-------------------------------------------------------
APRIL 4, 2004
-------------------------------------------------------
Source: Punk 77
http://www.punk77.co.uk/punkhistory/whendinosaursromaedtheearth.htm
Genesis, ELP & Yes: When Dinosaurs Roamed The Earth...
Know thine enemy. While Glam at least was proving some light relief from
bands who had grown massive like the Stones, Who and Led Zeppelin there
were an even more pretentious wave of bands who espoused the view that
rock was serious and who were dominating the serious weekly music papers.
Prog-Rock was mostly listened to by grubby polytechnic students who wore
flares and dufflecoats and never had any girlfriends and who would sit
cross-legged at gigs on the floor bonged out of their brains. They would
gather in bedsits drinking coffee out of chipped mugs and ponder the
meaning of the universe while listening to Yes, Van Der Graaf Generator,
Camel, Gentle Giant, Caravan, Greenslade and a thousand others. These
people knew what they wanted ..lots of windswept guitar histrionics,
gushing key boards, lyrics full of mystical allusions and song titles
bearing no relation to the music and almost as long as the music itself
!!!! As you read these you can see why punk had to happen. Weighed own by
the weight of its own pretensions the scene was set for someone to point
out that the emperor in fact had no clothes on. Read on and learn the
horrible truth..........
Genesis
Were a full blown prog-rock band, inspired by musical bluster and arcane
philosophies, capable of churning out as much barking nonsense as any of
their early Seventies contemporaries, including the magnificently daft Yes.
Under the direction of the consummately eccentric Peter Gabriel, Genesis
indulged in all manner of theatrical buffoonery and special effects. While
the group turned on the pomp and pyrotechnics, Gabriel would nonce around
the stage in a variety of costumes as illustrated. The peak of their
absolute foolishness came with the Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, a virtually
incomprehensible narrative about spiritual awakening spread over a double
album. beloved of sixth formers with long hair and greycoats who had too
much time on their hands.
No-one could understand what Genesis were prattling on a bout including
Gabriel !!! This is the wittering old fool trying to explain a song called
" I know what I Like (In Your Wardrobe) to an understandably fuddled hack
" ..he lives a life that is pre-conceived by the people around him, and the
only time that his identity comes out is when he's actually on the lawn,
mowing the grass. I mean I get this tremendous buzz from the sensation of
the cutters slicing thru a whole layer of grass. There's a sort of
therapeutic ultra-violence simply in the act of mowing the lawn...." What a
dickhead.
Unsurprisingly Gabriel left the band only to be replaced by something far
worse in the shape of the scheming and diminutive Phil Collins who took
over and tuned them into a withering bland AOR machine b4 going solo and
torturing us with even more 80's style blandness, bad fashion and songs
about his wife shagging some other bloke. Phil Collins is without doubt the
Anti Christ. Destroy all Genesis and Phil Collins records.
Emerson, Lake And Palmer.
Even the name sounds like a gang of lawyers or estate agents. They were
prog rocks' most vulgar trawler men. Their first public appearance , at the
Isle of Wight Festival was prefaced by a thunderous cannonade loud enough
tom wake the long time dead. This was an appropriate fanfare for a group
that would be become internationally famous for its bombastic extravagance.
ELP produced the ugliest music the world has yet to endure "Pictures at an
Exhibition", Brain Salad Surgery and even a triple live album of dross.
Everything they did as dragged own by the weight of their own bloated
pretensions, their vivid idiocy, the stupifying grossness that was their
unique contribution to early seventies rock. Tipping over a Hammond and
stabbing it with a knife to make distorted sounds does not excitement make.
For the punter so far back he can see fuck all it might as well be a baboon
jumping down on the keyboards. Unable to come up with anything resembling
a decent tune, they regularly vandalisd the classics sending several dead
Europeans spinning in their graves. The ridiculousness of their music is
just so far fetched that you can't help but laugh and wonder at Mark P and
Danny Baker who praised them . God ELP were stupid.
Yes
Like Genesis they managed to produce an extra bastard son to terrorise good
taste in the shape of Rick Wakeman. Without doubt the stars of the
progressive genre if only for the sheer long windedness of everything they
have ever done. The icon for the era has to their magnum opus Tales from
Topographic Oceans luckily they made every album identifiable with the
godawful Roger Dean designed covers so there was no way you could buy one
by accident and you could warn you mum. If by chance you do ant to buy them
its a credit to Yes that you can buy their whole back catalogue in
secondhand record stores for about £5 as people realizing later on in life
what shite they had bought turned them in their thousands. Topographic
Oceans had all of prog rocks' defining characteristics in spades.
It also had the funniest sleeve notes ever written. This is Jon Anderson
explaining the inspiration for the album "We were in Tokyo on tour and and
I had a few minutes to myself in the hotel room before the evenings
concert. Leafing through Yoganada's Autobiography of a Yogi, I got caught
up in a lengthy footnote on page 83. it described the four past Shastric
scriptures which cover all aspects of religion and social life as well as
fields like music, art and architecture. For some time I had been searching
for a theme for a large scale composition. So positive were the Shastars
that I could visualize then and there four interlocking pieces of music
being structured around them. That was in February. Eight months later, the
concept was realised in this recording."
Punk just had to happen !
Close Window
YesInThePress.com
For site comments, inquiries, corrections, or additions, contact yitp@yesservices.com
|
|