Music, Murder & Mayhem Pt.3
Genesis 1973-75; Sabbath: The Martin Years (SDE Blues); Lou (passim)
Who doesn’t love a good unboxing video, like Kee MacFarlane’s?
Super Deluxe Blues: After last year’s wallet-destroying “Who’s Next / Lifehouse” SDE there’s only thing I’m excited about this year, the long-promised Black Sabbath “Tony Martin” collection. Let’s hope they do the great man — and his ideas — justice … (hint, they won’t).
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This year we might get a 50th Anniversary “The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway” — but somehow I doubt it — and if we do, it will most likely be shit. Genesis’ curatorship of their back catalogue is lazy as fuck when compared to many of their contemporaries. I get it, they don’t care, and when they do, you’d rather they didn’t. Witness 1998’s lost opportunity “Archive” box set when the band made the ludicrous decision to re-record portions of Gabriel’s vocals from the 1975 Shrine Auditorium show with his late 90s gruff bark.*
So, why am I even interested in these plummy prog aristocrats? Exhibit #1 — the wretched sex addict Gabriel. Exhibit #2 — the definitely curious Lamb Lies Down double album** and finally #3, the likely deviant “Musical Box” — I pretty much listened to the 1972-73 bootlegs exclusively during the year spent putting American Campgrounds together. Musical Box on repeat in a bright Berlin apartment. I’d like to write a book about Genesis one day, they dovetail nicely with another favourite of mine — Queen. Both bands are lead by ardent sexual liberationists. Philosophers of sex backed by the drabbest, straightest worker bees you could ever imagine. If I live long enough, I’ll publish all my writing in this vein in Speed King (my ongoing 1000 pages plus dual biography of Lou Reed & Adolf Hitler — the Laurie Foundation will love it!).
But, to work, this week I’ve been reminding myself of the Lamb bootlegs, vital documents of an often infuriating album that still preoccupies / excites and eludes easy interpretation …
*And not only that, they entirely re-recorded “It” in the studio because the original live recording was missing from the sole shitty multitrack the band commissioned for the entire tour, despite it shining imperious on the OG TAKRL vinyl boot of an AUD recording of the same Shrine show, “As Though Emerald City” (1976). Bootleggers always do it better.
** My friend, let’s call him Pete, goes harder on this … he suggests Gabriel really rolled up his sleeves in preparation for the Lamb. Got his hands dirty and went deep at Times Square. Suggested I take a listen to Modern Love from Gabriel’s 1977 Bob Ezrin-produced solo album (his first since announcing his decision to leave Genesis at the end of the Lamb tour), I’m feeling so dirty, you’re looking so clean / And all you can give is a spin in your washing machine
Geddy Lee, the sexless gorm from Rush, tells a revealing story about going to see Genesis opening for Obergruppenführer Lou Reed in Toronto 1973 (“Have You Ever Walked Out Of A Gig?” Classic Rock June 2012). The twerp was so transfixed by the mellotron opening for “Watcher of the Skies” that he bailed on Lou. “Genesis just wasn’t an act that Lou Reed could follow.” The pint-sized race traitor.
Steve Hackett, Genesis guitarist, also remembers the evening well … “In 1973, we were supporting Lou Reed in Toronto in Massey Hall, and there were people who wanted to watch Genesis, and people who wanted to watch Lou Reed. And that deteriorated into a punch-up between the Lou Reed fans who were on downers, and the Genesis fans who were more into Earl Grey tea. Tony Banks started up his Mellotron introduction to Watcher Of The Skies and someone shouted out, “Sounds like fuckin’ Beethoven!” They just wanted a boogie” (“The Worst Gig We Ever Played: Musicians On Their On-Stage Lows” The Guardian 4 August, 2011).
Yep, those Lou Reed fans and their “downers.”
