King Crimson: Classic Or Dud

it is so peculiar to me that anyone other than saddo weirdo prog deadenders are so against Adrian Belew and his influence what we agree to call to King Crimson. There evidently were or maybe still are extremely odd english guys who would insist that KC IS A EUROPEAN BAND, THERE CAN BE NO PLACE FOR AMERICANS! and shit like that, could not handle Belew's levity and outgoing charm, and were delighted by the final, all Englishman version of the band (which was the first that really was conservative and backward-facing, as very obviously Bob let Superfan Jakko take over and do Lizard and Islands songs all day)…

― veronica moser

lol at the idea that jakko "took over"

no idea _what_ happened with the belew band but that king crimson documentary (which i now only faintly remember, to be fair) was interesting on those grounds

one of the funniest parts of that movie was the filmmaker asking jakko in so many words if he felt like he was kind of only there to do what fripp wanted him to, to which fripp interrupted and said "don't be talking about jakko like that, he is an equal member of the band and has an equal voice, he's not just there at my behest"

regarding the lizard and islands songs my understanding is that it has a certain amount to do with conflicts between fripp and EG regarding the rights to those recordings, and that once those conflicts were resolved to fripp's satisfaction he was happy to begin playing them. he seemed happy enough to play the belew-era songs as well. belew, however, didn't seem particularly happy about that.

my thing about belew is... it's not that he's an _american_, it's that there was this sort of polymorphous nature to pre-'81 crimson. fripp had and has a "puppet master" role to varying degrees. he's fascinating guy, weird, brilliant, genuinely charismatic. i think you can see how charismatic he is in how eager so many brilliant people like belew are to work with him, despite how demanding and, i'll just say it, controlling his behavior often is. he could probably have made it as a cult leader except that he's not, like, sociopathic or whatever the hell it is cult leaders have going on.

i guess i'd say is that fripp's role in the group is that he makes sure that the group always has an _aim_, he's the one who ultimately determines what that aim is. aside from that, though, they could do goddamn anything. to me, there's a world of difference between march 1972 king crimson and august 1972 king crimson. nobody in those bands left a _mark_ on the band the way belew did.

belew comes in and there's this strange contrast, this light and dark thing they have going on. to me, belew as a frontman is kind of like a goofy "wife guy" uncle. he's good-natured, kind of corny, awesome to be around, really obviously incredibly knowledgeable and talented. gets tiring to be around after a while. whereas fripp is weird in a kind of scary way, but somehow safely scary? like this is a guy who could probably do some really messed up stuff, but he doesn't because he's too busy obsessively practicing a song he wrote about a mental breakdown he had in 1973 over and over and over again. i vibe with that in a way i don't really with belew.

I think what makes Belew so special is that he's game for anything, maybe one of the most versitile singer-songwriters out there. Obviously there are a lot of people willing to experiment with all sorts of things within their own solo career or band but Belew always seemed willing to fill in as much or as little as is needed without feeling the need to take things over. I'm guessing that's why Fripp liked him. I do agree that Belew is kind of an awkward fit when you hear the band's 60s and 70s stuff but it's a testament to his skill that he was able to make it work anyway.

Part of what makes KC so fascinating is the fact that Fripp really isn't much of a songwriter. That's why he never really had much of a proper solo career and that's why King Crimson always sounded like a musicians around them. Even on Exposure you can tell that most of the actual songs were probably written by the singers, not that Fripp doesn't come up with some great contributions to them anyhow. So I can buy this idea that there's a continuity from Red -> Discipline, as this is the band now, this is the year, we go where the music takes us. I mean its not like the Lake band and the Wetton band were all that similar either. But then the 90s incarnation rolls around, centered around this "double trio" idea, which ultimately sounds to me like they were trying to recapture the sound of the Wetton band, but with more grunge? You can tell it's King Crimson, which is kind of the problem. And still I can't help but notice Belew is the only one writing actual songs there. I dig THRAK and TPTB though.

I think it's always been curious to me that as divergent and distinctive Belew is as a player, you can still hear his allegiance to something as basic or conventional as the Beatles. Whereas Fripp was always about starting over, ignoring influences, doing his own thing. That both ended up in a band together for so long is pretty remarkable, given Fripp's unique presence, which doesn't really allow a lot of room for outside influence.

I've always wondered what Belew would have been like without the Talking Heads. Did David Byrne allow him to be himself, or was Belew so enamored that he couldn't help but imitate?

Fripp gives me a Bob Hoskins as a serial killer vibe

lol i was trying to figure out a way to talk about robert fripp's personality without using the words "serial killer"

"like don't get me wrong when i say 'serial killer vibe' i don't mean that in a _bad_ way"

like i could say "bob fripp is the kind of guy where you wouldn't be surprised to find out that he kept women chained up in his basement" but i feel like it's something i'd need to go into greater detail on. being chained up in weird guys' basements is kind of a special interest of mine and there are a lot of different sorts of people that sentence could describe

first off, he's not the kind of guy i'd _want_ to chain me up in his basement. i'm sure robert fripp is an extremely slutty man but he just doesn't have that sort of robert-pattinson-in-twilight energy about him. (make fun of that robert-pattinson-in-twilight energy all you want but that _is_ a thing and i don't _care_ how "bourgeois" you think it is.) at the same time it's not one of those "oh my god i'm not getting out of here alive am i" situations. like it would all be very decent and respectful and above-board, no hanky-panky, no fooling around. none of that. maybe he'd take a couple of (completely chaste) pictures, but what he'd do with those pictures later is his business and nothing to do with me.

what he reminds me of most are those guys with the private dungeons where i'm not really into them, but i'd scene with them just because it was a really nice dungeon with some cool gear. nothing _against_ him per se, but mostly i'm just there for the dungeon.

pardon me y'all, i very conspicuously did _not_ get chained up in a dungeon this weekend and i was _very much expecting to_ and i'm sort of working out some of my frustrations here.

If anything he strikes me as a sub. The stereotype of the control freak who gets off on totally relinquishing it.

he only subs to the _music_, maaaaaaaaaaaan

idk like i said this has nothing to actually do with robert fripp haha

You know Beato is in his imperial phase because he keeps getting all these great interviews:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbQM09t5E2c

I don’t know much 80s KC except the instrumental to “sleepless” sounds cool as hell slowed down

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcNe8cDbpWE

I ended up buying tickets to see them in Chicago and again in Madison. I figured you know, this music has given me so much joy over the years, and Belew is 74 and Levin is 77, and both of them are one of a kind talents and can't do this forever. And then there's Carey and Vai, who are about the same age (62 and 63, not young, either), and while I don't care about Vai, he and Carey are incredibly gifted. Factor in other commitment schedules (Carey with Tool, Levin with Gabriel, Vai with whatever it is that Vai does), and honestly I don't know how easy it will be to get these nerds together again after this run.

I don't know if it's been mentioned already, but David Cross is touring with a band that's doing all of Lark's Tongue and some Starless and Red material too.

lol my first thought was the comedian.

And they're both touring, so I can imagine lots of disappointed KC and comedy fans.

Well I'll see you at the Madison show Josh, why not.

Yeah! yolo, etc

Steve Vai looks like The Baron in What We Do In the Shadows

does everyone know this except me: "up until the age of eight, [peter sinfield] was raised largely by his mother's german housekeeper maria wallenda, a high wire walker from the circus act the flying wallendas" ??

it reads like the notes towards a richard palmer-james lyric lol

loool @ the Baron

it reads like the notes towards a richard palmer-james lyric

...or an inspiration for "Cirkus"?

doesn't mention any high-wire work!

tho tumblers is i guess a name for acrobats (quite a funny one too, like calling the goalkeeper "the guy who lets them in")

I just looked up tickets for Beat at their Boston show and the ones remaining are ... >$200?!? The hell?

I suspect those are resale.

now this is the kind of content the internet was made for

https://www.threads.net/@tonylevin/post/C5g8-KfyEs6

some of these Beat shows are being moved to bigger venues, including the one I'm going to. its kind of wild how much demand there is for this...was 80's King Crimson itself ever this popular?

don't underestimate the Tool factor here

Goldmine report on those talks Bill Bruford gave recently.

Apparently he was asked to join what is possibly the last King Crimson line-up ever, then later asked by Adrian Belew to join the upcoming Beat tour. Pains me that he declined both offers, but also completely understandable why he wasn’t interested.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guW-ApBbpOU

He's retired! Gotta respect it, one of the few prominent musicians I can think of who decided to step away and mean it. Him and Bill Withers.

that Progject band seems pretty cool, hope to see them some day

onbce again subjecting myself to KC's unrelenting parade of fvck-awful singers (all of them) in order to make notes on the music in between them

You need to hear

"Groon Soundcheck", which is actually Giles, Giles and Fripp playing "Brazil" with Fripp singing

controp: all of King Crimson's singers (including Jakko) were good and perfectly suited their respective iterations of the band

You need to hear

_"Groon Soundcheck", which is actually Giles, Giles and Fripp playing "Brazil" with Fripp singing_

We should do a least-worst KC singer poll

Why, that would be Jakko. Late period live KC was the best KC.

jakko is the correct answer, but speaking as a girl with a speech impediment, god i can't help but be fond of john wetton's highly questionable diction. shit, i think i'm gonna go listen to "danger money" now.

Given that I've only heard Live in Toronto from his tenure, I think Jakko is a colourless singer. He hits the notes and that's it. He's better than Haskell but I'd rather hear even Boz Burrell (if he doesn't try to do scat singing).

He also came across as sullen in the recent documentary, like he was above it all. Maybe allowances should be made since he was going through a divorce at the time.

Michael Giles and Ian McDonald wouldn't have been the worst singers Crimson had if they had ended up singing lead on Crimson albums either.

Whoa whoa whoa, are we saying Greg Lake wasn’t amazing in his stint with the band???

i'm saying lake was extremely terrible everywhere, have i not said how much i hate him?: i hate greg lake and i am right to do so

hate him

But he believed in Father Christmas!

Lake and Wetton were good soft rock singers, but I can't stand that choirboy prog style unless they're warbling up in the stratosphere like Jon Anderson. I vote for him as the best KC singer actually, probably a good thing he was only a guest on one album though. Imagine him and Fripp in the same band!

the Belew erasure here is egregious

unrelenting parade of fvck-awful singers (all of them)

☝️☝️☝️

the Belew erasure here is egregious

― Paul Ponzi

the problem with belew's singing is that he's singing lyrics he wrote

you know they're aliens because they got lint on their dicks. my dick never had no lint on it, i can tell you that for damn sure.

Earthbound, indeed