King Crimson: Classic Or Dud

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.

finally saw the 50th anniversary doc. found it very moving and also funny as hell. Fripp kinda leaned into the "son of a bitch" persona he's built over the years but over time it just kind of becomes apparent that he is obsessed, often to unhealthy degrees, with attaining the unattainable.

Bill Rieflin segments extremely poignant but inspiring at the same time.

found Fripp's comments about Jakko not 'standing in anybody's shadows' and being a giant in his own right a pretty awesome moment.

the crowd reactions largely mirrored how the crowd looked when I saw them in 2020. everybody locked in, nobody turned away, on their phone, distracted, everyone transfixed and vibing rhythmically to the sounds.

nobody turned away, on their phone, distracted

Agreed, though at the same time ...

King Crimson's photo policy is notorious. Before every concert, they post signs on the stage that say:

"Good evening ladies and gentlemen
Welcome to the show
Now that you are in the venue please
refrain from taking any pictures
using a camera or your phone
until the very end of the show
or you may be asked to leave
thank you..."

they had that posted at my show but being that it was an outdoor show in inclement weather in 2020, I don't think there were the usual number of people enforcing it. i didn't have any issue with complying as I was pretty engrossed.

Yeah same here. If you really needed a photo, at least they all stayed on the stage at the very end (also taking photos of the audience, which I thought was cute).

Bill Bruford's got a pretty great YouTube channel - I'm just skimming through it now, but one of these weekends when the weather's shitty, I'm going to spend it watching everything on there. Pretty amazing to see the Red-era Crimson performing - I've got a ton of their recordings but unless I've forgotten, I don't think I've ever seen live footage of them, at least footage that was decent quality.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVzTmp3ZV4o

Also lots more with the Discipline-era group, including some from the tour where they opened for Roxy Music in 1982.

I'm also finally watching the doc. I was an idiot for not going to see them on the last tour, I remember driving past the venue on my way to whatever.

Beat-Tour.com

"Former King Crimson members ADRIAN BELEW and TONY LEVIN band together with guitar virtuoso STEVE VAI and explosive Tool drummer DANNY CAREY for the first time to create BEAT, a creative reinterpretation of the three iconic 80s KING CRIMSON albums – Discipline, Beat, and Three Of A Perfect Pair."

Yep, when I think of two guitar players who are definitely doing the same thing, guys you could basically swap one for the other and no one would notice or object, I *definitely* think of Robert Fripp and Steve Vai.

I thought this was going to be about RF's April Fool's Day video, which I wish I could go back in time and blind myself to keep from seeing.
https://www.facebook.com/watch?v=1464710544114056

Yep, when I think of two guitar players who are definitely doing the same thing, guys you could basically swap one for the other and no one would notice or object, I *definitely* think of Robert Fripp and Steve Vai.

surely the point isn't to "swap" Fripp for Vai. I think this will be far more interesting than if they just drafted some rando Guitar Craft guy to simply play Fripp's parts

I'm no Vai stan, but I don't think he would say yes to this if he didn't think he could pull off something that would satisfy Fripp fans. Because yeah, if Belew wanted Fripp clones, there are plenty of clones out there:

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

Well, I'm already on record as choosing to pretend 80s Crimson doesn't exist, so whatever.

weird choice to ignore a band's absolute pinnacle but takes all kinds I guess

It was originally a new band called Discipline, so seems fair to not consider it was KC. I guess they changed the name for some kind of brand recognition?