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DRONING
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Pit-eh-schoo, blugh, buh-doov...
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Jun-jing, jun-jing, jun-jing, jing, juh-jing, jun-ding, jung...
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- BOOF!
- Rata-da-da-da, da-da-da, da, da...
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Doo-doo, doo, doo, doo-doo, doo-doo...
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Eh-eh-eh, neh-neh...
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Da, da, da, da-da...
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Eh-eh-eh, Neh-neh...
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Neeeh...
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Digga-digga-digga-digga...
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- Digga-digga, dah-dah...
- Over. Then some chords!
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"The Assyrian came down like a wolf from the fold
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- "and his cohorts were gleaming in silver and gold..."
- Diddle-liddle, dum-dum, doo-doo...
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"The sheen of his stars were like stars in the sky," whatever it is.
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It's gonna go, "Meeh, doo-doo, doo, doo". Then it's gonna go "doodle-oodle, oodle-oodle."
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Continual "lul-uhl-lul-uhl" notes without a single break-in.
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Boof!
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And I almost lost it there!
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- HE LAUGHS
- Easy!
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From the British pop revolution of the 1960s, emerged an entirely new breed of musician -
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a post-Beatles, post-psychedelic generation that saw a future of limitless possibilities.
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It was time for pop music to move beyond the three-minute love song and chart success.
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With little or no concern for fame, fortune or the audience, they plundered every musical form
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on an adventure into uncharted territories in search of the lost chord.
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This is the story of that generation of new bands,
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Yes, King Crimson, Genesis, ELP, Jethro Tull and many more.
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From the land that time forgot, the glory days of Prog Britannia.
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MUSIC: "Time Of The Season" by The Zombies
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In 1967, pop music, like the world it inhabited, was about to explode.
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In London, the British beat boom fused with American pop in a blaze of invention that would ransack
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jazz, folk and anything else it could find in the many basement clubs of the city.
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I do think there are periods which are golden ages and, you know,
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the stars are aligned, and whatever is happening, and it produces a lot of creativity.
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Where I was at college was like a snapshot of music at the time.
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The angry bot people liked The Beatles.
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The side I was on was blues upstairs and, in the cellar, Bob Dylan
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and then you had the modern jazz guys and the classical guys.
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Otis Redding and Sam & Dave and Booker T & the MGs came over and you suddenly realised that
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you know, it's "game up".
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You can't pretend to be them any more when they're actually here.
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There was some white music that even black musicians were listening to,
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for example, Jimi Hendrix was listening very hard to Bob Dylan, you know, there was stuff going on.
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# It's the time of the season... #
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There was huge social changes and huge chemical changes...
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going on. There was something definitely in the water.
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I mean, timing is everything. The smartest thing I did was get born in 1949. Brilliant, brilliant.
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Cos at 18 you're in 1968. Europe's aflame, the Paris Riots.
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Perfect.
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I was in the States in '68 and there were three major assassinations while we were there.
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A few Kennedys and an Andy Warhol or two.
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You know, it was all happening.
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It WAS all happening. But much of the music only reached eager young British ears courtesy of outlaws.
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Offshore pirate radio stations, broadcasting illegally
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to a nation still dominated by something called the BBC Light Programme.
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MUSIC: "Summer In The City" by The Lovin' Spoonful
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MUSIC WARPS INTO DIFFERENT SONGS
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'It was unreachable. You felt like you were tuning into another planet.
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'Contacting the aliens. It was coming from another world.'
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You could only reach it on little transistor radios...late at night.
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Then, in May 1967, a song that fused Bach with Percy Sledge via Bob Dylan and Geoffrey Chaucer
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was heard leaving for the coast.
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A Whiter Shade Of Pale by Procul Harum.
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I wouldn't be exaggerating when I said that the world was waiting for that.
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# We skipped the light fandango
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# Turned cartwheels cross the floor... #
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The Beatles and the beat boom had been going for...
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certainly three or four years.
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'It was all getting a bit tired.'
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# The crowd called out for more... #
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I wanted to do something and I didn't want it to be like anything else.
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Because we've had, we've had it all.
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"This, I've never heard this before, really." That's what you think to yourself. Therefore, "I like this."
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# We called out for another drink
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# The waiter brought the tray
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- # And so it was... #
- And so it was that later, only two weeks later,
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as the miller told his tale, The Beatles released an album that was a concept,
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a world unto itself.
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A blueprint for progressive rock.
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MUSIC: "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)" by The Beatles
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# We're Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
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# We hope you have enjoyed the show... #
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A Whiter Shade Of Pale topped the British Singles Chart
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the very same week that Sgt Pepper announced the artistic triumph of the album.
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Bands were still making singles, you know, Cream - Strange Group,
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Pink Floyd - Arnold Layne and See Emily Play.
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And Procol Harum - Whiter Shade Of Pale.
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All of these records were amazing, creative, interesting singles
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and they also were incredibly, commercially successful.
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So the bands at that moment were getting the best of both worlds.
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It was Sgt Pepper, and the creative amazement of Sgt Pepper,
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that really convinced everybody that
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you can extend ideas onto an album, you can make concept albums.
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In fact, with the album, you can do almost exactly whatever you want.
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It was a strange mixture of...
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almost music hall and totally other-world music -
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that was the wonderful thing about it,
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it bridged the gap between the real world and this other world. And the other thing,
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it was all totally new. You'd never heard anything like that before.
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It's more fun in the record if there's a few sounds that
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you don't really know what they are and really they're just instruments
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only something happens on here. I couldn't tell you what cos we have a special man
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who sits here and goes like this and the guitar turns into a piano or something.
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And then you may say, "Why don't you use a piano?" Because the piano sounds like a guitar.
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If you look at the leap in terms of musical vocabulary and sophistication between
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the first Beatles album and Sgt Pepper which is like five years,
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everything that could be done with that form has already been done in those five years.
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Where else can you take it except to make it more and more sophisticated
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and more and more musically interesting or just
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for rock music to go on repeating itself and regurgitating itself?
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I liked... There's a lot of classical music I liked.
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I was always frightened of classical music and I never wanted to listen
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because it was Beethoven and Tchaikovsky and big words like that. And Schoenberg.
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I think a lot of people started to appreciate many other genres.
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Pop music is the classical music of now.
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Probably The Beatles had been listening to the same stuff,
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smoked the same cannabis... now and again.
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A lot of people were smoking on the quiet
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and they actually got furious when the hippies came along
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because suddenly there was a lot of notice being taken
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whereas they'd been quietly, you know, enjoying themselves for a long time.
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This was the era when if you wanted to try something, you could.
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You knew a mate who had some hashish,
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or you knew a mate who had some LSD.
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But you had to be careful. If you were very cautious and took very little of these things
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you could meddle and not lose your mind and end up in hospital.
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Cannabis was a stimulant. And it did enable you to hear a lot more in the music.
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It was there, you weren't imagining it. It was in there. But you concentrated more on listening to it.
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What came from that was the ability for people who would normally...
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copy American music suddenly wanted to express themselves.
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And so you had this strange thing at that time that almost every band had a unique sound.
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Nobody sounded quite like anyone else.
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# Dynamic explosions in my brain, shatter me to drops of rain
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# Falling from a yellow sky... #
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I moved across to what was really a new movement in music
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which was the psychedelia period.
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- # Hold me but as I jerk... #
- And that was Arthur Brown and The Crazy World of Arthur Brown.
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I mean, we didn't know what it was and we were in it!
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It was pretty confrontational.
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For that time, shocking.
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Arthur's concept was basically about the beginning of time, the beginning of life.
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I am the god of hellfire and I bring you...
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The original for the make-up was the death mask, which goes back
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right through English history and further than that.
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# Fire, to destroy all you've done... #
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It was kind of deep, really. It was real, you know.
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- HE CHUCKLES
- Sometimes the bar would be filled with petrol and the roadie would
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stand there throwing matches, a good distance away, until one landed and then... BOOF!
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The British beat boom had been a predominantly Northern or working class phenomenon.
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But the architects of progressive rock were escapees from entirely different backgrounds.
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I suppose for a rock and roller, my education was completely wrong.
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My mum and dad, I mean, literally did go without food to send me to piano lessons.
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I never found that out till many, many years on and I went there when I was five.
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And I loved it.
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My family had a very varied take on music and they were very opinionated about it.
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Course I liked Cliff Richard & The Shadows and they were going,
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"Nonsense, you won't even know who these people are next year."
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MUSIC: "Do You Wanna Dance" by Cliff Richard & The Shadows
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I was in this attic and I put on this Vivaldi record, The Four Seasons or something, and I just flipped.
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I just went, "This is fantastic stuff."
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Studied Stravinsky's Dumbarton Oaks concerto. Did a lot of church music, sang in choirs.
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At the same time as being obsessively interested in...
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The Shadows.
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Went to the Guildhall.
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Went to the Royal Academy. Had lots of private tuition, LOTS of private tuition.
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But never REALLY wanted to be in an orchestra.
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Or a jazz group for that matter. I wanted to be a rock drummer.
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I got a scholarship to the Royal College of Music. And I went there and I left after a year and a half.
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I thought, "This is NUTS, this whole thing." The college were really, really anti any form of music
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that wasn't serious classical music.
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They would've either have become classical musicians,
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because a lot of them have classical training to grade whatever-it-is, or they would have become jazzers.
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But the jazz scene in Britain was never THAT exciting, it was always such hard work.
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'66, '67, jazz was in a bad place.
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Jazz was Free Jazz, it was squeaky-bum jazz, you know, going
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rhee-aiir! Squeaking away. And any red-blooded drummer,
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age 17, at that time, would've wanted to play with Jimi Hendrix,
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rather than the Spontaneous Music Ensemble.
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MUSIC: "Gypsy Eyes" by Jimi Hendrix
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But what made pop so attractive to some inexperienced young musicians was...
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well, the girls.
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There's this whole other half of the human race
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and, like it says in Some Like It Hot, "I tell you, it's a whole different sex." There was girls.
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Where were they? They were in caffs. What were they doing? They were sitting there.
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They had chalk-white pink lipstick on. And I thought,
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"I don't quite know what they're for or what you're meant to do with them,
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"but, I couldn't..." But I thought, you know...
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"There's something great about this lot." You couldn't talk to them, but what you could do
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was put on a Little Richard record on the jukebox and it would unify the room.
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You couldn't put on Bartok, Violin Concerto. That wouldn't have impressed anybody.
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It wouldn't have unified the room. Wouldn't have got everybody tapping their feet.
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CLASSICAL MUSIC PLAYS
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But the classical tradition had gripped a generation of rock 'n' rollers determined to show
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that pop music could also be profound and grown-up.
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In the winter of love, Procol Harum scored another first when they recorded an 18-minute suite
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In Held 'Twas In I, for their album Shine On Brightly.
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The search for meaning and significance was on.
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I said, "I think we should do, like, a great work."
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That's what I called it.
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In fact it was called O Magnum Harum for a while.
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MUSIC: "In Held 'Twas In I" by Procol Harum
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Start off at the beginning of the universe... And ended in Heaven.
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And all the trials and tribulations that come in between.
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With a bit of sitar chucked in.
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MUSIC CONTINUES
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You know, somebody had to do it, I suppose. If it hadn't been Procol Harum at that point,
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it would have been somebody, you know, four weeks later.
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Now... We can actually write music.
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And if we're gonna write music, the model is classical music
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and classical music has extended forms, sonatas,
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symphonies. So we're gonna do structures and pieces that last a long time
211
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that try and give us that credibility, musically.
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The Nice, originally PP Arnold's backing band, set the controls for the heart of classical music,
213
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jazz and the modern stage musical on their maiden voyage into progressive rock.
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Front man Keith Emerson was the Hendrix of the Hammond organ, making his instrument scream and sigh
215
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in dazzling displays of technical virtuosity and crazed physicality.
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Their first unlikely hit was a seven-minute version
217
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of Leonard Bernstein's America, from West Side Story,
218
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transformed into an instrumental, prog rock protest song.
219
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MUSIC: "America" by The Nice
220
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CHURCH ORGAN MUSIC
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Progressive music didn't only come from the big cities.
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Welcome to Canterbury, the posh cathedral town that seeded those musicians that would, in time,
223
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grow into Soft Machine, Caravan, Hatfield & The North and Matching Mole.
224
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All stemming from a little-known local group called The Wilde Flowers.
225
00:17:32,320 --> 00:17:36,320
The Wilde Flowers didn't do loadsa gigs, probably only about
226
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one a fortnight, maybe one a week. Cos we weren't very popular! No.
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Those lads were very much into Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie.
228
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We tried to do sort-of danceable versions of that kind of music, you see.
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Just to be different and awkward.
230
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MUSIC: "Impotence" by The Wilde Flowers
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# I like me, I like you and the things that we do...
232
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# Ba-ba-ba! That we do... #
233
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I don't like it if people think that we thought that...
234
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clever grammar school-y people came in and thought we we're doing
235
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something better than mere pop. We were awestruck by pop music.
236
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By the magnificence of Beatles, of Motown and really we just wanted to participate in it.
237
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But getting our little group together, our own dialects of other stuff we'd picked up
238
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crept into what we did. I'm playing beat drums and I'm trying to sound like a rhythm and blues drummer,
239
00:18:34,760 --> 00:18:38,680
but I had been listening to all these sophisticated jazz drummers
240
00:18:38,680 --> 00:18:42,160
and I was sort-of cluttered with...with stuff.
241
00:18:42,160 --> 00:18:46,240
You can't pretend you haven't heard Elvin Jones if you have.
242
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Soft Machine was the first band to emerge from The Wilde Flowers.
243
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They headed for London's newly established underground clubs,
244
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playing with groups such as Arthur Brown and Pink Floyd at Middle Earth and UFO.
245
00:19:03,720 --> 00:19:06,240
In that club you got everything from vaudeville
246
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to rock, to jazz, to electronics, to pure percussion
247
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to theatre, to poetry, to dance, to naked people wandering around.
248
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That was what we all gravitated towards, UFO and Middle Earth.
249
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That was the... the culture that defined us.
250
00:19:28,920 --> 00:19:35,320
There were all these stoned people listening to music played by stoned bands.
251
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And as long as everybody was stoned, everybody thought it was really good.
252
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MUSIC: "We Did It Again" by Soft Machine
253
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We hadn't really got enough tunes...to just do songs.
254
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So, we thought, "Oh, I remember, what do you do about that? I know, what do jazz musicians do?"
255
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They improvise. So you just pick a couple of chords in there and just...keep going on them.
256
00:19:59,640 --> 00:20:02,080
And so tunes become ten-minute events.
257
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MUSIC CONTINUES
258
00:20:08,600 --> 00:20:12,520
This is not because we've all become virtuosos, not in our case.
259
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It's because we haven't got enough tunes to stretch one-and-a-half hours.
260
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Our organist Mike Ratledge was older than us, taller and his father had been a headmaster
261
00:20:23,120 --> 00:20:27,320
and who had an Oxford degree, so therefore assumed immediate seniority.
262
00:20:28,600 --> 00:20:31,640
Well, this is the fuzzbox which sounds like this...
263
00:20:31,640 --> 00:20:33,880
HE PLAYS DISTORTED NOTES
264
00:20:33,880 --> 00:20:38,160
Once he puts his fuzz on, you had to keep playing, you couldn't take your hand off.
265
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Cos it would start feeding back. So he developed a solo style
266
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of absolutely continual "lul-uhl-lul-uhl" notes without a single break-in.
267
00:20:45,440 --> 00:20:48,480
MUSIC: "Why Am I So Short" by Soft Machine
268
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So we can do these trance-like things,
269
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with sound going on for ages and ages without a single pause.
270
00:21:33,760 --> 00:21:40,280
Just round the corner from UFO, the more established Marquee Club was already showcasing bands
271
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that would become the virtuoso kings of progressive rock.
272
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Like Jethro Tull.
273
00:21:46,680 --> 00:21:49,280
And Yes, fronted by vocalist Jon Anderson.
274
00:21:51,080 --> 00:21:55,160
I went to see Yes with 30 other people at The Marquee one night.
275
00:21:55,160 --> 00:22:01,040
And guy next to me said, "You know they're looking for a drummer?" And I met Jon, introduced myself.
276
00:22:01,040 --> 00:22:03,320
He said, "Oh, yeah, man, yeah. Give us a call,
277
00:22:03,320 --> 00:22:08,440
"come back next Tuesday. We'll give you audition." And I never called, you know.
278
00:22:08,440 --> 00:22:12,040
And I often wonder if I'd called, what would have happened to my life!
279
00:22:12,040 --> 00:22:15,080
MUSIC: "Beyond And Before" by Yes
280
00:22:16,280 --> 00:22:20,720
Life in Yes, for jazz drummer Bill Bruford, was like this...
281
00:22:22,560 --> 00:22:25,480
The group started as a cover band, like most groups do.
282
00:22:26,800 --> 00:22:34,000
You start playing Beatles tunes and a couple of tunes by The Fifth Dimension, like you would.
283
00:22:35,000 --> 00:22:37,240
And then we got bored and extend a section.
284
00:22:37,240 --> 00:22:42,040
"It's quite good up to here but let's stick in another bit here where it goes rhythm and blues."
285
00:22:42,040 --> 00:22:46,200
And we'd stick that in. And then the thing would get longer and longer and longer
286
00:22:46,200 --> 00:22:49,040
until eventually somebody inevitably said,
287
00:22:49,040 --> 00:22:50,840
"Let's make one up ourselves."
288
00:22:54,000 --> 00:22:59,680
Jon was a very keen listener and absorber, bit like blotting paper, he absorbed music.
289
00:22:59,680 --> 00:23:01,800
# Time like gold dust brings... #
290
00:23:01,800 --> 00:23:07,280
He was mad keen on Sibelius and TV themes.
291
00:23:07,280 --> 00:23:10,960
He'd start singing things, "Jon, this is the theme to Bonanza!"
292
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And he'd say, "Oh, never mind, stick it in!"
293
00:23:13,480 --> 00:23:17,520
MUSIC: "No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Needed" by Yes
294
00:23:19,240 --> 00:23:24,160
Yes never said no. They stitched movies soundtracks to folk music
295
00:23:24,160 --> 00:23:27,680
to modern jazz to classical music to TV themes...
296
00:23:27,680 --> 00:23:33,640
And the only people we didn't concern ourselves with at all, I think, was the audience.
297
00:23:33,640 --> 00:23:38,040
# Step out in the night when you're lonely
298
00:23:39,160 --> 00:23:43,600
# Listening for the sound city ears don't hear... #
299
00:23:45,240 --> 00:23:47,360
If you couldn't make the London clubs,
300
00:23:47,360 --> 00:23:51,840
couldn't find progressive rock albums in the shops and rarely heard it on the radio,
301
00:23:51,840 --> 00:23:54,440
you could, by the end of the sixties,
302
00:23:54,440 --> 00:23:57,880
see every band in one glorious drug-and-rain-drenched experience
303
00:23:57,880 --> 00:23:59,680
at a pop festival near you.
304
00:23:59,680 --> 00:24:02,720
MUSIC: "Dharma For One" by Jethro Tull
305
00:24:09,840 --> 00:24:13,080
This was the first golden age of the British music festival.
306
00:24:13,080 --> 00:24:17,360
A new community in which no-one was more welcome than the progressive rock group.
307
00:24:19,080 --> 00:24:22,360
Everybody had a festival.
308
00:24:22,360 --> 00:24:26,120
You went along and played and heard all different types of band.
309
00:24:26,120 --> 00:24:31,360
And people would listen to a jazz orientated band, a hard rock band,
310
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a dance-type band. And they would sit there and listen to the lot.
311
00:24:37,360 --> 00:24:41,680
Certainly, the outdoor live experience was generally freeing.
312
00:24:46,840 --> 00:24:49,040
It always seemed like it was a sunny day,
313
00:24:49,040 --> 00:24:53,200
and the weather was gorgeous. Everybody was smiling and happy.
314
00:24:53,200 --> 00:24:55,480
It was a very sort of hippy thing.
315
00:24:57,960 --> 00:25:01,800
It was really music. It really was music.
316
00:25:01,800 --> 00:25:03,360
It wasn't any other reason.
317
00:25:03,360 --> 00:25:07,960
Yeah, people got a bit smashed, and bonked in the open air,
318
00:25:07,960 --> 00:25:09,600
and that was just the road crew.
319
00:25:09,600 --> 00:25:12,360
MUSIC: "The Court Of The Crimson King" by King Crimson
320
00:25:23,600 --> 00:25:27,040
The great Suffolk seaside town of Aldeburgh,
321
00:25:27,040 --> 00:25:31,440
now home to Pete Sinfield, original lyricist for the intimidating new band
322
00:25:31,440 --> 00:25:35,200
he inadvertently named King Crimson.
323
00:25:37,160 --> 00:25:38,720
We had an ethos in Crimson.
324
00:25:38,720 --> 00:25:41,640
I'm sure people like Gentle Giant and other bands...
325
00:25:41,640 --> 00:25:46,880
we just refused to play anything that sounded anything like a Tin Pan Alley.
326
00:25:46,880 --> 00:25:49,480
If it sounded at all popular, it was out.
327
00:25:49,480 --> 00:25:50,920
So it had to be complicated.
328
00:25:50,920 --> 00:25:55,680
It had to be more expansive chords, it had to have strange influences.
329
00:25:55,680 --> 00:26:00,040
If it sounded too simple, we would make it more complicated.
330
00:26:00,040 --> 00:26:02,840
We would play it in 7/8, in 5/8, just to show off.
331
00:26:02,840 --> 00:26:08,640
# For the court of the Crimson King... #
332
00:26:08,640 --> 00:26:13,240
Crimson's first big show-off opportunity came in July 1969,
333
00:26:13,240 --> 00:26:16,000
when they supported the Rolling Stones in Hyde Park.
334
00:26:16,000 --> 00:26:22,640
Unleashing their unique, highly-rehearsed sound on a totally unprepared audience.
335
00:26:26,000 --> 00:26:29,000
They played Schizoid Man particularly well on that day.
336
00:26:29,000 --> 00:26:32,360
They really steamed it. It was a monster.
337
00:26:36,080 --> 00:26:39,640
# Blood rack, barbed wire
338
00:26:39,640 --> 00:26:43,200
# Politicians funeral pyre
339
00:26:43,200 --> 00:26:46,000
# Innocence raped with napalm fire
340
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# 21st century schizoid man... #
341
00:27:02,920 --> 00:27:06,480
We played Mars, or Schizoid Man, one of our heavier pieces.
342
00:27:06,480 --> 00:27:09,000
And there was a silence at the end.
343
00:27:09,000 --> 00:27:11,040
And no-one knew whether to clap or not.
344
00:27:12,600 --> 00:27:15,000
"That was good"! Then they would go...
345
00:27:15,000 --> 00:27:16,400
HE IMITATES LOUD APPLAUSE
346
00:27:16,400 --> 00:27:19,960
That was the sort of stuff we liked. We really liked shocking people.
347
00:27:25,640 --> 00:27:27,240
Unbelievable.
348
00:27:27,240 --> 00:27:29,640
We were scared to death.
349
00:27:29,640 --> 00:27:32,760
No-one knew that rock musicians could play like that.
350
00:27:37,480 --> 00:27:40,360
To execute rapid passages deafeningly loud...
351
00:27:40,360 --> 00:27:43,080
MUSIC: "21st Century Schizoid Man" by King Crimson
352
00:27:44,880 --> 00:27:48,440
..then exactly the same passage, everybody playing in unison thing,
353
00:27:48,440 --> 00:27:49,480
but very quiet.
354
00:27:52,080 --> 00:27:55,160
I mean, this was scary. This was the best group in the world.
355
00:27:57,600 --> 00:28:00,960
Mike Giles one night was playing the cymbals at Mothers in Birmingham,
356
00:28:00,960 --> 00:28:03,320
he ended up playing the cymbals like this...
357
00:28:04,600 --> 00:28:06,280
..till there was no noise at all.
358
00:28:06,280 --> 00:28:09,880
And he just...poised, and didn't do anything.
359
00:28:09,880 --> 00:28:11,800
And we thought, "Wow!" I thought...
360
00:28:11,800 --> 00:28:14,200
And Fripp panicked, and took off his boot,
361
00:28:14,200 --> 00:28:18,520
and started banging the stage with his boot because he couldn't stand the tension!
362
00:28:20,400 --> 00:28:25,400
The amount of ego and power and experience that went into that first album was extraordinary.
363
00:28:25,400 --> 00:28:28,920
Maybe that's inherent in that,
364
00:28:28,920 --> 00:28:32,040
and that strength was the seeds of its destruction.
365
00:28:37,720 --> 00:28:40,640
MUSIC: "Ride" by Caravan
366
00:28:44,000 --> 00:28:48,080
The shock and awe that both defined and deified King Crimson
367
00:28:48,080 --> 00:28:50,640
were completely absent from the whimsical,
368
00:28:50,640 --> 00:28:54,480
slightly stoned sound still emanating from Canterbury.
369
00:29:00,640 --> 00:29:04,000
The remaining Wilde Flowers now took the road out of town
370
00:29:04,000 --> 00:29:06,440
as a band called Caravan.
371
00:29:11,200 --> 00:29:16,960
When half of the Wilde Flowers went off and formed Soft Machine,
372
00:29:16,960 --> 00:29:19,200
and managed to get a record deal,
373
00:29:19,200 --> 00:29:21,760
we thought that perhaps we could do the same,
374
00:29:21,760 --> 00:29:26,320
so we were very much looking to see how they were doing,
375
00:29:26,320 --> 00:29:28,440
trying to do the same thing ourselves.
376
00:29:28,440 --> 00:29:32,880
I suppose with the Canterbury scene, you have progressive music at its most melodic.
377
00:29:32,880 --> 00:29:37,360
It's do with these people being able to write quite good tunes
378
00:29:37,360 --> 00:29:41,600
being in contact, I think, with a kind of British melodic tradition
379
00:29:41,600 --> 00:29:44,680
that maybe has more to do with 20th-century classical music
380
00:29:44,680 --> 00:29:46,440
than with pop music.
381
00:29:46,440 --> 00:29:50,600
You hear distant echoes of Vaughan Williams and Britten and that kind of thing.
382
00:29:50,600 --> 00:29:55,280
# Sitting in my treetop world
383
00:29:55,280 --> 00:29:58,440
# Doing nothing at all... #
384
00:29:58,440 --> 00:30:02,120
Certainly the surrounding countryside and what-have-you,
385
00:30:02,120 --> 00:30:05,440
we seemed to get a bit of inspiration from all that.
386
00:30:05,440 --> 00:30:07,680
Sitting about in the sunshine.
387
00:30:07,680 --> 00:30:09,800
Making up bits of music.
388
00:30:09,800 --> 00:30:14,480
# Envy me all you want... #
389
00:30:14,480 --> 00:30:17,520
Living off girlfriends, you know.
390
00:30:17,520 --> 00:30:19,000
Great fun.
391
00:30:19,000 --> 00:30:25,960
# Join me any time if you please... #
392
00:30:30,080 --> 00:30:36,080
Court jesters, crimson kings, lost souls and magic men.
393
00:30:36,080 --> 00:30:38,360
This was a broad church.
394
00:30:38,360 --> 00:30:41,920
A very English music, infused with childhood fantasies
395
00:30:41,920 --> 00:30:44,600
and the quirkiness of a small island race.
396
00:30:47,320 --> 00:30:53,720
Spike Milligan, Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll, stuff like that.
397
00:30:53,720 --> 00:30:59,600
And we had our own kind of popular surrealism
398
00:30:59,600 --> 00:31:02,520
right from the humorous poets and writers
399
00:31:02,520 --> 00:31:05,120
of the late 19th, early 20th century.
400
00:31:05,120 --> 00:31:08,320
A long time before they invented surrealism on the continent,
401
00:31:08,320 --> 00:31:09,480
we had Lewis Carroll!
402
00:31:11,360 --> 00:31:15,480
At that time, we were making quite a large effort to be English.
403
00:31:18,280 --> 00:31:22,680
Probably why we didn't go down too well in Germany when we were there!
404
00:31:27,760 --> 00:31:29,800
MUSIC: "Horizons" by Genesis
405
00:31:35,080 --> 00:31:37,920
Charterhouse Public School.
406
00:31:37,920 --> 00:31:43,520
A group of young scholars, inspired by the ambitious compositions of Procul Harum and King Crimson,
407
00:31:43,520 --> 00:31:46,840
embraced this new, mature pop music
408
00:31:46,840 --> 00:31:50,280
as a way of dodging the professions for which they'd been groomed.
409
00:31:50,280 --> 00:31:53,720
We had a bit of a tag over us, you know. Public schoolboys.
410
00:31:53,720 --> 00:31:56,960
"What are they doing? What do they know about music?
411
00:31:56,960 --> 00:31:58,880
"Where's their pain?" sort of thing.
412
00:32:02,480 --> 00:32:07,200
We were in a school that was designing people to go into the civil service.
413
00:32:07,200 --> 00:32:09,320
You often talk about getting into music
414
00:32:09,320 --> 00:32:11,200
as an escape from poverty and stuff,
415
00:32:11,200 --> 00:32:13,960
which perhaps it was for a certain kind of people
416
00:32:13,960 --> 00:32:15,600
in the late '50s and early '60s.
417
00:32:15,600 --> 00:32:21,640
For us, it was a kind of escape from a totally pre-determined career choice, if you like.
418
00:32:25,880 --> 00:32:29,600
I was banned from playing the guitar for my entire time at Charterhouse.
419
00:32:29,600 --> 00:32:34,040
I don't quite know why. I think they saw the guitar as a symbol of the revolution.
420
00:32:34,040 --> 00:32:36,760
And I was gonna start it off in my house with my guitar.
421
00:32:36,760 --> 00:32:41,080
So I was always under the thumb of my house-master for that reason.
422
00:32:47,840 --> 00:32:50,720
They wanted to be songwriters.
423
00:32:50,720 --> 00:32:53,120
But bands were now making their own material.
424
00:32:53,120 --> 00:32:55,640
So they formed their own band, called it Genesis,
425
00:32:55,640 --> 00:32:58,960
and did what every other group now seemed to be doing...
426
00:32:58,960 --> 00:33:03,000
retreated to the country to get their heads together.
427
00:33:04,000 --> 00:33:08,000
There was a phrase, "Getting together in the country, man,"
428
00:33:08,000 --> 00:33:12,200
but actually, I think being removed from the business was quite important for us.
429
00:33:13,200 --> 00:33:17,600
The time at Christmas Cottage was where we sort of became a band
430
00:33:17,600 --> 00:33:20,160
and started writing with our own sound.
431
00:33:21,960 --> 00:33:24,400
And it's what came naturally to us, really.
432
00:33:24,400 --> 00:33:28,600
We were embedded in English and obviously European classical traditions as well,
433
00:33:28,600 --> 00:33:33,680
but also, in terms of a lot of the lyrical stuff we would take from English things,
434
00:33:33,680 --> 00:33:36,880
influenced by TS Eliot and fairy stories, and stuff like that.
435
00:33:36,880 --> 00:33:40,240
People forget there weren't that many bands in those days.
436
00:33:40,240 --> 00:33:43,720
It was like a blank canvas. So as long as you were half-decent,
437
00:33:43,720 --> 00:33:47,400
and had a bit of a sound, and were good live,
438
00:33:47,400 --> 00:33:50,040
'you had a chance it was a career, you know.'
439
00:33:50,040 --> 00:33:53,120
We like audiences that sit down and listen to the music
440
00:33:53,120 --> 00:33:56,480
rather than get drunk and pick up girls.
441
00:33:56,480 --> 00:33:59,000
We like audiences that will sit down and listen.
442
00:33:59,000 --> 00:34:01,520
MUSIC: "White Mountain" by Genesis
443
00:34:05,960 --> 00:34:08,200
While Genesis focused on songwriting,
444
00:34:08,200 --> 00:34:11,680
other bands were mastering their instruments and finding new ones.
445
00:34:12,640 --> 00:34:18,600
Technical virtuosity was fast becoming the essential protein in progressive rock's DNA.
446
00:34:18,600 --> 00:34:21,600
I just don't believe that a drummer should just keep time.
447
00:34:21,600 --> 00:34:25,320
Cos if you want time, buy a metronome.
448
00:34:25,320 --> 00:34:26,720
Don't come and speak to me!
449
00:34:26,720 --> 00:34:29,120
I think music... you make it for yourself.
450
00:34:29,120 --> 00:34:31,920
If the chap next door likes it, isn't that fantastic?
451
00:34:33,840 --> 00:34:35,640
I do think self-indulgence
452
00:34:35,640 --> 00:34:39,000
is a good thing in art, because if you're trying
453
00:34:39,000 --> 00:34:40,880
to please other people all the time,
454
00:34:40,880 --> 00:34:43,280
you just stick to the same model all the time.
455
00:34:43,280 --> 00:34:46,920
Nobody hears anything new, so nobody expects anything new.
456
00:34:48,320 --> 00:34:51,560
You play a note, and you project it out.
457
00:34:51,560 --> 00:34:54,880
Even if it's one note, it can go "donnnng"... hmm.
458
00:34:54,880 --> 00:34:56,320
You can make it go...
459
00:34:56,320 --> 00:34:57,880
- WITH DEEP ECHO:
- "Donnnng"!
460
00:34:57,880 --> 00:35:01,880
It's more than just playing the instrument.
461
00:35:03,320 --> 00:35:05,680
It's not cool today to play your instrument.
462
00:35:05,680 --> 00:35:07,680
Jangly guitar music...
463
00:35:07,680 --> 00:35:09,360
It's jangly! That's what you do.
464
00:35:09,360 --> 00:35:12,480
But to actually play a solo, something nice,
465
00:35:12,480 --> 00:35:16,320
something that speaks, something that gives you a little kind of emotion,
466
00:35:16,320 --> 00:35:19,760
a little buzz, makes your hair stand up on the back of your neck,
467
00:35:19,760 --> 00:35:22,280
that's not cool. That's not part of this age.
468
00:35:24,640 --> 00:35:28,720
But this was the dawning of the age of the highly-accomplished player.
469
00:35:28,720 --> 00:35:30,320
The name musician.
470
00:35:31,720 --> 00:35:34,120
In 1970, Crimson man Greg Lake,
471
00:35:34,120 --> 00:35:37,280
plus Nice man Keith Emerson,
472
00:35:37,280 --> 00:35:39,160
plus Crazy World man Carl Palmer,
473
00:35:39,160 --> 00:35:42,000
equalled bass, keyboards and drums,
474
00:35:42,000 --> 00:35:45,040
equalled prog rock's first supergroup,
475
00:35:45,040 --> 00:35:47,440
equalled ELP.
476
00:35:47,440 --> 00:35:50,600
MUSIC: "Hoedown" by Emerson, Lake & Palmer
477
00:35:57,760 --> 00:36:00,600
We weren't a rock band, we weren't a blues band.
478
00:36:00,600 --> 00:36:06,600
Emerson, Lake & Palmer was a kind of...was a European group that played classical adaptations.
479
00:36:06,600 --> 00:36:11,320
Yes, we could rock out. But we didn't hang our hat on being a rock band.
480
00:36:11,320 --> 00:36:16,800
In actual fact, it really was a thoroughbred musical statement we were making.
481
00:36:18,800 --> 00:36:23,440
You need the playing expertise so that your colleagues know that you are the bee's knees,
482
00:36:23,440 --> 00:36:27,400
but just give them some entertainment as well, and that's what it's all about.
483
00:36:27,400 --> 00:36:28,600
That's my philosophy.
484
00:36:36,320 --> 00:36:39,120
I think I'd call it showbusiness, actually!
485
00:36:39,120 --> 00:36:43,680
Somebody jumping over their organ, or sticking in knives
486
00:36:43,680 --> 00:36:45,960
to hold down a fifth or a fourth, a chord.
487
00:36:45,960 --> 00:36:48,200
Musically it's valid,
488
00:36:48,200 --> 00:36:49,640
visually it's right on it,
489
00:36:49,640 --> 00:36:51,720
and it is rock'n'roll!
490
00:36:58,000 --> 00:37:01,760
ELP's technical expertise and crowd-pleasing antics
491
00:37:01,760 --> 00:37:05,480
elevated musicianship and ticket sales to new heights.
492
00:37:05,480 --> 00:37:08,440
Progressive rock popped its head out of the underground
493
00:37:08,440 --> 00:37:11,840
and glimpsed not only showbusiness, but big business.
494
00:37:14,480 --> 00:37:16,800
Progressive rock wizard Rick Wakeman
495
00:37:16,800 --> 00:37:19,800
was amazed when he first saw what Yes were now up to
496
00:37:19,800 --> 00:37:22,280
with their psychedelic guitarist Steve Howe.
497
00:37:26,160 --> 00:37:28,680
Everything that happened in the '70s, this is it,
498
00:37:28,680 --> 00:37:31,400
was to do with psychedelia, you see.
499
00:37:31,400 --> 00:37:36,280
Psychedelia may have quit as a fashion in 1968,
500
00:37:36,280 --> 00:37:39,760
but when I joined Yes,
501
00:37:39,760 --> 00:37:42,240
I was still a psychedelic guitarist in my mind.
502
00:37:42,240 --> 00:37:45,440
I would not play blues cliche for love nor money.
503
00:37:49,360 --> 00:37:53,400
I was just bowled over, because everything was wrong.
504
00:37:55,800 --> 00:37:59,760
Bill Bruford had the most incredible unusual tuning of the kit,
505
00:37:59,760 --> 00:38:02,960
and they mic'ed it up. No-one mic'ed it up then.
506
00:38:02,960 --> 00:38:06,200
And it was the most fantastic drum sound I'd ever heard.
507
00:38:06,200 --> 00:38:08,720
MUSIC: "Yours Is No Disgrace" by Yes
508
00:38:14,400 --> 00:38:17,520
There were funky elements, there were classical elements,
509
00:38:17,520 --> 00:38:21,360
there'd be a free section, or some sort of psychedelic vamp or funk thing,
510
00:38:21,360 --> 00:38:24,720
cos we liked Sly and the Family Stone, so we needed some of that.
511
00:38:28,160 --> 00:38:32,520
Chris Squire. Most bass players try to get as low as they could, to make your trousers flap.
512
00:38:32,520 --> 00:38:36,480
Chris wiped out all the middle, and had all the treble turned up,
513
00:38:36,480 --> 00:38:40,040
and used a Rickenbacker while everyone else was using Fenders.
514
00:38:40,040 --> 00:38:41,800
I thought, "That's outrageous"!
515
00:38:41,800 --> 00:38:45,200
And then Steve Howe, when everybody else was using big stacks,
516
00:38:45,200 --> 00:38:51,080
had a little Fender Twin, and a Gibson semi-acoustic.
517
00:38:55,480 --> 00:38:58,640
I played any kind of guitar you could think of that I liked.
518
00:38:58,640 --> 00:39:04,680
So I went on to mandolin, steel, and all the kinds, six, twelve, Spanish...
519
00:39:04,680 --> 00:39:07,080
"Eh, what? What's going on?"
520
00:39:07,080 --> 00:39:10,640
And then, of course, at those times, every lead singer was six foot six,
521
00:39:10,640 --> 00:39:13,960
long greasy black hair, you could smell 'em from the back row,
522
00:39:13,960 --> 00:39:16,960
and along comes this little fella who's got an alto voice.
523
00:39:16,960 --> 00:39:24,400
# If the summer change to winter, Yours is no disgrace... #
524
00:39:27,800 --> 00:39:29,200
Wakeman wanted in.
525
00:39:29,200 --> 00:39:30,440
PHONE RINGS
526
00:39:30,440 --> 00:39:33,400
But when he got the call, it wasn't an easy decision.
527
00:39:34,680 --> 00:39:37,560
On the same day that Yes asked me to join,
528
00:39:37,560 --> 00:39:43,480
David Bowie asked me to form Spiders From Mars with Mick Ronson,
529
00:39:43,480 --> 00:39:50,840
um...which, when I look back, that was one hell of a choice!
530
00:39:50,840 --> 00:39:54,600
# There's a starman waiting in the sky... #
531
00:39:54,600 --> 00:39:58,320
Progressive music wasn't the only gig in town.
532
00:39:58,320 --> 00:40:04,080
Top Of The Pops, regarded as a sell-out by any self-respecting prog rocker,
533
00:40:04,080 --> 00:40:09,000
was by now home to artists such as Bowie, Roxy Music and T Rex.
534
00:40:09,000 --> 00:40:12,240
Bands still making singles hits, and girls dance.
535
00:40:19,680 --> 00:40:23,480
For Robert Wyatt, the Soft Machine party was all but over.
536
00:40:23,480 --> 00:40:27,680
The band had matured into a jazz-fusion quartet
537
00:40:27,680 --> 00:40:30,680
with little sympathy for his pop sensibilities.
538
00:40:31,800 --> 00:40:33,480
Goodbye, the UFO Club...
539
00:40:34,440 --> 00:40:36,040
..hello, the Albert Hall.
540
00:40:44,480 --> 00:40:48,080
You know, pretty respected, and so on, but nobody's dancing any more,
541
00:40:48,080 --> 00:40:49,880
so I sort of thought, aww, you know,
542
00:40:49,880 --> 00:40:52,920
I never really quite made it as a proper pop musician!
543
00:40:55,720 --> 00:40:58,040
We thought we were a pop band!
544
00:40:58,040 --> 00:41:03,200
It's just that... I try to make normal records, they just don't come out like that.
545
00:41:10,240 --> 00:41:14,440
We could have made a really good pop LP, and been in the charts,
546
00:41:14,440 --> 00:41:17,560
and been in those films about the '60s.
547
00:41:17,560 --> 00:41:18,800
And we blew it.
548
00:41:24,360 --> 00:41:27,520
Wyatt was eventually sacked from his own group.
549
00:41:28,920 --> 00:41:31,760
I think I resented it for a while,
550
00:41:31,760 --> 00:41:33,080
and when I got cross,
551
00:41:33,080 --> 00:41:38,720
I used to feel about Soft Machine the same way that Palestinians think about Jerusalem.
552
00:41:38,720 --> 00:41:41,640
"This once was mine!"
553
00:41:46,520 --> 00:41:50,560
Without Wyatt, Soft Machine moved into purely instrumental compositions,
554
00:41:50,560 --> 00:41:52,320
avoiding the problems of lyrics.
555
00:41:53,480 --> 00:41:57,440
"My baby done left me" never did work with complex musical structures.
556
00:41:59,520 --> 00:42:01,320
This music didn't want the blues.
557
00:42:01,320 --> 00:42:03,280
It needed fantasy and myth.
558
00:42:04,240 --> 00:42:05,880
Cupid meets Psyche,
559
00:42:05,880 --> 00:42:08,200
not boy meets girl.
560
00:42:11,200 --> 00:42:14,280
We hadn't really experienced much outside education.
561
00:42:14,280 --> 00:42:18,360
So I suppose that's partly why we wrote about...fantasy lyrics,
562
00:42:18,360 --> 00:42:23,080
different situations about life rather than boy/girl things.
563
00:42:23,080 --> 00:42:26,080
I had come from a public school background,
564
00:42:26,080 --> 00:42:27,400
very self-conscious.
565
00:42:27,400 --> 00:42:30,280
Could never have expressed that in a song in those days.
566
00:42:30,280 --> 00:42:34,080
So it was much easier to go back to Greek myths and write things like that.
567
00:42:34,080 --> 00:42:39,480
So we plundered Ovid and anybody else we could find. We were all the same, really.
568
00:42:42,080 --> 00:42:45,280
There was an audience of newly-educated university students
569
00:42:45,280 --> 00:42:47,360
who were crying out for something
570
00:42:47,360 --> 00:42:51,400
that they had read in science fiction and they wanted a musical version of that.
571
00:42:51,400 --> 00:42:55,720
And of course, there was The Lord Of The Rings, and Mervyn Peake and Gormenghast,
572
00:42:55,720 --> 00:42:58,400
and people wanted that in their music.
573
00:43:02,800 --> 00:43:05,840
Ambitious music demanded ambitious presentation.
574
00:43:08,920 --> 00:43:12,760
What began with Sgt Pepper now became the glorious norm.
575
00:43:12,760 --> 00:43:17,480
Albums adorned with lyrics, paintings, cut-outs, pop-ups and pull-outs.
576
00:43:21,640 --> 00:43:26,480
The gatefold sleeve opened like a window onto brave new worlds,
577
00:43:26,480 --> 00:43:30,200
and provided the perfect prop on which to roll a joint.
578
00:43:33,000 --> 00:43:35,040
Yeah...
579
00:43:36,040 --> 00:43:38,760
I think the album cover, the artwork, and a vinyl...
580
00:43:38,760 --> 00:43:42,360
when you bought that, it was a piece you could hold, you could look at it,
581
00:43:42,360 --> 00:43:44,080
it was big, you know.
582
00:43:44,080 --> 00:43:47,960
When it suddenly went down to the jewel case, to the CD...
583
00:43:47,960 --> 00:43:49,000
HE SIGHS
584
00:43:49,000 --> 00:43:53,320
You couldn't have the detail, because it was too small. I needed one for each eye.
585
00:43:53,320 --> 00:43:58,760
It's hard not to start sounding like, you know, "In my day... the gatefold sleeve..."
586
00:43:58,760 --> 00:44:00,960
but it's changed now, you know.
587
00:44:00,960 --> 00:44:05,640
Music is now...it's not something that people hold, the article.
588
00:44:05,640 --> 00:44:09,440
It was a whole event of getting an album.
589
00:44:09,440 --> 00:44:13,400
Getting your album home, putting an album on, reading the bits and pieces,
590
00:44:13,400 --> 00:44:16,920
learning a bit about it... it was absolutely fantastic.
591
00:44:16,920 --> 00:44:20,840
And we lost that. And when we lost that, we lost an awful lot.
592
00:44:22,840 --> 00:44:26,240
So, welcome back to days of future past.
593
00:44:29,480 --> 00:44:31,240
This is the home of Roger Dean.
594
00:44:31,240 --> 00:44:36,800
The artist who most successfully translated progressive rock's soundscapes into landscapes.
595
00:44:39,960 --> 00:44:42,520
He gave Yes their distinctive brand logo,
596
00:44:42,520 --> 00:44:46,800
and imagined worlds that at the time still seemed like beautiful possibilities.
597
00:44:50,960 --> 00:44:53,480
Whether you're designing just a box of matches,
598
00:44:53,480 --> 00:44:56,960
you're predicting one tiny, miniscule part of the future.
599
00:44:59,560 --> 00:45:03,080
I think what's terribly astonishing and disappointing
600
00:45:03,080 --> 00:45:06,440
is how little the promise of the future turned out.
601
00:45:06,440 --> 00:45:10,760
In the '60s, people walked on the moon, in the '60s, there was colour television.
602
00:45:10,760 --> 00:45:13,800
And no-one has gone back to the moon.
603
00:45:13,800 --> 00:45:16,720
I think people would have been shocked
604
00:45:16,720 --> 00:45:21,440
if they could see the year 2008 from a 1968 perspective,
605
00:45:21,440 --> 00:45:27,200
at how astonishingly little the world had improved
606
00:45:27,200 --> 00:45:30,240
compared to our ambitions and expectations.
607
00:45:30,240 --> 00:45:36,520
Had we planned it properly in the '60s, this is how it might have turned out!
608
00:45:41,920 --> 00:45:47,320
I try and find out what was motivating them to make the music,
609
00:45:47,320 --> 00:45:51,040
and work on the same sort of ideas, if that was possible.
610
00:45:51,040 --> 00:45:53,760
Wasn't always possible, but sometimes it was.
611
00:45:53,760 --> 00:46:00,560
Sometimes there was a great synergy between the ideas that motivated the music-making
612
00:46:00,560 --> 00:46:03,600
and the ideas that motivated the art.
613
00:46:03,600 --> 00:46:08,360
But it was not the music itself. It was the ideas behind it.
614
00:46:08,360 --> 00:46:15,440
I was lucky that the images and the music seemed to be an absolute perfect fit sometimes,
615
00:46:15,440 --> 00:46:20,640
when in actual fact, the process was beyond analysis.
616
00:46:23,120 --> 00:46:27,200
Yes recording sessions were also moving beyond analysis.
617
00:46:29,920 --> 00:46:32,800
The hippy democracy the band chose as a way of life
618
00:46:32,800 --> 00:46:35,360
made for difficulties in the studio.
619
00:46:35,360 --> 00:46:37,960
Their fifth album, Close To The Edge,
620
00:46:37,960 --> 00:46:40,120
took over three months to perfect.
621
00:46:41,120 --> 00:46:43,800
It took three months because Simon & Garfunkel
622
00:46:43,800 --> 00:46:47,120
had done Bridge Over Troubled Water, which took three months.
623
00:46:47,120 --> 00:46:48,640
We heard this and we thought,
624
00:46:48,640 --> 00:46:52,320
"By golly, our next record's going to take three months and a day if it kills us!"
625
00:46:52,320 --> 00:46:55,720
So of course, this was the infantile way we behaved,
626
00:46:55,720 --> 00:46:58,000
we took three months and a day.
627
00:46:59,040 --> 00:47:03,240
We established a whole new plane of length of how long we play.
628
00:47:03,240 --> 00:47:05,280
So we've got some musicians here,
629
00:47:05,280 --> 00:47:09,000
we've got a lot of writers in the band, cos Bill wrote, everybody wrote in the band.
630
00:47:09,000 --> 00:47:14,040
"Can I trade your idea for my idea?" You've got five guys writing...
631
00:47:14,040 --> 00:47:15,800
Imagine five guys writing a book!
632
00:47:15,800 --> 00:47:20,160
Steve said, "I've got this silly little line that I've had lying around for ages,
633
00:47:20,160 --> 00:47:23,840
going, "Ding-ding-ding-doo, de-doo, diddly-iddly-um-dum..."
634
00:47:23,840 --> 00:47:28,320
It was all horse-trading, muscle power, strongest guy, thickest skin.
635
00:47:28,320 --> 00:47:32,320
Chris said, "I've got this...bass run."
636
00:47:32,320 --> 00:47:35,280
Diddly-iddly-um-dum-dum-dum-dum.
637
00:47:35,280 --> 00:47:39,360
And that was it, really. And I went, "Anything else?"
638
00:47:39,360 --> 00:47:41,320
And he went, "No, that's it."
639
00:47:41,320 --> 00:47:43,440
Diddly-iddly-um-dum-dum-dum-dum.
640
00:47:43,440 --> 00:47:48,800
And when we got to, what turned out to be for me, the high spot, which was Close To The Edge,
641
00:47:48,800 --> 00:47:51,200
really, I don't know how that record got made.
642
00:47:54,240 --> 00:47:57,960
Some days, we got into the rehearsal rooms after, like, yesterday,
643
00:47:57,960 --> 00:48:02,840
we got in the next day and said, "Does anybody remember how we went from the last verse into that?"
644
00:48:02,840 --> 00:48:04,040
"No"!
645
00:48:04,040 --> 00:48:07,400
I said, "I want that bit on the end of that, and I don't want to do it in that key,
646
00:48:07,400 --> 00:48:10,600
"because it works nice with the way I play it on guitar on that,"
647
00:48:10,600 --> 00:48:15,120
so they'd say, "We'll get a cup of tea, Rick, you work out how we get from there to there"!
648
00:48:15,120 --> 00:48:19,080
We couldn't do a song in five minutes. It went to ten minutes on the Yes album.
649
00:48:19,080 --> 00:48:24,440
And we got to Close To The Edge and we thought, "This just isn't long enough! This is like...a symphony!"
650
00:48:24,440 --> 00:48:28,320
# Down at the edge, round by the corner
651
00:48:28,320 --> 00:48:33,360
# Not right away, not right away
652
00:48:33,360 --> 00:48:37,880
# Close to the edge, down by the river
653
00:48:37,880 --> 00:48:38,960
# Not right away... #
654
00:48:38,960 --> 00:48:42,280
In those days there were two or three albums that weren't so good,
655
00:48:42,280 --> 00:48:44,600
getting you towards the winner.
656
00:48:44,600 --> 00:48:48,680
The one that the thing existed for, which was Close To The Edge.
657
00:48:48,680 --> 00:48:52,720
That's the moment you exist for in a rock group, and it's terrific!
658
00:48:52,720 --> 00:48:57,040
And you think, "That's the cookie. That's the one, right there! Done deal! I'm gone!"
659
00:48:57,040 --> 00:48:58,080
I left then.
660
00:49:01,960 --> 00:49:07,680
Bruford defected to the less sunny, less democratic regime of Robert Fripp's all-new King Crimson.
661
00:49:12,080 --> 00:49:16,840
In 1972, this was akin to going over the Berlin Wall into East Germany.
662
00:49:20,120 --> 00:49:23,520
No papers required, just extreme chops.
663
00:49:24,480 --> 00:49:28,240
Everything you've heard about King Crimson is true. It's a terrifying place.
664
00:49:41,000 --> 00:49:43,720
Whatever you do before you join King Crimson,
665
00:49:43,720 --> 00:49:46,520
would you please not do it when you're in the band?
666
00:49:55,680 --> 00:49:59,600
You're required really to develop a new style, if you can,
667
00:49:59,600 --> 00:50:01,800
specifically for that group.
668
00:50:01,800 --> 00:50:06,480
The implication being that you would play that way in King Crimson,
669
00:50:06,480 --> 00:50:07,880
and King Crimson alone.
670
00:50:09,240 --> 00:50:11,440
Yes was an endless debate
671
00:50:11,440 --> 00:50:16,920
about whether it should be F-natural in the bass with a G-sharp on top or should it be the other way round?
672
00:50:16,920 --> 00:50:19,560
In King Crimson, almost nothing was said.
673
00:50:19,560 --> 00:50:22,320
You're just supposed to know.
674
00:50:31,240 --> 00:50:32,880
Robert Fripp was a purist.
675
00:50:32,880 --> 00:50:38,160
Unlike the Jimmy Pages of rock, he didn't brandish the guitar like a phallus.
676
00:50:38,160 --> 00:50:42,960
His was more like a probe. An instrument of science, not sex.
677
00:50:42,960 --> 00:50:45,200
And to use it properly,
678
00:50:45,200 --> 00:50:47,320
you had to sit down.
679
00:50:48,280 --> 00:50:50,920
The very first few gigs we did,
680
00:50:50,920 --> 00:50:54,000
Robert didn't sit down. And he was very unhappy,
681
00:50:54,000 --> 00:50:57,880
because in rehearsals, he'd have his stool and his thing,
682
00:50:57,880 --> 00:50:59,440
that was how he'd been taught,
683
00:50:59,440 --> 00:51:03,280
and Robert's very strict about, "That's how it should be,"
684
00:51:03,280 --> 00:51:08,360
and eventually we'd had to give him a stool, because he was sulking.
685
00:51:08,360 --> 00:51:11,200
And he was so happy on that stool.
686
00:51:11,200 --> 00:51:13,680
Robert's not a gyrator, is he?
687
00:51:13,680 --> 00:51:16,920
He may be many things, but he's not a gyrator.
688
00:51:16,920 --> 00:51:22,360
And Robert's idea of sexy is to smile with his glasses and...
689
00:51:25,400 --> 00:51:26,880
Fripp wasn't alone.
690
00:51:26,880 --> 00:51:30,360
Sexual energy, the very lifeblood of rock'n'roll,
691
00:51:30,360 --> 00:51:33,480
was conspicuously absent from the prog rock stage.
692
00:51:34,440 --> 00:51:38,720
Bands like Egg had enough on their hands just playing the complicated arpeggios.
693
00:51:40,400 --> 00:51:42,960
Well, we weren't very sexy,
694
00:51:42,960 --> 00:51:48,600
and we regarded overt sexual display as extremely uncool.
695
00:51:48,600 --> 00:51:54,480
It was something...rather humiliating to have to admit to
696
00:51:54,480 --> 00:51:57,480
that we were actually trying to get into girls' knickers.
697
00:51:57,480 --> 00:52:00,840
We wouldn't admit to it. It was very duplicitous, very dishonest.
698
00:52:00,840 --> 00:52:03,880
But there you are. We certainly wouldn't do it on stage.
699
00:52:03,880 --> 00:52:08,200
I would have been completely unconvincing!
700
00:52:08,200 --> 00:52:14,920
Imagine me doing pelvic thrusts on stage while playing in 25/8. No.
701
00:52:19,240 --> 00:52:23,200
No sex on stage, and no sex backstage.
702
00:52:23,200 --> 00:52:26,720
All the groupies were at Led Zeppelin concerts,
703
00:52:26,720 --> 00:52:29,000
not waiting for progressive rock maestros
704
00:52:29,000 --> 00:52:31,280
to demonstrate the delights of the diminished chord.
705
00:52:31,280 --> 00:52:36,000
The rock bands in America had groupies. We didn't really have any.
706
00:52:36,000 --> 00:52:38,760
The pop stars had groupies. We wanted groupies too.
707
00:52:38,760 --> 00:52:44,360
We never had any Egg groupies. We never had any girl groupies at all.
708
00:52:45,280 --> 00:52:50,520
No girls ever came to the side of the stage after a gig.
709
00:52:51,520 --> 00:52:53,960
Sad, isn't it?
710
00:52:53,960 --> 00:52:57,960
When we went to America, we had lots of groupies.
711
00:52:57,960 --> 00:52:59,960
By the dozens!
712
00:52:59,960 --> 00:53:02,280
Because they loved our English accents,
713
00:53:02,280 --> 00:53:06,560
and the fact we weren't American rock stars and we were something different,
714
00:53:06,560 --> 00:53:08,080
and exotic to them.
715
00:53:10,280 --> 00:53:13,920
- IN AMERICAN ACCENT:
- "We love your accent! Y'all wanna take a shower with us?"
716
00:53:13,920 --> 00:53:16,560
- IN POSH ENGLISH ACCENT:
- "What, both of you? Gosh!"
717
00:53:19,200 --> 00:53:22,320
Progressive rock audiences certainly weren't screamers.
718
00:53:22,320 --> 00:53:24,240
They were an infinitely patient lot.
719
00:53:24,240 --> 00:53:27,400
Too much yang, not enough yin.
720
00:53:28,360 --> 00:53:33,840
What we started to realise... our audience were nice and reserved people, really.
721
00:53:33,840 --> 00:53:38,720
You know, fishing hats, greatcoats, bunch of albums under the arm...
722
00:53:38,720 --> 00:53:41,960
Public school sixth-formers really, in greatcoats!
723
00:53:43,160 --> 00:53:45,280
Ugly-looking audience, you know.
724
00:53:45,280 --> 00:53:48,960
Pipe and glasses, yeah. Beards and stuff, we used to have.
725
00:53:48,960 --> 00:53:51,880
It was very male-orientated.
726
00:53:51,880 --> 00:53:56,040
I would say, in those days, 95% of our audience were male.
727
00:53:56,040 --> 00:53:58,120
We never used to have females come and see us.
728
00:53:58,120 --> 00:54:01,480
Not many girls, no. All chaps.
729
00:54:01,480 --> 00:54:03,440
Lots of guys. No girls.
730
00:54:03,440 --> 00:54:05,680
What is it, some kind of homo band? What is it?
731
00:54:05,680 --> 00:54:12,120
It was the odd woman, mostly dragged along, who used to just look bewildered.
732
00:54:15,120 --> 00:54:19,560
If the sexiness of '60s psychedelia was absent from the prog performance,
733
00:54:19,560 --> 00:54:22,960
theatricality, used so effectively by Arthur Brown,
734
00:54:22,960 --> 00:54:26,560
was becoming an essential part of any Genesis show.
735
00:54:29,320 --> 00:54:30,720
Flower...
736
00:54:33,680 --> 00:54:35,400
# If you go down to Willow Farm
737
00:54:35,400 --> 00:54:39,920
# To look for butterflies, flutterbys, gutterflies... #
738
00:54:39,920 --> 00:54:45,400
Initially it started off because the PA systems we had...only the voice went through the PA in those days...
739
00:54:45,400 --> 00:54:48,120
were pretty bad, so you could never hear any lyrics.
740
00:54:48,120 --> 00:54:51,200
Quite complex lyrics, and the lyrics were quite important.
741
00:54:51,200 --> 00:54:55,040
So Peter felt he had to act them out a bit, so he started acting them out on stage.
742
00:54:55,040 --> 00:54:57,320
MUSIC: "Supper's Ready" by Genesis
743
00:55:06,280 --> 00:55:09,480
The prog rock movement really stimulated the visual aspect
744
00:55:09,480 --> 00:55:12,080
as well as the playing and the conceptual side.
745
00:55:12,080 --> 00:55:15,840
The visual thing was in. Theatre was important.
746
00:55:15,840 --> 00:55:20,080
It started with that psychedelia period, Arthur Brown, wherever,
747
00:55:20,080 --> 00:55:22,480
and went on and got developed.
748
00:55:22,480 --> 00:55:25,000
MUSIC: "Brandenburger" by The Nice
749
00:55:29,040 --> 00:55:33,120
Progressive rock now had such a loyal male record-buying fan base,
750
00:55:33,120 --> 00:55:37,040
that both the major and independent labels happily signed new bands,
751
00:55:37,040 --> 00:55:40,160
and let them record whatever they wanted.
752
00:55:40,160 --> 00:55:43,160
They weren't even expected to make money at first.
753
00:55:43,160 --> 00:55:47,200
This was the age of company investment and artistic freedom.
754
00:55:53,200 --> 00:55:56,800
Egg recorded all their albums with zero interference.
755
00:55:56,800 --> 00:55:59,880
MUSIC: "Fugue In D Minor" by Egg
756
00:55:59,880 --> 00:56:03,800
They were interested in us,
757
00:56:03,800 --> 00:56:06,800
because I think they thought we sounded a bit like The Nice,
758
00:56:06,800 --> 00:56:09,000
who had already had a chart hit,
759
00:56:09,000 --> 00:56:12,960
and they thought, "Maybe these guys can make us some money."
760
00:56:12,960 --> 00:56:17,080
So they signed us up, but we had no input from them at all.
761
00:56:17,080 --> 00:56:21,960
I don't think we spoke to any Decca executive ever.
762
00:56:21,960 --> 00:56:25,080
I don't know why we got away with it, to be honest.
763
00:56:25,080 --> 00:56:27,640
That was the style then.
764
00:56:27,640 --> 00:56:31,960
For some reason, we set the precedent that we'd make an album,
765
00:56:31,960 --> 00:56:35,040
when it's finished, we'll hand it over to the record label.
766
00:56:35,040 --> 00:56:37,280
I mean, how nice is that? This is the album.
767
00:56:37,280 --> 00:56:42,120
We were still allowed to do what we wanted to do by the record labels and management.
768
00:56:42,120 --> 00:56:45,000
We were still allowed to come up with ridiculous ideas,
769
00:56:45,000 --> 00:56:48,920
and then somehow find people who could make it happen.
770
00:56:48,920 --> 00:56:53,120
Until groups like Yes, a song was taken and played.
771
00:56:53,120 --> 00:56:57,080
A guitar player played the chords, a bass player played the roots,
772
00:56:57,080 --> 00:57:00,040
a drummer played the rhythm and the singer sung the song.
773
00:57:00,040 --> 00:57:02,640
Yes said, "No, no! We don't want to do it like that.
774
00:57:02,640 --> 00:57:07,080
"We want to have a theme to start. We want to have a riff behind the song.
775
00:57:07,080 --> 00:57:12,520
"We want to take out the chords of that section, cos everybody's heard those before. Stick some lines in."
776
00:57:12,520 --> 00:57:16,080
More like an orchestral approach. Violins do this, the bassoons do that.
777
00:57:16,080 --> 00:57:22,080
It's a thinking man's music, as opposed to a... just from the gut music.
778
00:57:22,080 --> 00:57:24,160
Rock was just from the gut, I think.
779
00:57:24,160 --> 00:57:27,800
Everyone was looking eagerly to see
780
00:57:27,800 --> 00:57:32,160
what was new, what was gonna happen. That was definitely a heady time,
781
00:57:32,160 --> 00:57:37,760
for sure, and one that I rather suspect we won't see again.
782
00:57:37,760 --> 00:57:43,560
'72, '73, we were kind of in that prog rock camp.
783
00:57:43,560 --> 00:57:46,840
Albeit we were the band that were making a joke of it.
784
00:57:46,840 --> 00:57:51,920
We were doing a bit of a send-up of prog rock for a couple of albums back then.
785
00:57:57,160 --> 00:58:01,560
Despite Jethro Tull's determination to stay outside the prog rock establishment,
786
00:58:01,560 --> 00:58:05,920
their fourth album, Aqualung, seemed suspiciously profound.
787
00:58:10,000 --> 00:58:16,120
It was not a concept album. People just ignored it. "It's a concept album!
788
00:58:16,120 --> 00:58:18,840
"It's got a picture about God and stuff,
789
00:58:18,840 --> 00:58:21,800
"and tramps and things... and...concept, yeah!"
790
00:58:21,800 --> 00:58:26,480
So in the wake of that, I just thought, "Let's give them the mother of all concept albums."
791
00:58:26,480 --> 00:58:29,800
Have a bit of fun with the whole thing, and do a spoof concept album
792
00:58:29,800 --> 00:58:33,240
and pretend it was written by a 12-year-old precocious schoolboy,
793
00:58:33,240 --> 00:58:37,480
and do the ridiculously convoluted 16-page cover,
794
00:58:37,480 --> 00:58:40,800
which actually took longer to do than record the album, I think.
795
00:58:40,800 --> 00:58:46,240
So it was a bit of a send-up. It was a pre-Spinal Tap moment.
796
00:58:47,480 --> 00:58:51,960
# But your new shoes are worn at the heels
797
00:58:51,960 --> 00:58:56,640
# And your suntan does rapidly peel
798
00:58:56,640 --> 00:59:02,640
# And your wise men don't know how it feels
799
00:59:04,240 --> 00:59:06,880
# To be thick as a brick. #
800
00:59:06,880 --> 00:59:11,400
Ironically, the mischievous prank that was 1972's Thick As A Brick
801
00:59:11,400 --> 00:59:14,840
is now hailed as the ultimate progressive rock album.
802
00:59:17,680 --> 00:59:20,160
MUSIC: "Tubular Bells" by Mike Oldfield
803
00:59:20,160 --> 00:59:23,120
That same year, multi-instrumentalist Mike Oldfield
804
00:59:23,120 --> 00:59:26,080
was composing his progressive music masterwork -
805
00:59:26,080 --> 00:59:29,440
the near-scientific experiment that was Tubular Bells,
806
00:59:29,440 --> 00:59:32,640
for which he played all the 26 featured instruments himself.
807
00:59:36,360 --> 00:59:41,080
A nightmare for me to explain to another musician how it should be played.
808
00:59:41,880 --> 00:59:45,720
I can't tell them, "Play it like I would play it," cos they can't!
809
00:59:47,080 --> 00:59:50,160
I made my own notes that only I could understand,
810
00:59:50,160 --> 00:59:51,520
so I did sort of map it out.
811
00:59:51,520 --> 00:59:57,840
It's a kind of piece of classical music, but with the instruments that I could play.
812
01:00:00,840 --> 01:00:02,640
We were working in Abbey Road,
813
01:00:02,640 --> 01:00:06,400
and Paul McCartney was in the big studio next door, number one,
814
01:00:06,400 --> 01:00:09,720
and somebody told me he was playing everything.
815
01:00:09,720 --> 01:00:13,720
And I understood from the technology we were using
816
01:00:13,720 --> 01:00:17,200
that you could overdub one instrument while listening to the rest,
817
01:00:17,200 --> 01:00:21,240
and I said, "Oh! He's probably doing it all like that! I can do that with my one!"
818
01:00:25,400 --> 01:00:28,080
The album launched Virgin Records,
819
01:00:28,080 --> 01:00:31,280
and was licensed in America with a help of an accompanying film
820
01:00:31,280 --> 01:00:33,880
put together for the BBC's Old Grey Whistle Test.
821
01:00:33,880 --> 01:00:37,800
It went on to sell 50 million copies worldwide.
822
01:00:39,280 --> 01:00:43,440
Vintage footage, probably black-and-white era,
823
01:00:43,440 --> 01:00:45,640
late '20s, early '30s, of skiers.
824
01:00:48,360 --> 01:00:52,800
Pull out a reel of film, and, "Er, let's have a look at this one...
825
01:00:52,800 --> 01:00:54,760
"Ah, this one might fit, yeah."
826
01:00:54,760 --> 01:00:58,920
With the snow going up, the powder...
827
01:00:58,920 --> 01:01:01,640
Dun-din-dun-din-dun-din-dun-din...
828
01:01:01,640 --> 01:01:04,440
It was just beautiful.
829
01:01:06,560 --> 01:01:10,680
That was incredible. Mike Oldfield, and just a part of Tubular Bells.
830
01:01:16,240 --> 01:01:21,680
But commercial success and an underground reputation was still a contradiction.
831
01:01:21,680 --> 01:01:26,280
A shy Oldfield couldn't deal with the attention, and took to the hills.
832
01:01:26,280 --> 01:01:32,120
The press, in pursuit of Britain's biggest international progressive music success story,
833
01:01:32,120 --> 01:01:33,920
were denied its star.
834
01:01:35,160 --> 01:01:37,280
I left the human civilisation,
835
01:01:37,280 --> 01:01:42,320
and lived with my sheep on a little house on the Welsh border.
836
01:01:43,320 --> 01:01:48,400
Major psychological problems, nervous breakdown kind of things,
837
01:01:48,400 --> 01:01:50,800
which wasn't very nice.
838
01:01:50,800 --> 01:01:53,040
HE COUGHS
839
01:01:53,040 --> 01:01:56,280
Upset a hell of a lot of people.
840
01:01:56,280 --> 01:01:59,640
There was one journalist who was furious with me,
841
01:01:59,640 --> 01:02:01,960
cos I wouldn't do an interview.
842
01:02:01,960 --> 01:02:04,360
I was already so successful,
843
01:02:04,360 --> 01:02:11,160
what difference would it have made if I had done 500 interviews and toured the world?
844
01:02:11,160 --> 01:02:15,680
So I thought, "What are you all bothering me about? Leave me alone!"
845
01:02:31,120 --> 01:02:36,160
If Oldfield rejected mainstream acceptance of his rarefied musical experiment,
846
01:02:36,160 --> 01:02:42,240
other musicians embraced the success that British progressive rock was now achieving around the world.
847
01:02:42,240 --> 01:02:44,680
Most significantly, in the States.
848
01:02:50,280 --> 01:02:55,000
The Americans loved progressive rock. It was evidence of skill.
849
01:02:55,000 --> 01:02:58,720
Now, Americans, funnily enough, are a little unlike us,
850
01:02:58,720 --> 01:03:05,920
in the sense that they are not immediately embarrassed by an overt display of capability.
851
01:03:05,920 --> 01:03:10,000
The Americans...fantastic at doing that. Brits, crap.
852
01:03:10,000 --> 01:03:11,400
The Brits come to a solo...
853
01:03:11,400 --> 01:03:15,560
"I can actually play a lot better than this but I won't, cos I don't want to show off,
854
01:03:15,560 --> 01:03:17,360
"so I'll just stand in the corner."
855
01:03:17,360 --> 01:03:20,080
Suddenly, we're doing... "Hey! Cop a load of this!"
856
01:03:25,640 --> 01:03:30,640
Now, let's bang the drum for somebody who for three years running has been voted Drummer Of The Year.
857
01:03:30,640 --> 01:03:34,840
He's just taken delivery of a new kit, and here he is to demonstrate it - Carl Palmer.
858
01:03:34,840 --> 01:03:38,320
It was a stainless steel drum kit. I was sponsored by British Steel.
859
01:03:38,320 --> 01:03:42,400
Eight different engineering companies were involved in the making of this kit,
860
01:03:42,400 --> 01:03:46,320
which is the very first electronic stainless steel drum kit in existence.
861
01:03:46,320 --> 01:03:48,280
'I decided to get a jeweller,'
862
01:03:48,280 --> 01:03:51,440
using a dentist's drill, a chap called Paul Raven,
863
01:03:51,440 --> 01:03:54,720
to do these hunting scenes on each of the drums.
864
01:03:54,720 --> 01:03:57,760
I'd seen them on Purdey rifles, and I was quite impressed.
865
01:03:57,760 --> 01:04:01,240
There's a beautiful squirrel, nibbling away there,
866
01:04:01,240 --> 01:04:03,400
there's a fox, really nice, they are,
867
01:04:03,400 --> 01:04:06,560
and there's even somewhere a hedgehog. There it is.
868
01:04:06,560 --> 01:04:10,960
And they said, "Did you want the shells a quarter-inch thick or half-an-inch thick?"
869
01:04:10,960 --> 01:04:14,200
I said, "What's the difference in price?" They said, "The same."
870
01:04:14,200 --> 01:04:16,840
"I'll have half-an-inch." It's the '70s, excess,
871
01:04:16,840 --> 01:04:19,080
not thinking it'll take two guys to lift the bass drum!
872
01:04:19,080 --> 01:04:20,760
I know it weighs a couple of tons?
873
01:04:20,760 --> 01:04:24,120
- Two-and-a-half.
- And you'll be taking this around the world on tour?
874
01:04:24,120 --> 01:04:27,080
- Yes.
- How do you fly with it?
- Er, very well, thank you!
875
01:04:27,080 --> 01:04:29,360
'The stage had to be reinforced.'
876
01:04:29,360 --> 01:04:32,720
We didn't think of transport costs, we didn't think of weight.
877
01:04:32,720 --> 01:04:38,080
'It went on from there. We decided to add the electronic drums, the first electronic drums at the time.'
878
01:04:38,080 --> 01:04:40,920
Everyone thought it was keyboards. They were drums.
879
01:04:40,920 --> 01:04:43,080
DRUM BEAT TRIGGERS ELECTRONIC ARPEGGIO
880
01:04:46,920 --> 01:04:48,440
SECOND DRUM BEAT STOPS IT
881
01:04:48,440 --> 01:04:52,000
Have it! It's the '70s, innit? The bigger, the better!
882
01:04:55,400 --> 01:04:57,640
If there was something that was available
883
01:04:57,640 --> 01:05:01,040
from a technology point of view that would enhance the sound of the band,
884
01:05:01,040 --> 01:05:03,520
we wanted it yesterday.
885
01:05:03,520 --> 01:05:06,640
HE RINGS BELL WITH STRING IN HIS MOUTH
886
01:05:13,840 --> 01:05:16,480
MUSIC: "The Ancient (Giants Under The Sun)" by Yes
887
01:05:18,640 --> 01:05:21,520
Progressive rock was now colonising the outer limits.
888
01:05:21,520 --> 01:05:26,480
In 1973, Yes had set sail on Topographic Oceans,
889
01:05:26,480 --> 01:05:28,960
a double album comprised of only four tracks,
890
01:05:28,960 --> 01:05:32,600
each packed with unusual sounds, key changes and time signatures.
891
01:05:35,000 --> 01:05:38,200
There was this constant quest. Could you hit this and it sounded good?
892
01:05:38,200 --> 01:05:39,240
"Doing!"
893
01:05:42,080 --> 01:05:46,560
We got Slinkies and put mics in them and threw them downstairs and recorded them
894
01:05:46,560 --> 01:05:50,400
to hear what they were like. And you put a lot of reverb on them, it's great.
895
01:05:50,400 --> 01:05:54,200
And it was! "Pchkowwhoossssh-bthwooooom"! Yeah!
896
01:05:56,560 --> 01:05:59,960
It was that kind of insanity. It was a nice kind of insanity.
897
01:05:59,960 --> 01:06:01,360
It was a musical insanity.
898
01:06:15,080 --> 01:06:17,960
We were...totally self-indulgent.
899
01:06:22,720 --> 01:06:26,280
But it was serious music. There was something more serious about Yes
900
01:06:26,280 --> 01:06:28,080
than some other bands of that time.
901
01:06:28,080 --> 01:06:29,960
We took ourselves a little serious!
902
01:06:29,960 --> 01:06:36,360
And our quest was to make something we thought was kind of grand,
903
01:06:36,360 --> 01:06:39,920
not grandiose, but had a kind of grandeur about it.
904
01:06:39,920 --> 01:06:43,360
It had scale, but it had drama.
905
01:06:44,920 --> 01:06:49,480
But this quest was even more arduous than the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour.
906
01:06:49,480 --> 01:06:53,040
Audiences were showing signs of fatigue.
907
01:06:59,080 --> 01:07:00,720
Robert had stopped King Crimson,
908
01:07:00,720 --> 01:07:03,600
Robert Fripp had stopped King Crimson around that time.
909
01:07:03,600 --> 01:07:04,960
Very prescient. Very smart.
910
01:07:06,000 --> 01:07:10,240
I mean, I'd only just settled down. Just got my sticks out. Just settling in.
911
01:07:11,520 --> 01:07:14,640
But that's a bit like... That's life in King Crimson.
912
01:07:14,640 --> 01:07:19,680
It broke up at least three times, in my certain knowledge.
913
01:07:19,680 --> 01:07:22,960
Probably several other times while I was in it!
914
01:07:25,120 --> 01:07:30,800
If Fripp sensed an artistic cul-de-sac ahead when he put the brakes on King Crimson in 1974,
915
01:07:30,800 --> 01:07:32,520
others put their foot down
916
01:07:32,520 --> 01:07:38,200
and drove headlong into fame, fortune and near-fatal solos.
917
01:07:40,680 --> 01:07:44,200
These bands were... shockingly, to my mind...
918
01:07:44,200 --> 01:07:47,080
going on a transition away from
919
01:07:47,080 --> 01:07:53,680
the kind of honesty and real experimentalism we were involved in,
920
01:07:53,680 --> 01:08:00,520
into an un-self-consciously showbizzy way of doing things.
921
01:08:02,640 --> 01:08:06,440
In the Genesis camp, Peter Gabriel's taste for the theatrical
922
01:08:06,440 --> 01:08:09,080
threatened to swamp the subtlety of the music.
923
01:08:09,080 --> 01:08:12,240
But enthusiastic audiences and an attentive press
924
01:08:12,240 --> 01:08:15,600
pushed the band closer to commercial success.
925
01:08:15,600 --> 01:08:19,240
Americans, particularly, pushed past the rest of us
926
01:08:19,240 --> 01:08:21,240
to say "Great show, Pete! Great show!
927
01:08:21,240 --> 01:08:24,440
"You were great tonight!" And I just got fed up with it.
928
01:08:25,440 --> 01:08:29,600
So I made my feelings known about that.
929
01:08:33,000 --> 01:08:37,880
It did irritate us a bit that he got all the attention, but we kind of knew that in the back of our minds.
930
01:08:37,880 --> 01:08:40,440
We knew it gave us incredible publicity as well.
931
01:08:40,440 --> 01:08:42,440
So we weren't too sad about that side of it.
932
01:08:42,440 --> 01:08:46,400
I didn't have a problem. Maybe once during The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway.
933
01:08:46,400 --> 01:08:50,920
A couple of costumes went too far, you couldn't sing through them.
934
01:08:50,920 --> 01:08:52,800
But I always liked the visuals.
935
01:08:53,800 --> 01:08:55,480
It was all part of what we did,
936
01:08:55,480 --> 01:08:57,360
and nobody else was really doing it.
937
01:08:57,360 --> 01:09:01,120
# Welcome back, my friends, To the show that never ends
938
01:09:01,120 --> 01:09:05,800
# We're so glad you could attend, Come inside, come inside... #
939
01:09:05,800 --> 01:09:08,920
ELP were busy establishing the power of British prog,
940
01:09:08,920 --> 01:09:12,840
conquering the four corners of the globe with tours built on showmanship.
941
01:09:12,840 --> 01:09:18,160
Technical extravaganzas light years away from underground clubs and hippy ideal.
942
01:09:20,240 --> 01:09:24,720
# Rest assured, you'll get your money's worth... #
943
01:09:24,720 --> 01:09:29,440
You have to say that by '75, '76,
944
01:09:29,440 --> 01:09:33,440
it all got over-indulgent. It just all did.
945
01:09:33,440 --> 01:09:35,560
This is the Hilton, is it?
946
01:09:35,560 --> 01:09:39,680
Conrad, Conrad. If you're looking in, I've got one soft one, and one hard one.
947
01:09:39,680 --> 01:09:41,880
What use is that? What's all that about?
948
01:09:41,880 --> 01:09:44,920
I remember doing some filming with ELP.
949
01:09:44,920 --> 01:09:50,280
They had three 40-foot trucks.
950
01:09:50,280 --> 01:09:53,920
There was this moving ELP thing across...
951
01:10:00,360 --> 01:10:03,120
It just seemed to me a betrayal.
952
01:10:03,120 --> 01:10:05,880
How could these people, who were my heroes...
953
01:10:05,880 --> 01:10:07,840
how could Keith Emerson do that?
954
01:10:15,920 --> 01:10:22,720
There was no finesse, to my mind, or sophistication or sensitivity about what they were doing at all.
955
01:10:22,720 --> 01:10:24,080
It was hysterical.
956
01:10:25,560 --> 01:10:30,400
This whole stadium thing, with Yes coming out of big petals that opened,
957
01:10:30,400 --> 01:10:35,360
and stage design...there'd almost begun now...a tipping point
958
01:10:35,360 --> 01:10:38,600
where the presentation, the stage design and everything else
959
01:10:38,600 --> 01:10:42,280
was almost taking over from the music in terms of importance.
960
01:10:42,280 --> 01:10:44,160
They were all out-doing each other.
961
01:10:46,080 --> 01:10:49,480
"We think that progressive rock, the things you do,
962
01:10:49,480 --> 01:10:51,840
"is overblown, it's pretentious,
963
01:10:51,840 --> 01:10:54,600
"completely over-the-top and thoroughly pompous.
964
01:10:54,600 --> 01:10:55,920
"What do you say to that?"
965
01:10:57,080 --> 01:10:58,880
Yeah, you're about right, really!
966
01:10:58,880 --> 01:11:00,200
Then...
967
01:11:00,200 --> 01:11:04,800
some people came along who thought, "We can make this sexy,"
968
01:11:04,800 --> 01:11:06,080
and you've got Queen...
969
01:11:06,080 --> 01:11:07,480
# Mama mia, mama mia... #
970
01:11:07,480 --> 01:11:12,040
..who had a lot of prog elements but managed to get back to having tunes,
971
01:11:12,040 --> 01:11:16,440
and just devastating emotional climaxes
972
01:11:16,440 --> 01:11:19,080
instead of intellectual doodlings.
973
01:11:19,080 --> 01:11:21,080
MUSIC: "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen
974
01:11:28,240 --> 01:11:32,320
When Peter Gabriel left Genesis in 1975 to go solo,
975
01:11:32,320 --> 01:11:34,480
grammar school interloper Phil Collins
976
01:11:34,480 --> 01:11:37,600
became the front man for the Charterhouse boys.
977
01:11:37,600 --> 01:11:43,800
A new Genesis became even more successful, with Trick Of The Tail,
978
01:11:43,800 --> 01:11:48,680
an album that seemed to sniff an approaching storm in its return to simpler songs.
979
01:11:48,680 --> 01:11:53,400
# "Am I wrong to believe in the city of gold
980
01:11:53,400 --> 01:11:57,200
# "That lies in the deep distance?" he cried
981
01:11:57,200 --> 01:12:00,680
# And wept as they led him away to a cage
982
01:12:00,680 --> 01:12:04,760
# Beast that can talk read the sign... #
983
01:12:04,760 --> 01:12:09,120
Some of the things became very simplified in some people's...
984
01:12:09,120 --> 01:12:12,680
or shortened, or "commercialised" is the dirty word.
985
01:12:12,680 --> 01:12:17,920
They think that was my fault. I won't take the glory or blame for that.
986
01:12:17,920 --> 01:12:23,360
There are certain songs that people always put down, "That's a Phil song." Phh!
987
01:12:23,360 --> 01:12:29,080
After Peter left we were kind of conscious that do you carry on and do what you've always done,
988
01:12:29,080 --> 01:12:32,040
these long, half-hour pieces or concept albums?
989
01:12:32,040 --> 01:12:37,240
You think maybe you've done that, you know, and you move on a bit.
990
01:12:37,240 --> 01:12:39,680
MELLOW ROCK MUSIC PLAYS
991
01:12:45,960 --> 01:12:49,720
- What's this song called?
- It's not a song, Stubbs.
992
01:12:49,720 --> 01:12:52,640
It's the first movement of a rock symphony -
993
01:12:52,640 --> 01:12:54,840
Apotheosis Of The Necromancer.
994
01:12:54,840 --> 01:12:57,480
That's a dead cert for Top Of The Pops(!)
995
01:12:57,480 --> 01:13:03,320
Rick Wakeman may be your God, but let me tell you something - concept albums are out.
996
01:13:03,320 --> 01:13:07,440
There was a scene in The Rotters' Club where the school band
997
01:13:07,440 --> 01:13:10,600
morphs from being a progressive band to a punk band in mid-song.
998
01:13:10,600 --> 01:13:12,720
MELLOW ROCK MUSIC PLAYS
999
01:13:12,720 --> 01:13:15,760
Bollocks to this for a game of soldiers.
1000
01:13:17,040 --> 01:13:19,080
HE CHANGES HIS DRUMMING STYLE
1001
01:13:19,080 --> 01:13:25,240
That was meant to be a sort of comic caricature of what actually happened in '76, '77.
1002
01:13:27,400 --> 01:13:30,440
# Anarchy in the UK
1003
01:13:30,440 --> 01:13:33,120
# Is this the UDA? #
1004
01:13:33,120 --> 01:13:37,360
Punk stumbled on a time tunnel back to pre-Sergeant Pepper days
1005
01:13:37,360 --> 01:13:41,280
and returned armed with only three chords and angry as hell.
1006
01:13:41,280 --> 01:13:43,160
# Or just
1007
01:13:43,160 --> 01:13:46,600
# Another
1008
01:13:47,600 --> 01:13:50,720
# Country... #
1009
01:13:50,720 --> 01:13:52,880
It was a big explosion
1010
01:13:52,880 --> 01:13:54,920
of resentment
1011
01:13:54,920 --> 01:13:57,880
against the...
1012
01:13:58,880 --> 01:14:00,960
..highbrows.
1013
01:14:02,320 --> 01:14:04,360
What they were saying was,
1014
01:14:04,360 --> 01:14:10,200
"This glam rock and progressive rock is not communicating to me...
1015
01:14:11,200 --> 01:14:14,040
"..and I feel marginalised."
1016
01:14:16,080 --> 01:14:19,000
I didn't think it was us they were talking about.
1017
01:14:20,600 --> 01:14:25,480
OK, let's lose the guys that go... HE IMITATES A PRECIOUS MELODY
1018
01:14:25,480 --> 01:14:27,920
Let's get rid of that!
1019
01:14:31,800 --> 01:14:35,560
What I didn't like was the great hate that those people
1020
01:14:35,560 --> 01:14:38,520
pretended to have for the establishment
1021
01:14:38,520 --> 01:14:41,160
of rock bands at that particular point.
1022
01:14:41,160 --> 01:14:43,680
Anybody that played, like, you know,
1023
01:14:43,680 --> 01:14:48,600
something a bit more complex or a bit interesting, that was out the window.
1024
01:14:48,600 --> 01:14:51,080
MUSIC: "Teenage Kicks" by The Undertones
1025
01:14:51,080 --> 01:14:54,280
On one hand I liked it because it was trashing things,
1026
01:14:54,280 --> 01:14:57,800
but on the other hand, I didn't because it was a return to infancy.
1027
01:14:57,800 --> 01:15:03,840
There's this permanent tension in rock music between the three chords and the truth merchants -
1028
01:15:03,840 --> 01:15:06,000
you know, four-four and three chords -
1029
01:15:06,000 --> 01:15:08,800
and the other people, like me,
1030
01:15:08,800 --> 01:15:12,120
who say, "What if we add a fourth chord and put it in five-four?"
1031
01:15:12,120 --> 01:15:17,480
There's always people like me messing up what these people think is pop music.
1032
01:15:19,280 --> 01:15:25,680
A lot of pretty good bands came out of punk, but they were excellent writers and musicians,
1033
01:15:25,680 --> 01:15:30,920
but that wasn't what punk was about. Punk was all about NOT being musical.
1034
01:15:30,920 --> 01:15:35,480
The British Isles was the only country that fell for it.
1035
01:15:35,480 --> 01:15:39,200
They didn't manage to do it anywhere else.
1036
01:15:40,680 --> 01:15:46,680
One of the things proper musicians objected to with punk was that they were always out of tune.
1037
01:15:46,680 --> 01:15:50,200
If you listen to Schoenberg and Cecil Taylor,
1038
01:15:50,200 --> 01:15:55,040
there's no such thing as out of tune. It's just another bunch of notes.
1039
01:15:55,040 --> 01:16:01,040
If you're going to play the same three chords, instead of learning all kind of fancy ones,
1040
01:16:01,040 --> 01:16:05,200
why not have them play the guitar out of tune? That'll give you something different.
1041
01:16:05,200 --> 01:16:10,360
That was a very lovely, home-made solution to harmonic inventiveness.
1042
01:16:10,360 --> 01:16:15,800
Just don't tune up. Don't sing in tune. How far out can you get?
1043
01:16:15,800 --> 01:16:18,400
The notes between the notes, we're hitting them.
1044
01:16:18,400 --> 01:16:20,440
SHE PLAYS BOOGIE-WOOGIE
1045
01:16:22,760 --> 01:16:29,760
The next generation had arrived, determined to overthrow Daddy in the Oedipal battle for supremacy.
1046
01:16:31,400 --> 01:16:34,880
Only this time, Daddy was a prog rocker.
1047
01:16:34,880 --> 01:16:41,640
You initially grow up with the music that the generation before you, your parents, have chosen.
1048
01:16:41,640 --> 01:16:47,160
And you don't want it. My mum and dad used to listen to Pearl and Teddy Johnson.
1049
01:16:47,160 --> 01:16:50,840
# Darling, darling, sweet Elizabeth
1050
01:16:50,840 --> 01:16:54,520
# Say you'll be mine - hey! Always be mine - hey! #
1051
01:16:54,520 --> 01:17:00,800
I don't want to listen to Pearl and Teddy Johnson so along comes The Who and bands like that. Yeah!
1052
01:17:00,800 --> 01:17:03,240
Absolutely, that's what I want!
1053
01:17:03,240 --> 01:17:09,480
And it belongs to you. I mean, prog rock, to some extent, killed the pop bands.
1054
01:17:09,480 --> 01:17:14,600
The pop bands killed the crooner. Punk killed prog rock.
1055
01:17:14,600 --> 01:17:17,160
ABSTRACT ROCK MUSIC PLAYS
1056
01:17:20,640 --> 01:17:27,680
'70s Britain bore no resemblance to the imagined, mystical worlds of prog rock and Roger Dean.
1057
01:17:29,560 --> 01:17:34,320
It was plagued by shortages, strikes and post-'60s disillusionment.
1058
01:17:36,080 --> 01:17:41,840
In 1979, an Iron Lady would be crowned Queen in the Court of the Crimson King.
1059
01:17:42,840 --> 01:17:50,120
Lyrically, progressive music in the '70s was very divorced from social reality. Just not interested in it.
1060
01:17:51,560 --> 01:17:54,720
The lyrics are always a problem in this kind of music
1061
01:17:54,720 --> 01:17:59,080
because it is about music, doing interesting things with instruments
1062
01:17:59,080 --> 01:18:03,600
and making interesting musical shapes and landscapes,
1063
01:18:03,600 --> 01:18:08,360
but if you're gonna have a singer, what's he going to sing about?
1064
01:18:08,360 --> 01:18:13,600
Often the solution was to go down the talking Roger Dean route,
1065
01:18:13,600 --> 01:18:16,680
to sing about fantasy worlds and so on,
1066
01:18:16,680 --> 01:18:22,640
and there's a kind of embarrassment about that now which I certainly share.
1067
01:18:25,120 --> 01:18:27,960
Genesis missed the British punk revolution.
1068
01:18:27,960 --> 01:18:32,680
Like many progressive bands, they were too busy being successful abroad.
1069
01:18:35,800 --> 01:18:41,040
On their return, they not only weathered the punk front, now sitting firmly over the country,
1070
01:18:41,040 --> 01:18:43,560
but, perversely, enjoyed an Indian summer.
1071
01:18:43,560 --> 01:18:50,440
We were unaware of punk because we were touring so much, not really aware of anything else going on.
1072
01:18:50,440 --> 01:18:55,480
All we knew really was that groups like Yes had disappeared a bit,
1073
01:18:55,480 --> 01:18:58,520
so in a sense we were the last ones left standing
1074
01:18:58,520 --> 01:19:00,960
so we picked up everybody else's audience.
1075
01:19:00,960 --> 01:19:07,280
We always had that side to us which was based more on the songwriting than on the playing,
1076
01:19:07,280 --> 01:19:09,360
and that carried us through.
1077
01:19:09,360 --> 01:19:12,400
MUSIC: "Follow You Follow Me" by Genesis
1078
01:19:28,760 --> 01:19:31,280
And we started having hit singles.
1079
01:19:31,280 --> 01:19:37,400
Follow You Follow Me opened a door for us. It was a reasonable hit. It wasn't massive.
1080
01:19:37,400 --> 01:19:43,040
But after that, we were able to put out singles and they'd always get played for many years.
1081
01:19:43,040 --> 01:19:49,520
A lot of them did well so suddenly that meant the potential audience became much bigger.
1082
01:19:52,000 --> 01:19:54,040
Most bands weren't so lucky.
1083
01:19:54,040 --> 01:19:57,360
Procol Harum's 10th album, Something Magic,
1084
01:19:57,360 --> 01:20:01,560
an ambitious concept in which their instruments played characters
1085
01:20:01,560 --> 01:20:05,680
in a story that was narrated, not even sung, became their swansong.
1086
01:20:09,680 --> 01:20:13,320
We'd finished it. I don't know how we managed to record this thing.
1087
01:20:13,320 --> 01:20:18,560
And then we turn around and there it is, of course, punks and...
1088
01:20:21,160 --> 01:20:28,360
The way we left was just to sort of pack up on our last night of a tour and we said, "That's it, then."
1089
01:20:28,360 --> 01:20:30,600
And we all went our separate ways.
1090
01:20:46,960 --> 01:20:54,080
In the 1980s, original King Crimson lyricist Pete Sinfield uncovered a secret path into pop music
1091
01:20:54,080 --> 01:20:56,400
as a writer of chart-topping hits.
1092
01:20:56,400 --> 01:20:59,440
MUSIC: "The Land Of Make Believe" by Bucks Fizz
1093
01:21:09,720 --> 01:21:13,600
Try and write something a lot of people will like quickly,
1094
01:21:13,600 --> 01:21:15,640
yet still get something of you in it.
1095
01:21:15,640 --> 01:21:20,400
"Something nasty in your garden, waiting till it'll steal your heart,"
1096
01:21:20,400 --> 01:21:22,600
which for me, is like a King Crimson line.
1097
01:21:22,600 --> 01:21:25,000
I've just taken it into a different setting.
1098
01:21:25,000 --> 01:21:30,160
MUSIC: "The Land Of Make Believe" by Bucks Fizz
1099
01:21:34,440 --> 01:21:40,240
King Crimson itself, staged several comebacks and its 1974 album, Red,
1100
01:21:40,240 --> 01:21:44,240
would, in time, influence grunge guru, Kurt Cobain.
1101
01:21:47,880 --> 01:21:49,160
Somewhere in 1987,
1102
01:21:49,160 --> 01:21:53,680
I probably gave up noisy rock.
1103
01:21:53,680 --> 01:21:55,680
I mean, there was the odd reunion tour.
1104
01:21:55,680 --> 01:21:58,280
But in my mind, I was redefined as a jazz musician,
1105
01:21:58,280 --> 01:22:01,680
which I probably should have been in the first place.
1106
01:22:03,040 --> 01:22:06,600
Yes, teamed up with hip '80s producer, Trevor Horn,
1107
01:22:06,600 --> 01:22:10,040
who helped tune their songs to the ears of a very different decade.
1108
01:22:10,040 --> 01:22:14,680
MUSIC: "Owner Of A Lonely Heart" by Yes
1109
01:22:52,720 --> 01:22:55,760
But the expedition to the far reaches of pop music,
1110
01:22:55,760 --> 01:23:00,440
had left camp in the late '60s, was by now lost, forgotten,
1111
01:23:00,440 --> 01:23:03,040
or only spoken of in hushed tones.
1112
01:23:07,200 --> 01:23:11,160
Prog had become a really dirty word, you know.
1113
01:23:11,160 --> 01:23:14,440
It's the sort of thing that you didn't mention in public.
1114
01:23:14,440 --> 01:23:20,160
It's almost the only kind of music where people write off everything
1115
01:23:20,160 --> 01:23:21,640
that's in the genre,
1116
01:23:21,640 --> 01:23:26,120
without embarrassment, actually, and just say, you know, "It's all shit."
1117
01:23:27,720 --> 01:23:33,640
People would go to a record store and say, "I'd like some, er...
1118
01:23:33,640 --> 01:23:39,000
"couple of Country and Western, a bit of New Age,
1119
01:23:39,000 --> 01:23:40,880
"and bit of Modern Romantic, please, as well.
1120
01:23:40,880 --> 01:23:44,040
"A couple of punk albums, I'll have that, thank you very much,
1121
01:23:44,040 --> 01:23:45,680
"a bit of classical, and, um...
1122
01:23:46,640 --> 01:23:48,240
"..(have you got any prog rock?)"
1123
01:23:48,240 --> 01:23:51,680
There were people out there that might not have liked Yes,
1124
01:23:51,680 --> 01:23:53,720
but liked a bit of Genesis,
1125
01:23:53,720 --> 01:23:56,520
might not have liked the Floyd, but liked Jethro Tull.
1126
01:23:56,520 --> 01:23:59,600
"Er, yes, Sir, hold on. I'll do it under the counter."
1127
01:23:59,600 --> 01:24:03,320
They do it under the counter in a brown paper bag and round the side.
1128
01:24:03,320 --> 01:24:07,720
It was like...it was like the porn of the music industry.
1129
01:24:07,720 --> 01:24:11,440
I went out and bought the first Sex Pistols album,
1130
01:24:11,440 --> 01:24:15,480
and didn't mind telling people I had, and that I listened to it.
1131
01:24:15,480 --> 01:24:18,960
Whereas Jonny Rotten, at the time, wouldn't admit to listening to Jethro Tull.
1132
01:24:18,960 --> 01:24:22,760
But, many, many years later, admitted that one of his, sort of,
1133
01:24:22,760 --> 01:24:26,480
seminal influences was the Aqualung album.
1134
01:24:26,480 --> 01:24:33,720
I met Rat Scabies in an airport, right about to get on a plane,
1135
01:24:33,720 --> 01:24:36,120
and he came up to me...
1136
01:24:38,600 --> 01:24:42,280
..and he said, "Just want you to know, I'm a big fan of yours."
1137
01:24:42,280 --> 01:24:46,440
But, you know, he just wanted to make sure nobody was looking.
1138
01:24:46,440 --> 01:24:50,160
We were living the dream, you know, but it would be stupid
1139
01:24:50,160 --> 01:24:54,360
for people to keep thinking that life was easy because of that.
1140
01:24:54,360 --> 01:24:55,400
It's not easy.
1141
01:24:55,400 --> 01:25:00,600
It's a lot of hard work and these lines on my face are evidence!
1142
01:25:02,440 --> 01:25:04,000
The lost chord!
1143
01:25:04,000 --> 01:25:08,880
You're always looking for that thing you haven't heard yet.
1144
01:25:08,880 --> 01:25:12,400
Not everyone persevered in The Land Of Make Believe.
1145
01:25:15,440 --> 01:25:18,320
There had been early casualties.
1146
01:25:18,320 --> 01:25:22,040
The reason I stopped doing it rather suddenly...
1147
01:25:25,120 --> 01:25:30,320
..was...simply because of my dependent psychology.
1148
01:25:31,560 --> 01:25:34,760
I needed praise and I wasn't getting it.
1149
01:25:37,240 --> 01:25:44,880
It was a bit like a child that dies aged three of malnutrition.
1150
01:25:44,880 --> 01:25:51,520
You know, it gets born, there's all sorts of hope and...
1151
01:25:51,520 --> 01:25:56,640
good expectations. It learns to walk, it learns to run, it learns to talk,
1152
01:25:56,640 --> 01:26:01,040
and suddenly it gives up, because it didn't get enough nourishment.
1153
01:26:01,040 --> 01:26:03,080
It was like that.
1154
01:26:04,160 --> 01:26:05,360
For me.
1155
01:26:12,600 --> 01:26:17,360
At its purest, progressive rock wasn't about money, celebrity,
1156
01:26:17,360 --> 01:26:20,880
record contracts or the audience.
1157
01:26:20,880 --> 01:26:23,040
It wasn't even a type of music.
1158
01:26:23,040 --> 01:26:25,960
It was a belief. A value system of the early '70s.
1159
01:26:25,960 --> 01:26:29,160
One that now seems like old time religion.
1160
01:26:31,240 --> 01:26:34,720
Its creators, often precocious, sometimes indulged,
1161
01:26:34,720 --> 01:26:39,520
occasionally deluded, but always uncompromising, baptised the decade
1162
01:26:39,520 --> 01:26:44,080
with a soundtrack of stark virtuosity, weird time signatures...
1163
01:26:44,080 --> 01:26:47,160
strange poetry and surprising beauty.
1164
01:26:47,160 --> 01:26:51,360
The musical experiment, now labelled prog rock,
1165
01:26:51,360 --> 01:26:55,320
and stored under the counter, or placed almost out of reach,
1166
01:26:55,320 --> 01:26:56,680
on the top shelf.
1167
01:26:59,200 --> 01:27:02,480
It grew out of rock music, and that's why it was written about
1168
01:27:02,480 --> 01:27:05,880
in the rock press. But it's kind of a shame it ever became regarded
1169
01:27:05,880 --> 01:27:07,760
as part of rock and roll, because...
1170
01:27:07,760 --> 01:27:10,960
because it's not. I think the ethos is completely different,
1171
01:27:10,960 --> 01:27:14,640
and if you judge it by the standards of rock and roll then it fails.
1172
01:27:14,640 --> 01:27:18,040
It's actually a bunch of very talented musicians,
1173
01:27:18,040 --> 01:27:23,600
who were kind of cursed with very musically intelligent brains,
1174
01:27:23,600 --> 01:27:27,560
who got bored very quickly with playing three chords all the time,
1175
01:27:27,560 --> 01:27:32,920
and wanted to do stuff which was more complex and more challenging.
1176
01:27:32,920 --> 01:27:37,800
- I say, John?
- Yes?
- Tense up, control room. We're ready to do one.
- Right.
1177
01:27:37,800 --> 01:27:43,800
There's an expression which I like a lot, which is, success is buried in the garden of failure.
1178
01:27:43,800 --> 01:27:50,160
So, if you're willing to go to that garden, and dig and dig and dig,
1179
01:27:50,160 --> 01:27:52,160
and try and try and try,
1180
01:27:52,160 --> 01:27:57,440
eventually you'll succeed with some ideas and some success.
1181
01:27:57,440 --> 01:28:02,520
So if you possibly, tense up a little and we'll try and wax a hot one.
1182
01:28:12,680 --> 01:28:17,120
Ah, that's better. Thank you. Um, sorry. What were you saying?
1183
01:28:17,120 --> 01:28:20,360
# And you can fly
1184
01:28:20,360 --> 01:28:25,480
# High as a kite if you want to
1185
01:28:25,480 --> 01:28:29,760
# Faster than light if you want to
1186
01:28:29,760 --> 01:28:34,440
# Speeding through the universe
1187
01:28:35,960 --> 01:28:40,560
# Thinking is the best way to travel. #
1188
01:28:40,560 --> 01:28:43,600
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
111102
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