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I cannot stand Gentle Giant |
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richardh 
Prog Reviewer 
Joined: February 18 2004 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 28034 |
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 Topic: I cannot stand Gentle GiantPosted: November 20 2019 at 23:20 |
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Just listened to the Steven Wilson remixes of selected tracks from the first 3 albums. This is rather wonderful and highly recommended for any prog fans. Schooldays will probably always be my favourite GG track I think.
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jpaleschic
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Joined: November 12 2019 Location: TX Status: Offline Points: 8 |
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Posted: November 20 2019 at 08:55 |
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Ah yes. Purple, Sabbath and beer - the emergent testosterone classics.
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EbbsUnion
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Joined: November 17 2019 Location: Nowhere Status: Offline Points: 3 |
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Posted: November 17 2019 at 08:48 |
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As someone herer said before, if you don't like Gentle Giant, then you won't like RIO/Avant
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Woon Deadn
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Joined: March 30 2010 Location: P Status: Offline Points: 1007 |
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Posted: November 09 2019 at 15:08 |
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 Not that there's some special reason for posting yet another geopolitical stuff in here, but, well, I ought to correct myself: there indeed were at least six American defectors to North Korea. Sounded to me unbelievable, but yes, there were. Anyway, some of them tried to re-defect to the USSR (Soviet embassy in North Korea probably did not want to spoil relations with not the kindest regime on Earth) - and I can understand why they wanted to move to the Soviet Union. North Korea unfortunately remains in the Stalinist era. Cuba, as far as I can get, lives in the Lenin era. Nowadays it is an anachronism to live in the Lenin or Stalin era. Like, in North Korea they now re-sing Soviet songs from the 1950s. Now, in the 2010s! There was one important thing about Brezhnev. He has never participated in any Stalin's repressions. Unlike Khrushchev, whose hands were mucked with blood of innocently repressed people during Stalin's purges. Brezhnev illuminated friendliness and never actually forgot about his friends. Here is a very characteristic photo of him, for example, below. In this photo made in the 1970s, he is going to drink something like probably brandy with the head of Russian Orthodox Christians, and the main rabbi of Moscow synagogue (sic!). As you see, there's no nervous feeling in the photo (except on Brezhnev's face who definitely did not know how to react properly in this situation in the officially atheist country). Nobody would be shot, nobody would be imprisoned, and everybody knows it. Brezhnev himself was that kind of person who, say it, had a bottle of brandy, so why not drink a glass of brandy or two with these three strange men in strange hats?.. It is impossible to imagine Lenin, Stalin or Khrushchev in such a photo. Brezhnev even awarded the leader of Russian Orthodox Christian Church with an Order Of The Friendship Of Peoples.  The fear had long gone. And knowing that Brezhnev era started in the first half of the 1960s until the beginning of the 1980s, you may get what the people born in the Soviet Union who are still alive and sane today may remember about the USSR. They were not the children of the fear, nor the children of the grave, they were the children of the state where this guy was the leader. P.S. There is a video from modern Russian TV show where they mention Gentle Giant among others... As far as I can see, most of the performers were born during the Brezhnev era USSR, by the way. |
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Favourite Band: Gentle Giant
Favourite Writer: Robert Sheckley Favourite Horror Writer: Jean Ray Favourite Computer Game: Tiny Toon - Buster's Hidden Treasure (Sega Mega Drive/Genesis) |
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Chaser
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Joined: April 18 2018 Location: Nottingham Status: Offline Points: 1202 |
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Posted: November 06 2019 at 06:25 |
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There will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent Luke 15:7
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Songs cast a light on you
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Barbu
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Joined: October 09 2005 Location: infinity Status: Offline Points: 30850 |
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Posted: November 05 2019 at 12:37 |
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I heard that being a lass is the only way to truly enjoy them (especially Van der Gay)...can't wait for my sex reassignment surgery appointment.  Edited by Barbu - November 05 2019 at 12:42 |
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HackettFan
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Joined: June 20 2012 Location: Oklahoma Status: Offline Points: 7951 |
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Posted: November 05 2019 at 12:24 |
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This is all quite true. But I doubt there’s any controversy over it, and it’s not really the point. Just because I like cocktail sauce doesn’t mean I should like horseradish. |
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A curse upon the heads of those who seek their fortunes in a lie. The truth is always waiting when there's nothing left to try. - Colin Henson, Jade Warrior (Now)
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Cristi
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Crossover / Prog Metal Teams Joined: July 27 2006 Location: wonderland Status: Offline Points: 43654 |
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Posted: November 05 2019 at 04:42 |
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if you read through the pages, the OP dougmcauliffe has changed his opinion, as he started enjoying GG.  So let's give the guy a break
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awaken_yesfan
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Joined: October 21 2019 Location: Middle Earth Status: Offline Points: 17 |
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Posted: November 05 2019 at 04:32 |
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Gentle Giant is awesome. You may not like them, but they had influence to many modern prog bands and musicians. SB, TFK, Transatlantic, Beardfish, Echolyn have some echoes of GG-ism. Jordan Rudess cited GG as one of his influence, and I can hear GG-ish passages in Dream Theater as well
Edited by awaken_yesfan - November 05 2019 at 04:41 |
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Frenetic Zetetic
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Joined: December 09 2017 Location: Now Status: Offline Points: 9233 |
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Posted: October 25 2019 at 02:03 |
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It's not our fault GG makes your a****le quiver - temporarily challenging your sexuality - with their musical excellence
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"I am so prog, I listen to concept albums on shuffle." -KMac2021 |
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Odvin Draoi
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Joined: January 01 2019 Location: X Status: Offline Points: 516 |
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Posted: October 24 2019 at 12:45 |
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I guess I was caught in the web of "intentional fallacy". Haha. Cool dude, if necessary let the posts be like Don Quixotesquely long. Sometimes digesting a drink/ink is better than quick sho(r)ts.
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Woon Deadn
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Joined: March 30 2010 Location: P Status: Offline Points: 1007 |
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Posted: October 24 2019 at 12:37 |
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Me, too, my friend. Me, too. Me, too. There are topics and questions that require getting into some sort of atmosphere. I would like most of Pink Floyd's tunes to be shorter, but then the zest of their art would disappear, OK? World media are overfulfilled with recollections of how terrible the USSR was. And it's always about labour camps, Stalin, KGB. For the overwhelming majority of Soviet citizens Stalin was remembered as the leader of the country during World War 2... And nothing else. As the wartime leader he definitely looked greater than Hitler - at least, he was not hysterical. As the peace-time leader he was way too cruel and cynical. In any case, the Soviet people had other things in their lives to do and care about, than to think of what had happened until 1953. I find it important to tell because, after all, if one comprehends that the post-Stalin USSR was not a threat to the world, that the post-Stalin USSR was not really going to invade the Capitalist countries (there are no known documents proving the opposite) - it changes the whole Cold War narrative. It shows that mainly the Cold War was the instrument of profit-making for the military, secret services, weapon-producing companies. On both sides. Very few former Soviet people really want to live in the USSR, as it really was, nowadays, to have it back as such. But they have many tearjerking, touching recollections. There is a very powerful nostalgia about those times. There is even a modern Russian TV channel Nostalgia that rebroadcasts Soviet TV products. You may say that many ordinary Germans perhaps also felt nostalgic about Nazi Germany times and they perhaps also wanted to have Nazi Nostalgia TV channel... Yes, but the Soviet TV showed black-skin people among others, did not measure the parameters of people's skulls and did not talk of the supreme races and the inferior ones... They talked of supreme political systems and inferior ones - excuse me, it's not the same. Although there was casual antisemitism in the USSR and the authorities treated Jews with suspicion, virtually every Soviet crooner was a Jew, not to mention leading Soviet stage comedians, who all were Jews. I mean, thoroughly all. I can't remind of any popular Soviet stage comedian who was not a Jew. And all Soviet chess legends were also Jews. Each and every of them was a Jew. And that's why I do like Nostalgia TV channel and would not bear the existence of Nazi Nostalgia TV. Although this topic is not dedicated to the USSR, but, well, it's not a forum for pop music fans. Here, it is expected, there is an educated audience, sophisticated audience. And it really is. I fully realize that I clearly sound like a
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Favourite Band: Gentle Giant
Favourite Writer: Robert Sheckley Favourite Horror Writer: Jean Ray Favourite Computer Game: Tiny Toon - Buster's Hidden Treasure (Sega Mega Drive/Genesis) |
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Odvin Draoi
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Joined: January 01 2019 Location: X Status: Offline Points: 516 |
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Posted: October 23 2019 at 14:13 |
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I can't stand giant posts!
*humour intended |
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Woon Deadn
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Posted: October 23 2019 at 14:07 |
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The last video above inspired me to mention this type of meditation on the topic: can you stand the classic era bands that sounded very similar to Gentle Giant? Can you stand Yezda Urfa? Can you stand Et Cetera? Can you stand Epidermis?
It may be something visual that bothers you. Maybe it's because Kerry was too thin and polite and delicate, he was no Keith Emerson in terms of machoism. Maybe it's because Shulman brothers were of a wrestlemen physique, consider Ray Shulman's arms/hands/fingers. Maybe it was cover art, or song tiltes. The AtT album cover may look unsuitable if not offensive to some listeners aka watchers. There were bands with more fantasy-wise or more aggressive or more mysterious album covers. You may not notice such things, but they may notice you... And your brain may notice them automatically. I don't know whether that's to be titled subconscious, subliminal, whatever influences. I'm not sure it's as deep as sub-something. You simply may omit such minutiae consciously and they may ruin your perception. I mean, you can say, you are the listener and not the watcher, first and foremost. Yet you look at the album covers, you read the titles of the songs, you use YouTube for your listening needs and every GG video is on YouTube...
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Favourite Band: Gentle Giant
Favourite Writer: Robert Sheckley Favourite Horror Writer: Jean Ray Favourite Computer Game: Tiny Toon - Buster's Hidden Treasure (Sega Mega Drive/Genesis) |
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Woon Deadn
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Joined: March 30 2010 Location: P Status: Offline Points: 1007 |
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Posted: October 22 2019 at 14:50 |
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You are welcome! Several months ago I have invented a sentence that pretty much shows my attitude to the Soviet Union as it is seen now in retrospective: HITLER turned HILTER turned HEaRTLI What started as the primal definition of political and social disaster, eventually became a strange twisted edition of Russian Empire with exceptions from every rule here and there. Like, heartli is not a regular word and there's an irregular additional a in it - but still it's no hitler or even hilter anymore, it's heartli. Not quite heartly, but everybody gets that it's close. I have no doubt about regimes in North Korea, Pol Pot's Cambodia and such - they are plain evil and wrong. With perhaps a few per cents of something good and perhaps one per cent of something great (even feces contain vitamins, after all) North Korea is plain bad, unfair, wrong. I also have no doubt that Nazi Germany after they started eliminating their enemies and Jews, was also plain evil. But when it comes to the USSR... I have never heard of Americans or Britons defecting to North Korea, for example. Yet there actually were Americans who moved/defected to the USSR or USSR-allied Socialist countries - take the singer Dean Reed, for example. So, there were not only intelligent officers. The USSR (=Soviet Union) had that Pythonesque aura, you know. Not as funny, sometimes even tragic, but there often was so much comedy even in those tragedies. So, tragicomic. For example, the first man in space from other country than the USA or the USSR was from Czechoslovakia. Yes, a weak excuse for Prague' 1968 - but still. The second one was from Poland. There was a state program Interkosmos, they also have sent to space, among others, a Bulgarian, a Syrian (!), and even a person from Capitalist France! Yes, the first French citizen to ever fly to outer space traveled there on the Soviet rocket. His name was Jean-Loup Chretien, back then only the USSR sent foreign citizens to space, as far as I can understand. He was the military officer of the Capitalist country and in 1982, before Perestroika, before Gorbachev, he was allowed to travel somewhere on the Soviet rocket. I mean, he got access to some Soviet space program secrets, to some details of the capsule, of the systems working in the rocket. There was no problem about it. When in countries of true dictatorship like North Korea or Nazi Germany they say that everybody should serve in the military, it means every living person. I have told you that in the USSR there was a terrible hazing in the military since the 1960s (when the government allowed/let the former prisoners to serve in the army, and the former prisoners brought the prison traditions to the army), but... bingo! - engineer was the most popular Soviet profession, engineers effectively constituted the Soviet middle class, people mainly studied for engineers at the Polytechnic Institutes, all male students of which had one 40-days training course in the military (where they hardly suffered from real hazing) and they all graduated from the Institutes as lieutenants to never serve in the military anymore... Yes, it means, that lots of Soviet men, the core of the Soviet middle class, actually never really served in the army (and so never experienced army hazing), at all. Meanwhile, by the law, the army service was obligatory for all Soviet males. If we count one 40 days' training for service - it was really obligatory for all males... And this is one example of the Pythonesqueness of the USSR. Add to this the excellent Soviet TV series about Sherlock Holmes, the Soviet adaptation of Three Musketeers, the Soviet version of Three Men In A Boat (which included many scenes not depicted in the book, many decent tunes, three traveling women to accompany three men, and even one light foot fetish scene in the protagonist's dream), the Soviet children's movie about Buratino (Pinocchio re...make?) with its excellent songs. I do not think in Cuba or North Korea they did Sherlock Holmes TV series... I've never watched one. Plus to that, Elton John performed there, Samantha Smith visited it. Soviet folk-rock band Pesniary even made a song definitely influenced by Gentle Giant: So, the last paragraph matched the topic well. And I can stand Gentle Giant.  Edited by Woon Deadn - October 23 2019 at 08:29 |
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Favourite Band: Gentle Giant
Favourite Writer: Robert Sheckley Favourite Horror Writer: Jean Ray Favourite Computer Game: Tiny Toon - Buster's Hidden Treasure (Sega Mega Drive/Genesis) |
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Frenetic Zetetic
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Joined: December 09 2017 Location: Now Status: Offline Points: 9233 |
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Posted: October 21 2019 at 01:37 |
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Guys, OP just needs to TURN IT AROUND; THERE IS NO OTHER WAAA-AAA-AAAY!
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"I am so prog, I listen to concept albums on shuffle." -KMac2021 |
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ProgMetaller2112
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Joined: December 08 2012 Location: Pacoima,CA,USA Status: Offline Points: 3145 |
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Posted: October 20 2019 at 19:07 |
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Wow! Thanks for sharing mate.
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“War is peace.
Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.” ― George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four "Ignorance and Prejudice and Fear walk Hand in Hand"- Neil Peart |
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Woon Deadn
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Posted: October 20 2019 at 15:41 |
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In one sentence it may be: Not as bad as was and still is shown in the mainstream western media, while not as good as shown by some very-left non-mainstream western media. Like any other extremely huge country that existed for almost 70 years, the USSR was different, various, multi-faceted. It very much depends on the era of its existence, on your place of living, on pure luck. I was born in 1983, naturally I can't tell you what it was like in the 1960s, under Stalin, etc. I can tell but not from my experience, of course. The problem with the western understanding of the Soviet reality is the obvious momentum of perception, momentum of thinking. After Solzhenitsyn's books, after all horrors of labour camps' system were revealed, the western audience took it as the fact for good. Meanwhile, after death of Stalin in 1953 absolute most of those horrors passed away, for good (like, for example, GULAG system as such). But that momentum of perception... plus the Cold War state did not let the western audience get the new actual situation in the USSR. Actually, every era of its existence had some positive sides. And, no doubt about it, those people that were repressed being innocent, hardly loved their country and the regime very much. Unfortunately, the western narrative was also filled with propaganda, and as always truth is somewhere in between. Take Solzhenitsyn, for example. He obviously never had access to data about numbers of imprisoned, etc. He was a man of art, had a sensitive soul. He guessed, he retold many rumours in his books. As far as I can remind, once he told somewhere that 110 million Soviet people became victims of repressions. Well, it seems, if we sum up every potentially lethal traumatizing event during Lenin-Stalin era (until spring 1953, that is), it may give 20 million people, at maximum (including the people who were forcefully re-settled, deported, imprisoned but not died, killed during the Russian Civil War long before Stalin's reign). So, Mr. Solzhenitsyn exaggerated a bit... I understand him, he suffered and it was his estimation for he probably believed that if he had suffered severely then everybody else suffered no less, as well. After all, like many other writers, he was not the most pleasant man on earth. His egotism played its role in the manner of his speeches, I think. What my parents both born in 1952 and many other still alive and sane former Soviet Union's citizens recall is the post-Khrushchev's era. Which was way different from what Solzhenitsyn wrote about. In case you did not criticize the Communist Party elite, did not criticize Lenin and his teachings, knew the borderlines that could not be crossed in your public activity, your chances to ever meet the KGB, be imprisoned et al, were tiny. It means, when in the western media or movies or books they mention KGB and/or link Putin to KGB, they suppose it may mean something scary to us. No, it's a scarecrow for the western citizens, mostly. I can tell you about my attitude to the KGB - it is neutral with shades of joking maybe even slightly positive attitude. My parents and their parents were not afraid of the police or KGB, at least after the death of Stalin. There was not fear of KGB among the Soviet people, in general. People knew the rules, followed them and it didn't really look and feel that catastrophic as it was/is implied to be in the western culture. You may read this article from 1988 that tells it all in more competent English than mine: http://donellameadows.org/archives/what-americans-dont-understand-about-the-soviet-union/ I always wonder why in the world haven't the Soviet government ordered to translate tens of Soviet movies, some TV programs, tens of books, hundreds of songs into English, German, French, Italian, Spanish then to distribute them in the west, maybe even for free? The west had no idea of many decent if not great pieces of Soviet art. You may watch this Soviet comedy for good example. It is finally translated, with English subtitles. It will hardly become your most favourite movie of all time, but you may at least look at what the Soviet reality (in its polished version, of course) looked like. The policemen for the most part were friendly, that is true. The people were optimistic. This Soviet comedy also shows the whole spectre of Soviet life. English subtitles are available: The ordinary life for ordinary people (especially, for the younger ones) was boring, though. Not unbearably boring, but, let us be frank, boring. The USSR dissolved not because of people's fear of KGB (nobody cared about KGB in the last years of USSR's existence, at all), not because they hated Stalin that much (who cared about him in 1991?) - the Soviet people wanted plenty of goods, supermarkets, Hollywood style life, Disney cartoons galore, Barbie, LEGO, and so on and the like. Not that I want the USSR back. No. But there was a very specific atmosphere, very unpredictable yet weird and expected to be better life. The USSR was The Weird Empire rather than The Evil Empire - again, at least after the death of Stalin. But who among the sane living remember Stalin's time? People remember Brezhnev, the man who loved American cars, hunting (animals, of course), good company and was actually not a bad guy, at all. Not very educated, not very broadminded - yet not that bad. There was an atmosphere that many miss today. Warmth of people's relations that many miss today. On the other hand, yes, there were lines for most of goods most of the time. There was a one-Party ideology, declared state atheism. In particular, dentists used anesthesia exclusively for extracting teeth, which was one of the major cons of the USSR... There was no hazing at the Universities, at all - but there was hazing in the military, mostly a terrible hazing. Again, to the unpredictability factor, hazing in the Soviet army was practically absent up until the 1960s - so many elder people called talks of hazing a nonsense. In the 1940s-1950s service in the military was a great time for young boys, in most cases. Closer to the end of the USSR, hazing took the most brutal forms, including raping in some rare cases. The country with such a huge territory of such an old age (1922-1991) was various. For every million of its former people that hate it, you can easily find another million of its admirers. That's a very difficult question. I think it was a necessary experience for us all, weird and useful. However, for those innocent people that were tortured or murdered in the 1920s-1930s it was neither useful nor weird. What can I say? Should we find all bullies that somehow insulted us when we were 8 years old and bully them in return? The USSR history had dark and light pages. We should conceal neither, I think. For funny parallels, look at the Soviet Bob Dylan in the studio of American TV. The Soviet counterpart was tougher  : Notice, though, that he had never been in prison or labour camp or whatever. Speaking of propaganda or fake news...
Edited by Woon Deadn - October 20 2019 at 15:54 |
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Favourite Band: Gentle Giant
Favourite Writer: Robert Sheckley Favourite Horror Writer: Jean Ray Favourite Computer Game: Tiny Toon - Buster's Hidden Treasure (Sega Mega Drive/Genesis) |
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HackettFan
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Posted: October 20 2019 at 14:58 |
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Just the reverse for me. I GG's case I liked them instantly, but always felt like I didn't yet have their best work. In fact I have a friend whom I got together with recently who learned about and got mildly into GG through me. He was surprised at my negative reaction when that wretched "all around all around all-around all around all around" song came up on his playlist. The more albums I explored the more disappointed I got and the more weary of the snap crackle pop that was their note selection, as I noted before. As a Hackett fan, I certainly value sustain. And for myself, I have no problem with avant-garde work in general. I like plenty of stuff that's even more challenging than GG. GG is a talented and skillful group of players, nevertheless for sure. They're just so damn annoying.
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A curse upon the heads of those who seek their fortunes in a lie. The truth is always waiting when there's nothing left to try. - Colin Henson, Jade Warrior (Now)
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tamijo_II
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Posted: October 20 2019 at 02:08 |
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I'd say it up the individual - If you want to expand you taste or stay with what you like a first glance.
I done a lot to get into different kind of music.
But it was not because i felt like I had to, or anything like that. It was because I had the idea that this music could easily be something i might come to love a lot when the ice broke. I GG's case i love them instantly - but it took time to understand Van der Graaf, and now I'm very glad that i took the time. |
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Frenetic Zetetic wrote: