Judge Smith
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Christopher John Judge Smith (born 1948 in England), is a songwriter, composer and performer, and a founder member of progressive rock band Van der Graaf Generator.
Judge Smith was originally the drummer of Van der Graaf Generator (at some points he used a typewriter as well) [1] but after drummer Guy Evans had joined Van der Graaf Generator, Smith concluded that there wasn't a great deal for him to do, since his role was reduced to being a harmony singer. After having recorded the first VdGG-single People You Were Going To / Firebrand, Smith left the band in 1968, amicably.
He went on to pursue a solo career, and wrote and recorded several songs. Many of those only appeared on his (currently unavailable) first solo album Democrazy (1991). He called himself Chris Judge Smith initially, but later decided to drop the "Chris" and to call himself simply Judge Smith.
Smith also wrote several stage musicals, including The Kibbo Kift (1976), The Ascent Of Wilberforce III (1981) and Mata Hari (1982), a musical co-written with (and starring) Lene Lovich.
In around 1973, Smith, together with VdGG co-founder Peter Hammill, began work on an opera based on the short story The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe, Smith writing the libretto and Hammill composing the music. The album was finally released in 1991 on Some Bizzare Records, with a cast of singers including Lovich, Andy Bell out of Erasure, Sarah Jane Morris and Herbert Grönemeyer. A reworked version, called The Fall Of The House Of Usher - deconstructed & rebuilt, was released on Hammill's Fie! label in 1999. The new version is notable for having a cleaner, better produced sound, additional guitars and (unlike the first version) no percussion.
In 1974 Smith wrote and directed a short film called The Brass Band, which has won several international awards.
Smith also wrote music for the television comedy series Not The Nine O'Clock News in the 1980s, including one of the most famous songs from the series, the punk rock parody 'Gob on You'.
After many years of work, in 2000 Smith completed and released the double CD Curly's Airships, a large-scale work (Smith himself likes to describe it as a 'songstory') about the R101 airship disaster of 1930. Amongst many others, Peter Hammill, Hugh Banton, Arthur Brown, David Jackson, John Ellis and Pete Brown collaborated on the project.
On the same day that Van der Graaf Generator played their reunion concert in the Royal Festival Hall in London, 6 May 2005, Smith played an afternoon concert, for the first time in many years, at the Cobden Club in London. He presented his new album The Full English there, and played (amongst others) all songs on it.
A recording of a concert by Smith in Guastalla, Italy, in 2005 was released on DVD on 20 March 2006, called Live In Italy 2005.
[edit] Discography
- Democrazy (a collection of recordings from 1967-1977) (1991)
- Dome Of Discovery (1994)
- Curly's Airships (songstory, double CD) (2000)
- The Full English (2005)
- Live In Italy 2005 (DVD) (2006)
- The Vesica Massage (2006)
[edit] Footnotes
1. Phil Smart and Jim Christopulos, Van der Graaf Generator - The Book, page 12 and 21, published by Phil and Jim, 2005, ISBN 0 9551337 0 X, see also: booklet in four-double CD Box The Box by Van der Graaf Generator, 2000, page 6
