Prog Rock Britannia: An Observation in Three Movements

0:00:07 > 0:00:10DRONING

0:00:14 > 0:00:17Pit-eh-schoo, blugh, buh-doov...

0:00:17 > 0:00:19Jun-jing, jun-jing, jun-jing, jing, juh-jing, jun-ding, jung...

0:00:19 > 0:00:23- BOOF! - Rata-da-da-da, da-da-da, da, da...

0:00:23 > 0:00:25Doo-doo, doo, doo, doo-doo, doo-doo...

0:00:25 > 0:00:26Eh-eh-eh, neh-neh...

0:00:26 > 0:00:28Da, da, da, da-da...

0:00:28 > 0:00:29Eh-eh-eh, Neh-neh...

0:00:29 > 0:00:31Neeeh...

0:00:31 > 0:00:33Digga-digga-digga-digga...

0:00:33 > 0:00:36- Digga-digga, dah-dah... - Over. Then some chords!

0:00:36 > 0:00:38"The Assyrian came down like a wolf from the fold

0:00:38 > 0:00:42- "and his cohorts were gleaming in silver and gold..." - Diddle-liddle, dum-dum, doo-doo...

0:00:42 > 0:00:47"The sheen of his stars were like stars in the sky," whatever it is.

0:00:47 > 0:00:50It's gonna go, "Meeh, doo-doo, doo, doo". Then it's gonna go "doodle-oodle, oodle-oodle."

0:00:50 > 0:00:54Continual "lul-uhl-lul-uhl" notes without a single break-in.

0:00:54 > 0:00:55Boof!

0:00:55 > 0:00:57And I almost lost it there!

0:00:57 > 0:01:00- HE LAUGHS - Easy!

0:01:20 > 0:01:25From the British pop revolution of the 1960s, emerged an entirely new breed of musician -

0:01:25 > 0:01:31a post-Beatles, post-psychedelic generation that saw a future of limitless possibilities.

0:01:31 > 0:01:36It was time for pop music to move beyond the three-minute love song and chart success.

0:01:37 > 0:01:43With little or no concern for fame, fortune or the audience, they plundered every musical form

0:01:43 > 0:01:47on an adventure into uncharted territories in search of the lost chord.

0:01:47 > 0:01:51This is the story of that generation of new bands,

0:01:51 > 0:01:56Yes, King Crimson, Genesis, ELP, Jethro Tull and many more.

0:01:56 > 0:02:01From the land that time forgot, the glory days of Prog Britannia.

0:02:01 > 0:02:04MUSIC: "Time Of The Season" by The Zombies

0:02:07 > 0:02:12In 1967, pop music, like the world it inhabited, was about to explode.

0:02:12 > 0:02:17In London, the British beat boom fused with American pop in a blaze of invention that would ransack

0:02:17 > 0:02:22jazz, folk and anything else it could find in the many basement clubs of the city.

0:02:25 > 0:02:28I do think there are periods which are golden ages and, you know,

0:02:28 > 0:02:33the stars are aligned, and whatever is happening, and it produces a lot of creativity.

0:02:33 > 0:02:39Where I was at college was like a snapshot of music at the time.

0:02:39 > 0:02:43The angry bot people liked The Beatles.

0:02:43 > 0:02:50The side I was on was blues upstairs and, in the cellar, Bob Dylan

0:02:50 > 0:02:53and then you had the modern jazz guys and the classical guys.

0:02:54 > 0:03:00Otis Redding and Sam & Dave and Booker T & the MGs came over and you suddenly realised that

0:03:00 > 0:03:02you know, it's "game up".

0:03:02 > 0:03:06You can't pretend to be them any more when they're actually here.

0:03:06 > 0:03:09There was some white music that even black musicians were listening to,

0:03:09 > 0:03:14for example, Jimi Hendrix was listening very hard to Bob Dylan, you know, there was stuff going on.

0:03:14 > 0:03:18# It's the time of the season... #

0:03:18 > 0:03:23There was huge social changes and huge chemical changes...

0:03:23 > 0:03:26going on. There was something definitely in the water.

0:03:26 > 0:03:32I mean, timing is everything. The smartest thing I did was get born in 1949. Brilliant, brilliant.

0:03:32 > 0:03:39Cos at 18 you're in 1968. Europe's aflame, the Paris Riots.

0:03:39 > 0:03:41Perfect.

0:03:41 > 0:03:46I was in the States in '68 and there were three major assassinations while we were there.

0:03:46 > 0:03:49A few Kennedys and an Andy Warhol or two.

0:03:49 > 0:03:51You know, it was all happening.

0:03:54 > 0:04:00It WAS all happening. But much of the music only reached eager young British ears courtesy of outlaws.

0:04:00 > 0:04:03Offshore pirate radio stations, broadcasting illegally

0:04:03 > 0:04:08to a nation still dominated by something called the BBC Light Programme.

0:04:09 > 0:04:12MUSIC: "Summer In The City" by The Lovin' Spoonful

0:04:12 > 0:04:17MUSIC WARPS INTO DIFFERENT SONGS

0:04:17 > 0:04:22'It was unreachable. You felt like you were tuning into another planet.

0:04:22 > 0:04:26'Contacting the aliens. It was coming from another world.'

0:04:27 > 0:04:31You could only reach it on little transistor radios...late at night.

0:04:39 > 0:04:46Then, in May 1967, a song that fused Bach with Percy Sledge via Bob Dylan and Geoffrey Chaucer

0:04:46 > 0:04:48was heard leaving for the coast.

0:04:49 > 0:04:52A Whiter Shade Of Pale by Procul Harum.

0:04:52 > 0:04:58I wouldn't be exaggerating when I said that the world was waiting for that.

0:04:58 > 0:05:04# We skipped the light fandango

0:05:05 > 0:05:07# Turned cartwheels cross the floor... #

0:05:07 > 0:05:11The Beatles and the beat boom had been going for...

0:05:11 > 0:05:14certainly three or four years.

0:05:14 > 0:05:18'It was all getting a bit tired.'

0:05:18 > 0:05:21# The crowd called out for more... #

0:05:23 > 0:05:27I wanted to do something and I didn't want it to be like anything else.

0:05:27 > 0:05:31Because we've had, we've had it all.

0:05:31 > 0:05:37"This, I've never heard this before, really." That's what you think to yourself. Therefore, "I like this."

0:05:37 > 0:05:43# We called out for another drink

0:05:43 > 0:05:47# The waiter brought the tray

0:05:47 > 0:05:52- # And so it was... # - And so it was that later, only two weeks later,

0:05:52 > 0:05:57as the miller told his tale, The Beatles released an album that was a concept,

0:05:57 > 0:05:59a world unto itself.

0:06:02 > 0:06:04A blueprint for progressive rock.

0:06:05 > 0:06:09MUSIC: "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)" by The Beatles

0:06:12 > 0:06:16# We're Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

0:06:16 > 0:06:19# We hope you have enjoyed the show... #

0:06:20 > 0:06:24A Whiter Shade Of Pale topped the British Singles Chart

0:06:24 > 0:06:28the very same week that Sgt Pepper announced the artistic triumph of the album.

0:06:29 > 0:06:34Bands were still making singles, you know, Cream - Strange Group,

0:06:34 > 0:06:37Pink Floyd - Arnold Layne and See Emily Play.

0:06:37 > 0:06:41And Procol Harum - Whiter Shade Of Pale.

0:06:41 > 0:06:46All of these records were amazing, creative, interesting singles

0:06:46 > 0:06:51and they also were incredibly, commercially successful.

0:06:51 > 0:06:54So the bands at that moment were getting the best of both worlds.

0:06:54 > 0:07:02It was Sgt Pepper, and the creative amazement of Sgt Pepper,

0:07:02 > 0:07:04that really convinced everybody that

0:07:04 > 0:07:08you can extend ideas onto an album, you can make concept albums.

0:07:08 > 0:07:11In fact, with the album, you can do almost exactly whatever you want.

0:07:11 > 0:07:15It was a strange mixture of...

0:07:15 > 0:07:20almost music hall and totally other-world music -

0:07:20 > 0:07:23that was the wonderful thing about it,

0:07:23 > 0:07:29it bridged the gap between the real world and this other world. And the other thing,

0:07:29 > 0:07:32it was all totally new. You'd never heard anything like that before.

0:07:32 > 0:07:35It's more fun in the record if there's a few sounds that

0:07:35 > 0:07:39you don't really know what they are and really they're just instruments

0:07:39 > 0:07:43only something happens on here. I couldn't tell you what cos we have a special man

0:07:43 > 0:07:48who sits here and goes like this and the guitar turns into a piano or something.

0:07:48 > 0:07:53And then you may say, "Why don't you use a piano?" Because the piano sounds like a guitar.

0:07:53 > 0:07:58If you look at the leap in terms of musical vocabulary and sophistication between

0:07:58 > 0:08:02the first Beatles album and Sgt Pepper which is like five years,

0:08:02 > 0:08:07everything that could be done with that form has already been done in those five years.

0:08:07 > 0:08:11Where else can you take it except to make it more and more sophisticated

0:08:11 > 0:08:14and more and more musically interesting or just

0:08:14 > 0:08:17for rock music to go on repeating itself and regurgitating itself?

0:08:19 > 0:08:22I liked... There's a lot of classical music I liked.

0:08:22 > 0:08:26I was always frightened of classical music and I never wanted to listen

0:08:26 > 0:08:30because it was Beethoven and Tchaikovsky and big words like that. And Schoenberg.

0:08:30 > 0:08:35I think a lot of people started to appreciate many other genres.

0:08:35 > 0:08:40Pop music is the classical music of now.

0:08:40 > 0:08:43Probably The Beatles had been listening to the same stuff,

0:08:43 > 0:08:47smoked the same cannabis... now and again.

0:08:47 > 0:08:52A lot of people were smoking on the quiet

0:08:52 > 0:08:56and they actually got furious when the hippies came along

0:08:56 > 0:08:59because suddenly there was a lot of notice being taken

0:08:59 > 0:09:04whereas they'd been quietly, you know, enjoying themselves for a long time.

0:09:04 > 0:09:07This was the era when if you wanted to try something, you could.

0:09:07 > 0:09:09You knew a mate who had some hashish,

0:09:09 > 0:09:11or you knew a mate who had some LSD.

0:09:11 > 0:09:17But you had to be careful. If you were very cautious and took very little of these things

0:09:17 > 0:09:20you could meddle and not lose your mind and end up in hospital.

0:09:22 > 0:09:28Cannabis was a stimulant. And it did enable you to hear a lot more in the music.

0:09:28 > 0:09:33It was there, you weren't imagining it. It was in there. But you concentrated more on listening to it.

0:09:33 > 0:09:39What came from that was the ability for people who would normally...

0:09:39 > 0:09:45copy American music suddenly wanted to express themselves.

0:09:45 > 0:09:52And so you had this strange thing at that time that almost every band had a unique sound.

0:09:52 > 0:09:55Nobody sounded quite like anyone else.

0:09:55 > 0:10:01# Dynamic explosions in my brain, shatter me to drops of rain

0:10:01 > 0:10:05# Falling from a yellow sky... #

0:10:05 > 0:10:09I moved across to what was really a new movement in music

0:10:09 > 0:10:12which was the psychedelia period.

0:10:12 > 0:10:17- # Hold me but as I jerk... # - And that was Arthur Brown and The Crazy World of Arthur Brown.

0:10:17 > 0:10:20I mean, we didn't know what it was and we were in it!

0:10:20 > 0:10:23It was pretty confrontational.

0:10:23 > 0:10:25For that time, shocking.

0:10:25 > 0:10:31Arthur's concept was basically about the beginning of time, the beginning of life.

0:10:31 > 0:10:35I am the god of hellfire and I bring you...

0:10:35 > 0:10:38The original for the make-up was the death mask, which goes back

0:10:38 > 0:10:41right through English history and further than that.

0:10:41 > 0:10:45# Fire, to destroy all you've done... #

0:10:45 > 0:10:48It was kind of deep, really. It was real, you know.

0:10:48 > 0:10:53- HE CHUCKLES - Sometimes the bar would be filled with petrol and the roadie would

0:10:53 > 0:10:59stand there throwing matches, a good distance away, until one landed and then... BOOF!

0:11:04 > 0:11:10The British beat boom had been a predominantly Northern or working class phenomenon.

0:11:10 > 0:11:15But the architects of progressive rock were escapees from entirely different backgrounds.

0:11:17 > 0:11:20I suppose for a rock and roller, my education was completely wrong.

0:11:22 > 0:11:28My mum and dad, I mean, literally did go without food to send me to piano lessons.

0:11:28 > 0:11:32I never found that out till many, many years on and I went there when I was five.

0:11:32 > 0:11:34And I loved it.

0:11:34 > 0:11:39My family had a very varied take on music and they were very opinionated about it.

0:11:39 > 0:11:42Course I liked Cliff Richard & The Shadows and they were going,

0:11:42 > 0:11:45"Nonsense, you won't even know who these people are next year."

0:11:45 > 0:11:50MUSIC: "Do You Wanna Dance" by Cliff Richard & The Shadows

0:11:50 > 0:11:56I was in this attic and I put on this Vivaldi record, The Four Seasons or something, and I just flipped.

0:11:56 > 0:11:58I just went, "This is fantastic stuff."

0:12:00 > 0:12:08Studied Stravinsky's Dumbarton Oaks concerto. Did a lot of church music, sang in choirs.

0:12:08 > 0:12:14At the same time as being obsessively interested in...

0:12:14 > 0:12:15The Shadows.

0:12:15 > 0:12:19Went to the Guildhall.

0:12:19 > 0:12:24Went to the Royal Academy. Had lots of private tuition, LOTS of private tuition.

0:12:24 > 0:12:28But never REALLY wanted to be in an orchestra.

0:12:28 > 0:12:31Or a jazz group for that matter. I wanted to be a rock drummer.

0:12:31 > 0:12:36I got a scholarship to the Royal College of Music. And I went there and I left after a year and a half.

0:12:36 > 0:12:43I thought, "This is NUTS, this whole thing." The college were really, really anti any form of music

0:12:43 > 0:12:45that wasn't serious classical music.

0:12:45 > 0:12:48They would've either have become classical musicians,

0:12:48 > 0:12:54because a lot of them have classical training to grade whatever-it-is, or they would have become jazzers.

0:12:54 > 0:13:00But the jazz scene in Britain was never THAT exciting, it was always such hard work.

0:13:00 > 0:13:03'66, '67, jazz was in a bad place.

0:13:03 > 0:13:07Jazz was Free Jazz, it was squeaky-bum jazz, you know, going

0:13:07 > 0:13:11rhee-aiir! Squeaking away. And any red-blooded drummer,

0:13:11 > 0:13:16age 17, at that time, would've wanted to play with Jimi Hendrix,

0:13:16 > 0:13:20rather than the Spontaneous Music Ensemble.

0:13:20 > 0:13:24MUSIC: "Gypsy Eyes" by Jimi Hendrix

0:13:24 > 0:13:28But what made pop so attractive to some inexperienced young musicians was...

0:13:28 > 0:13:30well, the girls.

0:13:33 > 0:13:35There's this whole other half of the human race

0:13:35 > 0:13:40and, like it says in Some Like It Hot, "I tell you, it's a whole different sex." There was girls.

0:13:40 > 0:13:45Where were they? They were in caffs. What were they doing? They were sitting there.

0:13:45 > 0:13:49They had chalk-white pink lipstick on. And I thought,

0:13:49 > 0:13:53"I don't quite know what they're for or what you're meant to do with them,

0:13:53 > 0:13:57"but, I couldn't..." But I thought, you know...

0:13:57 > 0:14:02"There's something great about this lot." You couldn't talk to them, but what you could do

0:14:02 > 0:14:08was put on a Little Richard record on the jukebox and it would unify the room.

0:14:08 > 0:14:13You couldn't put on Bartok, Violin Concerto. That wouldn't have impressed anybody.

0:14:13 > 0:14:18It wouldn't have unified the room. Wouldn't have got everybody tapping their feet.

0:14:18 > 0:14:21CLASSICAL MUSIC PLAYS

0:14:22 > 0:14:27But the classical tradition had gripped a generation of rock 'n' rollers determined to show

0:14:27 > 0:14:30that pop music could also be profound and grown-up.

0:14:33 > 0:14:39In the winter of love, Procol Harum scored another first when they recorded an 18-minute suite

0:14:39 > 0:14:43In Held 'Twas In I, for their album Shine On Brightly.

0:14:44 > 0:14:48The search for meaning and significance was on.

0:14:50 > 0:14:54I said, "I think we should do, like, a great work."

0:14:54 > 0:14:56That's what I called it.

0:14:57 > 0:15:00In fact it was called O Magnum Harum for a while.

0:15:00 > 0:15:04MUSIC: "In Held 'Twas In I" by Procol Harum

0:15:08 > 0:15:13Start off at the beginning of the universe... And ended in Heaven.

0:15:15 > 0:15:18And all the trials and tribulations that come in between.

0:15:18 > 0:15:20With a bit of sitar chucked in.

0:15:20 > 0:15:23MUSIC CONTINUES

0:15:26 > 0:15:32You know, somebody had to do it, I suppose. If it hadn't been Procol Harum at that point,

0:15:32 > 0:15:35it would have been somebody, you know, four weeks later.

0:15:35 > 0:15:39Now... We can actually write music.

0:15:39 > 0:15:44And if we're gonna write music, the model is classical music

0:15:44 > 0:15:49and classical music has extended forms, sonatas,

0:15:49 > 0:15:56symphonies. So we're gonna do structures and pieces that last a long time

0:15:56 > 0:16:00that try and give us that credibility, musically.

0:16:05 > 0:16:11The Nice, originally PP Arnold's backing band, set the controls for the heart of classical music,

0:16:11 > 0:16:16jazz and the modern stage musical on their maiden voyage into progressive rock.

0:16:18 > 0:16:23Front man Keith Emerson was the Hendrix of the Hammond organ, making his instrument scream and sigh

0:16:23 > 0:16:27in dazzling displays of technical virtuosity and crazed physicality.

0:16:34 > 0:16:37Their first unlikely hit was a seven-minute version

0:16:37 > 0:16:40of Leonard Bernstein's America, from West Side Story,

0:16:40 > 0:16:45transformed into an instrumental, prog rock protest song.

0:16:45 > 0:16:48MUSIC: "America" by The Nice

0:17:01 > 0:17:04CHURCH ORGAN MUSIC

0:17:11 > 0:17:14Progressive music didn't only come from the big cities.

0:17:14 > 0:17:20Welcome to Canterbury, the posh cathedral town that seeded those musicians that would, in time,

0:17:20 > 0:17:26grow into Soft Machine, Caravan, Hatfield & The North and Matching Mole.

0:17:26 > 0:17:30All stemming from a little-known local group called The Wilde Flowers.

0:17:32 > 0:17:36The Wilde Flowers didn't do loadsa gigs, probably only about

0:17:36 > 0:17:40one a fortnight, maybe one a week. Cos we weren't very popular! No.

0:17:44 > 0:17:51Those lads were very much into Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie.

0:17:51 > 0:17:56We tried to do sort-of danceable versions of that kind of music, you see.

0:17:56 > 0:17:58Just to be different and awkward.

0:17:58 > 0:18:00MUSIC: "Impotence" by The Wilde Flowers

0:18:00 > 0:18:02# I like me, I like you and the things that we do...

0:18:02 > 0:18:04# Ba-ba-ba! That we do... #

0:18:04 > 0:18:08I don't like it if people think that we thought that...

0:18:08 > 0:18:13clever grammar school-y people came in and thought we we're doing

0:18:13 > 0:18:17something better than mere pop. We were awestruck by pop music.

0:18:17 > 0:18:23By the magnificence of Beatles, of Motown and really we just wanted to participate in it.

0:18:23 > 0:18:28But getting our little group together, our own dialects of other stuff we'd picked up

0:18:28 > 0:18:34crept into what we did. I'm playing beat drums and I'm trying to sound like a rhythm and blues drummer,

0:18:34 > 0:18:38but I had been listening to all these sophisticated jazz drummers

0:18:38 > 0:18:42and I was sort-of cluttered with...with stuff.

0:18:42 > 0:18:46You can't pretend you haven't heard Elvin Jones if you have.

0:18:48 > 0:18:52Soft Machine was the first band to emerge from The Wilde Flowers.

0:18:52 > 0:18:55They headed for London's newly established underground clubs,

0:18:55 > 0:19:01playing with groups such as Arthur Brown and Pink Floyd at Middle Earth and UFO.

0:19:03 > 0:19:06In that club you got everything from vaudeville

0:19:06 > 0:19:12to rock, to jazz, to electronics, to pure percussion

0:19:12 > 0:19:17to theatre, to poetry, to dance, to naked people wandering around.

0:19:20 > 0:19:23That was what we all gravitated towards, UFO and Middle Earth.

0:19:23 > 0:19:28That was the... the culture that defined us.

0:19:28 > 0:19:35There were all these stoned people listening to music played by stoned bands.

0:19:35 > 0:19:40And as long as everybody was stoned, everybody thought it was really good.

0:19:40 > 0:19:43MUSIC: "We Did It Again" by Soft Machine

0:19:45 > 0:19:49We hadn't really got enough tunes...to just do songs.

0:19:49 > 0:19:53So, we thought, "Oh, I remember, what do you do about that? I know, what do jazz musicians do?"

0:19:53 > 0:19:59They improvise. So you just pick a couple of chords in there and just...keep going on them.

0:19:59 > 0:20:02And so tunes become ten-minute events.

0:20:02 > 0:20:05MUSIC CONTINUES

0:20:08 > 0:20:12This is not because we've all become virtuosos, not in our case.

0:20:12 > 0:20:16It's because we haven't got enough tunes to stretch one-and-a-half hours.

0:20:17 > 0:20:23Our organist Mike Ratledge was older than us, taller and his father had been a headmaster

0:20:23 > 0:20:27and who had an Oxford degree, so therefore assumed immediate seniority.

0:20:28 > 0:20:31Well, this is the fuzzbox which sounds like this...

0:20:31 > 0:20:33HE PLAYS DISTORTED NOTES

0:20:33 > 0:20:38Once he puts his fuzz on, you had to keep playing, you couldn't take your hand off.

0:20:38 > 0:20:41Cos it would start feeding back. So he developed a solo style

0:20:41 > 0:20:45of absolutely continual "lul-uhl-lul-uhl" notes without a single break-in.

0:20:45 > 0:20:48MUSIC: "Why Am I So Short" by Soft Machine

0:21:10 > 0:21:14So we can do these trance-like things,

0:21:14 > 0:21:19with sound going on for ages and ages without a single pause.

0:21:33 > 0:21:40Just round the corner from UFO, the more established Marquee Club was already showcasing bands

0:21:40 > 0:21:43that would become the virtuoso kings of progressive rock.

0:21:43 > 0:21:46Like Jethro Tull.

0:21:46 > 0:21:49And Yes, fronted by vocalist Jon Anderson.

0:21:51 > 0:21:55I went to see Yes with 30 other people at The Marquee one night.

0:21:55 > 0:22:01And guy next to me said, "You know they're looking for a drummer?" And I met Jon, introduced myself.

0:22:01 > 0:22:03He said, "Oh, yeah, man, yeah. Give us a call,

0:22:03 > 0:22:08"come back next Tuesday. We'll give you audition." And I never called, you know.

0:22:08 > 0:22:12And I often wonder if I'd called, what would have happened to my life!

0:22:12 > 0:22:15MUSIC: "Beyond And Before" by Yes

0:22:16 > 0:22:20Life in Yes, for jazz drummer Bill Bruford, was like this...

0:22:22 > 0:22:25The group started as a cover band, like most groups do.

0:22:26 > 0:22:34You start playing Beatles tunes and a couple of tunes by The Fifth Dimension, like you would.

0:22:35 > 0:22:37And then we got bored and extend a section.

0:22:37 > 0:22:42"It's quite good up to here but let's stick in another bit here where it goes rhythm and blues."

0:22:42 > 0:22:46And we'd stick that in. And then the thing would get longer and longer and longer

0:22:46 > 0:22:49until eventually somebody inevitably said,

0:22:49 > 0:22:50"Let's make one up ourselves."

0:22:54 > 0:22:59Jon was a very keen listener and absorber, bit like blotting paper, he absorbed music.

0:22:59 > 0:23:01# Time like gold dust brings... #

0:23:01 > 0:23:07He was mad keen on Sibelius and TV themes.

0:23:07 > 0:23:10He'd start singing things, "Jon, this is the theme to Bonanza!"

0:23:10 > 0:23:13And he'd say, "Oh, never mind, stick it in!"

0:23:13 > 0:23:17MUSIC: "No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Needed" by Yes

0:23:19 > 0:23:24Yes never said no. They stitched movies soundtracks to folk music

0:23:24 > 0:23:27to modern jazz to classical music to TV themes...

0:23:27 > 0:23:33And the only people we didn't concern ourselves with at all, I think, was the audience.

0:23:33 > 0:23:38# Step out in the night when you're lonely

0:23:39 > 0:23:43# Listening for the sound city ears don't hear... #

0:23:45 > 0:23:47If you couldn't make the London clubs,

0:23:47 > 0:23:51couldn't find progressive rock albums in the shops and rarely heard it on the radio,

0:23:51 > 0:23:54you could, by the end of the sixties,

0:23:54 > 0:23:57see every band in one glorious drug-and-rain-drenched experience

0:23:57 > 0:23:59at a pop festival near you.

0:23:59 > 0:24:02MUSIC: "Dharma For One" by Jethro Tull

0:24:09 > 0:24:13This was the first golden age of the British music festival.

0:24:13 > 0:24:17A new community in which no-one was more welcome than the progressive rock group.

0:24:19 > 0:24:22Everybody had a festival.

0:24:22 > 0:24:26You went along and played and heard all different types of band.

0:24:26 > 0:24:31And people would listen to a jazz orientated band, a hard rock band,

0:24:31 > 0:24:35a dance-type band. And they would sit there and listen to the lot.

0:24:37 > 0:24:41Certainly, the outdoor live experience was generally freeing.

0:24:46 > 0:24:49It always seemed like it was a sunny day,

0:24:49 > 0:24:53and the weather was gorgeous. Everybody was smiling and happy.

0:24:53 > 0:24:55It was a very sort of hippy thing.

0:24:57 > 0:25:01It was really music. It really was music.

0:25:01 > 0:25:03It wasn't any other reason.

0:25:03 > 0:25:07Yeah, people got a bit smashed, and bonked in the open air,

0:25:07 > 0:25:09and that was just the road crew.

0:25:09 > 0:25:12MUSIC: "The Court Of The Crimson King" by King Crimson

0:25:23 > 0:25:27The great Suffolk seaside town of Aldeburgh,

0:25:27 > 0:25:31now home to Pete Sinfield, original lyricist for the intimidating new band

0:25:31 > 0:25:35he inadvertently named King Crimson.

0:25:37 > 0:25:38We had an ethos in Crimson.

0:25:38 > 0:25:41I'm sure people like Gentle Giant and other bands...

0:25:41 > 0:25:46we just refused to play anything that sounded anything like a Tin Pan Alley.

0:25:46 > 0:25:49If it sounded at all popular, it was out.

0:25:49 > 0:25:50So it had to be complicated.

0:25:50 > 0:25:55It had to be more expansive chords, it had to have strange influences.

0:25:55 > 0:26:00If it sounded too simple, we would make it more complicated.

0:26:00 > 0:26:02We would play it in 7/8, in 5/8, just to show off.

0:26:02 > 0:26:08# For the court of the Crimson King... #

0:26:08 > 0:26:13Crimson's first big show-off opportunity came in July 1969,

0:26:13 > 0:26:16when they supported the Rolling Stones in Hyde Park.

0:26:16 > 0:26:22Unleashing their unique, highly-rehearsed sound on a totally unprepared audience.

0:26:26 > 0:26:29They played Schizoid Man particularly well on that day.

0:26:29 > 0:26:32They really steamed it. It was a monster.

0:26:36 > 0:26:39# Blood rack, barbed wire

0:26:39 > 0:26:43# Politicians funeral pyre

0:26:43 > 0:26:46# Innocence raped with napalm fire

0:26:46 > 0:26:50# 21st century schizoid man... #

0:27:02 > 0:27:06We played Mars, or Schizoid Man, one of our heavier pieces.

0:27:06 > 0:27:09And there was a silence at the end.

0:27:09 > 0:27:11And no-one knew whether to clap or not.

0:27:12 > 0:27:15"That was good"! Then they would go...

0:27:15 > 0:27:16HE IMITATES LOUD APPLAUSE

0:27:16 > 0:27:19That was the sort of stuff we liked. We really liked shocking people.

0:27:25 > 0:27:27Unbelievable.

0:27:27 > 0:27:29We were scared to death.

0:27:29 > 0:27:32No-one knew that rock musicians could play like that.

0:27:37 > 0:27:40To execute rapid passages deafeningly loud...

0:27:40 > 0:27:43MUSIC: "21st Century Schizoid Man" by King Crimson

0:27:44 > 0:27:48..then exactly the same passage, everybody playing in unison thing,

0:27:48 > 0:27:49but very quiet.

0:27:52 > 0:27:55I mean, this was scary. This was the best group in the world.

0:27:57 > 0:28:00Mike Giles one night was playing the cymbals at Mothers in Birmingham,

0:28:00 > 0:28:03he ended up playing the cymbals like this...

0:28:04 > 0:28:06..till there was no noise at all.

0:28:06 > 0:28:09And he just...poised, and didn't do anything.

0:28:09 > 0:28:11And we thought, "Wow!" I thought...

0:28:11 > 0:28:14And Fripp panicked, and took off his boot,

0:28:14 > 0:28:18and started banging the stage with his boot because he couldn't stand the tension!

0:28:20 > 0:28:25The amount of ego and power and experience that went into that first album was extraordinary.

0:28:25 > 0:28:28Maybe that's inherent in that,

0:28:28 > 0:28:32and that strength was the seeds of its destruction.

0:28:37 > 0:28:40MUSIC: "Ride" by Caravan

0:28:44 > 0:28:48The shock and awe that both defined and deified King Crimson

0:28:48 > 0:28:50were completely absent from the whimsical,

0:28:50 > 0:28:54slightly stoned sound still emanating from Canterbury.

0:29:00 > 0:29:04The remaining Wilde Flowers now took the road out of town

0:29:04 > 0:29:06as a band called Caravan.

0:29:11 > 0:29:16When half of the Wilde Flowers went off and formed Soft Machine,

0:29:16 > 0:29:19and managed to get a record deal,

0:29:19 > 0:29:21we thought that perhaps we could do the same,

0:29:21 > 0:29:26so we were very much looking to see how they were doing,

0:29:26 > 0:29:28trying to do the same thing ourselves.

0:29:28 > 0:29:32I suppose with the Canterbury scene, you have progressive music at its most melodic.

0:29:32 > 0:29:37It's do with these people being able to write quite good tunes

0:29:37 > 0:29:41being in contact, I think, with a kind of British melodic tradition

0:29:41 > 0:29:44that maybe has more to do with 20th-century classical music

0:29:44 > 0:29:46than with pop music.

0:29:46 > 0:29:50You hear distant echoes of Vaughan Williams and Britten and that kind of thing.

0:29:50 > 0:29:55# Sitting in my treetop world

0:29:55 > 0:29:58# Doing nothing at all... #

0:29:58 > 0:30:02Certainly the surrounding countryside and what-have-you,

0:30:02 > 0:30:05we seemed to get a bit of inspiration from all that.

0:30:05 > 0:30:07Sitting about in the sunshine.

0:30:07 > 0:30:09Making up bits of music.

0:30:09 > 0:30:14# Envy me all you want... #

0:30:14 > 0:30:17Living off girlfriends, you know.

0:30:17 > 0:30:19Great fun.

0:30:19 > 0:30:25# Join me any time if you please... #

0:30:30 > 0:30:36Court jesters, crimson kings, lost souls and magic men.

0:30:36 > 0:30:38This was a broad church.

0:30:38 > 0:30:41A very English music, infused with childhood fantasies

0:30:41 > 0:30:44and the quirkiness of a small island race.

0:30:47 > 0:30:53Spike Milligan, Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll, stuff like that.

0:30:53 > 0:30:59And we had our own kind of popular surrealism

0:30:59 > 0:31:02right from the humorous poets and writers

0:31:02 > 0:31:05of the late 19th, early 20th century.

0:31:05 > 0:31:08A long time before they invented surrealism on the continent,

0:31:08 > 0:31:09we had Lewis Carroll!

0:31:11 > 0:31:15At that time, we were making quite a large effort to be English.

0:31:18 > 0:31:22Probably why we didn't go down too well in Germany when we were there!

0:31:27 > 0:31:29MUSIC: "Horizons" by Genesis

0:31:35 > 0:31:37Charterhouse Public School.

0:31:37 > 0:31:43A group of young scholars, inspired by the ambitious compositions of Procul Harum and King Crimson,

0:31:43 > 0:31:46embraced this new, mature pop music

0:31:46 > 0:31:50as a way of dodging the professions for which they'd been groomed.

0:31:50 > 0:31:53We had a bit of a tag over us, you know. Public schoolboys.

0:31:53 > 0:31:56"What are they doing? What do they know about music?

0:31:56 > 0:31:58"Where's their pain?" sort of thing.

0:32:02 > 0:32:07We were in a school that was designing people to go into the civil service.

0:32:07 > 0:32:09You often talk about getting into music

0:32:09 > 0:32:11as an escape from poverty and stuff,

0:32:11 > 0:32:13which perhaps it was for a certain kind of people

0:32:13 > 0:32:15in the late '50s and early '60s.

0:32:15 > 0:32:21For us, it was a kind of escape from a totally pre-determined career choice, if you like.

0:32:25 > 0:32:29I was banned from playing the guitar for my entire time at Charterhouse.

0:32:29 > 0:32:34I don't quite know why. I think they saw the guitar as a symbol of the revolution.

0:32:34 > 0:32:36And I was gonna start it off in my house with my guitar.

0:32:36 > 0:32:41So I was always under the thumb of my house-master for that reason.

0:32:47 > 0:32:50They wanted to be songwriters.

0:32:50 > 0:32:53But bands were now making their own material.

0:32:53 > 0:32:55So they formed their own band, called it Genesis,

0:32:55 > 0:32:58and did what every other group now seemed to be doing...

0:32:58 > 0:33:03retreated to the country to get their heads together.

0:33:04 > 0:33:08There was a phrase, "Getting together in the country, man,"

0:33:08 > 0:33:12but actually, I think being removed from the business was quite important for us.

0:33:13 > 0:33:17The time at Christmas Cottage was where we sort of became a band

0:33:17 > 0:33:20and started writing with our own sound.

0:33:21 > 0:33:24And it's what came naturally to us, really.

0:33:24 > 0:33:28We were embedded in English and obviously European classical traditions as well,

0:33:28 > 0:33:33but also, in terms of a lot of the lyrical stuff we would take from English things,

0:33:33 > 0:33:36influenced by TS Eliot and fairy stories, and stuff like that.

0:33:36 > 0:33:40People forget there weren't that many bands in those days.

0:33:40 > 0:33:43It was like a blank canvas. So as long as you were half-decent,

0:33:43 > 0:33:47and had a bit of a sound, and were good live,

0:33:47 > 0:33:50'you had a chance it was a career, you know.'

0:33:50 > 0:33:53We like audiences that sit down and listen to the music

0:33:53 > 0:33:56rather than get drunk and pick up girls.

0:33:56 > 0:33:59We like audiences that will sit down and listen.

0:33:59 > 0:34:01MUSIC: "White Mountain" by Genesis

0:34:05 > 0:34:08While Genesis focused on songwriting,

0:34:08 > 0:34:11other bands were mastering their instruments and finding new ones.

0:34:12 > 0:34:18Technical virtuosity was fast becoming the essential protein in progressive rock's DNA.

0:34:18 > 0:34:21I just don't believe that a drummer should just keep time.

0:34:21 > 0:34:25Cos if you want time, buy a metronome.

0:34:25 > 0:34:26Don't come and speak to me!

0:34:26 > 0:34:29I think music... you make it for yourself.

0:34:29 > 0:34:31If the chap next door likes it, isn't that fantastic?

0:34:33 > 0:34:35I do think self-indulgence

0:34:35 > 0:34:39is a good thing in art, because if you're trying

0:34:39 > 0:34:40to please other people all the time,

0:34:40 > 0:34:43you just stick to the same model all the time.

0:34:43 > 0:34:46Nobody hears anything new, so nobody expects anything new.

0:34:48 > 0:34:51You play a note, and you project it out.

0:34:51 > 0:34:54Even if it's one note, it can go "donnnng"... hmm.

0:34:54 > 0:34:56You can make it go...

0:34:56 > 0:34:57- WITH DEEP ECHO:- "Donnnng"!

0:34:57 > 0:35:01It's more than just playing the instrument.

0:35:03 > 0:35:05It's not cool today to play your instrument.

0:35:05 > 0:35:07Jangly guitar music...

0:35:07 > 0:35:09It's jangly! That's what you do.

0:35:09 > 0:35:12But to actually play a solo, something nice,

0:35:12 > 0:35:16something that speaks, something that gives you a little kind of emotion,

0:35:16 > 0:35:19a little buzz, makes your hair stand up on the back of your neck,

0:35:19 > 0:35:22that's not cool. That's not part of this age.

0:35:24 > 0:35:28But this was the dawning of the age of the highly-accomplished player.

0:35:28 > 0:35:30The name musician.

0:35:31 > 0:35:34In 1970, Crimson man Greg Lake,

0:35:34 > 0:35:37plus Nice man Keith Emerson,

0:35:37 > 0:35:39plus Crazy World man Carl Palmer,

0:35:39 > 0:35:42equalled bass, keyboards and drums,

0:35:42 > 0:35:45equalled prog rock's first supergroup,

0:35:45 > 0:35:47equalled ELP.

0:35:47 > 0:35:50MUSIC: "Hoedown" by Emerson, Lake & Palmer

0:35:57 > 0:36:00We weren't a rock band, we weren't a blues band.

0:36:00 > 0:36:06Emerson, Lake & Palmer was a kind of...was a European group that played classical adaptations.

0:36:06 > 0:36:11Yes, we could rock out. But we didn't hang our hat on being a rock band.

0:36:11 > 0:36:16In actual fact, it really was a thoroughbred musical statement we were making.

0:36:18 > 0:36:23You need the playing expertise so that your colleagues know that you are the bee's knees,

0:36:23 > 0:36:27but just give them some entertainment as well, and that's what it's all about.

0:36:27 > 0:36:28That's my philosophy.

0:36:36 > 0:36:39I think I'd call it showbusiness, actually!

0:36:39 > 0:36:43Somebody jumping over their organ, or sticking in knives

0:36:43 > 0:36:45to hold down a fifth or a fourth, a chord.

0:36:45 > 0:36:48Musically it's valid,

0:36:48 > 0:36:49visually it's right on it,

0:36:49 > 0:36:51and it is rock'n'roll!

0:36:58 > 0:37:01ELP's technical expertise and crowd-pleasing antics

0:37:01 > 0:37:05elevated musicianship and ticket sales to new heights.

0:37:05 > 0:37:08Progressive rock popped its head out of the underground

0:37:08 > 0:37:11and glimpsed not only showbusiness, but big business.

0:37:14 > 0:37:16Progressive rock wizard Rick Wakeman

0:37:16 > 0:37:19was amazed when he first saw what Yes were now up to

0:37:19 > 0:37:22with their psychedelic guitarist Steve Howe.

0:37:26 > 0:37:28Everything that happened in the '70s, this is it,

0:37:28 > 0:37:31was to do with psychedelia, you see.

0:37:31 > 0:37:36Psychedelia may have quit as a fashion in 1968,

0:37:36 > 0:37:39but when I joined Yes,

0:37:39 > 0:37:42I was still a psychedelic guitarist in my mind.

0:37:42 > 0:37:45I would not play blues cliche for love nor money.

0:37:49 > 0:37:53I was just bowled over, because everything was wrong.

0:37:55 > 0:37:59Bill Bruford had the most incredible unusual tuning of the kit,

0:37:59 > 0:38:02and they mic'ed it up. No-one mic'ed it up then.

0:38:02 > 0:38:06And it was the most fantastic drum sound I'd ever heard.

0:38:06 > 0:38:08MUSIC: "Yours Is No Disgrace" by Yes

0:38:14 > 0:38:17There were funky elements, there were classical elements,

0:38:17 > 0:38:21there'd be a free section, or some sort of psychedelic vamp or funk thing,

0:38:21 > 0:38:24cos we liked Sly and the Family Stone, so we needed some of that.

0:38:28 > 0:38:32Chris Squire. Most bass players try to get as low as they could, to make your trousers flap.

0:38:32 > 0:38:36Chris wiped out all the middle, and had all the treble turned up,

0:38:36 > 0:38:40and used a Rickenbacker while everyone else was using Fenders.

0:38:40 > 0:38:41I thought, "That's outrageous"!

0:38:41 > 0:38:45And then Steve Howe, when everybody else was using big stacks,

0:38:45 > 0:38:51had a little Fender Twin, and a Gibson semi-acoustic.

0:38:55 > 0:38:58I played any kind of guitar you could think of that I liked.

0:38:58 > 0:39:04So I went on to mandolin, steel, and all the kinds, six, twelve, Spanish...

0:39:04 > 0:39:07"Eh, what? What's going on?"

0:39:07 > 0:39:10And then, of course, at those times, every lead singer was six foot six,

0:39:10 > 0:39:13long greasy black hair, you could smell 'em from the back row,

0:39:13 > 0:39:16and along comes this little fella who's got an alto voice.

0:39:16 > 0:39:24# If the summer change to winter, Yours is no disgrace... #

0:39:27 > 0:39:29Wakeman wanted in.

0:39:29 > 0:39:30PHONE RINGS

0:39:30 > 0:39:33But when he got the call, it wasn't an easy decision.

0:39:34 > 0:39:37On the same day that Yes asked me to join,

0:39:37 > 0:39:43David Bowie asked me to form Spiders From Mars with Mick Ronson,

0:39:43 > 0:39:50um...which, when I look back, that was one hell of a choice!

0:39:50 > 0:39:54# There's a starman waiting in the sky... #

0:39:54 > 0:39:58Progressive music wasn't the only gig in town.

0:39:58 > 0:40:04Top Of The Pops, regarded as a sell-out by any self-respecting prog rocker,

0:40:04 > 0:40:09was by now home to artists such as Bowie, Roxy Music and T Rex.

0:40:09 > 0:40:12Bands still making singles hits, and girls dance.

0:40:19 > 0:40:23For Robert Wyatt, the Soft Machine party was all but over.

0:40:23 > 0:40:27The band had matured into a jazz-fusion quartet

0:40:27 > 0:40:30with little sympathy for his pop sensibilities.

0:40:31 > 0:40:33Goodbye, the UFO Club...

0:40:34 > 0:40:36..hello, the Albert Hall.

0:40:44 > 0:40:48You know, pretty respected, and so on, but nobody's dancing any more,

0:40:48 > 0:40:49so I sort of thought, aww, you know,

0:40:49 > 0:40:52I never really quite made it as a proper pop musician!

0:40:55 > 0:40:58We thought we were a pop band!

0:40:58 > 0:41:03It's just that... I try to make normal records, they just don't come out like that.

0:41:10 > 0:41:14We could have made a really good pop LP, and been in the charts,

0:41:14 > 0:41:17and been in those films about the '60s.

0:41:17 > 0:41:18And we blew it.

0:41:24 > 0:41:27Wyatt was eventually sacked from his own group.

0:41:28 > 0:41:31I think I resented it for a while,

0:41:31 > 0:41:33and when I got cross,

0:41:33 > 0:41:38I used to feel about Soft Machine the same way that Palestinians think about Jerusalem.

0:41:38 > 0:41:41"This once was mine!"

0:41:46 > 0:41:50Without Wyatt, Soft Machine moved into purely instrumental compositions,

0:41:50 > 0:41:52avoiding the problems of lyrics.

0:41:53 > 0:41:57"My baby done left me" never did work with complex musical structures.

0:41:59 > 0:42:01This music didn't want the blues.

0:42:01 > 0:42:03It needed fantasy and myth.

0:42:04 > 0:42:05Cupid meets Psyche,

0:42:05 > 0:42:08not boy meets girl.

0:42:11 > 0:42:14We hadn't really experienced much outside education.

0:42:14 > 0:42:18So I suppose that's partly why we wrote about...fantasy lyrics,

0:42:18 > 0:42:23different situations about life rather than boy/girl things.

0:42:23 > 0:42:26I had come from a public school background,

0:42:26 > 0:42:27very self-conscious.

0:42:27 > 0:42:30Could never have expressed that in a song in those days.

0:42:30 > 0:42:34So it was much easier to go back to Greek myths and write things like that.

0:42:34 > 0:42:39So we plundered Ovid and anybody else we could find. We were all the same, really.

0:42:42 > 0:42:45There was an audience of newly-educated university students

0:42:45 > 0:42:47who were crying out for something

0:42:47 > 0:42:51that they had read in science fiction and they wanted a musical version of that.

0:42:51 > 0:42:55And of course, there was The Lord Of The Rings, and Mervyn Peake and Gormenghast,

0:42:55 > 0:42:58and people wanted that in their music.

0:43:02 > 0:43:05Ambitious music demanded ambitious presentation.

0:43:08 > 0:43:12What began with Sgt Pepper now became the glorious norm.

0:43:12 > 0:43:17Albums adorned with lyrics, paintings, cut-outs, pop-ups and pull-outs.

0:43:21 > 0:43:26The gatefold sleeve opened like a window onto brave new worlds,

0:43:26 > 0:43:30and provided the perfect prop on which to roll a joint.

0:43:33 > 0:43:35Yeah...

0:43:36 > 0:43:38I think the album cover, the artwork, and a vinyl...

0:43:38 > 0:43:42when you bought that, it was a piece you could hold, you could look at it,

0:43:42 > 0:43:44it was big, you know.

0:43:44 > 0:43:47When it suddenly went down to the jewel case, to the CD...

0:43:47 > 0:43:49HE SIGHS

0:43:49 > 0:43:53You couldn't have the detail, because it was too small. I needed one for each eye.

0:43:53 > 0:43:58It's hard not to start sounding like, you know, "In my day... the gatefold sleeve..."

0:43:58 > 0:44:00but it's changed now, you know.

0:44:00 > 0:44:05Music is now...it's not something that people hold, the article.

0:44:05 > 0:44:09It was a whole event of getting an album.

0:44:09 > 0:44:13Getting your album home, putting an album on, reading the bits and pieces,

0:44:13 > 0:44:16learning a bit about it... it was absolutely fantastic.

0:44:16 > 0:44:20And we lost that. And when we lost that, we lost an awful lot.

0:44:22 > 0:44:26So, welcome back to days of future past.

0:44:29 > 0:44:31This is the home of Roger Dean.

0:44:31 > 0:44:36The artist who most successfully translated progressive rock's soundscapes into landscapes.

0:44:39 > 0:44:42He gave Yes their distinctive brand logo,

0:44:42 > 0:44:46and imagined worlds that at the time still seemed like beautiful possibilities.

0:44:50 > 0:44:53Whether you're designing just a box of matches,

0:44:53 > 0:44:56you're predicting one tiny, miniscule part of the future.

0:44:59 > 0:45:03I think what's terribly astonishing and disappointing

0:45:03 > 0:45:06is how little the promise of the future turned out.

0:45:06 > 0:45:10In the '60s, people walked on the moon, in the '60s, there was colour television.

0:45:10 > 0:45:13And no-one has gone back to the moon.

0:45:13 > 0:45:16I think people would have been shocked

0:45:16 > 0:45:21if they could see the year 2008 from a 1968 perspective,

0:45:21 > 0:45:27at how astonishingly little the world had improved

0:45:27 > 0:45:30compared to our ambitions and expectations.

0:45:30 > 0:45:36Had we planned it properly in the '60s, this is how it might have turned out!

0:45:41 > 0:45:47I try and find out what was motivating them to make the music,

0:45:47 > 0:45:51and work on the same sort of ideas, if that was possible.

0:45:51 > 0:45:53Wasn't always possible, but sometimes it was.

0:45:53 > 0:46:00Sometimes there was a great synergy between the ideas that motivated the music-making

0:46:00 > 0:46:03and the ideas that motivated the art.

0:46:03 > 0:46:08But it was not the music itself. It was the ideas behind it.

0:46:08 > 0:46:15I was lucky that the images and the music seemed to be an absolute perfect fit sometimes,

0:46:15 > 0:46:20when in actual fact, the process was beyond analysis.

0:46:23 > 0:46:27Yes recording sessions were also moving beyond analysis.

0:46:29 > 0:46:32The hippy democracy the band chose as a way of life

0:46:32 > 0:46:35made for difficulties in the studio.

0:46:35 > 0:46:37Their fifth album, Close To The Edge,

0:46:37 > 0:46:40took over three months to perfect.

0:46:41 > 0:46:43It took three months because Simon & Garfunkel

0:46:43 > 0:46:47had done Bridge Over Troubled Water, which took three months.

0:46:47 > 0:46:48We heard this and we thought,

0:46:48 > 0:46:52"By golly, our next record's going to take three months and a day if it kills us!"

0:46:52 > 0:46:55So of course, this was the infantile way we behaved,

0:46:55 > 0:46:58we took three months and a day.

0:46:59 > 0:47:03We established a whole new plane of length of how long we play.

0:47:03 > 0:47:05So we've got some musicians here,

0:47:05 > 0:47:09we've got a lot of writers in the band, cos Bill wrote, everybody wrote in the band.

0:47:09 > 0:47:14"Can I trade your idea for my idea?" You've got five guys writing...

0:47:14 > 0:47:15Imagine five guys writing a book!

0:47:15 > 0:47:20Steve said, "I've got this silly little line that I've had lying around for ages,

0:47:20 > 0:47:23going, "Ding-ding-ding-doo, de-doo, diddly-iddly-um-dum..."

0:47:23 > 0:47:28It was all horse-trading, muscle power, strongest guy, thickest skin.

0:47:28 > 0:47:32Chris said, "I've got this...bass run."

0:47:32 > 0:47:35Diddly-iddly-um-dum-dum-dum-dum.

0:47:35 > 0:47:39And that was it, really. And I went, "Anything else?"

0:47:39 > 0:47:41And he went, "No, that's it."

0:47:41 > 0:47:43Diddly-iddly-um-dum-dum-dum-dum.

0:47:43 > 0:47:48And when we got to, what turned out to be for me, the high spot, which was Close To The Edge,

0:47:48 > 0:47:51really, I don't know how that record got made.

0:47:54 > 0:47:57Some days, we got into the rehearsal rooms after, like, yesterday,

0:47:57 > 0:48:02we got in the next day and said, "Does anybody remember how we went from the last verse into that?"

0:48:02 > 0:48:04"No"!

0:48:04 > 0:48:07I said, "I want that bit on the end of that, and I don't want to do it in that key,

0:48:07 > 0:48:10"because it works nice with the way I play it on guitar on that,"

0:48:10 > 0:48:15so they'd say, "We'll get a cup of tea, Rick, you work out how we get from there to there"!

0:48:15 > 0:48:19We couldn't do a song in five minutes. It went to ten minutes on the Yes album.

0:48:19 > 0:48:24And we got to Close To The Edge and we thought, "This just isn't long enough! This is like...a symphony!"

0:48:24 > 0:48:28# Down at the edge, round by the corner

0:48:28 > 0:48:33# Not right away, not right away

0:48:33 > 0:48:37# Close to the edge, down by the river

0:48:37 > 0:48:38# Not right away... #

0:48:38 > 0:48:42In those days there were two or three albums that weren't so good,

0:48:42 > 0:48:44getting you towards the winner.

0:48:44 > 0:48:48The one that the thing existed for, which was Close To The Edge.

0:48:48 > 0:48:52That's the moment you exist for in a rock group, and it's terrific!

0:48:52 > 0:48:57And you think, "That's the cookie. That's the one, right there! Done deal! I'm gone!"

0:48:57 > 0:48:58I left then.

0:49:01 > 0:49:07Bruford defected to the less sunny, less democratic regime of Robert Fripp's all-new King Crimson.

0:49:12 > 0:49:16In 1972, this was akin to going over the Berlin Wall into East Germany.

0:49:20 > 0:49:23No papers required, just extreme chops.

0:49:24 > 0:49:28Everything you've heard about King Crimson is true. It's a terrifying place.

0:49:41 > 0:49:43Whatever you do before you join King Crimson,

0:49:43 > 0:49:46would you please not do it when you're in the band?

0:49:55 > 0:49:59You're required really to develop a new style, if you can,

0:49:59 > 0:50:01specifically for that group.

0:50:01 > 0:50:06The implication being that you would play that way in King Crimson,

0:50:06 > 0:50:07and King Crimson alone.

0:50:09 > 0:50:11Yes was an endless debate

0:50:11 > 0:50:16about whether it should be F-natural in the bass with a G-sharp on top or should it be the other way round?

0:50:16 > 0:50:19In King Crimson, almost nothing was said.

0:50:19 > 0:50:22You're just supposed to know.

0:50:31 > 0:50:32Robert Fripp was a purist.

0:50:32 > 0:50:38Unlike the Jimmy Pages of rock, he didn't brandish the guitar like a phallus.

0:50:38 > 0:50:42His was more like a probe. An instrument of science, not sex.

0:50:42 > 0:50:45And to use it properly,

0:50:45 > 0:50:47you had to sit down.

0:50:48 > 0:50:50The very first few gigs we did,

0:50:50 > 0:50:54Robert didn't sit down. And he was very unhappy,

0:50:54 > 0:50:57because in rehearsals, he'd have his stool and his thing,

0:50:57 > 0:50:59that was how he'd been taught,

0:50:59 > 0:51:03and Robert's very strict about, "That's how it should be,"

0:51:03 > 0:51:08and eventually we'd had to give him a stool, because he was sulking.

0:51:08 > 0:51:11And he was so happy on that stool.

0:51:11 > 0:51:13Robert's not a gyrator, is he?

0:51:13 > 0:51:16He may be many things, but he's not a gyrator.

0:51:16 > 0:51:22And Robert's idea of sexy is to smile with his glasses and...

0:51:25 > 0:51:26Fripp wasn't alone.

0:51:26 > 0:51:30Sexual energy, the very lifeblood of rock'n'roll,

0:51:30 > 0:51:33was conspicuously absent from the prog rock stage.

0:51:34 > 0:51:38Bands like Egg had enough on their hands just playing the complicated arpeggios.

0:51:40 > 0:51:42Well, we weren't very sexy,

0:51:42 > 0:51:48and we regarded overt sexual display as extremely uncool.

0:51:48 > 0:51:54It was something...rather humiliating to have to admit to

0:51:54 > 0:51:57that we were actually trying to get into girls' knickers.

0:51:57 > 0:52:00We wouldn't admit to it. It was very duplicitous, very dishonest.

0:52:00 > 0:52:03But there you are. We certainly wouldn't do it on stage.

0:52:03 > 0:52:08I would have been completely unconvincing!

0:52:08 > 0:52:14Imagine me doing pelvic thrusts on stage while playing in 25/8. No.

0:52:19 > 0:52:23No sex on stage, and no sex backstage.

0:52:23 > 0:52:26All the groupies were at Led Zeppelin concerts,

0:52:26 > 0:52:29not waiting for progressive rock maestros

0:52:29 > 0:52:31to demonstrate the delights of the diminished chord.

0:52:31 > 0:52:36The rock bands in America had groupies. We didn't really have any.

0:52:36 > 0:52:38The pop stars had groupies. We wanted groupies too.

0:52:38 > 0:52:44We never had any Egg groupies. We never had any girl groupies at all.

0:52:45 > 0:52:50No girls ever came to the side of the stage after a gig.

0:52:51 > 0:52:53Sad, isn't it?

0:52:53 > 0:52:57When we went to America, we had lots of groupies.

0:52:57 > 0:52:59By the dozens!

0:52:59 > 0:53:02Because they loved our English accents,

0:53:02 > 0:53:06and the fact we weren't American rock stars and we were something different,

0:53:06 > 0:53:08and exotic to them.

0:53:10 > 0:53:13- IN AMERICAN ACCENT: - "We love your accent! Y'all wanna take a shower with us?"

0:53:13 > 0:53:16- IN POSH ENGLISH ACCENT: - "What, both of you? Gosh!"

0:53:19 > 0:53:22Progressive rock audiences certainly weren't screamers.

0:53:22 > 0:53:24They were an infinitely patient lot.

0:53:24 > 0:53:27Too much yang, not enough yin.

0:53:28 > 0:53:33What we started to realise... our audience were nice and reserved people, really.

0:53:33 > 0:53:38You know, fishing hats, greatcoats, bunch of albums under the arm...

0:53:38 > 0:53:41Public school sixth-formers really, in greatcoats!

0:53:43 > 0:53:45Ugly-looking audience, you know.

0:53:45 > 0:53:48Pipe and glasses, yeah. Beards and stuff, we used to have.

0:53:48 > 0:53:51It was very male-orientated.

0:53:51 > 0:53:56I would say, in those days, 95% of our audience were male.

0:53:56 > 0:53:58We never used to have females come and see us.

0:53:58 > 0:54:01Not many girls, no. All chaps.

0:54:01 > 0:54:03Lots of guys. No girls.

0:54:03 > 0:54:05What is it, some kind of homo band? What is it?

0:54:05 > 0:54:12It was the odd woman, mostly dragged along, who used to just look bewildered.

0:54:15 > 0:54:19If the sexiness of '60s psychedelia was absent from the prog performance,

0:54:19 > 0:54:22theatricality, used so effectively by Arthur Brown,

0:54:22 > 0:54:26was becoming an essential part of any Genesis show.

0:54:29 > 0:54:30Flower...

0:54:33 > 0:54:35# If you go down to Willow Farm

0:54:35 > 0:54:39# To look for butterflies, flutterbys, gutterflies... #

0:54:39 > 0:54:45Initially it started off because the PA systems we had...only the voice went through the PA in those days...

0:54:45 > 0:54:48were pretty bad, so you could never hear any lyrics.

0:54:48 > 0:54:51Quite complex lyrics, and the lyrics were quite important.

0:54:51 > 0:54:55So Peter felt he had to act them out a bit, so he started acting them out on stage.

0:54:55 > 0:54:57MUSIC: "Supper's Ready" by Genesis

0:55:06 > 0:55:09The prog rock movement really stimulated the visual aspect

0:55:09 > 0:55:12as well as the playing and the conceptual side.

0:55:12 > 0:55:15The visual thing was in. Theatre was important.

0:55:15 > 0:55:20It started with that psychedelia period, Arthur Brown, wherever,

0:55:20 > 0:55:22and went on and got developed.

0:55:22 > 0:55:25MUSIC: "Brandenburger" by The Nice

0:55:29 > 0:55:33Progressive rock now had such a loyal male record-buying fan base,

0:55:33 > 0:55:37that both the major and independent labels happily signed new bands,

0:55:37 > 0:55:40and let them record whatever they wanted.

0:55:40 > 0:55:43They weren't even expected to make money at first.

0:55:43 > 0:55:47This was the age of company investment and artistic freedom.

0:55:53 > 0:55:56Egg recorded all their albums with zero interference.

0:55:56 > 0:55:59MUSIC: "Fugue In D Minor" by Egg

0:55:59 > 0:56:03They were interested in us,

0:56:03 > 0:56:06because I think they thought we sounded a bit like The Nice,

0:56:06 > 0:56:09who had already had a chart hit,

0:56:09 > 0:56:12and they thought, "Maybe these guys can make us some money."

0:56:12 > 0:56:17So they signed us up, but we had no input from them at all.

0:56:17 > 0:56:21I don't think we spoke to any Decca executive ever.

0:56:21 > 0:56:25I don't know why we got away with it, to be honest.

0:56:25 > 0:56:27That was the style then.

0:56:27 > 0:56:31For some reason, we set the precedent that we'd make an album,

0:56:31 > 0:56:35when it's finished, we'll hand it over to the record label.

0:56:35 > 0:56:37I mean, how nice is that? This is the album.

0:56:37 > 0:56:42We were still allowed to do what we wanted to do by the record labels and management.

0:56:42 > 0:56:45We were still allowed to come up with ridiculous ideas,

0:56:45 > 0:56:48and then somehow find people who could make it happen.

0:56:48 > 0:56:53Until groups like Yes, a song was taken and played.

0:56:53 > 0:56:57A guitar player played the chords, a bass player played the roots,

0:56:57 > 0:57:00a drummer played the rhythm and the singer sung the song.

0:57:00 > 0:57:02Yes said, "No, no! We don't want to do it like that.

0:57:02 > 0:57:07"We want to have a theme to start. We want to have a riff behind the song.

0:57:07 > 0:57:12"We want to take out the chords of that section, cos everybody's heard those before. Stick some lines in."

0:57:12 > 0:57:16More like an orchestral approach. Violins do this, the bassoons do that.

0:57:16 > 0:57:22It's a thinking man's music, as opposed to a... just from the gut music.

0:57:22 > 0:57:24Rock was just from the gut, I think.

0:57:24 > 0:57:27Everyone was looking eagerly to see

0:57:27 > 0:57:32what was new, what was gonna happen. That was definitely a heady time,

0:57:32 > 0:57:37for sure, and one that I rather suspect we won't see again.

0:57:37 > 0:57:43'72, '73, we were kind of in that prog rock camp.

0:57:43 > 0:57:46Albeit we were the band that were making a joke of it.

0:57:46 > 0:57:51We were doing a bit of a send-up of prog rock for a couple of albums back then.

0:57:57 > 0:58:01Despite Jethro Tull's determination to stay outside the prog rock establishment,

0:58:01 > 0:58:05their fourth album, Aqualung, seemed suspiciously profound.

0:58:10 > 0:58:16It was not a concept album. People just ignored it. "It's a concept album!

0:58:16 > 0:58:18"It's got a picture about God and stuff,

0:58:18 > 0:58:21"and tramps and things... and...concept, yeah!"

0:58:21 > 0:58:26So in the wake of that, I just thought, "Let's give them the mother of all concept albums."

0:58:26 > 0:58:29Have a bit of fun with the whole thing, and do a spoof concept album

0:58:29 > 0:58:33and pretend it was written by a 12-year-old precocious schoolboy,

0:58:33 > 0:58:37and do the ridiculously convoluted 16-page cover,

0:58:37 > 0:58:40which actually took longer to do than record the album, I think.

0:58:40 > 0:58:46So it was a bit of a send-up. It was a pre-Spinal Tap moment.

0:58:47 > 0:58:51# But your new shoes are worn at the heels

0:58:51 > 0:58:56# And your suntan does rapidly peel

0:58:56 > 0:59:02# And your wise men don't know how it feels

0:59:04 > 0:59:06# To be thick as a brick. #

0:59:06 > 0:59:11Ironically, the mischievous prank that was 1972's Thick As A Brick

0:59:11 > 0:59:14is now hailed as the ultimate progressive rock album.

0:59:17 > 0:59:20MUSIC: "Tubular Bells" by Mike Oldfield

0:59:20 > 0:59:23That same year, multi-instrumentalist Mike Oldfield

0:59:23 > 0:59:26was composing his progressive music masterwork -

0:59:26 > 0:59:29the near-scientific experiment that was Tubular Bells,

0:59:29 > 0:59:32for which he played all the 26 featured instruments himself.

0:59:36 > 0:59:41A nightmare for me to explain to another musician how it should be played.

0:59:41 > 0:59:45I can't tell them, "Play it like I would play it," cos they can't!

0:59:47 > 0:59:50I made my own notes that only I could understand,

0:59:50 > 0:59:51so I did sort of map it out.

0:59:51 > 0:59:57It's a kind of piece of classical music, but with the instruments that I could play.

1:00:00 > 1:00:02We were working in Abbey Road,

1:00:02 > 1:00:06and Paul McCartney was in the big studio next door, number one,

1:00:06 > 1:00:09and somebody told me he was playing everything.

1:00:09 > 1:00:13And I understood from the technology we were using

1:00:13 > 1:00:17that you could overdub one instrument while listening to the rest,

1:00:17 > 1:00:21and I said, "Oh! He's probably doing it all like that! I can do that with my one!"

1:00:25 > 1:00:28The album launched Virgin Records,

1:00:28 > 1:00:31and was licensed in America with a help of an accompanying film

1:00:31 > 1:00:33put together for the BBC's Old Grey Whistle Test.

1:00:33 > 1:00:37It went on to sell 50 million copies worldwide.

1:00:39 > 1:00:43Vintage footage, probably black-and-white era,

1:00:43 > 1:00:45late '20s, early '30s, of skiers.

1:00:48 > 1:00:52Pull out a reel of film, and, "Er, let's have a look at this one...

1:00:52 > 1:00:54"Ah, this one might fit, yeah."

1:00:54 > 1:00:58With the snow going up, the powder...

1:00:58 > 1:01:01Dun-din-dun-din-dun-din-dun-din...

1:01:01 > 1:01:04It was just beautiful.

1:01:06 > 1:01:10That was incredible. Mike Oldfield, and just a part of Tubular Bells.

1:01:16 > 1:01:21But commercial success and an underground reputation was still a contradiction.

1:01:21 > 1:01:26A shy Oldfield couldn't deal with the attention, and took to the hills.

1:01:26 > 1:01:32The press, in pursuit of Britain's biggest international progressive music success story,

1:01:32 > 1:01:33were denied its star.

1:01:35 > 1:01:37I left the human civilisation,

1:01:37 > 1:01:42and lived with my sheep on a little house on the Welsh border.

1:01:43 > 1:01:48Major psychological problems, nervous breakdown kind of things,

1:01:48 > 1:01:50which wasn't very nice.

1:01:50 > 1:01:53HE COUGHS

1:01:53 > 1:01:56Upset a hell of a lot of people.

1:01:56 > 1:01:59There was one journalist who was furious with me,

1:01:59 > 1:02:01cos I wouldn't do an interview.

1:02:01 > 1:02:04I was already so successful,

1:02:04 > 1:02:11what difference would it have made if I had done 500 interviews and toured the world?

1:02:11 > 1:02:15So I thought, "What are you all bothering me about? Leave me alone!"

1:02:31 > 1:02:36If Oldfield rejected mainstream acceptance of his rarefied musical experiment,

1:02:36 > 1:02:42other musicians embraced the success that British progressive rock was now achieving around the world.

1:02:42 > 1:02:44Most significantly, in the States.

1:02:50 > 1:02:55The Americans loved progressive rock. It was evidence of skill.

1:02:55 > 1:02:58Now, Americans, funnily enough, are a little unlike us,

1:02:58 > 1:03:05in the sense that they are not immediately embarrassed by an overt display of capability.

1:03:05 > 1:03:10The Americans...fantastic at doing that. Brits, crap.

1:03:10 > 1:03:11The Brits come to a solo...

1:03:11 > 1:03:15"I can actually play a lot better than this but I won't, cos I don't want to show off,

1:03:15 > 1:03:17"so I'll just stand in the corner."

1:03:17 > 1:03:20Suddenly, we're doing... "Hey! Cop a load of this!"

1:03:25 > 1:03:30Now, let's bang the drum for somebody who for three years running has been voted Drummer Of The Year.

1:03:30 > 1:03:34He's just taken delivery of a new kit, and here he is to demonstrate it - Carl Palmer.

1:03:34 > 1:03:38It was a stainless steel drum kit. I was sponsored by British Steel.

1:03:38 > 1:03:42Eight different engineering companies were involved in the making of this kit,

1:03:42 > 1:03:46which is the very first electronic stainless steel drum kit in existence.

1:03:46 > 1:03:48'I decided to get a jeweller,'

1:03:48 > 1:03:51using a dentist's drill, a chap called Paul Raven,

1:03:51 > 1:03:54to do these hunting scenes on each of the drums.

1:03:54 > 1:03:57I'd seen them on Purdey rifles, and I was quite impressed.

1:03:57 > 1:04:01There's a beautiful squirrel, nibbling away there,

1:04:01 > 1:04:03there's a fox, really nice, they are,

1:04:03 > 1:04:06and there's even somewhere a hedgehog. There it is.

1:04:06 > 1:04:10And they said, "Did you want the shells a quarter-inch thick or half-an-inch thick?"

1:04:10 > 1:04:14I said, "What's the difference in price?" They said, "The same."

1:04:14 > 1:04:16"I'll have half-an-inch." It's the '70s, excess,

1:04:16 > 1:04:19not thinking it'll take two guys to lift the bass drum!

1:04:19 > 1:04:20I know it weighs a couple of tons?

1:04:20 > 1:04:24- Two-and-a-half.- And you'll be taking this around the world on tour?

1:04:24 > 1:04:27- Yes.- How do you fly with it? - Er, very well, thank you!

1:04:27 > 1:04:29'The stage had to be reinforced.'

1:04:29 > 1:04:32We didn't think of transport costs, we didn't think of weight.

1:04:32 > 1:04:38'It went on from there. We decided to add the electronic drums, the first electronic drums at the time.'

1:04:38 > 1:04:40Everyone thought it was keyboards. They were drums.

1:04:40 > 1:04:43DRUM BEAT TRIGGERS ELECTRONIC ARPEGGIO

1:04:46 > 1:04:48SECOND DRUM BEAT STOPS IT

1:04:48 > 1:04:52Have it! It's the '70s, innit? The bigger, the better!

1:04:55 > 1:04:57If there was something that was available

1:04:57 > 1:05:01from a technology point of view that would enhance the sound of the band,

1:05:01 > 1:05:03we wanted it yesterday.

1:05:03 > 1:05:06HE RINGS BELL WITH STRING IN HIS MOUTH

1:05:13 > 1:05:16MUSIC: "The Ancient (Giants Under The Sun)" by Yes

1:05:18 > 1:05:21Progressive rock was now colonising the outer limits.

1:05:21 > 1:05:26In 1973, Yes had set sail on Topographic Oceans,

1:05:26 > 1:05:28a double album comprised of only four tracks,

1:05:28 > 1:05:32each packed with unusual sounds, key changes and time signatures.

1:05:35 > 1:05:38There was this constant quest. Could you hit this and it sounded good?

1:05:38 > 1:05:39"Doing!"

1:05:42 > 1:05:46We got Slinkies and put mics in them and threw them downstairs and recorded them

1:05:46 > 1:05:50to hear what they were like. And you put a lot of reverb on them, it's great.

1:05:50 > 1:05:54And it was! "Pchkowwhoossssh-bthwooooom"! Yeah!

1:05:56 > 1:05:59It was that kind of insanity. It was a nice kind of insanity.

1:05:59 > 1:06:01It was a musical insanity.

1:06:15 > 1:06:17We were...totally self-indulgent.

1:06:22 > 1:06:26But it was serious music. There was something more serious about Yes

1:06:26 > 1:06:28than some other bands of that time.

1:06:28 > 1:06:29We took ourselves a little serious!

1:06:29 > 1:06:36And our quest was to make something we thought was kind of grand,

1:06:36 > 1:06:39not grandiose, but had a kind of grandeur about it.

1:06:39 > 1:06:43It had scale, but it had drama.

1:06:44 > 1:06:49But this quest was even more arduous than the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour.

1:06:49 > 1:06:53Audiences were showing signs of fatigue.

1:06:59 > 1:07:00Robert had stopped King Crimson,

1:07:00 > 1:07:03Robert Fripp had stopped King Crimson around that time.

1:07:03 > 1:07:04Very prescient. Very smart.

1:07:06 > 1:07:10I mean, I'd only just settled down. Just got my sticks out. Just settling in.

1:07:11 > 1:07:14But that's a bit like... That's life in King Crimson.

1:07:14 > 1:07:19It broke up at least three times, in my certain knowledge.

1:07:19 > 1:07:22Probably several other times while I was in it!

1:07:25 > 1:07:30If Fripp sensed an artistic cul-de-sac ahead when he put the brakes on King Crimson in 1974,

1:07:30 > 1:07:32others put their foot down

1:07:32 > 1:07:38and drove headlong into fame, fortune and near-fatal solos.

1:07:40 > 1:07:44These bands were... shockingly, to my mind...

1:07:44 > 1:07:47going on a transition away from

1:07:47 > 1:07:53the kind of honesty and real experimentalism we were involved in,

1:07:53 > 1:08:00into an un-self-consciously showbizzy way of doing things.

1:08:02 > 1:08:06In the Genesis camp, Peter Gabriel's taste for the theatrical

1:08:06 > 1:08:09threatened to swamp the subtlety of the music.

1:08:09 > 1:08:12But enthusiastic audiences and an attentive press

1:08:12 > 1:08:15pushed the band closer to commercial success.

1:08:15 > 1:08:19Americans, particularly, pushed past the rest of us

1:08:19 > 1:08:21to say "Great show, Pete! Great show!

1:08:21 > 1:08:24"You were great tonight!" And I just got fed up with it.

1:08:25 > 1:08:29So I made my feelings known about that.

1:08:33 > 1:08:37It did irritate us a bit that he got all the attention, but we kind of knew that in the back of our minds.

1:08:37 > 1:08:40We knew it gave us incredible publicity as well.

1:08:40 > 1:08:42So we weren't too sad about that side of it.

1:08:42 > 1:08:46I didn't have a problem. Maybe once during The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway.

1:08:46 > 1:08:50A couple of costumes went too far, you couldn't sing through them.

1:08:50 > 1:08:52But I always liked the visuals.

1:08:53 > 1:08:55It was all part of what we did,

1:08:55 > 1:08:57and nobody else was really doing it.

1:08:57 > 1:09:01# Welcome back, my friends, To the show that never ends

1:09:01 > 1:09:05# We're so glad you could attend, Come inside, come inside... #

1:09:05 > 1:09:08ELP were busy establishing the power of British prog,

1:09:08 > 1:09:12conquering the four corners of the globe with tours built on showmanship.

1:09:12 > 1:09:18Technical extravaganzas light years away from underground clubs and hippy ideal.

1:09:20 > 1:09:24# Rest assured, you'll get your money's worth... #

1:09:24 > 1:09:29You have to say that by '75, '76,

1:09:29 > 1:09:33it all got over-indulgent. It just all did.

1:09:33 > 1:09:35This is the Hilton, is it?

1:09:35 > 1:09:39Conrad, Conrad. If you're looking in, I've got one soft one, and one hard one.

1:09:39 > 1:09:41What use is that? What's all that about?

1:09:41 > 1:09:44I remember doing some filming with ELP.

1:09:44 > 1:09:50They had three 40-foot trucks.

1:09:50 > 1:09:53There was this moving ELP thing across...

1:10:00 > 1:10:03It just seemed to me a betrayal.

1:10:03 > 1:10:05How could these people, who were my heroes...

1:10:05 > 1:10:07how could Keith Emerson do that?

1:10:15 > 1:10:22There was no finesse, to my mind, or sophistication or sensitivity about what they were doing at all.

1:10:22 > 1:10:24It was hysterical.

1:10:25 > 1:10:30This whole stadium thing, with Yes coming out of big petals that opened,

1:10:30 > 1:10:35and stage design...there'd almost begun now...a tipping point

1:10:35 > 1:10:38where the presentation, the stage design and everything else

1:10:38 > 1:10:42was almost taking over from the music in terms of importance.

1:10:42 > 1:10:44They were all out-doing each other.

1:10:46 > 1:10:49"We think that progressive rock, the things you do,

1:10:49 > 1:10:51"is overblown, it's pretentious,

1:10:51 > 1:10:54"completely over-the-top and thoroughly pompous.

1:10:54 > 1:10:55"What do you say to that?"

1:10:57 > 1:10:58Yeah, you're about right, really!

1:10:58 > 1:11:00Then...

1:11:00 > 1:11:04some people came along who thought, "We can make this sexy,"

1:11:04 > 1:11:06and you've got Queen...

1:11:06 > 1:11:07# Mama mia, mama mia... #

1:11:07 > 1:11:12..who had a lot of prog elements but managed to get back to having tunes,

1:11:12 > 1:11:16and just devastating emotional climaxes

1:11:16 > 1:11:19instead of intellectual doodlings.

1:11:19 > 1:11:21MUSIC: "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen

1:11:28 > 1:11:32When Peter Gabriel left Genesis in 1975 to go solo,

1:11:32 > 1:11:34grammar school interloper Phil Collins

1:11:34 > 1:11:37became the front man for the Charterhouse boys.

1:11:37 > 1:11:43A new Genesis became even more successful, with Trick Of The Tail,

1:11:43 > 1:11:48an album that seemed to sniff an approaching storm in its return to simpler songs.

1:11:48 > 1:11:53# "Am I wrong to believe in the city of gold

1:11:53 > 1:11:57# "That lies in the deep distance?" he cried

1:11:57 > 1:12:00# And wept as they led him away to a cage

1:12:00 > 1:12:04# Beast that can talk read the sign... #

1:12:04 > 1:12:09Some of the things became very simplified in some people's...

1:12:09 > 1:12:12or shortened, or "commercialised" is the dirty word.

1:12:12 > 1:12:17They think that was my fault. I won't take the glory or blame for that.

1:12:17 > 1:12:23There are certain songs that people always put down, "That's a Phil song." Phh!

1:12:23 > 1:12:29After Peter left we were kind of conscious that do you carry on and do what you've always done,

1:12:29 > 1:12:32these long, half-hour pieces or concept albums?

1:12:32 > 1:12:37You think maybe you've done that, you know, and you move on a bit.

1:12:37 > 1:12:39MELLOW ROCK MUSIC PLAYS

1:12:45 > 1:12:49- What's this song called? - It's not a song, Stubbs.

1:12:49 > 1:12:52It's the first movement of a rock symphony -

1:12:52 > 1:12:54Apotheosis Of The Necromancer.

1:12:54 > 1:12:57That's a dead cert for Top Of The Pops(!)

1:12:57 > 1:13:03Rick Wakeman may be your God, but let me tell you something - concept albums are out.

1:13:03 > 1:13:07There was a scene in The Rotters' Club where the school band

1:13:07 > 1:13:10morphs from being a progressive band to a punk band in mid-song.

1:13:10 > 1:13:12MELLOW ROCK MUSIC PLAYS

1:13:12 > 1:13:15Bollocks to this for a game of soldiers.

1:13:17 > 1:13:19HE CHANGES HIS DRUMMING STYLE

1:13:19 > 1:13:25That was meant to be a sort of comic caricature of what actually happened in '76, '77.

1:13:27 > 1:13:30# Anarchy in the UK

1:13:30 > 1:13:33# Is this the UDA? #

1:13:33 > 1:13:37Punk stumbled on a time tunnel back to pre-Sergeant Pepper days

1:13:37 > 1:13:41and returned armed with only three chords and angry as hell.

1:13:41 > 1:13:43# Or just

1:13:43 > 1:13:46# Another

1:13:47 > 1:13:50# Country... #

1:13:50 > 1:13:52It was a big explosion

1:13:52 > 1:13:54of resentment

1:13:54 > 1:13:57against the...

1:13:58 > 1:14:00..highbrows.

1:14:02 > 1:14:04What they were saying was,

1:14:04 > 1:14:10"This glam rock and progressive rock is not communicating to me...

1:14:11 > 1:14:14"..and I feel marginalised."

1:14:16 > 1:14:19I didn't think it was us they were talking about.

1:14:20 > 1:14:25OK, let's lose the guys that go... HE IMITATES A PRECIOUS MELODY

1:14:25 > 1:14:27Let's get rid of that!

1:14:31 > 1:14:35What I didn't like was the great hate that those people

1:14:35 > 1:14:38pretended to have for the establishment

1:14:38 > 1:14:41of rock bands at that particular point.

1:14:41 > 1:14:43Anybody that played, like, you know,

1:14:43 > 1:14:48something a bit more complex or a bit interesting, that was out the window.

1:14:48 > 1:14:51MUSIC: "Teenage Kicks" by The Undertones

1:14:51 > 1:14:54On one hand I liked it because it was trashing things,

1:14:54 > 1:14:57but on the other hand, I didn't because it was a return to infancy.

1:14:57 > 1:15:03There's this permanent tension in rock music between the three chords and the truth merchants -

1:15:03 > 1:15:06you know, four-four and three chords -

1:15:06 > 1:15:08and the other people, like me,

1:15:08 > 1:15:12who say, "What if we add a fourth chord and put it in five-four?"

1:15:12 > 1:15:17There's always people like me messing up what these people think is pop music.

1:15:19 > 1:15:25A lot of pretty good bands came out of punk, but they were excellent writers and musicians,

1:15:25 > 1:15:30but that wasn't what punk was about. Punk was all about NOT being musical.

1:15:30 > 1:15:35The British Isles was the only country that fell for it.

1:15:35 > 1:15:39They didn't manage to do it anywhere else.

1:15:40 > 1:15:46One of the things proper musicians objected to with punk was that they were always out of tune.

1:15:46 > 1:15:50If you listen to Schoenberg and Cecil Taylor,

1:15:50 > 1:15:55there's no such thing as out of tune. It's just another bunch of notes.

1:15:55 > 1:16:01If you're going to play the same three chords, instead of learning all kind of fancy ones,

1:16:01 > 1:16:05why not have them play the guitar out of tune? That'll give you something different.

1:16:05 > 1:16:10That was a very lovely, home-made solution to harmonic inventiveness.

1:16:10 > 1:16:15Just don't tune up. Don't sing in tune. How far out can you get?

1:16:15 > 1:16:18The notes between the notes, we're hitting them.

1:16:18 > 1:16:20SHE PLAYS BOOGIE-WOOGIE

1:16:22 > 1:16:29The next generation had arrived, determined to overthrow Daddy in the Oedipal battle for supremacy.

1:16:31 > 1:16:34Only this time, Daddy was a prog rocker.

1:16:34 > 1:16:41You initially grow up with the music that the generation before you, your parents, have chosen.

1:16:41 > 1:16:47And you don't want it. My mum and dad used to listen to Pearl and Teddy Johnson.

1:16:47 > 1:16:50# Darling, darling, sweet Elizabeth

1:16:50 > 1:16:54# Say you'll be mine - hey! Always be mine - hey! #

1:16:54 > 1:17:00I don't want to listen to Pearl and Teddy Johnson so along comes The Who and bands like that. Yeah!

1:17:00 > 1:17:03Absolutely, that's what I want!

1:17:03 > 1:17:09And it belongs to you. I mean, prog rock, to some extent, killed the pop bands.

1:17:09 > 1:17:14The pop bands killed the crooner. Punk killed prog rock.

1:17:14 > 1:17:17ABSTRACT ROCK MUSIC PLAYS

1:17:20 > 1:17:27'70s Britain bore no resemblance to the imagined, mystical worlds of prog rock and Roger Dean.

1:17:29 > 1:17:34It was plagued by shortages, strikes and post-'60s disillusionment.

1:17:36 > 1:17:41In 1979, an Iron Lady would be crowned Queen in the Court of the Crimson King.

1:17:42 > 1:17:50Lyrically, progressive music in the '70s was very divorced from social reality. Just not interested in it.

1:17:51 > 1:17:54The lyrics are always a problem in this kind of music

1:17:54 > 1:17:59because it is about music, doing interesting things with instruments

1:17:59 > 1:18:03and making interesting musical shapes and landscapes,

1:18:03 > 1:18:08but if you're gonna have a singer, what's he going to sing about?

1:18:08 > 1:18:13Often the solution was to go down the talking Roger Dean route,

1:18:13 > 1:18:16to sing about fantasy worlds and so on,

1:18:16 > 1:18:22and there's a kind of embarrassment about that now which I certainly share.

1:18:25 > 1:18:27Genesis missed the British punk revolution.

1:18:27 > 1:18:32Like many progressive bands, they were too busy being successful abroad.

1:18:35 > 1:18:41On their return, they not only weathered the punk front, now sitting firmly over the country,

1:18:41 > 1:18:43but, perversely, enjoyed an Indian summer.

1:18:43 > 1:18:50We were unaware of punk because we were touring so much, not really aware of anything else going on.

1:18:50 > 1:18:55All we knew really was that groups like Yes had disappeared a bit,

1:18:55 > 1:18:58so in a sense we were the last ones left standing

1:18:58 > 1:19:00so we picked up everybody else's audience.

1:19:00 > 1:19:07We always had that side to us which was based more on the songwriting than on the playing,

1:19:07 > 1:19:09and that carried us through.

1:19:09 > 1:19:12MUSIC: "Follow You Follow Me" by Genesis

1:19:28 > 1:19:31And we started having hit singles.

1:19:31 > 1:19:37Follow You Follow Me opened a door for us. It was a reasonable hit. It wasn't massive.

1:19:37 > 1:19:43But after that, we were able to put out singles and they'd always get played for many years.

1:19:43 > 1:19:49A lot of them did well so suddenly that meant the potential audience became much bigger.

1:19:52 > 1:19:54Most bands weren't so lucky.

1:19:54 > 1:19:57Procol Harum's 10th album, Something Magic,

1:19:57 > 1:20:01an ambitious concept in which their instruments played characters

1:20:01 > 1:20:05in a story that was narrated, not even sung, became their swansong.

1:20:09 > 1:20:13We'd finished it. I don't know how we managed to record this thing.

1:20:13 > 1:20:18And then we turn around and there it is, of course, punks and...

1:20:21 > 1:20:28The way we left was just to sort of pack up on our last night of a tour and we said, "That's it, then."

1:20:28 > 1:20:30And we all went our separate ways.

1:20:46 > 1:20:54In the 1980s, original King Crimson lyricist Pete Sinfield uncovered a secret path into pop music

1:20:54 > 1:20:56as a writer of chart-topping hits.

1:20:56 > 1:20:59MUSIC: "The Land Of Make Believe" by Bucks Fizz

1:21:09 > 1:21:13Try and write something a lot of people will like quickly,

1:21:13 > 1:21:15yet still get something of you in it.

1:21:15 > 1:21:20"Something nasty in your garden, waiting till it'll steal your heart,"

1:21:20 > 1:21:22which for me, is like a King Crimson line.

1:21:22 > 1:21:25I've just taken it into a different setting.

1:21:25 > 1:21:30MUSIC: "The Land Of Make Believe" by Bucks Fizz

1:21:34 > 1:21:40King Crimson itself, staged several comebacks and its 1974 album, Red,

1:21:40 > 1:21:44would, in time, influence grunge guru, Kurt Cobain.

1:21:47 > 1:21:49Somewhere in 1987,

1:21:49 > 1:21:53I probably gave up noisy rock.

1:21:53 > 1:21:55I mean, there was the odd reunion tour.

1:21:55 > 1:21:58But in my mind, I was redefined as a jazz musician,

1:21:58 > 1:22:01which I probably should have been in the first place.

1:22:03 > 1:22:06Yes, teamed up with hip '80s producer, Trevor Horn,

1:22:06 > 1:22:10who helped tune their songs to the ears of a very different decade.

1:22:10 > 1:22:14MUSIC: "Owner Of A Lonely Heart" by Yes

1:22:52 > 1:22:55But the expedition to the far reaches of pop music,

1:22:55 > 1:23:00had left camp in the late '60s, was by now lost, forgotten,

1:23:00 > 1:23:03or only spoken of in hushed tones.

1:23:07 > 1:23:11Prog had become a really dirty word, you know.

1:23:11 > 1:23:14It's the sort of thing that you didn't mention in public.

1:23:14 > 1:23:20It's almost the only kind of music where people write off everything

1:23:20 > 1:23:21that's in the genre,

1:23:21 > 1:23:26without embarrassment, actually, and just say, you know, "It's all shit."

1:23:27 > 1:23:33People would go to a record store and say, "I'd like some, er...

1:23:33 > 1:23:39"couple of Country and Western, a bit of New Age,

1:23:39 > 1:23:40"and bit of Modern Romantic, please, as well.

1:23:40 > 1:23:44"A couple of punk albums, I'll have that, thank you very much,

1:23:44 > 1:23:45"a bit of classical, and, um...

1:23:46 > 1:23:48"..(have you got any prog rock?)"

1:23:48 > 1:23:51There were people out there that might not have liked Yes,

1:23:51 > 1:23:53but liked a bit of Genesis,

1:23:53 > 1:23:56might not have liked the Floyd, but liked Jethro Tull.

1:23:56 > 1:23:59"Er, yes, Sir, hold on. I'll do it under the counter."

1:23:59 > 1:24:03They do it under the counter in a brown paper bag and round the side.

1:24:03 > 1:24:07It was like...it was like the porn of the music industry.

1:24:07 > 1:24:11I went out and bought the first Sex Pistols album,

1:24:11 > 1:24:15and didn't mind telling people I had, and that I listened to it.

1:24:15 > 1:24:18Whereas Jonny Rotten, at the time, wouldn't admit to listening to Jethro Tull.

1:24:18 > 1:24:22But, many, many years later, admitted that one of his, sort of,

1:24:22 > 1:24:26seminal influences was the Aqualung album.

1:24:26 > 1:24:33I met Rat Scabies in an airport, right about to get on a plane,

1:24:33 > 1:24:36and he came up to me...

1:24:38 > 1:24:42..and he said, "Just want you to know, I'm a big fan of yours."

1:24:42 > 1:24:46But, you know, he just wanted to make sure nobody was looking.

1:24:46 > 1:24:50We were living the dream, you know, but it would be stupid

1:24:50 > 1:24:54for people to keep thinking that life was easy because of that.

1:24:54 > 1:24:55It's not easy.

1:24:55 > 1:25:00It's a lot of hard work and these lines on my face are evidence!

1:25:02 > 1:25:04The lost chord!

1:25:04 > 1:25:08You're always looking for that thing you haven't heard yet.

1:25:08 > 1:25:12Not everyone persevered in The Land Of Make Believe.

1:25:15 > 1:25:18There had been early casualties.

1:25:18 > 1:25:22The reason I stopped doing it rather suddenly...

1:25:25 > 1:25:30..was...simply because of my dependent psychology.

1:25:31 > 1:25:34I needed praise and I wasn't getting it.

1:25:37 > 1:25:44It was a bit like a child that dies aged three of malnutrition.

1:25:44 > 1:25:51You know, it gets born, there's all sorts of hope and...

1:25:51 > 1:25:56good expectations. It learns to walk, it learns to run, it learns to talk,

1:25:56 > 1:26:01and suddenly it gives up, because it didn't get enough nourishment.

1:26:01 > 1:26:03It was like that.

1:26:04 > 1:26:05For me.

1:26:12 > 1:26:17At its purest, progressive rock wasn't about money, celebrity,

1:26:17 > 1:26:20record contracts or the audience.

1:26:20 > 1:26:23It wasn't even a type of music.

1:26:23 > 1:26:25It was a belief. A value system of the early '70s.

1:26:25 > 1:26:29One that now seems like old time religion.

1:26:31 > 1:26:34Its creators, often precocious, sometimes indulged,

1:26:34 > 1:26:39occasionally deluded, but always uncompromising, baptised the decade

1:26:39 > 1:26:44with a soundtrack of stark virtuosity, weird time signatures...

1:26:44 > 1:26:47strange poetry and surprising beauty.

1:26:47 > 1:26:51The musical experiment, now labelled prog rock,

1:26:51 > 1:26:55and stored under the counter, or placed almost out of reach,

1:26:55 > 1:26:56on the top shelf.

1:26:59 > 1:27:02It grew out of rock music, and that's why it was written about

1:27:02 > 1:27:05in the rock press. But it's kind of a shame it ever became regarded

1:27:05 > 1:27:07as part of rock and roll, because...

1:27:07 > 1:27:10because it's not. I think the ethos is completely different,

1:27:10 > 1:27:14and if you judge it by the standards of rock and roll then it fails.

1:27:14 > 1:27:18It's actually a bunch of very talented musicians,

1:27:18 > 1:27:23who were kind of cursed with very musically intelligent brains,

1:27:23 > 1:27:27who got bored very quickly with playing three chords all the time,

1:27:27 > 1:27:32and wanted to do stuff which was more complex and more challenging.

1:27:32 > 1:27:37- I say, John?- Yes?- Tense up, control room. We're ready to do one.- Right.

1:27:37 > 1:27:43There's an expression which I like a lot, which is, success is buried in the garden of failure.

1:27:43 > 1:27:50So, if you're willing to go to that garden, and dig and dig and dig,

1:27:50 > 1:27:52and try and try and try,

1:27:52 > 1:27:57eventually you'll succeed with some ideas and some success.

1:27:57 > 1:28:02So if you possibly, tense up a little and we'll try and wax a hot one.

1:28:12 > 1:28:17Ah, that's better. Thank you. Um, sorry. What were you saying?

1:28:17 > 1:28:20# And you can fly

1:28:20 > 1:28:25# High as a kite if you want to

1:28:25 > 1:28:29# Faster than light if you want to

1:28:29 > 1:28:34# Speeding through the universe

1:28:35 > 1:28:40# Thinking is the best way to travel. #

1:28:40 > 1:28:43Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd