King Crimson: Classic Or Dud

I've heard great things about RED, but I've never heard it. Possibly due to the stigma of John Wetton. Even though RED predated Asia by veritable eons, I cannot erase the crime.

Red is ace, and has been discussed here before. The instrumental tracks are the ones that sound less dated - especially the title track and its 'devils interval' backstory.

But I think Wettons vocals on Starless and Red are lovely and I disagree that the placid quietness of them is just 'static' - there is a line on one of the tracks on Starless... 'My Home... was a place by the sea' which I just adore and I've never known why - but it kept popping up in my head when I had my Steve Erickson reading binge a couple of years ago and it has that same mesmeric Erickson quality of difference and strangeness but not different and not strange (ooh thats a hopeless description: Somebody save me here!).

There are three formulas involved in the Larks/Starless/Red tracks - and I think I like them all.

There are the dream-like songs I've already mentioned - all playful repeating echos of other things, and that strange wailing sound which I always imagine is one of them corrugated tubes you wave around your head - but presumably is just frippertronics (it turns up on evening star too). I always thought they were an influence on Nirvana on Nevermind's quiet moments but haven't seen it confirmed that Cobain knew this stuff.

Then there are the agressive ones - Red, the loud bits in Larks part one - the bit in Fracture where it suddenly changes speed. For a prog band they sure conjure with an magikal energy - that stuff sounds great - its a shame that neither the post rockers like Mogwai / Aeorgramme / etc or the Nu Metallers studied that stuff to avoid making their mistakes. Its not just a feature of that period of Crimson though, 21st C on the first album, the bit nicked from Mars on the second have that feel too.

The bits that are left form a third grouping, mainly instrumental and much more passive - but definately not static. The quiet bits of Larks pt1, Trio, Night Watch. Larks overtly references Vaughn Williams and thats a good suggestion of what's going on, Debussy and Satie too. But there is a lack of optimism in those tracks that doesn't sit well with the grace of those influences. They are bleak and hopeless feeling too.

"Easy Money" has this (on the live versions, not the studio version, alas) great (for prog rock, mind you) bit of lyric:

"So I argued with the judge, But the bastard wouldn't budge, 'cause they caught me licking fudge, and they never told me once, you were a minor..."

Mark- Apparently Red is KC's favourite album ever. He also loved the raincoats, having written some brief notes for the reissue of their excellent debut. Even though nirvana sucked he had good taste (though I think that he only said that to piss off the metal fans that bought his music).

Agnes Moorehead, obviously. :)

Ladies of the Road and Formetera Ladies are the clunkers I refered to above btw. Though I think Sinfields worst lyrics are on Still.

Truly unfathomable, I wouldn't have believed it had I not seen it with my own eyes. However, it explains much. There's a site where I help write reviews for prog rock albums, and we once received a snippy letter for dissing the Wake of Poseidon album (or at least, not being fanboy-ish enough towards it), and the person, opening up by claiming we had "less wit and culture than an ant" (yep) used much of the material found in the Wake of Poseidon chapter as their defense of the album and its depth. Maybe it was even The Keeper of the onyx-embolden'd-husking-jewelled-warthogs website himself! :)

Cue your golf swing.

Wow... Mind = blown.

Very cool! thx ned

"that's some really wild stuff"

In The Lounge of the Crimson King

More on Belew's fourth-rate David Byrne impersonation - "I repeat myself under stress, I repeat myself under stress." Geddit? Hilarious, eh? Anybody who finds that remotely amusing in any way should be avoided.

Dave Q really killed it on this thread, huh? I like lots of KC but I hardly ever find myself playing them. When I do, it's either Larks' Tongues or Beat.

I think Belew's a pretty terrible lyricist but that was kinda the point, right? The lyrics weren't supposed to stand out. It was all about the music at that point.

Met this guy tonight who said he'd done tarot card readings with Adrian Belew, back in '83 or so

the story just got weirder from there

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILSVAUjd5QI&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Fripp speaks

excellent...wish it was longer

2009 Crimson, with Porcupine Tree drummer as second drummer, was awesome live.

so, who is buying the 13 CD, 1 DVD, 1 Blu-Ray of Larks' Tongue In Aspic?

http://www.dgmlive.com/news.htm?entry=3916

Just registered for DJM live site just so I could hear a sparse guide track for "Islands" the song. Boz sounds like he's singing into a cheap condenser mike, but otherwise it's quite lovely.

'Islands' is the worst album ever made by anybody.
― dave q, Friday, February 15, 2002 7:00 PM (10 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

NO.

its kind of weird to imagine that King Crimson only played a fixed amount of concerts when they were active. it feels like they're able to just create more and more live bootleg material at will, even if it was phyiscally impossible for them to have played that many dates.

So many of them are pretty dodgy quality though, aren't they?

http://static.rateyourmusic.com/lk/l/w/dd360157ea8e506661983ea7336800bc/4330188.gif

classic:

'released in three separate editions to satisfy the merely curious and the expectant collector'

so, who is buying the 13 CD, 1 DVD, 1 Blu-Ray of /Larks' Tongue In Aspic/?

http://www.dgmlive.com/news.htm?entry=3916

based on what you said about Bozzio and cymbals, Bobby Fripp woulda had a heart attack should he have been on the bandstand.

I am gonna see them in Newark, and if there are some train wrecks, I might be hugely entertained.

Looks like they're here on Thurs, I don't think I'm gonna go, even though I do wish I had caught them the first time around.

The Bozzio thing is so weird, I can only think that he's been playing solo drums for so many years now (clinics improvising over foot ostinatos on the infamous overgrown kit) that his mental pathways for remembering songs and parts have atrophied.

Yeah, adding Bozzio sounded like it would be a good match, but I guess he's just not up for this. I was planning on seeing them at the end of November, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to skip it. Pretty bummed that this all seems so off.

It's too bad because there are literally hundreds of drummers they could have hired who would slay it. I guess they wanted a buddy from the old days.

Really, they should have done ye olde Drummer Audition Youtube Show, huge missed opportunity there.

No doubt it's been pointed out elsewhere, but there are now more Zappa alumni in Beat than anyone who actually played in King Crimson.

I'm not saying Bozzio was a disaster, I think once he gets all the cues down he'll be fine, but yeah he doesn't feel like a great fit the way Carey did. Belew did mention Stewart Copeland was interested in the role, that would've been pretty wild, but probably a bad fit as well.

Get a young drummer, they're all killers now.

i’m still holding on to my ticket for 11/10 in DC

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:e72cwu7fen37hzzzhwy6mkxp/bafkreig6vwjn3skkwagbi5tmt7kyccffjhnbzramaphd6zsoyy7hfgtsza

Stuart Copeland apparently really wanted the gig for this tour!

something possessed me today and i listened to the first five & a half king crimson albums in a row and i think they're the most immensely frustrating band i've ever heard

you didn't make it through SBB and Red?

starless & bible black was the first i more consistently disliked so i didn't make it the whole way through, but maybe i'll get to red tomorrow

you should definitely give Red a shot. guessing the noodly/improv-heavy side of the band is what you're frustrated with, well Red doesn't have much of that outside of "Providence", plus the first and last track are clearly some of the best KC music ever.

I'm kind of surprised all the 69-74 albums save Poseidon are bolded on RYM. you'd think Lizard would be a fairly polarizing one (I love it but it's def got a lot of that so-bad-its-good factor to it - I get why Fripp thinks it sucks). Islands has some great bits but I'm not totally sold on it as an album. SaBB straight up feels unfinished, but it's been a while since I've listened to it.

Yeah, adding Bozzio sounded like it would be a good match, but I guess he's just not up for this. I was planning on seeing them at the end of November, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to skip it. Pretty bummed that this all seems so off.

fwiw I thought there were more great moments than bad ones and I think the deeper they get into this tour the better they'll be. tbh I feel like anyone with any interest should see it, the next few years may really be the curtain call for the whole group of legendary prog rockers and I'm not sure if we'll ever get to see anything like this again.

this tour still goes on for like another month so let’s hope Bozzio has it down by the end, lol

some of their improv is fine, and some is just totally formless or the most irritating sort of skronky prog, which is where starless & bible black mostly ended up

the first four all have their moments but they're rather inconsistent - even in the court has "moonchild"

I'm pretty much only interested in their skronky prog!

moonchild is amazing but maybe you're referencing the noodly improv bit

For my KC playlist, I made an edit of "Moonchild" that simply fades out after three and a half minutes. The improv section has little to recommend it, IMHO

There's a reason Greg Lake wouldn't have worked in AMM

No room for his superannuated choirboy vocals.

Anyway my best of the Bruford era playlist runs:

Larks' Tongues In Aspic, Part One
Exiles
Larks' Tongues In Aspic, Part Two
The Great Deceiver
The Night Watch
Fracture
Red
One More Red Nightmare
Starless

Most of the rest I can leave.

going this weekend, hoping the reports of Bozzio's demise are exaggerated

i just went and watched a live video of missing persons banging through Walking in LA in 1982 and it's hard to believe that animated young man was the guy playing with KC. but i have heard the shows have improved

Right, a big part of why I wanted to see this is the fire he brought to FZ stuff, but that's completely absent from any clips that I've watched so far.

yeah i mean the long section of ambient noodling in "moonchild" just isn't very compelling as far as ambient noodling goes

red is clearly the second best from their 60s/70s work, it's not entirely my thing but it feels broadly successful on its own terms in a way that none of the others except in the court of the crimson king did. though it still manages to waste a track with "providence"

the long section of ambient noodling in "moonchild" just isn't very compelling

I have a busy life that leaves me with much less time than I would like each day to enjoy my record collection. I'm sure as hell not going to spend nine minutes of it listening to hippies randomly tapping on things.

I agree with Matt #2 that there's a lot to like from the Wetton-Bruford-Cross era. There's an interesting contemporaneous interview with Fripp here about why he'd called time on it.

In the Court feels kinda like Faust's first album in that it's trying to reinvent rock music entirely and give the audience something that subverts expectations and is unlike anything they've heard before. I can still remember how weird it made me feel the first time I heard it, but yeah when I got to Moonchild it was like...what the fuck are you boys doing?? Everything was so incredible up to this point! Now I think it adds to the album's overall eeriness but the version I've got now lops 3 minutes off of it which I think is a good call.

(side note...I like this section for my occassional prog rock DJ nights, since you can play it over something like E2-E4 or Ashra's Sunrain or Soweisoso and create something kinda chaotic)

There's an interesting contemporaneous interview with Fripp here about why he'd called time on it.

I don't know how much it was his decision. I mean, that lineup made three albums and lost a member on each one. They were a quintet on Larks', then Jamie Muir quit. They were a quartet on Starless, and then David Cross was fired. Finally, Red was just a trio record (and it's my least favorite of that era; I know that's a minority opinion).

Ian MacDonald apparently was down to rejoin the band though, and given how much of the first album was written by him I think they could've come up with something real interesting. the clock was ticking on that sort of music though and I wonder how many of them knew it

Anyway my best of the Bruford era playlist runs:

Larks' Tongues In Aspic, Part One
Exiles
Larks' Tongues In Aspic, Part Two
The Great Deceiver
The Night Watch
Fracture
Red
One More Red Nightmare
Starless

I have to assume you are considering talking drum and LTIA 2 as one track, otherwise… I must bid you adieu
And great deceiver fucking slays but eventually I just couldn’t anymore with that first verse.
Besides that I think your selections are otm

1. Larks' Tongues In Aspic, Part One
2. Exiles
3. The Talking Drum->Larks' Tongues In Aspic, Part Two
4. The Night Watch
5. Fracture
6. Red
7. One More Red Nightmare
8. Starless (Asbury Park)
9. In the Court… (Asbury park)

IMO

As seems obvious from the interview, Fripp was getting into all that J.G. Bennett stuff, not sure if that a cause or effect of King Crimson splitting. TIL Russell Hunter of the Pink Fairies went to school with Robert Fripp - at Wimborne Grammar, not Wimbledon Grammar I assume.

i don't recall that lineup ever playing Court at Asbury park

oh maybe you mean Schizoid Man (which at least on USA was not from the Asbury Park show)

ugh yes schizoid man not Court

was that not on the restored Club version of the Asbury Park show? Maybe it's from Central Park? My fave rendition of the song, anyways

oh it might be on the club cd, I don't recall

Yes... apparently the original release had 20CSM from Providence but the expanded replaces that with the Asbury Park one and puts it at the end of the show, as on the day

<<< No doubt it's been pointed out elsewhere, but there are now more Zappa alumni in Beat than anyone who actually played in King Crimson. >>> (as noted by user 'ick Jagger (Matt #2)' above)

Wow!

I won't embarrass myself with an insanely long childhood tale of my love for and eventual betrayal by Robert Fripp (guitar, mellotron, devices), but would simply like to reiterate that my fave KC albums are 'Lizard' and 'Starless and Bible Black' (I think the latter album makes terrific use of studio editing / overdubbing of the live material to make for a very satisfying 'studio' album --- back in the day there was not a clue in the press or interviews that it was mainly taken from live recordings, and I never suspected until much later, then it was confirmed by the release of the Concertgebouw tape and 'The Great Deceiver' box set. I have great love for 'Red' as well, despite the usual Crimson problems with poor lyrics and singing, the songs are all killer. My only issue with 'Red' is that I LOVE the song 'Starless' (who doesn't?) but first encountered it live (in person and on bootleg) in the quartet version of the band. I greatly prefer it with David Cross's violin on the 'ballad' part (rather than the studio LP sax) and with Fripp's majestic and mind-blowing guitar playing the reprise of the theme at the end (rather than the studio LP sax). 2nd period with Ian McDonald just seems 'wrong' to me (tho I love him in the original lineup and especially on the 'McDonald and Giles' LP the two of them did after quitting the band. BUT the sax solo on 'One More Red Nightmare' and the return of Robin Miller (oboe) and Marc Charig (trumpet) from MK I Crimson really does provide 'closure' that I appreciated at the time, since the band was declared kaput before the LP came out in the US. Also, Charig's solo on 'Fallen Angel' is mind-blowing in the aggressively elecric context of MK II Crimson. In other words, love 'Red', but always substitute a live take of 'Starless' for the studio version these days. And, I dunno ... the shorter tracks on Side 1 of 'Starless and Bible Black', including brutally edited-down live improvs, and Side 2 (the title track is one of the lineup's all-time great improvs, and it's insane that 'Fracture' was done live --- other than the minor, but obvious overdubs of some percussion and little bits of violin and guitar --- and is basically note-perfect.) 'Lizard' is a crazy album! I loved it then and love it now, but it sure was a challenge to me when I was 12 years old, after the first two albums. As for the talk above about being bugged by KC MK II's improv -- at the time I thought they were doing something revolutionary. but i wasn't yet familiar with actual European improv, and I was outraged by Chris Cutler of Henry Cow putting down Crimson's 'improvising' as 'standard blues rock jamming', but ... he's got a point. The studio LPs of the MK II band have the best of the improvs (along with the aforementioned 'Great Deceiver' box). The 'Moonchild' improv section on the debut irritated me to no end when I first heard it, later exposure to the likes of the Music Improv Company and AMM (and Henry Cow, for that matter) and it seems much closer to the spirit (if not the discipline) of 'european free improvisation' than MK II band's ... 'jamming' (well, Cutler was right! But it's mostly GOOD blues rock jamming -- and with lots of mellotrons!!! YEAH!)

I will see Belew and Levin any time in the future should they be doing 80s KC repertoire. I enjoyed the show in Newark last night, mostly… but Bozzio has clearly not learned a lot of the songs they're doing… when there's supposed to be a transition from a part for a verse to a part for a chorus, or when there are dynamics key to the composition, he would barrel though the song, making none of the necessary distinctions… he did play the "waiting Man" percussion intro on syn drum pads perfectly fine, and some of the simpler numbers he's okay on, but a month and half into this tour, it doesn't seem like he knows the material, and he doesn't much lock in with Levin, given as we have established that he doesn't really play with people any more, just does clinics where he plays, what, his parts from Lather? I never thought I'd say this, cuz I don't like Tool, but Lil Abner was better. Does Bozzio say, "I'm not playing like Bruford, I play this shit my way, I'm not playing his parts, fuck him."?

There were technical problems for Ade: something in his rig, whatever that thing on a rack he uses is, wasn't connected right and a tech had to scurry onstage and fuck with it for like 5 minutes, when I would say "OK, this isn't working, gotta do something else," but he made the guy fiddle with it while Vai covered for him… it was hard to watch… there a few times, like on "Frame by Frame," that Vai and belew didn't sync up…

I gotta say that the idea of the prancing, posing, preening and primping Vai taking the seat of the famously immobile founder didn't sound good to me 2 years ago, but he really does add something and he sounds terrific… he may flounce around, and he does occasionally plays in his own florid style, but he has found a way to play Fripps' parts faithfully but with his own verve.

Vernon Reid and Will Calhoun were there: otherwise, white people with white hair, no pretty girls at all…

seeing them in DC tonight and vm’s report kinda bumming me out.

any time I have the opportunity to hear those two guys play those songs, I am happy to do so, and I hope you feel the same, Boring, I did enjoy it, despite my qualms, and i bet you will too…

I do think just as many would come to see this show if it was Pat instead of Bozzio, and for gods sake Pat has been loyal to Adrian and Bob, and he, uh, knows how the songs go.

I was at the Montréal show and had a great time. Bozzio was solid! A little looser and groovier than Carey. Belew keeps having the same gear issues early on, which is kind of hilarious, but things tightened up quickly. It was nice hearing the THRAK cuts, Tiny Lites was delightful, Levin and Vai were absolute beasts, Belew was in good vocal form. No complaints. Though the 2024 BEAT was obviously stronger, that was an all-timer for me.

i'm really surprised belew keeps having these gear issues, they brought on a new tech after a few shows too, and it's not like he's not touring almost all the time anyway (either solo, with Beat, or with Jerry Harrison) and I've never heard of him having this problem. maybe it's a piece of vintage gear that is just super tempermental at this point.

ya he had gear issues on Thela, hard to tell exactly what was going on but he kept looking offstage and seemed pretty irritated, afterwards gave a look to Levin like "thank god that's over"

No gear issues here in DC tonight, and I didn’t notice any problems from Bozzio (but it’s not like I have the albums memorized). They seemed like they were having fun.

Concert was in a theater in a massive hotel/casino complex, and to get to and from parking they make you walk past the casino (but not in) and expensive mall-like shops and a food court.

apparently a show was filmed recently too, wonder how that will turn out.

One of the shows with Carey was filmed as well.