I discovered the vast underground prog scene somewhere in late 1997 or early 1998, mostly through King Crimson and Dream Theater. I started Ground & Sky in late 1999 as I seem to have a permanent urge to write about things I like, music obviously being one of them. I quickly amassed what seems to me like an absurdly large music collection, then slowed down as financial realities set in. However, I'm still accumulating CDs at a rate that might turn out to be unsustainable.

Within the prog genre, my favorites tend to be the dark, the heavy, and the complex. King Crimson, Magma, Univers Zero, and the like are thus clear favorites, along with a few other RIOish groups like Thinking Plague. I'm not much of a symphonic fan any more, though I really like older After Crying and stuff like Uzva and some of the Italian groups. For some reason I have a much higher tolerance for non-Anglophone symphonic prog than I do for the English-language stuff, perhaps because much of it tends to be folkier and a bit more down-to-earth — it's the overly-theatrical stuff I don't generally take to very well (but then, I do love Magma, so who knows). In particular, I have an affinity for late-70s Spanish bands like Triana, Mezquita, etc. In any case, I've never liked the bombastic keyboard-heavy style that ELP exemplified, so anything along those lines is guaranteed to turn me off. In fact, I was never even much of a fan of early Genesis, which also rules out a lot of neo-prog for me.

In the past few years my tastes have diversified considerably. It started with a fascination with indie-rock and the "hip" 90s underground, as I was exposed to Godspeed You Black Emperor! and other "post-rock" groups. This interest extended to other forms of contemporary indie music and even some straight mainstream pop. I have no shame in admitting that I enjoy the likes of Shakira, Kylie Minogue, etc. Well, maybe just a little. Anwyay, I also really got into hip-hop, mostly underground hip-hop. Big, big favorites include The Coup, Mos Def, Cannibal Ox, and Anti-Pop Consortium. As with my taste in prog, with hip-hop I'm more into the current experimental stuff than I am the old-school classics.

My most recent discoveries have been extreme metal and avant-jazz. With regards to the former, I was a prog-metal fan since hearing Dream Theater back in the day, but upon hearing Opeth I quickly found my way into the world of cookie monster vocals, death metal, black metal, and so on. More recently I've discovered the joys of bands that combine this ultra-heavy aesthetic with the structural and dynamic intelligence of post-rock: bands like Isis and Pelican have become fast favorites. With regards to avant-jazz, the downtown and West Coast scenes have caught my ear, mostly thanks to a few limited forays into the extensive ouevres of the likes of John Zorn, Tim Berne, and Nels Cline. This is probably the area of music that I'm currently exploring the most enthusiastically.

I've made tentative explorations of some other genres like IDM/electronica, various world musics, and 20th century classical music, but not enough to figure out exactly what I like.

Also see: my blog, updated regularly; my favorite albums of each year from 1997 onwards; and my current list of DC-area live concerts of interest.