129: Gentle Giant - Octopus (1972)

November 07, 2023 / Amanda Rodgers

“A lot of the bands who were doing prog rock back then were doing long songs that in many cases were just filler, but we never tried to impress anyone with our talents, maybe we were just trying to impress each other!”

—Derek Shulman

Gentle Giant comes up so often on Discord & Rhyme, especially considering how obscure they are outside the world of hardcore prog rock fandom, that it’s amazing we haven’t covered them yet. Many 1970s prog rock bands aspired to combine rock with classical (and jazz among other things), but unlike most of their contemporaries, Gentle Giant actually knew enough about classical music to make the combination something more than rock crossed with a touch of 19th century Romanticism. John’s pick for their best album is Octopus of 1972, an album that fires ideas at the listener so rapidly that the various songs (and these are all songs, in the 3-6 minute range) become extremely memorable, even as they’re sometimes among the most complex and bewildering music to come out of the 1970s. Come listen to John, Mike, and Phil tell you why they’ve fallen in love with this band and with this album.

Miscellany

Derek Shulman probably had the most interesting post-breakup career of any Gentle Giant member, but not as a musician: he became an A&R man at Polygram and eventually became the CEO of Atco Records. Among the notable artists he signed at various points were Bon Jovi, Dream Theater, and Pantera. He was also responsible for giving Ian Anderson (of Jethro Tull) the idea to record Thick as a Brick 2 as a solo artist.
Ray Shulman became a TV soundtrack composer who also worked as a producer: among his most notable credits is producing the first Sugarcubes album. He died in early 2023.
Phil Shulman, after leaving Gentle Giant and retiring from the music business (aside from later joining a band with his son), spent some time as a teacher and later ran a gift shop before retirement.
It is worth observing that “Knots” is not really a proper madrigal in its vocal arrangement, and neither is “On Reflection” a proper fugue in its vocal arrangement: both of these tracks cut some corners in terms of proper use of these formal procedures from the pre-classical era. At the same time, because Kerry Minnear had proper education in composition, he knew exactly what were the rules he was shortcutting and why he was shortcutting them as he did. Either way, “Knots” is much closer to being a proper madrigal, and “On Reflection” is much closer to being a proper fugue, than “Bohemian Rhapsody” is to being anything connected with opera.
Gentle Giant became notable among major 70s prog artists for never reuniting after breaking up in 1980, though there were some performances here and there involving combinations of 2 to 4 members at a given time (none of which occurred under the Gentle Giant label).
It should not surprise that Elton John’s brief appearance in the pre-history of Gentle Giant is mentioned on the Gentle Giant Wikipedia page, but does not merit a mention on the Elton John Wikipedia page.
One of the details that helped fuel the rumor that The Moles were secretly the Beatles was that “We Are the Moles” was produced by none other than George Martin.
John wrote his reviews page for Gentle Giant back in 2003, and he mostly still agrees with the reviews broadly, but he’d also increase the rating for most of their albums a point or two.
Pantagruel (the secondary character from “The Advent of Panurge”) is actually a recurring figure in the Gentle Giant catalog: Acquiring the Taste opens with the track “Pantagruel’s Nativity,” which is easily one of John’s favorite tracks from the band.
In the “Knots” discussion, the topic of klangfarbenmelodie was an extension of Mike’s mention of the xylophone solo (with accompanying piano), but that part itself is not an example of klangfarbenmelodie: rather, the xylophone is a prominent part of the instrumentation underpinning many of the vocal parts, and that instrumentation is an example of klangfarbenmelodie.
Our non-GG klangfarbenmelodie example in the episode comes from the 20th century composer Anton Webern (a composer very much in the spirit of Gentle Giant in terms of writing very complicated and very short pieces), but John’s favorite example of klangfarbenmelodie comes from the “development section” (such as it is) in the 4th movement of Symphonie Fantastique by Hector Berlioz.
A few years ago, John put together a playlist to introduce people to Gentle Giant (in chronological order, with a handful of tracks per album), and it is included in the links below.
The “Ho ho ho” from the teaser comes from the ubiquitous (at least, in the United States and Canada) ad campaign for Green Giant, a frozen and canned vegetables company whose commercials have been inescapable since long before the people who recorded this episode were born.

Discord & Rhyme Roll Call

John McFerrin (host)
Phil Maddox (moderator)
Mike DeFabio

Octopus tracklist

The Advent of Panurge
Raconteur Troubadour
A Cry for Everyone
Knots
Boys in the Band
Dog’s Life
Think of Me With Kindness
River

Other clips used

Gentle Giant:

Prologue
Funny Ways
Wreck
Excerpts from Octopus
Design
Cogs in Cogs
Aspirations
His Last Voyage
Shadows on the Street
Plain Truth
Isn’t it Quiet and Cold?
On Reflection
All Through the Night

Others:

Simon Dupree and the Big Sound - Kites
The Moles - We Are the Moles (pt 1)
Helium - Medieval People
Black Sabbath - Supertzar
Emerson, Lake, and Palmer - Tarkus
Anton Webern - Symphony, Op.21: 1. Ruhig Schreitend
Run the Jewels - Legend Has It
Tortoise - Djed
Gryphon - Flash in the Pantry

Band/album personnel

Gary Green - electric guitar, percussion
Kerry Minnear - piano, Hammond organ, Minimoog, electric piano, Mellotron, Clavinet, regal, vibraphone, cello, percussion, vocals
Derek Shulman - vocals, alto saxophone
Phil Shulman - trumpet, tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone, mellophone, vocals
Ray Shulman - bass guitar, violin, viola, electric violin, acoustic guitar, percussion, backing vocals
John Weathers - drums, bongos, varispeed cymbal, xylophone

Credits

“Discord & Rhyme (theme),” composed by the Other Leading Brand, contains elements of:

Duran Duran - Hungry Like the Wolf
Amon Düül II - Dehypnotized Toothpaste
The Dukes of Stratosphear - What in the World?? ...
Faith No More - Midlife Crisis
Herbie Hancock - Hornets
Kraftwerk - Autobahn
Talking Heads - Seen and Not Seen
Gentle Giant - A Cry for Everyone (this episode only)

You can buy or stream Octopus and other albums by Gentle Giant at gentlegiantmusic.com, your local record store, or the usual suspects such as Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, and Amazon. Follow Discord & Rhyme on Instagram @DiscordPod for news, updates, and other random stuff. Editing is by Rich Bunnell, and special thanks to our own Mike DeFabio, the Other Leading Brand, for production and original music. See you next album, and keep as cool as you can.

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tags / John McFerrin