King Crimson: Classic Or Dud

very well could be but I wouldn't be surprised if they do another tour, it seems to have been wildly successful

they were talking a little bit ago about potentially writing new songs

Tool and Ade' and Steve ... absent lovers.

Were they talking about potentially writing songs, or did someone ask them, and they said "you never know"? I thought it was more the latter. It would be a little weird to have essentially King Crimson minus Fripp, though I suppose it could be like a Rain Tree Crow situation.

They're going to bring in David Sylvian to throw metal trays at the bandmembers?

Here's the quote I saw from an interview on a KC subreddit:

"Having added 21 concerts to meet demand for this fall’s tour, Beat is now eyeballing more dates for next year. Belew and Levin also hope to record new music with the quartet, too, though active individual careers make concrete plans challenging.

“Y’know, I was spending time with (Vai) in his studio and he said, ‘I’ve got this little guitar thing here and I keep hearing you, wondering what you would sing over and it and play along with it,’” Belew says. “I said, ‘So you’re thinking that we might actually write stuff together?’ and he said, ‘Yeah, I would love to see that happen.’”

xpost That seems like more of a Jamie Muir role (he's still alive!!!).

one of my main takeaways from the beat show is how fucking cool steve vai is

That was my (shocking!) take away too! That and his recent interviews. I was, like, what a cool guy, and how extra cool of him to hang out with these total nerds.

Less cool:

https://w2pcms.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/07/Steve_Vai_BlackBackground_1_2021_011-C-Larry-DiMarzio-1024x903.jpeg

wth are you talking about that's cool as fuck

i mean not as cool as batio but still

https://www.spirit-of-metal.com/les%20goupes/M/Michael%20Angelo%20Batio/pics/6b58_1.jpg

Steve Vai's first day showing up for King Crimson practice
https://ew.com/thmb/ods3tY7w5WwyZfeUprRtNmSYV44=/1500x0/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(webp)/Freaks-and-Geeks-032823-01-9f10799cd1344a59bd161c99c1c1ae5b.jpg

another take away is how fucking huge danny carey is. levin is a tall mofo and he still towers over him.

https://media.gettyimages.com/id/2181425394/photo/detroit-michigan-steve-vai-adrian-belew-tony-levin-and-danny-carey-of-the-band-beat-perform.jpg?s=612x612&w=gi&k=20&c=hSv_A5VaEdyBJkjF6pXGA7x_bT4-bnlbzZpkW2PqsqE=

I was surprised how old Carey is. He and Vai are about the same age, but Vai got a 15 or so year head start on his career.

Robert Fripp is actually 8 feet tall, it's only modesty that compelled him to stay sitting all those years, so as not to embarrass his dwarf-like bandmates.

https://joshgranger.com/wp-content/uploads/image/Boredoms%20Eye%20on%20guitar.jpg

has anyone found a downloadable version of the Veeps livestream?

Yeah I posted about this a little upthread, it's on t0rrent sites.

which ones (you can message me if need be)

the stream is also available on slsk if it helps

THANK YOU

also thank you to anagram who messaged me

if anyone wants a dropbox link to this message me

This is fun:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dYgl1TVzrk

Listened to the 50th anniversary Red last night. For someone who can happily listen to "Starless" on loop into infinity all the various mixes and "Making Of" tracks are a gift. Killer release.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFAENQ2uVzs

Tony confirmed more dates next year. Apparently only Chile has been announced, so I wouldn't be surprised if they go international.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjLzvBlCPWk

finally watched the doc. I think they did a good job showcasing Fripp as both an unpleasant control freak and a genuinely hilarious and sometimes generous dude. and I think it captures the things that makes Crimson different from every other prog group. I liked how miserable everyone seemed to be doing it. kind of a 180 from your typical rock doc. but you still understand why they do it. that's art.

would've loved more footage along the lines of the bit where they're trying to work out some drum part and no one can get the timing right. also really loved just hearing Fripp doing those Fracture-esque guitar runs. maybe there's more of it in the bonus features somewhere.

I kinda want a doc that is just footage of them fucking up. Like, King Crimson end-credit outtakes.

is it too obvious to say the doc has way too little old footage/content, and wayyyy too much of the guitar painted like the Court album cover?

Kind of a problem you run into when your philosophy on life is “no cameras”

I kinda want a doc that is just footage of them fucking

uh oh

up.

ah ok

did kinda appreciate the cameraman at least trying to find women in the crowd

i really liked the doc! i wasn't expecting much... i've seen all the old footage that's out there, and i didn't necessarily want to hear fripp bloviating. what i loved is that the doc did take a genuinely critical look at king crimson and at robert fripp, that being in king crimson isn't always the most _emotionally healthy_ choice. it's hard to walk that line, representing the fucked up side of a band like king crimson without making it a hit piece. and i felt like the film did that well.

I kinda want a doc that is just footage of them fucking

The most precise, complicated and Herculean love-making ever captured in porn.

I thought Trey Gunn's remark where he compared his tenure in KC to having a low-level illness (paraphrasing) was the most telling part.

The best thing about the doc, for me, was the amount of time it spent with Bill Rieflin. He seemed like the kindest, most open and likeable of the entire bunch.

I'd read/seen (maybe in the extras?) that his return to the band, migrating to keyboards, had caused waves, I'm wondering if that's because he maybe wasn't quite at the olympic-standard prog musician level?

The scene that really touched me is where they're all leaving a venue, walking down a corridor away from Aimes, Bill is the only one that bids him a genuine goodbye.

The most precise, complicated and Herculean love-making ever captured in porn.

― birdistheword

i mean, fripp has repeatedly in the past compared a king crimson concert to a "hot date". i think to a certain extent a king crimson concert is... an extremely intimate act _for him_. in that light i think his insistence on "no video or photos" makes sense. it's not _quite_ tantamount to making a sex tape to him, but from what he's said it seems not too far off, in terms of the way he subjectively experiences it.

and it's not like... fripp is pretty frank about the fact that in the '60s and '70s, he had a lot of sex with groupies. there's this idea that the only people who have ever listened to king crimson are men and first off, there's nothing wrong with men having sex with men - it's sex and it's very often extremely hot sex. having said that, the man was a well-known touring rock guitar god in the '60s and '70s and there was no shortage of women who were interested in him. those two king crimson songs sinfield wrote about groupies, it's not like the groupies were only there for sinfield.

-

the unusual thing about fripp is his... he has this dream that the "audient" will be engaged with the performance on equal terms. well, i think a lot of creators do have that dream, on some level. it just doesn't happen very often. hell, even his wanting the _band_ to be engaged with the performance on equal terms is... like, i don't know how someone can be on equal terms with someone who spends hours every day practicing the middle section of "fracture" just so he can still play it. and, like... not just when "fracture" is in the band's set. he was doing that in '92, i think there's a tape somewhere on DGM.

neurodiversity, like queer identity, is a question of self-identification to me, so i'm not gonna put that label on anybody else. having said that speaking as an autistic person, fripp's behavior seems very similar to some common autistic behavior i've seen. my subjective observation is that his behavior is pretty congruent with neurodiversity. and that can... neurodiverse people can be challenging to deal with. based on the documentary fripp seems like a challenging person to deal with.

I'd read/seen (maybe in the extras?) that his return to the band, migrating to keyboards, had caused waves, I'm wondering if that's because he maybe wasn't quite at the olympic-standard prog musician level?

― Maresn3st

i saw it in the theater, but i got the impression there that a lot of the... discomfort people might have had with rieflin was that he was dying. the people in anglophone culture i know... dealing with the reality of death is often uncomfortable, and i'm certainly no exception. i think that same knowledge backgrounds rieflin's behavior as contrasted to the others.

For sure people have talked about how not just the music but the culture and personality of KC changed when it became half-American. Not looser, per se - this is still Crimson - but less ... heavy? I saw this prog nerd make a cheeky but compelling case for the current all-American/no Fripp Beat incarnation being maybe the best version of the band yet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WlUFqlSeC4

In interviews with Jakko, he talks about the inception of the Schizoid Band and having regular phone calls with Fripp who would dispense advice on dealing with the other members with the emphasis on very one difficult person in particular, anyone know who that might be, Michael Giles perhaps?

There's some video where Fripp describes having personal difficulties with Mike Giles, that their connection was only musical. Jakko was married to Giles's daughter, though, so you'd figure he would have more insight than the guy who, in effect, brought about Giles quitting the band.

I'm wondering if that's because he maybe wasn't quite at the olympic-standard prog musician level?

Unless you're trying to emulate Keith Tippett, though, playing keyboards is by far the easiest role in King Crimson.

...I guess "playing bass at Boz standards" is also pretty elementary.

I think Bill was just a generally talented guy all around, drums, guitar, bass, other stuff. And clearly he was a good hang as well, hence his tenure in late era REM. That's the vibe I got from the documentary, if I recall correctly. Fripp mostly really liked having him around. He made the mood more positive.

Anybody who could work with both Robert Fripp and Al Jourgensen (Rieflin was in Ministry for years) had to be one of the most easygoing humans to ever walk the earth.

In interviews with Jakko, he talks about the inception of the Schizoid Band and having regular phone calls with Fripp who would dispense advice on dealing with the other members with the emphasis on very one difficult person in particular, anyone know who that might be, Michael Giles perhaps?

― Maresn3st

oh yes. from the context it's _very obviously_ michael giles, even though the doc cuts before jakko says his name.

For sure people have talked about how not just the music but the culture and personality of KC changed when it became half-American. Not looser, per se - this is still Crimson - but less ... heavy? I saw this prog nerd make a cheeky but compelling case for the current all-American/no Fripp Beat incarnation being maybe the best version of the band yet.

― Josh in Chicago

maybe i'm duplicating the video, but fripp _has_ said he wanted king crimson to go on after "red" with ian mcdonald replacing him! i think there's a better case for "beat" being king crimson than there is for, say, "uk" - another band that started as a king crimson reunion attempt.

Anybody who could work with both Robert Fripp and Al Jourgensen (Rieflin was in Ministry for years) had to be one of the most easygoing humans to ever walk the earth.

― Instead of create and send out, it pull back and consume (unperson)

maybe. i want to be clear that i have zero reason whatsoever to cast any aspersions on rieflin, but i used to be very impressed that neil gaiman could get along with harlan ellison.

Here's where I once again recommend the awesome Rieflin solo album "Birth of a Giant," which features Fripp and Gunn (and others).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Siba1wuCaS0

I'm less familiar with the other Fripp/Gunn collaboration "The Repercussions Of Angelic Behavior":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiICnWy44zc

when Rieflin passed there was a pretty emotional message about it from Fripp & Toyah. I got the impression that he was the one bandmate he actually considered a friend.

Yeah, that was the feeling I got from the doc.

Rieflin was the linchpin of so much stuff. I guess he was in a Seattle band called the Blackouts along with Roland and Paul Barker. They had an EP out on Wax Trax that Jourgensen produced, then Jourgensen recruited them to be in Ministry c. "Twitch." Not sure how Rieflin eventually hooked up with Fripp, but I think Gunn lived (lives?) in Seattle, so that could be it.

yeah, the Blackouts were good, I have a 7". Roland Barker also did some super cool minimal synth type tapes that were recently reissued on LP.

see also: Swans (talking about being able to get along with people!)