Crowdsourced Song Of The Day 9/10/2012: Gentle Giant - "The House, The Street, The Room"

Today's CSOTD comes to us courtesy of Stanbery 'Stanley' Foster III, who offered a reasonable defense of progressive rock earlier this week on his Facebook wall:

"YOUR MILEAGE MAY VARY. Whoever extrapolated that phrase from (I assume) the realm of automotive pursuits could've had no better prompting for genericizing it than having patiently played a side of a Gentle Giant album for several people, most of whom scowled, and maybe one of whom had a puzzled but expectant look."

Actually, Gentle Giant's one of the prog rock groups I pretty much liked immediately. And that's in spite of the fact that their mascot is a Tolkein-esque gnome. It shares some similarities to strains of prog rock that I enjoy listening to: early Genesis, King Crimson, the Canterbury scene, anything with a Robert Wyatt in it. And Can. Oh, the warm, moist feelings that occur when I hear a Can album.

Gentle Giant were as enamored by the subtle, composition-centric charms of prog rock, as much as Keith Emerson was enamored by how absolutely pompous he could make himself sound after being lowered into his barracks of keyboards. (About a decade ago, in a research laboratory known as King Solomon's Reef Cocktail Lounge, some intrepid customers discovered that the best way to clear out a barroom was to play Emerson, Lake & Palmer's version of Aaron Copland's "Hoedown." I've seen it.)

But anyway. We digress. I don't always listen to progressive rock. But when I do, it might be Gentle Giant. Thanks, Stanbery!