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Thursday, January 24, 2008

How did I get involved with my love of prog you ask?

Cuten writes:
Well ok maybe you didn't but were curious anyhow. The very first band that I fell in love with that later became a big influence in many ways in the music community but weren't quite to the prog stage yet was Savatage. At the time it was on a record ( What's that? Well records were these big black vinyl round discs that people used to store music on in the ancient days). Crackling and popping (records frequently got scratches and the sound was distorted sort of like an egg frying sound when they did) notwithstanding, the clarity and nasty evil beauty of Jon Oliva's voice got me hooked. Savatage played pure straight metal in their formative years.
Next was Fates Warning. Wow, that was a change. First of all it was the No Exit release and it was on a cassette tape. Sound was clearer and the vocalist again caught my ear but the eclectic head warping time changes had me trying to fit it into some sort of category in my mind. None existed for me at the time and so I had to give it several, several tries before it finally sunk in. Over time I found another budding prog band, Dream Theater.

Unlike the other two bands that I mentioned the vocalist did not impress me so my time was spent enjoying the Ytse Jam. It was at this point that I might never have proceeded on my way to finding out that there are many, many fine prog bands because the vocals fell so short for me. Fortunately for me, my boyfriend saw the new Dream Theater release (Images and Words) and kept insisting on me purchasing it for us. My mind was hard to sway and the only thing that did that was the fact that there was a new vocalist. After one listen I was convinced that this change in vocalists had made me hungry for more prog.

After that my searches for prog in this area led to a few more prizes. The inserts in the cds made it even easier to discover yet more prog bands. Finding others with an interest in prog increased my curiosity. A few years ago when I got my own computer I was skipping around the internet looking for prog related sources and stumbled onto the Prog Archives. Fascinating site by the way if you have never been there.
http://www.progarchives.com/Progressive-rock.asp

My next discovery was a list there on that site for progressive radio stations and it just blew my mind, all this prog to discover was so exciting! The best part was finding Progulus Radio. www.progulus.com

This station has not only expanded my prog knowledge but also given me opportunities to make some wonderful friendships and to be able to have my first interview aired on the radio and to moderate the myspace page for them as well. Finding myspace has also been a great way to find talented prog bands and to promote the love of prog. My journey continues as I learn more about the music genre that is such a big love in my life. Viva La Prog! Cutenpurdy is out there, somewhere....

2 comments :

Anonymous said...

As I wrote in my "Essay":
http://mavearworx.blogspot.com/2007
_08_01_archive.html
The "Beatles" were probably my 1st "Prog" band per-say, as well as Santana. But it wasn't till I heard Kansas and singles from "Leftoverture" that I noticed this music was different.
I collected ALL their "LP's/Vinyl"
as well as YES and ELP and King Crimson. And then came RUSH . . . thats it, I'm done for. They became my all time fave :)

A customer of a small Record store back in the mid-80's (Stout Boy records, that is still located in Claremont Ca. with cool RARE promo posters) heard what I was getting into, and recommended Fates Warning and went on about the odd time changes and the "unique" vocalist on "Awaken the Guardian" and the NEW album "No Exit" and its even weirder time changes . . . a few months later, I was hooked on both.

Dream Theater was discovered on the back of a Keeerrang Mag and an ad that said, "If you like Rush and Queensryche, you'll LOVE Dream Theater" . . . again, went and sought it out (WDADU) and became an instant fan (actually I was VERY dissapointed when LaBrie replaced Dominici, but soon loved James too).

Within those years I had a "Mini Store" of Prog Rock, Prog Metal, Heavy Metal, Thrash and Death Metal as well as other musics.

A friend in Oklahoma named Tim (a.k.a. Wheathead) told me about "Progged Radio" on the internet, but I had yet to get my iMac-G4, but finally got it, before a few months it went off the air, I was suprised of the like minded Prog fans, and this station played bands I knew that I thought no one else did:
Spiral Architect; UK; Ion Vein; Lemur Voice; FM; Saga; Ayreon; Fates Warning as well as the more known acts. And found NEW bands by the hundreds . . . i just KNEW there were more~!

I got to know soo many listeners/taggers that became good friends and more.
From there it was the creation of Progulus.com, and even got to donate the Logo that the world would see, that filled me with great pride as the "new" Logo brings in another generation of new friends and like minded proggers.

I always love to hear the stories of the Alumni's as well as the newbies, does my heart good that their are people who love this unique and international form of truely "progressive" musics.

Thank you QX for your story :D

BG said...

Cuten..You said: "the vocalist did not impress me"

I agree Dominici has a voice that is almost standard off the shelve for a host of prog/metal/rock bands.

I have the same problem with Marillion...Fish was interesting, but his replacement (Hogart) is almost boringly normal.