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

Counting down til "Scorched Earth" splatters Louis' brain all over again.

LOL

"As swift as any ARRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!"

A Motorhead/VdGG collabo in 1976 would've been something.

I'm not actually sure what happened during "Scorched Earth". But it was heavy. And real.

"Arrow" currently unfolding, slowly, slowly. I sense explosions in the offing.

Hmm. Good stuff so far, esp Scorched Earth, but this isn't quite touching Still Life or Pawn Hearts yet. It'll probably take a couple of listens (although dammit, PH got me first time...it's about 20x more truly insane and sonically all-over-the-place than I expected, and I expect a lot)

wtf ok lounge-salsa section

this is a great band. I need to crawl the solo Hammill albums at some point, years ago I randomly bought a copy of 'Patience' because of the Gabriel connection, and there were three songs on that record that I can still remember every word of.

but mainly posting to thank Turtles for linking that blog, which I give 5 stars for linking an mp3 of the complete director's commentary track to the film Zardoz

the last 3 minutes of "APOLK" are totally fucking incredible music

but mainly posting to thank Turtles for linking that blog, which I give 5 stars for linking an mp3 of the complete director's commentary track to the film Zardoz

― Milton Parker, Thursday, March 12, 2009 7:45 PM (2 days ago)

The blog is really great, he used to have one under the name of Post Punk Junk and a youtube series called Post Punk Junk
all really great stuff.

I still haven't had time to listen to the Van der Graaf Generator stuff
All I have of theirs is World Record and The Least We Can Do Is Wave, so i'm excited to hear this

I'm listening to the Zardoz commentary track now!

Arrow rocks so hard

Much as with Still Life, Godbluff seems to be getting better with repeat listens. Well, this is my second and it's clicking. Doubt it'll quite ascend the same heights but then SL is pretty much decade top-3 for the 70s for me, maybe even the very very best.

I like Still Life more than Godbluff, yeah, but I feel I understand parts of Godbluff a bit better now thanks to this rather good new-ish PH site:

http://peterhammill.com/phx/

:D oh man, that's an awesome performance, at least in the way they attack the song...I was transfixed! Banton's still got it big-time. Hammill too, at least vocally. I'll forgive the odd guitar slip-up (and the fact they slightly duff the "siiiiilence...crash" bit)...that was fucking rock...

That looseness is such a key part of what they do, I've got an unnecessary quantity of 70s bootlegs and they always had it, preferring to vamp and rock out than toddle thru reproductions of the album sound. You get a feeling with all of the albums that they're markers for the live sets.

I was flipping through classic rock radio today and thought for an instant I heard Peter Hammill's voice. I got really excited, then realized it was actually "Under Pressure". Total letdown.

i just got the 2005 remaster of "pawn hearts." my GOD is it an improvement on the late-80s cd. it's audible, for one, and you can hear more than one instrument at a time.

Did they reissue this on vinyl too? My old LP is pretty well played out...

A Place To Survive starts off a bit unpromisingly, then gets more awesome the more it goes on. Am thinking I might rather like World Record.

Masks is pretty great. Meurglys III is interesting. I *really* like the closing reggae jam/guitar solo. The first five minutes are superb! That bit about 3 minutes in needs to go on for wayyyy longer.

Unfortunately, the midsection is basically an attempt to be Pink Floyd followed by an attempt to be Still life, both of which fail (at least until the latter section starts shifting around gratifyingly in the 2 or so minutes before reggaeness).

The guitar changes the band's dynamic quite a bit.

Wondering starts a bit boringly but then becomes :O really lovely! Wow! What's happening?

As for When She Comes, it's ok but the hook seems ripped-off from another VDGG song, maybe Arrow.

I think Quiet Zone/Pleasure Dome is slightly better than this album, but this is by no means ungood.

As for When She Comes, it's ok but the hook seems ripped-off from another VDGG song, maybe Arrow.

Haha wait shit it's basically like a cross between La Rossa and Scorched Earth which are like my two favourite VDGG songs o_O

Present is GREAT!!

My 'favourite bands' roster is taking shape nicely.

Oh shit, get rid of 'In Babelsberg' (or at least cut it down to 2 or 3 minutes) and we're maybe talking one of the top 20 albums of this decade o_O

Like, I'd rank it almost alongside their 70's peaks. And this is on first listen.

Now listening to 'The Least We Can Do...' for the first time...

WHITE HAMMER

awesome album, awesome band. why are they not loved by everyone who claims to be interested in good music?

The end of White Hammer is ridiculously heavy. Love it.

Just listening to Godbluff on repeat now! This band just didn't release bad music. Live BBC version of Masks is tremendous btw

White Hammer is such a lovely song for 6 or 7 minutes, too. Then it becomes the most evil thing ever. Fucking amazing.

(Oh, and I listened to some of Vital and oh shit was it intense...need to give the whole thing a go)

i go on binges with this stuff. nothing by VdGG for a day or two... and then i can't listen to it again for months. shit is intense.

nothing BUT VdGG, i meant to type

am having that sort of day with the song 'the sleepwalkers'...the bit that starts just after the 6 and a half minute mark is like some sort of new high in epic

THE M-M-M-M-MASOCHISTIC M-M-M-MUMBLE OF HIS ACT

btw 'After The Flood' seems to unwittingly chart VDGG's path from dinky and kinda lame acoustic psychedelia into righteous doom-power mayhem better than any rock critic could

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bC7EW5X54F4&feature=player_embedded

^^ dope trailer for a dope movie

Awesome Julian Cope review of PH: http://www.headheritage.co.uk/unsung/albumofthemonth/766

― This is the day when fisticuffs happened everywhere (country matters), Thursday, March 12, 2009 5:28 PM (9 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

From the footnotes to that review:

"... Mark Smith auditioned for Henry Cow"

... uhhhhh, what!??!?!??!

― Free the Northampton 1 (Tom D.), Thursday, March 12, 2009 5:35 PM (9 months ago) Bookmark

even though this seemed like internet rumor mill stuff, I did ask Frith about this last time I saw him after a show at Mills. there was never an audition, though he did remember Smith coming to Cow shows and being sociable. after Dagmar bowed out, they considered Phil Minton before realizing she was irreplaceable.

Just re-listened to Present last night and now my opinion has flip-flopped. The studio album disc is better than the studio "jam" disc.

"The Least We Can Do Is Wave To Each Other" has turned out to be practically as good as the three monoliths. I'd rank it well above H To He. It's phenomenal, beautiful and brilliant. The repeated, quickening breakdown in 'After The Flood' is maybe one of their top 5 moments ever.

There were also suggestions that Smith and Hammill were going to collaborate, in the late '80s I think. Hammill said later that it never came about because he didn't like jam sessions. Although given what you suspect are Smith's working methods, I'd imagine the fear was fairly groundless and that there were other reasons.

Also PH is a bit of a control freak and is very reluctant to collaborate for that reason. probably the same goes for Smith as well.

the thought of more than one of my all-time hallowed musical geniuses in the same room attempting to work on the same project has blown my mind a little; it just wouldn't be possible

i mean if you put hammill, MES, a bedridden tim smith and garm in a room together and told them to come up with something good, it'd be war

I fucking adore this cover

http://www.leyline.com.br/show.jpg

I heard it was taken at Alcatraz.

"Aguarian" on the first LP - CLASSIC!!

'afterwards' is one of my fave vdgg songs, 'octopus' is gr8 too...

THX for reminding me to change my name!

First album is underrated!

Yeah, I like it better than "Least We Could Do"; it's a lot more melodic and goofy than their later material, but I think it holds up well.

I remember the song that got me into VDGG was "House With No Door"; I thought "Killer" was insanely good too, but "House" really make PH seem like a freak. That second (?) chorus - "I don't know you, you say you know me, (in ridiculous falsetto) THAT MAY BE SOOOOOOOO...."; one of my friends and I used to try to imitate that line all the time. I shied away from this stuff because I always saw it as being like a second-rate version of Genesis or Yes or King Crimson...perhaps from reading too many review sites that said "Plague of Lighthouse Keepers" was garbage. I admit the first half of it is slow but when it gets rolling - boner.

I also noticed that the first half of "Sleepwalkers" sounds a lot like a demented game show theme. Really cool.

Oh yeah...new VDGG album out now - "A Grounding in Numbers". Anyone hear it yet?? Early reviews seem to indicate it's good but there's not much out on it yet.