LiveProg was founded in May 2010 by Marcel Haster. Although a music lover his entire life, in (also May) 1993 a chance meeting changed his life, when he borrowed a copy of Marillion’s Clutching at Straws from a friend. This changed his life and from that moment he started to explore the world of symphonic and progressive rock.
Another chance meeting led to Marcel becoming the webmaster for Ayreon.com from 2000 till 2003, working closely with Arjen Lucassen. Next to the website, Marcel also ran the fanclub and the webstore. After the Star One tour in 2003, it was clear that Ayreon needed someone with more webbuilding skills as well as dedicated time, so Marcel stepped out.
The next move was reviewing. Marcel started to write reviews, for various prog websites, like ProgPower Europe, Background Magazine and Progressive World. Along the way also interviews came about and Marcel did a few interviews, like with Porcupine Tree’s Steven Wilson.
It truned out the choice to move to reviewing, was a good one, as Marcel really enjoyed it and got a lot of great feedback from bands and labels on his writings. Marcel continued to write until around 2008/2009. Sadly a depression brought everything to a halt…
Starting LiveProg
At the end of 2009, things started to go better, especially after the help of a professional. So the urge to get back to reviewing also came back. However, there were many reviewers out there and Marcel would just be one of the many, who wrote about prog music. At that point Marcel decided he wanted to do something different, expres his love for the music in a different way, do something no one else did…
And then it hit him! A camera! He had a pretty decent digital camera, that could record video! How about doing a review on video, rather than write one. The album he picked for his try-out was the debut album of a new British band called IO Earth.
Now, before he started his venture on YouTube, he did search, to see if there was anyone else doing this already. Upon his search, he found two YouTubers making review video’s: The Daily Guru and The Needle Drop. But no dedicated prog channels. So Marcel was good to go and founded his YouTube channel on May 2nd, 2010.
Of course a fitting name needed to be found…quite an interesting task, and of course the word ‘prog’ had to be included 😉 So after some brainstorming, the name was found: Live Prog. At a certain point Marcel came into contact with a Swiss-based designer, Laurie-Design and she created the logo, as well as other images, like a design for a t-shirt and more, but later about that!
The early years
The first ever video review by LiveProg was picked up and many loved it. Simple edit software was purchased and several video’s followed after that. PBII, Crystal Lake, Also Eden, Eris Pluvia, God is an Astronaut (the first vinyl review!), ArK, Glass Hammer, Us, Aeon Zen…The another first came: an inteview!
The first interview was one that included a roadtrip! Together with his oldest son (who was still very young at the time) Marcel travelled to the studio of the Dutch band Mangrove to do an interview with the band. This was a really nice experience and many more interviews would follow. Sometimes in the dressingroom of a venue, sometimes even at the home or studio of a band and even at LiveProg HQ!
What you didn’t see in the videos – The struggle behind the scenes (This and more coming soon!)