Sitting here on my Ikea sofa, it's kinda spooky that my ipod just shuffled into my favourite song. It currently has 8817 songs on it and it chose Refugees by Van Der Graaf Generator to play, just as I'm composing my first blog entry on my favourite band.
My mate and I are going to see them in London on the 16th of April, so I'm flying to London this time next week - I got a half decent price on Virgin Atlantic, be good to use them again.
I've been pretty obsessed with this band since I first heard them in September 1984. When I went through the scans for the Kirkcaldy Bands website (that's www.kirkcaldybands.com by the way!), I found the "rock star" type interview that me and the singer from our band did for the college rag mag (20p a copy by the way!), in early 1986. I listed my influences in the interview as - Van Der Graaf Generator, Violent Femmes, Velvet Underground, Can and Syd Barrett. Apart from being amazed at the sheer number of bands beginning with the letter "V" that I liked (what was it about the letter "V", did I only ever start at the end in the record stores?), I'm amazed that, I would list most of these bands again if someone asked me now - and Van Der Graaf Generator and Syd Barrett would probably be my top two still, 21 years after I was asked for my one and only music interview!
I don't think there is room in any blog entry for me to explain why this band are so great. Peter Hammill, their singer and main songwriter, writes the most heartfelt, inventive, heartbreaking, passionate, inventive music I have ever heard. They were extremely unsuccessful in their day 1968-78) - really, only making it out of "cult" status in Italy, where the Italians loved the dramatic "operatic" style of the band. The first book about the band was published 2 years ago and it just broke my heart when I found out that much of the reason they split was, not that old classic "musical differences", but they couldn't afford, financially, to stay together. Their sax player went off to drive a van, that sort of waste is enough to make you cry.
They just grazed the UK album charts in 1969, with their second album "The least we can do is wave to each other", and followed that up with, what I consider to be, one of the finest albums ever, "Pawn Hearts", -problem was, it was horribly noncommercial, it even took me a listen or two to get into it. But that's another reason I love them so much - if you hear Peter Hammill interviewed, it is obvious that the band could not care less about doing anything "commercial" - they were in it for the music alone, pure and simple.
Refugees was on their second album.I first heard this album in 1985 and I still think that Refugees is the most beautiful song ever written. Peter Hammill wrote a lot of sad music, but Refugees is the most hopeful song I have ever heard. I always think that hearing the song is like someone giving you a huge gift of hope, like hope contained in a beautiful package. I remember listening to it whilst I was sitting in the departure lounge at Belfast airport when I was there for my visa interview to come to the US and I sat and had tears in my eyes.
There's a great scene in Woody Allen's "Manhattan" where he makes a list of ten things that make life worth living. Everyone should have a list like that. Van der Graaf Generator's "Refugees" would certainly be on mine. Great music can grab you by the soul, Peter Hammill's music does this to me again and again.
So now that they are all in their late '50's - money worries are not much of an issue, so they are back on the road again as a band after 27 years! The day before I left the UK to move to the USA, was their first show since 1978, and we were there, and they were terrific! What a way to bow out of your home country!
Now they are on their second tour since they reformed - I can't wait to see them again.
I just found out yesterday that the Only Ones are back together again too - they are only touring the UK so far, I'd love to see them too. All these reunions are great - I never thought I'd see stuff like this happening, the New York Dolls Reunion show (when Arthur Kane was still alive), was great too.
I'm sure talk of Van der Graaf Generator will crop up again in this blog. They have a great, fan run website at -
www.vandergraafgenerator.com.
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