Posts by Backdrifter

  • TotW 02/11/2019 - 02/17/2019: GENESIS - Happy The Man

    Quote from boredatwork

    I can’t recall where I read the song was about Phil, but it fits pretty well.


    He was easy-going, smiling, friendly & laid back compared to the uptight Charterhouse boys. He was amused when he watched them have screaming rows & storm off over some minor musical point. He passed the audition by listening to other drummers from the swimming pool. And given his hair & beard in his early Genesis days, no one can deny that “Someone says he’s Jesus Christ” was a good description! ^^


    The “nun with a gun” line is a mystery but perhaps it referred to some contemporary event/film/song?

    But you actually read somewhere it's about him?! Dahhh.... that's kind of put me off it a bit now! I don't like songs being so nailed-down like that. I preferred thinking of it as a generalised thing about someone who doesn't care about anything, and the 'nun' and 'fool' lines were just a throw-away oddity. Grrrr.


    In fact I'm going to carry on thinking that, and pretend this whole exchange never took place.


    This is like when I read that Who Dunnit was meant to be a dig at punk, embarrassingly 4 years too late, and that Cul de Sac was about the sodding dinosaurs, for crying out loud. Sometimes I think I should just stop reading things. :/

  • Lying Crying Dying

    I think he might well be getting it mixed up. Don't underestimate the capacity for confusion or memory-error of a former alcoholic workaholic who's led a full and busy life across a 50+ years career when recounting a detail from the very start of that period.

  • What TV shows have you been watching ?

    I never watch Endeavour but have recorded the Nocturne episode which aired recently, given its Genesis connection as I was informed elsewhere here. Plus as I said before I'm a big fan of Roger Allam.


    Haven't watched it yet, I might give it a go later.

  • TotW 02/11/2019 - 02/17/2019: GENESIS - Happy The Man

    Quote from DecomposingMan

    Some of the lyrics (and, at times, the tone in which they're sung) seem at odds with the cheery, folky music. The guitar melody in the background of the verses doesn't seem to quite fit either.

    It's interesting, those are among the very things that I like so much about it. Things in songs being at cross-purposes is appealing to me.


    They could be quite a conservative band and I wouldnt be surprised if the aspects you mention led to their omitting it from the album.


    Re that live version yes it definitely has different lyrics.

  • a genesis dream

    Quote from OneForTheVine

    I had to look him up; I hadn't heard of him before. Was he on the airwaves often in the UK when he was still alive?

    We must have a crossed wire. I was picking up on your jokey reference to dreaming about Genesis's "Black (and Red) Album" which I took to be a reference to Prince's famous 'lost' Black Album, intended as the follow up to Sign O' The Times. As you probably know, he abandoned it but of course it found its way into the public domain anyway. The most infamous track on it was a shockingly un-Prince-like and rather nasty ditty called Bob George (thought by some to be the basis of Prince rejecting his own album as 'evil'). Following your Genesis Black & Red Album comment, I was imagining what their Bob George equivalent might be like!


    There is a sort of connection isn't there. Genesis abandoned a load of new material when recording the follow-up to Duke, thinking they were just repeating themselves. So perhaps there is a 'lost' album lurking somewhere after all!


    Meanwhile, no doubt fuelled by this very thread, I had a Genesis-related dream last night. My partner and I were at some sort of Genesis event, with an audience all sitting at tables. Hackett was sitting at a table with the rest of us while Gabriel was performing a song, bizarrely playing one of those 80s Steinberger type guitars with no machine head, and playing it quite badly it has to be said. To make matters worse, while plunking out an embarrassingly lame solo he made a point of going and standing in front of Hackett as if to say "I can do this too, you know!" Hackett sat there with a slight glower and I murmured to my partner "He's going to grab his guitar and show him how it should be done". Sure enough when he decided he couldn't take any more he leapt up, picked up his 57 Les Paul (stood against the wall and half-hidden behind a cloth) and got going. But the dream either ended there or I can't recall any more of it. Very different from my usual weird-outdoor-gig Genesis dreams... although still weird.

  • a genesis dream

    Quote from DecomposingMan

    the Genesis one looked kind of like ABACAB and began with a 7-minute song called "The Snake"

    I love that sort of detail! The only time that's happened to me is on a couple of occasions I dreamed about Radiohead, another favourite band of mine. In each of these dreams they were doing a new song, one was called White Chocolate Hat (which sounds more like it should be by either Prince or REM) and the other was called The Interrogator, and I even recalled a line from it - "I don't care about the money, I don't care about the money."


    An impossibility I know, but I now really want to hear The Snake! Something tells me I'd like it.


    Does 'snake' appear in any Genesis songs other than Supper's Ready and The Lamia? (I don't think it's mentioned in The Serpent is it?).

  • a genesis dream

    Yes, quite a few times over the years, and always the same kind of thing, involving (like yours) being at a live performance. It's always the Collins-fronted line-up, and always in a weird outdoor setting, often involving my having difficulty getting into a decent spot. There's often trees in the way of the stage, and in one dream it was both this and the fact they were playing in what looked like a mostly demolished building and I was on top of a high hill looking almost vertically down on it (through those pesky trees). I can never recall any specific tracks though.

  • Your Favorite Genesis Covers

    Thanks Dr. John those are much more what I look for in a cover. I always thought That's All was crying out to be covered. The I Can't Dance one is spoiled a bit by the guy behind that lovely couch overdoing the attempted comedy, it would have been much more effective if he'd just kept to the hands coming up to ting the glass. But it's a pretty good version.


    I've also often thought Throwing It All Away was ripe for covering. Who is the a capella guy? (I'm assuming they're all the same bloke).

  • Your Favorite Genesis Covers

    I listened to the Geneses, Lettieri Down & Out, Stone Key and Hydria ones. I'm not really interested in ones that are essentially tribute acts, I'm more intrigued by bands that do their own thing but might throw in a cover, and even then I find it frustrating when they just do a straight, faithful cover. What's the point of that? I like a cover to be something that retains the spirit of the original, but enables the cover artist to put their individual stamp on it, or goes even further and takes a starkly different approach. I don't really want to hear a faithful recreation. For that reason, Hydria's Entangled was at least interesting in their heavy interpretation of the 'chorus' sections but they wimped out otherwise, just sticking to the original. (Their singer is very cute). Stone Key's choice of MFM was interesting, and hearing it in a soulful female voice was good, and showed there are things that can be coaxed out of a minimalist song that I've always liked but which is often dismissed by Genesis fans.


    Building on the heavy metal Entangled, aren't there any more radical covers of Genesis than these out there? No minimalist electro-pop versions of Firth of Fifth? An industrial death metal Mad Man Moon? A dub reggae Follow You Follow Me? Katy Perry doing Invisible Touch or Lady Gaga giving us her Turn It On Again? Or is it the case, as I've long suspected it is, that outside the mega-faithful note-perfect tribute acts, bands just aren't interested in doing Genesis covers?

  • What TV shows have you been watching ?

    Quote from foxfeeder

    Not a TV show, a film, but was on BBC2 this afternoon, the absolutely brilliant "A Matter Of Life & Death" with David Niven. Always worth watching.

    It is an enjoyable film. David Niven was a likeable and watchable actor. One of my favourite moments from Parkinson was Parky's hysterical reaction to Niven's wartime story of he and a friend gatecrashing a senior officers fancy dress ball. "What's this - Trubshaw, Niven, goats? Bad show. Damn bad show!"


    I like Marius Goring's Conductor character.

  • What TV shows have you been watching ?

    Quote from foxfeeder

    Never seen Veep, but used to watch the UK show it span off, The Think of It. I believe Will Smith (the Jersey/UK comedian, brother of wine critic Ollie Smith, not the fresh prince) is responsible for some of the writing (he also wrote and starred in later episodes of the UK show) so no surprise it's good. He is very funny, if you get the chance, listen to his BBC radio 4 Show "The Tao of Bergerec" 4 half hour episodes of brilliant humour, with guest appearances by John Nettles.

    Yes Smith co-wrote some Veep eps and there is writing/directing involvement ftom other Thick Of It alumni such as Simon Blackwell, Tony Roche and Chris Addison. Another former Ianucci compatriot Christopher Morris directs some eps too.


    If you enjoyed The Thick Of It you will very likely enjoy Veep, it has very much the same dynamic. I certainly loved The Thick Of It, I think it's one of the best ever British sitcoms. The two 1-hour specials The Rise of the Nutters and Spinners & Losers are its pinnacle. James Smith's performance as Glen having a meltdown is a thing of beauty. Will Smith's character Phil was very good. I'll track down the radio show you mentioned.

  • What TV shows have you been watching ?

    I often come to things late. I have only just been devouring the Veep seasons 1-4 dvd boxset. It might be close to overtaking Seinfeld and the Larry Sanders Show as my favourite US sitcom. It's become an addiction, with me watching entire discs in one go. However, the discs are now 600 miles away from me for the next 4 weeks so I'm having withdrawal symptoms. I can't wait to be reunited with them.