King Crimson: Classic Or Dud

Sinfield is also credited with "illumination"...

odd then that they're playing Sinfield-composed songs on this tour

Why odd? KC played Schizoid Man in 73-74 after the Fripp-Sinfield split, and didn't even the 81-84 band bring it out occasionally?

Sinfield:

“I was the one who wrote all the poems and had the strange bohemian background,” he says. “Robert came from a staid solicitor’s family in Dorset. He kept his paperback books in plastic bags, and mine were scattered all over the place. But for two and a half years, the combination worked.

“When Greg was asked to join, it was still stuck in Giles, Giles & Fripp land, all very clever-clever. Ian and I introduced an element of songwriting – something of weight, flamboyant Gothic weight. Greg’s talent and enthusiasm is like a big pair of bellows. There’s this small spark and he’ll puff away and suddenly he’s made it into a flame and added some harmonies to it. Mike would put some drums behind it, I’ll stick a word or two on it, and Fripp would calmly say, ‘I have an idea for that’, and drag something out of his 20,000 years of guitar practice.”

81-84 never played that, no. Pictures of a City was written by Sinfield, so was the Letters. So that's three tracks that presumably he gets royalties off of

ha, that's kind of a great quote xp

Sinfield is responsible for some truly atrocious lyrics but I don't think King Crimson could've been what they were without him. Plus he wrote "Under the Sky" for GG&F and I freakin' love that tune

note: from the bootleg I heard, even though they are playing Construkction of Light, it's an instrumental version, so Jakko either didn't feel comfortable singing Belew's parts or they just agreed not to.

Fripp goes out of his way to praise Sinfield whenever he mentions him in the online diary and makes it pretty plain that that wherever their differences of opinion turn into grievance and acrimony, the acrimony is one-way. I don't think he'd ever decline to play Sinfield-written songs as a way to ding Sinfield economically. He has his passive-aggressive moments, but not in that way imo.

I don't think he'd ever decline to play Sinfield-written songs as a way to ding Sinfield economically. He has his passive-aggressive moments, but not in that way imo.

I think he had Belew & Levin overdub Gordon Haskell out of the box set version of Cadence and Cascade for precisely that reason.

yeah that was lame.

that's an interesting song in that there's now a greg lake version of it released. So that means there are three different studio takes of that, all with different singers. and they don't sound significantly different either.

anyway I'm looking forward to these shows; also hoping Crimson Projekct tours again when this is done because I do like belew and the Live in Tokyo release is pretty amazing; you've still got Mastoletto and Levin in there, and generally speaking they sound quite a bit tighter than Crimson Proper

81-84 never played that, no

I saw KC in 1984 and the only pre-81 songs they played were "Red" and "Larks' Tongues in Aspic pt. 2"

as far as I know they just did Schizoid Man once, in 96

Pretty sure they've done it a few times with Belew in the 90s.

I posted this upthread, think it was the only airing:

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

They just released additional tickets for each remaining NYC night for sale at the venue. I seen it on twitter.

Sinfield was tremendously important to KC MK I's overall aesthetic – which I think even Fripp has acknowledged.

In addition to the lyrics, Sinfield was instrumental to the song titles (and their many sections and subsections), sleeve design and the overall atmosphere (the cirkuses, courts and Odyssey-esque themes). Say what you will about his "poetry" his lyrics aren't shallow. There are still stretches where I will go through where I listen only to those first four records – they are never flawless, almost always fascinating and a complete experience in a way records often aspired to be in the late sixties/early seventies. Sinfield really was the architect of that.

At its best, as he suggests himself in that Uncut piece referenced above, Sinfield's partnership with Fripp yielded something enchanting – things like "Schizoid Man," the "Lizard" suite or the whole of Islands are strange, mysterious, often lovely, and sometimes a bit unsettling ... even at the same time.

The magic of the new tour is that Fripp not only doesn't shy away from that reading of KC history but embraces it.

I listened to the 40th anniversary Lizard remaster on my way to work this morning. What a great sounding album. Funny that when early KC got jazzy they went Gil Evans instead of the burgeoning fusion route. Kieth Tippet is a force on that record (as well as Islands). Reading the wiki I didn't know that he declined to be keyboardist on an ongoing basis. Even if he had joined I doubt things would have gone too much different, since the split from Sinfield radically altered the KC sound in any case, and at least in the first half of its playing life, no incarnation of Crim was long for this world.

That Lizard remaster is incredible. Steven Wilson has done great things with a lot of old prog discs but Lizard was essentially rebuilt from scratch and features a number of sections that I don't remember being on the original. "Happy Family" is a song I always thought was ugly and hokey before, now it sounds absolutely terrifying. "Prince Rupert Awakes" still amazes me. I wish that was its own separate track.

Y'all are making me actually consider buying physical audio media for the first time in years.

I kind of wish the current kc remasters were the only ones, and not, like, the 15th reissues.

How does the KC reissue/remaster cycle compare to that of, say, Can?

Well, kc has been reissued more. But also, by now, better, so ...

All my KC cds are the E'G versions and 40th anniversary editions are vastly superior. Keep in mind that for the 80s records they used the 30th anniversary masters and added bonus tracks.
But considering that they used the 40th anniversary masters for the new vinyl reissues, I intend to just get everything on LP and call it good. They can't possibly make them sound better 10 years from now.

are you talking about the stereo mix of lizard or the surround? I don't fuck with surround, pain in the ass. but if the stereo is good I'll pick it up

Stereo. There's a great article in All About Jazz that goes into some detail about the original mix, why so much of the arrangements ended up being obscured and the approach Wilson ended up taking with the remix. More interesting than I'm probably describing here.

I wish I could hear the surround, but the stereo is amazing enough

I've still never heard anything before Larks' Tongues...thinking about picking up the 40th anniversary CD/DVD versions of the first four, but I don't know.

you should. Islands and Lizard are albums that people used to really bag on but they've grown in everyone's estimation, I think. You should absolutely have In the Court

Cover piece on Fripp in the Wire:

http://www.moredarkthanshark.org/eno_int_wire-oct14.html

xp - glad those two albums have been reassessed. I'm a fairly big fan of Lizard and can't see what's wrong with it at all.

Hm, I've never heard Islands or Lizard tbh. I've only known one person who reps for them and I assumed he was a bit off. (He HATES the Belew era and doesn't care too much for the Wetton era.) I'm a little intrigued.

I've liked Discipline for a long time but I've been getting into Three of a Perfect Pair and Beat. They're a bit poppier than Discipline, getting into Police and Peter Gabriel territory sometimes, which I don't mind. I feel like Belew tones down some of the most obnoxious elements of his delivery. Some great stuff in this show imo.

I love Three of a Perfect Pair. Possibly my fave of those three comeback records.

Man, still torn about the shows this week, especially since this Crimson seems a tad transitional and, per that Wire piece, Fripp no longer seems content with retirement.

I spun Islands again over the weekend and it impressed a lot more than in recent memory. What's crazy is trying to imagine a Crim fan picking up Larks Tongues in 1973 and expecting to hear something that sounded even remotely like the first 4 records.

To me the 81-84 Belew records are destroyed by the Absent Lovers double-live set which gets nearly every song I liked from those releases and IMO improves on pretty much everything. It's so full of energy that I remember going back to those vinyls and thinking my turntable was broken - no way the originals were that slow!!

One thing I loved about the first incarnation(s) of Crimson was how intent they were on doing their own thing. KC often gets lumped in with Yes or Genesis but IMO I think they are closer to Van der Graaf Generator or Magma, they always tried to plow ahead with their own sound for better or worse and even a record like In the Wake of Poseidon has a number of charms that you don't hear on a lot of other progrock albums. I never quite came around on Islands; to me it sounded like a record with some great ideas but it never quite realizes them. I admit though that I haven't heard it in nearly a decade.

agreed 100% on 'Absent Lovers'

In that Fripp interview he notes that because King Crimson disbanded all the time, they were never under any pressure, popular or label, to do the same thing again and again. There's something to that.

I share the opinion on Absent Lovers but also highly recommend the concerts from the 1982 tour available on DGM.
http://www.dgmlive.com/archive.htm?artist=6&show=513&member=&entry=
This one especially is great - now I see a lot more on there I haven't heard.

absent lovers is absolutely bonkers, like am i hearing this? Someone played this in front of ppl? kind of bonkers

did no one go to any of the NYC shows btw?

how many glowing reviews do you need? Should we float you the cash?

It's tough to say since Fripp + Belew + Bruford + Levin are an insanely talented quartet but I do find it a little tough to believe that Absent Lovers doesn't have a few overdubs. It's almost too perfect.

If it's better than that Japan show I linked, I better get this stat.

Sigh. Fine. I've seen KC a couple of times, and a couple of the Projekcts, but this one seems pretty neat. Gonna buy a ticket.

Your link led to an error page for me sund4r

that 1996 version of Schizoid is fucking massive. that has some balls, much more than the ones I've heard new lineup do on the first two nights of the tour. maybe they'll get tehre.

I saw them on the Three of a Perfect Pair tour. I believe there were no overdubs on Absent Lovers. They played that shit. Bruford also tossed his sticks in disgust after playing a clam that I think only he and no one else in the world heard on Sleepless.

well apparently they played Schizoid Man all over the THRAK tour which I actually saw (this show: http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/king-crimson/1996/greek-theatre-berkeley-ca-63d88647.html) and fuck if I remember this happening. But there it is.

If you've ever seen Belew play Three of a Perfect Pair solo, you can totally believe how they sound. He's like three people.