Posts by MoonlitKnight

    They may have started to write more pop, but they were still producing songs from their progressive roots. To support the point, Duke's Travels/Duke's End, Home By The Sea/Second Home By The Sea, Domino, and Fading Lights are definitely not pop!;)

    And Naminanu, Submarine, and Do the Neurotic, in addition to quality “popish” songs like Evidence of Autumn, On the Shoreline, You Might Recall, and Feeding the Fire. They were writing and recording plenty of quality, substantive music. Unfortunately many of those songs weren’t included on the albums that directly came out of those various sessions.

    Without Peter’s depth and Steve’s passion for prog, they were left with three.

    I wouldn’t deny that after they left Genesis Peter and Steve leaned toward the “prog/artsy” side. But it’s also true that Peter in particular made a conscious decision to strip down his sound beginning with So. He and the others who worked on the album admitted as much. He has even said that he thought about making it an entire album of R&B songs “like Otis Redding.” And I have a hard time believing that songs on Us like Kiss that Frog and Steam were not fairly blatant efforts to recapture the commercial magic of Sledgehammer and (to a lesser extent) Big Time. In my opinion Peter’s failure to release a new studio album after nearly 20 years is reflective of the tepid commercial response to Up. I remember being shocked attending the concert in Washington, DC on that tour and seeing Peter perform before a half empty arena. As for Steve, I think he realized a long time ago that his niche is in releasing the occasional studio album of fresh material while frequently featuring Genesis songs on his tours. To be clear, I am not denying for a moment that the remaining three made a conscious effort to go more pop. Look at the songs they left off their albums: Naminanu; Submarine; You Might Recall; Do the Neurotic; Feeding the Fire; On the Shoreline. It’s not that they couldn’t write and record creative, less commercial music anymore. Rather, they chose to leave those songs off of their albums in favor of less complicated material. Having said that, I personally think that Peter was not immune to the commercial bug as well. After all, he wrote what was arguably the catchiest short 70s era song by anyone in the “Genesis family”: Solsbury Hill.

    All true. I wonder if the band’s approach to songwriting by 1983 (just come into the studio and start jamming) had as much to do with each member running somewhat dry after writing for their own solo albums as it did with some overarching sense that they’d produce better music by coming in and jamming. Also drum machines made it easier to simply show up, set up a rhythm pattern, and go from there.

    “He’s not functioning the way he usually does. He seems depressed. He’s lost his appetite. He’s even curtailed his autoerotic activities.”


    The zookeeper trying to convince Kramer to apologize to Barry the Very Important Monkey

    One thing that strikes me about the sessions for the 1983 album is that (as far as I know) there was no leftover material, i.e. songs that didn’t make it on the album. Close as I can figure out this may have been the only album with no such leftover material. Compare that to the album directly before (Abacab: Naminanu, Submarine, You Might Recall, Paperlate, Me and Virgil) and the album directly after (IT: Feeding the Fire, Do the Neurotic).

    I saw Genesis in Detroit that tour. We slept out for tickets with 500 others. Fantastic.

    My buddy and I were air-drumming to ITC/Medley, waiting for Afterglow, and when Apocalypse 9/8 we freaking lost it.

    I think the best concert version is King Biscuit at the Los Angeles Forum: Touch To Supper's Ready

    I had a 45 minute drive to make today. About halfway thru the drive Supper’s Ready came on the radio (Sirius XM Deep Tracks). Talk about a divine trip.

    Mama; Second Home; It’s Gonna Get Better. I really like Silver Rainbow as well except for the vocalized fade out ending. To close the song I wish they had reverted to the music from the verses, sans vocals, similar to the lead in to the second verse. It would have been cool to end on an extended, driving outro.

    Yes, The Genesis Show is superb! I love The Musical Box, but the vibe with TGS is different and cool. They are 5 regular guys who as I understand it met in high school and bonded over their mutual love of Genesis. The band members all live regular lives with 9-5 jobs and families and thus only perform semi-regularly. Their next show is at the Levoy Theater in Millville, NJ on Oct 16, 2021. It’s a combo Three Sides Live/Six of the Best setlist. Can’t wait to see them again!

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    Yes, The Genesis Show is superb! I love The Musical Box, but the vibe with TGS is different and cool. They are 5 regular guys who as I understand it met in high school and bonded over their mutual love of Genesis. The band members all live regular lives with 9-5 jobs and families and thus only perform semi-regularly. Their next show is at the Levoy Theater in Millville, NJ on Oct 16, 2021. It’s a combo Three Sides Live/Six of the Best setlist. Can’t wait to see them again!

    I love Do the Neurotic. I feel like they went the safer route by choosing to include The Brazilian on the album instead of Do the Neurotic. That jam throughout DTN is fantastic, and the end to me is a classic example of “sounds the way joy feels.”


    There are also disputes over musical credits for this song (such as Hold On My Heart, which was allegedly Phil’s lyrics set to Tony’s music, idk)

    Definitely sounds like Tony’s music and Phil’s lyrics. I think the working title of the song (“Burt”) reflects Tony’s appreciation for the music of Burt Bacharach.

    Well I mean I would understand why Tony would push for individual credits. He simply wanted people to know who wrote what correctly. And yet, because of that, we have this mess where we’re trying to figure out who actually wrote the songs in the Gabriel era. Who would’ve guessed that the lyrics in Firth Of Fifth were Banks’ & Rutherford’s on first listen?


    I’d say it was a smart move removing that starting with A Trick Of The Tail (but it slowly took over by Abacab so what was the point).

    My impression (perhaps incorrect?) is that the individual or duo credits instead of group credits reflected the fact that for the first few albums after Peter left individual or tandem members of the band were arriving at recording sessions with developed songs. I’ve heard Tony, Phil, and Mike all say that began to change with Abacab and really came to fruition with the self-titled album. Around that time the music was the product of group jams in the studio (“like in the old days”) and then they would assign the lyrics-writing duties to a single member. Perhaps the most accurate credits (and one that would avoid the guessing) would have been for example on Home by the Sea “Music by Banks, Collins, and Rutherford. Lyrics by Banks.”

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    How do you know she was a fan of the new stuff?

    It was an educated guess based on her reaction to other songs played that night and her tone of voice (sounded like someone hearing a song for the first time and really liking it). Also you can hear her friends sitting next to her talking during the mellow acoustic intro to Apocalypse in 9/8. One of them asks the other “Have you ever seen these guys before?” The other answers “No.” She had just scolded one of them for doing something she thought was obnoxious and I think the dude was trying to change the subject lol. Finally, this was America, circa 1982, post-In the Air Tonight. I know from my own circle of friends none of them had the faintest idea what Supper’s Ready was. We couldn’t understand what Phil was saying during the Romeo and Juliet intro and they had never heard the song anyway. All of that matches a comment from Tony Banks around this time, when he noted in an interview how pleased the band was with the reaction they were getting to SR from American audiences. So, back to your original question: I can’t know for sure, but judging from the context and reactions on the 8/9/82 LA Forum bootleg the individual I cited was probably hearing SR for the first time.