One of the highest (heh) points in my concert-going career was at Winterland when Crimso opened for Steve Miller. I was right up front. These guys I never heard of came on and played *Larks’ Tongues in Aspic, Part Two *. Talk about being blown away!
Court of Crimson King is (to most) unarguably the first clearly prog lp.
But, if you want to be a contentious prick, you could argue that Steve Miller Band was doing prog before ITCOTCK.
Sailor lp and the next two have prog moments - the trouble is that none of the first three lps are consistently prog througout.
Now, if Miller Band had released as their first lp all the prog off the first three, then this would certainly be the start of prog, lp-wise. This supposed lp would have beat ITCOTCK by months.
Tull and Yes were my first two concerts; it was years before I got around to seeing Crimson, and by that time it was the updated line-up. I did get to stand directly in front of Tony Levin!
Lately I’ve been listening to Tull again, especially with these Steve Wilson* remasterings, but I’ve always thought them an odd sort of prog.
Mars Volta is probably the most current prog band I’ve followed, and they’re not all that curremt.
can’t seem to get into Porcupine Tree though, open to suggestions
You want to stay away from Porcupine Tree. And definitely from Mars Volta.
You wish vintage or recent prog recommendation?
Here is an excellent one recently out. (Unfortunate choice of band name, though.):
PSYCHEDELIC ENSEMBLE “The Sunstone”
Porcupine Tree was great back in the '90s. After about 2000, not so much.
I loved the first The Mars Volta album, but never followed them after that. Recently I gave some later albums a listen, and got bored very quickly.
You know what? I’ll bite on this one. I’ve recently realized that, for some years now, all of the current prog I’ve been into has involved at least one person who has been on the scene for 20 or more years. Is there any new stuff worth checking out? Let’s say, any new bands or artists in the last 10 years that don’t involve any ex-members of bands from decades gone by?
You might be joking, but this kind of thing is why I usually stay out of prog-rock discussions. Inevitably, whatever I like isn’t whatever-enough to satisfy the person asking.
So I’ll just say that I mostly like power metal and then I don’t have to argue about whether anything I like it progressive or not.
Oh no, no!
I am not here to spoonfeed noobs precious information - and I’m not a blogfool either.
I will give you a band or two to chew on - my fav vintage italian, for instance, is Il Roveschio Della Medalia “Contaminated” lp - but I’m here to generate talk FROM OTHERS.
I’m here also in the hope that someone may actually recommend ME something.
In short, Wallace is a regulator and TAKER - not giver.
Its not that easy, son.
Porcupine Tree is probably what some pundits have called “post-progressive” (but for some reason that term never really caught on). I never really got much of a neo-prog vibe from them, until perhaps their last two albums. They went for close to 10 years mining territory which is pretty well removed from what most people would consider to be core progressive rock in the traditional sense.