Rick Moody defends Gentle Giant

I'm hardly a prog-head, but they had a string of albums that were quite wonderful. Octopus or Acquiring The Taste might be more representative than Free Hand. The R&B roots were never as far from the surface as Moody seems to think.

Yeah I've always understood GG to be a well-received prog band, even if not the most popular.

Gong on the other hand.....

interesting: novelist reveals himself as a closet rock critic. I remember when those roles were reversed.

one of his short stories (in either Ring of Brightest Angels or Demonology) was a discography with footnotes

http://www.artistdirect.com/Images/Sources/AMGCOVERS/music/cover200/dre700/e746/e74626cg32q.jpg

ELP is certainly the most reviled prog band, by prog fans and non-fans alike. they are/were awful.

rick wakemen solo albums make ELP look fucking awesome. at least ELP had some tunes here and there.

oh man renaissance is really pretty hard to take, I loved them during my brief prog phase tho

but yeah most of the people I knew who, like me, went through an "I can't believe I used to like that crap" phase w/prog would have cited GG as a particularly noxious brand of prog

That 4/4 time is really boring and starts to hurt your head after a while.

Now there's a bit of fiction.

Lots of good Gentle Giant, two or three bad ones, particularly near the end. The last record, a live recording from LA, is terrible. It seems to be a mix of the old stuff, badly played, and the newer material, jacked up to appeal to a punk/New Wave audience which never dug 'em, also badly played. They actually wrote a song called "Betcha Thought We Couldn't Do It" in what they believed to be punk rock style but the joke was on them. They couldn't. That came from one of their latter records, The Missing Piece, one of their worst.

However, their first live one, Playing the Game, is powerful and quite good.

First became interested in them when they were on In Concert. "Knots" was the piece that grabbed the attention. It came from Octopus.

If you're interested in delving, get it or In A Glass House or Acquiring the Taste or the debut. They're all fairly consistant and representative. For a prog band, GG had the most bluesy guitarist, Gary Green, an American amidst the Brits.

ELP --they are/were awful

Entirely different kettle of fish than GG. Ruled record sales, airwaves and the stadiums in the US around the time of California Jam.

one of his short stories (in either Ring of Brightest Angels or Demonology) was a discography with footnotes

-- dmr

Proclamation - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWfmfgHXAfE

So Sincere - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKZMvGUOtyA&feature=related

I highly recommend this DVD. I've watched it several times, every time a bunch of musicians are over it comes up and we watch a bit of it. Such total geeks, such amazing musicians.

Drummer is a force of nature!

& don't forget the 1999 IDM Gentle Giant remix record 'Knots': http://www.discogs.com/release/295924

ha ha

5.0/5 (1 vote) Rate It

Very short story that chronicles a life wasted largely in terms of the increasingly obscure and critic-friendly musics appreciated during its descending stages.

oh yeah I guess he's done a couple like that, I forgot about that one

I was thinking of "Primary Sources" in Ring which is not just music but it namechecks a lot of LPs

woebot on GG:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSCWU_YLBs4&feature=related

GG is great. Power & the Glory, Free Hand, Acquiring the Taste, the debut, all excellent and accessible.

Despite trying, In a Glass House never did anything for me. But I like Giant for a Day, so feel free to abuse me.

Incredibly talented band...but they always left me cold to some degree. Very creative/ingenuous, obviously put on a great show, but to me there is a "technique > passion" aura about their music. The other thing is can't really take the main lead singer's grating voice. Kerry Minnear, the keyboardist and other lead singer, had more tolerable vocals, but at his worst sounds like an anemic choirboy.

That being said, "Knots" and "On Reflection" are both incredible tunes, and Free Hand, Octopus and In a Glass House are all worth hearing, as probably are Power and the Glory and Three Friends. I heard that when they would play live, and would go into an insanely intricate passage, they had a lit sign above them that said "Pretentious" go off (they were touring a compilation album or something by that name)...that's brilliant. :)

Sherman Helmsley is a big fan (no joke).

er, "ingenious", I think.

"Think of Me with Kindness"...another great one that springs to mind.

"It would seem impossible to defend Gentle Giant, and yet that is what I mean to do."

oy, i hate when he writes about music. 20 years ago the idea of defending prog might have seemed novel. maybe. probably not. i mean, i remember in the 80's you could say something like "no, really, i DO like the carpenters, for real!" and maybe raise an eyebrow from a new waver bored enough to raise an eyebrow. but that was so long ago. or whoever. take your pick. but even then you could hear new wave king crimson on college radio and Yes were about to take the world by storm. nothing ever really dies.

i can imagine rick moody's friends laughing at the idea of gentle giant though.

nick hornby + the drummer for gay dad =

"But if you are finding that the relentless drum machinery of contemporary bubblegum and the tedious samples of hip-hop are not enough, try dipping into something more fanciful from the era when kind of being able to play your instrument was something you did not need to hide."

yick, but then hornby < moody shouldn't come as any surprise

thanks, rick moody

ugh

used to really like that dude but now I can't stomach his writing at all

not sure if he got worse or my taste got better

also I picked up GG's The Missing Piece for a buck at Salvation Army a while back and did not dig it

The Missing Piece is definitely not the place to start with Gentle Giant. However, it's just the place to start if you fancy taking a dislike to the band.

I never liked Gentle Giant. I am however listening to Camel just now.

hey, gorge, have you ever heard the second badger album, white lady? i love one live badger, but i've never even seen a copy of the second album anywhere. not that i've been looking that hard, but still...

if rick moody had written an article entitled: Where Iz Teh Love For Ashton, Gardner, & Dyke??, i would have more respect for him.

next month in the believer: Jonathan Lethem's "Axispoint - Betwixt Genius & Obscurity".

http://spaceritual.net/hardin/axis2.jpg

hey, gorge, have you ever heard the second badger album, white lady?

Yes, it stinks. Badger turned into a blue-eyed soul-type band. No longer have mine.

I am however listening to Camel just now.

They made a couple decent albums still in my ownership. The first two, I thin'.

Sherman Helmsley is a big fan (no joke).

Several years ago, he was on the Mike Douglas Show and he was going to dance. The music he danced to was Proclamation from Gentle Giant's album, The Power and the Glory!

After his dance, Mike Douglas was laughing and asked him about the music. Mr. Hemsley then talked for several minutes about Gentle Giant, proving he must really be a fan of their music.

I was watching TV Land's "Living In TV Land" with Sherman Hemsley yesterday, and I never noticed how much of a cool guy he really is in real life. I always heard he was a major Yes fan from back in the day, but I always thought it was just a rumor. But when he performed with his band and proudly displayed his Yes "coral" shirt it removed all doubt. Not only that, but he was so appreciative of his fans; He'd always stop and talk to them, sign autographs and take a picture even when they'd say his name wrong or even call him "George Jefferson". He didn't care, as long as his character gave them joy. He seems like such a free spirit, and a shining example of a true Yes fan.

When Yes was playing at Tower Sunset in LA in November, 1996, CybrKhatru and I saw Mr. Helmsley there. We were delighted to hear that he sometimes performed interpretive dance to Yes songs...and that he wasn't ashamed to admit it! :lmao:

holy shit that is awesome.

i sold sherman helmsley a lindisfarne record many years ago while working at rhino. he was very excited about finding it.

The material Moody addresses isn't for everyone: It tilts toward rock and the avant-garde; it highlights New York (where Moody lives); it is mostly — save some heartfelt but brief digressions into jazz and hip-hop, and cursory name-checking of "world music" greats — white. It has biases: Moody can't abide the music of the 1980s; he explains his revulsion — at length — in the final essay, a florid polemic titled "Europe, Forsake Your Drum Machines!"

http://www.npr.org/2012/03/21/148769433/riffs-on-riffs-rick-moodys-adventures-in-listening

Austin Chronicle: You obviously grew up in a musical era before iPods. Is the Cloud/Spotify good and why does new vinyl cost so much now?

Rick Moody: I am not interested in Spotify at all. I am slightly irritated whenever someone whips out their phone and tries to impress me with the obviousness of their popular music interests on Spotify. I like owning music, and by owning it I mean being able to stroll across the room and look at the package, and remove the little musical object from the sleeve and carry it back to the playback device.

I like albums. (And I think vinyl is expensive now because the prints runs are small.) I still love vinyl, but I don't like vinyl fetishism. It is too collector-oriented. Collectors are suspect, according to the psychoanalytic argument which is well-traveled at this point. The only argument for iTunes that I can come up with is that it is how regular people play music now, and that's worth bearing in mind. It's good to know what the people like.

I am slightly irritated whenever someone whips out their phone and tries to impress me with the obviousness of their popular music interests on Spotify.
this happens to me ALL THE TIME.
ugh. i actually like a few of this guy's books, but i'm not going to read these essays.

no way am i listening to this but comments are worth a lol

http://www.wnyc.org/shows/soundcheck/2012/mar/19/literary-listening-rick-moody/

a florid polemic titled "Europe, Forsake Your Drum Machines!"

kill me now

yeah I heard that show, bleh

dude does have pretty good taste otherwise though as much as I hate to admit it

Nice to see someone take a stand for old-fashioned pop values. Too bad it couldn't help him with his alcoholism.

"It's good to know what the people like"

-- NPR's mission statement

Those articles are kind of depressing. It's not that the music is bad, it's just not my thing, especially the "no drum machines" bit. However, it made me want to read his books! Not often a novelist comments about music.

I want to say that "strolling across the room" to get your CD is a rockist act, but it's probably not.

what about strolling across the room to activate iTunes

Or walking across the room to fix your WiFi so Spotify will work?

Well he kind of undercuts his own argument about being able to walk across the room to select a physical media from a collection when he says, "collectors are suspect".

I actually had a WiFi problem until today that was seriously undercutting my music appreciation Maybe RM is right.

Why is CD collecting not "collecting"? Old vinyl is expensive nowadays...30-40 for a decent LP. But collector CDs can cost over $100!

What in the shit.

'Narcissistic, hackneyed pap' = 'I have no articulate criticism of this music'

what a weirdo:

These sentences do constitute a provocation, but, even now, I don’t shrink from the sense of them. I still dislike this music passionately.

First, it is alleged that I am a misogynist for the “marrying up” line, with the particular charge being that I wouldn’t say this about a male artist. I would, however, say this about a male artist, so let me correct that misperception now: Larry Fortensky married up, David Gest married up, Tim McGraw married up. And even the president of the United States has admitted to “marrying up,” I believe, in referring to himself. There has also recently been a Redbook article on the subject of “marrying up.”

I will write about the structural similarities between the careers of P. Diddy and Taylor Swift.

^yeah both started as young up and comers in the record labels, quickly hitched their wagon to one of the greatest rappers of their generation, both watched on as their friend became and icon and was tragically killed in a driveby shooting

I am glad they have music they love, even if I believe they will be bored of her ultimately, just as I once was happy about the Bay City Rollers, or Sweet, or Alice Cooper, or, differently, Kiss, even though I recognized that music was kitsch.

you fuck

from comments:

You are not shocked in the least. You expected a backlash, you wanted a backlash, so you could parley another article out of a topic and hear your own self talk.

OTM

This guy is giving Gentle Giant fans (all six of them) a bad name

A response:

http://www.maura.com/472/post-menopausal-antiquing-or-please-rick-moody-just-quit-it

The other thing is can't really take the main lead singer's grating voice. Kerry Minnear, the keyboardist and other lead singer, had more tolerable vocals, but at his worst sounds like an anemic choirboy.

Man, this is exactly what I think! Derek Shulman sounds like a de-warbled Roger Chapman, can't improve on 'grating' as a description but I'd add ugly. Keyboard player sounds like a Peter Hammill... as a 7 year old, from Wikipedia:

Minnear did not sing lead vocals at live concerts, because of his inability to support and project his voice at a level suitable for live amplification

... phew, rock 'n' roll or what? Big brother Phil had the best voice but he was only with them for a few albums.