Genesis : Peter Gabriel Era C/D ?

Or should all music from the pre-punk 70s be ignored forever like Billy Bragg and co say?
this sounds like one of those punk myths. i bet BB for one never actually said that.

Also, check their Live album where Peter Gabriel is wearing a funny triangle thing on his head on the cover. It's fuckin' amazing.

Then Nursery Crime and Trick of the Tail etc.

And yes, once Phil took the mic full-time, it all went to hell.

1) I personally like the 1st album. How can one not be charmed by "Where the Sour Turns to Sweet" and "One Day"
2) The first two albums with Collins singing ("A Trick of the Tail" and "Wind & Wuthering" are just as good as, if not better than, the Gabriel albums).

Search: Nursery Crime, Selling England By the Pound, Lamb Lies Down on Broadway -- Trick of the Tail, Duke, Abacab

Destroy: The very last one with neither Collins nor Gabriel singing.

btw I thought the triangle thing Gabriel wears on that album cover was scary.

I've soured on Carpet Crawlers since then too, bah.

I was quite surprised (in a good way, especially since I hate "More Fool Me") to read that! :)

'When the sun beats down and I'm lyin' on the ground, you can always hear him talk/ Me I'm just a lawnmower, you can tell by the way I walk'

Ain't the foggiest idea what it means but still CLASSIC!!!

I get more and more into the really early Genesis albums (specifically "Trespass" and "Nursery Cryme") as time goes on. Once I noticed the pubic-school hymn thing going on in the earlier music - the way the music swells like a hymn in "Seven Stones" for example - I found that that's something I really got into. That, and the gnarly, badly-produced sound on their first few "proper" albums. I got that box set, with the demo tracks, and those incredibly frustrating notes by tony banks, basically "we wrote all this other stuff back then, but we've forgotten all of it, and lost all the tapes", feh, what a pisser, I wish they'd recorded another album between "Trespass" and "Nursery Cryme"!

I wonder if there are any actual listenable live tapes from back then - when I was at the used record store we got a 12" vinyl boot where they played "The Light", which was this legendary "lost" Genesis track, which was actually a longer early version of "Lillywhite Lillith" from "The Lamb". The quality of the boot was absolute shit though. I think of those really early Crimson tapes that got released that were actually quite good and listenable, and man, I wish there was something similar for Genesis!!

AAARGH. proofread!! proofread!!

Yes, that was me. :) (I'm "Joe M" over there.)

Apparently Tony Banks has a "classical" album out on some mid-price label.

Yes, I would like to hear that. I'd like to believe he has at least one great project left in him.

BTW, Pash, have you ever heard Anthony Phillips (1st Genesis guitarist) & Harry Williamson (Gong-affiliate)'s "Tarka" album? Now that's a stunning piece of work. Recorded with an orchestra, and also an ensemble which happens to include Didier Malherbe (Gong), Lindsay Cooper (Henry Cow), and Guy Evans (Van Der Graaf Generator)...so strange to see them on something so purely symphonic.

One interesting tidbit is that at least part of "Musical Box" was written by Anthony Phillips & Mike Rutherford--the section where the song's pace begins to speed up and turn electric.

1 - Supper's Ready: iii)Ikhnaton and Itsacon and Their Band of Merry Men
2 - The Musical Box
3 - Dancing with the Moonlit Knight
4 - The Fountain of Salmacis
5 - The Return of the Giant Hogweed
and I must be forgetting something, because I'm sure there's more.

Check out the Gabriel era. Lamb Lies Down, Nursery Cryme, and Selling England are all great. I just bought Foxtrot.

even A Trick of the Tail, which has no Gabriel, but just Collins, is spectacular...and I do enjoy Abacab too. Right after Abacab is where things went a little south though.

Getting back on-topic, I think the Gabriel-era records are pretty stellar from Nursery Cryme through The Lamb. I always viewed Eno's contribution to the Lamb as making the sound more cohesive - the record just feels different than anything previous. And it seems like it has aged the best...

Anyway, as far as the thread is concerned, definitely Classic. It was Gabriel period Genesis that lead me into the domain of Can, Faust and Neu(obviously, not directly!)and obliquely to gybe and the whole post rock thing.

Phil Collins:

THE MUSICAL BOX IN GENEVA..... there were many questions about this, so I'll try to put it all in perspective..... Originally the Band asked me to write the programme notes for them. I said this was no problem. I suggested that if they were coming to a town near me, that I'd come to see them. When it turned out that they were playing in Geneva, I suggested that I might play with them. It ended up that we decided that I would play their encore of The Musical Box. I left it till the day of the show... a dangerous thing to do !!! I went downstairs to my basement where my drums are, and I tried to play along to the Genesis version.... DISASTER. What would have been a problem for some drummers, the fast bass drum parts for example, were no problem for me... but everything else.... WHOA !!! I realised that I was trying to play things that I'd played 30 years ago. This was not going to happen.

I arrived at the sound check and we played through the tune... I sounded like a complete amateur !!! Likewise the second , third and fourth try. I had to play Martin's kit. This was something I had not taken into account. Not only was I trying to play like the "me" of 30 years ago, but on someone else's drum kit. He had "my kit" alright, but everything 6 inches closer to him than I had.... even when I changed things, it was like wearing someone else's shoes. The Band and their crew could not have been more helpful and supportive... it was ME that was the problem. Eventually we all agreed that it was "OK"... that made me suspicious... they should have been saying "wow... that sounds great..." Inside I knew I'd bitten off more than I could chew.

When it came to the gig... I watched and listened. They played that stuff better than we ever did... we wrote it, which is a big point of course. Recreating something that exists is easier than the creation of it... but they DID play it better than us. Especially Martin, who caught ALL of my personal nuances, vocally and drumming wise. All the Timbale fills... so much that I'd forgotten but he'd remembered.
It reminded me that I WAS GOOD !!! Well it came to my "moment" and having changed into my lucky Converse and into a shirt made for me by them, I took the stage to warm applause. Then the reality... I dropped 2 sticks in crucial places... generally missed everything I went for.. and emerged sweating and pissed off that I hadn't lived up to the occasion. Well... you asked me what happened.....

My wife, who hadn't lived through the Lamb experience, thought the songs challenging and interesting. She thought I played great... but I knew.... I realised that I didn't look like that soldier anymore, I wasn't that soldier anymore... it was an interesting experience. The Musical Box were fantastic... they are all fabulous musicians that have a love for what they are doing. They do it wonderfully. The problem was with me.

I picked this up last night. It's, er, not very good. Vaguely similar in tone in places to John Barry's "Dances With Wolves" soundtrack, program music, basically. It's a shame, though I didn't have high hopes for it I must admit.