Steve Hillage - C/D S/D whatever....

Gong had a pre-This Heat Charles Hayward for a while didn't they? Cool. Not sure if I've ever heard one of their albs mind; prob wld prefer Gone, Gregg Ginn's post-Black Flag band, who were always filed next to Gong in the old Virgin Megastore....

strangely enough i used to own many many LPs by GONG, but find it quite hard to say why, as i never "got" it at all: i think i stick by my claim — which has earned a name of mud in the wire i see — that these were reaches of prog which were v.close to and important to the nurturing of free improv, and that that is what my taste was on the move towards

norman phay you are surely slammed tonite amd will regret it in the morning, if not hangover-wise then hillage-fess-up-wise

Steve Hillage alone -- I've only heard a System 7 (aka 777) double album "Fire:Water", which though listenable is not very good at all, and Fish Rising, which has some charm but lacks the unpredictability and explosiveness of Gong. Not that it's bad, it's just not as good as Gong's Radio Gnome albums.

no mention of the open album on this thread? it should be a beardo's delight; full of soft disco beats, funk basslines and brain-massage arpeggiators. hillage keeps the vocals at a minimum or just uses vocoders, and he's not shy of a shredding guitar solo every now and then

being the beardo i am, i put Hillage's "Talking To The Sun" from Green (actually i have Aura - a comp of Green and Open) on my site a while back.

i have aura too. waiting for the day when i see green and/or open in a shop, as i don't want to ebay em.
"the glorious om riff" is crucial.

yeah, that's a good one too. it's up on bumrocks right now http://bumrocks.com/AUD/The%20Glorious%20Om%20Riff.mp3

I second Vornado upthread. His production on the Taha albums I own is great. "Diwan2" is close to perfect.

I got Rainbow Dome Musik a while back, I think more or less based on something I'd read on here, and gently liked it, altho the non-title side is corny as fuk

Point of info: Daevid Allen guests on the new manga-inspired System 7 album (Phoenix) and reprises the "I am, you are, we are CRAZY" riff from Flying Teapot.

is system 7 at all worth delving into? i remember immensely enjoying "interstate" way back when and his guitar on "blue room" is so awesome...

drunkenly bought "live herald" off itunes tonight in a reliving teenage years moment. big mistake!

I got the Rainbow Dome Musik reissue and I love it, but which should I go for next?

I need me some more of this stuff. Rainbow Dome Musik next? I only have Fish Rising and love it to pieces and want MORE.

Get "Green"

Wasn't impressed with Green that much but

Rainbow Dome Musick OMG RAINBOW DOME MUSICK .......

my brane has melted and I'm going to quit my job to sit on a beach in Cornwall and watch the ocean waves until my consciousness melts

Why can't I get a stream of reccomendations about, say, where to start with, say, System 7 like I can on the Mike Oldfield thread?

I like the cut of this hippie's wibble.

FISH RISING, man. Why did no one tell me how awesome this and L were earlier? Gotta get to RAINBOW DOME soon.

fish rising is cool. i like most of the 70's stuff. and even most of the early 80's stuff. he made a good transition to the 80's. not everyone did.

Listened to part of Rainbow Dome Musik again yesterday. It's on part 617 of this Aussie podcast series; http://www.ultimathule.info/. My best memory of RDM is listening to it in a London park during the summer a few years ago. I swear I could have been levitating!

I bought L a couple of months ago but can't really get into it. Would love to find some more Hillage in the RDM vein.

Got L and Green and liked them enough to pick up Motivation Radio on vinyl... haven't listening to it yet - but damn that's an ugly cover.

http://www.dustygroove.com/images/products/h/hillag_stev_motivatio_101b.jpg

Don't know how to post images but the cover of L beats that one easily imo.

Yeah the cover of L was part of why I never really looked into his stuff tbh. Dumb, I know.

Motivation Radio is kinda patchy. I remember buying it from this old dude who had just inherited the entire Anglia Television vinyl archive, lots of dope krautrock and 70s head music. asked him if it sounded like Rainbow Dome Musick and he mumbled a "kinda". he gave it to me for half price cuz I guess he felt bad or something

anyway, it's good in places, but not as out as some of his other stuff. pretty much just straight ahead poppy prog rock for spirit healers and yoga enthusiasts. i admire the combination of ultra positive vibes + tasty riffage though, and a couple of songs could kill a sympathetic dance floor at the right time

think my fav late 70s Hillage is Open, the synths and production pointing towards where he went with RDM somewhat

i've had the reissues in the pile for years and never given then any time until today.

damn, fish rising = ace ..

man this dude is dope on wax #bangerz

I've had L for a while, I like it but it hasn't been burning up the table.
I've been on the lookout for a Rainbow Dome. Checking out Fish. This is heavy or something.

That has to Mike Ratledge playing on Pentagrammaspin, right?

I just heard this guy... Fish

Pretty blown away

I really like his solo albums and I love his work with Gong. I was shocked how cheesy System 7 is. Not even worth a second listen. I remember this one track w/ some seriously dire rapping about like magic crystals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0eQ8gHEdWY

I just heard this guy... Fish

Thought this was a Marillion reference for a minute there

the good stuff i've heard hits a cool spot between like ayers/wyatt/soft machine and eno and klaus schultze and maybe some fusion type stuff like in a silent way or ever cornier fusion like weather report or the like

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyrxtVnc-28

^ this is as uncool as it gets (but i still kind of like it)

I love the System 7 stuff with Derrick May. Some of my favorite May related material, period. Hillage's production work for Rachid Taha is often excellent.

Any help navigating my way to the good System 7 stuff?

This seems comprehensive.

i liked "interstate" back in the day.. fun motorik going breakbeat.
I like the instrumental After the Storm album (from '82). It's very 80s..

bloody hell, L is awesome.

15 minutes of a spaced out hillage excess version of 'hurdy gurdy' = perfection.

i am digging this 2008 ambient house/dub techno album he did with bluetech.

https://www.discogs.com/Evan-Marc-Steve-Hillage-Dreamtime-Submersible/release/1346712

22 disc box set:
https://www.burningshed.com/store/madfish/product/397/7787/

The set includes:

* Arzachel.

* Khan's Space Shanty, 1972.

* All eight of Hillage's classic Virgin Records solo albums - Fish Rising, L, Motivation Radio, Green, Live Herald, Rainbow Dome Music, Open (and Studio Herald), For To Next (and its companion And Not Or) - plus bonus tracks.

* System 7's debut from 1991.

* Live in Deeply Vale, 1978.

* Two BBC performances from The Paris Theatre recorded in December 1976 and November 1979.

* Eight CDs featuring recordings taken from Steve's personal archive, including four superb concert performances (Brighton Dome November 1977, Munich April 1979, Hammersmith Odeon November 1979, The Steve Hillage Band Live At The Gong Family Unconvention 2006) and four discs (Sparks Volumes 1-4) packed with previously unheard and unreleased tracks, demos and alternate takes.

plus a bunch of printed ephemera

limited to 2500 copies, £200

I'm interested. Wish it wasn't so damn expensive.

Listening to Fish Rising today for the first time in maybe 30 years. It was a fave back when I was young and smoked a lot of w33d. Years later, at work, listening to youtube w/ earbuds, even though I don't listen to much prog anymore, it still OWNS.

someone offloaded basically all of their mint steve hillage LPs at Amoeba recently so I now own everything from Fish Rising through Rainbow Dome Musik and there isn't a dodgy one in the bunch.

The trouble with RDM is I want to put it on to go to sleep to but the running water sounds make me want to get up and do a wee.

Some of his 80s Linn Drum stuff is pretty good. Frame By Frame is great (and makes me think of the Mighty Boosh searching for a new sound thing) as is Timelines which is the other b-side on the Alone 12". Kind of a swinging YMO vibe in some funky time signature.

"These Uncharted Lands" too, off "For To Next". I love that last gasp era of solo Steve Hillage.

I had tickets to see him a few weeks ago but was ill so couldn't go. I heard it was incredible.

he's playing some shows with Gong (as in, not as a member of Gong but as an opener; maybe he will join Gong for some songs, I imagine he will), really bummed these aren't happening in the US.

Don't know enough of his other records to comment, but Amen to mentions upthread of his excellent work w Rachid Taha, As I said recently on another thread, where we were discussing Taha's 2019 send-off, Je Suis Africain:
"Just call me Rai Cooder." he quipped long ago, doing Western rock a reverse-Coody missionary favor while teaming w Steve Hillage and Galactic on Made In Medina, one of my all-time faves (Songlines reviewer Nigel Williamson observed that this was what Page & Plant were *trying* to do w some of Taha's neighbors on Unledded---and then some, I say). Hillage was the Page figure, re guitar and studio smarts.

Current setlist -

Talking to the Sun
It's All Too Much
The Golden Vibe
The Salmon Song
Om Nama Shivaya
Sea Nature
Ether Ships
Lunar Musick Suite
Palm Trees (Love Guitar)
The Fire Inside
Motivation
Solar Musick Suite
The Dervish Riff
Hurdy Gurdy Man

Encore:

Light in the Sky
The Glorious Om Riff

Encore 2:

Hello Dawn
I Never Glid Before

i believe Gong played first, with Steve.

Forever Reoccurring
You Can't Kill Me
Rejoice!
My Sawtooth Wake
Insert Yr Own Prophecy

Oh don't make me start digging out all this shit again... What is happening to me!

I feel like there was another thread where we talked about Fish Rising and Aftaglid quite a lot, because I remember talking in-depth about the specific 'guitar turning itself inside-out' effect on the latter, but I can't seem to find it.

Never mind, it was on Fnordcooler 23: Immanentizing The Eschaton - 2007 was a weird year (I'm having megalith flashbacks)

I listened to this guy (& a bit of Gong) for the first time last week. I dislike his singing but enjoyed Fish Rising in particular a lot. Gong's "Master Blaster" blew me away. But I don't feel like I'll want to pull this stuff out very often.

"Master Builder" :-)

oops yes!

OMG, Salmon Song - I had forgotten!!!

Like, in my head I have this filed as “cute, fun little trippy album” but then I listen to it and it literally turns my head inside out and drags me backwards through another dimension and by the end of Aftaglid you feel somehow both ecstatic and physically exhausted- yet just wanna do it all over again?

Wow. King of the fishes, yeah...

Been digging a little deeper into Hillage lately. Picked up the Khan album a few weeks ago and just got the recently issued '79 Dusseldorf live show, which is just fantastic.

I just picked up "Fish Rising" and it's this perfect prog / krautrock amalgam.

That set of songs (Talking To The Sun, 1988 Aktivator, New Age Synthesis (Unzipping The Zype), Healing Feeling) on the fourth side of the original Live Herald (they also show up on Aura and some CD reissues of Open) is really excellent.

man this dude is dope on wax #bangerz

― lorde willin' (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, 20 November 2013 00:17

They are indeed and have become some of my Hillage faves over the years. 1988 Aktivator must have riled a few anti-punk Hillage fan feathers at the time.

Some great live 1979 Hillage on YT from the OPEN era. Search the Kent show. Killer rhythm section featuring Andy Anderson (pre-Cure).

i forgot to watch this before but just watched it there. it's excellent but i wish it was longer and was hoping he'd play Definite Activity which i have been obsessed with recently.

anyway, the band is great. audience too. i wonder what was on the reel to reel? it also made me wish the world had been blessed with a Miquette Giraudy solo album.

he is touring here next year. i will definitely be in attendance.

I had a big phase with him a few years ago. "Palm Trees (Love Guitar)" is one of my favorite songs.

I regret missing the chance seeing him do Motivation Radio/Green/Open-era material in March but it was almost £40 and I had no money then.

i managed to see him twice this year. both times were wonderful but i did feel he did too many cover versions when he has so much incredible material of his own he could have played. i know cover versions have always been a big part of what he is about, but still...

I want someone to do a System 7 POX

“interstate” was my intro to motorik

Really enjoying the Paris Bataclan show (December 11, 1979) that just got released.

is this available to hear any way apart from cd? except for 1988 aktivator it's close to my perfect Hillage setlist.

I don’t actually know, the CD is all I have and I only randomly saw that via an Amazon recommendation. Seems relatively rare? RYM doesn’t even have an entry for it at all. It’s a great set!

ok. thanks.

To tide you over here's a really 'vibey' audience recording from France, earlier that year, markedly different set list though.

https://we.tl/t-yoYSAJA4wi

thanks!