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.
@samuelecallegari61173 жыл бұрын
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)
@sylvanm42163 жыл бұрын
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.
@qtpwqt3 жыл бұрын
This was one of Jonny Rottens fav songs , it has said it many times.
@ithaliem3 жыл бұрын
"Over" would have been a great choice from Hammills solo albums. Very personal, very touching.
@blackcatcentralmusic3 жыл бұрын
Intense, emotional album. A masterpiece but a difficult listen.
@pentagrammaton67933 жыл бұрын
Yeah this album was innovative, well written and ahead of its time. Peter Hammill was (and is) a genius. :)
@pentagrammaton67933 жыл бұрын
On reflection, I'd have chosen Nobody's Business or Two or Three Spectres as the standout tracks.
@vdggmouse95123 жыл бұрын
@@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.
@Warloo1003 жыл бұрын
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 Жыл бұрын
On the live 'Vital' version PH changes the lyrics: 'look at all these jerks, in their leather bondage suits'.
@TrevRockOne3 жыл бұрын
Woo, I'm really excited to see you listen to this album. It's like a proto-punk thing with a prog touch.
@williamburchell79063 жыл бұрын
My favorite Peter Hammill album. The whole album is great.
@-davidolivares3 жыл бұрын
Just flat out rocka. After a freaking busy day at work, this hit the spot.
@carlomercorio12503 жыл бұрын
Rotten was a Van Der Graaf admirer
@bobholtzmann3 жыл бұрын
The style of this is for me somewhere between Lou Reed and Roxy Music. Never expected the VDGG singer to be doing this!
@jstock23173 жыл бұрын
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!
@iconoclast6733 жыл бұрын
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).
@jstock23173 жыл бұрын
well ok but i thought he was talking about Rick Wakeman :) i just meant the popular groups at the time.
@iconoclast6733 жыл бұрын
@@jstock2317 Fair enough, Wakeman definitely enjoyed a floaty cloak or two 😂
@neilparnell5712Ай бұрын
@@iconoclast673 Peter was partial to a cloak as well ! ''In Camera'' cover shot.
@MrDanielphenix4 ай бұрын
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 !
@gregdavis49783 жыл бұрын
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.
@MrDanielphenix4 ай бұрын
IN 78 Punk was there since 3 years in England
@markmaxwell10133 жыл бұрын
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.
@vdggmouse95123 жыл бұрын
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
@markmaxwell10133 жыл бұрын
@@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.
@markmaxwell10133 жыл бұрын
@@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
@vdggmouse95123 жыл бұрын
@@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.
@markmaxwell10133 жыл бұрын
@@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.
@blackcatcentralmusic3 жыл бұрын
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)
@mikesodl67068 ай бұрын
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!
@lemming99843 жыл бұрын
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.
@sylvanm42163 жыл бұрын
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.
@blackcatcentralmusic3 жыл бұрын
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.
@williamburchell79063 жыл бұрын
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 Жыл бұрын
punk before punk
@terrypussypower2 жыл бұрын
“…..the Institute Of Mental Health”!
@mickcapewell63693 жыл бұрын
For a more ‘serious’ example of avant-garde ‘Pre-Punk’, listen to Gun by John Cale from his 1974 lp Fear 👍
@kidflersh78073 жыл бұрын
how isn't this serious?
@mickcapewell63693 жыл бұрын
@@kidflersh7807 well i suppose it is, but the album has a streak of irony running through it, that’s all.
@uapuat2 жыл бұрын
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).
@justsomejusstsome89942 жыл бұрын
Totally discarding The Stooges huh?
@terrypussypower2 жыл бұрын
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.
@brelfpv143711 ай бұрын
He knows how to tighten all kinds of chests.
@tmsphere2 жыл бұрын
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.
@ramoncardinali3 жыл бұрын
Waiting for you to get in the "Still Life" VDGG album! Such a great album!
@iconoclast6733 жыл бұрын
"Sod the music said the man in the suit 'I understand profit and without it, it's no use'"
@BaldJean3 жыл бұрын
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.
@malekmo643 жыл бұрын
The Ramones and New York Dolls were around before the British 70s Punk Explosion.
@markspooner12243 жыл бұрын
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.
@malekmo643 жыл бұрын
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.
@jayburdification3 жыл бұрын
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.
@matto97343 жыл бұрын
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!
@beldin29873 жыл бұрын
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 👍
@markmaxwell10133 жыл бұрын
One of the most important songs ever written! Not for the faint of heart.
@mariosandri40103 жыл бұрын
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.
@TrevRockOne3 жыл бұрын
Punk existed. It just wasn't the movement that it was to become.
@mariosandri40103 жыл бұрын
@@TrevRockOne It did. But Punk as a genre was aknowledged in late '76.
@TrevRockOne3 жыл бұрын
@@mariosandri4010 you might be right about that. I'm not sure when the name "punk" began to be used to describe a genre.
@iconoclast6733 жыл бұрын
Not a criticism of punk, it's a criticism of glam rock ("tinsle glitter suits...")
@mariosandri40103 жыл бұрын
@@iconoclast673 👍
@ddee2033 жыл бұрын
Justin, I recommend you to listen to the same song played live and released on the title "Vital Live" by Van Der Graaf Generator.
@ddee2033 жыл бұрын
A correction: that time they called themselves Van Der Graaf without generator
@BaldJean3 жыл бұрын
"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.
@grahamkey84963 жыл бұрын
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
@neilparnell5712Ай бұрын
Dave Greenfield not Dave Greenslade. Greenslade was the eponymous band.
@Rowenband3 жыл бұрын
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).
@michaelfrantz9752 ай бұрын
This song inspired Johnny Lydon to become Johnny Rotten
@ianhenderson60113 жыл бұрын
'Retribution' by Tanya Tagaq would be a very interesting track to review, an intense track with amazing vocals
@malekmo643 жыл бұрын
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.
@maruad75773 жыл бұрын
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).
@PaulMDove23 жыл бұрын
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.
@avantprog69023 жыл бұрын
First time hearing this. Definitely punky, maybe Bowie inspired.
@123agidee_22 жыл бұрын
Ironically johnny rotten was actually a massive fan of peter hammill
@ddee2033 жыл бұрын
This album has inspired Sex Pistols
@kenl20913 жыл бұрын
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.17403 жыл бұрын
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).
@murdockreviews3 жыл бұрын
👍
@HippoYnYGlaw3 жыл бұрын
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
@jamespaivapaiva44603 жыл бұрын
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.
@willyvlyminck2013 жыл бұрын
This make The Sex Pistols sound like a boys band😁
@Lightmane3 жыл бұрын
Justin, I'd really like to share some more music with you. Can I do it here?
@JustJP3 жыл бұрын
Of course!
@Lightmane3 жыл бұрын
@@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 🙂
@Lightmane3 жыл бұрын
@@JustJP I'll try to leave the link to one of them here kzbin.info/www/bejne/j5mQapmJqbumoa8
@jfergs.33023 жыл бұрын
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?
@TrevRockOne3 жыл бұрын
It's a concept album about a roudy, rude rocker guy, so you have to set the mood appropriately.
@jfergs.33023 жыл бұрын
@@TrevRockOne Ahhh, cheers for the context.
@stonemoshed3 жыл бұрын
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.