Classic Prog similar to VDGG
Printed From: Progarchives.com
Category: Progressive Music Lounges
Forum Name: Prog Recommendations/Featured albums
Forum Description: Make or seek recommendations and discuss specific prog albums
URL: http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=121527
Printed Date: August 15 2025 at 10:01
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 11.01 - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: Classic Prog similar to VDGG
Posted By: dougmcauliffe
Subject: Classic Prog similar to VDGG
Date Posted: November 17 2019 at 12:52
| I’ve fallen in love with this band recently and been on a huge kick. I love how Hammill uses his voice kinda like a lead instrument. Looking for more classic bands like them, dark and just out there. I’m of course familiar with crimson and gentle giant. |
Replies:
Posted By: Raff
Date Posted: November 17 2019 at 13:11
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If you don't mind exploring some more recent music, Discipline are just what you need. The singer and main composer, Matthew Parmenter, has a voice and singing style very close to Hammill's, and their songs are dark both musically and lyrically. They are also a bunch of very nice guys, which is always a good thing. |
Posted By: dougmcauliffe
Date Posted: November 17 2019 at 13:12
I did listen to part of rogue and that similarity did stick out to me. Everyone seems to love that band here so I will put them in the que! |
Raff wrote:Posted By: Psychedelic Paul
Date Posted: November 17 2019 at 13:53
For the time being, I'm happy to listen to albums that ARE by Van Der Graaf Generator as I've only listened to one so far: Pawn Hearts. I can tell I'm a fully-fledged member of ProgArchives now, because a couple of months ago, I wouldn't have had a clue who VDGG are, but now I knew instantly when I saw the title of this thread. 
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Posted By: dougmcauliffe
Date Posted: November 17 2019 at 14:05
Gotta suggest Godbluff my friend, listened to it after smoking some funny stuff last night and it really does deserve its spot in the top 10.
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Posted By: AFlowerKingCrimson
Date Posted: November 17 2019 at 14:12
| From the little I have heard Audience seem to be similar and also Catapilla but the latter has a female singer. Also, Gnidrolog. |
Posted By: Psychedelic Paul
Date Posted: November 17 2019 at 14:46
I will, although I won't be smoking any funny stuff.
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Posted By: Psychedelic Paul
Date Posted: November 17 2019 at 14:47
I like all three of those bands you mentioned.
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Posted By: dougmcauliffe
Date Posted: November 17 2019 at 15:00
Still good funny stuff or not
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Posted By: micky
Date Posted: November 17 2019 at 15:06
huh... hold on a goddamned minute here... you know those groups...and yet you are NOT familiar with VDGG. That sounds.. fishier than hell man. ------------- The Pedro and Micky Experience - When one no longer requires psychotropics to trip |
Posted By: Cristi
Date Posted: November 17 2019 at 15:11
 you have no idea
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Posted By: Quinino
Date Posted: November 17 2019 at 15:13
I second that |
Posted By: Cristi
Date Posted: November 17 2019 at 15:15
I third that
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Posted By: micky
Date Posted: November 17 2019 at 15:18
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ummm.... be careful about 2nding and 3rding my wife there guys... my bad side is not the place you want to be ------------- The Pedro and Micky Experience - When one no longer requires psychotropics to trip |
Posted By: Cristi
Date Posted: November 17 2019 at 15:21
get your mind out of the gutter
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Posted By: dougmcauliffe
Date Posted: November 17 2019 at 15:21
I'm gonna have to second this...
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Posted By: micky
Date Posted: November 17 2019 at 15:23
 ------------- The Pedro and Micky Experience - When one no longer requires psychotropics to trip |
Posted By: Psychedelic Paul
Date Posted: November 17 2019 at 15:27
I don't like Fish - or Marillion.
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Posted By: dougmcauliffe
Date Posted: November 17 2019 at 15:33
------------- The sun has left the sky... ...Now you can close your eyes |
Posted By: Psychedelic Paul
Date Posted: November 17 2019 at 15:38
It's just the abbreviations I was unfamiliar with. When I first arrived here a couple of months ago, I kept seeing constant references to a band called "KC", so I assumed they were talking about KC & the Sunshine Band.
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Posted By: Quinino
Date Posted: November 17 2019 at 15:44
... go easy with those pints, guys ... (well, one more wont hurt - here's to you Donna Rafaella
) |
Posted By: Raff
Date Posted: November 17 2019 at 15:53
Muito obrigada
! |
Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: November 18 2019 at 03:06
I don't know ... I think you are working yourself into a corner, and the specialty and individualistic feeling that many other bands can have, gets kinda swept aside by comparison. To be honest with you, PH and VdGG are one of a kind and have been for 50 years, a very individualized feeling and expression that is not loved by everyone, be it someone complaining about his voice, or something else ... like one post one time ... no keyboards and just one sound all the time (organ!). Of all the bands in my 50 years of listening to this stuff ... I think that the one that is the most unusual and quite different from album to album (it ends for me in Vive La Trance) is Amon Duul 2, but that's a band that is really hard to get into since they are so harsh and different sometimes, and a couple of years later, the album HIJACK is a really good album, but no one will listen to its music, and it has some very far out things, although, as usual, it is way out there, and even the feminist moment by Renate ... is completely ignored and means absolutely NOTHING to anyone else ... at a time when that was something that was coming alive in the media ... but it gets laughed off ... so what? ... wow ... totally insane! Other bands fit into the are of way out there, and BANCO is probably one, however Giacomo's singing is more attuned to classical music styles, than it is rock music, and thus not many fans can listen to it and enjoy it ... because ... wow ... where is the rock song and the hook? There is none! You can see this today, when they do some of the old material and the vocals are much more rock oriented than Giacomo's presentation ... but no one that heard the old stuff and had the music, will even listen to it now ... and even bands like PFM have done a very nice album ... no one is going to listen to it ... in other words the feeling of the "individuality" that was the staple of a lot of "progressive" music, is gone ... and we don't recognize it! ------------- Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told! www.pedrosena.com |
Posted By: PhideauxFan
Date Posted: November 18 2019 at 03:26
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Matthew Parmenter (solo) and Dsicipline. His nephew Ryan Parmenter (solo) and Eyestrings. Gargamel (Norway).
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Posted By: siLLy puPPy
Date Posted: November 18 2019 at 06:59
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Peter Hammill -------------  https://rateyourmusic.com/~siLLy_puPPy |
Posted By: HarryAngel746
Date Posted: November 18 2019 at 08:03
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Maybe Raw Material (especially their second album: Time Is) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TprBPdbjSbk" rel="nofollow - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TprBPdbjSbk
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Posted By: someone_else
Date Posted: November 18 2019 at 10:32
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Areknamés. ------------- 
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Posted By: BrufordFreak
Date Posted: November 18 2019 at 10:33
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Beyond Hammill's solo work and Discipline/Matthew Parmenter, the only time I've ever been totally struck by a similarity to Hammill/VDGG's vocals is from the 1978 album, Babylon from Florida one-off band, BABYLON. But the music is more imitative of Gabriel-era Genesis, so be forewarned. ------------- Drew Fisher https://progisaliveandwell.blogspot.com/ |
Posted By: Psychedelic Paul
Date Posted: November 18 2019 at 11:25
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I decided to take the plunge today and bought a couple of CD's by Van Der Graaf Generator without even hearing them first, although I can take them back to the record store if I don't like them.
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Posted By: dougmcauliffe
Date Posted: November 18 2019 at 12:35
Enjoy! They are among some of the least accessible prog so if you don’t love it right away, keep stabbing at it. ------------- The sun has left the sky... ...Now you can close your eyes |
Posted By: someone_else
Date Posted: November 18 2019 at 12:58
It took me some years to appreciate them, so take your time... -------------
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Posted By: dr wu23
Date Posted: November 18 2019 at 12:58
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Some one mentioned Gnidrolog.....I just recently found out about them though they go back to the early 70's....to me a cross between GG and VDGG. ------------- One does nothing yet nothing is left undone. Haquin |
Posted By: someone_else
Date Posted: November 18 2019 at 13:00
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^Near the center of the triangle formed by GG, VdGG and Jethro Tull. -------------
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Posted By: Psychedelic Paul
Date Posted: November 18 2019 at 13:03
The two VDGG albums I bought today are "The Least We Can Do Is Wave To Each Other" and "H To He Who Am The Only One" which doesn't make much grammatical sense, but who cares anyway, it's prog. The music is meant to be a little offbeat with lyrics that are often hard do decipher, and that goes for prog album titles too.
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Posted By: Foxprog
Date Posted: November 18 2019 at 14:15
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So, did you like the albums? |
Posted By: Psychedelic Paul
Date Posted: November 18 2019 at 14:34
I haven't listened to the albums yet. The only song I've heard so far from the two albums is "A House with No Door" after seeing the song mentioned in a recent poll. I bought the two VDGG albums just on the strength of that one song. I have listened to "Pawn Hearts" though on YouTube, but didn't like it enough to go out and buy it. I'd give the "Pawn Hearts" album three stars if I was reviewing it. I'm hoping the two albums I've bought today will be worthy of four stars though.
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Posted By: I prophesy disaster
Date Posted: November 18 2019 at 15:06
If you liked "A House with No Door" but not "Pawn Hearts", then perhaps you would like "Still Life". That's an album I've not quite gotten into even after many years, but it would seem that we are different with regards to VdGG, so you might like it because of the type of music it is. ------------- No, I know how to behave in the restaurant now, I don't tear at the meat with my hands. If I've become a man of the world somehow, that's not necessarily to say I'm a worldly man. |
Posted By: I prophesy disaster
Date Posted: November 18 2019 at 15:21
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^ You might also like the debut album, "The Aerosol Grey Machine". ------------- No, I know how to behave in the restaurant now, I don't tear at the meat with my hands. If I've become a man of the world somehow, that's not necessarily to say I'm a worldly man. |
Posted By: Psychedelic Paul
Date Posted: November 18 2019 at 15:22
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Posted By: Sean Trane
Date Posted: November 19 2019 at 03:33
I see where you're geyting at, partly on vocal matters But in terms of unusual line-ups (like VdGG was totally unusual), the Swiss band Circus was pretty strong (two sax/flute, drums and bassist) and did some tremendous stuff and relied also on extreme vocals at times first album is a bit more difficult than Movin'On (posted on the Two discs ET thread) |
Posted By: Psychedelic Paul
Date Posted: November 19 2019 at 03:56
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I like both the Swiss band Circus and the English Jazz-Rock band of the same name too. CIRCUS - Norwegian Wood |
Posted By: Dellinger
Date Posted: November 19 2019 at 14:13
| Out of what I know, I can't think of many artists that give a similar vocal delivery to Hamill... that's what makes him so special. The closest I can think of is not classic prog at all, and has very little similarity to the music of VdGG... for it's Devin Townsend... mostly because he does just whatever he wants with his vocals, and he is great. Yet, it's not classic prog, but modern prog metal (or at least it was modern 10 years ago), and of course it's guitar driven and has doesn't have sax. And he doesn't particularly sing like Hamill, but just goes everywhere with his singing (just like Hamill does). |
Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: November 19 2019 at 18:51
I recommend listening to them in "order" ... because the band gets stronger and stronger and the music better, if there is such a thing ... by the time you get to GODBLUFF and STILL LIFE, it is a really strong group. Of the solo side, it is harder to determine, although I would think that the most individualistic of the albums would be SILENT CORNER AND EMPTY STAGE, IN CAMERA , NADIR'S BIG CHANCE, OVER, A BLACK BOX, SKIN (an album I specially like!!!), OUT OF WATER ... are the ones I would recommend ... but you have to remember that there are no rules here, and this stuff is so far out there in the individual area that most top ten folks can not exactly appreciate ... nothing sounds familiar ... because of the artistic interpretation, and the poetic side of it all ... and this is completely counter ideas that rock music tends to talk about. Of the stuff in the past 10 years, I have not kept up ... now retired, my budget is small and I rely on used CD's off Amazon (for example) to get things, and I can not afford to get the new thing ... ------------- Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told! www.pedrosena.com |
Posted By: Psychedelic Paul
Date Posted: November 20 2019 at 00:41
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^^ Thanks for the recommendation about listening to the Van Der Graaf Generator albums in order of release date. I always do that anyway, whoever the artist happens to be. I also listen to my albums in alphabetical order too, so it's going to take me quite awhile to get around to listening to VDGG. I'm retired too, so I don't have a big budget either, buy I buy the vast majority of my CD's from charity shops and car boot sales for £1 or less at the rate of about one new CD every day.
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