Posts by Witchwood

Quote from Backdrifter

Others here share that view but sadly I thought they killed the song off. The first section was great but the instrumental I found terrible. It felt too 'light' and seemed to drain all the substance of the original. The inclusion of a shrill tootling flute was a ludicrous idea and made the instrumental sound silly and fluffy.

It was a major crashing disappointment for me as it was the track I'd most been looking forward to and I was left crestfallen. It was a contributing factor to my deciding to not bother with any further Hackett Genesis Recycled shows.

...

To be honest, I haven't heard a live version, even by Genesis, that matched the power of the original studio version.

It's one of those songs that benefits, I think, from layers of different guitars and other instruments creating a full or unique sound.

Even though I still enjoy the recordings of Genesis performing it live, there are elements in that second half that seem a bit glossed over.

Of all the artists who died in recent years, Bowie’s death hit me the hardest.

I attribute that to the fact I had recently reconciled with him and was in the midst of renewed appreciation and discovering some of the albums I had previously passed over.

I was always a great fan of his work from Space Oddity to Scary Monsters, and never stopped playing those albums.

But by the mid 80s, he had released a couple of albums I didn’t like and just stopped buying his new music, and stopped following him all together.

What changed that was about three years prior to his death, I read somewhere his last few albums had been produced by Tony Visconti and these were highly regarded as a return to form.

I hadn't heard any songs from these albums and was sceptical but curious. I went on YouTube and randomly picked out a song and I remember the first one I heard was “Days” from Reality.

Right off the bat I was quite pleasantly surprised. I listened to a few more songs and then went out and bought Reality, and then Heathen and then The Next Day which had recently come out at that point.

I liked all of them. I was becoming a fan again, even more so than I had been previously.

I was even starting to reassess some of the 90s output that I had previously ignored, and then I heard there was another new album coming out, and I read Visconti was once again the producer and I was really excited.

And then Bowie died.

Just with the timing and my heightened level of interest in him at that point, it was bewildering.

It was sad to lose him as an artist because I feel some of his last few albums were just as good and in some instances maybe even better that some of those he released during the mid 70s.

Stagnation was always my favourite song off the album and it would probably be in my Top 10 overall for Genesis.

In my teens, I thought The Knife was a powerful track and one of their best songs.

40 years later, I think within the context of the album, it's still a powerful track and I still get an adrenaline rush from the intro.

But that thrill doesn't last and I find overall I actually prefer the five other tracks on the album.

Aside from Stagnation, I chose Dusk and Visions Of Angels.

I like all the songs on W&W, but if I was going to make one of my favourite albums even stronger, I would have inserted Inside & Out in place of Your Own Special Way.

Both are between 6 and 7 minutes long so it would have been doable based on limitations of album lengths at that time.

Quote from StillCan'tDance

Yes it is. Sorry, I should have mentioned that. This new version was made by one of the Digital Brothers but is not classed as a Digital Brothers release. It's an upgrade to the previous matrix version that was released a few years back.

Very cool. I'll have to check it out. It's my favourite performance from that tour as well.

Quote from StillCan'tDance

If anyone is interested, on the Movement site, version 3 of the soundboard/audience matrix of the penultimate Genesis show from the Wind And Wuthering tour is now available.

There are a few top quality bootlegs from this tour available but this show must surely rank alongside the very best of the Genesis bootlegs. Not much I can say about the recording, really; the performance speaks for itself.

Is that Zurich?

As others feel, I think several songs on this album came across more powerfully live.

Some of the bits I love from live recordings seem almost subdued in the studio version. Two songs I thought really benefited live were Watcher and GEOBF.

While Watcher has that goosebump-inducing intro, I always found GEOBF the more interesting and overall more appealing song.

Supper's Ready and Can Utility are by far my two favourite tracks on the album and GEOBF would be my third.

I misinterpreted the intended theme.

I'll amend my list

Big Big Train

Peter Gabriel

Steve Hackett

Santana

Van Morrison

Steve Winwood

Strawbs

Neil Young

Bob Dylan

King Crimson

Been listening to a wide range of artists during this lockdown but the ones I've played a lot of or gone on a bit of a listening spree with would include ...

Bob Dylan

Neil Young

Max Webster

Bob Marley

Peter Gabriel

Quote from DecomposingMan

I came to know SMALLCREEP'S DAY through the U.S. vinyl version, which has the suite on side 2 and the other 5 songs on side 1. To me, the album wouldn't work nearly as well with the suite on side 1.

I recall being slightly annoyed by the switched sides on the CD version.

Since then, I've embraced it.

It has a more subtle opening now, somewhat in the vein of Down And Out, and I'm OK with that.

And Overnight Job and Every Road are among my favourite songs on the album - and I'm always happy to end an album on a high note.

Quote from Noni

Trees ‎– The Garden Of Jane Delaney...UK....1970

Prog Folk

I haven't played these albums in a while. I should give them a fresh listen later today.

Interesting to see them described here as "prog folk."

I would be more inclined to compare them to, say, Fairport Convention (which I define as folk/rock) than a band that falls under the prog lable like the Strawbs.

1. Gabriel

2. Hackett

3. Phillips

Pete, Steve and Ant are by far my favourites. I find most of what they've released highly enjoyable.

4. Banks

I love Tony's debut album. And I generally like the rock albums that followed though a couple of them I would concede to being uneven. His classical music doesn't appeal to me.

5. Collins

I generally like Phil's first four albums though I think he's the only one who never produced an album that I could enjoy in its entirety. And by the time we got to the fifth album, I felt the tide had turned and the cons began outweighing the pros.

6. Rutherford

I love Mike's debut album but I am just not a fan of anything he has done since.

Interesting. First I've heard of this as well.

If I was to rank them based on how much I enjoy their solo output over the years, it would be:

Gabriel

Hackett

Phillips

Banks

Collins

Rutherford

But to be honest, my level of interest in their continuing solo output has waned, except for maybe Ant Phillips.

Hackett seems to have landed in a decade-long rut; Gabriel hasn’t released anything I liked since Up; Banks' current preoccupation with classical has zero appeal to me; the last Collins' album I liked was released in '89, and for me Rutherford's brilliance as a solo artist began and ended with Smallcreep's Day.

Quote from CyanideWand

If Peter left and then made a bunch of albums that sounded like early Genesis but less interesting, and then did a Genesis tribute act, maybe they wouldn’t have included his career either.

I always thought the song "The Virgin And The Gypsy" would have fit nicely on a middle era Genesis album.

Perhaps one might argue half the songs on Voyage of the Acolyte could have passed for Genesis.

Aside from that, and the odd track here and there over the course of 40+ years' output, I'd be hard pressed to describe any of Steve's albums as sounding like early Genesis.

Not sure how familiar you are with Steve's work.

From the above comment, I would suggest, not very.

Quote from StillCan'tDance

Phil played on a few of Peter's early shows. There are bootlegs of them performing Mother Of Violence together, for instance. The only time I've heard them perform I Know What I Like since Peter left was when he joined the band on stage for the encore at one of the shows in '78.

I love that performance (Mother of Violence, Reading 79).

Two of my favourite vocalists harmonizing on one of my favourite Gabriel songs.

They also shared vocals during the encore which was The Lamb.

I've seen a couple of different photos of Phil on stage giving the middle finger — and the two I can think of were both taken during the Abacab tour.

I question whether he's genuinely angry in either of them, but then I wasn't there.

I do know Phil, between songs, would interact with some audiences, occasionally engaging in playful banter, and that's why I'm inclined to think he's just playing around.

Bill Rieflin was part of the trio of drummers playing with King Crimson when I saw them in November 2015.

I recall he was more of a multi-instrumentalist of the three, contributing keyboards as well.

I'm sorry to hear of his passing.

In the last month or two, I've been listening to a lot of...

Steely Dan

Little Feat

Santana

Steve Hackett

Big Big Train

The recordings that elude me are sadly ones that, as far as I know, don't exist - soundboards from the pre-Foxtrot era.

Having said that, I'm not above enjoying a decent audience recording and there are at least a few that aren't too rough from the Nursery Cryme tour - I believe Piper Club may be the best of that bunch.

And, of course, I certainly appreciate the BBC recordings of that period.