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Thread: Glass at their most Soft-Machiney

  1. #1
    Member rcarlberg's Avatar
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    Glass at their most Soft-Machiney

    Jeff Sherman just posted to Bandcamp their first professional recording, from 1971, when they were still very much under the influence of Soft Machine's first two albums: fuzz organ, long suites made up of interlocking songs, odd time signatures. The tracks were dubbed directly from the 51-year-old half-track master.

    https://therealglass.bandcamp.com/al...rker-session-2
    Last edited by rcarlberg; 11-02-2022 at 06:05 PM.

  2. #2
    Here I was thinking this was something to do with Philip Glass. Still sounds interesting though.

  3. #3
    Member Steve F.'s Avatar
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    ^ ^ ^ ^

    Thanks for bringing this to my / our attention. If I am going to listen to bands with obvious Soft Machine influences, 1971 is of greater interest to me than 2021. So, right on!
    Steve F.

    www.waysidemusic.com
    www.cuneiformrecords.com

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    “Remember, if it doesn't say "Cuneiform," it's not prog!” - THE Jed Levin

    Any time any one speaks to me about any musical project, the one absolute given is "it will not make big money". [tip of the hat to HK]

    "Death to false 'support the scene' prog!"

    please add 'imo' wherever you like, to avoid offending those easily offended.

  4. #4
    Member dropforge's Avatar
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    Wow, it's been 21 years since I saw Glass play at ProgWest 2001 (when Jeff Sherman was only 50). Thanks for the post, Robert.

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    Member rcarlberg's Avatar
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    You're welcome, Forge. Jeff has A TON of unreleased music, and I've been encouraging him to get some of it out on the etherwaves before we're all dead. He is begrudgingly glacially-slowly complying. He could use all the encouragement you can muster.

  6. #6
    I encourage, I encourage! I had never heard this before and it is superb. Loving it.
    I'm not lazy. I just work so fast I'm always done.

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    Thanks for the heads up. I got to see Glass at the Progman festivals in Seattle and became a fan. While I know Glass were big Canterbury fans, inviting many of their heroes to the Progmans (Progmen?), I never heard much Canterbury in their music. They seemed to be more influenced by the electronic end of Krautrock. So I look forward to listening to this!

  8. #8
    Member Digital_Man's Avatar
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    I have two of their releases: Illuminations and The Spectrum Principal. To be honest I didn't hear that much of a Soft Machine or Canterbury influence but I suppose it's in there. I should probably listen again (so far I only listened to each one once which is what happens when you have thousands of cds). To me they sounded more like symph prog but with maybe some weird element thrown in. Both are very good. I will probably look for their first (archive release) at some point.

    Anyway, yes this sounds very Soft Machinish/ Eggish.
    Last edited by Digital_Man; 07-06-2022 at 08:07 PM.
    Do not suffer through the game of chance that plays....always doors to lock away your dreams (To Be Over)

  9. #9
    I need to revisit that impressive double live-CD of theirs; No Stranger to the Skies, was it? Lengthy works of part symphonic rock, part Canterbury and, I suppose, part just Glass. There were a few passages with some reminiscence to other US unknowns like Holding Pattern or Eastern Island, but Glass struck me as more original in approach.

    I wrote a review on it in a mag here in Norway back on the album's release, and the editor was contacted by one of the band members saying something to the effect that this was basically their "[...] only 'media coverage' ever" . They even came here for a gig sometime in 2007, I think it was - supporting Panzerpappa at a club which has long since disappeared now. Good playing of firm music!

    Nice to hear that they're still at it.
    "Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
    "[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM

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    This thread got me to dust off my Glass CDs and give them a spin. The post-millennium Glass material is unique and often great if also a little perplexing. The band really sound like no one else at this point though influences appear audible. I hear Cluster, Tim Story, SFF, and some Mike Ratledge from time to time. My favorites are Spectrum Principle and Palindrome.
    The discs are all up on the Bandcamp site so give 'em a listen. I think your attention will be rewarded.

    It is a shame Glass never got more exposure here on PE or other prog sites. I think they deserve a larger audience.

  11. #11
    Member rcarlberg's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Scrotum Scissor View Post
    They even came here for a gig sometime in 2007, I think it was - supporting Panzerpappa at a club which has long since disappeared now. Good playing of firm music!

    Nice to hear that they're still at it.

  12. #12
    ^ Aha, there you go!

    I remember that night very well, as I attended the concert with a childhood friend of mine who was also a close part of my university days and shared my penchant for collecting music from the 60s and 70s. However, by 2007 he had long since settled into the grosse illness that he used to predict throughout our teenage years, namely the paranoid schizophrenia which he attributed to genetic heritage. Seeing as I knew the Panzerpappa guys quite well, there was a minor embarrassment at play as my buddy at one point started complaining to me across the table of how "[...] this pappzi thing won't introduce me to any busty women, and you promised me we'd go for a prowl if I accompanied your night out!"

    And he was dead serious, acutely demanding in tone. The dilemma was that he somehow just had to express this sentiment exactly during a very quiet and intimate passage of the pappas' music, and this being in a rather sparse and tight locale implied that the entire audience as well as the band were likely to receive the guy's call. And it didn't even bother him.
    "Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
    "[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM

  13. #13
    Member Steve F.'s Avatar
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    ^^^^^^^^^^

    That’s a really sad story, Richard.
    Steve F.

    www.waysidemusic.com
    www.cuneiformrecords.com

    - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

    “Remember, if it doesn't say "Cuneiform," it's not prog!” - THE Jed Levin

    Any time any one speaks to me about any musical project, the one absolute given is "it will not make big money". [tip of the hat to HK]

    "Death to false 'support the scene' prog!"

    please add 'imo' wherever you like, to avoid offending those easily offended.

  14. #14
    ^ Further report, alas unnecessary but to pin the context. I broke off ties with the guy in 2008 after he came to see me in my new worktown of Kristiansand and instantly came on to my girlfriend there, blaiming the blunt on his sickness. We still kept mutual connections in the wake, one of whom informed me in 2013 that a part of the guy's sibling twin-sisters recently toppled herself and obviously worsened his state severely. This summer (2022) he allegedly attempted suicide himself by jumping into a pond somewhere outside of Oslo, and almost immediately on being admitted to hospital received news that the surviving part of his sibling twin-sisters had also done away with herself. And so my childhood buddy is currently on ECT-treatment. That's absurdist doom of farce in life outdoing fiction for us all, I suppose.

    As for Glass, I sat through the entire No Stranger to the Skies and their 2005 release Illuminations (which I don't even remember purchasing back then but probably got for recension), and they're reasonably consistent in style and approach albeit three decades apart. This impresses me, as there's a sense of guts and tension to the "new" stuff which was sorta lacking in the older.

    Quote Originally Posted by arturs View Post
    The post-millennium Glass material is unique and often great if also a little perplexing. The band really sound like no one else at this point though influences appear audible. [...] The discs are all up on the Bandcamp site so give 'em a listen. I think your attention will be rewarded. It is a shame Glass never got more exposure here on PE or other prog sites. I think they deserve a larger audience.
    Agree.
    "Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
    "[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Scrotum Scissor View Post
    ^ Further report, alas unnecessary but to pin the context. I broke off ties with the guy in 2008 after he came to see me in my new worktown of Kristiansand and instantly came on to my girlfriend there, blaiming the blunt on his sickness. We still kept mutual connections in the wake, one of whom informed me in 2013 that a part of the guy's sibling twin-sisters recently toppled herself and obviously worsened his state severely. This summer (2022) he allegedly attempted suicide himself by jumping into a pond somewhere outside of Oslo, and almost immediately on being admitted to hospital received news that the surviving part of his sibling twin-sisters had also done away with herself. And so my childhood buddy is currently on ECT-treatment. That's absurdist doom of farce in life outdoing fiction for us all, I suppose.
    Oh gosh, man... I'm really sorry to hear that. All of it.
    "what's better, peanut butter or g-sharp minor?"
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  16. #16
    Member rcarlberg's Avatar
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    I was gonna post this when the album is released in a day or two, but since this thread has been reactivated:
    Quote Originally Posted by Steve F.
    If I am going to listen to bands with obvious Soft Machine influences, 1971 is of greater interest to me than 2021. So, right on!
    Well, if 1971 is “of greater interest,” how about 1969?

    Jeff [is just about to release] Glass’s first home recording, “After Playing at Lester’s,” from June 1969, just nine months after the band saw The Soft Machine in concert and decided that they would do original music in the style of The Soft Machine. Like “The Wayne Barker Session,” this album consists of long suites made up of shorter instrumental sections. Greg the keyboardist at this point had only one keyboard, a Farfisa Compact organ, which he ran through a wah-wah pedal like he’d seen Mike Ratledge do.

    It’s full of youthful vigor and verve (they were just 15, 16, and 17 years old!) It might be better compared to Soft Machine’s 1967 De Lane Lea recordings (“Jet Propelled Photographs”) than their self-titled debut, but the Softs influence is, if anything, even more pronounced.
    https://therealglass.bandcamp.com/al...ing-at-lesters
    Last edited by rcarlberg; 11-02-2022 at 06:06 PM.

  17. #17
    ^ I sincerely need to hear that. And I can absolutely imagine or visualize a Glass take on adolescent efforts such as those Soft documents, if you're referring to the Rock Generation Vol. 7 stuff with Gary Farr & the T-Bones on side A (which apparently only features ca. half of the recorded material from the De Lane Lea sessions).

    When I saw Glass in 2007, most folks in the audience (when not shrugging at my buddy's bad behaviour) were in awe at a one-armed keyboardist's ability to seemingly still handle several instrumental duties at once. I remember thinking that this is how it ideally works when artistic commitment is topped only by long lasting brotherhood among players. No wonder they'd been doing it since their teens.
    "Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
    "[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM

  18. #18
    Member rcarlberg's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Scrotum Scissor View Post
    When I saw Glass in 2007, most folks in the audience were in awe at a one-armed keyboardist's ability to seemingly still handle several instrumental duties at once.
    Well, before Greg bought the first Mellotron ever sold in Washington State (January 1973) his primary instrument was a set of Musser vibes. Too bad he had to trade them in to afford the 'Tron.... Watching him play vibes was REALLY astonishing. And, believe it or not, he was really good too!

    Jeff has a couple archival concerts with Greg on vibes which I'm encouraging him to release. We shall see.

  19. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by rcarlberg View Post
    I was gonna post this when the album is released in a day or two, but since this thread has been reactivated:
    https://therealglass.bandcamp.com/al...ing-at-lesters


    The new (old?) release is now online. It's kinda a hoot -- check it out!

  20. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by Scrotum Scissor View Post
    I can absolutely imagine or visualize a Glass take on adolescent efforts such as those Soft documents, if you're referring to the Rock Generation Vol. 7 stuff with Gary Farr & the T-Bones on side A (which apparently only features ca. half of the recorded material from the De Lane Lea sessions).
    "Rock Generation Vol.7" (1972) included four tunes from the 1967 De Lane Lea sessions:
    * That's How Much I Need You Now
    * Save Yourself
    * I Should've Known
    * Jet Propelled Photograph (aka Shooting At The Moon)
    Due to a dispute over studio costs -- i.e. The Soft Machine didn't pay Giorgio Gomelsky for his time -- the songs on the De Lane Lea demo remained in Gomelski's possession. In total there were nine songs, including an additional five released on "Rock Generation Vol.8" (1972) (and Gomelski subsequently re-released them on a dozen different compilations when Soft Machine got famous, including "Faces and Places Vol.7", "The Soft Machine," "At The Beginning," "Jet-Propelled Photographs," "Shooting at the Moon," etc.):
    * When I Don't Want You
    * Memories
    * You Don't Remember
    * She's Gone
    * I'd Rather Be With You
    Two of these, "She's Gone" and "Memories," were also released on EMI Harvest's 3-LP set "Triple Echo" (1977), which has never been reissued on CD. In subsequent years the whole session's been bootlegged everywhere.

    But in 1968, Glass heard them play these songs live, before they (or indeed the self-titled first LP) were ever released.
    Last edited by rcarlberg; 08-21-2022 at 12:38 AM.

  21. #21
    ^ Precisely. I was always amazed at how well it worked with having the Soft portion start off with a ballad ("That's How Much I Need You Now", which was later obviously developed into "Moon In June"), but then again Wyatt went on to do exactly that to complete triumph on the first Matching Mole and lots of ensuing solo releases as well.

    When I pulled out the song ("That's How Much") just last week in connection with this thread, it struck me how much it reminds me of those Thymme Jones-penned piano ballads on the Cheer-Accident albums. Granted the latter is an outspoken fan of Wyatt's music, I guess there's no wonder. Still there's a common kind of atmospheric ambivalence set in between harmonic chord progressions and lyrics.

    I clearly recall Daevid Allen's notes on his own scepticism at the early Soft recordings being issued in the first place, seeing as he was apparently somewhat embarrassed at his own self-proclaimed "limited abilities" on the guitar. Listening now, there's little to downplay it compared to every other rough string-slinger in an upstart garage band of '66/67, and I'm really glad these reels exist and are indeed available. They offer a beguiling insight to developments in one of the most truly "evolutionary" progressive groups of all time, especially in regard to how such change occurs with subjective input.

    Spinning Glass again, and trying to catch all of those 27 minutes you kindly posted from the 2007 gig here in Oslo. Incredible how 15 years simply sort of fizzured away.
    "Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
    "[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM

  22. #22
    Member rcarlberg's Avatar
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    Thanks Scrot. It's interesting to consider that, at the time of the De Lane Lea recordings (1967), The Soft Machine were 29 years old (Allen), 24 (Ratledge), 23 (Ayers) and 22 (Wyatt).

    In 1969, Glass was almost ten years younger: 17 (Jeff), 16 (Jerry) and 15 (Greg).

  23. #23
    Member rcarlberg's Avatar
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    I've been helping Jeff get the music of Glass out in the world, now that physical product is basically an obsolete format. We signed up (at the suggestion of someone here, I think?) with a service called DistroKid which, for twenty bucks a year, posts all your music to Apple Music, Pandora, YouTube, TikTok, Spotify, iHeart Radio, BoomPlay, and about a dozen others I've never heard of. It all went "live" this morning. We shall see if this raises their profile any.
    https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcK...Hw_pw/featured
    https://music.apple.com/us/artist/glass/1645089279
    Last edited by rcarlberg; 09-15-2022 at 01:36 PM.

  24. #24
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    Quote Originally Posted by rcarlberg View Post
    Well, before Greg bought the first Mellotron ever sold in Washington State (January 1973) his primary instrument was a set of Musser vibes. Too bad he had to trade them in to afford the 'Tron.... Watching him play vibes was REALLY astonishing. And, believe it or not, he was really good too!

    Jeff has a couple archival concerts with Greg on vibes which I'm encouraging him to release. We shall see.
    FINALLY Jeff has released to BandCamp the Port Townsend High School concert, with Greg on vibes. I think it's pretty spectacular... for a one-armed keyboardist!

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