Favourite Van Der Graaf Generator Album?

actually, one rumour has it as Pete and Genny!

Pete never had long hair. Unless it's a wig.

(x-post)
though the post-punk/industrial(-folk) band that reminds me of VDDG = Eyeless In Gaza

why? Martyn Bates' OTT vocals, strange lyrics - e.g. the Hammill-worthy: "bite lips to blood in realisation, senses register cacophony"
plus the stark instrumentation, use of organ (lack of fear to write mental/sentimental love songs, Englishness, etc)

oops VDDG = VDGG

(agreed the dude on the left looks more like Genesis)

I'd recognise that arse anywhere

cheeky implants now? (sounds like a line from twatter)

twatter

did we do a Van Der Graaf epics poll? (couldn't find on search)

OK, I've been listening to Godbluff all afternoon and it's clicked.

Truly the band of the 70's.

fucking told you so
xp

Pawn Hearts used to be my favourite til I eventually heard Godbluff.

yes you did, well done :P

would still rank them scorched earth >>> the sleepwalkers >>> arrow >>> the undercover man but it's much much closer now, they're all super songs

don't see still life being eclipsed, that record is righteous, and pawn hearts is probably entrenched as my 2nd choice, but this is probably 3rd now, either it or quiet zone/pleasure dome at any rate

REALLY fucking love quiet zone/pleasure dome

The Undercover Man is getting better the more I hear it

...but Scorched Earth is a moment in time. It's righteous the way good religious texts are.

I have that Godbluff DVD that I watched maybe 3 times. 'Undercover Man' was the only song that really struck with me at the time because of Hamill's amazing singing on that on. I went out and looked for live recordings of that song and some one of them was really great (forget which). But I didn't vote in this poll because I'm basically only familiar with Godbluff and Pawnhearts. I still would have voted Pawnhearts. I think I need to give Godbluff more listens now.

This band is so good I kinda want to shout it. I think they might be my 2nd-favourite band of all time behind Cardiacs these days.

Favourite (song on the) Van Der Graaf Generator (debut) Album: "it's all a game". the nice jams with the doors and holy fuck let's tour the multiverse

\m/

I absolutely love "Aquarian"

'octopus' for me

exceeeept anyone who pretends it isn't 'afterwards' is fronting lol

Pawn Hearts

"necromancer". i love peter hammill's ridiculous white magick songs. i was just listening to a live version of "white hammer" from '72 and it fucking slayed. (they also did "aquarian" at that gig!)

does "giant squid" count? i love the squid 1/squid 2/octopus live medley from the rejected second lp of "pawn hearts".

i have been working my way through VDGG by picking up old vinyl copies when I see them - something nice about discovering a band through old LPs and I think VDGG works really well on records - started with H to He (which was actually probably a good place to start?) and have gone through most of the 60s/70s records i think

anyway i bought a VG- copy of Pawn Hearts on the weekend (tatty sleeve, plenty of pops and surface noise) and FUUUUUUUCK!!!!! A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers!!!! FUUUUCK!! like divinely great, a little glimpse of God through the storm clouds

i feel lucky that i left this one til late, as I feel a big part of enjoying this band is overcoming the barriers to enjoyment? like maybe that’s just prog but their sound (and Hamill’s voice) (and the songwriting) takes a fair amount of getting used to - but having gotten my flying miles, I was really well-placed to be reduced to absolute rubble by this

anyway this is one of the few places one could publicly admit to this experience so

welcome to the clan, you have accessed the deepest agonies. if you want a bonus level, head for the Hammill solo (but actually VDGG) The Silent Corner And The Empty Stage, trust me

all things are apart, amen

There's a good in studio live take on A Plague of Lighthousekeepers from around teh time of the lp. Haven't watched it in a long time but I think hamill is still having to read the lyrics off a sheet, possibly a copy of the inner from the lp.
I have it on a dvd which I think may have been replaced by a longer one. With a couple of earlier live tracks. I think what i have has a live Godbluff though.

Interesting to note how much influence there was from VDGG on the italian prog scene. I hear it a lot .

anyway i bought a VG- copy of Pawn Hearts on the weekend (tatty sleeve, plenty of pops and surface noise) and FUUUUUUUCK!!!!! A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers!!!! FUUUUCK!! like divinely great, a little glimpse of God through the storm clouds

I really love this, one of the very best pieces of its genre, maybe of any.

Interesting to note how much influence there was from VDGG on the italian prog scene. I hear it a lot

I think VDGG, Crimson and Genesis were the only prog bands who played Italy a lot in the 70s, hence their big influence on the RPI scene. Henry Cow too I guess but maybe they're not so easy to copy.

a while back I used to read all those WRC sites which were full of prog dorks who were really into KC and Yes. I remember them being none too kind with VdGG, saying their music was too dramatic, too thorny, and really suffered from a lack of guitar. so I got into them a little cautiously. One of the sites gave Pawn Hears a C- and when I got to Lighthouse Keepers I was stunned at how wrong they got it. I mean I'd always trusted them in the past. Anyway Godbluff & Still Life rule too, pretty much a perfect 4 record run (with a big gap between, too). I'm wondering how the vinyl remasters sound because my copies have been played to death.

remember them being none too kind with VdGG, saying their music was too dramatic, too thorny, and really suffered from a lack of guitar

I read "too thorny" as "too horny" and that fits too

I am revisiting my good old prog rock and today it's The Silent Corner and the Empty Stage, which is practically a VDGG album and mentioned exactly and criminally once in this thread. Lots of Hammill raw acrobatics, a familiar visceral / meditative, peaceful / anxious sound, but songs are more varied and less of a piece. Modern is like an acoustic 21st Schizoid Man, Red Shift and the closer could be on Godbluff. The "ballads" are really successful too and help give the album a singer-songwriter vibe. An excellent addition to the VDGG catalogue. I remember also liking Chameleon and his divorce album Over.

Pawn Hearts was my favorite album in the world for a while. I've rarely used the "rewind" button so much in a given song than A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers, I think it was taking me 50 minutes to listen to it.

remember them being none too kind with VdGG, saying their music was too dramatic, too thorny, and really suffered from a lack of guitar

Also not good enough musicians... have they actually listened to Guy Evans?

I think Peter Hamill's said that VdGG was far more collaborative than his solo albums, and that's the essential difference even though it's the same musicians.

I listened to The Silent Corner and the Empty Stage yesterday after reading about it here, and it's pretty incredible. The only song I didn't like was "The Lie" — fuck off with all that moaning about the church, buddy, who do you think you are, Ian Anderson? But other than that it's really good; the best word I could use to describe it, and this goes for VDGG at their best, too, is "unsettling."

"The Lie" is great. Probably helps to be a lapsed Catholic though.

Hopefully not too much of a spoiler to observe that delaying the entry of drums until 3.5 tracks into your album is quite the flourish, especially the way they enter

now planning a cycle of prog releases where i delay the entry of drums until 3.5 albums into the dekalogy and garnering all the flourish-acclaim

like maybe that’s just prog but their sound (and Hamill’s voice) (and the songwriting) takes a fair amount of getting used to

I had a friend when I was 18 or 19 or so who loved Peter Hamill and VdGG. He lent me a solo PH album from the 80s, which I found totally off-putting in a visceral way. However, when he lent me Pawn Hearts, it clicked immediately. Hamill's voice suddenly sounded incredibly powerful and expressive.

first time I heard Hammill's voice was on Fripp's Exposure album and all I could think was "this guy can't be for real"

"The Lie" is great. Probably helps to be a lapsed Catholic though.

I'm very much that; haven't been inside a church since I was 18. But I'm not...conflicted about that, or nursing old wounds, or whatever. I knew it was all absurd before I ever took First Communion, and just did the whole thing to keep my mom happy.

I hadn't heard any VdGG/Hammill until very recently and I found his voice kind of the opposite of off-putting. Seemed very familiar and also very...non-prog. Like, I felt like people who aren't into other prog might be able to get into VdGG. The vocals kind of reminded me of Bowie, but even more they reminded me of Billy Mackenzie. Made me wonder if Mackenzie was a Hammill fan, and I did find one article claiming he was influenced by Hammill, but nothing concrete. Seems very possible though!

I don't know about VDGG but he definitely didn't like Genesis!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAqYmTH6REE

The singer he sounds the most like to me is halford

I don't think he exists in a different universe from Genesis-era Peter Gabriel fwiw. I don't know what it was about that later Hamill album tbh (not even sure which one it was).

Listening to "Pilgrims" now, I can't unhear Rob Halford, now that you said it.

I'm very much that; haven't been inside a church since I was 18. But I'm not...conflicted about that, or nursing old wounds, or whatever. I knew it was all absurd before I ever took First Communion, and just did the whole thing to keep my mom happy.

― but also fuck you (unperson)

i'm with tom d, "the lie" is fucking amazing. none of it took? none of the shame? every hard-on i ever had i hated. of course there were complicating factors but i'm still broken and traumatized in ways that a lot of my friends, none of whom are strangers to trauma, aren't.

The Silent Corner also has Randy motherfuckin California from Spirit on guitar!

none of it took? none of the shame? every hard-on i ever had i hated.

No; I never had any issues around sex, certainly not any God-related ones. My mom gave me a book called How Babies Are Made when I was pretty young, probably preschool. And I only went to Catholic school for two years in high school, by which time I was already pretty much who I was. I don't remember ever talking about sex with a priest. Shit, I was an altar boy, even served with one of the biggest names in Catholic scandal history (McCarrick) and came away unscathed. I've mentioned here before that a priest I knew (and liked) left the church and moved to Las Vegas, and one day a guy he'd molested years earlier showed up on his front doorstep and shot him, but nothing ever happened to me. I guess I wasn't that cute in my altar-boy days. Or maybe I was just bad at reading signals; that was certainly true when a few girls tried to approach me in college.