Prog

Bazz

I know some people cringe when they hear; 'Prog-Rock'.

Does anybody appreciate intelligent song writing, virtuoso musicians, weird concepts?

It's been around for a while. The catalyst probably was Sgt. Peppers by The Beatles, then came bands like King Crimson (Whom Tool continuously facsimile with their unconventional time-signatures), then it became huge in the 70's, Rush, Yes, Genesis, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The 80's with Frank Zappa etc., when is wasn't so cool and the 90's, Dream Theater, The Mars Volta, Tool being the biggest with many hardcore underground bands, Dillenger Escape Plan, Converge, Iced Earth, making it fashionable agian. Is prog coming back?


The Rules of Progressive Metal


1. Insist that your definition of prog metal is sacred and that the only progressive bands are the one you deem to be so.
2. Accuse anyone who disagrees with you regarding rule 1 of lacking musical intelligence and not being a true prog fan.
3. Have contempt for mainstream music.
4. Insist that most people listen not to the music, not to the lyrics but only the chorus and that is why prog metal is not mainstream.
5. Accuse anyone who disagrees with you regarding rule 4 of lacking musical intelligence and not being a true prog fan.
6. When showcasing a new prog metal band to a non-musician friend, put on the most technically difficult song, and skip directly to the solo part.
7. If your friend says that it is cool, tell him that he has grasped the grandeur of prog and shown that his intelligence is superior to that of the mainstream sheep.
8. If he doesn´t, accuse him of lacking musical intelligence and not being a true prog fan.
9. Renounce all contact with friend in rule 8. Racial purity isn´t all bad.
10. Make sure your drummer has a double bass pedal.
11. If he hasn´t, kick him out and get another one who has. Single pedal is NOT prog.
12. Own every side-project a member of Dream Theater has been involved in. Listen to approximately none of them regularly.
13. When a mainstream fool asks you what prog metal is, tell him something along the lines of "prog is the evolution of musical expression and experimentalism in rock." In any case, make sure that the person in question is left with no idea of what prog metal is. He wouldn´t have understood anyway.
14. Insist that music should always progress, although as long as you write an album in the prog vein, you don’t necessarily have to.
15. Accuse anyone who disagrees with you regarding rule 14 of lacking musical intelligence and not being a true prog fan.
16. Refer to progressive metal as intelligent music for intelligent people, preferably at every occasion where a mainstream group or genre is mentioned.
17. Note that the above does not qualify as arrogance any more than pointing out that wine is drink for the more sophisticated.
18. A song under four minutes is NOT prog. If you are stuck with a song under four minutes, insert a phrygian solo trade-off between the guitarist and keyboardist as long as needed.
19. If a mainstream fool tells you that shredders are mindless ****, tell him that "at least they can tune their guitars, har har", and walk away defiantly.
20. Spocks Beard is NOT prog. If anyone disagrees, kill them.
21. Humming along with the melody to a prog metal song is forbidden. Burn all albums you own with hum-along melodies.
22. Loathe all music you used to like before you got into prog. This is not optional. When asked why, tell people that "I am into GOOD music now, why would I go back?".
23. Accuse any prog metal musician that cuts his hair of selling out.
24. Often state that you don´t only listen to prog. Jazz is a good choice.
25. Yeah...like you have more than 3 jazz CDs in your collection...
26. Never accept ANY Berklee graduates. The drop-outs are so much better.
27. Riffs in 4/4 are not progressive. If you happen to come up with a cool riff in 4/4, alternate between 4/4 and progressive time signatures like 7/8 every other measure to ensure the musical complexity synonymous with prog metal.
28. Be able to mention 20 bands noone has heard of, not even true prog fans. Own no releases of these bands.
29. Get an Ibanez. This is not negotiable.
30. Spend 5 hours every day critiquing other musicians on forums.
31. Spend 5 minutes every other day actually practicing your instrument.
32. Yell at people who headbang at concerts: They`re not prog enough to get the music, what do they expect?

projectmayhem

i love dillinger, but never considered them "prog rock", they've always been called "noisecore", as far as i'm aware.. same as converge, sikth... annnnnd so on

Bazz

projectmayhem wrote:

i love dillinger, but never considered them "prog rock", they've always been called "noisecore", as far as i'm aware.. same as converge, sikth... annnnnd so on

That's nothing to do with the topic. Noisecore, sub-noisecore-emo, super-hardcore-noise...

Karl Hungus

Bazz wrote:

Iced Earth

Que?


Honestly though, as far as Prog Rock goes, everyone should own a copy of Light Of Day, Day Of Darkness by Green Carnation. It's one song, and it's one hour long. Now that's prog!

Oh, and of course, Arcturus.

Bazz

What the **** is this, a competition???

It's not a thread to discuss whos' ****ing prog and who's not..

*ooh, how can you put so and so band in there they're not real prog*

Arcturas are fantastic though. They've never played here

Karl Hungus

Oh I'm sorry, I didn't realise discussion wasn't allowed on a discussion board!

weemcd

forgetting muse there Bazz?

mp3guy

no, muse aren't prog, but he did forget porcupine tree

Bazz

weemcd wrote:

forgetting muse there Bazz?

C'mon now...

weemcd

mp3guy wrote:

no, muse aren't prog, but he did forget porcupine tree

exactly the reply i wanted, YEH BOLLIX

Bazz

Porcupine Tree... They've reissued a lot of their stuff haven't they?



I'm actually listening to Liquid Tension Experiment at the moment.

[Core]

Prog? Man what a pile of metallica excrement. Sounds like elitist poppycock (yes I said poppycock) tbh. "YOU'RE NOT PROG HAIR ATTACK HAIR ATTACK DIE".
Following that list of rules, it sounds like all of any conceivable bands time would actually be spent crapping on other peoples music rather than actually playing/practising/trying to actually get better. It also sounds like any band is going to be limited to 3 people and Jesus. And Jesus would leave because of creative differences.

Bazz

[Core] wrote:

Prog? Man what a pile of metallica excrement. Sounds like elitist poppycock (yes I said poppycock) tbh. "YOU'RE NOT PROG HAIR ATTACK HAIR ATTACK DIE".
Following that list of rules, it sounds like all of any conceivable bands time would actually be spent crapping on other peoples music rather than actually playing/practising/trying to actually get better. It also sounds like any band is going to be limited to 3 people and Jesus. And Jesus would leave because of creative differences.

NEWSFLASH, I did't compile that list.. Don't take it so seriously.

Chinafoot

Bazz wrote:

NEWSFLASH, I did't compile that list..

nope but you still felt the need to post it here.

Winters

Bazz wrote:

'Prog-Rock'.

Is this the time of the day when Programmers 'Rock-out'?

Whenever I 'Rock-Out' during a nice hard day of coding I'm gonna say "Winters, you Prog-Rocked good there" before I get back to my coding.

Pet

Winters wrote:

Is this the time of the day when Programmers 'Rock-out'?

Whenever I 'Rock-Out' during a nice hard day of coding I'm gonna say "Winters, you Prog-Rocked good there" before I get back to my coding.

You nerd.

h-street23

tourniquet are a cool prog band.so prog no-one's heard of them but I reckon they're pretty cool.

spiral architect too.

Karl Hungus

h-street23 wrote:

spiral architect too.

Definetly! Very good band altogether.

mp3guy

weemcd wrote:

exactly the reply i wanted, YEH BOLLIX

what the hell?

weemcd

muse are definatly prog, theyre just too main stream for you to admit it

po0k

Joint research recently commissioned by PAEK Enterprizes Inc. and E. Ville Ltd. has returned some interesting results:
Obscurity and general artistic merit are inversely proportional to market penetration and demographic mindshare.
This indicates that for a band to be worthy of listening, the musicians must record their music by themselves in an igloo contructed from HB Sparkles and immediately destroy the recording media, their instruments and purge their memories of all trace of the music they toiled over.
To fail in any of these critical steps will lead to them being picked up by The Establishment, foil-wrapped and dispensed to the unwashed masses as part of the pre-conditioning phase of The Fall.

Treebeard

14. Insist that music should always progress, although as long as you write an album in the prog vein, you don’t necessarily have to.

I liked that one

Bazz

weemcd wrote:

muse are definatly prog, theyre just too main stream for you to admit it

They have 3 songs that could loosely be catergorised in the prog vein.

mp3guy

weemcd wrote:

muse are definatly prog, theyre just too main stream for you to admit it

thats the thing, theres no such thing as a mainstream prog band. They don't have long songs, and funny time sigs? I don't think so... And just because they use keyboards and guitars and aren't power metal, doesn't automatically make them prog.

crimsonfire

OK before I start ranting myself I have to get a few things straight:

A: What are time signatures?

B: Is there any concise definition of what prog, when used to describe a band, actually implies? (keeping in mind I just said "concise" please don't start quoting the 101 rules at me)

C: Couldn't any band which pushes the proverbial boat out in terms of musical creativity and genre non-conformity be considered prog? e.g. SOAD coming out with an upbeat, pro-globalisation album

Its subjects like this that make me want to bang my head off a wall.

weemcd

but like, you cant define prog and all that other bollix you bullsh!tters

Bazz

Why not?

mp3guy

people: check progarchives.com
theres your definition

--Kaiser--

Well, this thread disolved into schoolyard hair-pulling fairley early on. It think it's pretty obvious the list of prog-rock 'rules' was tongue in cheek and self-deprecating.

One of my favourite prog bands are Opeth, but what is a definition of prog? Unconventional song structures? Non-mainstream?
Are Cradle of Filth prog?
Aren't Pink Floyd mainstream? Are they not prog?

I'm gonna stop asking questions now

Bazz

--Kaiser-- wrote:

Well, this thread disolved into schoolyard hair-pulling fairley early on. It think it's pretty obvious the list of prog-rock 'rules' was tongue in cheek and self-deprecating.

You hit the nail on the head there Kaiser.

--Kaiser-- wrote:

One of my favourite prog bands are Opeth, but what is a definition of prog? Unconventional song structures? Non-mainstream?
Are Cradle of Filth prog?
Aren't Pink Floyd mainstream? Are they not prog?

I'm gonna stop asking questions now cos I'm a big girl

My personal definition of prog would be a band that intends to create music that is unconventional not a band that is something else i.e Cradle of Filth, who are goth/whatever and have written some long songs and whom some people may consider prog.

Prog is more about a bands experimentation with music and letting that experimentation manifest into a 15-20 minute song where they use a song to exhibit their musical chops, i.e Dream Theater, or create atmospherics, i.e Pink Floyd.

Prog is a difficult genre to pigeonhole, but it's usually a genre that the bands in the genre take seriously. Hence the tongue in cheek rules of prog.

QueenAdreena

I cant honestly say i can describe what prog is but most of the bands mentioned here i like (tool, the mars volta, pink floyd, dillenger escape plan, converge, blah blah blah) so im gonna call myself a prog fan! i think muse arent prog but are rather influenced heavily by it... theyre just rock really...