Van der Graaf Generator / Peter Hammill S& D, C or D?

I would say they're certainly two of the best of his more recent albums, yes, although I doubt you'd find many PH fans who'd rate them alongside his work of the '70s. Singularity is the post-heart attack one, a dread sense of mortality pervades it.

If it weren't for 1998's This, which is one of my top 3 picks for solo PH, I'd agree that these two albums represent his best work since he disbanded the K group. Hammill's ability to work at this level of quality at this stage in his career is kind of uplifting.

I'd still go for Roaring Forties and X My Heart as his best since those days.

somehow I managed to never listen to world record until just now...excellent. I think I just forgot this album existed, or for some reason had heard it wasn't very good or something.

new PH album: Consequences out April 16

1. Eat my Words, Bite my Tongue
2. That Wasn't What I Said
3. Constantly Overheard
4. New Pen-pal
5. Close to Me
6. All the Tiredness
7. Perfect Pose
8. Scissors
9. Bravest Face
10. A Run of Luck

exciting

i wish he'd play the west coast. weirdly (after not really listening to him much over the past few years) I had a really vivid dream taht I saw him play an intense show at some tiny venue, which started me diving back into the catalogue. could probably listen to nothing but Hammill/VDG for three weeks straight without having to repeat any albums.

now, a new VdGG album? (well, kind of...)

Following on from A Grounding in Numbers released in March 2011 Esoteric Antenna are delighted to announce a new title with Van Der Graaf Generator--ALT release date 25th June 2012

'ALT' is a new studio album by the legendary VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR and follows on from the release of "A GROUNDING IN NUMBERS" in 2011.

"ALT" is no ordinary Van Der Graaf Generator album (if the term "ordinary" could ever be applied to this visionary group). PETER HAMMILL explains; "Instrumental Improvs & Experiments - Most of the music on "ALT" was made while we weren't really looking, or perhaps only while the left side of our collective brain was engaged. The album is a mixture of improvisations recorded at sound checks and in the studio and more considered sonic creations which often verge on Musique Concrete. The thirteen pieces here offer a fascinating glimpse into an alternative Van der Graaf Generator sound world. Perhaps the closest comparison would be with the second CD of "Present", but even the link with those recordings is tenuous. Even by Van der Graaf Generator standards, this stuff's at the whacky end of the scale!"

alright. time to bump this one more time.

Now i have all the VdGG original discs along with the remasters. I hate to say it but listening to them side by side I'm starting to find I like the originals better, at least when it comes to The Least We Can Do/H to He/Pawn Hearts. In the case of The Least we Can Do - I don't think there's a good sounding version of this anywhere. I have one copy where the sax is barely audience. The remaster turns the bass up way too high. I did a spectrum analysis on them and find that they are very much victims of the "loudness war" that ruins a lot of remasters. Hence why the 2005 version of Pawn Hearts always leaves me with a severe earache (obviously, you gotta listen loud). I'm kind of wondering if there are good vinyl versions out there. They blast Godbluff with loudness too and give it a lot more kick but I find you can just crank up the original and get the same effect.

i'd've sworn my old copy of The Least We Can Do sounded fine but i was young and maybe inattentive

a lot of people on fanboards were complaining that the remasters swapped noise for detail

RIP bassist Nic Potter.

This via Chaki, so word probably just went out.

https://www.facebook.com/thinair/posts/10151169842843414

http://www.sofasound.com/latest.htm

he's been sick for a while, hasn't he?

damn, gonna have to crank 'the least we could do...' which is definitely their most underrated album and definitely has the second-best song called 'after the flood' ever written on it

Oh no! RIP Nic. That's my old dopperganger dead! See, I was once at a gig and a hippy came over to me and said "Has anyone ever told you, you look exactly like Nic Potter of Van der Graaf Generator?". Luckily my flatmate at the time had a lot of VDGG albums, so I checked out a few and found it was true! One photo, I think it was in the inner sleeve of "Vital", was esp. unnerving. I mean, I don't remember ever playing bass with Peter Hammill but this photo suggests otherwise...

http://www.joyello.net/fardrock/potter.jpg

(Should point that Nic ket his hair and I lost mine so the resemblance has faded over the years... once again RIP Nic)

:(

RIP

Sad news. Top marks for his fuzz bass line on "The Sphinx In The Face".

can't believe I had never heard Vital before. I heard it had a bad reputation so I avoided it...now that I think about it the people who told me it sucked weren't really big VdGG fans. so there you go. Starostin calls it "hands down, the worst live album ever made by a giant of progressive rock". Dunno what to say about that - you have to buy into the theatricality I guess but for my money I am going to listen to this a hell of a lot more than stuff like Genesis Live or Yessongs, both of which are damn impressive, but nothing compared to the raw energy of this one. Plus there are 5 songs on it I hadn't heard before! (the jam at the end of "Door" is fucking incredible, by the way)

It's the first one I ever bought, and can't say it's my favorite. But I do owe it a spin in the modern age.

yeah Vital is the bomb. Shame though that there was no official live album from the classic line-up. there are no soundboard-quality boots out there either.

Good to hear this on the radio last night, David Jackson admirably ultra-skronky:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kBL1zVGmp0

are there any particuarly good boots? how's the Maida Vale thing?

I guess its nice that they're releasing all this live stuff now, but I'd love to hear them 30 years younger!

Maida Vale is great but it's BBC sessions so they're not cutting loose to the full. As regards live concert boots there's not much from the '70s, the one that normally gets touted is Rimini 9 August 1975 (evening show). Some of the tracks from that were released officially on The Box comp and also as bonus tracks on the Godbluff reissue a few years ago, but it's a pretty raw listen.

yikes, I couldn't stand the bonus tracks on Godbluff...the sound quality was abysmal.

I did find something on SLSK called "Skeletons of Songs", looks to be a Jammill solo performance from 78 or so. Haven't listened yet

ooh you're in for a treat, that's my favourite PH solo boot. totally out there performance.

for my money the '75-'76 band had a totally different vibe from the original line-up- but all the tapes of the original band are super rough listens, those times when they were touring italy for the fifteenth time in 1972, so forth. there's some nice tv sessions- some clips from the french "pop deux" tv show out there on yt- and you can get a feel for what they sounded like from the squid 1/squid 2/octopus on the "h to he" remaster- it's live in the studio, but really the biggest difference between it and an actual concert is that the electricity doesn't randomly short out on them.

Holy shit, is that rushomancy from RYM? *starstruck*

Just announced VdGG European tour in June will include performances each night of "Flight" (epic long-form PH solo piece, already played in N America last year) and, be still my beating heart, "A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers".

why did he name his 8th album ph7. wtf, pete

I think that was one of those jokes for which PH is so renowned.

"pH7" was, of course, the eighth solo album, not the seventh. As a measure of acidity/alkalinity pH7 signifies perfect neutral balance; but these recordings are neither neutral nor balanced. The album is, therefore, both jokey and in disguise.

Aha! So it is just a way to annoy spergies like me.

I have no idea where you're located. Are you going to get to see one of these?

Yeah I'll make the Prague show I think. The premiere!

Hopefully they can still bring it. I really enjoyed their show in Milwaukee even though I only recognized two of the songs (both from Pawn Hearts). That was my first time hearing Sleepwalkers!!

should really see these guys at some point before it's too late huh

you should! especially since "one of us might die soon" is the whole reason they reformed in the first place!!

weird to think that the 3rd VdGG administration (2005-???) is actually the longest they've been together as a band

have booked tickets for the barbican, see you all there

Will probably go to the Barbican show even though it's not the same without the sax, still 3 out of 4 members ain't too bad I suppose.

I had H To He on my 3 changer for a lot of last week, think tht was just cos it happened to be lying near the player when I wanted to swap over from the discs I'd had on for the previouis few days. As per ususal it had me thinking i should listen to them a lot more. Just wish I had developed as ystem so I actually knew where the rest of the discs were. Have everything from the 70s run by them, just don't have Aerosol Grey Machine which is really by a different band who just have the same name and singer isn't it? Or is the interchange between solo Hammill and band confusing even then , I'm thinking that it was originally supposed to bne a solo lp but he put a band together for it. Is That right?

the solo lps by him are great too, at least the 70s ones, haven't progressed beyond that yet.

Also love the boots from '77 which really are very edgy. Punk energy if not directly punk, & nobody needed another generic punk band did they? But did make a good model for obsessive edgy rock anyway, not sure who actually followed it.
You can hear the influence the earlier band had on the Italian scene at least, not sure about elsewhere apart from Bowie around Diamond dogs etc.

Or is the interchange between solo Hammill and band confusing even then , I'm thinking that it was originally supposed to bne a solo lp but he put a band together for it. Is That right?

The album was originally intended as a solo album by the band's lead singer and main songwriter, Peter Hammill. When the band signed with Charisma Records, a deal was worked out whereby The Aerosol Grey Machine would be released under the Van der Graaf Generator name, in return for Mercury Records releasing Hammill from his earlier contract with it

Aerosol isn't that great really, "Afterwards" excepted. Definitely pick up the late 70s/early 80s solo LPs first.

Afterwards is a pretty big exception. If they'd saved that for the next album and ditched Refugees (and maybe What Would Robert Have Said and Out Of My Book, which are both nice but basically there to make up the numbers), it'd have been up there with their hiatus-straddling trilogy

A
Darkness 11/11
White Hammer

B
Afterwards
After The Flood

*drools*

*winces at track-title clash on side B*

*drools*

no way should they have ditched "Refugees", that is top 5 VdGG

hmm, well if you MUST

A
Darkness 11/11
Refugees
Afterwards

B
White Hammer
After The Flood

...which gives us probably the most apocalyptic side of music ever recorded

No love for Aguarian??

Octopus is the only other one I'd really go for

The Least We Can Do Is Wave to Each Other is the record to get.

I remember 'acquiring' their entire discography a very long time ago. I only listened to about half of it, and I never heard most of it more than once, but that record is great.

+1 for Refugees. I remember listening to that track a lot and putting it on numerous mixes.

I'm going by memory here (I've not heard VDGG in a long time), but I also remember listening to Killer, I think it was, from H to He, Who Am the Only One.

Might get the old HDD out and have a listen.

listening to The Future Now for the first time, what the hell was he thinking? did a drunk Mark E. Smith produce this?