Posts by Schrottrocker

Quote from MoonlitKnight

Spot on. You just described the upcoming election in the US perfectly. For me Trump absolutely falls into the “ANYONE BUT HIM”category. Biden may be a semi-doddering old man but at least he has some moral compass, doesn’t perpetually lie morning noon and night, and can empathize with others.

When Trump won the first time, a US friend of mine told me she voted for him because she wanted to vote for anyone but Hillary. This seems to be a general trend these days. Don't give people any qualified candidates, force them to go for the least evil if that's possible at all.

One of the best and rather underrated songs on CAS. Also one of the most "what might have been" tracks for me.

Quote from Mozo

At this point, Ripples must have one of the highest average scores for TOTW?

Quote from Backdrifter

Yes, joint top with The Cinema Show based on my hurried analysis of average scores which makes the top 10 as:

14.6 Cinema

14.6 Ripples

14.3 Solsbury Hill

14.2 Moonlit Knight

14.2 In The Cage

14.0 Fly On A Windshield

13.9 Red Rain

13.9 Eleventh Earl

13.8 Behind The Lines

13.7 Duchess

Below that comes the next 20 which are:

13.6 Abacab

13.6 Secret World

13.5 Mama

13.5 Driving The Last Spike

13.5 Heathaze

13.3 In Your Eyes

13.3 Squonk (average of 2 sets of votes as it was entered twice)

13.2 Lamia

13.2 Hogweed

13.2 Sledgehammer

13.1 Family Snapshot

13.0 Mercy Street

12.9 Dodo

12.9 Fountain

12.9 Horizons

12.9 Me & SJ

12.8 Tonight

12.8 Inside & Out

12.7 Land of Confusion

12.7 Undertow

I must point out this was done purely by inspection so it's subject to error and there may be one or two tracks excluded as a result. Taking it as it is, it's interesting. In these top 30 tracks PG is the only solo artist to feature, getting 7 slots. But I didn't look at how many TOTW entries each member has had (I think that's in another thread). If you take PG's two entries out of the top 10 to focus on Genesis only, Mama and Abacab get bumped into the top 10. That gives us a top 10 of four 5-man, two 4-man and 4 trio.

For some reason I'm fascinated by the grouping of Dodo, Salmacis, Horizons and Sarah Jane all ranked equally. Two quite taut yet very different ones from the trio album that was a major turning point, a prog classic from the first album of the iconic lineup, and an elegant solo acoustic guitar piece. I'm not sure why I like that cluster so much but maybe it somehow sums up both the band and its core fanbase, if the latter can be represented by the membership here.

Each track seems to get 20 to 30 votes, by the way.

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You missed out on Blood On The Rooftops:

15 outstanding - 23

14 very good - 5

13 very good (-) - 1

no other votes

That has to be Quique playing the guitar.

Quote from FeelItComing

Or some of the Pet Shop Boys titles. Very... very what? They tend to use pithy one word titles for their albums, but are they necessarily related to the music?

Because the album is very Pet Shop Boys? They always use one-word titles, sometimes it makes sense like "Pet Shop Boys, please." or "Pet Shop Boys, actually." Their latest album is called 'Nonetheless'. Open for interpretations. I recall an interview in which they talked about their album 'Super' and they said something like as simple as the title is, it was the end of a long creative brainstorming. I'm never sure when they cross the line from serious to ironic in their interviews.

Improv theatre, anybody? I am a musician for improv theatre groups, there is quite a scene here at my place. I hardly ever go watch it myself though.

Finally checked this song, I was not familiar with this. Quite a good track! Specially for a "commercial" output.

I know for a fact there are some kind of Genesis fans out there who try to get every release ever and keep their vinyls sealed and unplayed to keep them from any possible harm. Back in the times of studiVZ (a former German social media site) there was a Genesis fan group that had a bunch of this kind of fans who constantly complained how they got "milked" for all the various releases: loads of compilations, different releases in Europe and America if only for some number codes printed on the items, CDs and vinyls, rare misprints... yeah, completionists have a tough life.

One of my all-time Genesis favourites. A calm, shorter song between the wildness of Watcher and Get 'em out by Friday, still intriguing atmosphere, beautiful interplay of piano and guitar, the bass adding the cherry on the cake, interesting chord changes that go through of keys but avoid getting forced, a little playing around with time signatures, a baroque piano intro and nice lyrics about old times and the ever-changing flow of time. All in all: lovely.

Simple but not too simple! Ant must have big hands, he plays some large chords with his left hand.

Quote from Duke of Earl of Mar

Em(Maj7) chord, second inversion, above middle C : B / D# / E / G.

D# and E are one semitone apart, creating the friction.

Since it's played with a strange sound (apparently from the CP-70, at least live in 1983-1984, but maybe they used the pure acoustic sound of the strings ringing in the studio version, with the CP a bit out of tune to enhance the dissonant effect, I don't really know how they achieved this sound).

Interesting, I always heard it as D# / F# / G. That would take the semitone between the F# and the G, leaving the D# as an outside note without context.

Mike: "In the 80s, we would just sit in awe and listen to every new Marillion album before we even attempted writing our own songs. We learned so much from them, they were one of our main influences, and they still are for what I currently do with the Mechanics. I wished they knew of us, sadly they don't even seem to have heard of us."

I'll send the neighbours whose fire alarm has been beeping for hours.

I could mention again the erroneous credits on some of my dad's vinyl copies he got back in the 70's:

Foxtrot credits all songs as Banks/Collins/Gabriel/Hackett/MacPhail/Rutherford.

Seconds Out credits all Gabriel era songs as Banks/Collins/Rutherford; Volcano is credited as Banks/Rutherford/Hackett.

Also, the BBC box credits Pacidy as Banks/Collins/Gabriel/Phillips/Rutherford.

bigaluk: What a fantastic story, a dream come true for any Genesis fan!

Backdrifter: In the old forum we had a topic about Genesis related dreams and someone described a dream that matches pretty much what you said. Only it was Tony, not Mike, who in that dream acted extremely pissy.

I have to admit I was tempted to make a mock bah humbug comment - I was thinking of something like I'd complain how overrated Steve Hackett concerts are, based on my recent experience when I went to see a show but stayed in the parking lot outside of the venue to save money. It was cold and rainy and I couldn't hear a thing, I really don't get the hype...

I couldn't see this solar eclipse, however I remember the 1999 eclipse and it was once-in-a-lifetime experience, worth any hours of traffic jam. Total eclipses are a mind blower. Partial eclipses suck.

Out of the countless examples I could think of I'll pick out Dancing With The Moonlit Knight, particularly the synth/guitar double solo following the second chorus. That section was written by Hackett and it was one of the few times Steve's wild side made it into a Genesis song. Within this passage, the synth makes it very first appearance on the album, and compared to Tony's other Pro Soloist solos this one has a markedly different sound. He used a preset which was supposed to be an acoustic guitar sound, of course it sounds nothing like that but nonetheless it is quite surprising and unique. I wonder if it was Steve's suggestion to employ this sound as he was always keen on dueting his guitar with a keyboard instrument and he audibly tries to achieve a similar guitar sound. The synth lines are dominating though, Steve's guitar phrases appear rather improvised, Tony's synth lines are composed by every little note. (Actually, Mike's bass playing deserves to be mentioned too, he does some far out complicated stuff in this section.)

In the background, the hammond plays some really unusual chords, even for Tony's standards. The hammond used to be his main keyboard up until Foxtrot; with the ARP Pro Soloist having become his new toy on Selling England, the role of the hammond has changed to the instrument serving for the basic background. Its swirling sound (put through the Echoplex) is nevertheless unique, different from his own previous hammond sound as well as from any other hammond player, to the point it turned into a Tony Banks trademark too, at least at the time. At the ending climax of this instrumental section, as synth and guitar go down to join the bass with just one note, the hammond comes back to the forefront with these strange two chords going back and forth. I'm not sure if it's just the hammond, it might be doubled with the Hohner pianet. Imo this is the part when Tony comes closest to resemble Keith Emerson.

Overall this is one of the strongest examples of Tony surpassing himself because of his competitiveness to Steve and Peter. He felt he needed to prove himself and that made him give 200%.

Quote from Backdrifter

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.

He did. There's a nice short passage in the acoustic opening part of Can-Utility ("but the rising tide absorbs them, effortlessly claiming"); the intro of Battle of Epping Forest is Peter's flute plus the mellotron flute register together in thirds; and I think you can hear it in Get 'em out by Friday too in the Mrs Barrow verse, though I'm not sure if this isn't the Hammond. And if I'm not wrong it appears one more time in the little interlude between Lilywhite Lilith and The Waiting Room.

Anti-Genesis definitely, along with the entire album. It is very rough, brittle, harsh, in a "deal with it" way. Still one of the catchiest songs on the album. And yes, I have to agree to previous comments, the instrumental second half is mostly uninspired and boring, and right when we finally get a guitar solo the song fades out. I also agree the 3SL live version is miles ahead of the studio version. Which is why giving a vote wasn't too easy, I would have voted the album version lower and the live version higher. No matter what, the song is not really my cup of tea.

The short answer is there is so many great Tony Banks keyboard moments it is easier to point out the ones I dislike.