BUY
THIS
Peter Hammill
1. Pushing Thirty
2. The Second Hand
3. Trappings
4. The Mousetrap
5. Energy Vampires
6. If I Could
7. The Future Now
8. Still in the Dark
9. Mediaevil
10. A Motor-bike in Afrika
11. The Cut
12. Palinurus (Castaway)
Additional Tracks
13. If I Could (live)
14. The Mousetrap (live)
Mixed at Rockfield, Monmouth 27th April - 3rd May 1978
Produced & engineered by PH. Mix engineering by PAT MORAN
Musicians: DAVID JACKSON sax (1, 2)
GRAHAM SMITH violin (5, 6)
otherwise all PH
Cover design by Barney Bubbles
Photography by Brian Griffin
In the first days of January 1978, with the Van der Graaf
train rapidly approaching Crisis Junction if not derailment,
I moved out of London to a rented house in Byfleet with the
specific intention of recording "The Future Now". After the
small matter of rehearsing for and recording "Vital",
followed by a solo US tour in February, I was finally able
to begin work on this in mid-March. I had just under two
months available to complete the album, since the next (and,
as it happened, last) VdG tour was already booked in to
start on the 12th May.
For these recordings I had made the jump to 8-track
analogue, using an ITAM machine which was basically a
"stacked" Revox. It was noisy & chunky but pretty
reliable. I'd also got something more of a mixing desk than
I'd had previously - possible an Alice 8-channel job, but my
memory is hazy on this point. Very minimal stuff, in any
case. My Gors & Kallman baby grand piano & my
harmonium returned to live with me from storage and I had my
guitars and amps as well as the (unreliable to say the
least) monophonic analogue synth which had been custom-made
by a friend of Charles Dickie's. In addition I had a
primitive but delightfully idiosyncratic Roland beat box, a
slow-speed Revox and various fx boxes. That was the sum of
the available equipment.
Evidently going into the recordings I and my planet were in
a tremendous state of flux. VdG were hanging on by our
fingernails and "Vital" really was essential to our future
survival. Charisma were unwilling or unable to see us
recording another studio album as a band and a lot depended
on what emerged from this live recording. I, on the other
hand, was still signed as a solo artist, although my own
future career with Charisma was not a gold-plated certainty
at this time....
In the light of this it's perhaps surprising that I went
into this project with little prepared. To the best of my
recollection only five or six of the songs were written
before I started; I trusted to fate and hard work to guide
me through discovering the rest. My confidence was evidently
not at its lowest at this stage, evidently.
Van der Graaf was still going and - we hoped at the time -
might yet survive; but there was a different approach to
this solo recording than to any others I'd done while the
band had been in existence. "Fool's Mate" and "Nadir" had
both been made up of "light", or at least short, songs;
"Over" was evidently a personal and emotional statement.
With "The Future Now" I began to map out an alternative,
solo, way of working which, while "serious", did not bow to
or, indeed, make any reference to, the work and style of the
group.
I was partly enthused by the events of '77 in music and had
come to the conclusion that while it would be palpably
absurd for me to attempt to work in or present myself as
belonging to either Punk or New Wave then at least the
opportunity appeared to be there to stretch the boundaries
of the pop song, both in its musical and lyrical content and
composition. It's for this reason that a number of the songs
contained here move towards "social" topics - I felt that
the time was right for non-dogmatic takes on things such as
these.... I'd also learned enough about recording, I
suppose, to finally essay the "something different will
emerge if I just record by myself" ethos to its logical
conclusion. Hence the fashioning of raw, concrete noise -
previously "held apart" as in, for instance, "Magog" - into
the basis of what could be construed, at a pinch, as
"normal" songs.
The physical constraints of recording were somewhat severe.
The central heating system in the house sent clicks down the
mains so I had to turn it off for the duration of recording
and wrapped myself in many layers of clothing, with only my
freezing hands out in the cold, in order to get through
things. For most of the time I saw no-one but Cracky Jones,
the ex-VdGG roadie, who lived down the road, and the
denizens of local pubs, where I'd go to write lyrics in
lunchtime breaks. I worked continuously; this was the only
way the thing was going to get done.
As for the songs....
"Pushing Thirty" seems a long way away now, of course. The
sentiment still holds, though. I honestly didn't know that
I'd still be doing this at fifty-plus; but "having fun"
remains an important ingredient of the whole thing. "The
Second Hand" came out of bass improvisation over the
aforementioned beat-box; more time stuff. "Trappings"...you
can fill in whatever superstar takes your fancy here. The
constraints of 8-track recording meant that the B. Vox had
to go on very early indeed; this was helpful in terms of
leaving the song comparatively bare. My guitar playing, or
at least my confidence in it, had evidently benefited from
the responsibilities which fell on my shoulders in VdG.
"The Mousetrap" was one of the songs which I had when I
started. That unstable synth is to the fore in the
arrangement. Echoes of the synth overdubbing in Trident in
the "In Camera" era, I feel. This became something of a live
staple at the time; evidently I was talking about a singer
as much as an actor....
"Energy Vampires" was a term coined by Graham Smith, so it's
appropriate that he should play on it. Not for the last time
the inspiration came from the specific repeats of the Revox;
a succession of whacky multi-track edits (the joy of the
razor-blade!) reduced what had been a long initial
improvisation to this song form. A general word about this
one. Yes, I & we have encountered Energy Vampires over
the years; they're attracted by the energy source that's
around any endeavour such as music...sport's another area
where mind & matter are similarly directed. Most people
("fans" or whatever) are NOT EVs, though! In general I've
found that meeting people takes place on an understood, if
difficult and sometimes nervous, basis.
"If I could" was written around the same time as the "Quiet
Zone" material. I remain happy about this sparse arrangement
and particularly with the BVs. I've played this song many,
many times and still seem to find a resonance with it.
"The Future Now" itself still sounds, to me, like nothing
else and this kind of sound, without musicianly showing-off
and with unlikely contrasts, was, I believe, the kind of
thing I'd been looking to head towards from the outset of my
one-man recordings.
"Still in the Dark" features a very early instance of e-bow
guitar being used in an orchestral manner together with
synths. in this sense it's a blueprint for much of my most
recent work. In retrospect I think I've underplayed this
song; it's content seems more relevant than ever these
days.
The next three songs, "Mediaevil", "A Motor-bike in Afrika"
and "The Cut" are the truly experimental triad here. All
came from sheer messing about with tapes and sounds, the
songs themselves having to be "found" out of the assembled
noise. This is a natural part of the process of songwriting,
but normally one works with more logical material. After
making these three I became truly liberated in my approach
to songwriting and production - "anything goes", anything
can be a constituent part of a song, has been my watchword
since. I also continue to enjoy working with sound and
recording rather as though it's all clay, as here. Each
decision, each edit, each overdub is an ineradicable part
and one doesn't fully see where one's going until the thing
is finally done. Nor, when one is finally there, does one
necessarily remember exactly what route was taken or where
the original impetus came from. In the days when I worked
with analogue tape some measure of remembrance was retained
as the editing tape bounced past the heads; in digital world
even these past moments of decision become invisible.
However, these principles of working towards, rather than
on, songs date from this era and I continue to apply them to
this day.
"Palinurus" wraps it up. A rare appearance of harmonica,
which was my first instrument (sic); I never got that far
with it. I continue to search for that white note and,
indeed, to be aware of the sentiments of the final
line....
Closing notes: the cover photographs must have been taken on
the 17th May. I'd shaved half of my beard off in Liverpool
after the show at Eric's club. Everyone knew I was going to
do it except for Graham Smith, for some reason. He thought
I'd genuinely and finally cracked when he met me in the
lobby of the hotel the next day. I did one show
half-bearded, in Bangor and then took the train to London.
Having looked pretty ridiculous and/or alien at various
times of my life I can honestly say I've never had such
strange reactions. The rest of the beard went a couple of
days later....
Only what you hear on the CD is to be taken as approaching the truth.