Strange name for a band PO90. Why not Parallel or Perpendicular or zero or 90 degrees? Just the sound of it?
Parallel or 90 Degrees is the subtitle of a song by Scandanavian keyboards player Bo Hanson. His piece is called The Sun, (parallel or ninety degrees). In fact, for our next album we have used part of his piece in a new song which is called The Sea (parallel or ninety degrees)! I always liked the title, it seemed to suggest that you could "go with the flow", or "follow the trend" if you like, (parallel), or you could go against it, (90 degrees). This philosophy is what our band is all about, following certain lines of musical development, but then breaking with the rules and going off at a tangent.
From what I have seen the critics react well to your album. What about the public (and maybe other critiques I haven't read)?
For the most part, reviews have been very kind. The public are reacting well to the album too, although in small quantities. We are slowly building up a crowd of enthusiasts, and some people travel hundreds of miles to see our gigs. This is very humbling, and we are very pleased. A few magazines don't like our work, particularly my voice which they say is weak, yet others say it is a strong voice, so believe which ever you like, I personally think I just about get away with my voice!
Most of the album is taken up by Afterlifecycle. What lies behind this track. Is it in someway meant spiritually as life after death, religion and such.
Afterlifecycle is about self importance. The overriding "message" is that we assume so much importance for ourselves, yet if we died tomorrow the world would carry on perfectly happily without us. This is true of us as individuals which is dealt with in Afterlifecycle which itself is an account of the last thoughts of a dying person who realises that even though he/she is dying, the buses are still running, people are still going about their lives in the normal way. I Thinkthereforenothing is similar, but looks at the earth as a whole, that whatever fate befalls us with global nuclear warfare, asteroid hits etc, the universe will carry on quite happily without us, without Shakespeare, Beethoven, or anyone who has ever existed on this planet to which we attach such importance.
Your music seems largely inspired by VDGG and you also give a large nod to the Nice by playing there Flower King Of Flies. Now, I'm a "fan" of the first, but think rather little of the second. what attracts you in both of them?
I will not make a secret of my love of both of these bands. I realise that they are very different from one another. Both were early designers of what became called "Progressive Rock", an unfashionable title which to me means music that escaped from the environment and rules of the 4/4 pop song. The Nice used a lot of pop in their music, but somehow got into doing huge orchestral things, some of which sound awful now, but are strangely attractive to me now, the way the orchestra and the group seem to fight each other for attention is particulary appealing. They were trying to gain serious music respect from the world of classical music, and failed... but I still love them for their quirky little songs and mad ideas. As for Van Der Graaf Generator, these guys represent to me one of the very best examples of pure musical innovation. They were at the time one of the bands who defined the "progressive" genre. Although never a supergroup as their stablemates Genesis became, their work pioneers the use of non standard lineups, time signature variation, extended format songs and a lyrical genius which is very rarely equalled. VDGG should have been "top of the league", but through bad marketing and group problems are now only remembered by a handful, compared to the millions of fans of Genesis who were originally the support band to VDGG... It seems so unfair now, but this is the way of the world. The fact that PO90 includes references to both VDGG and the Nice in the music does not mean that I associate them as two similar bands at all. I just like them both. I also like the Carpenters and Voivod.
What was the idea behind recording Flower King of Flies?
For some reason, PO90/GFDD has already recorded The thoughts of Emerlist Davjack and America by the Nice on earlier albums. Flower King is third in the series, and will be followed soon by another Nice cover. Perhaps in a few years we will put all the Nice covers together on one album.
Your music seems to take the agression and involvement of VDGG and the organ of the Nice. What do you think your band adds to the sound, besides the guitar.
Well, VDGG had an organ, and the Nice had guitar, so I don't really think we are trying to add anything that literal. We simply exist as a band in the 1990s who use some of the inspirations we got from these (and other) groups. We do use sample loops, drum machines, synthesisers and computers and try to keep ourselves as a modern group. I think the same is true of Radiohead who use many of the same sources for their music as we do, King Crimson being an obvious example.
As on GFDD you do have an involvement with government, and all that. Not very "fitting" for a progressive band, is it? I mean environmentalism was in for a while but for the rest...
Well I think I've dealt with this elsewhere, but GFDD started as a political band using members of Chumbawamba, myself, Jonathan Barrett and Guy Hatton. We made 3 albums, Where do we Draw the Line , Lifecycle (with Graham Young) and Run In Rings. (never released). These albums were all political statements first, musical statements second, although they were melodic as well as just noisy. The group then split, and Guy Manning and I continued to use the GFDD name for our project No More Travelling Chess, a series of Peter Hammill/Van Der Graaf covers. The live version of this was the band that include Hugh Banton. Guy and I continued with this name to make one final album This Is Not The End Of The World But You Can See It From Here As usual, this was never released, although I'm working on it. This was very much more like PO90, and had a 20 minute track called "A Gap in the Night" on it, which Hugh plays a small amount of organ on. (In fact, Hugh has forgotten that he even did it.)
Here lies our main difference with other "progressive bands". PO90 has a long history as a band, its predecessor Gold Frankincense And Disk Drive was a 1980s/90s politically fuelled group. The first album used members of Chumbawamba as the rhythm section on a few tracks. GFDD toured the UK with various thrash, anarcho punk bands like No Means No, and Sore Throat. At the same time, we ran a recording studio which specialised in thrash, punk metal in Leeds. I wanted to be in a band like this as I liked their message and lyrical content. As a keyboards player and writer it was an interesting challenge to write music that fitted this brief with synthesisers and organs. GFDD was quite a prog band in one way, in other ways it wasn't. It was, if you like, "Parallel or Ninety Degrees" to it. As for whether a progressive band should have political lyrics, well why not?. A lot of prog lyrics are about swords, sorcery, mythology and so on, or about drug trips, psychedelia etc. The J R R Tolkien thing was well used by the 70s groups. P090 come from the northern town of Leeds. There are no elves, wizards, harlequins, dwarves, hobbits or orcs in Leeds. There are many social problems though, and we prefer to sing about the world around us- with the obvious exception of "Flower King Of Flies". If we do have something that is really different from our stablemates, I think this is it.
This involvement is even quite explicit in what I regard as the weakest moment of the album: Coming Up Roses. In fact the album in my opinion sank a little in, there. You need not react to this, especially in case you don't know what to say here.
"Coming Up Roses" continues the self importance theme, it's a track which was written when the Labour Party came to power in the UK last year, ending 18 years of Tory Government. Nothing has really changed, and no ex Prime Minister will ever die of poverty, no matter which party they come from. In the end, we all pay their wages, and for their retirement homes, regardless of their political stance.
The Third Person is a track that also promises a lot for the first album you made. How did you manage to let this album go so unnoticed? Where can it be found? Will Cyclops maybe release it? I think people who did listen to Afterlifecycle and like it will want the other one as well.
"Corner", is available from us on CD-R. You can find out about buying it at our website, which I will link to at the bottom of this letter. Corner is an album I am happy with, and I think it should appeal to listeners of Afterlifecycle. It is more song oriented, less concepty, but has themes and lyrical connections which tie the songs together
On the Peter Hammill mailing list you got involved in a discussion on music sounding like PH and VDGG, particularly involving Discipline (how do you like them?). Could you give us a small run-down on your thoughts on this?
I think I am now bored of this one, I just got annoyed with a man who seemed to think that VDGG were uncomparable to anyone else, as if they existed on an island of total originality. They had influences too... just like me. Discipline (still waiting to hear them) simply stated that VDGG were influential to them, and this guy just seemed to be really offended that anyone should compare themselves with his idols. Why not?
An organizer I met, said that he had never seen such devoted fans with so less interest in what happens somewhere else. Do you agree?
I think this question refers to the fact that "progressive" music fans CAN be a bit blinkered, but also lazy. It's really difficult getting people to come to gigs and check out new bands in the genre. Porcupine Tree are struggling here in the UK, playing to small audiences, where they should be selling out stadiums. At the PINK FLOYD concerts in 1994, I heard people moaning that there just aren't any good bands like Floyd, but what about Porcie tree? They are brilliant, and worthy of attention, yet are still playing pubs in the UK...mad!
Peter Hammill said to me in an interview that you succeeded Hugh Banton. I could not really understand, so can you maybe explain this a little?
This was a bit of an honour really, as a keyboards player (as opposed to a songwriter) I obviously have my heroes, and Hugh and Keith Emerson are two of them. Whereas Emerson was the Technoflash knife throwing showman with fast fingers, the Eddie Van Halen of the organ, perhaps Hugh was a more Robert Fripp type character, more interesed in mood and texture. Hugh and I went to the same school, (we missed each other by a few years), but learned to play on the same organ, and when I was at school I followed Hugh's career with great interest, the organ that Hugh can be seen playing on the original cover of The Least We Can Do is the very same organ we used, and was a major inspiration to me at school. We are good friends now, and have worked together on some projects including a live gig in 1992 where we played a selection of VDGG songs with a guest spot by Chris Judge Smith who sang Firebrand. I have just bought a new organ which Hugh recommended to me, a Roland VK7, stunning Hammond type sounds, but portable for gigs. Both of us use these now, and they are amazing. Hugh is using his on the new Chris Judge smith album Curly's Airships, which should be worth a listen.
The Lifecycle track, the conclusion of Afterlifecycle was also to be found on the Lifecycle album (where you played with Graham Young and four others). Why was this? Any special reason. I mean it's a great track (and one where you sound exactly like Hammill in "But there's no chance..").
Well, Lifecycle and Afterlifecycle are obviously linked. This was a 1988 GFDD album which I did not feel happy about. The 1997 version is a lot better, and has not changed so dramatically in ways other than the recording.
How did the transition from the more punkish, aggressive, alternative sound of GFDD to PO90 come about.
I consider GFDD to have been equally progressive by my own definition. I still love thrashy music, but in the end other people did it better than us. PO90 concentrates on the more musical/melodic aspects, but is not without the occassional BANG here and there!
With you writing, arranging, producing and engineering, what is the role of the other besides playing their instruments?
They are my friends, co-conspirators, advisers and inspiration! There's nothing really unusual about a band with one main writer, but I do get asked this a lot. I don't really want to have albums made by ANDY TILLISON, I always use a band name even if it's just me. I obviously feed off others ideas, and Sam in particular is highly involved in the shaping of the new music.
I saw a thank you to Grey Lady Down. Is that how you landed with Cyclops?
No, we supported them at our first gig together. Our deal with Cyclops came about via the normal method of sending tapes, and a load of our fans ringing up Cyclops and asking them to sign us. Well, two at least......
Why is Lifecycle not in the list of albums in the PO90 booklet?
It has been deleted, and I HATE IT!!
Is it still possible to obtain the others in some way?
I am working on it!
You also recorded an an ambient album under the name Sanctum with Sam Baine, the band's keyboard player. What kind of music is this and well can you explain some more about it?
Sam and I came together in 1995 and wanted a musical project to work on. Sanctum was it, and we recorded an album live in a Leeds church. The music is very Tangerine Dream/Orb type of stuff, all instrumental, some of the ideas later cropped up on Afterlifecycle.
For Pink Floyd lovers it might be nice to know you recorded a live at once recording of the Dark Side Of The Moon. How did this come about? What are the reactions?
We had a party in our garden in 1996, where Sam, Guy Manning and I played the whole of DSOTM for fun. We recorded a performance of it for posterity too, and its quite entertaining to listen back to. This was just before we formed PO90 as a serious group.
On the new project now: There seems to be quite a lot to it. Could you first tell us something on the music on the album? Will it agaun be on Cyclops?
We hope it will be on Cyclops records. We like them, they are good people, well, actually we only know Malcolm. A real labour of love is Cyclops, and a devoted man who cares about music enough to take risks. There, that should have buttered him up nicely for the next album........ The music is a step on from Afterlifecycle, it's more complex, yet more melodic. There's more acoustic guitar, and it runs with very few gaps, most of the songs are linked. It will be a long time before it's finished, so I can't really say any more about it, cos it's just not ready, it may all change......
Could you then tell us something about the Time Capsule concept and how people can participate?
This part comes straight from our website:
he idea is that people always assume that trends of the present will
somehow be reflected in the future. As essentially a follow up to
Afterlifecycle, Capsule deals once again with real matters relating to
real people, this time the main theme being, pretty obviously, Time.. PO90
are making this album under no illusions... it seems that as the much talked
about Millenium approaches, people are not becoming just aware of their
future possibilities, but also aware of their insignificance in time as a
whole. The fact is that history, which was once made by the people in it, is
now being recorded by a media industry with its own ideas about the future,
and our century will be viewed from the future via the audio and video
recordings of today's industry. The band's feelings about this are that the
media industry will misrepresent us to the future, as they already do. In
the field of Progressive Rock music in which PO90 operate, lies a prime (if
largely unimportant) example. The "progressive" movement is hidden, ignored
and forgotten by all major media companies, broadcasters and record
companies alike. Their priorites are not to keep this music alive, they
hardly even revisit some of its best moments. The media industry will
promote the image of the twentieth century to the future in the way it wants
to, not in the way it actually happened. You can be sure that Progressive
Music is not on the list of priorities. On a larger scale than the mere
genre issue, Capsule looks at the way we want our own time to live on, how
we see a future built on the foundations we created now, without giving much
thought to the fact that this society only exists as a result of destroying
others. So many of us have such a limited knowledge of history that we are
hard pushed to pin down the centuries in which say Beethoven, Nostradamus,
Thomas Cromwell lived, yet we expect people in the future to know whether
Duran Duran came before or after the Beatles. Our petty insular view of time
makes it strange to even think that Elvis Presley, Glenn Miller, and Pink
Floyd are actually contemporaries in the greater scheme of things.
PO90 intend to, upon completion of the album, bury 3 copies of it in strategic locations in the UK. These will be chosen for different "discovery times", hoping that the first may be discovered in 1 or 2 hundred years time, the second may take a thousand years, and the third maybe a million or more. Along with the albums would be a CD player surrounded by air tight resin, with batteries similarly coated, and graphic instructions of what to do with it. (Experts in such matters will be consulted) The album will not be alone, there will be others with it, and various objects of interest from our era. Each capsule will be sealed in air tight vacuumed boxes and left to pass the years away. In this manner, PO90 hope to preserve their, and others music for posterity in a manner which avoids the media circus and the officially accepted view.
Everyone is invited to have their say in what goes into the Time Capsules. As a reader of this page it is likely that you too are a disgruntled music fan who feels let down by the media industry. Your thoughts and comments are most welcome. If there is an Album, Single, Newspaper story, Book, Video, or anything suitably small to go in, then we'll be interested in your opinion. Drop a line to TheTimeCapsule@deltamonsoon.demon.co.uk and we will keep a record of all items suggested and choose from the most popular. We will also include in the capsules a full list of names of contributors, and photos of those of you who can be bothered to send a JPEG.
Now to the second part of the interview, the answers to which were given in the summer of 1999, one year later.
First of all, how are things going?
We have just made a lineup change actually. Our bass player and drummer decided to leave because they wanted to make money! PO90 could not help them there, so that's what they have done. We have replaced Jonathan and Lee with Ken Senior on bass guitar. He is/was the brains behind Evolution who released a CD entitked "The First Signs of Life" on the Italian Mellow Records label a couple of years ago. Alex King joins on drums, and he is now the youngest mamber of the band! He has not worked with progressive formats before but he is adding a new dynamism to the group, and is an EXCELLENT player.
The organizer of the festival you were at (very few people there btw) said that you were too unknown to be invited, but that he wanted to do this very much. You came, so what changed?
He heard the album, and wanted us to play! He was probably worried about poor turnout, and he was justified in the end!!
How did you like the festival as a whole?
We loved it, it was a great experience, our first trip abroad with PO90. We were welcomed, well treated, and well appreciated by the audience. The other bands were really fine, there was no ego problem with anyone. In fact, I felt that certain members of our party were a little arrogant about what was a very fine occasion.
It seemed you were well received? I guess you made it back on the money you earned?
Ha HA!! Yes, we did make it back home, and were very relieved. We nearly didn't though. I wrote an account of our experiences in Holland, and this can be found here.
Do you still have that club thing lying about? I even saw one in a shop the other day. That wasn't supposed to be the case, was it or is it now more a regular disc?
A few did leak out as a commercial release, but VERY few. We have a couple left here, but not many exist now.
Your concert was quite aggressive in parts (more or less in waves). How do proggers like this, that you know?
Yes, we like being aggressive. Do not forget, my roots were in punk and anarcho-thrash as much as in Prog. The things I write about are often not suited to pleasant melodic stuff. I feel this is what has been missing from modern day prog: the anger and passion behind the Generator or King Crimson. There are NO hobbits on this earth. There are many social problems though, and I'd rather sing about what I know. Some people are put off us for this reason, but equally, we attract others..
Did you bury all those things for the Time Capsule? Can you elaborate somewhat on the process if you did. Btw did people react to your call for participation? What exactly did you bury?
We had loads of daft ideas sent into us..... in the end we settled for a
selection of tracks compiled on CDr from assortment of bands from VDGG to
Porcupine Tree and our own albums. There were a few other things included,
Arthur C Clarke's novel 2001. (which is about a Time Capsule of sorts). We
put a CD player in, it's all sealed in Epoxy resin, and will last for many
centuries. Some of the tracks were:
Sad Eyed lady of the Lowlands - Bob Dylan
Flight - Peter Hammill
Time - Pink Floyd
Ain't No Mountain High Enough - Diana Ross
The Gates of Delerium - Yes
The Endless Enigma - ELP
The Five Bridges Suite - The Nice
Stars Die - Porcupine Tree
Highway Star - Deep Purple
Paranoid Android - Radiohead
Being Boring - Pet Shop Boys
A Day in The Life - The Beatles
Pictures of Starving Children - Chumbawamba (selections)
Loads of others, not all prog, but tracks that helped PO90 reach the point
we were at in 1998, in the hope that someone will understand.
I had some questions on my old sheet: Where and what is Run In Rings?
Run In Rings is firstly, an album by Gold Frankincense and Disk Drive. It featured an earlier version of the song which appears on "Afterlifecycle". It is an album that deals with my disillusionment with the anarchist music scene of the time, in that I felt I had fallen into the trap of wearing badges and logos, but the music was just about being noisy. Anarchy was in effect becoming more of a custard pie fight than a serious political alternative. The original album has never been released, but most of it, a soon all of it is available as real audio on our website!
Is "This is not the end..." coming along?
This is now well retrieved but not planned for release for some time. The next old release will be No More Travelling Chess, our 1992 GFDD/PO90 Hammill covers album. We have remastered this and added a new track by Peter Hammill, In The Black room. This now adds to the original running order of Arrow, Flight, Roncevaux and Modern, all Peter Hammill songs. Also inluded are two songs from 1992 by us, Advance and Evolutionary Status Quo. This is due for release later in 1999.
Do you still think of prog as being something hidden? Pendragon sold 50,000 of their last disc. Spocks Beard, Ayreon and Porcupine Tree seem to do quite well. Or is your impression now different or are you more talking of the situation in England?
50,000 is a very small figure. It's less people than live in an average town..... As Pendragon are one of the bigger ones, it is still a small figure compared with the huge sales of even small-time contemporary acts.
The subjects of the new album seems to be selfimportance. How important are we?
We are very small creeping organisms in an unimaginably huge universe. Our entire history and culture can be destroyed and forgotten for all time in an instant, either by natural or man made methods. We promise ourselves futures that we cannot possibly award ourselves and we continually ignore the problems of overpopulation which will be of great significance in the next millennium. We celebrate our cultures and customs and preserve our traditions which on a universal scale are minute, insignificant and based only on our narrow and very finite concepts of "time". As David Attenborough points out, if all the history of the Earth was ONE YEAR, then the Dinosoars came and went in September. Human beings arrived at 2 minutes to midnight on the 31st of December. Yet, here, at the Millennium, we think we have come a long way!!!!
Although it would probably go too far to call this a concept album, there's a strong recurrence of themes (as made explicit by the naming of the parts of the titletrack). Still I've never encountered it in this way. What prompted you to do this and is there any specific reason for this?
Well, I DO consider it to be a concept album, as indeed are its predecessors. All three albums form a personal little trilogy about as you correctly surmised, "self importance", starting with myself in The Corner of My Room seeing myself as the centre of everything, through to Afterlifecycle which comments on various beliefs that things may continue after our deaths, through to The Time Capsule which is more or less the broader view, looing at our whole race's view of itself. Within each album there are non-related songs to the central core, this leaves PO90 as a band with more than just on theme!. It's likely that the central themes will re-occur.. I don't feel I've finished yet!. Afterlifecycle was always a longer piece than on the record, and it is likely that the second chunk of that piece will surface on the next new album. As for the big thematic finale to TTC, well, I've always liked this type of work. We aren't the first to do this, and I know we won't be the last. Genesis did it very well on A Trick Of The Tail with Los Endos. Guy Manning is doing it on his new album too. It is more of a Classical trick to pull, and therefore considered by many to be "pretentious". But we don't care!
I heard quite some Floyd/Porcupine Tree, but fewer VDGG and the Nice. Is that a change in style? You also sound more modern, like ambient stuff.
This wasn't a deliberate move, it's just the way it worked out. Floyd & Waters have always been an influence, and we've been around a lot longer than Porcupine Tree! Nevertheless, PT have been instrumental in our rebirth as PO90, it wasn't until we heard them that we realised people might still be interested in US!
One of my favourite tracks is Blues For Lear. Where does it come from?
Simple!! It is a theme from King Lear by William Shakespeare. In one scene, Lear bemoans the fact that despite being a King, he cannot sleep, yet his most humble servants CAN! People plot behind Lear's back, and the play, a large part of which is set in a storm, focuses on the withering effects of power on the human soul and condition. It is a brilliant study which is of great relevance in this current world of tyrannical politicians and businessmen. Hence, our song deals with an updated Lear, a business megalomaniac in the modern world, and his alienation and insomnia.......
Could you maybe explain some of the other songs to us (if you feel like saying anything about them?)
Well. This would take ages to do properly, but Unforgiving Skies is a personal favourite, its theme being that we often seem to be on a quest for meanings and discovery. I often wonder what would happen if we found the answers to our questions. If we KNEW there was a God for example, if we did really know what the meaning of life WAS, then how would we cope with that knowledge? With all the answers provided, would our imaginations still be as wonderful as they can be, would we even need to exist if heaven's door was open to us, and if the converse were true, IE, NO GOD, then how would we feel about being really completely alone?
Plans for the (near) future? New records, gigs...
No Gigs for a while, (rehearsing, writing etc) A new album is started, working title Unbranded - EEC surplus music This won't be out until 2000.
Cheers Jurriaan----- Andy & PO90
A small discography:
Sanctum - Acoustic Lens - Available on CD-r for £10 with B&W cover
GFDD - This is not the end of the world - Currently unavailable but underway
GFDD - Lifecycle - Deleted
GFDD - No more travelling chess - Soon available again on CD -r
PO90 - The corner of my room Available on CD-r £10 colour cover
PO90 - Afterlifecycle Available on CD £10 with colour cover
PO90 - Dark Side of the Moon live - "The Great Gig In the Garden" is
available on CD-r, B&W sleeve £10
We are no longer producing tapes..... CD-r is a recordable CD. The albums are made to order. WE CANNOT TAKE CREDIT CARDS. Cheques are ok made payable to J.A. Tillison. Please include REALISTIC postage money in the cheque. "Afterlifecycle" is available from CYCLOPS records too. E-mail postmaster@gft-cyclops.co.uk. All available from MBL@deltamonsoon.demon.co.uk