The King Crimson studio album poll

I didn't know about the existence of this until today: a Michael Giles solo album recorded in 1978, but not released until 2002. Nothing earth-shattering, but an interesting listen.

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

Am I correct that Michael Giles was considered/auditioned for one of the more recent iterations of the band? Or am I misremembering?

uh huh: in 1994, he was considered for the double trio. Pat M auditioned the same day, and asked if he could stick around to meet Giles. per the Sid smith book, in which RF says that in 1997 he suggested a quickie tour involving Giles, McDonald, Wetton and himself.

wetton was being considered for the most recent iteration as well but his illness intervened. there are some photos in fripp's online diary of wetton and him at Fripp's house or studio from a few years ago.

too bad belew is busy with stewart copeland, fripp-summers style

https://consequenceofsound.net/2017/07/stewart-copeland-adrian-belew-more-form-supergroup-gizmodrome-announce-self-titled-debut-album/

I don't think Belew was invited to be a part of this

i hope they invited peter hammill. "i may not have enough of me but i've had enough of you" ranks way up with his best vocals outside his solo albums and Vd(GG)

first time I heard Hammill was on that album and it convinced me that he was my new favorite singer

his vocals on "Chicago" are so bizarrely over-the-top. wish he'd sing like that more often

for real. prefer daryll hall's 'third edition' vocals on "chicago" though. if he toured with crimson i might follow grateful dead style show to show

This will always and forever be Red for me. King Crimson were always the most menacing of all the prog bands.

young woman at my camp orientation yesterday was wearing KC tshirt <3

part i for the win. part ii is cool but the final movement of bartok's fourth string quartet is cooler. parts numbered greater than two are unworthy of consideration. _particularly_ if adrian belew is writing lyrics.

belew was not invited, it's been a whole thing.

fripp posted this today: https://www.dgmlive.com/diaries/Robert%20Fripp/Tuesday%2013th.%20July,%202017

Huh

That's weird. So is that just passive aggressive stabs at Belew for making a deal out of playing his songs? Fripp's argument is that KC is an entity beyond whoever is in the band at any one time, and former members should just suck it up when they're not involved?

Whatever it was, it's gone now.

Still on their FB page:

https://m.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10156399199977519

KC twitter feed actually tweeted this out.

It's still around, maybe he rewrote it because I saw him repost it again today.

Earlier, he reposted all the communication he had with Belew around this situation, as in, his original email to him, etc, and make it very clear that Belew quit.

Weigel's prog book wasn't full of revelations but one thing that I did learn in it re: KC was that when Belew joined in 80, it was extremely important to him that he be allowed to have a solo career at the same time, and there was a full carve out in his contract to allow for such. And, later on, he was the one who quit (in 84, or later, now I can't remember). Fripp has stated that this time around he offered Belew a chance to remain as the shadow member, the way Levin had for many years while Gunn was in that seat; and Belew said no and quit.

Lotsa gossip and quotes here:

http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/king-crimson-with-belew-will-never-happen.576502/

there must be more stuff happening recently to have caused fripp to write this, his mention of 'ex members and their de facto manager'; belew must have had his manager (if he has one? i can't tell) fire off some angry stuff regarding their playing neurotica and indiscipline and that set him off.

because, other than the two comments that are re-produced in that hoffman forum, belew has been very quiet about this on FB from what I've been able to see.

I'm sure that's it. They must have come to an agreement, by Belew's understanding, that Belew era stuff would not be played, then Belew was informed that Fripp had reneged. Hence, if I'm not right for the band and I'm not involved, then stop playing my shit.

And Fripp's disingenuous response is hey, it's all KC, what can I do? It's a collective ensemble. As if he's seriously not making more than the other guys.

it's not clear if he is or not. he states pretty emphatically that everything is being split 9 ways. He also does fucking everything for this band; he's gone far beyond what most people would do to sort out contractual stuff, royalty backpayments from EG, etc. If he wanted a quick payday, as someone said elsewhere (maybe that hoffman thread) he would have taken out a 4 person band, the overhead would have certainly been less.

you know, belew's ask is kind of a big one. we're talking about more than 30 years of king crimson and he's saying "don't play my songs". well, they're all "his songs" because fripp, in his infinite wisdom, insisted in '81 that writing credits be split equally among the members of the band. it's a credit to fripp that when belew asked his response wasn't immediately "hahahaha, no", but overpromising and underdelivering is not a really great idea. at the same time there probably _weren't_ at any point lawyers involved and i can easily see a situation where fripp believed he was promising not to have anybody else sing belew's lyrics (though i'm sure it must have hurt him deeply that he couldn't get someone else to sing about a speck of lint on the penis of an alien), and belew thought fripp was promising not to play any songs he has a writing credit on (again, essentially every song written while he was in the band).

having said that i don't have any actual clue and am essentially guessing at things, and am probably completely and totally wrong about all this.

(though i'm sure it must have hurt him deeply that he couldn't get someone else to sing about a speck of lint on the penis of an alien)

I can think of maybe one King Crimson song that doesn't have lyrics that fall somewhere on the spectrum between laughable and horrifying - "The Night Watch." Their lyrics are awful.

Seriously, if ever there were a "I read it for the articles" kind of band, it's King Crimson.

lyrics to exiles aren't bad

most of belew's 80's lyrics were alright. it's the 90's stuff where he got dreadful at times. I feel like he held back his better lyrics for his solo work

sick burn. on "op zop too wah" he literally wrote a love song to his guitar.

pete sinfield's lyrics are ridiculously overwrought, but as ridiculously overwrought lyrics go not terribly bad, i wouldn't say.

'Starless' lyrics are also good

I have a very soft spot for Sinfield's lyrics. Palmer James had his moments. Belew doesn't really begin to bother me until the 90s. But Sinfield's lyrics were so ambitious, inscrutable and florid it's hard for me not to be in their thrall. Mach I was as much Sinfield's vision as Fripp's and I'm reasonably sure Fripp wouldn't disagree.

As for writing credits, I hadn't heard about the split four ways thing but if that's the case, I can almost see why Belew might be aggravated at this point. Let's face it: a number of songs from the 80s are Belew solo songs in all but name. The Hoffman thread goes into some detail there. But it seems a bit odd to me that Fripp has no problem with Belew playing KC songs with the Power Trio, it's a problem if he does so with KC.

Petra Haden has covered "The Sheltering Sky" btw --
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVAzvWToMRA

Aaaaand ... tour continuing/extended into the fall. I guess a Fripp's gotta eat.

US continued into fall, Europe confirmed already for 2018, and US again hinted at for 2019. I think Fripp is going to keep this going for as long as he can.

after kicking myself for years for not going in 2014, and then being out of town for the recent new jersey shows i am overjoyed at the new dates

I'm giving some thought to the Halloween show in Newark. NJPAC is a much nicer venue than the Count Basie Theatre.

Can an nyer get there just using PATH?

Definitely. You have to switch trains at Journal Square, I think.

I'm absolutely there again. Hoping to get good tix this time.

jon there are two shows at the beacon theater! don't fall for his new jersey siren song

B-but Halloween

hey man you want to take the PATH on halloween with 75,000 people dressed up like bruce springsteen and snooki be my guest. i for one will be taking a convenient, well-appointed MTA train uptown to enjoy an evening of progressive rock with upper west side cosmopolitans.

No no yr right

Oh, I think I'll be able to see them in Boston in November now. This is the best news!

I really like how the words work with the music in "21st Century Schizoid Man" and "Fallen Angel" btw.

Petra Haden thing is cool.

had a dream last night that I saw KC live (maybe because they just announced a Milwaukee date?) - it was 7 dudes rocking out on a 40 foot long stage, with a bassist way off to the right doing Eddie Van Halen moves (despite his bass not being plugged in), and Fripp sitting on a chair with his back to the stage and his face three inches away from the kick drum

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krsai3plmKw

(EVH, Levin, Hammer and Jerry Marotta, pretty close!)

So I've only sporadically poked into their catalog as I've been spurred on by coming across CDs in the wilds. Up to now my KC collection has been limited to ITCOTCK, Poseidon, Lark's Tongue and Red in terms of main studio albums. I've also got a handful of live releases (USA, The Nightwatch, Marquee '69, KCCC 24 Guildford - like I said, grabbing what I come across). Outside of that I've been surviving with those excellent ilxor mixes - but I've felt a desire for a deep dive creeping up.

Left unimpressed with what I'd heard of the '80s stuff, I'd never bothered beyond that. But I came across a really cheap copy of The Power to Believe and I'm surprised by how much I like it! Of course I already have a tolerance for progressive metal, so that probably helps, but this was better than the reputation led me to believe.