I'm sure you didn't put a lot of thought into that statement and it was probably just a throwaway comment, so no biggie, but that is truly one misinformed view.
Bowie was well aware of Hammill around that time (and before) and they knew each other. There has been mutual admiration through the years; Hammill and Bowie first met and knew each other years ago at the tail end of the 60s when both were signed to Mercury.
Bowie has long been mentioned in press articles as being a big fan of PH / VdGG's work, but I could never find anything directly from the man himself (and, believe me, when I was writing the VdGG book I really tried). In Peter Doggett's Bowie biography from a few years ago, he writes that the missing link between the Bowie songs Quicksand and Station to Station "was provided by an artist whose work Bowie had immersed himself in around 1974: Peter Hammill." Doggett goes on to single out the track "In The Black Room" from Peter's album Chameleon...
There is also this quote from Bowie producer Ken Scott from a 1973 interview: "[Bowie] likes to listen to records a lot. If he gets into an artist he'll buy all their LPs and play them one by one. The last time I can remember him doing that was Van Der Graaf Generator. He's a collector, of anything and everything, experiences, influences, the lot."
For Hammill's part, when he was asked about Bowie by Record Collector magazine in 2011, he stated, "I knew him, we were signed to the same record company for a time (Mercury). If there's a similarity, it's probably because when we harmonize with ourselves, we cover a lot of distance. Most people keep it close but we cover a very wide range. I thought 'Scary Monsters' was a marvelous album."
When VdGG was recording their album "H to He, Who Am The Only One" in 1970, founder member Judge Smith (who had left the band two years previously but dropped by Trident Studios to hang out with the band) remembered Bowie dropping by the sessions to hang out (it may have been where DB first met future collaborator Robert Fripp, who was a guest on the VdGG album). Interesting, then, is this official poster for the last Bowie album. It's basically the same formula displayed on the back of VdGG's H to He album (which was Hydrogen to Helium, so "H to He" refers to the nuclear fusion reaction; If you take "Who Am The Only One" to mean a divine being, then the conceit of the album title is that the divine spark comes from a physical process - or more broadly, that if you're looking for miracles, you should look for them in science... very PH, Hammill being particularly interested in science since his university days). We'll never know if David was aware of the connection between this poster and that classic VdGG album from so many years ago, but we do know he was a VdGG fan and had stopped by that session, so it wouldn't be surprising if it was a subtle nod toward the Graafs. Plus, there are *many* fans on FB pages and forums saying that the last Bowie album has a dark vibe very reminiscent of VdGG, and that the sax parts are really Jackson-like. (I couldn't speak to that, as I haven't heard DB's last)
db.jpg
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by Steve F.
Bookmarks