Compilation By Jon Dolan, Dan Epstein, Reed Fischer, Richard Gehr, Brandon Geist, Kory Grow, Will Hermes, Ryan Reed, Jon Weiderhorn (rolling stone)
For close to a half century, prog has been the breeding ground for rock's most out-there, outsized and outlandish ideas: Thick-as-a-brick concept albums, an early embrace of synthesizers, overly complicated time signatures, Tolkienesque fantasies, travails from future days and scenes from a memory. In celebration of Rush's first Rolling Stone cover story, here's the best of the deliciously decadent genre that the punks failed to kill.
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VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR
''PAWN HEARTS''
OCTOBER 1971
65:20
1 Lemmings (Including Cog) (Peter Hammill) 11:37
2 Man Erg (Peter Hammill) 10:20
3 A Plague Of Lighthouse Keepers (Hugh Banton, Guy Evans, David Jackson, Peter Hammill) 23:02
a.Eyewitness" (2:25)
b.Pictures/Lighthouse" (Hammill, Banton) (3:10)
c.Eyewitness" (0:54)
d.S.H.M." (1:57)
e.Presence of the Night" (3:51)
f.Kosmos Tours" (Evans) (1:17)
g.(Custard's) Last Stand" (2:48)
h.The Clot Thickens" (Hammill, Banton, Evans, Jackson) (2:51)
i.Land's End (Sineline)" (Jackson) (2:01)
j.We Go Now" (Jackson, Banton) (1:51)"
4 Theme One (Bonus Original Mix) (Peter Hammill) 03:10
5 W (Bonus First Version) (Peter Hammill) 05:03
6 Angle Of Incidents (Bonus) (Guy Evans) 04:44
7 Ponker's Theme (Bonus) 01:24
8 Diminutions (Bonus) (Hugh Banton) 05:58
Hugh Banton – Hammond E & C, Farfisa Professional organs, piano, mellotron, ARP synthesizer, bass pedals, bass guitar, psychedelic razor, vocals
Guy Evans – drums, tympani, percussion, piano
Peter Hammill – lead vocals, acoustic and slide guitar, electric piano, piano
David Jackson – tenor, alto, and soprano saxophones, flute, vocals
Additional personnel:
Robert Fripp – electric guitar
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ABOUT THE ALBUM/WIKIPEDIA
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REVIEW/AMG
By Bruce Eder
Van Der Graaf Generator's third album, Pawn Hearts was also its second most popular; at one time this record was a major King Crimson cult item due to the presence of Robert Fripp on guitar, but Pawn Hearts has more to offer than that. The opening track, "Lemmings," calls to mind early Gentle Giant, with its eerie vocal passages (including harmonies) set up against extended sax, keyboard, and guitar-driven instrumental passages, and also with its weird keyboard and percussion interlude, though this band is also much more contemporary in its focus than Gentle Giant. Peter Hammill vocalizes in a more traditional way on "Man-Erg," against shimmering organ swells and Guy Evans' very expressive drumming, before the song goes off on a tangent by way of David Jackson's saxes and some really weird time signatures -- plus some very pretty acoustic and electric guitar work by Hammill himself and Fripp. The monumental "Plague of Lighthouse Keepers," taking up an entire side of the LP, shows the same kind of innovation that characterized Crimson's first two albums, but without the discipline and restraint needed to make the music manageable. The punning titles of the individual sections of this piece (which may have been done for the same reason that Crimson gave those little subtitles to its early extended tracks, to protect the full royalties for the composer) only add to the confusion. As for the piece itself, it features enough virtuoso posturing by everyone (especially drummer Guy Evans) to fill an Emerson, Lake & Palmer album of the same era, with a little more subtlety and some time wasted between the interludes. The 23-minute conceptual work could easily have been trimmed to, say, 18 or 19 minutes without any major sacrifices, which doesn't mean that what's here is bad, just not as concise as it might've been. But the almost operatic intensity of the singing and the overall performance also carries you past the stretches that don't absolutely need to be here. The band was trying for something midway between King Crimson and Genesis, and came out closer to the former, at least instrumentally. Hammill's vocals are impassioned and involving, almost like an acting performance, similar to Peter Gabriel's singing with Genesis, but the lack of any obviously cohesive ideas in the lyrics makes this more obscure and obtuse than any Genesis release.
**********
BIOGRAPHY/AMG
By Jason Ankeny
An eye-opening trip to San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury during the summer of 1967 inspired British-born drummer Chris Judge Smith to compose a list of possible names for the rock group he wished to form. Upon his return to Manchester University, he began performing with singer/songwriter Peter Hammill and keyboardist Nick Peame; employing one of the names from Judge Smith's list, the band dubbed itself Van der Graaf Generator (after a machine which creates static electricity), eventually earning an intense cult following as one of the era's preeminent art rock groups.
Despite the early involvement of Judge Smith and Peame, the group found true success as a vehicle for Hammill, whose dark, existentialist lyrics made him the focus of considerable attention. After the release of the 1968 single "People You Were Going To," Judge Smith left Van der Graaf Generator, which by then consisted of Hammill, keyboardist Hugh Banton, bassist Keith Ellis and drummer Guy Evans. The group soon split, and in 1968 Hammill entered the studio, ostensibly to record a solo album; however, he ultimately called in his ex-bandmates for assistance, and when The Aerosol Grey Machine appeared, it did so under the Van der Graaf Generator name. 
Although Ellis was replaced by Nic Potter and woodwind player David Jackson, the reconstituted group continued on for 1969's Least We Can Do Is Wave to Each Other. After 1970's H to He, Who Am the Only One, Potter departed; the Generator recorded one more LP, 1971's Pawn Hearts, before Hammill left for a solo career, putting an end to the group. After five solo efforts, however, Hammill again re-formed Van der Graaf Generator in 1975 for Godbluff. Following a pair of 1976 albums, Still Life and World Record, Banton and Jackson exited; as simply Van der Graaf, the band recorded The Quiet Zone with new violinist Graham Smith. After a 1978 live set, Vital, the group officially disbanded, although most members made appearances on Hammill's subsequent solo records.
Twice during the '90s, Van der Graaf reunited for one-off gigs, and in 2005 released a reunion album, Present. Without Jackson, the trio of Hammill, Banton, and Evans recorded Trisector, which appeared in 2008. They appeared in concert frequently during 2009, and released another studio album, A Grounding in Numbers, in 2011. An album of studio jams and outtakes, titled ALT, followed one year later.
**********
BIOGRAPHY/WIKIPEDIA
**********
WEBSITE
*********
TO THE TOP
For close to a half century, prog has been the breeding ground for rock's most out-there, outsized and outlandish ideas: Thick-as-a-brick concept albums, an early embrace of synthesizers, overly complicated time signatures, Tolkienesque fantasies, travails from future days and scenes from a memory. In celebration of Rush's first Rolling Stone cover story, here's the best of the deliciously decadent genre that the punks failed to kill.
**********
VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR
''PAWN HEARTS''
OCTOBER 1971
65:20
1 Lemmings (Including Cog) (Peter Hammill) 11:37
2 Man Erg (Peter Hammill) 10:20
3 A Plague Of Lighthouse Keepers (Hugh Banton, Guy Evans, David Jackson, Peter Hammill) 23:02
a.Eyewitness" (2:25)
b.Pictures/Lighthouse" (Hammill, Banton) (3:10)
c.Eyewitness" (0:54)
d.S.H.M." (1:57)
e.Presence of the Night" (3:51)
f.Kosmos Tours" (Evans) (1:17)
g.(Custard's) Last Stand" (2:48)
h.The Clot Thickens" (Hammill, Banton, Evans, Jackson) (2:51)
i.Land's End (Sineline)" (Jackson) (2:01)
j.We Go Now" (Jackson, Banton) (1:51)"
4 Theme One (Bonus Original Mix) (Peter Hammill) 03:10
5 W (Bonus First Version) (Peter Hammill) 05:03
6 Angle Of Incidents (Bonus) (Guy Evans) 04:44
7 Ponker's Theme (Bonus) 01:24
8 Diminutions (Bonus) (Hugh Banton) 05:58
Hugh Banton – Hammond E & C, Farfisa Professional organs, piano, mellotron, ARP synthesizer, bass pedals, bass guitar, psychedelic razor, vocals
Guy Evans – drums, tympani, percussion, piano
Peter Hammill – lead vocals, acoustic and slide guitar, electric piano, piano
David Jackson – tenor, alto, and soprano saxophones, flute, vocals
Additional personnel:
Robert Fripp – electric guitar
**********
ABOUT THE ALBUM/WIKIPEDIA
**********
REVIEW/AMG
By Bruce Eder
Van Der Graaf Generator's third album, Pawn Hearts was also its second most popular; at one time this record was a major King Crimson cult item due to the presence of Robert Fripp on guitar, but Pawn Hearts has more to offer than that. The opening track, "Lemmings," calls to mind early Gentle Giant, with its eerie vocal passages (including harmonies) set up against extended sax, keyboard, and guitar-driven instrumental passages, and also with its weird keyboard and percussion interlude, though this band is also much more contemporary in its focus than Gentle Giant. Peter Hammill vocalizes in a more traditional way on "Man-Erg," against shimmering organ swells and Guy Evans' very expressive drumming, before the song goes off on a tangent by way of David Jackson's saxes and some really weird time signatures -- plus some very pretty acoustic and electric guitar work by Hammill himself and Fripp. The monumental "Plague of Lighthouse Keepers," taking up an entire side of the LP, shows the same kind of innovation that characterized Crimson's first two albums, but without the discipline and restraint needed to make the music manageable. The punning titles of the individual sections of this piece (which may have been done for the same reason that Crimson gave those little subtitles to its early extended tracks, to protect the full royalties for the composer) only add to the confusion. As for the piece itself, it features enough virtuoso posturing by everyone (especially drummer Guy Evans) to fill an Emerson, Lake & Palmer album of the same era, with a little more subtlety and some time wasted between the interludes. The 23-minute conceptual work could easily have been trimmed to, say, 18 or 19 minutes without any major sacrifices, which doesn't mean that what's here is bad, just not as concise as it might've been. But the almost operatic intensity of the singing and the overall performance also carries you past the stretches that don't absolutely need to be here. The band was trying for something midway between King Crimson and Genesis, and came out closer to the former, at least instrumentally. Hammill's vocals are impassioned and involving, almost like an acting performance, similar to Peter Gabriel's singing with Genesis, but the lack of any obviously cohesive ideas in the lyrics makes this more obscure and obtuse than any Genesis release.
**********
BIOGRAPHY/AMG
By Jason Ankeny
An eye-opening trip to San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury during the summer of 1967 inspired British-born drummer Chris Judge Smith to compose a list of possible names for the rock group he wished to form. Upon his return to Manchester University, he began performing with singer/songwriter Peter Hammill and keyboardist Nick Peame; employing one of the names from Judge Smith's list, the band dubbed itself Van der Graaf Generator (after a machine which creates static electricity), eventually earning an intense cult following as one of the era's preeminent art rock groups.
**********
BIOGRAPHY/WIKIPEDIA
**********
WEBSITE
*********
TO THE TOP
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