In this post, Brad Birzer and Tad Wert have a conversation about a trio of classic Glass Hammer albums, Ode To Echo, The Breaking Of The World, and Double Live. Glass Hammer is a progressive rock group whose long career has encompassed many personnel and stylistic changes. The one constant has been the core duo of the group: bassist/keyboardist/vocalist Steve Babb and keyboardist/guitarist/vocalist Fred Schendel. It’s no secret they are among Birzer’s and Wert’s all-time favorite musical artists.

Tad: Okay, Brad, I’m responsible for this topic of conversation. Over the past few days, I have been revisiting some earlier Glass Hammer albums, in particular the ones that feature Carl Groves and Susie Bogdanowicz on lead vocals. In my opinion, these three are a high point in the long career of GH – a career that has many high points! 

I know that many fans love the albums with Jon Davison, and they are excellent, but for some reason, the blend of Groves’ and Bogdanowicz’s voices are very appealing to me. I also appreciate Kamran Alan Shikoh’s outstanding lead guitar on these songs. This was, relatively speaking, a fairly stable configuration, with Aaron Raulston on board with drums. He’s still with them today, and I think his work has lifted them into the premier ranks of prog rock.

Brad:  Tad, I’m so glad you initiated this conversation.  You’re right, I’m a huge fan, and I have been ever since Amy Sturgis (an academic friend) introduced me to Lex Rex while we were at a conference in Princeton many, many years ago.  Crazily, it was also the same moment that I got Radiohead’s Hail to the Thief.  What a bizarre mix!

At the time, she told me about Steve and Fred and said I might like what they were doing.  And, here I thought I was the king of prog rock knowledge, and I didn’t–at the time–know about this seminal American band!  How mistaken I was!

Since then, I’ve happily taken the deep dive into all things Glass Hammer.  I even had the chance to have dinner with Steve Babb several years ago–one of the finest nights of my adult life.  He’s an amazingly nice and creative person!  I’m proud to count him as a friend and ally in this crazy world.  The guy is not just a wizard at bass and composition, but he’s an accomplished novelist, father, husband, and band leader.

For what it’s worth, I even take some considerable time to thank Steve (and Big Big Train as well) as huge inspirations for my book project on Tolkien and the Inklings.  Truly, Glass Hammer and Big Big Train were the essential soundtrack to that book.

Given the long history of Glass Hammer–dating back to 1992!–the albums (all wonderful) you selected are what, I guess, we would call mid-period Glass Hammer.

I’m a huge fan of all three, and I think that Double Live especially showcases everything wonderful and mighty about the band.  Groves and Bogdanowicz are in rarest fine form, and I’ve rather publicly and happily proclaimed Bogdanowicz to have the single finest voice in prog rock next to the late David Longdon’s.  I still think this.  It doesn’t hurt that Susie is also a knock-out.

I know that lots of folks like Jon Davison, but, frankly, he’s just a little too effeminate and fey for my tastes.  I tried recently to listen to the new Yes album, and I couldn’t get past the first song.  Give me Groves and Bogdanowicz any day!

Tad: Brad, I agree with you about Double Live. Most concert DVDs I have I’ll watch once or twice, but rarely more. I have watched Double Live at least half a dozen times, and here’s the interesting thing – there are no flashy special effects, lasers, or smoke machines. It’s just six very gifted musicians at the top of their form, presenting a terrific set of songs. They exude relaxed confidence, and they obviously love playing with and off each other. I wish this lineup had lasted longer!

Okay, here’s another reason I picked these three albums to revisit: I think they contain some of the best lyrics GH has come up with. Let’s face it, even with just Babb and Schendel, they have an embarrassment of riches – both are extremely literate and thoughtful lyricists, who assume their audience has the intellectual capacity to appreciate their work. That said, I think Groves sets a pretty high bar on the songs he co writes, and spurs Babb and Schendel to even greater heights on their lyrics. For example, here’s some of Groves’ lyrics to Garden of Hedon (off of Ode To Echo):

The Garden welcomes you, ma’am

Please sit down and find twice as much as you’ll eat

Cornucopia of desires

Lying there at your feet

The Garden welcomes you, sir

Please relax and find everything you want

Very little of what you need

No bread, no water, no God

Or these from Bandwagon (off of The Breaking of the World):

“We care!” Isn’t that what you said from your ocean-front home?

I know it’s got to make you feel so much nicer

“Go and be warmed.” Oh such warm charity

And these words still with no action will soothe you

Soothe you

If that isn’t a prescient condemnation of our current plague of empty virtue-signaling, I don’t know what is!

Brad: Yeah, Glass Hammer is prog for the intelligent listener, and given that prog is already rock for the intelligent listener, GH is really, really special.  More on that in a moment.  

My only complaint about Double Live is that it’s only available on DVD.  I would love a blu-ray edition, especially given the fact that Steve and Fred are two of our greatest audiophiles.  Can you imagine what the blu-ray sound quality would be like?  Simply excellent.

One of my deepest dreams is to have Glass Hammer play at Hillsdale, especially given how outstanding our music program is.  The band could use our existing choral students.  Oh, this gives me goosebumps even thinking about it.

Back to lyrics.  I’m in absolute agreement with you, Tad.  These albums just exude a powerful confidence.  Babb has such a fictional and mythic quality to his lyrics.  Here, for example, is Babb on “Ozymandias”:

The sculptor ‘neath his gaze

‘Twould be a monument of praise

Thus he enshrined the royal sneer

Of him, this Tyrant-King of Fear

I kneel to wipe away the dust of years

With trembling fingers trace the words

Found etched upon its base

They said, “I am King of Kings

See my works and know despair!”

Yet broken now he lies forgotten!

Let’s turn and leave him there

Nothing remains but this colossal wreck of stone

Round it boundless, bare stretch wide the desert sand

Forgotten, he lies

Here, his legacy dies

On “Mythopoeia,” Babb readily captures the essence of J.R.R. Tolkien’s poem of the same name and the speech given by the grand professor at the University of St. Andrew’s in the late 1930s, “On Fairy Stories.”

Maker of myth with your rhyme you weave

A tapestry of tales untold in recorded time

And though the shadows draw near

He writes as if he sees the world bathed all in sunlight

Can he keep the fеar at bay

In hope of day eternal

Hе’s dreamt of a paradise

Ruled by a thing infernal

Sub-create!

A mortal yet strives in his fallen state

He fills his world with monsters

They hide round each corner

Plotting wickedness, wreck and ruin

He fills his world with monsters

For monsters filled his world

One last thing–at least for now–about Ode to Echo and Breaking of the World.  The art for each is simply gorgeous.  For whatever reason, I didn’t buy the t-shirt for Breaking of the World, but I proudly wear my Ode To Echo t-shirt.  Indeed, over the last couple of years, I noticed I was the only one wearing a Glass Hammer t-shirt at Devil’s Tower in Wyoming and at Yellowstone.

Tad: Brad I’m glad you shared Babb’s lyrics to Ozymandias, which is the perfect ending to Ode to Echo. And yes, the art for both of these albums is some of the best in their career. One last thing I’d like to mention – in Ode to Echo, they include a marvelous cover of Goffin/King’s Porpoise Song, from The Monkees’ Head soundtrack. What a great song from the psychedelic ‘60s, and they improve on the original. In their earlier album, Three Cheers for the Brokenhearted, they covered the Zombies’ classic, A Rose For Emily; it would be great if Babb and Schendel recorded an entire album of their psychedelic favorites!

Well, my friend, hopefully our paean of praise for this brief period of Glass Hammer’s career will spur our readers to investigate these albums. It’s been a blast revisiting them with you!