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Van der Graaf Generator: The Box

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Virgin Records
Released: 2000
Time:
 71:06 / 70:22 / 73:58 / 68:11
Category: Progressive Rock
Producer(s): Peter Hammill, John Anthony, Van der Graaf Generator
Rating:
Media type: 4xCD
Web address: www.vandergraafgenerator.co.uk
Appears with: Peter Hammill, David Jackson
Purchase date: 2012
Price in €: 1,00





 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


CD1: Bless The Baby Born Today

[1] People You Were Going To - BBC Top Gear 18/11/68 - 3:28
[2] Afterwards - BBC Top Gear 18/11/68 - 4:42
[3] Necromancer - BBC Top Gear 18/11/68 - 4:08
[4] Refugees - BBC Peel Session 14/12/71 - 6:16
[5] Darkness (11/11) - BBC Top Gear 27/01/70 - 6:50
[6] After the Flood - BBC Top Gear 27/01/70 - 10:56
[7] White Hammer (from The Least We Can Do Is Wave to Each Other) - 8:13
[8] House with No Door (from H to He, Who Am the Only One) - 6:28
[9] Killer (from H to He, Who Am the Only One) - 8:17
[10] Lost (from H to He, Who Am the Only One) - 11:09


CD2: The Tower Reels

[1] Theme 1 - BBC Black Session - 2:58
[2] w - B-Side of "Theme One", 1973 - 4:26
[3] A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers (from Pawn Hearts) - 23:03
[4] (In The) Black Room/The Tower - Live Rimini 09/08/75 - 11:43
[5] Lemmings - Live Rimini 09/08/75 - 16:38
[6] Man-Erg - Live Rimini 09/08/75 - 11:10


CD3: One More Heaven Gained

[1] La Rossa (from Still Life) - 9:50
[2] Arrow (Edit) (from Godbluff) - 8:51
[3] Still Life (from Still Life) - 7:22
[4] My Room [Edit] (from Still Life) - 7:25
[5] Sleepwalkers (from Godbluff) - 10:25
[6] Pilgrims (from Still Life) - 7:08
[7] Childlike Faith In... (from Still Life) - 12:24
[8] Scorched Earth - Live Rimini 09/08/75 - 10:14


CD4: Like Something Out of Edgar Allen Poe

[1] Masks (from World Record) - 6:57
[2] Meurglys III [Edit] (from World Record) - 16:44
[3] When She Comes (from World Record) - 7:58
[4] Wondering (from World Record) - 6:35
[5] The Wave (from The Quiet Zone/The Pleasure Dome) - 3:11
[6] Cat's Eye / Yellow Fever - BBC Peel Session 24/10/77 - 4:45
[7] Chemical World (from The Quiet Zone/The Pleasure Dome) - 6:10
[8] Door - Virgin Vault 25/07/77 - 3:23
[9] Sci-Finance (from Vital) - 6:16
[10] The Sphinx in the Face - BBC Peel Session 24/10/77 - 5:33

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


Peter Hammill - Vocals, Guitar, Keyboards, Compilation, Remastering, Producer on [3:1-3:6,4:1-4:5,4:7,4:8]
Hugh Banton - Organ, Keyboards, Bass Guitar, Backing Vocals, Photography, Remastering Consultation, Producer on [3:1-3:6,4:1-4:4]
David Jackson - Saxophone, Flute, Backing Vocals, Devices, Remastering Consultation, Producer on [3:1-3:6,4:1-4:4]
Guy Evans - Drums, Percussion, Backing Vocals, Remastering Consultation, Producer on [3:1-3:6,4:1-4:4]
Graham Smith - Violin
Charles Dickie - Cello
Nic Potter - Bass Guitar
Keith Ellis - Bass Guitar, Backing Vocals

John Anthony - Producer on [1:7-1:10,2:1-2:3]
Paul Russell - Compilation, Liner Notes
Paul Ridout - Art Direction, Design
Armando Gallo - Photography
Dinu - Photography
Gordian Troeller - Photography
Robin Schwarz - Photography

Tracks [1:1-1:6,2:1,4:6,4:10] released by arrangement with BBC Music (no producer mentioned therefor). No producer mentioned for the Rimini live tracks [2:4-2:6,3:8].

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


CD 1: "Bless The Baby Born Today"

Tracks [1-3] recorded 18/11/68 at BBC "Top Gear"
Track [4] recorded 14/12/71 at BBC "Peel Session"
Tracks [5,6] recorded 27/01/70 at BBC "Top Gear"
Track [7] from the release "The Least We Can Do Is Wave To Each Other" (CASCD1007)
Tracks [8-10] from the release "H To He Who Am The Only One" (CASCD1027)

CD 2: "The Tower Reels"

Track [1] recorded 10/06/71 at BBC "Black Session"
Track [2] B-Side from the single "Theme One" 1973
Track [3] from the release "Pawn Hearts" (CASCD1051)
Tracks [4-6] recorded live 09/08/75 in Rimini, Italy

CD 3: "One More Heaven Gained"

Tracks [1,3,4,6,7] from the release "Still Life" (CASCD1116)
Tracks [2,5] from the release "Godbluff" (CASCD1109)
Track [8] recorded live 09/08/75 in Rimini, Italy

CD 4: "Like Something Out Of Edgar Allen Poe"

Tracks [1-4] from the release "World Record" (CASCD1120)
Tracks [5,7] from the release "Quiet Zone" (CASCD1131)
Tracks [6,10] recorded 24/10/77 at BBC "Peel Session"
Track [8] from Virgin Vault 25/07/77
Track [9] from the release "Vital Life" (CVLCD101)



The sad fact about box sets is that there's always a fan out there who thinks they could have compiled a better one. An even sadder fact is that they're often correct, and the very notion of anthologizing Van Der Graaf Generator was a fraught one for that very reason. More, perhaps, than any other band of the early-'70s prog era, VDGG polarized their fans as much as the band's blatantly inhospitable sound outraged outsiders. They cut just eight studio albums, and all eight possess a wholly different character, all the more so since the band actually broke up midway through the sequence. Past compilations, then, sensibly dealt with one or other of those eras - The Box, contrarily, swallows the entire beast whole, 34 tracks over four stuffed discs, and it gets full marks for courage, whatever its other sins may be. Unfortunately, there are quite a few other sins. From the collectors point of view, the most apparent flaw is the absence of any genuinely new material. Leaving aside two songs drawn from past posthumous collections, in official terms a dozen tracks are previously unreleased, including eight BBC radio sessions dating back to 1968, and four live performances from an August, 1975, show in Rimini, Italy. Unfortunately, not only have these long been available on two of the precious few VDGG bootlegs in circulation, but they're also taken from precisely the same source tapes, with apparently little effort made to clean them up. It's disappointing, too, that the especially hiccup-heavy 1968 session should be preferred over even a fleeting examination of the group's earliest strivings - the original demos which the (genuinely luxurious) booklet discusses, the maiden "People You Were Going To"/"Firebrand" 45, the Aerosol Grey Machine debut album. On the plus side, several of these performances are spectacular, regardless of sound quality. VDGG were never going to top the pristine majesty of the studio take of "Refugees" (from 1970s The Least We Can Do Is Wave to Each Other album), but a 1971 radio session at least shows them trying. The closing "The Sphinx in the Face," from the band's 1977 John Peel broadcast, too, is a magnificent indication of the oft-times chilling energies at the group's disposal. But the highlight has to be the churning live rendition of "In the Black Room/The Tower," a song best associated with vocalist Peter Hammill's solo output, but drafted into the VDGG arsenal following their 1975 reunion. A vicious, Byronic nightmare set to trauma-inducing turbulence and oft-times impossible time signatures; even with bootleg hiss and ambient crackle, it's like stepping barefoot into a snuff movie. The gig itself must have been terrifying. VDGG's first incarnation bows out midway through disc two with the purgative "A Plague if Lighthouse Keepers," the side-long monolith which highlighted 1971's Pawn Hearts album. Perhaps surprisingly, we get the regular LP version here - surprisingly, because an astonishing live rendition exists, taken from a Belgian TV performance and, in its own way, it is actually superior to the official take - plus, how many other rock bands are there who could so cleanly execute a multi-layered, multi-part 23 minute opus from memory? Probably about as many as would announce their comeback with the likes of "Lemmings" and "Man Erg," excerpts from the Rimini concert which informed the audience that whatever else may have changed during VDGG's absence, their ability to grind skulls between slabs of sonic cement was not one of them. Yet it cannot be denied that such moments become few and far between as discs three and four progress. Hammill, the band's chief lyricist, was conducting his own solo career parallel to the final VDGG albums and, while nobody would ever accuse him of keeping the best songs for himself, the fact that he did have another outlet ensured there was no longer anything to counteract his bandmates' long-held penchant for excruciatingly convoluted art rock - a balance, of course, which was crucial to the original group's versatility. Of course there are still moments of sublime magic: the neo-classical vastness of "Wondering" would have dignified any earlier VDGG album, while "Sleepwalkers," "The Wave," and another live performance, "Sci-Finance" (from the group's final release, the in-concert Vital), all offer further insights into the passions which the group's memory still stirs. But too much of these final discs sounds are portentously overbearing today; too much is simply way too much, and the discerning ear retreats back to discs one and two - or, better still, to the original albums from which the best cuts were culled: The Least We Can Do and Pawn Hearts, of course, but also the savage majesty of 1971's H To He, Who Am the Only One, and, yes, even to Aerosol Grey Machine. Place those four albums in a box together, and you might never need to buy another record again. You certainly won't be needing The Box.

Dave Thompson - All Music Guide



Three disc retrospective for the UK progressive rock act featuring singer/songwriter Peter Hammill. Compiled by Hammilland past band members. It covers the years 1968 through 1978, it's the comprehensive document of the band's career frombeginning to end. Drawing on material from various BBC sessions, studio albums, long deleted singles, live 'bootlegs' and Virgin Records archives. A veritable treasure chest of previously unreleased material and collector's favorites. All tracks have been remastered by Hammill. Packaged in a long box complete with a 50 page booklet featuring previously unpublished photos, a reminiscence by Tony Banks (Genesis), a comprehensive gig listing and discography, memoirs of the fourmain band members (Hugh Banton, Guy Evans, David Jackson and Hammill) and an insightful fan's retrospective. Packaged in a 10' by 5.5' hardback style digipak. 2000 release.

Amazon.com



They were entirely mad, you know. A saxophone player sporting two electrified horns, played simultaneously. An organist who spent most of his time in the band tinkering with increasingly customised analogue keyboards, only to leave the band when his masterpiece was finally ready. A singer-songwriter-guitarist whose choice of subject matter and singing style should have meant sure commercial failure, and who nonetheless became an inspiration for Prog lyricists like Fish and punksters like John Lydon alike. No surprise that the band lasted only ten years, and spent even part of that time broken up. Some 24 years after its demise, The Box now documents the trials and tribulations of Van der Graaf Generator in four CDs and a 50-page booklet.

Compiling boxed sets is never an easy task, especially where other archival releases already exist. Do you offer remastered versions of the original catalogue, à la Led Zeppelin's Remasters, in the hope that this will attract new and casual fans who can now buy a good selection of tracks in one easy package? Do you focus on rare and unreleased material, or live recordings that were previously only available as bootlegs, to reward long-standing hardcore fans, as with Genesis's Archives Vol. 1?

The Box does a bit of both - perhaps necessarily so, since previous releases such as I Prophesy Disaster and Time Vaults (rare tracks) and Maida Vale (live at the BBC) had already cleaned out the archives to significant extent. Still, there are a fair few rare recordings in this package: disc one consists largely of early BBC sessions on "Top Gear" and the John Peel Show (featuring material off Aerosol Grey Machine and The Least We Can Do..., while half of disc two is taken up by three live tracks from VdGG's 1975 reunion tour, recorded in Rimini, Italy. Discs three and four throw in another Rimini track and two from a Peel session by the later Van der Graaf line-up, but otherwise largely showcase the Godbluff, Still Life and World Record albums, as well as the studio and live albums by that much more stripped-down, rawer later lineup known as Van der Graaf.

Organised more or less chronologically, the four discs chart an unlikely trajectory from psychedelic pop to proto-punk, with sheer menacing mayhem throughout Van der Graaf Generator's most fruitful middle period. Once the core band of Peter Hammill (voc, g), Hugh Banton (k), David Jackson (sax, fl), and Guy Evans (d) is assembled and the band hits its stride with pieces like "After the Flood" or "Lost", they are an intense musical force that could not be derailed even by the two-and-a-half year hiatus between Pawn Hearts in 1972 and 1975's Godbluff.

I'd love to have seen even more live recordings of songs from the three studio albums released in this VdGG heyday in 1975/6 as part of The Box, but this period is already pretty well documented in the Maida Vale live compilation of BBC appearances, so the choice of studio versions over Maida Vale material is understandable. But, as the Rimini tracks show, surely other live recordings exist?

Conversely, even on the evidence included in this set, I'm still not too fond of the late-period Van der Graaf formation. While powerful material in its own right, the absence of Hugh Banton and David Jackson is particularly noticeable in this compilation, where disc four places VdGG and VdG tracks next to one another. No doubt, though, if your focus is more on raw Hammill than on the rest of the band, these songs will be a highlight for you.

The 50-page booklet fills in further details of the VdGG story, from Banton's ongoing quest for the perfect organ sound to riots in Italy to Jackson's accidental discovery of electric saxophone feedback in his mouth cavity. It combines a lengthy diary of events, complete with comments from the band, with individual pieces from all four key band members as well as - unlikely though it may seem - from Genesis keyboardist Tony Banks (the two bands toured together early on in their careers).

In all, this is a very nice package - it contains just enough new material to make it interesting for dedicated fans, and provides a balanced introduction to the band for those less familiar with it. I have some criticisms about the sound quality, though -the 'remastered' studio tracks don't quite measure up to other remasters from the same era, and the live tracks, too, still leave room for improvement (especially compared to other archival live releases from the early 70s, such as King Crimson's benchmark Great Deceiver set). The Rimini tracks in particular still carry an annoying low-range buzz. Still, the quality especially of the stunning 16+ minute "Lemmings" from Rimini more than makes up for these imperfections.

It might seem mad to release a 4-CD set almost a quarter of a century after this band last appeared together. Listening to The Box, you'll soon notice that the only ones mad here are the musicians. Where Van der Graaf Generator is concerned, I can't imagine a better incentive to open this box.

Copyright © M/C, 1998-2004



The Box is a four CD box set by Van der Graaf Generator, containing recordings that had been released before, but also BBC-recordings and some live recordings that were never officially released before. It was released in 2000 by Virgin Records. Included in the sleeve notes are introductions by Guy Evans and by Tony Banks from Genesis, a timeline of Van der Graaf Generator events from 1967 to 1978 (including a list of dates and places for every then-known concert by the band), an essay about the organs by Hugh Banton, an essay about Van der Graaf Generator compositions by Peter Hammill, an essay about saxophones by David Jackson and an essay about being a Van der Graaf Generator-aficionado by Ian Laycock.

Each of the CDs has its own title taken from a Hammill lyric for a song contemporaneous to the band period each particular disc represents. "Bless The Baby Born Today" is a line from "Darkness (11/11)", "The Tower Reels" is from "(In The) Black Room/The Tower", "One More Heaven Gained" is from "La Rossa", and "Like Something Out Of Edgar Allen Poe" [sic] is from "When She Comes".

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