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

i really liked the doc! i wasn't expecting much... i've seen all the old footage that's out there, and i didn't necessarily want to hear fripp bloviating. what i loved is that the doc did take a genuinely critical look at king crimson and at robert fripp, that being in king crimson isn't always the most _emotionally healthy_ choice. it's hard to walk that line, representing the fucked up side of a band like king crimson without making it a hit piece. and i felt like the film did that well.

I kinda want a doc that is just footage of them fucking

The most precise, complicated and Herculean love-making ever captured in porn.

I thought Trey Gunn's remark where he compared his tenure in KC to having a low-level illness (paraphrasing) was the most telling part.

The best thing about the doc, for me, was the amount of time it spent with Bill Rieflin. He seemed like the kindest, most open and likeable of the entire bunch.

I'd read/seen (maybe in the extras?) that his return to the band, migrating to keyboards, had caused waves, I'm wondering if that's because he maybe wasn't quite at the olympic-standard prog musician level?

The scene that really touched me is where they're all leaving a venue, walking down a corridor away from Aimes, Bill is the only one that bids him a genuine goodbye.

The most precise, complicated and Herculean love-making ever captured in porn.

― birdistheword

i mean, fripp has repeatedly in the past compared a king crimson concert to a "hot date". i think to a certain extent a king crimson concert is... an extremely intimate act _for him_. in that light i think his insistence on "no video or photos" makes sense. it's not _quite_ tantamount to making a sex tape to him, but from what he's said it seems not too far off, in terms of the way he subjectively experiences it.

and it's not like... fripp is pretty frank about the fact that in the '60s and '70s, he had a lot of sex with groupies. there's this idea that the only people who have ever listened to king crimson are men and first off, there's nothing wrong with men having sex with men - it's sex and it's very often extremely hot sex. having said that, the man was a well-known touring rock guitar god in the '60s and '70s and there was no shortage of women who were interested in him. those two king crimson songs sinfield wrote about groupies, it's not like the groupies were only there for sinfield.

-

the unusual thing about fripp is his... he has this dream that the "audient" will be engaged with the performance on equal terms. well, i think a lot of creators do have that dream, on some level. it just doesn't happen very often. hell, even his wanting the _band_ to be engaged with the performance on equal terms is... like, i don't know how someone can be on equal terms with someone who spends hours every day practicing the middle section of "fracture" just so he can still play it. and, like... not just when "fracture" is in the band's set. he was doing that in '92, i think there's a tape somewhere on DGM.

neurodiversity, like queer identity, is a question of self-identification to me, so i'm not gonna put that label on anybody else. having said that speaking as an autistic person, fripp's behavior seems very similar to some common autistic behavior i've seen. my subjective observation is that his behavior is pretty congruent with neurodiversity. and that can... neurodiverse people can be challenging to deal with. based on the documentary fripp seems like a challenging person to deal with.

I'd read/seen (maybe in the extras?) that his return to the band, migrating to keyboards, had caused waves, I'm wondering if that's because he maybe wasn't quite at the olympic-standard prog musician level?

― Maresn3st

i saw it in the theater, but i got the impression there that a lot of the... discomfort people might have had with rieflin was that he was dying. the people in anglophone culture i know... dealing with the reality of death is often uncomfortable, and i'm certainly no exception. i think that same knowledge backgrounds rieflin's behavior as contrasted to the others.

For sure people have talked about how not just the music but the culture and personality of KC changed when it became half-American. Not looser, per se - this is still Crimson - but less ... heavy? I saw this prog nerd make a cheeky but compelling case for the current all-American/no Fripp Beat incarnation being maybe the best version of the band yet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WlUFqlSeC4

In interviews with Jakko, he talks about the inception of the Schizoid Band and having regular phone calls with Fripp who would dispense advice on dealing with the other members with the emphasis on very one difficult person in particular, anyone know who that might be, Michael Giles perhaps?

There's some video where Fripp describes having personal difficulties with Mike Giles, that their connection was only musical. Jakko was married to Giles's daughter, though, so you'd figure he would have more insight than the guy who, in effect, brought about Giles quitting the band.

I'm wondering if that's because he maybe wasn't quite at the olympic-standard prog musician level?

Unless you're trying to emulate Keith Tippett, though, playing keyboards is by far the easiest role in King Crimson.

...I guess "playing bass at Boz standards" is also pretty elementary.

I think Bill was just a generally talented guy all around, drums, guitar, bass, other stuff. And clearly he was a good hang as well, hence his tenure in late era REM. That's the vibe I got from the documentary, if I recall correctly. Fripp mostly really liked having him around. He made the mood more positive.

Anybody who could work with both Robert Fripp and Al Jourgensen (Rieflin was in Ministry for years) had to be one of the most easygoing humans to ever walk the earth.

In interviews with Jakko, he talks about the inception of the Schizoid Band and having regular phone calls with Fripp who would dispense advice on dealing with the other members with the emphasis on very one difficult person in particular, anyone know who that might be, Michael Giles perhaps?

― Maresn3st

oh yes. from the context it's _very obviously_ michael giles, even though the doc cuts before jakko says his name.

For sure people have talked about how not just the music but the culture and personality of KC changed when it became half-American. Not looser, per se - this is still Crimson - but less ... heavy? I saw this prog nerd make a cheeky but compelling case for the current all-American/no Fripp Beat incarnation being maybe the best version of the band yet.

― Josh in Chicago

maybe i'm duplicating the video, but fripp _has_ said he wanted king crimson to go on after "red" with ian mcdonald replacing him! i think there's a better case for "beat" being king crimson than there is for, say, "uk" - another band that started as a king crimson reunion attempt.

Anybody who could work with both Robert Fripp and Al Jourgensen (Rieflin was in Ministry for years) had to be one of the most easygoing humans to ever walk the earth.

― Instead of create and send out, it pull back and consume (unperson)

maybe. i want to be clear that i have zero reason whatsoever to cast any aspersions on rieflin, but i used to be very impressed that neil gaiman could get along with harlan ellison.

Here's where I once again recommend the awesome Rieflin solo album "Birth of a Giant," which features Fripp and Gunn (and others).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Siba1wuCaS0

I'm less familiar with the other Fripp/Gunn collaboration "The Repercussions Of Angelic Behavior":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiICnWy44zc

when Rieflin passed there was a pretty emotional message about it from Fripp & Toyah. I got the impression that he was the one bandmate he actually considered a friend.

Yeah, that was the feeling I got from the doc.

Rieflin was the linchpin of so much stuff. I guess he was in a Seattle band called the Blackouts along with Roland and Paul Barker. They had an EP out on Wax Trax that Jourgensen produced, then Jourgensen recruited them to be in Ministry c. "Twitch." Not sure how Rieflin eventually hooked up with Fripp, but I think Gunn lived (lives?) in Seattle, so that could be it.

yeah, the Blackouts were good, I have a 7". Roland Barker also did some super cool minimal synth type tapes that were recently reissued on LP.

see also: Swans (talking about being able to get along with people!)

more forgotten 80's #onethread

Fripp, Rieflin, Peter Buck, Hector Zazou, Fred Chalenor and Matt Chamberlain had a project called Slow Music in Seattle in the oughts. Played live a few times, never recorded iirc. I don't know if that was the first time Fripp and Rieflin worked together.

Their relationship predates Slow Music by quite a bit. I believe Bill (who I knew quite well) took a Guitar Craft course with RF in the late 80s or early 90s.

surely I have told my story about a friend of mine taking that course here before?

same time period as well!

I know both Toyah and Fripp were extremely fond of Rieflin, they seemed to think of him as a son.

ahaha yes xp to myself

this was way back when I was in my 20's, but Fripp was already doing the LCOG stuff and there is like a camp in West Virgina where people can go for like a 2-week program. my old high school friend went to one, he was already a pretty good guitar player.

first of all, everything had to be tuned in that Fripp tuning, I think it's equal temperament? there were a bunch of kinda mindfuck zen exercises that they were subjected to. one day, Fripp came in and said to the class "oh hey I booked you guys for a gig at a local bar tonight, you better work up a set." so they practiced all day long and kinda got something together. the class all goes over to the bar and sets up for their gig. it turns out that the entire audience, more or less, was composed of guitar school alumni who proceeded to loudly heckle and harass the class throughout their entire performance. I remember my friend saying "and Fripp himself threw a piece of ice at me! it hit my guitar!" basically it was a lesson in how to keep your composure onstage under pressure.

he drove all my friends crazy when he came back from the camp because he insisted on playing in the Fripp tuning at any casual jam session...

I know there was at least one other funny story but I can't remember it right now...

― sleeve, Wednesday, December 16, 2015 9:43 AM (nine years ago)

Mystery solved!

https://www.moderndrummer.com/2011/10/back-through-the-stack-bill-rieflin/

MD: In addition to drums, you play guitar, bass, and keyboards. How do you think this has benefited you?

Bill: It’s been extremely important and useful to me to able to play melodic instruments, if only for variety’s sake. It allows me a fuller understanding of the music I’m involved with. I also find it quite useful to be able to communicate with musicians in terms of the instruments they play. Conversely, I’ve worked with some non-drummers who could benefit from a few years of drumming experience. In 1989 I took some guitar lessons through (the Robert Fripp-founded school) Guitar Craft, and I really started getting into doing things “right,” as it were.

MD: Guitar Craft teaches a very specific way of holding and playing the guitar….

Bill: Well, it’s a very natural way of doing it. It’s the same as drums: The instrument comes to the body, so there is a natural way for the body to be most comfortable. I started to apply some of these ideas and principals to my drumming...

This is like a bizarro world David Attenborough special

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UteQDN7iI_k

(BTW, Rieflin makes an appearance in that roving guitar circle, if you keep an eye out.)

Rieflin was the linchpin of so much stuff. I guess he was in a Seattle band called the Blackouts along with Roland and Paul Barker.
Roland barker played a few times with a weird little noise improv band I was in (not in front of audiences but sessions at the other guitarists house.) this guy Dennis Rea was playing with us and I believe he brought Roland. This was around 1993 or 94

I guess having learned his lesson that he doesn't need to tour to get cred, Fripp apparently gave his blessing to an ... "Exposure" tour?

https://scontent-ord5-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/476592685_10165097464571562_4396945248977391700_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_s1080x2048_tt6&_nc_cat=108&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=127cfc&_nc_ohc=aZm6YWGYsVoQ7kNvgHsIp4F&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-ord5-1.xx&_nc_gid=AUG7VBybakVG-1oUQU4A5uA&oh=00_AYArSFB-utSpmgazDCysIcOgJ71PU7JA6tnMJ5KpQ54EDA&oe=67AAD500

I mean, Terre Roche! That's pretty badass. And the fact that that second gig is at Daryl's House ...

yeah I think this is pretty cool, been following this via the Mastelotto's FB accounts for a few months. would be nice if they could do more dates but I'm not sure what the appetite for it would be from the general public.

I am WAY more interested in seeing this than the Beat tour fwiw

cuz Exposure rules

Beat tour ruuuuuuuuuuuled.

yeah man the Beat show was a dream come true. I love Exposure more than many things but this is really a cover band thing where Beat felt like a legit Crimson projekct

well having the singer and main songwriter on board is a huge part of that, this Exposure thing will probably be good but that's Fripp's record

I mean, Terre Roche! That's pretty badass. And the fact that that second gig is at Daryl's House ...

Nice. Terre showed up as Linda Thompson's guest when Teddy organized the Proxy Music show at City Winery in NYC. It was great to see she was still around and she (and Linda) got onstage at the end.

Bill Bruford just posted this on social media:

Jamie Muir died today 17.02.2025 in Cornwall, UK, with his brother George by his side. From Bill:

Jamie was the drummer/percussionist with whom I worked on the King Crimson album ‘Larks’ Tongues in Aspic (1973). He had a volcanic effect on me, professionally and personally, in the brief time we were together many years ago – an effect which I still remember half a century later. I’m sorry we lost touch, but his departure from our working relationship was so sudden and unexpected, I sort of assumed he didn’t want anything more to do with me and my colleagues in King Crimson!

He was a lovely, artistic man, childlike in his gentleness. There was probably a dark side underneath. It could be be glimpsed as he climbed the PA stacks in a wolf’s fur jacket, blood (from a capsule) pouring from his mouth, on a rainy Thursday night in Preston, Lancs., to hurl chains across the stage at his drumkit. One of these Robert Fripp will tell you, only narrowly missed him.

His conversations with Jon Anderson at my 1973 wedding party, in Jon’s words, ‘changed my life’. Jamie also changed mine.

I consider it a privilege to have known, and benefitted from the company of, a man of such quiet power, even briefly. He struck me as one of those about whom one might truthfully say he was a beautiful human being. He will be much missed. Goodbye, Jamie.

RIP (honestly I didn't know he was still alive). I've always loved how Bruford, known for his technique and precision, holds Muir in such high esteem. Maybe they should have brought in more anti-technique wild cards rather than piling on prog drummers in increasing numbers.

:-(

This alb is beautiful: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dart_Drug_(album)

man i wish that lineup could've held for even one more KC LP. Muir rules so hard

Maybe they should have brought in more anti-technique wild cards

This is to me what makes the Lark's Tongue era so great, the tightly wound Fripp-ness vs the wild Muir-ness and that friction is so incredible

My fave Muir playing is on Incus Music Improvisation Company lp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Music_Improvisation_Company_1968%E2%80%931971

I think it's not a coincidence that the improv in the very brief Muir era of KC is top notch. Iirc the live shows from that massive "Larks" boxed set were full of surprises.

I really don't think there was room for someone like that in the 80s band but it might've been cool to see what the 90's/00's band could've done with like, I dunno, a weirdo DJ in their midst

Or three DJs, each set up behind a drummer

...and none of them can hear what the other two are doing

Pere Ubu never really abandoned the whole "disrupting/commenting/contradicting synth player" element even when they were rocking a more mainstream-avant sound in the late 80s

What KC really needed in the 80s was an onstage mime artist

Though even Ubu mixed the synth low or out on single mixes. Every listener has their own line where "thrillingly spontaneous disruption" becomes "random extraneous sonic garbage".
I think the 1995-2003 Crimson was better when they were four rather than six pieces, maybe because the digital tools allowed for so much more sound from each player that a sextet was always getting in each other's way.

By the end Bill was getting pretty wacky and unconventional on his set. That's where you get stuff like "Industry."