The VDGG/Peter Hammill Appreciation Thread

I first heard Pawn Hearts some thirty years ago and fell in love immediately. The seasons have rolled on, and my love has stayed strong.

I think Godbluff is just as good, and Still Life isn’t far behind. An album which is seldom mentioned is The Quiet Zone/The Pleasure Dome. It’s very diffent from the rest of their output, and personally I would rate it 5 stars.

As for Hammill solo, he’s more uneven. I love some of his old albums, like Chameleon, The Silent Corner and the Empty Stage and In Camera. Also the slightly newer ones, like A Black Box, Enter K and Patience, are excellent. I lost track of him in the 90s, and he’s made a lot of albums I’ve never heard, I’m afraid. I know, I really must get a copy of The Fall of the House of Usher. It’s supposed to be one of his best.

floydispink wrote: Van Der Graaf Generator is really one of the most unique bands ever. I can't think of a single band that has a sound like them. As the appreciation threads are popping out of the ground like shrooms I think VDGG does also really deserve one. As Peter Hammill's solo carreer has many similarities with Van Der Graaf Generator, I decided to include him in this appreciation thread too. ,.....

Edited by moshkito - August 13 2009 at 12:06

BaldJean wrote: Hammil is one of my favorite artists too; I have been to a lot of his concerts and to two of VdGG too, their reunion gig in London on May 6th 2005 and a gig in Leverkusen from the same time. the Leverkusen gig was broadcast on TV, and of course we recorded it, and of course we all know their reunion gig was recorded too, so both VdGG gigs I have been to exist in officially recorded form . Friede has been to even more Hammill concerts than I, simply because Hammill never came anywhere near me while I still lived in the USA, but he came to Bochum, Cologne and Bonn several times during that time, and both Bochum and Bonn are not far from Cologne (less than 60 miles) where we live and where Friede has been living for most of her life, so Friede had a lot of occasions to see him. there is only one Hammill concert which she has a bad memory about (a very bad one even), but that has nothing to do with the concert itself but with something that happened afterwards

VDGG is really one of the bands I enjoy the most. It is, as you said, really unique. I saw them a month ago, and it was an amazing concert, I was totally impressed. The only thing is that it was quite short (one hour and fifteen minutes). They played Man-Erg and Childlike Faith in Childhood's End

I have to add a few things:

PH’s album Everyone You Hold (1997) is very precious to me, and Bubble, with a different arrangement, could have been a full-blown VdGG-song, with some brilliant (though rather creepy) organ work by the great Hugh Banton.

I’ve never seen VdGG live (still I hope to do it one day), but I’ve seen PH twice in Oslo. In the first concert he played together with the eminent guitarist John Ellis (Enter K must have been very fresh at the time). They both did an excellent job, but there were some obnoxious drunk people there who wanted to enter, not K, but the stage. PH was really pissed offed. I’m quite sure that was the reason why they decided to end the show with Happy Hour.

Luckily he came back the next year, this time to play alone at the legendary Club 7 (don’t try to find it‚ it’s gone years ago). Completely magical. He went back to the very start of his carreer, playing songs like Vision and Afterwords, and towards the end, beginning with the short introduction, "this is my major effort", he performed Flight alone on the piano. Another highlight was the last encore (3rd? 4th? I don’t remember, and it hardly seems to matter now). He went back on stage with a beer and a cigarette (he used to smoke before his heart attack, you know), he (obviously remembering the concert the previous year) thanked us for behaving in a way that allowed him to do his best. Then he asked us what we wanted to hear. A friend of mine said Refugees, and PH politely answered that he hadn’t played it for a very long time. Then another one asked for Still Life, and Still Life it was. I assure you, the music, the performance and the presence of PH were much more intoxicating than the alcohol.

I’m happy that he’s still alive, that VdGG made their comeback, and that I’m still alive to enjoy it!

(Sorry for all the brackets.)

I'm just listening to Thin Air for the first time.

Ooooh, this will take a while to full sink in.  I like it though.  Hammill lyrics usually take a while for me to fully devour.

I just read a review of Godbluff where the reviewer pointed out the use of clavinet on this record. I really haven't paid any attention to that before, but when I do now, it sure is a very important part of the dark, menacing atmosphere of the album. What would e.g. "Scorched Earth" be without the dark, hammering, almost guitar-like clavinet rhythms? Or the chorus of "Arrow" with the slamming powerchords? 

Funny this should come up, I just posted a review of Still Life on the site.

Pawn Hearts is an incredible album and is probably among my top 10 of all time. Not necessarily the first thing I would show to a prog newbie though

Still Life I'm not as big on, it was good but nowhere near the same level. I confess, however, to not owning Godbluff yet. I know, I know, take me out and stone me, but I've been meaning to ask: Given that I enjoy Pawn Hearts far more than I enjoy Still Life, which VDGG album should I pick up next, H to He or Godbluff?

KingCrimson250 wrote: Given that I enjoy Pawn Hearts far more than I enjoy Still Life, which VDGG album should I pick up next, H to He or Godbluff?

floydispink wrote: A B Negative wrote: KingCrimson250 wrote: Given that I enjoy Pawn Hearts far more than I enjoy Still Life, which VDGG album should I pick up next, H to He or Godbluff? I reckon H to He would be more to your liking. The albums after Pawn Hearts are really good albums but they don't have the sense of controlled chaos I get from the earlier ones. I agree with H to He being more like Pawn Hearts than Godbluff is, but I think Godbluff also is full of controlled chaos. Peter's vocals on The Undercover Man, the lunacy of Sleepwalkers and much more. I'd say, get both! If you don't have enough money or for whatever reason that won't be an option I recommend H to He.

Edited by A B Negative - August 18 2009 at 16:26