Progressive & Psychedelic Cafe...

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Comment by Bob "Stormcrow" Sanders on May 13, 2009 at 7:32am

This is an interesting group. I'm surprised that there hasn't been more discussion. As I remember - and, contrary to popular mythology, I DO remember - this music evolved out of the turmoil of the late 60s & early 70s when many barriers and what was considered acceptable were being challenged and, in many senses, discarded. The term "psychedelic" refers to LSD and the influence that bit of modern chemistry had on music and culture. Jimi Hendrix posed the question to the world: "Are You Experienced?" Art or Progressive rock came about as rock musicians discovered and incorporated elements of improvisational jazz & blues (generally American bands) and classical music (mostly British) into rock & roll. Subject matter expanded to include some fairly "heavy" stuff, not just teen angst, cars, and girls. The "three-minute barrier" was also broken with "songs" expanding to as much as 23 minutes - as much as you could fit on an LP side. The Grateful Dead's "Dark Star" is a great example of this kind of exploration - 20 plus minutes of modal melodicism that owes as much to Coltrane as to anything that may have been in the Kool-Aid. They also avoided many of the self-indulgent traps that some psychedelic/art bands were unable to do. Yes's "Tales of Topographic Oceans" comes to mind - unlistenable!
One of my most memorable concert experiences from that era was, as a student at the Un. of Maine, we went to a show at the gym. The opening act was the Brooklyn Bridge ("Girl, I Heard you're Getting Married" - just awful) and the headliners were Country Joe and the Fish. The audience was pretty much split between frat brothers with their dates and the campus "hippies". (I was not a frat brother!) The Brooklyn Bridge were harmless and entertaining enough but when Country Joe and company hit the stage and initiated the "Fish Cheer" the results were pure culture shock. The hippies knew what was coming. The frat brothers did not. Country Joe would yell "Gimme an F". The crowd would respond "F". "Gimme an I". The crowd would respond "U". Get the picture? Pretty soon the frat brothers and their dates vacated the building. All in all, it was a great show - except for the Brooklyn Bridge.
About a year later I experienced a similar situation at Rutgers Un. with a concert featuring Earth Opera (Peter Rowan and Daivd Grisman) and The Fugs. The Fugs started their set with, for it's time, an incredibly off-color remark about newly-weds David Eisenhower and Julie Nixon. This precipitated another exodus of coeds clutching their ears and screaming followed by their apologetic dates.
It was an great time to be alive. It was a terrible time to be alive. But popular music and our preceptions of the world were, for better or worse, changed for all time.
Peace.
da' Crow

Comment by Lesley Chester on November 12, 2008 at 8:13am

All the groups I mentoned - US and UK - are groups that I have CDs and concerts by. There are hundreds more, especially in the UK, who only made singles or who were successful in Europe (Germany etc) but not in their own country. There are MANY compilations available featuring these groups. All the groups I mentioned have something unique to offer - like the guitar on "Black Sheep" by SRC which will shred your brain, likewise the guitar on "1984" by Spirit. Some albums need to be listened to in their entirety (H P Lovecraft). Some have no equivalent anywhere, like the raga-rock of "A=MH2" by Clark-Hutchinson. The great thing about CD is, all those lost gems are being remastered and made available and can be picked up very cheaply on the net, AND I've made loads of money selling the original albums to collectors.

I would especially recommend seeking out Blue Cheer (first 2 albums), Kak, Paupers, "Oar" by Alexander Spence, East of Eden ("Snafu" and "Mercator projected"), the Black Widow collection, High Tide, Colosseum (first 2 albums) and some Van Der Graaf Generator. If you get hooked, you'll like all the rest!

Comment by Pixie Bavle-Nolin on November 10, 2008 at 10:03pm

Well, obviously I'm not into progressive rock because I never heard of any of the US groups and only 3 of the British groups.

I never was into rock but I have to sing some classic rock and Steely Dan songs on my gigs.

I'm not really good on group names but I probably know at least one song that some of those guys do.

Oh, I just looked again and I take that back. I've heard of Todd Rundgren,Quicksilver, Kansas, Genesis, Jethro Tull and Pink Floyd. Otherwise, I'm lost.

Comment by Lesley Chester on November 10, 2008 at 7:42pm

The US equivalent of the Briish progressive groups are more what I call "acid rock" and would include the following: Blue Cheer, Captain Beyond, Country Joe & The Fish, Fever Tree, Flock, Grateful Dead, H P Lovecraft, It's A Beautiful Day, Jefferson Airplane, Kak, Mad River, Moby Grape, Oxford Circle, Paupers, Quicksilver, Todd Rundgren, Alexander Spence, Spirit, SRC, United States Of America. I hesitate to put Frank Zappa in there because his music is in a class of its own, and Frank is certainly the greatest composer of the 20th Century. Generally speaking, you can tell US and UK and German groups apart just by listening. Bands like Asia or Kansas I would call M.O.R. or soft rock.

Comment by Lesley Chester on November 10, 2008 at 7:03pm

Here are some of the British late 60's / early 70's progressive groups: Bakerloo, Beggar's Opera, Black Widow, Blodwyn Pig, Blonde On Blonde, Blossom Toes, Camel, Caravan, Catapilla, Clark-Hutchinson, Colosseum, Comus, Curved Air, East Of Eden, Genesis, Gnidrolog, Hard Meat, Hawkwind, High Tide, If, Indo-Jazz Fusion, Isotope, Jethro Tull, Juicy Lucy, Kaleidoscope, King Crimson, Man, McDonald & Giles, Mighty Baby, Nice, Nirvana (not the rubbish Kurt Cobain one), Panama Limited, Patto, Pink Fairies, Pink Floyd, Quatermass, Renaissance, Sam Gopal, Skip Bifferty, Soft Machine, Tomorrow, Traffic, Van Der Graaf Generator, Yes. I've probably missed a few.

Comment by Pixie Bavle-Nolin on November 8, 2008 at 5:25am

.
I have to agree with Tina on this. I did a search too and it said that it was like the British invasion of the 60's so now I'm confused.

I guess the big clue was that we had to do a search for what it means so I guess it's just not familiar to some of us.

I for one have only heard of Kansas and never even heard of the others.

The British invasion is something I know about, even the one hit wonders and those that have faded from our memories but all these aforementioned groups are all still a mystery to me.

Comment by Lesley Chester on November 7, 2008 at 5:10pm

I think, in VERY general terms that Progressive rock is British whereas "acid rock" is more peculiarly American. Yes, I know there's an overlap. But we really didn't have groups like Big Brother or the Grateful Dead. Did have one similar to Quicksilver, though.

Comment by Tina on November 1, 2008 at 9:02pm

I did a search for progressive rock and it came up with a lot of the British invasion kind of music. Is that what it is?

Comment by Young at heart on October 30, 2008 at 3:33am

Well Mr. Relayer, it looks like you have one of the first groups on this network. I sure do wish you luck on it.

I think we just need more people on the network before these groups really take off.

I'm hoping to learn about progressive rock from this group.

Comment by Lesley Chester on October 23, 2008 at 12:38pm

Pink Floyd at Live 8 was only about 15 minutes and was the ONLY highlight of the entire day. I put it straight on to DVD as it was broadcast. The best Pink Floyd concerts you will hear are from Roger Waters now - I have one from earlier this year when he did Dark Side. Gilmour's On An Island I found bland to say the least. I have Gilmour's Royal Festival Hall concert from 2002 which I copied to DVD from the original video, but I don't think his solo stuff is all that great, especially when compared to Roger Waters. Incidentally, have you heard a group called Mostly Autumn? They do lots of Floyd stuff on stage with two female singers and a terrific band, and they have a 2-DVD set called Pink Floyd Revisited which is absolutely amazing.

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