Welcome.  As I explain on the “Progopolis*Progrepublic*Proghalla” page, four of us (with the help of many, many others) decided to create this blog.  Our model (and its founders and writers are to be admired and mimicked) is the Dutch Progressive Rock Page, which I (Brad) have been following for well over a decade.  Our goal–especially given DRPR’s emphasis on things English and European–is to show that the new world (Latin America, Canada, and the U.S.) is just as interested in all progressive music in rock, jazz, and in new and old forms of classical.  We hope to be geographically neutral, overall, just professing our fondness for whatever so moves us.  So, while we will appreciate, notice, and review everything from Radiant Records (yes, we think the world of you, Chris Thompson!), Neal Morse, Rush, Advent, Heliopolis, Cailyn, and Innerspace, as well as promote American radio icon, Richard Schwartz, we’ll also give all due and just consideration to Big Big Train, The Fierce and the Dead, The Reasoning, Ayreon, Gazpacho, The Flower Kings, David Elliott (that Amazing Wilf), etc.

The four founders of this blog have much in common–we’re all about the same age and we tend to have similar views about creativity and the world.  We are very intense in the things we do, and we rarely enjoy a thing unless it is done with exacting standards.  Most importantly, though, we love music.

I was born in 1967, only days after the release of the Magical Mystery Tour, and while I’ve been in love with music since the beginning (so my sainted mother can verify), I’ve been a Progarchist since about 1971.  I first became fully aware of prog, though, in 1973 with the arrival of YesSongs in my house.  I fell in love with the art first and the music second.  After a short while, though, I saw no real separation of the two.  But, it wasn’t just prog rock–I grew up in a house full of classical music as well as jazz.  As I see it (and the other three founders would agree), there’s no discontinuity in admiring Palestrina, Wagner, Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis, Neal Peart, Mark Hollis, Henryk Gorecki, Arvo Part, Greg Spawton, Nick D’Virgilio, and Matt Stevens.

So, please become naturalized citizens in our little happy corner of the world, Progarchy.  We will do our best to pursue all that is good, true, and beautiful.

Yours, Brad

***

And, a huge thanks to our many friends around the globe not already mentioned: Richard Thresh, Tobbe Janson, Thaddeus Wert, Robin Armstrong, Alison Henderson, Godfrey York, David Longdon, Captain Redbeard, Frank Urbaniak, Pablo Daniel Bujan Matas, Andy Wilson, Evert Classon, Lisa Mallen, John Deasey, Nick Efford, Craig Farham, Rob Aubrey, Phil Clemsford, Brian Watson, Paul Watson, Rob Benbow, Matt Cohen, Philip Lort, Steve Dunstan, Brian (of @progrocktweets), Julie Robison, Steve Horwitz, Aeon Skoble, Sarah Skwire, Dom D., Pete Blum, Steve Hayward, S.T. Karnick, Dan Bell, Mikael Stridh, Dan Crandall, Chuck Hicks, Brian Sullivan, and others!