"The Long Hello" from 1974 Part 1

 

This was the band behind Peter Hammill in VDGG, for the most part, as per discogs:

The Long Hello first started in 1973 as a one-off project of Van Der Graaf Generator bandmates David Jackson (sax and flute player), Guy Evans (percussionist) & organist Hugh Banton, supported by friends Piero Messina, Ced Curtis and Nic Potter. In 1980 the name 'The Long Hello' re-emerged as the common title for several other albums by these ex VdGG members separately. In total, 4 albums were released :

The Long Hello (volume 1) by Jackson, Evans and Banton

The Long Hello Volume Two by Nic Potter and Guy Evans

The Long Hello Volume Three by David Jackson

The Long Hello Volume Four by Guy Evans and David Jackson

It turns out there was a fifth one though called Gentlemen Prefer Blues, listed here.

In any case the first one was by far the best, though the fourth being more experimental definitely has some worth.

I always loved The O Flat Sessions with its eerie and atmospheric mystery, note that this track was written by Italian guitarist P. Messina:

His other composition on here is Fairhazel Gardens which is also quite lovely with its odd chord progression:

Left Lane in Common from 1985 UK, requesting flac

 

From discogs:

Words from Peter Mayer:

Talking about albums from waaaay back, we are excited to announce that an album I recorded with my brother Jim, Roger Guth, and a wonderful pianist, Ray Kennedy, is going to be released in March on CD in Japan, for distribution across the globe.

The album is called “In Common” and it was released in 1985 under the group name Left Lane. This album contains music that was the earliest release (besides a cassette called “To and From”) from Jim, Roger and me.

The music has jazz roots in its harmonic and melodic sense, heavily influenced by musicians such as Pat Metheny and some of the Jazz fusion artists of that time period.

It was released just several years before Roger, Jim and I went on to form the group PM and signed a record deal with Warner Bros. records.

I'll post the mp3 briefly here, but a commenter was looking for lossless, I thought I'd put this here in case anyone has it.

It's new to me and quite interesting, mostly to me at least reminiscent of the vocal tracks from famous prog-fusion band UK, with the efforts at writing inventive song structures and interesting chord changes but on an early 80s digital keyboards basis. The title track gives you an idea of the Pat Metheny reference, but note the nice attempt at writing poetic lyrics too:

Yonin Bayashi, 2 (Live 1973, Bao, Neo-N)

 

Setting aside the live album released later in the decade, but recorded earlier than anything else, which is just hard rock, these last two are pretty decent and well worth digesting repeatedly, especially Neo-N for which all song titles start with the letter N: an odd concept for an album indeed. 

Track 5 from Bao hits it out of the ballpark with the awesome guitar riff dissonances followed by a crazy wah wah guitar soloing:

Despite the above, the album still has the somewhat pedestrian vocal rock songs too typical of the band.

They went all out with the prog though on the next and last one from 1979, starting with Nocto-vision for you:

I shouldn't say last one though since they did return a decade later, presumably playing a simpler style. But I don't know enough to say if those are worth hearing too, particularly the early releases which saw the light of day later. Anyways this album is a real gem, and odd that I never heard it before this week.

Yonin Bayashi 1 (Hatachi no Genken, Ishoku, Golden Picnic, Printed Jelly)

 

Lots of playfulness with the cover art, the pipe-wielding sloth is priceless. Despite being described as prog, these albums are all minimally so in my opinion, starting with ssw and folky vocal tracks, moving through more developed songs, rock compositions, simple hard rock, a little bit of fusion guitarwork, there's really little progressive here.  Occasionally the band does shine and guitarmaster Morizono is always stunning. Really surprising to me that I never came across this artist before.

Discogs says:

An influential Japanese rock group that formed in 1970. They are generally regarded as experimental progressive rock. They broke up in 1979, but reformed in the late 80s for special live performances which continues to present day.

'Experimental progressive rock' is pretty ridiculous in the context of these early records, but they definitely did lean into that direction by the end of their run in the 70s when sadly experimental and progressive became verboten musical elements in favour of utter simplicity as long term trend which I sadly note continues to this day, with some exceptions. 

From the sloth album which came out in 1974, Ping Pong etc., clearly a kind of Pink Floyd influence with the organ front and centre:

A track from the next album called Continental Laidback Breakers if eerily reminiscent, this time, of the classic Gryphon medieval-influenced prog, and sometimes I know the classic UK Stackridge of Slark fame made instrumentals like this one:

If only the remainder of the record was along those wonderful creative lines! Of course, such is not to be.

And despite the great cover of Printed Jelly from 1977 I didn't really find too much at all of interest when it comes to genuine progressive rock or fusion. It seems to be mostly made up of basic rock, oddly enough. Especially annoying to me is the fact its genre description is listed as prog.  Even on the level of songwriting, it doesn't compare to a band like the marvelous School Band, remember them?

Giants from 1978 [flac] and Oliver Walrus from 1976 by request

 

Giants is squarely funky latin type fusion except the simplicity leaves a little to be desired or maybe a lot, as the case may be, the Kilimanjaro track for ex. remains in the same chord for almost the whole duration.  Discogged here, note the presence of Santana and Hancock. Sample track, In your heart, which has such a nice breezy feel:

On the other hand Oliver Walrus, real name, Gary Levine from the US, is quite the mix of styles with folky acoustic, crooning soul, steel drum calypso, hard blues rock, all on one LP.  He was in the 1972 band of the almost same name, Walrus logically enough. That one had such a wonderful cover, unlike Oliver's record. Here's the title track, Me Myself and I:

And here's one of the hard rock songs, I think you can guess what the title is:

I have to admit, both guitar and synth solos are nice though.