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| PETER
HAMMILL / VdGG - A PLAGUE OF OLD ORGAN REVIEWS..... |
 30th
JAN 2010: Tomorrow PETER HAMMILL plays in London, Peter Hammill doesn't
play often, don't know how many more time there will be, either solo or
with his band, the finest band ever (alongside the other finest band ever),
VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR. I'm excited, thin air excitement, a feeling that
mostly takes second place... (Sean)
Below
is an excerpt from Peter's latest News Letter posted at his website.
“Thin Air” had just been released at the time the last newsletter
was delivered. I was still uncertain of where it stood in relation to past
work and, indeed, of what its value and vibrancy might be. I’ve appreciated
many supportive comments which have come in about the recordings since
then and, gradually, have been able to come to my own considered conclusions.
For my money, this is something of a high point in terms of recent solo
recordings. That’s not to say that any set of songs is ever in competition
with what’s gone before, what’s yet to come. As I’ve often stated, I go
into each project only with the raw material that falls into my hands,
only with such skills as are presently available to me, only and always
with the wish to do as well as I can with what’s right in front of me.
But, with the distance of a number of months between now and then, it does
seem to me that “Thin Air” occupies a musical and lyrical territory which
is quite far from any norm, yet which is absolute in its familiarity.
And for what it’s worth that is, I suppose, what I aim for in this (I assume)
last stretch of a working life in recorded music.
The disc didn’t receive that much public exposure, which is a matter of
some regret but little surprise. There’s no fault or blame involved in
this; I’m lucky to get as much coverage in mainstream (or even sub-stream)
media as I do in view of limited review/interview slots and the ever-increasing
numbers of acts trying to hit those slots. But I confess to a certain frustration
that work which does, actually, seem to have a true modern relevance unconnected
to i) Progtastic-ness or ii) Punk approval-ness or iii) aged white-hair-value
gets, er, ignored because the pigeon-hole can’t quite be matched to it....
On the other hand, better to be ignored, I suppose, than applauded for
dull retreads of known territory. It’s out there. I think it’ll stand the
test of time more than most. And, if so, that’ll partly be because the
gestation period for the content was long. It’s self-evident that the pieces
which relate to 9/11 took a long time to surface, to demand that they be
written. (From time to time I do attempt sensationalism but it’s generally
toward the literary rather than tabloid end of things...so I wasn’t in
a rush to get out the fragments which had hit my memory.) Even stranger
in terms of time-is-rightness was the song “Your face on the street”. I
was less than forthcoming in my previous notes on the origin of this piece.
It’s true that I used elements of invention in arriving at the final form,
but the song (and a couple of the original couplets) sprang from, I’m afraid,
very much the real world. Thirteen years ago a young girl called Melanie
Hall disappeared without trace from Walcot Street in Bath. From the outset
foul play was suspected; it was her case which originally fired this set
of lyrics, which, in nascent form, have been with me ever since.
You may or may not know that Terra Incognita, while in Bath, was on Walcot
Street in what had been Crescent Studios. Cadillac’s, the club where Melanie
was last seen, is a couple of hundred yards down the road. I had a heart-pumping
few minutes, the day after the news of the disappearance broke, pushing
past the weed-clustered side of the building to check that there was nothing
untoward there. So, if peripherally, I felt some direct connection to Melanie’s
disappearance. And finally, after years of gestation, I fact/fictionalised
it into this song. When the record was released the mystery remained. In
October it was confirmed that bones recently discovered by the side of
a motorway thirty miles away were those of Melanie. The postscript to the
song, sadly, was written. Had that discovery been made only a matter of
months earlier then the song, for what it’s worth, would almost certainly
have had to be rewritten into something quite different...if it was to
be written at all.
Anyway, all in all, I expect that “Thin Air” will eventually find its proper
place in the pecking order of PH solo releases and the present bet would
be comparatively high up the list.... |
 And
so here we are now in 2010....
In a matter of days I’ll be setting off for what counts as a considerable
solo tour in Europe. Three weeks to show what I can do alone on a stage
- provided Will and I can get to the shows in the face of what look like
pretty extreme winter conditions! The solo show remains one end of the
touchstone for live performance and it’s been some time since I’ve done
any of them over here. Particularly since I’m currently more or less in
training for it it really seemed incumbent on me to do a tour in the one-man-alone
format once again. The repertoire has expanded a bit, particularly as a
result of doing piano-only shows and I think I’m working from an “available”
song list of more than seventy tunes. I should say something about choice
of songs here. My assumption is that the majority of those reading this
will be “diehards”, more or less. And that the majority of those at any
individual show will not fall into that category. So the question of what
songs I play on any given night - granted that I change the setlist each
time - becomes quite complicated. Perhaps for those who read this
or who contribute to the various forums available in that Land of Web there
might exist a fantasy setlist of arcane tunes to be heard once and once
only which might constitute an Ideal. I don’t hold with that premise, particularly
since it would preclude the presence of the “favourites” (yeah, Hits, if
only!). When - and it’s still the case that it’s only on the day, though
now maybe a bit more than an hour before showtime - I write out the 15
or 16 songs for the night I’ve got to balance what’s exciting/challenging
for me, what’s new/old for any given audience, what’s a decent emotional/musical
trajectory, what I played yesterday, the day before and so on, what’s A
Performance. And whatever it is will necessarily mean that other tunes
are absent and of course that the final selection will be somewhat random.
I mean to say, I’ll do my best to be absolutely present when I get on stage.
Some of that presence means that I have to find a place/space to be comfortable.
But I also hope, of course, to have an element of edge...there’ll
be no point in doing it unless there’s still that. But of course I am now
a 60+ chap and utterly reckless abandon would be a stupid waste of such
knowledge and experience as I’ve achieved over the years. Discerning readers
will have gathered over the course of recent newsletters that I count myself
extraordinarily fortunate still to be in the position of getting onto a
stage, be it with VdGG or solo. An underlying subtext of that good fortune
is the certain knowledge that at some point I’m not going to be able carry
on enjoying it, whether because the audience or my own strength has dwindled
to unsustainable quantity. At some point or another, for many, many years,
I’ve wondered to myself, mid-tour, on every tour, “just how long can I
carry on?” And yet I carry on; and precisely because each show may be the
last I will continue to try to make each one elegiac, celebratory, unique;
but above all true.
Peter
Hammill's newsletters and more can be found on his website @ www.sofasound.com
AND
HERE COME'S A SELECTION OF MORE RECENT ORGAN REVIEWS...
x |
 8th
JUNE '09: ALBUM REVIEW: PETER HAMMILL
– Thin Air (FIE) - Well he does seem to be everlasting, never finished,
that overused term national treasure and all that, each time you make a
resolution... Who knows what lies in his intent this time, more circular
decent? I have no idea how many albums Peter Hammill has been involved
in now, solo as well as those he’s made as frontman of probably the greatest
band ever – Van Der Graaf Generator – how many have there been now? Dozens?
Thirty? Forty? Has he made fifty albums now? Lost count ages ago, but what
I do know, is that I really quite honestly have never ever heard a bad
one... Thin Air is as good a starting point as the most recent Van Der
Graaf album Triceptor or any of the others, band or solo, that stretch
back to the late 60’s of Manchester...
Don’t
swim out too far, Don’t swim out too far, Don’t swim out too far for Christ
sake, don’t go in the bar... You let down your guard, You let down your
guard.... This could be no one else but Peter Hammill and yes I am
a frothing fan, I can’t help it, if you want a ‘proper’ chin-stroking review
then this is not the place, and after all this time and all the things
with all those people we’ve encountered, all the let downs, all the bands,
all the interviews, gigs, reviews, when it comes to Mr Hammill, I’m still
a frothing hopeless helpless teenage fan with (no) damage collaterally
done. Here in our own footprints, and not once has he let us down and it
may be less by design and more by random occurrence....
We’ve told the tale before, about how we once went to an intimate solo
show in a theatre in Euston somewhere in the early 90’s and there in the
small politely-seated audience of around two hundred, all there taking
notes and learning from their acknowledged master, were Bowie, Lydon, Bruce
Dickenson and that arch magpie Fish (a man who built a whole career on
being Peter – Cat’s Eyes, Yellow Fever and such).
Alright, so maybe Peter isn’t the greatest guitarist ever and we could
maybe do without that three minute instrumental track Wrong Way Round
in the middle of the album there... but that’s the thing, that he still
does it, that he still tries when he knows, and that fragile fact that
he attempts it, and sometimes those lyrical lines he comes out with have
you wondering... Oh come on Peter, you’re making fun of us now. “This is
not exactly comfortable or comforting sonic territory” reads his press
release, “It’s also a long way away from any VdGG – past, present or future”
– well true in both cases, but then how can it not sound like that unique
dark beauty of Van Der Graaf when you have that voice? Let’s face it here,
Peter could sing the phonebook, without instrumentation, and it will still
sound like no one but VdGG - that voice and that phrasing could belong
to no one else but the voice of Van Der Graaf... VdGG and Peter solo are
different beasts though, there is a difference, there needs to be... And
no it isn’t comfortable, it almost never is with Mr Hammill’s solo work
- and what with more recent events, the heart attack and such, Peter is
looking rather fragile these days, this is the sound of a man thinking
that any of those goodbyes could be the last one. Homesick even though
he’s there at home, nostalgic for that future. Peter Hammill solo albums
are never comfortable, they're never sunlight, flowers and happiness, and
you hope there are high days and holidays somewhere in the reality of those
envelopes he pushes against.. that lifetime spent in pursuit of common
sense and the waiting on that final clue. Oh there must be high days, nothing
is this bleak, surely? Only just got away with what he’s done?
Oh look, a new Peter Hammill album, and even by his standards, some of
this is really dark and bleak, it is uncomfortable, this is not easy listening,
this is absorbing, this is beautiful, up here in the thin air, as emotional
as ever, more so... This isn’t an album that needs over-analysis, this
is an album that should be very personal to each and every listener, you
don’t need us telling you what we think he’s on about, that’s for you to
explore and interpret - find your own things, take what you want from it...
All that really needs to be said is that Thin Air is as good as
anything the man has ever done and if this should be your first toe in
his water then it is as fine a place as any to go wade waist-deep in to
it all as any. If on the other hand you’re one of those people who dropped
everything and flew in from all points around the globe in an ecstatic
state of disbelief when Van Der Graaf returned in 2006 then you will be
as absorbed and satisfied as ever. I don’t really care if this all comes
over a frothing fandom, way past the point of caring what you think of
this Organgrinding thing we do these days, and if we can’t get excited
about new music and we can’t grab you by the collar and say hey, you have
to check this out then what’s the point? Music still moves us and I really
don’t know why those self-appointed mainstream alternative music sites
who claim to be so in touch with everything aren’t all over this? The man
is right up there with Scott Walker (or Bowie or Morrissey if you will)
or anyone else you care to namedrop, he really is that national treasure
and
Thin Ice will more than explain why those of us who know wait
for these new albums and how once again we haven’t been let down... Need
to put this away now, he’s as intense as ever, need to leave those dark
clouds for a couple of days...
Thin Ice is out today of Peter Hammill’s own label FIE – find out
more via his website www.sofasound.com
or explore some VdGG/PH treasure via the download page at www.vandergraafgenerator.co.uk
x |
 A
FIRST TIME VIEW
JULY
4th 2009: LIVE REVIEW: VAN
DER GRAAF GENERATOR – Regent Theatre, Arlington, Massachusetts, 23rd
June
Encouraged, maybe even exhorted, by Organ to go discover Van der Graaf
Generator for some time now, it seems fitting to explore them for the first
time in this very intimate, experimental theatre just a stone’s throw from
the equally experimental People’s Republic of Cambridge. This third gig
of their first proper U.S. tour is set in the comfortable, spare venue,
far smaller than some living rooms and many NYC lofts. Fine acoustics,
not a bad seat in the house, and I’m one of perhaps five women here, maybe
six, in a sea of mostly older prog rockers who know how every note will
go in a Van der Graaf Generator concert.
New eyes and new ears present, and I know I’m supposed to be listening
for intensity and despair, but I keep finding humour and hope. Is this
a propensity of the XX chromosome? This stripped down trio (no saxophonist
this tour) deliver rich, complicated, multiple layers of precise darkness.
With holes of light. I wasn’t told about that. Intensity? I wasn’t prepared
for the taurine ferocity of Guy Evans, a tenacious drummer and contents
under pressure here, converted into a raw energy that is at once diesel
fuel propelling big skyscrapers of sound forward, as well as a sheer pleasure
to watch. I could listen to him pulverize the drum kit for hours straight.
Hugh Barton is as dependable as the Thames, pure constancy on dual keyboards
and foot pedals and understated accuracy. Peter Hammill on both keyboards
and guitar is everything I’ve been promised, but it’s his voice that he
uses as a fifth instrument that is physically compelling. It’s good to
be seated perhaps only one hundred feet away to experience big swaths of
sound at a cellular level. This pale slender English frame houses an enormous
voice, that rips out of his lungs at enormous speed and wrenches his body
and mouth.
It’s the lyrics that are most defibrillating, in a positive way. Yes, I’m
hearing actual fine poetry, full of literary device that burns emotions
into my brain, actual free verse and form that most “poets” have forgotten
or never learned to write – real form that acts as safe and sane bondage
so that deep questions and deeper responses can be safely contained, something
I’ve pontificated about for years. I imagine that he has learned to love
the questions, as Rainer Maria Rilke wrote. “What cause is there left but
to die?” Answered by “What cause is there left but to live?” and to try,
there’s the intensity of hope. Good to hear “Lemmings” for the first time
live.
There are silences between songs, but none feel awkward, just lots of gentle
self-deprecating humour to wash down great big slices of sometimes otherwordly
prog rock. I love someone who can play with and to an audience; we’re definitely
not here to be played at. There are shouts of requests as Hammill steps
forward and tunes his guitar for an age. An unperturbed Hammill answers,
“Tune-age is very important on this stage”. A moment of what appears
to be a lost playlist, and then, “Guys, guys, we’ve spent hours working
this out” as Hammill holds up a set list. Humour only exists
when two or more levels of reality co-exist; how appropriate for unique
experimental prog that explores multiple time signatures, various snarls
of tonal scales and meanings of lyrics. Lots of realities and spaces threaded
in this room tonight.
There’s much from the latest album “Trisector” tonight. “Over the
Hill” and “(We are) Not Here” are particularly good. “Man-Erg” is the redoubtable
finale; it’s fragile and anthemic, smoother than the recording tonight
and more vulnerable. I don’t hear the loneliness, but I do hear the music
and lyrics penetrate the alone-ness, and having done so, the alone-ness
disappears. A musical nirvana, or a Zen koan, that alone-ness cannot
last once it is universalized in such a piercing way. Not comfortable listening,
but a match of lyrics and music that make a third delicate spiky reality
full of darkness – with those holes of light. But then again, black is
never black, is it? It’s an emulsion of all colours, and you just might
find indigo or green or purple or even red in the cat’s fur.
Go find these, and explore Van der Graaf Generator at www.vandergraafgenerator.com
or www.sofasound.com. Now touring
in North America through to 10th July. (Lilith Payne)
x |
 LIVE:VAN
DER GRAAF GENERATOR - Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, April 3rd, 2008
- Stripped-down to a trio (drummer Guy Evans, organist Hugh Banton and
singer/guitarist/keyboard player Peter Hammill), Van Der Graaf Generator
spent 2007 making their new album, Trisector. Never one to shy away
from mortality as subject matter, Hammill's writing for this work positively
obsesses on decay, death and the big question - from, as always, the personal,
human standpoint - in a way that makes previous lyrics seem hesitant.
Hammill's heart attack a few years ago may well have been grist for that
mill, but he's taking on the whole idea of getting old with, as ever, that
utterly unflinching gaze. Kind of amusing, then, that this veteran outfit,
formed in 1967, should appear to be so immune to the aging process.
The new material (even without distinctive saxophonist) sounds so right
that it could almost be like it came from the same sessions that made The
Least We Can Do Is Wave To Each Other or Pawn Hearts. From the deeply comfy
seats of the recently reinvigorated Queen Elizabeth Hall, they look younger
(or at least healthier) than many a band down the Bull & Gate. There's
no hint of compromise or flabbyness in the new numbers: its proper Van
Der Graaf Generator, and live, they stand up better a lot of their later
first period output.
The stage is set up stark and simple, with just right lighting. It's
just Hammill, Banton and Evans (not long ago, sightings of Hugh Banton
were treated as Fortean phenomena). The between-song repartee is
pretty stark and simple too (slightly awkward? Very awkward). Great big
awkward silences, but that's ok because we're used to Hammill's extreme
lack of rock star posturing, and it goes with the extreme honesty of this
band. After all these years of performing he still seems very, very
nervous, insecure even - until a song starts and he lets rip with that
humungous voice. Then the three of them lock in as if making unique,
very very English, very strange music is the most natural thing in the
world. Guy Evans is many people's favourite drummer of all time,
flowing, expressive yet hard-edged; Hugh Banton might not have brought
one of his souped-up, dangerously overdriven Hammonds with him this time
but he's getting enough power out of the substitutes. No soddin Wakeman,
but the soaring darkness of plainsong and harsh medieval avant garde. When
they get to the snarling madness in the middle of Man-Erg or the highlight
that is Over The Hill, the real home of this trio is not these nice comfortable
halls with polite devotees and perplexed wives/husbands but a smaller room
crammed to the gills with people who listen to Godspeed! You Black Emperor
or Fantomas or Liars, at an ATP festival probably, the audience hanging
over the monitors, a moshpit and the band in each other's faces, cranking
out Lemmings. That'd sort out Peter's nerves.
Tonight, though, we connect with Van der Graaf's gloriously bleak/uplifting
vision by sinking into each song. I can't tell, after years of listening
and getting them, how much of an acquired taste they are. They don't have
any reference points to compare to (except maybe Scott Walker) - it just
makes its own sense, a very personal combination of talent and personality
and the Sixties/Seventies it evolved in. For all of us here used
to them, it was a great gig: even the lack of distinctive saxophonist Jackson
is a gap that seems to bring out more from the others. Filled by more guitar
and organ, the sound is fused into a tighter entity. The previous
triumphant return of Van der Graaf Generator at the Royal Festival Hall
was great; the following gig at Shepherds Bush happened the day after 7/7,
and kind of strange. Tonight was all about the music, going deeper. A return
to the dark heart of the thing that Van der Graaf Generator is: a unique
beast, very much alive and powerful forty years on, the trappings of fashion
and music business now long shrugged off - free and healthy in a climate
that suits it very well. They’re as vital as ever.
x |
 ORGAN
#245> FEB 28th '08
ALBUM
OF THE WEEK
VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR
- Trisector (Virgin) – When Van Der Graaf made that comeback a couple of
years ago with those unexpected shows and the Present album people refused
to believe it was going to happen until they were actually stood there
in front of us singing of black days at the bottom of the blackest sea.The
euphoria, the disbelief and the celebration is behind us now, one of the
finest bands ever are properly back and the second album from this new
period of Van Der Graaf life is here. Stripped down to a trio of
original 1968 members now – Hugh Banton, Peter Hammill and Guy Evans -
the first thing to say about Trisector is that there is material on here
to stand up next the best from any period of the band’s many lives. Peter
Hammill is on top form with his extremely personal lyrics - inward looking,
unflinching as ever as age takes hold; the melancholy, that wonderfully
distinctive voice, that clock that’s always ticking and a lifetime spent
unlearning all that he knows. The twelve and a half minutes of Over The
Hill is classic Van Der Graaf Generator with all those breathtaking rollercoaster
rides and stabs of jarring drama that lead us to that euphoric grandness.
We Are Not Now is seriously progressively challenging rock – Van Der Graff
are not the kind of band who you expect to just rehash things, they don’t
here! There are moments on Trisector that are genuinely pushing at musical
edges – and if you want emotion that Peter Hammill is still the (emo? This
is the real stuff). The best moments more than make up for the risks that
don’t really pay off – the album opens with a rather uneventful four minute
instrumental that really did lower my expectations and had me fearing the
worst. Start your first listen with the opening moments of Interference
Patterns lose yourself in more ceremonial quicksand... Another very fine
album from probably the greatest English band ever.
Trisector
is out March 17th – you can catch them on tour in early April – taste some
classic VdGG downloads at www.vandergraafgenerator.co.uk
x |
 ORGAN
#118 > MAY 12th 2005
VAN
DER GRAAF GENERATOR - Live Royal Festival Hall London – May 6th 2005
- There have been many bands who have aspired to strangeness, who
claim to be unique, who wear token eccentricity as a badge. And then there
is Van Der Graaf Generator. Ah, how glorious to be placing them in
the present tense! Van Der Graaf Generator, born in 1967, last performed
in 1978. That entity kind of vanished, Pioneers Over C style, airbrushed
out of easily accessible rock history to be discovered only via the purest
word-of-mouth. For me, it was at a huddle of fellow teenagers around
a record player in the mid 80s, marvelling at the 25-minute excess of A
Plague Of Lighthouse Keepers. After that, you don't go back. It sounded
extraordinary to us then; it sounded extraordinary to the trickle of new
recruits in the intervening years, and the tacit acceptance that us youngsters
would never experience this band live was part of the romance, in a way.
We had the voice and wordsmith and much of the thought processes of VDGG
in the shape of Peter Hammill, prolific with his own work, often performing.
We had glimpses of incomparable drummer Guy Evans, and Jackson's distinctive
twin sax attack. But somewhere out there was the man who, legend has it,
souped-up his Hammond so much its low frequencies caused injuries to buildings
and human flesh, taking out the ceiling of at least one venue during some
cataclysmic tour in the 70s... No, Van Der Graaf Generator would never
regroup, and that was that. Didn't even register on the radar. Too mysterious,
too fragile, too legendary.... days after the Royal Festival Hall mentioned
this gig it was sold out. Exclamation marks flew across the web. Slightly
hysterical phone calls. Flights booked from across the globe, high prices
on ebay....
They enter a simple, black-backdropped stage, and the roar and standing
ovation is truly something. It's like the United Nations in here,
and I might as well mention the near-equal proportion of sexes. I'm sitting
next to a wonderful Romanian woman who lends me her opera glasses, and
around are American and Italian and Geordie accents. There's a guy in his
twenties behind us who's going to sing every damn word. But... but...
its great coming out en masse like this, but what if they're.. y'know...
We were not dissappointed.
There really, truly isn't a band even slightly resembling Van Der Graaf
Generator. They are what they are. A combination of utterly unique
voice, unique super-expressive drumming, unique saxes, unique keyboards.
The four of them together is evidence of the strangeness of the world:
who else could match the quality of Peter Hammill's vocal and lyrical personality
and not be subsumed by it, but these particular musicians? Hammill
has the rare ability to write a lyric and make you hear every word.
He has the fabulous enunciation of a nearly lost age, an English character
actor of a voice that snarls and soars and sometimes sobs. While
The Voice holds not a smidgen of doubt - or fakery - Hammill's stage presence
is endearingly awkward, more so than at his solo gigs. Away from
keyboard or guitar, he stalks up and down at the back of the stage, unable
to contain some unbearable inner energy but not ready to let go with some
cliched rawk shape at the front. They begin with the sprawling introspections
of Undercover Man and Scorched Earth, both typical later Van Der Graaf
- digging and delving into the human psyche, driven by stuttering drums,
the bass coming from swirling, monolithic organ and mournful, birdlike
sax, brooding and resolving. Don't expect an easy, driving rock-out
with Van Der Graaf Generator (though they have their moments, particularly
in their earlier albums) - this music is about thoughts, struggles, atmospheres,
anxiety, individuality, sometimes flowing, often awkward in a very human
way... and ultimately, hopeful resolution. By the end, I felt I'd been
wondering around inside Hammill's head for a while... Deeply emotional,
never cloying: the tearjerking, timeless Refugees appearing early in the
set.... How long has it been since these four people played together? Twenty-five
years? They perform Lemmings and stunning new number Every Bloody
Emperor with equal authority, and the sound is flawless, the best live
sound I've heard in all my gig-going years. And having encountered
a few re-formed, re-heated band reunions, this was - is - without doubt
the most right one. They sounded great, they looked cool, they compromised
nothing. This was beyond expectations... OK, I wouldn't have minded
'Plague' as an encore, ha ha... but after a standing ovation of some minutes
they finish with Killer and finally, touchingly introduced by Peter as
the most appropriate, a perfect, extended performance of Wondering, leaving
in a haze of blinding lights.
Without fanfare or hyperbole, Van Der Graaf Generator nonchalantly walked
out of the shadows, sat down, and were their strange, impossible selves.
Do not miss the chance to experience this.
Roll on the next gig.... - www.vandergraafgenerator.co.uk/mp3.htm
(Marina
O)
x |
 ORGAN
#116 > APR 28th 2005
ALBUM
OF THE WEEK
VAN
DER GRAAF GENERATOR – Present (Virgin) Hey, it you already know about Van
Der Graaf you don’t need a review, all you need to know is YES!
You’ll know half way through the double standards of propaganda and our
faith never needing to diminish as we get close to the finish, we may be
serfs and slaves but when it’s as good as the opening piece called Every
Bloody Emperor it’s worth every moment of the itching of the hair shirt.
This is Van Der Graaf Generator at their best, that’s all you need to know.
There’s Jackson’s ghostly shimmering sax (how can it be so distinctive,
how can his sax playing sound so unique?), ah yes, if you know already
then all we need to tell you is, YES!, this is Van Der Graaf back and sounding
as deliciously dark and organic and in their own dark complex world of
the other self and abandoned ships and pounding on beach (but not the one
we should be on and the wrong sand beneath our feet) as we need them to
be. The Hammill penned Every Bloody Emperor is followed by a Jackson creation
called Baleas Panic – a brooding free flowing organically classic VDGG
instrumental thing that sounds part Theme One going slow and part as straight
as any Arrow – by the second track we know that Van Der Graaf Generator
have delivered and we’re happy happy happy (as happy as you can be in Peter’s
world)
You see, I’m already a fan, a worshiper, a total worshipper, for me (an
others around here) Van Der Graaf Generator are the ultimate band, you
regular readers know this – your musical life will not be complete until
you’ve lost yourself in A Plague Of Lighthouse Keepers. We once saw front
man Peter Hammill doing a solo show in an intimate theatre in Euston, sitting
in front of us in total awe and ectacy was David Bowie, to his left, John
Lydon, over there was Fish watching the real master, behind us a transfixed
Bruce Dickinson. Van Der Graaf Generator may well be one of the mysteries,
a strange cult band out there on the edges - but those who know, know that
it just doesn’t get any better (and this is why the recently announced
reformation gig at the rather big Queen Elizabeth Hall in London - the
first in years – sold out in under an hour with no advertising and tickers
are now selling for over a hundred pound a go, people are selling their
souls for them – has anyone got a spare one please!!! PLEASE!!!).
Let’s get lost in the dark, take another step, another move another fall
between the cracks, exit the wrong gothic manuscript. You see I can’t listen
to Bowie albums, they just sound like watered down Peter Hammill, Gabriel
albums are for when you don’t need to be quite so involved and dragged
in and taken way up there, King Crimson can get you near, so can Cardiacs
or Gentle Giant (or in a slightly different way Voivod, but then they’re
just self confessed fanatics who’s sound and structure is half based on
the Van Der blueprint). There’s nothing like the unique dark complex contradicting
epic unique unique sound of the Generator (don’t be fooled in to thinking
they’re just another 70’s prog rock band, oh no, far far more than that
way more) – all I’m telling you here is you need Van Der Graaf Generator
in your life – ask Bowie, ask Lydon, ask Voivod. Ask those Suns of The
Tundra, there are so many of your favourites you can ask….
Hang on though, they don’t always get it right, this is not blind frothing
fan-dom, Van Der Graaf takes risks and they do make bad albums, they do
fall on the faces - both as a band and solo. So we weren’t sure, after
all this time, if we really wanted a new set of pieces, I was half tempted
to just not go there, I was half expecting to be disappointed – surely
they can’t still do it? So many bands who reform just shouldn’t.
Is that a Van Der Graaf surf song? Come on, surf’s up! (smile!). Fear not,
this is dark twisted forward looking, epic, cutting, progressive (in the
real sense) classic, proper, real Van Der Graaf Generator – Banton, Evans,
Jackson and Hammill creating the dark magic again and doing it so so right
– this is GOOD Van Der Graaf Generator.
You actually get two CDs here – the first featuring six tracks including
the instrumental – classic Van Der Graaf Generator pieces/songs/journeys
– not Van Der Graaf on auto-pilot, no no no, that would not do, we demand
and we indeed get far more than that. The second CD consists of focused
lean instrumental progressive jazz flavoured jams that could only be Van
Der Graaf, it’s good, it’s there to be explored later, for now we’re exploring
the first six fine and exciting pieces and finding out where the many selves
of Peter have been this time an if that wave they’re surfing is indeed
the last apocalyptic wave that takes down the city…. But then fishes can
swim….. yes indeed, if you know Van Der Graaf then all you need to know
is YES. If you haven’t discovered their dark beauty then this is a fine
place to start. YES YES YES! – www.sofasound.com
Sean
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 PETER
HAMMILL Live, Hammersmith Lyric Theatre, June 2002 - After
days of rain, the heat is here. Blazing yellow sunshine, Saturday afternoon
in Hammersmith, and every third person wears or waves the flag of St George.
Walking down the main shopping drag a happy football song to the tune of
'Hey Jude' rolls from a smart pub across the road. There's a lull of happiness
in the air for England have Got Through, on a sunny weekend morning.
I'm killing time until the interval in the hope that someone will have
a Peter Hammill ticket for me, so have a look around the cheesy seventies
shopping centre the Lyric Theatre is part of. Scan the music press
in WH Smiths for something interesting, but nothing grabs; New Scientist
is more entertaining. Look for the bicycle shop but it has been replaced
by mobile phone outlets. London has developed a hint of decay in
its economic miracle like milk just on the turn: the shelves are shiny
and the coffee franchises full, families shop together, outside the flower
bed reeks of something worse than dogshit and staggering beggars take deft
dodging. I wondered how many of the throng passing in the steaming
golden sunshine had visited the Lyric Theatre - or noticed it was there.
Through the quiet lobby, up the stairs, everything beautifully clean and
cool in a super-bland, early eighties non-decor way, to a fine cafe bar
selling delicious and relatively cheap (subsidised?) food, a wide outdoor
terrace overlooking the street - virtually empty until the Hammill fans
emerge from the first act. Ahh, the spare ticket, and quite a few
old friends. This afternoon, Peter Hammill is half way through a performance
(without repeat) of fifty songs spanning his solo career and that of Van
Der Graaf Generator - one performance yesterday evening, two today.
A Peter Hammill audience is not what you might think - something this word-of-mouth
spans a couple of generations: the Joy Division t-shirts outnumbered the
Yes badges. A few are first timers, and they're very happy...
Too
much talking, dash down the narrow corridor for act two, sit down - look
around in shock. This is like entering Narnia. Nesting inside
this bland shopping mall and style-less eighties wrapper is a large, sumptuous
Victorian music hall in the grand manner, immaculately restored, all baroque
curls and red swags, a moodily lit womb of cool air and calm. I was
expecting something like a comprehensive school hall. The lights go down
immediately: onto a stage bare but for grand piano and black backdrop,
into the spotlights come Peter Hammill and a violinist. Hammill is frighteningly
velociraptor-thin, with a thick shock of silver hair, and the violinist
has a broad face and wide, blissed smile; from the first note they are
mesmerising. I've not seen Hammill perform for a long time, but this
may be the most compelling, most perfect way of hearing these songs - just
guitar, a violin that flows and ebbs around every word and phrase, loving
and understanding each one in a way that makes you forget the rest of the
orchestra isn't here yet. And then, there is of course The Voice...
I'm not sure I want to know where The Voice came from in the first place
- what pacts in blood had to be signed, what sacrifices - but you
can be assured that plenty of others thought of as unique publicly bow
to it as their source of inspiration. Yes, you, Mr. Bowie with your
Meltdown, forget did we or was it too close to the bone? I'd like
to think that messers Almond, Hannon and Lydon paid double to attend the
evening performances... But back to describing The Voice, and I suppose
it's the voice that's utterly true to itself, an English voice that doesn't
cower or apologise or hide behind some rock n'roll accent, and has a power
that carries in a way that makes you feel you're only getting one tenth
of what it's capable of: that more would be dangerous for the audience
(how
ironic
that Van Der Graaf Generator's most famous moment was an instrumental,
used as the intro to the Friday Rock Show for umpteen years). This is the
man who once sang a fourth encore to ?j12a large theatre with his microphone
behind his back, and was still loud in the rear circle. By turns
hard, self-deprecating, snarling, tender, analytical, questioning, lost
- the voice and the lyrics always honest, unafraid, (too much?) to dissect
feelings, relationships. On some past albums the self-dissection
could be too unrelenting, but today's selection of songs have more variety,
go to outer places as well as inner. 'Your Tall Ship' is wonderful,
a setting free of emotions - how many of Hammill's best songs have the
sea in them? 'Edge Of The Road' could be a description of his own
career. All the songs today - 'Like Veronica', 'Been Alone So Long',
even the abstractions of 'Faculty X' - have the sense of narrative, of
storytelling on several levels. For a set consisting mainly
of songs I was unfamiliar with, I was still hooked into the tales.
It's hard to imagine that these songs have been heard in a better context,
with this breathtaking sensitivity to the work from the violin, excellent
sound, the plush silence for the most delicate moments and total attentiveness
of the audience. A standing ovation, and too soon we were back through
the wardrobe. Feeling sorry for all the people around who didn't
know about that other world a few feet away... (MARINA)
x |
 PETER
HAMMILL Cadogan Hall, London, Jan 31st 2010
Peter Hammill deals in truth.
His voice cuts like a sword, never less than clear and sharp, his thought
processes irrisistably drawn, trapped, even, to slicing down to the bones
of reality - the really, really tough questions, the ones about time, mortality.
His recent album, Thin Air, has a stark beauty, an overall elegance
- as does the Cadogan Hall, entirely the perfect venue for a solo gig from
the Van Der Graaf Generator frontman. Hammill accompanies himself with
piano and guitar, his powerful, unmistakable voice carrying to every corner
of the room. Dressed in white, he cuts an ascetic figure as usual,
his demeanor seems more relaxed and quietly engaging than it has
as at any of his previous solo shows.
Hammill's lyrics were revolving around time and mortality even in the early
days of Van Der Graaf Generator, so the subjects of much of tonight's set
is not entirely to do with the serious heart attack he recently recovered
from - it spans his long career. There's little really morbid about his
vision, somehow its not resigned or depressed; however dark it gets, it
always seems to be driven by an insatiable curiosity about life. Oh, and
love - Hammill writes a great deal about love, and doesn't balk at describing
how it falls apart, whether through human failings or, again, the workings
of time. His sharpest words are always for himself.
There's the contradiction between being a romantic and possessing awful
clarity of vision. And he always hopes - his voice has always had an apocalyptic,
doomsayer's edge to it, yet there's always a sense that humanity, in every
sense of the word, will come through - or at least try. A healthy
proportion of tonight’s set comes from the new album, a collection of songs
and compositions that contains many of the best elements and feel from
right across a career spanning over four decades. Including the introspective
twists and turns of Faculty X and new one Stumbled.
Tonight, especially, he seems to carry that sense of hope in his voice,
an extra spark of warmth that makes Undone (a looking-back-at life
ballad, another from the new album and maybe that album’s best track) deeply
emotional and surprisingly uplifting. For all its valedictory lyrics,
however, it just makes Hammill seem younger than a lot of his peers, his
creative energy undiminished, even sharpening as the years go on.
An encore is demanded - appropriately enough, A Better Time, from
the X My Heart album – as he declares his outlook to not be as dark
as some would have it, he tells us he’s somewhere near the middle ground...
This is the life and we’ve only time to be alive right now.. Peter
leaves us feeling rather good about everything as he thanks the standing
ovation that follows with a simple smile and leaves the sprase perfectly
lit stage... (Marina)
Peter
Hammill's website is at www.sofasound.com
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