Steve Hackett Genesis Revisited

Genesis Revisited

A new look at Genesis at their most imaginative - from `71 to `77.

Continual demand for the 'old stuff' finally prompted Steve Hackett to take this affectionate backwards glace with some of his contemporaries.

"What would it sound like if occasional members of Genesis, King Crimson, Yes, Zappa, Asia, Weather Report, The Zombies,
Mike & The Mechanics, GTR, Ace - not to mention the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra - all got together with other salubrious
pals to form a massive team just for a few minutes ...?"

Steve Hackett found out by assembling a diverse and highly respected group of musicians and teaming them up with the mighty Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, creating a dream band to record songs from the classic Genesis line up of Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford, Tony Banks and, of course, Hackett himself.

"... here is the past as you've never seen or heard it, but perhaps occasionally dreamt it."

With ...

John Wetton
Bill Bruford
Ian McDonald
Paul Carrack
Chester Thompson
Tony Levin
Colin Blunstone
The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Watcher of the Skies   8.40
Dance On A Volcano   7.28
Valley Of The Kings 6.29
Déja Vu 5.53
Firth of Fifth   9.39
For Absent Friends   3.02
Your Own Special Way 4.18
Fountain of Salmacis   9.53
Waiting Room Only 6.53
I Know What I Like   5.37
Los Endos   8.51

The album also includes a 'new' Genesis song in the form of a track written by
Steve and Peter Gabriel which was started in 1974 and completed only last year!

Photos by Paul Clark

The 'class of `71' eventually disbanded leaving the two-man core which comprises the band today. By summer of `77 the die was cast for a different type of Genesis: much simplified, leaving many of the legions of original fans feeling disenfranchised or disheartened at the direction the band was taking.

These re-recordings are a personal attempt to recreate the ideas of a band whose devotees often chimed
"the group doesn't have the same punch on record as it does live; it sounds 'polite' by comparison."

GENESIS REVISITED
STEVE HACKETT in conversation

"In 1973, whilst on tour in America, I heard that John Lennon was asked on radio if he'd heard anything recently that caught his imagination from the world of music: he mentioned that he'd been listening to Genesis' Selling England by the Pound. Some 20 years later I'm touring Italy when a fan collars me, having bought every Steve Hackett album he can find. He asks if I will sign them all and, of course, I oblige. He then sheepishly produces from another bag - held by his extremely embarrassed girlfriend - an equally huge pile of Genesis albums. I try to oblige once more, knowing that the sound check is pressing, the tour bus driver is parked illegally outside in the middle of a busy thoroughfare and things are running as late as ever for the show.

What I'm trying to say is that the past usually looms up at the most inappropriate time ... You find a lost tribe, meet Doctor Livingstone - one of the tribe has a huge lip where he keeps hidden a piece of ancient treasure handed down the generations; as he produces it, it glints in the sun, turning rainbow colours.

Hold on a moment, it's ... no, it can't be ... yes ... a CD! He wants to 'play me Old King Cole' ... the strains of a familiar favourite Genesis refrain from the old Nursery Ryme (or Cryme). I must have done too good a job way back in '71, dammit!

Photo by Paul Cox

At long last, to cut a long story short, I've decided to embrace rather than reject the past: of course it was good, but could it have been better?

A song like Watcher of the Skies on record, for instance, never felt like it had the power of the time we first rehearsed it in the Reggio Emilia Palasport in Italy when I heard the Mellotron introduction from the shower rooms one floor down. The whole building was shaking as if the walls were buckling in response to a huge spacecraft about to be test-driven from its original hangar. Music has rarely approached me with such power before or since - a clarion call to many and progressive music at its best, I think. Mighty forces had been harnessed by the Mellotron and yet, originally, such numbers were part of albums considered to be financial disasters - the band was continually in debt, unthinkable now, but what was to make a difference? The answer, I think, lies a little bit further back than John Lennon's interest in '73.

Before joining the band, at the beginning of December 1970 I received a call from Peter Gabriel who had seen my latest ad. in Melody Maker seeking like-minded musicians 'determined to strive beyond existing stagnant music forms'. I saw the band live; they heard me playing with brother, John, on flute at home. Pete and Tony said 'We'd like you to meet Mike Rutherford. When I finally did, he was sitting up in bed in a pair of striped pyjamas, recovering from an ulcer. This is where we first started trading nothing stronger than chord shapes and served as a low-key audition for me. Had I known that they had already tried out 40 other guitarists in conventional style ('and the next contestant in here, please') I would have felt much more nervous.

So, I got the job mainly, I'm sure, because of my love of chords. Not content with that, I started, completely undiplomatically, to criticise the one or two stage shows I'd seen with the previous guitarist. In essence, I was saying, and this was to be repeated on occasion for the next two or three years with very little variation, 'the stage show looks a mess ... the presentation leaves a lot to be desired'.

A lesser band would have fired me on the spot, but they seemed to warm to criticism; they were certainly diligent when it came to the music, but to the complete exclusivity of the way the live shows looked.

Photo by Paul Cox

Photo by Paul Cox

I insisted we needed the cutting edge of a Mellotron to give the band the breadth and depth of an orchestra and the controlled environment that our own light show would bring, later insisting that we needed a synthesiser to compete with other high-tech bands. I felt my role within the group was to maintain an overview of its progress and development - I was still, by the end of '72, expecting the axe to fall on my own involvement as I continued to fire off radical opinion broadsides at the good ship Genesis. I thought that the price of professionalism might come very high indeed, but they didn't kill the messenger or expel him from court and I stayed for another five years.

The 'class of `71' eventually disbanded leaving the two-man core, comprising the band today. By summer of `77 the die was cast for a different type of Genesis: much simplified, leaving many of the legions of original fans feeling disenfranchised or disheartened at the direction the band was taking. Also, for me, it was time to work with some other wonderful people, but that's another story.

Much of what I was to do continued the spirit of experimental music, bearing in mind I turned down many an offer of joining a top band because I knew that 'early' Genesis was a hard act to follow.

These re-recordings are a personal attempt to recreate the ideas of a band whose devotees often chimed 'the group doesn't have the same punch on record as it does live; it sounds 'polite' by comparison.'

Recording techniques have come so far since the 70s that I felt it was time to blow away the film of dust, smooth the rough edges or put a new engine in a classic car and, if I may be bold enough to make an outrageous claim (tantamount to heresy in the ears of some fans, I'm sure), that the 'definitive' versions of these songs have yet to be heard until now ... to disinter an animal which suffered a premature burial and give it the kiss of life via the equivalent of micro surgery. Progressive music needn't be a haunting spectre but something that is only now coming into its own ... so much great technology is currently being put to so little use!

What we are saying is here is the past as you've never seen or heard it, but perhaps occasionally dreamt it.