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Thread: Tabletop Genesis interview with Tony Banks

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    Member zorknapp's Avatar
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    Tabletop Genesis interview with Tony Banks

    Hi all,

    This has been discussed in the OT area, but I wanted to bring to your attention that the Tabletop Genesis interview with Tony Banks is now available!

    You can find it at our site here: http://tabletopgenesis.com/tabletop-...th-tony-banks/

    Or, on I-Tunes where you can subscribe directly to the podcast.

    We talk at length about his orchestral albums, and his solo career in general.

    Thanks!
    Mike
    Tabletop Genesis - A Genesis and solo career focused podcast, featuring the opinions of Tom Roche, Stacy Godfrey, Simon Godfrey, and Mike Lord - Listen on I-Tunes, or at http://tabletopgenesis.com/ Twitter: @genesistabletop Facebook: www.facebook.com/TabletopGenesis

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    Member Top Cat's Avatar
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    Thanks Mike, enjoyed it quite a bit..although as another member wrote, we wish he'd mentioned working with Fish.
    Soundcloud page: Richard Hermans, musical meanderings https://soundcloud.com/precipice YouTube: [https://www.youtube.com/@richardhermans4457

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    Member Gizmotron's Avatar
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    Thank you! I will check it out.

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    Member bill g's Avatar
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    Nice! I look forward to enjoying this. As much as I love his orchestral music, I wish he'd do a keyboard instrumental album!

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    Quote Originally Posted by bill g View Post
    As much as I love his orchestral music, I wish he'd do a keyboard instrumental album!
    It's quite possible he doesn't consider himself all that good a pianist, and doesn't want to showcase his weak points. His real strength is composition and always has been - Emerson, Wakeman, et al might have been able to play his parts standing on their heads, but not one of them had his Beatles-like ability to find the right note, or know just when the music had to change, or where it had to go to. The music schools and the prog culture turn out players far above his technical level every year. But guys with his compositional ability at both classical structure and pop hooks still remain very rare.

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    Any idea of how much Genesis music from 1971 to 1980 was Banks? Around half? Or not that much influence?

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    Quote Originally Posted by yamishogun View Post
    Any idea of how much Genesis music from 1971 to 1980 was Banks? Around half? Or not that much influence?
    This is just a guess: But I suspect it's hard to quantify, because many of his contributions might have been middle-sections on others' songs, or tunes where he wrote the chord progression but Peter wrote the lyrics and melody, or "Why don't you do this?...." suggestions to music mostly written by someone else, or part of group compositions.

  8. #8
    Great interview,thanks! I'm a big fan of Tony's solo career. I liked Alistair Gordon's voice on "Bankstatement" so much that I got him to sing a few songs on a Winter Tree album. He told me he really enjoyed working with Tony.

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    Insect Overlord Progatron's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by yamishogun View Post
    Any idea of how much Genesis music from 1971 to 1980 was Banks? Around half? Or not that much influence?
    Quote Originally Posted by Baribrotzer View Post
    This is just a guess: But I suspect it's hard to quantify, because many of his contributions might have been middle-sections on others' songs, or tunes where he wrote the chord progression but Peter wrote the lyrics and melody, or "Why don't you do this?...." suggestions to music mostly written by someone else, or part of group compositions.
    Yeah, definitely hard to give a figure of any kind... but on a pie chart his slice would be the biggest. Certainly the more well known ones like Firth Of Fifth were almost entirely his, although this is not acknowledging criteria such as Phil's arranging skills and Steve's solo. But had they opted to use individual credits in those days, it almost surely would have been "Banks" and that's it. Likewise with stuff like Time Table and Seven Stones - and the ones we can see from writing credits from 1976-1980 such as Mad Man Moon, Undertow, All In A Mouse's Night, etc. And all of this is before even delving into the stuff he co-wrote with one or two other members. Foxtrot and Trick are very Banks-heavy.

    Rutherford would have the next largest pie piece, although I suspect it would be roughly the same size as Gabriel's if the cutoff date was 1974.
    Interviewer of reprobate ne'er-do-well musicians of the long-haired rock n' roll persuasion at: www.velvetthunder.co.uk and former scribe at Classic Rock Society. Only vaguely aware of anything other than music.

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    Member zorknapp's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Top Cat View Post
    Thanks Mike, enjoyed it quite a bit..although as another member wrote, we wish he'd mentioned working with Fish.
    I'll be honest here, I'm not a big Fish fan, personally, so I didn't think about bringing him up specifically. I've also heard him talk about working with Fish elsewhere, so I probably wouldn't have chosen to dive into that with the time we had, even if I had thought about it...

    Mike
    Tabletop Genesis - A Genesis and solo career focused podcast, featuring the opinions of Tom Roche, Stacy Godfrey, Simon Godfrey, and Mike Lord - Listen on I-Tunes, or at http://tabletopgenesis.com/ Twitter: @genesistabletop Facebook: www.facebook.com/TabletopGenesis

  11. #11
    Member zorknapp's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by the winter tree View Post
    Great interview,thanks! I'm a big fan of Tony's solo career. I liked Alistair Gordon's voice on "Bankstatement" so much that I got him to sing a few songs on a Winter Tree album. He told me he really enjoyed working with Tony.
    Glad you enjoyed it! When did you work with Alistair Gordon? I wasn't sure whatever had happened to that guy...

    Mike
    Tabletop Genesis - A Genesis and solo career focused podcast, featuring the opinions of Tom Roche, Stacy Godfrey, Simon Godfrey, and Mike Lord - Listen on I-Tunes, or at http://tabletopgenesis.com/ Twitter: @genesistabletop Facebook: www.facebook.com/TabletopGenesis

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    I'll let Andrew fill you in on the details, but Alistair appeared as guest vocalist on The Winter Tree's 2017 release Mr.Sun. Alistair guests on 2 songs, the title song Mr.Sun and Shine.
    He has also posted in another thread, Nad Sylvan is guest singing on his new album to be released later in 2018.
    https://www.seaoftranquility.org/rev...ntent&id=20076
    Soundcloud page: Richard Hermans, musical meanderings https://soundcloud.com/precipice YouTube: [https://www.youtube.com/@richardhermans4457

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    Member bill g's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by yamishogun View Post
    Any idea of how much Genesis music from 1971 to 1980 was Banks? Around half? Or not that much influence?
    The only things I've seen in interviews and such is that he wrote the first 2 parts of Suppers Ready (with Gabe on lyrics), Time Table and much of Foxtrot, Firth of Fifth, with the guitar solo playing Tony's melody an idea of Steve's, and he wrote the music to 'The Lamia', most of 'Seven Stones', and of course many scattered sections.

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by zorknapp View Post
    Glad you enjoyed it! When did you work with Alistair Gordon? I wasn't sure whatever had happened to that guy...

    Mike
    Hi Mike. Here's a song I did with Alistair:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neXxD5uOQwM

    He's alive and well and living in the UK. He's a successful producer and helped put together Paul Young's posthumous solo album.

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    Member hippypants's Avatar
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    Thanks for the head's up. I'll give it a listen.

  16. #16
    Member zorknapp's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by the winter tree View Post
    Hi Mike. Here's a song I did with Alistair:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neXxD5uOQwM

    He's alive and well and living in the UK. He's a successful producer and helped put together Paul Young's posthumous solo album.
    Thanks for the link, I'm glad to hear he's still working in music!

    Mike
    Tabletop Genesis - A Genesis and solo career focused podcast, featuring the opinions of Tom Roche, Stacy Godfrey, Simon Godfrey, and Mike Lord - Listen on I-Tunes, or at http://tabletopgenesis.com/ Twitter: @genesistabletop Facebook: www.facebook.com/TabletopGenesis

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