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DRONING

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Pit-eh-schoo, blugh, buh-doov...

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Jun-jing, jun-jing, jun-jing,
jing, juh-jing, jun-ding, jung...

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BOOF!
Rata-da-da-da, da-da-da, da, da...

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Doo-doo, doo, doo,
doo-doo, doo-doo...

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Eh-eh-eh, neh-neh...

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Da, da, da, da-da...

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Eh-eh-eh, Neh-neh...

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Neeeh...

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Digga-digga-digga-digga...

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Digga-digga, dah-dah...
Over. Then some chords!

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"The Assyrian came down
like a wolf from the fold

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"and his cohorts were gleaming
in silver and gold..."
Diddle-liddle, dum-dum, doo-doo...

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"The sheen of his stars were like
stars in the sky," whatever it is.

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It's gonna go, "Meeh, doo-doo,
doo, doo". Then it's gonna go
"doodle-oodle, oodle-oodle."

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Continual "lul-uhl-lul-uhl"
notes without a single break-in.

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Boof!

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And I almost lost it there!

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HE LAUGHS
Easy!

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From the British pop revolution of
the 1960s, emerged an entirely new
breed of musician -

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a post-Beatles, post-psychedelic
generation that saw a future of
limitless possibilities.

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It was time for pop music to move
beyond the three-minute love song
and chart success.

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With little or no concern for fame,
fortune or the audience, they
plundered every musical form

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on an adventure into
uncharted territories
in search of the lost chord.

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This is the story of
that generation of new bands,

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Yes, King Crimson, Genesis, ELP,
Jethro Tull and many more.

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From the land that time forgot,
the glory days of Prog Britannia.

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MUSIC: "Time Of The Season"
by The Zombies

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In 1967, pop music, like the world
it inhabited, was about to explode.

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In London, the British beat boom
fused with American pop in a blaze
of invention that would ransack

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jazz, folk and anything else it
could find in the many basement
clubs of the city.

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I do think there are periods which
are golden ages and, you know,

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the stars are aligned,
and whatever is happening, and
it produces a lot of creativity.

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Where I was at college was like
a snapshot of music at the time.

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The angry bot people
liked The Beatles.

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The side I was on was blues upstairs
and, in the cellar, Bob Dylan

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and then you had the modern jazz
guys and the classical guys.

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Otis Redding and Sam & Dave
and Booker T & the MGs came over
and you suddenly realised that

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you know, it's "game up".

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You can't pretend to be them
any more when they're actually here.

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There was some white music that even
black musicians were listening to,

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for example, Jimi Hendrix was
listening very hard to Bob Dylan,
you know, there was stuff going on.

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# It's the time of the season... #

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There was huge social changes
and huge chemical changes...

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going on. There was something
definitely in the water.

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I mean, timing is everything.
The smartest thing I did was get
born in 1949. Brilliant, brilliant.

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Cos at 18 you're in 1968.
Europe's aflame, the Paris Riots.

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Perfect.

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I was in the States in '68
and there were three major
assassinations while we were there.

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A few Kennedys
and an Andy Warhol or two.

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You know, it was all happening.

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It WAS all happening. But much of
the music only reached eager young
British ears courtesy of outlaws.

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Offshore pirate radio stations,
broadcasting illegally

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to a nation still dominated
by something called
the BBC Light Programme.

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MUSIC: "Summer In The City"
by The Lovin' Spoonful

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MUSIC WARPS INTO DIFFERENT SONGS

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'It was unreachable.
You felt like you were
tuning into another planet.

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'Contacting the aliens.
It was coming from another world.'

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You could only reach it on little
transistor radios...late at night.

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Then, in May 1967, a song
that fused Bach with Percy Sledge
via Bob Dylan and Geoffrey Chaucer

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was heard leaving for the coast.

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A Whiter Shade Of Pale
by Procul Harum.

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I wouldn't be exaggerating
when I said that the world
was waiting for that.

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# We skipped the light fandango

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# Turned cartwheels
cross the floor... #

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The Beatles and the beat boom
had been going for...

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certainly three or four years.

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'It was all getting a bit tired.'

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# The crowd called out for more... #

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I wanted to do something
and I didn't want it to be
like anything else.

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Because we've had, we've had it all.

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"This, I've never heard this before,
really." That's what you think to
yourself. Therefore, "I like this."

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# We called out for another drink

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# The waiter brought the tray

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# And so it was... # 
And so it was that later,
only two weeks later,

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as the miller told his tale,
The Beatles released an album
that was a concept,

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a world unto itself.

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A blueprint for progressive rock.

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MUSIC: "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts
Club Band (Reprise)" by The Beatles

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# We're Sgt Pepper's
Lonely Hearts Club Band

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# We hope you have
enjoyed the show... #

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A Whiter Shade Of Pale
topped the British Singles Chart

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the very same week
that Sgt Pepper announced
the artistic triumph of the album.

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Bands were still making singles,
you know, Cream - Strange Group,

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Pink Floyd - Arnold Layne
and See Emily Play.

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And Procol Harum -
Whiter Shade Of Pale.

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All of these records were amazing,
creative, interesting singles

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and they also were incredibly,
commercially successful.

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So the bands at that moment were
getting the best of both worlds.

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It was Sgt Pepper, and the
creative amazement of Sgt Pepper,

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that really convinced everybody that

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you can extend ideas onto an album,
you can make concept albums.

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In fact, with the album, you can do
almost exactly whatever you want. 

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It was a strange mixture of...

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almost music hall
and totally other-world music -

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that was the wonderful
thing about it,

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it bridged the gap between the real
world and this other world. And the
other thing,

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it was all totally new. You'd never
heard anything like that before.

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It's more fun in the record
if there's a few sounds that

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you don't really know what they are
and really they're just instruments

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only something happens on here.
I couldn't tell you what
cos we have a special man

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who sits here and goes like this
and the guitar turns into
a piano or something.

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And then you may say, "Why
don't you use a piano?" Because
the piano sounds like a guitar.

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If you look at the leap
in terms of musical vocabulary
and sophistication between

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the first Beatles album and
Sgt Pepper which is like five years,

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everything that could be done with
that form has already been done in
those five years.

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Where else can you take it except to
make it more and more sophisticated

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and more and more
musically interesting or just

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for rock music to go on repeating
itself and regurgitating itself?

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I liked... There's a lot of
classical music I liked.

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I was always frightened of classical
music and I never wanted to listen

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because it was Beethoven and
Tchaikovsky and big words like that.
And Schoenberg.

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I think a lot of people started
to appreciate many other genres.

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Pop music is the
classical music of now.

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Probably The Beatles had been
listening to the same stuff,

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smoked the same cannabis...
now and again.

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A lot of people were
smoking on the quiet

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and they actually got furious
when the hippies came along

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because suddenly there was
a lot of notice being taken

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whereas they'd been quietly,
you know, enjoying themselves
for a long time.

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This was the era when if you
wanted to try something, you could.

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You knew a mate who
had some hashish,

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or you knew a mate who had some LSD.

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But you had to be careful.
If you were very cautious and
took very little of these things

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you could meddle and not lose
your mind and end up in hospital.

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Cannabis was a stimulant.
And it did enable you to
hear a lot more in the music.

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It was there, you weren't imagining
it. It was in there. But you
concentrated more on listening to it.

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What came from that was
the ability for people
who would normally...

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copy American music suddenly
wanted to express themselves.

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And so you had this strange
thing at that time that almost
every band had a unique sound.

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Nobody sounded quite
like anyone else.

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# Dynamic explosions in my brain,
shatter me to drops of rain

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# Falling from a yellow sky... #

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I moved across to what was
really a new movement in music

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which was the psychedelia period.

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# Hold me but as I jerk... #
And that was Arthur Brown and
The Crazy World of Arthur Brown.

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I mean, we didn't know
what it was and we were in it!

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It was pretty confrontational. 

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For that time, shocking.

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Arthur's concept was basically
about the beginning of time, the
beginning of life.

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I am the god of hellfire
and I bring you...

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The original for the make-up
was the death mask, which goes back

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right through English history
and further than that.

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# Fire,
to destroy all you've done... #

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It was kind of deep, really.
It was real, you know.

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HE CHUCKLES
Sometimes the bar would be filled
with petrol and the roadie would

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stand there throwing matches,
a good distance away, until
one landed and then... BOOF!

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The British beat boom had been a
predominantly Northern or working
class phenomenon.

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But the architects of progressive
rock were escapees from entirely
different backgrounds.

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I suppose for a rock and roller,
my education was completely wrong.

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My mum and dad, I mean, literally
did go without food to send me to
piano lessons.

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I never found that out
till many, many years on
and I went there when I was five.

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And I loved it.

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My family had a very varied
take on music and they were
very opinionated about it.

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Course I liked Cliff Richard &
The Shadows and they were going,

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"Nonsense, you won't even know
who these people are next year."

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MUSIC: "Do You Wanna Dance"
by Cliff Richard & The Shadows

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I was in this attic and I put on
this Vivaldi record, The Four Seasons
or something, and I just flipped.

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I just went,
"This is fantastic stuff."

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Studied Stravinsky's Dumbarton Oaks
concerto. Did a lot of church music,
sang in choirs.

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At the same time as being
obsessively interested in...

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The Shadows.

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Went to the Guildhall.

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Went to the Royal Academy.
Had lots of private tuition,
LOTS of private tuition.

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00:12:24,040 --> 00:12:28,360
But never REALLY wanted
to be in an orchestra.

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Or a jazz group for that matter.
I wanted to be a rock drummer.

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00:12:31,960 --> 00:12:36,960
I got a scholarship to the Royal
College of Music. And I went there
and I left after a year and a half.

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00:12:36,960 --> 00:12:43,320
I thought, "This is NUTS, this whole
thing." The college were really,
really anti any form of music

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00:12:43,320 --> 00:12:45,480
that wasn't serious classical music.

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They would've either have become
classical musicians,

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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.

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00:12:54,120 --> 00:13:00,160
But the jazz scene in Britain
was never THAT exciting,
it was always such hard work.

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00:13:00,160 --> 00:13:03,640
'66, '67, jazz was in a bad place.

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00:13:03,640 --> 00:13:07,280
Jazz was Free Jazz, it was
squeaky-bum jazz, you know, going

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00:13:07,280 --> 00:13:11,640
rhee-aiir! Squeaking away.
And any red-blooded drummer,

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00:13:11,640 --> 00:13:16,240
age 17, at that time, would've
wanted to play with Jimi Hendrix,

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00:13:16,240 --> 00:13:20,480
rather than the
Spontaneous Music Ensemble.

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00:13:20,480 --> 00:13:24,240
MUSIC: "Gypsy Eyes" by Jimi Hendrix

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00:13:24,240 --> 00:13:28,560
But what made pop
so attractive to some
inexperienced young musicians was...

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00:13:28,560 --> 00:13:30,840
well, the girls.

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00:13:33,200 --> 00:13:35,760
There's this whole other
half of the human race

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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.

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00:13:40,520 --> 00:13:45,880
Where were they? They were
in caffs. What were they doing?
They were sitting there.

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00:13:45,880 --> 00:13:49,440
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 --> 00:13:57,600
"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

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00:14:02,280 --> 00:14:08,440
was put on a Little Richard
record on the jukebox and
it would unify the room.

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00:14:08,440 --> 00:14:13,680
You couldn't put on Bartok,
Violin Concerto. That wouldn't
have impressed anybody.

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00:14:13,680 --> 00:14:18,160
It wouldn't have unified the room.
Wouldn't have got everybody
tapping their feet.

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00:14:18,160 --> 00:14:21,200
CLASSICAL MUSIC PLAYS

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00:14:22,480 --> 00:14:27,280
But the classical tradition
had gripped a generation of
rock 'n' rollers determined to show

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00:14:27,280 --> 00:14:30,440
that pop music could also be
profound and grown-up.

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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
00:14:39,800 --> 00:14:43,840
In Held 'Twas In I,
for their album Shine On Brightly.

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00:14:44,840 --> 00:14:48,160
The search for meaning
and significance was on.

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00:14:50,880 --> 00:14:54,200
I said, "I think we should do,
like, a great work."

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00:14:54,200 --> 00:14:56,240
That's what I called it.

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00:14:57,680 --> 00:15:00,960
In fact it was called
O Magnum Harum for a while.

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00:15:00,960 --> 00:15:04,000
MUSIC: "In Held 'Twas In I"
by Procol Harum

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00:15:08,880 --> 00:15:13,720
Start off at the beginning of the
universe... And ended in Heaven.

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00:15:15,240 --> 00:15:18,960
And all the trials and tribulations
that come in between.

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00:15:18,960 --> 00:15:20,720
With a bit of sitar chucked in.

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00:15:20,720 --> 00:15:23,760
MUSIC CONTINUES

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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,

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00:15:32,120 --> 00:15:35,560
it would have been somebody,
you know, four weeks later.

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00:15:35,560 --> 00:15:39,480
Now... We can actually write music.

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00:15:39,480 --> 00:15:44,640
And if we're gonna write music,
the model is classical music

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00:15:44,640 --> 00:15:49,360
and classical music has
extended forms, sonatas,

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00:15:49,360 --> 00:15:56,120
symphonies. So we're gonna
do structures and pieces
that last a long time

211
00:15:56,120 --> 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
00:16:11,120 --> 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
00:16:23,880 --> 00:16:27,720
in dazzling displays of technical
virtuosity and crazed physicality.

216
00:16:34,360 --> 00:16:37,120
Their first unlikely hit
was a seven-minute version

217
00:16:37,120 --> 00:16:40,520
of Leonard Bernstein's America,
from West Side Story,

218
00:16:40,520 --> 00:16:45,440
transformed into an instrumental,
prog rock protest song.

219
00:16:45,440 --> 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 --> 00:17:14,840
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
00:17:20,440 --> 00:17:26,200
grow into Soft Machine,
Caravan, Hatfield & The North
and Matching Mole.

224
00:17:26,200 --> 00:17:30,680
All stemming from
a little-known local group
called The Wilde Flowers.

225
00:17:32,320 --> 00:17:36,320
The Wilde Flowers didn't do
loadsa gigs, probably only about

226
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
00:17:51,160 --> 00:17:56,000
We tried to do sort-of
danceable versions of
that kind of music, you see.

229
00:17:56,000 --> 00:17:58,120
Just to be different and awkward.

230
00:17:58,120 --> 00:18:00,280
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
00:18:02,880 --> 00:18:04,600
# Ba-ba-ba! That we do... #

233
00:18:04,600 --> 00:18:08,960
I don't like it if people
think that we thought that...

234
00:18:08,960 --> 00:18:13,400
clever grammar school-y people
came in and thought we we're doing

235
00:18:13,400 --> 00:18:17,360
something better than mere pop.
We were awestruck by pop music.

236
00:18:17,360 --> 00:18:23,200
By the magnificence of Beatles,
of Motown and really we just
wanted to participate in it.

237
00:18:23,200 --> 00:18:28,240
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
00:18:34,760 --> 00:18:38,680
but I had been listening to all
these sophisticated jazz drummers

240
00:18:38,680 --> 00:18:42,160
and I was sort-of cluttered
with...with stuff.

241
00:18:42,160 --> 00:18:46,240
You can't pretend you haven't
heard Elvin Jones if you have.

242
00:18:48,240 --> 00:18:52,360
Soft Machine was the first band
to emerge from The Wilde Flowers.

243
00:18:52,360 --> 00:18:55,680
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 --> 00:19:06,240
In that club you got
everything from vaudeville

246
00:19:06,240 --> 00:19:12,400
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
00:19:23,960 --> 00:19:28,920
That was the...
the culture that defined us.

250
00:19:28,920 --> 00:19:35,320
There were all these
stoned people listening
to music played by stoned bands.

251
00:19:35,320 --> 00:19:40,520
And as long as everybody was stoned,
everybody thought it was really good.

252
00:19:40,520 --> 00:19:43,560
MUSIC: "We Did It Again"
by Soft Machine

253
00:19:45,080 --> 00:19:49,120
We hadn't really got enough
tunes...to just do songs.

254
00:19:49,120 --> 00:19:53,920
So, we thought, "Oh, I remember,
what do you do about that? I know,
what do jazz musicians do?"

255
00:19:53,920 --> 00:19:59,640
They improvise. So you just
pick a couple of chords in there
and just...keep going on them.

256
00:19:59,640 --> 00:20:02,080
And so tunes become
ten-minute events.

257
00:20:02,080 --> 00:20:05,120
MUSIC CONTINUES

258
00:20:08,600 --> 00:20:12,520
This is not because we've all
become virtuosos, not in our case.

259
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
00:20:23,120 --> 00:20:27,320
and who had an Oxford
degree, so therefore assumed
immediate seniority.

262
00:20:28,600 --> 00:20:31,640
Well, this is the fuzzbox
which sounds like this...

263
00:20:31,640 --> 00:20:33,880
HE PLAYS DISTORTED NOTES

264
00:20:33,880 --> 00:20:38,160
Once he puts his fuzz on,
you had to keep playing,
you couldn't take your hand off.

265
00:20:38,160 --> 00:20:41,320
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
00:20:45,440 --> 00:20:48,480
MUSIC: "Why Am I So Short"
by Soft Machine

268
00:21:10,200 --> 00:21:14,120
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
00:21:40,280 --> 00:21:43,800
that would become the virtuoso
kings of progressive rock.

272
00:21:43,800 --> 00:21:46,680
Like Jethro Tull.

273
00:21:46,680 --> 00:21:49,280
And Yes, fronted by
vocalist Jon Anderson.

274
00:21:51,080 --> 00:21:55,160
I went to see Yes with 30 other
people at The Marquee one night.

275
00:21:55,160 --> 00:22:01,040
And guy next to me said, "You know
they're looking for a drummer?"
And I met Jon, introduced myself.

276
00:22:01,040 --> 00:22:03,320
He said, "Oh, yeah, man,
yeah. Give us a call,

277
00:22:03,320 --> 00:22:08,440
"come back next Tuesday.
We'll give you audition."
And I never called, you know.

278
00:22:08,440 --> 00:22:12,040
And I often wonder if I'd called,
what would have happened to my life!

279
00:22:12,040 --> 00:22:15,080
MUSIC: "Beyond And Before" by Yes

280
00:22:16,280 --> 00:22:20,720
Life in Yes, for jazz drummer
Bill Bruford, was like this...

281
00:22:22,560 --> 00:22:25,480
The group started as a cover band,
like most groups do.

282
00:22:26,800 --> 00:22:34,000
You start playing Beatles
tunes and a couple of tunes by
The Fifth Dimension, like you would.

283
00:22:35,000 --> 00:22:37,240
And then we got bored
and extend a section.

284
00:22:37,240 --> 00:22:42,040
"It's quite good up to here but
let's stick in another bit here
where it goes rhythm and blues."

285
00:22:42,040 --> 00:22:46,200
And we'd stick that in.
And then the thing would
get longer and longer and longer

286
00:22:46,200 --> 00:22:49,040
until eventually
somebody inevitably said,

287
00:22:49,040 --> 00:22:50,840
"Let's make one up ourselves."

288
00:22:54,000 --> 00:22:59,680
Jon was a very keen listener
and absorber, bit like blotting
paper, he absorbed music.

289
00:22:59,680 --> 00:23:01,800
# Time like gold dust brings... #

290
00:23:01,800 --> 00:23:07,280
He was mad keen
on Sibelius and TV themes.

291
00:23:07,280 --> 00:23:10,960
He'd start singing things, "Jon,
this is the theme to Bonanza!"

292
00:23:10,960 --> 00:23:13,480
And he'd say,
"Oh, never mind, stick it in!"

293
00:23:13,480 --> 00:23:17,520
MUSIC: "No Opportunity Necessary,
No Experience Needed" by Yes

294
00:23:19,240 --> 00:23:24,160
Yes never said no. They stitched
movies soundtracks to folk music

295
00:23:24,160 --> 00:23:27,680
to modern jazz to classical
music to TV themes...

296
00:23:27,680 --> 00:23:33,640
And the only people we didn't
concern ourselves with at all,
I think, was the audience.

297
00:23:33,640 --> 00:23:38,040
# Step out in the night
when you're lonely

298
00:23:39,160 --> 00:23:43,600
# Listening for the sound
city ears don't hear... #

299
00:23:45,240 --> 00:23:47,360
If you couldn't
make the London clubs,

300
00:23:47,360 --> 00:23:51,840
couldn't find progressive
rock albums in the shops and
rarely heard it on the radio,

301
00:23:51,840 --> 00:23:54,440
you could,
by the end of the sixties,

302
00:23:54,440 --> 00:23:57,880
see every band in one glorious
drug-and-rain-drenched experience

303
00:23:57,880 --> 00:23:59,680
at a pop festival near you.

304
00:23:59,680 --> 00:24:02,720
MUSIC: "Dharma For One"
by Jethro Tull

305
00:24:09,840 --> 00:24:13,080
This was the first golden age
of the British music festival.

306
00:24:13,080 --> 00:24:17,360
A new community in which
no-one was more welcome than
the progressive rock group.

307
00:24:19,080 --> 00:24:22,360
Everybody had a festival.

308
00:24:22,360 --> 00:24:26,120
You went along and played and heard
all different types of band.

309
00:24:26,120 --> 00:24:31,360
And people would listen to a jazz
orientated band, a hard rock band,

310
00:24:31,360 --> 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 --> 00:24:49,040
It always seemed like
it was a sunny day,

313
00:24:49,040 --> 00:24:53,200
and the weather was gorgeous.
Everybody was smiling and happy.

314
00:24:53,200 --> 00:24:55,480
It was a very sort of hippy thing.

315
00:24:57,960 --> 00:25:01,800
It was really music.
It really was music.

316
00:25:01,800 --> 00:25:03,360
It wasn't any other reason.

317
00:25:03,360 --> 00:25:07,960
Yeah, people got a bit smashed,
and bonked in the open air,

318
00:25:07,960 --> 00:25:09,600
and that was just the road crew.

319
00:25:09,600 --> 00:25:12,360
MUSIC: "The Court Of The Crimson
King" by King Crimson

320
00:25:23,600 --> 00:25:27,040
The great Suffolk seaside town
of Aldeburgh,

321
00:25:27,040 --> 00:25:31,440
now home to Pete Sinfield,
original lyricist for
the intimidating new band

322
00:25:31,440 --> 00:25:35,200
he inadvertently named King Crimson.

323
00:25:37,160 --> 00:25:38,720
We had an ethos in Crimson.

324
00:25:38,720 --> 00:25:41,640
I'm sure people like Gentle Giant
and other bands...

325
00:25:41,640 --> 00:25:46,880
we just refused to play anything
that sounded anything like
a Tin Pan Alley.

326
00:25:46,880 --> 00:25:49,480
If it sounded at all popular,
it was out.

327
00:25:49,480 --> 00:25:50,920
So it had to be complicated.

328
00:25:50,920 --> 00:25:55,680
It had to be more expansive chords,
it had to have strange influences.

329
00:25:55,680 --> 00:26:00,040
If it sounded too simple,
we would make it more complicated.

330
00:26:00,040 --> 00:26:02,840
We would play it in 7/8, in 5/8,
just to show off.

331
00:26:02,840 --> 00:26:08,640
# For the court
of the Crimson King... #

332
00:26:08,640 --> 00:26:13,240
Crimson's first big show-off
opportunity came in July 1969,

333
00:26:13,240 --> 00:26:16,000
when they supported
the Rolling Stones in Hyde Park.

334
00:26:16,000 --> 00:26:22,640
Unleashing their unique,
highly-rehearsed sound
on a totally unprepared audience.

335
00:26:26,000 --> 00:26:29,000
They played Schizoid Man
particularly well on that day.

336
00:26:29,000 --> 00:26:32,360
They really steamed it.
It was a monster.

337
00:26:36,080 --> 00:26:39,640
# Blood rack, barbed wire

338
00:26:39,640 --> 00:26:43,200
# Politicians funeral pyre

339
00:26:43,200 --> 00:26:46,000
# Innocence raped with napalm fire

340
00:26:46,000 --> 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
00:27:06,480 --> 00:27:09,000
And there was a silence at the end.

343
00:27:09,000 --> 00:27:11,040
And no-one knew
whether to clap or not.

344
00:27:12,600 --> 00:27:15,000
"That was good"!
Then they would go...

345
00:27:15,000 --> 00:27:16,400
HE IMITATES LOUD APPLAUSE

346
00:27:16,400 --> 00:27:19,960
That was the sort of stuff we liked.
We really liked shocking people.

347
00:27:25,640 --> 00:27:27,240
Unbelievable.

348
00:27:27,240 --> 00:27:29,640
We were scared to death.

349
00:27:29,640 --> 00:27:32,760
No-one knew that rock musicians
could play like that.

350
00:27:37,480 --> 00:27:40,360
To execute rapid passages
deafeningly loud...

351
00:27:40,360 --> 00:27:43,080
MUSIC: "21st Century Schizoid Man"
by King Crimson

352
00:27:44,880 --> 00:27:48,440
..then exactly the same passage,
everybody playing in unison thing,

353
00:27:48,440 --> 00:27:49,480
but very quiet.

354
00:27:52,080 --> 00:27:55,160
I mean, this was scary. This was
the best group in the world.

355
00:27:57,600 --> 00:28:00,960
Mike Giles one night was playing
the cymbals at Mothers in Birmingham,

356
00:28:00,960 --> 00:28:03,320
he ended up playing the cymbals
like this...

357
00:28:04,600 --> 00:28:06,280
..till there was no noise at all.

358
00:28:06,280 --> 00:28:09,880
And he just...poised,
and didn't do anything.

359
00:28:09,880 --> 00:28:11,800
And we thought, "Wow!"
I thought...

360
00:28:11,800 --> 00:28:14,200
And Fripp panicked,
and took off his boot,

361
00:28:14,200 --> 00:28:18,520
and started banging the stage
with his boot because he
couldn't stand the tension!

362
00:28:20,400 --> 00:28:25,400
The amount of ego and power
and experience that went into that
first album was extraordinary.

363
00:28:25,400 --> 00:28:28,920
Maybe that's inherent in that,

364
00:28:28,920 --> 00:28:32,040
and that strength was the seeds
of its destruction.

365
00:28:37,720 --> 00:28:40,640
MUSIC: "Ride" by Caravan

366
00:28:44,000 --> 00:28:48,080
The shock and awe that both defined
and deified King Crimson

367
00:28:48,080 --> 00:28:50,640
were completely absent
from the whimsical,

368
00:28:50,640 --> 00:28:54,480
slightly stoned sound
still emanating from Canterbury.

369
00:29:00,640 --> 00:29:04,000
The remaining Wilde Flowers
now took the road out of town

370
00:29:04,000 --> 00:29:06,440
as a band called Caravan.

371
00:29:11,200 --> 00:29:16,960
When half of the Wilde Flowers
went off and formed Soft Machine,

372
00:29:16,960 --> 00:29:19,200
and managed to get a record deal,

373
00:29:19,200 --> 00:29:21,760
we thought that perhaps
we could do the same,

374
00:29:21,760 --> 00:29:26,320
so we were very much looking
to see how they were doing,

375
00:29:26,320 --> 00:29:28,440
trying to do
the same thing ourselves.

376
00:29:28,440 --> 00:29:32,880
I suppose with the Canterbury scene,
you have progressive music
at its most melodic.

377
00:29:32,880 --> 00:29:37,360
It's do with these people being able
to write quite good tunes

378
00:29:37,360 --> 00:29:41,600
being in contact, I think, with a
kind of British melodic tradition

379
00:29:41,600 --> 00:29:44,680
that maybe has more to do with
20th-century classical music

380
00:29:44,680 --> 00:29:46,440
than with pop music.

381
00:29:46,440 --> 00:29:50,600
You hear distant echoes of
Vaughan Williams and Britten
and that kind of thing.

382
00:29:50,600 --> 00:29:55,280
# Sitting in my treetop world

383
00:29:55,280 --> 00:29:58,440
# Doing nothing at all... #

384
00:29:58,440 --> 00:30:02,120
Certainly the surrounding
countryside and what-have-you,

385
00:30:02,120 --> 00:30:05,440
we seemed to get a bit
of inspiration from all that.

386
00:30:05,440 --> 00:30:07,680
Sitting about in the sunshine.

387
00:30:07,680 --> 00:30:09,800
Making up bits of music.

388
00:30:09,800 --> 00:30:14,480
# Envy me all you want... #

389
00:30:14,480 --> 00:30:17,520
Living off girlfriends, you know.

390
00:30:17,520 --> 00:30:19,000
Great fun.

391
00:30:19,000 --> 00:30:25,960
# Join me any time
if you please... #

392
00:30:30,080 --> 00:30:36,080
Court jesters, crimson kings,
lost souls and magic men.

393
00:30:36,080 --> 00:30:38,360
This was a broad church.

394
00:30:38,360 --> 00:30:41,920
A very English music,
infused with childhood fantasies

395
00:30:41,920 --> 00:30:44,600
and the quirkiness
of a small island race.

396
00:30:47,320 --> 00:30:53,720
Spike Milligan, Edward Lear,
Lewis Carroll, stuff like that.

397
00:30:53,720 --> 00:30:59,600
And we had our own kind of
popular surrealism

398
00:30:59,600 --> 00:31:02,520
right from the humorous poets
and writers

399
00:31:02,520 --> 00:31:05,120
of the late 19th, early 20th century.

400
00:31:05,120 --> 00:31:08,320
A long time before they invented
surrealism on the continent,

401
00:31:08,320 --> 00:31:09,480
we had Lewis Carroll!

402
00:31:11,360 --> 00:31:15,480
At that time, we were making
quite a large effort to be English.

403
00:31:18,280 --> 00:31:22,680
Probably why we didn't go down too
well in Germany when we were there!

404
00:31:27,760 --> 00:31:29,800
MUSIC: "Horizons" by Genesis

405
00:31:35,080 --> 00:31:37,920
Charterhouse Public School.

406
00:31:37,920 --> 00:31:43,520
A group of young scholars, inspired
by the ambitious compositions
of Procul Harum and King Crimson,

407
00:31:43,520 --> 00:31:46,840
embraced this new, mature pop music

408
00:31:46,840 --> 00:31:50,280
as a way of dodging the professions
for which they'd been groomed.

409
00:31:50,280 --> 00:31:53,720
We had a bit of a tag over us,
you know. Public schoolboys.

410
00:31:53,720 --> 00:31:56,960
"What are they doing?
What do they know about music?

411
00:31:56,960 --> 00:31:58,880
"Where's their pain?" sort of thing.

412
00:32:02,480 --> 00:32:07,200
We were in a school that was
designing people to go
into the civil service.

413
00:32:07,200 --> 00:32:09,320
You often talk
about getting into music

414
00:32:09,320 --> 00:32:11,200
as an escape from poverty and stuff,

415
00:32:11,200 --> 00:32:13,960
which perhaps it was for
a certain kind of people

416
00:32:13,960 --> 00:32:15,600
in the late '50s and early '60s.

417
00:32:15,600 --> 00:32:21,640
For us, it was a kind of escape
from a totally pre-determined
career choice, if you like.

418
00:32:25,880 --> 00:32:29,600
I was banned from playing the guitar
for my entire time at Charterhouse.

419
00:32:29,600 --> 00:32:34,040
I don't quite know why.
I think they saw the guitar
as a symbol of the revolution.

420
00:32:34,040 --> 00:32:36,760
And I was gonna start it off
in my house with my guitar.

421
00:32:36,760 --> 00:32:41,080
So I was always under the thumb
of my house-master for that reason.

422
00:32:47,840 --> 00:32:50,720
They wanted to be songwriters.

423
00:32:50,720 --> 00:32:53,120
But bands were now making
their own material.

424
00:32:53,120 --> 00:32:55,640
So they formed their own band,
called it Genesis,

425
00:32:55,640 --> 00:32:58,960
and did what every other group
now seemed to be doing...

426
00:32:58,960 --> 00:33:03,000
retreated to the country
to get their heads together.

427
00:33:04,000 --> 00:33:08,000
There was a phrase, "Getting
together in the country, man,"

428
00:33:08,000 --> 00:33:12,200
but actually, I think being removed
from the business was quite
important for us.

429
00:33:13,200 --> 00:33:17,600
The time at Christmas Cottage was
where we sort of became a band

430
00:33:17,600 --> 00:33:20,160
and started writing
with our own sound.

431
00:33:21,960 --> 00:33:24,400
And it's what came
naturally to us, really.

432
00:33:24,400 --> 00:33:28,600
We were embedded in English and
obviously European classical
traditions as well,

433
00:33:28,600 --> 00:33:33,680
but also, in terms of a lot of
the lyrical stuff we would take
from English things,

434
00:33:33,680 --> 00:33:36,880
influenced by TS Eliot and fairy
stories, and stuff like that.

435
00:33:36,880 --> 00:33:40,240
People forget there weren't
that many bands in those days.

436
00:33:40,240 --> 00:33:43,720
It was like a blank canvas. So as
long as you were half-decent,

437
00:33:43,720 --> 00:33:47,400
and had a bit of a sound,
and were good live,

438
00:33:47,400 --> 00:33:50,040
'you had a chance it was a career,
you know.'

439
00:33:50,040 --> 00:33:53,120
We like audiences that sit down
and listen to the music

440
00:33:53,120 --> 00:33:56,480
rather than get drunk
and pick up girls.

441
00:33:56,480 --> 00:33:59,000
We like audiences that will
sit down and listen.

442
00:33:59,000 --> 00:34:01,520
MUSIC: "White Mountain"
by Genesis

443
00:34:05,960 --> 00:34:08,200
While Genesis focused
on songwriting,

444
00:34:08,200 --> 00:34:11,680
other bands were mastering their
instruments and finding new ones.

445
00:34:12,640 --> 00:34:18,600
Technical virtuosity was fast
becoming the essential protein
in progressive rock's DNA.

446
00:34:18,600 --> 00:34:21,600
I just don't believe that a
drummer should just keep time.

447
00:34:21,600 --> 00:34:25,320
Cos if you want time,
buy a metronome.

448
00:34:25,320 --> 00:34:26,720
Don't come and speak to me!

449
00:34:26,720 --> 00:34:29,120
I think music...
you make it for yourself.

450
00:34:29,120 --> 00:34:31,920
If the chap next door likes it,
isn't that fantastic?

451
00:34:33,840 --> 00:34:35,640
I do think self-indulgence

452
00:34:35,640 --> 00:34:39,000
is a good thing in art,
because if you're trying

453
00:34:39,000 --> 00:34:40,880
to please other people all the time,

454
00:34:40,880 --> 00:34:43,280
you just stick to the same model
all the time.

455
00:34:43,280 --> 00:34:46,920
Nobody hears anything new,
so nobody expects anything new.

456
00:34:48,320 --> 00:34:51,560
You play a note,
and you project it out.

457
00:34:51,560 --> 00:34:54,880
Even if it's one note,
it can go "donnnng"... hmm.

458
00:34:54,880 --> 00:34:56,320
You can make it go...

459
00:34:56,320 --> 00:34:57,880
WITH DEEP ECHO: "Donnnng"!

460
00:34:57,880 --> 00:35:01,880
It's more than just
playing the instrument.

461
00:35:03,320 --> 00:35:05,680
It's not cool today
to play your instrument.

462
00:35:05,680 --> 00:35:07,680
Jangly guitar music...

463
00:35:07,680 --> 00:35:09,360
It's jangly! That's what you do.

464
00:35:09,360 --> 00:35:12,480
But to actually play a solo,
something nice,

465
00:35:12,480 --> 00:35:16,320
something that speaks, something that
gives you a little kind of emotion,

466
00:35:16,320 --> 00:35:19,760
a little buzz, makes your hair
stand up on the back of your neck,

467
00:35:19,760 --> 00:35:22,280
that's not cool.
That's not part of this age.

468
00:35:24,640 --> 00:35:28,720
But this was
the dawning of the age of
the highly-accomplished player.

469
00:35:28,720 --> 00:35:30,320
The name musician.

470
00:35:31,720 --> 00:35:34,120
In 1970, Crimson man Greg Lake,

471
00:35:34,120 --> 00:35:37,280
plus Nice man Keith Emerson,

472
00:35:37,280 --> 00:35:39,160
plus Crazy World man Carl Palmer,

473
00:35:39,160 --> 00:35:42,000
equalled bass, keyboards and drums,

474
00:35:42,000 --> 00:35:45,040
equalled prog rock's
first supergroup,

475
00:35:45,040 --> 00:35:47,440
equalled ELP.

476
00:35:47,440 --> 00:35:50,600
MUSIC: "Hoedown"
by Emerson, Lake & Palmer

477
00:35:57,760 --> 00:36:00,600
We weren't a rock band,
we weren't a blues band.

478
00:36:00,600 --> 00:36:06,600
Emerson, Lake & Palmer was a
kind of...was a European group that
played classical adaptations.

479
00:36:06,600 --> 00:36:11,320
Yes, we could rock out.
But we didn't hang our hat
on being a rock band.

480
00:36:11,320 --> 00:36:16,800
In actual fact,
it really was a thoroughbred
musical statement we were making.

481
00:36:18,800 --> 00:36:23,440
You need the playing expertise
so that your colleagues know
that you are the bee's knees,

482
00:36:23,440 --> 00:36:27,400
but just give them some
entertainment as well, and that's
what it's all about.

483
00:36:27,400 --> 00:36:28,600
That's my philosophy.

484
00:36:36,320 --> 00:36:39,120
I think I'd call it
showbusiness, actually!

485
00:36:39,120 --> 00:36:43,680
Somebody jumping over their organ,
or sticking in knives

486
00:36:43,680 --> 00:36:45,960
to hold down a fifth or a fourth,
a chord.

487
00:36:45,960 --> 00:36:48,200
Musically it's valid,

488
00:36:48,200 --> 00:36:49,640
visually it's right on it,

489
00:36:49,640 --> 00:36:51,720
and it is rock'n'roll!

490
00:36:58,000 --> 00:37:01,760
ELP's technical expertise
and crowd-pleasing antics

491
00:37:01,760 --> 00:37:05,480
elevated musicianship and
ticket sales to new heights.

492
00:37:05,480 --> 00:37:08,440
Progressive rock popped its
head out of the underground

493
00:37:08,440 --> 00:37:11,840
and glimpsed not only showbusiness,
but big business.

494
00:37:14,480 --> 00:37:16,800
Progressive rock wizard Rick Wakeman

495
00:37:16,800 --> 00:37:19,800
was amazed when he first saw
what Yes were now up to

496
00:37:19,800 --> 00:37:22,280
with their psychedelic guitarist
Steve Howe.

497
00:37:26,160 --> 00:37:28,680
Everything that happened in the '70s,
this is it,

498
00:37:28,680 --> 00:37:31,400
was to do with psychedelia, you see.

499
00:37:31,400 --> 00:37:36,280
Psychedelia may have quit
as a fashion in 1968,

500
00:37:36,280 --> 00:37:39,760
but when I joined Yes,

501
00:37:39,760 --> 00:37:42,240
I was still a psychedelic
guitarist in my mind.

502
00:37:42,240 --> 00:37:45,440
I would not play blues cliche
for love nor money.

503
00:37:49,360 --> 00:37:53,400
I was just bowled over, because
everything was wrong.

504
00:37:55,800 --> 00:37:59,760
Bill Bruford had the most incredible
unusual tuning of the kit,

505
00:37:59,760 --> 00:38:02,960
and they mic'ed it up.
No-one mic'ed it up then.

506
00:38:02,960 --> 00:38:06,200
And it was the most fantastic
drum sound I'd ever heard.

507
00:38:06,200 --> 00:38:08,720
MUSIC: "Yours Is No Disgrace"
by Yes

508
00:38:14,400 --> 00:38:17,520
There were funky elements,
there were classical elements,

509
00:38:17,520 --> 00:38:21,360
there'd be a free section,
or some sort of psychedelic vamp
or funk thing,

510
00:38:21,360 --> 00:38:24,720
cos we liked Sly and the Family
Stone, so we needed some of that.

511
00:38:28,160 --> 00:38:32,520
Chris Squire. Most bass players try
to get as low as they could,
to make your trousers flap.

512
00:38:32,520 --> 00:38:36,480
Chris wiped out all the middle,
and had all the treble turned up,

513
00:38:36,480 --> 00:38:40,040
and used a Rickenbacker while
everyone else was using Fenders.

514
00:38:40,040 --> 00:38:41,800
I thought, "That's outrageous"!

515
00:38:41,800 --> 00:38:45,200
And then Steve Howe, when everybody
else was using big stacks,

516
00:38:45,200 --> 00:38:51,080
had a little Fender Twin,
and a Gibson semi-acoustic.

517
00:38:55,480 --> 00:38:58,640
I played any kind of guitar
you could think of that I liked.

518
00:38:58,640 --> 00:39:04,680
So I went on to mandolin, steel,
and all the kinds,
six, twelve, Spanish...

519
00:39:04,680 --> 00:39:07,080
"Eh, what? What's going on?"

520
00:39:07,080 --> 00:39:10,640
And then, of course, at those times,
every lead singer was six foot six,

521
00:39:10,640 --> 00:39:13,960
long greasy black hair, you could
smell 'em from the back row,

522
00:39:13,960 --> 00:39:16,960
and along comes this little fella
who's got an alto voice.

523
00:39:16,960 --> 00:39:24,400
# If the summer change to winter,
Yours is no disgrace... #

524
00:39:27,800 --> 00:39:29,200
Wakeman wanted in.

525
00:39:29,200 --> 00:39:30,440
PHONE RINGS

526
00:39:30,440 --> 00:39:33,400
But when he got the call,
it wasn't an easy decision.

527
00:39:34,680 --> 00:39:37,560
On the same day that
Yes asked me to join,

528
00:39:37,560 --> 00:39:43,480
David Bowie asked me to form
Spiders From Mars with Mick Ronson,

529
00:39:43,480 --> 00:39:50,840
um...which, when I look back,
that was one hell of a choice!

530
00:39:50,840 --> 00:39:54,600
# There's a starman
waiting in the sky... #

531
00:39:54,600 --> 00:39:58,320
Progressive music wasn't
the only gig in town.

532
00:39:58,320 --> 00:40:04,080
Top Of The Pops, regarded
as a sell-out by any
self-respecting prog rocker,

533
00:40:04,080 --> 00:40:09,000
was by now home to artists
such as Bowie, Roxy Music and T Rex.

534
00:40:09,000 --> 00:40:12,240
Bands still making singles hits,
and girls dance.

535
00:40:19,680 --> 00:40:23,480
For Robert Wyatt, the Soft Machine
party was all but over.

536
00:40:23,480 --> 00:40:27,680
The band had matured into a
jazz-fusion quartet

537
00:40:27,680 --> 00:40:30,680
with little sympathy for
his pop sensibilities.

538
00:40:31,800 --> 00:40:33,480
Goodbye, the UFO Club...

539
00:40:34,440 --> 00:40:36,040
..hello, the Albert Hall.

540
00:40:44,480 --> 00:40:48,080
You know, pretty respected, and so
on, but nobody's dancing any more,

541
00:40:48,080 --> 00:40:49,880
so I sort of thought, aww, you know,

542
00:40:49,880 --> 00:40:52,920
I never really quite made it
as a proper pop musician!

543
00:40:55,720 --> 00:40:58,040
We thought we were a pop band!

544
00:40:58,040 --> 00:41:03,200
It's just that... I try to
make normal records, they just
don't come out like that.

545
00:41:10,240 --> 00:41:14,440
We could have made a really good
pop LP, and been in the charts,

546
00:41:14,440 --> 00:41:17,560
and been in those films
about the '60s.

547
00:41:17,560 --> 00:41:18,800
And we blew it.

548
00:41:24,360 --> 00:41:27,520
Wyatt was eventually sacked
from his own group.

549
00:41:28,920 --> 00:41:31,760
I think I resented it for a while,

550
00:41:31,760 --> 00:41:33,080
and when I got cross,

551
00:41:33,080 --> 00:41:38,720
I used to feel about Soft Machine
the same way that Palestinians
think about Jerusalem.

552
00:41:38,720 --> 00:41:41,640
"This once was mine!"

553
00:41:46,520 --> 00:41:50,560
Without Wyatt, Soft Machine
moved into purely
instrumental compositions,

554
00:41:50,560 --> 00:41:52,320
avoiding the problems of lyrics.

555
00:41:53,480 --> 00:41:57,440
"My baby done left me"
never did work with
complex musical structures.

556
00:41:59,520 --> 00:42:01,320
This music didn't want the blues.

557
00:42:01,320 --> 00:42:03,280
It needed fantasy and myth.

558
00:42:04,240 --> 00:42:05,880
Cupid meets Psyche,

559
00:42:05,880 --> 00:42:08,200
not boy meets girl.

560
00:42:11,200 --> 00:42:14,280
We hadn't really experienced
much outside education.

561
00:42:14,280 --> 00:42:18,360
So I suppose that's partly why we
wrote about...fantasy lyrics,

562
00:42:18,360 --> 00:42:23,080
different situations about life
rather than boy/girl things.

563
00:42:23,080 --> 00:42:26,080
I had come from a
public school background,

564
00:42:26,080 --> 00:42:27,400
very self-conscious.

565
00:42:27,400 --> 00:42:30,280
Could never have expressed that
in a song in those days.

566
00:42:30,280 --> 00:42:34,080
So it was much easier
to go back to Greek myths
and write things like that.

567
00:42:34,080 --> 00:42:39,480
So we plundered Ovid
and anybody else we could find.
We were all the same, really.

568
00:42:42,080 --> 00:42:45,280
There was an audience of
newly-educated university students

569
00:42:45,280 --> 00:42:47,360
who were crying out for something

570
00:42:47,360 --> 00:42:51,400
that they had read in science
fiction and they wanted a musical
version of that.

571
00:42:51,400 --> 00:42:55,720
And of course, there was
The Lord Of The Rings, and Mervyn
Peake and Gormenghast,

572
00:42:55,720 --> 00:42:58,400
and people wanted that
in their music.

573
00:43:02,800 --> 00:43:05,840
Ambitious music demanded
ambitious presentation.

574
00:43:08,920 --> 00:43:12,760
What began with Sgt Pepper
now became the glorious norm.

575
00:43:12,760 --> 00:43:17,480
Albums adorned with lyrics,
paintings, cut-outs,
pop-ups and pull-outs.

576
00:43:21,640 --> 00:43:26,480
The gatefold sleeve opened like a
window onto brave new worlds,

577
00:43:26,480 --> 00:43:30,200
and provided the perfect prop
on which to roll a joint.

578
00:43:33,000 --> 00:43:35,040
Yeah...

579
00:43:36,040 --> 00:43:38,760
I think the album cover,
the artwork, and a vinyl...

580
00:43:38,760 --> 00:43:42,360
when you bought that, it was a piece
you could hold, you could look at it,

581
00:43:42,360 --> 00:43:44,080
it was big, you know.

582
00:43:44,080 --> 00:43:47,960
When it suddenly went down
to the jewel case, to the CD...

583
00:43:47,960 --> 00:43:49,000
HE SIGHS

584
00:43:49,000 --> 00:43:53,320
You couldn't have the detail,
because it was too small.
I needed one for each eye.

585
00:43:53,320 --> 00:43:58,760
It's hard not to start sounding
like, you know, "In my day...
the gatefold sleeve..."

586
00:43:58,760 --> 00:44:00,960
but it's changed now, you know.

587
00:44:00,960 --> 00:44:05,640
Music is now...it's not something
that people hold, the article.

588
00:44:05,640 --> 00:44:09,440
It was a whole event
of getting an album.

589
00:44:09,440 --> 00:44:13,400
Getting your album home,
putting an album on,
reading the bits and pieces,

590
00:44:13,400 --> 00:44:16,920
learning a bit about it...
it was absolutely fantastic.

591
00:44:16,920 --> 00:44:20,840
And we lost that. And when we
lost that, we lost an awful lot.

592
00:44:22,840 --> 00:44:26,240
So, welcome back
to days of future past.

593
00:44:29,480 --> 00:44:31,240
This is the home of Roger Dean.

594
00:44:31,240 --> 00:44:36,800
The artist who most successfully
translated progressive rock's
soundscapes into landscapes.

595
00:44:39,960 --> 00:44:42,520
He gave Yes their
distinctive brand logo,

596
00:44:42,520 --> 00:44:46,800
and imagined worlds that
at the time still seemed like
beautiful possibilities.

597
00:44:50,960 --> 00:44:53,480
Whether you're designing
just a box of matches,

598
00:44:53,480 --> 00:44:56,960
you're predicting one tiny,
miniscule part of the future.

599
00:44:59,560 --> 00:45:03,080
I think what's terribly astonishing
and disappointing

600
00:45:03,080 --> 00:45:06,440
is how little the promise of the
future turned out.

601
00:45:06,440 --> 00:45:10,760
In the '60s, people walked
on the moon, in the '60s,
there was colour television.

602
00:45:10,760 --> 00:45:13,800
And no-one has gone
back to the moon.

603
00:45:13,800 --> 00:45:16,720
I think people would
have been shocked

604
00:45:16,720 --> 00:45:21,440
if they could see the year 2008
from a 1968 perspective,

605
00:45:21,440 --> 00:45:27,200
at how astonishingly little
the world had improved

606
00:45:27,200 --> 00:45:30,240
compared to our ambitions
and expectations.

607
00:45:30,240 --> 00:45:36,520
Had we planned it properly
in the '60s, this is how
it might have turned out!

608
00:45:41,920 --> 00:45:47,320
I try and find out what was
motivating them to make the music,

609
00:45:47,320 --> 00:45:51,040
and work on the same sort of ideas,
if that was possible.

610
00:45:51,040 --> 00:45:53,760
Wasn't always possible,
but sometimes it was.

611
00:45:53,760 --> 00:46:00,560
Sometimes there was a great
synergy between the ideas
that motivated the music-making

612
00:46:00,560 --> 00:46:03,600
and the ideas that
motivated the art.

613
00:46:03,600 --> 00:46:08,360
But it was not the music itself.
It was the ideas behind it.

614
00:46:08,360 --> 00:46:15,440
I was lucky that the images
and the music seemed to be an
absolute perfect fit sometimes,

615
00:46:15,440 --> 00:46:20,640
when in actual fact,
the process was beyond analysis.

616
00:46:23,120 --> 00:46:27,200
Yes recording sessions were
also moving beyond analysis.

617
00:46:29,920 --> 00:46:32,800
The hippy democracy
the band chose as a way of life

618
00:46:32,800 --> 00:46:35,360
made for difficulties
in the studio.

619
00:46:35,360 --> 00:46:37,960
Their fifth album,
Close To The Edge,

620
00:46:37,960 --> 00:46:40,120
took over three months to perfect.

621
00:46:41,120 --> 00:46:43,800
It took three months because
Simon & Garfunkel

622
00:46:43,800 --> 00:46:47,120
had done Bridge Over Troubled Water,
which took three months.

623
00:46:47,120 --> 00:46:48,640
We heard this and we thought,

624
00:46:48,640 --> 00:46:52,320
"By golly, our next record's
going to take three months
and a day if it kills us!"

625
00:46:52,320 --> 00:46:55,720
So of course, this was
the infantile way we behaved,

626
00:46:55,720 --> 00:46:58,000
we took three months and a day.

627
00:46:59,040 --> 00:47:03,240
We established a whole new plane
of length of how long we play.

628
00:47:03,240 --> 00:47:05,280
So we've got some musicians here,

629
00:47:05,280 --> 00:47:09,000
we've got a lot of writers
in the band, cos Bill wrote,
everybody wrote in the band.

630
00:47:09,000 --> 00:47:14,040
"Can I trade your idea for my idea?"
You've got five guys writing...

631
00:47:14,040 --> 00:47:15,800
Imagine five guys writing a book!

632
00:47:15,800 --> 00:47:20,160
Steve said, "I've got this silly
little line that I've had lying
around for ages,

633
00:47:20,160 --> 00:47:23,840
going, "Ding-ding-ding-doo,
de-doo, diddly-iddly-um-dum..."

634
00:47:23,840 --> 00:47:28,320
It was all horse-trading, muscle
power, strongest guy, thickest skin. 

635
00:47:28,320 --> 00:47:32,320
Chris said,
"I've got this...bass run."

636
00:47:32,320 --> 00:47:35,280
Diddly-iddly-um-dum-dum-dum-dum.

637
00:47:35,280 --> 00:47:39,360
And that was it, really.
And I went, "Anything else?"

638
00:47:39,360 --> 00:47:41,320
And he went, "No, that's it."

639
00:47:41,320 --> 00:47:43,440
Diddly-iddly-um-dum-dum-dum-dum.

640
00:47:43,440 --> 00:47:48,800
And when we got to, what turned out
to be for me, the high spot,
which was Close To The Edge,

641
00:47:48,800 --> 00:47:51,200
really, I don't know how
that record got made.

642
00:47:54,240 --> 00:47:57,960
Some days, we got into the rehearsal
rooms after, like, yesterday,

643
00:47:57,960 --> 00:48:02,840
we got in the next day and said,
"Does anybody remember how we went
from the last verse into that?"

644
00:48:02,840 --> 00:48:04,040
"No"!

645
00:48:04,040 --> 00:48:07,400
I said, "I want that bit on the end
of that, and I don't want to do it
in that key,

646
00:48:07,400 --> 00:48:10,600
"because it works nice with the way
I play it on guitar on that,"

647
00:48:10,600 --> 00:48:15,120
so they'd say, "We'll get a cup of
tea, Rick, you work out how we get
from there to there"!

648
00:48:15,120 --> 00:48:19,080
We couldn't do a song
in five minutes. It went
to ten minutes on the Yes album.

649
00:48:19,080 --> 00:48:24,440
And we got to Close To The Edge and
we thought, "This just isn't long
enough! This is like...a symphony!"

650
00:48:24,440 --> 00:48:28,320
# Down at the edge,
round by the corner

651
00:48:28,320 --> 00:48:33,360
# Not right away, not right away

652
00:48:33,360 --> 00:48:37,880
# Close to the edge,
down by the river

653
00:48:37,880 --> 00:48:38,960
# Not right away... #

654
00:48:38,960 --> 00:48:42,280
In those days there were two or
three albums that weren't so good,

655
00:48:42,280 --> 00:48:44,600
getting you towards the winner.

656
00:48:44,600 --> 00:48:48,680
The one that the thing existed for,
which was Close To The Edge.

657
00:48:48,680 --> 00:48:52,720
That's the moment you exist for
in a rock group, and it's terrific!

658
00:48:52,720 --> 00:48:57,040
And you think, "That's the cookie.
That's the one, right there!
Done deal! I'm gone!"

659
00:48:57,040 --> 00:48:58,080
I left then.

660
00:49:01,960 --> 00:49:07,680
Bruford defected to the less sunny,
less democratic regime of Robert
Fripp's all-new King Crimson.

661
00:49:12,080 --> 00:49:16,840
In 1972, this was akin to going over
the Berlin Wall into East Germany.

662
00:49:20,120 --> 00:49:23,520
No papers required,
just extreme chops.

663
00:49:24,480 --> 00:49:28,240
Everything you've heard
about King Crimson is true.
It's a terrifying place.

664
00:49:41,000 --> 00:49:43,720
Whatever you do before
you join King Crimson,

665
00:49:43,720 --> 00:49:46,520
would you please not do it
when you're in the band?

666
00:49:55,680 --> 00:49:59,600
You're required really
to develop a new style, if you can,

667
00:49:59,600 --> 00:50:01,800
specifically for that group.

668
00:50:01,800 --> 00:50:06,480
The implication being that you
would play that way in King Crimson,

669
00:50:06,480 --> 00:50:07,880
and King Crimson alone.

670
00:50:09,240 --> 00:50:11,440
Yes was an endless debate

671
00:50:11,440 --> 00:50:16,920
about whether it should be F-natural
in the bass with a G-sharp on top or
should it be the other way round?

672
00:50:16,920 --> 00:50:19,560
In King Crimson,
almost nothing was said.

673
00:50:19,560 --> 00:50:22,320
You're just supposed to know.

674
00:50:31,240 --> 00:50:32,880
Robert Fripp was a purist.

675
00:50:32,880 --> 00:50:38,160
Unlike the Jimmy Pages of rock,
he didn't brandish the guitar
like a phallus.

676
00:50:38,160 --> 00:50:42,960
His was more like a probe.
An instrument of science, not sex.

677
00:50:42,960 --> 00:50:45,200
And to use it properly,

678
00:50:45,200 --> 00:50:47,320
you had to sit down.

679
00:50:48,280 --> 00:50:50,920
The very first few gigs we did,

680
00:50:50,920 --> 00:50:54,000
Robert didn't sit down.
And he was very unhappy,

681
00:50:54,000 --> 00:50:57,880
because in rehearsals,
he'd have his stool and his thing,

682
00:50:57,880 --> 00:50:59,440
that was how he'd been taught,

683
00:50:59,440 --> 00:51:03,280
and Robert's very strict about,
"That's how it should be,"

684
00:51:03,280 --> 00:51:08,360
and eventually we'd had to give him
a stool, because he was sulking.

685
00:51:08,360 --> 00:51:11,200
And he was so happy on that stool.

686
00:51:11,200 --> 00:51:13,680
Robert's not a gyrator, is he?

687
00:51:13,680 --> 00:51:16,920
He may be many things,
but he's not a gyrator.

688
00:51:16,920 --> 00:51:22,360
And Robert's idea of sexy
is to smile with his glasses and...

689
00:51:25,400 --> 00:51:26,880
Fripp wasn't alone.

690
00:51:26,880 --> 00:51:30,360
Sexual energy, the very lifeblood
of rock'n'roll,

691
00:51:30,360 --> 00:51:33,480
was conspicuously absent
from the prog rock stage.

692
00:51:34,440 --> 00:51:38,720
Bands like Egg had enough
on their hands just playing
the complicated arpeggios.

693
00:51:40,400 --> 00:51:42,960
Well, we weren't very sexy,

694
00:51:42,960 --> 00:51:48,600
and we regarded overt sexual display
as extremely uncool.

695
00:51:48,600 --> 00:51:54,480
It was something...rather
humiliating to have to admit to

696
00:51:54,480 --> 00:51:57,480
that we were actually trying
to get into girls' knickers.

697
00:51:57,480 --> 00:52:00,840
We wouldn't admit to it. It was very
duplicitous, very dishonest.

698
00:52:00,840 --> 00:52:03,880
But there you are. We certainly
wouldn't do it on stage.

699
00:52:03,880 --> 00:52:08,200
I would have been
completely unconvincing!

700
00:52:08,200 --> 00:52:14,920
Imagine me doing pelvic thrusts on
stage while playing in 25/8. No.

701
00:52:19,240 --> 00:52:23,200
No sex on stage,
and no sex backstage.

702
00:52:23,200 --> 00:52:26,720
All the groupies were at
Led Zeppelin concerts,

703
00:52:26,720 --> 00:52:29,000
not waiting for
progressive rock maestros

704
00:52:29,000 --> 00:52:31,280
to demonstrate the delights
of the diminished chord.

705
00:52:31,280 --> 00:52:36,000
The rock bands in America had
groupies. We didn't really have any.

706
00:52:36,000 --> 00:52:38,760
The pop stars had groupies.
We wanted groupies too.

707
00:52:38,760 --> 00:52:44,360
We never had any Egg groupies. We
never had any girl groupies at all.

708
00:52:45,280 --> 00:52:50,520
No girls ever came to the side
of the stage after a gig.

709
00:52:51,520 --> 00:52:53,960
Sad, isn't it?

710
00:52:53,960 --> 00:52:57,960
When we went to America,
we had lots of groupies.

711
00:52:57,960 --> 00:52:59,960
By the dozens!

712
00:52:59,960 --> 00:53:02,280
Because they loved our English
accents,

713
00:53:02,280 --> 00:53:06,560
and the fact we weren't
American rock stars
and we were something different,

714
00:53:06,560 --> 00:53:08,080
and exotic to them.

715
00:53:10,280 --> 00:53:13,920
IN AMERICAN ACCENT:
"We love your accent! Y'all
wanna take a shower with us?"

716
00:53:13,920 --> 00:53:16,560
IN POSH ENGLISH ACCENT:
"What, both of you? Gosh!"

717
00:53:19,200 --> 00:53:22,320
Progressive rock audiences
certainly weren't screamers.

718
00:53:22,320 --> 00:53:24,240
They were an infinitely patient lot.

719
00:53:24,240 --> 00:53:27,400
Too much yang, not enough yin.

720
00:53:28,360 --> 00:53:33,840
What we started to realise...
our audience were nice
and reserved people, really. 

721
00:53:33,840 --> 00:53:38,720
You know, fishing hats, greatcoats,
bunch of albums under the arm...

722
00:53:38,720 --> 00:53:41,960
Public school sixth-formers really,
in greatcoats!

723
00:53:43,160 --> 00:53:45,280
Ugly-looking audience, you know.

724
00:53:45,280 --> 00:53:48,960
Pipe and glasses, yeah.
Beards and stuff, we used to have.

725
00:53:48,960 --> 00:53:51,880
It was very male-orientated.

726
00:53:51,880 --> 00:53:56,040
I would say, in those days,
95% of our audience were male.

727
00:53:56,040 --> 00:53:58,120
We never used to have
females come and see us.

728
00:53:58,120 --> 00:54:01,480
Not many girls, no. All chaps.

729
00:54:01,480 --> 00:54:03,440
Lots of guys. No girls.

730
00:54:03,440 --> 00:54:05,680
What is it, some kind of homo band?
What is it?

731
00:54:05,680 --> 00:54:12,120
It was the odd woman,
mostly dragged along,
who used to just look bewildered.

732
00:54:15,120 --> 00:54:19,560
If the sexiness of '60s
psychedelia was absent
from the prog performance,

733
00:54:19,560 --> 00:54:22,960
theatricality, used so effectively
by Arthur Brown,

734
00:54:22,960 --> 00:54:26,560
was becoming an essential part
of any Genesis show.

735
00:54:29,320 --> 00:54:30,720
Flower... 

736
00:54:33,680 --> 00:54:35,400
# If you go down to Willow Farm

737
00:54:35,400 --> 00:54:39,920
# To look for butterflies,
flutterbys, gutterflies... #

738
00:54:39,920 --> 00:54:45,400
Initially it started off because the
PA systems we had...only the voice
went through the PA in those days...

739
00:54:45,400 --> 00:54:48,120
were pretty bad,
so you could never hear any lyrics.

740
00:54:48,120 --> 00:54:51,200
Quite complex lyrics, and the lyrics
were quite important.

741
00:54:51,200 --> 00:54:55,040
So Peter felt he had to act
them out a bit, so he started
acting them out on stage.

742
00:54:55,040 --> 00:54:57,320
MUSIC: "Supper's Ready"
by Genesis

743
00:55:06,280 --> 00:55:09,480
The prog rock movement really
stimulated the visual aspect

744
00:55:09,480 --> 00:55:12,080
as well as the playing
and the conceptual side.

745
00:55:12,080 --> 00:55:15,840
The visual thing was in.
Theatre was important.

746
00:55:15,840 --> 00:55:20,080
It started with that psychedelia
period, Arthur Brown, wherever,

747
00:55:20,080 --> 00:55:22,480
and went on and got developed.

748
00:55:22,480 --> 00:55:25,000
MUSIC: "Brandenburger"
by The Nice

749
00:55:29,040 --> 00:55:33,120
Progressive rock now had such
a loyal male record-buying fan base,

750
00:55:33,120 --> 00:55:37,040
that both the major and independent
labels happily signed new bands,

751
00:55:37,040 --> 00:55:40,160
and let them record
whatever they wanted.

752
00:55:40,160 --> 00:55:43,160
They weren't even expected
to make money at first.

753
00:55:43,160 --> 00:55:47,200
This was the age of company
investment and artistic freedom.

754
00:55:53,200 --> 00:55:56,800
Egg recorded all their albums
with zero interference.

755
00:55:56,800 --> 00:55:59,880
MUSIC: "Fugue In D Minor"
by Egg

756
00:55:59,880 --> 00:56:03,800
They were interested in us,

757
00:56:03,800 --> 00:56:06,800
because I think they thought we
sounded a bit like The Nice,

758
00:56:06,800 --> 00:56:09,000
who had already had a chart hit,

759
00:56:09,000 --> 00:56:12,960
and they thought, "Maybe these
guys can make us some money."

760
00:56:12,960 --> 00:56:17,080
So they signed us up, but we
had no input from them at all.

761
00:56:17,080 --> 00:56:21,960
I don't think we spoke to any
Decca executive ever.

762
00:56:21,960 --> 00:56:25,080
I don't know why we got
away with it, to be honest.

763
00:56:25,080 --> 00:56:27,640
That was the style then.

764
00:56:27,640 --> 00:56:31,960
For some reason, we set the
precedent that we'd make an album,

765
00:56:31,960 --> 00:56:35,040
when it's finished, we'll hand
it over to the record label.

766
00:56:35,040 --> 00:56:37,280
I mean, how nice is that?
This is the album.

767
00:56:37,280 --> 00:56:42,120
We were still allowed to do
what we wanted to do by the
record labels and management.

768
00:56:42,120 --> 00:56:45,000
We were still allowed
to come up with ridiculous ideas,

769
00:56:45,000 --> 00:56:48,920
and then somehow find people
who could make it happen.

770
00:56:48,920 --> 00:56:53,120
Until groups like Yes,
a song was taken and played.

771
00:56:53,120 --> 00:56:57,080
A guitar player played the chords,
a bass player played the roots,

772
00:56:57,080 --> 00:57:00,040
a drummer played the rhythm
and the singer sung the song.

773
00:57:00,040 --> 00:57:02,640
Yes said, "No, no!
We don't want to do it like that.

774
00:57:02,640 --> 00:57:07,080
"We want to have a theme to start.
We want to have a riff
behind the song.

775
00:57:07,080 --> 00:57:12,520
"We want to take out the chords of
that section, cos everybody's heard
those before. Stick some lines in."

776
00:57:12,520 --> 00:57:16,080
More like an orchestral approach.
Violins do this,
the bassoons do that.

777
00:57:16,080 --> 00:57:22,080
It's a thinking man's music,
as opposed to a...
just from the gut music.

778
00:57:22,080 --> 00:57:24,160
Rock was just from the gut, I think.

779
00:57:24,160 --> 00:57:27,800
Everyone was looking eagerly to see

780
00:57:27,800 --> 00:57:32,160
what was new, what was gonna happen.
That was definitely a heady time,

781
00:57:32,160 --> 00:57:37,760
for sure, and one that I rather
suspect we won't see again.

782
00:57:37,760 --> 00:57:43,560
'72, '73, we were kind of
in that prog rock camp.

783
00:57:43,560 --> 00:57:46,840
Albeit we were the band
that were making a joke of it.

784
00:57:46,840 --> 00:57:51,920
We were doing a bit
of a send-up of prog rock
for a couple of albums back then.

785
00:57:57,160 --> 00:58:01,560
Despite Jethro Tull's
determination to stay outside
the prog rock establishment,

786
00:58:01,560 --> 00:58:05,920
their fourth album, Aqualung,
seemed suspiciously profound.

787
00:58:10,000 --> 00:58:16,120
It was not a concept album.
People just ignored it.
"It's a concept album!

788
00:58:16,120 --> 00:58:18,840
"It's got a picture
about God and stuff,

789
00:58:18,840 --> 00:58:21,800
"and tramps and things...
and...concept, yeah!"

790
00:58:21,800 --> 00:58:26,480
So in the wake of that, I just
thought, "Let's give them the mother
of all concept albums."

791
00:58:26,480 --> 00:58:29,800
Have a bit of fun with the whole
thing, and do a spoof concept album

792
00:58:29,800 --> 00:58:33,240
and pretend it was written by a
12-year-old precocious schoolboy,

793
00:58:33,240 --> 00:58:37,480
and do the ridiculously
convoluted 16-page cover,

794
00:58:37,480 --> 00:58:40,800
which actually took longer to do
than record the album, I think.

795
00:58:40,800 --> 00:58:46,240
So it was a bit of a send-up.
It was a pre-Spinal Tap moment.

796
00:58:47,480 --> 00:58:51,960
# But your new shoes
are worn at the heels

797
00:58:51,960 --> 00:58:56,640
# And your suntan does rapidly peel

798
00:58:56,640 --> 00:59:02,640
# And your wise men
don't know how it feels

799
00:59:04,240 --> 00:59:06,880
# To be thick as a brick. #

800
00:59:06,880 --> 00:59:11,400
Ironically, the mischievous prank
that was 1972's Thick As A Brick

801
00:59:11,400 --> 00:59:14,840
is now hailed as the ultimate
progressive rock album.

802
00:59:17,680 --> 00:59:20,160
MUSIC: "Tubular Bells"
by Mike Oldfield

803
00:59:20,160 --> 00:59:23,120
That same year,
multi-instrumentalist Mike Oldfield

804
00:59:23,120 --> 00:59:26,080
was composing his
progressive music masterwork -

805
00:59:26,080 --> 00:59:29,440
the near-scientific experiment
that was Tubular Bells,

806
00:59:29,440 --> 00:59:32,640
for which he played all the 26
featured instruments himself.

807
00:59:36,360 --> 00:59:41,080
A nightmare for me to explain
to another musician
how it should be played.

808
00:59:41,880 --> 00:59:45,720
I can't tell them, "Play it like
I would play it," cos they can't!

809
00:59:47,080 --> 00:59:50,160
I made my own notes that
only I could understand,

810
00:59:50,160 --> 00:59:51,520
so I did sort of map it out.

811
00:59:51,520 --> 00:59:57,840
It's a kind of piece of classical
music, but with the instruments
that I could play.

812
01:00:00,840 --> 01:00:02,640
We were working in Abbey Road,

813
01:00:02,640 --> 01:00:06,400
and Paul McCartney was in the big
studio next door, number one,

814
01:00:06,400 --> 01:00:09,720
and somebody told me
he was playing everything.

815
01:00:09,720 --> 01:00:13,720
And I understood from the
technology we were using

816
01:00:13,720 --> 01:00:17,200
that you could overdub one
instrument while listening
to the rest,

817
01:00:17,200 --> 01:00:21,240
and I said, "Oh! He's probably
doing it all like that!
I can do that with my one!"

818
01:00:25,400 --> 01:00:28,080
The album launched Virgin Records,

819
01:00:28,080 --> 01:00:31,280
and was licensed in America with a
help of an accompanying film

820
01:00:31,280 --> 01:00:33,880
put together for the BBC's
Old Grey Whistle Test.

821
01:00:33,880 --> 01:00:37,800
It went on to sell 50 million
copies worldwide.

822
01:00:39,280 --> 01:00:43,440
Vintage footage, probably
black-and-white era,

823
01:00:43,440 --> 01:00:45,640
late '20s, early '30s, of skiers.

824
01:00:48,360 --> 01:00:52,800
Pull out a reel of film, and, "Er,
let's have a look at this one...

825
01:00:52,800 --> 01:00:54,760
"Ah, this one might fit, yeah."

826
01:00:54,760 --> 01:00:58,920
With the snow going up, the powder...

827
01:00:58,920 --> 01:01:01,640
Dun-din-dun-din-dun-din-dun-din...

828
01:01:01,640 --> 01:01:04,440
It was just beautiful.

829
01:01:06,560 --> 01:01:10,680
That was incredible. Mike Oldfield,
and just a part of Tubular Bells.

830
01:01:16,240 --> 01:01:21,680
But commercial success
and an underground reputation
was still a contradiction.

831
01:01:21,680 --> 01:01:26,280
A shy Oldfield couldn't
deal with the attention,
and took to the hills.

832
01:01:26,280 --> 01:01:32,120
The press, in pursuit of Britain's
biggest international progressive
music success story,

833
01:01:32,120 --> 01:01:33,920
were denied its star.

834
01:01:35,160 --> 01:01:37,280
I left the human civilisation,

835
01:01:37,280 --> 01:01:42,320
and lived with my sheep on
a little house on the Welsh border.

836
01:01:43,320 --> 01:01:48,400
Major psychological problems,
nervous breakdown kind of things,

837
01:01:48,400 --> 01:01:50,800
which wasn't very nice.

838
01:01:50,800 --> 01:01:53,040
HE COUGHS

839
01:01:53,040 --> 01:01:56,280
Upset a hell of a lot of people.

840
01:01:56,280 --> 01:01:59,640
There was one journalist
who was furious with me,

841
01:01:59,640 --> 01:02:01,960
cos I wouldn't do an interview.

842
01:02:01,960 --> 01:02:04,360
I was already so successful,

843
01:02:04,360 --> 01:02:11,160
what difference would it have made
if I had done 500 interviews
and toured the world?

844
01:02:11,160 --> 01:02:15,680
So I thought, "What are you all
bothering me about? Leave me alone!"

845
01:02:31,120 --> 01:02:36,160
If Oldfield rejected mainstream
acceptance of his rarefied
musical experiment,

846
01:02:36,160 --> 01:02:42,240
other musicians embraced the success
that British progressive rock was
now achieving around the world.

847
01:02:42,240 --> 01:02:44,680
Most significantly, in the States.

848
01:02:50,280 --> 01:02:55,000
The Americans loved progressive rock.
It was evidence of skill.

849
01:02:55,000 --> 01:02:58,720
Now, Americans, funnily enough,
are a little unlike us,

850
01:02:58,720 --> 01:03:05,920
in the sense that they are not
immediately embarrassed by
an overt display of capability.

851
01:03:05,920 --> 01:03:10,000
The Americans...fantastic
at doing that. Brits, crap.

852
01:03:10,000 --> 01:03:11,400
The Brits come to a solo...

853
01:03:11,400 --> 01:03:15,560
"I can actually play a lot better
than this but I won't, cos I don't
want to show off,

854
01:03:15,560 --> 01:03:17,360
"so I'll just stand in the corner."

855
01:03:17,360 --> 01:03:20,080
Suddenly, we're doing...
"Hey! Cop a load of this!"

856
01:03:25,640 --> 01:03:30,640
Now, let's bang the drum for
somebody who for three years running
has been voted Drummer Of The Year.

857
01:03:30,640 --> 01:03:34,840
He's just taken delivery of a new
kit, and here he is to demonstrate
it - Carl Palmer.

858
01:03:34,840 --> 01:03:38,320
It was a stainless steel drum kit.
I was sponsored by British Steel.

859
01:03:38,320 --> 01:03:42,400
Eight different engineering
companies were involved in the
making of this kit,

860
01:03:42,400 --> 01:03:46,320
which is the very first
electronic stainless steel
drum kit in existence.

861
01:03:46,320 --> 01:03:48,280
'I decided to get a jeweller,'

862
01:03:48,280 --> 01:03:51,440
using a dentist's drill,
a chap called Paul Raven,

863
01:03:51,440 --> 01:03:54,720
to do these hunting scenes
on each of the drums.

864
01:03:54,720 --> 01:03:57,760
I'd seen them on Purdey rifles,
and I was quite impressed.

865
01:03:57,760 --> 01:04:01,240
There's a beautiful squirrel,
nibbling away there,

866
01:04:01,240 --> 01:04:03,400
there's a fox,
really nice, they are,

867
01:04:03,400 --> 01:04:06,560
and there's even somewhere
a hedgehog. There it is.

868
01:04:06,560 --> 01:04:10,960
And they said, "Did you want
the shells a quarter-inch thick
or half-an-inch thick?"

869
01:04:10,960 --> 01:04:14,200
I said, "What's the difference in
price?" They said, "The same."

870
01:04:14,200 --> 01:04:16,840
"I'll have half-an-inch."
It's the '70s, excess,

871
01:04:16,840 --> 01:04:19,080
not thinking it'll take two guys to
lift the bass drum!

872
01:04:19,080 --> 01:04:20,760
I know it weighs a couple of tons?

873
01:04:20,760 --> 01:04:24,120
Two-and-a-half. And you'll be taking
this around the world on tour?

874
01:04:24,120 --> 01:04:27,080
Yes. How do you fly with it?
Er, very well, thank you!

875
01:04:27,080 --> 01:04:29,360
'The stage had to be reinforced.'

876
01:04:29,360 --> 01:04:32,720
We didn't think of transport costs,
we didn't think of weight.

877
01:04:32,720 --> 01:04:38,080
'It went on from there. We decided
to add the electronic drums, the
first electronic drums at the time.'

878
01:04:38,080 --> 01:04:40,920
Everyone thought it was keyboards.
They were drums.

879
01:04:40,920 --> 01:04:43,080
DRUM BEAT TRIGGERS
ELECTRONIC ARPEGGIO

880
01:04:46,920 --> 01:04:48,440
SECOND DRUM BEAT STOPS IT

881
01:04:48,440 --> 01:04:52,000
Have it! It's the '70s, innit?
The bigger, the better!

882
01:04:55,400 --> 01:04:57,640
If there was something
that was available

883
01:04:57,640 --> 01:05:01,040
from a technology point of view
that would enhance the sound
of the band,

884
01:05:01,040 --> 01:05:03,520
we wanted it yesterday.

885
01:05:03,520 --> 01:05:06,640
HE RINGS BELL WITH
STRING IN HIS MOUTH

886
01:05:13,840 --> 01:05:16,480
MUSIC: "The Ancient
(Giants Under The Sun)" by Yes

887
01:05:18,640 --> 01:05:21,520
Progressive rock
was now colonising the outer limits.

888
01:05:21,520 --> 01:05:26,480
In 1973, Yes had set sail
on Topographic Oceans,

889
01:05:26,480 --> 01:05:28,960
a double album comprised
of only four tracks,

890
01:05:28,960 --> 01:05:32,600
each packed with unusual sounds,
key changes and time signatures.

891
01:05:35,000 --> 01:05:38,200
There was this constant quest. Could
you hit this and it sounded good?

892
01:05:38,200 --> 01:05:39,240
"Doing!"

893
01:05:42,080 --> 01:05:46,560
We got Slinkies and put mics
in them and threw them downstairs
and recorded them

894
01:05:46,560 --> 01:05:50,400
to hear what they were like.
And you put a lot of reverb on them,
it's great.

895
01:05:50,400 --> 01:05:54,200
And it was!
"Pchkowwhoossssh-bthwooooom"! Yeah!

896
01:05:56,560 --> 01:05:59,960
It was that kind of insanity.
It was a nice kind of insanity.

897
01:05:59,960 --> 01:06:01,360
It was a musical insanity.

898
01:06:15,080 --> 01:06:17,960
We were...totally self-indulgent.

899
01:06:22,720 --> 01:06:26,280
But it was serious music. There was
something more serious about Yes

900
01:06:26,280 --> 01:06:28,080
than some other bands of that time.

901
01:06:28,080 --> 01:06:29,960
We took ourselves a little serious!

902
01:06:29,960 --> 01:06:36,360
And our quest was to make something
we thought was kind of grand,

903
01:06:36,360 --> 01:06:39,920
not grandiose, but had
a kind of grandeur about it.

904
01:06:39,920 --> 01:06:43,360
It had scale, but it had drama.

905
01:06:44,920 --> 01:06:49,480
But this quest was even
more arduous than the Beatles'
Magical Mystery Tour.

906
01:06:49,480 --> 01:06:53,040
Audiences were showing
signs of fatigue.

907
01:06:59,080 --> 01:07:00,720
Robert had stopped King Crimson,

908
01:07:00,720 --> 01:07:03,600
Robert Fripp had stopped King Crimson
around that time.

909
01:07:03,600 --> 01:07:04,960
Very prescient. Very smart.

910
01:07:06,000 --> 01:07:10,240
I mean, I'd only just settled down.
Just got my sticks out.
Just settling in.

911
01:07:11,520 --> 01:07:14,640
But that's a bit like...
That's life in King Crimson.

912
01:07:14,640 --> 01:07:19,680
It broke up at least three times,
in my certain knowledge.

913
01:07:19,680 --> 01:07:22,960
Probably several other times
while I was in it!

914
01:07:25,120 --> 01:07:30,800
If Fripp sensed an artistic
cul-de-sac ahead when he put the
brakes on King Crimson in 1974,

915
01:07:30,800 --> 01:07:32,520
others put their foot down

916
01:07:32,520 --> 01:07:38,200
and drove headlong into fame,
fortune and near-fatal solos.

917
01:07:40,680 --> 01:07:44,200
These bands were...
shockingly, to my mind...

918
01:07:44,200 --> 01:07:47,080
going on a transition away from

919
01:07:47,080 --> 01:07:53,680
the kind of honesty and real
experimentalism we were involved in,

920
01:07:53,680 --> 01:08:00,520
into an un-self-consciously
showbizzy way of doing things.

921
01:08:02,640 --> 01:08:06,440
In the Genesis camp, Peter Gabriel's
taste for the theatrical

922
01:08:06,440 --> 01:08:09,080
threatened to swamp
the subtlety of the music.

923
01:08:09,080 --> 01:08:12,240
But enthusiastic audiences
and an attentive press

924
01:08:12,240 --> 01:08:15,600
pushed the band closer
to commercial success.

925
01:08:15,600 --> 01:08:19,240
Americans, particularly,
pushed past the rest of us

926
01:08:19,240 --> 01:08:21,240
to say "Great show, Pete!
Great show!

927
01:08:21,240 --> 01:08:24,440
"You were great tonight!"
And I just got fed up with it.

928
01:08:25,440 --> 01:08:29,600
So I made my feelings
known about that.

929
01:08:33,000 --> 01:08:37,880
It did irritate us a bit that he got
all the attention, but we kind of
knew that in the back of our minds.

930
01:08:37,880 --> 01:08:40,440
We knew it gave us
incredible publicity as well.

931
01:08:40,440 --> 01:08:42,440
So we weren't too sad
about that side of it.

932
01:08:42,440 --> 01:08:46,400
I didn't have a problem.
Maybe once during
The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway.

933
01:08:46,400 --> 01:08:50,920
A couple of costumes went too far,
you couldn't sing through them.

934
01:08:50,920 --> 01:08:52,800
But I always liked the visuals.

935
01:08:53,800 --> 01:08:55,480
It was all part of what we did,

936
01:08:55,480 --> 01:08:57,360
and nobody else was really doing it.

937
01:08:57,360 --> 01:09:01,120
# Welcome back, my friends,
To the show that never ends

938
01:09:01,120 --> 01:09:05,800
# We're so glad you could attend,
Come inside, come inside... #

939
01:09:05,800 --> 01:09:08,920
ELP were busy establishing
the power of British prog,

940
01:09:08,920 --> 01:09:12,840
conquering the four corners
of the globe with tours
built on showmanship.

941
01:09:12,840 --> 01:09:18,160
Technical extravaganzas
light years away from
underground clubs and hippy ideal.

942
01:09:20,240 --> 01:09:24,720
# Rest assured,
you'll get your money's worth... #

943
01:09:24,720 --> 01:09:29,440
You have to say that by '75, '76,

944
01:09:29,440 --> 01:09:33,440
it all got over-indulgent.
It just all did.

945
01:09:33,440 --> 01:09:35,560
This is the Hilton, is it?

946
01:09:35,560 --> 01:09:39,680
Conrad, Conrad. If you're
looking in, I've got one soft one,
and one hard one.

947
01:09:39,680 --> 01:09:41,880
What use is that?
What's all that about?

948
01:09:41,880 --> 01:09:44,920
I remember doing some filming
with ELP.

949
01:09:44,920 --> 01:09:50,280
They had three 40-foot trucks.

950
01:09:50,280 --> 01:09:53,920
There was this moving
ELP thing across...

951
01:10:00,360 --> 01:10:03,120
It just seemed to me a betrayal.

952
01:10:03,120 --> 01:10:05,880
How could these people,
who were my heroes...

953
01:10:05,880 --> 01:10:07,840
how could Keith Emerson do that?

954
01:10:15,920 --> 01:10:22,720
There was no finesse, to my mind,
or sophistication or sensitivity
about what they were doing at all.

955
01:10:22,720 --> 01:10:24,080
It was hysterical.

956
01:10:25,560 --> 01:10:30,400
This whole stadium thing, with Yes
coming out of big petals that opened,

957
01:10:30,400 --> 01:10:35,360
and stage design...there'd almost
begun now...a tipping point

958
01:10:35,360 --> 01:10:38,600
where the presentation,
the stage design and everything else

959
01:10:38,600 --> 01:10:42,280
was almost taking over from the music
in terms of importance.

960
01:10:42,280 --> 01:10:44,160
They were all out-doing each other.

961
01:10:46,080 --> 01:10:49,480
"We think that progressive rock,
the things you do,

962
01:10:49,480 --> 01:10:51,840
"is overblown, it's pretentious,

963
01:10:51,840 --> 01:10:54,600
"completely over-the-top
and thoroughly pompous.

964
01:10:54,600 --> 01:10:55,920
"What do you say to that?"

965
01:10:57,080 --> 01:10:58,880
Yeah, you're about right, really!

966
01:10:58,880 --> 01:11:00,200
Then...

967
01:11:00,200 --> 01:11:04,800
some people came along who thought,
"We can make this sexy,"

968
01:11:04,800 --> 01:11:06,080
and you've got Queen...

969
01:11:06,080 --> 01:11:07,480
# Mama mia, mama mia... #

970
01:11:07,480 --> 01:11:12,040
..who had a lot of prog elements but
managed to get back to having tunes,

971
01:11:12,040 --> 01:11:16,440
and just devastating
emotional climaxes

972
01:11:16,440 --> 01:11:19,080
instead of intellectual doodlings.

973
01:11:19,080 --> 01:11:21,080
MUSIC: "Bohemian Rhapsody"
by Queen

974
01:11:28,240 --> 01:11:32,320
When Peter Gabriel left Genesis
in 1975 to go solo,

975
01:11:32,320 --> 01:11:34,480
grammar school interloper
Phil Collins

976
01:11:34,480 --> 01:11:37,600
became the front man
for the Charterhouse boys.

977
01:11:37,600 --> 01:11:43,800
A new Genesis became even more
successful, with Trick Of The Tail,

978
01:11:43,800 --> 01:11:48,680
an album that seemed to sniff
an approaching storm in its
return to simpler songs.

979
01:11:48,680 --> 01:11:53,400
# "Am I wrong to believe
in the city of gold

980
01:11:53,400 --> 01:11:57,200
# "That lies in the
deep distance?" he cried

981
01:11:57,200 --> 01:12:00,680
# And wept as they
led him away to a cage

982
01:12:00,680 --> 01:12:04,760
# Beast that can talk
read the sign... #

983
01:12:04,760 --> 01:12:09,120
Some of the things became
very simplified in some people's...

984
01:12:09,120 --> 01:12:12,680
or shortened, or "commercialised"
is the dirty word.

985
01:12:12,680 --> 01:12:17,920
They think that was my fault. I won't
take the glory or blame for that.

986
01:12:17,920 --> 01:12:23,360
There are certain songs
that people always put down,
"That's a Phil song." Phh!

987
01:12:23,360 --> 01:12:29,080
After Peter left we were kind of
conscious that do you carry on
and do what you've always done,

988
01:12:29,080 --> 01:12:32,040
these long, half-hour pieces
or concept albums?

989
01:12:32,040 --> 01:12:37,240
You think maybe you've done that,
you know, and you move on a bit.

990
01:12:37,240 --> 01:12:39,680
MELLOW ROCK MUSIC PLAYS

991
01:12:45,960 --> 01:12:49,720
What's this song called?
It's not a song, Stubbs.

992
01:12:49,720 --> 01:12:52,640
It's the first movement
of a rock symphony -

993
01:12:52,640 --> 01:12:54,840
Apotheosis Of The Necromancer.

994
01:12:54,840 --> 01:12:57,480
That's a dead cert
for Top Of The Pops(!)

995
01:12:57,480 --> 01:13:03,320
Rick Wakeman may be your God,
but let me tell you something -
concept albums are out.

996
01:13:03,320 --> 01:13:07,440
There was a scene in The Rotters'
Club where the school band

997
01:13:07,440 --> 01:13:10,600
morphs from being a progressive band
to a punk band in mid-song.

998
01:13:10,600 --> 01:13:12,720
MELLOW ROCK MUSIC PLAYS

999
01:13:12,720 --> 01:13:15,760
Bollocks to this
for a game of soldiers.

1000
01:13:17,040 --> 01:13:19,080
HE CHANGES HIS DRUMMING STYLE

1001
01:13:19,080 --> 01:13:25,240
That was meant to be a sort of
comic caricature of what
actually happened in '76, '77.

1002
01:13:27,400 --> 01:13:30,440
# Anarchy in the UK

1003
01:13:30,440 --> 01:13:33,120
# Is this the UDA? #

1004
01:13:33,120 --> 01:13:37,360
Punk stumbled on a time tunnel back
to pre-Sergeant Pepper days

1005
01:13:37,360 --> 01:13:41,280
and returned armed with only three
chords and angry as hell.

1006
01:13:41,280 --> 01:13:43,160
# Or just

1007
01:13:43,160 --> 01:13:46,600
# Another

1008
01:13:47,600 --> 01:13:50,720
# Country... #

1009
01:13:50,720 --> 01:13:52,880
It was a big explosion

1010
01:13:52,880 --> 01:13:54,920
of resentment

1011
01:13:54,920 --> 01:13:57,880
against the...

1012
01:13:58,880 --> 01:14:00,960
..highbrows.

1013
01:14:02,320 --> 01:14:04,360
What they were saying was,

1014
01:14:04,360 --> 01:14:10,200
"This glam rock and progressive rock
is not communicating to me...

1015
01:14:11,200 --> 01:14:14,040
"..and I feel marginalised."

1016
01:14:16,080 --> 01:14:19,000
I didn't think it was us
they were talking about.

1017
01:14:20,600 --> 01:14:25,480
OK, let's lose the guys that go...
HE IMITATES A PRECIOUS MELODY

1018
01:14:25,480 --> 01:14:27,920
Let's get rid of that!

1019
01:14:31,800 --> 01:14:35,560
What I didn't like was
the great hate that those people

1020
01:14:35,560 --> 01:14:38,520
pretended to have
for the establishment

1021
01:14:38,520 --> 01:14:41,160
of rock bands
at that particular point.

1022
01:14:41,160 --> 01:14:43,680
Anybody that played,
like, you know,

1023
01:14:43,680 --> 01:14:48,600
something a bit more complex or a bit
interesting, that was out the window.

1024
01:14:48,600 --> 01:14:51,080
MUSIC: "Teenage Kicks"
by The Undertones

1025
01:14:51,080 --> 01:14:54,280
On one hand I liked it
because it was trashing things,

1026
01:14:54,280 --> 01:14:57,800
but on the other hand, I didn't
because it was a return to infancy.

1027
01:14:57,800 --> 01:15:03,840
There's this permanent tension in
rock music between the three chords
and the truth merchants -

1028
01:15:03,840 --> 01:15:06,000
you know, four-four
and three chords -

1029
01:15:06,000 --> 01:15:08,800
and the other people, like me,

1030
01:15:08,800 --> 01:15:12,120
who say, "What if we add a fourth
chord and put it in five-four?"

1031
01:15:12,120 --> 01:15:17,480
There's always people like me
messing up what these people
think is pop music.

1032
01:15:19,280 --> 01:15:25,680
A lot of pretty good bands came out
of punk, but they were excellent
writers and musicians,

1033
01:15:25,680 --> 01:15:30,920
but that wasn't what punk was about.
Punk was all about NOT being musical.

1034
01:15:30,920 --> 01:15:35,480
The British Isles was the only
country that fell for it.

1035
01:15:35,480 --> 01:15:39,200
They didn't manage
to do it anywhere else.

1036
01:15:40,680 --> 01:15:46,680
One of the things proper musicians
objected to with punk was that
they were always out of tune.

1037
01:15:46,680 --> 01:15:50,200
If you listen to Schoenberg
and Cecil Taylor,

1038
01:15:50,200 --> 01:15:55,040
there's no such thing as out of tune.
It's just another bunch of notes.

1039
01:15:55,040 --> 01:16:01,040
If you're going to play the same
three chords, instead of learning
all kind of fancy ones,

1040
01:16:01,040 --> 01:16:05,200
why not have them play
the guitar out of tune? That'll
give you something different.

1041
01:16:05,200 --> 01:16:10,360
That was a very lovely, home-made
solution to harmonic inventiveness.

1042
01:16:10,360 --> 01:16:15,800
Just don't tune up. Don't sing
in tune. How far out can you get?

1043
01:16:15,800 --> 01:16:18,400
The notes between the notes,
we're hitting them.

1044
01:16:18,400 --> 01:16:20,440
SHE PLAYS BOOGIE-WOOGIE

1045
01:16:22,760 --> 01:16:29,760
The next generation had arrived,
determined to overthrow Daddy
in the Oedipal battle for supremacy.

1046
01:16:31,400 --> 01:16:34,880
Only this time,
Daddy was a prog rocker.

1047
01:16:34,880 --> 01:16:41,640
You initially grow up with the music
that the generation before you,
your parents, have chosen.

1048
01:16:41,640 --> 01:16:47,160
And you don't want it.
My mum and dad used to listen to
Pearl and Teddy Johnson.

1049
01:16:47,160 --> 01:16:50,840
# Darling, darling, sweet Elizabeth

1050
01:16:50,840 --> 01:16:54,520
# Say you'll be mine - hey!
Always be mine - hey! #

1051
01:16:54,520 --> 01:17:00,800
I don't want to listen to Pearl
and Teddy Johnson so along comes
The Who and bands like that. Yeah!

1052
01:17:00,800 --> 01:17:03,240
Absolutely, that's what I want!

1053
01:17:03,240 --> 01:17:09,480
And it belongs to you.
I mean, prog rock, to some extent,
killed the pop bands.

1054
01:17:09,480 --> 01:17:14,600
The pop bands killed the crooner.
Punk killed prog rock.

1055
01:17:14,600 --> 01:17:17,160
ABSTRACT ROCK MUSIC PLAYS

1056
01:17:20,640 --> 01:17:27,680
'70s Britain bore no resemblance
to the imagined, mystical worlds
of prog rock and Roger Dean.

1057
01:17:29,560 --> 01:17:34,320
It was plagued by shortages, strikes
and post-'60s disillusionment.

1058
01:17:36,080 --> 01:17:41,840
In 1979, an Iron Lady
would be crowned Queen
in the Court of the Crimson King.

1059
01:17:42,840 --> 01:17:50,120
Lyrically, progressive music in the
'70s was very divorced from social
reality. Just not interested in it.

1060
01:17:51,560 --> 01:17:54,720
The lyrics are always a problem
in this kind of music

1061
01:17:54,720 --> 01:17:59,080
because it is about music, doing
interesting things with instruments

1062
01:17:59,080 --> 01:18:03,600
and making interesting
musical shapes and landscapes,

1063
01:18:03,600 --> 01:18:08,360
but if you're gonna have a singer,
what's he going to sing about?

1064
01:18:08,360 --> 01:18:13,600
Often the solution was to go down
the talking Roger Dean route,

1065
01:18:13,600 --> 01:18:16,680
to sing about fantasy worlds
and so on,

1066
01:18:16,680 --> 01:18:22,640
and there's a kind
of embarrassment about that now
which I certainly share.

1067
01:18:25,120 --> 01:18:27,960
Genesis missed
the British punk revolution.

1068
01:18:27,960 --> 01:18:32,680
Like many progressive bands,
they were too busy
being successful abroad.

1069
01:18:35,800 --> 01:18:41,040
On their return, they not only
weathered the punk front,
now sitting firmly over the country,

1070
01:18:41,040 --> 01:18:43,560
but, perversely,
enjoyed an Indian summer.

1071
01:18:43,560 --> 01:18:50,440
We were unaware of punk because
we were touring so much, not really
aware of anything else going on.

1072
01:18:50,440 --> 01:18:55,480
All we knew really was that groups
like Yes had disappeared a bit,

1073
01:18:55,480 --> 01:18:58,520
so in a sense we were
the last ones left standing

1074
01:18:58,520 --> 01:19:00,960
so we picked up
everybody else's audience.

1075
01:19:00,960 --> 01:19:07,280
We always had that side to us
which was based more on the
songwriting than on the playing,

1076
01:19:07,280 --> 01:19:09,360
and that carried us through.

1077
01:19:09,360 --> 01:19:12,400
MUSIC: "Follow You Follow Me"
by Genesis

1078
01:19:28,760 --> 01:19:31,280
And we started having hit singles.

1079
01:19:31,280 --> 01:19:37,400
Follow You Follow Me opened a door
for us. It was a reasonable hit.
It wasn't massive.

1080
01:19:37,400 --> 01:19:43,040
But after that, we were able
to put out singles and they'd
always get played for many years.

1081
01:19:43,040 --> 01:19:49,520
A lot of them did well
so suddenly that meant the potential
audience became much bigger.

1082
01:19:52,000 --> 01:19:54,040
Most bands weren't so lucky.

1083
01:19:54,040 --> 01:19:57,360
Procol Harum's 10th album,
Something Magic,

1084
01:19:57,360 --> 01:20:01,560
an ambitious concept in which
their instruments played characters

1085
01:20:01,560 --> 01:20:05,680
in a story that was narrated, not
even sung, became their swansong.

1086
01:20:09,680 --> 01:20:13,320
We'd finished it. I don't know how
we managed to record this thing.

1087
01:20:13,320 --> 01:20:18,560
And then we turn around and there
it is, of course, punks and...

1088
01:20:21,160 --> 01:20:28,360
The way we left was just to sort of
pack up on our last night of a tour
and we said, "That's it, then."

1089
01:20:28,360 --> 01:20:30,600
And we all went our separate ways.

1090
01:20:46,960 --> 01:20:54,080
In the 1980s, original King Crimson
lyricist Pete Sinfield uncovered
a secret path into pop music

1091
01:20:54,080 --> 01:20:56,400
as a writer of chart-topping hits.

1092
01:20:56,400 --> 01:20:59,440
MUSIC: "The Land Of Make Believe"
by Bucks Fizz

1093
01:21:09,720 --> 01:21:13,600
Try and write something a lot
of people will like quickly,

1094
01:21:13,600 --> 01:21:15,640
yet still get something of you in it.

1095
01:21:15,640 --> 01:21:20,400
"Something nasty in your garden,
waiting till it'll steal your heart,"

1096
01:21:20,400 --> 01:21:22,600
which for me,
is like a King Crimson line.

1097
01:21:22,600 --> 01:21:25,000
I've just taken it into
a different setting.

1098
01:21:25,000 --> 01:21:30,160
MUSIC: "The Land Of Make Believe"
by Bucks Fizz

1099
01:21:34,440 --> 01:21:40,240
King Crimson itself, staged several
comebacks and its 1974 album, Red,

1100
01:21:40,240 --> 01:21:44,240
would, in time, influence
grunge guru, Kurt Cobain.

1101
01:21:47,880 --> 01:21:49,160
Somewhere in 1987,

1102
01:21:49,160 --> 01:21:53,680
I probably gave up noisy rock.

1103
01:21:53,680 --> 01:21:55,680
I mean, there was the odd
reunion tour.

1104
01:21:55,680 --> 01:21:58,280
But in my mind, I was redefined
as a jazz musician,

1105
01:21:58,280 --> 01:22:01,680
which I probably should have been
in the first place.

1106
01:22:03,040 --> 01:22:06,600
Yes, teamed up with hip '80s
producer, Trevor Horn,

1107
01:22:06,600 --> 01:22:10,040
who helped tune their songs to the
ears of a very different decade.

1108
01:22:10,040 --> 01:22:14,680
MUSIC: "Owner Of A Lonely Heart"
by Yes

1109
01:22:52,720 --> 01:22:55,760
But the expedition
to the far reaches of pop music,

1110
01:22:55,760 --> 01:23:00,440
had left camp in the late '60s,
was by now lost, forgotten,

1111
01:23:00,440 --> 01:23:03,040
or only spoken of in hushed tones.

1112
01:23:07,200 --> 01:23:11,160
Prog had become a really dirty word,
you know.

1113
01:23:11,160 --> 01:23:14,440
It's the sort of thing that
you didn't mention in public.

1114
01:23:14,440 --> 01:23:20,160
It's almost the only kind of music
where people write off everything

1115
01:23:20,160 --> 01:23:21,640
that's in the genre,

1116
01:23:21,640 --> 01:23:26,120
without embarrassment, actually, and
just say, you know, "It's all shit."

1117
01:23:27,720 --> 01:23:33,640
People would go to a record store
and say, "I'd like some, er...

1118
01:23:33,640 --> 01:23:39,000
"couple of Country and Western,
a bit of New Age,

1119
01:23:39,000 --> 01:23:40,880
"and bit of Modern Romantic,
please, as well.

1120
01:23:40,880 --> 01:23:44,040
"A couple of punk albums,
I'll have that, thank you very much,

1121
01:23:44,040 --> 01:23:45,680
"a bit of classical, and, um...

1122
01:23:46,640 --> 01:23:48,240
"..(have you got any prog rock?)"

1123
01:23:48,240 --> 01:23:51,680
There were people out there
that might not have liked Yes,

1124
01:23:51,680 --> 01:23:53,720
but liked a bit of Genesis,

1125
01:23:53,720 --> 01:23:56,520
might not have liked the Floyd,
but liked Jethro Tull.

1126
01:23:56,520 --> 01:23:59,600
"Er, yes, Sir, hold on.
I'll do it under the counter."

1127
01:23:59,600 --> 01:24:03,320
They do it under the counter in a
brown paper bag and round the side.

1128
01:24:03,320 --> 01:24:07,720
It was like...it was like
the porn of the music industry.

1129
01:24:07,720 --> 01:24:11,440
I went out and bought
the first Sex Pistols album,

1130
01:24:11,440 --> 01:24:15,480
and didn't mind telling people
I had, and that I listened to it.

1131
01:24:15,480 --> 01:24:18,960
Whereas Jonny Rotten, at the time,
wouldn't admit to listening
to Jethro Tull.

1132
01:24:18,960 --> 01:24:22,760
But, many, many years later,
admitted that one of his, sort of,

1133
01:24:22,760 --> 01:24:26,480
seminal influences
was the Aqualung album.

1134
01:24:26,480 --> 01:24:33,720
I met Rat Scabies in an airport,
right about to get on a plane, 

1135
01:24:33,720 --> 01:24:36,120
and he came up to me...

1136
01:24:38,600 --> 01:24:42,280
..and he said, "Just want you
to know, I'm a big fan of yours."

1137
01:24:42,280 --> 01:24:46,440
But, you know, he just wanted
to make sure nobody was looking.

1138
01:24:46,440 --> 01:24:50,160
We were living the dream, you know,
but it would be stupid

1139
01:24:50,160 --> 01:24:54,360
for people to keep thinking that
life was easy because of that.

1140
01:24:54,360 --> 01:24:55,400
It's not easy.

1141
01:24:55,400 --> 01:25:00,600
It's a lot of hard work and these
lines on my face are evidence!

1142
01:25:02,440 --> 01:25:04,000
The lost chord!

1143
01:25:04,000 --> 01:25:08,880
You're always looking for that thing
you haven't heard yet.

1144
01:25:08,880 --> 01:25:12,400
Not everyone persevered in
The Land Of Make Believe.

1145
01:25:15,440 --> 01:25:18,320
There had been early casualties.

1146
01:25:18,320 --> 01:25:22,040
The reason I stopped doing it
rather suddenly...

1147
01:25:25,120 --> 01:25:30,320
..was...simply because
of my dependent psychology.

1148
01:25:31,560 --> 01:25:34,760
I needed praise
and I wasn't getting it.

1149
01:25:37,240 --> 01:25:44,880
It was a bit like a child that dies
aged three of malnutrition.

1150
01:25:44,880 --> 01:25:51,520
You know, it gets born, there's all
sorts of hope and...

1151
01:25:51,520 --> 01:25:56,640
good expectations. It learns to walk,
it learns to run, it learns to talk,

1152
01:25:56,640 --> 01:26:01,040
and suddenly it gives up, because
it didn't get enough nourishment.

1153
01:26:01,040 --> 01:26:03,080
It was like that.

1154
01:26:04,160 --> 01:26:05,360
For me.

1155
01:26:12,600 --> 01:26:17,360
At its purest, progressive rock
wasn't about money, celebrity,

1156
01:26:17,360 --> 01:26:20,880
record contracts or the audience.

1157
01:26:20,880 --> 01:26:23,040
It wasn't even a type of music.

1158
01:26:23,040 --> 01:26:25,960
It was a belief. A value system
of the early '70s.

1159
01:26:25,960 --> 01:26:29,160
One that now seems like
old time religion.

1160
01:26:31,240 --> 01:26:34,720
Its creators, often precocious,
sometimes indulged,

1161
01:26:34,720 --> 01:26:39,520
occasionally deluded, but always
uncompromising, baptised the decade

1162
01:26:39,520 --> 01:26:44,080
with a soundtrack of stark
virtuosity, weird time signatures...

1163
01:26:44,080 --> 01:26:47,160
strange poetry
and surprising beauty.

1164
01:26:47,160 --> 01:26:51,360
The musical experiment,
now labelled prog rock,

1165
01:26:51,360 --> 01:26:55,320
and stored under the counter,
or placed almost out of reach,

1166
01:26:55,320 --> 01:26:56,680
on the top shelf.

1167
01:26:59,200 --> 01:27:02,480
It grew out of rock music,
and that's why it was written about

1168
01:27:02,480 --> 01:27:05,880
in the rock press. But it's kind
of a shame it ever became regarded

1169
01:27:05,880 --> 01:27:07,760
as part of rock and roll, because...

1170
01:27:07,760 --> 01:27:10,960
because it's not. I think the ethos
is completely different,

1171
01:27:10,960 --> 01:27:14,640
and if you judge it by the standards
of rock and roll then it fails.

1172
01:27:14,640 --> 01:27:18,040
It's actually a bunch of very
talented musicians,

1173
01:27:18,040 --> 01:27:23,600
who were kind of cursed with
very musically intelligent brains,

1174
01:27:23,600 --> 01:27:27,560
who got bored very quickly with
playing three chords all the time,

1175
01:27:27,560 --> 01:27:32,920
and wanted to do stuff which was
more complex and more challenging.

1176
01:27:32,920 --> 01:27:37,800
I say, John? Yes? Tense up, control
room. We're ready to do one. Right.

1177
01:27:37,800 --> 01:27:43,800
There's an expression which I like
a lot, which is, success is buried
in the garden of failure.

1178
01:27:43,800 --> 01:27:50,160
So, if you're willing to go to that
garden, and dig and dig and dig,

1179
01:27:50,160 --> 01:27:52,160
and try and try and try,

1180
01:27:52,160 --> 01:27:57,440
eventually you'll succeed
with some ideas and some success.

1181
01:27:57,440 --> 01:28:02,520
So if you possibly, tense up a little
and we'll try and wax a hot one.

1182
01:28:12,680 --> 01:28:17,120
Ah, that's better. Thank you.
Um, sorry. What were you saying?

1183
01:28:17,120 --> 01:28:20,360
# And you can fly

1184
01:28:20,360 --> 01:28:25,480
# High as a kite if you want to

1185
01:28:25,480 --> 01:28:29,760
# Faster than light if you want to

1186
01:28:29,760 --> 01:28:34,440
# Speeding through the universe

1187
01:28:35,960 --> 01:28:40,560
# Thinking is the best way
to travel. #

1188
01:28:40,560 --> 01:28:43,600
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd