(((O))) Review: Joe Banks – Rock and Role: The Visionary Songs of Peter Hammill and Van der Graaf Generator

Let me just set the record straight, it’s been 20 years since I fell into the world of Van der Graaf Generator’s music after reading about them in an article in MOJO’s special edition issue covering the progressive rock genre called, “Pink Floyd & The Story of Prog Rock”. They were my gateway to finding bands that were often under the radar when it comes to the big names such as Genesis, Yes, and ELP.

Listening to Van der Graaf’s music, it was the way how prog should sound. Why do you think I was pouring over albums such as; H to He Who Am the Only One, Pawn Hearts, Godbluff, The Silent Corner and the Empty Stage, and of course Nadir’s Big Chance? Because Peter is one of the artists that pushes you over the edge of the cliff and takes you to unknown territories that is beyond our universe.

Dark, intense, ominous, avant-garde, eruptive arrangements, jazz, and poetic lyrical textures from the mind of the mad scientist himself, Hammill is at times often under the radar, but it is time to give him the proper recognition he truly deserves.

Among champions such as John Lydon, Bruce Dickinson, Mark E. Smith, Graham Coxon, David Bowie, Marc Almond, and reportedly Rob Halford of Judas Priest which Rockin Pins owner, Mauricio Alvarado had a brief chat with him prog-rock and talked about VDGG’s music and how it may have impacted Rob’s influential background, they have a complete understanding on how their music had a big impact on them. But there are others who don’t care Van der Graaf’s music, because it wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea, per se.

Yes, there are the naysayers, yes, they couldn’t get into Hammill’s vocals. I mean what do you expect? I had the same similarity when I heard Captain Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica for the first time in 2005 when my first reaction was “What is this crap?”. Then, the second time, I fell in love with it. Back to the story, Van der Graaf’s music is the ultimate full-throttle force and it was okay for the punks to dig this incredible band that were often under the “prog” genre.

And for Joe Banks, who not only writes incredible reviews for PROG Magazine, Shindig!, The Quietus, and MOJO Magazine, not to mention he wrote two books about Hawkwind; Days of the Underground: Radical Escapism in the Age of Paranoia and Sideways Through Time: An Oral History of Hawkwind in the 1970s, is taking a leap forward by opening up the door and into the parallel universe of Peter’s music with a book covering not just his solo work, but Van der Graaf as well.

The book, Rock & Role: The Visionary Songs of Peter Hammill and Van der Graaf Generator is a stand-alone book, detailing the wonders and mind-blowing wonder of how this band were way ahead of their time. Now, there is the book that Jim Christoplous and Phil Smart had unleashed back in 2004 entitle Van der Graaf Generator – The Book, Paolo Carnelli’s book about the making of the band’s 1971 classic Pawn Hearts, and two others from Dan Coffey and Steve Pilkington.

For Banks, it wasn’t just an appreciation of the band’s music, it was to give an understanding on why they were so far ahead of their time. The book details both Peter’s solo work and Van der Graaf’s discography. There are 37 categories which I will name a few; The Ending of the Beginning, Complaining Tongues are Stilled, We Told the World We Were About to Go, Constellations Above the Horizon, Documenting These Present Feelings, and The Universe Now Beckons to name a few.

Banks himself has done his research very well and very carefully has the work cited down to the letter “T”. With new interviews with from the key collaborators, unseen images, it draws a further detail in their musical legacy.

The thing I love about Banks’ writing is that he details each of the BBC Sessions, TV appearances, live recordings, and sending a special thanks to the people who helped him out bringing the story to life. He wants to make sure they deserve credit because if it wasn’t for them, Rock & Role wouldn’t had happened.

There are some moments in the book which I won’t go into spoiler town, but there is one which tackles Peter’s involvement on writing the English lyrics to Le Orme’s fourth studio album Felona E Sorona, released in 1974 on Charisma. The original Italian version was released back in 1973 on the Philips label. The genesis of how Peter got involved was when he shared a bill with them, opening for them in their home country of Italy in December of 1972.

There’s a picture of him on page 150, supporting the band with a beard, playing acoustic guitar, and pouring his heart out during the Italian tour when the band were promoting their third album Uomo di pezza. Even though there were catcalls from his performance, which, for example, I can hear it on the Montreal ’74 live recording when he opened for Genesis during the Black Show-era, he pulled it off in front of a live audience, most of them wanting to see Genesis at the time they were promoting Selling England by the Pound.

It may not have been his best doing the translation of Le Orme’s magnum opus, because the trio were learning the English language. But Peter tried and gave it a shot. There’ll be others who will prefer either the Italian or English version of the album, but what blew my mind was there was originally going to be additional sax parts from David Jackson that were going to be on the English album, but it was decided not to use those.

Maybe a new stereo mix of the album to include it on the album one day on how it could have sounded. If they could find the multi-tracks for it one day. But that’s for another time. Going through the history and pages, you almost want to dig out your collection and play it like a soundtrack as the story takes you into the world of Peter’s vision.

With Rock & Role, Banks puts you right in the middle of the movie theatre as the screen reveals their true history that captures a band that wasn’t singing about Elves, Dungeons & Dragons, and Tolkien, but about witchcraft, the apocalypse, a lighthouse keeper whose on the brink of insanity, a tyrant who rules with an iron fist, the living dead, and every bloody emperor that fucks up everything and have the townsfolk turn against him. You can imagine video game mastermind Ken Levine, the creative director behind Freedom Force, System Shock 2, BioShock, BioShock Infinite, and the upcoming video game Judas might had been listening to Van der Graaf’s music for inspiration for the parallel worlds of Columbia and Rapture.

Not to mention Hammill’s songs about relationships, death, human folly, awareness, demonic song about a ‘Gog’, the alter-ego Rikki Nadir, you get the general idea. They along with Hammill, were like a band of brothers that wouldn’t take shit from anybody. This book is worth exploring.

And as Martin Aston would describe in his article about the band in the 2005 Special Edition issue in MOJO’s Story of Prog Rock on page 35 from the magazine; “If Yes were Tolkien and Genesis were Lewis Carroll, then VDGG were Kierkegaard crossed with Edgar Allen Poe”.