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Would you like to inspect the original subtitles? These are the user uploaded subtitles that are being translated: 1 00:00:07,400 --> 00:00:10,440 DRONING 2 00:00:14,680 --> 00:00:17,165 Pit-eh-schoo, blugh, buh-doov... 3 00:00:17,200 --> 00:00:19,880 Jun-jing, jun-jing, jun-jing, jing, juh-jing, jun-ding, jung... 4 00:00:19,915 --> 00:00:22,677 BOOF! Rata-da-da-da, da-da-da, da, da... 5 00:00:22,712 --> 00:00:25,440 Doo-doo, doo, doo, doo-doo, doo-doo... 6 00:00:25,475 --> 00:00:26,857 Eh-eh-eh, neh-neh... 7 00:00:26,892 --> 00:00:28,106 Da, da, da, da-da... 8 00:00:28,141 --> 00:00:29,320 Eh-eh-eh, Neh-neh... 9 00:00:29,355 --> 00:00:31,245 Neeeh... 10 00:00:31,280 --> 00:00:33,080 Digga-digga-digga-digga... 11 00:00:33,800 --> 00:00:36,280 Digga-digga, dah-dah... Over. Then some chords! 12 00:00:36,315 --> 00:00:38,725 "The Assyrian came down like a wolf from the fold 13 00:00:38,760 --> 00:00:42,960 "and his cohorts were gleaming in silver and gold..." Diddle-liddle, dum-dum, doo-doo... 14 00:00:42,995 --> 00:00:47,085 "The sheen of his stars were like stars in the sky," whatever it is. 15 00:00:47,120 --> 00:00:50,800 It's gonna go, "Meeh, doo-doo, doo, doo". Then it's gonna go "doodle-oodle, oodle-oodle." 16 00:00:50,835 --> 00:00:54,080 Continual "lul-uhl-lul-uhl" notes without a single break-in. 17 00:00:54,115 --> 00:00:55,245 Boof! 18 00:00:55,280 --> 00:00:57,320 And I almost lost it there! 19 00:00:57,355 --> 00:01:00,840 HE LAUGHS Easy! 20 00:01:20,520 --> 00:01:25,800 From the British pop revolution of the 1960s, emerged an entirely new breed of musician - 21 00:01:25,835 --> 00:01:31,257 a post-Beatles, post-psychedelic generation that saw a future of limitless possibilities. 22 00:01:31,292 --> 00:01:36,680 It was time for pop music to move beyond the three-minute love song and chart success. 23 00:01:37,960 --> 00:01:43,680 With little or no concern for fame, fortune or the audience, they plundered every musical form 24 00:01:43,715 --> 00:01:47,880 on an adventure into uncharted territories in search of the lost chord. 25 00:01:47,915 --> 00:01:51,245 This is the story of that generation of new bands, 26 00:01:51,280 --> 00:01:56,125 Yes, King Crimson, Genesis, ELP, Jethro Tull and many more. 27 00:01:56,160 --> 00:02:01,080 From the land that time forgot, the glory days of Prog Britannia. 28 00:02:01,115 --> 00:02:04,120 MUSIC: "Time Of The Season" by The Zombies 29 00:02:07,520 --> 00:02:12,325 In 1967, pop music, like the world it inhabited, was about to explode. 30 00:02:12,360 --> 00:02:17,560 In London, the British beat boom fused with American pop in a blaze of invention that would ransack 31 00:02:17,595 --> 00:02:22,560 jazz, folk and anything else it could find in the many basement clubs of the city. 32 00:02:25,240 --> 00:02:28,445 I do think there are periods which are golden ages and, you know, 33 00:02:28,480 --> 00:02:33,480 the stars are aligned, and whatever is happening, and it produces a lot of creativity. 34 00:02:33,515 --> 00:02:39,000 Where I was at college was like a snapshot of music at the time. 35 00:02:39,035 --> 00:02:43,525 The angry bot people liked The Beatles. 36 00:02:43,560 --> 00:02:50,000 The side I was on was blues upstairs and, in the cellar, Bob Dylan 37 00:02:50,035 --> 00:02:53,640 and then you had the modern jazz guys and the classical guys. 38 00:02:54,800 --> 00:03:00,920 Otis Redding and Sam & Dave and Booker T & the MGs came over and you suddenly realised that 39 00:03:00,955 --> 00:03:02,605 you know, it's "game up". 40 00:03:02,640 --> 00:03:06,285 You can't pretend to be them any more when they're actually here. 41 00:03:06,320 --> 00:03:09,445 There was some white music that even black musicians were listening to, 42 00:03:09,480 --> 00:03:14,520 for example, Jimi Hendrix was listening very hard to Bob Dylan, you know, there was stuff going on. 43 00:03:14,555 --> 00:03:18,845 # It's the time of the season... # 44 00:03:18,880 --> 00:03:22,880 There was huge social changes and huge chemical changes... 45 00:03:22,915 --> 00:03:26,845 going on. There was something definitely in the water. 46 00:03:26,880 --> 00:03:32,880 I mean, timing is everything. The smartest thing I did was get born in 1949. Brilliant, brilliant. 47 00:03:32,915 --> 00:03:39,720 Cos at 18 you're in 1968. Europe's aflame, the Paris Riots. 48 00:03:39,755 --> 00:03:41,645 Perfect. 49 00:03:41,680 --> 00:03:46,880 I was in the States in '68 and there were three major assassinations while we were there. 50 00:03:46,915 --> 00:03:49,640 A few Kennedys and an Andy Warhol or two. 51 00:03:49,675 --> 00:03:51,560 You know, it was all happening. 52 00:03:54,280 --> 00:04:00,840 It WAS all happening. But much of the music only reached eager young British ears courtesy of outlaws. 53 00:04:00,875 --> 00:04:03,805 Offshore pirate radio stations, broadcasting illegally 54 00:04:03,840 --> 00:04:08,880 to a nation still dominated by something called the BBC Light Programme. 55 00:04:09,600 --> 00:04:12,680 MUSIC: "Summer In The City" by The Lovin' Spoonful 56 00:04:12,715 --> 00:04:17,645 MUSIC WARPS INTO DIFFERENT SONGS 57 00:04:17,680 --> 00:04:22,080 'It was unreachable. You felt like you were tuning into another planet. 58 00:04:22,115 --> 00:04:26,200 'Contacting the aliens. It was coming from another world.' 59 00:04:27,680 --> 00:04:31,720 You could only reach it on little transistor radios...late at night. 60 00:04:39,880 --> 00:04:46,760 Then, in May 1967, a song that fused Bach with Percy Sledge via Bob Dylan and Geoffrey Chaucer 61 00:04:46,795 --> 00:04:48,480 was heard leaving for the coast. 62 00:04:49,760 --> 00:04:52,605 A Whiter Shade Of Pale by Procul Harum. 63 00:04:52,640 --> 00:04:58,880 I wouldn't be exaggerating when I said that the world was waiting for that. 64 00:04:58,915 --> 00:05:04,120 # We skipped the light fandango 65 00:05:05,160 --> 00:05:07,765 # Turned cartwheels cross the floor... # 66 00:05:07,800 --> 00:05:11,840 The Beatles and the beat boom had been going for... 67 00:05:11,875 --> 00:05:15,077 certainly three or four years. 68 00:05:15,112 --> 00:05:18,376 'It was all getting a bit tired.' 69 00:05:18,411 --> 00:05:21,640 # The crowd called out for more... # 70 00:05:23,480 --> 00:05:27,520 I wanted to do something and I didn't want it to be like anything else. 71 00:05:27,555 --> 00:05:31,165 Because we've had, we've had it all. 72 00:05:31,200 --> 00:05:37,600 "This, I've never heard this before, really." That's what you think to yourself. Therefore, "I like this." 73 00:05:37,635 --> 00:05:42,617 # We called out for another drink 74 00:05:42,652 --> 00:05:47,565 # The waiter brought the tray 75 00:05:47,600 --> 00:05:52,645 # And so it was... # And so it was that later, only two weeks later, 76 00:05:52,680 --> 00:05:57,040 as the miller told his tale, The Beatles released an album that was a concept, 77 00:05:57,075 --> 00:05:59,640 a world unto itself. 78 00:06:02,080 --> 00:06:04,040 A blueprint for progressive rock. 79 00:06:05,400 --> 00:06:09,200 MUSIC: "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)" by The Beatles 80 00:06:12,720 --> 00:06:15,860 # We're Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band 81 00:06:15,895 --> 00:06:19,000 # We hope you have enjoyed the show... # 82 00:06:20,760 --> 00:06:23,965 A Whiter Shade Of Pale topped the British Singles Chart 83 00:06:24,000 --> 00:06:28,640 the very same week that Sgt Pepper announced the artistic triumph of the album. 84 00:06:29,960 --> 00:06:34,440 Bands were still making singles, you know, Cream - Strange Group, 85 00:06:34,475 --> 00:06:37,720 Pink Floyd - Arnold Layne and See Emily Play. 86 00:06:37,755 --> 00:06:40,965 And Procol Harum - Whiter Shade Of Pale. 87 00:06:41,000 --> 00:06:46,640 All of these records were amazing, creative, interesting singles 88 00:06:46,675 --> 00:06:51,205 and they also were incredibly, commercially successful. 89 00:06:51,240 --> 00:06:54,520 So the bands at that moment were getting the best of both worlds. 90 00:06:54,555 --> 00:07:02,400 It was Sgt Pepper, and the creative amazement of Sgt Pepper, 91 00:07:02,435 --> 00:07:04,765 that really convinced everybody that 92 00:07:04,800 --> 00:07:08,005 you can extend ideas onto an album, you can make concept albums. 93 00:07:08,040 --> 00:07:11,560 In fact, with the album, you can do almost exactly whatever you want. 94 00:07:11,595 --> 00:07:15,085 It was a strange mixture of... 95 00:07:15,120 --> 00:07:20,760 almost music hall and totally other-world music - 96 00:07:20,795 --> 00:07:23,685 that was the wonderful thing about it, 97 00:07:23,720 --> 00:07:29,120 it bridged the gap between the real world and this other world. And the other thing, 98 00:07:29,155 --> 00:07:32,600 it was all totally new. You'd never heard anything like that before. 99 00:07:32,635 --> 00:07:35,565 It's more fun in the record if there's a few sounds that 100 00:07:35,600 --> 00:07:39,485 you don't really know what they are and really they're just instruments 101 00:07:39,520 --> 00:07:43,920 only something happens on here. I couldn't tell you what cos we have a special man 102 00:07:43,955 --> 00:07:48,285 who sits here and goes like this and the guitar turns into a piano or something. 103 00:07:48,320 --> 00:07:53,200 And then you may say, "Why don't you use a piano?" Because the piano sounds like a guitar. 104 00:07:53,235 --> 00:07:58,120 If you look at the leap in terms of musical vocabulary and sophistication between 105 00:07:58,155 --> 00:08:02,725 the first Beatles album and Sgt Pepper which is like five years, 106 00:08:02,760 --> 00:08:07,680 everything that could be done with that form has already been done in those five years. 107 00:08:07,715 --> 00:08:11,400 Where else can you take it except to make it more and more sophisticated 108 00:08:11,435 --> 00:08:13,965 and more and more musically interesting or just 109 00:08:14,000 --> 00:08:17,600 for rock music to go on repeating itself and regurgitating itself? 110 00:08:19,200 --> 00:08:22,725 I liked... There's a lot of classical music I liked. 111 00:08:22,760 --> 00:08:26,325 I was always frightened of classical music and I never wanted to listen 112 00:08:26,360 --> 00:08:30,560 because it was Beethoven and Tchaikovsky and big words like that. And Schoenberg. 113 00:08:30,595 --> 00:08:35,480 I think a lot of people started to appreciate many other genres. 114 00:08:35,515 --> 00:08:40,005 Pop music is the classical music of now. 115 00:08:40,040 --> 00:08:43,520 Probably The Beatles had been listening to the same stuff, 116 00:08:43,555 --> 00:08:48,217 smoked the same cannabis... now and again. 117 00:08:48,252 --> 00:08:52,845 A lot of people were smoking on the quiet 118 00:08:52,880 --> 00:08:56,240 and they actually got furious when the hippies came along 119 00:08:56,275 --> 00:08:59,565 because suddenly there was a lot of notice being taken 120 00:08:59,600 --> 00:09:04,400 whereas they'd been quietly, you know, enjoying themselves for a long time. 121 00:09:04,435 --> 00:09:07,880 This was the era when if you wanted to try something, you could. 122 00:09:07,915 --> 00:09:09,737 You knew a mate who had some hashish, 123 00:09:09,772 --> 00:09:11,525 or you knew a mate who had some LSD. 124 00:09:11,560 --> 00:09:17,000 But you had to be careful. If you were very cautious and took very little of these things 125 00:09:17,035 --> 00:09:20,960 you could meddle and not lose your mind and end up in hospital. 126 00:09:22,360 --> 00:09:28,005 Cannabis was a stimulant. And it did enable you to hear a lot more in the music. 127 00:09:28,040 --> 00:09:33,760 It was there, you weren't imagining it. It was in there. But you concentrated more on listening to it. 128 00:09:33,795 --> 00:09:39,880 What came from that was the ability for people who would normally... 129 00:09:39,915 --> 00:09:45,845 copy American music suddenly wanted to express themselves. 130 00:09:45,880 --> 00:09:52,720 And so you had this strange thing at that time that almost every band had a unique sound. 131 00:09:52,755 --> 00:09:55,365 Nobody sounded quite like anyone else. 132 00:09:55,400 --> 00:10:01,920 # Dynamic explosions in my brain, shatter me to drops of rain 133 00:10:01,955 --> 00:10:05,405 # Falling from a yellow sky... # 134 00:10:05,440 --> 00:10:09,920 I moved across to what was really a new movement in music 135 00:10:09,955 --> 00:10:12,445 which was the psychedelia period. 136 00:10:12,480 --> 00:10:17,080 # Hold me but as I jerk... # And that was Arthur Brown and The Crazy World of Arthur Brown. 137 00:10:17,115 --> 00:10:20,720 I mean, we didn't know what it was and we were in it! 138 00:10:20,755 --> 00:10:23,000 It was pretty confrontational. 139 00:10:23,035 --> 00:10:25,805 For that time, shocking. 140 00:10:25,840 --> 00:10:31,640 Arthur's concept was basically about the beginning of time, the beginning of life. 141 00:10:31,675 --> 00:10:35,165 I am the god of hellfire and I bring you... 142 00:10:35,200 --> 00:10:38,520 The original for the make-up was the death mask, which goes back 143 00:10:38,555 --> 00:10:41,600 right through English history and further than that. 144 00:10:41,635 --> 00:10:45,925 # Fire, to destroy all you've done... # 145 00:10:45,960 --> 00:10:48,525 It was kind of deep, really. It was real, you know. 146 00:10:48,560 --> 00:10:53,845 HE CHUCKLES Sometimes the bar would be filled with petrol and the roadie would 147 00:10:53,880 --> 00:10:59,480 stand there throwing matches, a good distance away, until one landed and then... BOOF! 148 00:11:04,680 --> 00:11:10,285 The British beat boom had been a predominantly Northern or working class phenomenon. 149 00:11:10,320 --> 00:11:15,960 But the architects of progressive rock were escapees from entirely different backgrounds. 150 00:11:17,040 --> 00:11:20,560 I suppose for a rock and roller, my education was completely wrong. 151 00:11:22,720 --> 00:11:27,500 My mum and dad, I mean, literally did go without food to send me to piano lessons. 152 00:11:27,535 --> 00:11:32,280 I never found that out till many, many years on and I went there when I was five. 153 00:11:32,315 --> 00:11:34,165 And I loved it. 154 00:11:34,200 --> 00:11:39,040 My family had a very varied take on music and they were very opinionated about it. 155 00:11:39,075 --> 00:11:42,417 Course I liked Cliff Richard & The Shadows and they were going, 156 00:11:42,452 --> 00:11:45,760 "Nonsense, you won't even know who these people are next year." 157 00:11:45,795 --> 00:11:50,725 MUSIC: "Do You Wanna Dance" by Cliff Richard & The Shadows 158 00:11:50,760 --> 00:11:56,200 I was in this attic and I put on this Vivaldi record, The Four Seasons or something, and I just flipped. 159 00:11:56,235 --> 00:11:58,920 I just went, "This is fantastic stuff." 160 00:12:00,960 --> 00:12:08,920 Studied Stravinsky's Dumbarton Oaks concerto. Did a lot of church music, sang in choirs. 161 00:12:08,955 --> 00:12:14,280 At the same time as being obsessively interested in... 162 00:12:14,315 --> 00:12:15,645 The Shadows. 163 00:12:15,680 --> 00:12:19,485 Went to the Guildhall. 164 00:12:19,520 --> 00:12:24,040 Went to the Royal Academy. Had lots of private tuition, LOTS of private tuition. 165 00:12:24,075 --> 00:12:28,325 But never REALLY wanted to be in an orchestra. 166 00:12:28,360 --> 00:12:31,925 Or a jazz group for that matter. I wanted to be a rock drummer. 167 00:12:31,960 --> 00:12:37,640 I got a scholarship to the Royal College of Music. And I went there and I left after a year and a half. 168 00:12:37,675 --> 00:12:43,320 I thought, "This is NUTS, this whole thing." The college were really, really anti any form of music 169 00:12:43,355 --> 00:12:45,445 that wasn't serious classical music. 170 00:12:45,480 --> 00:12:48,485 They would've either have become classical musicians, 171 00:12:48,520 --> 00:12:54,120 because a lot of them have classical training to grade whatever-it-is, or they would have become jazzers. 172 00:12:54,155 --> 00:13:00,160 But the jazz scene in Britain was never THAT exciting, it was always such hard work. 173 00:13:00,195 --> 00:13:03,605 '66, '67, jazz was in a bad place. 174 00:13:03,640 --> 00:13:07,280 Jazz was Free Jazz, it was squeaky-bum jazz, you know, going 175 00:13:07,315 --> 00:13:11,605 rhee-aiir! Squeaking away. And any red-blooded drummer, 176 00:13:11,640 --> 00:13:16,240 age 17, at that time, would've wanted to play with Jimi Hendrix, 177 00:13:16,275 --> 00:13:20,480 rather than the Spontaneous Music Ensemble. 178 00:13:20,515 --> 00:13:24,205 MUSIC: "Gypsy Eyes" by Jimi Hendrix 179 00:13:24,240 --> 00:13:28,560 But what made pop so attractive to some inexperienced young musicians was... 180 00:13:28,595 --> 00:13:30,840 well, the girls. 181 00:13:33,200 --> 00:13:35,725 There's this whole other half of the human race 182 00:13:35,760 --> 00:13:40,520 and, like it says in Some Like It Hot, "I tell you, it's a whole different sex." There was girls. 183 00:13:40,555 --> 00:13:45,880 Where were they? They were in caffs. What were they doing? They were sitting there. 184 00:13:45,915 --> 00:13:49,405 They had chalk-white pink lipstick on. And I thought, 185 00:13:49,440 --> 00:13:53,080 "I don't quite know what they're for or what you're meant to do with them, 186 00:13:53,320 --> 00:13:57,565 "but, I couldn't..." But I thought, you know... 187 00:13:57,600 --> 00:14:02,280 "There's something great about this lot." You couldn't talk to them, but what you could do 188 00:14:02,315 --> 00:14:07,997 was put on a Little Richard record on the jukebox and it would unify the room. 189 00:14:08,032 --> 00:14:13,096 You couldn't put on Bartok, Violin Concerto. That wouldn't have impressed anybody. 190 00:14:13,131 --> 00:14:18,160 It wouldn't have unified the room. Wouldn't have got everybody tapping their feet. 191 00:14:18,195 --> 00:14:21,200 CLASSICAL MUSIC PLAYS 192 00:14:22,480 --> 00:14:27,280 But the classical tradition had gripped a generation of rock 'n' rollers determined to show 193 00:14:27,315 --> 00:14:30,440 that pop music could also be profound and grown-up. 194 00:14:33,920 --> 00:14:39,800 In the winter of love, Procol Harum scored another first when they recorded an 18-minute suite 195 00:14:39,835 --> 00:14:43,840 In Held 'Twas In I, for their album Shine On Brightly. 196 00:14:44,840 --> 00:14:48,160 The search for meaning and significance was on. 197 00:14:50,880 --> 00:14:54,200 I said, "I think we should do, like, a great work." 198 00:14:54,235 --> 00:14:56,240 That's what I called it. 199 00:14:57,680 --> 00:15:00,960 In fact it was called O Magnum Harum for a while. 200 00:15:00,995 --> 00:15:04,000 MUSIC: "In Held 'Twas In I" by Procol Harum 201 00:15:08,880 --> 00:15:13,720 Start off at the beginning of the universe... And ended in Heaven. 202 00:15:15,240 --> 00:15:18,960 And all the trials and tribulations that come in between. 203 00:15:18,995 --> 00:15:20,720 With a bit of sitar chucked in. 204 00:15:20,755 --> 00:15:23,760 MUSIC CONTINUES 205 00:15:26,760 --> 00:15:32,120 You know, somebody had to do it, I suppose. If it hadn't been Procol Harum at that point, 206 00:15:32,155 --> 00:15:35,560 it would have been somebody, you know, four weeks later. 207 00:15:35,595 --> 00:15:39,445 Now... We can actually write music. 208 00:15:39,480 --> 00:15:44,640 And if we're gonna write music, the model is classical music 209 00:15:44,675 --> 00:15:49,325 and classical music has extended forms, sonatas, 210 00:15:49,360 --> 00:15:56,120 symphonies. So we're gonna do structures and pieces that last a long time 211 00:15:56,155 --> 00:16:00,760 that try and give us that credibility, musically. 212 00:16:05,640 --> 00:16:11,120 The Nice, originally PP Arnold's backing band, set the controls for the heart of classical music, 213 00:16:11,155 --> 00:16:16,480 jazz and the modern stage musical on their maiden voyage into progressive rock. 214 00:16:18,240 --> 00:16:23,880 Front man Keith Emerson was the Hendrix of the Hammond organ, making his instrument scream and sigh 215 00:16:23,915 --> 00:16:27,720 in dazzling displays of technical virtuosity and crazed physicality. 216 00:16:34,360 --> 00:16:37,440 Their first unlikely hit was a seven-minute version 217 00:16:37,475 --> 00:16:41,457 of Leonard Bernstein's America, from West Side Story, 218 00:16:41,492 --> 00:16:45,440 transformed into an instrumental, prog rock protest song. 219 00:16:45,475 --> 00:16:48,480 MUSIC: "America" by The Nice 220 00:17:01,520 --> 00:17:04,560 CHURCH ORGAN MUSIC 221 00:17:11,160 --> 00:17:14,805 Progressive music didn't only come from the big cities. 222 00:17:14,840 --> 00:17:20,440 Welcome to Canterbury, the posh cathedral town that seeded those musicians that would, in time, 223 00:17:20,475 --> 00:17:25,577 grow into Soft Machine, Caravan, Hatfield & The North and Matching Mole. 224 00:17:25,612 --> 00:17:30,680 All stemming from a little-known local group called The Wilde Flowers. 225 00:17:32,320 --> 00:17:36,285 The Wilde Flowers didn't do loadsa gigs, probably only about 226 00:17:36,320 --> 00:17:40,960 one a fortnight, maybe one a week. Cos we weren't very popular! No. 227 00:17:44,440 --> 00:17:51,160 Those lads were very much into Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie. 228 00:17:51,195 --> 00:17:56,000 We tried to do sort-of danceable versions of that kind of music, you see. 229 00:17:56,035 --> 00:17:58,085 Just to be different and awkward. 230 00:17:58,120 --> 00:18:00,245 MUSIC: "Impotence" by The Wilde Flowers 231 00:18:00,280 --> 00:18:02,880 # I like me, I like you and the things that we do... 232 00:18:02,915 --> 00:18:04,565 # Ba-ba-ba! That we do... # 233 00:18:04,600 --> 00:18:08,925 I don't like it if people think that we thought that... 234 00:18:08,960 --> 00:18:13,160 clever grammar school-y people came in and thought we we're doing 235 00:18:13,195 --> 00:18:17,325 something better than mere pop. We were awestruck by pop music. 236 00:18:17,360 --> 00:18:22,800 By the magnificence of Beatles, of Motown and really we just wanted to participate in it. 237 00:18:22,835 --> 00:18:28,205 But getting our little group together, our own dialects of other stuff we'd picked up 238 00:18:28,240 --> 00:18:34,760 crept into what we did. I'm playing beat drums and I'm trying to sound like a rhythm and blues drummer, 239 00:18:34,795 --> 00:18:38,680 but I had been listening to all these sophisticated jazz drummers 240 00:18:38,715 --> 00:18:42,125 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 00:18:48,240 --> 00:18:51,960 Soft Machine was the first band to emerge from The Wilde Flowers. 243 00:18:51,995 --> 00:18:55,645 They headed for London's newly established underground clubs, 244 00:18:55,680 --> 00:19:01,120 playing with groups such as Arthur Brown and Pink Floyd at Middle Earth and UFO. 245 00:19:03,720 --> 00:19:06,205 In that club you got everything from vaudeville 246 00:19:06,240 --> 00:19:12,365 to rock, to jazz, to electronics, to pure percussion 247 00:19:12,400 --> 00:19:17,760 to theatre, to poetry, to dance, to naked people wandering around. 248 00:19:20,640 --> 00:19:23,960 That was what we all gravitated towards, UFO and Middle Earth. 249 00:19:23,995 --> 00:19:28,885 That was the... the culture that defined us. 250 00:19:28,920 --> 00:19:34,720 There were all these stoned people listening to music played by stoned bands. 251 00:19:34,755 --> 00:19:40,520 And as long as everybody was stoned, everybody thought it was really good. 252 00:19:40,555 --> 00:19:43,560 MUSIC: "We Did It Again" by Soft Machine 253 00:19:45,080 --> 00:19:49,085 We hadn't really got enough tunes...to just do songs. 254 00:19:49,120 --> 00:19:54,380 So, we thought, "Oh, I remember, what do you do about that? I know, what do jazz musicians do?" 255 00:19:54,415 --> 00:19:59,640 They improvise. So you just pick a couple of chords in there and just...keep going on them. 256 00:19:59,675 --> 00:20:02,080 And so tunes become ten-minute events. 257 00:20:02,115 --> 00:20:05,120 MUSIC CONTINUES 258 00:20:08,600 --> 00:20:12,485 This is not because we've all become virtuosos, not in our case. 259 00:20:12,520 --> 00:20:16,320 It's because we haven't got enough tunes to stretch one-and-a-half hours. 260 00:20:17,960 --> 00:20:23,120 Our organist Mike Ratledge was older than us, taller and his father had been a headmaster 261 00:20:23,155 --> 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 00:20:31,675 --> 00:20:33,845 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 00:20:38,195 --> 00:20:41,285 Cos it would start feeding back. So he developed a solo style 266 00:20:41,320 --> 00:20:45,440 of absolutely continual "lul-uhl-lul-uhl" notes without a single break-in. 267 00:20:45,475 --> 00:20:48,480 MUSIC: "Why Am I So Short" by Soft Machine 268 00:21:10,200 --> 00:21:14,085 So we can do these trance-like things, 269 00:21:14,120 --> 00:21:19,760 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 00:21:40,315 --> 00:21:43,800 that would become the virtuoso kings of progressive rock. 272 00:21:43,835 --> 00:21:46,645 Like Jethro Tull. 273 00:21:46,680 --> 00:21:49,280 And Yes, fronted by vocalist Jon Anderson. 274 00:21:51,080 --> 00:21:55,125 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 00:22:01,075 --> 00:22:03,285 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 00:22:08,475 --> 00:22:12,040 And I often wonder if I'd called, what would have happened to my life! 279 00:22:12,075 --> 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 --> 00:22:37,205 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 00:22:42,075 --> 00:22:46,200 And we'd stick that in. And then the thing would get longer and longer and longer 286 00:22:46,235 --> 00:22:49,040 until eventually somebody inevitably said, 287 00:22:49,075 --> 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 00:22:59,715 --> 00:23:01,765 # Time like gold dust brings... # 290 00:23:01,800 --> 00:23:07,245 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 00:23:10,995 --> 00:23:13,445 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 00:23:24,195 --> 00:23:27,645 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 00:23:33,675 --> 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 --> 00:23:47,325 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 00:23:51,875 --> 00:23:54,405 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 00:23:57,915 --> 00:23:59,645 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 --> 00:24:13,045 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 --> 00:24:22,325 Everybody had a festival. 308 00:24:22,360 --> 00:24:26,860 You went along and played and heard all different types of band. 309 00:24:26,895 --> 00:24:31,307 And people would listen to a jazz orientated band, a hard rock band, 310 00:24:31,342 --> 00:24:35,720 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 --> 00:24:49,005 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 00:24:53,235 --> 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 00:25:01,835 --> 00:25:03,325 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 00:25:07,995 --> 00:25:09,565 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 --> 00:25:27,005 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 00:25:31,475 --> 00:25:35,200 he inadvertently named King Crimson. 323 00:25:37,160 --> 00:25:38,685 We had an ethos in Crimson. 324 00:25:38,720 --> 00:25:41,605 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 00:25:46,915 --> 00:25:49,480 If it sounded at all popular, it was out. 327 00:25:49,515 --> 00:25:50,885 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 00:25:55,715 --> 00:26:00,040 If it sounded too simple, we would make it more complicated. 330 00:26:00,075 --> 00:26:02,840 We would play it in 7/8, in 5/8, just to show off. 331 00:26:02,875 --> 00:26:08,605 # 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 00:26:13,275 --> 00:26:15,965 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 00:26:29,035 --> 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 00:26:39,675 --> 00:26:43,165 # Politicians funeral pyre 339 00:26:43,200 --> 00:26:46,640 # Innocence raped with napalm fire 340 00:26:46,675 --> 00:26:50,080 # 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 00:27:06,515 --> 00:27:08,965 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 00:27:15,035 --> 00:27:16,365 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 --> 00:27:27,205 Unbelievable. 348 00:27:27,240 --> 00:27:29,605 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 --> 00:27:40,325 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 00:27:48,475 --> 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 00:28:00,995 --> 00:28:03,320 he ended up playing the cymbals like this... 357 00:28:04,600 --> 00:28:06,245 ..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 00:28:09,915 --> 00:28:11,765 And we thought, "Wow!" I thought... 360 00:28:11,800 --> 00:28:14,165 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 00:28:25,435 --> 00:28:28,885 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 00:28:48,115 --> 00:28:50,605 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 00:29:04,035 --> 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 00:29:16,995 --> 00:29:19,165 and managed to get a record deal, 373 00:29:19,200 --> 00:29:21,725 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 00:29:26,355 --> 00:29:28,405 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 00:29:32,915 --> 00:29:37,325 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 00:29:41,635 --> 00:29:44,680 that maybe has more to do with 20th-century classical music 380 00:29:44,715 --> 00:29:46,405 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 00:29:50,635 --> 00:29:54,537 # Sitting in my treetop world 383 00:29:54,572 --> 00:29:58,405 # Doing nothing at all... # 384 00:29:58,440 --> 00:30:01,940 Certainly the surrounding countryside and what-have-you, 385 00:30:01,975 --> 00:30:05,440 we seemed to get a bit of inspiration from all that. 386 00:30:05,475 --> 00:30:07,680 Sitting about in the sunshine. 387 00:30:07,715 --> 00:30:11,097 Making up bits of music. 388 00:30:11,132 --> 00:30:14,445 # Envy me all you want... # 389 00:30:14,480 --> 00:30:17,520 Living off girlfriends, you know. 390 00:30:17,555 --> 00:30:18,965 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 00:30:36,115 --> 00:30:38,325 This was a broad church. 394 00:30:38,360 --> 00:30:41,920 A very English music, infused with childhood fantasies 395 00:30:41,955 --> 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 00:30:53,755 --> 00:30:58,137 And we had our own kind of popular surrealism 398 00:30:58,172 --> 00:31:02,520 right from the humorous poets and writers 399 00:31:02,555 --> 00:31:05,085 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 00:31:08,355 --> 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 --> 00:31:37,885 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 00:31:43,555 --> 00:31:46,805 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 00:31:50,315 --> 00:31:53,720 We had a bit of a tag over us, you know. Public schoolboys. 410 00:31:53,755 --> 00:31:56,960 "What are they doing? What do they know about music? 411 00:31:56,995 --> 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 00:32:07,235 --> 00:32:09,217 You often talk about getting into music 414 00:32:09,252 --> 00:32:11,165 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 00:32:13,995 --> 00:32:15,565 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 --> 00:32:29,565 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 00:32:34,075 --> 00:32:36,725 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 --> 00:32:50,685 They wanted to be songwriters. 423 00:32:50,720 --> 00:32:53,180 But bands were now making their own material. 424 00:32:53,215 --> 00:32:55,605 So they formed their own band, called it Genesis, 425 00:32:55,640 --> 00:32:59,320 and did what every other group now seemed to be doing... 426 00:32:59,355 --> 00:33:03,000 retreated to the country to get their heads together. 427 00:33:04,000 --> 00:33:07,965 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 00:33:17,635 --> 00:33:20,160 and started writing with our own sound. 431 00:33:21,960 --> 00:33:24,365 And it's what came naturally to us, really. 432 00:33:24,400 --> 00:33:29,040 We were embedded in English and obviously European classical traditions as well, 433 00:33:29,075 --> 00:33:33,680 but also, in terms of a lot of the lyrical stuff we would take from English things, 434 00:33:33,715 --> 00:33:36,977 influenced by TS Eliot and fairy stories, and stuff like that. 435 00:33:37,012 --> 00:33:40,205 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 00:33:43,755 --> 00:33:46,897 and had a bit of a sound, and were good live, 438 00:33:46,932 --> 00:33:50,005 '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 00:33:53,155 --> 00:33:56,445 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 00:33:59,035 --> 00:34:01,520 MUSIC: "White Mountain" by Genesis 443 00:34:05,960 --> 00:34:08,165 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 00:34:18,635 --> 00:34:21,600 I just don't believe that a drummer should just keep time. 447 00:34:21,635 --> 00:34:25,320 Cos if you want time, buy a metronome. 448 00:34:25,355 --> 00:34:26,685 Don't come and speak to me! 449 00:34:26,720 --> 00:34:29,085 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 --> 00:34:35,605 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 00:34:39,035 --> 00:34:40,845 to please other people all the time, 454 00:34:40,880 --> 00:34:43,245 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 --> 00:34:51,525 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 00:34:54,915 --> 00:34:56,285 You can make it go... 459 00:34:56,320 --> 00:34:57,845 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 00:35:05,715 --> 00:35:07,645 Jangly guitar music... 463 00:35:07,680 --> 00:35:09,325 It's jangly! That's what you do. 464 00:35:09,360 --> 00:35:12,445 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 00:35:16,355 --> 00:35:19,760 a little buzz, makes your hair stand up on the back of your neck, 467 00:35:19,795 --> 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 00:35:28,755 --> 00:35:30,320 The name musician. 470 00:35:31,720 --> 00:35:34,500 In 1970, Crimson man Greg Lake, 471 00:35:34,535 --> 00:35:37,245 plus Nice man Keith Emerson, 472 00:35:37,280 --> 00:35:39,640 plus Crazy World man Carl Palmer, 473 00:35:39,675 --> 00:35:42,357 equalled bass, keyboards and drums, 474 00:35:42,392 --> 00:35:45,040 equalled prog rock's first supergroup, 475 00:35:45,075 --> 00:35:47,405 equalled ELP. 476 00:35:47,440 --> 00:35:50,600 MUSIC: "Hoedown" by Emerson, Lake & Palmer 477 00:35:57,760 --> 00:36:00,565 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 00:36:06,635 --> 00:36:11,285 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 00:36:23,475 --> 00:36:27,400 but just give them some entertainment as well, and that's what it's all about. 483 00:36:27,435 --> 00:36:28,600 That's my philosophy. 484 00:36:36,320 --> 00:36:39,085 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 00:36:43,715 --> 00:36:45,960 to hold down a fifth or a fourth, a chord. 487 00:36:45,995 --> 00:36:48,165 Musically it's valid, 488 00:36:48,200 --> 00:36:49,960 visually it's right on it, 489 00:36:49,995 --> 00:36:51,720 and it is rock'n'roll! 490 00:36:58,000 --> 00:37:01,740 ELP's technical expertise and crowd-pleasing antics 491 00:37:01,775 --> 00:37:05,107 elevated musicianship and ticket sales to new heights. 492 00:37:05,142 --> 00:37:08,491 Progressive rock popped its head out of the underground 493 00:37:08,526 --> 00:37:11,840 and glimpsed not only showbusiness, but big business. 494 00:37:14,480 --> 00:37:16,765 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 00:37:19,835 --> 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 00:37:28,715 --> 00:37:31,365 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 00:37:36,315 --> 00:37:39,725 but when I joined Yes, 501 00:37:39,760 --> 00:37:42,600 I was still a psychedelic guitarist in my mind. 502 00:37:42,635 --> 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 00:37:59,795 --> 00:38:02,925 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 00:38:06,235 --> 00:38:08,720 MUSIC: "Yours Is No Disgrace" by Yes 508 00:38:14,400 --> 00:38:17,485 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 00:38:21,395 --> 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 00:38:32,555 --> 00:38:36,297 Chris wiped out all the middle, and had all the treble turned up, 513 00:38:36,332 --> 00:38:40,040 and used a Rickenbacker while everyone else was using Fenders. 514 00:38:40,075 --> 00:38:41,765 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 00:38:45,235 --> 00:38:51,080 had a little Fender Twin, and a Gibson semi-acoustic. 517 00:38:55,480 --> 00:38:58,605 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 00:39:04,715 --> 00:39:07,045 "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 00:39:10,675 --> 00:39:13,817 long greasy black hair, you could smell 'em from the back row, 522 00:39:13,852 --> 00:39:19,126 and along comes this little fella who's got an alto voice. 523 00:39:19,161 --> 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 00:39:29,235 --> 00:39:30,405 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 --> 00:39:37,525 On the same day that Yes asked me to join, 528 00:39:37,560 --> 00:39:44,200 David Bowie asked me to form Spiders From Mars with Mick Ronson, 529 00:39:44,235 --> 00:39:50,840 um...which, when I look back, that was one hell of a choice! 530 00:39:50,875 --> 00:39:54,597 # There's a starman waiting in the sky... # 531 00:39:54,632 --> 00:39:58,285 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 00:40:04,115 --> 00:40:09,000 was by now home to artists such as Bowie, Roxy Music and T Rex. 534 00:40:09,035 --> 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 00:40:23,515 --> 00:40:27,097 The band had matured into a jazz-fusion quartet 537 00:40:27,132 --> 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 00:40:48,115 --> 00:40:49,845 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 --> 00:40:58,005 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 00:41:14,475 --> 00:41:17,560 and been in those films about the '60s. 547 00:41:17,595 --> 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 00:41:31,795 --> 00:41:33,045 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 00:41:38,755 --> 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 00:41:50,595 --> 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 00:42:01,355 --> 00:42:03,280 It needed fantasy and myth. 558 00:42:04,240 --> 00:42:06,220 Cupid meets Psyche, 559 00:42:06,255 --> 00:42:08,200 not boy meets girl. 560 00:42:11,200 --> 00:42:14,245 We hadn't really experienced much outside education. 561 00:42:14,280 --> 00:42:18,680 So I suppose that's partly why we wrote about...fantasy lyrics, 562 00:42:18,715 --> 00:42:23,080 different situations about life rather than boy/girl things. 563 00:42:23,115 --> 00:42:26,080 I had come from a public school background, 564 00:42:26,115 --> 00:42:27,365 very self-conscious. 565 00:42:27,400 --> 00:42:30,245 Could never have expressed that in a song in those days. 566 00:42:30,280 --> 00:42:34,045 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 00:42:45,315 --> 00:42:47,325 who were crying out for something 570 00:42:47,360 --> 00:42:51,540 that they had read in science fiction and they wanted a musical version of that. 571 00:42:51,575 --> 00:42:55,720 And of course, there was The Lord Of The Rings, and Mervyn Peake and Gormenghast, 572 00:42:55,755 --> 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 --> 00:43:12,725 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 00:43:26,515 --> 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 --> 00:43:38,725 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 00:43:42,395 --> 00:43:44,045 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 00:43:47,995 --> 00:43:48,965 HE SIGHS 584 00:43:49,000 --> 00:43:53,880 You couldn't have the detail, because it was too small. I needed one for each eye. 585 00:43:53,915 --> 00:43:58,760 It's hard not to start sounding like, you know, "In my day... the gatefold sleeve..." 586 00:43:58,795 --> 00:44:00,925 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 00:44:05,675 --> 00:44:09,405 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 00:44:13,435 --> 00:44:16,885 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 --> 00:44:31,205 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 --> 00:44:42,485 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 --> 00:44:53,445 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 --> 00:45:03,000 I think what's terribly astonishing and disappointing 600 00:45:03,035 --> 00:45:06,405 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 00:45:10,795 --> 00:45:13,757 And no-one has gone back to the moon. 603 00:45:13,792 --> 00:45:16,685 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 00:45:21,475 --> 00:45:27,200 at how astonishingly little the world had improved 606 00:45:27,235 --> 00:45:30,205 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 00:45:47,355 --> 00:45:51,040 and work on the same sort of ideas, if that was possible. 610 00:45:51,075 --> 00:45:53,725 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 00:46:00,595 --> 00:46:03,565 and the ideas that motivated the art. 613 00:46:03,600 --> 00:46:08,325 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 00:46:15,475 --> 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 00:46:32,835 --> 00:46:35,397 made for difficulties in the studio. 619 00:46:35,432 --> 00:46:37,776 Their fifth album, Close To The Edge, 620 00:46:37,811 --> 00:46:40,120 took over three months to perfect. 621 00:46:41,120 --> 00:46:43,765 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 00:46:47,155 --> 00:46:48,605 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 00:46:52,355 --> 00:46:55,720 So of course, this was the infantile way we behaved, 626 00:46:55,755 --> 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 00:47:03,275 --> 00:47:05,245 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 00:47:09,035 --> 00:47:14,040 "Can I trade your idea for my idea?" You've got five guys writing... 631 00:47:14,075 --> 00:47:15,765 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 00:47:20,195 --> 00:47:23,805 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 00:47:28,355 --> 00:47:32,320 Chris said, "I've got this...bass run." 636 00:47:32,355 --> 00:47:35,245 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 00:47:39,395 --> 00:47:41,417 And he went, "No, that's it." 639 00:47:41,452 --> 00:47:43,405 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 00:47:48,835 --> 00:47:51,200 really, I don't know how that record got made. 642 00:47:54,240 --> 00:47:57,925 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 00:48:02,875 --> 00:48:04,005 "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 00:48:07,435 --> 00:48:10,565 "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 00:48:15,155 --> 00:48:19,045 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 00:48:24,475 --> 00:48:28,320 # Down at the edge, round by the corner 651 00:48:28,355 --> 00:48:33,325 # Not right away, not right away 652 00:48:33,360 --> 00:48:37,880 # Close to the edge, down by the river 653 00:48:37,915 --> 00:48:38,925 # 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 00:48:42,315 --> 00:48:44,565 getting you towards the winner. 656 00:48:44,600 --> 00:48:48,660 The one that the thing existed for, which was Close To The Edge. 657 00:48:48,695 --> 00:48:52,685 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 00:48:57,075 --> 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 --> 00:49:43,685 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 00:49:59,635 --> 00:50:01,765 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 00:50:06,515 --> 00:50:07,880 and King Crimson alone. 670 00:50:09,240 --> 00:50:11,405 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 00:50:16,955 --> 00:50:19,560 In King Crimson, almost nothing was said. 673 00:50:19,595 --> 00:50:22,320 You're just supposed to know. 674 00:50:31,240 --> 00:50:32,845 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 00:50:38,195 --> 00:50:42,960 His was more like a probe. An instrument of science, not sex. 677 00:50:42,995 --> 00:50:45,157 And to use it properly, 678 00:50:45,192 --> 00:50:47,320 you had to sit down. 679 00:50:48,280 --> 00:50:50,885 The very first few gigs we did, 680 00:50:50,920 --> 00:50:53,965 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 00:50:57,915 --> 00:50:59,405 that was how he'd been taught, 683 00:50:59,440 --> 00:51:03,245 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 00:51:08,395 --> 00:51:11,037 And he was so happy on that stool. 686 00:51:11,072 --> 00:51:13,645 Robert's not a gyrator, is he? 687 00:51:13,680 --> 00:51:16,885 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 --> 00:51:26,845 Fripp wasn't alone. 690 00:51:26,880 --> 00:51:30,180 Sexual energy, the very lifeblood of rock'n'roll, 691 00:51:30,215 --> 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 --> 00:51:42,925 Well, we weren't very sexy, 694 00:51:42,960 --> 00:51:48,720 and we regarded overt sexual display as extremely uncool. 695 00:51:48,755 --> 00:51:53,117 It was something...rather humiliating to have to admit to 696 00:51:53,152 --> 00:51:57,445 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 00:52:00,875 --> 00:52:03,880 But there you are. We certainly wouldn't do it on stage. 699 00:52:03,915 --> 00:52:08,165 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 --> 00:52:23,165 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 00:52:26,755 --> 00:52:28,965 not waiting for progressive rock maestros 704 00:52:29,000 --> 00:52:31,245 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 00:52:36,035 --> 00:52:38,725 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 --> 00:52:53,925 Sad, isn't it? 710 00:52:53,960 --> 00:52:57,960 When we went to America, we had lots of groupies. 711 00:52:57,995 --> 00:52:59,925 By the dozens! 712 00:52:59,960 --> 00:53:02,245 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 00:53:06,595 --> 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 00:53:13,955 --> 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 00:53:22,355 --> 00:53:24,240 They were an infinitely patient lot. 719 00:53:24,275 --> 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 00:53:33,875 --> 00:53:38,720 You know, fishing hats, greatcoats, bunch of albums under the arm... 722 00:53:38,755 --> 00:53:41,960 Public school sixth-formers really, in greatcoats! 723 00:53:43,160 --> 00:53:45,245 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 00:53:48,995 --> 00:53:51,845 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 00:53:56,075 --> 00:53:58,120 We never used to have females come and see us. 728 00:53:58,155 --> 00:54:01,480 Not many girls, no. All chaps. 729 00:54:01,515 --> 00:54:03,405 Lots of guys. No girls. 730 00:54:03,440 --> 00:54:05,645 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 00:54:19,595 --> 00:54:23,077 theatricality, used so effectively by Arthur Brown, 734 00:54:23,112 --> 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 --> 00:54:35,365 # If you go down to Willow Farm 737 00:54:35,400 --> 00:54:39,885 # 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 00:54:45,435 --> 00:54:48,085 were pretty bad, so you could never hear any lyrics. 740 00:54:48,120 --> 00:54:51,165 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 00:54:55,075 --> 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 00:55:09,515 --> 00:55:12,677 as well as the playing and the conceptual side. 745 00:55:12,712 --> 00:55:15,805 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 00:55:20,115 --> 00:55:22,445 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 --> 00:55:33,040 Progressive rock now had such a loyal male record-buying fan base, 750 00:55:33,075 --> 00:55:37,040 that both the major and independent labels happily signed new bands, 751 00:55:37,075 --> 00:55:40,125 and let them record whatever they wanted. 752 00:55:40,160 --> 00:55:43,125 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 00:55:56,835 --> 00:55:59,880 MUSIC: "Fugue In D Minor" by Egg 756 00:55:59,915 --> 00:56:03,765 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 00:56:06,835 --> 00:56:08,965 who had already had a chart hit, 759 00:56:09,000 --> 00:56:13,040 and they thought, "Maybe these guys can make us some money." 760 00:56:13,075 --> 00:56:17,080 So they signed us up, but we had no input from them at all. 761 00:56:17,115 --> 00:56:21,097 I don't think we spoke to any Decca executive ever. 762 00:56:21,132 --> 00:56:25,080 I don't know why we got away with it, to be honest. 763 00:56:25,115 --> 00:56:27,605 That was the style then. 764 00:56:27,640 --> 00:56:31,340 For some reason, we set the precedent that we'd make an album, 765 00:56:31,375 --> 00:56:35,040 when it's finished, we'll hand it over to the record label. 766 00:56:35,075 --> 00:56:37,245 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 00:56:42,155 --> 00:56:45,537 We were still allowed to come up with ridiculous ideas, 769 00:56:45,572 --> 00:56:49,346 and then somehow find people who could make it happen. 770 00:56:49,381 --> 00:56:53,085 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 00:56:57,115 --> 00:57:00,040 a drummer played the rhythm and the singer sung the song. 773 00:57:00,075 --> 00:57:02,605 Yes said, "No, no! We don't want to do it like that. 774 00:57:02,640 --> 00:57:07,045 "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 00:57:12,555 --> 00:57:17,317 More like an orchestral approach. Violins do this, the bassoons do that. 777 00:57:17,352 --> 00:57:22,080 It's a thinking man's music, as opposed to a... just from the gut music. 778 00:57:22,115 --> 00:57:24,957 Rock was just from the gut, I think. 779 00:57:24,992 --> 00:57:27,765 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 00:57:32,195 --> 00:57:37,760 for sure, and one that I rather suspect we won't see again. 782 00:57:37,795 --> 00:57:43,525 '72, '73, we were kind of in that prog rock camp. 783 00:57:43,560 --> 00:57:46,805 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 00:58:01,595 --> 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 00:58:16,155 --> 00:58:18,805 "It's got a picture about God and stuff, 789 00:58:18,840 --> 00:58:21,765 "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 00:58:26,515 --> 00:58:29,877 Have a bit of fun with the whole thing, and do a spoof concept album 792 00:58:29,912 --> 00:58:33,240 and pretend it was written by a 12-year-old precocious schoolboy, 793 00:58:33,275 --> 00:58:37,445 and do the ridiculously convoluted 16-page cover, 794 00:58:37,480 --> 00:58:41,860 which actually took longer to do than record the album, I think. 795 00:58:41,895 --> 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 00:58:51,995 --> 00:58:56,605 # 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 --> 00:59:06,845 # 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 00:59:11,435 --> 00:59:14,840 is now hailed as the ultimate progressive rock album. 802 00:59:17,680 --> 00:59:20,125 MUSIC: "Tubular Bells" by Mike Oldfield 803 00:59:20,160 --> 00:59:23,120 That same year, multi-instrumentalist Mike Oldfield 804 00:59:23,155 --> 00:59:26,045 was composing his progressive music masterwork - 805 00:59:26,080 --> 00:59:29,405 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 00:59:50,195 --> 00:59:51,485 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 --> 01:00:02,605 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 01:00:06,435 --> 01:00:10,077 and somebody told me he was playing everything. 815 01:00:10,112 --> 01:00:13,685 And I understood from the technology we were using 816 01:00:13,720 --> 01:00:17,165 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 --> 01:00:28,045 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 01:00:31,315 --> 01:00:34,557 put together for the BBC's Old Grey Whistle Test. 821 01:00:34,592 --> 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 01:00:43,475 --> 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 01:00:52,835 --> 01:00:54,725 "Ah, this one might fit, yeah." 826 01:00:54,760 --> 01:00:58,200 With the snow going up, the powder... 827 01:00:58,235 --> 01:01:01,640 Dun-din-dun-din-dun-din-dun-din... 828 01:01:01,675 --> 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 01:01:21,715 --> 01:01:26,245 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 01:01:32,155 --> 01:01:33,920 were denied its star. 834 01:01:35,160 --> 01:01:37,245 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 01:01:48,435 --> 01:01:50,800 which wasn't very nice. 838 01:01:50,835 --> 01:01:53,005 HE COUGHS 839 01:01:53,040 --> 01:01:56,245 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 01:01:59,675 --> 01:02:02,017 cos I wouldn't do an interview. 842 01:02:02,052 --> 01:02:04,325 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 01:02:11,195 --> 01:02:15,680 So I thought, "What are you all bothering me about? Leave me alone!" 845 01:02:31,120 --> 01:02:36,125 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 01:02:42,275 --> 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 01:02:55,035 --> 01:02:58,685 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 01:03:05,955 --> 01:03:10,000 The Americans...fantastic at doing that. Brits, crap. 852 01:03:10,035 --> 01:03:11,365 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 01:03:15,595 --> 01:03:17,325 "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 01:03:30,675 --> 01:03:34,840 He's just taken delivery of a new kit, and here he is to demonstrate it - Carl Palmer. 858 01:03:34,875 --> 01:03:38,285 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 01:03:42,435 --> 01:03:46,320 which is the very first electronic stainless steel drum kit in existence. 861 01:03:46,355 --> 01:03:48,245 'I decided to get a jeweller,' 862 01:03:48,280 --> 01:03:51,500 using a dentist's drill, a chap called Paul Raven, 863 01:03:51,535 --> 01:03:54,685 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 01:03:57,795 --> 01:04:01,240 There's a beautiful squirrel, nibbling away there, 866 01:04:01,275 --> 01:04:03,365 there's a fox, really nice, they are, 867 01:04:03,400 --> 01:04:06,525 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 01:04:10,995 --> 01:04:14,200 I said, "What's the difference in price?" They said, "The same." 870 01:04:14,235 --> 01:04:16,805 "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 01:04:19,115 --> 01:04:20,725 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 01:04:24,155 --> 01:04:27,080 Yes. How do you fly with it? Er, very well, thank you! 875 01:04:27,115 --> 01:04:29,325 'The stage had to be reinforced.' 876 01:04:29,360 --> 01:04:32,685 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 01:04:38,115 --> 01:04:40,920 Everyone thought it was keyboards. They were drums. 879 01:04:40,955 --> 01:04:43,080 DRUM BEAT TRIGGERS ELECTRONIC ARPEGGIO 880 01:04:46,920 --> 01:04:48,405 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 --> 01:04:57,605 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 01:05:01,075 --> 01:05:03,485 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 01:05:21,555 --> 01:05:25,257 In 1973, Yes had set sail on Topographic Oceans, 889 01:05:25,292 --> 01:05:28,925 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 01:05:38,235 --> 01:05:39,240 "Doing!" 893 01:05:42,080 --> 01:05:46,240 We got Slinkies and put mics in them and threw them downstairs and recorded them 894 01:05:46,275 --> 01:05:50,400 to hear what they were like. And you put a lot of reverb on them, it's great. 895 01:05:50,435 --> 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 01:05:59,995 --> 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 01:06:26,315 --> 01:06:28,137 than some other bands of that time. 901 01:06:28,172 --> 01:06:29,925 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 01:06:36,395 --> 01:06:39,920 not grandiose, but had a kind of grandeur about it. 904 01:06:39,955 --> 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 01:06:49,515 --> 01:06:53,040 Audiences were showing signs of fatigue. 907 01:06:59,080 --> 01:07:00,685 Robert had stopped King Crimson, 908 01:07:00,720 --> 01:07:03,600 Robert Fripp had stopped King Crimson around that time. 909 01:07:03,635 --> 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 --> 01:07:14,605 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 01:07:19,715 --> 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 01:07:30,835 --> 01:07:32,485 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 01:07:44,235 --> 01:07:47,045 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 01:07:53,715 --> 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 01:08:06,475 --> 01:08:09,357 threatened to swamp the subtlety of the music. 923 01:08:09,392 --> 01:08:12,496 But enthusiastic audiences and an attentive press 924 01:08:12,531 --> 01:08:15,565 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 01:08:19,275 --> 01:08:21,205 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 01:08:37,915 --> 01:08:40,177 We knew it gave us incredible publicity as well. 931 01:08:40,212 --> 01:08:42,405 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 01:08:46,435 --> 01:08:50,920 A couple of costumes went too far, you couldn't sing through them. 934 01:08:50,955 --> 01:08:52,800 But I always liked the visuals. 935 01:08:53,800 --> 01:08:55,445 It was all part of what we did, 936 01:08:55,480 --> 01:08:57,325 and nobody else was really doing it. 937 01:08:57,360 --> 01:09:01,085 # 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 01:09:05,835 --> 01:09:08,885 ELP were busy establishing the power of British prog, 940 01:09:08,920 --> 01:09:12,805 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 01:09:24,755 --> 01:09:29,405 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 01:09:33,475 --> 01:09:35,525 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 01:09:39,715 --> 01:09:42,317 What use is that? What's all that about? 948 01:09:42,352 --> 01:09:44,920 I remember doing some filming with ELP. 949 01:09:44,955 --> 01:09:50,245 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 --> 01:10:03,085 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 01:10:05,915 --> 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 01:10:22,755 --> 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 01:10:30,435 --> 01:10:34,517 and stage design...there'd almost begun now...a tipping point 958 01:10:34,552 --> 01:10:38,416 where the presentation, the stage design and everything else 959 01:10:38,451 --> 01:10:42,280 was almost taking over from the music in terms of importance. 960 01:10:42,315 --> 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 01:10:49,515 --> 01:10:51,805 "is overblown, it's pretentious, 963 01:10:51,840 --> 01:10:54,600 "completely over-the-top and thoroughly pompous. 964 01:10:54,635 --> 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 01:10:58,915 --> 01:11:00,165 Then... 967 01:11:00,200 --> 01:11:04,800 some people came along who thought, "We can make this sexy," 968 01:11:04,835 --> 01:11:06,157 and you've got Queen... 969 01:11:06,192 --> 01:11:07,445 # 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 01:11:12,075 --> 01:11:16,440 and just devastating emotional climaxes 972 01:11:16,475 --> 01:11:18,777 instead of intellectual doodlings. 973 01:11:18,812 --> 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 01:11:32,355 --> 01:11:34,445 grammar school interloper Phil Collins 976 01:11:34,480 --> 01:11:37,565 became the front man for the Charterhouse boys. 977 01:11:37,600 --> 01:11:43,765 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 01:11:48,715 --> 01:11:52,957 # "Am I wrong to believe in the city of gold 980 01:11:52,992 --> 01:11:56,836 # "That lies in the deep distance?" he cried 981 01:11:56,871 --> 01:12:00,815 # And wept as they led him away to a cage 982 01:12:00,850 --> 01:12:04,725 # 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 01:12:09,155 --> 01:12:12,645 or shortened, or "commercialised" is the dirty word. 985 01:12:12,680 --> 01:12:17,885 They think that was my fault. I won't take the glory or blame for that. 986 01:12:17,920 --> 01:12:23,325 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 01:12:29,115 --> 01:12:32,005 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 01:12:37,275 --> 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 01:12:49,755 --> 01:12:52,640 It's the first movement of a rock symphony - 993 01:12:52,675 --> 01:12:54,805 Apotheosis Of The Necromancer. 994 01:12:54,840 --> 01:12:57,445 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 01:13:03,355 --> 01:13:06,977 There was a scene in The Rotters' Club where the school band 997 01:13:07,012 --> 01:13:10,600 morphs from being a progressive band to a punk band in mid-song. 998 01:13:10,635 --> 01:13:12,685 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 --> 01:13:19,045 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 --> 01:13:30,260 # Anarchy in the UK 1003 01:13:30,295 --> 01:13:33,085 # Is this the UDA? # 1004 01:13:33,120 --> 01:13:37,200 Punk stumbled on a time tunnel back to pre-Sergeant Pepper days 1005 01:13:37,235 --> 01:13:41,280 and returned armed with only three chords and angry as hell. 1006 01:13:41,315 --> 01:13:43,957 # Or just 1007 01:13:43,992 --> 01:13:46,600 # Another 1008 01:13:47,600 --> 01:13:50,685 # Country... # 1009 01:13:50,720 --> 01:13:52,880 It was a big explosion 1010 01:13:52,915 --> 01:13:55,397 of resentment 1011 01:13:55,432 --> 01:13:57,880 against the... 1012 01:13:58,880 --> 01:14:00,960 ..highbrows. 1013 01:14:02,320 --> 01:14:04,325 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 01:14:25,515 --> 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 01:14:35,595 --> 01:14:38,377 pretended to have for the establishment 1021 01:14:38,412 --> 01:14:41,046 of rock bands at that particular point. 1022 01:14:41,081 --> 01:14:43,645 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 01:14:48,635 --> 01:14:51,045 MUSIC: "Teenage Kicks" by The Undertones 1025 01:14:51,080 --> 01:14:54,245 On one hand I liked it because it was trashing things, 1026 01:14:54,280 --> 01:14:57,765 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 01:15:03,875 --> 01:15:06,000 you know, four-four and three chords - 1029 01:15:06,035 --> 01:15:08,765 and the other people, like me, 1030 01:15:08,800 --> 01:15:12,085 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 01:15:25,715 --> 01:15:30,920 but that wasn't what punk was about. Punk was all about NOT being musical. 1034 01:15:30,955 --> 01:15:35,480 The British Isles was the only country that fell for it. 1035 01:15:35,515 --> 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 01:15:46,715 --> 01:15:50,165 If you listen to Schoenberg and Cecil Taylor, 1038 01:15:50,200 --> 01:15:55,005 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 01:16:01,075 --> 01:16:05,200 why not have them play the guitar out of tune? That'll give you something different. 1041 01:16:05,235 --> 01:16:10,360 That was a very lovely, home-made solution to harmonic inventiveness. 1042 01:16:10,395 --> 01:16:15,800 Just don't tune up. Don't sing in tune. How far out can you get? 1043 01:16:15,835 --> 01:16:18,400 The notes between the notes, we're hitting them. 1044 01:16:18,435 --> 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 --> 01:16:34,845 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 01:16:41,675 --> 01:16:47,160 And you don't want it. My mum and dad used to listen to Pearl and Teddy Johnson. 1049 01:16:47,195 --> 01:16:50,805 # Darling, darling, sweet Elizabeth 1050 01:16:50,840 --> 01:16:54,485 # 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 01:17:00,835 --> 01:17:03,205 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 01:17:09,515 --> 01:17:14,600 The pop bands killed the crooner. Punk killed prog rock. 1055 01:17:14,635 --> 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 --> 01:17:54,685 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 01:17:59,115 --> 01:18:03,565 and making interesting musical shapes and landscapes, 1063 01:18:03,600 --> 01:18:08,600 but if you're gonna have a singer, what's he going to sing about? 1064 01:18:08,635 --> 01:18:13,600 Often the solution was to go down the talking Roger Dean route, 1065 01:18:13,635 --> 01:18:16,645 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 --> 01:18:27,925 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 01:18:41,075 --> 01:18:43,525 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 01:18:50,475 --> 01:18:55,480 All we knew really was that groups like Yes had disappeared a bit, 1073 01:18:55,515 --> 01:18:58,520 so in a sense we were the last ones left standing 1074 01:18:58,555 --> 01:19:00,925 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 01:19:07,315 --> 01:19:09,325 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 --> 01:19:31,245 And we started having hit singles. 1079 01:19:31,280 --> 01:19:37,365 Follow You Follow Me opened a door for us. It was a reasonable hit. It wasn't massive. 1080 01:19:37,400 --> 01:19:43,460 But after that, we were able to put out singles and they'd always get played for many years. 1081 01:19:43,495 --> 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 --> 01:19:54,005 Most bands weren't so lucky. 1083 01:19:54,040 --> 01:19:57,325 Procol Harum's 10th album, Something Magic, 1084 01:19:57,360 --> 01:20:01,520 an ambitious concept in which their instruments played characters 1085 01:20:01,555 --> 01:20:05,680 in a story that was narrated, not even sung, became their swansong. 1086 01:20:09,680 --> 01:20:14,120 We'd finished it. I don't know how we managed to record this thing. 1087 01:20:14,155 --> 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 01:20:28,395 --> 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 01:20:54,115 --> 01:20:56,365 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 01:21:13,635 --> 01:21:15,605 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 01:21:20,435 --> 01:21:22,717 which for me, is like a King Crimson line. 1097 01:21:22,752 --> 01:21:26,456 I've just taken it into a different setting. 1098 01:21:26,491 --> 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 01:21:40,275 --> 01:21:44,240 would, in time, influence grunge guru, Kurt Cobain. 1101 01:21:47,880 --> 01:21:49,125 Somewhere in 1987, 1102 01:21:49,160 --> 01:21:53,645 I probably gave up noisy rock. 1103 01:21:53,680 --> 01:21:55,645 I mean, there was the odd reunion tour. 1104 01:21:55,680 --> 01:21:58,680 But in my mind, I was redefined as a jazz musician, 1105 01:21:58,715 --> 01:22:01,680 which I probably should have been in the first place. 1106 01:22:03,040 --> 01:22:06,565 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 01:22:10,075 --> 01:22:14,680 MUSIC: "Owner Of A Lonely Heart" by Yes 1109 01:22:52,720 --> 01:22:55,725 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 01:23:00,475 --> 01:23:03,040 or only spoken of in hushed tones. 1112 01:23:07,200 --> 01:23:11,125 Prog had become a really dirty word, you know. 1113 01:23:11,160 --> 01:23:14,405 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 01:23:20,195 --> 01:23:21,605 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 01:23:33,675 --> 01:23:37,277 "couple of Country and Western, a bit of New Age, 1119 01:23:37,312 --> 01:23:40,845 "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 01:23:44,075 --> 01:23:45,680 "a bit of classical, and, um... 1122 01:23:46,640 --> 01:23:48,205 "..(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 01:23:51,715 --> 01:23:53,685 but liked a bit of Genesis, 1125 01:23:53,720 --> 01:23:56,660 might not have liked the Floyd, but liked Jethro Tull. 1126 01:23:56,695 --> 01:23:59,565 "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 01:24:03,355 --> 01:24:07,720 It was like...it was like the porn of the music industry. 1129 01:24:07,755 --> 01:24:11,405 I went out and bought the first Sex Pistols album, 1130 01:24:11,440 --> 01:24:15,445 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 01:24:18,995 --> 01:24:22,760 But, many, many years later, admitted that one of his, sort of, 1133 01:24:22,795 --> 01:24:26,445 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 01:24:33,755 --> 01:24:36,120 and he came up to me... 1136 01:24:38,600 --> 01:24:42,520 ..and he said, "Just want you to know, I'm a big fan of yours." 1137 01:24:42,555 --> 01:24:46,357 But, you know, he just wanted to make sure nobody was looking. 1138 01:24:46,392 --> 01:24:50,125 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 01:24:54,395 --> 01:24:55,365 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 --> 01:25:03,965 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 01:25:08,915 --> 01:25:12,400 Not everyone persevered in The Land Of Make Believe. 1145 01:25:15,440 --> 01:25:18,285 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 01:25:44,915 --> 01:25:51,485 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 01:25:56,675 --> 01:26:01,040 and suddenly it gives up, because it didn't get enough nourishment. 1153 01:26:01,075 --> 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 01:26:17,395 --> 01:26:20,217 record contracts or the audience. 1157 01:26:20,252 --> 01:26:23,005 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 01:26:25,995 --> 01:26:29,160 One that now seems like old time religion. 1160 01:26:31,240 --> 01:26:34,685 Its creators, often precocious, sometimes indulged, 1161 01:26:34,720 --> 01:26:39,520 occasionally deluded, but always uncompromising, baptised the decade 1162 01:26:39,555 --> 01:26:44,080 with a soundtrack of stark virtuosity, weird time signatures... 1163 01:26:44,115 --> 01:26:47,125 strange poetry and surprising beauty. 1164 01:26:47,160 --> 01:26:51,325 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 01:26:55,355 --> 01:26:56,680 on the top shelf. 1167 01:26:59,200 --> 01:27:02,445 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 01:27:05,915 --> 01:27:07,725 as part of rock and roll, because... 1170 01:27:07,760 --> 01:27:10,925 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 01:27:14,675 --> 01:27:18,005 It's actually a bunch of very talented musicians, 1173 01:27:18,040 --> 01:27:22,800 who were kind of cursed with very musically intelligent brains, 1174 01:27:22,835 --> 01:27:27,877 who got bored very quickly with playing three chords all the time, 1175 01:27:27,912 --> 01:27:32,856 and wanted to do stuff which was more complex and more challenging. 1176 01:27:32,891 --> 01:27:37,765 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 01:27:43,835 --> 01:27:50,160 So, if you're willing to go to that garden, and dig and dig and dig, 1179 01:27:50,195 --> 01:27:52,125 and try and try and try, 1180 01:27:52,160 --> 01:27:57,405 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 01:28:17,155 --> 01:28:20,325 # And you can fly 1184 01:28:20,360 --> 01:28:25,060 # High as a kite if you want to 1185 01:28:25,095 --> 01:28:29,767 # Faster than light if you want to 1186 01:28:29,802 --> 01:28:34,440 # Speeding through the universe 1187 01:28:35,960 --> 01:28:40,560 # Thinking is the best way to travel. #112072

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