Click around the radio dial and you might stumble upon an old Yes or Genesis song, but there will be almost no sign that progressive rock ever lived past the '80s.

Likewise, there are no blockbuster touring festivals where prog bands gather, comparable to Ozzfest or the Warped Tour.

Although the media may ignore it and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame may spurn it, there is a whole world of progressive rock flourishing on the Web and at a club near you.

Take the Swedish band The Flower Kings, on the Pittsburgh-based label Inside Out. It is about to release "The Sum of Evil," a record designed to stand alongside with orchestral classics such as "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway" and "Yessongs." To ensure its authenticity, the band used all vintage analogue equipment right down to the Hammond organs, mini Moogs and tube amplifiers.

That's the side of progressive rock -- which may or may not involve wearing robes -- that can reasonably be abbreviated down to "Prog" with a capital P. The Flower Kings have company, with retro-prog bands like Spock's Beard, Proto-Kaw and, of course, British veterans Marillion, who kept prog-geeks enthralled in the '80s.

But not all the bands deemed progressive are concerned with faithfully recapturing the past.

There's prog-metal, with the bludgeoning likes of Tool, Mastodon, Dream Theater and Queensryche.

There are bands like Mars Volta and Battles (featuring Ian Williams of Don Caballero) who approach progressive rock from the grinding indie-rock guitar school. Not far afield is Coheed & Cambria, bearing a strong resemblance to Rush.

There's the more Pink Floyd-ish space-rock side of prog that encompasses Flaming Lips, Secret Machines, Porcupine Tree and the late-great Grandaddy. Closely related are Radiohead and others like Sigur Ros, Muse and Mew crafting contemporary art-pop.

There are the post-rock bands like Mogwai and Tortoise from the Krautrock school of Can and Faust. Also on that avant-edge are French innovators Magma.

Prog crosses with "freak folk" in an artist like Joanna Newsom, who could very well headline a Renaissance festival.

And thousands of people line up for a prog band every holiday season when they go see the Trans-Siberian Orchestra -- symphonic prog.

Pittsburgh is represented with Persephone's Dream on the retro-prog side, and then "progressive" bands such as cinematic Zombi, the worldbeat Mandrake Project, math-rockers Don Caballero and even Black Moth Super Rainbow, which floats along the borderline of prog and psych.

It took a while for this to all be palatable again.

Ever since Johnny Rotten came along wearing a T-shirt that said "I Hate Pink Floyd," the danger of playing progressive rock -- with its flourishes of classical and jazz and frequent flights of fantasy -- was the risk of appearing pretentious or grandiose.

"For so long in music, after punk rock, it wasn't cool to be able to play your instrument well," says Zombi drummer Anthony Paterra. "There's something to be said for stripping music down, and I enjoy a lot of music like that. But I also enjoy heavily orchestrated stuff and music that is more textured. There will always be shifts. I feel like most everything has been explored, now it's about finding new ways to put stuff together in different ways. People are starting to appreciate music that isn't just 'simple' again."

Karl Hendricks, a music buyer for Paul's CDs and a prog fan (but not prog musician), says, "The genre is becoming less uncool. I hesitate to use the word geek, but think it's not just geeks listening to prog anymore." The music can thrive, Hendricks points out, because with the Internet "everything is fair game. People finding other people with similar tastes has decreased the stigma attached to liking certain things."

Jim Pitulski, former Dream Theater manager and founder of Inside Out Music, which boasts a roster that also includes Symphony X and Pain of Salvation, says there's a renewed interest in prog from a younger generation.

"I'm seeing kids going to shows with their parents, which I never saw before. Kids are coming up in an age where they crave substance. Go to a Dream Theater show, now there is a whole new generation of kids and they're 14, 15. That's really healthy and exciting."

Along with the bands that have made prog their focus, other bands from the rock realm seem to be dabbling in it. The Decemberists, pop craftsmen from Portland, Ore., used vintage Genesis as inspiration on "The Crane Wife." The pop-metal band Wolfmother had some Sabbath moments on its debut but also flashed some Jethro Tull. Wilco even took an unlikely prog excursion in the middle of the new "Sky Blue Sky."

"If you think about the career arch of successful bands," Hendricks says, "whether it's classic rock stars of the late '60s or heavy rock acts of the '70s, the ones that were successful and had long careers, as they got to their fifth, sixth record, they got weird -- because they could. They had established careers, so they could fool around. Not surprising to see a band like Wilco doing that."

Still, prog is the black sheep of music genres in many established critical circles. Pink Floyd is in, but the door to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has been closed to King Crimson, Genesis, Yes and ELP.

Perhaps, that's just the way it's supposed to be.

"On one hand," Pitulski says, "it helps prog bands feel that their music is special. By not having it recognized by the mainstream, it allows them to hold onto it as their own, as something the outside world doesn't get. And they kind of like that."

First Published: September 6, 2007, 8:00 a.m.