Prog rock was never exactly cool, but you can’t say no one
liked it. Contemporary critics tended to mock it and sighed sighs of relief
when punk blew in at the end of the seventies, but punk did not sell like prog
did. Even my square-as-a-chessboard dad bought a copy of Aqualung because that’s what everyone else was doing in 1971.
Decades removed from questions of “what the hell was with Topographic Oceans?”, its now generally
okay to just like what you like, especially if it’s pretty geeky. Though prog was
never really all about Tolkien and complex mathematical theorems as the
naysayers would have you believe, it was still pretty geeky.
What I’m trying to say in my confused, convoluted, proggy
way is that the time is now right for a deep plunge into prog to both determine
what it is and celebrate it. That’s what Mike Barnes does with his new book A New Day Yesterday: UK Progressive Rock &
the 1970s. The UK designation in
that title is fairly pointless since prog is such a distinctly British
phenomenon (Rush being one exception, as well as a band that does not get so
much as a single name-drop in this book. The author does cede precisely 1% of
his book to a discussion of German prog bands, though).
Prog also has a rep for being humorless, and fortunately,
Barnes does not succumb to that particular undeserved stereotype. His look at
prog is often humorous but never mocking. It would be a bit sociopathically
vindictive to write a 600-page book about a form of music you think is stupid.
That’s right. In true prog fashion, A New Day Yesterday is really, really long. Unlike prog, Barnes is
never self-indulgent, even when he begins his story with an extended discussion
of the very unproggy “Itchycoo Park” by not-a-prog-band Small Faces. He does
not waste a page as he devotes uniformly entertaining, well-researched chapters
to bands both essential (Genesis, Yes, Jethro Tull, ELP, King Crimson…you know
the roster) and more obscure (Camel, Gracious, Egg, Henry Cow, and others I’d
never heard of since I’m a fairly noncommittal prog fan). He also includes a
chapter on The Moody Blues to basically conclude that they’re not prog.
Perhaps in reflection of prog’s eclecticism, Barnes further
mixes up the storytelling with a few proper interviews and italicized
reminiscences from various prog fans, one of which takes the comedic cake by confessing
his ill-considered decision to shave a rectangle into his scalp in tribute to
Peter Gabriel when he was a teen. Additional looks at prog attitudes toward fashion
(hairy), drugs (hashy), politics (wishy-washy), and sex (???) point toward prog
as a veritable lifestyle.
So drop Brain Salad
Surgery onto the turntable, wrap yourself in an afghan coat, light up a
number, don’t bother to vote, and kick back with A New Day Yesterday: UK Progressive Rock & the 1970s. You’ll be the proggiest progger in the Progosphere.
Prog.
