My friends Karl and Paula, in addition to being fun long–distance chatters, also deeply appreciate prog rock—a rare quality. A recent remark by Karl about records by Gentle Giant and Van Der Graaaf Generator not holding up well for him, combined with Paula’s recommendation to me of Gentle Giant as a way to deepen my current prog rock obsession, prompted this entry.
The subject: Megalomaniacal weirdos and their relationship to rock music. Though I’ve only just begun to learn about Gentle Giant musically and historically (and though I know nothing at all about Van Der Graaf Generator), here’s a reflection Karl’s remark prompted for me: Gentle Giant is a band made up of middle–class white UK boys, three of them (initially) brothers, who have gone on over the past four decades post–GG–prime to make significant marks in the business and social worlds as label executives/label owners/farmers and dads. As far as I can tell, they’re all exceptionally unprepossessing, pleasant fellows who enjoy playing a bewildering variety of instruments and, while moderately progressive in the ways all hippies were, are not terribly interested in rocking the political boat in the UK, especially in ways that might impinge on their accumulation and preservation of wealth. And I suspect that makes for music that maybe, just maybe, is missing something vital: the megalomaniacal weirdo element that all great rock bands need, the one person (at least) in the band who engages life in wacky aesthetic ways by passionate disposition and who desperately craves attention and who has ideas about the world that just CANNOT be ignored and must, must, must be shared widely with the entire listening world through recordings and concerts or else tortured, angry bitterness will result.
It’s a risky argument to make, because one of the disheartening elements of rock history (and of popular arts generally) is the sense that only by being emotionally damaged can a person become a great artist. I don’t want to reinscribe that, but as I reflect on prog rock it’s one question I’m left with: How vital is the presence of a megalomaniacal weirdo (MW)? Prog rock is frequently painted with the punk–rock–swipe of bloated, precious art music crafted by white bread boys who come from privilege and who have nothing better to do than sit in a studio and twiddle. This description certainly fits the backgrounds of the founding members of Genesis—yet Peter Gabriel, who serves as a shining example of how the MW persona need not be a raging cretin (take note, Billy Corgan and Gordon Sumner!), assuredly fits the MW frame and thereby helps provide Genesis with an edge. As I learn more deeply about Yes, the principle transformation in my understanding has been my expanding appreciation for someone I used to hail simply as “that very annoying voice” but who turns out to be the band’s driving aesthetic visionary, Jon Anderson—a quintessential MW. Even ELP, which has been a trickier relational connection for me but which I continue to strive to appreciate, is nothing if not jammed with them: One typical MW, Greg Lake, combined with perhaps the weirdest person in the history of rock music (as high a bar as there is among all bars), Keith Emerson (Palmer seems calm). And a key piece to this puzzle for me is King Crimson, my newest great love yet a band that for many punk–swipers would stand as the most extreme example of what’s un–rockish about prog: Constantly shifting personnel, no clear front–person seeking out the spotlight on stage, the only consistent member a media–detesting nerd. However, the one and only thing Robert Fripp has in common with the pantheon of “me! me! me” rockstars from Elvis to Axl is that he’s an over–the–top MW—so King Crimson works. Even the genre most notorious for front–persons who are dismissive of the rockstar image features the MW linkage: If you put a gun in your mouth at 27, or you write “Alive,” or you live a life of artistic and economic and critical success and still cannot make it past 50 (rest in peace, Chris, no disrespect intended), you, too, just might be an MW.
Two immense caveats occur to me: First, Paula is (like her spouse Frank) a musician who seems to eschew talk ABOUT music in strong favor of actually MAKING music as a response, something she has in common with many musicians with whom I am close. Her recommendation of Gentle Giant did lead me to check out In a Glass House, which I find compelling if vocally and lyrically inscrutable, and The Power and the Glory, which I need to try once more after failing to bond with it initially. It’s possible that bands lacking an MW are easier to appreciate if listeners are also musicians. Second, Karl’s spouse Rosemary is one of many powerful women in my life who have taught me about other forms of art beyond Western popular music and film, two art forms historically dominated by white supremacist patriarchy. It’s possible that the need for a MW in order for a rock band to spark is an artifact of white supremacist patriarchy, and that if I knew more about, for instance, Japanese dance traditions, I might have a different sense of the MW in art.
But I am not yet a musician, I’m merely in the house of the critical writer and therefore focus on the art I already know. I’ll throw this stone.
Selling Dust 
Hmmmm. The notion of a MW is intriguing, and may hold water. Certainly the weirdo mantle for Pink Floyd was initially Syd Barrett, and the band strived to impress him long after he left, yet I feel their best work came from the tension between David Gilmore and Roger Waters, two dueling MWs in their own right. I agree about Genesis, it was never the same after PG left, and his solo albums were great. As for Yes, I was always a Chris Squire fan, he of the Rickenbacher bass who played it like a melody instrument, and sang harmonies at the same time. Yes, Tales From Topographic Oceans was all Jon, but their earlier work with a strong bass/guitar component is the best (Yours is no Disgrace, Heart of the Sunrise, Perpetual Change). And yet Relayer is my favorite, mostly because of Soundchaser (my drummer influence coming out).
So now to Gentle Giant and VDGG. I know GG is an acquired taste, but what I loved about their music was the tight harmonies (brothers!), the vast number of instruments they all played (and would switch off mid-song in concert), the brain teasingly complicated meters, and the sheer fun they had playing. And the slightly madrigal quality of some of the songs; very Jethro Tull. In a Glass House is considered on of the best GG albums, but my fave is still Free Hand, especially On Reflection (based on Knots by R.D. Laing), and His Last Voyage, which still slays me with its complicated rhythms and changes in style. It’s brilliant. My high school boyfriend made the leap from GG to VDGG, and felt superior to the rest of us, because THAT music was deep and profound. I have 2 albums; I never liked them (perhaps because he was so smug?)
The last thing I will say is in favor of the middle class musicians—their lyrics are clever and steeped in literary references. Given that these bands made up my teen years, it was so cool to hear lyrics that were about something other than girls and sex.
Karl? Your turn!
Very compelling, Paula—much food for thought and listening!
The Megalomaniacal Weirdo Theory. Yeah, maybe? There are so many components that come into play in making a band or an album artistically and musically interesting for me. I guess I see things maybe a little bit more broadly in that I think most successful bands (prog or other) usually have at least one, or maybe two, strong creative personalities in them. Maybe not psychologically damaged, but definitely passionate and at times overbearing. The singular-leader ones are easy to name (Tull, Crimson, Genesis, etc.). The examples where there is a pair usually have artistic tensions in them that sometimes drive the creative process (Lennon/McCartney, Jagger/Richards, Tyler/Perry, etc.). My problem with GG is really style-related: the vocals are really hard for me to get into (it’s like listening to a bird singing a million notes: it’s pretty, but it’s not very rock ‘n’ roll imo), and the weird, ever-changing rhythms and time signatures make the songs sometimes difficult for me to follow, and often make them seem disjointed. VDGG is a slightly different problem, also shared by GG: I find the songs to really *sound* very 70’s, but not in a good way. Yes definitely sounds 70’s, but their stuff is just so damn-good that it transcends that decade, and it doesn’t sound dated to my ears today. Same with most of the Tull stuff, and Floyd, of course. In comparison, GG and VDGG sound very old and dated to me, like Supertramp or Styx do to my ears. I personally also find the song-writing to be a little sub-par compared to their prog peers (Yes, Crimson, Tull, Floyd). By the way, Peter Hammill probably fits the bill as a MW.
Thanks, Karl. I appreciate the notion of creative tension among pairs of strong personalities; I think this really sparks in cases where even more than two are in evolving, tensive relation: REM and Rush come to mind, and I actually think Genesis and Yes fit this as well at their best (maybe King Crimson too).
Ahem, butoh is full of full-on MWs.
That said, I have lots of disjointed thoughts, largely stemming from the words “megalomaniacal” and “weirdo.” Peter Sellars (the opera director, not the actor) once defined an artist as someone who sees a different world they want to build, builds it, and lives in it. I love that definition for a number of reasons, including for how it sees artists as key for imagining and manifesting a different social construction, but also for how it eschews suffering as a central definition of the artist. I do think that definition aligns with “weirdo” in the sense that someone who insistently sees and creates and lives something most people cannot see is inherently “off” to the rest of society. (I can’t decide if this also fits artists who practice within “traditional” genres – which of course are always being created anew.) It’s also the feature that attracts others. That said, it’s not just the megalomaniacs who are able to push through and persist. It’s often the ones who persist through and despite crushing doubt and fear and sadness (and then maybe still die at 27 or 50, or maybe live a long life) and who show us the possibility of creating even when we’re most terrified who interest me the most. I think, for example of watching Chan Marshall of Cat Power grapple with anxiety and mental illness on stage – stopping songs, cartwheeling, her drummer having to coax her back to the microphone – and yet singing so sublimely. Not that I would wish that on her. And now I’m worried that I’m somehow working back towards suffering – I don’t mean to. I’m just saying it’s complicated, and maybe that the art is in the persistence despite any suffering or lack thereof – not in the suffering itself. So may Persistent Weirdo is what I’m arguing for, rather than MW? Patti Smith rather than Bono? Robert Plant rather than Madonna?
Thanks, Rosemary. I like the proposed PW modification—I like anything that valorizes Patti Smith. I think Nick Cave also fits—he’s both megalomaniacal and persistent, and my sense of his work is that it’s strongest durationally, the late stuff being the best stuff of all for me, which mitigates in favor of the PW in Cave outlasting the MW. I keep seeing Cat Power discs every time I go looking in record stores for the one Nick Cave item I can never find (the Nocturama set w/ DVD 5.1 and documentary bonus disc), because of the alphabet, and keep meaning to check it out one day but have not yet done.