"Every Home Is Wired": 2 -- The Progressive Rock Subculture and the Net

"Every Home Is Wired":
2 -- The Progressive Rock Subculture and the Net

Particularly Progressive Rock's long existence in a subcultural underground first in the U.S. and then, after its fall from music industry grace, in Europe explains why information about new bands and music is highly treasured in the community. The community was forced to make the best of whatever information it could find, creating closely connected networks of fans communicating through fanzines, fan clubs, eventually also dedicated radio shows of their own. (This distributed community would later also be ideally positioned to move Prog fandom onto electronic networks, of course: Gibraltar mailing-list editor Mike Taylor is also still the host of the 'Rock of Gibraltar' Progressive Rock show on a New Orleans college radio station, for example.)	Bit 15
The very scarcity of new information also led to a repeated concern with what is known, particularly as older members of the subculture introduce newer recruits to the Prog genre; it is at this point, then, that central 'community myths' emerge and grow stronger. These include the canon of core Prog bands, the relations between them, their members, and their styles, an increasing amount of trivia knowledge based on anecdotes, rumours, and interpretations of music, lyrics and liner notes, and on a lighter note also the particular deference paid to the 'mighty Mellotron' with its notoriously temperamental mechanical workings. Obviously, in its reliance on hard-to-get sources, its reading of these materials, and its structural organisation, this fan community is also acting very much in a tactical way.	Bit 16

Particularly Progressive Rock's long existence in a subcultural underground first in the U.S. and then, after its fall from music industry grace, in Europe explains why information about new bands and music is highly treasured in the community. The community was forced to make the best of whatever information it could find, creating closely connected networks of fans communicating through fanzines, fan clubs, eventually also dedicated radio shows of their own. (This distributed community would later also be ideally positioned to move Prog fandom onto electronic networks, of course: Gibraltar mailing-list editor Mike Taylor is also still the host of the 'Rock of Gibraltar' Progressive Rock show on a New Orleans college radio station, for example.)

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The very scarcity of new information also led to a repeated concern with what is known, particularly as older members of the subculture introduce newer recruits to the Prog genre; it is at this point, then, that central 'community myths' emerge and grow stronger. These include the canon of core Prog bands, the relations between them, their members, and their styles, an increasing amount of trivia knowledge based on anecdotes, rumours, and interpretations of music, lyrics and liner notes, and on a lighter note also the particular deference paid to the 'mighty Mellotron' with its notoriously temperamental mechanical workings. Obviously, in its reliance on hard-to-get sources, its reading of these materials, and its structural organisation, this fan community is also acting very much in a tactical way.

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Section 2 -- Go on to Bite:

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