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Book Review: Garden of Hell
by Lang Reid
 Garden
of Hell (ISBN 978-974-93619-4-8, Silkworm Books, 2006) was written by Nick
Wilgus, a senior sub-editor at the Bangkok Post, but in between subbing
perhaps, he has written a series of mysteries featuring a Buddhist priest,
Father Ananda, and his young novice, a crippled 13 year old boy named Jak.
Nick Wilgus has been a student of comparative religions, a former Franciscan
and social worker and this book shows a great insight into pragmatic Thai
Buddhism, where Father Ananda is prepared to bend the rules somewhat in the
grey areas, in his search for the real truth. This is beautifully offset by
the narrow viewpoint put forward by his young acolyte, as befits an early
teenager in his personal search for the truth, in the black and white world
that all teenagers live in.
The plot opens with Father Ananda and Jak going up-country to a wat which
has a Buddhist-style theme park, full of exhibits designed to keep your
average Buddhist on the straight and narrow. However, it was at this theme
park that a young nun apparently threw herself into the crocodile pit. A
very successful suicide, though Father Ananda, having once been a policeman
before donning the orange robes, has his doubts.
His looking for clues takes him further into the day to day running of the
temple and he finds there is more than religious devotions going on in this
particular wat. There is a dark and mysterious secret that Father Ananda
begins to slowly uncover, including the almost customary Thai networking of
influential persons. The mafia is alive and well and functioning in places
up-country.
The closeness of village life is ably demonstrated and the part the local
policeman has to play, moving along the fine line of maintaining a suitable
police presence to keep the villagers suitably happy, while the dark
influences can then work without interruption. One can see just how the
simple village people could be manipulated (as they have been so
successfully, up until the recent coup which everyone hopes will stave off a
populist putsch).
With his newspaper background, Nick Wilgus also introduces the media and the
part it can play in exposing evil doings, especially the Thai media, which
is never loathe to publish photographs of dead bodies on the front page, or
people with severe injuries. (They may also be even more forceful now the
permanent threat of litigation has been removed.)
Just how Father Ananda manages to keep his Buddhist faith going, in the
midst of the subterfuge and double dealings of some of his supposedly pious
brethren is also explored, and again this is contrasted against the lack of
experience of the 13 year old Jak, and shows how they both come to terms
with their personal situations.
Interestingly, one of Bangkok Post’s reviewers likened the book to Dan
Brown’s Angels and Demons, which was a similar thought to my own while
reading the book. It is fast paced, keeps you guessing, introduces religious
imagery and has believable characterizations. I really enjoyed this book and
at B. 395 it is a very inexpensive read.
Mott’s CD review: Van Der Graf Generator
H to He - Who am the only one
Depressed
by Mott the Dog
Jollied up by Meow the Cat
 2
Stars **
In the early Seventies ‘Van Der Graf Generator’ were the darlings of the
underground, well the young and impressionable ones. Everything about
the band was designed to be a little mysterious. The band was named
after the name ‘Van Der Graf Generator’ as seen on the side of a large
traction engine at a British village fete. Not much mysterious about
that then; “Oh look at the name on the side of that tractor, lets call
ourselves that.”
In the life of Van Der Graf Generator there has only ever been one
constant, and that is vocalist Peter Hammill. The others tend to come
and go a bit. The band was first formed in 1969, and almost immediately
disbanded, which has been pretty much the story ever since, right up to
2005 when the supposed classic line-up got back together again under the
Van Der Graf Generator banner. It is very often difficult to tell
between a ‘Van Der Graf Generator’ album and a Peter Hammill solo album,
as they often have the same musicians on them, and let me just advise
you, since 1969 there have been an awful lot of albums, both solo and
group (hard to tell exactly how many), as there have been so many
re-releases, old albums put out under different names, compilation
albums, solo albums, terrible bootleg quality live albums, and
collections of old tapes that have been found, dusted off and released
to an unsuspecting public as a new release.
Van Der Graf Generator, used to make a bit of a strange racket at the
best of times, so you can imagine that some of their outtakes etc, can
be rather hard listening.
But to go back to the beginning: in 1969 Van Der Graf Generator recorded
their first album ‘The Aerosol Grey Machine’. It was only released in
Germany, as after listening to it the record company did not like it so
could not see the point of inflicting it on the rest of the world.
Naturally the band split up and individually went home.
But these were the days of budding young record companies and equally
ambitious young record executives. One of which was Simon Stratton-Smith
who was getting his record company Chrysalis off the ground, and was
signing up almost anybody with long hair and a musical instrument. To be
fair he did actually give a lot of bands their first break, including
Genesis, Lindisfarne, Steamhammer and Audience, amongst others. So,
although he signed a lot of bands, amongst the swine there were quite a
few pearls. Were ‘Van Der Graf Generator’ a pearl or swine? Hard to tell
really. They certainly received enough column inches, made and recorded
a lot of music, for some reason were huge in Italy, and leave a large
legacy of music, which is still being built on. A ‘Van Der Graf
Generator’ fan is also a very loyal sort, and will not hear a bad word
about them, and will know every little fact from song titles to shoe
sizes.
The first release on Chrysalis was the amusingly titled ‘The Least We
Can Do Is Wave to Each Other’ (1970), which sort of set the tone for the
generations of Generator to come. But now they had a recording contract
and this being the early Seventies, why not make another record?
They of course did. The album under review and the following year’s
‘Pawn Hearts’ (1971) are considered by most hard core fans to be the
pinnacle of Van Der Graf Generatorism.
For now we will concentrate on their second Chrysalis album ‘H to He -
Who Am The Only One’. Starting at the beginning with the cover, on the
back and front is a picture by Paul Whitehead called ‘Birthday’. Why it
is called birthday I am not sure, not a cake, candle or present in
sight, with a fair amount of study it was decided that it could possibly
be a picture of somebody with very skinny legs falling off a bar stool
after a birthday party, possibly, but a bit deep that.
Then of course we have the title. What is all that about one wonders. No
fears, on the inside of the front cover is an explanation: ‘H to He’ is
a chemical equation - ‘’The fusion of Hydrogen nuclei to form Helium
nuclei is the basic exothermic reaction in the sun and stars, and hence
is the prime energy source in the universe.” So that is that bit cleared
up. “Who Am The Only One’’ will perhaps remain a mystery.
So to the music. ‘Van Der Graf Generator’ started this album off as a
five piece, but in true Spinal Tap style finished with four, having
carelessly misplaced bass player Nic Potter during the sessions. Bit of
a shame really, as his contributions are amongst the most memorable on
the album. Still, must get on with it.
First song up is a bit of a cracker, a good solid rock song, very heavy
metal, with as I said good bass guitar (Nic Potter stuck around to
record three of the five songs), plenty of layers of keyboard work from
Hugh Banton, Guy Evans keeps a comfortable drum beat going, whilst David
Jackson squawks away on all sorts of saxophones, flutes, etc., and after
each little instrumental break the whole band comes crashing back
together at the same time. Peter Hamill sings of this huge great killer
shark that’s having a bit of a personality crisis - quite interesting
really as I personally had never considered the loneliness of a shark. I
can only think about those teeth latching onto you. Anyway, after eight
minutes and several false endings, ‘Killer’ comes to an end, with no
real damage done.
Next up is a much lighter and slower song, ‘House with No Name’. Now
this does drag a bit, with a feeling that the musicians have only got a
vague idea of what is going on, but worst of all Peter Hammill reveals
his true self. What an old misery he is, I mean talk about not being
able to see the bright side. Here are the opening words:
‘’There’s a house with no door and I’m living there,
At nights it gets so cold and the days are hard to bear inside,
There’s a house with no roof, so the rain creeps in,
Falling through my head as I try to think out time’’.
Not exactly full of fun and frivolity, is it? Especially as the music
really is a little weak, and directionless, so you really have no option
but to take note of the lyrics.
After this we are treated to another epic, ‘The Emperor In His War
Room’, which according to the cover listing is split into two parts,
exactly where I am not sure. But as the song is about war you can
imagine how morbid the lyrics are. How does “They stare out, glass eyed
aimless heads, bodies torn by vultures’’ grab you? Not exactly picnic in
the park is it? In an effort to try and move things along a little,
Robert Fripp of ‘King Crimson’ fame was brought in as a session player
on this track, which does beg several questions: one, if you need an
electric guitar player get one in the band; two, if you have a famous
guest artist playing on your record why bury him so far down in the mix?
Three, why then let the other musicians just blast away over the top of
him?
‘Lost’ as the title of the next song is very apt, as to be honest all
four musicians sound lost. David Jackson on this song is particularly
irksome, in parts squawking away like a very unhappy Donald Duck. It
would be funny if it was not quite so annoying. Peter Hammill stumbles
on about some loser who is all on his own in a desert, broken hearted,
only the location has changed, the misery continues.
The only good thing about ‘Lost’ is that it lasts over eleven minutes
long, which at least delays ‘The Pioneers Over C’ starting and that is
over twelve minutes long. This is their Science Fiction epic, and guess
what? More squawking saxophones, straight ahead drumming, a long eerie
bit in the middle where various thing go beep, and of course mournful
lyrics about being alone in space. These guys and their followers really
need a good cheering up. Hug anybody?
The music is not all bad, in fact some of it is quite clever, but
recorded over thirty five years ago it does sound very dated and
pretentious.
I am sure there will be a great whooping from the hoards of Van Der Graf
Generator fans when they announce another reunion, but I think your
anorak would be better served left on its happy hook.
Van Der Graf Generator - were - are:
Peter Hammill: Lead Moans, Acoustic Guitar
Guy Evans: Drums, Tympani, Percussion
Hugh Banton: Hammond and Farfisa organs, piano, oscillator, vocals
David Jackson: Alto, Tenor, and Baritone Saxophone, Devices? (That is
what it says), Flute and Vocals
Also on the album Nic Potter: Bass
and Robert Fripp: Guitar
Music Titles
Killer
House With No Door
The Emperor In His War Room. Part One, The Emperor! Part Two, The Room!
Lost
Pioneers Over C
To contact Mott the
Dog email: [email protected]
Website: http://www.mott-the-dog.com
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