Yes Is the Answer (and Other Prog-Rock Tales) is a funny and endlessly quotable look at one of music's least cool genres, and we can't decide who nails it better: Andrew Mellen, who calls prog rock “the chess club or debate team of rock & roll,” or Tom Junod, who calls the era's fans “stoned and semi-smart, sensitive and without any real prospects for getting laid.” Editors Marc Weingarten and Tyson Cornell have compiled this collection of testimonials, remembrances and near-scholarly examinations by novelists, former L.A. Weekly scribes and musicians who both profess genuine love and lovingly mock the genre's gentle giants, including Yes, King Crimson, Emerson, Lake & Palmer and Peter Gabriel-era Genesis. Among them: Seth Greenland (Emmy-winning writer-producer of HBO's Big Love), who remembers watching The Nice at Fillmore East when he was 12, and Larry Karaszewski (Golden Globe-winning screenwriter of The People vs. Larry Flynt), who claims to have seen Todd Rundgren close to 100 times. The Ice Storm author Rick Moody even provides a two-part list on the pros and cons of ELP that begins: “They were twats.” Tonight, Weingarten and Cornell will read excerpts, followed by more events at Skylight Books (June 13) and Cinefamily (June 15), including screenings of 1977's 45-minute CinemaScope film Genesis in Concert and Styx's 1983 Kilroy Was Here. Book Soup, 8818 Sunset Blvd., W. Hlywd.; Tues., June 4, 7 p.m.; free, book is $24. (310) 659-3110, booksoup.com.

Tue., June 4, 7 p.m., 2013

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