The progressive rock thread

Sadre Spinegnawer said:

yeah ,,,,,,,

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Haha one of my least favorite songs by them!

pharmakos said:

i just downloaded 126 gigabytes of King Crimson live recordings (and a few other various King Crimson odds and ends)

it's gonna take a long time to listen to all this

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well, started out with The Road to Red box set. it contains recordings of 16 shows from their 1974 tour of America they did leading up to the recording of the final album from the 70s King Crimson lineup, Red. Two of the recordings were from April and the rest were from the month of June.

in true autistic prog snob fashion, i decided to listen to all 16 in a row. not in one sitting, mind you, but i did not put on any other music for the last week or so. it was quite interesting listening to some of the pieces evolve over the course of the tour. each show saw them do one or two improvisational jams, and several of the parts they came up with in these jams seem to have ended up in the first three tracks from Red. and of course, the fourth track from Red, "Providence," was mostly just a straight up recording of the second jam they did at the penultimate gig of the tour, June 30th in Providence, Rhode Island.

then, of course, there is the evolution of the magnum opus of this King Crimson era, the 12 minute epic "Starless." while even the April shows saw the song's music mostly completed in roughly the form it would take on the album, the lyrics were in a very rough state. it was difficult not to laugh at poor John Wetton's attempts at winging it in the first four or five shows. i believe in one show he just repeated the same verse three times, but with enough uncertainty in his voice that even without knowing the final product the audience could likely tell he was bullshitting his way through it. they obviously were putting work on the lyrics every single day on the road between sets, tho, and by the time they got to Central Park, New York City, New York for the final show of the tour and played the song for the encore, they had it down so tight as to induce spine tingles. i once saw a review of Red that said it was the rare perfected sound of a band that is about to quit while it's ahead, and if that is true for the album then it is especially true for that encore. good stuff.

next up, i suppose i should dive into a totally different era and see what sorts of oddities they have in store for me there, but i'm so in love with this era of the band that i might just instead take a listen through the Larks' Tongues in Aspic or Starless and Bible Black box sets instead.

Ahhhh damn I've been talking about King Crimson so much lately that a loved one ended up buying me a couple second hand tickets to the Cleveland show next month! Right side Row C right up front! Hopefully Fripp sticks with tradition and is seated on that side so I can geek out and analyze his playing.

yeah pretty sure he's been on that side just about every gig for the better part of 50 years, but you can never be too sure!

These guys were always a bit busy for my taste, but I'll always love this track. Focused. Tight.

this one directly lifts a couple parts from King Crimson. the middle bit is from "Fracture"



can hear a ton of Robert Fripp in Omar Rodriguez-Lopez' playing

if only they had gotten Flea and John Frusciante to stay in the band long-term. i think they added some much-needed structure to the songs, the next Mars Volta album was a lot less focused than this one. they never did quite get all their focus back, but they do start to recover after Frances the Mute (great album nonetheless, just needed that tight rhythm section the RHCP guys provided)

King Crimson didn't really get too adventurous with their second album, In the Wake of Poseidon, basically trying to copy the feel of In the Court of the Crimson King on a track for track basis. this is the long minor key ballad in the 3 spot on the album, just like Epitaph on Court:



or if you meant more that you wanted other bands that sound like that, if you don't already know them you could start with the band that the vocalist on that track, Greg Lake, is most known for, Emerson, Lake & Palmer:



the woodwind / keyboard player from the band at that time, Ian MacDonald, went on to play with Foreigner, and the other two guys didn't do much aside from KC, so there's not much to find barking up that tree unless you start looking at other KC lineups too.

other bands from that era that have some music that sounds like King Crimson are The Moody Blues, Caravan, Procol Harum, Soft Machine, Uriah Heep, Gentle Giant, Jethro Tull...

or if you want something similar but with a modern edge, and haven't heard it, try the album Damnation by the band Opeth. normally a progressive death metal band of course, Damnnation is their ode to 70s progressive rock. they even used a real mellotron on just about every track, really adds to the 70s feel of the album.

Dom said:

He and Townsend gets most of my audio time. I'm specifically looking for stuff that sounds like that song. That sort of relaxed vocals along with early rock pink floydish 'soundstage'

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That track has a pretty big Moody Blues influence I think. Check out the Moody Blues album Days of Future Past maybe.

And a huge part of the feel of "Epitaph" is just the presence of the mellotron strings I think. If you're not familiar with what that instrument is, maybe do some digging into other famous mellotron tracks.

stole my new avatar from Reddit, mashup of the cover of Pink Floyd's Animals album with the cover of King Crimson's Islands album

Dom said:

Moody Blues was just what I was looking for. Anything else on those lines?

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man i wish i knew more myself, honestly. it's only been in recent years that i've started appreciating those sorts of prog sounds over the more avant garde stuff that i was into when i was younger. maybe look into Caravan and other stuff from the "Canterbury" scene? it's a bit less orchestral but otherwise maybe close.

keep us updated if you find anything good

Alex said:

Islands is a terrible album though.

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Yeah probably their worst lol.

Animals is Floyd's best tho so it balances out