..:: audio-music dot info ::..


Main Page     The Desert Island     Copyright Notice
Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz


Van der Graaf Generator: Maida Vale - BBC Sessions

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Strange Fruit
Released: 1976
Time:
 69:45
Category: Progressive Rock
Producer(s): See Artists ...
Rating:
Media type: CD
Web address: www.vandergraafgenerator.co.uk
Appears with: Peter Hammill, David Jackson
Purchase date: 2001.02.09
Price in €: 7,99





 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


Songs

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


[1] Darkness (Hammill) - 7:17
[2] Man-Erg (Hammill) - 11:00
[3] Scorched Earth (Hammill/Jackson) - 9:40
[4] Sleepwalkers (Hammill) - 8:58
[5] Still Life (Hammill) - 7:20
[6] Rossa (Hammill) - 10:00
[7] When She Comes (Hammill) - 8:08
[8] Mask (Hammill) - 7:22

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


Peter Hammill - Vox, Piano, Guitar, Moods
Hugh Banton - Organ, Bass Pedals, Design
Guy Evans - Drums, Tiptoe
David Jackson - Saxophon, Flute, Own Devices

Tony Wilson - Producer on [3] - [8]
John Muir - Producer on [1], [2]
John White - Engineer
Adrian Revill - Engineer
 

 L y r i c s


For reasons unknown, experimentalists Van Der Graaf Generator released only a single live album during their tenure as a band (and it didn't feature their most well-known and popular lineup). Of course, plenty of bootlegs of the classic four-man lineup (Peter Hammill — vocals/piano/guitar, Hugh Banton — organ/bass, Guy Evans — drums, David Jackson — sax/flute) have circulated, but no official live releases until now. The folks at Band of Joy have compiled eight tracks performed on BBC Radio from 1971 through 1976 by the above-mentioned lineup, and VDGG fans couldn't have asked for a better compilation. Although all the tracks on Maida Vale are long, thereby meeting "prog-rock" criteria, VDGG's music helped influence the whole late-'70s electronic movement (i.e., David Bowie, Brian Eno). VDGG stresses texture in the sound, as heard on the album's best tracks, "Darkness," "La Rossa," and "Masks." A worthy purchase for any music fan interested in hearing '70s experimental music at its most interesting. [Liner notes are done by VDGG founder Peter Hammill.]

Greg Prato, All-Music Guide

 M P 3   S a m p l e s


Darkness

Day dawns dark, it now numbers infinity.
Life crawls from the past, watching in wonder
I trace its patterns in me.
Tomorrow's tomorrow is birth again.
Boats burn the bridge in the fens;
the time of the past returns to my life
and uses it.

Don't blame me for the letters
that may form in the sand;
don't look in my eyes, you may see all the numbers
that stretch in my sky and colour my hand.
Don't say that I'm wrong in imagining
that the voice of my life cannot sing.
Fate enters and talks in old words:
They amuse it.

The hands shine darkly and white:
only in dark they appear.
Bless the baby born today,
flying in pitch, flying on fear.

They shine in my eyes and touch my face
where I have seen them placed before;
don't blame me, please, for the fate that falls:
I did not choose it.
I did not, no no, I did not
I truly did not choose it


Man-Erg

The killer lives inside me: yes, I can feel him move.
Sometimes he's lightly sleeping
in the quiet of his room,
but then his eyes will rise and stare through mine;
he'll speak my words and slice my mind inside.
Yes the killer lives.

Angels live inside me: I can feel them smile...
Their presence strokes
and soothes the tempest in my mind
and their love can heal the wounds
that I have wrought.
They watch me as I go to fall
- well, I know I shall be caught,
while the angels live.

How can I be free?
How can I get help?
Am I really me?
Am I someone else?

But stalking in my cloisters hang the acolytes
of gloom
and Death's Head throws his cloak into
the corner of my room
and I am doomed...
But laughing in my courtyard play the pranksters
of my youth
and solemn, waiting Old Man
in the gables of the roof:
he tells me truth...

And I too, live inside me and very often
don't know who I am:
I know I'm not a hero, well,
I hope that I'm not damned.
I'm just a man, and killers, angels,
all are these:
Dictators, saviours, refugees in war and peace
as long as Man lives...

I'm just a man, and killers, angels,
all are these:
Dictators, saviours, refugees...


Scorched Earth

Just one crazy moment while the dice are cast,
he looks into the future and remembers
what is past,
wonders what he's doing on this battlefield,
shrugs to his shadow, impatient,
too proud yet to kneel.

In his wake he leaves scorched earth
and work in vain;
smoke drifts up behind him - he is free again,
free to run before the onslaught of a deadly foe,
leaving nothing fit for pillage,
hardly leaving home.
It's far too late to turn, unless it's to stone.
Charging madly forward, tracks across the snow,
wind screams madness to him, ever on he goes
leaving spoor to mark his passage,
trace his weary climb.
Cross the moor and make the headland -
stumbling, wayward, blind.
In the end his footprints extend as one single line.

This latest exponent of heresy is goaded
into an attack,
persuaded to charge at his enemy.
Too late, he knows it is, too late now
to turn back,
too soon by far to falter.
The past sits uneasily at his rear,
he's walking right into the trap,
surrounded, but striving through will and fear.
Ahead of him he knows there waits an ambuscade
but the dice slip through his fingers
and he's living from day to day,
carrying his world around upon his back,
leaving nothing behind but the tell-tale
of his track.

He will not be hostage, he will not be slave,
no snare of past can trap him,
though the future may.
Still he runs and burns behind him
in advanced retreat;
still his life remains unfettered -
he denies defeat.
It's far too late to turn, unless it's to stone.
Leave the past to burn - at least
that's been his own.

Scorched earth, that's all that's
left when he's done;
holding nothing but beholden to no-one,
claiming nothing, out of no false pride,
he survives.
Snow tracks are all that's left to be seen
of a man who entered the course of a dream,
claiming nothing but the life he's known
- this, at least, has been his own.


The Sleepwalkers

At night, this mindless army,
ranks unbroken by dissent,
is moved into action
and their pace does not relent.
In step, with great precision,
these dancers of the night
advance against the darkness -
how implacable their might!
Eyes undulled by moon,
their arms and legs akimbo,
they walk and live,
hoping soon to surface from this limbo.
Their minds, anticipating the dawn of the day,
shall never know what's waiting mere insight away
- too far, too soon.

Senses dimmed in semi-sentience,
only wheeling
through this plane,
only seeing fragmented images prematurely
curtailed by the brain,
but breathing, living,
knowing in some measure at least
the soul which roots the matter
of both Beauty and the Beast.
From what tooth or claw does murder spring,
from what flesh and blood does passion?
Both cut through the air with the pendulum's swing
in deadly but delicate fashion.
And every range of feeling is there in the dream
and every logic's reeling in the force of the scream
the senses sting.
And though I may be dreaming and reality stalls
I only know the meaning of sight and that's all
and that's nothing.

The columns of the night advance,
infectiously, their cryptic dance
gathers converts to the fold -
in time the whole raw world will pace
these same steps
on into the same bitter end.

Somnolent muster now the dancing dead
forsake the shelter of their secure beds,
awaken to a slumber whose depths they dread,
as if the ground they tread would give way
beneath the solemn weight of their conception.
I'd search the hidden corners of all this world,
make reason of the sensory whorl
if I only had time,
but soon the dream is ended.

Tonight, before you lay down
to the sweetness of your sleep
do you question your surrender
to the drop from Lover's Leap
or does the anaesthetic darkness
take hold on its very own?
Does your body rise in service
with not one dissenting groan?
These waking dreams of life and death
in the mirror are twisted and buckled,
lashes flicker, a catch of breath,
skin whitening at the knuckles.
The army of sleepwalkers shake their limbs
and are loose
and though I am a talker, I can phrase no excuse
not to rise again.
In the chorus of the night-time I belong
and I, like you, must dance to that moonlight song
and in the end I too must pay the cost
of this life.
If all is lost none is known
and how could we lose what we've never owned?
Oh, I'd search out every knowledge
that I could find,
unravel all the mysteries of mind,
if I only had time,
if I only had time,
but soon my time is ended.


Still Life

Citadel reverberates to a thousand voices, now dumb:
what have we become? What have we chosen to be?
Now, all history is reduced to the syllables of our name
- nothing can ever be the same:
now the Immortals are here.
At the time, it seemed a reasonable course
to harness all the force of life
without the threat of death,
but soon we found that boredom and inertia
are not negative, but all the law we know,
and dead are Will and words like survival.

Arrival at immunity from all age, all fear and all end...
Why do I pretend?
Our essence is distilled
and all familiar taste is now drained,
and though purity is maintained,
it leaves us sterile,
living through the millions of years,
a laugh as close as any tear....
Living, if you claim that all
that entails is
breathing, eating, defecating,
screwing, drinking,
spewing, sleeping, sinking ever down and down
and ultimately passing away time
which no longer has any meaning.

Take away the threat of death and all you're
left with is a round of make-believe;
marshal every sullen breath and though you're
ultimately bored by endless ecstasy
that's still the ring by which you hope to be engaged
to marry the girl who will give you forever
- that's crazy, and plainly
that simply is not enough.

What is the dullest and bluntest of pains,
such that my eyes never close without feeling it there?
What abject despair demands an end
to all things of infinity?
If we have gained, how do we now meet the cost?
What have we bargained, and what have we lost?
What have we relinquished, never even knowing
it was there?

What chance now of holding fast the line,
defying death and time
Everything we had is gone?
Everything we laboured for and favoured more
than earthly things reveals the hollow ring
of false hope and of false deliverance.

But now the nuptial bed is made,
the dowry has been paid,
the toothless, haggard features of Eternity
now welcome me between the sheets
to couple with her withered body--my wife. Hers forever,
hers forever,
hers forever
in still life.


La Rossa

Lacking sleep and food and vision,
here I am again, encamped upon your floor,
craving sanctuary and nourishment,
encouragement and sanctity and more.
The streets seemed very crowded,
I put on my bravest guise -
I know you know that I am acting,
I can see it in your eyes.
In the harsh light of freedom I know
that I cannot deny that I have wasted time,
have frittered it away in idle boasts
of my freedom and fidelity
when simpler words would have profited me most...
...it isn't enough in the end,
when I'm looking for hope.
Though the organ monkey screams
as the pipes begin to spit
still he'll go through the dance routines
just as long as he thinks they'll fit,
just as long as he knows that it's dance,
smile - or quit.

Like the monkey I dance to a strange tune:
when all of these years I've longed to lie with you,
I've bogged myself down in the web of talk,
quack philosophy and sophistry -
at physciality I've always baulked,
like the man in the chair who believes it's
beyond him to walk.
I've been hiding behind words,
fearing a deeper flame exists,
faintly aware of the passage
of opportunities I have missed.

But the nearness and the smell of you,
La Rossa from head to toe....
I don't know what I'm telling you,
but I think you ought to know:
soon the dam wall will break,
soon the water will flow.
Though the organ-monkey groans
as the organ-grinder plays
he's hoping, at the most,
for an end to his dancing days...
still he hops up and down on his perch
in the usual jerky way.
Though this might mean an end to all friendship,
there's something I'm working up to say.

Think of me what you will:
I know that you think you feel my pain -
no matter if that's just the surface.
If we made love now would that change all that ahs gone before?
Of course it would, there's no way
it could ever be the same...
one more line crossed,
one more mystery explained.
Now I need more than just words,
though the options are plain
that lead from all momentary action.
If we make love now it will change all
that is yet to be...
never could we agree in the same way again.
One more world lost, one more heaven gained.

La Rossa, you kow me,
you read me as though I am glass;
though I know it
there's no way in which I can pass -
though it means that you'll finish my story
at last I'd trade all the clever talk,
the joking, the smoking and the quips, all the midnight conversations, all the friendship,
all the words and all the trips
for the warmth of your body,
the more vivid touch of your lips.

All bridges burning behind me,
all safety beyond reach:
the monkey feels his chains out blindly,
only to find himself released.
Take me, take me now and hold me deep
inside your ocean body,
wash me as some flotsam to the shore,
there leave me lying evermore!
Drown me, drown me now and hold me down
before your naked hunger,
burn me at the altar of the night--
give me life!


When She Comes

Slow motion in the quiet of the room;
so potent is the smell of her perfume
that you think she's eternal,
that you think she is everything...
but no-one knows what she is.
Repentance for all you should have said;
her entrance seems to raise you from the dead
and you think she's really with you,
and you think that she'll always stay,
always ready to forgive you,
always ready to grant you her mercy
- but in her own way.
When she comes, she'll be a stranger;
struck dumb, you'll try to protest
as the drum beats out the danger...
too late, you should have noticed
that the lady with the skin so white,
like something out of Blake or Burne-Jones
always blocked out the light
and shadowed all you owned.

Still you think she's forever,
yesterday and tomorrow...
but no-one knows where she is.
Stillyou swear that you can win her
and your prayer is that she'll want you;
aware, once a saint, now you're a sinner
and your sins are going to haunt you
when the lady with her skin so white
like something out of Edgar Allen Poe
holds your hand so very tight
and you hope that she'll never let go.

Easy targets, easy crosswords, easy life:
these key margins leave you balanced on the knife,
bleeding darkly In the end it all comes down
to sleazy bargains.
That hidden key-you tried so hard to find it,
all you can conceive is the effort to be worthy.
Even now you need tobe reminded
that La Belle Dame is without mercy.
The lady with her skin so white
- you never did quite catch her name -
now she holds you in the night
and she'll never let go again,
she'll never let go again.


Masks

He's a man of the past and one of the present,
a man who hides behind a mask behind a mask;
a clown, a fool, believing it cool to be down
or that the game is all about who laughs the last.

So he tells all his problems to his friends
and relations, exposes his neuroses to their view.
They accept as fact
every masochistic mumble of his act;
how could they know what was false
and what was true?

Sometimes when he wakes
he feels he's walked into a dream
but all it takes
to remind him things are what they seem
is the belief
that the man behind the mask can really dance
Pirouetting smile
he sees himself cavorting,
Pierrot for a while
before aborting
to find relief
in the shelter of the dark, most telling mask.

After all the pantomimes are ended
he peels all the make-up off his face
to reveal, beneath,
the tears running all down his cheeks:
alne, he opens to the world...
but it's much too late.
He's been left, in the end, without a face.