foxtrot

Genesis continued their upward momentum with the theatrical power of this art-rock tour de force.  Building on the sound of their previous album 'Nursery Cryme', the band went into the studio with a lot of new material.  'Foxtrot' was recorded at Island Studios in London with Tony Banks on Organ, Mellotron, Piano, Electric Piano, 12 String, and Voices; Steve Hackett on Electric Guitar, 12 String and 6 String Solos; Phil Collins on Drums, Voices, and Assorted Percussion; Peter Gabriel on Lead Voice, Flute, Bass Drum, Tambourine, Oboe; and Michael Rutherford on Bass, Bass Pedals, 12 String Guitar, Voices, and Cello.  Eventually, David Hitchcock was listed as the producer.

Banks says:  "I think going into 'Foxtrot' we were pretty confident with what we'd written...We had trouble with engineers and producers on this...We went into the studio with this guy Bob Potter and we started recording stuff and i played the opening to 'watcher of the Skies' and he said 'I don't like that. I don't think we should use that.' so i thought 'Oh my God, here we go, you know.' we tried a couple of other things. he was ok as an engineer and everything he was a fine engineer - a good engineer, but the fact that he didn't like what we were doing meant that we couldn't work with him; so we got rid of him and ended up working with just the engineer and in fact we changed engineers in the middle of a song. 'cause the engineer we weren't too sure about him either. We recorded the first half of 'Supper's Ready' with this other engineer and then we got this other guy John Burns came in as the next engineer and we finished the song and did the rest of the album with him."

Hacket admits:   "I was fairly shattered at that time. we'd done a lot of touring. every now and again i would threaten to leave. on day one of recording of 'Foxtrot', Mike and Tony sat me down and said 'we don't want you to leave, Steve.we really like your guitar playing.' And strange as it seems, I hadn't really understood that at that point... I think it was a stiff upper lip thing in the band. We didn't sort of compliment each other very much. So I felt very insecure as one of the new boys; and I thought, ' better to leave before I get sacked. This was a revelation to me. I think there was lots of great stuff on 'Foxtrot' so I'm pleased they asked me to stay."

Collins recalls:  "The way we worked is we were playing all the time.  When we weren't playing we would rehearse and we would write...We had a friend who had a friend who had a house; so we moved in there. we did it all over the place...We were very much a band, a better band...Because there was nothing to sing at the time, peter wouldn't necessarily sing...and we'd get these great things that actually sounded like instrumental things and then he would go away and come back with a lyric and it'd be so crowded, so dense...we did find that the downside to the way we were writing, without the technical hearing of a voice at that stage, meant that we would write these things and they would come back a little busy, a little dense."

Rutherford reflects:  "We tend to write songs that were much more compact with lots of bits in it; but this was freer. you'd stay on a section for a bit longer and let things happen...I've learned a lot of things as a writer and you learn it as you go along and it's luck - luck does come into it; and things that seem quite effortless as this was are good.  We weren't aware when we put it all together that we had a very strong thing. We thought it was good.  Things that happen without that feeling of trying are often the best things, I think."

The tour for 'Foxtrot' brought attention to the band with Gabriel dressing up in costumes and playing silly games.  Paul Conroy at Charisma Records came up with the idea of someone dressing up as the fox from the cover of the album.  Gabriel says:  "I think he really fancied doing it himself. And I thought, 'Well, damn it, if we're going to do it, I want to do it! I want to be the centre of attention!'...I remember being very nervous as I walked onto the stage in the middle of a number. The audience was shocked by the weirdness of a man dressed up in woman's clothing and a fox mask - but I loved it! This performance gave me an unquestionable authority, and I thought, 'I must be on to something here.'"


Collins remembers: "When we played the Rainbow, there was a picture of Pete in his fox's head on the front page of the Melody Maker - which doubled our earnings straight away. We went from earning £300 a night to earning £600 a night, which was a lot of money in those days. Suddenly people had something to write about - you can't really write about the crashing cymbals, thudding drums and the swirling keyboards for very long. They needed some new angle, and suddenly Peter had given it them. The Rainbow concert was definitely the beginning of all that."

'Foxtrot' went to forty-five in Germany and number twelve in the UK, making the band major players in the burgeoning progressive rock movement. Gabriel considers: "We were gaining confidence. Live was going very well at that point even though financially things weren't good; but there was a great rapport building and it was beginning to move around to other countries and so I think we were confident in a way we hadn’t been before. So that gave us the mental platform on which to build something like ‘Supper’s Ready,’ which is still one of the things I like best, looking backwards...We were beginning to know who we were as writers and also know how to deliver it as performers. So it's a coming of age piece i think in a lot of ways."









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'Supper's Ready'

[i] Lover's Leap
[ii] The Guaranteed Eternal Sanctuary Man
[iii] Ikhnaton and Itsacon and Their Band of Merry Men
[iv] How Dare I Be So Beautiful?
[v] Willow Farm
[vi] Apocalypse in 9/8 (featuring the delicious talents of Gabble Ratchet)
[vii] As Sure as Eggs is Eggs (Aching Men's Feet))







'Watcher Of The Skies'





'Foxtrot'
full album:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS0WS9mM7YM





All songs composed, arranged, and performed by Tony Banks, Phil Collins, Peter Gabriel, Steve Hackett, and Mike Rutherford.

Side one
1. "Watcher of the Skies"   7:21
2. "Time Table"   4:47
3. "Get 'Em Out by Friday"   8:35
4. "Can-Utility and the Coastliners"   5:45
Side two
1. "Horizons"   1:39
2. "Supper's Ready"  22:57 
a. "Lover's Leap"
b. "The Guaranteed Eternal Sanctuary Man"
c. "Ikhnaton and Itsacon and Their Band of Merry Men"
d. "How Dare I Be So Beautiful?"
e. "Willow Farm"
f. "Apocalypse in 9/8 (Co-Starring the Delicious Talents of Gabble Ratchet)"
g. "As Sure as Eggs Is Eggs (Aching Men's Feet)"