Caravan

Musically more quirky? Perhaps Caravan's vocalists (e.g. Richard Sinclair) had less charisma than Peter Gabriel? Different record labels will have different publicity machines and Charisma were more effective than Deram/Decca - the label which turned down the Beatles!!!! But Genesis wasn't successful (at least financial) until Selling England. Caravan like a number of Canterbury bands were probably more successful in mainland Europe. And then there could have been a prevailing hippy attitude, where success and heaps of cash were less important to playing the music.............However, I think to some extent they were over-shadowed by friends and fellow Canterbury scene band Soft Machine  in the early 70's - but even Soft Machine never made money - as the forthcoming Machine biography will reveal and one of many reasons why members often did session work to make ends meet.

People seemed to like a gimmick in the 70's.Gabriel had one with his dressing-up box,Caravan relied on the music and the music alone.Not decrying Genesis' musical talents ,that couldn't be farther from the truth,but an observation nonetheless.Many other prog bands without gimmicks became more successful.Maybe a constantly changing line-up didn't help ,but then again,Yes saw quite a few of those.

Edited by Man Erg

I have 'In The Land Of Grey And Pink' and I'm a little confused why it's considered a prog classic. Nine Feet Underground is a wonderful song, the rest to me seem just 'good'...Love To Love You and Golf Girl for example, enjoyable tunes, but I would have thought they were much too simple and poppy for your average progger. Hmm...

chorus of one wrote: I have 'In The Land Of Grey And Pink' and I'm a little confused why it's considered a prog classic. Nine Feet Underground is a wonderful song, the rest to me seem just 'good'...Love To Love You and Golf Girl for example, enjoyable tunes, but I would have thought they were much too simple and poppy for your average progger. Hmm...

Well, keep in mind that if you compare a lot of prog sub-genres to symphonic prog rock, they might pale in complexity and grandeur. You might have seen the discussion about whether DSOTM is prog or not, because it lacks complexity or variations in time signatures etc. Fruitless discussions really... But if you check out the definition to Caravan's sub-genre of prog, Canterbury, you'll see it fits quite nicely.

Played I Wished I were Stoned last night on my radioshow from If  ICould Do It All Over Again..." - the very title giving the clue that here is band who haven't given up on their hippiness and underground starting point, so musically in transition from late psychedelia to prog rock - but as somebody has pointed out- typical Canterbury of the time.

bokal wrote: [QUOTE=Dick Heath]I think that they were good musicians with good songs, but not enought popular or charismatic to sell millions of copies.

 

I do believe Caravan were awarded a gold disc in the mid 90's  based on  the total sales of  Land Of The Grey & Pink ; not quite millions but still respectable numbers - but did they get what was owed in royalty cheques?