Since 29th May 1998.
Take four people, blend thoroughly until they are a Group, add a producer (of sorts) and a good Engineer (to taste). An assortement of good Vibes and a few ideas and Jeff on Flute. Loon lightly for 12 hours. Mix above for 8 hours adding a lump of double tracking (from the Blue Machine), some phased Drums, some top on piano, middle on Bass and a dash of echo. Serve on a warm Turnable at 33.3 with a Stereo Pick-up. Garnish your head with whatever turns you on. John Anthony
In June (1968), the original Van der Graaf Generator split up for a number of reasons, among which personality conflicts figured not at all. We regretted its passing very much and sadly headed off in our separate directions, my own being to work solo in an acoustic context. Eventually the time came to record this album, originally intended to be mine alone. "I'd like to get together again", I said to Guy, Keith and Hugh, "and do some nice, sweet, gentle things". "Great", they said.
Six hours of rehearsal and one week later, we found ourselves in Trident with three songs completely ready to record, an eager crowd of friends, and the mysterious Jeff on flute, while the unholy twins, John and Robin, lurked in the control room flickeringswitches and sipping tea. After twelve hours, much sweat and a couple of hundred photographs, we dicovered, to our great surprise and elation, that we've made an albu m, a band album to boot, albeit with passages of gentleness, but mostly consisting of bare-your-tonsils-to-the-world music.
A lot of things happened in the studio: Hugh sat at a piano for ten minutes, playing one note at half speed with one hand and eating a banana out of the other. At a point everyone in the studio was gathered together to form the im promptu Aerosol chorus. Keith pretended to be Bing Crosby. Guy lurched, grinning, round the drumming room and was very industrious. John flitted up and down the stairs and became an adopted member of the band. The cans kept falling off my head at crucial moments. Gordian crwled round everyone's legs taking photographs. And somewhere amidst all this chaos of people, instruments, empty bottles and plastic cups, Van der Graaf Generator was reborn, slapped into life by the heavy pressure put on us in the making of this album.
It's not the same as the old Van der Graaf... by the time we're on the road again, the personnel will have changed, too. But this album is a starting point. Each copy's a bit like a slice of our first birthday cake; in fact, the sessions degenerated into some kind of freaky party after a while, maybe some of that comes through in 'Aerosol Grey Machine'...it was a very happy, if very taxing twelve hours.
I wonder if Mr Robert J Van der Graaf of M.I.T knew what he was doing when he invented his little bit of electrostatic apparatus!
Peter Hammill
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