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

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?

great album. one of those to play people who persist in calling him a prog rocker.

well those last few 70's VDGG albums + Nadir kinda cemented that even if he is a progger at heart that Hammill generally just follows his muse without any regard for what people want/expect out of him. also that he tends to not train himself very much when learning new things; if he had this wouldn't be half as interesting/terrifying as it is

sooooo stoked for tomorrow, anyone else coming?

I think a friend has sorted out a ticket for me. Should be a good night.

you sir have hidden multitudes

They do Plague of Lighthouse Keepers and Gog from what I hear, pretty cool!

Like some others, I've become a much bigger fan of his solo material. I'm going to be listening to Over soon and I'm excited by its reputation.
There really isn't a whole lot here about his 80s/90s/00s solo albums, is anyone here that comprehensive on him? The reviews I've read of those are very divided.

omg

that might have been the perfect gig. open with brilliant recent song (over the hill, performed to stunning heights of intensity), proceed with unhallowed and yet superb material from latter day and mid-period, mostly from solo records (amongst which my introduction to 'flight', fucking hell), and then end with the hits :D

including a 'childlike faith...' encore :D :D

also I genuinely could not believe how brilliant they were, despite them being a close 2nd behind cardiacs in my all time roster

three men made that chaos, that confluence. three men who've been rocking that existential horror groove for 45 years

i was in the front row, four metres from hammill

fuck

Third time I've seen them, Hammill still can't play gtr, wouldn't have it any other way. Shame there's no sax though.
"Arrow" would be good for the next tour.

I guess I really should have seen them.

Over is far more varied than I had imagined from looking at the cover, I thought it would all be soft and weary stuff. "Time Heals" is incredible. I think it's really funny in the first song when he says "your excuses are so crappy", because it really contrasts with his usual eloquence. The bonus track version of "Autumn" is amazing. Really great album.

I like how the first song is basically Hammill telling himself to stop being dramatic, and in the second he's saying that they would have been miserable in the long run anyway. And THEN come all the depressing, world-weary breakup songs.

I've been really into The Future Now and ph7 lately. Funny that as the Steve Howes, Keith Emersons, John Wettons, and Tony Bankses of the world started to go AOR and mainstream, Hammill only went deeper into his own world.

Over is my favourite PH/VdGG album out of the whole lot of them. He never bettered it.

Just listened to Over twice, then Modern and A Louse Is Not A Home too. He did all this and VdGG in his fucking twenties.

A Louse Is Not A Home is every bit as good as any VdGG song

^still this

in fact, if you're drifting through, here it is in its miraculous entirety. A songwriting pinnacle of sorts:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwZ_tOZB1Qo

I'm trying to listen to World Record. Such a loose & unfocused album compared to virtually everything that came before. With a serious fucking edit-job it could have recaptured the incredible brilliance of the previous 3 records (4 if you count The Silent Corner). Here are my problems with it:

- The opening few seconds. Prissy Regency clarinets poncing around. Since when has a VDGG album opened up with meek filigree?
- The rest of When She Comes. A clear candidate for their worst-ever song. Reprises one of Scorched Earth's riffs without any of the punch whatsoever. Urgh.
- The fact A Place To Survive starts really really strong and then jams around *not going anywhere* for about 5 minutes at the end
- No problems with Masks. It's a fucking demon.
- Right, my biggest problem here. Meurglys III. None of it is bad music at all. The closing reggae jam is kinda groovy. But it completely deflates the momentum of the opening 12 minutes, which if isolated might be some of the best 12 minutes in the band's history, up there with that video I just posted and Man-Erg and all that jazz. Edit function sorely lacking. I'm listening to this song now and it's one of the most terrifying & spectacular demonstrations of their narrative mastery*. With a massive anti-climax.
- Wondering is nice and all but it's how Yes should be ending their albums, not VDGG. Feels a bit sickly-sweet.

They'd just released a solid run of the best music ever made, which should hopefully put these criticisms into context. You may wish to defend World Record, of course. Or simply agree with me that TQZ/TPD fortunately dropped by to kick its arse :D

*Hmm. On returning it's a bit disjointed and some of the sections go on a bit. But each section is very, very good.

I listened to Godbluff recently again. I love a lot of parts of that album but I still dont agree that it is sharing top spaces at the Hammill canon.
I dont need albums to be totally albumy but sometimes it seems like it needs a bit more of something. I know they wanted a live sound on this, but I think certain elements would have been better if they were accentuated/highlighted more.