The Show That Never Ends (+ a Proggy Mixtape)

Thanks to a random encounter on an Anthony Fantano “Stinkpiece” episode, I was alerted to the existence of The Show That Never Ends: The Rise and Fall of Prog Rock.  Penned by Washington Post reporter David Weigel last year, the book takes on the occasionally unenviable task of wading into the decades-old phenomenon of progressive rock and chronicling its rise in the late sixties, its apex in the seventies, its burnout shortly thereafter, its transmogrification in the eighties, and its eventual revival later on.

As King Crimson drummer Bill Bruford would put it in his 1998 book When in Doubt, Roll!, prog was a movement within rock to “draw together rock, classical, and folk music into a surreal metastyle”.  Born of the psychedelic movement of the late sixties, the artists that would form the core of the prog genre sought to infuse this expansively heavy music with classical themes, instrumental virtuosity, and otherworldly lyrics.  Experimentation and expression were the names of the game, as new technology was introduced into the studio and on tours, like synthesizers, orchestras, and revolutionary forms of rock instruments.  Unusual and alternating time signatures abounded, and song lengths progressively (tee-hee) stretched and stretched to encompass more and more of the record’s sides.

Weigel winds his way through the years of prog’s heyday by focusing on the interplay of the various personalities that defined the genre.  The virtuosity and celebrity of Liszt in the nineteenth century is his set-off point, leading to the impresarios of the burgeoning movement: the enigmatic guitarist Robert Fripp, the architect of King Crimson; the showy keyboardist Keith Emerson, who broke through with the Nice before joining with King Crimson’s bassist and vocalist Greg Lake and Crazy World of Arthur Brown drummer Carl Palmer to form the supergroup Emerson, Lake and Palmer; the hermetic composer Mike Oldfield; the ever-rambling Kevin Ayers, who would help pioneer this new genre with Soft Machine and later lead some further expansions with producer/musician Brian Eno; and plenty more.  Each forceful personality enters and exits at various points, illustrating the interconnected nature of the movement’s artists and the volatility inherent therein.  It all culminates in the somber final notes of ELP and the encouraging rise of prog-minded artists of today like Dream Theater, Porcupine Tree, and Tool.

Personal anecdotes are interspersed with myriads of critical responses from the various publications of the time, all embedded within the grander narrative.  A neck brace is occasionally required, as the players in this great drama constantly shift directions and temperaments without notice, and the beautiful chaos of it all is rendered in straightforward yet evocative prose.  Weigel not only puts us on the ground as The Yes Album and Brain Salad Surgery land, but he also provides something of an apologia for the genre:  Long belittled and mocked due to its excesses and the ascetic argumentations from the punks, prog is lifted up and honored for the experimentation, optimism, and artistry the genre was always buoyed by.  It’s quite the trip and well worth a read.

Reading this, I was inspired to put together a quick mixtape of some proggy goodness, a selection of my favorites accompanied, whenever possible, by some commentary from Weigel.  Let’s do this, kids:

Weigel shows us the seeds of prog being sown in 1967 with the creation of Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale”.

Lyrics that evoked the films of the French new wave and surrealist art are backed by what Weigel points out to be unique ingredient: “a Hammond organ, blown up to cathedral proportions” (pg. 21).  The classical influence was palpable, as “the hook, a rising C-Em-Am-G figure, was copped from Bach’s Air on a G String” (ibid).  The towering and dense organ sound would set the stage for future instrumentation choices and the evolution of rock keyboarding, including the implementation of new instruments and synthesizers, like the mellotron and the Moog Modular synth.  It’s a strong song, one that has a tendency to embed itself within my brain for weeks at a stretch, the bastard.

Such instrumentation and classical influences would surface even more pronouncedly with the recording of the Moody Blues’ rock symphony Days of Future Passed later in ’67.  Backed by a full orchestra, the Moodies forged the classic “Nights in White Satin.”

Inspired by a gift of satin bedsheets (a fabric that will come into play later, funnily enough) from an old girlfriend of singer Justin Hayward, the song is a rumination on unrequited love.  Though the London Festival Orchestra would be involved in parts of the song, the orchestral bits within the bulk of the song are actually the result of a mellotron keyboard, showcasing the effects that would soon become the hallmark of the prog genre.  Also on that album is “Tuesday Afternoon (Forever Afternoon)”.

The mellotron is in full effect here, providing some instrumental harmonies to go along with Hayward’s occasionally soaring vocals.  There’s a sort of reflective quality about the track, an atmosphere that, despite some occasional pounding notes, allows the listener to just sit back and let her imagination bring the lyrics to life before her closed eyes.

The Moodies would be a staple of the lighter side of prog, and they’d be a constant favorite of my family, stemming from my father’s interest.  I’d be remiss if I didn’t toss in my favorite song of theirs, “The Story in Your Eyes”, from their 1971 album Every Good Boy Deserves Favour.

You can still hear the mellotron in this one, but Hayward’s guitar is allowed to take the lead for the most part, creating a more driving, slightly hectic vibe to the track.  The choral accents in the background provide some further depth, while the poetic lyrics can be interpreted in a number of ways, despite their outwardly desolate appearance.

(As a bit of a side addition, Hayward would later on be a part of a musical version of H.G. Wells’s War of the Worlds, a production slathered in prog influence.  His song, “Forever Autumn” is one of my favorites of the genre, splicing in excerpts from the novel read by Richard Burton.

All the while, keyboards sing and trill, creating the necessarily chaotic and foreboding atmosphere the scene requires, providing a solid contrast to Hayward’s more mournful vocals and lyrics.  I can still remember being stuck in traffic on the Beltway years ago, returning home one particularly sultry summer night from a viewing of Inception, an escape from my powerless apartment, and hearing this song, unfamiliar with it entirely.  I felt transported to the exodus from London before the tripods, the song providing more-than-adequate soundtracking for the occasion; I actually felt like I was careening along, even though I was standing still on the highway.  I can only imagine how the other drivers interpreted my gesticulations…)

After Fripp and King Crimson further cemented the prog aesthetic, Yes would help push it even further.  Comprised of a troupe of super-talented musicians, Yes would be the standard-bearers for prog for years.  Their most famous single, before their reinvention (or, to be more precise, their re-reinvention) in the eighties, is likely “Roundabout” off of 1971’s Fragile.

Beginning with “a piano, played backward, a single note ending with the single plug of [guitarist Steve] Howe’s acoustic guitar” (pg. 91), the song continues along Howe’s lithe frets, with an almost elegiac or pastoral feel, until the powerful bass of Chris Squire bursts in with a boisterous 8/8, which is soon joined by Howe continuing to strum a more light-hearted ditty in unison.  Jon Anderson’s sonorous vocals soon fill the air, voicing lyrics that sought to evoke imagery of Scottish mountains viewed from a tour bus passing through several roundabouts, all through a healthy cannabis haze.  Rick Wakeman’s dazzling keyboards and Bill Bruford’s drums pop in from time to time to provide further proof of the band’s capabilities and capacity for complexity.  It’s an absolute banger that hits you from several different angles and keeps you from focusing on any single aspect for very long.  If your bassist can’t handle this ditty, your band will never be able to measure up.  It all ends in a Picardy third, “the sort of flourish previously and familiarly reserved for classical music” (pg. 92).

This propensity for virtuosity and classical leanings was evident even in their first album earlier in ’71.  Case in point: “I’ve Seen All Good People”, the opener of the second side of The Yes Album.

Opening with a three-part harmony comprising Anderson, Squire, and Howe, moving into another lilting 12-string guitar bit from Howe.  Soon, Anderson’s floating vocals provide a metaphorical chess game symbolizing the dynamics of a relationship.  Bruford’s drums are dampened a bit, creating a heartbeat effect.  The inclusion of recorders add to the almost Mediterranean feel.  Following the second refrain, a Hammond organ chimes in, full of cathedral pomp, as things seemingly ascend.  Then Squire’s bass makes itself known with a rollicking lick, accompanied by Howe’s guitar, sending us in an entirely different direction.  The lyrics repeat, descending the scale as the song continues.  Howe channels some almost rockabilly licks here, letting you know we’re in very different territory than before.  The Hammond returns in all its ceremony for the finale.  Even without Wakeman’s musicianship (he wouldn’t join the band until after the album’s release), the organ shows its strength and centrality.  It’s an odd song, to be sure, but there’s no denying that it kicks a more than healthy amount of ass.

The final Yes track I wanna underline returns us to Fragile, the B-side to “Roundabout”, “Long Distance Runaround”.

Personally, I didn’t really know about this song until only a few years ago, when I heard it several times on 97.1 The Drive within the span of a couple weeks while at work.  The strange sound intrigued me to no end.  The song opens with Howe’s guitar, and Wakeman’s keys as they dance in perfect unison.  Then comes Squire’s bass, set off completely from the first tones.  It’s controlled chaos to some degree.  Once Bruford joins in, “he and Wakeman played in 5/4 time as the rest of the band played in 4/4” (pg. 92), an illustration of the time signature fluxes the prog bands would always play with.  Anderson’s echoing lyrics tell of his frustration with the hypocrisy he perceived while attending church services as a lad.  There is no true refrain, only repeated segments, but the whole affair almost forces some surreal hallucinations, a pastime lovingly parodied in an episode of The Venture Brothers and easily facilitated by the fantastical album art of Roger Dean.

While Yes was hitting their early strides, the aforementioned supergroup Emerson, Lake and Palmer were forming and bringing some further flair to the prog scene.  Their first major jab at the world was “Lucky Man” off of their eponymous debut in 1970.

While the bulk of the song is composed of Greg Lake’s light fantasy lyrics accompanied by a simple guitar strum, the refrain stands out, thanks to the overdubbed vocal harmonies.  As the song plays out, Emerson’s new toy, the Moog synthesizer, blares into existence, starting out as a bottomed-out D before dancing about in a delirious portamento, the result of Emerson playing around with the machine’s knob.  It’s an ethereal finale, but it’s the birth of the band’s love affair with the mechanical behemoth, which would join them in the studio and on tour for years to come, highlighting their sound.

After releasing a prog version of Moussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition and even a synth-heavy take on Copland’s “Hoedown”, ELP released Brain Salad Surgery in 1973.  Sporting a cover painted by soon-to-be-world-famous Swiss surrealist H.R. Giger, the album opens with a keyboard-laden cover of William Blake’s poem “Jerusalem”.

Emerson’s organs are the stars here, even with Lake’s vocals building to a decided soar as the lyrics reach their peak power.  It’s a stirring opener, to be sure, and it’s the only reason that “Jerusalem” is the only poem I can recite in its entirety.

But it’s the album’s closer that struck me real hard for years, “a suite called ‘Karn Evil,’ broken into three ‘impressions’ and four parts”.  This piece told the story of the album, “an epic about a dystopian future ruled over cruelly by a computer, whose name was an ominous deconstruction of the word ‘Carnival'” (pg. 135).

It’s the second part of the first impression that has always stuck with me.  Following some Moog sounds from Emerson’s monster, Lake comes in with the line that gave Weigel a title for his book: “Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends!”  An odd panoply of circus-style attractions is barked to us by Karn hisself, with plenty of room for Emerson to indulge in some flights of fancy on his various sets of keys, all while Palmer bangs away in the background.  It’s a fun romp, a fitting example of the band’s heyday, where one could go and see a spectacular stage show littered with lighting effects, orchestras, and plenty of massive synthesizers.  (An anecdote from the book:  During some early shows, Lake would, before he got hold of his beloved synthesizers, hold his keys down using knives wedged between them.  Seeing this, he was offered from specimens from the Third Reich by a roadie who happened to have a bunch of them.  This roadie, one Lemmy Kilmister, would eventually go on to join another prog band, Hawkwind, before forming the massively influential Motörhead after being ousted therefrom.  Gotta love the wacky connections of this universe, eh?)

Whilst ELP ballooned, other bands boarded the prog train, including Jethro Tull, who started out as more of a blues outfit.  I’ve already written extensively on them here, so I’ll let that piece speak for them.  Meanwhile, the prog sound began to spread beyond the confines of the British Isles.  Hailing from the Great White North, the powerhouse trio of Rush stormed the prog scene with the bombast of heavy metal influences.  After switching out their original drummer for the future God of Percussion Neil Peart, the band went into full-on prog mode with the release of their 1976 album 2112.  The opening title track, filling up a full side of the LP, is an absolute wonder to behold.

It opens with some atmospheric noise before Alex Lifeson’s guitar and Geddy Lee’s bass begin their assault on your senses in earnest, backed by Peart’s virtuoso drum skills.  The track tells a seven-part story of a nameless hero who takes on the priests of the Temples of Syrinx, who have outlawed creativity and individuality from the land.  It’s a story deeply steeped in the objectivist philosophies of Ayn Rand, strains that would color Peart’s lyrics for years, earning him both praise and scorn from the press and fans.  For me, the philosophical underpinnings aren’t as important as the story’s fable-like power and the insane musicianship on display throughout the twenty-plus-minute runtime.  You don’t even hear Lee’s voice until halfway through the fourth minute, as he croons “And the meek shall inherit the Earth”.  In comes the proclamations of the aforementioned priests, who tell us of their efforts to subjugate the thoughts of the populace.  The next section, a decidedly more peaceful bit, details the hero’s discovery of an ancient instrument, a guitar, which, after he figures out how to play it, he feels can brings some happiness into the lives of his people, once he passes it by the priests’ censorship, of course.  The fourth section shows us that they, indeed, do not approve of the hero’s plan; they destroy the guitar and dismiss the hero, telling him “Don’t annoy us further, we have more work to do.”  Following visions of the past and future, the hero decides he doesn’t wish to exist in such a music-less world and takes his own life, which initiates the final section, a bit of a reprise of the opening overture, with more fury and power this time.  It all ends with an ominous repetition of a line from on high: “Attention all planets of the solar federation: we have assumed control.”

This beast of a song is certainly something, the song that really got me to love Rush.  I’d go further into their work, but I think they deserve their own mixtape later on down the road, so that will have to wait for now.

While Rush was building steam, a group from Amsterdam was working their own prog magic.  This would be the Dutch-born Focus, who started as “a Jethro Tull soundalike” (pg. 152).  Their breakthrough single, though, 1972’s “Hocus Pocus” would center on the yodel, rather than something as mundane as the flute.

“A lyricless song with an unforgettable riff”, the track “established guitarist Jan Akkerman as one of the great players of the genre” (ibid).  The song swings frenetically, occasionally halting for a drum solo or an organ-backed yodel spree and vocal build before launching back into the swing of things.  It’s no doubt the song is constantly referenced these days, including being used as background dressing for action scenes (see as the training sequence from the 2014 Robocop reboot).

Even American acts were getting in on the prog fun.  Hailing from their eponymous state, Kansas brought some farmland swagger to the genre, especially from their most famous work, “Carry On Wayward Son” off of 1976’s Leftoverture.

Despite being more pop-oriented than contemporary tracks, the song still held enough complexity and musicianship to qualify for the label.  It’s got numerous time changes, plenty of solos, layered vocals, and lyrics that hinted at mystical tales similar to those of other prog acts.  The following year, Kansas released Point of Know Return, which featured both the title track (a good time, indeed) and the ever-famous “Dust in the Wind”.

Back in the UK, an introverted composer was making history.  Mike Oldfield, after conversing with Soft Machine’s Kevin Ayers, went into the studio with a mind to experiment with repetition.  The result was the epochal Tubular Bells.

The nineteen–year-old Oldfield played every instrument on the album himself, quite the feat, especially considering that the album is only two tracks long, each taking up an entire album-side.  Made famous in the opening to The Exorcist, the track was created with a series of overdubs, as instruments were recorded and sent through the mixing table at various speeds.  The result is an expansive suite that allows the listener to get lost in thought for seemingly hours.  The album was a massive success, selling over fifteen million copies worldwide, providing the base of the future fortune of Oldfield’s label’s owner, one Richard Branson.  The album didn’t leave the charts ’til 1988 (pg. 117).

As Oldfield recorded and shrank from public view, Pink Floyd would be reaping similar success thanks to their seminal album Dark Side of the Moon.  Famous for “Money” and “Time”, the track that exemplifies the prog aesthetic the most is arguably “Brain Damage”.

The layered vocals and heavy use of Hammond organ are superb, and the VCS3 synthesizer works its wonders in the background, a precursor to the machine’s use by ELP and other groups later on.  The song centers on the theme of insanity, hinting at former frontman Syd Barrett’s continuing mental decline.  The band’s manager even added some maniacal laughing, just to punch the point home.  It’s a track thick with atmosphere and dread, a wonderful example of the darker side of prog.

All of these bands reached their pinnacles in the seventies, only to find the eighties much less receptive to their sounds.  The allure of punk and its rebuking of the pomp and bloated theatricality of prog changed the very landscape of music.  Still, there was some success to be found.  Out of the ashes of other groups, the supergroup Asia formed around former King Crimson vocalist and bassist John Wetton, former Yes guitarist Steve Howe, former Yes and Buggles keyboardist Geoff Downes, and former ELP drummer Carl Palmer.  With a more commercial sound than before, the band unleashed their eponymous debut in 1982, which was propelled by the powerhouse “Heat of the Moment”.

Though the time signature alternates 7/4 in the verses and 4/4 in the choruses (pg. 213), the song only just grips to the prog label, leaning more toward standard power rock of the time.  The lyrics, no longer all that enigmatic or mystical, strain with “nostalgia and romance” (ibid).

A similar situation would surface in Yes’s first #1 single the following year, “Owner of a Lonely Heart”.

Even with the addition of some James Brown screams from a Fairlight keyboard and some strong playing from Squire and new guitarist Trevor Rabin, the song was decidedly ’80s pop-rock and too straightforward for Jon Anderson, who would subsequently leave the band a few years later.

Though the musicians were still more than capable, the world’s ears weren’t nearly as receptive as they’d once been for the real meat of prog.  The genre was left withering in the wind, the subject of heavy derision.  Still, traces would remain.  Bands like Porcupine Tree and Spock’s Beard would carry on the tradition into the next millennium; others, like Tool, would bear the genre’s influences in their work, even though it was more in line with metal and grunge; and others, like Dream Theater, would meld prog with heavy metal, forging a new, heavier, more aggressive sound that was still undeniably prog.  Like Rush, though, Dream Theater will be given its own mixtape treatment later on, so I’ll only include my absolute favorite from them, “As I Am”, from 2003’s Train of Thought.

Here, as will be heard eventually, the absurd musicianship, coupled with strong keyboards and lofty vocals, the prog sound lives on, healthy as ever, within a protective metal sheath.

And there we have it, a nice little introductory trek through prog rock.  It’s by no means exhaustive, mind you, as plenty has been left out (I know it may make me something of a pariah in prog circles, but I just don’t care for King Crimson’s music, no matter how much I respect it), but I think it serves as a good toe-in-the-water for the uninitiated.  And it’s all thanks to Dave Weigel’s excellent book, which, again, is definitely worth a read.