ELP, I need some body, ELP, not just anybody, and not YOU, Carl Palmer

Carl Palmer is the last man standing. Anybody care? 

Actually the only reason to care about either of the others is that you kinda wish a REALLY long life for most anyone. Greg Lake was "only" 69. Without cancer, why, he might've just dropped dead of a heart attack at 89. 

As for Keith Emerson, it's well known that he suffered from depression, and that his physical problems of not being able to dazzle on a keyboard at 71 were an added burden. (It's an irony that classical pianists such as Horowitz and Rubinstein played excellently well into their late 80's). 

Let's not forget a key fact. Despite their cliche music, and the fact that so much of progrock is self-indulgent garbage, they were successful. They won awards. One of their biggest achievements was winning FLAT FINGER awards. 

These are given out for singers who sing flat, but give the finger to the audience, show-off keyboard players who flatten their fingers out and doodle all over the place as if being fast is being good, and flat-out fuckheads on drums, which accounts for most drummers. But you do have to be extra flat in the brain to flatten your sticks and pound out very obvious and uninspired clunking. 

Yes, here they are, accepting their multiple FLAT FINGER awards. Oooh, what lucky men they were.

Greg was, of course, the lead singer on the very first Bloody Monarch album. Or something like that. It was the one with the gruesome album cover. Or were they all gruesome? IF I'M BEING HONEST, progrock album covers excelled at being gruesome, when they weren't being dirty (ooh, "Blind Faith" and the pedogirl, and "Supertramp Indelibly Stamped" and the panties-and-big-gap-between-her-legs "Flash" cover). 

But I digress. Certainly Greg's work was brilliant. Could anybody else have oozed over some of the slower tracks? Could Shauna have used her vocoder to yammer and squeal as the 21st Century Schizoid Slut? Of course not. Too bad Bloody Monarch and ELP and many others (like Boko Harum) were not really driven by a photogenic or charismatic lead vocalist, so most had no idea what the name of the lead singer was, and didn't care. 

Fact is, at his passing, Greg's obit-fame centered almost entirely on being a third of ELP. Almost all the 50-something and 60-something brain damaged fans of progrock whined about how great ELP was and "he will be missed, RIP."

A typical example of how ELP fans thought of their fave band is THIS blogger's recollection: 

Gabba gabba hey! Nudge nudge wink wink say no more! 

Look, man, the mark of a GOOD progrock band is how well you remember it when your brain's fried. Had a good time stumbling around at the show? Then you'll be a fan for as long as you can remember it all. Which could be a day, a week, or maybe 30 or 40 years. You never know. Or you may barely know your own name. It's ALL good.

Ayyyyy, it's PSYCH, isn't it? 

Back in the 70's bands, little Cheshire, what you did was take drugs and put on a side of an ELP album (or some Led Zep or even Grateful Dead) and NOD OUT. 

You'd barely remember to turn the record over. Hell, since you had an automatic turntable, you just sat on the bed, and let the tone arm slide back to track one over and over. Yeah, you'd play that same side all night long,  at full volume, and not even hear your neighbors saying, "You are a fucking asshole, Adie, CUT IT OUT!"