[atlantaprog] Re: Speechless Fri gig recap & reminder of Decatur gig THIS SAT, June 24th!

Allen Welty-Green wrote:

I've told ya'll how I keep encountering young musicians who are totally influenced by prog. 

I'd love to know where you find them!  ;-)

We're long past the punk anti-prog backlash now. I remember when I was a kid, discovering cool things in old big band records, not mention classical (thanks to groups like ELP holding my hand into the world of classical). 

I think lots of rock'n'roll purists hate ELP for just that reason!

I think the newest generation is finding the same kinds of things in prog we found in big band jazz & classical.

OTOH, to make that kind of association is to concede that prog is Old Music <tm>. I don't know if that has to be the case with prog, especially in this so-called "post-modern" era where "old is the new new".

I'll tell you, though, just the fact that a band like Totality would just go ahead and *do what they wanted* puts the likes of me to shame. This is much like what I would've wanted to do when I was in high school, but instead all my friends and I listened to the conventional wisdom that we *had to* do this and *had to* do that... Of course, we still had aspirations of supporting ourselves making music (sometimes I still do, in fact), and it's totally understandable to assert that you *have to* do cover tunes to support yourself making music. After all, *it beats workin'*, right?

Which brings me to the article you quoted on the local band Spectralux: Do the members of Spectralux support themselves with their music? What were those "wrong decisions" they talk about? Is the "real reason" for doing something always the same thing?

I'm in a band right now that's pretty much about going for, well, not quite the brass ring, but at least supporting ourselves decently with good-enough music that Reaches People and is In Tune With What's Hot. Our bandleader (who pretty much twisted my arm into it because he knew I wasn't actively doing anything else and he didn't have anyone else to turn to) knows I have issues with it and (in his long-winded way) has taken five or ten minutes to explain "it beats workin'" to me. (OTOH, it's been more than a year and we've played *one* gig, with two more coming up next month and in August.) I think that's something that the conversation in the post-classic-rock era hasn't taken into account. Isn't a life spent making SOME kind of music, even music you don't care about that much (as long as you don't actively dislike it), better than a life spent digging ditches or in a factory or behind a desk? If it is, why haven't I gone after it harder than I have?

I still seem to have this idealistic notion that I'd be hindering the advance of good music if I dedicated myself to making music I didn't like; as such, I'd be helping the world, through my own efforts, become a *worse* place in which to live.

Oh, yeah, and did ANYBODY see the link I put up to that BBC radio show on the Mellotron?

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