Newsgroup: it.arti.musica.rock.progressive
Titolo: molto vero: le sette fasi del progster

SEVEN PHASES IN THE LIFE OF A HARD-CORE PROG FAN
(adapted from David Hurwitz' great article on classical music fans, by Rob
LaDuca)
Do You Recognize Yourself Here?
Phase 1: Discovery. You hear Yes's "Fragile" in college. "Roundabout" hooks
you from the first pluck of Steve Howe's guitar. By the time "Heart of the
Sunrise" ends, you are left spent and exhausted from the most magical
musical experience of your life to this point. You then learn that Yes is
called a "Progressive Rock" band, and that groups such as King Crimson,
Jethro Tull, Emerson Lake & Palmer, and Genesis are also considered part of
this genre. (You even learn to your absolute shock that Peter Gabriel was
once a member of Genesis!) This is the most wonderful time of all, when the
world seems full of an almost limitless number of classic masterpieces
crying for your attention. The only constraint on your enthusiasm is your
wallet, and you do whatever you can to purchase as much as possible as
quickly as possible.
Phase 2: Fandom. Your taste in various performers leads you to fixate on one
or two (or more) who you believe hold the key to indisputable artistic
greatness. You can enumerate the subtle nuances during 20 versions of "Easy
Money" that you have amassed during your purchase of the entire King Crimson
Collectors' Club series. You have Yesshows, Yessongs, 9012Live, Keys to
Ascension 1, Keys to Ascension 2, House of Yes, the Masterworks tour bonus
discs, and over 100 other "foreign pressings" of Yes live concerts. You
begin looking for demos, mp3s of unreleased material, a rare cassette of a
drunken Chris Squire's rendition of "100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall"
recorded on the Yes tour bus in 1977...every YesScrap you can get your hands
on. You collect every solo album by members of Yes, Genesis etc. You MUST
have EVERYTHING relating to your favorite groups. You check the ebay search
page for "Yes" 20 times a day. You smile knowingly when friends and family
members ask the perfectly logical question: Why do you need 55 different
recordings of "Roundabout"? Foolish people!
Phase 3: Expansion. A guy working in a record store notices you keep buying
Genesis CDs, and says "hey, try Marillion, they sound a lot like Genesis".
They get their hooks in you, and you buy every Marillion album on used CD.
Then you realize that these are all the "old" single CD editions, and you
proceed to purchase all the remastered and expanded 2 CD versions with the
bonus tracks. You get all the Fish solo CDs. You buy all the official
bootlegs released by Marillion and Fish, except you cannot find the elusive
Yin & Yang, Vol. 26. Over the next several months, the same record store guy
tells you that IQ, Arena, Pendragon, Citizen Cain, Galahad, and The Watch
sound like Genesis...You are so happy to have discovered so many bands that
sound like Genesis!!
Phase 4: Nostalgia. This is a transitional phase: now comes that terrifying
moment when you feel that you've heard it all. You've collected all the
works of the "Big 5", even the ones everyone else thinks suck, like "We
Can't Dance", "Open Your Eyes", and "Love Beach"...on SACD, CD, cassette,
vinyl, and 8-track. The record store guy has run out of recommendations. You
have reached the dreaded "There is No More Progressive Rock Left to Hear"
point. What's missing in your life is the thrill of discovery: that first
Rush of enthusiasm for each masterpiece as it sounded when you first really
cranked it.
Phase 5: Crusade. Happily salvation is at hand, in the form of dozens of
Internet sites for Progressive Rock. You learn that there are fine
independent labels specializing in all sorts of prog sub-genres just waiting
to be explored. There are two principal dangers with this phase. First is
the danger to your health as you eat Ramen Noodles for every meal, because
you are ordering so many CDs from The Laser's Edge, Wayside Music, Greg
Walker, and Big Balloon. Your fingers have also ended up smashed to bloody
pulps because you have installed CD racks on every exposed wall in your
house, in order to hold your exponentially growing collection. The second
danger is the tendency to make exaggerated claims for music that really
isn't all that special or interesting just because it's obscure. People will
look at you strangely as you vigorously try to defend the assertion that
Gracious was England's best symphonic rock band or that Rick Wakeman was a
wanker compared to the keyboardist for Quaterna Requiem. This phase can go
on for years, with literally thousands of discs passing through a typical
collector's hands in an endless crusade for that Holy Grail of Progressive
Rock: the Gnosis "15" that no one else has ever heard of. If you have come
to the point where your undisputable "Big 5" means Pentwater, Aka Moon,
Groovector, The Red Masque, and Magma ("the Argentinian one, duh!"), then
you've gone too far, and it's really time to move on to Phase 6. Certain
persons may feel the need to start a multi-band international festival to
promote all this new music they have been discovering. If this is the case
for you, please check yourself into the nearest psychiatric hospital as soon
as possible.
Phase 6: Renewal. One day, while shaving for the first time in 8 years, you
spot the "Y" section in your collection, which is housed over the bathroom
sink instead of a mirror. You pull out "Fragile", which you haven't heard in
years. Playing this classic, just for old time's sake, you're stunned to
realize that it truly is better than most of the obscurities that constitute
your main musical diet. So you move on to old Genesis, King Crimson, Jethro
Tull, Gentle Giant, PFM, Banco, Emerson Lake & Palmer, Camel, Van der Graaf
Generator. It's as if you're hearing them all for the first time--and how
alive, how refreshing they all sound! You fall in love with the great
classics all over again, and you realize that the judgment of history isn't
always wrong. (Well, the ELP has not aged all that well, but you can still
look back with fondness at it.) There is a reason why there are 750
individual threads at Progressive Ears devoted to these bands!
Phase 7: Maturity. If you're lucky, you may get this far. You realize that
it's not necessary to own 50 progressive rock CDs from the Basque region of
Spain, 46 of which you never play, when you can be just as happy with 20 of
them, 16 of which you never play. The complete set of Marillion official
bootlegs, that rare Yugoslavian pressing of "The Snow Goose", 20 or 30
festival compilation CDs, six different remastered editions of "Red", your
cherished 50 CD Klaus Schulze "Historic Edition" box set, and literally
dozens of albums about which you remember nothing beyond the fact that they
all sounded like Genesis--all of these go straight to eBay where they will
be returned to circulation to nourish the next generation of progressive
rock CD collectors. And as for you, well, you still purchase new releases,
but very selectively, and you take the time to savor every one with deep
late night listens on the $50,000 stereo purchased via your eBay proceeds.
-- 
Excuse me please one more drink
Could make it strong cause I don't need to think
She broke my heart my Grace is gone
One more drink and I'll move on
One more drink and I'll be gone
One more drink my Grace is gone

 late night listens on the $50,000 stereo purchased via your eBay proceeds.
molto saggio, ci arriveremo mai?
si può riferire anche al pop in generale
w

Ramen Noodles 
questi costano 1 dollaro per 12 pacchetti, li magno anch`io
" Del giornale leggo sempre i necrologi e il cinema. Se e` morto qualcuno che
conosco vado al funerale. Se no vado al cinema "    Walter Valdi

Il ribrezzo che provo guardando Berlusconi dopo il lifting
non è nulla in confronto alla sparata che
Gravedigger ha fatto:
[cut]
LOL
grande napra!
ciao
--
capitan harlock
"Non devo aver paura. La paura uccide la mente. La paura
è una piccola morte che porta con sè l'annullamento
totale. Guarderò in faccia la mia paura. Lascerò che mi calpesti.
E quando se ne sarà andata, nulla sarà più. Solo io ci sarò"

 Phase 6: Renewal. One day, while shaving for the first time in 8 years
<cut>
Ecco, credevo di essere vicino alla rasatura ma iersera mi č arrivato
il nuovo portaciddě da 2028 dischi.... :-(((
Guido
P.S.: Ma i Gracious sono davvero forti.....!!