King Crimson: Classic Or Dud

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWaz8xfFjuE

Guess Fripperlips is done for good?

http://ultimateclassicrock.com/king-crimson-robert-fripp-quits-music-business/

Hope he enjoys retirement!

He's been retired for a while, I believe. Couple of years? Also, for what it's worth, he was semi-retired for pretty much the second half of the '70s, too.

Yeah, this is not new news.

Wait, hold up:

A multi-disc deluxe edition of the 1973 Crimson classic ‘Larks’ Tongues in Aspic’ is set for release in October and will include 13 CD’s, a DVD and a Blu-Ray disc.

13 CDs!?!?!

Disc details at the bottom of this page: http://www.dgmlive.com/news.htm

So basically a bunch of live discs previously sold through the site. That's cool though. Band in the Muir era was neat.

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

longest mens room line i've ever seen at the NYC show, strangely no line for the ladies' room...

letting steve vai do steve vai stuff instead of fake fripp works really well it turns out. if you like those three records this tour is totally worth it imo

I got tickets to Chicago and Madison, because I figured, you know. these guys are by and large irreplaceable. Like, Belew and Levin, they alone are one of a kind talents. Vai, I don't usually care about him, or his playing, but I like that he stepped up to this challenge that is out of his wheelhouse, if not beyond his abilities. And Carey, he's the best thing about Tool, and one of the best drummers ever, so to see him in any context (let alone one where he gets to pretend to be Bill Buford) is always a joy.

That November weekend in Chicago, man ... Beat tour, Drive-By Truckers doing "SRO" in its entirety, and now Stevie Wonder. (I think Iron Maiden is in town, too.)

I deeply hope to see this tour in Australia - Belew has said they're keen, but getting these 4 guys together with a clear schedule must be difficult & time is not onside - fingers crossed!!

Well, tbf, when one key member of your band's most pressing commitment is Peter Gabriel, and the other's is Tool, that probably leaves them with a lot of free time.

Does anyone think Vai looks a bit fragile, or is that just how he looks in general? I was getting latter-day Mick Mars vibes from his stage presence on the YT clips I've been watching.

It's from decades of making funny guitar hero faces.

Also, honestly, he's probably focusing pretty intently. This ain't no arena spandex goof.

longest mens room line i've ever seen at the NYC show, strangely no line for the ladies' room...

― adam

i was surprised when i went to see crim in '13 how many women there were. not in a "my partner dragged me here" sense either, hipster nerds. and '13 was before the whole "i found a new way to get more women into king crimson concerts" thing became... i'll say before it was possible, in practical terms, for most people.

mostly dudes at the show outside philly

regardless, anyone remotely interested in checking this show out should treat themselves. it's one of the best concerts i've ever seen, and i'm not even the hugest crimson fan. even channeling fripp, vai is infectiously deferential to belew (who it's impossible to believe is 74!), while levin has finger extensions tapping along to danny carey's killer bruford impression. it's astonishing, no joke

Had to miss their DC show, anyone here go?

Seeing the Montréal show tomorrow. I couldn't be more excited to see this band at work.

Belew is an ageless wonder - I have the Gizmodrome live album (which is Belew, Stewart Copeland, and a couple other prog guys), Belew not only somehow sounds *exactly* like he did in the 80s, he also does a really good Police-era Sting impression, better than Sting himself could muster at this point

Spent the last week or so revisiting live stuff by every line up, after being reinspired after the Beat show. It’s interesting to track songs played by multiple line ups and compare, particularly how the 80s session treated Red era tracks be how they dealt with them in the 90s and 00s; and how the most recent incarnation treated Belew era songs (probably the most controversial thing the band ever did as far as the fan base is concerned)

One reason I'm glad Beat is touring and doing so many of the weird instrumentals from those records is because they never got live outings much after that period; which is weird because both the 00's and the most recent version would have done a great job with stuff like Sheltering Sky and Industry.

Which of you nerds will be at the Madison show Monday?

Whoops, Sunday.

I really should and I will probably regret not going (like I regret not seeing KC's final show here), but I've got an early morning flight to Japan the next day. Have fun!

myself and my top two Krim nerd buds went to Red Bank NJ two weeks ago to check this shit out…it's like our yearly prog loser outing, '22 Roxy, '23 peter Gabriel, both at MSG, but since I am so sick of the Beacon and MSG, we went to Jersey. And thus, there were probly incrementally more Rick Beato, "this is real music" rock mooks at this show than would have been at the Beacon, but only just. I do wish that people who would go to This Heat or Gang of Four or Godspeed or Hard Quartet would attend this band's shows in appreciable numbers, and not quite so many Steve Vai and Tool shitheads. And yeah, it is great to experience this music, which was shunted away by Jakko, who does indeed represent the interests of "KC IS A EUROPEAN BAND" dead enders.

Now this is bonkers. I was listening to "Red" (that new "elemental" mix) while waiting to take off. It was getting to the end, so I took out a book. "Starless" was still playing, and literally right after Wetton booms "starless ... and bible black!" I looked down and that exact phrase was in the book I was reading! Wasn't sure how to interpret this message from the prog gods.

Speaking of said "elemental" mix, apparently it is a new mix blending different takes of each song, so ... same but different. It's been a while since I listened to "Red," but I was really reminded that despite that band/lineup famously being a trio there is all sorts of stuff on there. Cello, trumpet/horns, lots of guitar overdubs. I guess I had just gotten used to listening to the live versions.

Jordan, I think there are cheap tix on secondary, it would be easy to pop in and listen to an hour!

yeah the mixes on there are interesting. Starless is particularly impressive, great brass and reeds parts.

The "elemental" mix of Red is extremely cool

Beat was a ton of fun. I never expected to enjoy Steve Vai so much, but it was kind of fascinating to watch his approach to Fripp's parts, some replications, some adaptation and some imprinting his own style. A lot of the fast picking on "Frame by Frame," for example, Vai did by tapping, but it still sounded cool. The only downside of the whole show was trying to watch everyone at once, because they're all up to something dope at any given time.

The Red "elemental" mix is still really blowing my mind and I normally not a big fan of these types of remix projects, esp on a record I already really love

I didn't like it. The bass sounds all distorted and horrible, and the panning is so wide it's hard to enjoy