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Yeah, you're the kind of guy I had in mind.

So tell me: Are there any current acts that tend in that direction? I guess my main curiosity is why the same ol'-same ol' "grunge"/garage band stuff seems to come out with great regularity. It's mostly vapid music, and I suppose, very easy to play, but I can't figure out why it remains the stuff of choice for the current generation.

It would be like if the "garage band" acts of the sixties just begat more and more garage bands just like them, for fifteen years or so.

Instead of Yes or Led Zeppelin or King Crimson, we'd have more and more Beau Brummels, Dave Clark Fives, and Kingsmen. It would be totally stagnant.

In fact, there is a wide variety of stuff out there today--I listen quite a bit to jazz and so-called "trip-hop" (most of which is heavily influenced by Be-Bop), as well as lots of 70s-80s stuff that, as I said, sounds very fresh with the updated recordings, and of course also Classical.

There's not much I DON'T like, except for the "strictly commercial" junk, whatever the genre.

But I can't stop wondering why the "younger generation" hasn't evolved their musical tastes as you have. It seems they could start making their own complex music, instead of just more twanging guitars.

BTW, I HAVE heard several by Phish--which is actually a long-running act that started I believe in the 80s--and I do like what I've heard, but they don't have much company.

BTW, I HAVE heard several by Phish--which is actually a long-running act that started I believe in the 80s--and I do like what I've heard, but they don't have much company.

You might want to check out the Furthur Network which is basically a Napster/Kazzaa like program for live music of bands which allow fans to tape their shows. You can find plenty of Phish and similar bands I'd imagine you'd be interested in. You can find the software at www.furthurnet.com. Jeff

There are no mainstream bands that have any prog/art rock influences to my knowledge. The way I see it, current popular music pretty much consists of teeny boppers who lip-sync (N-Sync, Britney), bands that thrash on electric guitars and scream (Linkin Park), and dorks who strum acoustic guitars and whine (Dave Matthews, John Mayer). Actually, Dave Matthews isn't all that bad as current pop acts go..

As for current but non-mainstream bands, Dream Theater has some really good prog rock albums. They have a lot of Rush, Pink Floyd, and Genesis influence without sounding overly derivative. However, their latest album, Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, has a much more mainstream sound. Not that it's bad, but it's not really what I'd consider art rock. I haven't heard all their albums yet, but so far Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes From a Memory is my favorite.

Spock's Beard is another current prog act. I have one of their albums (I forget which); I wasn't too impressed with it. It was musically all over the place, and one song in particular was a ridiculously blatant and quite annoying Gentle Giant ripoff.

I also have several Phish albums, I like their music too. Junta is very good and rather unappreciated. You mentioned listening to jazz--do you have any Dave Brubeck albums? No music collection is complete without Time Out!

I've given a lot of thought to why most people my age don't care about decent music, and I really don't understand it. The only thing I can think of is that with people having other sources of entertainment (more TV, Internet, etc.) and generally having more hectic lives, music gets pushed into the background. It's just background noise for working, driving, eating, etc. Therefore it just needs to have a catchy melody, be easy to sing along with, and that's about it. Not many people have the time or willingness to load up the CD changer, turn the lights out, and just sit and enjoy the music. If they did, they certainly would not stand for the crap that is released these days. :)

As for DVD-Audio, it allows music to be stored at a much higher resolution than CD. Plus it allows for surround sound (which I don't use). DVD-Audio-capable players are just now becoming affordable and fairly widespread. However, I doubt that it will catch on for two reasons: It's not backwards compatible with CD, and CDs are more than good enough for boomboxes, most car stereos, $200 all-in-one stereos, etc. Then again, when the CD came out back in '82, many people thought it would never catch on because existing cassette tapes and LPs were "good enough", so who knows!