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RARE PHOTOS: Van der graaf generator - The Real Truth

Peter Hammill and Carl Palmer return to the Royal Albert Hall for the prog prom - Prog Rock: A Fanfare for the Common Man

BBC's 2026 Proms season's Prog Rock: A Fanfare for the Common Man takes place at the Royal Albert Hall on July 18

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“It sits between Genesis, Van der Graaf Generator and Roxy Music – all viewed through a haze of spectral menace”: Before Crowded House, before their new-wave hits, Split Enz were unabashedly prog

New Zealanders’ 1975 debut album Mental Notes has been unfairly forgotten in the light of the creators’ later successes

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“My wife says, ‘You write nice songs then you spoil them.’ I’ve always thought they’d have been quite successful if somebody else had done them”: Van der Graaf Generator’s Peter Hammill has calmed down, but not entirely

Prog visionary and punk inspiration reflects on his overclocked solo shows and admits: “Two to three hours was maybe too much Hammill for anybody!”

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“Recorded at a time when progressive music was anathema, it deserves recognition alongside some of the more leftfield heroes of the genre”: Why The Only Ones’ Even Serpents Shine is actually a prog album

Vocalist Peter Perrett used his voice to disorientate, just like Peter Gabriel, while the band felt like XTC, produced by Joe Meek, steeped in Van der Graaf Generator

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“Overwhelming to the uninitiated… it’s progressive as hell, of course, but also utterly unique”: Peter Hammill’s The Charisma & Virgin Recordings 1971 – 1986

183-song box set offers a colossal overview of the Van der Graaf Generator vocalist and eternal musical outlier

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“If you see him live, it’s insane! He’s just ripping his heart out in front of you”: King Crimson’s Jakko Jakszyk on his favourite prog vocalist – also loved by David Bowie, Johnny Rotten and the guy who did The Sooty Show

Known for a Marmite voice, personal songwriting and a powerful sense of drama, his influence runs deeper than most people realise

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“Let me just put this record on and clear the room! Or play it to a girlfriend and then wonder why she threw herself out the window”: Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson on the cult prog rock mavericks who inspired him – but were too out-there to be successful

They played a gig at Bruce Dickinson’s school when he was 15 years old

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"There are so many elements I never expected to see or hear!" New Van der Graaf Generator film shines light on only US gig from the 1970s

Van der Graaf Generator - NYC '76 captures prog legends Van der Graaf Generator at their only US live show prior to 2009

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New Peter Hammill biography to be published in November

The 500 plus page ROCK and ROLE: The Visionary Songs of Peter Hammill and Van der Graaf Generator features many rare and previously unseen photographs

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A Mass by Van der Graaf Generator co-founder Judge Smith to be premiered 50 years after it was written

Judge Smith's Requiem Mass to receive its world premiere in Holborn in July

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“We never thought of ourselves as pioneers. But we grew up in a parallel universe to our peers”: Voivod weren’t trying to invent prog metal – they were just trying to be like Van der Graaf Generator

Drummer Away recalls the Canadian outfit’s rapid transition from thrash over the course of their first four albums

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Rare, recently found 1976 Van der Graaf Generator live footage hailed as "extraordinary" by Peter Hammill

Watch rare, recently found live footage of Van der Graaf Generator playing live in Toronto in 1976

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Celebrating 50 years of Hawkwind's Warrior On The Edge Of Time on the new issue of Prog Magazine, which is on sale now!

The brand new issue of Prog is on sale now! Featuring Hawkwind, Big Big Train, Solstice, IQ, The Flower Kings, Judge Smith and loads more...

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“When the saxophone started we laughed and skipped it… The reason I dismissed them then is exactly why I like them now!” How doom and occult keyboardist Carl Westholm was converted by Van der Graaf Generator

Ex Candlemass and Avatarium member was won over by prog veterans’ Godbluff album – and it started with a photo of Mikael Åkerfeldt with Peter Hammill

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"It's got the filthiest tenor saxophone solo ever." Blur guitarist Graham Coxon reveals the prog rock song that changed his life

Blur guitarist Graham Coxon was a progressive rock fan as a teenager, and one song in particular captured his imagination

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“Almost overnight after the Sex Pistols, prog rock came to a halt”: 1977 was the supposedly the year punk killed prog. The truth is very different

Exploding the myth that progressive rock’s ‘dinosaurs’were finished off by punk

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“We should have toured Europe and taken advantage of the impact our single had. We were lazy and stuck to playing in Britain. It was a huge mistake”: The all-too-short story of promising early proggers Rare Bird

A US tour without enough dates, a move away from the sound that got them signed, frequent line-up changes and never any money – just some of the things that went wrong for the band who once stood alongside The Nice and Van der Graaf Generator

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“I lie to them and change the goalposts… you build up techniques of throwing the curveball of discomfort. If it gets comfortable I change it”: David Thomas calls Pere Ubu “avant-garage” – but how prog are they?

They’re unmistakably American, but their lead visionary names Henry Cow, Soft Machine, Gentle Giant and Van der Graaf Generator among his motivators, and explains why his band is definitely not punk

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“We were held together by Sellotape and sealing wax… We knew our days were numbered”: Tired, broke and losing members, Van der Graaf Generator went down fighting with The Quiet Zone/The Pleasure Dome

Peter Hammill remembers trimming down the music and the name to spend 18 months in a ferocious punk-tinged endgame that resulted in stunning live album Vital

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"The Red Hot Chili Peppers might have based their entire career on it": Steven Wilson's 20 favourite British rock albums

Porcupine Tree mainman, solo star and prog remix king Steven Wilson on 20 British albums that blew his mind

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Peter Hammill announces Italian live dates for November

Van der Graaf frontman Peter Hammill will also play two live dates in Athens in Janaury 2025

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How Jethro Tull broke America is the cover of the new issue of Prog, on sale now!

Plus Van der Graaf Generator, Gentle Giant, Devin Townsend, Rick Wakeman, Big Big Train

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“One doesn’t so much listen as feel it deep in the bones… their stark inventiveness and originality remain outstanding”: Van der Graaf Generator’s Still Life and Vital reissues

1976 studio album and 1978 live double album return from era of new momentum for Peter Hammill and co

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"It’s a maths geek’s love song to maths!" The story of Van der Graaf Generator's A Grounding In Numbers

Van der Graaf Generator's third reunion album, 2011's A Grounding In Numbers saw the trio working with shorter form but no less complex material

Louder

“We were making very peculiar music not particularly well played. We got a record contract because the record companies thought, ‘We better get weird’”: Inside the mind of Judge Smith, the man who named Van der Graaf Generator

Inspired by the work of bandmate Peter Hammill and Frank Zappa, Smith aimed never to sound like them – and after working on large ensemble pieces and stage musicals, admitted he’d quite like to “just roll in with a guitar”

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