INTRODUCTION TO OUR BLOG

DISCOVERING PROG: FROM FATHER TO SON AND BACK AROUND

Every new blog should have a purpose, and we state ours here. Amid the crowded field of blogs about progressive rock music, we offer a distinctively different viewpoint. 

Briefly, we are father (Dan) and son (Steve). We both discovered progressive rock rather early in our respective lives. Dan is now 78 and began listening to rock and roll in the 1950s. Steve is now 53 and was exposed to Dan's music collection from birth. 

For the past 53 years our prog experiences have overlapped so that we have learned from each other, as we will explain in our opening "Stories". Briefly, Dan's love of jazz mingled with his interest in rock music beginning in his teens. Steve's interest in prog goes much deeper than Dan's, as his story relates. 

We aim to express our appreciation for the music we have enjoyed together, tell the stories of how we discovered particular artists and albums and what those discoveries mean to us. 

A few guiding principles:

1. We won't be featuring albums we don't like. What would be the point? We intend to write posts on particular albums that mean the most to us, either jointly or individually. Hopefully, our posts will lead others to discover new music or to understand familiar music more deeply.

2. We welcome comments from readers, especially corrections and disagreements. We promise to handle each comment with dignity and respect for the opinions of others.

3. We both have huge record collections that include vinyl, CDs, and digital files. We estimate that we physically "possess" close to 10,000 albums between us. We actually have all the albums we write about.

4. We're both literate and experienced writers. Steve has contributed album and artist reviews to other outlets, including Exposé and ProgArchives. Dan contributed over 200 reviews of jazz albums on his blog with Scott Mortensen: MORE FAVORITES: Reflections on Jazz in the 1980s (jazzinthe80s.blogspot.com). Dan has published well over 100 academic articles and 5 books. In short, we know how to express ourselves and we hope readers agree. We also will provide high resolution album cover art and band photos to complement textual material. 

5. Posts will follow a rough timeline of album releases, beginning in the 1960s and continuing onward. We plan to post thorough reviews and commentaries on over 100 prog albums. We expect to keep the posts coming once the blog is launched. We hope to attract followers and commenters as we go.