GENESIS Demystify Early Prog Rock Career; Mike Rutherford, Phil Collins Guest On InTheStudio In Celebration Of R-Kive Anthology

September 30, 2014, 9 years ago

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GENESIS Demystify Early Prog Rock Career;  Mike Rutherford, Phil Collins Guest On InTheStudio In Celebration Of R-Kive Anthology

North American syndicated rock radio show and website, InTheStudio: The Stories Behind History’s Greatest Rock Bands, drops the needle down on R-Kive, the long awaited anthology from progressive rock pioneers Genesis.

There are several revelations in this Genesis/ InTheStudio radio program with band co-founders Phil Collins and Mike Rutherford, specifically about 1972’s Foxtrot album, Selling England By The Pound the following year, and the conceptual The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway when the charismatic Peter Gabriel was fronting the English progressive rock quintet. Mike Rutherford confesses that the first personnel departure, that of his Charter House prep school chum guitarist Anthony “Ant” Phillips, was actually the hardest of all of the significant defections which would later occur in the band.

Phil Collins openly admits about Genesis, “We were trying to write singles for years... We never had a direction. We wrote songs. Some of them were ten minutes, some were fifteen minutes, some were twenty, some were three... If it sounded better to us at three or four minutes, than we would leave it.”

Genesis music was elevated in concert by the theatrical stage presence of original lead singer Peter Gabriel, whose performances and costumes did much to position the band as an art rock progresssive experience. Mike Rutherford confesses to InTheStudio host Redbeard that Gabriel exhibited a creative independence that predated his eventual solo career.

“Had Peter run (the bizarre costumes) by us, we probably would have said ‘No’. Peter had the brains to actually realize, ‘Don’t tell them what I’m doing, just DO it.’ And it worked that way, otherwise we would have vetoed most of his things, knowing us!”

Tune in at this location.

Genesis release the three-CD anthology collection R-Kive today, September 30th. Spanning 42 years, the 37-track set documents the band’s history with classic Genesis material compiled alongside selections from the solo careers of Tony Banks, Phil Collins, Peter Gabriel, Steve Hackett, and Mike Rutherford / Mike + The Mechanics.


Genesis and their associated solo projects have accumulated a remarkable and undiminished series of accomplishments over the years, and have collectively amassed an incredible fourteen chart-topping albums as well as over two dozen more which reached the Top 10. In total, Genesis and the members’ related solo projects have sold more than 300 million albums worldwide.


Chronologically ordered, R-Kive features the Genesis’s biggest hits including “Invisible Touch”, “Turn It On Again”, “Land of Confusion” and “I Can’t Dance”. Along the way it also visits Mike + The Mechanics’ classics “The Living Years” and “Over My Shoulder”, Collins’s “In The Air Tonight’ and his Philip Bailey duet “Easy Lover”, and Peter Gabriel’s “Solsbury Hill”.


R-Kive opens with “The Knife”- a nine-minute proto-punk number which became a favourite closing set during the band’s early shows, and was written before either Hackett or Collins had joined the band. In addition to 22 Genesis songs, each member’s work outside of the band is represented democratically with three songs each.


Such an approach contributes to a hugely eclectic body of work which features early material including the sprawling seven-section odyssey “Supper’s Ready” and the title track of the conceptual masterpiece “The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway”.

 

 

Yet R-Kive also visits the unexpected – as evidenced by Hackett’s flamenco-inspired “Nomads”, Gabriel’s “Signal To Noise” which featured Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (“possibly the greatest singer we had worked with”), and “Calling All Stations”, the sole representative from the short-lived era in which Genesis were fronted by former Stiltskin vocalist Ray Wilson.


“This album jogs memories about old albums, things people might have missed the first time around,” says Collins. “Most of the time, the singles always seem to be the things that are remembered from albums. Sometimes the lesser-known tracks deserve better than to be forgotten.”


“I’m a songwriter first of all,” adds Rutherford. “When you put these songs together, it’s a wonderfully impressive array and variety of songs. It’s an interesting combination that doesn’t normally get put on the same page.”


The release of R-Kive will be followed by the accompanying reunion documentary ‘Genesis: Together and Apart’ which will be broadcast by Super Channel on Saturday, December 6th at 10pm (EST).


Strength in depth. Vitality in variety. Creativity in diversity. In terms of what they’ve done together, and what they’ve done apart, there’s never been a band like Genesis. It’s a captivating story, told here from the beginning to the end for the very first time.

On November 4, 2014, Eagle Rock Entertainment will release Three Sides Live by Genesis. This is a simultaneous release on DVD and Blu-ray. Eagle Rock is delighted to make this concert film available for the first time as a standalone DVD and for the first time ever on Blu-ray. Three Sides Live includes the hits “Turn It On Again”, “Misunderstanding”, “No Reply At All”, “Abacab”, “Man On The Corner” and more.


Three Sides Live was filmed in November 1981 on the Abacab tour in North America and was originally released on VHS to coincide with the live album of the same name. It has only been released on DVD in the limited edition box set The Movie Box 1981-2007. Originally filmed in 16mm, the footage has now been fully restored and is being reissued as a standalone DVD and Blu-ray for the first time. The show focuses on tracks from the Duke and Abacab albums and the tracks are intercut with behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with the band members.

As always with Genesis, the show is visually stunning and it captures the band in their transition from their progressive days in the seventies through to the hugely successful pop/rock act they became from the mid-eighties onwards. The lineup on Three Sides Live features Tony Banks (keyboards, backing vocals); Phil Collins (drums, lead vocals); Mike Rutherford (guitar, bass, backing vocals) with Daryl Stuermer (guitar, bass) and Chester Thompson (drums).

Genesis have always been great live performers and Three Sides Live is a great addition to any fans collection.

 

 

Tracklisting:

"Behind The Lines"
"Duchess"
"Misunderstanding"
"Dodo / Lurker"
"Abacab"
"No Reply At All"
"Who Dunnit?"

Medley: "In The Cage" / "The Cinema Show" / "The Colony Of Slippermen"

"Afterglow"
"Me & Sarah Jane"
"Man On The Corner"
"Turn It On Again"



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