Canterbury

I was jamming on Caravan's In The Land Of Grey and Pink and couldn't help but notice that the side-long suite that formed one half of the album was much more interesting than the whimsical ditties on the other. I think the thing that turned me off early 70's prog, especially the less guitar-centric strains, was that when I was younger I couldn't get past the silliness of it all. To me, songs about having golf balls raining down on you just isn't as cool as summoning the fire witch to the court of the crimson king. Some of that stuff just strikes me as too precious. Rush might be something of a laughingstock, but those guys knew where their balls were until at least Signals. They've since found 'em again too, which is more than someone could say for Eric Clapton these days.

It's symptomatic of what was happening to rock music in the mid '70s. Too many bands got hung up on trying to make records with songs for radio when they should have been following their more otherworldly impulses. If anything, Pink Floyd proved this kind of thing could be profitable, but most others were not as lucky or as good. And Pink Floyd still had balls even when making commercially successful records. The result was a lot of partly-interesting records that are broken up by embarrassing radio tracks. This goes for lots of different kinds of rock, not just prog, and it was one of the reasons rock seemed to run dry by the late 70's. The exploratory spirit of the early psych, space, garage, prog, and protometal bands was strangled by the demands of the radio mafia. This is why punk, and more importantly heavy metal had to happen.

I these days, vintage sounding 70's prog rock is being made by bands like Astra, Diagonal, Litmus and Zombi to name a few. Most of them have latched on to the stylistic signifiers of their fore bearers while adding some much-needed muscle. This generation has grown up with hard rock as a part of its basic diet, unlike many early 70's musicians who came at things from a folk, blues, jazz, classical, experimental or psychedelic background. Heavy riff passages are alternated judiciously with spacey drones, off-time jamming and phasered up guitar solos. Its heartwarmingly authentic, but these bands are synthesizing the best of their influences into a sound that is powerful and exciting again. Prog rock may not really be progressive anymore, but that doesn't mean there isn't anything worthwhile to be gained from continuing to mine the style. Even more established acts like Black Mountain have allowed this style to influence their work. It seems that bulking up has done wonders for the musicians in these bands.