Marillion
| Marillion | |
|---|---|
 Marillion on the open-air stage Loreley , 2010 |
|
| General information | |
| Genre (s) | Progressive Rock , Neo-Prog |
| founding | 1979 |
| Website | www.marillion.com |
| Founding members | |
| Steve Rothery | |
| Doug Irvine (until 1980) | |
| Mick Pointer (until 1983) | |
| Brian Jelliman (until 1981) | |
| Current occupation | |
singing |
Steve Hogarth (since 1989) |
bass |
Pete Trewavas (since 1982) |
Keyboard |
Mark Kelly (since 1981) |
Drums |
Ian Mosley (since 1984) |
guitar |
Steve Rothery |
| former members | |
singing |
Fish (1981-1988) |
bass |
Diz Minnett (1981-1982) |
Drums |
Jonathan Mover (1983) |
Drums |
John Marter (1983) |
Drums |
Andy Ward (1983) |
Marillion is a British rock band formed in Aylesbury in 1979 . Their story can be divided into two musically differing sections, which is due to an exchange of the singer: With frontman Fish , the band was able to establish itself as one of the most influential bands of neo-prog , a form of progressive rock that flourished in the 1980s . In this formation, which lasted until 1988, four albums were released, including Misplaced Childhood with the band's two biggest single hits , Kayleigh and Lavender .
After breaking up with Fish, the four core members, who had played together since 1984, decided to continue singing with Steve Hogarth . This line-up is still active today.
Band history
"Fish Era" (1979–1988)
The band was founded in 1979 as an instrumental group under the name Silmarillion , based on the book of the same name by JRR Tolkien . Founding members included Steve Rothery ( guitar ), Doug Irvine ( electric bass ), Brian Jelliman ( keyboard ) and Mick Pointer ( drums ). In 1981 the singer Derek William Dick , better known as Fish , joined the band, as did bassist Diz Minnitt. As a result, Jelliman and Minnitt were replaced by keyboardist Mark Kelly and bassist Pete Trewavas . With this line-up, the band first released the single Market Square Heroes in October 1982 . This reached number 60 in the British charts. On the B-side of the maxi single was the 17-minute longtrack Grendel . In this early Marillion work, in addition to Fish's voice, which was reminiscent of Peter Gabriel , some often criticized further parallels to Genesis can be heard, which is why Marillion was often smugly called "the second best Genesis of all time".
At the beginning of 1983 the lyrically and musically independent debut album Script for a Jester's Tear followed . After the drummer Mick Pointer was replaced by Ian Mosley , three more albums followed, which were equally successful and trend-setting in the field of so-called neo- progressive rock . This development reached a high point in 1984 with Fugazi . With her best-known title, the ballad Kayleigh from the third album Misplaced Childhood , and the song Incommunicado from the subsequent album Clutching at Straws , Marillion landed international hits in 1985 and 1987. The album covers were designed by the artist Mark Wilkinson .
On September 15, 1988, Marillions record company EMI announced in a press release the exit of Fish. According to this announcement, there were serious differences within the band regarding the further musical direction. The first conflicts between Fish and the other band members already occurred in 1985 when recording Misplaced Childhood in Berlin. The arguments accumulated and Fish felt increasingly isolated within the band. During the "writing sessions" in August 1988 for the Clutching at Straws successor, there were serious differences of opinion regarding the musical and lyrical direction of the new album. Since the dispute about it could not be resolved, Fish decided to leave the band. They gave their last concert together on July 23, 1988 in Craigtoun Country Park in St. Andrews, Scotland . The 1988 live album The Thieving Magpie was the last time a record with this line-up was released. The overture of La gazza ladra ( The Thieving Elster , Italian or German for The Thieving Magpie ) by Gioachino Rossini was used as an intro for both the concerts and the live album . From 1997 to 1999, the four Marillion albums of the "Fish Era" were released in a digitally edited version that, in addition to the respective album, also contains a bonus CD with B-sides, alternative versions and demos. The bonus CD for Clutching at Straws contains some sound sketches of the last recordings with Fish.
"Hogarth era" (since 1989)
While Fish then began a solo career, the remaining band members continued with the new front man Steve Hogarth . After the transitional album Seasons End , on which Fish still worked and which musically is still very close to its predecessors, the band took a significantly different direction. With the album Holidays in Eden , Marillion released the record that was so far most clearly mainstream- oriented in 1991 , but followed three years later with the dark concept album Brave, a clear counterpart. However, despite the approval of critics and fans and despite number 10 in the UK charts, this remained commercially below the expectations of the record company, but also the band. The music provided the soundtrack for an independent film of the same name with Steve Hogarth in the male lead.
This was followed by an orientation phase in which the band sought new connections in the music business relatively unsuccessfully, although they had no luck with their record labels. A year after Brave , in 1995, Afraid of Sunlight was released, in 1997 This Strange Engine with a longtrack at the end, which ends with laughter from Steve Hogarth after the last chord and a few minutes of silence. Radiation followed in 1998 and Marillion.com in 1999, co-produced by Steven Wilson , followed by Anoracnophobia in 2001.
With the albums Anoraknophobia and Marbles , Marillion introduced an innovative, but also controversial business model. In order to be able to produce the albums independently without a record company having to be involved, they had the fans pre-financed several months in advance. As a reward, the pre-orderers received additional material: In the case of Anoraknophobia a bonus CD, at Marbles the full album as a double CD, while in conventional stores only a single CD with an abbreviated version of the album ( condensed version ) was available. The idea of getting pre-financing from the fans goes back to 1997, when a fundraising campaign coordinated by fans on the Internet made a North American tour possible for the band. At the time, a total of $ 61,000 was donated after keyboardist Mark Kelly online declared a North American tour unlikely for financial reasons.
Only the singles You're Gone and The Damage , which were released from the 2004 album Marbles , reached top 10 placements again in some European countries. In several interviews, the band members emphasize again and again that it is more important to them to make their style and their music, for their fans, even if that means giving up top 10 placements.
On August 26, 2007 there was a short reunion of Marillion with Fish for a one-time appearance. On the occasion of a festival on the market square of Aylesbury , the place where the band was founded (about 65 kilometers northwest of London), Marillion played their debut single Market Square Heroes at the invitation of their old bandmate . After the performance, he made it clear in interviews that there would be no final reunion.
In 2007 the album Somewhere Else was released , followed by their fifteenth studio album, Happiness Is the Road , which had been in the works since the same year and was released on October 20, 2008. Since September 10, 2008, a pre-release version of the album along with some videos by the band itself had been distributed via Internet file sharing networks. One reason to try out this new business model was the success that the Radiohead group had with the album In Rainbows , which was distributed online at a price of one's own choosing . Marillion introduced a slight variation: the tracks were in WMA format, with users being encouraged to enter their email addresses the first time they were played in exchange for a license-free MP3 version of the album.
In October 2009, Less Is More, a new studio CD was released. An acoustic-style album on which already known songs from the Hogarth era were re-recorded in a rearranged version.
Since 1998, Marillion have been giving their fans, organized in fan clubs, a CD as a present every Christmas. It includes live and acoustic versions of your pieces of music, outtakes and an interpretation of a contemporary or classic Christmas carol. There are irregular Christmas tours, during which Christmas carols are also intoned.
Marillion's tours tend to tend to play in smaller clubs and bars, which creates a different atmosphere than large concerts in sports facilities. The band spontaneously responded to song requests from the audience. Since 2001, Marillion Weekends have taken place every two years , dedicated Marillion conventions with three different concerts by the band. In 2011 such events took place in Port Zelande (Netherlands), Montreal (Canada) and Leamington Spa (England).
Pete Trewavas, Steve Rothery and Steve Hogarth have been performing under the name Los Trios Marillos for several years . These isolated acoustic concerts take place on a small scale, mainly Marillion songs are played.
On September 23, 2016 the studio album "FEAR" (Fuck everyone and run) was released
style
"Fish Era"
With the singer Fish, the band is one of the most important and influential representatives of neo-prog , which was in its prime in the 1980s. The pieces from this period are melodic and have a sound typical of the 1980s, especially with regard to the synthesizer carpets and reverb effects used on guitar, drums and vocals. On the compositional level, anthemic and calmer passages, carried by Mark Kelly's keyboard surfaces, alternate with fast parts that are often in crooked, “choppy” time signatures. In addition to the independent, melodic guitar playing by Steve Rothery, the emotional and powerful vocals by Fish, which in turn was a major trigger for the numerous comparisons with the early work of Genesis around frontman Peter Gabriel , are characteristic. Another thing that both singers have in common is a tendency towards expressionistic, costumed stage appearances. Recognizable instrumental elements from Genesis pieces can only be found in the first compositions of the band, which are included on the debut maxi single Market Square Heroes . The B-side Three Boats down from the Candy, for example, uses elements from songs from the Genesis albums Wind and Wuthering and Foxtrot . Motifs on the 17-minute long track Grendel are also reminiscent of similar passages from Genesis' famous 23-minute Supper's Ready . On the other hand, decisive differences can already be seen here, especially the fast and ornate keyboard parts by Mark Kelly. On the following albums, the band finally matured to musical independence.
The texts written by Fish convey personal, political, or content based on fantasy literature, whereby the weighting varies from album to album. Misplaced Childhood , which was recorded in the Hansa Studios in West Berlin during a debauchery, should count as the most personal album . With this album and the contained single Kayleigh , based on a real ex-girlfriend Fishs named Kay-Lee, the band could also record their greatest success.
The debut album contains love songs like the eponymous Script for a Jester's Tear . On the other hand, Forgotten Sons also included a critical appraisal of British policy at the time in the Northern Ireland conflict. Other songs are socially critical like Chelsea Monday or cynical like Garden Party . The text of Grendel is inspired by John Gardner 's novel of the same name, in which the terror of Grendel , the monster from the Beowulf saga, against King Hrodgar and his people is described from the perspective of the monster.
"Hogarth Era"
After the first Hogarth album Seasons End , on which, in addition to newly written songs, music from the last sessions with Fish was used - and which was musically very close to the previous albums, the band took a significantly different direction. Singer Steve Hogarth, formerly keyboard player of the new wave band The Europeans , brought the band a new, very independent style of singing, which is due to his special breathing technique. His vocal lines often sound "floating" or "breathy".
The dark concept album Brave from 1994 enjoys high status among critics and fans, despite - compared to the previous works of the band - commercial failure . The underlying story was inspired by a radio report in which there was talk of a young woman who did not Word spoke and of which no identity could be determined. Thereupon the band dealt with the topic and came up with their own history, which led to the album mentioned. The album was composed and recorded in Miles Copeland's Chateau Marouatte in the Dordogne department , to which the band had retired in February 1993. In 1994 it was played in its full sequence at concerts. It was last staged in 2013 at the Marillion Conventions and recorded on DVD.
The following albums in the 1990s and early 2000s were musically dominated by demanding and atmospheric rock and pop music, sometimes with echoes of bands such as U2 ( Afraid of Sunlight ), REM ( Man of a Thousand Faces ) and The Beatles ( Drilling Holes ) . Compared to the Fish era, the compositions are less characterized by penetrating keyboard surfaces and memorable vocal melodies, but more focused on atmospheric cohesion. In particular, the last albums can be summarized under the label of the style term New Artrock , which has now flourished . Some album titles such as Anoraknophobia allude to the nerdy image that Marillionfans sometimes attribute to them; In British slang, anorak is used to describe a somewhat withdrawn hobbyist. In 2002 the live album Anorak was released in the UK.
Discography
literature
- Joe Scott: Script for a Jester's Song. Marillion biography. Volume 1. 2nd edition. Curiosus Verlag, Tiefenbach 2011, ISBN 978-3-00-034732-0 (German).
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- ↑ Biography on musicline.de ( Memento of the original from January 2, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Band portrait on rockantenne.de
- ↑ About this Udo Gerhards in a review on the Babyblauen Seiten : “ The pre-order campaign by Marillion, in which the band, with the help of the fans, the production and especially the advertising campaign for the last CD 'Marbles' was somewhat heatedly discussed in fan circles and beyond : The commentators fluctuated between the recognition of innovative financing models and 'rip off!' "
- ↑ http://www.marillion.com/music/archive.htm#1998 Rorchester - Live album created after the tour fund campaign
- ^ Singer Fish and Marillion reunite , BBC Online, August 28, 2007
- ↑ Source: Interview with Mark Kelly on BBC NEWS
- ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from March 31, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Marillion eWeb Newsletter: La Vuelta de Los Trios ( Memento of the original from October 13, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Reviews of Market Square Heroes on the Baby Blue Pages
- ↑ Fish self-assessment of the similarities with Genesis
- ↑ Lyrics to Grendel ( Memento of the original from March 13, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ The band's comments on Brave at http://www.marillion.com/ [1]
- ^ Brave Live 2013. Retrieved July 5, 2017 .
- ^ Marillion, Anoracnophobia . Racket Records, 2001. http://www.marillion.com/music/albums/anorak.htm
Web links
- Marillion in the Internet Movie Database (English) (German)
- Official website (Marillion )
- Official Website of Fish (English)
- The Web Germany eV - Official German Fan Club (German)
- Marillion at laut.de
- Marillion at Musik-Sammler.de
- Marillion: Setlists Database 1980-1988