Posts by Backdrifter

  • We Can't Dance Tour 1992

    Excellent story bigaluk - an experience you'll never forget.


    I've never yet heard any account of meeting members of Genesis where they were described as anything other than warm and friendly.


    Cue someone posting an account of Mike Rutherford screaming "WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU? GET OUT OF MY WAY !" and shoving them roughly aside. Then coming back, kicking them in the ribs, then finally stomping off.


    Unlikely, I realise.

  • Favourite Tony Banks keyboard moments in Genesis

    Earlier I mentioned

    Quote

    that tiny little bridge in NYC after the "off we go" section before it returns to the main verses

    - I particularly like when he played it an octave up on the Archive 1 Lamb live version.


    There's been mention of his early piano work on FGTR, which reminded me how much I like his riff on The Conqueror.


    I'm trying to think of more of those fleeting smaller parts. BOTR was mentioned, in it I love the brief, slightly skewed ascending part bridging the two parts of the verse, eg just before "Though your eyes..." helped by the 'distance' it has in the mix. The way the mellotron comes in at the end of that bit then continues into that next verse section is a great illustration of how well he painted in colours and created textures, the detail of it like small touches in a painting that add to the overall picture.

    Quote from thewatcher

    was the flute in The Knife from Tony's keyboard or was it Peter?

    This was answered earlier, but made me wonder if he ever used the mellotron on flute setting. I can't think of any instances, I could be missing them but I'm assuming that with a flautist in the band there wasn't any need. But I also can't think of any post-PG either.

  • The Thread Of Complete Randomness

    I look forward to your 2-star 'Solar Eclipse' review on Tripadvisor.


    I kind of get you. I was in London for the 1999 one so didn't experience totality (you had to go the westernmost Cornwall), but it wasn't far off was agreeably odd to see the weird light either side of it and feel a slight drop in temperature. But no I wouldn't travel for it. On that occasion I just had to go on to the roof of the building I was working in.


    And as for pandas...

  • Generative films

    Quote from thewatcher

    Could a generative AI based film integrate this data and adapt to changes in your physiology, making a personalized movie? You could start by telling it "I want to be scared" or "I want to laugh".

    Or "I want to be bored", "I want to be disappointed", "I want to be left with a muted sense of self-awareness" etc. Or go completely abstract, as per Lennon's request to George Martin to make a song feel more like 'an orange' - "I want to feel mauve" (Uncle Monty in Withnail & I - "He's so mauve we don't know what he's planning.")


    By virtue of slightly altering my travel plans I'm now booked into the Eno premier so I can certainly report back on that one viewing, but hopefully as you say I'll get the chance to see it again some time and see how it compares.


    It was put to him in an interview that the way this film works means some people could potentially see a version that doesn't mention Roxy Music. He said "I hope so. I'm fed up of being asked about something I did 50 years ago."

  • TotW 04/08/2024 - 04/14/2024: GENESIS - Abacab

    I like it and as a 'totem' for/intro to their change of approach it works well.


    It has one of my favourite lines of any Genesis lyric: "When you wake and find you're covered in cellophane/There's a hole in there somewhere". They needed more of that kind of oddness in their work. I like the whole lyric for its lack of clarity and slight strangeness, it was a nice antidote to some of their previous wordy noodlings. Perhaps that's one way in which as Duke of Earl of Mar says it's sort of 'anti-Genesis'.


    I echo the above positives regarding the live versions, which improved with each tour - it was a set highlight come the IT tour, the energy of that rendition is terrific. We've heard that it didn't get revived on the 07 tour due to PC deciding he didn't like the lyric. I'd have liked to heard it then, was it in the running for TLD? Seeing as like one or two others rehearsed it found its way on the album.

    Quote from thewatcher

    The short chords that swell before Phil's vocal in the final chorus is a nice embellishment that stood out to me as I was discovering the band.

    Is it a backtracked vocoder vocal? TB was using vocoder at the time - very prominent on Duchess (including the 3SL album and film) and M&SJ.

    Quote from Duke of Earl of Mar

    One thing that I don't like very much in the studio version is the overall sound, which I find aggressive

    That's exactly one of the things I like about it.

  • Genesis locations in Surrey

    Quote from Simon1967

    many moons ago lived near the Tortworth roundabout..and often had a light ale in the Toby...didn't know its musical history back then as was the late 80s and pre Internet....everyday is a learning day!

    Quite astonishing isn't it. I went to gigs there in the 80s/90s, but no well-known bands by that point.


    I live in the Scottish Highlands but am from SW London, and until recently had a flat in Surbiton (Berrylands, in fact) where I lived for over 20 years. We were in the street where The Good Life was supposedly set - The Avenue, Surbiton - although it was filmed in N London.


    The Kingston Hotel was another local Genesis gig venue along with, as mentioned, Kingston Polytechnic.


    EDIT: Just checked the Toby's entries on setlist.fm, they go up to 1977 with The Stranglers, The Damned, Ultravox and The Fabulous Poodles being the last acts listed. The full entry is here (wrongly listed as 'Kingston upon Thames', although I suppose you can say it's in that borough)

  • Favourite Tony Banks keyboard moments in Genesis

    Following the interesting discussion in this thread about Banks's keyboard sounds on WCD, I started thinking more broadly of his moments I particularly like in the work of Genesis and would like to hear members' own thoughts.


    Chords are of course a major element of the Banks/Genesis sound, and this applies to a part that was key in making me a fan, namely the huge Hammond chords under the "now, now, now" at the end of Musical Box. That, and the way the Hammond builds from just after "...your flesh", sounding almost church-like then swelling to the big ringing chords during and after the vocal part. I remember being very struck by that whole end section when I first heard the song around the mid 1970s (along with Apocalypse I think it's one of the best segments they did), but those chords especially really stood out. I was saddened that the 08 remaster seemed to diminish them somewhat.


    Speaking of Apocalypse, the chord sequence during that is absolutely immense. I also love the quiet entry of the choir after "...don't give a damn" in Moonlit Knight and how it then gloriously swells. The choir in the latter part of Entangled is lovely, like being in a warm bath of sound. It's an effect he wisely used quite sparingly and always made it count. He could have drowned Silent Sorrow with it, but kept it to a minimum, leaving the majority of the track as the bare-bones six-note motif with some overlays but still somehow ringing after the gorgeous wash of choir. Newer prog bands often overuse it to a ludicrous extent and sap its power. The Watcher opening is another obvious mellotron high point.


    Focusing more on solos and lead lines, the Raven solo will always be a favourite of mine, specifically the original. But while he's an accomplished and usually interesting soloist I'm often drawn more to the little touches and fills he's so adept at, eg that tiny little bridge in NYC after the "off we go" section before it returns to the main verses. The bright 6-note theme in the chorus of Silver Rainbow, in BTL the 4-note piano fill after "I will help you" (under the ooh-ooh-ooh-oooooh), the lead line in the chorus of No Son, all bits I love.

  • Tony's keyboard sounds on We Can't Dance

    Quote from Schrottrocker

    Dreaming While You Sleep I find very convincing, the keyboards really make the foundation for the dark atmosphere of that song.

    This made me want to add that my issue is solely with the horrible sound he uses for the attempted "foreboding" lead lines at the start (around 00:14 and again around 03:50) and following the title phrase. The chords he puts behind the guitar power chords in the "all my life" section are very good, subtle and icy to underpin the ghostly, haunting feel the song has at its best, and which also emphasises the clunkiness of the other bits. For me it feels like he's done a lovely painting in cool understated tones then painted a primary-colour stick figure over it.

  • New to me - "new" bands and music

    Frank Skinner's Saturday morning show on Absolute Radio is a fairly regular source of interesting new stuff. Absolute is otherwise a dull parade of bloke rock where you're never very far from Franz Ferdinand or Kaiser Chiefs or, on the rare occasions they dredge up a female voice, Florence And The Fucking Machine to give them their full name. And as for Oasis and the Sodding Red Hot Chilli Peppers, to give them their full name, the station must have shares in them.


    Skinner gets 6 of his own choices and they're invariably nuggets of intetesting enjoyment amid the dullness of the other stuff he has to select from. Here is a recent one I like, Palpitations by Felicette.

  • Tony's keyboard sounds on We Can't Dance

    I do know what you're getting at.


    I love his work in Genesis, his flair for chords and the way he used them, plus some of his riffs and top lines, are sublime at their best. The chords in particular are, for me, at the core of the Genesis sound, and set him apart from other musicians in a way that (as with Hackett) should be much more recognised and credited than he is.


    At his worst however, he could be very clunky and I think that aspect became more noticeable around the time you're referring to. This especially -

    Quote from Trick of the Wuthering

    a little bit jarring on Dreaming While You Sleep

    - exemplifies it for me. You're more generous about it there than I'd be. I find that 4-part motif after the title phrase horrible, what seems an attempt at 'ominous' but for me the execution of it and the keyboard sound marked a low in his band work. To paraphrase you, I find it almost comical but in this case it's unintended.


    EDIT - in fact it's just reminded me, it puts me in mind of Noel's melodramatic keyboard stings in the Ham Radio episode of Frasier, as heard here at around 01:12 just after "the lines have been cut!"

  • Genesis locations in Surrey

    Quote from Backdrifter

    There was also the Toby Jug pub in Tolworth, just by the A3 roundabout, but that's sadly long gone. The roll call of bands that played at these venues is astonishing, and it wasn't only during their early days. The Toby Jug played host to ELO, Quo, Tull, Yes, Zeppelin, John Mayall, Beefheart, Crimson, Earth Band - Bowie on the Ziggy tour! This, I remind you, was a pub. Genesis played there in January 1972 on the Nursery Cryme tour.

    Seeing as this pleasant thread has been revived, and picking up on this note about the Toby Jug, there's since been published an excellent, well-researched book about the pub by Tim Harrison, called Hello Toby I'm Ziggy. It of course includes mention of Genesis playing there, but as you can see from the title it's largely built on the Toby being the venue for the premier of Bowie's Ziggy Stardust persona. Plus it has a photo I like a lot, of Yes standing around the fruit machine.


    As to the Genesis guided tour of Surrey idea, I seriously doubt it'd gain traction with tourism organisations. The best you could hope for would be a private fan-based operation.