Taking Sides: Genesis 1970-1977 Vs. Genesis 1978-91

And you know what I pick :)

Where's the "don't care" option?

What's the word for a tiny version of a landslide?

might give it a fighting chance if you lopped the second option off at '86. or even '83.

because... ugh.

1978-1983 would have gotten my vote. 1978-1986 I would have thought about.

All sensible humans willl agree that 1987-1991 is indefensible.

Does this 1983 cut-off include or exclude the dreaded Illegal Alien???

suspect that "lol @ geir" votes will figure heavily in this poll, but would be interested in hearing people who actually want to argue in favor of latter Genesis & aren't just c/p'ing from American Psycho

me, I mean, I left prog the way some people leave the Church of Rome - sold all my Genesis and Yes and Gabriel records back the store and spent the money on Lou Reed & David Bowie instead - but still, pretentious Gabriel Genesis beats almost all of the Collins era except maybe the title track of Abacab, which is ace.

I was brought up hearing 'Three Sides Live' in the back of the family car, so I know that whole era heaps better than the Gabriel stuff. That whole build up at the start of 'Turn It On Again' is great, really! Well as good as Journey or Asia or whatever anyhow.

Which version has less Tony Banks noodling?

It's a completely one-sided split and I don't really agree with Geir about Hackett leaving being the watershed. With the catalogue divvied up like this, it boils down to ...Then There Were Three, Duke and Abacab plus a few good bits off the next 2 versus nearly all of their best material. Now Duke is maybe a Top 3er for me, but beyond that...it's not even that post-Hackett is bad, and it's not particularly about Gabriel, but they were just a lot better and more interesting band for most of the 70s. (See Collins trying to play the old stuff with that tribute act and struggling to keep up with his old self.)

Lots of people do prefer Hackett-less Collins-era Genesis obv and their reasons aren't that interesting (or v different from Patrick Bateman's for that matter). That incarnation had several decent well-crafted stadium pop hits. "Turn It On Again", "Invisible Touch", "Misunderstanding" -- these are all good pop songs. The Gabriel-led band's aesthetic is just far more interesting to me.

John D. dude no love for Mike Rutherford eating his bass alive on "No Reply At All?"

Paperlate is a good song too - I guess the dicking about brass on that prefigures a lot of Collins' solo stuff, but it's somehow way more palatable than Sussudio or whatever.

but would be interested in hearing people who actually want to argue in favor of latter Genesis & aren't just c/p'ing from American Psycho

i'll freely admit that my affinity for this era is grounded in nostalgia, but yeah, some awesome singles here: turn it on again, misunderstanding, abacab, no reply at all, that's all, follow you follow me, taking it all too hard, etc... hell, a couple off Invisible Touch

but i haven't committed to either option as of yet.

You can't really fuck with the Turn It On Again comp released a few years ago. "Turn It On Again" in particular has a nice punk, forcebeat aggression, and I love lots of those post-1983 goopy marvels.

As noted I do honestly prefer the Duke/Abacab-era material to the earlier material. Paperlate, Turn it on Again, Misunderstanding, Abacab, No Reply at All, That's All, Home by the Sea are non-bad. I haven't listened to Invisible Touch since gah, since high school; MAYBE there's something salvageable on it. Parts of Domino and the instrumental had some rawk in them, as I recall.

I unreservedly and unabashedly love Invisible Touch.

john d i hope that as a prog protestant you didn't miss out on the man who sold the world, a great prog rock album and one of bowie's best

It's a completely one-sided split and I don't really agree with Geir about Hackett leaving being the watershed.

Not neccessarily that much quality wise (I agree that "And Then There Were Three" and "Duke" are great pop albums, while I am not so keen on "Abacab"), but more in terms of changing their style considerably. When Hackett was still in the band, Genesis were still a band that liked to do musically complex 8-10 minute suites with lots of chord changes and key changes, although maybe not so many metric changes as in the Gabriel era. However, from "And Then There Were Three", they were more of a three minute pop singles band who liked to throw in the occasionaly 7-8 minute number as album tracks because they thought they would please old fans that way. I kind of like their 80s output too - even "Invisible Touch". Even "We Can't Dance" has a couple good pop songs on it in the case of "No Son Of Mine" and "Jesus He Knows Me", which may almost make me forgive them for recording the title track and "Hold On My Heart" - both of which were horrible.

But still, the prog era had so much more sophistication, so much more complex stuff, so much more interesting to investigate and hear again and agan, so there is no competition, really.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Definitely the latter for me. I like about eight of those hit singles. They lasted too long but don't we all.

john d i hope that as a prog protestant you didn't miss out on the man who sold the world, a great prog rock album and one of bowie's best

Bowie did not count as prog at all to me & my goodbye-to-prog buddies, when I stopped listening to genesis and yes and gabriel and all that stuff I went over to Lou Reed, David Bowie & Iggy Pop all day

then Iron Maiden came along and fucked my shit up proper, the end

"The Man Who Sold The World" was about as prog as just about any pop album was in 1970-71, I guess. I mean, even stuff like Paul McCartney's "Uncle Albert" and "Back Seat Of My Car" was kinda proggy too.

I can listen to "Keep It Dark" over and over and over again.

We are ignoring 'Calling All Stations', right?

Um, of course. I should read gooder.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I love the *Three Sides Live* version of "Abacab" to an almost embarrassing degree. I wish the solos went on for twice as long.

I guess I never noticed this poll before, so I didn't vote, but I'm so damn happy with the results. ILM *high five*

Also agree with J0hn D. that the title track of Abacab was pretty cool. Don't remember it all that well, now, though. I certainly can't claim to have heard their whole career, and I believe Phil Collins can only be hated by about 90% but I do know for certain that there is a year somewhere in the 80's that if I have to hear them, I'm going to drive a nail into my finger to turn that shit off.

Also I recently heard Nursery Cryme for the first time thanks to Noodle Vague, thanking U. I thought it was fantastic and I couldn't believe there were synthesizers on it. I try not to worship Peter Gabriel the way I worship Kate Bush - it's only an illusion.

There were no synthesizers on "Nursery Cryme", but maybe that is what you were trying to write?

Yeah, but there's some kind of electronic piano, isn't there? What is that noise on the first track? Surely that's not a guitar, but I could be naive.

organ, mellotron, piano, electric piano

Right! that's what I meant to say was electric piano, not "electronic". Thanks.

's cool. The mellotron is a kind of proto-synth anyway.

Did anyone here see them live when Gabriel was singer? Tell about it.

Looking at some of the song titles mentioned on this thread, though, has convinced me I need to dig up some early 80's Genesis pronto. Might even be post-punk enough for me to really enjoy.

"Turn It On Again" actually reminds me of the Who (with Daltrey singing of course). This is a nice trip down memory lane. Thanking ILXors. "Abacab" is making me hella happy right now too.

God, where would I be without ILM? Where?

"Misunderstanding"! Wow! I forgot all about these songs. Jesus christ.

misunderstanding is terrible. about half of duke is pretty good. abacab is a great album, s/t is a really watered down verson of same, invisible touch an even more watered down version of s/t. but I think abacab was really pretty progressive of them, more so than duke and certainly more interesting than the awful 'and then there were three'.

I've heard about half of the Abacab album now and I must say I'm mighty impressed. Not just with the songs, but the production absolutely knocks me out. I would like there to be more records in the world that SOUND like that, please. I'm becoming a lot more intrigued with this part of their history. Haven't really started digging in to Duke or And Then There Were Three, yet, but I will. Also gonna give the self-titled one a try. I can't really deal with "That's All" anymore, but I'd like to hear the rest of it, especially "Taking It All Too Hard" which I think I bought the single of but can't remember much about.

pretentious Gabriel Genesis beats almost all of the Collins era except maybe the title track of Abacab, which is ace.

<3 u for this J0hn

Never see how that track is so particularly great either. The fact that the same beat goes on all the time kind of damanges what might otherwise have been some nice mood changes.

Plus the bass theme is ripping off Sparks' "Beat The Clock" - the intros are almost identical!

you don't do drugs ever, do you

80s Genesis is the bomb, it hasn't aged!

some awesome singles here: turn it on again, misunderstanding, abacab, no reply at all, that's all, follow you follow me, taking it all too hard, etc... hell, a couple off Invisible Touch

^^i was otm up in here

Just the fact that there were singles means it is obviously inferior to the 70s stuff.
Prog bands, shouldn't make singles, they should make complex 20 minute suites!

"the fact that they were singles"

Okay, listening to And Then There Were Three now, and totally flipping my goddamn lid. "Ballad of Big". I don't care anymore if people make fun of me. I bought a bunch of late 70's/early 80's records by this band today. I mean LP's! I'm going to rip them all in .wav format and put them on my iPod. I got that Three Sides Live thing too! :) :)

All this week, I kept getting this feeling I was going to flip my lid over this stuff. When I heard the first song on Duke "Behind The Lines" the other day, I knew I was about the flip my lid. And also playing "Paperlate" at the gym. I kept getting the feeling I was going to flip. And now I have. And let me tell you here is the reason why: I adore Peter Gabriel, he is a god among musicians in this world and I want him in a Top 5 musicians with me on a desert island, even as fallible as he is. And Collins filled the shoes so well on And Then There Were Three... I mean I really think he pulled it off pretty well.

But the first moment tonight when I realized I had finally well and truly flipped was when I heard "Taking It All Too Hard" for the first time again in a billion years. That's the moment when I knew.

I have Abacab on vinyl now!!!! Good quality vinyl! :) :)

I really love Duke... i think the two albums before it are kind of halfway houses between the Gabriel era and the Collins era, it seems with Duke they sort of got a grip of what the group would be for the albums that followed.

"Wind And Wuthering" is awesome and nothing like "And Then There Were Three" at all. Although I kind of like the latter too, as a pop album with prog elements. "Duke" also has lots of atmosphere, but like "And Then...." lacks the lengthy complex tracks that "Wind And Wuthering" did still have in "Eleventh Earl Of Mar" and the glorious "One For The Vine". Also "Wind And Wuthering" still had Steve Hackett's wonderful guitar playing in there. I see 1976-78 as just as important a musical watershed in their music as 1974-76 is.

geir, how do you rate "ripple" on trick of a tail in light of "eleventh earl of mar" and "one for the vine"?

i don't doubt its importance, i just don't really like those albums much.

I'm not Geir but: "Ripples" has its moments but it's not one of my fave tracks on TofT and I certainly don't consider it a match for either of the Wind and Wuthering biggies. "Ripples" doesn't change it up enough and it feels more of a long, drawn out ballad than an epic. It's plenty good in its own way tho, some of Phil's best singing maybe.

"Robbery, Assault and Battery" is the "oh god no" clunker on that album btw. Why are Genesis crime songs invariably horrible?

That reminds me, I've never seen Buster.

"Robbery, Assault and ?Battery" has awesome instrumental breaks, but is a shitty, shitty tune.

what about "uncertain weather" and ray wilson? adam lambert and queen?

steve hogarth and marillion?

I don't have Wind & Wuthering! I don't have Trick of The Tail! May god strike me down I can only take so many Genesis albums at once, man. Give me some time. Really. Give me a break.

As long as Peter Gabriel makes it to the desert island with me, I'll listen to anything you want. That guy is going with me on my own personal lifeboat. Sorry.

phil collins abandoning kit for mic cleared the way for the drum machine 80s

Never wanted to hear the Wilson Genesis album. Never really wanted to hear post-Fish Marillion.

I have the Wilson Genesis album. I got it for free. I've listened to it maybe twice? There are a few numbers that would be OK if they played them w/some sense of urgency, but it's all very half-assed.

Have pity on me, what are you guys talking about? Wilson Genesis? Who is Wilson?

He was in Stiltskin. He did an album with Genesis when Phil lollins left.

The singer from stiltskin. he appeared on the very last Genesis studio album "calling all stations" Do not pay money for it.

I doubt it lived up to his glory days in Stiltskin.

That hit single they had actually sounded better when it was an advert tune, without vocals!

^^^ See also: Babylon Zoo

But where has Duke been all my life? Where?

Wilson absolutely didn't fit into Genesis at all as a singer, but some of the songs on that album are actually quite good. It is the sound of Tony Banks partly taking back the artistic control after Phil left.

i have the opposite feeling; he would have been okay if the songs had been better. the songs are mostly crap, the drums are really crap, his voice is pretty good actually.

Oh man this Abacab album, jesus H. I love the way just right when you're innocently in the middle of it, suddenly the drop a reggae touch ("Dodo"). That is the DOPE.

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Back to Gabriel era Genesis
Dancing With The Moonlit Knight (1973)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnZFwYAZ0aE

Paperlate is definitely an odd one. I like it a lot - it appears to be a Collins song stitched on top of Banks song, which makes for a pretty strange mix of soul with weird prog chords here and there.

That Gabriel clip has me in tears. I'm in tears over that. Thanks for writing Keith. This one's for you
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AdIS932zyw

Do love "Paperlate", It feels like Collins's chorus and Banks's verses but it's a great song whatever, better than most of Phil's solo material I reckon.

Noodle! so nice to have your opinion. I've been wondering if I should investigate Collin's solo LP Face Value. There's a lot of embarassment in admitting this, but hell.

"Face Value" is great

Is this where we talk about my love for "Keep It Dark?" I love how the fairly straight-up "Me and Sarah Jane" clears the room for this weird extrusion of science fiction and sound effects and time signatures.

oh yeah, and holy cree, I will never tire of "Paperlate." Should be playing in the background of all CNN financial meltdown montages.

I kinda like "Me And Sarah Jane", but feel like that one and "Dodo" are the only tracks on the "Abacab" that are really up there with old Genesis.

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My internet connection is dying. I may not even be able to connect with you folks, soon. Bimble is suffering in an internetless wilderneses. But I went all the way downtown to get the CD of Selling England By The Pound. It was the only store who had it. But because I'm on Windows 98 right now, I don't even think I can download a decent version of iTunes to add it to my iPod.

Peter Gabriel, goddamnit. Also I bought a Smokey Robinson CD, too.

Holy Mother of God
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W35wtfcByIY

You think music gets better than that? Really?

these videos are all on the remix/remastered versions of these albums that just came out, btw

Thanks. I have a friend who's got grey hair now, he came from Japan. He says he remembers when Selling England By The Pound came out. He remembers when it was new and everything. He says he has a bootleg DVD. We're supposed to meet at the end of this month.

He said that there's some kind of Genesis tribute band called Musical Box.

I want to talk about Genesis a lot. I have put a lot of their albums on my iPod and have listened to a lot of albums.

Here is my top ten songs right now (not necessarily in order, but roughly):

1. You Might Recall
2. Paperlate
3. Keep It Dark
4. Turn It On Again
5. Dancing In The Moonlit Knight
6. The Musical Box
7. Abacab
8. Me And Sarah Jane
9. Dodo/Lurker (the one with the REGGAE PART!! WOOHOO!)
10. Harold The Barrel

But to be honest, the "And Then There Were Three" album impresses me so much that I'm deliberately keeping that separate from my top ten here (even "Follow You Follow Me"). It leads me to believe that if I were to purchase Wind & Wuthering and Trick of the Tail that I might be made quite happy indeed.

I am truly sorry there is not more of the prog Peter Gabriel stuff in my list. I have listened to a number of the albums with him on it, and I get the feeling if I played it all a lot of times, I would come to love a lot of it, but that would take a lot of time and right now the Collins vocal stuff, at least prior to 1983, is so much more immediate for me.

Also "Illegal Alien" deserves every ounce of its bad reputation. I remember having a friend when I was about 12 years old who liked it and I thought she was freaking off her rocker to like that song.

Thanks and good day/night.

Honorable mention to "Return of The Giant Hogweed", though, don't get me wrong.

Can I just say, that song "Mama" though...I mean that is just some major psychotic shit. Because I heard that this week for the first time in eons and I realized that yes, I really do remember hearing that on the radio in 1983 or whatever but it's like...what in the living fuck? What is he talking about in that song? It's kindof scary! But I love the heavy percussion and the echo, I mean don't get me wrong. It's totally cool.

I guess I'm just saying that even though I remember that song from way back when, I can't possibly understand how my young mind might have even interpreted or processed a song like that at the time. I can only see it from the vantage point of who I am now. So it's totally wicked and like...maybe it belongs in a haunted house. Yeah, that's it.

I think they said it didn't do well in America despite better success in the UK. Don't really wanna be bothered to look up the details, though.

Genesis OP10 (or 20....)

See there you go! I sorta halfheartedly looked for a "Genesis POX" thread, and came up with nothing.

In the meantime, I've taken to playing "Harold The Barrel" repeatedly, and I decided I liked "The Cinema Show" right away - despite its length and everything, I think that is a really beautiful Gabriel-era track.

despite its length and everything, I think that is a really beautiful Gabriel-era track.

almost all the songs from this era are this long! what do you think of Supper's Ready???

Cinema Show was written by Banks, btw, I think.

I know Supper's Ready has this HUGE reputation, so I've tried to get into it, but I think Foxtrot is something I'm only going to be able to properly digest with a lot more time. I played Watcher Of The Skies twice already, but it didn't stick yet. Give me time.

The last five minutes of Cinema Show is one of the most incredible instrumental passages I've ever heard, principally a Banks keyboard solo
of stunning melodic power. The version on Seconds Out just edges the studio version for me.

totally agree... during the post Gabriel era, they just sound so amazing whenever phil jumps back on the drum-kit to duet with chester or bill... like, all of a sudden there's all this polyrhytmic stuff added to the formula.

Wow, anyone heard this "Spot the Pigeon" EP from 1977 or whatever? Fucking fantastic stuff.

Heard Misunderstanding for the first time ever last night. It was a pretty catchy stadium pop jam, iirc. Might go on a mission later to track down some of their better mid-period stuff.

I like most of "Duke" (particularly the Tony Banks penned tracks), but I don't like "Misunderstanding" so much. A bit too much of a basic radio friendly pop song.

Geir in OTM shock.

Just bought this shirt:

http://i1.cpcache.com/product/441455245/dark_tshirt.jpg?color=KellyGreen&height=460&width=460

But it's too small! Any of you folks little? I'm only 5'7", and it's just too tight on me. I'd be happy to get it to a good home.

'Dance On A Volcano' rules.

Who the hell puts Mike second?

So many Genesis threads. But this is the one where I address the new BBC doc "Together and Apart," which is mostly fine, though man, is Tony Banks a dick.

Did learn Phil's vocals on "Mama" were inspired by the laugh on Grandmaster Flash's "Message."

man, is Tony Banks a dick.

a relief after years of blank affability

2112

Also, Phil is rocking these awesome old man glasses.

http://cdn.stereogum.com/files/2014/06/phil-collins-alamo-rehearsals.jpg

If Phil Collins were bleeding I'd rub rock salt in his wounds #nomisunderstanding.

I didn't think the doc was very good. It didn't mention Wind and Wuthering which is one of Genesis's best albums. More egregiously, it didn't mention Tony Stratton-Smith or Charisma once.

Well there wasn't enough Hackett, obviously, whether that was a producer problem or a band thing....weird set up of the 4/5 of them together.

the 'talking heads' journalists, chris roberts aside, were terrible, but the actual genesis members gave good value in the documentary

just reading Bimble upthread

peace dude x x

Well there wasn't enough Hackett, obviously, whether that was a producer problem or a band thing....weird set up of the 4/5 of them together.

Hackett wasn't happy about the doc: http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/oct/06/steve-hackett-bbc-new-genesis-together-and-apart-documentary-biased-account-of-band

man, is Tony Banks a dick.

There are many moments in the boxed set docs where Banks says something like, "I was proud of the music I'd written, and Gabriel's vocals messed it up" for things like "Supper's Ready." The Eno bio also mentions Banks being jealous or just generally dickish about Eno's involvement with Lamb.

Sounds like if Banks had always had his way, Genesis records would be little more than bland psuedo-baroque keyboard solos.

Obviously the doc had to be sort of fast-forward, especially since they touch on the solo stuff, too, which in the case of Phil and Pete could support their own docs. A lot of the albums barely get a mention, or get mentioned in passing, with the focus on one song (Three gets Follow You, self-titled gets Mama). There's a surprising amount of We Can't Dance, and obv. none of that last album, and even though there's no John Mayhew, there is plenty of Anthony Phillips, or discussion of Banks playing guitar (which gets a little overlooked). But yeah, the guys in the band were pretty open. Sure, not enough Hackett, and odd that it was Gabriel and the other three for so much of it. But I thought it was important that it touched on the writing credits, namely that Tony and Mike were responsible for a lot of the stuff Phil gets blamed for, like the mawkish streak that begins with "Follow You, Follow Me," their first real modern ballad, which Mike wrote, or that it wasn't until the end that Phil got more of his lyrics on the albums. I also liked how they pointed out that even after they went pop there were always a couple of long songs on the records, and live they didn't shy away from the epics (old or contemporary) either. I like how much Phil just liked playing, and how while everyone else was struggling he was happy playing away in his giant drum world. Or how later he seemed so ubiquitous because people kept sending opportunities his way and just kept saying yes, because how could you say no to playing with Robert Plant or whomever?

But yeah, Tony is a total passive-aggressive dick. It's always someone fighting with Tony, whether the other guys in the band, or Gabriel, or whomever, or Tony sniffing that he doesn't like a direction, or discounting someone's input. Though Eno was only there for a day or something, and only messed with a couple of tracks. Sounds like Tony doesn't like "Lamb" at all.

Per Hackett, the dude wants it both ways, to be respected as a solo artist but also a guy who makes his living doing Genesis covers, including stuff like The Knife, which he had absolutely nothing to do with.

Yeah, I learned a few years ago that Rutherford deserves the blame for the "Land of Confusion" lyrics.

Saw it put recently that Tony is actually the person everyone thinks Phil is.

Gutted I missed the doc when it aired over here (although I'm sure it'll turn up on iPlayer again at some point) - I'm a very casual Genesis fan but I find their career intriguing, also I've recently discovered how great an album Trick of the Tail is.

Dance on a Volcano blew my mind as a 14 year old

How many Genesis documentaries have there been now? This must be at least the third.

Yeah, there do seem to be a bunch. It's not even a big deal they "reunited" with Gabriel and Hackett, since they do that all time, too, as needed. Just usually not musically.

They pretty much can't reunite musically, at least not with Phil -- he hasn't been able to physically play the drums for a couple of years now due to back problems. Watching old Genesis clips I think, ugh, dude, you shouldn't slouch like that!

Reportedly his condition has improved. That would be a good poll, musicians supposedly down for the count who came back. Like Pete Townsend, Linda Thompson or Dave Mustaine.

Townshend not only came back after his bike accident, but vaulted way past all of his contemporaries. He's been digging into this insane Coltrane-esque fingerpicking approach since around 1999-2000.

Would be interesting to see if Phil can come back, but even before his back troubles, he could (by his own admission) barely keep up with a Genesis cover band when they asked him to sit in once in the early '00s.

was going to say, i've heard rumblings phil might be up for playing some drums again.

xp

xpost That Genesis tribute band is The Musical Box, which is insanely talented, well-rehearsed and focuses on the Gabriel years. They not only have the blessing of the real band, but for a time they had a left-handed bald drummer who could sing. Anyone would struggle dropped into that environment, let alone Phil c. 2005 or whenever. Those '70s chops of his were insane.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWZT0EHKjCk

There's a nice story about Peter Gabriel taking his daughter to a Musical Box gig and she turns to him and goes "Dad, is this really what you used to do?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlX4moDYEmA

I've seen these guys do both "Lamb" and "Selling," and they kill it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CePekvsztD4

yeah I'd love to see them, they played in my town but I was away at the time :(

I saw ReGenesis once and they were pretty good but not a patch on these guys

Yeah, I didn't mean to suggest that "a Genesis cover band" was some random group playing 25-cent wings night down the street. By all accounts, The Musical Box -- including, as you mentioned, those of the members of Genesis -- are amazing.

Here's Phil's account:
http://www.genesis-news.com/c-The-Musical-Box-Phil-Collins-about-his-guest-performance-in-Geneva-s238.html

It ended up that we decided that I would play their encore of The Musical Box. I left it till the day of the show... a dangerous thing to do !!! I went downstairs to my basement where my drums are, and I tried to play along to the Genesis version.... DISASTER. What would have been a problem for some drummers, the fast bass drum parts for example, were no problem for me... but everything else.... WHOA !!! I realised that I was trying to play things that I'd played 30 years ago. This was not going to happen.

multiple xposts

I wonder if that was the night he was shamed into quitting the music biz

I can't remember to what extent it comes across in the documentary, but Phil seems an excessively melancholy soul in his dotage

More drummers should be shamed IMO

In my experience drummers are often perfectly capable of shaming themselves

Phil Collins is really unique in that he was a very high level musician who as a drummer played on some other big records that had this second life as a pop soul singer. I always thought it was pretty telling that Genesis had to go get a ringer of a drummer like Chester Thompson to take his place, a guy that had been able to handle the drum chair with some jazz heavyweights in Weather Report and fit in quite well with Frank Zappa's scripted lunacy in 7/16 time.

A bad back and it's hazards has taken out more than a few drummers. Pretty much the long time drummer of Opeth I believe had to leave that group with similar back issues.

I'd think it possible that some of the Dead members have probably had to think on their feet trying to to sit in with the Dark Star Orchestra. This Genesis cover group "The Musical Box" seems to get just as fanatical on trying to capture it all in total. I suppose in itself, it's not different than modern combos doing a tribute like the Mingus Big Band or the various modern Arkestra type groups. It's trying to capture what made the original recordings and the music interesting.

Roger Miller was down for the count in the '80s, wasn't he?

I've considered seeing TMB, but something makes me a little uneasy about it. Genesis were playing these grotty little halls for dirt cheap back in the day, and there's something de-legitimizing to see a fancy shindig catering to old yuppies presenting the same material. I'd rather see today's unknown bands in urine-smelling pits. Doesn't mean that I don't respect what TMB are doing, but I don't see myself as part of their audience.

It doesn't feel like nostalgia, at least, it feels like real love for the band and music, though. That is, the crowd at TMB was really no different than the crowd I saw at King Crimson earlier this year.

And yeah I actually had Roger Miller before I hit submit, but took him out and replace him with Linda Thompson for a) gender diversity and b) in case someone thought of the country singer. Miller these days, fwiw, plays with headphones on, often behind or away from the amp.

FYI, where the "Lamb" tour played Chicago back in '74:
http://mydrinkon.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Auditorium-Theatre-photo-credit-James-Steinkamp-1024x840.jpg

wow that is rad

Is that the Auditorium? My brother saw Van Morrison there in the mid-80s and said it was by far the best-sounding venue in the Chicago area.

Oh, yeah, it sounds great. I've seen ... Wilco, Tori Amos, Tool (!), Swell Season, Eddie Vedder, Tom Waits, White Stripes, Bjork, Dead Can Dance ... buncha stuff there. Very pretty to look at.

There are many moments in the boxed set docs where Banks says something like, "I was proud of the music I'd written, and Gabriel's vocals messed it up" for things like "Supper's Ready." The Eno bio also mentions Banks being jealous or just generally dickish about Eno's involvement with Lamb.

Sounds like if Banks had always had his way, Genesis records would be little more than bland psuedo-baroque keyboard solos.

― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Sunday, January 25, 2015 11:54 AM (3 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Oh god yeah, there were many moments in those docs where Banks would say something like that and I'd just be thinking "my god, this guy must have been such an incredible pain in the arse to work with". He's probably the one member of Genesis I'd hate to spend any amount of time with. I could imagine Collins, Rutherford and Gabriel being great to chat with, Hackett would probably get pissed off that he wasn't getting asked about his solo career. Banks, I imagine would grate on me very quickly.

Question for the floor: Can you name a prog-rock keyboard player who _isn't_ an asshole? Not defending Banks, just curious! (Keith Tippett doesn't count. He's jazz.)

Rick Wakeman comes across as a bit of a grumpy bastard now, but I'll bet he was easily the most down-to-earth member of Yes circa Close To The Edge.

this thread is reminding me how glorious the opening to "Firth of Fifth" is.

Can you name a prog-rock keyboard player who _isn't_ an asshole?

Hugh Banton (VdGG) and Chris Buzby (Echolyn) immediately come to mind.

Richard Wright, of course.

Banks has always seemed like an uptight prig, resentful that a commoner like Collins should get all the fame and fortune. Listening to the 3-disc set that accompanied the doc, it was striking how completely useless Banks’s tunes were. Rutherford’s Mike & Mechanics stuff, in contrast, was pretty spry ‘80s AOR.

Hackett always comes across as shy and a little insecure. I’m guessing he was victim to Tony’s snide dismissals throughout the 70s.

Yeah, as The New Guy who suddenly got a lot of attention, I'm sure Hackett was a frequent target of glares from Banks' monocle.

In the doc he talks about being a sort of shy bedroom dude, soloing to no one with the amp turned low. Later Banks dismisses him as sort of stiff while praising Daryl Stuermer, but frankly that shows how badly Banks misses the point.

A friend of mine says that Chester Thompson has been living in Nashville and trying to get session work, with no bites. Talk about a devil's bargain: he's the drummer for Genesis and Phil Collins solo, which probably made him rich and definitely affirms his chops, but when those huge acts are idle he's at loose ends, because no one will hire him.

I'm not here to defend Banks as a person, but I feel duty bound to point out that he wrote the lion's share of the music for both A Trick of the Tail and Wind and Wuthering, many fans' (including my) pick for Genesis' best ever albums. Wiki says "Hackett felt his contributions [to Wind and Wuthering] were left out in favour of songs written by Banks", which makes me wonder how much worse an album it would have been if Hackett had had his way.

Also Banks' debut solo album A Curious Feeling is a cracker, although I've never bothered to check out any of his later solo work.

Hugh Banton (VdGG) and Chris Buzby (Echolyn) immediately come to mind.

I love a lot of the stories about VdGG back in the day, that despite the fact that they made (arguably) the most intense, dramatic, and self-serious music of the whole period, they apparently were really good, down-to-earth dudes, producers and engineers supposedly loved working with them. I think success just kinda ruins some people, ELP definitely come to mind here, and I suppose Yes to some extent. One thing I love about the post-70's group of prog bands is that they tended to stay good for longer, maybe because they're not chasing anything or having to listen to anyone outside of the band. Echolyn is a good case in point here, they've been an excellent band for over two decades now, maybe because guys like Buzby are taking jobs as music teachers now.

i want to make it clear i have no actual malice towards tony banks. i've never met him, don't know him. it's just that he embodies so many of the aspects of prog rock i like to make fun of that i really can't help it.

like, first off, he's not nearly as good a keyboard player as he thinks he is. i mean, yeah, sure, tony, you can play the hell out of those arpeggios, good job there. but there's something kind of hilarious about naming a section of your pseudo-side-long-epic "apocalypse in 9/8" and then playing the solo in 4/4. call it "polyrhythm" if you want, but i know what i call that: lazy. same thing goes for some of their other songs- they were just a little over-ambitious. "the musical box" plays "return of the giant hogweed" way better than genesis ever did, both because they have a little bit more practice at it and because, well, they have more chops than the folks in genesis ever did. it's good that they were ambitious, i guess, but genesis' strength as a prog band was never their chops but their songwriting skills, which was why they made it as a pop band and none of the other prog bands did. i'm at the point where i almost feel like tony banks was at his best when he said "fuck it" and went to strumming a 12-string guitar.

mind you banks' songwriting is of somewhat questionable quality in my book. "wind and wuthering" is not an album i have any time for at all, except for "blood on the rooftops", which is, yep, hackett's cut. i find their ten minute time-travel epic "one for the vine" particularly half-assed. especially the lyrics. look, i know you're not supposed to listen to prog lyrics, but the bit where it goes something like "a wayward footfall made him stray from the path prepared for him"- uh, tony, you mean he got lost? thanks dude.

the thing i love about vdgg is that hugh banton seems to have treated the entire '75-'76 reformation of VDGG as an excuse to build a REALLY AWESOME custom organ, in that he spent two years working on the thing and as soon as it was finished he was immediately "peace out". you know, i can respect that sort of thing.

TMB are great live although i think their frontman is the weakest link; his absolute aping of Gabriel is unnerving to me and he's not aging into the part particularly well (where Gabriel was lean and mean, dude is getting a pudge and looks a bit silly in the black catsuit). I've seen them do the Lamb which was incredible though; and the Foxtrot tour. They're back through next month or so doing the same Selling and Foxtrot nights; haven't made up my mind whether to go or not. If I do it would probably be for the last time unless they do the Lamb again.

Just fired up 'Dance On A Volcano' for the first time in ages... yeah, it still fucking rules. Anyone who ever doubted Collins' talent behind the kit seriously needs to check out that track.

I'm with akm on the Gabriel stand-in's weird forced mannerisms, but the voice is effing on!

I thought Trick of the Tail came from the band jamming aimlessly while they searched for a new singer? The Banks-led W&W is for me the dullest of their prog epics. I have more love even for Duke than for that soggy turd.

I'm kinda on board with most of what you're saying rushomancy but I wouldn't want to fall into the sort of trap a lot of people do when discussing Genesis, which is to praise the band but insist that Banks was either the weak spot or only really appreciate what he did in a backhanded manner. Everything I've read on the band kinda implies that for better or worse Banks was their compositional center. Even during the pop era Banks wrote most of the material, at least until We Can't Dance I believe. Don't get me wrong, I think Hackett would've been just as strong a writer (had they used him more), but that's the way things turned out.

In terms of pure chops - I always thought Phil was killer back in those days. Banks was nowhere near as good as his contemporaries but I appreciate what he did within the band's framework, stuff like that second half of "Cinema Show" is what I think they did the best. Hackett, well, who really knows, I love "Dancing With the Moonlit Knight" of course but where exactly does he show all he's capable of? Rutherford is plenty great as well though not until The Lamb do you really notice him (in my opnion).

I think Hackett's playing on"Trick of the Tail" is tops.

I just heard "Dance on the Volcano" for the first time -- boy, they're all playing at their peak, aren't they?

Hackett's excellence lies in his subtlety, I think. He's not as immediately noticeable as Steve Howe, or Fripp, but his parts are all very textural and lovely. (xpost)

The Shout soundtrack by Banks/Rutherford is really good too.

I think the Banks solo in "Firth Of Fifth" is really stunning.

Didn't realise Banks had this reputation.

I'm not sure he really did until all this interview footage came out.

I have to admit I've been listening the hell out of "Duke" these past few days. What a beautifully schizo prog-not-pop-not-pop album. Last I listened to it was maybe...30 years ago?

err.."prog-not-pop-but not prog"

Hackett's excellence lies in his subtlety, I think. He's not as immediately noticeable as Steve Howe, or Fripp, but his parts are all very textural and lovely. (xpost)

bingo - one of the few prog guitarists who always seems to add things rather than take away. his work on Wind & Wuthering is phenomenal (if you listen for it)

Hackett's my fave prog guitarist after Howe, for sure. Love his "Voyage Of The Acolyte" album.

i'd rather listen to voyage of the acolyte than any genesis album

something i've always wondered about genesis is the 'peter gabriel voice'. collins so easily replaced him in part because they sounded so much alike. the lead dude in procol harum sounds like PG too, and so does the lead dude in family and the guy from elbow. it's uncanny how this type of music attracts so many bros whose voices sound almost indistinguishable. or maybe it's just a british accent thing i don't get

I have an odd theory that once the Mellotron got put away they were able to become tighter (?) as a band somehow. I love Mellotrons but are there any post WaW?

Ah - let me reword that. Their songs got punchier.

I enjoy the way Banks used Mellotron on Trick and WaW by the way.

Well, post WaW marked the introduction of the digital synth, and Genesis being so popular meant they could afford some of the earliest versions. There are at least a couple of Banks solos that basically sound like him going through the banks of preset sounds.

xpost It's amazing how many proggy bands have Gabriel-esque singers. Not just Phil, but Talk Talk, Elbow, even Blue Nile a bit.

One of the things I love about Genesis, especially for a prog band, is that there are so few examples of showoff flash for flash sake. Collins is busy, but as clips attest, he has a relatively modest drum set (at least for a while) and really knows how to groove, whether it's "Squonk" or "Throwing It All Away." Hackett, as we've discussed, is pretty chill even when he's flash; "Moonlit Night" has those cool tapping bits, but they're here then gone, while "Frith" is neat but not technically too show-offy. Rutherford is pretty all meat and potatoes on both bass and guitar, and there's lots of space in all the band's music. Unike the flurry of notes that is Yes or ELP.

"Moonlit Knight," rather.

(xpost) Thanks, Josh. Didn't know that re: the digital synths.

I wonder if ABBA was an influence when making Duke's poppier tracks over at Polar Studios. Just a thought that passed as I was listening.

and marillion and big big train where the bite is self-conscious and deliberate. but that doesn't explain talk talk/elbow/family/procol harum/phil collins, except maybe there's a hyper-specific vocal type prone to singing proggy lyrics or vice versa

xpost

Actually, here's a big nerd list of Tony Banks equipment over the years: http://genesislive.ning.com/group/equipment/forum/topics/1982628:Topic:36382

So yeah, Mellotron is out and programmable polysynths come in. Not analog yet, but certainly a few steps up from the tapes in Mellotrons.

Some good Mellotron stuff I found in this (http://www.furious.com/perfect/fripp2.html) Fripp interview:

Q: Why did Crimson use the mellotron so much in in its work? The band kind of popularized it, didn't it?

FRIPP: I own six of them, five of which belong to King Crimson. I have two of the original double-manual mellotrons and two mellotrons from the '72/'74 Crimson. The Moody Blues also used mellotrons. I think Crimson used it in more abberant forms than previous users. By the time that Crimson ceased using them in September '74, you didn't have viable synthesizers. There was an impressionistic possibility from strings and flutes and brass that you couldn't get from a guitar, though you now can. The supposed mellotron use on Thrak is Adrian on my guitar synthesizer with some mellotron use as a homeopathic link from the past.

There is a version of "I Talk to the Wind" from the Chesterfield Jazz Club (not on Epitath) which was a 'bad hair night' for the mellotron. If it was a 'bad hair night' for the mellotron, which doesn't care anyway, it was AWFUL for the musician who had to play it. We had to make a decision- do we include this or not? Finally, we said no. Just to show how out of tune a mellotron can go while a musician is using it is not a reason to make it available throughout the world. At this point in the song, you can hear Greg Lake thinking 'do I pitch with the mellotron or the bass?' About a minute later, Greg has made up his mind- 'I'll go with the bass because it's closer to me.' However for the next two minutes, you can continue to hear Ian thinking 'shall I sing with the mellotron or with Greg while continuing to fine tune the pitch of the mellotron as the song begins?' This is 35-minutes into the gig, doing things we hadn't done at other gigs, just burning. Then our confidence is completely undermined. Their movement forward is brought to a halt by this AWFUL out of tune mellotron and the show never actually recovers from it, especially when the mellotron is used in any piece.

DAVID: There was another show where the mellotron was a semi-tone out of tune and this chord comes out that was delayed into the P.A.- the reason it went out of tune was because of the voltage so that if they played a loud chord, the mellotron went flat. Ian had to try to retune it as everyone else got quiet.

FRIPP: This we discovered particularly in Amercia, particularly working at the Boston Tea Party. In England, you work on 240 (volts) which is more reliable than the United States with 110 and much more than Sicily which is at 85. We were playing "In The Court of the Crimson King" and you heard D from the band and the tuned instruments, D flat from the mellotron strings and the voices horribly in between. We finally bought a voltage stabilizer after all of this.

Hahaha! Wonderful. Thanks Josh.

It's funny Banks used the CS-80 so much in "Duke" as it seems to be played/mixed in a way where it's not very obvious. It's such a PROMINENT synth. Though Kate Bush used it tons as well, supposedly, and I've never noticed it in her stuff around, say, "Never for Ever" or "The Dreaming".

I personally would have loved to have seen what happened if Genesis made an album like Yes' Relayer, because I've always loved the intensity of that record.

I just heard "Dance on the Volcano" for the first time -- boy, they're all playing at their peak, aren't they?

― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, January 28, 2015 10:39 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This was pretty much my thought when I first heard it! I think Collins himself considers that era as being the very peak of his drumming capabilities, although I may be wrong.

The Banks-led W&W is for me the dullest of their prog epics. I have more love even for Duke than for that soggy turd.

Seconded. Though actually I love Duke.

y'all are crazy, W&W is my favourite Genesis album bar none.

its so dreary and grey! the best song, blood on the rooftops, is gloom incarnate!

I think "Wind & Wuthering" is really solid, with some great playing and in particular some great Banks stuff. I think " ... And Then There Were Three ..." is the one that's dull as dirt. "Afterglow" is like the perfect capper to the first era of Genesis, and "Duke"'s "Behind the Lines" the perfect intro to '80s Genesis. I think of "Follow You, Follow Me" as a pretty single that came in between. But that album, bleh.

To be fair it took me a looong time to come around to W&W. The first few listens I was wondering where all the melodies were. Then I listen again and discover they're all over the place. To me it's like a better version of what they were going for on most of the second disc of The Lamb - having Gabriel out of the band did wind up opening a few doors!

It took listening to the live records to appreciate the songs on W&W

Actually the Knebworth '78 show is ace and well worth checking out, the BBC recorded it.

W&W has never sounded particularly good to me; of the remixes from 2008 it's the only one I think was a slight improvement. I love the second side suite (from Blood on the Rooftops on) but the first side still has never really clicked.

Actually, now I remember it, there's two linked instrumentals on W&W that are great. And Afterglow is lovely.

some tasty chester and phil interplay on the version of firth of fifth from this ace boot
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBMfIKgs0HI

Here's Phil and Bill Buford, during the latter's brief tenure:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FrFytItybk

I've never really taken to Wind and Wuthering in the same way as I have other '70s Genesis record, I may need to give it another try.

Seriously, though, "And Then There Were Three" is such a stiff that no one even considers it a '70s record.

I really like And Then There Were Three, it manages to sound both epic and concise at the same time. Duke is where it all started to go off the rails for me.

Looks like there's been next to no mention of Hackett's Genesis Revisited stuff? I only recently discovered he'd done such a thing, and while rerecording old material with different players is, I guess, debatable, simply from a production standpoint they sound AMAZING.

yeah the record is good. And live it was amazing, even though the vocalist is a bit too much for me to take live.

ATTW3 rules hard, apart from Ballad Of Big, which is pish.

ATTW3 is mushy and dull and it has "the lady lies' on it which is the worst thing ever

I like the first track and the last track. The rest goes in one ear and out the other.

I recently got a used copy of the remixed early 70s box on LP. I'm no vinyl fetishist, but I like how the format enhances the sort of storybook quality of those albums. Those remixes got all kinds of hate but they can be a fun listen; the instrumental passages sound pretty great, though Gabriel's remixed voice at times sounds shrill and bratty.

those remixes sounded better on vinyl than the CDs. I quite like them, personally, but not more than the original mixes (there are some places where I'm pretty sure alternate takes of vocals were used, which was weird the first few times I heard them). the vocals are def more raw in some places.

Was speaking to a guy today that considered And Then There Were Three to be the last Genesis album worth listening to, he hates everything after that.

That's strange, I can see people disregarding them starting with Abacab (which I do like), but I don't know why someone would dig ATTWT and not Duke

Though to be fair I always thought ATTWT was kind of a mess - to me it goes with Tormato and Love Beach in an "ex-proggers trying to adjust to an unfriendly world" kinda way. Not to say any of these albums are bad really, I just never remember much from any of them (outside of Tormato, which is so over-the-top that it can't help but be memorable)

That's strange, I can see people disregarding them starting with Abacab (which I do like), but I don't know why someone would dig ATTWT and not Duke

― Abstinence Hawk (frogbs), Friday, January 30, 2015 1:56 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, I pretty much thought the same thing, but he didn't seem to be into Duke at all. Strangely enough, what followed after that was an enthusiastic conversation about Yes' Drama(!)

cuz yeah, Duke's a pretty great album, even better when I realized that there is essentially an entire "Supper's Ready"-style epic on it, just split up across the album

I don't mind Duke but it very much pointed the way towards the later stuff in a way that ATTWT didn't. The split-up epic is great (although it would have been even better as a single piece), but Turn It On Again and Misunderstanding are just dross. On ATTWT (Follow You Follow Me excepted) they still sound like prime-era Genesis only with shorter songs.

Yeah, I wish they hadn't copped out and stuck to the original idea of keeping the long epic on Duke. I like 'Turn It On Again', fwiw.

I like Turn It On, also. One of the weirdest pop songs they've done. In 13/8, iirc! Phil is right that it's his drums that make it sound simpler than it is.

yeah that's a great song - "Misunderstanding" I'm not so keen on but "Turn it on Again" was, IMO, everything a radio hit from a prog band should be

I wish there was a better recording of the 1982 reunion concert. They sound good. Peter straight-up tells the audience that the purpose of the show is to get cash to cover the losses from WOMAD.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPdEPC2AsB8

Man, self-titled. It's like their "Out of Time" - some of their best stuff ("Mama," "Home by the Sea," "Taking It All Too Hard"*), some of their absolute worst ("Illegal Alien," "That's All"), and some nice deep cuts ("Just a Job to Do," "Silver Rainbow").

*I can see how Genesis/Phil ballads might be controversial, but this is a lovely song, imo, that bridges '70s Genesis and '80s Genesis really well.

I love That's All. in fact the only song on that album that I don't like is Illegal Alien, and it's the worst song Genesis ever did in any formation (even worse than stuff on Calling All Stations). Remove it and that is a superb proggy pop album. I don't like it more than Abacab but I like it more than anything they did after.

I'm with akm. I'd argue that the s/t is their best album of the '80s. Abacab and Duke have a couple of great songs and a bunch I can't make it to the end of, but the s/t strikes a perfect balance of prog/AOR/pop. Except for "Illegal Alien," which is a musical war crime.

ABACAB is my favorite of their pop albums. But I think self-titled to me feels like a stab at what they did much better with invisible touch.

I think That's All is dumb, but anything is good compared to illegal alien.

lol I like "Illegal Alien"

the lyrics are dumb but it's a fun tune

It's no Buy Me a Condo.

*I can see how Genesis/Phil ballads might be controversial, but this is a lovely song, imo, that bridges '70s Genesis and '80s Genesis really well.

Invisible Touch played a strong ballads game too imo

Funny that even at their prog height, Phil's singing about some bird that broke his heart ("More Fool Me").

Abacab is my favorite genesis but i definitely have a lot of time for the s/t. I thought everyone loved "That's All"??? A superb beatles homunculus with a nifty guitar solo I can sing from memory. I'm gonna play this album next!

In general, first wave prog bands going noo wave was a great thing IMO.

I never thought of it as Beatles-y, I always heard That's All as corny faux honky tonk. I like Phil's drumming on it a lot, though, and I like the ... bridge?

IDK it has always had a weird kind of abbey road vibe for me?

Another nice tidbit on that track -- the sort of attackless liquid guitar arpeggios that fade in and out under some iterations of the chorus

Fucking garbage piano sound though, I feel like prince had an unsupportable fondness for this same sound

also something has happened and i seem to be able to tolerate illegal alien now? WTF. It has such a good leslie lead hook!

re my second sentence, it sounds like he is fingerpicking on an actually pretty dissonant chord but it's just so compressed and liquified it doesn't call any attn to itself

"Heathaze" from Duke gives me some feels.

I love "Afterglow" from "Wind & Wuthering," where it just keeps washing into new waves of lovely. Superb use of a fade-out, too. That album has "Your Own Special Way" on it, too. "Trick of the Tail" has "Ripples." Ballads might just be this band's forte. Of course they rocked, too, but in a really particular way.

Speaking of Mike Rutherford, he not only stuck out in Genesis as the only non-virtuoso member, but in the world of prog at large it's pretty unusual to have such a relatively modest lead guitarist. He's a neat bassist, though. His playing on "No Reply at All" is cool.

A Trick of the Tail may be my favorite Genesis record of all.

Squonk!

Yeah ToTT and W&W are the two best Genesis albums for me. Banks was in his prime as a songwriter and Collins' vocals are just perfect.

"Heathaze" from Duke gives me some feels.

Yes! Duke might be my favourite Phil-era studio album.

+1 for Squonk!

The Invisible Touch tour was actually my first concert, and digging backwards through the Genesis catalog was my first music-geek moment (they lost me when I got to about Nursery Cryme).

So with that disclosure in mind, I think the pre-1978 stuff was objectively better, but it was also pretty much for dudes only. I once read an interview with some musician (can't remember who) who said something along the lines of "all music has some sex in it. if you don't, you just end up like Genesis". And I think this quote was referencing the side-long prog suites, not the AOR pop moments. I still have a soft spot for a lot of the later era stuff (Behind the Lines, Follow You Follow Me, Misunderstanding), but the stuff I'm more likely to revisit now is the older stuff.

"they lost me when I got to about Nursery Cryme"

you only have to go back one album after that! two I guess if you really want to

Re: Mike Rutherford basslines, I've learned to love his mod noodling on the Fountain of Salmacis.

FWIW, as far as prog goes Genesis I think is among the most ... sensitive? That is, as dude-y as prog is, imo it's a far cry from more macho stuff like King Crimson or Van Der Graaf Generator or even fussy stuff like Yes, let alone the cock-prog of ELP. Genesis has all that folk/pastoral stuff, and of course, again, actual ballads. At least pre-1980 Genesis. After that, yeah, even the ballads are sort of neutered AOR generic, as much as I love them.

"Paperlate" is such an overlooked/forgotten gem. Until last week I thought that "Inside Out" was another forgotten Genesis-with-horns gem, but then I remembered it was on "No Jacket Required."

Sure you're not thinking of "Inside and Out"?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyeUizLp1rk

Yeah ToTT and W&W are the two best Genesis albums for me. Banks was in his prime as a songwriter and Collins' vocals are just perfect.

yes these two are fantastic. a recent relisten through the whole Genesis catalogue really boosted those two in my mind while revealing some of the early stuff I had previously liked as being a bit spottier than I remembered. the supposed double that W&W could've been which included some of Hackett's material and the tracks from Spot the Pigeon (how did those get cut??) would've been incredible.

IMO the later stuff goes Abacab > Genesis > Invisible Touch, even though Abacab really does go to shit on the last couple tracks. "Dodo/Lurker" is exactly what New Wave prog was meant to sound like.

otm

i find w& w so dreary, though i love the instrumentals. but blood on the rooftops is too too bleak - maybe being english i'm too close to it - and all in a mouse's night is just twee rubbish.

selling england by the £ still their most solid one for me.

xpost No, this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-IpCQp5Wdw

This is the only Hackett (Rutherford co-write) solo track that came really close to getting on a Genesis album, no?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SEgJtq2JjU

Though obviously Phil and Mike are on the album.

yeah, as far as I know that was written for foxtrot or something and didn't make it.

It's interesting how closely PC/PG/Genesis careers evolved in tandem, as though they were permanently yoked to each other. PC/PG's 1980-81 gated-drum breakthroughs (with matching stark album covers), their 1986 commercial peak, the early '90s New Jerseys (Can't Dance/Us) that were moderate hits but signalled career declines.

Not to mention that their voices could sound a lot more dissimilar.

Collins on the Melt album definitely helped that along

Though Gabriel had a decent simulacrum in Jerry Marotta.

I'm as guilty of missing this as anyone, but Collins only plays drums on 2 tracks on Peter Gabriel III.

oh really - I actually thought it was all drum machines, under Phil's direction

Huh? Nope. Mostly Marotta. I think only Games Without Frontiers has drum machine? The crazy end of that, supposedly, is the sound of Marotta throwing his drums around the studio, which Lillywhite then sped up.

BTW, that's Jerry Marotta, second from left!
http://expose.org/assets/img/features/783/orleans-waking-and-dreaming-1976.jpg

Foxtrot and A Trick of the Tail are the only LP's I can really listen to in full these days. I like at least one track from each of their LP's, though.

right on. been a long time since I pulled out PG3 - will have to rectify

"Dance on a Volcano" is the shit

In which I discuss one of the worst songs recorded.

Get this stat: every Genesis album through We Can’t Dance outsold its predecessor in England, an unsurpassed record.

whoa, I didn't know that. that's what, 14 straight albums?

I thought I was getting bored of this band earlier this year, but Duke and particularly Invisible Touch sounded phenomenal last time I heard 'em.

Even parts of And Then There Were Three. "Many Too Many" has the misty fall atmosphere of Wind & Wuthering.

still my fave genesis song. from my fave genesis album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdJkOMYzVFE&list=RDTzL-up4ZKgI&index=2

There's a dude at the bar that looks like a super tanned Mike Rutherford.

https://open.spotify.com/track/3qmYlsTbC9CD9SGoVmaEDa?si=KBxsIwV0RV2WfJMWvsv7jA

Tonight Tonigjt Tonigt is almost 9 minutes long. Settle in

I have no idea what year it's from and I'm not looking it up but I've had That's All in my head for well over a month now and I think I'm going to lose it soon.

TBF it's a solid jam

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vzyn60Zns-E

For a while I hated it but now I think I like it again. I still think it sounds like something from The Muppet Show.

I like it a lot. It has a jaunty late beatles whiff to it and I dig the subtle liquified guitar chords daubed in here and there

I love the drums. Sounds like it might be all Simmons pads, but some of his fills are super tight and fluid, especially for rudimentary electric drums of the era.

there's been an awful lot of phil about lately. maybe because of his tour, but I seem to hear him out and about more often than I have in years, including this song, which I heard in a walgreens yesterday (and I love that song)

1976-1986, say.

you didn't

totally agree that the gabriel years are in this day and age over-hyped and under-rewarding. they just never pulled together SONGS the way yes, floyd, and crimson did imho. otoh "turn it on again" is one of the best "rock" songs ever and phil's transfiguration from drummer to better-than-gabriel as a solo artist is one of the most compelling trajectories in pop history . . . until he started to really suck and give elton a run for his schmaltz money

A silent tear of blood is dribbling down my cheek :(

He wasn't better than Gabriel solo, just better at making moderately exciting and modestly ahead of its time pop music.

"take me home" > any gabriel solo jam

i've been a prisoner all my life too

favorite/best genesis solo album of all is voyage of the acolyte though

Phil in very good voice doing "Follow You Follow Me" live with Mike Rutherford. This was the among first Genesis tunes I heard -- I bought the 7", I don't think I was older than 11. Loved it & got "Seconds Out." A backwards path at the time -- I copped "Nursery Cryme" & "Foxtrot" used after that, and had to try to figure out for myself how the band could have become so different over time -- this was all pre-Abacab times.

Anyway this is lovely.

https://youtu.be/KiHdG4zSx1w

truly outstanding caption from the uploader btw

I think "Still not dead yet" is the name of the tour? LOLs if not tho

Duke and Invisible Touch are two of the very best records this band ever made, and as much as I love Nursery Cryme, Foxtrot and A Trick of the Tail, I'd have to go for 1978-1991 era.

I saw this tour at the Royal Albert Hall last year, not my choice but my wife used to work with his manager and they gave us freebies and for a bit of a jape put us in a box with one of Phil's childhood friends and Eric Cl@pton and his daughters, it was totally surreal.

Obviously, he still has his physical problems, but he's looking a hell of a lot better in that video than some of the footage that was doing the 'rounds last year, where he looked medicated up to the eyeballs. It's good to see him doing something, though - this guy has had some unnecessary shit flung his way over the years. I've come to appreciate him as one of the greats in recent years - not a stance I always had, particularly regarding his solo work!

Follow is such a pretty song.

Amazing live footage from 1976 (shot in 2:35:1! Bill Bruford on second drum kit!):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrK2WwHwmHY

that's fantastic

not sure i ever grasped how delicate and just pretty PC's voice was back then (when to be fair to me i had zero interest in genesis, who always just baffled me given how much my schoolchums loved em)

Sleeping audience shots in that rule.

Phil is such an underrated singer. It's amazing to me that lore has him the guy who drew he short straw. But, like, Bernard Sumner, sure, I believe he was not a first choice. But Phil is so close to Peter in a lot of ways, with the, yeah, delicacy of Wyatt or something.

Can't find the thread where I noted the similarities between Phil Collins and Roger Chapman (of Family... but strictly in restrained non-vibrato mode!) but I've since noticed that Peter Gabriel used to get compared to Roger Chapman a lot, and vice versa.

Also: a little Gary Brooker from Procal Harum!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOj3kJKy-_U

thinking a bit more about why early 70s genesis didn't click for teen me, i reach for something that hadn't at time crystallised: i'm just not drawn to gabriel's voice, at all. i spent a long time trying and not getting it: pals enjoyed it, critics i respected wrote him up, he worked with ppl i loved loved loved (youssou n'dpur!), he seems like basically a person who's good not bad -- but no.

and eventually i realised (not all that long ago, in ilx time in fact): ok the thing is i just don't like his voice. it's not a value judgment really, more like one of those food things (to some ppl basil just tastes like soap)

what i find a bit disorientating abt this concert youtube is that it dangles this massive impossible counterfactual: if collins had *always* been the singer of gabriel-era genesis, maybe i'd have been drawn in much more? i think likely not -- i'm not sure i had a clear idea of voices-i-like as a virtue back then (i hadn't heard a wide enough range, certainly nothing like youssou) -- but maybe?

i'm also just taken by how much less, well, square they sound! maybe bcz i'm from a not-entirely-different background (which is why my schoolchums liked them so) , i always found them a bit too careful musically (and cared nothing for gabriel's theatrics or collins's stagecraft, and still don't really: the first is expensively realised village-hall panto stuff, which i got enough of at home lol, and the second is where's-me-washboard musical hall, which i wd have been a bit suspicious of as a teen and now find more interesting in social-history terms than content-wise)

but here: with bruford also present, and collins's voice, and a little more weird-noise round the edges of hackett's playing than i generally hear from him… not quite so square?

Collins, in the mid to late 70s at least, seems to be imitating Gabriel's voice, so not sure that would have helped much.

it's an interesting set because there's not very much Trick of the Tail in it - which was a shade disappointing, but never mind - so you can see them cutting and pasting and reinventing old chunks of the Gabriel-era catalogue in ways that are more musically interesting and exciting than the recorded versions

the appeal of Gabriel-era was and still is that of a spooky Victorian picture book in a dusty attic to me - totally different vibe from the band in that film, both good (to me) in different ways. not that this was necessarily Gabriel's fault/problem. it's quite funny how Collins and Bruford, maybe Rutherford, look like the only ones enjoying being on stage.

with bruford also present, and collins's voice, and a little more weird-noise round the edges of hackett's playing than i generally hear from him… not quite so square?

This is the reaction I had. I like Foxtrot and some bits of The Lamb... but generally don't need much Gabriel-era Genesis in my life. And I like the big singles from the peak Collins era (Duke, Abacab, s/t) but don't need anything after that. The middle period, immediately post-Gabriel but pre-big hits, has never done anything for me. And yet this live footage makes that material much more interesting and makes me want to go back and listen to And Then There Were Three and Seconds Out, to see if I missed something.

my Banks-hating theory is that this set represents a moment where he's not in control of the band much

also tbf has banks ever enjoyed anything anywhere ever (even when he was in control)?

obviously in a fairly direct and upfront way collins sounds like gabriel and sings like gabriel: and this was partly a craftman's decisio , which PC was a strong enough musician to pull off and go on to make a (vast) success of

what makes it interesting for me is that voice-wise the divide between "am actively drawn to" and "don't really care for" falls exactly between them (as collins sings here). so yes they're alike: but in some key subtle way, also not. fro memory i don't think the 80s material is designed to bring out this element in PC's singing so much, certainly not on record. and maybe the busy regular activity as a frontman just changed his voice anyway, from : which happens to many singers of course

I find Collins singing Gabriel material less compelling precisely because his voice is so pretty. I understand my opinions are formed by my discovering the mid eighties version of the band instead of being there to listen to the evolution. I just never bought Collins singing about Rael and moonlight knights -- he's too practical or something.

fro memory i don't think the 80s material is designed to bring out this element in PC's singing so much, certainly not on record. and maybe the busy regular activity as a frontman just changed his voice anyway, from : which happens to many singers of course

This is true, explaining in part why listening to Collins singing Rutherford lyrics about "my generation WILL PUT IT RIGHT" inspires deep guffawing in my part of Florida.

as well as gabriel's village panto stuff that material moonlight-knight was also uninteresting to me, i had certainly read all the same very-english fantasy kidlit as gabriel and (believed that i) knew where it was done better (= in the books). for a while in the 80s i had a very good friend, very funny working-class glasgow chancer who briefly dated my sister then stayed friends, and i vividly remember a long overnight drive with him down from glasgow back to london where he enthused abt yes and genesis and moonlight-knight as just this amazing portal of possibility for someone like him

(it was a good lesson for me in how thin and lazy the usual class reading of prog vs punk is: as he was also someone who had been "inspired by the pistols" to become a musician) (lol he was for a while in a band with pat kane, who he cordially loathed)

s/b moonlight-knight material, my current symptom is apparently being unable to edit my own posts competently

Would be interesting to play the band's LPs from start to finish to someone who hasn't heard them before - pretty likely they would assume there was one singer whose voice mutated completely over a couple of decades.

Selling England took 16 year-old me straight to TS Eliot so cheers to the lads for that tbh

xpost That's a good question, actually. I wonder if the stylistic break at "Duke" would be the most conspicuous point of divergence to a neophyte.

I think, for better or for worse, Phil Collins and Peter Gabriel were both really influenced by soul singers (or maybe equally/specifically white soul singers). That's something that really sets them apart from a lot of prog people, imo. For example, I can totally see Gabriel taking inspiration from, say, Steve Winwood. I can also see, for example, someone like Mark Hollis thinking himself a soul singer of sorts as well, never mind his own vocal similarities to Gabriel et al.

Jon Anderson was working class himself iirc?xps

What fantasy lit is "Moonlit Knight" based on?

not just white soul singers, the nod to the Drifters in The Lamb is v deliberate

For sure.

xpost I also thought that one was kind of a pomo statement on contemporary England.

If we're talking lyrics, I think Gabriel was mostly bored and entertaining himself. That's definitely why he went for the costumes.

I think I heard that the song started with the "Knights of the Green Shield stamp and shout" joke.

also now listening to seconds out as i edit someone's book abt the incredible string band (another group i have never much warmed to) (book is good tho, hope the fall of all the world doesn't impeded its publication too much)

xp lol i also don't much like steve winwood
xxp lots of frontline prog musicians weren't especially posh, a handful definitely were
xxxp my kidlit territoriality as a teen was not necessarily fact-based

Phil Collins and Peter Gabriel were both really influenced by soul singers (or maybe equally/specifically white soul singers). That's something that really sets them apart from a lot of prog people, imo. For example, I can totally see Gabriel taking inspiration from, say, Steve Winwood.

Otis Redding, though, right? Someone less inclined to cut Gabriel vocal slack might allude to Steve Winwood as exactly the starched-white white soul better whom Gabriel might sound like.

can honestly say as someone who's listened to a lot of Genesis i've never heard a live set as good as the one in the movie unperson shared. Abacab era might be closest, sound and playing-wise

Phil singing backup on all those early songs maybe made it hard for him to handle the lead vocals on them. He wasn't yet a confident singer here; he still sings the high notes in falsetto where later he'll push his voice in that strained "soulful" Michael Bolton way he's famous for. Plus yeah, he wasn't so into hogweeds.

Peter Gabriel's appeal was partly the voice, but also this mystery and menace (assuming you bought into the persona). Some of those costumes were frightening — the fox head looks like a dead animal pelt. Seeing him onstage with a triangle shaved into his head, I'm sure some audiences figured he was nuts, which made the music & lyrics more convincing.

Hogweeds were real!

"He wasn't yet a confident singer here"

maybe this is exactly what i like! except i'm hearing unconfidence as prettiness (bcz it's so pretty!): can easily see how something so fragile wouldn't survive the professional needs of the regular all-night soulshout

I like the intensity of Pete doing the occasional Genesis song in the late '70s:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd4aaoLE5co

Some good stuff in here, too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FOnmf5NIWY

Discovering this track in 1990 after a decade of Collins shouting in soccer stadiums around the world was a seismic shock:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyagd2EvwDU

(listening to seconds out except skipping all the bogus cockney ones ffs)

yeah it's painful when Phil does that, like he's minstreling himself

He definitely plays it up, but isn't he ... cockney? I guess I never understood what that term meant, other than a working class accent.

Phil was the Artful Dodger in a big London production of Oliver! when he was a kid. So the cockney-for-laughs runs deep.

i.e. .the intro to the "Invisible Touch" video

He definitely plays it up, but isn't he ... cockney? I guess I never understood what that term meant, other than a working class accent.

Born within the sound of Bow bells, mate.

I think, for better or for worse, Phil Collins and Peter Gabriel were both really influenced by soul singers (or maybe equally/specifically white soul singers). That's something that really sets them apart from a lot of prog people, imo.

I don't that's unusual for musicians of their era. Can't be too many UK musicians who learned their trade in the 60s who didn't play soul, R&B, Motown covers at some point - Geezer Butler hated it, mind you.

Probably true, but these two stuck with it ("Can't Hurry Love," "Sledgehammer," etc.). Did Jon Anderson and John Wetton or whomever ever do (or try) any soul stuff?

i was regretting the one-offness of 90125 the other day

gabriel tends to kermit it up a bit in the genesis days, there's some vox-and-lead-guitar only stems from "selling england" floating about that aren't particularly flattering to him

before genesis i believe collins did sing lead in flaming youth, who were, honestly, a quite fine band. ultimately the '60s stuff descended into his lugubrious cover of "groovy kind of love" but as r&b/soul-loving white british lads go you could do far worse. gabriel as well... that time hackett showed up at a gabriel solo concert in the '80s and they played "reach out (i'll be there)", a fine moment.

gabriel-era genesis is something i relate really strongly personally to, honestly. it's often dismissed as being the typical prog-renfaire nonsense, but not all schoolboy stories of ancient time are created equal. what story do genesis retell? the story of hermaphrodite. when i look at gabriel era genesis, i see a band with a frontman who, at just about every turn, subverted and defied the expectations of heteronormative male gender presentation. and you best believe he got shit for it.

good reading

revisited in the Slippermen

lovely post, Kate

more lessons in amazing portals of possibility :)

(spotify meanwhile followed seconds out with whiter shade of pale, which makes more sense to me as a source than stevie winwood, at least if i want my interest piqued)

tbf I'm really just talking about Winwood's voice

yes i'm not disagreeing particularly, just that some routes in leave me (personally) less excited than others

(my entire intervention here has been a very self-indulgent analysis of micro-details of my own evolving taste)

(a thing never before encountered before on ilxor.com)

lol this has been the best ilm thread in ages

phil is good again :)

xposting to myself, memory jogged: duh, I completely forgot that "Owner of a Lonely Heart" is half Motown riff. Still, prog does tend to shy away from soul stuff. Yes covering "America" seems more par for the course. Bartok seems like a another popular reference (see: ELP, King Crimson). Folk and classical, stuff that showcases the frilly and fussy.

90125 is, like i said, this wonderful anomaly, and it's soul roots are already distorted through T Horn and the burgeoning 80s reinvention. there's a good train of thought about how the trite anti-Prog narrative ignored all of that stuff tho, including the Collins/Gabriel stuff we've poked at on this last convo

Was there much of an anti-prog narrative in 1980-whatever, though? If anything, prog kind of won!

"Frilly and fussy" = not how I've ever thought of Bartok :P

there's still a banal kneejerk anti-Prog narrative now, depending where you look. the joy of criticism now is there's no papers of record, maybe.

xpost OK, not Bartok, lol. Maybe invoked as a signpost of Serious and Complex Thought, then.

It's actually kind of weird how many prog acts not just thrived but hit various commercial peaks in the '80s: Genesis, Gabriel, Yes, King Crimson, Asia, Rush. Marillion? (I've never heard Marillion.)The Police had prog roots, too.

Might be a North America/UK divide here? Classic rock radio was definitely still beaming Yes, Tull, Rush, and Floyd across this continent in the 80s, while you'd have to look to 'alternative' or even campus outlets to hear much that was punkier than the Cars or Police. I think things went differently on the other side of the Atlantic.

my prog challops starts from the feeling that it's like the unhappy families in the first sentence of anna karenina (the the defitinion of a game in philosophical investigation): there's no such thing as "typical prog" if this means a characteristic found in every exemplar. if someone happened on ELP and genesis independent of the critical history, would they identify them as versions of the same thing?

of course there's a fvckton of traces of all kinds of black music across prog as a whole, which is no surprise given the patchwork of rival 60s clubs and london scenes its players emerged from

the erasure of Prog as a (necessary) joke enemy comes into my "why critics who use the word 'Punk' as an adjective of approbation are worthless" theory but i feel like in real terms people of good ears have moved beyond this, it's a kvetch about a certain kind of basicness that doesn't really matter

of the uk-based names in that list, almost all very significantly rebooted themselves at some point between 76 and 80: often with a hiatus following what may well have been a crisis of nerve

(i know nothing abt asia and do not plan to change this)

that was members of yes and elp. had at least two huge hits here.

there's a massive tangle that could fill a lifetime of knot-pulling. cities vs suburbs - consider that in terms of the vast geographical gaps in north america vs the UK; sophisticates vs conservatives, access to records, class affinities in small towns vs cities, the relationship of both to national music press, shit is complicated sorry i've had a few

before even touching the sexual/gender/class twists in there

i mean to quote the Onion, "Rock History Written By the Losers"

Idk, is it that hard to hear a resemblance between the band that did "From the Beginning" and the one that did "Supper's Ready"?xps

one thing that might be intersting there sund4r is moving between the things that are consistent between the very first recordings and how they held those motifs when their interests had moved on, like never mind "Supper's Ready" there's still the same uptight thought in ""The Last Domino" somehow.

yes my thought experiment fails when knowledgeable but secretly hostile critics select for possible overlap :)

also lol what a horrible horrible singer greg lake is

i hate him so much

B-b-but he talked to the trees!

No personal hostility! :( The idea was very interesting, which is why I was trying to consider it critically!

lol i always mix that song up with Paint Your Wagon

Lake is cool on that first Crimson record.

i was teasing sund4r, don't worry :)

while i'm fucking up a Genesis thread that Kanye sample justifies 30 years of KC nerd-post-rock imo

Is he a prog fan? There was also the Anderson/Oldfield sample on the same album.

"fan" is a word innit? i don't know, but it seems to me like there's enough chops on those records to be attractive to a concerned sampler

He also samples Can on a different record. And Alan Parsons Project, iirc.

What I hate about "punk" love is what it excludes rather than what it admires, plus, y'know, lazy thought

yeah Lake isn't a bad singer. He has a very clear voice and isnt annoying. He's arguably the least annoying singer Crimson ever had. That said I don't like most ELP; but not because of him.

I actually quite like his voice but I also don't have the issues with KC's other singers that a lot of people seem to have.

I don't like ELP.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that The Nice are infinitely better than ELP.

Don't hste ELP tho.

Greg Lake's voice is awesome. Adrian Belew's voice, on the other hand, should only be heard faintly (and vainly) calling for help from the bottom of an abandoned mine-shaft.

B-b-but he talked to the trees!

― Let's kill the Queen and be legends (Noodle Vague), F

So did Eno! He also spoke to spiders and trees.

Eno is my Jesus so other rules are suspended

There are bits and pieces of ELP I enjoy. I own the first LP and throw it on sometimes. Also love "From the Beginning". The Nice = otm, though.

I enjoy their Love Beach nipples.

look, who doesn't love a nipple?

"fan" is a word innit? i don't know, but it seems to me like there's enough chops on those records to be attractive to a concerned sampler

For instance, who has ever heard Fruupp?

https://www.whosampled.com/Fruupp/

Watching/listening to the video upthread, I was thinking the band sounded much tighter on the more 'rocking' parts of "Supper's Ready" and some other tricky passages, especially the drumming, then realized it was Bruford instead of Collins. So I guess I like him less not only as a singer but also as a drummer?

who listens to fruuup? madlib obvs, he's probably got a eidetic memory of german sympho

i know a couple different songs that sample "firth of fifth"; not just "gangster in designer (no concept) but "seek and destroy" by god complex

i can't quite identify what flute prog is sampled on juggaknots' "generally" - idk if it's like genesis or pfm or what - i know i've heard it before, can anyone listen and set my mind at ease?

afu-ra's "gully" samples keith emerson's piano concerto

genesis live does frustrate me because they do tend to be a little sloppy on pocket, "return of the giant hogweed" is a fantastic song but they never really nailed it live... none of them were necessarily what i'd call top-notch instrumentalists!

I was hoping “fan” was a semi-technical term for prog-style sweep picking or something

just saw “fan” and “chops” in same post

"none of them were necessarily what i'd call top-notch instrumentalists" I'd say Banks is but he's also boring

Banks was notorius for not being able to play what he'd written, certainly when compared to some music school play-it-with-one-hand-while-chomping-on-a-curry-with-the-other type like Wakeman. Collins was probably the best musician of the lot.

banks' overreliance on arpeggios also gets pretty hilarious after a while

Banks was notorius for not being able to play what he'd written, certainly when compared to some music school play-it-with-one-hand-while-chomping-on-a-curry-with-the-other type like Wakeman. Collins was probably the best musician of the lot.

― akb23 (Matt #2),

I still laugh at how Rutherford became guitarist AND bassist after Hackett left.

none of them were necessarily what i'd call top-notch instrumentalists!

This is nuts. Collins is one of my favorite drummers of all time. I just ... I mean, one of the reasons I like Collins so much is not just his musical personality but how he makes the stuff kind of swing (which is part of that). Bruford is an incredible technical drummer, of course, but swinging is not his forte (see: Earthworks, etc.). For Phil, "Dancing With the Moonlit Knight" is about as good as prog drumming gets. You can find nerds online doing drum covers, which isn't the same thing but allows you to focus on the crazy playing.

And Hackett is nuts-good. I love this Hackett demo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Er2GHuzlUAY

Also, Rutherford was playing bass and guitar (and pedals) from the beginning, just as Banks was playing some guitar, too. I only recently learned (did I post here about it?) how much Rutherford was an early adopter of guitar synths, too, so some of the weird "synth" stuff is sometimes him as well.

??? Collins doesn't have chops? that's nuts, listen to Brand X

Even beyond chops, Collins can *groove*. Hell, listen to his playing in "Throwing It All Away," summoning up the spirit of Bonham in a song that could not be more the opposite of Zeppelin.

I bought a ferandes with that sustainer pickup in it, it's a shit ton of fun.

Hackett is such a pro he doesn't even make a Spinal Tap joke.

i am acquainting myself with the works of asia :(

Discogs suggests they have 65 albums, although I think most of those are live.

They had a spin-off version - John Payne's Asia - led by some guy who wasn't even in the original line-up! How does that work?

I only know the first couple of albums, which I'm fond of tbf

this one is live (in bulgaria in 2013, original line-up, my primary beef is vocals as usual)

i shd probably write up my actual general beef with prog vocals somewhere: the short version of the greg lake issue is that hating him his voice and his dumb songs and ideas is part of the joy of loving ELP very greatly, plus i like claiming he's a more horrible singer than all the evidently very much worse singers who've been in king crimson viz all the others, bcz my long-term relationship w/KC is a puzzled and suspicious fascination, i dont really like em but i return p often to check if actually maybe i do after all. the absent lovers set that someone mentioned i guess of their own thread i did quite enjoy earlier in the week despite belew singing quite a lot appropriate_emoji

i don't really get KC beyond those first proggy records

Every KC album from 1969-74 is good/worth hearing. After that, IMO you really only need to hear one or two of the recent multi-disc live sets (Radical Action to Unseat the Hold of Monkey Mind and Audio Diary 2014-2018 are the ones I recommend) to hear how they're recasting/reshaping the old material with the new band. The new versions of old songs really are quite radically different a lot of the time. (And FTR the current live vocalist is pretty bad - a weak Lake imitator. But the actual music, especially with the triple drummers, is frequently great.)

whenever i check out modern KC it feels like all these chops deployed in the service of really unengaging/joyless music, idk, i'd dig deeper if i was interested i guess

I really like early '80s KC, though, but that is in essence an entirely different animal (hence them originally wanting to use a different name).

The best line-up of Crimson I saw might have been the one-off tour with Belew, Fripp, Levin, and Pat and Gavin on drums in 2008. Essentially close to the '80s line-up except with extra crazy drum stuff a la the Muir era. Here's a good example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1w0vxQ-ueCI

(As you can see from pictures in that video, the Park West is tiny. Crazy that I've been able to see both KC and Bob Dylan there.)

Back to Genesis, here's a further cleaned up version of the Popshop TV appearance. These videos have been circulating in fan hands and getting progressively better looking over the years; I think this one was in the box set on a bonus DVD years back but it's been improved again since, this is the best I've seen it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=383&v=YGJI8WhmWyc&feature=emb_logo

(i had to knead some bread dough for 20 minutes so i switched to the gates of delirium off of relayer, the only good record)

back to genesis again yes

(there are lots of good yes records besides relayer -- the yes album, fragile, close to the edge, drama, and 90125 all rule)

the only good record by anyone ever qualmsley, this is canon and can't be refuted

xpost I like that 1972 clip, because you get to see Pete playing flute, Tony playing guitar and Phil playing a tiny drum set.

xpost \m/

I think, for better or for worse, Phil Collins and Peter Gabriel were both really influenced by soul singers (or maybe equally/specifically white soul singers). That's something that really sets them apart from a lot of prog people, imo.

This is true, but I think the difference between them is thre "soul voice" seems to come more naturally to Collins, where with Gabriel it comes via this awkward posh school theatrical filter. Im just thinking of how both sing Supper's Ready, espceially the closing section, like Pete's all "Hello babe, your supper's waiting for you", and Phil's like, "Hey babe, your supper's waiting for you". Both approaches are fine - the awkwardness is a feature not a bug for Gabriel in the long run, whereas Phil's ease with soul takes us to his Supremes cover (which I think is fine) and the really awful Blues Brothers-style soul medleys on the Invisible Touch tour, which lead me to believe there must have been quite a lot of coke on the Genesis rider during that era.

RE: Banks, the key to his character for me has always been an on-the-road documentary filmed circa Invisible Touch where he's talking about The Brazilian in context of the new album, saying it sounds a lot like his solo stuff and then saying "So if you like that go buy my solo albums." And then he adds sourly, "Which no one ever does, of course."

how well discussed in gabriel lore is the 1977 tour he did with nona hendryx as support act?

i remember it being a critical talking point at the time in uk rock-paper reviews w/o very clearly remembering in what way (likely at least one review said the equivalent of "well NH gets it and PG doesn't" and others said "keep this bad music out of our nice genesis ears" but i honestly don't exactly recall except that i somehow firmly filed it away as a confluence of note)

xpost I feel like the Yes Album would be considered more of a classic if it had Roger Dean artwork

ooh wasn't aware of that but was listening to nona's Art of Defense yesterday and appreciating its hard Talking Heads vibe

She's kind of out there, Nona.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fc0wWy_OTA

The first two Nona Hendryx albums rule; the other eighties albums are cluttered things.

I think Television opened for him on part of that tour, too, or at least the next tour.

television was later in the year -- same tour US leg possibly? first NH alb = 1977, the year in question

i found a couple of reviews of the shows in question on rock's backpages, which don't live up to my billing upthread (at all, lol) -- so maybe it was discussions in interviews (with him or with her) round that time that i'm remembering

I tried to like Nona Hendryx, but she's the unnecessary middle ground between Chrissie Hynde and Grace Jones.

i can't quite identify what flute prog is sampled on juggaknots' "generally" - idk if it's like genesis or pfm or what - i know i've heard it before, can anyone listen and set my mind at ease?

― Kate (rushomancy), Friday, March 27, 2020 1:37 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

I've been reading too much ILX, because my first thought after reading this was "Wait, Insane Clown Posse sampled Gabriel on 'The Knife'? Is that from the 2nd deck of Joker cards?"

what makes it interesting for me is that voice-wise the divide between "am actively drawn to" and "don't really care for" falls exactly between them (as collins sings here). so yes they're alike: but in some key subtle way, also not.

So this turns out to be also true for me, but in reverse. I just find Collins unconvincing and unengaging on prog material, maybe for the reason Alfred said. Once in a while, I try again with A Trick of the Tail and it just never lands.

I've been reading too much ILX, because my first thought after reading this was "Wait, Insane Clown Posse sampled Gabriel on 'The Knife'? Is that from the 2nd deck of Joker cards?"

― Bill Bruford's drumbeat for "South Side of the Sky": proto-dubstep? (Prefecture)

juggaknots weren't icp-related? they were a company flow offshoot

(But good show) xp

have i mentioned my completely baseless crackpot theory that "the knife" was based on the theme song to "the flashing blade"?

Ha! I looked them up and found out that yes, the Juggaknots have literally nothing to do with neither Violent J nor Shaggy 2 Dope. I would have never heard of them if not for this thread - I'll definitely check them out!

As for the actual question at hand, "The Knife" (from 1970's Trespass) is absolutely awesome, the kind of song you would hear during the movie montage scene where the protagonist trains to defeat the foe. The interplay between Banks, Rutherford, and Philips is total fire. So, point for 1970-77.

Counterpoint: "Anything She Does" from 1986's Invisible Touch is one of the best power-pop songs ever, and not just because Phil taught a generation of US kids how Britishers pronounce "garage".

Also a typically unspoken entry in the list of "80s songs about pining for centerfolds" songs.

have i mentioned my completely baseless crackpot theory that "the knife" was based on the theme song to "the flashing blade"?

This was shown in the US?

Pretty sure The Knife was a tribute to / knockoff of The Nice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45pIvr4gJD4

It is a truth universally acknowledged that The Nice are infinitely better than ELP.

come on now. Ars Longa Vita Brevis is a fun record and there's some good stuff on their debut (depending on whether or not you like David Jackson's goofy psych pop songs) but The Nice ran out of ideas after 2 LPs plus they had a terrible singer and a drummer whose only mode was straightforward bashing. arguably a more interesting band than ELP though

This was shown in the US?

― Bridge Over Thorley Waters (Tom D.)

not to my knowledge, why?

the nice at their best were just the right amount of ridiculous for me. keith emerson wearing leather trousers stabbing a keyboard > keith emerson in a stadium playing a levitating synthesizer

john peel clearly agreed; his famous quote on ELP came from someone who had the nice on his show what seemed like every fucking week. hell, the nice did his show's theme tune!

not to my knowledge, why?

I thought you were in the US?

keith emerson wearing leather trousers stabbing a keyboard > keith emerson in a stadium playing a levitating synthesizer

HARD AGREE

The bit when Collins breaks into a surf drum break after all the galloping 3/4 when Gabriel sings 'stand up and fight' is so fucking great.

It's not Phil, it's John Mayhew on Trespass.

that 76 video was awesome by the way. young Phil is a lot of fun to watch

I thought you were in the US?

― Bridge Over Thorley Waters (Tom D.)

yes? i don't get what you're saying. a show doesn't have to be broadcast on american television for me to have seen it. i'm broadly familiar with a lot of british-broadcast television of the '60s and '70s

It's not Phil, it's John Mayhew on Trespass

Unless he's talking about the version on Genesis Live, of course.

(xp) I'm saying "The Flashing Blade" is a very obscure TV series for anyone outside of the UK (and France obviously) to be familiar with!

The original French series was apparently broadcast in Canada. Was it good?

it was silly even if you were 7 but it was swashbuckling action and had a memorable themetune with a dubious moral message

Kinda violent for a kids show?

it depicted the olden days, thats ok

Unless he's talking about the version on Genesis Live, of course.

which absolutely fucking rules (and was my second Genesis purchase, at the age of 11 or so, after Invisible Touch. Almost as baffling an experience as when, after falling in love with Sugar's Copper Blue, I decided to check out Bob Mould's old band Husker Du and bought the only album I could find locally, Land Speed Record)

Yeah, the Genesis live version is the one that plays in my head when I think about The Kinfe, I don't think I've listened to Trespass more than a couple of times.

Ah right , never occurred to me

I should listen to the album version to see if Mayhew wrote it like that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4HfFwVy-h0&fbclid=IwAR3QAq9Q5mYnVyqJ4zsYzgmwBa8CAkyswyebfvaPItgaLIkaOfmfRf1OpUU&app=desktop

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4HfFwVy-h0

Wrestling with the Giant Hogweed in my garden... pic.twitter.com/lZuVbr8xEw

— Steve Hackett (@HackettOfficial) April 6, 2020

Introducing the Genesis Film Festival, a celebration of live footage for you to enjoy at home during lockdown! Over the coming 5 weeks, every Saturday from 8pm BST / 2pm EDT / 11am PDT a new Genesis concert film will be made available to watch on the band’s official YouTube channel for 7 days. First up this week is ‘Three Sides Live’ from 1981! Don’t miss a thing by subscribing to the channel now - http://smarturl.it/YouTubeGenesis

· #GenesisFilmFestival programme ·

Saturday, April 18th · Three Sides Live (1981)
Saturday, April 25th · The Mama Tour (1984)
Saturday, May 2nd · Live At Wembley Stadium (1987)
Saturday, May 9th · The Way We Walk (1992)
Saturday, May 16th · When In Rome (2007)

...or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FBcz3tBH74

I was just listening to "Duke" on a run, and I think, for all the awesome stuff Phil has played on, if someone asked me what makes him a great drummer I think I might suggest listening to "Duke." It's just a great showcase for all his attributes: busy but melodic playing, beat displacement, making tricky time signatures sound accessible, the introduction of the big '80s drum sound (surprised this was pre-Padgham), the light touch with ballads, etc. "Behind the Lines" is just such a triumphant introduction to a new era of Genesis that in retrospect *this* is the album that probably should have been called "And Then There Were Three" (and that album maybe shouldn't really exist, not that it's particularly bad or anything, just clearly transitional).

yeah outside of the single I never remember a thing about that album

Duke is one of the few Genesis albums I don't have on LP, I dunno why since I'm sure I've seen it dozens of times for a buck or two. I just find the cover so unappealing. But it is surprisingly good, I read somewhere that a bunch of the songs were originally intended to be a long suite like Supper's Ready but they wound up getting split up. Still, the album makes more sense to me now

Duke is brilliant. Someone recommend me electronic music that sounds like the first two minutes of Duchess.

really fell in love with Duke this year, picked up a cheap vinyl copy on a whim

“turn it on again” is one of my favorite genesis jams

you can recreate the Duke Suite, and it was played that way in some live shows. It's cool, but it's no Supper's Ready.

Interesting that they they tried the suite idea again on Abacab with Dodo/Lurker/Naminanu/Submarine (I think) and scrapped that too

I listen to Dodo/Lurker only as the full suite now. Added Paperlate and Recall, dropped a couple of the slighter tracks and abacab became far more interesting.

I love the cover of Duke!

Was also thinking the other day that this is another band I had hoped to catch on their One More Time legacy/reunion tour that there's some chance I will never get to see perform again.

I'm in the same boat

Except I never saw them at all, don't know if you did, Josh

Yeah, I saw them in '92 and 2007. Both really good shows!

There are a few other major acts that were set to tour this year that honestly can't have too many more tours left in them. Like, Dylan - I've seen him a few times, and the last time he literally put me to sleep and I said "no more." Yet it sort of sent a shock through me considering this could literally be the end of the road for him. Tons of other acts, too, even much younger acts, especially those that went through stretches of hard living, who knows how much more sand they have in their hourglass. But those older acts in particular ...

That Genesis tour seemed like a disaster in the making but I’m still curious what they would’ve sounded like

The Lamb Drops Dead on Broadway

Expecting some "I Can't Dance" japes from Phil

"Hold On, My Heart"

Ugh, I think I'm 4 years older than Phil was in 1992.

I've never seen this Duke-era show, which is a pretty weird but interesting mix of old stuff, deep cuts and new, poppier stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZnP6eq9kcM

Also, just rewatched "Picnic at Hanging Rock" and noticed how much the score sounded like one of Tony Banks's interludes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_guHfwfIIO4

Seeing Genesis on their North American tour of Duke was my first large-scale concert experience. A few months earlier, a wiser friend strongly suggested that I invest in a ticket even though the band was mostly unknown to me. By the time they came to town, I was well-versed in every track they played, thanks to a concentrated focus that I now attribute to the obsessive enthusiasm of youth and the near-complete absence of distracting technology.

The Lyceum video captures pretty much the same set except that we didn't get The Knife as a second encore. Bastards.

I was fortunate enough to see Gabriel circa Security and Hackett finally on his Genesis Revisited Tour. I'm grateful for those opportunities. But I passed on the 2007 reunion and would definitely do the same for their post-viral tour, even if it crosses the Atlantic.

I was actually offered a free ticket to one of those two May 1980 Lyceum shows - a co-worker had been let down by his mate - but I politely declined, being at that point way too edgy and post-punk for Genesis.

I had, however, been to the Lyceum a few weeks earlier for The Psychedelic Furs headlining over A Certain Ratio, Echo & The Bunnymen, The Teardrop Explodes and Manicured Noise. I found some steps and dozed off for most of the Bunnymen's set, waking up during the start of ACR. Such nonchalance.

Saw them on the We Can't Dance tour and they did a Cage medley and there was a Phil'n'Chester drum duet and so that was good enough for me.

The first episode of "The Dress Up Gang" ("Burger Buddies" episode) is relevant to this thread, I swear: https://www.tbs.com/shows/the-dress-up-gang/season-1/episode-1/burger-buddies-new-look-day-explicit

just got Selling England on good quality vinyl for cheap, lord this is great stuff. been years since I heard this masterpiece.

already noticing how much of Hackett's great work I've already forgotten.

guess I have to listen to "More Fool Me" though :/

The playing on that album, but particularly from Phil and Steve, is incredible. First track alone ...

yeah I'm at the tail end right now and it's gorgeous. and I played this shit over and over when I first heard it, but there is so much I've forgotten. it's been at least 15 years, I'm so excited for when I get to "Firth of Fifth" now.

Firth Of Fifth is so sublime (tho the lyrics are dreadful)

Gabriel is such a fucking fruit loop -

https://youtu.be/5DinP93nW8Q?t=1157

So there I am, listening to "Invisible Touch," and for the first time I hear perceptible glimmers of old Genesis. Not on the couple of proggy songs, but in "In Too Deep," of all things. I thought, hmm, replace the digital synths with something more analog, even Mellotron, and replace the production with something more analog as well, slow things down, up the Romance a bit, and it could be on, say, "Wind & Wuthering."

So basically take out everything that makes it a crappy '80s Genesis pop song and replace it with stuff that makes it a great '70s Genesis prog song? Seems to me you could do that with any number of Genesis songs.

Nah, just that those kinds of cloying melodies are definitely present in ballads like "Ripples" and "Your Own Special Way."

Fascinating interview with Chester Thompson:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/drummer-chester-thompson-interview-genesis-phil-collins-frank-zappa-weather-report-1122064/

Good interview! I guess his son is a Nashville session guy? Guitarist? I'd actually heard from a friend of mine with Nashville session connections that Chester had tried to break into that scene, but with very limited success.

Curiously, Chester Thompson and Vinnie Colaiuta are both Zappa drummer alumni turned born again Christians.

I'm digging deeper into the Collins-era Genesis, and it's turning into a not-fun-at-all reminder of why I used to hate Phil Collins. A Trick of the Tail is a solid album, very nearly as good as the three preceding albums with Gabriel, and even the follow-up is mostly good, but "Your Own Special Way" feels like the point where things start drifting in a bad direction, and that goes double for "Follow You Follow Me" on the next album. I guess trying their hand at soul and Motown-inspired pop made them enormous sellers, but compared to other British rockers who did the same (Bowie, Paul Weller, etc.) Collins's singing is pretty dull and anemic, and the phrasing is especially disappointing coming from a fantastic drummer - considering how rhythmically inventive the great soul singers could be, the hits sound all the more bland in comparison.

idk if you're talking about Collins' singing on the mid-70s run or on the pop/soul stuff but imho his vocals on ATotT, W&W and ATTWT are unfuckwithable. He was a much better prog rock singer than Gabriel, whose strangled bark of a voice I never warmed to.

just going on my memories of the documentaries that came with the CD reissues a few years back, I dn't think Phil actually wrote the early Phil-era ballads? I think Mike wrote Follow You, and Tony definitely wrote Afterglow

yeah Phil didn't get any sole writing credits until Duke. He has a few co-writing credits on the mid-70s run, those are all for music rather than lyrics I think.

He definitely contributed some lyrics - Scenes From A Night's Dream, the chorus of Blood On The Rooftops... other co-credits I think he contributed words to could be For Absent Friends, More Fool Me and Ballad Of Big.

Oh yeah, Match Of The Day and Robbery, Assualt & Battery too

It was always received wisdom among prog-era fans that Phil 'ruined' Genesis by moving them in a pop direction. But Banks was always the main writer, and it was almost certainly a collective decision to shift away from the Foxtrot style. What were they going to do, write 10-minute epics in the 1980s? They'd have gone the way of ELP and Gentle Giant. Have to agree about the anaemic style of Collins' singing though, one listen to anything he did in the 80s (either solo or Genesis) brings on a minor anxiety attack for me.

A lot of the ballads were indeed the other guys. Rutherford wrote "Your Own Special Way" and the bulk of "Follow You, Follow Me." They pretty soon start crediting all songwriting to the band as collective, but I think Rutherford wrote stuff like "Throwing It All Away," too, for example (both lyrics and lick). Collins gets too much credit for the band's shifting sound, as Banks (as he is quick to point out) and Rutherford were prime movers. Collins' biggest stylistic contribution iirc was suggesting the horns on "Abacab" (the album). Also, fwiw, "We Can't Dance" (the album) did actually mark a return to 10-minute songs!

There was a snippy Genesis interview with DeRogatis back-when that he quotes in one of his books. I know I've posted it before, but here it is again:

Did they ever wish they could lock themselves in their studio, get really stoned and cut loose to make another album as bizarrely brilliant as "The Lamb," I asked? Maybe under another name, so there were none of the expectations that came with being "pop hitmakers Genesis"?

"I suppose if one was doing that, one would probably try to be more off the wall," Banks said, transformed for a moment into the teenage musician jamming in that cottage. "I think the sheer reason for doing it would surely be to try to do a few things that might be disastrous."

"At the same time," Collins petulantly added, "it might be nice to do something like we've just done and call it a different name and see how it's received. By saying that, you're playing into -- what's your name? -- Jim's hands, because you're admitting that, because we're going in and calling it a different band, we actually have confines within Genesis that we want to stick to."

"Well, that's a fair enough comment to make," Banks said, scowling at his partner. "Because there's probably some truth in it."

outside of ATTWT and the self-titled, all their albums kinda had at least one long epic on it, right?

Banks said, scowling at his partner

To be fair, he barely uses any other facial expressions. Nice passive-aggressive move by Collins in pretending to forget the interviewer's name though, letting him know his place in the hierarchy of fame.

funny how when you get older you begin sympathize more with a band's mid-career moves, like now I think Duke is pretty much as good as any of the Gabriel albums

xpost Yeah, sort of. Lots of Part 1 and Part 2 (Abacab, Home by the Sea) to make it easy to cut down. Even "Tonight, Tonight, Tonight" tops 8-minutes, so it was cut down for a single, too (in a way similar to "Shout" by Tears for Fears, which is around 7-minutes on the album with all its frills but less than 4-minutes as a single). "Invisible Touch" does have "Domino," which tops 10-minutes, which is funny, because "The Brazilian" feels like the real epic, even at a mere 5-minutes.

I'm the same with Yes's Drama

xpost