Where is all of the Dream Theater???

[Wojtek]

Originally posted by Rick and Roll
Who really cares about the popularity of things

I do. It's very frustrating when you can't buy your favourite CD's in the city and have to wait till late night to hear prog music in the radio. If not AM...

[Cozy]

Originally posted by Rick and Roll
The progressive movement is better than at any time, including the 70's.

There are a few elements that support this: the progressive rock festivals, the internet, the internet radio movement, the sheer number of albums being released. These all give the "illusion" that the movement is flourishing.

That said, I disagree that the progressive movement, which had its ties in social and political concerns and affected music beyond rock, is stronger now than when it began.

festivals - while several/year, most attract just a few hundred attendies.

internet - even the largest forums have just a smattering of ACTIVE participants. And a lot of these progressive rock forums have many of the same people.

internet radio - even one of the best stations on the net only has a limited appeal (a few hundred listeners). Many other "prog rock" stations are lucky to have 20 listeners.

# of albums - Every garage band and "one-man band" can find an audience given the internet. This "indie" approach gives the impression there are a gazillion albums being released today. To an extent this is true. There were at least 1,000 progressive related recordings released in 2004. But how many of those does anyone own? Most of those 1,000 recordings will be lucky to sell 500-1,000 units over the next 5 years.

Don't get me wrong. I'm grateful there is even an audience out there. Interest does generate support. Support generates interest. But the movement itself is still very, very small.


- Cozy

[Rick and Roll]

with the proliferation of many other options, everyone's market share dwindles. "Regular" TV has shrunk, for instance. Not only is there cable TV, there are many other media sources since the 70's. We shouldn't forget that crucial element.

I suppose it's like comparing to inflation, if you get my meaning.

I don't suscribe to "movements", I just meant the interest level. I'm not a big "movement" guy. In fact, I dislike the tie-in from other things to music.

By pure #'s, the progressive movement is indeed lower. And maybe even as a comparison by share to other music, it's about level (pop being the majority, country a lot, etc). But it's comparatively as strong as it ever was.

There's just more activity to occupy one's time these days.

(I must be old... life w/o the net...cable..etc..wow)

[Cozy]

Originally posted by John Galt

Perhaps the reason prog has been dwindling the past 2 or 3 decades is that any new band, no matter how talented, with a different sound isn't accepted by the prog community.

Well, I'm not sure how this ties into Dream Theater. DT is certainly not "new". I've been listening to the band when you were still trying to figure out what 2+2 meant.

To a degree though, your point has merit. Many of the new bands are retro, devoted to capturing the style of the 70s bands. Other new bands are playing in a style that captures modern sound and technique, but still very much tied (and somewhat dependent) on those same 70s bands. When new bands defy the concept of emulating classic 70s bands, they will alienate some of the community. Shit happens.

There is nothing wrong with that. But there are several of us that do seek new music out. I am a DJ here (Interzone) and have a collection of several thousand albums, and I set my own personal "constraints" pretty broadly. That said, I feel no need to defend just where I set them.

And while I consider my particular tastes to be fairly broad, I don't criticize others if they prefer to set limits to what they wish/don't wish to hear. My show, however, is largely dedicated to those who wish to hear something beyond what they know. I play a lot of familiar and not familiar bands, and play a hell of a lot of jazz. I'm pleased to say that the reception has been great and very open-minded. Which leads me to one conclusion...

....even the close-minded prog fan is usually more open-minded, or at least "receptive" than most music fans. And the Aural Moon regulars are a testament to that. They don't deserve to be labeled as close-minded.

Originally posted by John Galt
pull yourself out of the seventies, and bring yourself into the 21st century

Ironically, you've said this as you've dove into your dad's collection.



- Cozy

[Cozy]

Originally posted by Rick and Roll

By pure #'s, the progressive movement is indeed lower. And maybe even as a comparison by share to other music, it's about level (pop being the majority, country a lot, etc). But it's comparatively as strong as it ever was.

I've mentioned numbers a lot on various forums because a lot of people have the perception that a certain album sells 50,000 units, when in fact it sold 10,000. And ones they think sell 10,000, sell 1,000, and many not even that.

A festival that ran out in LA (10 million + several million in outlying areas) "ProgFest" couldn't even bring in 500 people in 2000, with a great lineup (Banco, Kenso, etc).

But the internet can change our perception to just how popular the movement is as we immerse ourselves deeply into the minutia of the concepts of progressive rock. Now we can talk to a bunch of people who actually know who The Flower Kings are!

Most of these festivals, albums, etc are all being market to the same several thousand fans over and over and over again. Only a handful of albums each year are recognized much outside that small fanbase.

Within that constraint, yes I agree that the movement is alive and well (though maybe in need of a little shakeup).


- Cozy

[Rick and Roll]

Originally posted by Cozy

Most of these festivals, albums, etc are all being market to the same several thousand fans over and over and over again. Only a handful of albums each year are recognized much outside that small fanbase.

- Cozy

Good point.

[Yesspaz]

Originally posted by Cozy
Many of the new bands are retro, devoted to capturing the style of the 70s bands. Other new bands are playing in a style that captures modern sound and technique, but still very much tied (and somewhat dependent) on those same 70s bands. When new bands defy the concept of emulating classic 70s bands, they will alienate some of the community. Shit happens.

Exactly! I've said this many times in many threads. What frustrates me is that when a new band actually does something NEW in the prog field, such as Godspeed You Black Emperor! or Tortoise or The Mars Volta, they get a very polarized reaction. Some people LOVE what they do and some simply HATE it. But these bands rarely get good reviews by prog circles because, while being influenced by 70s art rock bands, they don't practically worship them. More often, they don't get ANY reviews because they're not on the dozen or so "prog labels." See, even prog is commercial. There's great prog going on out there, but it's not being called prog for two reasons. #1, prog is a bad word in music criticism so when a label gets a good prog band they promote them as anything but. #2, Prog has become as hackneyed and commercial as anything else. You have to sound "prog" to be on a prog label. When's the last original sounding prog album come out of the dozen or so established prog labels? They are few and far between. It's easier to put out mix-n-match bands of the same musicians reshuffled over and over than to take a chance on something new. What we end up with is not bands that are influenced by 70s prog making new fresh prog. What we get is clones - Citizen Cain wants to be Gabriel-era Genesis so band they can't stand it.

Originally posted by Cozy
Most of these festivals, albums, etc are all being marketed to the same several thousand fans over and over and over again. Only a handful of albums each year are recognized much outside that small fanbase.

Yep, and when prog bands do get noticed out there, who are they? Invariably they are the ones not on traditional prog labels - i.e. bands that aren't trying to fit into a "prog mold." For instance, Sigur Ros has a song in the climax of the movie The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Ever seen Isildurs Bane or Transatlantic on a movie soundtrack? The Mars Volta sold out the Tabernacle in Atlanta. Most prog festivals draw no more than 500. Once Rush, Yes, and King Crimson call it quits, the biggest prog bands in the world will be Dream Theater and The Mars Volta, and prog fans generally don't accept them because they didn't follow the approved prog-road-map to success (I daresay DR and TMV are bigger than KC and Yes already).

...rant over..., man I am gonna hear it for this...

[Rick and Roll]

Originally posted by Yesspaz
when a new band actually does something NEW in the prog field, such as Godspeed You Black Emperor! or Tortoise or The Mars Volta, they get a very polarized reaction. Some people LOVE what they do and some simply HATE it.


man I am gonna hear it for this...[/i]

Not so, I agree with everything you said (especially the Citizen Cain part).

The only thing I disagree with you about is the quote above. I submit, as Townsend says (and Entwistle sings) in 9:05 "everything I do has been done before".

There's nothing new about those bands, really. TMV polarizes people because of the vocals and the frenetic pace of the music. It's the same reaction as Gentle Giant used to get or in my personal case, Peter Nicholls' voice.

In other words, they love or hate it it because of the style, not the lineage. The lineage is the case to the casual listener maybe, and certainly appliciable to pop hair band metal, but not as much prog anymore.

Godspeed isn't really doing anything not tried before. Some people dislike it because it takes them an hour and a half to watch 60 minutes.

[Cozy]

Originally posted by Yesspaz
See, even prog is commercial. There's great prog going on out there, but it's not being called prog for two reasons. #1, prog is a bad word in music criticism so when a label gets a good prog band they promote them as anything but. #2, Prog has become as hackneyed and commercial as anything else.

This leads to something I've said for a few years now...

"Progressive" is a dangerous word. It has an everyday dictionary meaning, and usually used in a positive context. When you apply that as an adjective to describe music, it implies that the music is "more advanced". To take it one step further, this leads to a lot music snobbery, a perception by the media that the fans of prog (and some of the artists) have a superiority complex. I'm sad to say that I think this perception has a stong basis in reality. While it's great how open-minded prog fans can be, their disdain for most commecial endeavors is quite prevalent.

See, we've set a standard that is impossible to meet. We want progressive rock to remain progressive. We often scathe bands who sound too much like another band. This "higher standard" has its pitfalls, because most of the music labeled as "progressive rock" are NOT progressive in that sense of the word. And the ones that are a little bit more original in their approach aren't necessarily actually "progressive" in thought and sound.

Personally, I try avoiding using the word as an adejective. Most people use it as a catchall, or misuse it in a way that is synonmous with words like "creative", "experiemental", "innovative", etc. This can lead to Mozart, John Coltrane, Bartok, and Evan Parker being labeled as progressive and being lumped in with Yes, Genesis, and ELP.

Maybe that is important for some, but it feels fairly arbitrary to me. I like music with guitar, but I wouldn't classify music from all different genres (rock, pop, jazz, classical, etc) and call music that sounds nothing alike "guitar music", if you get my drift.

Truth to me is that it's a name that some people way back when slapped onto some band like Yes and ELP and it stuck. "Progressive Rock" means to me basically th expansion and exploration of rock music beyond what was, at the time, a fairly simplified expression. So even a band like Citizen Cain is progressive rock to me because they are playing beyond the basic conventions of rock.


It makes for interesting discussion anyway...


- Cozy

[Yesspaz]

Originally posted by Cozy
So even a band like Citizen Cain is progressive rock to me because they are playing beyond the basic conventions of rock.

Yeah, I agree with that. Progressive rock no longer means rock that pushes the boundaries, but rather rock that pushes the boundaries + rock that follows in the steps of those who pushed the boundaries. I actually think Citizen Cain is decent, just cloner. I'd never buy their stuff because if I want that sound, what's gonna beat Selling England by the Pound? I just get frustrated that when a band DOES push the basic conventions of rock (including standard prog as "basic conventions" now), they get little airing amongst prog circles. For all intents and purposes, Post Rock is the prog rock of the 90s. It'd never been done before, it was fresh, it broke rules, and it pushed boundaries. Prog grew from a disdain of pop and a love of classical and jazz. Post's roots are implied in its name: it grew from a disdain of pop and a boredom of the punk and hard-core of the 80s. Punk led to post-punk and hard-core led to post-core. Post-punk and post-core sort of combined and led to post-rock, an experimental and boundary pushing music that dominated the underground of the 1990s. In other words, the prog community completely missed the truly "progressive rock" of the 1990s and lots of it today.

They've become a slowly devolving oligarchy.


...Spaz takes cover from the impending volleys of anti-Spaz ordinance...





P.S. Rick, I see your arguments about the divide over Godspeed and Mars Volta. Per GYBE!, I guess some of us simply like funereal tempos (read: my love for Tarentel). Per Mars Volta, the thing about his voice kind of makes Mars Volta a textbook case of the argument outlined above. Mars Volta goes back to At the Drive-In. If you listen to the progression (there's that word), on AtDI's first album, they were simply a really good punk/core band, screeching vocals and all. But they got increasingly complex and experimental to the point that the final album as AtDI, "Relationships of Command," was what could be called "proggish punk/core." Their drummer and bassist were fed up with it, the band split, and the two pushing "our way" formed The Mars Volta, while the other two formed some already forgotten punk band. So, now we have a truly original prog band pulling from their various international backgrounds, with a wailing post-punk vocal style. Quite simply, it's compelling and provacative music (and FRESH), and there's nothing like it. I hate that his voice is an issue for some folks, because it grows on you, and if you like it, you're treated to some phenomenal playing.

Anyway, if you see my argument, here we've got a prog band that doesn't sound like <insert classic prog/kraut band here> and the prog community as a whole doesn't know what to do with it.



Wow, that's a really long P.S.


P.P.S., I've got nothing against you or your opinions, Rick. Anyone who lauds King's X can't be a bad guy (Sept. 27th marked on calender ).

[Rick and Roll]

Originally posted by Yesspaz
Anyone who lauds King's X can't be a bad guy (Sept. 27th marked on calender ).

Are they at it again! The only band I'd see alone. Maybe except for Devo

By the way, there will be a Kx song this week on the Scale....


how many re:'s can we get?

[podakayne]

this thread has really turned into a very interesting discussion...thank you John for fueling the fire...you even brought moses out again...

i've lots of head nodding in agreement on several points. in particular, i will agree with cozy on the said snobbery of the "average" progressive listener. as a personal defense to my own musical taste—which can go from Bach to Boncé, Wagner to Sarah Vaughan, Debussy to Sheik Yerbouti and lots more inbetween...what i choose to hold dear and near to my ear, as well as spend my hard earned cash on is going to fall within the prog parameters. my sisters often wondered why i so seldom invested in the R&B records back in the day(quoting them "she likes weird music")...hell i could hear that anytime(still can) or borrow theirs. i spent my money on music that wasn't going to be played by the top 40 am/fm stations and may well dissappear if i didn't capture it...i love classical, i love prog, i love avante garde, i'm an ambient-baby, with an insatiable taste for jazz both old, new, avante, fused and undefinable...and that still doesn't cover it. so close-minded would never descibe me, and if it makes me a snob so frellin be it.

i think we all crave to be individual and not just 1 of the masses, i don't mind being part of this smaller group because here i can be indivdual w/out having to defend or make reason of my musical choices. funny... i don't think i'd ever want this music to become as popular as "popular" music...i think it's very niche is what keeps it evolving, fractating(yeah i made it up—you get my meaning) and reconfiguring itself into new, newer or familiar forms. to have it accepted and become the music of the majority masses would kill it...long live prog!

okay my two cents turned out to be a nickle

p.s. as for TMV vocals, well i like 'em and its taking a minute, but the same can be said for peter hammill, GG and a few other unusual vocal quality voices...love the delivery though...keep talkin. this was fun reading.

poda

[moses]

Now that I've been brought out... Whatever that means...

Yesspaz talked a whole bunch about post-punk and post-core and post-rock. This got me to thinking... Is anyone currently making "post-prog?" Would this be (under a different name) the stuff that we call prog that really doesn't draw too much from the prog roots, or would it be a band who got bored with prog (I know, BLASPHEMY! ) and struck out in some new direction?

Or maybe those two are one and the same, now that I think about it. To keep in line with the thread, maybe Dream Theater is post-prog.

Rush and Enchant, anyone?

[dinosaur]

First, I like DT's SFAM and some of their other stuff. Is it prog? Well, sorta. It's only a label, so who cares? Others in this thread have done great work discussing the fine points of prog, and open minds -- much better than I could. BTW, I also like many kinds of music. This morning, Yo Yo Ma is in my car's CD player, along with Bozzio-Levin-Stevens, Collective Soul, and Clepsydra. My wife has sung dozens of classical pieces with full orchestras (she's not wild about DT but loves Metallica, Judas Priest and White Zombie, to name just a few from one genre). The best thing about the AM community is the openness of its members.
My problem is this: JG's "firey propaganda" started this whole discussion. Not a good way to start things. Unfortunately, however, it worked, and I can see JG is proud of this fact.
These tactics work much the same way as negative political campaigns, not by changing minds, but by inflaming those who are already convinced.
But the fact that something works fall far short of making it right.

[Cozy]

Originally posted by dinosaur

My problem is this: JG's "firey propaganda" started this whole discussion. Not a good way to start things. Unfortunately, however, it worked, and I can see JG is proud of this fact.

In a way, I think it backfired. Sure, it's a shame when an intelligent discussion/debate can't stand on its own because someone refuses to discuss things rationally. But in the end, cooler heads prevailed and the end result was an interesting thread.


- Cozy

[dinosaur]

Originally posted by Cozy
In a way, I think it backfired. ...cooler heads prevailed and the end result was an interesting thread.

Good point, cozy.

[Yesspaz]

Originally posted by The Red Planet Emissary
funny... i don't think i'd ever want this music to become as popular as "popular" music...i think it's very niche is what keeps it evolving..., to have it accepted and become the music of the majority masses would kill it...long live prog!

This is something I started to comment on above (no offense, Poda.), but didn't because I'd already gone long. I think one of the reasons some bands like GYBE!, Sigur Ros, The Mars Volta, and King's X aren't accepted wholesale by prog circles is because they are accepted "out there." Once a band breaks out, they're no longer "our babies" and we don't like that. This happens in almost every single genre of music. Legions of underground fans run grass roots campaigns to get their little genre bands in the mainstream, and the second that they do then can't help but feel ambivalent about it. Their excited the band is making it big(ger), but they also feel a sense of loss and elitism.

I remember liking an idie band called P.O.D. back when nobody knew of them. I even knew enough to make it to a little club in Birmingham (when I still lived in Jackson) called The Crush, because P.O.D. had just signed with Atlantic records after three indie albums. Atlantic threw four CD release parties where $10 got you in the door and a copy of the fourth album (first on Atlantic). One was in the Ham. There were probably 300 people there. Six months later, P.O.D. had the #1 rock single in America, "Rock the Party (Off the Hook)" with a video on MTV's TRL. All of a sudden all my college buddies were like, "whoa, Spaz, have you heard this new band P.O.D.? This is a such a great band." They thought they'd made some great discovery. Yes, I was happy P.O.D. made it, but at the same time I felt a sense of loss because I was no longer part of that elite that helped get them there.

This might be a part of what is going on with bands like Sigur Ros and The Mars Volta. With the exception of Yes and Rush, anybody who can sell out The Tabernacle in Atlanta (Mars Volta) or open for Radiohead (Sigur Ros) or get used in a joke on Homestarrunner.com (GYBE!) is just too popular for most prog fans' tastes. We like to think we're the only ones who can appreciate these bands, and as soon as we see others doing so, we stop.

[podakayne]

no offense taken Yesspaz...so now i pose this question?

in theory does the sound change and loose it's flavor once it's tasted and accepted by the mass majority...or does the listener do a knee-jerk reaction now that "their" band is everyone's band and throw the baby out with the bath water? is there conformity of the group to the mass or the mass to the group?

"the spice must flow"
poda

p.s. does homestar really meantion G!YBE? ...haven't read that one and i know max wont get it.

[Yesspaz]

Originally posted by podakayne
is there conformity of the group to the mass or the mass to the group?


p.s. does homestar really meantion G!YBE? ...haven't read that one and i know max wont get it.

Probably a little of both. TMV definitely didn't conform to the masses, the masses conformed to them. Same with Sigur Ros. But with Porcupine Tree, their popularity increases the less prog they become. Depends on the artist would be my guess.

And yes, Homestarrunner.com mentions GYBE! is a very secretive Easter Egg. I'll try to find the link and add it here.

[Yesspaz]

Originally posted by podakayne
is there conformity of the group to the mass or the mass to the group?


p.s. does homestar really meantion G!YBE? ...haven't read that one and i know max wont get it.

Probably a little of both. TMV definitely didn't conform to the masses, the masses conformed to them. Same with Sigur Ros. But with Porcupine Tree, their popularity increases the less prog they become. Depends on the artist would be my guess.

And yes, Homestarrunner.com mentions GYBE! is a very secretive Easter Egg. I'll try to find the link and add it here.
Strong Sad's Blog is the place. Make sure you go through all the pages. Start at the bottom.


P.S. this is a cool one from there, C&P:

posted at 12:01am
current mood: more humbled than usual
current tunes: my own remix - The writings of Gregor Mendel read over some old Brian Eno stuff