Don thy cape, heathen - IT'S A PROG THREAD

[Dandolin]

The Italians are, arguably, the "Kings of Prog"!

BUT even the kings of BAD PROG.
(not talking about Museo Rosenbach at all, I think we already took some examples of bad Italian stuff a few pages back)

Oh snap--dish! Be specific with your criticisms This thread has got to be able handle some poking fun. That's why we don our capes

[Dowi]

The Italians are, arguably, the "Kings of Prog"!

BUT even the kings of BAD PROG.
(not talking about Museo Rosenbach at all, I think we already took some examples of bad Italian stuff a few pages back)

Oh snap--dish! Be specific with your criticisms This thread has got to be able handle some poking fun. That's why we don our capes

Ha! Right now it's 7am here and it's quite hard to do everything on the phone before heading to work.
just wait until Monday and I ll provide you a wonderful list of awfulness

EDIT: ok I can't resist, here's the first one that comes to my mind

[Eivind August]

This has probably been posted before too, but it's so good.

[Dandolin]

Dowi--haha--I can wait; excellent teaser

Eivind--if not, it certainly should have been

[Dowi]

Oook, here are some more awful examples, (luckily) I remember only those, but I know there are plenty of others.
I'm not a huge Italian prog conossieur, but I know prog in general and I think the biggest problem is that many of those Italian bands just borrowed some elements from classical music and juxtaposed them to their usual "beat" stuff, resulting in excessively baroque (and annoying= compositions.
Or, they were just covering classical music with rock instruments

[Dandolin]

OK, I gotcha. Not the biggest fan of "classical rock" here either. I do however like proto-prog, oftentimes more than it's more polished younger sibling--for instance, I'll take the Nice over ELP any day (though both are infested with classical rock).

I guess part of it is whether/how much you like psych. imo, no psych, no prog. Some of the bands that ended up proggy were beat groups with light psych elements trying to cash in on A Whiter Shade of Pale. Some were a little more out there.

Procol Harum def did some things that were better than AWSOP. Osanna also def did some more interesting work than that soundtrack, and there's some reason to think that track's "classicism" was "directed."

I remember the first time I heard New Trolls' Concerto after being hyped to the moon about it by my band's Gentle Giant-loving keyboard player and I was like "meh. wtf" Yet some of New Trolls' stuff is more interesting (and some is semi-competent muck).

As for Capsicum Red, I hadn't checked that previously. I was expecting it to be the kind of incompetent ugly spazzola I used to regurgitate back after improvidently fishing it ftom the rarities bin at a Philly record haunt that loved to dredge up rare crap and talk up its rarity while tamping down the crappiness. Anyway, it wasn't that bad--a shame they didn't try to develop something more original, because they can obviously play and arrange a little. Ah, lack of inspiration, scourge of a million bands

Equipe 84 is just...what's the Italian word for shit?

[Eivind August]

Procol Harum definitely did more interesting stuff, specifically the track "In Held 'Twas In I". And I agree on the psych aspect, a lot of the prog bands I love tend to have a fair bit of psych in them. That being said, my love of classical music was part of what made me love prog back when I was ten or so. It's definitely a hard task to make rock with classical influences without it being cheesy, but when done right it is quite powerful.

Speaking of,

[Dandolin]

Yaz to errathing Gryphon

Some more Italian (proto) prog (or maybe just heavy rifferama). What say ye?

The Trip--Caronte intro

OK--trick question. Some quite nice bits; some of it is hideous. Overall, reminds me of the variation on some early Man albums.

Not a prog band, but this is "proggy" the way some early-mid period Floyd is "proggy" (or early Nektar):



Man--"Would the Christians Wait Five Minutes? The Lions Are Having a Draw" from Man (1971)

Awesome song title, though

[Dowi]

New Trolls have quite a history in Italy, they are mostly famous for pop songs than their prog side, but as you pointed out, that’s because a lot of these bands were just beat bands trying to stay relevant when the trend started to change. Same with Equipe 84 (the word you’re looking for is..MERDA)
About Capsicum Red, the guitar player/writer(I think?) took other directions and then joined Pooh (see previous post), so you definitely know that his experience with prog was kinda more a tentative than actual inspiration.

Speaking of classical-meets-prog, or “symphonic-prog” as some calls it, I must say that is something I try to avoid if possible. It’s just that we have sooo many bad examples here that it sickens me, so I’m open to suggestions as long as it’s not just virtuosisms of sort over Bach compositions

side note: there’s this thing that every single Italian pop song since forever MUST have a violin/cello/etc arrangement somehow, so whenever I hear a string section appearing it’s really hard for me to separate the two things – I’m not saying I hate strings, Crimson and Soft Machine for example have plenty of those and I love them, but I have to be careful (with that axe..).

I too have this thing with prog that it has to be either psych-related somehow, or there must be some quality riffing. I get bored easily, but the reality it that probably I’m just too picky

Jumping to Chank last posts: wonderful album and amazing title.

Here’s some quality Italian prog/free/impro/whatever??? From the 2000s

[lordgalvar]

IMG_20190521_082931.jpg (72.13 KiB) Viewed 3237 times

From We Got The Neutron Bomb

[Dandolin]

lg--awesome--some interesting what-ifs, but he certainly kept busy, and I'm not sure I would trade whatever he might have done with Fripp for what he did frippless....

Dowi--loved that Anatrofobia Stuff like that is always welcome on my playlist

[Eivind August]

I'll take the Nice over ELP any day (though both are infested with classical rock).

This prompted me to dive back into the Emerson catalogue. Had been a while. I still think that the Nice and ELP records all suffer from having a really strong half and another half consisting of forgettable filler. And by Brain Salad Surgery it all gets a bit too much for me (I say this as someone who thinks Tales from Topographic Oceans is a good record). That being said, the good stuff is good, and the various live records from the two bands lead me to believe that would be the best way to experience them.

Case in point:

[Dowi]

I'll take the Nice over ELP any day (though both are infested with classical rock).

This prompted me to dive back into the Emerson catalogue. Had been a while. I still think that the Nice and ELP records all suffer from having a really strong half and another half consisting of forgettable filler. And by Brain Salad Surgery it all gets a bit too much for me (I say this as someone who thinks Tales from Topographic Oceans is a good record). That being said, the good stuff is good, and the various live records from the two bands lead me to believe that would be the best way to experience them.

Case in point:

I'm usually not a huge fan of live albums, but i must say that after watching this video i'm gonna look for something live from them

[Eivind August]

There's one on Spotify called Live At The Fillmore East December 1969 which has most of their best material on it.

Also, I have several parts of Karn Evil 9 stuck in my head now, and I kind of want the show that never ends to end.

[Dowi]

There's one on Spotify called Live At The Fillmore East December 1969 which has most of their best material on it.

Also, I have several parts of Karn Evil 9 stuck in my head now, and I kind of want the show that never ends to end.

Noiiice! Just saw the live album (it says it's from 2009, is it a re-mastered version or they just put it out old recordings recently?) , saved!