Genesis Autobiographies

Genesis books

Thoughts on autobiographies by members of Genesis: Not Dead Yet by Phil Collins; A Genesis in My Bed by Steve Hackett; The Living Years by Mike Rutherford.

My First Album Buys

This post overlaps with and follows loosely on from Radio Blah Blah, my blog of what I was listening to and buying in the year I first caught the pop/rock bug. This follow-up differs in two ways: it focuses on albums rather than singles and I have extended the timeframe to 1979.

Books, TV and Films, February 2022

7 February I have always been an occasional reader of historical fiction, though it hasn’t been a conscious choice until quite recently. I just seemed to naturally gravitate towards books that were set in the past. Does Sebastian Faulks write historical fiction? I don’t…

Philadelphia 1983: Genesis Bootlegs

Genesis Bootlegs, Philadelphia 1983

Books, TV and Films, November 2021

Steve Hackett played guitar in the ‘classic’ Genesis line-up of the Seventies, of course. These days I count myself as a huge fan of his solo work too. I bought his (excellent) third album, Spectral Mornings, way back when it was first released in 1979, having been enchanted by the song Every Day. But I have only really got to know his solo stuff in the last few years, taking a chance on a 2017 album, The Night Siren, after which I picked up a cheap collection of five of his mid-career releases. His recent output — in terms of both quantity and quality — is phenomenal. In fact, unlike most late-in-their-career artists, he is currently producing the best music of his life.

Frankfurt 1981: Genesis Bootlegs

GENESIS BOOTLEGS, FRANKFURT 1981

London 1980: Genesis Bootlegs

Genesis, 1980 — and this time it’s personal. By the time I was discovering rock music as a young lad in the late-‘70s, the ‘classic’ era was already over and its surviving big beasts were fast mutating into something altogether cuddlier and more house-trained….

Dijon 1978: Genesis Bootlegs

Follow You Follow Me, released in February 1978, was the lead-off single for the And Then There Were Three album. The song was essentially a quick and spontaneous studio creation. There are no references to mallet-wielding schoolboys and rampaging hogweed or to ‘Slippermen’ and…

London 1976: Genesis Bootlegs

It is June 1976, the beginning of a long and swelteringly hot British summer. The backdrop is one of industrial decline, financial crisis and political turmoil, and the music scene is soon to experience a not-unconnected upheaval of its own. Deep Purple’s brilliant but…

Montreal 1974: Genesis Bootlegs

It is 1974. In Britain and parts of Europe, notably Italy — though not yet North America — Genesis have broken through to the big time: top-ten albums, decent-sized venues such as the London Rainbow, front-cover status in Melody Maker. This bootleg — an…