Category: Genesis

Posted on

Invisible Touch (1986) – Genesis

Phil Collins: ‘The mid-1980s was the biggest we ever got.’1

In the mid-1980s, the gap between Genesis albums had become bigger. Phil Collins had started his solo career at the beginning of the decade and after the Genesis album Mike Rutherford had formed his chart-topping band ‘Mike and the Mechanics’ together with vocalists Paul Carrack and Paul Young. Tony Banks, having published solo albums since 1979, was the only one of the trio to not have significant chart success.

In 1985, Genesis went into their ‘Farm’ studio, again with producer Hugh Padgham, to write and produce their next album. The result was the powerful, vibrant album Invisible Touch, released in 1986. Out of the eight tracks, five became hit singles: ‘Tonight, Tonight, Tonight’, ‘Land of Confusion’, ‘In Too Deep’, ‘Throwing It All Away’ and the title track ‘Invisible Touch.’

Invisible Touch

The lead single ‘Invisible Touch’ is often ‘regarded by the loyal progressive-rock aficionado as a betrayal‘, as it represents Genesis ‘at its most commercial.’2 The song was, just like all the songs on the album, a product of group jamming. Paul Gomersall, the engineer who assisted Hugh Padgham on Invisible Touch remembered the band’s way of writing songs:

‘Mike would come up with some sort of wacky drum loop. He’d bring his drum machine in, or Phil would, and they’d work around that. Mike is very experimental. I think he sees himself as more like a Brian Eno sort of person who makes interesting sounds and rhythms. Tony’s stuff was more chordal. Half the sound of Genesis is the chords that Tony comes up with.’3

The song ‘Invisible Touch’ was written during such a jam session when Mike Rutherford played the guitar riff that became the basis of the song with an echo effect and Phil Collins started singing ‘She seems to have an invisible touch, yeah!’ Phil then wrote the lyrics about loving a mysterious person who gets under one’s skin, dominates one’s life and although it might be bad, one cannot keep away from them.

Like the rest of the album, the song ‘Invisible Touch’ is dominated by e-drum sounds used in 1980s pop music. The drum machine in the background was inspired by Sheila E.’s and Prince’s ‘The Glamorous Life’, released in 1985. These ingredients, along with Mike Rutherford’s bass line, Tony Banks’ keyboard solo and the key change in the outro, turn ‘Invisible Touch’ into a very energetic, joyous pop song.

Phil Collins: ‘Invisible Touch is my favourite Genesis song.’4

In concert, the band never performed ‘Invisible Touch’ in its original key, but down a half-step or more to save strain on Phil Collins’s voice. Still, he would turn it into a celebrated sing-a-long with the audience.

Mike Rutherford also mentioned that ‘Invisible Touch’ was one of his favourites to play live, as ‘it’s a wonderful song: upbeat, fun to play, always a strong moment in any gig.’5

For many ‘old-school fans’, the album Invisible Touch was a total sell-out and the song itself became a target of hate. It was their first and only number one hit in the US single charts and was even mentioned in American Psycho when lead character Patrick Bateman names it as the group’s ‘undisputed masterpiece.’

Tonight, Tonight, Tonight

‘Tonight, Tonight, Tonight’ is according to music journalist Chris Welch the band’s ‘most memorable pop ballad‘, with ‘a nagging electronic theme‘ and lyrics that ‘are alternately obscure and direct.‘6

The album version is 9-minutes long and includes various elements from the band’s career. Again, the song was a result of jamming (the working title being ‘Monkey/Zulu’) and one can hear how Tony Banks took the lead and improvised the long passages, including a middle section with ‘a series of suitably weird instrumental effects.’7 The abstract, but very direct lyrics by Phil, some of which were improvised too, are about drug abuse.

Mike Rutherford: ‘It’s more of the old-style Genesis in that it covers a lot of ground musically and has a fairly involved instrumental passage in the middle. We’ve done songs like this from the word go. The initial bit came from an improvised jam and the song and solo part in the middle were obvious from a longer section when Tony was just improvising sound over a rhythm being played by Phil and I and he just assembled a composed solo part.‘8

Mike Rutherford about Tony Banks: ‘He’s the most adventurous in terms of song format, he’s always trying to not get stuck into a verse, chorus, middle eight, he’ll always push us a little bit to question whether we couldn’t explore a bit more.‘9

Land of Confusion

Mike Rutherford wrote the lyrics for this rare politically themed song about the tension between nations, calling it ‘a political song about the mess we landed in. I’ve always shielded away from doing what I call a preachy song, a protest song, but it seemed to work. Maybe because the music was quite angry it made it work.’10

The music was written by all three members together.

Spitting Image and the music video

‘Land of Confusion’ became very famous for its promotional video, which not only showed Rutherford, Collins and Banks as puppets created by the British television comedy ‘Spitting Image’, but also politicians such as Jimmy Carter, Henry Kissinger, Leonid Brezhnev, Margaret Thatcher and of course Ronald Reagan, in whose nightmare all these caricatures appear.

The idea for the music video came as Genesis video director Jim Yukich saw Phil Collins being caricatured on the TV show ‘Spitting Image’, ‘a series of satirical programmes […] since 1984, in which lifelike but grotesque puppets act out scenes relating to topical events and people in the news, including especially politicians and members of the royal family‘.11

On the show, Phil’s puppet was performing a parody of his chart-topping love ballads, ‘Oh, You Must Be Leaving’ while weeping constantly.

The main protagonist in ‘Land of Confusion’ is Ronald Reagan, then president of the United States, who is in bed with his wife and a monkey. The monkey is a reference to the movie Bedtime for Bonzo, in which Reagan shared a bed with a monkey.

The video also features puppets of famous musicians Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Tina Turner, Michael Jackson and other celebrities. The music video won Genesis their first and only Grammy Award in 1987 for ‘Best Concept Music Video’.

Tony Banks: ‘What other video can boast having all these stars, like Madonna and Prince?’12

In Too Deep

In 1985, Phil Collins had been commissioned by Ray Cooper of Handmade Films (George Harrisons’ film company that he had set up to produce Monty Python) to write a song for the film Mona Lisa, starring Bob Hoskins and Cathy Tyson.

While on solo tour in Australia, he wrote the chorus of what became ‘In Too Deep’, but when the film was due to be released, Phil did not work on a solo album, but on a Genesis album. The three wrote the rest of the song and created a warm pop ballad, in which Phil shines on vocals while Tony is playing piano and Mike’s adds well-placed and delicate guitar accents. Submitting it to Ray Cooper, he naturally liked it very much, and inevitably ‘In Too Deep’ became a hit outside of the movie as well.

Tony Banks remembered not knowing what to do in the music video, which just shows the band playing because it was no funny song. Perhaps they should have included clips of Mona Lisa in between.

Anything She Does

This very fast song is dominated by Tony Banks’ synthesizers and the brass sounds with which he emulates horns, and Phil’s drums. The ending is deliberately chaotic.

With Tony Banks’ lyrics being about page three-girls, Genesis wanted to have British comedian Benny Hill as his character Fred Scuttle for the music video. Phil got the task of ringing him up. At this time, Hill wanted to get away from his image as ‘dirty old man’. The script saw the band rehearsing backstage at Wembley Stadium and him being the door man on duty while all the women lined up to try and get past him. Hill agreed on the condition that his character tried to chase the girls, but never got one. Phil was very happy for the signed photograph he got in the end.

Domino

Domino’ is a 11-minute epic in two parts (I. ‘In the Glow of the Night’, II. ‘The Last Domino’), which are very different from each other. Part One begins slowly and pretty until an abrupt ending and a musical explosion lead to Part Two in double tempo with a heavy beat.

Being the album’s long song, the lyrics about the desperation and loneliness in war time were written by Tony Banks.

Mike Rutherford: ‘His words are the reason why he’ll never write a hit single.’13

Phil Collins: ‘We were always a group of songwriters who would write 3-, 10- and 20-minute songs. We still write 10-minute songs, like ‘Domino’, but unfortunately, the three-minute songs have gotten better and become hits. I don’t feel we’ve bastardized the way we were, as we still work the same way. Diehard fans will say, ‘Rubbish. ‘The Carpet Crawlers, ‘I Know What I Like’ – that was progressive!’ But I don’t see that. We’d have killed for hit singles back in the early days!‘14

Mike drew a comparison to the costumes of Peter Gabriel: ‘Looking back, people forget the show’s an hour and three quarters maybe and the costumes were probably 15 minutes of the whole thing. When we started having hit singles with MTV and videos, a hit single overshadowed the whole album and people started sort of saying ‘You stopped doing long songs.’ We never did, really, every album had a sort of 15-minute-long song on it till the very end. But they were album tracks, so they weren’t on television, they weren’t on the radio, but live they were a big part of the set.’15

Throwing It All Away

‘Throwing It All Away’ is based on an intensive guitar riff by Mike that is repeated throughout the whole song. He also wrote the simple love-song lyrics.

The song gives Phil another opportunity to sing about the end of a relationship and again, he does what he can do best masterfully. Even though the topic is sad, the mood is very uplifting and the whole composition is a brilliant example of how concise the trio Banks/Collins/Rutherford could combine their songwriting skills. When played live, the song became famous for its call-and-response.

‘Throwing It All Away’ was live drummer Chester Thompson’s favourite song to play: ‘The crazy thing about that is that the full kit only comes in the last bit of the song, it’s mostly just hi-hat and bass drum and then you finally come in towards the end, but I just thought it was such a great feel, I loved playing that song.’16

The music video is made up of sequences filmed during the band’s 1986 tour, partly by Phil with a hand camera.

The Brazilian

The last song on Invisible Touch is the instrumental ‘The Brazilian’, which is full of strange electric percussion sounds and half-tone step and definitely is ‘the strangest and most demanding cut on the album’, as music journalist Chris Welch writes: ‘A re-affirmation of the band’s faith in its musical past, […] full of spacey sounds like a sea monster, breathing heavily and stomping up the beach.’17

Reception

Music journalist Chris Welch thinks that Invisible Touch comes closest to achieving the status of being Genesis ‘ultimate album’.18 Band biographers Bowler & Dray think that ‘certainly it was their best album since ‘Wind And Wuthering’‘ and ‘one of the very best albums of the 1980s.’19 . Some fan-reactions can be summed up nicely by Alan Hewitt, founder of Genesis’s official The Waiting Room fanzine, who described Invisible Touch as ‘the first Genesis album he ever played once and then turned into a frisbee‘.20

Tony Banks: ‘On ‘Invisible Touch’, you’ve got the ‘Domino’ suite, which is 12 minutes long, and ‘Tonight, Tonight, Tonight’, which is about nine minutes. Both are identifiably Genesis, the sort of thing that no one else does. If you add, say ‘The Brazilian’, which again is like no other group, you’ve got at least 50% of the album. There are songs like ‘Invisible Touch’ and ‘Throwing It All Away’, but we’ve always done those. It’s just that we do them better now. With the songs, say off ‘The Lamb Lies Down’, maybe they’re lyrically more complex, but in terms of the songs themselves – ‘Carpet Crawlers’ or ‘Counting Out Time’ – they’re all attempts at the same kind of things. Even ‘From Genesis to Revelation’ was all short songs, all attempts at writing hit singles. And all failed.‘21

The multi-platinum album Invisible Touch was the band’s most successful and granted by the critics. Songs like ‘Invisible Touch’, ‘Land of Confusion’ and ‘Tonight, Tonight, Tonight’ dominated international charts throughout 1986/87. In the US, charts were also calculated on radio airplay, so even the song ‘Anything She Does’, which had not been released as a single, ended up in the charts. Also, the song’s music videos were running endlessly on MTV, the new medium of music television that had come up in the 1980s.

Tony Banks: ‘It’s great having hits. I was brought up in the era of hits, in the 60s the next Beatles song coming out was the sort of high point of my existence.’22

Peter Gabriel had been equally successful at that time: The single ‘Invisible Touch’ had been knocked off no. 1 by his hit ‘Sledgehammer’ and his album So was equally successful and became his biggest-selling album. 1986 seemed to have been a good year for this former ‘art rock’ band and its members.

The Invisible Touch Tour

Mike Rutherford: ‘A lot of people came to see us in the 80s and 90s in America because of the hit singles, but I always knew the long songs would grab them. They were songs that were visually were impressive with the vari-lites. Those who came to see us because of the singles and the radio tracks went away with a different impression of us.‘23

The successful album was followed by a massive tour that led the band through ‘large open air arenas and stadiums in Europe and the USA. The tour also took in several shows in Japan, only their second visit to that country, and finally included their first ever shows in New Zealand and Australia.’ The tour culminated ‘in a record-breaking four consecutive nights at London’s enormous Wembley Stadium in 1987.’24

Phil Collins:‘The Wembley shows were very special. It was still the old Wembley; it was football territory. Everything just seemed to peak at that point. I’ve been thinking about the set of the time with ‘Home By The Sea’, where the lights were coming down.’25

The record-breaking Wembley shows were filmed for a home video release, the first using Sony Hi Definition film.

After the end of the 1987 tour, Phil, Mike and Tony went back to their solo careers. Genesis came together in 1991 to record and release their final studio album with Phil Collins, We Can’t Dance. But that’s another story.

Sources

Banks, Tony; Collins, Phil; Gabriel, Peter; Hackett, Steve; Rutherford, Mike; Dodd, Philip (2007): Genesis. Chapter & verse. New York: Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Griffin.

Barnett, Laura, ‘Phil Collins and Mike Rutherford: How we made Invisible Touch’, The Guardian (14 October 2014).

Bowler, Dave; Dray, Bryan (1992): Genesis. A biography. London: Sidgwick & Jackson.

CHESTER THOMPSON FULL INTERVIEW : HOW HE WENT FROM ZAPPA TO DRUMMING WITH GENESIS & PHIL COLLINS.

Genesis – Behind The Track (Land Of Confusion).

Hewitt, Alan, Opening the Musical Box – A Genesis Chronicle. (Firefly Publishing, 2000).

Holm-Hudson, Kevin (2008): Genesis and the lamb lies down on Broadway. Aldershot, England, Burlington, VT: Ashgate.

MIKE RUTHERFORD UNFILTERED: GENESIS GUITARIST/COMPOSER IN CONVERSATION.

PHIL COLLINS: HOW I GOT THE GENESIS AUDIENCES LAUGHING.

Platts, Robin (2007): Genesis. Behind the lines, 1967-2007. Burlington, Ont., Canada: Collectors Guide Pub.

Room, Adrian (1990): An A to Z of British life. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Rutherford, Mike, The Living Years: The First Genesis Memoir. (Macmillan, 2014).

Thompson, Dave (2005): Turn it on again. Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins & Genesis. San Francisco: Backbeat Books.

‘Tony Banks Interview from ‘Genesis Songbook DVD’.

TONY BANKS UNFILTERED: GENESIS KEYBOARD PLAYER & COMPOSER IN CONVERSATION . FULL.. 1 Hour 53 Mins.

Welch, Chris (2005): Genesis. The complete guide to their music. London: Omnibus Press.

  1. Collins 2007: 263. ↩︎
  2. Holm-Hudson 2008: 133 ↩︎
  3. in Platts 2007: 133. ↩︎
  4. Barnett, Laura, ‘Phil Collins and Mike Rutherford: How we made Invisible Touch’, The Guardian (14 October 2014). ↩︎
  5. Barnett, Laura, ‘Phil Collins and Mike Rutherford: How we made Invisible Touch’, The Guardian (14 October 2014). ↩︎
  6. Welch 2005: 68. ↩︎
  7. Ibid. ↩︎
  8. Bowler & Dray 1992: 202. ↩︎
  9. Ibid. ↩︎
  10. Genesis – Behind The Track (Land Of Confusion). ↩︎
  11. Room 1990: 355. ↩︎
  12. Tony Banks Interview from ‘Genesis Songbook DVD. ↩︎
  13. Rutherford 2014: p. 150. ↩︎
  14. Thompson 2005: 224. ↩︎
  15. MIKE RUTHERFORD UNFILTERED: GENESIS GUITARIST/COMPOSER IN CONVERSATION. ↩︎
  16. CHESTER THOMPSON FULL INTERVIEW : HOW HE WENT FROM ZAPPA TO DRUMMING WITH GENESIS & PHIL COLLINS. ↩︎
  17. Welch 2005: 70. ↩︎
  18. Welch 2005: 68. ↩︎
  19. Bowler & Dray 1992: 201; 205. ↩︎
  20. Thompson 2005: 225. ↩︎
  21. Platts 2007: 134. ↩︎
  22. TONY BANKS UNFILTERED: GENESIS KEYBOARD PLAYER & COMPOSER IN CONVERSATION . FULL.. 1 Hour 53 Mins. ↩︎
  23. MIKE RUTHERFORD UNFILTERED: GENESIS GUITARIST/COMPOSER IN CONVERSATION. ↩︎
  24. Hewitt 2000: 60 ↩︎
  25. PHIL COLLINS: HOW I GOT THE GENESIS AUDIENCES LAUGHING. ↩︎
Posted on

Genesis: The Early Years Through the Eyes of Richard Macphail

Richard MacPhail

Richard Macphail, a beloved and influential figure in Genesis history, passed away unexpectedly on August 27, 2024, at the age of 73.

Before they became a household name synonymous with prog rock innovation and some of the most iconic music of the 1970s and 80s, the band Genesis was a group of young men trying to find their sound, their place, and their future in the music world.

This essay offers an insider’s perspective on these early days by Richard Macphail, close friend, tour manager, and roadie for the band during their formative years. Here’s to you, Richard. Thank you for everything.

The Seeds of Genesis

The story of Genesis truly begins with one man: Richard Macphail.

At Charterhouse School, Richard crossed paths with Rivers Jobe, a bass player who introduced him to the world of music, and more specifically, to Anthony Phillips, a key figure in the early Genesis lineup. This introduction led to the formation of a band named Anon, which included Mike Rutherford on guitar.

‘At Charterhouse, I met a guy called Rivers Jobe, who was way ahead of us all. He went on very early to become a professional bass player,’ Richard recalled. It was through Rivers Jobe that Richard Macphail found himself behind a drum kit, despite realizing quickly that drumming wasn’t his forte. Instead, his role shifted to vocals, a position he felt more comfortable with.

Early Rehearsals and the Birth of Anon

At Richard’s first visit to Anthony Phillips’ house in Putney, the furniture was pushed aside to make room for music equipment: ‘I was astonished to find that the dining room had been converted into a rehearsal space.‘ After the summer holidays, Anthony Phillips also joined Charterhouse School. Together with drummer Rob Tyrell, a friend of Ant’s, they formed the band ‘Anon’, playing mostly Rolling Stones covers at parties and local dances.

Mike Rutherford, another Charterhouse student, joined Anon after connecting with Ant Phillips over their mutual love of guitar. Despite challenges like strict housemasters and other school obligations, the group managed to hone their skills and pull together own material. The first member to bring in an own song was Ant: a track called ‘Pennsylvania Flickhouse’.

‘Ant was way ahead in terms of composing’, Richard Macphail remembered. The Anon booked an hour of studio time at Tony Pike’s Sound in Putney: ‘We piled all the gear in Ant’s mother’s Mercedes and got on a bus and I thought ‘An hour, on my God, what are we gonna do with a whole hour? Each song’s three minutes long, that means we’re gonna get about nine songs done.’ We just got one done and we had huge rails with Mr Pike because everything was of course too loud and he said ‘You’re gonna ruin my equipment!’, all that classic stuff that went on in those days in recording studios.’

This time was the true beginning of what would eventually evolve into Genesis.

Genesis is Born

As members of Anon left Charterhouse and pursued different paths, the remaining members, including Mike Rutherford and Anthony Phillips, joined forces with Peter Gabriel and Tony Banks, leading to the formation of Genesis. Jonathan King, a Charterhouse alumnus, discovered the band after hearing a demo recorded by Brian Roberts, another Charterhouse student. King was impressed enough to produce their first album, From Genesis to Revelation.

In 1969, as the band members faced a crucial decision about their future, they took what we would now call a ‘gap year.’ During this time, they found themselves with their third drummer, John Mayhew, in an empty cottage owned by Richard Macphail’s parents: ‘Coincidentally, my parents had a cottage near Dorking in Surrey, quite remote, but only an hour from London. It was empty and they were going to sell it. They wanted to wait till spring and they let us use it. My dad worked for Rank Hovis McDouggal, he got us an old bread van and that’s how it all kicked off. That was the summer of ’69–’70, where we did our getting it together in the country thing.‘ Also, Richard’s sister had married a scientist who built him a stereo amplifier with headphones. Thus, he was able to play the band new, experimental records in stereo, which influenced them hugely in their own songwriting.

This period was pivotal, as it solidified the band’s commitment to their music and each other.

The Creative Process and the Making of Trespass

Despite their growing cohesion, the band experienced turbulent times. Richard Macphail was the sixth member, trying his best to nourish his guests with pretty basic food. ‘Mike Rutherford once said that if it wasn’t for me, they would have killed each other,’ he recalled, highlighting the intense personalities and creative differences that frequently caused friction. However, this tension also fueled their creativity, leading to the evolution of their signature sound.

During that time at ‘Christmas Cottage’, as they called it, the band wrote their second album Trespass, which included songs like ‘Stagnation’ and ‘The Knife.’ Richard recalled watching Peter Gabriel write the lyrics to ‘The Knife’ and being struck by the violent revolution described in the song—an interesting contrast to Peter Gabriel’s typically shy demeanor.

The creative process at this time was organic and collaborative. ‘Everyone brought their bits to the party,’ Richard explained. This method of piecing together various musical ideas became a hallmark of Genesis’s style, particularly evident in later works like ‘Supper’s Ready’.

Turbulence and Transformation

With the bread van, the band began touring the UK in 1969/1970. At these early gigs, Peter Gabriel was very nervous as frontman, so much that he sometimes forgot the lyrics and more than once, Richard Macphail had to step in and do the announcements. During their gigs, Richard Macphail also proved to be the problem-solver: One time, a little later, when they had a Mellotron, they could not get the instrument up the stairs of a venue. Thinking they had to cancel the show, Richard just sawed off the banisters to solve the problem.

One of the major challenges came when Anthony Phillips, a cornerstone of the band, announced he was leaving due to stage fright and health issues in the summer of 1970. ‘It was a serious question as to whether they would go on,’ Richard remembered. In a crucial meeting at the back of their van behind the Marquee Club, Rich urged the remaining members to continue. Thankfully, they did, and the search for new members began.

The Arrival of Phil Collins and Steve Hackett

The introduction of Phil Collins as the drummer and later, Steve Hackett as the guitarist, marked a turning point for Genesis. Phil Collins, who Richard described as ‘unbelievable‘ in his drumming abilities, transformed the band’s music with his dynamic style. ‘I never could have imagined in a million years the difference a drummer could make,’ Richard reflected.

Steve Hackett’s arrival completed the classic Genesis lineup. Although more introverted than the others, Steve Hackett’s musical prowess, particularly his love for the 12-string guitar and his brilliant lead guitar skills, meshed perfectly with the band’s evolving sound. ‘It really went clunk with that,’ Richard Macphail said, noting that this lineup would go on to produce some of Genesis’s most celebrated work.

A Band on the Brink of Greatness

By the time Genesis released Trespass in October 1970, they had overcome significant hurdles, including lineup changes and internal conflicts. The band was now poised on the brink of greatness, with a lineup that would soon produce some of the most innovative music of the 1970s. Richard Macphail was an important figure during that crucial, formative period of growth, experimentation, and transformation. Richard Macphail helped Genesis laying the groundwork for their future as prog rock pioneers. Thank you Richard.

Richard Macphail: 17 September 1950 – 27 August 2024.

Title photo: Richard on the cover of his book My Book of Genesis

Richard MacPhail - My Book of Genesis
Richard Macphail – My Book of Genesis

Source

RICHARD MACPHAIL INTERVIEW Revised : GENESIS early years.

Posted on

Anthony Phillips’s last gig with Genesis

Cover for one of the various editions of 'From Genesis to Revelation'

On 18 July 1970, Genesis played their last show with founding member and guitarist Anthony Phillips at Haywards Heath.

Charterhouse and ‘The Anon’

Anthony Phillips joined Charterhouse, a public school in Godalming, Surrey, in April 1965. Being a guitarist, he quickly formed a band there with his fellow pupils Richard MacPhail, Rivers Jobe, Rob Tyrell and Mike Rutherford. They named themselves Anon and played songs by The Rolling Stones1, The Beatles and several other pop groups of the era. They performed mostly at parties.

The first member to bring in an own song into Anon was Anthony Phillips: ‘Pennsylvania Flickhouse’. They booked an hour of studio time at Tony Pike’s studio in Putney, as Richard MacPhail remembers: ‘We piled all the gear in Ant’s mother’s Mercedes and got on a bus and I thought ‘An hour, on my God, what are we gonna do with a whole hour? Each song’s three minutes long, that means we’re gonna get about nine songs done.’ We just got one done and we had huge rails with Mr Pike because everything was of course too loud and he said ‘You’re gonna ruin my equipment!’, all that classic stuff that went on in those days in recording studios.’2

In December 1966, the group disbanded.

Anthony Phillips in Genesis

In 1967, Ant and his friend and fellow guitarist Mike Rutherford began writing music together. To record a demo, they asked another Charterhouse pupil, Tony Banks, if he could play organ on a song. Tony agreed under the condition that his mate Peter Gabriel could also come along and sing one of their songs. Both of them had also played in a band at Charterhouse, The Garden Wall. Ant and Mike agreed and soon, former Garden Wall drummer Chris Stewart joined the group.

The demo tape was given to producer Jonathan King, who signed them to his publishing company and they recorded some singles. King then named the group Genesis, and the group recorded their first studio album From Genesis to Revelation (1969). Like on the singles, King added strings arranged by Arthur Greenslade to the mix. To their frustration, the band only found out about the strings when listening to the finished version of From Genesis To Revelation with only Ant Phillips showing his anger by storming out of the studio.

By mid-1969, the boys’ parents wanted them to resume education. At Charterhouse, Ant began studying for further A levels to pursue a university degree. But Ant and Mike had been gripped by rock and roll and decided to become professional musicians. By the end of the summer of 1969, Peter and Tony joined them in their wish to become full-time musicians. They began writing music and touring the country from late 1969 to early 1970. ‘Yet, something was lacking‘, it is said in the press kit of Ant’s first solo album, ‘Phillips, perhaps because he was younger than the others found that life on the road was getting in the way of his writing.’3

The unhappiness and the stress began affecting Ant’s health and also he began suffering from stage fright: : ‘I was in Watford Tech, I remember playing the opening thing of ‘Let Us Now Make Love’ and I looked at the guitar and I thought ‘I haven’t got a clue what comes next’ and then I saw myself playing, but it was really scary.’4 Rich MacPhail remembers him playing a gig at Hackney where Ant was almost catatonic.5

Ant battled with the stage fright for three months thinking it was a passing phase and then fell ill with bronchial pneumonia: ‘Doctors were advising me to leave [the band]6‘, Ant says.

In June 1970, Genesis recorded their second album Trespass. Ant enjoyed working in the studio, but in July, they went straight back into band-life with little sleep, a lot of excitement and although Richard MacPhail tried his best to nourish his mates, pretty basic food. They were travelling and sleeping in their bread van or on floors: ‘We literally pitched up somewhere in the Midlands and we had nowhere to stay’, Ant recalls. ‘Too far to go back and some guy said: ‘Well, I know a guy with a bloody big house in Buxton’ and we stayed on the drafted floor of a bloody big house in Buxton.’7

Anthony Phillips leaves the band

Finally, Ant decided to leave Genesis. ‘I remember driving out with with Richard MacPhail who said ‘Can we have a word with you?”, Mike Rutherford remembers. ‘To the pitch at Richmond rugby ground after a soundcheck. Light was falling, it was a weird atmosphere and Ant said he wanted to leave. It was a huge shock to me.’8 Ant’s last show was at Haywards Heath on 18 July 1970.

Tony Banks says: ‘I thought it was the end of the group. He was vital to its formation and in many ways he was the strongest member. We felt that whatever was special about us was a combination of the four of us being together in the same room so I assumed that when he left, that was it.’9

Losing Ant ‘was the closest we came to busting up’, Mike Rutherford agrees. ‘For some reason we felt so close that if one left, we thought we couldn’t carry on. Of all the changes we’ve been through, surviving Ant leaving was the hardest.’10

The aftermath

After Ant’s departure, Genesis did not disband, but his influence remained. The acoustic beginning of the ‘The Musical Box’, the opening song of their next album Nursery Cryme, was based on an instrumental guitar piece by Mike and Ant called ‘F Sharp’.

Ant himself went into a hiatus. ‘I left Genesis in a cloud of dust’, he says. ‘I remember I was listening to Sibelius when I had one those strange revelations – that I was terribly limited.’11 He started studying various musical styles and in 1974, he began teaching music as a means to further explore the subject. In 1977 he said: ‘In the time since I left Genesis, I’ve studied classical guitar, piano, orchestration.’12 That same year he released his first solo album The Geese And The Ghost. Anthony Phillips is still active as a musician today.

Title photo: Cover of one of the various editions of From Genesis to Revelation

Footnotes

  1. To this day, Ant sends Christmas cards to Richard addressed to ‘Mick Phail’. ↩︎
  2. RICHARD MACPHAIL INTERVIEW Revised : GENESIS early years ↩︎
  3. “The Geese and The Ghost Press Kit“. Passport Records. 1977. pp. 2–3. ↩︎
  4. ANTHONY PHILLIPS UNFILTERED: GENESIS C0-FOUNDER IN CONVERSATION ↩︎
  5. RICHARD MACPHAIL INTERVIEW Revised : GENESIS early years. In fact, Anthony Phillips has not played live to this day. ↩︎
  6. Cherry Red Interview: Anthony Phillips Story – Part 1 – Interview by Mark Powell – 2014 ↩︎
  7. ANTHONY PHILLIPS UNFILTERED: GENESIS C0-FOUNDER IN CONVERSATION ↩︎
  8. MIKE RUTHERFORD UNFILTERED: GENESIS GUITARIST/COMPOSER IN CONVERSATION. Now Revised ↩︎
  9. Bowler, Dave; Dray, Bryan, Genesis. A biography. (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1992), p. 35. ↩︎
  10. Ibid. ↩︎
  11. Hedges, Dan, ‘It’s that candour moment…’, Sounds (26 March 1977). ↩︎
  12. Ibid. ↩︎
Posted on

Phil Collins’ last gig with Genesis at Cowdray Ruins on 18 September 1993

On 18 September 1993, Genesis played their last gig with Phil Collins at Cowdray Ruins before he left the band.

Genesis in 1993

1993 was a quiet year for Genesis. In 1992, the group had been on their huge’We Can’t Dance tour‘ following their 1991 album We Can’t Dance*. 1993 saw them returning to their solo projects. Phil Collins’ marriage to his second wife Jill started to fall apart with the tabloid press publishing story over story about the family. Phil wrote and released his solo album Both Sides*, a very dark and angry and certainly his most personal album, which unfortunately did not go very well with the critics. In these turbulent times, Genesis only played one gig, when they resurfaced briefly for ‘a charity gig at Cowdray Ruins in aid of the King Edward VII hospice where they were joined by such rock alumni as Pink Floyd and the remaining members of Queen.’1

Queen performed a set of songs with Roger Taylor and Paul Young from Mike and the Mechanics on vocals. Then Genesis took the stage, but not with their regular live members Chester Thompson on drums and Daryl Stuermer on bass and guitar. Instead, Roger Taylor of Queen and Gary Wallis of Mike and the Mechanivs played drums for them and bass/guitar was played by Mike’s bandmate from Mike and the Mechanics, Tim Renwick, who also played with Pink Floyd.

Genesis’ reunion in the picturesque scenery among these famous headliners saw them playing ‘Turn It On Again’, ‘Hold On My Heart’, ‘I Can’t Dance’ and ‘Tonight Tonight Tonight’/’Invisible Touch’. According to some sources, they were also said to have played Phil Collins’s solo song ‘That’s Just The Way It Is’, but that is highly doubtable.

Next up was Pink Floyd who played some of their classic tracks from the 1970s, some also sung by Paul Young and with Mike on bass. Phil remembers: ‘The Floyd I’ve never loved apart from ‘Arnold Layne’. But we did this gig…I went to the sound check, and I was listening to the Floyd and a couple of the things they played I thought ‘I quite like that. There’s a couple of things in there that, you know. They show promise.”2

After Pink Floyd, Eric Clapton played a few songs (with Mike playing bass) and at the end, the ‘All Star Cowdray Ruins Band’, a band that featured everyone that had performed that night, played ‘Ain’t That Peculiar’, ‘Can I Get A Witness’ and ‘Gimme Some Loving’. YouTube videos and audio recordings of the show exist, but in a very low quality, which is a shame when considering this was Phil’s last gig with Genesis.

It was a successful, but ‘low-profile show’ and ‘few people would have ever believed that it was also Phil Collins’s final appearance with the band he’d now fronted for 18 unexpected years’3.

The show may have been one of the reasons for Phil to leave Genesis, as he remembers: ‘In the middle of my writing and making BOTH SIDES, Genesis did a concert with Queen. […] But I didn’t enjoy it … As I was singing these songs, it didn’t feel natural. Obviously, it was bad timing, going just like that from doing my most personal thing to a Genesis thing and back. But it definitely felt like ‘What am I doing here?’, like shoes that don’t fit anymore’.’4

Some time after this gig, Phil decided to leave Genesis, but his departure would not be announced until 1996. But that’s another story.

The line-up of the Cowdray Ruins band (according to the programme):

TONY BANKS: Genesis Keyboards
ERIC CLAPTON Guitar
PHIL COLLINS Genesis Vocals
JOHN DEACON Queen Bass
DAVID GILMOUR Pink Floyd Guitar
ADRIAN LEE Mike &. Mech Keyboards
NICK MASON Pink Floyd Drums
TIM RENWICK Mech./Floyd Bass/Guitar
MIKE RUTHERFORD Genesis Guitar/Bass
ROGER TAYLOR Queen Vocals/Drums
GARRY WALLIS Drums
RICHARD WRIGHT Pink Floyd Keyboards
PAUL YOUNG Mike &. Mech Vocals

Source: YouTube

Sources

Hewitt, Alan (2000): Opening The Musical Box. London: Firefly Publishing.

Platts, Robin (2007): Genesis. Behind the lines, 1967-2007. Burlington, Ont., Canada: Collectors Guide Pub.

Thompson, Dave (2005): Turn it on again. Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins & Genesis. San Francisco: Backbeat Books.

Title photo: Genesis in corcerto. Nizza – Luglio 1992 . Source: Wikimedia Commons, Valerio Ravaglia / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0).

* = affiliate links

  1. Hewitt 2000: 64 ↩︎
  2. in Thompson 2005: 254 ↩︎
  3. Ibid. ↩︎
  4. in Platts 2007: 140 ↩︎
Posted on

Peter Gabriel: ‘Why I Quit Genesis’ – Melody Maker 6 September 1975

Peter Gabriel – Why I Quit Genesis – Melody Maker 6th September 1975

Peter Gabriel’s press announcement about why he has quit Genesis, published in The Melody Maker on 6 September 1975.

Peter Gabriel writes why he left Genesis

The news of Peter Gabriel’s departure from Genesis had first leaked in various music magazines from July 1975 onwards. At first, Genesis’ label Charisma Records denied the rumours, but in August finally admitted that Peter had left. On 6 September 1975, Peter Gabriel issued his own press statement, insisting that they should publish it only in full.

Peter Gabriel’s statement:

I had a dream, eye’s dream. Then I had another dream with the body and soul of a rock star. When it didn’t feel good I packed it in. Looking back for the musical and non-musical reasons, this is what I came up with:

OUT, ANGELS OUT – an investigation.

The vehicle we had built as a co-op to serve our songwriting became our master and had cooped us up inside the success we had wanted. It affected the attitudes and the spirit of the whole band. The music had not dried up and I still respect the other musicians, but our roles had set in hard. To get an idea through “Genesis the Big” meant shifting a lot more concrete than before. For any band, transferring the heart from idealistic enthusiasm to professionalism is a difficult operation.

I believe the use of sound and visual images can be developed to do much more than we have done. But on a large scale it needs one clear and coherent direction, which our pseudo-democratic committee system could not provide.

As an artist, I need to absorb a wide variety of experiences. It is difficult to respond to intuition and impulse within the long-term planning that the band needed. I felt I should look at/learn about/develop myself, my creative bits and pieces and pick up on a lot of work going on outside music. Even the hidden delights of vegetable growing and community living are beginning to reveal their secrets. I could not expect the band to tie in their schedules with my bondage to cabbages. The increase in money and power, if I had stayed, would have anchored me to the spotlights. It was important to me to give space to my family, which I wanted to hold together, and to liberate the daddy in me.

Although I have seen and learnt a great deal in the last seven years, I found I had begun to look at things as the famous Gabriel, despite hiding my occupation whenever possible, hitching lifts, etc. I had begun to think in business terms; very useful for an often bitten once shy musician, but treating records and audiences as money was taking me away from them. When performing, there were less shivers up and down the spine.

I believe the world has soon to go through a difficult period of changes. I’m excited by some of the areas coming through to the surface which seem to have been hidden away in people’s minds. I want to explore and be prepared to be open and flexible enough to respond, not tied in to the old hierarchy.

Much of my psyche’s ambitions as “Gabriel archetypal rock star” have been fulfilled – a lot of the ego-gratification and the need to attract young ladies, perhaps the result of frequent rejection as “Gabriel acne-struck public school boy”. However, I can still get off playing the star game once in a while.

My future within music, if it exists, will be in as many situations as possible. It’s good to see a growing number of artists breaking down the pigeonholes. This is the difference between the profitable, compartmentalized, battery chicken and the free-range. Why did the chicken cross the road anyway?

There is no animosity between myself and the band or management. The decision had been made some time ago and we have talked about our new direction. The reason why my leaving was not announced earlier was because I had been asked to delay until they had found a replacement to plug up the hole. It is not impossible that some of them might work with me on other projects.

The following guesswork has little in common with truth:

Gabriel left Genesis

1) To work in theatre.

2) To make more money as a solo artist.

3) To do a “Bowie”.

4) To do a “Ferry”.

5) To do a “Furry Boa round my neck and hang myself with it”.

6) To go see an institution.

7) To go senile in the sticks.

I did not express myself adequately in interviews and I felt I owed it to the people who have put a lot of love and energy supporting the band to give an accurate picture of my reasons. So I ask that you print all or none of this.1

Title photo: Melody Maker 6 September 1975: Peter Gabriel: Why I Quit Genesis

Sources

Bright, Spencer (1988): Peter Gabriel. An authorized biography. London: Sidgwick & Jackson.

Holm-Hudson, Kevin (2008): Genesis and the lamb lies down on Broadway. Aldershot, England, Burlington, VT: Ashgate

Platts, Robin (2007): Genesis. Behind the lines, 1967-2007. Burlington, Ont., Canada: Collectors Guide Pub.

Listen to recordings from The Lamb tour on “Genesis – BBC Broadcasts” – Get it here!*

Genesis Music on Amazon*

*= Affiliate Link

  1. The statement can be found in Bright (1988: pp. 65-66), Platts (2007: pp. 80-81) and Holm-Hudson (2008: pp. 113-114), ↩︎
Posted on

‘Peter Gabriel Quits Genesis’ – Melody Maker 23th August 1975

A week after The Melody Maker had rumoured about Peter Gabriel’s decision to leave Genesis, the departure was confirmed with the cover story ‘Genesis Seek New Singer’.

Chris Welch recalls a great British Band

At this point, the band had already moved on and worked on what became their next album A Trick of The Tail. Peter Gabriel’s departure was old news for them, but now, they had to deal with the media. For them, Genesis could not exist without Gabriel and his visuals. In the eyes of the critics, he was the band, not just a member of the team. Naturally, the band felt upset by the obtiuary. In The Melody Maker, journalist Chris Welch ‘recalls a great British Band’.

The front page of Melody Maker from 23 August 1975

Several news papers reported about Peter Gabriel’s departure on 23 August 1975. The front page of Melody Maker said:

Genesis seek new singer

PETER GABRIEL has quit Genesis. And that’s official!

The Melody Maker last week front-paged the growing doubts about Gabriel’s future in the band. Reports, denied by the management of Genesis, indicated that Gabriel was unhappy with his role as a rock star and had already left the group.

And this week an official statement admitted the split in Genesis. “They are now looking for a new singer,” said the band’s management. “They have a few ideas but nobody has been fixed.”

“The group are currently writing material and rehearsing for their new album, and they will go into the studio shortly to record. The album will be released at Christmas and Genesis will go on the road in the New Year.”

It is understood that Gabriel will now concentrate on straight theatrical ventures.

Of course, the band was interviewed by the press after the news had come out. Phil Collins remarked that the rest of the band ‘…were not stunned by Peter’s departure because we had known about it for quite a while.’1 They had already decided to carry on without him and interestingly, the new singer was already in the group and was exactly the same member who had exclaimed the statement from the Melody Maker‘s article above. But that’s another story.

Title photo: Front page of Melody Maker 23 August 1975

Listen to recordings from The Lamb tour on “Genesis – BBC Broadcasts” – Get it here!*

Genesis Music on Amazon*

*= Affiliate Link

  1. Welch, Chris. “Peter Gabriel Quits Genesis”. Melody Maker, 23 August 1975. ↩︎