King Crimson: Classic Or Dud

Massive review here:

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=45631#.UqjZwWRDv3E

Yeah! It was definitely those mixes and I feel really badly for not remembering it was you!

Bruford's autobio makes mention that his first go round in Crimson was plagued by trouble coming up with new material, and yet "Doctor Diamond" and "Guts on my Side" are A+ jams imo, I wonder who disliked those numbers enough to nip them in the bud...

That all about jazz review'extended analysis' was so lovingly, thoughtfully composed and considered. It was if a superfan had made and resolved every internal argument about the group and ultimately made the case for why such an exhaustive set would be something to look forward to... as if he was justifying the purchase of it to himself as much as anyone else.

as if he was justifying the purchase of it to himself as much as anyone else

Probably had to justify it to his wife—"Hey, honey, I got a review assignment for the thing! Now it's a tax writeoff!"

"Hey, honey, I got a review assignment for the thing! Now we have to listen to 20 hours of King Crimson!"

wife jokes ;_;

You shed rueful tears, but there's no way I'm getting through disc one of this thing around my wife. Let's just say she and I agree to disagree on a few groups and stick to our common musical ground.

Fripp himself "jokes" often in his diary about how Crimson is apparently radioactive to women. I cringe every time he mentions it.

I defiantly know plenty of female prog fans, but Crimson is sort of its own thing.

There are female Crim fans.

There are female fans of everything. It's just sort of rarified. For men, too, I think: Crimson gets pretty geeky, even by geek standards, which is why here they play to 1000 people max rather than to 10,000.

Fripp's relationship with women has made me lol, sob, and cringe in equal measures. Wife jokes are just a window into other people's lives, I guess, but they don't reflect my experience as a wife.

Kinda wish there were more female prog musicians out there, the ones we have totally rule

Wife jokes are just a window into other people's lives, I guess, but they don't reflect my experience as a wife.

If you think that joke was at the expense of the wife, well...OK then.

it all depends on the joke!

xpost If we're talking about it, some of the best and most popular female acts never really get pegged as prog. Think Kate Bush, or St. Vincent, or Bat for Lashes, or Joanna Newsom, etc., who are totally prog but rarely defined as such. Such is the wiggly/useless nature of the term.

FWIW, my wife would actually totally tolerate King Crimson. Just not 18 hours in a row, especially "Red"-era!

Bjork is prog afaic

I was thinking of Newsom. Part of the problem is that I don't really know what 'prog' means anymore. If you open up the floodgates to including groups like Radiohead and Bjork then I think the scene is way more diverse. Which I think is fine, but I know a lot of people think it isn't really prog unless you're imitating Yes or something.

It's kind of a self-reinforcing feedback loop - "girls don't like prog" + "if/when girls start showing up, it's not prog."

xpost Yeah, I think prog-proof is sort of a pseudo tautology: it is prog if it sounds like Yes or Genesis.

"Prog" magazine, which I get for free from my local record store when no one else buys that month's copy, has a column called something like "Prog or Not Prog?"where readers debate the prog bona fides of bands like Talk Talk and XTC.

well I don't think that anyone doubts that say, Rennaissance is prog. but I think 'what is prog in 2013' is a pretty open question

"Prog" magazine, which I get for free from my local record store when no one else buys that month's copy,

love this

haha i've been known to drop the $15 or whatever for an import copy of Prog, but i always feel gross after i do

We talked about women in prog a little while ago (Froggie's Poll?). Kate Bush was on Prog magazine's cover and some of her band and collaborators were from prog (Gabriel, a Procol Harum guy and a few others I'm sure). I watched the Romantic Warriors: Rock In Opposition dvd a few months ago and there was quite a lot of women in it (I highly recommend the dvd).

About the "women dont like it" cliche. People used to use that to dismiss all sorts of things that now have large female fanbases (videogames, metal, pretty much anything that seems geeky). I dont think there really is much left unless it is actively hostile to women.

A lot of people used to make a lot of distinctions about men vs women in the type of porn/erotica they enjoy but these days I dont think there are many safe statements you can make on that either.
I've seen a lot of art and writing that I was surprised that a woman created it but I guess there's no real reason I should be surprised.

Yeah, the whole "women don't like prog" thing is ridiculous; I tackled it when Rob Sheffield reviewed a book on prog for the New York Times. I would never say "women don't like x" for the same reason that I, when wearing my critic hat, never use the word "we."

ugh that sheffield article i forgot that thing

Nice blog post. Mick Mercer wrote similar stuff to Sheffield that annoyed me and made it sound as if he has never listened to any of the stuff he mocks for long enough to make an informed opinion. For example, he didnt understand why Peter Hammill/VDGG got called prog; but anyone with any familiarity of the genre could see it.

a fair number of women at the last steven wilson show I attended.

Holy living fuck the central park '74 show. I am hearing it right now for the first time. The sound is not as good as Asbury but it's not terrible and jesus krogstad the performance...!!!

Also, I revisited the two Muir KCCC releases I own: the Beat Club Bremen one is in half-decent sound but is frustratingly brief; it's the Guildford one that's really really roughly recorded, frustratingly so as you can hear Muir doing mad things you can't quite make out. (Love the waterwhistle on 'Book of Saturday').

ugghhh this Fracture KILLS

Why can't I buy this box set ;_;

Central Park is such a blistering show it makes you long for a better recording. Seconding that version of Fracture--I think it's the best one I have ever heard. I'm pretty sure that's the one I put on my comp.

show just ended. I'm speechless.

This was the new version from the Red box, btw. I found a DL on some message board that was way too huge in file size to grab entire, and figured if I was only gonna hear one disc it should be the central park one. No idea if this is an improvement sound wise on the previous release but I found it listenable (2x better than the Guildford disc w Muir, for example).

Hmmm I would not mind hearing that....

so it's this one? http://www.dgmlive.com/archive.htm?artist=5&show=422
i believe i've only heard some of it on sparkle motion's comps, i should probably check out the whole thing...

Yes that one.

Is the audio on the Road to Red version supposed to be additionally spruced up?

Will have to reread that epic article linked a few days ago up thread -- I'm sure he addresses it.

From AAJ-

Even the final show in Central Park—sourced from an audience recording because, for some reason, a soundboard recording was not made that night—sounds surprisingly good, with clarity between the instruments and the only thing giving it away being the audience noise around the taper.

From DGM-

incomplete recording Disc 20 taken from a bootleg cassette recording. Audio restored at DGM by David Singleton and Alex R Mundy. Previously available via mail order as part of King Crimson Collectors’ Club series 10 (2000)

So it sounds like there's no additional tweaking. Still an amazing document.

And worth the 10 bucks to download from DGM by far.

I think of the 21 or whatever discs on this thing, maybe only ... 4 discs worth have been totally unreleased in any form? DGM has been busy.

Central Park show on headphones is great--you hear one dude yelling for Cirkus inbetween songs, another requesting Cat Food, and part of a conversation that ends with a guy telling somebody "let me put it this way... I'll take their record over the Mahavishnu record." Cerberus is a pretty surprising improv, a lot of different directions there. And the highlights with the rest of the set are well known--the afformentioned Fracture and a totally demonic Talking Drum/LTIA II.

Also, I found this which I had never seen before

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXA-j9az2NI

goddammit I am now in that K(C)-hole where nothing seems to matter but live recordings of this crimson lineup.

DGM's sharity-squashers are rly good btw, that set of links from which I gleaned the ctrl park disc was already killed when I got home from work last night. Good business on their part cuz now I want to pay to DL a bunch of shit from their site.

Finished Central Park this morning--goddamn that version of Starless is just a killer. Bruford's slow-echo cowbell in the middle section is hilarious.

I think I'll seek out the Fort Worth show next-- Tarrant County Convention Center was a hot venue in the 70s.

Just gotta note here that the extended Philly Boy Roy riff on last night's final Best Show regarding "my worst enemy...Robert Fripp" was some kinda genius. Including how Fripp ruined Daryl Hall's Sacred Songs, a reference to an actual early eighties KC show in Philadelphia, the abusive strongarm ways of Tony Levin and an unfortunate Guitar Workshop incident some years later.

"Tom, have you ever been beaten by a spanking machine made of fifty guys with Ovation acoustic guitars?...It's made me a shy lover until this day."

Can be listened to here, I want to say it starts about halfway through but I haven't checked.

http://wfmu.org/listen.m3u?show=53635&archive=93040
http://wfmu.org/flashplayer.php?version=2&show=53635&archive=93039

xpost Fort Worth and Houston were the others I was gonna try'n summon if them links weren't dead. Based on that lengthy jazz site review.

DGM's sharity-squashers are rly good btw, that set of links from which I gleaned the ctrl park disc was already killed when I got home from work last night.

I like to imagine Fripp doing this personally, or at least taking pleasure in overseeing the interns as they send takedown notices