Brief History

ProgNaut, November 5th, 2008

Hello and welcome all web travelers to the history section of ProgNaut.com. My name is Ron and I'm a native Southern California. I was born in Burbank (a suburb of Los Angeles) back in 1966. Across the street from NBC Television Studios in fact.

Briefly I've been listening to the progressive rock genre ever since 1987, when I bought my first prog cassette tape (Marillion's Misplaced Childhood), but it wasn't until 1990, when something amazing happened to me, musically... while working at a local record shop in Glendale (Music Exchange), the manager put on (the in-store stereo system) a cd by King Crimson called Red. He put this on because, in his own words "wanted to educate me on music". At that time I was into thrash metal and classic rock, odd combo huh? Well upon hearing Red, I was mesmerized by the dissonant yet beautiful metallic sound. I finally heard, in my opinion, the perfect "rock and roll" album.

Well needless to say, I quickly bought the store copy. After listening to Red in the comfort of my own home, my music buying habits changed forever that day! Mind you, up until that time all I heard (usual on the radio) was the usual suspects of progressive rock, such as Yes, ELP, Kansas & Genesis, Pink Floyd, etc.

Fast forward a few years to 1993, while I was reading a local paper L.A. Weekly, I came across an ad for a progressive rock festival, called Progfest, at U.C.L.A.'s Royce Hall. There for the first time, I was able to witness progressive rock in a live venue. In fact, I saw very two memorable & stellar performances both by IQ & Anglagard.

Since then, I've had the luxury of being at all of the Los Angeles based Progfests and witnessed some amazing performances at each one. Some of my personal highlights of each year are Giraffe's amazing rendition of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway with the late Kevin Gilbert at the helm. Echolyn (their first and so far only west coast appearance.) They were the most modern edged (and the loudest) prog bands at Progfest '94. At Progfest '95, Spock's Beard. Progfest '97, Spock's Beard (again), John Wetton. (Some time after the show ended, maybe around midnight, I had a wonderful with Martin Orford of IQ & John Wetton band and learned more about IQ). Also The Flower Kings (Since then, I have seen them in better form (yet louder) at The Troubadour (West Hollywood) in April 2002.

In early 1998, as a way to say thanks to the genre of music that I love, I created a proto-type ProgNaut.com site that first served as a personal homepage of my favorite progressive rock bands worldwide.
In May 2001, I first started to review CDs with the sole intention of showing the “fan’s point of view” and since then it’s exploded into a small but viable existence in the prog community.

The year 2003 marked ProgNaut.com's 5th year anniversary which will include hopes of bigger and better things on the horizon. In 2004, the requests by bands and labels for reviews just kept coming in, making it a very busy year.

There are many milestones in 2005. One was the creation of the banner/ logo for ProgNaut.com made by Ed Unitsky. Another was the addition of a page over at MySpace.com. The amount of CD & DVD submissions continued to increase between 2005 and present day.

Beginning in December 2005, there was some guest reviewers added to help take on the work load. These guest reviewers style is very much insinc with the quality of reviews that have made ProgNaut.com possibly the only review site that feature reviews from a fan's perspective rather than a journalist.

Both 2007 and 2008 were filled with changes both on ProgNaut.com and my personal life. In 2008, Sept 5th to be exact, I moved from California to Maine. The only reason was to be with my girlfriend. It was the best decision I had ever made.

In 2009, there will be some more chnages. Please stand by!