Favourite Van Der Graaf Generator Album?

Where's "Vital"?

I just copied it from wikipedia.

You should know better by now... tho' I can't imagine many people voting for "Vital"

plus it wasnt in the previous poll either
Best Van der Graaf Generator Album

and tom d never votes anyway

godbluff for me, it has the best balance of the earlier noisier freak out stuff and the more "hammill solo song-based" thing.

That was studio albums only though, I think I did vote in that poll! (xp)

well i only do studio albums, you know that!

Vital is technically Van der Graaf rather than VdGG, which I guess is why it doesn't appear in a half-arsed list on home of half-arsed factoids Wikipedia.

Anyway, obv I'm gonna vote AGAIN for Still Life because it is perfect in every conceivable way. Hammill solo poll potentially more interesting at this point in ILVdGG.

Also, don't sleep on Trisector, kids, it builds slow but the second half is FUCKING HARDCORE.

jim, you do realise it didn't appear in your previous half-arsed poll, right? ;)

I think I left it out cos it's a live set. Plus I said exactly the same shit about doing a Hammill poll on the last one too :-D

Hammill's solo stuff with crazy restaurant violin guy works better than the Van der Graaf stuff for me, tbh.

Only one I ever owned is "Still Life," and it's been so long since I've played it that I'm not sure if I still have it. Trying to refresh my memory by listening to snippets online I got to "My Room (Waiting For Wonderland)" and went "Aha! So that's what that somber-yet-beautiful song is that pops up in my head from time to time!" LOVE the melody line to that.

Vital is technically Van der Graaf rather than VdGG, which I guess is why it doesn't appear in a half-arsed list on home of half-arsed factoids Wikipedia.

Oh and by the way, you can find Vital in the list of VdGG live albums on Wikipedia. I know, because I put it there myself.

Right, having got that off my chest, the poll. It has to be Still Life, which is just the most perfect slice of art rock you will ever hear, from the bleak and harrowing title track, to the desolate apocalyptic vision of "Childlike Faith...", via the upsetting and perversely tuneful "My Room" and the gleeful intensity of "Pilgrims" and "La Rossa". Jackson and Banton are on fire, Evans' percussion is ceaselessly creative and sympathetic, while Hammill sings like he has some chilling connection to the mysteries of the cosmos.

chill dude. Tom d was just doing what he does on every poll. He always looks for one thats missing something that noone would vote for and makes a joke complaint. its just his way!

faves ranked:
=The Quiet Zone/The Pleasure Dome (top/equal cos of side 1, my fave Van Der Graaf Generator side)
=Godbluff
Still Life
Pawn Hearts
=The Least We Can Do...
=H To He...
tuthers (haven't heard enough of most recent two to judge)

h to he etc. impact hammill/vdgg had on favorites like current 93, legendary pink dots, and destroyer cannot be overstated

Hey anagram, apologies if you were provoked. I was having a lazy dig at Wiki, not a lazy dig at you. As I said, I too left Vital off the original poll cos it's a live album.

"h to he"

xp no worries Noodle Vague. I'm new here and still finding my way.

theory: form/flow of Godbluff possibly inspired by (Roy Harper) Stormcock?

bump

I don't listen to Van der Graaf enough — they totally made the brass/woodwinds work better than most prog flute-harasser types did.

(did anyone catch the prog night on bbc4 the other day? i was watching the documentary and thought 'this would be better if it was eight hours long'. also, robert wyatt is such a mensch.)

I didn't.

Is it on again soon?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/search/?q=prog

the prog at the bbc compilation of clips might be a bit more essential, the documentary ('prog rock britannia: an observation in three movements') falls back on received wisdom and just whoever-we-could-get interviewees, and makes other mistakes, too, like allowing ian anderson to speak

ahh right thanks. virginmedia has the iplayer on my tv so i'll catch up with it there.

I own and enjoy all of these (except for the very latest--haven't picked that up yet). I need to do some more listening to really choose a favorite though.

The first I ever got was Least We Can Do Is Wave To Each Other which always impressed me with the heavy doom ending of White Hammer and the tiny epigraph in the gatefold in which they thanks "Alice for the Doughnut".

Geir what is your fave?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbH_JYFr2Us

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDmhP6YiN6s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzoaWrRYg98
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgPIHu10QxY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAkBhgQcE0M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1vWpctw4sE

all 4 parts ^

Geir what is your fave?

Waiting for LOLs as Geir says they are insufficiently melodic

Even Geir must love
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVBP6VezTgs

Anyone who doesn't must be nuts.

And I'm glad this guy from the comments page isn't on ILX

WhatFuckingUsernameI (4 months ago) Show Hide
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I've been meaning to listen to this band for years and now that I have a chance thanks to You and the tube my first impression brings a question to mind. If anything was possible what if Nico (of Velvet Underground fame) were to sing the lead ? I mean no disrespect I just wonder what your thoughts on that would be.
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I am going to see the band, as opposed to Peter Hamill alone or with guests, tomorrow. For the first time ever. (Although Hammill did brush against my arm by accident circa 1982.) And your Nico idea is making me gag. It's such a weird culture clash. It's like saying, What if we got Donny Osmond to sing lead for the Dead Kennedys?
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A weird German chick who liked to hang out in the New York gay scene? How does that correlate with progressive at all? I've been trying to remember, and to the best of my knowledge, there is only 1 gay musician in the entire field of progressive rock. It's not a place Nico is going to feel right at home in.
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I saw John Cale solo live maybe 25 years ago. As far as I'm concerned, progressive fans and Velvets fans are two distinct camps with not a lot of overlap in personnel. One man's opinion.
manzanadecoco (1 month ago) Show Hide
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Velvets. Andy Warhol album cover! Who else has an Andy Warhol album cover. The Stones. Progressive fans detest the Stones. Progressives love the Beatles, and hate the Stones, Nico, Warhol, and cheap sleazy full-of-itself junk like that. Progressives like Tales from Topographic Oceans, something that's ambitious, personal and honest, not the cruddy bloody Rolling Stones strutting and posturing fakely like a bunch of proto-rap goofballs.
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Dude, you are a dirtbag piece of shit racist and you give ALL progressive music fans a bad name.

Whenever I made cdrs or tapes for people I always put Afterwards on them.

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 :/

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.

I don't think he exists in a different universe from Genesis-era Peter Gabriel fwiw

OK listening, they're not that similar, I guess just similarly dramatic and fond of dynamic contrasts; just seemed surprising to see Hamill's voice described as "non-prog". Idk who Billy Mackenzie is, though.

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.

― but also fuck you (unperson)

and just being in that environment hasn't really left any marks? for me a lot of it was realizing that all of the stuff i had grown up thinking of as "normal" was just deeply fucked up and wrong. that's what "the lie" means to me, the unique sense of _moral inversion_ represented by patriarchal christianity.

I just foundmy copy of After The Flood the BBC sessions which I remember being quite good. Even starts with one session by the 68 band.

OK listening, they're not that similar, I guess just similarly dramatic and fond of dynamic contrasts; just seemed surprising to see Hamill's voice described as "non-prog". Idk who Billy Mackenzie is, though.

... Billy Mackenzie...

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

I'd heard of the Associates before but for some reason imagined they were jangly indie-pop. This is disappointing.

correct if by "disappointing" you mean better than genesis *and* van der graaf generator

here 4 this drama

and just being in that environment hasn't really left any marks?

I mean...it spurred me to read Nietzsche and Schopenhauer and Seneca and Marcus Aurelius and study Buddhism and Asatru, so...maybe, but all that boils down to is thinking "OK, that was a bunch of bullshit, but maybe there's something out there that's not" and eventually coming away from all those explorations disappointed, too.

Genesis = VdGG > going to Catholic school > whatever that Associates song was

(NB I have mostly pleasant memories of attending Catholic school for junior KG and summer school and teaching music lessons in Catholic schools; apologies if I minimized any actual trauma people suffered there)

So Still Life, eh? What an album.

“La Rossa” is almost too good to be true

I'm finding it very difficult to listen to anything but APOLK at the moment. Even other VDGG feels like thin gruel. I guess this will continue until I play it to death.

Have dabbled in solo Hammill, actually think Gog/Magog maybe one of my favourite PH/VDGG things - first time I heard that was a similar 'fuckin hell he really went for it!!' moment

(also - are any of the various Pawn Hearts remasters particularly worthwhile?)

I've heard the one in the recent CD boxset was good. dunno about the latest vinyl reissue but I would assume it used the same master. but I can't say because my copy sounds pretty good

in fact I think I'll go listen to it right now

I mean...it spurred me to read Nietzsche and Schopenhauer and Seneca and Marcus Aurelius and study Buddhism and Asatru, so...maybe, but all that boils down to is thinking "OK, that was a bunch of bullshit, but maybe there's something out there that's not" and eventually coming away from all those explorations disappointed, too.

― but also fuck you (unperson)

i mean bullshit in what terms? this is another part of the lie, "catholic" meaning literally "universal". no universal church, no universal brotherhood of man. it's just about finding something that works for _you_. for me, that was taking hormones, getting my dick cut off, and becoming a communist lesbian witch. (by the way i do want to give shout-outs to hammill for his embrace of witchcraft in early VDGG, stuff like "necromancer" and "white hammer"; kind of a shame he walked away from that path IMO but again, people gotta do what works for them). what worked for me is probably just not gonna be right for most people, but for everybody i do think there _is_ something that's right for them.

I've heard the one in the recent CD boxset was good. dunno about the latest vinyl reissue but I would assume it used the same master. but I can't say because my copy sounds pretty good

in fact I think I'll go listen to it right now

thanks Frogbs - yeah while my beat up old vinyl copy still sounds great i can see how the medium might have limits re reproducing the frequencies of this band - might try and get the standalone PH CD release just in the spirit of scientific enquiry

and yes, why would one do anything else

I checked discogs, the reviews are...not great. though I think that's more the pressing than the master. though I'm not sure if the 2022 vinyl reissues used the new masters at all. plus, it doesn't have "Theme One"!

anyway there's a quote I read on RYM (I think) which called this album the "final boss of prog rock". that definitely feels apt. and who else could pull this off but Peter Hammill?

ahh fuck I had to pause "Lighthouse Keepers" 2/3rds of the way through to watch this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjrVg7eRHrc

no doubt this is the sort of thing that was going through Hammill's head all the time

i had to think about what i would call the final boss of prog-rock and i think it's probably the final version of dirk campbell's "zabaglione", performed only once in louviciennes on june 19, 1976, a performance so miserably demoralizing that campbell immediately quit the group, and rock music, forever in order to further explore occult theories regarding "early music"

seriously i would murder (a healthy salad) for a decent quality recording of it

angels arranged in triangles blowing across the ocean

other candidates include khan's "madman's rap" and the malgaard suite by comus

xxps ^ the cd remasters in the 'Charisma Years' box set are really great.

specifically I mean the new stereo mixes of H to He / PH / Godbluff / SL

Still Life is the album i listen to most.

I also first heard Hammill on Exposure, and later found Pawn Hearts on a trip to Ottawa. For a couple of years, I didn't explore any further because I felt "this is fine, but strange - how much more of this would I want"? It's at the extreme end of his oeuvre and sort of a strange place to start. Then I picked up H to He Who Am the Only One because the purple sleeve looked so appealing and that started the boulder rolling.

I hear Hammill in Halford; and when I heard The Number of the Beast, the songwriting gave me a strong feeling of "Hammill for Dummies" (sorry Maiden fans).

that's what "the lie" means to me, the unique sense of _moral inversion_ represented by patriarchal christianity.

I'm neither an expert in Catholicism nor baroque sculpture, but the piece that inspired the song, Ecstasy of Saint Teresa by Bernini, has inspired interpretations that it is a representation of "the possibility of a female enjoyment that is infinite and unknowable, while masculine enjoyment is defined by finitude and failure": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecstasy_of_Saint_Teresa. Try looking at those photos while listening to the song.

well, i have read notes hammill made on the song saying that "the lie" didn't refer to the painting itself, but was inspired by the painting - and that's how i read it, as the patriarchal repression of female sexuality, its transmutation into suffering for the benefit of the patriarchy, for the benefit of the Male Gaze. _that_, to me, is The Lie.

i just bought a copy of the Pawn Hearts 2CD+DVD reissue from last year - haven't listened to all the bonus tracks, but fired up the Denon DVD-3910 to listen to the DVD-Audio disc with the "new stereo mix" - and I don't have Hoffman ears or purity of heart but it was pretty fkn awesome. totally revealing of extra details in the mix and honestly miles better than my grotty old LP.

just found a 2xLP copy of Vital - Live. pristine shape, too. I guess whoever bought it didn't like it much :)

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

There's "Conundrum" and "Quatrain" on Jethro Tull's Bursting Out, but I can't think of any others.

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.