Rating:
Review No: 299
Added 20th October 2006
Musicians
Peter Hammill: Lead Moans, Acoustic Guitar
Guy Evans: Drums, Tympani, Percussion
Hugh Banton: Hammond and Farfisa organs, piano, oscillator, vocals
David Jackson: Alto, Tenor, and Baritone Saxophone, Devices? (That is what it says), Flute and Vocals
Also on the album Nic Potter: Bass
and Robert Fripp: Guitar
In the early Seventies ‘Van Der Graf Generator’ were the darlings of the underground, well the young and impressionable ones. Everything about the band was designed to be a little mysterious. The band was named after the name ‘Van Der Graf Generator’ as seen on the side of a large traction engine at a British village fete. Not much mysterious about that then; “Oh look at the name on the side of that tractor, lets call ourselves that.”
In the life of Van Der Graf Generator there has only ever been one constant, and that is vocalist Peter Hammill. The others tend to come and go a bit. The band was first formed in 1969, and almost immediately disbanded, which has been pretty much the story ever since, right up to 2005 when the supposed classic line-up got back together again under the Van Der Graf Generator banner. It is very often difficult to tell between a ‘Van Der Graf Generator’ album and a Peter Hammill solo album, as they often have the same musicians on them, and let me just advise you, since 1969 there have been an awful lot of albums, both solo and group (hard to tell exactly how many), as there have been so many re-releases, old albums put out under different names, compilation albums, solo albums, terrible bootleg quality live albums, and collections of old tapes that have been found, dusted off and released to an unsuspecting public as a new release.
Van Der Graf Generator, used to make a bit of a strange racket at the best of times, so you can imagine that some of their outtakes etc, can be rather hard listening.
But to go back to the beginning: in 1969 Van Der Graf
Generator recorded their first album ‘The Aerosol Grey Machine’.
It was only released in Germany, as after listening to it the record company
did not like it so could not see the point of inflicting it on the rest
of the world. Naturally the band split up and individually went home.
Songs
Killer
House With No Door
The Emperor In His War Room. Part One, The Emperor! Part Two, The Room!
Lost
Pioneers Over C
But these were the days of budding young record companies and equally ambitious young record executives. One of which was Simon Stratton-Smith who was getting his record company Chrysalis off the ground, and was signing up almost anybody with long hair and a musical instrument. To be fair he did actually give a lot of bands their first break, including Genesis, Lindisfarne, Steamhammer and Audience, amongst others. So, although he signed a lot of bands, amongst the swine there were quite a few pearls. Were ‘Van Der Graf Generator’ a pearl or swine? Hard to tell really. They certainly received enough column inches, made and recorded a lot of music, for some reason were huge in Italy, and leave a large legacy of music, which is still being built on. A ‘Van Der Graf Generator’ fan is also a very loyal sort, and will not hear a bad word about them, and will know every little fact from song titles to shoe sizes.
The first release on Chrysalis was the amusingly titled ‘The Least We Can Do Is Wave to Each Other’ (1970), which sort of set the tone for the generations of Generator to come. But now they had a recording contract and this being the early Seventies, why not make another record?
They of course did. The album under review and the following year’s ‘Pawn Hearts’ (1971) are considered by most hard core fans to be the pinnacle of Van Der Graf Generatorism.
For now we will concentrate on their second Chrysalis album ‘H to He - Who Am The Only One’. Starting at the beginning with the cover, on the back and front is a picture by Paul Whitehead called ‘Birthday’. Why it is called birthday I am not sure, not a cake, candle or present in sight, with a fair amount of study it was decided that it could possibly be a picture of somebody with very skinny legs falling off a bar stool after a birthday party, possibly, but a bit deep that.
Then of course we have the title. What is all that about one wonders. No fears, on the inside of the front cover is an explanation: ‘H to He’ is a chemical equation - ‘’The fusion of Hydrogen nuclei to form Helium nuclei is the basic exothermic reaction in the sun and stars, and hence is the prime energy source in the universe.” So that is that bit cleared up. “Who Am The Only One’’ will perhaps remain a mystery.
So to the music. ‘Van Der Graf Generator’ started this album off as a five piece, but in true Spinal Tap style finished with four, having carelessly misplaced bass player Nic Potter during the sessions. Bit of a shame really, as his contributions are amongst the most memorable on the album. Still, must get on with it.
First song up is a bit of a cracker, a good solid rock song, very heavy metal, with as I said good bass guitar (Nic Potter stuck around to record three of the five songs), plenty of layers of keyboard work from Hugh Banton, Guy Evans keeps a comfortable drum beat going, whilst David Jackson squawks away on all sorts of saxophones, flutes, etc., and after each little instrumental break the whole band comes crashing back together at the same time. Peter Hamill sings of this huge great killer shark that’s having a bit of a personality crisis - quite interesting really as I personally had never considered the loneliness of a shark. I can only think about those teeth latching onto you. Anyway, after eight minutes and several false endings, ‘Killer’ comes to an end, with no real damage done.
Next up is a much lighter and slower song, ‘House
with No Name’. Now this does drag a bit, with a feeling that the
musicians have only got a vague idea of what is going on, but worst of
all Peter Hammill reveals his true self. What an old misery he is, I mean
talk about not being able to see the bright side. Here are the opening
words:
‘’There’s a house with no door and I’m living
there,
At nights it gets so cold and the days are hard to bear inside,
There’s a house with no roof, so the rain creeps in,
Falling through my head as I try to think out time’’.
Not exactly full of fun and frivolity, is it? Especially as the music really is a little weak, and directionless, so you really have no option but to take note of the lyrics.
After this we are treated to another epic, ‘The
Emperor In His War Room’, which according to the cover listing is
split into two parts, exactly where I am not sure. But as the song is
about war you can imagine how morbid the lyrics are. How does “They
stare out, glass eyed aimless heads, bodies torn by vultures’’
grab you? Not exactly picnic in the park is it? In an effort to try and
move things along a little, Robert Fripp of ‘King Crimson’
fame was brought in as a session player on this track, which does beg
several questions: one, if you need an electric guitar player get one
in the band; two, if you have a famous guest artist playing on your record
why bury him so far down in the mix? Three, why then let the other musicians
just blast away over the top of him?
‘Lost’ as the title of the next song is very apt, as to be
honest all four musicians sound lost. David Jackson on this song is particularly
irksome, in parts squawking away like a very unhappy Donald Duck. It would
be funny if it was not quite so annoying. Peter Hammill stumbles on about
some loser who is all on his own in a desert, broken hearted, only the
location has changed, the misery continues.
The only good thing about ‘Lost’ is that it lasts over eleven minutes long, which at least delays ‘The Pioneers Over C’ starting and that is over twelve minutes long. This is their Science Fiction epic, and guess what? More squawking saxophones, straight ahead drumming, a long eerie bit in the middle where various thing go beep, and of course mournful lyrics about being alone in space. These guys and their followers really need a good cheering up. Hug anybody?
The music is not all bad, in fact some of it is quite clever, but recorded over thirty five years ago it does sound very dated and pretentious.
I am sure there will be a great whooping from the hoards
of Van Der Graf Generator fans when they announce another reunion, but
I think your anorak would be better served left on its happy hook.
Mott
the Dog resides at Jameson's the Irish Pub
