An interview with David Jackson by Mick Dillingham Page 9
Van der Graaf split in July and Peter went on to do solo shows, I became more and more involved with my children, eventually becoming a teacher at their school. I carried on playing one-off gigs with Peter, guesting on his albums and doing radio sessions with him. Back in 1973 various Van der Graaf Generator members recorded an instrumental album called 'The Long Hello', Guy Evans and Nic Potter did a 'Volume 2' and in '81 I had Volume 3 all to myself under the name 'Tonewall'. About this time Peter appeared on the Children's T.V. show 'Playaway' and I was called on to overdub some soprano on a track he'd especially written about King Arthur - he appeared as Arthur's minstrel seen singing at Tintagel castle. In 1983 I played four live dates with Peter in Tel Aviv (Israel). We had a wonderful time, people came from all over the Middle East to see him, the audiences were just magical. I never enjoyed a tour so much as that, it was almost a biblical experience. And that's about it really - I did some soundtrack music for a Channel 4 show about the Mafia and last year I did the music for a play by Christopher Hampton called 'Savages' of which an 84 minute tape is available by mail-order.
At the start of 1990 I decided to get back into music full time with my Tonewall one-man show. I've got a fortnightly residency in Reading. I've been preparing for the new Tonewall album all Summer. The last time all four of Van der Graaf Generator were all together was a while back, here in Wokingham on the occasion of my 40th birthday. There came a point in the evening when the four of us, Peter, Hugh, Guy and myself were finally alone, for the first time in years, and we looked around at each other and shared a few memories. It was never really a serious contender that Van der Graaf Generator would be reforming though. Hugh's got his organ firm, he always was into inventing electronics; Peter's got his solo thing and Guy's got his own things going. We've just got too many commitments, there's no way the band would just reform for a one-off gig. If it was to happen, it would have to be total commitment, new material, the lot. I can't see it happening in the forseeable future.