The King Crimson studio album poll

Listened to Islands today for the first time in years. Still love it, and really wish they would have explored a bit more in this 'chamber-jazz' realm. Paulina Lucas, the soprano voice on "Formentera Lady" died last year; there's virtually nothing about it on the net. I need to buy the new remaster stat.

Also, this is a good piece on the reissue:

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=37630&page=1

Ok, just listened to the unedited "Asbury Park" for the first time. Agreed that the loud ass comping from Cross on Mellotron is crazy -- I was like, "Wait, where the hell is THAT on USA?" And I went back and listened to the edited version and, sure enough, it's there very quietly in the bgd. But more to the point: there's a funky jam for the last 3 or 4 minutes of the piece! My brain almost exploded.

I'm liking this.

Sparkle motion, my lizard vivarium is empty, please send me an email as well!

That Ian McDonald excerpt is totally insane. Aside from the, y'know, 'having sex' part, Fripp's sense of humor reminds me oddly of Glenn Gould's...

Oh! Oh!

I just can't agree with it. Islands is still kinda crap. Not unsalvagable, not uninteresting, but just not really a good album.

I can understand that, I guess -- but you can't deny the solo on "Sailor's Tale" and the title track's long coda with the cornet solo.

absolutely - as I mentioned I think it would be much better as just a soft jazz record w/ no songs

If I had a more substantial audio system, I'd love to hear the complete package of this -- the "Road to Islands" and so forth. I think feeling the context for it has helped with my enjoyment of it.

it would be much better as just a soft jazz record w/ no songs

Because of Sinfield's lyrics, or Boz's voice, or...? It would mostly work, except Beatles pastiche "Ladies Of The Road," which fits poorly in this record anyway, but KC was always about juxtapositions. I've listened to "Formentera Lady" three times in three days; never a favorite years ago, but (speaking of juxtapositions) the scratchy cello intro, meeting up with the sort of R. Carlos Nakai Native American flute bits, and especially the glacial sax and soprano voice outro are all just working for me lately.

And the title track is unfuckwithable for me.

That All About Jazz review of the reissue I posted upthread makes a good case for the record -- and for Boz's contributions as well.

Yeah, that was a nice piece. I think I like Boz's voice better than Lake's or Wetton's, just not as bombastic.

It's not really the lyrics or the voice, it's mostly that I just don't think he contributes anything, except maybe on "Formentera Lady". Like I'm imagining the title track without him and it seems much better. Plus I think both "Ladies" and "The Letters" are crap, so maybe those could be replaced as well. If you haven't heard it, check out the Ladies of the Road live set - these guys really could play, they were kind of a jazz-rock nightmare but they had a pretty unique sense of groove and IMO did "Schizoid Man" better than anyone.

jon lewis, check yr webmail

Oh! Oh!

(ty)

Sparkle, have you bought a bunch of stuff from the DGM website? I've been going through it recently and haven't bought anything as of yet, but it seems like a goddamn goldmine of stuff -- with great entries (and comments from fans) about the downloads themselves, what they sound like, the context for them, etc. I'm particularly interested in pulling down some of the Frippertronics concerts.

I just read the Fripp interview on PSF, he's actually a pretty amazing speaker, one of the few really worthwhile interviews I've ever read. Another one I read was Steven Wilson's (different website), who said something pretty interesting, that the reason why neo-prog is so uninspired and forgettable is that it lost its jazz base and therefore became uninspired. I've come to realize that KC's jazz background is really what made them so special. It all made sense here when someone compared '73 Crimson to Can, there's actually some real truth there, and it explains why I love these guys but can't stand bands like Tool.

the reason why neo-prog is so uninspired and forgettable is that it lost its jazz base and therefore became uninspired. I've come to realize that KC's jazz background is really what made them so special

yeah but are you including the 81-4 and post-94 line-ups in that? cos I don't hear any jazz in those line-ups at all and maybe that's why I find it hard to differentiate them from neo-prog

The Post-Red lineups still carry that heritage by who is playing in them--up until the point where Bruford, the jazziest of the bunch leaves the band for good. True that there's no jazz per se but the love of improvisation is evident from the way they write and of course play. The Projekcts, especially, bear this out.

This debate made me think of this interview w Chris Cutler in which he pretty much tears into Fripp:

VM: How do you see British groups such as King Crimson, Van der Graaf, Gentle Giant and Jethro Tull to the progressive music?

CC: Personally, I have to say that I never had much time for King Crimson. I disliked their first album and, apart from a track here and there, didn't find much I cared for on later albums either. To make things harder, they were contemporaries of Henry Cow and we were often pointlessly compared with them (especially Fred Frith who got foolishly compared/confused with Robert Fripp). But we never saw the connection really; they were working in a much narrower musical field than we were. And when they began to make big statements about their originality for improvising (around Jaimie Muir/Larks Tongues time) we found that frankly rather pathetic. But that was their way - after all Fripp claimed to have invented 'frippertronics', which is either a mark of ignorance on his part or outrageous arrogance, since every guitarist 'invented' that obvious procedure. I was not a fan of the other groups you list either, or Yes or Genesis for that matter, the quintessential 'progressive' groups. I don't think we had much in common with any of them. We certainly didn't learn anything from them. I, for instance, would havre to go back to early Zappa, Beefheart, Barrett's Pink Floyd, Soft Machine, AMM, Sun Ra, Coltrane, Coleman, Stockhausen, Schoenberg and so on for influences. And for contemporary bands in the 70's, Magma, Faust, Samla Mammas Manna.

There have been others who have voiced similar criticisms -- Gary Lucas of Magic Band fame wrote a withering review for Zoo World of Larks' Tongues when it came out.

Putting aside the fact that Cutler totally misses the humor in calling it "Frippertronics" (which Fripp has said many times was so-named bc he thought it was funny) the point I feel a lot of people miss is that 70s King Crimson wasn't about AMM-style improvisation or even jazz, really once the Islands band was put to rest -- it was about improvising in a distinctly rock context.

I think that's partly why Jamie Muir--the most obvious connection to the free improv scene--didn't last very long -- Fripp has said he hired Muir and Bruford for the band in part bc no one was the perfect drummer for the band. And once Bruford absorbed Muir's ideas and approach (such as the second section of "Starless"), the latter became kind of superfluous.

To the extent there were outside influences, they were classical composers like Bartok.

Oh, and fuck Henry Cow.

Which is to say, given what I do know of them, I'm pretty fucking certain Frith and Cutler never did a single thing that rocked .02% as hard as "Red" or the breakdown in "Schizoid Man." It's a totally different language.

And as for Cutler, everyone knows that Ubu got good again when Scott Krauss came back.

yeah but are you including the 81-4 and post-94 line-ups in that? cos I don't hear any jazz in those line-ups at all and maybe that's why I find it hard to differentiate them from neo-prog

I don't really see the 81-84 lineups as progressive rock at all. It's definitely something unique and inspired but it has a lot more in common with Talking Heads than any incarnations of Crimson past. Post-94 I think suffers from the same thing in that they lost their jazz base and started playing a lot of technical rock that was kinda cool but not very inspired. For the record I think that THRAK and TPTB are good records, but they don't have the same whoomph

A lot of their 90's onward technical rock ain't got no mood or atmosphere unless it's a repeat from an earlier song; and a lot of Fripp's work in the Projekcts sounds so similar to his stuff in the other parts of the Projekcts that I wonder if Fripp can branch out at all anymore. A couple years ago I left a guestbook entry on DGMlive stating that Fripp's guitar tone, in particular, could use something new (like a lot more grungy distortion)

To be honest most of the successes King Crimson had after the 70's band broke up should really be credited to Belew. Fripp's come up with some neat concepts but Belew always wrote the songs that made them work - I always found the the more Fripp-centric stuff that the 80's band did like the second side of TOAPP or "Requiem" to be dull, and even TPTB sounds a lot like the subsequent Belew solo albums.

Which is to say, given what I do know of them, I'm pretty fucking certain Frith and Cutler never did a single thing that rocked .02% as hard as "Red" or the breakdown in "Schizoid Man."

Um, please check out the three Art Bears albums and see if you still feel this way. They are monstrously heavy! I mean let's not throw the baby out w the bwater here just because Cutler has some weird hangups about other bands. (FYI I don't like Henry Cow either but Art Bears were a whole different deal).

And as for Cutler, everyone knows that Ubu got good again when Scott Krauss came back.

The Tenement Year is IMO the third best Ubu album after Modern and Dub so I gotta disagree with you there. Cutler is a monster when persuaded into a rock/song-based forum.

He has to talk a bunch of crap, he's a marxist.

/Which is to say, given what I do know of them, I'm pretty fucking certain Frith and Cutler never did a single thing that rocked .02% as hard as "Red" or the breakdown in "Schizoid Man."/

Um, please check out the three Art Bears albums and see if you still feel this way. They are monstrously heavy! I mean let's not throw the baby out w the bwater here just because Cutler has some weird hangups about other bands. (FYI I don't like Henry Cow either but Art Bears were a whole different deal).

Fair enough. I had forgotten about those records.

/And as for Cutler, everyone knows that Ubu got good again when Scott Krauss came back./

The Tenement Year is IMO the third best Ubu album after Modern and Dub so I gotta disagree with you there. Cutler is a monster when persuaded into a rock/song-based forum.

But that's my point -- The Tenement Year is the record Krauss came back for. My memory was he was the guy who made the difference, not Cutler.

He has to talk a bunch of crap, he's a marxist.

True enough. It reminds me of when Robert Wyatt broke w bassist (and brother of writer Ian MacDonald) Bill McCormack when the latter became an MP or something. To understand how personally betrayed Wyatt (a Stalinist and by all accounts a wonderful person) felt by it all, have a listen to the withering "Alliance" he wrote in response.

Anyway, my real point was that I think that the reason a lot of free improv-types like Cutler probably don't care for Fripp is that he went in a decidedly different direction after having probably started in somewhat similar places. And the fact that Fripp remained every bit as intense and dogmatic about his own work as these guys were about theirs probably didn't help matters.

oh yeah, damn I had changed it in my mind so that Cloudland was Krauss + Cutler and Tenement Year was just Cutler. Duh.

For a remarkably un-Marxist Cutler spiel, see his recent statement about the effects of downloading...

Anyway King Crimson! Corking great band!

revive so i could lol at this again

"In fact, I've never seen so many delightful young bodies, both quantity and quality, within such a short space of time as the last month in America. I was overwhelmed. By the end of the tour, I came back unfit for anything, completely exhausted on every level of my being. Oh! Oh!

not even a year later, i am here to revive

this time i will repost the excerpt in its entirety because it is just that good

From Robert Fripp: The Sexual Athlete, by Ian MacDonald:

"What," I enquired, fully expecting a swift back-down, "was the best lay you ever had?"

Fripp stroked his chin, reflectively. "There are about four chicks involved in that – not, in this case, simultaneously. I have to admit. However, return with me if you will to my earliest days as a rock musician. I used to get complaints from Greg (Lake). Not directly, but I used to hear about them.

"You see, we shared this flat which was basically one room divided into two by a thin cardboard screen. It was, as you can imagine, not fit to live in. Anyway, Greg used to complain about the gasps and screams coming from my side of the partition and, I must admit, his women used to get on my nerves too. No comment on Gregory, just his women – but I decided to move out.

"The ensuing period of my homelessness in 1969 was one of the most rewarding of my life. I was continually thrown on the mercies and generosities of tender maidens. Oh those lovely situations. It was quite awful in one way – but quite beautiful in another."

...

"Of course, when one is young one has all these delusions of being the great stud and one is not interested in a harmonious relationship of giving and taking. But, I'm happy to say, those days for me are now long past and I have spent many fulfiling hours, even on this very lawn upon which I now recline, not only copulating but involved in various other activities.

"In fact I was lying here naked one day, a young lady in attendance, when my next-door neighbour, the chairman of the Rural District Council, popped his head over yonder hedge to inform me that I had Dutch Elm Disease."

"Of course, when one is young one has all these delusions of being the great stud and one is not interested in a harmonious relationship of giving and taking. But, I'm happy to say, those days for me are now long past and I have spent many fulfiling hours, even on this very lawn upon which I now recline, not only copulating but involved in various other activities.

"In fact I was lying here naked one day, a young lady in attendance, when my next-door neighbour, the chairman of the Rural District Council, popped his head over yonder hedge to inform me that I had Dutch Elm Disease.

"But America is the place for numbers really. We've just done all the sunshine areas. Now sunshine, what ever it does to anyone else, has the most alarming repercussions within me. Things happen to my body. I undergo chemical changes.

"I find myself drooling, my tongue hanging out, my mouth snapping together involuntarily, twitchings – obsessive thoughts – the lewd imagination develops.

"In fact, I've never seen so many delightful young bodies, both quantity and quality, within such a short space of time as the last month in America. I was overwhelmed. By the end of the tour, I came back unfit for anything, completely exhausted on every level of my being. Oh! Oh!

"Nowadays I say to the rest of the lads: Take my name off the list, lads, put me on the reserve list – only to be called up in dire emergency. Then, after an afternoon in the sun by a swimming-pool with all these young bodies hanging in and out of bikinis, I say: Lads, you've got to put me back on the list. And I'll be called up to action. Oh! Oh! The battles that are fought throughout the Holiday-Inns of America! Delightful."

...

AND ENO? What of the man that the groupies of three continents have come to know as The Refreshing Experience?

"Yes," nods Fripp, his glazed expression returning. "We're both incorrigible womanizers, both wonderful examples of young Taurian virility. It may interest you to see a certain picture which will be the cover for our joint recording effort, The Transcendental Music Corporation, featuring us both in a state of undress.

"We were intending to have with us certain similarly unclad females – but, on reflection, decided that this was but a feeble excuse to gaze upon the works of the creator made manifest in the flesh.

"So we decided that it was a far nicer idea to have Eno and myself in the nude as a small way of saying thank you to those ladies who have done what they can in the past to enable us to develop as men – and, hopefully, as an invitation to all those ladies in the future who'd like to help us develop even further."

Oh! Oh!

I can only imagine Fripp having sex sitting on a little stool with a very serious face

LOL

Great thread.

I listened to Fripp's strangely poignant motivational speech this morning ("from good to great") and he tells a story about the VV editor's cats named Fripp & Eno.

listened to starless & bible black and lizards to wash away the eoy traxpoll (lolz) and hey they're rly gr8

especially the former, my god

actually wait no, lizards was equally brilliant in its own way. very surreal, crazy record, elements of weird proto-techno flitting thru the mix too

and then the Fripp String Quartet, whose closing movement, Threnody For Souls In Torment, is a staggering work of pure icy terror

lizard's my favorite and i wish they'd done more cosmic circus music like that

sparkle motion, where did you source the perf of 'Red' on Megaphonium Fanfare from? It's not the one on Absent Lovers which is the only live Belew lineup album I have...

Lizard is underrated, especially the title trak

Jon - That one is from a boot I pulled off the net, Den Haag, NL, 2003. Let me know if you'd like the rest of it.

Is the rest of the gig comparable? (I see where I can download it from).

Am I right that we are getting closer to the live debut of the new line-up?

Logic would suggest that, yes.

No, I mean, there are dates, correct? September?

Meanwhile:

http://issuu.com/samsleiman/docs/mike_giles

In all seriousness, I have no idea.This is the most recent thing I could find, in Uncut:

"The first performance will take place in either North or South America," Fripp told Uncut. "There will be rehearsals primarily in England, and the final batch of rehearsals will most likely be in America in August or September 2014. There is a plan to include the UK in the tour dates, but it depends on a number of circumstances. Right now the primary geographical focus is the United States."

http://www.uncut.co.uk/node/19245#mmsoVdUHJq4rCBS2.99

I'd have to listen to the Den Haag gig again to say whether the rest of it is noteworthy- I remember the mix not being as clean- sounds like a radio broadcast. But if you want a great recording of that band, 'New Haven CT 11/14/03 (KCCC44), is a killer. It's the last gig of that band's life, and in true KC fashion they give their final performance their all.

I gave a listen to the Den Haag show in its entirety. Noteable moments are a good runthrough of Dangerous Curves with a proper climax to the song, and LTIA IV wherein the coda is played without the vocals, making it about a hundred times better than any version in which those lyrics are sung.
Otherwise, it's a pretty typical gig.

The New Haven show is pretty spectacular, particularly Level 5 and Lark's 4. I'm just lately starting to shuffle through the live recordings of this phase of the band (having not been a huge fan of the last two albums on the whole, but having been a fan since 86 or so).

Is new haven still buyable as a download from DGM?

dunno, it is still available on the internet in places.

it's going to be pretty weird to not have Belew in this band, frankly. I wonder if they'll avoid his and the 80's bands songs. I know those have been frankly played to death at this point, but still. That was my entry into KC.