Progressive Radio Show?

dtguitarfan

Prog Lover
Oct 1, 2008
163
0
16
Chattanooga, TN
For the last two years, me and two buddies have done a yearly radio show with the local NPR station. To raise money for the station they sell an hour of radio time for people to play dj for an hour. So we've done a progressive rock hour twice now and had a blast doing it. We stay mostly on the Prog Metal side but try to vary in style a bit. We're thinking of upping the ante next time and doing two hours, using the first hour as a history of sorts, leading up to the modern stuff we love. So we've got some ideas for how we'd accomplish that, but I'd love to hear from some of you: if you were doing a show like this, how would you do it? What would you play and what bands would you talk about in order to give a good historical overview of prog leading up to modern progressive metal?
 
Historical overview of progressive metal? Watchtower, Fates Warning, Dream Theater were the starting point. Everything else branches out from there.
 
In my opinion, to really get the history of Progressive metal you have to go back and start at the beginning, High Tide, King Crimson, Pink Floyd, Starcastle, Captain Beyond, Yes, and Rush and even Cream, and the Jeff Beck Group. Yes all of these are Prog Rock Bands, but that is where it all started, then you get to SAVATAGE, Fates Warning, DT, Watchtower, Queensrÿche, Psychotic Waltz. Into the 1990s, bands such as Pain of Salvation, Vanden Plas, Threshold, Symphony X, Muse, Andromeda, Porcupine Tree, Green Carnation and Opeth (both formed in the death metal mould), developed a progressive sound and became identified with the progressive metal genre. And now you have Redemption, Darkwater, Beyond the Bridge, Magic Pie, Evergrey, Ihsahn, Haken, Circus Maximus, Pagan's Mind, Jon Olivia's Pain and many many more.
 
In my opinion, to really get the history of Progressive metal you have to go back and start at the beginning, High Tide, King Crimson, Pink Floyd, Starcastle, Captain Beyond, Yes, and Rush and even Cream, and the Jeff Beck Group. Yes all of these are Prog Rock Bands, but that is where it all started, then you get to the Fates Warning, DT, Watchtower, Queensrÿche, Psychotic Waltz. Into the 1990s, bands such as Pain of Salvation, Vanden Plas, Threshold, Symphony X, Muse, Andromeda, Porcupine Tree, Green Carnation and Opeth (both formed in the death metal mould), developed a progressive sound and became identified with the progressive metal genre. And now you have Redemption, Darkwater, Beyond the Bridge, Magic Pie, Evergrey, and many many more.

This is exactly the line of thinking we're going down -to start at the beginning and lead into the modern stuff. So my question is: how would you do that with an hour? What would you cut, and what would you keep in order to do a goid job of representing the history of the genre to someone who'd never heard it? Just curious to see what other people would do with an hour...
 
If it were me, I would start with a little Starcastle, Captain Beyond, and lead into Yes, then to Savatage a little DT, talk about QR, then on to the newer music Redemption, a little Circus Maximus, Haken, and Evergrey.



Captain Beyond was kinda of a super-group made up of:
Rod Evans(Deep Purple) vocals
Lee Dorman(Iron Butterfly) Bass
Rhino Rineheart(Iron Buttefly) guitar
Bobby Caldwell(McCoys, Johnny Winter) Drums
Lewie Gold - Keyboards


 
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Lance, I thought about Journey but wasn't sure what songs would be good examples of their progressive side. Thought about Mother/Father maybe? But it's a good possibility we'll play Kansas and we'll DEFINITELY play something by Rush.
 
EDIT: I just realized you have two hours. That helps. Here's the revised list:

King Crimson: 21st Century Schizoid Man 7:20
Rush: Cygnus X-1 10:21
Queensryche: Eyes of a Stranger 6:53
Fates Warning: Through Different Eyes 4:22
Dream Theater: Pull Me Under 8:13
Savatage: Streets 6:51
Anacrusis: Sense of Will 4:52
Vanden Plas: Crown of Thorns 6:42
Evergrey: The Master Plan 4:46
Ark: Burn the Sun 4:34
Threshold: Narcissus 11:22
Pain of Salvation: Used 5:23
Death: Crystal Mountain 5:07
Amorphis: Elegy 7:21
Opeth: The Leper Affinity 10:23
Borknagar: Origin 4:58
Voyager: Sieze the Day 4:51
Leprous: Thorn 5:47
 
Justin, you're right, I'm asking for the impossible. But I think we can still do a lot in 2 hours (1 hour for history, 1 for modern). And that's a nice list - I'm fairly certain we'll be playing at least half of the bands you mentioned, though possibly different songs.
 
Here are some of the songs i would play.

Fevertree - Sun also Rises
Hawkwind - Master of the Universe
Captain Beyond- Thousand days of yesterday
Starcastle - Elliptical Seasons
Rush- Subdivisions
Pink Floyd - Learning to fly
Fates Warning: Through Different Eyes
Dream Theater: Pull Me Under
Savatage: Streets
Ark - Where the wind blows
Circus Maximus - Withered Mind
Subsignal - Con Todas Las Palabras
Everygrey - Dark Water
Amorphis- Silent Waters
Redemption - Walls
Haken - Mind's Eye
 
Not exactly progressive metal, but at times can be some heavy prog rock... Arena! There are too many tracks that I like to even list out here...
 
Not exactly progressive metal, but at times can be some heavy prog rock... Arena! There are too many tracks that I like to even list out here...

He is doing a History of Progressive Metal, and Progressive metal evolved from the 60's and 70's Prog Rock bands. Some of them were just to far ahead of their time, and would fit in perfectly today.
 
He is doing a History of Progressive Metal, and Progressive metal evolved from the 60's and 70's Prog Rock bands. Some of them were just to far ahead of their time, and would fit in perfectly today.

Ah gotcha. Been reading through the thread off and on, forgot the main premise.

Definitely throwing my name in the Haken pool as well then!
 
I'd include as many, if not material from all of these.

Rush
Fates Warning
Queensryche
Voivod
Dream Theater
King's X
Faith No More
Galactic Cowboys
Savatage
Cynic
Angra
Superior
Soundscape
Shadow Gallery
Pain of Salvation
Zero Hour
maudlin of the Well
Between the Buried and Me
Protest the Hero
Subterranean Masquerade
Necrophagist
SikTh
Burst
Sculptured
East of the Wall