The Radio Times feature on Prog Rock: Fanfare for the Common Man Summer in the UK marks a season of promenade concerts, based at the Royal Albert Hall, but in recent years with events taking place at other venues around the country. Primarily a showpiece for classical music, the first rock band invited to perform was Soft Machine, with a set comprised of Facelift, Esther’s Nose Job and Out-Bloody-Rageous; the first ‘pop prom’, on August 13th 1970. I’ve now lived in London for

A band's second album (American: sophomore) is frequently cited as 'difficult' but should it tread the same ground as its predecessor?

I’ve just reposted, with only minor editing, the blog ‘ 100 not out ’, the story of Prog magazine reaching its 100th edition in ten...

By 1974 I’d had over a full year of immersion into progressive rock, a term which wasn’t yet being applied to the genre, though what I...

My first dalliance with a form of rock music other than progressive or jazz/jazz-fusion came in the guise of Robert Fripp and the League...

Any fool knows that progressive rock was invented by the English and by extension, the best beverage to consume while you’re listening to...

Sometime in 1978 or 1979 in a Zoology class at Goldsmiths’, fellow students Jo Wallace and Karen Fraser were discussing the use of the...

By this time of the year in 2019, even with a slow start, I’d seen ten gigs and attended Steve Hackett’s The Edge of Light playback,...

Producing a magazine dedicated to prog every 6 weeks traces a difficult path, catering for those stuck in the past and the more open-minded

My first visit to Amsterdam was as a 20 year old, the first stop on a month-long journey around western Europe by train with university...

A recent post on Reddit asking for dark or scary prog suggestions got me thinking. A selection of ProgBlog's collection of Dark Prog around a photo of L'Ombra della Sera, live in Genoa I wasn’t aware of the sub-genre ‘dark prog’ until I got chatting to the proprietors of Genoa’s Black Widow Records shop. The shop itself is named after the original purveyors of dark prog, the UK’s Black Widow, a favourite of Massimo Gasperini. Black Widow’s debut Sacrifice from 1970 is conside

Something strange is going on in my local area. I’ve been around at home most evenings for the past two weeks and the fireworks...

What will the future of prog look like, assuming there's still life on earth...?

I’ve just ripped a rather large pile of my wife’s CDs to mp3 for her which according to the categories ascribed by Windows Media Player...

I bought myself a bass guitar shortly after my 18th birthday, a Fender Precision copy with a sunburst finish and no manufacturer’s...

If we accept that the progressive rock genre started in 1969 and proto prog has been around since 1967 it’s hardly surprising that, given...

The desire for the authentic sounds of the 70s harboured by some modern prog bands has led to a quiet revolution in digital samples. The...

If musical genres were modes of transportation, prog would be some form of public transport and Italian prog would be a tram!

(A guest blog by Mike Chavez) The scene: a dimly lit village hall around 7pm in a small town in rural Wiltshire. A group of middle-aged...

Early in the new millennium, when progressive rock was emerging from underneath rocks and dragging itself out of slimy ponds, I...