Apyuxjj.177
net.music
utzoo!decvax!harpo!eagle!mhuxt!pyuxjj!rlr
Thu May 6 12:52:01 1982
re: Asia and "progressive" music
"Progressive rock is alive and well. Now let's see if we can keep it this
way for awhile!" ---from mhtsa!bso's Asia review
progressive - of, relating to, or characterized by progress
progress - a forward or onward movement, gradual betterment,
Somehow I thought progress involved change and improvement. I looked in the
dictionary and I was indeed correct. So how can something that's been the same
for ten years be progressing or progressive??? Or, to put it another way, how
can something progress if we "keep it this way"? Perhaps Bert was referring to
another definition of progress - "a royal journey marked by POMP and PAGEANT"
(etymology: see R. Wakeman's "King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table Ice
Capades" or "The History of the World on Thirty-one Albums Containing One
Continuous Track"
Or perhaps by progressive rock one is referring to an elite club admitting
only schooled musicians (Brian Eno, stay home) with years of "classical"
training, all of whom play with lightning speed (Alvin Lee???) and dazzling
technique. Their music of course involves sophisticated chord changes
(XII-7/XLII, VIII.Vb9/I, iii-4 2/I, ...) played in23/17 time, which only those
of us who also spent years in training can hope to understand (The others, of
course, are welcome to marvel at the huge stacks of keyboards and revolving
drums, and to gape in awe at the demigods of regressive music and their
knowledgeable fans.).
What was progressive ten years ago is not progressive now!!!!!!! Playing the
same chord changes and riffs watered-down after 10 years to bring back memories
of the glorious days of Close to the Edge and Karn Evil 9 is not what I would
call progressive. Sometimes you have to take a few steps backward to know in
which direction to go forward. Rock in general, and progressive rock in
particular, are dinosaurs (I'm quoting Robert Fripp here, a prog-rocker if ever
there was one). Dinosaurs are supposed to be extinct, but large established
systems (bureaucracies) tend to continue to exist only to perpetuate their
own existence (quoting Fripp quoting someone else).
Dr. Death's review of Asia here on the net perfectly described them with the
term "vapid excess". What's the real difference between seeing Kiss or Rod
(the Clod) Stewart and seeing Carl Palmer take off his shirt or watching the
keyboards catch fire (I know they didn't do that, but I'm sure the crowd would
have loved it.). Also, why glorify the Fairlight? Yes, it's a great machine
capable of making incredible sounds (which Downes didn't apparently do; it was
just up there to impress us). In fact I'd like to learn to use one myself. But
let's not glorify this machine for its own sake. I guess I prefer the Beatles'
way: to put a sound on a record and let it stand on its own, without saying
"The sounds on Strawberry Fields Forever were produced by a Mellotron Mark III"
It may or may not be obvious from this note that I've been on the very same
trip as those I'm directing this to. I've found that the music loses a lot of
its emotional appeal if I analyze it too carefully, figuring out what Emerson
played or how Yes got that sound. I've come to the conclusion that while this
is not necessarily bad in and of itself (it leads to a certain sense of
discipline and the mistakes you make along the way CAN lead to new ideas), in
the long run it detracts from one's appreciation of the music as sound (a sense
of mystery about the sound rather than a mystique about how it was created is
what I seek here), and leads to 1) derivativeness which is rampant in virtually
ALL of what is called progressive music today and 2) this exaltation of the
musician-god and his machines.
In conclusion, (WHEWWWWW!) I simply find it offensive to refer to the tripe
coming out of modern-day Asia, Genesis, and, yes, King Crimson (boy, am I
asking for hate mail now) as progressive music. (The people who send me hate
mail will probably be the same ones I sat next to at Yes concerts.) Give a
listen to some REAL *new* music, even though the practitioners of modern
truly progressive electronic/"new wave"/whatever music may not have gone
to Juilliard, or may lack the most expensive and flashy equipment. (Mind you,
a good number of them DO, and they flash it about in the same way, but that's
just yet another link to the dinosaur that calls itself "progressive rock".)
Rich Rosen pyuxjj!rlr
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