It definitely IS part of the art, but often I find myself thinking how great a certain track could have sounded on the LP if the production had been a different one. Great you mention VDGG, because I feel the same about lots of their music (Pawn Hearts especially... but I digress )
If many more did it it sounds more like a trend than an intended art purpose. And Im not saying remove it entirely, just make instrumental performances audible on some tracks that bury them.
Ok then, I was wondering whether to post the first song this morning, but I see we have some songs already coming out, so I guess we are ready. This certainly doesn't mean that folks have to stop talking about the album, how they got it, what they thought about it etc.
Interestingly I actually got this album earlier in the year on Pink Scroll, without ever really hearing the whole thing before. It was on auction, cheaper than usual, I liked Genesis and said why not. And while it does feel awesome to have an all around Excellent Pink Scroll Im still looking for those 80s reissues that I hear are the best version. One thing I like about it though is the Lyrics Sheet which becomes all the more essential when the vocals become too muffled in the mix.
There is really nothing much to tell about how i acquired the album. I saw the CD sitting in the rack, took it to the counter and paid for it. I did at first think the jewel case was cracked, but of course that's the line intentionally drawn across the picture, presumably symbolising a cut made by The Knife.
Looking For Someone Written by Tony Banks, Peter Gabriel, Anthony Phillips, and Mike Rutherford. As all these songs are. You can hear that the band sat around and constructed and re-constructed these parts to form a smooth song. A lot of this will come from those days in their little retreat and the live gigs they used to polish up and test the songs. This starts with Peter singing the title and Tony holding the keys underneath. Initially Peter sounds like he is singing a blues, which gives this a very interesting sound and feel, especially for someone like me that was familiar with the later stuff and coming back. At the thrity five second mark the drums bring the band in fully, and then just as quickly they are gone again, and then they are back again. There is a beautiful use of dynamics that gives the song a very enticing sound to my ears. Also, I have to agree that the intro is somewhat haunting/haunted. I think a lot of that is to do with that organ and Gabriel's vocal. Also over the initial part of the song Philips does some nice little note runs to draw things together. Also, as we will get used to with Genesis, there is a nice little modulation that gives the impression we are going to change, and yet it returns back to the initial theme. Then we get two changes in a row "nobody, needs to discover me" and " Feel the ashes from the fire that kept you warm". Then we get a positively aggressive section that turns into an instrumental break. Almost like a soundtrack in nature. It almost sounds like the beginning of a car chase theme. And all of a sudden we are back to a mellow feel and a variation on the intro theme is introduced. The overall impression to me is that they really spent some time constructing this track, and I think it pays off. For me this is a great opener to the album. I love the stop start nature, as it seems to make the song more intriguing. The last instrumental break really give the song some finishing power and we have Peter throwing in some flute passages, before a nice semi-orchestral crescendo to finish. Personally I don't think any of the songs would open this album better. This song gives anyone wondering a good idea of what the band is looking to do. They are looking to stretch well outside any I, IV, V or I, IV, VI V kind of structure and they are looking to use dynamics and lyrical pictures to paint their stories. To me a very satisfying start to Genesis proper.
If you look at the full cover, you can see that it appears to be a photo of the artists cut work..... I sometimes wonder how the artist felt about cutting up his painting ???
I should have probably spoken about this in the opening there, but I don't really find this track to be particularly murky. I don't find Mayhew a particularly bad drummer. I may well be wrong, but part of the sound issue with the drums could be an engineering or mic placement issue .... but to a degree the drums seem to be tuned fairly low, and this can sometimes give the drums a bit of a slappy sound (like trying to tune a guitar for bass ... You get the note, but the strings not being at their optimal tension they don't quite sound right) If you want lower sounding drums, it really needs bigger shells to accomodate the sound, rather than tuning smaller shells too loose. Overall I much prefer collins drum sound and playing. but I don't find Mayhew to be inept or bad to listen to.
Speaking of it being a painting, I never really thought about that before. But I wonder then if the first LP covers were intended to be textured. The feel is sort of similar to canvas fabric.
It definitely is a production problem - even with the sloppy-sounding final product, you can hear Mayhew was a really good drummer capable of the Genesis sound.
I can only go by the info about what the band asked for, and when I look at the whole cover, it looks fairly genuine to me. It would have been hard in 1970 to get that knife shadow to look so authentic ... Perhaps they touched up the slice ... Does anyone know the story here?
The first track is not too bad of a muffling offender. Its only really the first few seconds and vocals that are a little low on the frequency spectrum. But thats on LP. CDs are generally EQd a bit higher.
The problem with Mayhew, apart a certain slight rhytmic imprecision in fast passages, was that he wasn't really inventive. Most songs basically started out from acoustic jams and he tried to follow or accompany the guys. They wanted someone more creative and flexible.
That's what I meant. It looks like the knife + shadow was photographed on a white background, then superimposed to the painting photo and completed with a fake cut. Or maybe the cut too was drawn on the white surface. Whatevs, it works just fine.
Oh yeah I have no problem with that at all. I was just trying to figure out why we have that slappy sound ... I think wet envelopes is a bit harsh ( ) but it definitely is lacking some ring, which is why I wonder about the tuning. As much maligning as Collins gets, he is one of my favourite drummers, and that inventiveness is part of the reason, and he also beat the crap out of those things, which, like a strong fingered guitarist goes a long way to creating a certain tone. When I saw Genesis on the Mama tour and Collins on the jacket tour two seperate friends mentioned the same thing (it somewhat left me scratching my head somewhat, but anyhow) In different ways they both said " I prefer when Phil Collins is on drums, because that other guy is a bit plinky plonky" .... I was like, you mean Chester Thompson, that magnificent drummer from Weather Report and some of Zappa's best albums ... "Well I don't know who he is, but he doesn't have the presence" .... It's odd hearing things from other people's perspectives ... I just came to the conclusion that Collins hits harder and that is what they were hearing. There is certainly room for both types of drummer, but Collins was an incredibly talented musician all round.
I guess another thing to remember is, and I think about this, because my drummer mate -we were in bands together from 16-40, I miss jamming with him.... sigh, oh to be young again - always used to complain about music from somewhere around the mid seventies and earlier giving so little regard to drum sounds and mixes. Aside from the music transitioning from the late sixties psychedelia into the whole progressive movement, we have a transition from drums being merely a time keeper in rock music, to also being an intricate part of the writing and recording. That is probably part of the reason why John Bonham is so revered because he always had a good drum sound and Led Zep realised what an important part of the bands sound he was and mixed and recorded accordingly.
Mayhew’s rhythmic deficiencies aside, I love Trespass. I wish Anthony Phillips could have done at least one more album with Genesis. This certainly isn’t a knock against Hackett in any way as he’s one of my favorite guitarists of all-time, but Phillips never got the chance to fully develop and mature with Genesis the way Hackett did. I love Phillips' first couple of solo albums, especially The Geese and the Ghost, which is where Genesis may have went had Phillips stayed in the band.
I've never found anything wrong with Mayhew's drumming, I find his playing excellent on Looking For Someone.
The Geese and the Ghost totally sounds like the logical successor to Trespass. I think it's nice that even Phil appeared on the album it truly sounds like a legit Genesis album in parts, doesn't it?
