Favourite Van Der Graaf Generator Album?

noodle vague are you all talked out on VDGG?

Who wrote "Afterwards"? It wasn't Hammill...

argh i cant find my cd to check the credits

It's a Hammill song. AMG seems to erroneously credit it to a guy called Peter Kirtley, who has an instrumental piece with the same title. But the AMG description of the VdGG song clearly ascribes it to Hammill, and the fact that he has the lyrics up on his Sofasound website clinches the deal for me.

"there is only 1 gay musician in the entire field of progressive rock"

- suggestions?

no idea

Thanks Noodle. It was AMG that threw me off.

As for gay prog, is that a stab at Rush?

I think at least one of the guys in IQ was gay and out but I don't suppose that's who the original douche was referring to on that comment box.

who was he referring to just out of curiosity ?

Not really a great one for knowing or caring about musician's private lives, and I can't think of any prog musicians off the top of my head who've made a big deal of their sexuality.

Prog musicians have sex?

i didn't mean anything derogatory by flagging it up, i just found it so wtf as a statement i spent several full seconds looking at it making the o_o face

the first GIS image result for 'gay prog rock musician' seems to be rick wakeman, but i couldn't believe that for a second, all his camping is way too unintentional

there's a prog board somewhere where they're discussing the issue and someone says lindsay cooper. not sure which lindsay cooper they meant. not really any of my business.

probably, however, the original poster meant freddie mercury :/

No I didn't think you were stirring it, agreed it was a wtf statement in the first place.

it was

I have that DVD with Plague of the Lighthouse Keepers on it (Godbluff Live DVD). Maybe I should have just got the youtubes instead :p

I'm not voting in this poll because I'm basically only familiar with Pawnhearts and Godbluff. But of those two Pawnhearts is better.

BTW, trying to find the pearls in Hammill's solo career requires too many albums and too much listening to mediocre stuff.

I disagree; nadir, black box, over, chameleon; all good albums from beginning to end. I can't say much about his stuff after taht though

"there is only 1 gay musician in the entire field of progressive rock"

That is weird, I can't actually think of any! Is prog rock the most hetero music genre?

either that or the so far in the closet its in narnia genre

worth running a hammill solo poll?

Not that this precludes Rick from being gay, but his son Oliver Wakeman is the current keyboardist for YES.

Is that true that prog is a very hetero genre? I mean prog-rock is basically a lot of flights of fan(ta)cy

"there is only 1 gay musician in the entire field of progressive rock" - oh I see that was quoted out of context. I though you were quoting an ILXor, not some scummy youtube commentor.

isn't prog rock just... asexual?

A lot of it, lyrically, is less invested in sex and desire than some genres of rock and pop but hey you could say the same about electro or black metal or a bunch of other things. I'm not digging at anybody on this thread because the original comment was so bizarre, but it was just some shite spouted by some twat on Youtube and as such doesn't merit thinking about with any seriousness at all.

Are we allowed to imagine a world in which all prog musicians are gay? What would that look like?

pretty much the same, but the embarassing album covers would have naked space dudes on them.

Like this?

http://www.connollyco.com/discography/rush/hemispheres_hi.jpg

that belongs on the naked prog thread

did lots of Rush fans wear that tshirt?

I bet KJB does.

He does indeed.

Thought you would.

IIRC the "gay" member of IQ was supposedly Tim Esau, the orig bass player, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't actually true. Not that it matters one iota.

If any of the 1st wavers were actually gay, I imagine they'd have kept their traps shut abt it, I mean it was the seventies, wasn't it.

The "asexual" thing is a total red herring, I know for a fact that members of King Crimson got mad action when they toured the st8s, if members of Pink Floyd, Yes etc didn't as well, well I mean really, come on, you know. That was one of the annoying things about that BBC doco, that they played up the asexual/dorky side of it, when a bunch of these guys, when they were young (esp Gabriel, Wakeman) were great-looking dudes.

Actually, on top of that, I remember seeing Hammill in Leeds in the late 80's, and there was a coteire of hippie girls in brightly-coloured home-knit jumpers, who were up at the front, doting over the guy, and that's when he was middle-aged!

Hammill's always been a v. good looking guy, true.

So that's who you modelled yourself on back in the 80s? ;)

The "asexual" thing is a total red herring, I know for a fact that members of King Crimson got mad action when they toured the st8s, if members of Pink Floyd, Yes etc didn't as well, well I mean really, come on, you know. That was one of the annoying things about that BBC doco, that they played up the asexual/dorky side of it, when a bunch of these guys, when they were young (esp Gabriel, Wakeman) were great-looking dudes.

i wasn't really referring to their action, more the vibe of the music. which is generally - GENERALLY - not about screwing. or dancing.

I finally voted He to He. It's a tough poll because so many of these albums are so good.

Indeed. I do wonder how the albums from the last few years will do however.

or indeed the 1st album. 0 for them all maybe?

i really, really like the first record. but i really like that early prog period generally. but i can't imagine anyone thinking its their best.

currently listening to 'the least we can do' and it's pretty good

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wau @ turnout even if 15 of them were pfunkboy socks ;)

only 15? at your last count I supposedly had 300 to your 12

I voted Still Life fwiw

ahh well, that's one prog live album I haven't heard :)

Depending on whether you consider Santana prog (I do, especially in this era), there's a bunch of unreleased stuff on Lotus.

I do find it amusing that VdGG were the last of the major prog acts to release a live album, and they did so in 1978, when the band and the genre itself were falling apart. not only that but it's a bootleg quality recording, with Jackson's sax infamously not even picked up on most tracks. in spite of all that it absolutely rules. it just tears up their whole back catalogue and the performances are reckless in a way you rarely see in prog. its also full of unreleased stuff which is pretty unusual for one of these live albums. in fact I can't think of another 70's live prog album with unreleased original material on it, let alone this much of it

― frogbs

_another live_ by utopia

VITAL is so sick!!!! that bass tone!!!

I guess if you include prog bands that improvised from scratch onstage you'd have large pieces of Henry Cow's Concerts, some stuff from the Crimson live albums, and so on.
Tangerine Dream's Ricochet and Encore are almost entirely new/improvised music, but also questionably "live".

i highly rec the Maida Vale sessions too!!

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41lYm6lchFL._SY580_.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpolfQIPS84

even the recent Merlin Atmos live album is good

(plus it has VDGG handling some typically Hammill solo songs like Flight and Gog)

I do love them live around 75-78 cos they get really intense and have guitar and stuff.
Vital in the remastered form for the 2005 reissues is pretty good and I think has more David Jackson in as part of the remaster process I think. But there are a load of live sets around too. By the end they could rate as a pretty great dark post-punk band so hope there were a stack of people discovering them at the time. Like if John Lydon cited them do hope it lead to some people finding out how good they were and seeing them at this peak, one of several but others were years earlier too. Like not that they don't stand on their own feet since they did seem to be pretty marvelously maverick.

the maida vale sessions are fabulous, the version of "darkness" on there is wonderful. i don't think it's on the maida vale sessions proper, but the expanded version called "after the flood" has some wonderful material too - great version of "killer" and as i've already said, i'm really fond of "necromancer" - really fun '68 version here.

yeah think I mentioned turning up my copy of After The Flood a few days ago.