King Crimson: Classic Or Dud

I've heard great things about RED, but I've never heard it. Possibly due to the stigma of John Wetton. Even though RED predated Asia by veritable eons, I cannot erase the crime.

Red is ace, and has been discussed here before. The instrumental tracks are the ones that sound less dated - especially the title track and its 'devils interval' backstory.

But I think Wettons vocals on Starless and Red are lovely and I disagree that the placid quietness of them is just 'static' - there is a line on one of the tracks on Starless... 'My Home... was a place by the sea' which I just adore and I've never known why - but it kept popping up in my head when I had my Steve Erickson reading binge a couple of years ago and it has that same mesmeric Erickson quality of difference and strangeness but not different and not strange (ooh thats a hopeless description: Somebody save me here!).

There are three formulas involved in the Larks/Starless/Red tracks - and I think I like them all.

There are the dream-like songs I've already mentioned - all playful repeating echos of other things, and that strange wailing sound which I always imagine is one of them corrugated tubes you wave around your head - but presumably is just frippertronics (it turns up on evening star too). I always thought they were an influence on Nirvana on Nevermind's quiet moments but haven't seen it confirmed that Cobain knew this stuff.

Then there are the agressive ones - Red, the loud bits in Larks part one - the bit in Fracture where it suddenly changes speed. For a prog band they sure conjure with an magikal energy - that stuff sounds great - its a shame that neither the post rockers like Mogwai / Aeorgramme / etc or the Nu Metallers studied that stuff to avoid making their mistakes. Its not just a feature of that period of Crimson though, 21st C on the first album, the bit nicked from Mars on the second have that feel too.

The bits that are left form a third grouping, mainly instrumental and much more passive - but definately not static. The quiet bits of Larks pt1, Trio, Night Watch. Larks overtly references Vaughn Williams and thats a good suggestion of what's going on, Debussy and Satie too. But there is a lack of optimism in those tracks that doesn't sit well with the grace of those influences. They are bleak and hopeless feeling too.

"Easy Money" has this (on the live versions, not the studio version, alas) great (for prog rock, mind you) bit of lyric:

"So I argued with the judge, But the bastard wouldn't budge, 'cause they caught me licking fudge, and they never told me once, you were a minor..."

Mark- Apparently Red is KC's favourite album ever. He also loved the raincoats, having written some brief notes for the reissue of their excellent debut. Even though nirvana sucked he had good taste (though I think that he only said that to piss off the metal fans that bought his music).

Agnes Moorehead, obviously. :)

Ladies of the Road and Formetera Ladies are the clunkers I refered to above btw. Though I think Sinfields worst lyrics are on Still.

Truly unfathomable, I wouldn't have believed it had I not seen it with my own eyes. However, it explains much. There's a site where I help write reviews for prog rock albums, and we once received a snippy letter for dissing the Wake of Poseidon album (or at least, not being fanboy-ish enough towards it), and the person, opening up by claiming we had "less wit and culture than an ant" (yep) used much of the material found in the Wake of Poseidon chapter as their defense of the album and its depth. Maybe it was even The Keeper of the onyx-embolden'd-husking-jewelled-warthogs website himself! :)

Cue your golf swing.

Wow... Mind = blown.

Very cool! thx ned

"that's some really wild stuff"

In The Lounge of the Crimson King

More on Belew's fourth-rate David Byrne impersonation - "I repeat myself under stress, I repeat myself under stress." Geddit? Hilarious, eh? Anybody who finds that remotely amusing in any way should be avoided.

Dave Q really killed it on this thread, huh? I like lots of KC but I hardly ever find myself playing them. When I do, it's either Larks' Tongues or Beat.

I think Belew's a pretty terrible lyricist but that was kinda the point, right? The lyrics weren't supposed to stand out. It was all about the music at that point.

Met this guy tonight who said he'd done tarot card readings with Adrian Belew, back in '83 or so

the story just got weirder from there

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILSVAUjd5QI&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Fripp speaks

excellent...wish it was longer

2009 Crimson, with Porcupine Tree drummer as second drummer, was awesome live.

so, who is buying the 13 CD, 1 DVD, 1 Blu-Ray of Larks' Tongue In Aspic?

http://www.dgmlive.com/news.htm?entry=3916

Just registered for DJM live site just so I could hear a sparse guide track for "Islands" the song. Boz sounds like he's singing into a cheap condenser mike, but otherwise it's quite lovely.

'Islands' is the worst album ever made by anybody.
― dave q, Friday, February 15, 2002 7:00 PM (10 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

NO.

its kind of weird to imagine that King Crimson only played a fixed amount of concerts when they were active. it feels like they're able to just create more and more live bootleg material at will, even if it was phyiscally impossible for them to have played that many dates.

So many of them are pretty dodgy quality though, aren't they?

http://static.rateyourmusic.com/lk/l/w/dd360157ea8e506661983ea7336800bc/4330188.gif

classic:

'released in three separate editions to satisfy the merely curious and the expectant collector'

so, who is buying the 13 CD, 1 DVD, 1 Blu-Ray of /Larks' Tongue In Aspic/?

http://www.dgmlive.com/news.htm?entry=3916

it's odd that this album and particularly Islands got so much attention from the most recent KC lineup but I'm glad they did since they were the albums that actually deserved a second look.

iirc fripp had all the parts to lizard all sorted, recorded the bass and drums together telling them exactly what to play, and then the rest improv'd on top of it. it was his baby.

someone shd do a radioshow w/fripp where he plays music by all his favourite singers and lets us know what he thinks good singing is and i can not go anywhere near listening to it

yeah I fully believe Fripp was mainly responsible for the uh...."structure" of Lizard. I also think he didn't really know what he was doing and thought the final result was a trainwreck (not hard to read between the lines in his interviews on the subject). I'm kind of interested in what Fripp's songwriting consists of exactly, I think he's a good guy for direction and obviously he's a master of gnarly riffs but by and large it seems like he lets the other guys write the songs. even on his solo record Exposure you get the impression that the actual tunes are coming from outside. I guess that's what makes Lizard & Islands so fascinating, there really was no one else at that point.

I still enjoy Lizard a lot, odd as it is, though mostly for "Cirkus" and the title track.

for me "Happy Family" is the best, that descending instrumental bit at the end where Tippett starts going mental on the piano is one of the most terrifying sections of music I can think of

the second side of Lizard is quite a composition, I guess I disagree with you that it sounds like chaos; I'd say only maybe only Cirkus and Happy Family sound chaotic.

i think Islands is the only 70s one I don't play much and even it I don't hate.

the first half of it is remarkably pretty (though how often do you hear free jazz played upon a marching rhythm like that?) - second half kinda goes to hell in a cool way. it's that same brassy swinging jazzrock they do on Schizoid Man and Pictures of a City but those are a lot more structured jams, where the whole band starts and stops on a dime. here there are long sections where everyone's just playing at once - like from 15:30, I hear two separate lines from Mel Collins, mellotron howling all over the place, dissonant guitar, and then eventually some piano over the top...but they all sound like they're playing a different song! like some of the bits interact well together, but all at once? it's wild. the only thing keeping it grounded is Andy McCullough. (btw, one great thing about the remaster is you actually get to hear all this fairly clearly)

also Indoor Games, while not "chaotic" exactly, still makes a lot of really odd choices. when you break it down it's quite a bit like "Easy Money"

lizard still probably my favorite king crimson, agree Haskell gets a bad rap for no reason, it's a super weird record and he did his best, shame he never got to try it live, probably didn't want to, but I feel like the live crimson show was always better than the record

I do really like the clips I've heard of the islands lineup playing Cirkus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhMojknXvF4

Fripp going to be on this season of Live from Daryl’s House on Nov. 15: https://variety.com/2023/music/news/daryl-hall-live-from-daryls-house-returns-1235772685/

since i'd not really listened to the label-killed hall tracks off exposure til like two days ago, i'm pretty up for that it like, feels current to me

yesssssss

love Sacred Songs so much

often wonder about the alternate timeline where Hall is singer of 80s crimson

In that fever dream, Matte Kudasai turns back into North Star.

I am stoked for this as well.

The new movie was way more interesting than I thought it would be. I'd write more but my brain isn't allowing me to string two sentences together coherently this week.

Two alternate timelines: Hall singer for 80s Crimson, Sylvian for the 90s one.
In both cases I wonder what they would have gotten to do during all the extended instrumental parts that are a given in KC's music. Be the band's resident keyboard accompanyist? Could (have) be(en).

sylvian plays guitar and not poorly; obv he's not belew, but he's on par with jakko if he wants to be.

I don't think so, respectfully. Jakko is on a par with Belew technically. Sylvian's proficiency level with instruments is on a par with Bowie's, I'd say. He can be very creative with guitar sounds and looping and pedals use, and conjuring up interesting chord progressions on it, but that's a whole other ball game we're talking about that doesn't earn you Crimso membership/staying power. Still, if Fripp saw Crimson material in him...

Sylvian played guitar and keys on the Sylvian/Fripp tour, and while he was not on par with the other people (few are), the fact that he could keep up in that context is still impressive. So, probably a bit better than Bowie, who iirc rarely bothered to play much on stage.

i think about the film a lot

yeah, I mean, I think that a Crimson with Sylvian would have essentially been The First Day/Damage, probably more stuff that sounded like Firepower and Darshan.

That would have been dope. I like Belew, but Sylvian is clearly a much better songwriter.

xp to self - kind of feel the film is fascinating in how it explores the psychological landscape of the band (and by extension bands generally - although KC of course a particularly interesting subject)

but also - something implicit about the tired tour bus old men vibes, and the "end of Crimson" vibes, and the stuff with Bill Rieflin -

it feels like it speaks to something wider in the culture, about rock music being this form that a few generations raised to this exalted level, and imbued with youthful hopes and dreams and ideals of freedom

and now all the old gods are dying and there is maybe this sense of the house lights coming on and the whole thing being seen as a collective delusion, which of course it is/was

like, i'm almost 50 and have been extremely invested in music (playing/watching/listening) - it has defined my life like nothing else

and this film feels like it is quite equivocal about that commitment, there is an air of "was it worth it?" that floats around everything and it withholds a final opinion on that question in a way that really vibes with my own feelings at this point

OR maybe i'm projecting

for me it's not even a question of "is it worth it?" it's more a question of "why?" why is this band still around after fifty years? what is it that drives them to keep performing? why does fripp still practice 4-5 hours a day?

and the answers _are_ equivocal i think. it does reflect on me, i'm someone who's spent a lot of her life listening to them. they've made a pretty big difference in my life, as bands go

and to me it brings to light the ways in which i've changed. fripp is all about being in the moment but to him that like... requires everything to be perfect. it takes tremendous effort, for him, to meet the moment, and every time he doesn't, he feels like his mother's just died.

i try to be better at accepting failure, these days.

great posts you two, I think about this stuff whenever I go to the local prog night. there are some younger folks (I mean people like me who are still under 40) but most of it are people who were there. I've heard stories about buying The Lamb on release day, about getting stoned and playing "Echoes" by Floyd so loud you get the cops called, about seeing ELP in 1973 when they were the absolute shit. like they were playing stadiums and arenas, I can't even imagine what it would be like to hear young people going absolutely mental over music like that. but, y'know, that was 50 years ago. I wonder what's gonna happen once these dudes all start kicking it. there are still prog bands out there and some of them are really good but so much of it clearly harkens back to that date.

that said I did see Steve Hackett with some of these folks a couple weeks back and it ruled. actually made me pretty emotional in spots because I never thought I'd get to see music like that. idk I think in some sense as bands like The Beatles, Van Halen, the Stones, Zep etc. start to lose their cultural cache prog still lives on somehow. like I think Steven Wilson is probably more popular at the moment than any other 70s imitators, minus maybe Greta Van Fleet. I haven't thought about this much though I admit

Fripp on Live From Daryl's House: A VIBE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PAHYXc3gcw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkb783rNjO0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xd7BdzzY8BQ

Truly life-giving content!

O_O hell yes

i love how fripp presents as an awkward weirdo who is trying his best to mimic authentic human behaviour (i identify) - and then this colliding with the also weird LA session vibe - and everyone doing their best to make it feel natural and cool for the bonhomie vibes of the show - and then the music totally rips and suddenly the vibe is authentically golden - so good!

The bits before and after the playing are definitely the best

The image of Daryl Hall and Robert Fripp attending a Ramones show together is gonna stick in my head.

convinced that fripp is a much more normal person than he likes to portray himself.

that's an incredible "babs and babs," damn

it's great but I wanted fripp's solo to be like 5x longer

to be fair, you could say that about almost any song with a Fripp solo

convinced that fripp is a much more normal person than he likes to portray himself.

Having spent some time with him I can attest to the fact that you’d never mistake him for “normal” (his affect and way of speaking/carrying himself are just too otherworldly) but he’s incredibly funny (like, constantly) and he has a very big heart.

Goddamn that Bab and Babs!

Can't wait to watch that. But did watch the first minute or so in the kitchen, and come on, what are the odds that the chef's name would be Belew?

A. Belew, even!

convinced that fripp is a much more normal person than he likes to portray himself.

― I? not I! He! He! HIM! (akm)

idk the vibe i get from him is similar to the vibe i get from autistic folks who do not give a shit about what neurotypicals expect from them, they will fucking stim in public if it makes them comfortable

This is awesome. I think I mention this previously up thread, but the one tome I saw a Robert Fripp solo performance, he was like stand-up comic funny.

What a wonderful audience.

I went to the circus the other day and I hear two people whispering. I think they're talking about me and I start to get angry then I walk by one of the cages to confront them and this creature with big ears apologizes and says "sorry sugar it's just elephant talk"

that was great, didn't think I was gonna watch the whole thing but I did. I didn't know Hall's voice was still that great. also the boogie-woogie piano on top of "Red" was really cool, certainly KC never would've performed it that way. I agree the vibe there is great, feels like one of those performances where everyone's trying to elevate the game because they're all so damn good.

when I first got into KC I read a lot about Fripp and he seemed like a massive prick but yeah I think he's one of those guys you have to actually hear talk and interact with others to get a sense of what he's really like. because nothing he does really translates well to the written word, like he's incredibly funny in a way that might feel awkward and mean if you just read about it. and yeah I'd wager he's def somewhere on the spectrum, as I suspect a lot of these weirdo perfectionist musicians are

That was a great watch. Touching, even. Would love a Sacred Songs tour with this crew.

Maybe he was just caught up in the moment, but Daryl mentioned multiple times throughout the show working together further with Robert. In fact, they end on the whole band talking about learning five more songs to keep it going.

Anyway, agreed with what everyone is saying here. The music was great, the arrangements were interesting, and the whole thing was really quite touching. And then, after all the great band performances, concluding with The Farther Away I Am—a Daryl-Robert duet on piano, vocal, and Soundscapes—just seemed to reinforce how unique and special the connection between these two is and remains almost five decades later.

Would definitely see a Fripp & Hall tour. Sacred Songs is the only Daryl Hall album that I listen to from start-to-finish. (The only music from Daryl Hall that I have outside of that is a homemade compilation of Hall & Oates cuts.)

FWIW, a Hall-only Exposure plays great too. I think the version Fripp would ultimately release is really THE one - he did turn what was originally a negative into major positive, discovering several vocalists worked better than one - but if he could only have one singer, Hall would've been it.