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Emerson, Lake & Palmer

N

nbaptista

pfm Member
I have a few vinyl records from ELP and I like very much this band.If you like progressive rock you must hear this band.Anyone else who like this band?
 
not very familiar with them, a bit before my time, fanfare--- is the tune that springs to mind, must be great on vinyl with big speakers
 
I grew up with them, certainly Tarkus, Trilogy and Brain Salad Surgery are essential in a good prog collection!
 
Brain Salad Surgery, inspired. Tarkus.
Plenty of other tracks but I find their other albums a rather mixed bag, tracks ranging from pure brilliance to naff.
The one and only Emerson Lake & Powell album was a pretty decent outing.
 
I used to be a fan, I've even seen them live. Now "Knife Edge" and "Nutrocker" are their only tunes I can still stomach, the rest can be so much pompous twaddle.
 
I have "Tarkus" and "Picture at an exhibition" on vinyl but they have been untouched for many years. I think they reached peak Progness with Tarkus
 
I LOVE ELP. Have all the early classic albums. The first one is a masterclass. Pictures at an Exhibtion is great, as is Tarkus (well the first side anyway). Trilogy is 'nice'.

Most of Brain Salad Surgery is really good and the album artwork etc is memorable. After that things start to tail off. Love Beach is Execrable and the late Emerson Lake & Powell is a bit naff.

Early ones, you can still hear the remnants of Emersons work with the Nice - classical themes taken and used.
 
I loved them at the time, and have all their albums up to (and including) Works vol. 1, but I kind of drifted away over the years. Must dig the vinyl out for a selective listen.
Never saw the band live (apart from an Emerson solo gig some years ago at the RFH). All three of them, with their partners, sat behind us at a PFM concert in the ‘seventies though!

Mick
 
I only have Trilogy and Pictures. I liked Trilogy when it first came out - borrowed from a school friend in the early 70s. I've not really felt the need to explore any more of their back catalogue.
 
A band that at times scaled the musical heights- yet seemed to have an unfortunate mixture of genius and garbage in the material. Keith Emerson was undoubtedly one of the most talented rock keyboard players in popular music, and one whose vision (and ability)stretched considerably beyond that.

I listen to tracks like "Karn Evil Nine (Second Impression)" and I am genuinely blown away by the level of talent and sheer excitement in the playing and composition. Then, something like "Benny The Bouncer" appears and you almost can't reconcile the two as being products of the same musical spirit.

I love the way their first album was recorded (Eddie Offord at the controls I think)- some of the best moments in being awe-struck by newly acquired hifi have been produced by playing "Take A Pebble"- which has this amazing ability to sound massive for a '70s recording, standing toe-to-toe with anything else of the era, including the usual rock suspects such as "Dark Side Of The Moon".

Well worth investigating this band, but approach with caution. :D
 
Emerson was one of the finest keyboard players ever. Oscar Peterson was a fan. I'm amazed at what he can do.

ELP collapsed under their weight of their own egos, but most albums up to Brain Salad were worthwhile. A hoot live too as the triple live album testifies.

That was wrongly stickered in Boots so I got it for the price of a mid-price single LP rather than a (then) unaffordable triple. One of the highlights of my young life!

Their so-called 'excess' now looks trivial compared to modern 'superstars' though.

Stephen
 
Seeker_UK said:
First album and Pictures are OK but I prefer The Nice who seemed to have a bit more 'grit' in their sound.
Click to expand...

I always preferred Keith Emerson with the Nice, but thought they were much better live than any of the albums they made. Saw them many times between 1967 - 70. Don't know how many organ repairs Keith got through back then as he had a habit of sticking large daggers in the keys of the Hammond's keyboard and then leaving the sustained notes running, while the rest of the band played, and walking away.

I was also quite fond of Brian Davison's (the Nice Drummer) band Every Which Way, which he formed after the Nice split, but it was fairly short lived.
 
I found ELP in a friend’s big sister’s record collection back in the 70s when I was about 12 or 13 and I loved them at that age. I bought a few of their albums second hand and still have lovely Island first pressings of Pictures and Tarkus. As others have said they never made a consistently good album, and to my mind they lack the creativity of say Yes or King Crimson, let alone Floyd, but they are good fun in a ridiculously excessive way. The side-long title-track of Tarkus has to be the high-watermark, it really is just bonkers (side 2 is dreadful, I think I only ever played it once!).

One day I’d like to hear Brain Salad Surgery again. I found a CD a while back and tried it, but it was some remix or something and sounded awful, just not how I remembered it at all. BSS is interesting as IIRC it features a Moog Apollo, which was kind of a prototype for the Polymoog and the world’s very first true polysynth.
 
My first gig. It was Sheffield City Hall in 70 or 71. I then discovered the Nice via that experience and (slightly) preferred their records, although I bought album 1, Tarkus, Pictures and the grandiose Works.
As mentioned, the Nice were a live band and their best albums are testament to that - Five Bridges and ‘red cover’ are stand-out.
 
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