Van der Graaf Generator book

Big, unwieldy and exhausting — that’s a description of Van Der Graaf Generator: The Book, though it could equally apply to the group themselves. Longtime fans Christopulos and Smart, the latter of whom runs the VDGG Website, have self-published an entertaining account of Hammill and co’s byzantine history. The Book affords equal weight to all four members of the classic VDGG quartet (the others being organist Hugh Banton, drummer Guy Evans and twin sax maestro Dave Jackson), relying heavily on their anecdotes for its substance. That’s not a bad thing for a fanboy book like this, though it means that the later New Wave-influenced line-up, along with contemporaneous Hammill solo albums like The Future Now, are somewhat glossed over.

For my money, this period saw VDGG and Hammill producing career-best work. Stories about Banton’s habit of deciding to rebuild his giant organ on the eve of every major tour, or the time Evans was presented with a new set of cymbals at a German festival, may be endlessly fascinating to hardcore followers, but their appeal starts to pall over the distance.

The book is chock full of photos, but while many of these are previously unpublished, a fair number of them are pictures of rare US promo acetates and the like. Nor is it an easy book to dip into, lacking an index. What The Book really needs is a critical voice, one that might begin to explain VDGG’s enduring popularity by examining more closely their artistic failures as well as successes. Dissent is limited to a handful of quotes from lukewarm reviews, to which the group were never exactly strangers, and the odd celebrity putdown such as Joe Strummer’s memorable definition of the group being “like Shakespeare crossed with Uriah Heep”. How exactly Hammill and his cohorts were able to find a fair degree of public favour with some of the most unremittingly dark and solipsistic songs ever written (see VDGG’s “The Emperor In His War Room”, from H To He Who Am The Only One, or Hammill’s “Gog”, from In Camera) doesn’t come close to being elucidated here, but as a group travelogue and potted history of the era, it’s a rollicking good read. 

From Record Collector, Feb '06:

bucka001 wrote: Hi Sean, [How about dealing with this guy in Belgium? http://vox.telenet.be He deals mostly music books from all over the world. recently bought him the Stump book GG's Acquiring The Taste] We'll look into it. Thanks. The problem is that the book is so damned heavy (it's almost coffee table size [we'll, not quite but it's big], it's hardcover, and it's well over 300 pages) so postage is really tough. Just getting multiple copies to a distributor costs an arm and a leg. But we'll check it out.

How many copies was your first pressing?

Hi James,

[What are you doing in Uruguay?  I thought you were in Cali?]

No, I live in Chicago, actually! That's where I am. I do remember you, good to hear from you.

Sean, we may very well be able to do something with a Belgium distributor as, if worse comes to worse, my writing partner could just drive some books there (he lives in England and travels quite a bit). So, thanks for the tip.

Jim

Hi Sean,

[How about dealing with this guy in Belgium?

http://vox.telenet.be

He deals mostly music books from all over the world. recently bought him the Stump book GG's Acquiring The Taste]

We'll look into it. Thanks. The problem is that the book is so damned heavy (it's almost coffee table size [we'll, not quite but it's big], it's hardcover, and it's well over 300 pages) so postage is really tough. Just getting multiple copies to a distributor costs an arm and a leg. But we'll check it out.