30 CD Live Box Set from Gentle Giant(October)

[adap2it]

[Dok]

https://www.loudersound.com/author/sid-smtth



Why is Sid spelling his last name with two T's?

[adap2it]

https://www.loudersound.com/author/sid-smtth



Why is Sid spelling his last name with two T's?

Have you tried pronouncing it Dok? Oh, and the last paragraph from the article...Derek, the forever businessman!

[starless and bible black]

https://www.loudersound.com/author/sid-smtth



Why is Sid spelling his last name with two T's?

Great article about Gentle Giant and their Unburied Treasure set; thanks for sharing Dok. PS: Typos happen (which must be the reason for the misspelling of Sid Smith's name).

[Dok]

Have you tried pronouncing it Dok? Oh, and the last paragraph from the article...Derek, the forever businessman!

I can't Dave. Can you help with that? BTW have you listened to the whole box yet?

Great article about Gentle Giant and their Unburied Treasure set; thanks for sharing Dok. PS: Typos happen (which must be the reason for the misspelling of Sid Smith's name).

He has another article in Prog about Amon Duul II and it's spelled that same way. I thought it might have possibly been someone different until I saw the link to the GG article on his FB page.

[Dok]

https://podcasts.google.com/?feed=aH...EegQICxAE&ep=6

Derek interview starts about 28 minutes in.

[Yodelgoat]

I only have the twilight 2cd release. All my original GG was "nicked" over the years. A 30 CD set may be just what I need. Depends on the cost. been waiting for a box set. 20 disks is a bit overwhelming, but - OK, I can dream.

[polmico]

Re-evaluating Giant for a Day. It’s not horrible.

It’s more guitar orientated than other GG albums, and not as good as other GG albums, but I’m quite enjoying it. I mean, a Gary Green-centric album can’t be awful, right?

[olivetti]

Re-evaluating Giant for a Day. It’s not horrible.

It’s more guitar orientated than other GG albums, and not as good as other GG albums, but I’m quite enjoying it. I mean, a Gary Green-centric album can’t be awful, right?

It is a great pop album!
I can understand why prog nerds hate it, but for me, good music is good music!

[Fracktured]

Re-evaluating Giant for a Day. It’s not horrible.

It’s more guitar orientated than other GG albums, and not as good as other GG albums, but I’m quite enjoying it. I mean, a Gary Green-centric album can’t be awful, right?

It has GGisms in it if you listen to the writing aspect of the music. It's more complex than your typical pop album, but just doesn't reach the heights of creativity like their progressive music. It's the album I'd reach for last in their catalogue but I wouldn't call it trash.

[wilcox660]

Is the quality of the studio albums on this set marked better than other releases?

[Dok]

Is the quality of the studio albums on this set marked better than other releases?

Yes, some people seem to think so. I more or less agree. Of course Steven Wilson's remixes offer up some pretty clean sonic qualities. Check out John Kelman's review of the box if you haven't seen it.

https://www.allaboutjazz.com/unburied-treasure


In other GG's news

https://www.bookdepository.com/Gentl.../9781789520583

or on Burningshed -

https://burningshed.com/gary-steel_g...Gentle%20Giant


New book coming end of July. Here's the blubbery burbery -


The ultimate cult progressive band - as revered as Yes or Genesis by those that have 'found' them. Poorly served by literature, very little long-form material has been written about the band. Though the band have never reformed, several members have taken part in the UK-based tribute group Three Friends.

They lasted only a decade and never lit up the world's charts, but progressive rock connoisseurs always knew what today's audiences are now beginning to discover: that Gentle Giant belong in the pantheon of great bands of the era. At times edgy and experimental but also capable of great beauty (not to mention some of the greatest riffs known to man), the group's explorations of medieval music gave their sound unique character. But it was the thrilling complexity of their compositions - which Frank Zappa might have called the "statistical density" of their writing - together with the instrumental ability of its players that make their music as potent today as they were at their peak nearly 50 years ago.

This book takes a microscopic look at each of Gentle Giant's eleven studio albums and provides fresh assessments of the many live and 'odds'n'sods' recordings, as well as rounding up existent DVD/Blu-ray documentary and performance footage. In doing so, it tells the story of one of progressive music's most fascinating groups and the thrilling - and occasionally tortuous - ride the Shulman brothers and key band-mates like Kerry Minnear and Gary Green experienced along the way.

[starless and bible black]

This upcoming book on GG looks interesting & I'm thinking about picking it up. Thanks for the news Dok.

[Trane]

This upcoming book on GG looks interesting & I'm thinking about picking it up. Thanks for the news Dok.

you do know that Paul Stump write his Acquiring The Taste book, don't you?

https://www.amazon.com/Gentle-Giant-.../dp/0946719616

I really don't remember it to be so expensive, though

[Dok]

you do know that Paul Stump write his Acquiring The Taste book, don't you?

https://www.amazon.com/Gentle-Giant-.../dp/0946719616

I really don't remember it to be so expensive, though

Ugh. Did you read it? I tried and gave it away. As the mostly negative reviews on Amazon state -

"If that weren't bad enough I would have to think that he was purposely using words obviously gleaned from a Thesaurus as some kind of private joke. Gentle Giant's story ends up being a secondary character behind this God awful writing. Sounds like just another failed writer who has turned to music criticism to pay his rent and is bitter about it and takes it out on his subject matter. I've met too many of this type of music critic and they are like mushy peas in a pod."

[Trane]

I didn't feel that at all.

I had read Stump's previous book (Music's All That Matters) prior to buying ATT and didn't feel his writing was bad either.

Yeah, he's a little quirky, but so is GG.

[Rarebird]

Yes, some people seem to think so. I more or less agree. Of course Steven Wilson's remixes offer up some pretty clean sonic qualities. Check out John Kelman's review of the box if you haven't seen it.

https://www.allaboutjazz.com/unburied-treasure


In other GG's news

https://www.bookdepository.com/Gentl.../9781789520583

or on Burningshed -

https://burningshed.com/gary-steel_g...Gentle%20Giant


New book coming end of July. Here's the blubbery burbery -


The ultimate cult progressive band - as revered as Yes or Genesis by those that have 'found' them. Poorly served by literature, very little long-form material has been written about the band. Though the band have never reformed, several members have taken part in the UK-based tribute group Three Friends.

They lasted only a decade and never lit up the world's charts, but progressive rock connoisseurs always knew what today's audiences are now beginning to discover: that Gentle Giant belong in the pantheon of great bands of the era. At times edgy and experimental but also capable of great beauty (not to mention some of the greatest riffs known to man), the group's explorations of medieval music gave their sound unique character. But it was the thrilling complexity of their compositions - which Frank Zappa might have called the "statistical density" of their writing - together with the instrumental ability of its players that make their music as potent today as they were at their peak nearly 50 years ago.

This book takes a microscopic look at each of Gentle Giant's eleven studio albums and provides fresh assessments of the many live and 'odds'n'sods' recordings, as well as rounding up existent DVD/Blu-ray documentary and performance footage. In doing so, it tells the story of one of progressive music's most fascinating groups and the thrilling - and occasionally tortuous - ride the Shulman brothers and key band-mates like Kerry Minnear and Gary Green experienced along the way.

Looks interesting.

[Buddhabreath]

I didn't find Stump's book god-awful, but it was mediocre and only quasi-informative. Even the low-res photo section was lackluster - do we really need photos of that crap inflatable octopus promo item or the dogshit that was given away to promote the execrable Giant for a Day?

Nevertheless, worth reading for the GG fanatic only IMO (so it was definitely worth the purchase to me).

[starless and bible black]

you do know that Paul Stump write his Acquiring The Taste book, don't you?

https://www.amazon.com/Gentle-Giant-.../dp/0946719616

I really don't remember it to be so expensive, though

I picked up Paul Stump's Acquiring The Taste when it first came out. However, I think this upcoming book about GG will be worth it since it's promising a thorough analysis of the band's work.

[Jay.Dee]

I didn't feel that at all.

I had read Stump's previous book (Music's All That Matters) prior to buying ATT and didn't feel his writing was bad either.

Yeah, he's a little quirky, but so is GG.

I liked Stump's Music's All That Matter a lot; it was a very unusual take on the subject. Where else could one find an eccentric examination of Genesis' early 80s popularity like that below?

Clearly Fripp¡'s ascetic approach had been an effective lesson and the similarity between early-'80s Gabriel product and the music of the rejuvenated King Crimson in the same period can't be simple chance (both acts shared a bass player, the genial, skinheaded American Tony Levin). While Genesis's approach to changing pop values smacked of hasty and unmotivated reskilling, Gabriel seemed boyishly eager to learn from the 1980s. Gabriel hesitated not at all in summoning the services of the Jam's leader, Paul Weller, an invitation gladly accepted. Could one imagine the Members or Vini Reilly of the Durutti Column guesting on a Genesis album? One could not.

Of course the 'contemporary' stab was a risible failure; there were cosmic gulfs between the likes of the Pop Group and Genesis, for example. The case of Peter Gabriel serves as an even pithier and more damning comparison. But 3, and the early-1981 Face Value by Phil Collins (possibly the most influential Genesis album of them all), sold so well that one could mouth platitudes about appearing 'with it' while hoovering up FM airplay.

One of the saddest aspects of the whole Genesis decline - too tedious to re-rehearse here - is that on one occasion Banks, Rutherford and Collins hit the target, dead centre. The opening to the single 'Mama' from the Genesis album of 1983 was a modest and easily-overlooked trump of combining neo-Romantic minor-key harmonic progressions with blatty electronic minimalism, worthy of Eno at his best. It couldn't last. It was all about 'hitting the spot' and 'professionalism'. [...]

In a way it's hard to blame the band; while they had calibrated their audience and manipulated them since the arrival of the expert Stratton-Smith, with Acacab (and its oh-so-minimalist-not-Prog-at-all-guv sleeve art) they had chance on a chimera of pretend art-rock gestures and empty soul-pop, bolstered by hard work and an eye for innovation in presentation. It worked and Genesis, in a way, became a genre by themselves. Their discreet colours, contours, patterns, textures had all been bleached clean, yet still there was a market, shared between the willingly martyred faithful and the vast constituency raised on FM radio in the 1970s and 1980s who didn't like music anyway.

[starless and bible black]

you do know that Paul Stump write his Acquiring The Taste book, don't you?

https://www.amazon.com/Gentle-Giant-.../dp/0946719616

I really don't remember it to be so expensive, though

I forgot to mention that the only reason the Acquiring The Taste is more expensive right now is that it's out of print (and being sold at Amazon from independent sellers).