After retir­ing for per­son­al rea­sons from prog-rock giants Gen­e­sis, Peter Gabriel went on to record a total of four solo records enti­tled Peter Gabriel, dis­tin­guished from each oth­er by ref­er­ences to their cov­er art (“Car,” “Scratch,” “Melt”) and an alter­nate title insist­ed upon by his label (“Secu­ri­ty”). This inten­sive focus on the epony­mous per­haps bespeaks of ego, per­haps humil­i­ty. It also maybe sig­ni­fies the decep­tive­ly straight­for­ward pre­sen­ta­tion Gabriel would offer the world—shorn of the make­up and cos­tumes of his Gen­e­sis days, he might appear to have become anoth­er earnest, bal­ladeer­ing singer/songwriter. (See our post on clas­sic Gabriel-era Gen­e­sis from yes­ter­day.) Yet that first, 1977, solo out­ing was as imag­i­na­tive, baroque, and glee­ful­ly exper­i­men­tal as his pre­vi­ous work. His expan­sive musi­cal vocab­u­lary gave the first Peter Gabriel what Stere­ogum calls “a pur­pose­ful­ly eclec­tic, any­thing-flies approach to songcraft” that some­times worked, some­times didn’t.

Some of the uneven­ness of the first solo album is due to what Gabriel him­self felt was over­pro­duc­tion on the part of Bob Ezrin, par­tic­u­lar­ly on the song “Here Comes the Flood.” He would there­after per­form this song solo on piano—re-record­ing it thus in 1990. At the top of the post, you can hear him play it as the open­er for his first ever solo show at the Capi­tol The­atre in Pas­sa­ic, New Jer­sey.

The March 5, 1977 con­cert kicked off the tour for the first Peter Gabriel, for which he assem­bled an all-star band, some of whom had fea­tured on the album, includ­ing King Crim­son gui­tarist Robert Fripp (appear­ing under the name “Dusty Rhodes” and appar­ent­ly play­ing off­stage behind the cur­tain). After “Here Comes the Flood” is “On the Air,” and just above, hear the weird, wob­bly “Mori­bund the Burg­er­meis­ter” from that night. Below, in four parts, hear the remain­ing songs in the set (see the full setlist here). Over the audio in each Youtube clip, see mon­tages of still images—some pre­sum­ably from the tour, some of album and pro­mo art­work.

While Gabriel may have ditched the flam­boy­ant onstage per­son­ae, he nev­er aban­doned his visu­al flair, as we know from those ground­break­ing music videos. Wit­ness the artis­tic pedi­gree on dis­play in the cov­er art of Peter Gabriel (Car)—a pho­to­graph by Throb­bing Gris­tle mem­ber and artist Peter “Sleazy” Christo­pher­son of Gabriel slumped in a car owned by famed album cov­er design­er Storm Thorg­er­son.

But the new Peter Gabriel, the solo artist, had—as he put it in the first album’s big sin­gle “Sols­bury Hill”—“walked right out of the machin­ery” of Gen­e­sis’ exces­sive pre­sen­ta­tion. That song, still one of his most mem­o­rable, has been cov­ered by every­one from Lou Reed to Era­sure. Speak­ing to his strength as a song­writer, the tune with per­haps the broad­est appeal is also one of his most personal—purportedly about his deci­sion to leave Gen­e­sis. Hear it live in Part 5 below.

Though he may have left behind the band that made him famous, he still pays trib­ute to them in his first solo concert’s finale. At the close of the set, below, he ends with a Gen­e­sis song, “Back in N.Y.C.,” from the last, dou­ble con­cept album he record­ed with them. It doesn’t feel out of place at all, prov­ing per­haps that, even with­out the makeup—as All­mu­sic writes—Peter Gabriel was “unde­ni­ably the work of the same man behind The Lamb Lies Down on Broad­way.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch Gen­e­sis (from the Peter Gabriel-Era) Per­form in a Glo­ri­ous, 1973 Restored Con­cert Film

Peter Gabriel and Gen­e­sis Live on Bel­gian TV in 1972: The Full Show

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

If you’re of a cer­tain vintage—let’s just say old enough to bore mil­len­ni­als to death with nos­tal­gic rants about how MTV used to play music videos, man—then you will remem­ber Peter Gabriel’s visu­al­ly stun­ning “Sledge­ham­mer” video from his award-win­ning 1986 album So. You will have had your heart­strings tugged by his “In Your Eyes” and its pitch-per­fect appro­pri­a­tion in Cameron Crowe’s Say Any­thing. And you will know—though maybe not as well as Patrick Bate­man—the sounds and images of Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight.” This music may not have aged as well as those of us who grew up hear­ing it (or vice ver­sa), but it left an indeli­ble impres­sion on a gen­er­a­tion and defined 80s pop cul­ture as much as Michael Jack­son or The Ban­gles.

But if you are of a slight­ly ear­li­er vin­tage, you will remem­ber these fine musi­cians for an entire­ly dif­fer­ent rea­son. Before the catchy dance-pop silli­ness of “Sus­su­dio” and “Big Time,” there was the arty, high-seri­ous­ness of Gen­e­sis, as front­ed in its hey­day by Gabriel, with Collins pound­ing the drums. Though the band per­sist­ed well into the 80s and 90s after Gabriel’s 1975 depar­ture, meld­ing funk, soul, and pop in inno­v­a­tive ways as Collins took the lead, die-hard Gen­e­sis fans swear by its clas­sic con­fig­u­ra­tion, with its sur­re­al con­cept albums and stage shows rival­ing Wall-era Pink Floyd or Bowie’s Star­dust phase. If you’re none too keen on lat­er Gen­e­sis, the slick synth-rock hit machine, and if the afore­men­tioned flam­boy­ant pro­duc­tions are your cup of Eng­lish prog-rock tea, then we have a treat for you.

Just above is a ful­ly restored con­cert film of a 1973 per­for­mance at England’s Shep­per­ton Stu­dios, “per­haps,” writes Dan­ger­ous Minds, “the sin­gle best rep­re­sen­ta­tion of Peter Gabriel-era Gen­e­sis on film.” Though the con­cert pre­cedes the band’s Gabriel-era swan song—double con­cept album, The Lamb Lies Down on Broad­way—it does show­case the strongest mate­r­i­al from their two pre­vi­ous records, Fox­trot and the tru­ly excel­lent Sell­ing Eng­land by the Pound. Promi­nent­ly on dis­play are the eccen­tric­i­ties that sharply divid­ed crit­ics and enam­ored fans: the odd time-sig­na­tures and abrupt tem­po changes, vir­tu­osic musi­cian­ship, lit­er­ate, eso­teric lyrics, and Gabriel’s the­atri­cal make­up and cos­tum­ing. The effect of it all is some­times a bit like Rush in a pro­duc­tion of God­spell, and while This is Spinal Tap took a lot of the air out of this sort of thing three decades ago, the film remains an impres­sive doc­u­ment even if the per­for­mances are hard to take entire­ly seri­ous­ly at times. See below for a full track­list:

“Watch­er of the Skies” (8:04)
“Danc­ing with the Moon­lit Knight” (9:02)
“I Know What I Like” (5:46)
“The Musi­cal Box” (11:39)
“Sup­per’s Ready” (23:59)

The sto­ry of the film’s restora­tion is intrigu­ing in its own right. The Shep­per­ton footage was res­cued by a small group who pooled resources to buy it in a New York estate sale. Since then, Youtube uploader King Lerch and his con­fr­eres have upgrad­ed the orig­i­nal restora­tion to the HD ver­sion you see above.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Peter Gabriel and Gen­e­sis Live on Bel­gian TV in 1972: The Full Show

Watch Pink Floyd Play Live in the Ruins of Pom­peii (1972)

David Bowie’s Final Gig as Zig­gy Star­dust Doc­u­ment­ed in 1973 Con­cert Film

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

The End­less Riv­er, Pink Floyd’s unex­pect­ed new album, dropped Fri­day, and unless we cred­it sly hints dropped by drum­mer Nick Mason, it’s like­ly the last we’ll ever hear from them. But one should always clar­i­fy, when speak­ing of the band, exact­ly which Pink Floyd is under dis­cus­sion. Is it Pink Floyd 1.0, with mad­cap singer/guitarist Syd Bar­rett at the helm? Pink Floyd 2.0—the most endur­ing combo—featuring Mason, Bar­rett replace­ment David Gilmour, bassist Roger Waters, and key­boardist Richard Wright? At anoth­er time, Wright was out of the pic­ture, then back in. After 1985, Waters, the band’s pri­ma­ry lyri­cist, and arguably most vision­ary mem­ber, was gone for good. They would nev­er again make music as soar­ing and ambitious—if also bombastic—as they did with his over­bear­ing pres­ence.

The title of the last album Waters record­ed with the band, 1983’s The Final Cut, pre­scient­ly announces itself as a coda for Floyd 2.0 (or 2.5? What­ev­er…). It also alludes to the band’s cin­e­mat­ic reach: whether scor­ing films, writ­ing them, or mak­ing records with the scope and breadth of epic movies. Floyd and film have always formed an organ­ic part­ner­ship. Before the quick fix of Youtube, they made fea­ture-length music videos that seemed to emerge ful­ly formed from nar­ra­tive and con­cept-rich records. The Final Cut, the album, ini­tial­ly intend­ed to be part of 1982’s rock opera The Wall, took on a life of its own when Waters re-con­ceived it as a protest against the Falk­lands War and Mar­garet Thatch­er, as well as a eulo­gy and vin­di­ca­tion for his ser­vice­man father who died in World War II. The Final Cut, the film (above—not to be con­fused with a 2004 sci-fi flick of the same name), is a nine­teen-minute piece that dra­ma­tizes four songs from the album: “The Gunner’s Dream,” “The Final Cut,” “Not Now John,” and “The Fletch­er Memo­r­i­al Home.”

The album itself brought the band to an impasse—pushing Waters’ increas­ing­ly per­son­al focus to such an extent that, writes All­mu­sic, it “pur­pose­ful­ly alien­ates all but the most ded­i­cat­ed lis­ten­er.” That may be so, but if one is will­ing to indulge it, it’s a very reward­ing lis­ten, “more like a nov­el than a record.” And it makes a fas­ci­nat­ing con­trast to The End­less Riv­er, “a suite of most­ly instru­men­tal moods and frag­ments” rem­i­nis­cent of the band’s film scores. Tak­en togeth­er, these two doc­u­ments show­case the endur­ing strengths of Pink Floyd proper—they were a band who excelled both at telling com­plex sto­ries and cre­at­ing deeply felt moods that are, like the title of The End­less Riv­er’s clos­ing track, “Loud­er than Words.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch the Rare Reunions of Pink Floyd: Con­certs from 2005, 2010 & 2011

Watch Doc­u­men­taries on the Mak­ing of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here

Pink Floyd Plays With Their Brand New Singer & Gui­tarist David Gilmour on French TV (1968)

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

Dur­ing the gold­en age of vinyl, Ron­co sold vac­u­ums to keep your records clean. But there was always a cheap­er DIY hack — a hack demon­strat­ed in a video cre­at­ed by a Youtu­ber who sim­ply goes by “ghettofunk13.” Just pour some wood glue on your record, spread it around care­ful­ly as the turntable spins (don’t get it on the cen­ter label), and you can appar­ent­ly get rid of those snaps, crack­les, and pops. The video is pret­ty straight­for­ward. But it’s worth not­ing the adden­dum “ghettofunk13” lat­er added in text: “You can use con­sid­er­ably less glue and still get the same effect — it cuts the dry time way down. Just be sure that you get the whole record cov­ered!”

Over on Metafil­ter, one com­menter took “ghettofunk13” to task, say­ing “The bass is mud­dy and there’s no clar­i­ty and sparkle at the high end.… He should have used de-ion­ized wood glue from a poly­car­bon­ate (NOT polypropy­lene) bot­tle, and spread it in the direc­tion of rota­tion with a hand-pol­ished cedar shake. Ama­teur.” Just some­thing to con­sid­er if you plan to do some DIY record clean­ing this week­end. You can get a few more details on the process here. Try at your own risk.

FYI, over at Kottke.org, you can see an excel­lent micro­scop­ic pho­to of vinyl record grooves. Jason writes, “When you look real­ly close­ly at record grooves, like at 1000x mag­ni­fi­ca­tion, you can see the wave­forms of the music itself. Sooo cool.”

via Metafil­ter

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How Vinyl Records Are Made: A Primer from 1956

A Cel­e­bra­tion of Retro Media: Vinyl, Cas­settes, VHS, and Polaroid Too

Neil Young on the Trav­es­ty of MP3s

World Records: New Pho­to Exhib­it Pays Trib­ute to the Era of Vinyl Records & Turnta­bles

Chili Klaus, a Dan­ish entertainer/chili enthu­si­ast, asked some mem­bers of the Dan­ish Nation­al Cham­ber Orches­tra to per­form Tan­go Jalousie … but with a twist. Mid­way through their per­for­mance, they ate “the world’s hottest chili pep­pers” and then con­tin­ued on with the show. Over two mil­lion peo­ple have enjoyed what hap­pens next.

The orches­tra, cre­at­ed in Copen­hagen in 1937, is unfor­tu­nate­ly going to be shut down at the end of the year by its cash-strapped par­ent com­pa­ny, the Dan­ish Broad­cast­ing Cor­po­ra­tion (DBC). The video above seems to be just a fun­ny final act. Too bad it was­n’t used as part of a cam­paign to get the DBC to recon­sid­er its deci­sion.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

What Hap­pens When Every­day Peo­ple Get a Chance to Con­duct a World-Class Orches­tra

The Recy­cled Orches­tra: Paraguayan Youth Play Mozart with Instru­ments Clev­er­ly Made Out of Trash

Har­ry Partch’s Kooky Orches­tra of DIY Musi­cal Instru­ments

Pak­istani Musi­cians Play Amaz­ing Ver­sion of Dave Brubeck’s Jazz Clas­sic, “Take Five”

Every cre­ative work begins with a draft—or two, or three, or four. Great Amer­i­can nov­el, icon­ic paint­ing, gen­er­a­tion-defin­ing poem, album of the decade… each rep­re­sents a palimpsest of sketch­es, blind alleys, dead ends, demos, and out­takes. So it’s no great sur­prise to learn that Lon­don Call­ing, the Clash’s dou­ble-album mas­ter­piece, exists as an ear­li­er ver­sion, record­ed by the band them­selves on four-track tape machines at their rehearsal space in cen­tral Lon­don. What is maybe sur­pris­ing is how good these ear­ly record­ings are, and that they exist at all. Called The Vanil­la Tapes, after the name of their stu­dio, the tapes—though cer­tain­ly rough—represent what The Guardian calls “a col­lec­tion of demos and rehearsals that still man­age to sound more focused, intel­li­gent and rel­e­vant than most of today’s young pre­tenders.” No need to name names; it’s not much of a stretch to say that no rock and roll band today sounds as inter­est­ing as the Clash did in their prac­tices 35 years ago.

Record­ed in 1979, then lost, it seemed, for­ev­er, the tapes lived only in rumors and sly hints dropped by Joe Strum­mer of a self-record­ed LP. That is until March of 2004, when Mick Jones dis­cov­ered them in a box and “rec­og­nized them instant­ly for what they were.” The tapes, he said, “hadn’t been heard since before the record was made. It was pret­ty amaz­ing.” These ver­sions, writes Pat Gilbert at Mojo, are “clean, bright record­ings that reveal a group who are evi­dent­ly enjoy­ing cre­at­ing some­thing organ­ic and musi­cal.”

Paul’s bass walks, hops and lopes as he feels him­self into jazz, funk and dis­co. Mick plays eco­nom­i­cal­ly, expert­ly and flu­id­ly – intel­li­gent licks and chops. Joe’s rhythm gui­tar cuts through like a man who learned his craft from old Bo Did­dley, Buk­ka White and Chuck Berry records. Top­per is mag­nif­i­cent – light, pre­cise and clever. It’s Lon­don Call­ing stripped bare for com­bo play­ing: no horns, Ham­mond, piano, whistling.

At the top of the post, hear a rough take of “Lon­don Call­ing.” Aside from some hes­i­tan­cy in Strummer’s deliv­ery and a some­what plod­ding open­ing, the record­ing captures—perhaps even more than the stu­dio take—the apoc­a­lyp­tic dread of the song’s lyri­cal imagery. Some of the lines are different—London calls to the “the fools and the clowns” and “the mods on the run.” But this ear­ly ver­sion does have Strummer’s were­wolf howl and can­ny sum­ma­tion of the turn-of-the decade zeit­geist. Above, we have the Vanil­la Tapes ver­sion of “Rudie Can’t Fail” in all its funky ska imme­di­a­cy. (Notice the descend­ing melody in the chorus—which I almost like bet­ter than the album ver­sion’s ascend­ing chorus—and the toast­ing inter­jec­tions.) Just below, hear “Heart and Mind,” one of “five com­plete­ly unknown Clash songs” that appears on the tapes, “a rock­er,” writes Gilbert, “pitched some­where between ‘The Pris­on­er’ and ‘Death or Glo­ry.’”

Why this didn’t make the album, we’ll maybe nev­er know, but the cho­rus is great—“You’ve got a heart / You’ve got a mind / But you can’t / Keep them in time.” The oth­er four unearthed out­takes are “Where You Gonna Go (Sowe­to),” a rock­a­bil­ly tune called “Lone­some Me,” “bluesy instru­men­tal “Walk­ing the Side­walk,” and a reg­gae ver­sion of Bob Dylan’s “The Man in Me.” The tapes “includ­ed 37 tracks in total… pared down” for release “to the 21 best ver­sions.” Miss­ing from The Vanil­la Tapes are Lon­don Call­ing tracks “Span­ish Bombs,” “The Card Cheat,” “Wrong ‘Em Boyo,” and “Train in Vain,” con­firm­ing “the received wis­dom that (except “Wrong ‘Em Boyo”), these were writ­ten when The Clash were in Wes­sex record­ing the album prop­er.”

“Mud­dy, raw, and insis­tent­ly vague,” writes Pitch­fork, the tapes see the band “work­ing hard, but also grasp­ing for a muse.” They found a guid­ing cre­ative force in pro­duc­er Guy Stevens, who craft­ed their demos into the more pol­ished, but still rough enough for punk, stu­dio ver­sions we know well. But even with­out the ben­e­fit of com­par­i­son with the bril­liant real­iza­tions on the record, these ear­ly ver­sions stand up on their own as the sound of a band with more rangy cre­ative ener­gy than most groups can muster over their entire careers. The tapes were includ­ed in the 25th anniver­sary lega­cy edi­tion of Lon­don Call­ing, but you can hear them all on Youtube (lis­ten to “Lost in the Super­mar­ket” above). Like some com­menters, you might be sur­prised to find you like some of these raw demos even bet­ter than their cel­e­brat­ed stu­dio ver­sions.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Sur­viv­ing Mem­bers of The Clash Recount the Mak­ing of “Lon­don Call­ing” & Dis­cuss New Box Set

Watch Audio Ammu­ni­tion: Google’s New Doc­u­men­tary Series on The Clash and Their Five Clas­sic Albums

Doc­u­men­tary Viva Joe Strum­mer: The Sto­ry of the Clash Sur­veys the Career of Rock’s Beloved Front­man

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness