SIDE A
1. Lemmings (including Cog) – 11:40
2. Man-Erg – 10:22
SIDE B
3. A Plague Of Lighthouse Keepers – 23:05
a. “Eyewitness” (0:00-2:25)
b. “Pictures/Lighthouse” (2:25-5:35)
c. “Eyewitness” (5:35-6:29)
d. “S.H.M” (6:29-8:26)
e. “Presence of the Night” (8:26-12:17)
f. “Kosmos Tours” (12:17-13:34)
g. “(Custard’s) Last Stand” (13:34-16:22)
h. “The Clot Thickens” (16:22-19:13)
i. “Land’s End” (19:13-21:14)
j. “We Go Now” (21:14-23:05)
Van Der Graaf Generator are perhaps the greatest and most loved Progressive Rock band no-one has really heard of. One could argue someone like a King Crimson fits there, but they are still conventionally included alongside Pink Floyd, Genesis, Yes, ELP and Jethro Tull in what are considered the ‘Big 6’. VDGG are in that second tier of long-running, adored within their fanbase, fundamentally successful great acts who just have no real public profile or commercial success beyond that (alongside acts such as Gentle Giant, Camel, Magma, etc). Italy is excepted from this summary, as for some reason the guys were gigantic there. They are my favourite of these bands.
Van Der Graaf Generator formed in 1967 initially, but went through a whole sequence of line-up changes and a stop-start existence before solidifying into their classic line-up of the early 1970s. This core four who appeared on most of the band’s loved albums, including Pawn Hearts, features classically trained organist Hugh Banton, woodwind extraordinaire David Jackson primarily on the saxophone, and indefatigable drummer Guy Evans, behind founder, sole permanent member, lyricist and vocalist Peter Hammill. The Van Der Graaf shtick is definitely a unique one with that breakdown of instruments. They occupy a sonic landscape all their own, with very little guitar, as Jackson and Banton lead on saxophone and keyboards. This gives the band a dense, dark, full and symphonic kind of sound, which blends perfectly with Hammill’s usually deathly depressing lyrics. They are unquestionably a very dark and deep kind of band, as far from light party music as Prog gets. But this implies incorrectly that they are not fun. Especially in these early albums when they were mere young men of 20-something, VDGG’s sound beautifully balances softer, tender heart-breaking sequences with long energetic rock-outs.
Pawn Hearts is the most critically respected of the four albums VDGG made in their first wave. The band broke up unexpectedly in 1972 on the heels of this album, in large part due to the stress caused by constant touring of Italy where the album reached No.1, while not doing that much anywhere else. Reformation and further success (particularly 1975’s mighty Godbluff) happily came later.
Pawn Hearts came on the back of 1970’s H To He, Who Am The Only One, also an adored masterpiece with a tad more commercial potential. Compared to its generally more up-tempo and accessible predecessor, Pawn Hearts is a lot more impenetrable. The album is hard work and it has taken me quite a lot of time to fully appreciate it for a number of reasons. The most well-known track Man-Erg is tender and beautiful, except when interrupted by the (entirely excellent) total madness of its bridge. The main figure of album opener Lemmings is memorable. Otherwise, Lemmings meanders a bit at the end, and as can happen easily with such extended pieces, the side-long A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers didn’t grab me for quite a long time. Throughout the album (Plague in particular) there are a lot of soft slow breaks and the great moments are delirious but spaced apart. It is definitely an album that requires patience and attentive listening to penetrate. Not helping this cause is the slightly flat production, and my lack of quality recording until at long last acquiring a new CD copy on eBay recently.
In recent years, I have come first to generally appreciate A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers, then beyond, to adore it as perhaps the album’s true masterpiece and a match for all but the most exalted of Prog’s 20+ minute opuses. Given the track makes up half the album, this change has been vital to my increased appreciation of the album. If those who aren’t Prog super-fans will indulge me the coming apparent jibberish:
- An album where the side-long suite is the weakest part tends to fall short in overall esteem, no matter the quality of the shorter songs. Examples struggle to come to mind (which is kind of the point, name a classic such album?) but I’m thinking something like Todd Rundgren’s Utopia or if harsh, to my reckoning anyway, In The Land Of Grey And Pink.
- More common are albums where the opus track dominates and the other side contains somewhat underwhelming afterthought short tracks. We’re talking Focus II, In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, and great as they still are, 100% Tarkus and Meddle.
- Once both sides become equal, you suddenly have Close To The Edge or Relayer or Foxtrot.
That’s the transformation we’re talking about. Certainly, Pawn Hearts is not quite the equal of those three masterworks, but it is a mighty album. Just three tracks, all fantastic. Meander as the album often does, that ‘there is no bad song’ perception is one of the great advantages of such a typically prog album structure with so few tracks.
Lemmings is the opening and probably, relative though it is with three such epics, the narrowly ‘weakest’ track on the album. I still don’t entirely know what section is supposed to be the ‘Cog’ bit, but I suspect it is the more meandering section in the second quarter of the track. But like so much of the VDGG discography, the key element that carries Lemmings is its sparingly recurring main riff. A quiet and typically wordy Hammill-dominated opening builds and builds, into the mighty riff, with Jackson’s saxophone melody on top of Banton’s typical organ padding that truly defines the heft and depth of the band’s sound. After a couple of iterations of the opening verses and this riff, the track detours through some quieter and sometimes unfocused sections in the middle. The ending is also a slow breakdown, but not before the main riff fires back in seemingly from nowhere and provides a satisfying climax. Lemmings is quintessential VDGG, particularly in structure. It is long, complex, meandering, but it does the three things this band always mastered. It has a superb main theme or riff, it recurs that theme just enough to be satisfying but with just enough scarcity to really make you want it, and it recapitulates that theme in an awesome way towards the end.
Man-Erg is an all-time VDGG fan favourite. It scales the ultimate extremes of the band’s twin tendencies of tender solemn beauty and utter chaotic cacophony. The extreme juxtapositions are a perfect illustration for Peter Hammill’s lyrics, exploring the many facets of human personality and the good and the bad within everyone. The opening few minutes feature Hammill crooning about how an unnamed ‘killer’ lays dormant inside him, but occasionally rises and bursts forward. Hugh Banton leads the way with gorgeous and very simple slow piano work. But then, as this killer bursts forth, the track stops and in fires Jackson with his iconic, loud, discordant, monstrous saxophone riff, which leads the band into the furious middle section. The majority of the second half is, again, a slightly meandering but always captivating exploratory journey, soft and tender, with lots of exquisite soprano sax and flute work from Jackson. This builds into the huge “I’m Just a man!” climax, which would be beautiful enough by itself, let alone without the amazing return of the middle section’s staccato riff. It re-appears suddenly, supplanted disconcertingly and fabulously on top of and eventually overtaking the rest of the music and closing out the piece. Man-Erg probably represents the peak of the album, and as good a classic ten minute Prog piece as exists anywhere.
The second side of the record consists of the ten-part side-long suite, A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers. Except perhaps for Banton’s ambient and, in headphones in public, near silent organ workout early in the piece, every part brings something interesting and a little different. The easiest and most satisfying way to break the piece down is into two main sections either side of its madcap middle workout. The first ten minutes is slow and quiet, with two different slow-burn sections. For such a patient piece, it actually gets into its work quite quickly, with the rousing ‘Eyewitness’ taking up the first two minutes of the piece, complete with a memorable beautiful chorus. This main early melody recurs again after Banton’s ambient detour, but itself also moves off track into the most vigorous and rock-adjacent sequence of the very sparse opening half. After another quiet but pretty breakdown dominated by Banton, as well as Guy Evans’ simple but effective hypnotic rhythms, things get really fun.
Approaching half-distance, A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers stops and there is briefly silence. Peter Hammill, in typical Hammill fashion, takes this moment to ask if we’d cry if he died. The band slides back in at this point and quickly things escalate into perhaps VDGG’s greatest, or certainly most hilariously ‘them’ riff of all time. It is a monumental staccato workout with the crazed Hammill trying his utmost to keep up and match the beat with his vocal (and not entirely succeeding). This riff gives way to an even more egregiously awesome din, with Banton exploring the moog synthesizer over an Evans derived piano arpeggio.
After a single discordant piano chord ends this middle section, the second half of proceedings unfurls. It proceeds in a still slow but more pleasant and uplifting way throughout for the most part. Some occasionally tender and occasionally epic and wrought piano balladeering takes us towards the three quarter mark, before the second sudden burst of insanity. An even faster and more ridiculous riff than earlier fires off, with rapid keyboard and drum staccato and aggressive almost-growling Hammill vocals, complete with a subtle ahead of its time piece of vocal processing. By the time all this resolves itself, only the last few minutes remain, with a vocal climax leading to a final tender instrumental fade-away.
Descriptions on paper are never sufficient when describing musical works that are both so big and so subtle and dense. VDGG in particular, Pawn Hearts more than some other albums, and A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers in particular, take time and take repeated listens, so all I can do is encourage them. Though it is messy and not perfect (which can be explained by the fact that the performance came at short notice and the band legitimately had forgotten how the song goes), the live performance featured just above is still remarkable. It is a rare full unedited piece of footage of prime raw VDGG, and the only available full contemporaneous performance of A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers. The video, complete with its imperfections, really speak to the difficulty, complexity and occasional general madness of the piece, and drive home how amazing it is that such a sound can come from three instrumentalists and a singer who can kind of play a bit of piano.
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