What is OzProg?

OzProg is an organisation with two main focuses: our website, and the services we offer to artists.

Artist services

If you're in a band and have wondered why it's so difficult to find affordable, high quality art/design/promotion services, then OzProg is for you. We have a team of artist, designers and music industry experts who can help your band with promotion and related services - and best of all, we understand that you haven't yet scored that million dollar contract, so you're unlikely to be able to afford exorbitant fees.

We can produce CD artwork, posters, flyers, press kits, websites and pretty much any other artistic service you're likely to need. For more detailed information, check out our services section.

OzProg.com

For fans of progressive music in Australia we have OzProg.com - a webzine-style publication with news, reviews, interviews and opinions from some great Australian music industry professionals.

As well as that we operate the most active progressive music forum in the country, with hundreds of like-minded Aussie prog fans discussing all things music. We also host official forums for a lot of Australian bands. (If you want a hosted forum - and it's free, so why wouldn't you? - check this out!)

History

OzProg.com has been around, in various incarnations, for a number of years. The very first venture was a petition for an Australian Dream Theater tour organised by Gary Carson, Brad Dixon and Nick MacLean. Despite almost 5,000 people signing the petition, it was ultimately unsuccessful in bringing Dream Theater to Australia, but what it did manage to do was bring Aussie prog fans together in a single place, something which hadn't been achieved to that point.

This success was identified by Brad and Gary who turned the petition into OzDT, an Australian Dream Theater fan website and community, which continued to thrive until financial troubles forced it to close down in 2002.

Some time in 2003 Brad Dixon met Andrew Saltmarsh (a banana bender and fellow prog fan) in Jordan Rudess' chat room. The two discussed the OzDT project and decided it was worthwhile resurrecting it, but before long it was realised that the scope of a Dream Theater fan club was far too limited and that it would be more useful to create a service that could cater to everyone with an interest in progressive music, not just Dream Theater.

They identified a clear lack of services aimed at the small prog bands starting out in the music business, such as cover art, website design, press kits and the like. Since they were both involved in creative arts and design - with considerable experience behind them - they decided that OzProg would serve as an all-in-one service provider for progressive bands from all over the country.

These services, coupled with a review/interview website, forum, gig guide and classifieds, would form the core of the OzProg project.

Today the project is going strong with a lot of support from some of the biggest names in progressive music in Australia, and OzProg has had a hand in developing some of the most exciting new talent to come out of this country in a long time.