home | news | personnel | index | articles | sites | about

Van der Graaf Generator I

Manchester Independent, May 14th 1968

Well folks, last issue the Van Der Graff Generator (sic) had landed their contract with American Mercury. They celebrated by having a meal, and then, after a week of decision, all three signed the contract over coffee. "It was all rather vague," murmured Peter, who is a prolific songwriter and who now has no less than 190 songs to his credit. There is a good chance that the group "The Eyes of Blue" will use two of them.

After this, they remained in London to meet the publicity men and all the other groups who record for Mercury, including "The Fool" (who design clothes for the Beatles-sponsored "Apple"). Apart from socialising they did some work. They spent a whole morning giving their lifestories to John Sipple, the head of Mercury World Publicity, and also went to Littlehampton for the day to have their photographs taken by Dunstran Pereira (a remarkable photographer who was taking Avedonesque pictures four years ago), from which emerged the photograph for the L.P. which they will be recording later in this month.

After their week in London the group split up. Nick went home to Guildford, Chris came up to Manchester, while Peter stayed in London sitting in with "The Eyes of Blue", and receiving organ instruction from his musical director Graham Bond. We still take a look at the final stage in their pre-recording career at the same time next week. Till then, bye for now.

© 1968 Daviona Burman - Manchester Independent

[This review comes from the Pawn Hearts' archives.]