OFF: Genesis

[Nick Medford]

In message <001701c0db07$50248ac0$430c28d5 at starfield>, Captain Bl at ck
<starfield at SUPANET.COM> writes
>To me, Genesis will only ever be with Steve Hackett on guitar. His writing
>and playing is totally inspired unlike some of the more cod prog-rock
>compositions of Tony Banks.  Its no co-incidence the only track on Wind &
>Wuthering worth listening to is Blood on the Rooftops.

>
>Its interesting to listen to the early albums and pick out the bits Hackett
>obviously wrote - Dance of the Moonlit Knight has some of his trademark
>chord progressions for one.

He's often been quoted as saying that "Selling England" was his favourite
Genesis album. The track "After The Ordeal" has some of his most haunting
guitar work.
>
>Hackett's first four solo albums also deserve a good listen

I'll always have a soft spot for Steve Hackett- first gig I ever attended was
Hackett and backing band (including Ian Moseley, who was mentioned in
the drummers thread), Southend circa 1983. His earlier solo albums are
intriguing - some majestic playing and some truly remarkable eccentricity:

>  -  after all,
>has anybody ever done anything quite like Tiger Moth Chances before or
>since?

or "Carry On Up The Vicarage" and "Sentimental Institution" for that
matter...

Fifth album "Cured" was mostly dreadful, but there's some excellent stuff on
the later "Till We Have Faces". Completely lost touch with whatever he was
up to after that- I know he was in some bloody awful AOR/prog-hasbeen
supergroup for a while, and he's done an album of dodgy Genesis remakes...
so perhaps I don't really need to know any more than that...

>
>How could they possibly consider reforming, albeit as a one off, without
>him?

Well in the recent Mojo retrospective on the band, he says he would only
participate if they let him black up and play harmonica! Which would seem
to be a roundabout way of saying he's not interested.
--
Nick Medford