King Crimson: Classic Or Dud

to be honest the entire recorded catalogue of William "The Refrigerator" Perry kinda sucks

― frogbs

he should've stuck to his day job, fighting COBRA

You do not like his singing (which at least on "Elephant Talk" is redolent of Byrne, but on which other songs does belew imitate him?), but do you also dislike his guitar playing? It is distinct from Fripp, for instance, when they are not interlocking, and re: their soloing style…

I think there's just something that comes with - I dunno... being in Fripp's orbit - that induces you to work in a certain way. I mean I was never a big fan of The Police, but I really like those two Fripp & Andy Summers albums.

>> question for them what not like Belew (I think you guys are all nuts): You do not like his singing (which at least on "Elephant Talk" is redolent of Byrne, but on which other songs does belew imitate him?), but do you also dislike his guitar playing? It is distinct from Fripp, for instance, when they are not interlocking, and re: their soloing style…

Yes, I dislike both his singing and playing *in the context of KC*. Basically, what he does is not what I come to KC for. I like him just fine on The Name Of This Band Is Talking Heads.

wow I remember none of that, I was just an early-high-school kid devouring it all

The numbers here are way small though. The number of Crimson fans I knew in high school is smaller than the number of regulars on this thread. Roughly 10x that number had important opinions on Rush. Fortunately I graduated before Van Halen's "Jump" meteor-striked all of this snobbery.

I remember once I was wearing my King Crimson Red shirt and someone stopped me to tell me how much he loved that album. But then he started describing a different album entirely and it was only when he mentioned how much he also loved "Blue" and "Yellow" that I figured out he was talking about the Belew group

I like Belew and his KC output, or at least 80% of it. The 80's albums are all great as is Thrak; the only really awful lyrics were later on like The World is My Oyster Soup etc. I even like a large portion of his solo output and I would recommend anyone and everyone give Desire Caught by the Tail a listen, which is instrumental and really amazing.

fuck it, here's side one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24DKSkOQzm8

Rationally, I know Belew is a talented writer, excellent guitarist, skillful singer, and sometimes he makes an effort at writing interesting lyrics. But there's some factor that turns me off unless his aim is dead-centre, and the material is really exceptional. When he's just OK or "interesting", I can't enjoy it.
I'm glad some people like him more than I do, because he deserves it!

one thing about Belew I have a lot of respect for is that he's genuinely really good at imitating other vocalists - obviously his David Byrne is really good on the recent Remain in Light tour, also during those Gizmodrome shows they play several Police songs and he can do Sting better than Sting can at this point. not to mention his Dylan impression on Zappa's "Flakes" which is as spot on as it gets. also can't help but notice his voice has virtually not changed AT ALL over the last 40 years. combine that with the fact that he's an excellent guitar player and can write a lot of songs quickly and it's no wonder he got so much work back then.

also rusho I feel obligated to mention that first Bears album is actually quite good, like way better than I thought it would be, which is not to say that you personally would like it at all

"Big Electric Cat" is my fave solo thing of his

“It's weird that Belew shows up on music that I like (Crimson, Bowie, Talking Heads) and yet his own music is just terrible.”

in light of this thread i’ll say that this is actually my professional legal opinion.

I love early 90s KC, but the only thing I can sort of criticize Belew for is an image thing: the poor guy’s professional career took off so late that he basically went straight into dad rock.

Early 80s KC, I meant.

i would hardly call the lyrics to Frame by Frame or Three of a Perfect Pair cringeworthy or bad

one thing about Belew I have a lot of respect for is that he's genuinely really good at imitating other vocalists - obviously his David Byrne is really good on the recent Remain in Light tour, also during those Gizmodrome shows they play several Police songs and he can do Sting better than Sting can at this point. not to mention his Dylan impression on Zappa's "Flakes" which is as spot on as it gets. also can't help but notice his voice has virtually not changed AT ALL over the last 40 years. combine that with the fact that he's an excellent guitar player and can write a lot of songs quickly and it's no wonder he got so much work back then.

― frogbs

he actually did a lot of really good shit on that tour with zappa, zappa just mixed most of his stuff out of the sheik yerbouti album because he was mad that belew quit zappa's band to play with bowie, who was offering belew a _lot_ more money. i don't see why zappa should be _mad_ about this stuff, i thought he was a _capitalist_...

also rusho I feel obligated to mention that first Bears album is actually quite good, like way better than I thought it would be, which is not to say that you personally would like it at all

― frogbs

i was just shitposting, i actually have heard the first bears album and it's ok but not really my cup of tea

re: belew-- his solo is so nope for me, but yeah i think belew's guitar is exactly what i often want, and he melds so well in bowie and talking heads whose live rome is beyond favorite+. obv kc era i don't know, belew is maybe a second part of why i didn't try to understand/listen to kc. (first part is straightup distrust of prog, really).

i finished listening to blahblah black bible while hiking and appreciated it often. the most accessible and straightforward stuff was best suited for my walk, like lament and fracture. anyhow maybe i'm one step into my journey lol.

TY all

i don't see why zappa should be _mad_ about this stuff, i thought he was a _capitalist_...

if I know Zappa I'll bet he hated Bowie for the dumbest possible reason

Fun fact I was late to learn, Belew does most/much of the horn part (via guitar) on "You Can Call Me Al."

I was going to drop in to stan for that Bears album but someone already did.

I’d never heard (or noticed) Belew’s Dylan impression – you’d think that’s an easy one to impersonate but damn, it’s good.

Yeah, I recall the first Bears album being solid and fun. I've never heard the Belew-produced band that became the Bears, the Raisins:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsFTi1DuZ8U

Great song – Bears re-made it for their debut.

had a re-listen to Lizard last night and I'm still blown away by what a strange album that is. I don't really think there's anything like it in rock history really. the whole band basically fell apart, minus Fripp and Sinfield, the former of whom didn't really write songs, and the latter was just the lyric/vibes guy. so I think what happened is they just made an album based on Sinfield's "psychedelic circus" idea that he seems to use on everything he does, but nobody quite knew what they were doing, so they all just kind of added their own interpretation of what freaky jazz carnival music should sound like. actually a lot of the playing on this is really good, Collins and Tippett get so much leeway to just honk around. Fripp gets some decent guitar work in but it's his mellotron stuff that's really odd. Gordon Haskell gets a bad rap for this but honestly he's just trying his best. If you listen to his solo album the man actually *can* sing but not like this and I think he's just doing what he thinks should be done. He doesn't really get the music either. Apparently everyone involved hated making it and don't much like the final product either and you can really get that. I mean listen to "Happy Family", who mixes a track that way? It's like the sole direction was "fuck it up".

which is what I think makes Steven Wilson's remix of it arguably one of the most successful remasters ever, he gets what makes the album special and knows how to clean it up without smoothing over any of the album's weirdness. wild that they've reissued this several times with the original mix, even Fripp has said SW's was way better!

it's odd that this album and particularly Islands got so much attention from the most recent KC lineup but I'm glad they did since they were the albums that actually deserved a second look.

iirc fripp had all the parts to lizard all sorted, recorded the bass and drums together telling them exactly what to play, and then the rest improv'd on top of it. it was his baby.

someone shd do a radioshow w/fripp where he plays music by all his favourite singers and lets us know what he thinks good singing is and i can not go anywhere near listening to it

yeah I fully believe Fripp was mainly responsible for the uh...."structure" of Lizard. I also think he didn't really know what he was doing and thought the final result was a trainwreck (not hard to read between the lines in his interviews on the subject). I'm kind of interested in what Fripp's songwriting consists of exactly, I think he's a good guy for direction and obviously he's a master of gnarly riffs but by and large it seems like he lets the other guys write the songs. even on his solo record Exposure you get the impression that the actual tunes are coming from outside. I guess that's what makes Lizard & Islands so fascinating, there really was no one else at that point.

I still enjoy Lizard a lot, odd as it is, though mostly for "Cirkus" and the title track.

for me "Happy Family" is the best, that descending instrumental bit at the end where Tippett starts going mental on the piano is one of the most terrifying sections of music I can think of

the second side of Lizard is quite a composition, I guess I disagree with you that it sounds like chaos; I'd say only maybe only Cirkus and Happy Family sound chaotic.

i think Islands is the only 70s one I don't play much and even it I don't hate.

the first half of it is remarkably pretty (though how often do you hear free jazz played upon a marching rhythm like that?) - second half kinda goes to hell in a cool way. it's that same brassy swinging jazzrock they do on Schizoid Man and Pictures of a City but those are a lot more structured jams, where the whole band starts and stops on a dime. here there are long sections where everyone's just playing at once - like from 15:30, I hear two separate lines from Mel Collins, mellotron howling all over the place, dissonant guitar, and then eventually some piano over the top...but they all sound like they're playing a different song! like some of the bits interact well together, but all at once? it's wild. the only thing keeping it grounded is Andy McCullough. (btw, one great thing about the remaster is you actually get to hear all this fairly clearly)

also Indoor Games, while not "chaotic" exactly, still makes a lot of really odd choices. when you break it down it's quite a bit like "Easy Money"

lizard still probably my favorite king crimson, agree Haskell gets a bad rap for no reason, it's a super weird record and he did his best, shame he never got to try it live, probably didn't want to, but I feel like the live crimson show was always better than the record

I do really like the clips I've heard of the islands lineup playing Cirkus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhMojknXvF4

Fripp going to be on this season of Live from Daryl’s House on Nov. 15: https://variety.com/2023/music/news/daryl-hall-live-from-daryls-house-returns-1235772685/

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