Is "Prog Head" too retro progressive to be able to comment on new progressive rock?

John Watt

John Watt

Member
Is "Prog Head" too retro progressive to be able to comment on new progressive rock?

I've been reading a lot of Prog Heads' comments about progressive rock bands,
but I never really noticed it was all about the originators of progressive rock,
and all the other new bands that imitate them, or only have those influences,
or use modern synthesizers that sound different even if they're playing the same.

I just noticed that because I did something I normally don't do.
I used "Private Messages" to ask Prog Head about Sinfonity, hoping he would comment.
It took three days, but he didn't comment on the thread,
he sent me a "Private Messages" reply.
He said he wasn't that interested in Sinfonity, without a lot of reasons why.

I think the name "Sinfonity" is silly. I thought "Classical Cult" or "Classi-cult" right away.
Sinfonity is a self-called orchestra, a large group of electric lead guitarists with two bassists,
who play traditional classical music.
They look like rock star lead guitarists and use feedback tones,
and they dress like rock musicians, slacker rock musicians, nothing formal.

What makes them newly progressive for me is what they are doing,
a new level of musical accomplishment for a bunch of electric lead guitarists.
Prog Head has such an extensive appreciation with a deep literate expression for his progressive rock,
I was really looking forward to getting into it with him here.

I used a Sinfonity video that was under two minutes, more an introduction to the band.
I'm going to get a performance piece, some Bach.
When I saw Deep Purple in 1970, after "Deep Purple in Rock" came out,
Ritchie Blackmore would stomp across the stage on his heels like a flamenco dancer,
holding his guitar up like a sword, waving it around as he played.
Prog Head! You can consider my words here as being pointed and antagonistetto.


 
John Watt

John Watt

Member
I knew it! I knew it! And yes, that's in stereo.
Just like I was trying to comment in my other thread that Prog Rock won't reply to,
I knew that sooner or later these rock star lead guitarists would not only want to stand up,
but as you can see, there' some head-banging and the tossing around of long hair going on.
Didn't classical music get called "long-haired music" in the past?

I'm not sure Prog Head would agree,
but if symphonies are playing rock music how far is that rock influence going to go?
Will conductors crowd surf? Will a viola player get up front and burn his instrument onstage?
Or will rock star lead guitar orchestras start dressing up in costume,
wearing the same clothing as the time of the composers of the pieces they play?
Will Peter Gabriel make a surprise appearance wearing a Mozart-style blue wig,
even if he gets kicked off stage, being too insistent about using his "global-beat" percussionists?
If Steve Howe shows up and starts playing "The Gates of Delirium" on steel guitar,
will they push him too close to the edge?
It took the Lone Ranger theme to get these guys going, and it's only going to get wurst.
How can that happen?
I might show up and kneel before one of these guitarists,
and reach my upside-down playing fingers around the neck and play the same guitar at the same time.
If I did it before I can do it again, quadraphonic four-hand style.
That's me being nice. I always liked to help bassists play more bass.


 
John Watt

John Watt

Member
Prog Head! Has Sinfonity solved the greatest mysteries of classical rock, progressive rock and new age rock?
Is there really any difference between Stratocaster and Les Paul style guitars, and all other body shapes?
Are humbuckers and single coils that different, and do stacked and split-coil pickups really have any differences?
Are these guys all using the same kind of strings, round-wound nickel-plated steel strings,
anodized copper coated, flat-wound... it's hard to tell by not only watching, but listening too.
Are some of these guitarists changing their Ernie Ball strings every three days, having stock hardware,
or have they personalized their guitar with Graph Tech nuts, saddles and string retainers,
so they don't have to worry about breaking strings any more?

This band promotes themselves as master guitarists, so they should get technical with us.
Jimi Hendrix always was, that old United States Air Force radar technician turned electric guitarist.
If I was in the audience for Sinfonity, I'd know how to stop the show.
I'd toss a Crybaby wah-wah pedal onstage and wait to see what happens.
 
John Watt

John Watt

Member
I'm starting to have strange electric guitar lead guitarist thoughts,
mainly because I'm not catching any feedback from Prog Head to keep me in the groove.
If a new band is trying to sound like a progressive rock band from the seventies,
are they a retro-progressive band, with the seventies band being classic progressive rock?

If a contemporary band is using modern day digitals, does that make them progressive compared to analog, or pre-analog?
If a contemporary band is using antique equipment to sound retro is that being progressive?
A local recording studio bought the mixing board from Abbey Road. Is this just good for hype or sound?
It was used to mix Sgt. Peppers, a progressive rock album by the Beatles.
Does this mean bands recording with this mixer are also progressive?
If a progressive rock band from the seventies is still out there playing the same songs, are they still progressive?

Should I go back to listening to cassettes to truly listen to progressive rock?
I want to be progressive, feeling that way for a while, but now I'm not sure.
I never should have watched that movie out-take with Jim Carrey singing at a party.
The editing and special effects are far more progressive than anything I can do,
even if it's an old song that was never considered progressive, just psychedelic, I think.


 

Ella Beck

Member
Is "Prog Head" too retro progressive to be able to comment on new progressive rock?

No, I don't think so.
I'm sure he's as able and as entitled to comment on prog rock as much or as little as any other member.

I always read his posts with interest, even though I know nothing about progressive rock.
He hasn't posted since just before New Year, so I hope he'll be coming back.
 
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John Watt

John Watt

Member
As you can read, I'm only confused about what is progressive rock and what isn't progressive rock.
Being Prog Head with his very extensive postings about progressive rock, here, he's the authority.
He gets a lot of views, progressively.

Ella Beck! I'm surprised you say you know nothing about progressive rock.
The first thing I'd ask you as an English person is, didn't you ever see King Crimson?
They defined progressive rock for me, seeing Yes as trying to recreate orchestral sounds,
not being as original as hard rock song-writers who became progressive rock.
Robert Fripp, a founding member on lead guitar, was also progressive with his inventive electronics,
Frippertronics. He toured North America as a one-man band, and he sounded like one.

I'm sure you've heard of Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, supposed to be progressive rock.
But as part of the British Invasion, using the BBC Orchestra,
that album made as much progressive rock sense as Henry Mancini and his Orchestra trying a Jimi Hendrix song.
But when you hear it being played everywhere you go every time you are there,
with news about the Beatles smoking pot in Buckingham Palace while they received knighthoods,
no... I can't say you have to like it because I never did.
Writing drug lyrics to pub songs and orchestrating them up with outside input isn't progressive for me.
Their deepening drug use and reliance on outside orchestration to complete albums,
is what kept them from being able to perform this music live onstage, contributing to their break-up.
That only means they got progressively worse.
The only musicians here from my generation who are still gigging are the ones who got jazzy.

The reason I used the Jim Carrey movie out-take is the progressive rock element it represents.
Jefferson Airplane didn't have any of the technology shown in this clip,
and despite Jim Carreys' singing, this is more of a head trip,
than anything they ever put out after an acid dip.
Be grateful if it's only wine you like to sip.

Jim Carrey grew up in a trailer park in Midland, Ontario,
a small township we spent two weeks at for a family summer vacation back then.

Prog Rock! Where'd you go? We need you!
 
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Prog Head

Member
Ella Beck said:
Is "Prog Head" too retro progressive to be able to comment on new progressive rock?

I always read his posts with interest, even though I know nothing about progressive rock.
He hasn't posted since just before New Year, so I hope he'll be coming back.
Click to expand...

Hi Ella. Thanx for your kind words. As for my next overview, I'm going to drop some lines about the latest ADVENTURE album in month of February. :)
 
John Watt

John Watt

Member
That's something everyone always got off on about me,
when I was a stranger walking off stage into a club I was never in before,
how I brought people together, even if it wasn't in my room.
And a man's gotta know how to get some time alone with his big glass of pop and ice at the bar.
Oh! I miss those trays of orange and lemon slices with maraschino cherries.
Please everyone, it's time for another set, so let's get back to progressing with progressive rock.
 

Prog Head

Member
Prog Head said:
I'm going to drop some lines about the latest ADVENTURE album in month of February. :)
Click to expand...

The band surprised me with their previous CD 'Caught in the Web', on which they trod lots of exciting paths. Of course, I was wondering if they could improve on it with their new release. Unfortunately, they haven't. :(
 
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John Watt

John Watt

Member
Even though the world wide web is getting stickier all the time, catching unwanted updates all the time,
I'm managing to avoid getting spun out about it, even if I feel a little spinny sometimes,
mostly about ancient buildings and how the world turns.
Unfortunately, that also means I haven't heard "Caught in the Web", and maybe I don't want to.

For two days we had a mild freezing rain the froze on everything, branches, shrubs and grass,
everything shining in the moonlight like a new world.
So I've been a bad boy, eating icicles everywhere I go. Atmospheric water, my favorite.
And that includes pouring rain water from flowers into a cup for a true taste sensation.

I must be feeling inspired if I'm thinking of an Elvis update for "Suspicious Minds".
"I'm caught in the web, and I can't get out, I should have deleted that message baby.
Oh... you shouldn't have seen, what I sent on that screen..."

It's nice to be feeling a little progressive here.
 

Ella Beck

Member
Prog Head said:
The band surprised me with their previous CD 'Caught in the Web', on which they trod lots of exciting paths. Of course, I was wondering if they could improve on it with their new release. Unfortunately, they haven't. :(
Click to expand...

I wonder, Prog Head, what is your all-time favourite band?
 
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John Watt

John Watt

Member
I'm starting to think you two should be taking it into "Members Only", such a lovely couple.

That's only proof of the confusion I'm talking about, between what is retro and new progressive rock,
if someone who is musical, such as Ella Beck, who says she doesn't know anything about progressive rock,
and Prog Head, who writes about it the most, share off-topic comments that they both deride in other threads.
That's a big gap to be getting together over, but then, in real life, I like getting people together.

Here's more modern digital musical confusion.
"Amici", a five piece vocal group who define themselves as "The Worlds' First Opera Band".
One track is adding vocals to a Rachmaninov piano piece, another takes a female aria and adds more vocals.
These people are also too good looking.
Were they unable to make it in their chosen fields of classical music, symphonies or operas,
ganging up to be as visual as well as musical onstage, a big phenomena of the new millennium?
I'm just asking to provoke your thoughts, because I've already listened.
Can an opera be a band, was my first reaction?
"The Rocky Horror Picture Show" and the album "Bat out of Hell" might have been precedents.
But that was rock musicians aspiring to operatic stage and sound productions,
not classical musicians aspiring to take opera onstage as a band.
At least that's what I'm thinking.

I'm in the Niagara Peninsula, and I scanned the CD I found when I was running the buy and sell store.
So this is a local/global experience for me, hearing them here.
Oh no! Just like retro/new progressive rock, local/global is now a new musical confusion.
I'm only hearing foreign product, not seeing the band onstage. How real/unreal is this?

Amici.jpg

This is a YouTube video I just looked up so you can have a better understanding.
I asked if they were too good looking. Now I'm asking are they just too nice as musicians?


 
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