King Crimson: Classic Or Dud

I have a hard time believing Fripp is truly retired.

Retired and working harder than ever. He reminds me of a border collie patiently working the livestock (UMG, Sanctuary, etc) into a corral to be taken to slaughter.

Considering Fripp often lead guitar schools and workshops over the past few decades whose main point appeared to have been indoctrinating students in his precise methods and reshaping them in his (musical) image, it's actually really easy to imagine Crimson without him. Send in the clones!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_in_Central_Park,_NYC
xpost to Jon Lewis

yes but according to him they are all hopeless!

xp

League of Hopeless Guitarists

Anyway, Belew has really been the dominent component over the past three decades. Fripp is awesome, but other dudes are more than capable of doing what he's been doing.

Anyone ever see any of the ProjeKCts? I saw one configuration that was Fripp on guitar (sounding like a marimba), Trey Gunn on bass, and Belew on drums (the entire night!). It kind of sucked, but it was neat to see something different.

Never saw them, but I have the 4CD ProjeKcts box set and I have to say it's given me more listening pleasure than any KC album post-Red.

I'll be on the lookout for that - the whole ConstruKction of Light era is my personal KC nadir so I try to avoid that, though I admit the live recordings of this period are surprisingly good. The improv on Heavy ConstruKction (the three disc set that ends with Fripp snatching and eating some dude's camera) is the best since the Great Deceiver (or better), I'd say

He does that on one of the live albums in this ProjeKcts box as well, can't remember which one. The set is worth hunting down just for the liner notes, which as ever are a total hoot.

Are the liner notes in third person? Fripp is really into that. "At this point our stalwart hero Fripp set down his instrument of choice, took a sip of tea, then flung the remains of the boiling water at the hirsute man in the front with the camera pointed at his face."

I had the box for a while, but it reminded me of the Zappa quote: "why would a first rate guitarist want to sound like a third rate saxophonist?" Except Fripp sounded like a marimba.

holy shit, someone on discogs has uploaded scans of the entire box set, liner notes and all:

http://www.discogs.com/viewimages?release=703298

Though I haven't listened to them all, for me the most satisfying Projekct release is P3 Live in Alexandria.

http://www.discogs.com/ProjeKct-Three-Live-In-Alexandria-VA-March-3-2003/release/3886963

Belew can't make the gig so they play a Crim set without him. Fripp overcompensates in a good way--everybody's ferocious, and there's a bit more space in the music than you'd normally hear from that lineup.

It gives me incredible melancholia that Fripp hasn't licensed any of this stuff to Spotify. I would never buy the ProjeKct stuff in a million years but would love to go through a few weeks obsessing over it.

On a giant live 1973-4 binge right now, the Night Watch and Great Deceiver sets are incredible.

Around 94-95 Crimson was playing across the street from the bookstore I worked in at the time. Fripp approached me looking for the Financial Times (evidently the only paper he reads, I didn't know that at the time). I timidly asked if he was indeed Fripp as I handed over the pink paper. He replied 'No.'

Such was my brush with greatness. I never got to see the show, which was a shame since that was a good album and tour. Belew also stopped in and was by all accounts an approachable and all-around nice dude.

Fripp's online diary is really charming, I like his utter commitment to being an English Country Gentleman.

one of those groups who seem to be the best band in the world when you hear them first and who get more and more boring with each subsequent listen. this is especially true for the first two records. some of the others have been noodling from the beginning on. that would actually be an interesting criterion to classify bands. those who get better the more you listen to them and those who don't. some get better until a certin point and then you as a listener "exasperate" their music, eg talk talk which i have started to be a little fed up with.

i wanted to say exhaust not exasperate. the ear gets exhausted by the music.

i can definitely sympathize. The Great Deceiver is an awesome set but I question anyone who claims they can listen to all four discs at once.

Isn't all prog rock exhausting after a while? It is for me, maybe it's the earnestness, the focus on craft, and the busy-ness? Too much seriousness and music to handle.

Noticing how each album with a 'fresh' lineup (Court, Larks, Discipline) is usually the best of that lineup, then the quality falls off with each subsequent record, which leads to a breakup, a hiatus, and eventually a new lineup and a new decent record.

Four discs at once a la Zaireeka? That could be interesting! (xpost)

xp: i quite liked beat but it was only the second with the same line-up. but it was quite different from discipline which i don't reember well, wasn't it?

I think each LP in the 80s sequence got more accessible. Discipline has some of the craziest time-signature workouts

your theory would require Red to be the least of the power trio/qtets lineup which, well...

The second half of "Three of a Perfect Pair" is possibly the least accessible of that era of the band.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJCuAN9_qXg

Ugh, that reminds me of Eno's Drop which is awful - damn you for destroying my obviously-very-well-thought-out theory ;)

Have some Fripp on cable access being arch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tYgwk_ngek

That "Industry" track is, iirc, an example of Bill Bruford's theory of lead drums.

Can you talk about that Josh? 'bruford lead drums' is kinda ungoogleable

Drums are the lead instrument.

Either that or he means Bruford's Simmons kit swung about as hard as an anvil.

I think his idea was that drummers are always relegated to the backbeat in rock, even in prog, so with Simmons pads in hand (as it were) he wanted to integrate himself into the group as more than just rhythm keeper. I suppose it's not terribly dif. than some free jazz drummers, like Rashied Ali or something, though Bruford was trying to fit it into Fripp's regimented anal-retentive scheme. So while it wasn't really "free" in that sense, he was trying (on tracks like "Industry," at least) to drum differently.

I guess he pursued the idea more forcefully in Earthworks, with the gist that in most bands the drums are the sole acoustic instrument, but in Earthworks, they were the sole electric instrument.

Found this somewhere:

Industrial rock was becoming a genre unto itself in the early 1980s; the German group Einsturzende Neubauten used power drills, jackhammers, broken glass, elevator springs, and toy keyboards on their 1981 debut album Kollaps. King Crimson IV toyed with the concept: several songs ("Indiscipline," "Neurotica," "Dig Me," "No Warning") contained an imaginative array of metallic clashes, clangs, sirens, factory sounds, and the like. One instrumental, "Industry," was a dedicated study in nuanced noise: over an ominous one-pitch bass ostinato repeating every nine beats unfolds, with rising intensity, a succession of guitar synthesizer layers, spasmodic drum fills, mechanical sound effects, orchestroid outbursts, and sky-saws. "Industry," a brilliantly effective tableau, may sound improvised, but Belew said it was the result of much pre-planning: "Bill had the idea of the orchestral snare drum. Robert and I developed all the guitar ideas very carefully - the harmonies and things. It's supposed to give you a feeling of walking through a factory."

Not necessarily supporting my memory of Bruford's theory, just interesting.

Wow, a wealth of stuff here:http://www.progressiveears.com/frippbook/ch09.htm

The name of the new group was to be Discipline. For a bass player, Bruford suggested Jeff Berlin, with whom he had worked extensively. Eavesdropping on a Bruford/Berlin session, Fripp was impressed but decided their collective style was not what he wanted - it was too, as he put it, "busy." So with Belew on tour with Talking Heads, in February 1981 Fripp and Bruford went to New York in search of a bassist. At the auditions, Bruford would pop in a cassette of a 17/8 riff and the would-be Discipline bassist would be asked to play it back. This in itself was sufficient to sort out as it were the men from the boys, but Fripp was also looking for a certain quality in the very person of the bassist.

As far as the music was concerned, Fripp's main battles were with Bruford, over finding an appropriate drumming style. Fripp described Bruford as a vigorous and expressive drummer with a never-ending flow of ideas; the problem for Fripp was how to get Bruford to calm down, to play less, to trust that the music's structure called not for lots of fancy fills and dramatic, dynamic phrase articulations but rather for restraint, control, and less busy-ness. Fripp was concerned that the rhythmic subtleties of the guitar, bass, and stick parts not be covered up by drum thrashing. In a long list of suggestions for Bruford, which he published for the world to see in his Musician column, Fripp advised, "If you fill space, you deprive the band of space, or other musicians the opportunity for filling space."

Of Fripp's list of suggestions for his drumming, Bruford said, in a 1982 interview, "It starts out as a stream of negatives first off, which cracks many a lesser man. 'Don't do this, don't do that, and I suggest you don't do this. By the way, I also recommend you don't do that.' You're in a prison and you've got to find your way out of things. I quite like that. I must be a masochist or something, but I don't feel right unless I'm imprisoned and told to find a way around it. That's the challenge."

With Belew, Fripp's concern was the reverse: how to coax him out into the open, how to encourage him to contribute genuine aspects of his own musical personality to a group which he initially felt was playing at a level way over his head. It was up to Belew to deliver lyrics and vocal lines for existing instrumentals the group had worked up, and in time he began to find his voice. Fripp was constantly impressed with Levin's musicianship and personal qualities; the bass player, whom Fripp described as the best he'd ever worked with, seemed to have a certain solid, silent strength. Fripp wrote that "Tony is always on: he doesn't seem to have our concerns."

"Bruford said, in a 1982 interview, "It starts out as a stream of negatives first off, which cracks many a lesser man. 'Don't do this, don't do that, and I suggest you don't do this. By the way, I also recommend you don't do that.'"

This list is included in the reissue liners for Discipline. "If you have an idea, don't play it."

Ha, thank you google, here it is:

1. Any existing solution is a problem to a problem is a wrong one; absolutem, obsoletum.
2. If you have an idea, don't play it.
3. When a change in the music needs emphasis, don't play it. The change in the music is emphasis enough.
4. Don't phrase with any other member of the band unless it's in the part.
5. Phrasing in the part should include no more than two people.
6. If the tension in the music needs emphasizing, don't. The tension is there because of what you're playing, not what you're about to play.
7. If you really have to change your part to build tension, don't add - leave out.
8. The maximum tension you can add is by stopping completely.
9. If there is space for a fill which is demanded by the music, don't play it; there are three other people who would like to use the opportunity.
10. If the part you're playing is boring, stop listening with your head.
11. If this still bores you, listen to the interaction between all parts.
12. If this still bores you, stop playing and wait until you are no longer bored.
13. Do not be dramatic.
14. Do not be afraid to repeat yourself.
14. Do not be afraid to take your time.

Boy, what a negative list, Let's be positive about this:
1. Repeat yourself.
2. Take your time.
3. Leave room.
4. Listen to everybody else.
5. Develop a new set of cliches.
6. Develop a new vocabulary of drum sounds.
7. Listen to the sound of what you play.
8. Accept responsibility for what you play; e.g.: if you fill space, you deprive the band of space or other musicians the opportunity of filling space.
9. Abandon fills.
10. Abandon drama.
11. Abandon dynamics.
12. Conceal yourself.

I am no drummer but anytime I've some up with a big list of "don'ts" I think of that little aside at the end. "Boy, what a negative list."

WEIRDLY it's the same advice they give teachers when making class rules!? (To have a few positive rules instead of a big list of don'ts.) I had to attend all these workshops, do assignments, on 'how will you make your class rules' and all I could think of was Fripp bossing Bruford around. Actually half of those positive rules would be ones I would be ok w/for my classroom.

2. Take your time.
3. Leave room.
4. Listen to everybody else.
7. Listen to the sound of what you play.
8. Accept responsibility for what you play

class is in

I have been playing Discipline & Three of a Perfect Pair LIKE CRAZY, NONSTOP lately. And watching youtubes of live performances from that era. I saw a youtube comment where a guy said Discipline got him through his first year of teaching and I wanted to write him with a very heartfelt ME TOO but it just seemed too much.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6TM5i3fdty4/TnJv2LJlHrI/AAAAAAAABLo/de1bJBhp_C8/s1600/heat_bill_buford.jpg

I had a disappointing couple of months a while back – every bookstore I'd go to I'd see dozens of Bill Buford's HEAT on remainder. And I'd misread the author's name and get excited – it *looks* and *has a name* like it's trying to ape the cover of Discipline or Beat. And just one missing R in the name. So deceptive!!!

What's the best live document covering their 80s output (which is also my fave)?

Absent Lovers

Live at the Pier is quite good as well--it's from the 82 tour.

http://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=26599

I've always loved Fripp's list of rules even though they are extreme. The idea that multiple members of a band shouldn't all play the same part is a really hard thing for many rock musicians to swallow. It's kind of like the anti-Nirvana concept. I would love to play in a band that had ground rules like this.

one of those groups who seem to be the best band in the world when you hear them first and who get more and more boring with each subsequent listen.

I had the opposite experience. KC really grew on me.

it would be hilarious to set bands up with that list cold, and watch them just stand there silently in fear of breaking one of the rules

I remember hearing a great story of Belew trying out for Bowie's band. They had him do "Heroes" and he struggled to do the song justice. It was only at the end that they told him the studio version was several guitars, after Belew had done his best to approximate all parts at once.

http://www.snopes.com/music/media/guitar.asp