Necromancers, Lighthouse Keepers and Forsaken Gardens: An Introduction to Peter Hammill and Van der Graaf Generator, Marcelo Gobello (Boyjah Publishing)
Tales From Topographic Oceans: Yes Album Listening Guide, Kevin Mulryne
(Five Per Cent For Something Publishing)
More crap books about crap rock bands?
No. Well… yes. Sort of.
Why don’t you ever learn? Why can’t you just listen to this stuff and enjoy it? I mean it’s bad enough you still like progrock in the 21st Century but aren’t sleevenotes and lyric sheets enough bullshit to accompany the music?
Have you tried reading CD booklets?
No. I don’t try reading much, truth be told.
Well, it’s not like there’s a lot of room, not like proper records.
Well, listen to your records then!
I do. But I also like finding more out about the musicians and their influences and stuff.
Is there any more?
Well, judging by these two books, not a lot. I mean they simply gather up what any self-respecting fan of Yes or Van der Graaf Generator already knows and gather up the same old photographs too.
I didn’t know these bands had any fans left. And can’t imagine how they have any self-respect!
Ha, ha, ha. I’ll have you know lots of punks liked Van der Graaf Generator and Peter Hammill. I mean demented vocals and powerhouse sax and drums and organ, what’s not to like?
Err, demented vocals and powerhouse sax and drums and organ?
Cynic. Hammill’s lyrics are erudite and literary. I mean he wrote a rock opera version of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher. Unlike you, he reads a lot and that informs his work.
I think I saw that film. Lots of sexy vampires, blood and heaving bosoms.
I don’t think so.
So this Hammill bloke reads about necromancy and lighthouses?
Well, I think everyone did back in the day.
Speak for yourself. I was busy getting pissed.
Those two topics, and the forsaken gardens, are some of the great songs he’s written: A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers is the complete title.
A plague on your house, your lighthouse. So how do you get a plague of lighthouse keepers? I mean there aren’t many around and anyway they’re all alone in their lighthouses, polishing their lights or drinking themselves to death, surely?
It’s about isolation, and loss, being adrift… floundering on the rocks.
Of course it is. And how many albums does it take up?
Just one side of one. I reckon you’d like it. There’s some really over-the-top saxophone playing, weird sound effects and lyrical piano and organ bits. And some really freaky singing. And the other two tracks on Pawn Hearts are good too.
Less than 20 minutes? That’s quite restrained by your standards!
The band did loads of short songs, and Peter Hammill’s solo albums are always chock full of tracks, although they sometimes link together to form a thematic sequence.
I can imagine. Anyway, you’ve been introduced to Van der Graaf Generator and also been instructed how to listen to Yes? Isn’t Topographic Oceans that weird box set all about, well everything: life, death, the universe and reincarnation?
Well, it’s a double album based on a footnote in Paramahansa Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi. One of the guys in King Crimson lent the book to Jon Anderson and he got this great idea for a concept album. He and Steve Howe spent the rest of the tour writing it by candelight.
Paraffin Yoghurt? Sounds disgusting. So, overlong mystical bullshit yes? I mean, who needs double albums, and if you can’t listen to it without instructions why bother?
Double albums are great, they allow room to spread out and explore ideas and music. Triple albums are even better.
Life’s too short!
Anyway, it’s not an instruction manual, it’s just a book exploring the record.
Geek alert!
Maybe, but I quite liked finding more out about Shastric Scriptures and the meaning of some of the imagery and metaphors in the lyrics. And how the music works as a kind of symphony, with recurring themes and musical motifs and quotations.
Symphony for the Devil! Geddit?
Anyway, lots of us Yes fans think it’s one of the best thing they ever recorded.
There aren’t a lot of you! Didn’t Rick Wakeman leave because of it, having spent the tour eating takeaway curry during each concert coz he was so bored?
I’m sure that’s just an apocryphal story. Apparently that only happened once and it was just a roadie misunderstanding what he said.
Course it was. Anyway, did the book help?
Not really. It’s a bit like the Van der Graaf Generator one, a compilation of stuff I already knew. But it gave me an excuse to get the albums out again.
I wondered what that racket was. I mean you can’t dance to it can you?
Possibly not. It’s music to listen to really.
Or not listen to. It’s not the kind of think you find on a jukebox, is it?
I don’t have a jukebox, so what’s that got to do with anything?
Well, it’s 11 o’clock, The Fickle Ferret will be open.
The pickled what?
You know. Used to be The King’s Head but it’s been done up.
Oh. Is that good?
Well, it means it has a new landlord and I’m not banned any more. Drink?
Go on then. Although it’s a bit early.
It’s never too early. And I can show you how to use the jukebox and explain how to listen to pop music. See, they’re catchy short songs songs with a hook and a chorus, designed to wormhole into your brain…
And drive me to drink or unplugging the speakers.
Don’t be like that. Think of them as the best moments of a longer project exploring popular culture, musical addiction and teenagers.
I’ll try. Although it sounds like bullshit to me.
Not like those books then.
,
Johnny Lotus Flower Brainstorm
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