Posts by StillCan'tDance

  • What are you listening to right now?

    Quote from genesis1964

    Noni mentioned earlier Druid who have a huge Yes sound so thought I would play


    [Blocked Image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/e/e7/Tales_from_Topographic_Oceans_%28Yes_album%29.jpg/220px-Tales_from_Topographic_Oceans_%28Yes_album%29.jpg]


    I have always enjoyed this album although I know it divides opinion

    I like parts of it. Leaves Of Green and the start and end of Ritual are beautiful pieces of music in my opinion. As a totality, I find the whole thing execrable, just the pious audacity of it is progressive rock at its very worst. However, it was an album that Yes had to make, even though the endeavour proved beyond them. Tales From Topographic Oceans was Yes pushing themselves beyond their capabilities so, for me, the attempt to pull off an album like this is more remarkable than the music itself.


    Sorry, we shouldn't really comment on other people's musical tastes but you brought up the fact that the album divides opinion so I thought it was relevant to voice mine!

  • Most Untypical Genesis Song

    Quote from DecomposingMan

    Except that "A Winter's Tale" isn't from the first album. It's a non-album single that has commonly been included as a bonus track on reissues of the first album.

    Like I say, I've never listened to the album much, certainly not enough to know what the correct track list is. I must have bought a re-issue, though, because my copy (which "features" an awful illustration by fantasy artist Chris Achilleous) has One-Eyed Hound and That's Me on it as well as the ubiquitous Winter's Tale.

  • Most Untypical Genesis Song

    Wrong thread, slowdancer. This isn't really about Genesis songs that, ahem, "get on your t"ts", it's about the songs that challenge preconceptions (some of which are held by people who don't know much about Genesis beyond the odd hit single and some of which are held by a fanbase who believe that the band should only operate within the strictest parameters - or, as noted Genesis fan Al Murray put it, that such progressive bands should not progress beyond what they've achieved on their first three albums) of what the band actually achieved.

  • Do people still swap these?

    I realised the other day that I've probably accumulated more music than I will ever get around to listening to in this lifetime. A sobering thought, that.


    I've decided that I need to catalogue all of my bootlegs in a style reminiscent of Paul Russell's excellent Play Me My Song which covers Genesis shows from the very beginning up to 1975. Obviously, this is very much a work in progress but I'm making good headway on Genesis 1976 - 1992. Other projects include Phil Collins 1982 - 1997 and Yes 1972 - 2004. I don't know what I'll do when I've completed them. Destroy them probably!

  • Most Untypical Genesis Song

    Quote from DecomposingMan

    Genesis' catalog has enough variety that it's difficult to say what's "typical" or "not typical" for them. As far as "not typical" goes, though, it's hard to beat the first half of "The Waiting Room."


    If it came to playing "guess who this is," however, I'd be inclined to go with something from their very early days, like "A Winter's Tale." Whether that's "not typical" isn't the point so much; it's just something the average listener wouldn't recognize as Genesis.

    Interesting that you should pick a song from the first album. Noel Gallagher (that well-known baiter of Phil Collins and writer of derivative rock and roll tunes) was recently introduced to The Conqueror and was totally blown away by it. From Genesis To Revelation is not an album that I've listened to much over the years but on revisiting The Conqueror I was similarly surprised at how good it is. It actually sounds a lot like the tunes that typified the "Madchester scene" of the nineties so it's small wonder that Gallagher was so taken with it.


    Oh, and if you familiarise yourself with Strunk And White, you'll find it's Genesis's, not Genesis' ;)  

  • Most Untypical Genesis Song

    Which song - if any - would you say was the least typical of the band's repertoire?


    Over the years - and certainly in the second half of their career - the band experimented with a host of different styles, some of which were more successful than others, depending on your point of view. For example, on The Lamb there was The Waiting Room - an atonal jam which was the closest that Genesis ever came to the sort of "free jazz" as performed by the likes of Ornette Coleman or Miles Davis during the early seventies - and on A Trick Of The Tail and Wind And Wuthering Phil pushed the band into Weather Report territory with Los Endos and Wot Gorilla respectively.


    Come the eighties and they really threw out the rule book. Misunderstanding tapped into a more American sound, specifically recalling Toto's Hold The Line. On Abacab, they killed as many sacred cows as they could find, abandoning musical traditions like big chords, complex instrumental passages and a tambourine on the chorus! In their place was a stripped down sound with an almost punkish attitude (indeed, Who Dunnit actively invites the comparison with punk) while influences ranged from reggae to r'n'b to the blues to a kind of industrial funk on Dodo.


    For me, the one song that really stands out, though, is I Can't Dance. The moment that guitar riff starts, you'd be hard pressed to think it was Genesis. And that is what I suppose I'm getting at: what song of Genesis's would you present to someone who didn't normally like their stuff with the proposition of "Guess who this is?"

  • Which CD remastering was the best for each album?

    Thanks, Mark. That was truly illuminating. Hearing Mike's isolated bass was a real treat as well as how the different mixes treat different aspects of the song. True, Nick's remix really pushes Peter's voice right up and there are all sorts of subtleties in the vocals that I'd never heard on the previous mixes. That "wind" sound effect, though, is now practically non-existent and that's a great shame. Tony Banks oversaw the remixing of all the albums so I suppose we should blame him!

  • BRAND X: An Unorthodox History - Website Special

    An incredible band. I've got all of their stuff up to Do They Hurt (after Phil left I wasn't that interested) including Peter And The Wolf and Marscape which, although credited to Jack Lancaster and Robin Lumley, is often recognised as the beginning of what would be Brand X.


    Fellow Liverpudlian Percy Jones had a unique sound and was a big influence on the bass player with Indie band Stump. I think Phil and Percy played on some Brian Eno sessions in the early seventies if I'm not mistaken.


    My favourite Brand X album would probably be Moroccan Roll. I recently played Sun In The Night to my wife and asked her to guess who was doing the sanscript vocals at the start. She said Jon Anderson!

  • Your first ever Genesis concert was ...

    Quote from martinus

    My first Genesis concert was Hannover 1992, at the Niedersachsen Stadium. Santa had brought me the ticket, disguised as a ticket for a Heino* gig (cheeky Santa had a handwriting much like my brother's). I sat way up, way back, but I still enjoyed it. And I was so excited to see Genesis live! What I remember most vividly is hearing Home By The Sea for the very first time. And the jumbotron screens.

    Your brother is Santa Claus?!


    Home By The Sea was a real high point of that show. Genesis tried a few things on that tour - the proscenium arch over the stage to take away from what Phil called the "puppet theatre" look and the massive Jumbotron screens which moved from side-to-side and displayed some stunning graphics to go with the songs. Some of the attention was taken away from this, unfortunately, when U2 went out on tour around the same time with their Zoo TV thing. Of course, U2 were the critics' baby at the time so all the plaudits went to them while Genesis were unjustly overlooked.

  • The Book Thread

    Quote from martinus

    I liked that when I was young. Re-read it recently, still like it - but differently. Do you think children today still can relate to the story? I wonder if their world has changed too much from Tom Sawyer's or Emil's (from Emil And The Detectives) or other children's stories for them to understand. ("So why don't Hansel and Gretel use the GPS on their mobile, daddy?").

    I think children can relate to the story just fine. Young boys still muck about in rivers and get into fist-fights with their friends and try and get out of doing chores. The budding romance between Becky and Tom is not rooted in any specific era, either.


    I suppose an incredibly stupid child may ask the question about why Hansel And Gretel don't use their GPS but most children are too scared witless by the notion of a cannibal witch to bother with such comments.


    The world may change, but children don't.

  • Which CD remastering was the best for each album?

    Well, I only started converting my vinyl collection to CD once the 1994 remasters came out so I can't comment on the quality of the original CDs. The 1994 remasters were solid and all of them sounded pretty great, capturing the feeling that I remember from listening to those records on vinyl. However, when the 2007 versions came out...wow! The difference really is night and day.


    On Duke, for example, you can really hear the congas on Behind The Lines and there's some lovely effects on Evidence Of Autumn, both of which were absent from the original mix. On Wind And Wuthering, Steve's guitar on In That Quiet Earth is something of a revelation and A Trick Of The Tail's Dance On A Volcano has got all sorts of stuff going on during the closing section that was never noticeable before. Even the Hugh Padgham productions, which I thought could never be improved upon, sound better - the laugh on Mama has more echo on it, there's a jangly guitar on It's Gonna Get Better that was never there before.


    The records from 1970 - 1974 were always going to sound significantly better, partly because the band's musical vision was hampered by the limitations of vinyl and partly because they never had a decent producer back then. The bum note in Supper's Ready has finally been fixed and Willow Farm sounds much more like The Beatles circa Sergeant Pepper (in a good way!). Phil's backing vocals really shine on The Lamb and there are all sorts of nuances during The Musical Box that have been uncovered.


    I would never go back to the 1994 remasters, to be honest. I've copied all of my 2007 mixes to disc - adding the bonus tracks - and that's what I listen to in the car (because the original discs are far too precious for me to risk damaging them while driving on the pot-hole ridden roads of Britain!).

  • Mike And The Mechanics Recommendations

    Quote from A Whorish Ant

    I thought The Road might be the final, somewhat disappointing chapter but, as I wish Genesis had done after Calling All Stations, I'm very glad Mike decided to keep the group together because Let Me Fly has some of their best work for me.

    Famously, Mike chose The Mechanics over Genesis. Based on the band's releases since then, do you think he made the right decision? I know this question opens a whole can of worms with regards to Calling All Stations and the hypothetical question of whether a follow-up album would be better...

  • How to start collecting Genesis

    Thanks, Mark. It is a compatible player. And it's outputting to a 7.1 system (it will accommodate 7.2 but, really, who needs two subwoofers?!) but on hearing it, it only seems to be playing the CD layer. I've only tried once because I much prefer the 5.1 DTS mix on the DVDs.

  • Your first ever Genesis concert was ...

    Quote from A Whorish Ant

    Maybe it was the penultimate night of their Earl's Court gigs, which I think was towards the end of the tour. I think it had Throwing it all Away, but not Dreaming While You Sleep, which was the only slight disappointment for me. Am I right in thinking Phil was sick around that time and had a to cancel a show? Perfectly possible I've imagined that.

    I was disappointed not to hear Dreaming While You Sleep, too. But being able to actually see the lights this time (as opposed to waiting until the encore) made up for it. Also, the acoustics are much at an indoor venue (give or take a few places) than in a field.


    One of the concerts on that short tour was indeed cancelled due to Phil being ill but I can't say for sure which one it was.