and Within Temptation? I'd class them more as prog metal really.

As for a neoprog instrumental album, have you heard this?

It doesn't say "new age" or "tepid" verbatim, no, but what it does say

Is basically the same thing.

The wiki entry itself says that it's a prog subgenre, not just any old prog music made after 1980. That was my original point.

So again, why are you posting this as if it isn't saying the same thing as me?

Your own source contradicts you.

Many a genre included worldmusic elements back in 80s.
yOU'RE not going to call Popol Vuh neo now are you Batbird?


...
I have a Willowglass , but not that specific title. Don't see him as being neoprog in the least.


...

Don't know Epica or Temptation. Suspect its much later (metal-****) musics (the Dutch neoprog was late 80s.)

....

Troll heart - you cant get into GGiant, VDGG or ELP?

You are a lost soul.
I weep copiously.

http://i.imgur.com/vKrMHeh.jpg

**** if I know, I don't listen to any of that ****. I'm just throwing shade at Trollheart.

And yes, Epica and Within Temptation are ****ty metal bands for angsty teens.

Popol Vuh is pretty great though bat.

It would be nonsensical to call them neoprog tbh, but if someone called them new age at least I could chalk that up to ignorance of any kind of ambient music.

I'll give em a shot. All this talk of prog reminded me that I'm still a hopeless Magma noob, so I'm gonna bump some Mekanïk Destruktïw Kommandöh and then probably check out some more cause this album is gloriously oddball as hell and makes me wish I didn't freak out on shrooms.

That's all down to your own interpretation of what's tepid and new-age. I'm just pointing out there's a lot more to it than you were willing to admit. As usual, cherry-picking, but whatev, what do I care?
Since when was world music new age, dumbass? :crazy:
I guess. I don't know what you'd call him. It's The Dream Harbour I have anyway. Great album.

Yeah you're right there: Epica formed in 2002, Within Temptation 1996.
Gentle Giant just did not impress me, but it was only the first album I listened to. ELP I have never liked; heard Tarkus and Brain Salad Surgery. Just bored me. Kind of like early Yes: suites too long and just not engaging, to me. VDGG I am getting into, slowly. I love Pawn Hearts, and some specific songs like "Man-erg" (I think: starts with a slow piano and "A killer lives inside me"?), "Killer", "Refugees", "Whatever would Robert have said?", "The boat of millions of years", "Masks", "Childlike faith in childhood's end", "Darkness", "Lost", a few others. I bought all their albums on vinyl way back when but no longer have a turntable, however I did rebuy them all digitally.

I think the problem with some of these bands is the length of some of their songs, and not only the "old prog" bands. I tried to listen to "The last human gateway" at least five times, and fell asleep every time. And yet I love "Supper's ready", "Grendel", "A plague of lighthouse keepers", "The light", "2112" and other really long songs. I guess a suite has to really engage me to keep my attention, and stuff from Yes/ELP just never really has. I do like newer Yes though, from 90125 to about Union. Wasn't mad about The Ladder, loved ABWH, still working through the albums that followed those.