'Living in the Past'?

: Value Discourses in Progressive Rock Fanzines

Author(s): Chris Atton
Source: Popular Music , Jan., 2001, Vol. 20, No. 1 (Jan., 2001), pp. 29-46
Published by: Cambridge University Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/853693

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Popular Music (2001) Volume 20/1. Copyright C) 2001 Cambridge University Press, pp. 2946.

Printed in the United Kingdom

'Living in the Past'?:l value

discourses in progressive rock
tanzlnes

CHRIS ATTON

Introduction

At the height of its success in the first half of the 1970s, progressive rock was per-
haps a surprisingly popular genre; surprising since its exponents strove to fuse
classical models of composition and arrangement with electric instruments and
extend the form of rock music from the single song to the symphonic poem, even
the multimovement suite. Album and concert sales were extremely high; even
albums that were greeted with less than critical approval (itself a rare occurrence)
such as Jethro Tull's A Passion Play and Yes's Tales from Topographic Oceans (both
1973) sold well (the latter reached number one in the UK Top 10 album charts upon
its release). Today, the dominant critical characterisation of progressive rock is of
overblown, pretentious musicians in ridiculous garb surrounded by banks of key-
boards playing bombastic, overlong compositions in time signatures that you
couldn't dance to: a music as far removed from 'real' rock 'n' roll as could be
imagined; a music that failed both as rock music but also as classical music. (All
these negative characteristics are to be found, for instance, in David Thomas's (1998)
coverage of Yes's latest UK tour.) This characterisation is only partly unfair. It arose
in the wake of punk, which sought to sweep away what its proponents saw as the
empty virtuosity of rock dinosaurs. Punk sought to reclaim rock music for 'ordi-
nary' people to be played in intimate venues - not stadia - by people who didn't
need to be conservatoire trained.
The 1990s have seen a significant resurgence of interest in the genre. There
have been the first book-length studies of the music (Martin 1996, 1998; Macan 1997;
Stump 1997) and we have also seen a burgeoning of fanzines dealing with progress-
ive rock. The appearance of the fanzines suggests an unusual dynamic: what is
an apparently distant, hugely commercial musical enterprise doing spawning such
artisanal literature? Of course, we need only to look to other fields (e.g. 'Star Trek')
to see how the fanzine need not solely be the product of an intimate sociocultural
compact between fan and subject. If this is the case, why did we see so few fanzines
in the music's heyday? In part this was because the music press of the time pro-
vided the link between fan and musician - in their style and, crucially, in their
attitude to their subjects, writers such as Chris Welch, Richard Williams, Steve Lake
and Ian MacDonald were essentially fanzine writers. Their writing was aimed at
consumers who equally defined themselves against the 'mainstream' of commercial
taste (Frith 1996, p. 66); other outlets were not necessary. In the 1990s, no weekly
music paper in Britain has been interested in progressive rock; only two news stand

29

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30 Chris Atton

monthlies (Mojo and Classic Rock) write about it regularly. There is a need now
amongst its fans. My interest in this is less to ask why, then, rather to ask how.
How do progressive rock fanzines approach their subject matter? How, twenty-five
years after its final flourish (as conventional rock history has it), is it being written
about?
Here we have a possibly unique phenomenon in alternative publishing.
Whereas most fanzines arise either in advance of mainstream interest in a topic and
are pioneering in this respect, able to articulate and deal well with emerging issues
(Kettering 1982) or to complement mainstream accounts, to open up ('democratise')
the dominant critical discourse and its attendant expert culture (Atton 1996, Chap.
3), in the case of progressive rock we have a 'little world' of publishing that has
arisen after its subject matter has long been discarded by the mainstream in which
it first became established as a subject for critical discourse. I am interested in
understanding this little world of publishing and through it the meaning to its fans
of a particular musical sub-genre; how that meaning is constructed, how the music
is used and how it is valued. I am looking not so much at the music itself but at
how the methods of production surrounding both its production and that of its
critical discourse in the 1990s (in the fanzine) have shifted to artisanal, grassroots
methods. Regardless of their subject, these methods generally resemble those of
alternative publishing, an enterprise characterised by the presence of amateurs,
readers as writers, non-mainstream channels of distribution, a not-for-profit ethos
and a network that draws on non-professional expertise from a wide base of
enthusiasts (Atton 1999).
This study is not being undertaken regardless of the subject of such methods of
production. It is very much interested in examining how the operation of this little
world of publishing, its conduct and evolution, can illuminate the interests and
enthusiasms of a fan base that, from being a major contributor to major record
company coffers and a major audience for the music papers of the 1970s, has for
many years found itself a pariah, its chosen music (once hailed by some critics as
the future of rock) almost written out of rock history (at best written-off). This is
an audience excluded from dominant critical and commercial discourses. In short,
how does an essentially artisanal, nonprofessional, anti-expert method of communi-
cation (the fanzine) engage with what was a predominantly high-art musical
activity founded on the highest values of professionalism and virtuosity?

A little history

At the heart of progressive rock was an imperative to create a rock-based music that
drew on what its musicians conceived as sophisticated, 'artistic' modes of musical
expression - themes, arrangements, harmonies and forms that drew on classical
models, specifically those of the Romantic composers of the nineteenth century and
the 'nationalist' composers such as Bartok, Delius, Copland and Dvorak. Virtu-
osity - in an uncomplicated sense that drew on conservatoire notions of ability,
agility and imperturbability, rather than blues-based individualism or relativism-
was prized. The song format was extended. The album, from the outset the unit of
production for progressive rock groups, developed from a collection of lengthy
songs to suites of songs and instrumentals, to multimovement suites. These could
be side-long (Yes's Close to the Edge) or even album length (Pink Floyd's Wish You
Were Here). The form reached its zenith (though most critics of the time claimed it

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 Value discourses in progressive rock fanzines 31

as a nadir) in Yes's double album Tales from Topographic Oceans, a single composition
comprising four side-long sections.
The cultural roots of progressive rock lie, it has been argued by Martin and
Macan, in upper-middle class southern England, a world of public schools and
comfortable upbringings, producing a melange of musical cultures (specifically the
classical music of parents and teachers and the discovery of rock by the young
musicians' involvement in the London counterculture). Whilst Martin notes that
some musicians buck this trend (for instance, Jon Anderson of Yes came from a
working-class background and had no formal musical training), this milieu does
function as a reliable context from which to understand the origins of the music.
Though the fora in which the music proved itself were far from the respectable
seclusion its protagonists enjoyed in the parental home, in the early years (1968-
1970) they were also far from the city halls, concert halls and stadia of the mid-
1970s. It is easy to forget that progressive rock, just as with so many genres of rock
music, proved itself in the tiny clubs of London and the provinces. Its audience
may well have been drawn largely from similar backgrounds or, as the only socio-
logical study of the progressive rock audience has shown (Frith 1978), from groups
of male adolescents who at least shared similar cultural outlooks, though they
might not come from the same privileged background. The scale on which progress-
ive rock sought to develop - both musically and theatrically - soon fixed the audi-
ence in a relation to the groups that was not only as remote and passive as that of
the progressive blues supergroups (Cream, Jimi Hendrix Experience) but also - as
the music itself suggested - as that of the audience for classical music.
Whether taken on by the major labels such as Atlantic (Yes), by the pseudo-
independent labels of majors such as EMI's Harvest (Pink Floyd), Philips' Vertigo
(Gentle Giant) or by the 'real' independents such as Tony Stratton Smith's Charisma
(Genesis, Van Der Graaf Generator) or Chris Blackwell's Island (Jethro Tull, King
Crimson), in the early days promotional budgets were slim, sales sluggish, the
bands connecting with audiences through continual gigging. Even this brought no
guaranteed wealth: Robert Fripp's lengthy legal battle with his former managers
has revealed that in the 1970s King Crimson were paid nothing for rehearsals or
for concerts.
The musical and cultural determinants of progressive rock suggest a conflu-
ence (at times apparently contradictory) between the three dominant elements in
its formation and development: its status as a commercial, popular music product;
its aim to achieve 'art' status as an electrified form for classical music; and the
countercultural elements from which it was born; this in a milieu where audience
and musicians were significantly closer to one another (culturally and physically)
and the groups were similarly closer to groups that were shortly to become parts
of competing sub-genres (folk-rock, progressive blues). This may be seen in the way
in which the music was marketed and evaluated by the music papers of the time.
In the UK, Melody Maker was the first to embrace progressive rock, promote it, offer
critiques of it in relation to other genres and, importantly, begin to build a com-
munity of fans for the music.
During 1969 and 1970, Melody Maker was establishing a critical framework
within which all subsequent discussion of the genre would take place. Progressive
rock was intended to be both popular ('meant for a wide audience', Dawbarn 1969)
and long-lasting (of 'more permanent value than the six weeks in the chart and
then forget it', Ibid.) Classical music was not only invoked as a primary influence

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32 Chris Atton

on the structures and harmonies of the genre, it was also what gave it its vision, its
significance as an avant-garde movement in rock music. Richard Williams acknowl-
edged both in his review of King Crimson's second album, In the Wake of Poseidon,
claiming the record to have 'a scale and grandeur unparalleled in rock, and its inner
complexities [to] rival those of the greatest classical composers' (Williams 197OA).
At the same time, some of the popular values of rock music ('the volume, the loud
clothes, the aggression', Plummer 1970) were not forgotten. Rather, it was pop trivi-
alities such as musicians 'giving their latest tiff an airing' in song that were scorned,
in favour of 'a valid musical training' (Plummer 1970). Mont Campbell, bass player
and composer with progressive trio Egg, hoped that he could 'do for pop what
[Stravinsky]'s done for mainstream music in the twentieth century' (cited in Willi-
ams 197OB). Rick Wakeman, soon to become Yes's keyboard player, argued for the
value of fusing high art standards with the experience of popular music: 'those that
survive both are the musicians worth talking about' (Plummer 1970). A vivid
emblem of the fusing of popular and high art values is found in the title given to a
concert review of King Crimson and the Nice: 'Symphonic rock rave at Croydon'
(Lewis 1969). For Chris Welch (1970), the strength of Emerson, Lake and Palmer lay
in 'their flitting from the classics to jazz and rock'. His account of the closing stages
of the band's first European tour reveals a variety of value discourses: Keith Emer-
son reveals his new technique for playing a '12-bar boogie in 7/4 time', Carl Palmer
declares his desire to introduce more jazz stylings into his playing, and the band
participate in a food fight accompanied by conspicuously heavy drinking ('the boys
drank whisky, brandy, wine . . . beer, vodka and Irish Coffee in huge quantities').
In this last event, Welch presents himself as a participant, a member of a particular
rock community. Within specific texts and across the range of texts (record reviews,
concert reviews, interviews, features on the genre), Melody Maker presents a blend
of values drawn from the discourses of both classical and popular music. It also
suggests, though more weakly than in the physical spaces of the counterculture
(that is, the clubs), communal values, signified by the social proximity of critic to
performer.

An analytical framework

The threefold formation found in the social life of progressive rock and in its critical
discourse resembles Simon Frith's concept of value discourses in music. Drawing
on Becker's account of 'art worlds' and Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital, Frith
posits three types of discursive practice through which music may be valued. These
are: high or bourgeois art; commercial or popular art; and folk art. The Table pre-
sents the major features of each of these discourses.
Frith warns against considering these as discrete discourses, each to be
applied to a single musical genre once and for all: 'musics may anyway change
their discursive meaning, may cross apparently firm cultural boundaries' (Frith
1996, p. 43). A musical genre may partake of or move between the three worlds;
they might overlap to differing degrees according to the life of the music and
its musical and social developments. No music is 'pure' in terms of the worlds
it may inhabit - neither are the actors in those worlds: the musicians, producers,
record company executives, critics and, above all, the fans. It is my contention
that in progressive rock's revitalisation of the 1990s we are seeing precisely this,
a music that has crossed at least one boundary: the commercial to the artisanal.

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 Value discourses in progressive rock fanzines 33

Table. The three value discourses of music (see Frith, 1996, Chap. 2).

Bourgeois/High Art Commercial Folk

Bourdieu's'dominant Bourdieu's'majority Bourdieu's'popular

culture'; culture'; culture';
the academy; music industry; no separation of art and life;
classical/art music; turning sounds into 'authenticity';
transcendent experience; commodities; emphasis on tradition;
'autonomy' from audience; equation of musical value 'critique of quotiden
specialist knowledge and monetary value: commerce';
(for appreciation); 'routinised transcendence' anti-centrist;
hierarchical; through ritual events anti-hierarchical;
separation of audience, integration of audience and
composer and performer; performer
emphasis

Frith's interest in exploring the 'discursive context of the aesthetics of popular

music' is my interest here; his tripartite concept of discursive practice appears
singularly appropriate as an analytical framework for the present work. In Melody
Maker there is much blurring of the boundaries between the three discourses;
there appear few instances of any discourse in a pure form. Given the tendency
of the fanzine to heterogeneity (of style, of contributors, of perspectives; Dun-
combe (1997, p. 15) speaks of his attempts 'to discipline undisciplined subjects'),
we might expect discursive practices in the fanzine to be even more indistinct.
In any event, we should guard against imposing too schematic a version of
Frith's concepts in any analysis.
My (text-based) analysis is drawn from eight English-language progressive
rock fanzines, all founded in the 1990s. These have been chosen to represent both
single-artist or group (and the inevitable offshoots that such publications cover) and
larger 'families' of progressive rock groups. Together they represent the spectrum
of the major 1970s progressive rock groups: Caravan (Where but for Caravan would
I?); Emerson, Lake and Palmer (ELP Digest); Gentle Giant (Proclamation); Jethro Tull
(A New Day); King Crimson and Robert Fripp (Elephant Talk); Van der Graaf Gener-
ator and Peter Hammill (Pilgrims); Yes (Notes from the Edge); and the 'Canterbury
scene' of groups and solo artists (Facelift).2 Five of these are published in traditional
paper format, but I have also accounted for the growing use of the Internet by fans:
Elephant Talk, ELP Digest and Notes from the Edge are published solely on the Internet
and made available to fans either by email subscriptions or by visiting the publi-
cation's Web site.

High art and the popular in progressive rock

Progressive rock embraced specific dominant values of high art from the outset.
Whilst not all its practitioners came from the academy (and some of those who
did dropped out), essential to the music was a dedication to the values and
forms of classical, 'art' music. Macan points out that the progressive rock move-
ment was 'indebted to the classical tradition in the realms of instrumentation,
structure and virtuosity' (Macan 1997, p. 31). The very existence of progressive
rock depended on its borrowings and manipulations of form, structure and
harmony from predominantly the nineteenth century, Romantic composers,

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34 Chris Atton

though it is possible to find, particularly in the work of Gentle Giant, influences

from mediaeval and renaissance vocal works. To what extent are these founding
interests dealt with in fanzine discourse? Of all the titles in this study, Procla-
mation (devoted to the music of Gentle Giant) engages with these features most
thoroughly. In issue three the editor presents his own transcription of the
extremely contrapuntal vocal piece, 'On Reflection'. He notes that this is based
on his own listening, the transcription of another fan, and composer/arranger
Kerry Minnear's original manuscript (to which he had access). Not only does
the editor have the musical knowledge to produce this, another fan has tried
before him. The transcription is left to speak for itself, but even to the tyro
music-reader the density and complexity of the piece is self-evident. The editor,
apparently without a hint of irony, suggests that readers photocopy it and
distribute the parts for singing. Unlikely though that may seem (how many
Gentle Giant fans live close enough to each other and possess the relevant
reading, vocal skills and the vocal ranges to achieve this?), an American reader
of Proclamation recounts just such a performance of the piece in the previous
issue.
Even taken cum grano salis, there appears to be an ambition amongst fans
to perform this music. In the first issue of Proclamation, its editor hopes that
someone (fans) will be able to produce a Gentle Giant music book of transcrip-
tions. Following the transcription of 'On Reflection', there follow a further tran-
scription and musical analyses of Gentle Giant pieces. These latter not only
assume the reader to be musically literate, they assume a high degree of knowl-
edge of the language of formal musical criticism. Neither analysis makes any
concession to the fan who has no such knowledge. It would be surprising were
every subscriber to Proclamation to have such knowledge, yet there is evidence
that this approach is welcome: a letter in issue 4 suggests having a 'classical-
music scholar analyse Gentle Giant's compositions ... to point out references to
classical music of various eras'.
There is also a hint of enjoying the music on the printed page for its own sake
or rather, not with any intent to perform or to understand, but simply as an object
of wonder: the musical form alone (not so much its content, or the experience of
that content) as transcendent experience. Throughout the fanzines there is a fasci-
nation with complex metre: the transcription of 'On Reflection' is the first in a series
titled 'Knots' (itself the title of a Gentle Giant piece, based on R.D. Laing's poems
of the same title). It is as if to be able to appreciate this music - on whatever level,
even without fully understanding its musical form - is to wear that appreciation as
a badge of honour. That songs are written in irrational time signatures that make
dancing, if not impossible, at least an unusually skilful exercise, or that songs
change time signature and key very frequently, is for the progressive rock fan part
of the delight. It is not so much to appreciate how such devices serve a larger
musical or extra-musical end; instead that they are ends in themselves. The ability
to identify them is a signifier of the progressive rock fan. Hence the frequent refer-
ences to time signatures throughout the fanzines. Two readers offer separate
reviews of Caravan's 1997 concert at London's Astoria in Where but for Caravan
Would I?: one notes that a new song resembles an old one in its time signature
('eleven-eight'); the other upsets the notion that songs in such time cannot be
enjoyed physically by observing that 'it takes a true Caravan fan to clap in 7/8
time!' Whilst the discussion of music in Pilgrims largely deals with its affective

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 Value discourses in progressive rock fanzines 35

impact ('almost spine-chilling in its beauty and intensity', 'magnificent', the 'most
menacing growl I've ever heard'), there is space for an off-hand allusion to complex
time signatures ('the verse in five, chorus in four and middle eight in something
else') that at the same time acknowledges the writer's limits. This is something that
recurs in various guises throughout Pilgrims (as much down to the editor's own
self-effacement, since he is responsible for much of each issue). In any event, the
irrational time signature as a badge of honour is fairly easily won: it takes far less
musical knowledge to identify a rhythm - especially when the note lengths are not
specified (so 'in five' rather than 'five-eight'), than it does to recognise key changes
and harmonic forms. Time apart, the music tends to be explicated through a
vocabulary of hyperbole, of an extreme register where expressions such as those
above are common. In this version of discourse, harmonies, rather than being 'ori-
ented around the tonal centre' (David Palmer on Gentle Giant's 'So Sincere' in
Proclamation 5), are merely 'nifty'. It would be surprising were there not fans able
to offer more penetrating analyses of Van Der Graaf Generator's music than this;
we must assume that either they do not offer their services to Pilgrims, or that
Pilgrims is not perceived as the site in which to do it. The limits of space might
have something to do with this, as might the desire to maintain a specific identity
for the publication, one that draws on the editor's own preferences and personality
(serious about his music, but not musicological or requiring his readers to have
specialist knowledge of that music), jut as Proclamation's editor draws on a number
of complex intellectual activities for his material (not only musicology but also stat-
istical analysis, as I shall show below).3
It is, however, possible to present musical analysis in a far less academic
fashion than in Proclamation and in ways that draw on the conventions of popular
musicianship: specifically the use of non-academic methods of transcription that
also depend on learning by ear. Elephant Talk presents Robert Fripp's guitar parts
in guitar tablature (tab). Guitar tab indicates where the guitarist is to place the
fingers on the strings; some versions add rhythmic values, but that used in Elephant
Talk does not. To play the piece in rhythm the guitarist must also know the piece
as performed. Here all three discourses seem to be working together: the academic
values of 'sophisticated', 'new classical' music are complemented by a quasi-folk
interest that combines notation and learning by ear in order for pieces to be played
by ordinary fans. Finally, the choice of notation - guitar tab (a staple of rock guitar
instruction books) - is frowned upon by academically trained musicians, who con-
sider it a bastardised short-cut to playing that most commercial of musical instru-
ments, the electric guitar. Whilst Proclamation and, to an 'impurer' degree, Elephant
Talk offer some indication that progressive music is considered significantly as high
art by its fans, in general the fanzines in this study display no dominant impulse
to such considerations. Indeed, the language of commercial, popular music and an
interest in the music as regards the commercial artefacts it produces (recordings,
commentaries and ephemera) are what dominate.
In general, the fans seem disinterested in the specifics- even the generalities -
of how their music resembles classical models. In the case of Yes, both Macan and
Martin have gone to great pains to lay open how the group has transformed classi-
cal form (sonata, symphonic poem) through the sensibilities and the technologies
of popular music, yet Notes from the Edge is filled neither with any furtherance of
this work, nor even any acknowledgement of it. Proclamation apart, the fanzines
appear anti-intellectual, sceptical of any critical practice that gets in the way of 'the

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36 Chris Atton

music'. An editorial comment in Elephant Talk (in response to a posting explaining

augmented and diminished intervals) warns: 'ET is not about music theory, people!
Private email for discussions of this nature please.'4 Despite the rock critics who
have found in progressive rock an 'inauthenticity' of expression that precludes its
admission into the world of rock 'n' roll (Robert Christgau and Lester Bangs have
provided some especially striking arguments here), amongst the fans of the music
there is a very strong current that might itself be characterised as the 'authentic'
stream, that valorises its progressive rock not with the help of traditional formalist
criticism, but simply as a type of 'real' rock music. It may be musically sophisticated
and technically difficult to play, but these are factors that give it viscerality, not
cerebrality, the argument runs. This stance extends to the exegesis of lyrics.
Reviewing a book that analyses Ian Anderson's lyrics for Jethro Tull in A New Day,
Martin Webb (a fan) reminds us that this:

. . . might be fine if you're a philosopher who has studied English Literature and the classics;
but, actually, probably isn't fine really. To me, the Jethro Tull story is one of an above average
blues band . . . whose work has to be judged in the context of rock music.5

With the significant exception of Proclamation, this approach concurs with

Frith's observation that musicology, by focusing on what is essentially a popular
idiom, 'misunderstand[s] all listeners' pleasures' (Frith 1996, p. 64) by trying to
understand the music 'in a manner appropriate for musical production, rather than
for musical listening' (Frith 1996, p. 63), by analysing notes, not sounds. Moreover,
the bulk of the fanzines here focus on the artefact, the package, the recording or
concert as a document of commerce, not as a creation of aesthetes.

Commercial consumption and artisanal production

In spite of the poor critical reception of progressive rock and its almost complete
absence from mainstream music magazines since the mid-1970s, the record industry
itself - certainly in the l990s - has been paying it a great deal of attention. CD
reissues, remasterings and repackagings are filling the market. Reviews and buyers'
guides to these are prominent in all the titles; they are often the subject of compara-
tive review, for instance, where a Japanese version (which can retail in the UK for
as much as twice the price of a domestic release) appears to offer better quality,
improved packaging and the ubiquitous 'extra tracks'. We might expect the fanzine
to be more sensitive to the financial implications for its readers of embarking on
such extravagant buying programmes and yet - outright warnings not to purchase
aside- there appears little concern for the collector's pocket. The tacit assumption
appears to be that if you are a fan you will want these, regardless of whether you
can really afford them. The value of such artefacts tends to be scrupulously justified.
Whilst the search for ultimate sound quality remains high on the agenda (with
remastered CDs and now MiniDisc releases promising much), there is still a hanker-
ing after the album sleeves of old, in the gatefolds of which were inscribed much
of a progressive rock record's value (Macan 1997, Chap. 3). The micro-format of the
CD (and the MiniDisc more so) obviate such pleasure, yet the micro-gatefolds of a
recent Japanese series of progressive rock releases have been promoted by one mail
order firm as:

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 Value discourses in progressive rock fanzines 37

. . . for 60s and 70s music fans who want to relive their musical past in miniature, evoking
memories of vinyl days gone by, whilst enjoying the crackle free sound of a CD, with the
added thrill of a full colour, solid card album cover to drool over!'6

A full quarter of each issue of Facelift (at least) is typically taken up with
record reviews; in addition, most of the advertising - and Facelift carries more than
any of the other titles at around ten per cent of its pages - relates to records (what
is left relates to music books). Collecting inevitably extends to collecting the original
vinyl and the various promotional artefacts produced by record companies (in this
progressive rock fans are no different from any other record collectors). The ease
with which fans can contribute to e-zines results in the Internet-based fanzines
being packed with details of variant original releases, reissues and new product
from multiple territories, to which are often appended details of distributors, mail-
order companies and label addresses. There is currently a proliferation of 'classic'
ELP video releases noted and reviewed by fans in ELP Digest, due in part to the
absence of any new product from the group and the lack of unreleased, unheard
'archive' material from the early 1970s. Pilgrims and Proclamation both offer detailed
information about what comprised the original releases; which artwork goes with
which releases in which territory; which inner sleeves went with which album and
what it comprised. Proclamation also reproduces sleeve, inner sleeve and label art-
work, often for multiple releases in a number of territories. There is more than a
hint of mania here: since leaving the disbanded Gentle Giant twenty years ago,
composer Kerry Kinnear discovered Christianity, amongst other things. His only
album-length recording is a cassette of Christmas music made with a Christian
group called 'The Reapers'. Since the existence of this recording came to light
during an interview it has been reviewed in Proclamation and fans have been calling
for its release on CD. Kinnear is also one of many rock musicians to have made a
post-progressive living from writing and recording library music: even this is col-
lectable, however remote it may be from the music that originally inspired a fan's
interest. Musicians such as Mike Ratledge and Karl Jenkins (ex-Soft Machine) and
Anthony Phillips (ex-Genesis) are others who find their functional compositions
sought after by the completist (for a case study of the move to library music by a
progressive musician, see Stump 1997, pp. 308-16).
Buying and selling columns proliferate; one Gentle Giant fan advertises his
practice of buying multiple copies of vinyl originals and deleted or hard-to-find CD
reissues to sell to other fans at cost price, thereby cutting out the dealers, for whom
progressive rock has become a very lucrative market. How lucrative may be judged
in the pages of the UK monthly Record Collector. Its annual poll of the 'most col-
lectable' artists acts as a barometer to help collectors (but most likely dealers) judge
the market value of a favourite group or musician. Only in recent years have pro-
gressive rock musicians begun moving up the annual chart and with them we have
seen an increase in prices asked for original vinyl releases, especially by a group
such as Gentle Giant (less so groups such as ELP and Yes, whose immense success
means that there are still plenty of artefacts circulating to satisfy the market). The
editor of Proclamation has suggested that Gentle Giant's move up the charts (from
140 to 77 in 1994, to 67 in 1996) might in part be due to his article on the poll in
issue three - a piece that scrupulously calculates the number of votes given to the
group and, following statistical laws, estimates from this the number needed to
push the group's placing into the Top 100. The significance of this poll to the fan-

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38 Chris Atton

base is deemed considerable enough for it to become a regular (i.e. annual) feature
in the fanzine.
If all this suggests mere subservience to the larger commercial world and the
fans as no more than consumers with more disposable income than sense, then
we need to look more closely at fanzine-based commercial activities. As in other
manifestations of alternative publishing, there is at work here a significant 'little
world of commerce'. Independent record production- often enough the province
of the marginalised (jazz and other improvised musics), the unpopular (the avant-
garde, punk in its early days) and the rebellious (punk again, the various shades of
'industrial' music) - has now been taken up within the progressive rock movement,
by fans and musicians alike. The editor of A New Day, though unable to tempt
Jethro Tull to his small label, releases and distributes CDs by former members of
the band or of bands that include former members (or, in extreme cases, of bands
that include musicians who are friends of former members of Jethro Tull). He has
also written the first English-language history of the band and distributes this also.
The editor of Pilgrims (Fred Tomsett) runs a distribution service that handles many
of the releases by former members of Van der Graaf Generator (though not Ham-
mill's solo recordings) as well as concert posters and books written by fans. His
Pilgrims stall is a common sight in the foyer of all Hammill's UK gigs and through-
out many of his mainland European tours (Tomsett is nothing if not obsessive in
his attendance of Hammill gigs, of which more later). His obsessions go still further:
he has also edited fanzines devoted to Peter Gabriel, King Crimson and Frank
Zappa. Currently he edits only Pilgrims and T'Mershi Duween, his Zappa fanzine).
Concert promotion of progressive rock in the l990s is also the province of the fan:
the editor of Where but for Caravan Would I? organises an annual Caravan concert
near his home town in Norfolk; his colleague Jasper Smit does the same across
Europe. The authority and expertise of editors and other fans can be recognised
beyond the realms of fandom itself: commercial record labels have used fans as
consultants, sleeve designers and liner note writers for any number of CD reissues.
We are moving here towards elements of the folk discourse, in particular its critique
of dominant commercial practices through decentred, less hierarchical methods of
doing business - again, a world that resembles the structures of other forms of
alternative press and independent record label activity.
We should also consider the production values of the progressive rock fanzine.
It is useful to make a comparison with the punk fanzine, an artefact expressive of
a subculture (some argue it is constitutive of a subculture: 'Zines are punk', declared
an anonymous editor of Hippycore; Rutherford 1992, p. 3). The punk fanzine stands
for much more than an aesthetic preference; by contrast, the progressive rock fan-
zine of the l990s is produced for the continuance of a taste community; gone is any
countercultural signification such a publication would have had in the 1970s (at its
height, progressive rock was always countercultural, never subcultural in charac-
ter - unlike punk). Macan (1997, p. 29) has suggested that as punk rose to become
the subcultural music of the 1970s, so progressive rock became merely an aesthetic
preference, its audience increasingly sharing large parts of its cultural life with the
dominant society. This may explain the conservatism of the layout and organisation
of the progressive rock fanzine: titles tend to be highly organised into sections (or
'departments') that recur in every issue; illustrations (photographs, mostly) are used
'straight'. Entirely absent is any sense of the radical bricolage that characterises the
visual language of punk fanzines (Triggs 1995). The graphics and typography of

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 Value discourses in progressive rock fanzines
93

the punk fanzine can be seen as 'homologous with punk's subterranean and
anarchic style' (Hebdige 1979, p. 112). Its use of the photocopier as a liberating
agent for the tyro editor became central to the zine 'copy culture' that grew out of
punk over the next two decades (Duncombe 1997; New Observations 1994). By con-
trast, the progressive rock fanzine appears to strive for professional production
values; the photocopier is a necessary evil in the early days, to be discarded as soon
as finances permit, in favour of colour printing and (in some cases) perfect binding.
If the design and layout of the progressive rock fanzine are homologous with any-
thing it is surely middle-class values of professionalism, 'quality' and respectability.
In terms of production values and cultural values, the progressive rock fanzine
exhibits none of the punk fanzine's interest in 'the destruction of existing codes and
the formulation of new ones' (Kristeva through Hebdige 1979, p. 119).7
The attitude of the progressive rock fanzine towards commercial activity pos-
itions its editor and its 'reader-writers' in positions of commercial power, both as
consumers and as creators and directors of their own patterns of consumption. This
power can on occasion even extend to the apparently impossible: revitalising a
musician who is creatively dormant, to persuade them to produce something that
hitherto money could not buy - new product from a disbanded group. A reader's
letter in issue 4 of Proclamation cited the Steely Dan fanzine Metal Leg as a probable
influence on 'getting Donald Fagen interested in recording and performing again'.
Armed with this (arguable) precedent, the editor of Proclamation launched 'The
Recording Project', whereby the weight of the Gentle Giant fan-base would be put
behind persuading the group (or as much of it as was willing) to reform for a
one-off recording of new material that Kerry Minnear had been working on. The
project would depend not only on enthusiasm but on funding - this would be a
subscription-based undertaking, with fans underwriting the cost of the composing
time, rehearsals and recording.8 The finished product would then be hawked round
various independent record labels for release. To date, this project is still in the
planning stage, but the editor has succeeded in getting the majority of the group to
agree to participate in it. At the heart of this project there appears a micro-
commercial attempt to actively relive the 'old days', to recreate the past in the
present not simply by proxy (through reminiscence and the collection and appreci-
ation of artefacts) but by literally reforming the group as it was (or as close as it
can get) in its heyday.9
The more or less uninterrupted commercial careers of groups such as ELP,
Jethro Tull and Yes have meant that their reliance on small labels i9 minimal, save
for the occasional live album. Peter Hammill and Robert Fripp, however, partly
through necessity and partly from an ethical stance, have chosen to establish their
own independent labels. After his financially disastrous dealings with his former
management, Fripp set up his Discipline Global Mobile label and distribution arm
'to be a model of ethical business in an industry founded on exploitation, oiled by
deceit, riven with theft and fuelled by greed',l° where both staff and artists would
enjoy a respect never shown to him by his former employers. This extends to a
radical view of copyright (interestingly, also a concern of much politically radical
alternative publishing; see Atton 1999) where the artists (musicians and sleeve
designers) all retain copyright in their own work. None of the fan-based enterprises
are anything like as explicit in their reasons for commercial activity, yet we may
assume from the context in which they operate that they would share similar, non-
exploitative aims, caring more about the music and its creators than about profit or

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40 Chris Atton

conventional notions of 'success'. Fripp, though, does keep both his commercial
activities and himself separate from fan-based enterprises. He appears dubious of
the obsessive attention shown to him and his music (the opening page of the Eleph-
ant Talk website is emblazoned with his cautionary words: 'I don't see how anyone
would want to read it all for fun'). It is to the relationship between fans and
musicians - as a significant indicator of the 'folk' value discourse - to which I now
turn.

The creation of community

It is a commonplace that fanzines offer a space for the creation, development and
enacting of a community of interest (Rau 1994; Duncombe 1997): the role of reader-
writers in the titles is pre-eminent, even in titles (Proclamation, Pilgrims) where edi-
tors make significant contributions of their own. As in many other forms of alterna-
tive publishing, readers are never simply relegated to the letters page (which are in
most cases extensive); they contribute reviews, interviews, discographies, histories,
analyses, discographies, artwork. In the case of the Internet fanzines the oppor-
tunity for communication is further enhanced: freed from the conventions of the
paper-based gig or record review, contributors post immediate impressions of gigs
attended earlier that day or the night before, together with requests for information
(an address of a record label, a catalogue number). With this comes overload and
repetition. An ongoing tour will prompt multiple reviews of each date, most of
which will differ hardly at all in their content (typically centred on the journey to
the venue and the set list) and their style (the same limited affective vocabulary of
'magnificents' and 'powerfuls' we have already met). What is noticeable here is a
focus on the pre-gig social activity. Not only do we have an account of how the
author got there and in what state, but we also receive an account of the social
world in which the authors find themselves once arrived. The virtual taste com-
munity here becomes actualised and a set of relationships is formed that, as Ruth
Finnegan has it, 'give meaning to the taste ... [that] is a commitment to a taste
community' (cited in Frith 1996, p. 89). Reading multiple accounts of friendships
made and identities formed emphasises the essential link between virtual socialis-
ing and identity-creation and that taking place in the real, lived space between fans.
These e-zine accounts are characterised by their brevity and simplicity; though their
number is plentiful, their detail is repetitious and superficial. They tell us little more
than that there is a community out there that meets regularly in cyberspace - where
it is potentially in toto and only irregularly face to face, invariably in quite depleted
fragments. A more sustained and complex account of this social world presents
itself through the print fanzines, particularly in Pilgrims where it forms a strong
undercurrent in Fred Tomsett's 'tour diaries'. These diaries also tell us about a type
of relationship between fan and musician in the contemporary progressive rock
. .

ml leu.
Tomsett is an inveterate touring fan who publishes accounts of all the tours
(and single concerts) he attends. Here I will focus on one: Peter Hammill's 1998
European tour, recounted by Tomsett over fifteen pages in Pilgrims 39 (representing
two-thirds of that issue). The piece is titled 'Pilgrim's Progress', in obvious reference
to the fanzine's title (itself the title of a Van der Graaf Generator song). Both titles
imply, if not hagiography, at least a respectful position toward the subject, perhaps
even a devotional, supplicatory attitude towards Hammill.ll As we shall see, how-

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 Value discourses in progressive rock fanzines 41

ever, Tomsett (and other fans) place a significant critical distance between them-
selves and their hero, at the same time as they get closer to him than fans of other
musicians appear to, to judge from the remaining titles in my analysis.
Tomsett begins his account by situating himself in his own social world. A
hired van, sharing the trip with a fellow English fan, breakdowns, bad weather,
poor food at motorway service stations: all emphasise the banality of the situation
(far from the romantic, if desperate, tour writings of, say, Nick Kent with the Rolling
Stones). Such quotidian detail is present throughout the account: tales of one-way
systems in European cities; difficulties in finding venues and hotels; traffic hold-ups
and breakdowns. As with many gig reviews (such as those in e-zines), a sizeable
chunk of the diary is taken up with pre- and post-gig events that have little bearing
on the artist or the music, save perhaps to underscore (though I doubt that this is
done deliberately) the writer's dedication to his subject. Upon arriving at a venue,
Tomsett has expectations that speak to a sustained set of relationships with fans a
continent apart: he names fans from other countries (sometimes not even the
country in which the venue is) whom he expects to turn up at the gig. He observes
'the same people you see at most of these Dutch shows' and sees 'more regulars
here tonight: Adrian and Daniel from Switzerland'; the 'most notable absentee was
our pal from Grenoble', 'we hit the cafe for food and run into Dagmar'. Such people
also feature as contributors to Pilgrims: at one concert Tomsett knows just the right
person to approach for a review of the night, since Tomsett is more than an audi-
ence member. He is there to run his merchandise stall and must regularly miss part
of the gig; he needs other fans' accounts to incorporate into his tour diary.
The two social worlds of the fanzine and the gig sustain each other and the
relationships between fans. The fanzine can be understood as maintaining those
relationships during 'dead times' - as well as opening up the social experience to
the (majority of) readers unable to make the gigs (especially in the UK - Hammill
plays only rarely in his home country). These readers are also able to get close to
Hammill himself. Tomsett has developed a close relationship with the musician
over the years, in part due to his merchandise stall (let us remember that the pro-
duction and distribution of Hammill's work is resolutely artisanal), his promotional
activity through Pilgrims and his almost continuous presence at gigs. Even in the
early days of the magazine, Tomsett tells how (in Pilgrims 8) on a visit to Bath,
home of Hammill's private recording studio, he was recognised by the singer and
taken out for a drink and a chat. During the 1998 European tour Hammill sends
Tomsett a bottle of Calvados to cheer up his night sleeping in his van. What is quite
understandably regarded as a privilege is also regarded as a normal activity. There
is a degree of casualness in Tomsett's relationship that seems surprising, achieved
perhaps by Tomsett maintaining a distance from Hammill, by him not falling into
being part of the entourage, by him remaining aloof from the after-gig ligging ('I
didn't get involved in running the mag to do this kind of thing').
This casualness shades into irreverence as we move into Tomsett's accounts
of the performances themselves. From amongst the now predictably generic and
affective vocabulary ('fantastic', 'brilliant', '[for one song] my notes just say
"Yow!"') emerges what I think of as the 'Hammill culture of errors'. Tomsett
declares that 'I like going to see Hammill shows for the mistakes that the group
makes and the way they turn adversity into (hopefully) success'. He is not alone:
Pilgrims brims with anecdotes of Hammill's fumblings at the piano, lapses of
memory and 'traincrashes' (a favourite word to describe the result of an under-

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42 Chris Atton

rehearsed ensemble piece). A review of a Hammill live album in Pilgrims 34 empha-

sises the 'vocal errors' and 'so many bum notes' but makes it clear that this is a
preferred state of affairs in Hammill fandom: 'there is not a perfect concert (God
forbid)'; if a song was 'perfect every time ... that would probably spoil it'; 'the
mistakes have a charm and reassurance of their own - he is only human after all'.
The humanness and ordinariness of Hammill and his group is frequently stressed:
at the Milwaukee gig, the presence of those 'Hammill is God' flyers served only to
reinforce the reviewer's 'admiration for them [Hammill and his group] as polite,
down-to-earth people' (emphasis in original).
This is far from the unconditional respect that we might expect from Tomsett's
characterisation of himself and other fans as 'Pilgrims'; in its place there is a respect
well-tempered by an acknowledgement of human failing, an attitude that is quite
absent from the cruder, more superficial hero-worship we find amongst fans of ELP
and Yes. Hammill himself is aware of this 'culture of errors': he both takes it in
good part and takes part in it. Tomsett offers an example of this: in his hotel room,
Hammill is listening to a tape of Gurdjieff reading his poetry. The tape has been
found by Tomsett who is playing it to Hammill on account of the occasional simi-
larity between the philosopher's words and Hammill's. Hammill 'turned away to
get a beer from the fridge saying "This is the point where he forgets the words."
We cracked up.'
Geir Hasnes's (the editor of Proclamation) pilgrimage to meet former members
of Gentle Giant in England and Wales ('One week in Britain' in Proclamation 5,
March 1997) is by comparison a more respectful affair. He and his companion are
well-enough received by the musicians, but there is a formality present that must
result from these being first-time (and possibly one-off) meetings: the rituals of
hospitality are present in all these encounters: gifts are exchanged; meals shared
(though often on neutral territory in the local pub); children played with. Photo-
graphs are taken and interviews conducted - all recounted in a fashion that moves
from a forced casualness to a respectful distance and back again. At times Hasnes
barely conceals his excitement at meeting his heroes, at the same time that he is
attempting to interview them closely. His account here is very much that of the
process of a field trip - the data he collects is not presented in the article, that is
saved for future issues. What we have is an account that situates the fan in a half-
world: tolerated by the musicians who on occasion seem genuinely flattered (at
times flabbergasted) by his enthusiasm for their previous work, yet he is never part
of their social world. That Hasnes engages with them in their domestic settings
makes for an uncomfortable tension between a private social world (the rituals of
hospitality) and fandom (the ritual of the pilgrimage). Whilst Tomsett is not part of
Hammill's (private) social world, nor does he have any desire to become part of it,
still for Tomsett there is at least an existing social world of music which both he
and Hammill (and the other fans) may inhabit, however temporarily. There is no
such homogeneity of social world for Hasnes and his readers: the musical world of
Gentle Giant exists only as a construct built largely on nostalgia. Any relationship
between fan and musician must account for the uncomfortable fact that the group
no longer exists and that some of its members have no desire to 'reproduce their
pasts to earn their pensions' (as another group - Henry Cow - put it in the press
release announcing their disbandment in 1978). In this light, Hasnes's 'Recording
Project' looks more like a desperate attempt to half-revive a beast that is perhaps
better left dead.

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 Value discourses in progressive rock fanzines 43

For many fans of progressive rock there appears an unwillingness to settle

with the past. Paul Stump points out that much of progressive rock fandom is not
interested in music that 'progresses' at all. He quotes one reviewer from the fanzine
Organ: 'The last thing you want a Progressive band to do is progress.' (Stump 1997,
p. 341) This attitude is problematic to a musician such as Robert Fripp, whose music
has never been bounded by a single template, least of all the characteristic Romantic
virtuosity of 'classic' progressive rock. One fan compares the 1990s version of King
Crimson unfavourably 'with the group that is playing only the old tunes and is not
experimenting': the 1990s ELP.12 Fripp has distanced himself as much from the
genre as he has from any social interaction with his fans and not without some
criticism. Where Pilgrims has its 'culture of errors' around Hammill, Elephant Talk
has its 'culture of encounters' around Fripp. Fans' accounts of their meetings with
Fripp picture an artist that fans consider at turns arrogant, remote, wilfully obscur-
antist: above all, unapproachable. In response, Fripp has noted how he does not
expect any 'allegiance' from his fans, that his music is experimental and not bound
by past incarnations. Rather than the audience being passive receivers of his music
(or any music), it is as implicated in the musical act as is the musician. Fripp drily
comments that he doubts that Elephant Talk is the place for such observations, 'poss-
ibly [not even] for discussion'.l3 For Fripp, it seems, the social world of music lies
not in the trappings of establishing relationships on a personal level with the
musicians, but in listeners establishing a relationship with the performance of the
music, wherein listeners contribute to a performance by their presence and attitude
and are therefore responsible for affecting the outcome of that performance. This
resembles a Cagean concept of active listening and, perhaps more relevantly here,
Frith's claim that '"listening" is itself a performance . . . we perform the music for
ourselves' (Frith 1996, p. 203); it is doubtful, however, whether this argument would
convince the many fans complaining of Fripp's remoteness from them. Here is an
artist who is consciously establishing a critical distance between himself and his
fans, in order to encourage them to focus on the music and their position in the
process of musical performance (in contrast to the unconsidered, 'star-driven'
remoteness routinely practised by members of ELP and Yes). Fripp is arguing
against a fandom that is little more than allegiance to a music or a group of
musicians; for him such a position is irrelevant and positively harmful, it having
little to do with the musical experience.l4

Conclusion

It is clear enough that the fanzine discourse surrounding progressive rock has easily
and fluidly crossed the 'apparently firm cultural boundaries' (Frith 1996, p. 43) of
the three value discourses. Like the 'mainstream' critical discourse of Melody Maker
before it, the progressive rock fanzine partakes of all three in a positive sense (in
that it draws support and arguments from them) and perhaps even negatively, at
times setting up an opposing discourse (such as the anti-formalism of some critical
writing on progressive rock). Yet there remains at least one significant difference
between the fanzine practice of the 1990s and the commercial music paper of the
early 1970s. Paul Stump has noted how in the 1990s progressive rock survives 'in
much the same way artisanal crafts or endangered wildfowl survive: through the
selfless, financially unremunerative toil of devotees' (Stump 1997, p. 33). It does this
significantly through an artisanal medium sans pareil. Establishing a fanzine under

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44 Chris Atton

these economic conditions is less to provide alternative or counte

mainstream, it is to establish a discourse where no substantial di
for many years. In this the contemporary progressive rock fanz
position: it is there to revive and sustain interest in a genre th
immense critical and commercial attention at many levels. Throw
methods, contemporary fans must seek this music in far differe
(the mail order specialist rather than the high street record shop
than the national music magazine). Progressive rock fans, notwith
sanal impulse, are fixated still on collecting, documenting and an
artefacts (and in this they are hardly different from any other
collectors). Complementing this economic activity we should als
worlds' of commerce, the fan-run and musician-run labels and d
ies, as well as the altruistic dealing that goes on. These 'small but zealous cells'
(Stump 1997, p. 340) comprise fans who now need to work actively in order to
involve themselves in what is now (perhaps shockingly so for older fans) a marginal
pursuit. Where the football fanzine, for instance, seeks to empower, give voice to
an existing (usually local) community of interest (Jary, Horne and Bucke 1991),
progressive rock fandom must strive to build a community. Whilst the principles
of high art may not be wholeheartedly adopted across the range of fanzine writing,
they are at least adduced in arguments for the music's value in a wider musical
world. There is an overlap of community and commerce: through the amateur
entrepreneurial efforts of the fanzine editors and their reader-writers, the com-
munity recreates the music of the 1970s. It does this both figuratively (by rekindling
interest in it) and literally, by organising concerts, releasing records, distributing
those releases and other merchandise. This is not merely an exercise in nostalgia
(though it is often that); it is not only about regaining a 'defining moment' in rock
history; it is a re-energising of that moment under the changed economic and socio-
cultural conditions of the present.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Simon Frith for his theoretical inspiration, his enthusias
and his important criticism of my work. I also thank David Finkelstein, whose
encouragement and support remain invaluable.

Endnotes

1. This was the title of a UK Top 10 single by 7. These differences raise the question of the
Jethro Tull in 1969 and of their 1972 double- adequacy of the present methodological
album retrospective collection. framework for the analysis of other types of
2. Key names in the Canterbury scene are: Gong, fanzines. The progressive rock fanzine seems
Hatfield and the North, Henry Cow, National particularly amenable to the method, but is
Health, Soft Machine and Robert Wyatt. this to exaggerate its uniqueness? Without
3. See Duncombe (1997, Chap. 4) for the influ- foregoing any conclusions, the progressive
ence of an editor's personality and identity on rock fanzine appears able to move across dis-
fanzine production. courses, partake of aspects of all of them at
4. ElephanD Talk 408, 13 August 1997. Available at: various stages and at times even abrade them.
http: / / et.stok.co.uk/ digests /408.txt Though far from a subculture, the fandom of
5. A New Day 64, Xanuary 1999, p. 33. progressive rock has returned to its begin-
6. C&D Compact Disc Services, Monthly General nings, culturally speaking: once again it consti-
Highlights SupplemenD no. 5, May 1999, p. 22. tutes an underground culture of sorts. Such

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 Value discourses in progressive rock fanzines 45

'behaviour' and location is suggestive of the
punk fanzine's 'syntactical rupturing', albeit to
a milder and less subversive degree and sug-
gests that the analytical method might be
employed with the punk fanzine (at least). To
thus extend the method might well reveal
limits, however, and call for other factors to be under the soubriquet of 'The Purple Jumper',
considered. Amongst these we might number
countercultural or subcultural currents in the
music itself; oppositional or accommodating
impulses towards any dominant culture; and
the characteristics, motives and rationales
exhibited by those involved in any of these
little worlds of publishing.
8. Of longer standing (over twenty years), if
less logistically complex, was Chris Cutler's
subscription series of releases as part of his
Recommended Records label and distribution
outlet. Whilst in this case the music already
existed and money was only sought for pro-
duction and packaging, subscribers were
asked to make far more risky leaps into the
dark, often being invited to subscribe to
unreleased music by very obscure
. .
duction for consumption by readers unable to
be there, that and the importance that nostal-
gia and recreation have for fans old and new.
In Proclamation these memories come from a
variety of fans; the Kevin Ayers fanzine Why
are we sleeping? has a sole 'memory man' who,
presents a regular column of his gig remi-
niscences from the late 1960s and early 1970s.
10. 'Newsletter One', Discipline Global Mobile
Website, http://www.disciplineglobalmobile
.com/dgm/dgm.htm
11. Eric Clapton is not the only musician to have
been called 'God': in Pilgrims 8, Xim Christo-
poulus observes someone handing out 'Ham-
mill is God' flyers at a Milwaukee gig in 1990.
The notion of pilgrimage is not reserved for
Hammill fans alone; a letter accompanying
copies of Where but for Caravan Would I?
expects the new subscriber to 'promise to
make a pilgrimage to Diss' to see the band at
their annual gig in Norfolk.
12. ElephanD Talk 408, 13 August 1997. Available at:
http: / / et.stok.co.uk/ digests /408.txt
13. Ibid.

muslclans.

9. 'Memories of Old Days' is the title of a regular
feature in Proclamation, where fans recall con-
certs attended twenty or more years ago; con-
certs recalled in a detail that is able to contain
descriptions of how a particular musician
moved across the stage. How reliable such
memories are remains to be seen, though this
is perhaps less important than their pro-
14. This is not to say that Fripp never engages in
personal contact with fans. When he does so,
however, it is decidedly - though not
unpleasantly - on his own terms. In reply to a
letter I had written to him one December about
his ethical business aims, I received a tele-
phone call from him 'blowing me a Christmas
kiss' - then he was gone.

References

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46 Chris Atton

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