Tell us about your first experience...

[Kaboom]

Gdamn, just about everyone here grew up with prog!
I'm now 19 and i discovered prog just over a year ago, thanx to this board. A year and a half ago i picked up a copy of DSOTM in London (i live in spain) because i had always heard of it as a cult album and because i digged the cover. When i arrived back home and listened to it i was fairly unimpressed by it, perhaps because i didnt quite LISTEN to it, but played it as background music.
then a couple of weeks later i SAT DOWN and LISTENED to the album and WHOA, that was some seriusly AWESOME music!!!
after than i found Wish You Were Here in a used record store in Madrid and i absolutely loved it (i still consider it one of the finest albums in my collection)
Then i found this board and you guys opened my eyes to Yes, Jethro Tull, Genesis... Later came ELP, Bowie, King Crimson, Porcupine Tree (popping stupid dream into the CD player in THIS very moment), Spock's Beard... at the beginning I was downloading so many albums that i barely had time to listen to it all (i first dload an album, if i like it, i buy it).
And yeah, my CD and record collection has grown quite spectacularly specially since i own quite a few albums on both wax and plastic.
I cannot thank you people enough to opening my eyes to such amazing music. In a world conquered by 4/4, thumpy, stupid, miserable music sung by anorexic chicks with big a$$es and played by computers or, worse still, vinyl slayers (them goddamn DJs...) There's nothing quite as refreshing as spinning Close to the Edge or Leftoverture, or In Absentia or Selling England by the pound and marvelling at the sheer genious of the music... oh well...

On another note, I finally managed to download the Hinterland album by Wobbler. I was MOST unimpressed. Yeah the sounds were there but it failed to capture my interest. As Troy said, the songs just seem to go nowhere... they dont really "progress"
Beware of the songs on the website. I also loved "leprachaun behind the door" and the other free MP3s, but the album is nowhere near as good as those cuts (in my opinion)
Cheers!