King Crimson: Classic Or Dud

Tons of live material with an ENORMOUS amount of free improvisation (not sure how "free" they were once Muir left) as well as some interesting avenues the material took as they woodshedded it.

Up until two days ago, I only knew Muir as the percussionist with the Music Improvisation Company, on their brilliant 1968-1971 CD (with Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, and Hugh Davies). That record was something I listened to daily about 20 years ago, and I always found Muir's playing enthralling.

A friend of mine insisted that I'd dig KC in general, and Larks' Tongues in particular. ITCOCK is great; I'm a sucker for anything with a Mellotron. But wow, LTIA is kind of blowing my mind.

Muir's finest hour imo, and I like those MIC records!

I want that mic cd!

cranking S&BB now, man that heavily-effected solo in "Lament" at around 2:50 is so fuckin heavy and badass

show in SF last night was great. I have a ticket for tonight but may sell it if I can; not sure it will top last night. bought a Red t-shirt from Fripp's sister who was handling merch; wondered if I should get M or L, she said "you have less of a tummy than some of these fans!"

arrangements were good, never thought I'd see Sailors Tale and Starless performed live. Rieflin does really hold back, he's barely a drummer; in bits where they'd trade off, beatles-the-end like solo-wise, it was actually kind of funny.

Does Fripp revisit that freaky aggressive zone from the studio version in "Sailor's Tale"?

I hope I get those tracks tonight!

They could have at least had Rieflin sing. What a weird career the guy has had. Ministry, Swans, KMFDM, REM, Robyn Hitchcock, King Crimson. I think Fripp just likes him personally. I mean, dag:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGj-MgNwLyE

Also, when he sings, he sings a bit like David Sylvian, so he could have really added something else to this current KC set, imo.

Does Fripp revisit that freaky aggressive zone from the studio version in "Sailor's Tale"?

― it's taco science, but it works like taco magic (WilliamC), Saturday, October 4, 2014 12:31 PM Bookmark Flag Post

freaky aggressive...word

If not Rieflin maybe they could've gotten Chris Connelly. A Connelly-fronted Crim would be AWESOME. (Not that there's anything wrong with Jakko, per se.)

Speaking of "Sailors Tale", has anyone heard that bootleg from '78 of Fripp doing Sister Midnight->The Sailor's Tale with Blondie? It's wicked stuff.

Well, let me just link it, it's on Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_2-6fA57d4

If not Rieflin maybe they could've gotten Chris Connelly. A Connelly-fronted Crim would be AWESOME. (Not that there's anything wrong with Jakko, per se.)

Speaking of "Sailors Tale", has anyone heard that bootleg from '78 of Fripp doing Sister Midnight->The Sailor's Tale with Blondie? It's wicked stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-f0P7-fxUQ

the worst thing about jakko is his hair, which I guess at least seems authentically 70's crim. he also sings a bit too sincerely for me and comes across a bit too much like a fan. He's a fantastic guitar player though, as is totally evident on this tour. He handles fripp's other parts and lots of bits belew used to play without hesitation.

Yeah, it's a bit unfair, since Jakko seems a hair away from one of those guys who wins a contest to front his favorite band, yet he's clearly a good singer/guitarist. Still, a guy with a custom ITCOCK graphic guitar seems like the last dude Fripp would hire, even if he doesn't hurt anything.

I bet it would be fun to make a list of everyone this collective iteration of Crimson has played with. John Lennon! Peter Gabriel! XTC! Mr. Mister! Ministry! R.E.M.! Rolling Stones! Tears For Fears! Peter Gabriel! Blondie! Porcupine Tree! The Roches! Brian Eno! David Bowie!

and the Kinks! Jakko took the place of Dave Davies for about a month in the 90s (so yes, there was briefly a Kinks lineup with only one original member).

Swans too

I bet it would be fun to make a list of everyone this collective iteration of Crimson has played with. John Lennon! Peter Gabriel! XTC! Mr. Mister! Ministry! R.E.M.! Rolling Stones! Tears For Fears! Peter Gabriel! Blondie! Porcupine Tree! The Roches! Brian Eno! David Bowie!

Is there a thread for this type of thing? Listing all the journeyman dudes who've played in, like, 65 different bands since the '70s?

The Ubiquitous HIred Gun Session Veteran Shout-Out Thread ?

I feel like session dudes are different from dudes who show up in the touring lineup of Foreigner one year and are backing Ted Nugent the next and then join Whitesnake and then...and then...

You mean dudes like Bill Buford, who went from Yes to Crimson to Genesis? Or John Wetton, who went Crimson ->Roxy Music->UK->Asia? Or session cats like Jim Keltner, Simon Phillips and Pino Palladino who record with everyone while essentially playing full time in various bands? Or, like, GE Smith, who I last saw playing bass with Roger Waters?

that list would be freakin' huge. even if you just took the 80's Fripp/Belew/Levin/Bruford lineup. I think Tony Levin is 2 degrees of separation from just about everyone.

Belew gets Paul Simon (he's on Graceland!), Zappa, Talking Heads, Bowie, Nine Inch Nails ...

So I am finally getting around to chiming in on the tour- I went to see them on Sat 10/4 and immediately went on vacation afterward so the memory is not as crisp as last sunday(!)...but all in all this was a lot of fun, and hopefully set the stage for some further development of this group.

The setlist was as good as I could have hoped for- they didn't leave anything out that I would have truly wished to hear. Maybe ITCOCK, but that wouldn't really have fit.

Due to my seat I never even saw Fripp, not that it was a big deal but I couldn't get a read on him sonically either- aside from his leads, I never could really discern when he was soloing etc. He seemed like he cut a lot of solos short, most notably the Sailors Tale- that may have been just my expectations though.
Jakko was a remarkably able singer- I was surprised at how good his vocals sounded across a range of material. I was not completely convinced by Collins as a soloist- I thought he got a bit too much airtime vs his actual playing- he seemed like he sort of repeated a lot of ideas song-to-song. I did like the way he turned VROOOM into a chugga-chugga Peter Gunn theme sounding thing though.

Overall the ensemble stuff was the best- Level Five sounded great, as did Pictures of a City.

As for the 3 drummers they were the absolute highlight of the show. Maybe because you guys kept talking about Rieflin I paid extra attention to him- I didn't think he was as understated as everyone said. But overall, I thought the whole concept worked quite well, and the intensity of the percussion ratcheted up the tension nicely, and enhanced the display of overall power that the material at its best is designed for. Their combined playing on Red made the aforementioned and unfortunate soprano sax that much easier to ignore.

This was a memorable show and I hope they do more in the future, even if it's just touring occasionally. I'd definitely see them play again.

In that Fripp Wire interview above, he apparently holds a grudge because some Wire writer a few years back claimed "King Crimson were only ever a poor man's Black Sabbath, nothing more or less". Who the fuck would think that, save someone blatantly trying to troll Fripp?

The letters page in the Wire this month reveals that the writer in question was Ian Penman, and what he actually wrote was that KC were a "snob's Black Sabbath"

makes a little more sense. doesn't entirely make sense though.

doesn't make sense at all, unless all you care about KC is Fripp's guitar work.

Well, if he was trying to say Crimson was just a self-consciously "smarter" hard rock act, I suppose there are elements of that there. But there is a lot more to Crimson than the heavy stuff.

The really insulting thing about that description is the implication that snobs aren't allowed to like Black Sabbath. Nonsense. My love of Black Sabbath is every bit as snobbish as my love of King Crimson.

As for the actual nexus between King Crimson and Black Sabbath, that of course is the band Iron Claw.

hadn't heard of them, but wikipedia turned this up...

Wilson, the group's bass guitarist, decided to form a band after seeing a Led Zeppelin concert in 1969 and the band's name was eventually chosen by Wilson from a lyric from King Crimson's "21st Century Schizoid Man".

which band?

Iron Claw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcGhHXLBa9g

My last 15 minutes have been a heavy psych workout

Lost interest in KC for the most part a while back but I'm glad everyone is seeing/talking about them. I haven't heard the 3 drummer line up yet but I did see the 2008 tour (or whenever it was) and it seems to me that Rieflin is the best possible grounding for the other two, he's a great, great musician. Larks Tongues and the Epitaph live boxset, the 4th disc in particular, were always my absolute favorites although the entire oeuvre is worthwhile in the final analysis.

Incidentally, the Jamie Muir and Derek Bailey Dart Drug album from 1981 was a seminal one for me about 12 years ago... completely free and liberating and colorful and, contradictorily, somehow totally musical whilest being absolutely not musical at all. Never did hear the MIC stuff, guess I should go track it down!

BTW I highly recommend the Elements Tour Box, even for those who are already familiar with all of this material; the alternate takes are really sequenced in a pretty amazing way. Sailor's Tale into Talking Drum into Lark's Tongue I into Fracture is some amazing stuff and it's all different from what you're familiar with.

I've been listening to it quite a bit and agree with the above. The sound quality is ace and there are some great moments throughout. The live no-vocals version of Neurotica is killer. It would have been a good addition to the tour had they deigned to play some 80s material. However, anyone buying it because it contains material from the current band should be forewarned that most of the snippets are about a minute in length. They do sound awesome though.

also has what kind of sound like canonical versions of Deception of the Thrush and Level 5 to me, plus a really cool and more itneresting version of Heaven and Earth.

Heaven and Earth was miles better than the rest of TCOL, and this version is better than the LP one.

Pretty short elapsed time from "if the tour was the end I'm fine with it" to "we're working on new KC material" via the KC fb page.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/rockandpopfeatures/11196079/Robert-Fripp-interview-Im-a-very-difficult-person-to-work-with.html

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10153322400567519&id=14038332518

Live album from the current tour has been released
http://shop.schizoidshop.com/king-crimson---live-at-the-orpheum-cddvd-a-p1429.aspx

seems to be a rather truncated setlist

yeah...well they did say it was a mini album. I allso thought it wasn't going to be out until january.

How stupid is that. It's not like they played 4 hours. Seems like a bait and switch to buy this taste when no doubt they are readying the whole show(s). Though of course Fripp is the king of making people buy the same thing 5 times.

I'm sure in short order every date will be available as a 'digital boxset'

Just surfaced, the only video footage of KC with Greg Lake:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8t4lYNjS0Y

1st KC date in the UK announced – 11 September at the Lowry in Salford. More to come, presumably.

But this date in Las Vegas might be just as entertaining:

http://worldchampslive.com/ladychamps/register/robert-fripp-up-close/

I can think of no one better to learn public speaking from than a guy who didn't say a single word from the stage on his band's last tour.