Radio Gonzo

I am very fond of Judge Smith. He has had one of the most peculiar career arcs of anybody I know. At university, in the mid-1960s, together with Peter Hammill, he formed the notoriously spiky progressive rock band Van der Graaf Generator with Judge on drums. They were the first band signed to Charisma Records, but Judge left the band after the first single. The split was, apparently, perfectly amicable, and he was to work with Hammill and other alumni of VdGG over the years. He then formed a peculiar jazz-rock band called Heebalob, which included sax player David Jackson, who went on to join VdGG. The third VdGG album - H to He, Who Am the Only One - featured one of the bands most memorable tracks. The opening song, 'Killer'– the song about a killer shark – featured bits from an old song by Judge, called 'A Cloud as Big as a Man's Hand'. The shark, in the song, became very lonely because he'd killed everything. Judge then spent a while as a scientologist, before settling on a career as the composer of sta