101 Rules of Prog Metal

These, from the Metal Storm forum, seem rather more true than some prog-metal fans are prepared to admit. Some examples:

6. When showcasing a new prog metal band to a non-musician friend, put on the most technically difficult song, and skip directly to the solo part.
7. If your friend says that it is cool, tell him that he has grasped the grandeur of prog and shown that his intelligence is superior to that of the mainstream sheep.
8. If he doesn´t, accuse him of lacking musical intelligence and not being a true prog fan.

And then…

34. Make sure your bandname is either a
a) Oxymoron
-Silent Noise
-Tender Harshness
-Healing Gun
Some geeky sounding name ripped from some obscure book.
-Deitronus
-Tarakoch
-Fentaran
or
c) Random combination of at least 2 three-syllable words.
-Eternal Twilight Tranquility (Can’t get much progger than that)
-Redolent Arithmetic
-Evolution of Vernacular Domesticated
35. Don’t worry about if your band name makes any sense or not. Since 90% of your fanbase is from Brazil and Japan, you can safely ignore conventional English grammar and instead focus on what´s really important:

NRT would probably approve of rule 90

90. No, Marillion is not prog. I kindly refer you to rule 20.

Link from DavidT (or possibly DavidT’s cardboard cutout) on the Unofficial MA forum

Update: 101 Rules of Power Metal from the same site is even funnier:

71. Whenever you short of ideas, pick up your Dungeons and Dragons books. You might as well be the first band to sing about owlbears.

Owlbears? I’m waiting for someone to start singing about Gelatinous Cubes…