s the 1960’s
drew to a close, pioneering bands in Britain (and followed eventually by every developed
country in the world) evolved rock from a simple music form valuing base emotions and
attitude, into an elaborate form capable of incorporating involved compositional
structures and sophisticated melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic elements. These were
musicians who’d been exposed to classical music, art, and literature. Classical, jazz,
folk, and electronic music elements were integrated; musicianship was emphasized, and
instrumental content was no longer secondary to vocals and lyrics. This genre came to be
known as progressive or art-rock.
Genesis, Yes, ELP, and King Crimson were probably the best-known and arguably most
accomplished progressive rock bands, but there were myriad others. Before the end of the
1970’s, these bands had written themselves out of the market by making music over the
head of the average pop listener (not to mention the rock media).
Kinesis was established in 1991 to
release and promote worthy recordings in this genre. Kinesis music has two prerequisites:
intelligence and musical sophistication - commodities not highly-valued in the rock
mainstream. This is not music for clueless kids desperate to be in on the latest hip band.
Rather, Kinesis is dedicated to those who, in the words of Anthony Phillips,
“still champion the old-fashioned ideals of beauty, lyricism, and grandeur in art.”
Kinesis’ artists know how to marry the cerebral and the
visceral, infusing the energy that defines rock with music that does not insult the
intellect. Kinesis’ artists understand that emotion is still the raison
d’etre of music. However, these are not the emotions of adolescents that
the rock mainstream celebrates. These are the far more diverse and subtle emotions that
can only be evoked by those versed in the craft of music.
Progressive does not mean simply new or
different. If it did, the term would be rendered meaningless, since it could not refer to
the same music for any length of time. It is fashion that concerns
itself with ever-changing superficialities, often going nowhere but in circles.
Progressive was coined to represent a philosophical approach to rock. That philosophy embraces a
nobler goal, the goal of any art form, to be able to express a greater range of emotions
and ideas, in greater shades and nuances.
While the music industry pretends that rock never grew up,
progressive fans know otherwise. We believe that “the music’s all that matters.”
It’s only knock and know-all, but we like it.
We enthusiastically recommend the following books:
Edward Macan, Rocking the Classics: English Progressive Rock and the Counterculture, Oxford University Press, 1997.
Jerry Lucky, The Progressive Rock Files, Collector’s Guide Publishing Inc., 1998.
Paul Stump, The Music’s All That Matters: A History of Progressive Rock, Quartet Books Ltd., 1997.
Bill Martin, Listening to the Future: The Time of Progressive Rock 1968-1978, Open Court, 1998.
Conditionally recommended, the following book is a collection of essays.
Some are good, but a few make for tedious reading, and a couple are just
odd:
Kevin Holm-Hudson, Progressive Rock Reconsidered, Routledge,
2002.
Also of interest, though its extensive Key Recordings section fails to
include Gentle Giant, Van der Graaf Generator, just about all the Italian bands, and many
others of more importance than some of the artists who are included:
Bradley Smith, The Billboard Guide to Progressive Music, Billboard Books, 1997.
These can be ordered from most booksellers including amazon.com
“I think the main thing is that many of the
people in the music press and the media come from the punk and immediately
post-punk era... It has something to do with the fact that progressive
music, for lots of journalists, is something just slightly beyond their
understanding. I don’t mean that in a patronizing way because, for
example, a lot of classical and jazz music is beyond my understanding. But
I don’t damn [classical and jazz] for that. Unfortunately, a lot of people
in the music press tend to damn things they don’t immediately understand.
Progressive music, because it does tend to stretch genres and stretch
barriers in that way, they have a problem with.” [Steve Wilson of
Porcupine Tree, interviewed in Progression]
“What we’re basically saying is that we’re
not ashamed to be playing artistic, constructive, carefully thought out
music in the 90’s because the whole impression given by the press... is
that music has to be some kind of primal scream, and anything that is
remotely sophisticated is to be frowned upon, and anything that requires
some cerebral input must by definition be crap. We’re talking the kind of
mentality of people who think the only good thing to come out of music was
stuff by the Velvet Underground, The Rolling Stones and, at a push, The
Beatles.” [Steve Wilson, interviewed in Wondrous Stories]
“This aversion to pretentiousness
forced us into a corner where all we could do for the past 15 years is re-invent punk or
Velvet-influenced indie-slacker-mumble rock. The minute we step out of that corner,
we’re labelled ’pretentious’, i.e., uncool. So drama is suspect, technical
bravado is suspect, ideology is suspect, and all-around old school artiness is suspect...
But this myth of pretentiousness will be perpetuated by loser-critics who never like bands
that might be smarter than they are. And it’s perpetuated by crappy little labels run
by greedy little men who record and release awful little punk-noise records for 50
cents... The truth is that Prog Rock was never interested in populist concepts like groove
and hooks. It was thought to be facile. And it is. Progressive Rock is an elitist
movement... it’s more like: I don’t care if you don’t understand this
music, but if you’re patient and take the time to hear what’s going on,
you’ll be rewarded with an original emotional experience.” [Max Vanderwolf of Naked Sun, interviewed in
Ben Is Dead]
“I still don’t see any evidence that the music industry has developed an interest in music.”
[Bill Berends of Mastermind]
“We (UK) weren’t trying to be technical
just to be technical. We were trying to take the traditions of classical
music and that sort of harmonic sense and rhythmic complexity that Mahler
and Wagner and Stravinsky had worked with, and incorporate the power,
anger, and soul of rock music... One of the few things that perhaps does
define [progressive rock] is harmonic complexity, which is something that
tends to be lacking in blues-based music... To dig into profound emotions,
one needs to get into more complex harmony.” [Eddie Jobson, interviewed in Progression]
“When jazz left the pop idiom, the
only attitude for people whose passion was jazz was to be adventurous and pursue jazz as
an art form. That pursuit is not only discouraged for the rock-era musician, we have to
actively fight to do so... We’re continuing the evolution of the art form, removed
from the pop idiom and industry.” [A Triggering Myth, interviewed in i/e]
“I do think that what we do is
missing from the general picture of music, on radio especially. I can understand MTV doing
whatever they do for money, or VH-1 for that matter. At the end of the day though, art has
been forgotten, and there is that person in the 30- to 50-year old range who wants, dare I
say, a certain amount of intellectual music.” [Carl Palmer of ELP, interviewed in Progression]
“These people (record company execs)
think in terms of marketability. They don’t give a sh*t about the essence of what it
is. A lot of these people, if they were being honest, would admit to you that they
don’t know what they’re peddling. It could be bicycle seats, though they’d
probably have a better grasp of that than something as abstract as music.” [Patrick O’Hearn, interviewed in i/e]
“Working at that [major label] level is a pretty scary thing. The business gets very cold and
the air can get pretty thin at those heights. The bottom line becomes the ground you walk
on and the mighty dollar is God. From my experience, I would have to say that a major is
no place for someone who actually loves music.” [Jim Pitulski, interviewed in In the Company of Fish]
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