Nadir's Big Chance

1. Nadir's Big Chance
2. The Institute of Mental Health, burning (Peter Hammill/Chris Judge Smith)
3. Open Your Eyes
4. Nobody's Business
5. Been Alone so Long (Chris Judge Smith)
6. Pompeii
7. Shingle Song
8. Airport
9. People You were Going to
10. Birthday Special
11. Two or Three Spectres

MP3 Downloads from Amazon - Nadir's Big Chance

All tracks by Peter Hammill, except where noted.

Recorded at Rockfield, 1-7 Dec. 1974. At the desk: The Meringue
Mixed at Trident, 10-13 Dec. 1974. At the desk: The Stone

Peter Hammill/Rikki Nadir - vox, guitar, piano, Hohner clavinet D6, bass
David Jackson - saxes + flute
Hugh Banton - keboards, bass
Guy Evans - drums
Gordianisation : Troeller
Truck 'n' hump : Buonuomo
Cover : Dino M'Brela

Produced by Peter Hammill

Released by Charisma Records on February 7th, 1975, the album was recorded shortly after a decision to re-form the band Van der Graaf Generator, Nadir's Big Chance is actually performed by the reformed VdGG line-up.
For the 2006 release, original recording were digitally remastered.

The album's songs vary greatly in style, as acknowledged by Hammill in the sleeve notes, which refer to "the beefy punk songs, the weepy ballads, the soul struts". It is indeed notable for its prototype punk rock style on several tracks. The first British citation of the word "punk" in relation to music in the Oxford English Dictionary is dated January 1976 (there are several earlier citations from the USA), yet Nadir's Big Chance was released in February 1975. Hammill can therefore legitimately lay claim to being the first British musician to use the term.

In a 1977 Capital Radio broadcast, John Lydon of the Sex Pistols played two tracks from the album, "The Institute Of Mental Health, Burning" and "Nobody's Business", and expressed his admiration for Hammill. -

"Oh, Peter Hammill is great. A true original. I've just liked him for years. If you listen to him, his solo albums, I'm damn sure Bowie copied a lot out of that geezer. The credit he deserves just has not been given to him. I love all his stuff." - John Lydon: Capital Radio, Tommy Vance Show, July 16th 1977

The album also includes two of Hammill's most frequently performed ballads, "Been Alone So Long" and "Shingle Song", and a reworking of Van der Graaf Generator's first single from 1968, "People You Were Going To". The album also saw Hammill's first use of the Hohner clavinet D6 keyboard, which would go on to feature prominently on the next few Van der Graaf Generator albums (particularly Godbluff).

From Wikipedia

Peter Hammill's original sleeve notes:
The way of it is this: I was sitting in the waiting-room when I gradually became aware that I was not alone - or at least, not singular. This lasted only a moment, however, and that my alter ego, Nadir, took me over. So that I was both him in body and myself in observation.
Light, a curious, desultory silence; several moments of disorienting neo-dematerialization. An ice-blue Stratocaster spinning through space; Nadir crashing his way through distorted three-chord wonders. The anarchic presence of Nadir - this loud, aggressive perpetual seventeen-year-old - has temporary through complete dominion, and I can only submit, gladly, and play his music - the beery punk songs, the weepy ballads, the soul struts.
This album is, more or less, what he plays and who he is; how could I deny him his simple say? After all, with the state the world's in there's always room for another Nadir.

P.H.

The Guardian
This 1975 album has been regarded as a key influence on punk since 1977, when Johnny Rotten shocked a nation's spiky troops by playing two tracks from it on Capital Radio. At the time, Hammill - frontman of Van Der Graaf Generator - was everything punk professed to hate: middle-class, intellectual and technically proficient. Yet Rotten effusively praised "a true original". Three decades later, Hammill's sleevenotes suggest that if anything was passed on, it was "attitude, rather than the music". The songs certainly bristle with alienation and electrical storms, from the opening shout of "Wun-two-three-faw!" to blistering sax breaks that must have inspired punks such as X-Ray Spex. Instruments and Hammill's tonsil-tearing vocals are fed through banks of echo, giving the album an air of thrilling chaos. Nobody's Business - one of the tracks Rotten aired - is a put-down set to a killer riff. But the album also heralded Hammill's subsequent role as doomy troubadour, as Shingle Song and Been Alone So Long exorcise demons with a different kind of raw power.

From The Guardian by Dave Simpson on Friday November 17 2006