Genesis - "Fly on a Windshield / The Carpet Crawlers" Live (1976)

Hello Friends,

Here's a live clip of a Gabriel-less Genesis performing a couple of songs from The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.

By 1976, Phil Collins took over lead vocal duties for the band while still playing drums.

On this tour, they recruited none other than Bill Bruford as a second drummer to back up Collins when he stepped out from behind the set.

They're definitely NOT the same band without Gabriel, but (a) they were still REALLY good, (b) there's not a lot of good quality footage of the band with Gabriel on TLLDOB tour and (c) Peter Gabriel really never did that many Genesis songs on any of his solo tours!

Enjoy!

Prog Rock Saturday: The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway

Genesis - "The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway" (1974) - Atco

Hello Friends,

We've got a true prog-rock classic on the turntable tonight.

Genesis's 1974 double LP of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway arguably captures one of the great bands of the seventies at their absolute apex.

The process of writing, recording and touring for the record would nearly break the band and, in fact, would cause frontman Peter Gabriel to depart once the "Lamb" tour commenced.  Out, Angel, Out.

This is a crazed, bombastic, overly-ambitious affair that on paper probably shouldn't work at all.  However, it was an important album of the era and holds up today as a classic. Actually, we think this album even gets better listening to it over the years.  Revisiting it from time-to-time is like checking in on an old friend: familiar, yet distant.

Every time we listen to this record, we hear something we've never realized was there before!

There's a storyline going through the album, which to be honest, we don't really understand or care too much about.  Something about a Puerto Rican hoodlum, Rael, who while spray painting graffiti on some building in downtown New York stops and witnesses a literal lamb lying down in the middle of Broadway.  Some sort of portal opens up and Rael ends up in some underground/alternate world trying to save his brother, John.   Most of the songs vaguely describe the events, creatures and characters witnesses during Rael's "descent" and all winds up good(?) when Rael finally saves his brother from drowning and realizes that, the whole time, he and his brother were the same person.  Upon this sudden realization, Rael/John's spirit/consciousness melts away and he becomes part of his surroundings.

Definitely weird.  Whitman-esque.  Lynchian to boot. And there's more than a few hints that it might be Gabriel trying to work out some of his one schizophrenic tendencies.

We try not to get too bogged down in the specifics of the concept.  The star of the record is without a doubt Gabriel's vocals.

As with most of Gabriel-era Genesis, he can simultaneously emote whimsy, confidence, intelligence, slyness, cleverness, while all the time sounding somehow extremely vulnerable, human and unsure.  Like Ziggy Stardust (or a Replicant), he's like an alien to this world that appears to be more human than human.  Its like he's in on some mastermind "in joke" that we're all struggling to understand, but the twist is that he's as clueless and ignorant as the rest of us!

He's a Messiah & Everyman.  A prophet & popstar.  A headbanger and a folk singer.  

The music is nothing to sneer at either.  Mike Rutherford, Phil Collins, Tony Banks and Steve Hackett provide Gabriel with an equally as weird, bombastic and ambitious canvas to work with musically.  (Even Brian Eno makes an appearance with some vocal treatments!)  Throughout the 22 songs, the band achieves a near perfect balance between the soft & sublime and the over-the-top, hard-edged cacophony.  

For all its overt weirdness and avant-garde concepts, there's actually a good number of songs that you can really pound your fists to.  The opening title track, "Cuckoo Cocoon", "The Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging" & "Carpet Crawlers" could all have been songs on Cheap Trick, Wire or Guided by Voices records.  "Counting Out Time" is one of the power poppiest songs of the mid-70's.

The album's momentous closing track, "It", teeters very closely to a dance-disco track but actually wouldn't sound entirely out of place on a later period Flaming Lips record.  

Like any great, important piece of music (or work of art) those who create it do so and leave it up to us, the audience, the fans, to make heads or tails of things.  They provide an outline, a road map, but the themes and lessons are up for personal interpretation. Is this a parable of a man trying to navigate his way through the music industry?  Is it about a struggle with drug-addiction?  A religious experience? An ode to America, more specifically, New York City in the 1970's? Is it ultimately a tale about sexual frustration? Schizophrenia? Madness?  Is it a lot of stream-of-consciousness nonsense?  A combination of all of these things?  

(Personally, I always sort of pictured this punk kid doing some graffiti art when he's literally distracted by a small lamb crossing busy Broadway.  Mesmerized, and thinking he's imagining it, he goes to approach the lying lamb street and BOOM he's run over by a passing taxi!  The rest of the album is the character's spiritual journey through Hades, Heaven or wherever.)

Whatever the consensus, at the end of the day, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway is a rock & roll record.  Sure, it appears to be something that's much bigger than the sum of its parts, but its the dozens of amazing hooks throughout the record that keep us coming back for more and more!

'Cos its only knock & knowall, but I like it...

RATING: 5 carpet crawlers heed their callers out of 5

Prog Rock Saturday: Peter Gabriel

Peter Gabriel - Peter Gabriel (1977) - Atco Records

Hello Friends,

Another Summer is growing long in the tooth and we're celebrating the changing of seasons with one final Prog Rock Saturday.  Who do we have on the Vinyl in the Valley trusted turntable tonight? Why, its our old friend Peter Gabriel and his first solo album since leaving Genesis, aptly titled, Peter Gabriel.

In fact, this would be the first of four Peter Gabriel solo albums to be called Peter Gabriel so in most Peter Gabriel circles, to avoid confusion, his first album is usually referred to simply as Car due to the big blue car on the album's cover.  (Incidentally, his other three solo album nicknames would be Scratch, Melt & Security.)

In our opinion, Car would be the best of the bunch! (They all have pretty great album covers though!)

First, a little background.  In August 1975, when Genesis was at the peak of their prog rock prowess, frontman Gabriel wrote a letter to the English press (aka the "Out, Angels Out" Letter) that began:

I had a dream, eye’s dream. Then I had another dream with the body and soul of a rock star. When it didn’t feel good I packed it in. Looking back for the musical and non-musical reasons, this is what I came up with:

OUT, ANGELS OUT – an investigation.

Basically this letter became his resignation with the band effective upon the conclusion of their successful, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway Tour.  Stress amongst band members got to be too much for Gabriel, not to mention the stress of everyday life, his marriage to his first wife and the birth of his first child.  He gave the band his blessing to go on without him but, secretly, we're pretty sure he was hoping that they'd fail miserably! The funny thing is that Genesis continued on with drummer Phil Collins taking over the lead vocal spot and their success greatly endured in Gabriel's absence! 

In just as an unlikely scenario, Gabriel too would flourish as well as one of the most successful solo artists of MTV's Golden Era.

"Moribound The Burgermesiter" opens Peter Gabriel and it sounds pretty much like something off of Nursery Cryme with a slightly more polished production (courtesy of Bob Ezrin!)  The song seems to be about a Medieval village who comes down with the plague and the only effective remedy seems to be St Vitus's Dance.  

"This thing's really outrageous, I tell you on the level
It's really so contagious must be the work of the devil
You better go now, pick up the pipers, tell them to play
Seems the music keeps them quiet, there is no other way."

The record's second song is also Peter Gabriel's first single as a solo artist (and perhaps his best solo recording ever)-- "Solsbury Hill".  Its a real departure from the sonic escapades and cartwheels of Genesis and, instead, is a straightforward, catchy pop song which seems to be about the artist reflecting on his recent move from band-guy to solo artist:

"To keep in silence, I resigned
My friends would think I was a nut.
Turning water into wine,
Open doors would soon be shut."

And speaking of sonic escapades, the album's second single "Modern Love" sounds unlike ANYTHING Gabriel has ever done.  Its very upbeat, sharp and dare we say, dance-able? Think Face Dances-era Who redone as a New Wave album!  Do yourself and check out the video.  Its pretty fucking amazing! 

Don't worry sports fans! Things get weird again on "Excuse Me" which has Gabriel sounding like a very odd, very depressed Randy Newman fronting a barbershop quartet. 

Side One's closer, "Humdrum"-- a dreamy, slow burning ballad with cryptic lyrics like "I saw the man at JFK / He took your ticket yesterday / In the humdrum" and "Empty my mind, I find it hard to cope / Listen to my heart, don't need no stethescope" is nothing short of fantastic!  

Bob Ezrin recruited Alice Cooper guitarist, Dick Wagner (who died earlier this year... RIP!) to supply some hard rock licks on Side Two's "Slow Burn", which sounds a little like something off of Welcome to My Nightmare mixed with some more late-period Who.  An arena rock anthem that never was!

"Waiting for the Big One" is a seven-minute long jazzy torch song that comes across sounding like overproduced Tom Waits.  Its pretty clear by this point, seven songs in, that Gabriel really wanted to explore a lot more musical styles than being in Genesis would have allowed him to!  Eclectic is good, as long as its not too eclectic!  

"Down the Dolce Vita" employees some disco beats and some spaghetti western orchestrations (courtesy of the London Symphony Orchestra.)  Obviously, someone was doing a lot of cocaine during the recording of this album!  Our money's on "The Ez"-- producer Bob Ezrin. Sure the guy produced Alice Cooper, Berlin, Destroyer and The Wall, but can we really forget he was manning the controls on Music from The Elder.  "Down the Dolce Vita" is not a bad song by any stretch, but it sounds like it could be the closing credits to a dystopian roller ball movie where the winners compete to be society's most respected celebrities and the losers are gunned downed by lasers!  Hey Tiki... Get my agent on the phone! 
  
Remember earlier in this post when we said that "Solsbury Hill" might have been the best Peter Gabriel solo song.  Well we were mistaken.  That distinction belongs to the album's closer, "Here Comes the Flood".  Probably one of Gabriel's best solo pieces!  An incredibly sad and pretty song that seems to be about "the big one" that Gabriel was talking about two songs ago.  From the St.Vitus dance in the opening song to the world ending in Biblical proportions here, Peter Gabriel at its heart is a very dark and morbid record in spite of much of the music sounding uptempo and bright.  

It reminds us a little of The Killers' first record, Hot Fuss, which on the surface seemed like a danceable post-punk, New Wave record when, in reality, a lot of its theme's had to do with stalking, raping & murdering!  The good ol' rock & roll dark stuff.  No doubt, The Killers (at least on their first two or three records) owed something to Uncle Pete!

Rumor has it that Gabriel was somewhat critical of Ezrin's bombastic-sounding production on the record and we tend to agree.  Parts of this album do come off sounding a little over-done and showtuney.

Two years later, Robert Fripp (who played guitar on Peter Gabriel) would re-record "Here Comes the Flood" in a much more stripped-down, bare bones manner with Gabriel reprising his vocals.  Quite a difference! 

Drink up, dreamers, you're running dry! 

RATING: 4 Grab Your Things I've Come to Take You Home out of 5

Prog Rock Saturday: Nursery Cryme

Genesis - "Nursery Cryme" (1971) - Atlantic Records

Hello Friends,

I first heard Nursery Cryme in its entirety about two years ago and wasn't terribly impressed.  Sure, some of the Peter Gabriel wordplay and melodies seemed interesting but listening to it sort of felt like a homework assignment and I thought to myself, I'll get around to this later.  Honestly, I figured it was something I just wasn't going to get.

Sometimes when it comes to listening to music the stuff has you singing along before the final chorus often seems great at first, but over time it may leave you feeling a little flat or slightly underwhelmed.  

I guess one of the great things about Prog Rock is that once you get past all its weirdness, its virtuosity and and its bombastic nature is that, in general, good progressive rock will reward the patient listener.  Something you might have heard and cringed at two years ago you're now drunkenly singing along to at high volumes on a Saturday night causing record skips with your high leg kicks and spilling beer all over your dog!

Its like a Eureka moment.  That moment when everything clicks in and you get it.  When the guitar solos don't seem so serpentine and the lyrics don't seem so fucking strange.  This is pretty much what happened with Tiki T. and I when we pulled out Genesis's third record, Nursery Cryme this past Saturday night!  

Things start out relatively quietly with the eleven-minute "The Musical Box" opening up the album.  Some gentle guitars, keyboards & flute accompany Gabriel's high-pitched and particularly vulnerable-sounding vocals about a young Victorian boy's ghost being awoken by the sound of his old musical box ("play me my song, here it comes again.")  The thing is its his sister who has woke up his spirit and she's the one who is responsible for the boy's death (she beheaded him with a croquet mallet... hence the inspiration for the album's cover art!)  If that wasn't weird enough for you, the boy's conjured ghost is now horny as hell and he makes lustful advances at his sister ("I've been waiting here so long... Why don't you touch me?  Touch Me? Touch Me Now? Now? Now?...") before the song builds to a fantastic guitar solo crescendo/climax and ends.

The pretty and quiet ballad "For Absent Friends" brings things the listener back down to Earth for the next two minutes.  Nursery Cryme would be the first Genesis album with new drummer (and sometime vocalist) Phil Collins and guitarist Steve Hackett.  "For Absent Friends" features some very melodic, Renaissance-ish type guitar-picking by Hackett with some very pastoral-sounding vocals by Collins singing about a couple of old widowers who walk to church in the cold to remember they're departed loved ones.  Its something that sounds unusually sweet and harmonious-- almost like a Revolver-era McCartney tune--  but not necessarily out of place on the record.

This tranquility doesn't last long as Gabriel returns in his most manic state telling us the tale of "The Return of the Giant Hogweed".  WTF?  Actually, this is another song that grew on us.  The song seems to literally be about a Giant Hogweed that some scientist brings to London's Royal Gardens from Russia and it takes over the landscape in apocalyptic fashion. "Still they're invincible, Still they're immune to all our herbicidal battering."  Its funny because a lot of Genesis's Prog Rock counterparts (Yes, ELP, King Crimson) would be singing about something totally fantasy-based (Starship Troopers, Tarkuses & Larks Tongues in Aspic). Here, Gabriel & company, with their over-the-top theatrics may sound like they're from outer space but actually the lyrics and concepts behind the songs come off sounding very sincere, very naturalist, some may say childlike, others might say proletariat.  Whatever, when it comes to songs about weeds (non-marijuana types) this one's right up there with Guided by Voices's "Weed King."

Side One is bookended by two Lewis Carroll-inspired epics.  Side Two has four songs which tie in to the whole Nursery Cryme theme which seems to be stories that are closer in spirit to a Brothers Grimm fairy tale than anything by Mother Goose.

"I heard the old man tell his tale..." opens the awesome "Seven Stones" featuring Peter Gabriel at his most delicate & sincere in another cryptic song about a ship lost at sea, perhaps?  Maybe there's a "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" thing going on here?  There's also some fantastic Mellotron playing by Tony Banks, which reminds us of something that might have been done by early King Crimson.

On the three-minute, uptempo, "Harold the Barrel", Gabriel's vocal acrobatics are on full display in a song seemingly about a restaurant owner who's about to jump off a ledge! ("You must be joking!  Take a running jump!").  A song like this wouldn't be completely out of place on Abbey Road.

Also clocking in at under three minutes, the delicate & pastoral "Harlequin" sounds as if Peter Gabriel is doing his best Jon Anderson impression.  Actually, with the quiet guitar lines noodling throughout and the harmonizing vocals, you could probably fool your friends and tell them this is some sort of Crosby, Stills & Nash outtake!

Things return to a more epic scale on the album's closer, the eight minute, "The Fountain of Salmacis" about a mythical Hermaprodite-- a creature containing both Male & Female sex organs!  SWEET!  Just when you thought these cats couldn't get any weirder!!

"Both have given everything they had.
A lover's dream had been fulfilled at last,
Forever still beneath the lake..."

A perfect, weird and proggy ending to this almost perfect, weird & proggy album*!

RATING: 4.5 Dense Forests of Tall Dark Pinewood out of  5

* Jamie Lee Curtis would probably agree!

Prog Rock Saturday: A Trick of the Tail

Genesis - "A Trick of the Tail" (1976) - Charisma

Hello Friends,

The cicadas are out in full force tonight.  The sun has set.  The drinks are flowing.  Its another prog-rock Saturday on Vinyl in the Valley.

Tonight we've got the seventh album by the English band, Genesis, on the turntable and the first one since the departure of lead vocalist/songwriter, Peter Gabriel.

Trick of the Tail has the band's drummer, Phil Collins, reluctantly taking over on vocal duties by stepping out from behind the kit in order to become a full-fledged and successful frontman.  (In this way, Phil is the Dave Grohl of 1970's prog-rock.)  Although the band remained pretty weird by mainstream standards, A Trick of the Tail is warmer and more whimsical than their previous record, the post-modern rock opera, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.  They seemed to get back to basics with the focus on being a band again. By the end of the decade (and well into the next), Gabriel would be all but forgotten and Genesis would become Phil Collins's band.    

And what a way to kick things off with the awesome, "Dance on a Volcano", a slow-building prog rock epic!  Aside from the effective slow-fast-slow arrangement, one of the first things that the listener actually notices about the song is how similar Phil Collins actually sounds to Peter Gabriel.  Better start doing it right!      

"Entangled" is next and features some nice Steve Hackett 12-string guitar work (he also wrote the song) and lyrics about the British mental healthcare system and/or being molested in your dreams (or both!)

The live-staple & fan-favorite, "Squonk" is next.  It seems to be about hunting down the Squonk-- a mythical forest creature who hides from humans out of shame of being so ugly.  When catpured the creature dissolves into a puddle of tears.  Sounds pretty disgusting, but then again, a Squonk might be the perfect prog rock mascot! 

The first side concludes with the Tony Banks's keyboard-heavy ballad, "Mad Man Moon." 

Side Two opens up with "Robbery, Assault & Battery" which would not sound out of place on 1973's Selling England by the Pound (which we reviewed here.)  A song about a whimsical criminal eluding the police; Collins even does a cockney accent during some of the verses!

This is followed by the album's highlight, "Ripples".   A slow-building, beautifully-sung prog-rock ballad about getting older.  

▶ Genesis - Ripples - Vidéo Dailymotion 

Featuring some great Bee Gees worthy harmonies, the title track is next.  Another song that seems to be about a mythic creature ("The Beast") that has been captured and put on display in a freak show.  The song also beara a more-than-slight resemblance to The Beatles' song "Getting Better".

▶ Genesis _ A Trick of the Tail - Video Dailymotion

The record ends with a great very Genesis-y-sounding instrumental, "Los Endos", that sounds like something off of Yes's Tales from Topographic Oceans if that album was a bit more user friendly. Its okay to be good at your instrument, kids, just don't be a dick about it!  

Although technically an instrumental, before the final fade out, Collins can be heard singing the lines, "There's an angel standing in the sun / There's an angel standing in the sun / Free to get back home."
   
FUN FACT: When Genesis toured in 1976 in support of this record, Phil Collins still couldn't manage playing drums and singing lead vocals at the same time.  Fellow prog rocked, Bill Bruford (Yes, King Crimson) filled in on drums for the tour!

RATING: 4.5 bluegirls come in every size out of 5

Prog Rock Saturday: Selling England by the Pound

Genesis - "Selling England By The Pound" (1973) - The Famous Charisma Label

Hello friends and welcome to another Prog Rock Saturday here on "V in the V"!

Tonight we've got Genesis's Selling England By The Pound on the turntable and boy is it a weird one!  This is Peter Gabriel-era Genesis, so for those of you familiar with the hits of the late 70's and 80's Phil Collins-version of the band, you're in for a real treat and/or shock.

This LP is proggy, political, challenging and just plain weird.  Its also very English with a lot of the lyrics making cryptic references to people & places uniquely British!

Side One is definitely the more listenable side.  The opener, "Dancing with the Moonlight Knight", has Gabriel making ironic references to British credit card debt, the controversial Green Shield Trading Stamp Program, fatties and the growing presence of the "Wimpy" fast-food burger chain across England's towns and hamlets.

Next we have the band's highest charting single to date, the fantastic "I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)" about a young man who is perfectly content mowing his neighbors' lawns and not concerned with the complications of adulthood and success!  

Next is the epic-sounding, "Firth of Fifth" with its weird time signatures, chord progressions and Gabriel-played flute solos.   

Side One concludes with the quiet Phil Collins ballad, "More Fool Me".  Featuring sparse vocals and only acoustic guitar, its quite a calming force in the middle of the maelstrom of complex art rock.

If Side One is the "rock" side, then Side Two is definitely the "prog" side.  "The Battle of Epping Forest" is a mini-opera about a London turf war in which Peter Gabriel changes his voice when singing about different characters like "Bob the Knob" and "Mick the Prick".  Again, there's lots of time changes and chord progressions so for the beginner Genesis fan, there's a lot to wrap your head around!  Its like West Side Story on Adderall! 

Next up is the Renaissance fair-sounding instrumental, "After the Ordeal" which actually features some remarkable guitar-playing by Steve Hackett.

There's more theatrics in Gabriel's update of "Romeo & Juliet" in "The Cinema Show".  Again, not a bad song, but the four-plus minute keyboard solo in the songs second-half is a bit of a deal breaker!

  

Side Two concludes with "Aisle of Plenty" which is a reprise of the album's opener.  This time with Gabriel making ironic wordplay about British grocery stores: Fine Fare, Safeway, Tesco & The Co-op.  (Apparently, Gabriel did his shopping at Sainsbury!)

And, we've come full circle!  Yes its a little weird, but Selling England By The Pound is another proggy masterpiece.  And for all his eccentricities, Gabriel was ahead of his time thematically.  Singing about debt, laziness, obesity and a nation obsessed with blind consumerism in 1973?  One can almost forgive his goofy outfits!


RATING: 4.5 Lawnmowers out of 5... Keep them mowing blades sharp!   

PROG ROCK SATURDAYS HAVE RETURNED!

At the close of our last Vinyl in the Valley staff meeting, I was given the fortunate task of advising you all that....PROG ROCK SATURDAYS ARE BACK!

Yes friends, back by popular demand, starting this Saturday we'll be blowing the dust off of some fine pieces of progressive music and spinning them into the wee hours. 

We'll be delving into the abyss of late 60s and 70s innovation and savoring some of England's strangest musical offerings!

King Crimson! Yes! Early Pink Floyd! Early Genesis with Peter Gabriel!

I know, I know. You can hardly contain yourself, right?

I'm not going to pretend that this is some of the sexiest shit in the world, but it's definitely worth a listen!

And I'll be behind the bar concocting equally weird drinks to wet your proggy whistle!

So join us this Saturday in the Court of the Crimson King!

XO,
Tiki T.