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Liner Notes: The Making Of A Rock Band

There were several important eras over the course of Genesis's long and fruitful career, but few carry as much significance as the summer of 1972. At the beginning of that year, the band's very existence was in doubt. Discouraged by low record sales and a lack of interest from the media at home in Great Britain, the group seemed on the point of splitting up. However, fuelled by the enormous success of the famous Charisma tour of Italy, where the album 'Nursery Cryme' had reached number 4 in the charts, Genesis approached the summer of 1972 with renewed confidence and optimism. Italy truly was the land of opportunity for budding young progressive acts from all parts of Europe and beyond, and the overwhelming flow of positive energy that Italian audiences lavished on Genesis carried the band to the threshold of their biggest breakthrough yet.

By the start of their first tour of Italy, in April of that year, Genesis had already begun working on new material for their next album. While in Naples, Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford composed what was destined to become one of the most memorable and enduring songs of the entire Genesis catalogue, the stunning 'Watcher Of The Skies'. Despite incessant traveling and countless gigs, Genesis managed to complete and record what is arguably the most pivotal album of their entire career, the magnificent 'Foxtrot'.

Side one of the new album offered a splendid choice of songs, all four of them highly innovative in terms of form and sound texture, but it was side two which provided the biggest surprise of all. After the short and delicate 'Horizons', where Steve Hackett was given his first opportunity to shine on the classical guitar, the rest of the side was devoted to one song, but what a song! 22 minutes and 57 seconds of sheer beauty and madness, the seminal 'Supper's Ready' was undeniably the band's absolute all-time masterpiece, an instant classic that would become their anthem and a staple of the Genesis live show for years to come. With such an amazing new record under their belt, the stage was set for Genesis to enter the next phase of their ascent.

By the time the band reached Genoa, on their second Italian tour of the year, a couple of the new songs from 'Foxtrot' had already made their way into the live set. 'Watcher Of The Skies', which had been premiered earlier that same summer (at the Lincoln Festival in England), had attained its final form and was even used as the show opener, a rather bold move, to say the least. The chilling and majestic introductory mellotron chord sequence was a solid attention grabber, and the song would remain in the opening spot until the end of the 'Selling England By The Pound' tour in the spring of 1974.

The other new number to be offered that night in Genoa was 'Can-Utility And The Coastliners', probably the band's most underrated song. Genesis had been playing the instrumental section in the middle of this song for a while, and originally it had been part of a rather strange number called 'Bye Bye Johnny' (the only known recording of which, strangely enough, was taped from the audience in Pavia, Italy, in April of 1972). While 'Bye Bye Johnny' ultimately fell by the wayside, the instrumental section would go on to become a pivotal part of the exciting and inventive 'Can-Utility'.

Any Genesis fan will attest to the importance of the Italian shows at this crucial stage in the band's career. Because of the enthusiasm for their music over there, Genesis felt that they were, at last, moving forward, and that all of their hard work had not been in vain. A very special relationship thus developed between the two parties and, as a special mark of appreciation for the great welcome they were always given, Genesis would often treat Italian audiences to special encores or rarely played tracks. Such was the case that night in Genoa when the band decided to play 'Seven Stones', a very rare live performance indeed. In fact, this recording stands as the only audio proof that Genesis ever performed this song on stage. It has been rumoured that Genesis also played 'The Knife' as a second encore in Genoa, but the song is missing from this, the only recording known to have been made on the night. Here at PRRP, we hope you will enjoy this brand new remaster of a great Genesis show, performed at the height of the most important summer of their career - the summer of the making of a rock band.

The Watcher

Notes From the Re-Master

The master tape for this recording was recently found, re-digitized and torrented for all to hear. Most of us agreed that it was much better than previously available versions. The clarity and detail were far superior, likely the result of the fresh digitization and the master source. The recording is not quite complete. Many of the Peter Gabriel stories between the songs have been omitted with fade-in and fade-out occurring. There is also no recording of 'The Knife'. This song was often played as the encore during this tour but is not present on this recording. Was it not played? Or was it played and not recorded? Many other versions of this recording -all presumably sourced from lower generations of this master tape- do have a version of 'The Knife' at the end but all are acknowledged to be from another performance.

Despite the improved quality of this recording, there were still a number of problems which needed to be addressed. The most obvious initial problem was pitch and speed. Analysis compared each to standard live and studio commercial recordings and correction was made. The tonality was also imbalanced, in part due to the venue or the taper's position so tone was adjusted to improve clarity. In analyzing the recording, it became clear that the tape recorder used that evening had auto-record-level circuitry. This feature of a recorder prevents distortion from loud sounds while amplifying quiet moments. It is helpful if you are recording an event for content but it compresses the dynamics of music and alters the dynamic characteristics intended by the musician. Many dynamic changes were made to the recording to restore the intended dynamic characteristics to the music that had been altered by this circuitry.

There were a number of partial drop-outs that were found and repaired as well as a few sections of digi-noise that needed correction. As noted above, many songs ended with a fade-out followed by a fade-in suggesting that the taper actually stopped the tape between songs. Of course this is unfortunate from an historical perspective but, without a second source, clearly un-correctable. As a compromise, many of these breaks in the recording were pasted with additional applause to make the recording flow a bit better and improve the listening experience. Because many of Peter Gabriel's stories were missed, the few that are present were not tracked separately, but left at the beginning of the track during re-tracking. Finally, this is a mono recording. Different techniques could be used to simulate a stereo experience but the decision was made to leave this characteristic un-altered to ensure that the clarity of the recording was not compromised.

PRRP Staff

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