Prog Blogging!

It seems recently that progressive or "prog" (as a term applied to a musical genre) is no longer such a dirty word, which is good news for me as so much of the music I enjoy could easily have the prog label applied. No longer a guilty secret, it's now acceptable to step out of the wardrobe (if you can fight your way through all the silver capes) and say loudly and proudly (and preferably in 3/4 time with a key change in the middle) I Like Prog!

So when I decided to dip my toes into the cool waters of the blogosphere where better to start than with a blog on prog? Well, probably several better places but hey ho, I've started now. This won't be structured, it won't be chronological, it may not even make sense, but it's all good practice in writing and if no one else reads it at least I will!

I'm not going to set myself the impossible task of defining what is or is not progressive rock, not yet at least. But the music I like that can be considered under that heading includes the big names from the 70s like Genesis (my first prog love), Yes, Pink Floyd and Jethro Tull, the second wave from the 80s like Marillion, IQ and Pendragon, and more contemporary exponents like Porcupine Tree, The Pineapple Thief and Big Big Train.

What do they have in common? I suppose a striving for something, well, bigger. More sweeping and passionate than standard pop music, something with a classical sensibility, and one not afraid to be influenced by or reference a wider variety of sources and musical forms than any narrow genre constraints.

Why call my post The Wonderer? Well, in full it's Melmoth the Wonderer, a poor pun on the title of a fine gothic novel "Melmoth the Wanderer" by Charles Maturin. Very complex, very passionate, very romantic, much like the music I love. I'm self delusional, I know, but I see myself as a Romantic - that is, in the Beethoven and Wordsworth sense of the term, not the Barbara Cartland version. Wind swept and interesting as Billy Connolly would say. Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, that sort of thing. I've amended it to The Wonderer to suggest the sense of wonder I get from the best music, and also because heading a blog The Wanderer sounds like someone who rambles a lot and moves away from the point all the time... hmmm, shot myself in the foot there.

That'll do for now, a sort of introduction - consider it as a sort of prelude or an overture, and hope something more meaningful follows afterwards! That may be a consideration of my beginnings in prog, or musings on what I'm listening to now. We'll see...