Greenaway Pils & Doom – Europe 1972
Painstakingly assembled from disparate cassettes found in the personal collections of both Phil and Steve Miller, this is as complete a documentation as possible of the low-key European tour undertaken by the trio of Steve Miller (piano), Lol Coxhill (soprano sax, vocals) and Laurie Allan (drums) in October and November 1972.
The trio, obviously, were a spinoff of Delivery, which after parting ways in 1971 had reformed in the spring 1972 in the form of the proto-Hatfield and the North quartet of Steve Miller, Phil Miller, Pip Pyle (all three having been founding members back in 1966) and Richard Sinclair, at the time Steve’s bandmate in Caravan. After playing a few gigs in the summer, the quartet went their separate ways, with Phil, Pip and Richard continuing with Dave Sinclair on organ, initially retaining the Delivery name, although this was quickly changed for Hatfield and the North.
Steve Miller, who had an ongoing parallel musical partnership with Lol Coxhill, contemplated forming a new Delivery with Roy Babbington and Laurie Allan, but with Roy busy touring with Nucleus, their first gigs were done as a trio, which for reasons long since forgotten was nicknamed Greenaway Pils & Doom. There were dates in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, probably arranged thanks to local Matching Mole and Caravan connections, most crucially of course Henk Weltevreden in Maassluis, whose baptism of fire as a promoter had been the Dyble-Coxhill & the Miller Brothers tour in May 1971.
Once the tour was completed, the Delivery name was revived one last time for a BBC In Concert performance in late November 1972 which brought together Phil and Steve Miller, Lol Coxhill, Pip Pyle, Roy Babbington and Richard Sinclair. The Coxhill-Miller duo and its various extensions, of course, continued with many more gigs and a couple of shared studio albums for Virgin’s Caroline label.
The performances are mostly continuous and have been indexed purely for convenience, and to distinguish the themes and songs, either original compositions (like the familiar God Song and Chocolate Field, a.k.a. Caravan’s « Songs and Signs ») or standards that showcase Lol’s well-known talents as crooner (Chicago, Day By Day and God Save the Queen).
Clocking in at nearly 4 hours in total, this is a unique chance to follow a creative trio as it reinvents itself nightly over the course of a tour, and an ideal listen for this unique time when we, unexpectedly and otherwise frustratingly, have a lot of time to do just that – listen. So, in anticipation of a better future, enjoy!
Download link now available below the music.
Thanks for this post. Love Lol and Steve and Phil and Pip and Alan….
Hi
Listening to Greenaway Pils & Doom is great. I love this music. Thanks for making it available.
When displaying audiofiles in Audacity something strange struck me because I already wondered about it when hearing the first two concerts Nijmegen and “somewhere in Holland”
To me they sounded the same and visually in audiofile they look the same; I cannot image improvisers of this calibre play songs note for note the same. Can someone help me out here ?
*Nijmegen track 1 minus the intro is the same as Holland track 1 and 2 combined (track 2 is called here Chocolate field and is cut 30’ shorter)
*Holland track 3 begins (fades in) where Holland track 2 is at 2’00 and goes to where Nijmegen track 1 ends.
*Nijmegen track 2 God song is the same as Holland track 4 God song
*Nijmegen track 3 is the same as Holland track 5
*Holland track 6 Day by day is the same as the first 2 minutes of Nijmegen track 4 Day by day
*Holland track 7 is the same as the remaining part of Nijmegen track 4 but instead of applause at the end (Nijmegen) here the track goes in Nijmegen track 6 omitting the last drum beat and the going into applause.
* Lol speaks (Nijmegen track 5) is not in the Holland concert.
My guess : to my ears and visually the same concert, edited differently.
Am I right, am I wrong ?
A welcome ( or not ?) pass time hearing exercise in these troubled times ?
Keep safe and healthy.
Kind regards, Danny
Aymeric, first of all many thanks for sharing this amazing material. It comes absolutely unexpected.
You don’t happen to know exact dates, do you?
Cheers, Joerg
1 – Nijmegen, De Vereniging – 22 October 1972
2 – somewhere in Holland
3 – Brussels – 24 October 1972
4 – Groningen – late October 1972
5 – Amsterdam, Paradiso – late October 1972
6 – Frankfurt, Zoom Club – 1 November 1972
7 – Nuremberg – 4 November 1972
8 – Hamburg, Fabrik – 5 November 1972
I have added these dates to the Delivery chronology on Calyx (but difficult to find !!)
http://www.calyx-canterbury.fr/bands/delivery.html
Thank you!
Yes, agree with Joerg, amazing to hear this after all these years! It was happening…..best Jack
Thank you, thank you, thank you. x
Download now available. Thanks for your patience.
Yes. downloads will be added very soon. Experiencing very slow internet at the moment, but they are coming.
Hopefully Kyle can eventually add a download option, but meanwhile the files can be downloaded via the following link, but only for a limited time – https://we.tl/t-Ge6jGS9tnb
Thank you very much This is a dream
Would be so good if these recordings were available to download. Thanks for all your efforts in maintaining this great website.
Hi
Please make these concerts available for download.
Thanks in advance.
Kind regards, Danny
Will these be available for download later on?