VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR
Cinema Mascotte - Basel, Switzerland
07 May 1972 (2 AM show)
DISC 1:
01. Announcement & Soundcheck 1:37
02. Theme One 5:42
03. After The Flood 14:27
04. Killer 10:16
05. Navigator Jaxon's Intro /
Lemmings (including Cog) 14:01
06. W 7:26
07. Lost 14:02
DISC 2:
01. Darkness (11/11) 8:37
02. Octopus 12:43
personnel:
Hugh Banton: organs & pedals
Guy Evans: drums & percussion
Peter Hammill: vox & acoustic guitar
David Jackson: saxes, flute & backing vox
-- remastered by calyx1 --
not very technical notes:
well...i wouldn't qualify this as any sort of definitive remaster (although, if you ask me, it sounds damned AMAZING!!). it's by no means perfect (nor will it ever be!). i've been working on it intermittently for several months at this point and could keep tinkering with it until i die and improving it little by little, bit by bit over time but, then you people would never get to hear it, right? so, i've drawn the line and...well...here it is. the dark splendour of Van der Graaf Generator in their mad, manic prime (3 months prior to their implosion).
this show is referenced in the booklet which accompanies "The Box." the band played a gig
on the evening of the 6th in Bern then packed up and drove north to Basel to give this performance at 2 in the morning (hence the 7 May date). listening to Jaxon's intro to 'Lemmings' and the general tenor of the between song banter, the band appear to be pretty looped by this time (surprise, surprise!). presumably to entertain themselves, they played the scheduled set in reverse order (excepting 'Octopus' which retains it's slot as the encore).
when i received this recording, it was very boomy and muddy...riddled with divets, mic bumps, volume/channel fluctuations, wobbles, dropouts and swimming in hiss. what really amazes me is how much better it sounds now. once i'd EQ'd the boominess and mud down/out and stripped away as much hiss as i dared (without turning it into a swishy mess), i found that i had a recording that possessed a surprising amount of detail and presence (during some of the middle sections of 'W' and 'Lost,' where the vocals are either softer or non-existent, it sounds quite stunning). i've removed/repaired/minimised the larger dropouts, wobbles, etc...but there are still plenty of them there. like i said, it's NOT perfect...just a LOT better.
there are inevitable trade-offs involved when cleaning up an old show and this was no exception. in order to expose the clarity and detail hidden in the recording, a certain amount of the 'in yer face' quality of Jaxon's sax was sacrificed. it occupied the boomy/muddy frequency range. it was up-front, overpowering and buried everything else. sorry...i hated to do it but, it had to go. i also wish i could've cleaned up the vocals (which are rather 'blown out' at times...so much so during one section of 'Killer' that they cut out a few times) but, as the instrumentation behind them is fairly clean, it's quite clear that this is how they were coming out of the PA on stage that morning and i can't fix that. also, there was a tape flip during the ending section of 'Lemmings.' i did not splice anything in to fill it. instead, i opted to crossfade the 2 sections together. musically, it's quite a good crossfade but the variance in the background noise gives away the ghost. i considered it the best available option.
had enough yet? yeah...me too!! IT'S FRIDAY...f*ck it!! just pop open a progbiere, spark up
a spliff and turn this puppy up. it's INSANE!! you'll LOVE it!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ENORMOUS THANX to Steve Baker for supplying this recording and for creating the accompanying artwork!!
SR - 21 May 2004 (amended 4 September) (
geocities.com/wiberg52)