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The Latest Breaking News from Van der Graaf Generator

“Almost overnight after the Sex Pistols, prog rock came to a halt”: 1977 was the supposedly the year punk killed prog. The truth is very different

Exploding the myth that progressive rock’s ‘dinosaurs’were finished off by punk

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“We should have toured Europe and taken advantage of the impact our single had. We were lazy and stuck to playing in Britain. It was a huge mistake”: The all-too-short story of promising early proggers Rare Bird

A US tour without enough dates, a move away from the sound that got them signed, frequent line-up changes and never any money – just some of the things that went wrong for the band who once stood alongside The Nice and Van der Graaf Generator

Louder

“I lie to them and change the goalposts… you build up techniques of throwing the curveball of discomfort. If it gets comfortable I change it”: David Thomas calls Pere Ubu “avant-garage” – but how prog are they?

They’re unmistakably American, but their lead visionary names Henry Cow, Soft Machine, Gentle Giant and Van der Graaf Generator among his motivators, and explains why his band is definitely not punk

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“We were held together by Sellotape and sealing wax… We knew our days were numbered”: Tired, broke and losing members, Van der Graaf Generator went down fighting with The Quiet Zone/The Pleasure Dome

Peter Hammill remembers trimming down the music and the name to spend 18 months in a ferocious punk-tinged endgame that resulted in stunning live album Vital

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"The Red Hot Chili Peppers might have based their entire career on it": Steven Wilson's 20 favourite British rock albums

Porcupine Tree mainman, solo star and prog remix king Steven Wilson on 20 British albums that blew his mind

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Peter Hammill announces Italian live dates for November

Van der Graaf frontman Peter Hammill will also play two live dates in Athens in Janaury 2025

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How Jethro Tull broke America is the cover of the new issue of Prog, on sale now!

Plus Van der Graaf Generator, Gentle Giant, Devin Townsend, Rick Wakeman, Big Big Train

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“One doesn’t so much listen as feel it deep in the bones… their stark inventiveness and originality remain outstanding”: Van der Graaf Generator’s Still Life and Vital reissues

1976 studio album and 1978 live double album return from era of new momentum for Peter Hammill and co

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"It’s a maths geek’s love song to maths!" The story of Van der Graaf Generator's A Grounding In Numbers

Van der Graaf Generator's third reunion album, 2011's A Grounding In Numbers saw the trio working with shorter form but no less complex material

Louder

“We were making very peculiar music not particularly well played. We got a record contract because the record companies thought, ‘We better get weird’”: Inside the mind of Judge Smith, the man who named Van der Graaf Generator

Inspired by the work of bandmate Peter Hammill and Frank Zappa, Smith aimed never to sound like them – and after working on large ensemble pieces and stage musicals, admitted he’d quite like to “just roll in with a guitar”

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“Our contemporaries had numbers that got people up on their feet cheering. We didn’t… We wondered if A Plague Of Lighthouse Keepers was the way to go. I thought, ‘We can’t even play this!’”: Van der Graaf Generator’s struggle through the 70s

Keyboardist Hugh Banton on deciding not to emulate Keith Emerson’s stage persona, how he got the band signed, and why it took him so long to accept the “prog” label

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"If you were after a girlfriend, by the time you’ve got ten minutes into A Plague Of Lighthouse Keepers she’s usually jumped out the window." Bruce Dickinson on his prog heroes

Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson's 10-song solo album The Mandrake Project will be released on March 1

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“Forget the luxuriant moustaches and sawn-off mike-stands that would come to define them: if the prog ethos meant avoiding the expected, they were definitely a prog band”: You’ve always known the truth about Queen

Mike Portnoy and Steve Howe provide supporting evidence that Bohemian Rhapsody is only the tip of the band’s boundary-pushing iceberg

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“A vivid, three-dimensional update… they outstrip the originals’ impact by some distance”: Peter Hammill’s In A Foreign Town / Out Of Water 2023

Van der Graaf Generator frontman has little to prove – but does it anyway with his revamp of solo albums hobbled by late-80s production values

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"Undeniably brilliant but unlistenable": Pawn Hearts by Van der Graaf Generator - Album Of The Week Club review

Van der Graaf Generator's fourth album Pawn Hearts sums up all that is glorious and bewildering about the band: unconventional vocals, confrontational music, and the unruly spectre of jazz

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“Am I Prog’s Taylor Swift? That’s a debate that could run and run”: why Peter Hammill re-recorded his Enigma-era albums

Van der Graaf Generator lynchpin cites pop star’s motivation behind his new versions of In A Foreign Town and Out Of Water

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“I’ve been known to rant and rave… I had no idea that my words would be hostages to fortune”: but Van der Graaf Generator’s Peter Hammill doesn’t mind if quotes limited his success

He’s glad he never reached a level of success where someone offered to make him a star

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