Peter Hammill- Nadir's Big Chance (REACTION//DISCUSSION)

[@TrevRockOne]

This is from 1975. Punk hadn't made its conflict with prog yet. Hammill does have a side that just likes to rock out. You'll find a lot more of that in his solo stuff. This album is a concept. He's playing the role of a rocker named Rikki Nadir.

[@samuelecallegari6117]

Actually Van Der Graaf were one of the few prog band that punk musicians respected because of their harsh and aggressive nature. Punks usually hated that snob attitude of prog musicians (even though usually the listeners were the ones with that attitude)

[@sylvanm4216]

Peter isn't making fun of punk (which didn't really exist yet as a mass movement at the time this was recorded) - he's making fun of himself and his prog/glam rock contemporaries. "Look at all the jerks in their tinsel glitter suits" - that's coming from a guy who posed for his previous album cover wearing a cape! He's embodying the side of himself that hates all that rock star crap.

[@qtpwqt]

This was one of Jonny Rottens fav songs , it has said it many times.

[@ithaliem]

"Over" would have been a great choice from Hammills solo albums. Very personal, very touching.

[@blackcatcentralmusic]

Intense, emotional album. A masterpiece but a difficult listen.

[@pentagrammaton6793]

Yeah this album was innovative, well written and ahead of its time. Peter Hammill was (and is) a genius. :)

[@pentagrammaton6793]

On reflection, I'd have chosen Nobody's Business or Two or Three Spectres as the standout tracks.

[@vdggmouse9512]

@@pentagrammaton6793 True enough Alan that the title track is NOT the best track on the album. But since it's been so long since JP has covered VdGG/PH - I'm glad he picked another album and started at the first track. Let's see his reaction to the tracks in their rightful order - I assume he'll continue on with this album - he seemed to like what he'd heard. Being the Hammill nut that I am - I love all the tracks on this album - hard to pick my favorite - but if I had to - Open Your Eyes and Two Or Three Spectres would probably top my list. I do feel the weakest track would be the next one - if JP does indeed continue with this album. The Institute Of Mental Health is my pick for the weakest track - and I have no problem with that song. All in all Nadir's Big Chance is not my favorite Hammill solo album - but it is just another great one. My favorite is The Silent Corner And The Empty Stage - where JP already reacted to the last song on that album - he loved it (A Louse Is Not A Home) - but alas - he's not returned to it or ever mentioned returning to it. It just goes to show you - for whatever reason - most listeners are more easily hooked on Genesis than they are on VdGG/PH - I don't know why - seems crazy to me - but the proof is in the pudding.

[@Warloo100]

Not quite right. Peter was far ahead of Punk with this song as a matter of fact, Johnny Rotten from Sex Pistols indicates this song as a trigger for him for playing Punk. Peter makes fun of Glam Rock and speaks up for making yourself heard.

[@martinscase3904]

On the live 'Vital' version PH changes the lyrics: 'look at all these jerks, in their leather bondage suits'.

[@TrevRockOne]

Woo, I'm really excited to see you listen to this album. It's like a proto-punk thing with a prog touch.

[@williamburchell7906]

My favorite Peter Hammill album. The whole album is great.

[@-davidolivares]

Just flat out rocka. After a freaking busy day at work, this hit the spot.

[@carlomercorio1250]

Rotten was a Van Der Graaf admirer

[@bobholtzmann]

The style of this is for me somewhere between Lou Reed and Roxy Music. Never expected the VDGG singer to be doing this!

[@jstock2317]

OK so this punk vs prog subject is going to blow your mind! Hammill is not making fun of punk here! He's making fun of prog! He wanted to produce a loud and in your face style to go against the weaknesses of prog and pop music he saw at the time, and in doing so helped solidify the still-nascent punk genre!! The first true punk bands didn't release material until around the same time or later! I don't know much about them myself, but the Sex Pistols' first album was in '77 and at that time Johnny Rotten listed Nadir's Big Chance as a major influence!! In the liner notes for this album, Hammill says that it contains some "beefy punk songs", which I've heard numerous times may be the first use of the word "punk" to refer to this type of music!! He and VDGG never wanted to retread the same space twice, so they were always developing their sound and switching their style in every album! Although Hammill is surely a pillar of early 70s prog, he's also ironically one of the early leaders of the punk revolt, even coining the name for the genre himself!

[@iconoclast673]

This isn't taking the mick out of prog, it's clearly referring to *glam rock* (tinsle glitter suits and Leather platform boots were more sweet/mud/glitter band than any prog groups).

[@jstock2317]

well ok but i thought he was talking about Rick Wakeman :) i just meant the popular groups at the time.

[@iconoclast673]

@@jstock2317 Fair enough, Wakeman definitely enjoyed a floaty cloak or two 😂

[@neilparnell5712]

@@iconoclast673 Peter was partial to a cloak as well ! ''In Camera'' cover shot.

[@MrDanielphenix]

What a cut, to make punk musik in an intelligent way, what a scream ! Bang our feets in a rage ! Smash the system with the song !

[@gregdavis4978]

Van der Graaf's live album, VITAL ends with this scorcher. Anticipating punk a year before the fact, they stripped the songs down to their basic core, delivering them in a raw and brutal fashion. One of the truly great live albums.

[@MrDanielphenix]

IN 78 Punk was there since 3 years in England

[@markmaxwell1013]

Wow. I wasn't expecting this today. Peter Hammill will always surprise you in style and theme from album to album and often from song to song.

[@vdggmouse9512]

In case you don't know, Mark - the entire VdGG catalog is now available as a box set (cd's not vinyl) on what is called The Charisma Box. You can order it here - burningshed.com

[@markmaxwell1013]

@@vdggmouse9512 It is supposed to have some unheard bonus material. Looking forward to it. Thanks BTW I check out Spotify to see how many followers VdGG and PH have. It seems the numbers have been growing slowly but surely. It seems there is a new generation out there sick of pablum pop and looking for something completely new. I think they found it here. It is a good sign. It certainly doesn't hurt that people like JP and a few others review them. Hopefully a bit more often now.

[@markmaxwell1013]

@@vdggmouse9512 In case you missed this Composer reaction to 'Plague' interesting perspective and lots of views. The word is getting out to more and more people. www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=m.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DuZ5zarocijk&ved=2ahUKEwiQwaLxnJrxAhUTJjQIHeqqCX8QwqsBegQIBhAG&usg=AOvVaw1d7uDzKQwpv6RVooHjlgfk

[@vdggmouse9512]

@@markmaxwell1013 Thanks for the heads up, Mark. I don't have enough time to see all the important stuff so thank you for this and please do tell me if there's future VdGG/PH stuff I need to see.

[@markmaxwell1013]

@@vdggmouse9512 No problem. It came up on KZbin suggestions. I think I've heard Doug Helvering's music on a classical station. Very knowledgeable and very impressed with PH. It's always nice to see another convert.

[@blackcatcentralmusic]

Not a criticism of punk. This album is proto-punk, recorded by VdGG in 1975 just prior to the official reformation. Not all the songs center around Hammill's Nadir character. Some date back to the late '60s VdGG. I think the lyrics refer to the glam rock movement. Hammill references Nadir on his 1978 solo album, "The Future Now", with the song "Pushing Thirty". I get mildly irritated when "progressive" bands deny their music is part of that genre. VdGG, King Crimson, and Phil Collins (when he talks about Genesis). Interesting interview with Hammill in 1978. He said an audience member shouted to "play rock n roll!". Hammill responded, "we don't play rock n roll. That's Bill Haley and the Comets. I don't know what to call the music we play. It's Van Der Graaf music" (paraphrasing)

[@mikesodl6706]

The way I remember it Rikki Nadir was Peter's "Alter-Ego" and it was all in good fun or done as a lark, if you will. Listen to the rest of the album, it's wonderful!

[@lemming9984]

Only a few Prog musicians and Rock journalists say that Punk killed prog. It didn't. Prog fans ignored Punk (just like me) and went on buying the albums and going to the gigs. I never knew anyone who changed their listening habits.

[@sylvanm4216]

I think it's fair to say prog was in rapid decline already at the time the punk movement swept in. It's simple math that, of the most beloved prog albums of all time, by 1976 the vast, vast majority had already been released. We prog fans still love the stuff, of course, but it just isn't where the creative juices of the music world are flowing anymore. Punk just happened to be the "next thing" in rock, but it could have been anything.

[@blackcatcentralmusic]

There were good bands making great music who could no longer find record deals. For example, National Health as detailed in Dave Stewart's liner notes for the NH "Complete" release.

[@williamburchell7906]

I don't think he was making fun of punk. This album came before punk. He may have been making fun of simple rock and roll, however. It was Peter, through his alter ego Rikki Nadir (nadir being the low point of a curve) showing that he could write simple rock songs if he wanted to.

[@karinannamaria2514]

punk before punk

[@terrypussypower]

“…..the Institute Of Mental Health”!

[@mickcapewell6369]

For a more ‘serious’ example of avant-garde ‘Pre-Punk’, listen to Gun by John Cale from his 1974 lp Fear 👍

[@kidflersh7807]

how isn't this serious?

[@mickcapewell6369]

@@kidflersh7807 well i suppose it is, but the album has a streak of irony running through it, that’s all.

[@uapuat]

This song was before punk. it's often cited as the first punk song (but only by people who never heard of the Pink Fairies).

[@justsomejusstsome8994]

Totally discarding The Stooges huh?

[@terrypussypower]

This album and this song is NOT making fun of punk! Punk wasn’t even a thing when this was released! It presaged the Punk era by about a year. It’s a tribute to the stripped down rock n roll spirit that punk would encompass in the following years, but is really inspired by the likes of the English pub rock scene that Punk evolved from, and the basic rock n roll of bands like The Stooges and The Troggs.

[@brelfpv1437]

He knows how to tighten all kinds of chests.

[@tmsphere]

This was actually a concept album, had nothing to do with punk as "punk" was not a word used to this rocking out music yet.

[@ramoncardinali]

Waiting for you to get in the "Still Life" VDGG album! Such a great album!

[@iconoclast673]

"Sod the music said the man in the suit 'I understand profit and without it, it's no use'"

[@BaldJean]

Yes, the opening line from the song "Two or three Spectres", the last track on the album. It is a criticism of the music business.

[@malekmo64]

The Ramones and New York Dolls were around before the British 70s Punk Explosion.

[@markspooner1224]

Great album, many different sounds. This was like Andy Mackay (Roxy Music) doing punk, although this probably had more influence on what became punk than the other way round. Never Mind The Bollocks didn't come out until 1977.

[@malekmo64]

Hawkwind and VdGG are John Lydon's favourite groups of the era before Punk, Pink Fairies Kings Of Oblivion in 1973 was also proto Punk.

[@jayburdification]

Quite different solo than he is with VDGG, isn’t he. His solo music was popular among the glams and the punks. John Lydon cites him as an influence.

[@matto9734]

It´s like it always was... by rebbelling against your "parents" generation you are able to find new expressions ;-) I don´t know the early Hammill, I started with VdGG but I must say, this is really strong! What I really love with your channel - I guess I wrote that earlier - is the pick of music which is not what most other channels do. Keep it up!

[@beldin2987]

My favorite Peter Hammill song is Van Der Graaf Generator - Childlike Faith In Childhood's End kzbin.info/www/bejne/rmKZXqSQf9KjgaM if you haven't heared it yet, you should really check it out 👍

[@markmaxwell1013]

One of the most important songs ever written! Not for the faint of heart.

[@mariosandri4010]

Sorry Justin, your comment misses the mark. This song was released one year before Anarchy in the UK, so in no way it was meant to make fun of a genre that didn't exist yet. Actually, it set apart innovative artists from dinosaurs. We could say PH is a godfather (or an uncle) of punk.

[@TrevRockOne]

Punk existed. It just wasn't the movement that it was to become.

[@mariosandri4010]

@@TrevRockOne It did. But Punk as a genre was aknowledged in late '76.

[@TrevRockOne]

@@mariosandri4010 you might be right about that. I'm not sure when the name "punk" began to be used to describe a genre.

[@iconoclast673]

Not a criticism of punk, it's a criticism of glam rock ("tinsle glitter suits...")

[@mariosandri4010]

@@iconoclast673 👍

[@ddee203]

Justin, I recommend you to listen to the same song played live and released on the title "Vital Live" by Van Der Graaf Generator.

[@ddee203]

A correction: that time they called themselves Van Der Graaf without generator

[@BaldJean]

"Vital" is one of the most brutal live recordings ever. It is a recording of a concert of the band at the famous Marquee Club on Jan 16th 1978. They were facing serious problems during the concert. During the soundcheck everything was ok, but when they started playing David Jackson could not be heard. The technicians finally came up with some makeshift solution (having Jackson run via the voice amp), but that meant he could not use his effect devices. This is why he can't be heard on the first three tracks of the album. The line-up is very interesting: Peter Hammill - vocals, electric guitar, piano (on one track only), Guy Evans - drums, Nic Potter - monster bass, David Jackson - saxes and flutes, Graham Smith - violin, Charles Dickie - cello, electric piano, synthesizer.

[@grahamkey8496]

If anyone doubts Peter Hammill's influence on the punk movement, check out this astonishing clip of Peter Hammill and Robert Fripp when they joined British punk band The Stranglers on stage in London. Dave Greenslade from The Stranglers actually played keyboards in a prog band in the early 70s. kzbin.info/www/bejne/q3WQmXyKed2aocU

[@neilparnell5712]

Dave Greenfield not Dave Greenslade. Greenslade was the eponymous band.

[@Rowenband]

Everybody said that before me, but yes Hammill was a or two year ahead of the Punk generation. This is an influential album for the punk rock to come. And it's the only PH album in that style. Although he always loved agressivity (listen to the song I Love the Noise).

[@michaelfrantz975]

This song inspired Johnny Lydon to become Johnny Rotten

[@ianhenderson6011]

'Retribution' by Tanya Tagaq would be a very interesting track to review, an intense track with amazing vocals

[@malekmo64]

Malcolm McLaren started all this I hate anything before The Sex Pistols, they were making a statement, not creating a genre. Punk was the label the media planted on the bands. The Pretty Things were the first Thrash RnB band in 1963 and influenced everyone.

[@maruad7577]

I liked this song. Two good surprises for Friday. Not necessarily masterpieces but still great songs in their own right. I have been thinking of the Guess Who's attempt at being the Doors with Friends of Mine when I realized (although not lyrically) the song that made me think of the Doors most was a cover of Bruce Cockburn's "You Don't Have to Play The Horses" as done by Blackie and the Rodeo Kings. Sadly I don't see the album version on YT though you can specify the song on spotify and it will show up under the "Kings of Love" album (I love the first side of this).

[@PaulMDove2]

This was written in 1974 and the sex pistols didn't form until 1975. Of course the New York Dolls had been around since 1971 but I don't think they're the inspiration for this; I think references to glitter suits and platform boots are directed at glam rock music.

[@avantprog6902]

First time hearing this. Definitely punky, maybe Bowie inspired.

[@123agidee_2]

Ironically johnny rotten was actually a massive fan of peter hammill

[@ddee203]

This album has inspired Sex Pistols

[@kenl2091]

Easy trap into which to fall. I think most of the comments cover the chronology of the song and the advent of UK punk (probably as early as late 1975) It's probably not too much of an exaggeration to say that Nadir's Big Chance was part of the inspiration (in a good way!) for the genre. Anyway, you're right - this is not representative of the bulk of Peter Hammill's many and varied solo albums. There are pleasures to be had in most of them but the 70s/early 80s releases are the best - 'Over' - his breakup album, 'In Camera' - scary, 'pH 7', and, my favourite, 'A Black Box'. If you're really adventurous, try his rock opera 'The Fall of the House of Usher' in which he sings the role of the House!

[@a.k.1740]

Justin ! This has nothing to do with any criticism or to make fun of the punk movement which in any case did not yet exist in England when the record was released in February 1975. The Sex Pistols were born in the summer of 1975 so six months after the release of Nadir's Big Chance (which was recorded in December 1974).

[@murdockreviews]

👍

[@HippoYnYGlaw]

1975 let’s get this now then jp punk pioneer on a friday evening hold on the garden’s called me I have this The live encore version if i remember correctly A breath of Fresh air Yet deep down i yearn for the Intrinsically Righteous Into the Valley by Skids 🥁diolch

[@jamespaivapaiva4460]

Prog vs. Punk? Whats The Clash? Yes there's Talk Talk, but Who is going to start The Quiet Riot? Guess Who-me & U2 with All Good People. Peace.

[@willyvlyminck201]

This make The Sex Pistols sound like a boys band😁

[@Lightmane]

Justin, I'd really like to share some more music with you. Can I do it here?

[@JustJP]

Of course!

[@Lightmane]

@@JustJP Great. I left a comment for you on the Rained Out video, but I'll copy and paste it here, in case you didn't see it. The keyboard player in my brothers band, Ronn Dorsey, made several recordings by himself in his home. He gave my brother a couple CD's with those recordings. My brother proceeded to lose them, lol, only to find one of them months ago and one more just a couple days ago, so he put them on yt. If you'd like to listen to them, just type in 'RONNTRONICS'. There's 6 on here. They're called. Stagestruck Minuet Stomp A Place Like This C Major The Take I'm pretty sure you'll like some of them 🙂

[@Lightmane]

@@JustJP I'll try to leave the link to one of them here kzbin.info/www/bejne/j5mQapmJqbumoa8

[@jfergs.3302]

First listen for me too. what the... This is nothing like the Hammill I'm familiar with. This was so basic, early punk? Not at all what i expected, and can't say i'm impressed either. PS. Doesn't everyone have a 'I hate Floyd' T-shirt?

[@TrevRockOne]

It's a concept album about a roudy, rude rocker guy, so you have to set the mood appropriately.

[@jfergs.3302]

@@TrevRockOne Ahhh, cheers for the context.

[@stonemoshed]

This is more of a proto-punk song. It definitely inspired punk to ridicule prog. But the lyrics to the second verse suggest this song is actually ridiculing glam rock.