HILLAGE From Canterbury to "L"... via the glissando by Dave Schulps During the late sixties, a small but unique musical movement developed around the historic English city of Canterbury. For whatever reason (the university there had much to do with it), Canterbury became the unofficial center of the entire British progressive/underground music scene, with a sound and philosophy all it's own. In a way, it was the British counterpart of what was happening over here in San Fransisco, without the publicity that eventually destroyed the San Fransisco scene and turned the whole hippie movement into a rancid joke. The Canterbury groups, the best known of which were Soft Machine and Caravan, were among the first to fuse jazz and rock, not in the garish big band manner of Blood, Sweat and Tears or Chicago, but within the context of a four or five piece group. This flowing musical hybrid was then usually embellished by the group's own hippie-esque philosophies.

Most of the groups were not commercially oriented, nor were they particularly successful pound-wise, but the majority of the musicians who developed the Canterbury "sound" have remained very tight knit throught the years. Most are still playing in groups today, although their following has consistently remained a small but dedicated cult. Amazingly, the philosophical outlook of the Canterbury scene has barely changed since the sixties and today the Canterbury sound remains as one of the last bastions of the hippie tradition.

One of the most important of the Canterbury-associated groups of the seventies has been Gong. Oddly enough, the group was actually based not in Canterbury, but in France. Gong's founder, Daevid Allen, was an original member of the Soft Machine and is considered the founder of the entire Canterbury scene, so Gong's ties are still very close to Canterbury.

Of all the hippies in the Canterbury school, Allen and Gong were the "hippiest". The group lived communally and it's music and lyrics were based on Tolkien-like mythology dreamed up by Allen which resolved around a planet called Gong inhabited by such characters as Pot-head Pixies, Flying Teapots, and Octive Doctors.

Steve Hillage had played in a couple of Canterbury groups called Uriel and Khan since the mid-sixties when he had attended the university there. In 1974, he became a member of Gong and his superb guitar work not only beefed up thier sound immensely, but earned Hillage the well-deserved reputation as one of England's most innovative guitarists. He pioneered a style of guitar playing called "glissando," originated in the sixties by Allen and Pink Floyd's Syd Barrett, wherein an object which looks like a knife handle is run across the strings with the right hand creating a strange, dreamy, drone effect on the guitar.

In 1975, while still with Gong, Hillage recorded his first solo album, Fish Rising, with the help of fellow Canterburian organist Dave Stewart and some members of Gong. After leaving Gong later that year, Hillage decided to put together his own band, but before doing so he recorded L, another solo album, produced by Todd Rundgren with backing supplied by Rundgren's band, Utopia, and avant garde jazz trumpeter Don Cherry. Hillage dedicated the album to "all optimistic visions of the future."

That dedication is really the essense of Steve Hillage. Rundgren described him to me as a "flower child." Talking to Hillage is like taking one big step back into the sixties. He seems barely touched by the creeping pessimism and cynicism of this decade - not so much unaware of it's existance as much as unwilling to be a party to it. Instead, he speaks of yoga, pyramids, the earth's cosmic vibrations and transcendent philosophies. He is aware that his lifestyle is not currently in vogue, but with that ever present optimism he believes that sooner or later people will come around.

On the phone from London, where he and his new band were preparing to embark on their first American tour, supporting Electric Light Orchestra in some of this country's larger arenas, Hillage tried to explain some of his philosophies and talked about L, which had surprised a lot of people by rapidly shooting up the british LP charts (and doing quite well in this country as well). What did he think accounted for the initial success of the album?

"Whatever I'm saying seems to have come over a lot clearer to a lot of people," he told me, "I'm saying the same sort of thing as on my previous record, but saying it a bit clearer for people who weren't involved in what I was doing before. I'm trying to get into the medieval craftsmanship idea. I just must be getting better at it.It's like making short musical statements of an esoteric nature, of a more philosophic nature than normal pop music.

"Obviously, a lot of people are bewildered by all this stuff about pyramids and transcendant philosophies. I'm trying very much to work as a kind of catalyst, where I can present ideas which are unusual, but which I consider very important. Different people react to it in all sorts of different ways. There's no standard reaction. I mean some people really dig my guitar playing and that's just as far as it goes. Some people really like my lyrics and the music doesn't mean that much to them. There's no general rule."

I'll admit being one of those a bit bewildered by all the pyramid stuff. I mean, how do you necessarily relate music to pyramids? "Well, it's more on the level of energy than as an intellectual concept. I haven't actually written any music incorporating the mathematical qualities of the pyramid. I find the pyramid, of all the symbols from which esoteric philososphy is formed - symbols are used to explain concepts that are difficult to approach with words - very good because it seems to unite that which is known as 'science' with that which is known as 'religion' into one body of knowledge and energy. I think it's a very important symbol of what I regard as the initiation to the future of the planet. I'm very involved with it and I associate myself with it."

You mean you could actually write music around the mathematical properties of a pyramid? "It is possible. Although at the same time writing music is very much a thing of intuition and inspiration. Yet it is based on various harmonics and numbers. On one level, music is just a physical manifestation of the harmony of mathematics. It's interesting, although obviously my major efforts are not in that field."

Er, yes... interesting. But before we get caught up in a discussion of pyramids, what about the album? By this time I'm beginning to feel there must be some kind of cosmic significance to the title. After all, L? What does it stand for? "In many ways I'd like to see the album as a kind of ultra-positive invocation," posits Hillage, "and you've got all those words like 'light,' 'life,' 'love,' 'law,' and 'electricity' (electricity???) beginning with this letter, so it's a good symbol. In many ways the record named itself."

Hillage's ultra-positive viewpoint is more that amply represented on L. Regardless of one's opinion on his philosophies, portions of the music are unequivocably beautiful. It is joyous music, propeled by Hillage's vivid guitar work, which itself can be uplifting to listen to. Of the six tracks that make up L, three are originals written by Steve and his lady, Miquette Giraudy; two are lovingly crafted remakes of a pair of late sixties pop classics, Donovan's "Hurdy Gurdy Man" and the Beatles' "It's All Too Much," on which Hillage captures the ecstatic flavor of the originals while adding his own embellishments to their sound; and "Om Nama Shivaya," an Indian "devotional pop tune," a form of music probably alien to most American ears, but which is a staple on the radio in both India and Britain, with it's large Indian population. Not being a fan of most Indian music myself, I was surprised at it's accessibility, at least as performed by Hillage. Behind the actual performances on the album, of course, stands a characteristically crisp production job by Todd Rundgren.

The teaming of Hillage with Rundgren seems a natural. Rundgren, like Hillage, harbors an interest in Eastern philosophies, yoga and pyramids and also has always enjoyed a fanatical cult following, albiet a larger one than Hillage's. Although they had never met before Hillage came to Woodstock to record L in Rundgren's studio, the story of how they knew of each other bears repeating. It seems that some of Rundgren's fans had presented him with a collection of Gong albums, believing that they were musically barking up the same tree as Rundgren. At the same time, on the other side of the Atlantic, some of Hillage's fans had suggested he check out Rundgren's works. What he heard he liked, hence to decision to ask Rundgren to produce the album. Did Hillage, who had produced Fish Rising himself, think that the addition of Rundgren as a producer had anything to do with the success of L? "There's a great difference in the way we work," he explained. "I tend to be rather slow and methodical - more introverted in many ways, but Todd's energetic and outward-going and he seems to have given my work a dynamism which wasn't present on Fish Rising in terms of production. I think it's been quite a successful partnership and I might do some more recording with him."

Hillage and Rundgren: a successful partnership

Rundgren, too, agrees that the partnership was a success. I wondered if working with someone who had produced albums before altered the way in which Rundgren went about his production duties. "With Steven I was able to act as more of an engineer, to stay in the control booth more. He has a good idea of what he wants to do so my job becomes more to get the right sound and the right mix for him."

Being a fellow guitarist, I asked Rundgren to compare his style with that of Hillage. "I don't really consider myself a guitarist, I'm basically a songwriter. I play more or less the licks I know and if I play good, that's fine. Steve plays hours and hours a day. I don't know whether it's practice, he likes to do it. He just gets off on playing the guitar so he plays all the time. I would say as people rate guitarists he's better than I am, but he's also better than most guitarists that people think are good. He doesn't hump his guitar and stuff and foist himself off so he's harder to notice than most."

A prevalent feature of Hillage's sound on L is the aforementioned "glissando" style which he tried to explain. "It gives the guitar a kind of magical, alchemical sound. Metal on metal as opposed to horsehair on gut or mellotron. You can keep a hypnotic, droning sound going on the bass strings and you can make it sound like you're changing keys at will. It's very important to my sound. We've really got it down to an art." Rundgren adds: "Steve is very into the Om drone and the glissando is part of it. There's a lot of it on the album and it sometimes had to be mixed all the way down because it can get to sound like dragging your fingers down a blackboard, though at some points it really sounds nice and produces a weird variety of sounds. He totally improvises it. It's like a whole state he gets into."

Since the release of L, Hillage has put together his own six-piece touring band which he's quite happy with. The group features, in addition to Hillage:

• Clive Bunker, Jethro Tull's original drummer;
• the appropriately named Colin Bass on bass;
• Phil Hodge, "a typically Canterbury-styled keyboard player;"
• Miquette Giraudy on ARP synthesizer and bells;
• Basil Brooks on EMS synthesizer, "specializing in way out sounds which entertain and enthrall audiences," adds Hillage with a giggle;
• and finally Christian Boule, "a French gentleman who plays the glissando guitar."

"One of the things I was looking for was people who were good natured and happy as opposed to neurotic and strung out. By sheer good fortune I've been blessed with a band that's very happy. We have a very good time. I've never been so happy in a group before," adds Hillage.

Yet with all the good vibes, happy people, optimism, and positive thinking, there are those who find Hillage's philosophies a bit hard to swallow whole - a throwback to an era probably best left forgotten. Hillage is aware that not everybody is attuned to his way of thinking. "In England, my music is regarded as a bit eccentric because it goes against the grain of what's happening here. There's a kind of cynical punk scene that's in fashion at the moment. What I'm doing isn't fashionable, but in a way that's good because one of the things that ruined hippie-ism - if I dare use that word - in the sixties was that it became a fashion. Fashions can be rather dangerous; they tend to massacre any serious ideas that may arise. If it becomes a fashion it gets marred.

"In the punk-rock scene there are one or two good things happening in that the music is being made by newer musicians who are breaking through the hierarchy of big, rich groups. Unfortunately, it's a fashion in a rather nauseating way. I'm hoping in the same way it became fashionable ten years ago to talk about peace and love all the time and it quickly fell out of favor, since now it's fashionable to be full of hate and bad vibes that'll fall out of favor soon, as well."

So that's Steve Hillage, the eternal - dare I use the word - hippie. Yet I wondered if Steve would call himself that. "No, not really," he replied. "Because it's a fashion and I don't believe what I believe in to be fashionable."