Reply-To: toby at cs dot man dot ac dot uk Sender: toby at cs dot man dot ac dot uk Precedence: bulk From: toby at cs dot man dot ac dot uk To: toby at cs dot man dot ac dot uk Subject: Discipline #100 Discipline, Number 100 Wednesday, 14 July 1993 Today's Topics: Welcome to issue 100! Levin Clones? Fripp and his Clones USA, 73-75, and improvising more thoughts on Fripp and live recordings Tony Levin on "Plus from Us" Sylvian/Fripp US release date Enneagrams? MAILING LIST: David Sylvian INTERVIEW: David Cross (1974) Bruford/Earthworks Chatter Kinda, sort-of, pseudo, crimson type news REVIEW: The new Sylvian/Fripp album INTERVIEW: Trey Gunn talks to Mark Butler [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] Welcome to the 100th issue of Discipline! When I started this over a year ago, I never imagined it would take off the way it has. So, I'll take this opportunity to say a big `thanks' to everyone who reads Discipline, and especially to all the contributers for their ideas and input. Before we kick off, can I just remind people *** NEVER *** to send mail to discipline at cs dot man dot ac dot uk. Please only ever mail ME, that's toby at cs dot man dot ac dot uk. Thanks for your cooperation with this and the recent mail check. Now for some news: Robert Fripp has responded to a letter from me, and now knows about Discipline (although he does not have email himself), and he has asked me to send him all back issues of Discipline for his files. I'll be doing this, and sending all future issues too. His management address, as listed on `The First Day' is: c/o Richard Chadwick Esq., Opium Arts Ltd 17 Gosfield Street London W1P 7HE Tel: 071-631-5221 Fax: 071-255-1559 Maybe you could mention that you're a Discipline reader if ever you contact the office. The King Crimson paper fanzine `Book of Saturday' is to be revamped by Michael Green, and Michael invites anyone interested to contact him at: 2 Greenhills, Leeds LS19 6NP United Kingdom Tel: 0532 506433 Email: not quite, but hopefully very soon He'd be delighted to hear from you. I hope to cooperate with Michael and share material. You may be interested in who reads Discipline. Currently there are 339 of you, breaking down as follows: Somewhere unknown, 14 Austria, 1 Australia, 10 Belgium, 1 Brazil, 1 Canada, 13 Chile, 1 Germany, 5 Finland, 4 France, 3 Hong Kong, 1 Ireland, 1 Israel, 3 Iceland, 1 Italy, 2 Japan, 3 Netherlands, 1 New Zealand, 1 Norway, 1 South Africa, 1 Former Soviet Union, 1 Sweden, 3 United Kingdom 21 U.S.A., 246 OK, that's enough from me. Now onto the stuff. I hope you'll all enjoy this bumper issue. And by the way, the report on Fripp's recent Nottingham guitar workshop will appear in Discipline #101. Sorry for the delay. --- Toby [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] From: wcsanil at ccs dot carleton dot ca (Anil Prasad) Subject: Levin Date: Tue, 29 Jun 93 4:09:26 EDT Does anyone out there have Tony Levin's compuserve account address? If you do, please drop me a line asap. Thanks, ______________Anil_Prasad___wcsanil at ccs dot carleton dot ca_______________ "If I hear that bossa nova bongo version of 'Layla' again, I think I'll scream." -- Pete Townshend 08/07/93 [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] From: phv at equalizer dot cray dot com (Paolo Valladolid) Subject: Clones? Date: Tue, 29 Jun 93 11:05:45 PDT > Paolo Valladolid wrote: > > PV> > the only thing Robert seems > PV> > to have not passed on is the sense required to build these looped > PV> > pieces. Then again, maybe he just wanted to be the only one doing it > PV> > onstage. > PV> >* Finally, my friend and I also had the distinct impression of a Master/ > PV> > student relationship. The Crafties were like monks, sitting in rapt > PV> > attention before their Master, while Trey stood in the center, > PV> > anchoring the stage. [...] > PV> > The presence of four people who can emulate Fripp's style so > PV> >convincingly disturbs me somewhat, however. I know he will not live > PV> >forever, so maybe he is training his successors. Sorry Malcolm, but I didn't write the above! I had a good look at Trey Gunn's rig and it is almost identical to Fripp's. He too had an Eventide Harmonizer (capable of up to 95 seconds of delay, with sampling and the ability to raise/ lower and speed up/slow down loops). Both he and Robert were using these devices to produce the Frippertronics. The Harmonizer can also produce backwards guitar sounds, but I digress... I did make a comment about how everyone acted like they were military cadets, what with everyone standing at attention and facing the directions of the compass, so to speak. > JR> Mr Fripp is training musicians, not successors. I also agree with the above statement. > > If you have the opportunity to see this piece being performed then I suggest > you go along. Everyone that has seen "Angel" (ie those who I have spoken to) > has been thrilled by the experience. > > David Lovell - dlovell at s1 dot elec dot uq dot oz dot au | This reminds me of a videotape George Lewis showed us one time of 100 guitarists seated in a giant circle. Each guitarist would play his notes, then look to his left, signalling the next guitarist, so there would be a neat wave-like effect. I wonder if any of the people who were involved in that project were also involved in "Angel". Speaking of Belew, has anyone heard the CD of Beatles covers put out on the NYC label? I understand the list of contributors include Belew and Allan Holdsworth. It's on sale at Tower and I was wondering if I should blow some money on it... Paolo [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] Date: Tue, 29 Jun 93 13:00:49 -0600 From: dalton at isidis dot colorado dot edu (lizard man) Subject: Fripp and his Clones Dave Craig (hi dave!) writes: >> i agree also with the most distinguished gentlemen the honourable john >> relph that it is a disservice to trey gunn and the california guitar trio >> to view them as disciples or clones ... and to fripp as well i think. These guys could impersonate Fripp *perfectly*. Maybe clone isn't a very complimentary word to use, but it's hard to find a better fit. >> what would he be doing in such a relationship? pointless. he strikes me >> as the kind of man who likes to surround himself by people who challenge >> him, push him around unusual bends. i dunno, i like to think of Fripp as someone who likes to be challenged, too, but then again, if that's the case why doesn't he jam with Bruford anymore.....? Something about Bill being too creative in playing with the time, wasn't it? Just my .02 -- YMMV. --lizard man [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1993 15:31:01 -0700 From: Malcolm Humes Subject: USA, 73-75, and improvising ASAEL at vms dot huji dot ac dot il@cs.man.ac.uk writes: > I hope i'm not grave-digging here, but i want to ask for some opinion from > those of you who can compare between the Crimson live performence ability > as manifested on the USA official lp on one hand, and on bootlegs from the > 73-75 epoch of the band on the other. From memory, USA has one unique improv on it, Asbury Park. Crimson was widely reputed to have improvised heavily live, and supposedly their recorded works never captured the power of the band live. The most recent boxed cd set goes a long way compared to USA in offering a broader view of the band live than was previously legitimately available. But it also seems to show that many of the improvs were actually variations on a theme instead of total free improvising. From my perspective, having heard a lot of live tapes it seems to me that the peak of live improvisation for Crimson with the brief period with Jamie Muir on percussion. By most accounts Muir was a wildman on stage, and it seems that his free improvs were a heavy force in directing the band into unknown territory. While most of the post-Muir shows tend to have some improvisation per show there are some lousy recordings with Muir that seem to be almost total improvisation. And many of the themes explored in those improvisations were later revisited and even refined into material that got released long after Muir was gone. It's hard to see how a percussionist improvising could set the other musicians off so far, but it appears that the group was much more loose and free with Muir than without. The period with Muir was mostly pre-73, BTW, but at the root of the 73-75 era band. He toured with them briefly before (and after?) Lark's Tongue In Aspic was recorded. Fripp's more recent works and his exploration of discipline and the guitar craft teachings seem to be almost the antithesis of improvisation, at least from what I gather. Perhaps Toby or John or someone else who has taken guitar seminars with Fripp could comment on the role of improvisation (if there is any) in the guitar craft teachings? [[ No, I can't add anything here; sorry! -- Toby ]] > Recently i got hold of USA, and i think it's great. It's just that i > haven't got a scale by which to judge it. Anyway, i can't understand why RF > has taken grounds against it, as far as refusing to re-issue it on CD, > along with _Earthbound_ (which i'm yet to hear, but regarding the line-up > seems more reasonable). I think Fripp's concerns about USA were with regard to performance quality. It was right around the time the group decided to fire Davaid Cross, I think because of concerns about the quality of his performances. Fripp hired Eddie Jobson to "clean up" or overdub some part to correct or supplement Cross' playing. Earthbound was recorded on an early Ampex cassette recorder. Certainly very lo-fidelity. Plus I think the band was on the verge of collapse at that time, so it's likely that Fripp wasn't very happy with the performance either. Note that Fripp has taken a lot of live recordings and released them, but only after doings studio edits, overdubs, adding vocals in the studio, etc. Even with the recent box sets Fripp has weilded the razors liberally, probably cutting out the parts he wasn't happy with, and using EQ to enhance and/or hide stuff whenever possible. Seems to me that Fripp was never into live recordings - his essay on bootlegs seems to suggest that Fripp feels a concert is more valuable in the sharing of the unique moment(s) than any tape could capture, and he's commented that trying to re-live the concert experience is like trying to get your virginity back. Until the recent live releases Fripp seemed reluctant to release live recordings, and my suspicion was that the two live lps were only released to satisfy record company demands. Fripp's recent tendancy to live releases appears to have been inspired (provoked?) by Fripp's awareness of a large number of bootlegs of his work. I look at the live releases as Fripp's reacting to the bootleggers and to Zappa's "Beat The Boots" series. Also consider that Fripp has a considerable back catalog of unreleased recordings and there is a proven (via bootleg sales) collector's market for them. His cost in releasing old live tapes is probably considerably less than his cost to compose, record and release new music, so it gives him a potential of revenue with minimal investment. - Malcolm [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] Date: Wed, 30 Jun 1993 14:43:20 -0700 From: Malcolm Humes Subject: more thoughts on Fripp and live recordings Further thoughts on Fripp and live recordings: There's an interesting story about Fripp, live recordings, and a razor blade, revolving around a studio concert he did at Sigma Sound in Philadelphia, for WMMR FM. As I recall hearing Fripp discuss it in an interview on WXPN, Philadelphia, done a few years later during the League of Gentlemen tour: WMMR was doing a series of concerts done in a local recording studio to a private audience by invitation only. Tickets were given away on air. Fripp was booked for a performance during his grass-roots frippertronics tour he was doing to support his first solo lp, Exposure. I think this was in 1979. I think the station ran promos for the concert playing King Crimson's music in the background. Also this station or another one mentioned on-air an announced appearance Fripp was doing at a local record store. Because the secret store appearance was announced on-air there was an overflow crowd that couldn't even get into the event. Maybe it's not relevant to the Sigma Sound concert directly, but to me it suggests that Fripp may have been a bit unhappy with local radio because of them nearly ruining what was intended as an intimate in store appearance for a word-of-mouth audience. Fripp did the studio "concert" for WMMR, but after the event he expressed concerns: he didn't feel that the performance should be aired just because the station said they would air the concert. He felt that the event had been misadvertised by the KC references in the radio blurbs, and he thought that it was rather odd that a commercial rock station that would never air Frippertronics from an lp would suddenly want to air a 1 hour show of nothing but Frippertronics, just becasue it was *ROBERT FRIPP FROM KING CRIMSON*. Fripp decided he didn't want the performance to be aired, and he tried to take the master tape of the recording with him. The studio/station folks objected and claimed they owned the tape and he couldn't take it. Fripp came up with a quick and simple solution. He took a razor blade and sliced the tape through the reel, rendering the recording unplayable and the performance as nothing more than a memory. The above is my recollection of the interview where I heard Fripp discuss this. My synopsis of Fripp's concerns may not be extremely accurate, but I think I got the main details correct here. To further explore Fripp's feeling about live recordings one can look to his article on bootlegging (which should be archived in the 2nd or 3rd digest of Discipline) to see his feelings on live music being an experience of the moment that he seems to feel is somehow cheapened by reliving it in live recordings: (from Bootlegging, Royalties and the Moment, by Robert Fripp. Musician, 1979?) ..."Experiencing a piece of music repeatedly in an active state has its own qualities and merits. On tape, music is music: good, bad, lively, lethargic, spirited or whatever. In live performance, the music is still music there is another element: the music mediates a relationship between the player and the listener. This relationship is fragile and easily spoilt. To try to pin it down desrupts it, much like writing down one's thoughts during a meditation significantly disrupts the very process of meditation. For some players, this presents no difficulties, as with cameras, but it does for me. After all the years and miles I've covered with music, I've fully realized the significance of of the relationship between player and listener; what in music could be more primary, more valuable? To experience a piece of music once and only once is to experience that relationship in its most crystalline form. It cannot be repeated: how many times can one lose one's virginity?" I think this helps explain why Fripp doesn't like USA and Earthbound and why he's never released any other live King Crimson until very recently, and only then in apparent reaction to bootleggers pushing live recordings of his music. But this doesn't explain to me why Fripp seems so inclined to edit and overdub the live recordings which he has released. I guess in doing so he changes the context so he isn't just "reliving" the experience but instead is experiencing something different or more refined? - Malcolm [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] From: patrick5 at aol dot com Subject: Tony Levin on "Plus from Us" Date: Fri, 02 Jul 93 01:14:01 EDT I got a chance to listen to the CD completely tonight and my favorite piece off the whole album was the Lone Bear by Tony Levin. I did however find it be very musical and would love for him to do more writing in the future. Some of the ryhthyms fels to me like they would be hard to accomplish perfectly which probably accounts for the slight problems with timing but it is held together very well. It does feel like it was something he was having fun with and didn't really care too much if it was perfect. If anyone gets to talk with Tony Levin, tell him to write more music! Patrick [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] Date: Mon, 5 Jul 93 08:42:31 MET From: E dot Roos at buro dot kun dot nl Subject: Sylvian/Fripp US release date Hi all! The album by Sylvian and Fripp will be released (in the USA) on August 10. I read this in the new-releases list. You can subscribe to this list, which is distributed once a week. E-mail address: new-releases-request at cs dot uwp dot edu Eric [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] From: naud at ccrs dot emr dot ca (Francois Naud) Subject: enneagram? Date: Sun, 4 Jul 93 20:21:36 EDT Anyone heard about enneagram out there? Francois Naud naud at ccrs dot emr dot ca [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1993 00:47:48 +0800 From: John West Subject: MAILING LIST: David Sylvian To send mail to the list, the address you want to use is sylvian at ucc dot gu dot uwa dot edu dot au If you have any problems or queries, my address is john at ucc dot gu dot uwa dot edu dot au So start posting John West [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] From: naud at ccrs dot emr dot ca (Francois Naud) Subject: INTERVIEW: David Cross (1974) Date: Mon, 5 Jul 93 14:21:46 EDT Circus-Raves September 1974 article by Sheila Spaier KING CRIMSON'S EXPERIMENT WITH ROCK ALCHEMY - 'STARLESS AND BIBLE BLACK' It was only in 1974 that the general public was made able to accept the fact that there was a new era of witchcraft and occult dawning on earth. Yet in the haunts of rock and roll weird practices have been going on for some time now. Black Sabbath comes to mind most immediately-possessions of dark visions and spiritual power. The Stooges, too, took on untempered physical force, while the Stones' Mick Jagger danced with the Devil. Even Uriah Heep blasted away with some demons and magicians, and the strange symbolism on LP covers from Led Zep to ELP are becoming as common as stop signs. Since astrology is a major topic of groupies, and things seem to happen magically in the world of rock and roll, it's a wonder that so few rock bands have dealt with the forces of darkness and occult with great seriousness. There's one group, though, that consistently, through personnel changes and moods, has continued to tap the sonic cosmos. "King Crimson was perhaps the first of the 'up-tight British pop bands'," the Crimson King Robert Fripp once jested to a Circus Magazine correspondent. But the music King Crimson produces is one of the most distilled potions of magic-in-sound available to listeners sitting on the edge of the Occult Era. Their latest LP, Starless and Bible Black (on Atlantic Records) is a revealing glimpse into Crimson's alchemical laboratory. Crimson has always been a band that delved into mystery. From the first LP, King Crimson, on, they peered into the void beyond what is readily visible. And Crimson is a band that's at home with coincidence. Lead guitarist and only original Crimsonite, Robert Fripp, has admitted that he is no more than "a coincidence in the band's development." The right signs: After the band's last line-up, including singer Boz, Mel Collins, Andy McCulloch, Ian MacDonald, dematerialized, the next incarnation took form rapidly, as if by coincidence. Bassman and vocalist John Wetton actually forged the link with Crimson when the gas cap of his car fell off not far from Fripp's Dorset cottage. Realizing he was in the guitarist's neighbourhood, Wetton dropped by, and soon a pact was drawn up. The rest of the group fell into place almost as easily. With the release of their fist LP under the new line-up, Larks' Tongues In Aspic, the new group (including David Cross, Bill Bruford and John Wetton) felt that the coincidence of their forming was powerful and accurate. "The fist King Crimson was a magic band," announced" Fripp, "but the new King Crimson is even more magical." Crimson toured the States three times after the release of Larks' Tongues, and all of Europe. They polished their finished songs on stage and always tried out the new unexpected and coincidental. A result of these experiments and magic experiences, both live and in the studio, was put together in a LP and released under the name of a long improvizational track called "Starless and Bible Black." Incantation: That title, according to Crimson's innovative young violinist, David Cross, was just the beginning of the magic which "Starless is still generating. "The title is a phrase from Dylan Thomas, from 'Under Milkwood'," David explained as he paced lithely around his New York hotel suite. "But we have two songs called 'Starless and Bible Black.' The one on the album is a long instrumental which came together very quickly. But the idea for a song was still very much alive in our lyricist, Richard Palmer-James's head. So he came up with something quite exciting, which is a different 'Starless' with lyrics." "It just happened." David continued, turning off the TV which had been stationed on an old British movie. "It had to happen, even though you can't really want it to happen, because you don't want confusion. But it just forces itself to happen. It's obviously a widespread concept somehow-'Starless and Bible Black." It sparked a lot in all of us. It's a key to something wild and exciting. We're glad we used it." The thought of the title song, with its intricate flowing, almost art nouveau passages, set his mind to work. He began to describe the album's evolution with the precision and clarity of a biologist discussing the growth of an amazing organism. "Our music evolves slowly. It takes a long time to get it played properly. The first stage we're aware of, I suppose, is presentation, where an idea comes out and is heard by the people. Somebody says, 'I have an idea, and it goes like this.' Robert did that with the piece called 'Fracture". He said 'I have this idea...' and proceeded to play this incredible, complicated guitar solo. The rest of us sort of stopped and clapped. 'Oh very good!" David laughed. "Eventually it turned into a piece. But it was difficult. When I went on stage the first time we played 'Fracture' I still had no idea what I was going to play. I had five alternatives for each section. It took me a month of playing every night, of walking on stage and not knowing what the hell I was going to play, and just going from there. Astounding. I think we've recorded it. And it's gone another step forward since we've brought it on the road again." Instant bass riffs: Other numbers grew out of improvisation. "John often takes his bass lines and start playing something. He finds the stage a very creative environment-we all do-But when he's out there he actually produces amazing bass lines," David shook his head. "We're lucky we've got somebody with an incredible musical memory. That's Bill. He'll tell John afterward, "Remember at that point where you started playing that line-ba-babababa-ba?' And he gradually gets out of John what he did play." But often, after the original outpourings, a song died a quick death. "We store it away and forget it then. We get carried away with whatever else is going on. Later it will come to us again and someone else will have a new idea about it. Or we'll change the tempo a bit. We've gotten used to the fact that things can disappear, because they'll always come back in a different form." "The Great Deceiver," a hurtling surreal song along the lines of a Crimson classic like "Twenty-first Century Schizoid Man," was a tune that went underground and then resurfaced. "Originally it was one of John's bass riffs," David explained. "Then Robert had a tune of an entirely different nature. The song was a very slow tempoed, joyful thing to begin with. Then it gathered a kind of rushing paranoia. It's simply taking two different ideas and finding that in conjunction, they work an entirely new way." Band from four corners: "I think that's what our band's about," David smiled. "Because there's no kind of dictatorial system. So I never present my idea and know it'll be played totally the way I want it. Everything continually changes. Bill and I are conscious of this. We talk about it-how we ended up in the same band from such completely different avenues. It's fascinating to discover how differently we listen to music." There are four very different kinds of people in King Crimson. And they don't spend that much time talking together about their music. "We don't talk well as a group," David admitted. "We tend to confuse each other. We have to do it through music. It's the difference between talking about life and living it. The outcome is more organic. We never know what is going to happen when we go on stage. When we do, it'll be time to pack it all up." Crimson expects the unexpected all the time. "It feels that way when you're playing," David smiled and ran his hands through his wavy blonde hair. "As if you're waiting to grab the sound right out of the air. The track called 'Trio' is one of those occasions. It was all improvized. When we played that, it was completely magical." That magic moment: "Trio" was recorded at a gig in Amsterdam, the last date of their European tour, when Crimson had to wait through three front bands before hitting the stage. When they finally stepped before the spot-lights it was two AM and they rushed and bolted through their set. "Then suddenly, it was as if time had stopped," David recalled, his voice lowering dramatically. "We played with such energy trying to keep awake, that, when we got to that point, we had no idea what to do next." "Everything just stood still and we started to play that tune. It was one of the few moments of complete peace we've ever achieved as a band. I would wait a year for another moment like that. It was worth it-especially for the audience-the whole audience was into it. There was an incredible responsibility to play the right note. It was beautiful because you knew you were up to it, and everybody else was too. If someone in the audience had stood up and yelled 'Boogy' it would have blown it. But they didn't you know." David sat silently while a moment of seriousness ran through the room. Then he laughed. King Crimson doesn't feed on the energy of harmonious vibes. There have been moment of vigorous disagreement. For David his main gripe is with his mellotron. "I hate mellotrons," the Crimson from Plymouth declared. "It was innovative for a time, but there was such a rash of bands using mellotrons ceaselessly. The mellotron is good in its place-but it's an awful instrument. It's terrible to tune," he complained. "The thing I like doing best to mellotrons, apart from throwing them in the rivers, is winding them up and down, having them snarl and make weird noises. I can't really treat them with any respect. The mellotron on 'Night Watch' is great on the album, but try to do that on stage. I really have to pretend a lot on that one-pretend there's a string section somewhere, I feel like I want to sit on top of a desk and wave my arms like a conductor." "Night Watch" is a lyrical story-painting. It's about Rembrandt, the famous Dutch painter's depiction of the bourgeoisie. "Maybe the mellotron's right for that song," David admitted, "But I wish somebody else was playing it. You see, Robert has a kind of love-hate relationship with his mellotron, but mine's not in my bloodstream, I'd willingly part with mine except there's nothing to replace them with yet. I still say hello to my mellotron, though," he confessed with a smile. "And kiss it good night when I go to bed." "The Mincer" is another song with a disagreement behind it. Paced like a sinister synthesizer stalking the sound track to a monster movie of the future, "The Mincer" is a link between side one and two of the LP. "I love the beginning of it," David offered. "It comes out of 'Trio.' The violin goes up like this." He raised his arm diagonally. "While the mellotron goes up like that." His arms arched in a parallel design. The song's ending is especially unique. It seems to dribble off the vinyl, as if the music pushed the groove as close to the center label as possible and then crashed out. "That ending," David remembered fondly. "We had such arguments about that. Bill didn't like it at all. It really upset him. He wanted it to stop properly. Or fade out, or anything but that. John wasn't too keen on it either. But Robert and I really loved it as an ending. It's actually the tape running out. It's terrific." The force field in the room increased. David spoke dramatically about the psychic effects of being on the road. He talked about numerology and the destiny he had charted for himself via the coincidental number of letters in his name. He revealed designs created by scratching out entries he had made in his journal. He talked about the future. "About the band? We never know until the right time. 'Starless' leapt out at the last minute. That's what I mean about 'Starless,' it seems to have given birth to a whole creative force. Just key words. We're all feeling the effects of it. And it's happening all around us too. Wherever we're about, there's this new lease of energy. It's very relaxed, not neurotic. It's a magical focus of creative energy that's going on." ENDS [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] From: wcsanil at ccs dot carleton dot ca (Anil Prasad) Subject: Bruford/Earthworks Chatter Date: Fri, 9 Jul 93 4:02:10 EDT Some noteworthy news (pseudo Crimson related): - Earthworks is broke and label-less. Stomping Ground is delayed indefinitely as the group finds someone to release it... I still can't get over this. Earthworks is on temporary hiatus, but still together. Django Bates and Iain Ballamy are currently doing solo gigs (and if you *EVER* get a chance to see Bates' "Human Chain" or Ballamy's "Balloon Man", MAKE SURE YOU SEE THEM... to use the words of a friend in Montreal, these bands make Earthworks look like a "bunch of farting grannies".) Earthworks is still fighting for royalties on the sales of *20,000* CDs that went missing BEFORE the big JEM/Passport bankruptcy. That's nearly half of worldwide sales of the disc and about 1/6 of Earthworks total disc sales. Pretty fucking massive. I'm beginning to *DESPISE* the music business more with every passing day. - Django Bates' first solo album comes out this September on JMT/Polygram. Some good news at least! - Bruford's next project is an album (and tour?) with ALLAN HOLDSWORTH. The general consensus is this is more of a career move/ fund raising project more than anything else. With both musicians practically destitute... well, you get the point. It is good news though, however, I wish it's impetus didn't lie in financial necessity. - Fripp and Bruford don't get along. Did you know that? :-) ______________Anil_Prasad___wcsanil at ccs dot carleton dot ca_______________ "If I hear that bossa nova bongo version of 'Layla' again, I think I'll scream." -- Pete Townshend 08/06/93 [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] From: wcsanil at ccs dot carleton dot ca (Anil Prasad) Subject: Kinda, sort-of, pseudo, crimson type news Date: Sat, 10 Jul 93 1:28:01 EDT This may not be official Crimson news, but here goes... THE PSYCHODOTS, the remaining 3/4 of The Bears have just released a new CD called "On The Grid". The deal with Epic records fell through, so they're still operating on the independent label. It's great fun, full of the same frolic their first excellent CD had. I highly recommend it if you like the Bears or the Raisins. I'll post a review in the near future. BTW, the playing is SUPERB and Adrian gets a few mentions here and there. If you want the disc immediately, send a money order or cheque for $15 U.S. to: Elaine Diehl Strugglebaby Recording Company 2612 Erie Avenue Cincinatti, Ohio 45208 USA If you're outside of the USA, I recommend you add another $3-4 for shipping. Please tell them I sent you. ______________Anil_Prasad___wcsanil at ccs dot carleton dot ca_______________ "If I hear that bossa nova bongo version of 'Layla' again, I think I'll scream." -- Pete Townshend 08/06/93 [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] Date: Fri, 9 Jul 1993 12:38:33 -0700 From: Malcolm Humes Subject: REVIEW: The new Sylvian/Fripp album The First Day - David Sylvian & Robert Fripp Virgin CDVX 2712 Just got a copy today after three days of calling stores to find out if it was in yet. Got a call from a friend who said it was in stock so we ran across town - I parked by a fire hydrant with the engine running as Kat ran in with a $20 bill to grab a copy. She came running back a minute later - "It's a double cd, $23!" so I forked over some extra cash. She comes back with something looking frightenly like a big Digipak and I cringe with anticipation as she rips it open. Ok, it's got a real cd case inside - maybe one of those double-paks I assume, surprised it would be more than one disc but hoping for a CD5 of remixes or something to justify the final cost of $24 US. I would have expected to pay up to $15 US for a single disc release. What's this? Inside we find a pile of arty postcards, photos of Fripp, Sylvian and the gang, alone and in group shots. Suitable for mailing to yor friends, or perhaps indulgently framing? I think I'd better store these away and hope that this is actually some limited edition special package that will maybe someday have some absurb resale value. Yeah, sure... Ok, on closer inspection, there's only one disc, in a regular cd box, actually a nice one with a clear disc tray so you can see the song titles and graphix underneath when the disk is out in the player. It appears to be a UK release, which partly explains the price, though UK imports are typically cheaper than this. I presume there will be a domestic US release of this eventually, and assume that the funky box I got is actually a limited special package. Ok, it's not that bad, but I do resent paying a lot more for silly art that might as well be in the cd booklet, and for having to pay more to get it as an import before the US edition comes out. But the two postcards of Fripp have rather amusingly painful or perplexing expressions which I find some consolation. It seems likely we'll also soon see a few CD5 singles with bonus tracks or remixes. On to the music: There's definitely a string Fripp/Crimson feel behind most of this, thought the track on now is almost a bit like one of the Eno tracks with Fripp on Nerve Net with Sylvian singing over it. One track is all or mostly Frippertronics. Fripp gets co-composer credit on 6 tracks and total credit on track 7, Bringing Down the Light, which appears to be instrumental. Words are all by Sylvian. Various combination of Fripp, Gunn, Sylvian and others share some credits on the first 6 tracks. The lineup has some surprising additions to the announced Fripp, Sylvian, Gunn and Marotta band. David Bottril gets credit for tratments, sampled percussion and computer programming. Marc Anderson on Percussion, and Ingrid Chavez on vocals. I'm inclined to assume this could be the same Marc Anderson on percussion on most of Steve Tibbets works; Anderson was supposed to have a solo release on ECM or Ryko about a year ago and it never materialized. Since this release was recorded in the US it seems plausible it's the same Marc Anderson. Is Ingrid the woman who was singing with the League of Crafty Guitarists? Trey Gunn plays Grand and Tenor Sticks, and does some vocals. I guess this ups the odds that he could sing a little with the next King Crimson lineup. Gunn's playing here is surprising to me. I'm impressed that he seems to have quite a different style here than on his solo tape and in the recent Quintet concerts. He's much more versatile than I expected. Davis Sylvian covers vocals, guitar, keyboards and tapes. Lots of Fripp and Frippertronics, but I wouldn't exactly say it's much like the 80's King Crimson except at moments. There's lots of nasty chords that recall memories of Red and Lark's Tongue In Aspic and the basslines seem to be closer to something like Wetton's steady throb instead of the complex polyrythms found in the 80's KC sound. This surprises me a bit, as the Trey Gunn solo tape reminded me much more of 80's KC than this does - this gives me much of the 72-74 Crimson feel. One of the tracks has somewhat distorted vocals, reminding me in spirit of 21st Century Schizoid Man. But any references to the 70's or 80's Crimson are lacking when we get to the drums. Marotta doesn't sound anything like Bruford. It seemed to me that the tune I heard Fripp/Sylvian/Gunn do on a Japanese bootleg had Sylvian really belting out the lyrics more. He seems to be closer to his normal style here; a little laid back sounding most of the time. Having just listened to Roxy Music's first lp before hearing this leaves me with the obvious comparison between Sylvian and Bryan Ferry's vocals. As far as Sylvian releases go, I like this a lot. It's a bit more abrasive than the ethereal Sylvian/Fripp and Sylvian/Nelson collaborations on Sylvian's Gone to Earth lp. It has a more forceful edge to it at times, though it certainly has its share of droney spacey music on here too. 1. GOD'S MONKEY Sounds a lot like it could be a Gabriel tune from recent years... can't really think of much else to say.... Lots of Fripp, but seems like the guitar here is mostly funky jangly stuff, probably Sylvian, with some short solo runs by Fripp, and maybe a bit more dissonant than you might find on a Gabriel tune. I like it better than anything on the lastest Gabriel release. And it builds up towrds the middle to more of a wall of noise, then breaks back to more space between the instruments and notes. Fades on a nice Fripp solo. 2. JEAN THE BIRDMAN Reminds me way too much of another tune by some other artist - to the point where it bothers me hearing music so similar to a tune I already know. Can't place it though - the sing I'm thinking of has a vocal line that goes something like "Maybe I'll see you - same time next year". I'm thinking maybe it's something from 801 Live or Quiet Sun? Ficticious Sports? Towards the end it drifts into some more interesting instrumental stuff. After the main vocal segemnt I think it changes direction a bit and becomes less "clone" sounding to me. 3. FIREPOWER!!!!! Kicks in with a sort of syncopated call and response grinding guitar, circa Lark's Tongue/Red - and a beautiful Fripp solo in the middle. This is definitely a standout track. The vocals are somewhat distorted, reminiscent of 21st Century Schizoid Man. It goes on and on for 10 minutes, with beatuiful guitars, synth washes, etc, almost sounding like mellotron at times to me. Sounds like the word Firepower is repeasted letter by letter in the background at the end, reminiscent of E-X-P-O-S-U-R-E. 4. BRIGHTNESS FALLS!!!!!!!!! wow, just when I thoiught the last track was my favorite this one kicks in with more incredibly dissonant Fripp, right up there with the heaviest parts of Exposure, like on Breathless or that one with the "pathetically dismal chord sequence". The vocals are mixed in well, and Fripp comes in for more great solos, more grating than the nice smooth solo on the last track. There's some backwards tape effects near the end, presumably some satanic backmasking. :^) 5. 20Th CENTURY DREAMING Gee, how can each track seem to hit harder and harder? This one starts with a bang, and more of the heavy dissonant guitars. Can't say I like it quite as much, something about the vocal delivery and chords in this one don't click as much with me, but this track is certainly describable as another of the heavy hitter Crimson-esque tracks. I'm bored 2 minutes into it and wonder where the next 9 minutes will lead? well, at about 2:40 into it there's a shift and the repetitiveness of the begining gives way to some more insteresting instrumental work, perhaps closer to something like Fracture. A dense mix of background effects including some tapes of a middle eastern singer, it turns a bit more ambient and ethereal. Some more sparse vocals drift in about 5:30... Sounds like it's finally starting to end around 9:30, but still has at least two more minutes of drifting off into Frippertronics and synth washes. This 11:50 track covers a lot of ground. 6. DARKSHAN This one starts off ito a dance-beat percussion thing and gets a bit funky. Reminds me a bit of some of the work on Nerve Net - Fripp cuts in with a heavily distorted scratchy quitar here and there, very sparse. Mostly short bursty chords with a few runs of notes here andthere. Almost no vocals. Gee, this track is 17 minutes long. In the groove, the drum beat is relentless, lots of extra percussion. After about 4 minutes some drifting synths fall in. Then a few lyrics come in. Sounds like Sylvian's doubled the vocal tracks, or maybe this is where Trey comes in on vocals, backing or doubling Sylvian. An odd mix here - part of the elements here could be sort of standard mediocre funk, or perhaps a Gabriel backing track, which is something I got from the first two tracks also. Ok, I can see soem remix singles comingout of this track, especially since the full length version will never get airplay on commerical stations without being edited for brevity. 7. BRINGING DOWN THE LIGHT 8 mins plus of gentle frippertronics, with some synth too, I think... Overall impression - this is one of the best releases I've heard with Fripp in a long time - Fripp is much more present and involved in the composition than he was on Eno's Nerve Net, and the dissonance here fills my lust for more material along the lines of 72-74 Crimson, and Exposure. Surprisingly I don't hear the references to the 80's Crimson that I expected from it, which I had expected given the presence of 3 members of the next years King Crimson lineup. But since Gunn and Marotta will be new members I can see why this doesn't sound like the "new" KC with Fripp being the only common link. Much hunch is that Fripp may have had freer reins here in composing the material than he will in the new King Crimson, assuming that group takes a democratic compositional approach relying heavily on Belew's lyrics. My top picks are tracks 3 and 4, with parts of 5 and 2 coming in close. At least so far, after about 2 complete listens and a bit of skipping around in shuffle play. - Malcolm [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] From: Mark Butler (mhb at uk dot ac dot bham dot cs) Subject: INTERVIEW: Trey Gunn talks to Mark Butler Thanks to Mark Butler for the following interview with Trey Gunn. "The Robert Fripp String Quintet" - Sunday 20th June (Excerpt from Nottingham Guitar Festival Brochure) "Robert Fripp, ex-King Crimson, inventor of Frippertronics and founder of Guitar Craft, is universally recognised as a major force in the guitar world today. Renowned for his innovative playing he is in great demand; this year alone sees him working with the likes of Brian Eno, The Grid and The Orb as well as his recent collaborations with David Sylvian. The Robert Fripp String Quintet is his latest project and features Robert Fripp on electric guitar, Trey Gunn on Chapman Stick and the Californian Guitar Trio, Bert Lams, Paul Richards, Hideyo Moriya, playing amplified Ovations. All these players have a background in Guitar Craft and have all been members of The League of Crafty Guitarists. Trey Gunn is from Texas, and recently he has been touring and recording with David Sylvian and Robert Fripp. Trey has a background as a bass player and a guitarist before taking up the Stick. The California Guitar Trio began work after the last tour of The League of Crafty Guitarists. Now based in LA, the trio travel extensively with their own work, as well as assisting with the Guitar Craft programme around the world. Their first CD has recently been released. The Robert Fripp String Quintet began life with several dates in the USA last year and went on to play Japan where they did a live concert on TV. They are scheduled to release their debut CD in September. The music itself reflects the bands' diverse influence with everything from the rockier sounds of Frippertronics through to the intricate ensemble playing and hypnotic rhythms of The League of Crafty Guitarists. It will delight all die hard Fripp fans as well as those coming to his special brand of music for the first time." The concert was amazing. Frippertronics (and Guitar Craft) on record is sometimes described as haunting. To hear Robert, Trey, Bert, Richard and Hideyo perform live was incredible. I'm stuck for words to describe it - I found the concert an intense and moving experience. I just hope Toby Howard (who edits Discipline) who was also there can supply some details of the concert. Trey was playing a 12 string oak Grand Stick. His playing was phenomenally clean and controlled, and he manages to get a deep, church organ like tone from the bass register on his Stick. One piece in the concert (The Chromatic Fantasy) was solo Stick, he played some very fast lines using two hands on the melody register of the touchboard. He was also using an E-bow on some of the Frippertronics pieces. I was lucky enough to attend the Guitar workshop Robert Fripp organised on Saturday the 19th of June and explained the Stick list to Trey Gunn. He was very interested so he kindly consented to do an interview before the sound check for the concert on the Sunday. This interview is exclusive to the Stick List and Discipline. M: So how long have you been involved in music? T: In music? 26 years. M: And what other instruments apart from the Stick do you play? T: Play now - nothing. I started on piano when I was about seven, then I played violin a little bit when I was about eleven or twelve, then I switched to acoustic guitar, then to electric bass which I kept up for maybe eight or ten years, and in the interim also went back to the guitar, accoustic guitar, and then kind of switched from bass to electric guitar for about five or six years before picking up the Stick. M: Out of all those instruments, probably the piano, in terms of it two handed technique is closest to the stick (Trey starts to interrupt) ... Yeah? T: In a way. M: Do you feel you gained from starting on piano, or do you feel you've gained more from starting on the guitar? T: I don't know. The way I see it is I spent about fifteen years getting ready to play the Stick. M: If you were advising a Stick player to get a more conventional background on another instrument what would you advise? T: The Stick. I think time is too short, that if that's the instrument you want to play that's the instrument you should play. At the time I first became interested in the instrument I wasn't able to give it the time and the dedication that it needed. I even actually drove from Oregon down to Emmett's house to buy one, and realised when he couldn't sell me one that it just wasn't the right time. Then several years later I was going to buy one again and I realised it wasn't the right time. When it finally was the right time, I put the guitar in the case, put the bass in the case. This is the instrument I play, if you want me to play this is my instrument. M: So how long have you been playing Stick now? T: Five and a half years. M: And what particularly brought you to the Stick? What inspired you to take it up? T: I suppose the real answer to that question is music brought me there. It wasn't my intention directly. Looking back, I suppose my life was preparing me to pick up the instrument but at the time I didn't know that, until I actually got it in my hands, everything I'd been trying to do for the last eight years on the guitar was for the stick. I didn't realise that there was obviously something larger going on. M: In the band tonight, how do you see your role? How does it differ from that of a bass guitarist? T: Well, I suppose the main answer to that question is often I'm not playing the bass at all. Maybe on a fifth of the tunes there's actually a bass part played by me, or picked up by someone else, or there isn't a bass part. On several tunes I play only the melody side even with an octave up so I'm the solo instrument. On one piece in particular I'm the only instrument and I'm playing the top side. I'm using the top side a lot, which seems to be becoming my speciality. Funnily enough though, people having been saying the bass sounds more like a bass guitar than a Stick. I'm not sure whether I like that or not, the way they're perceiving it. My interest was in getting a really good bass sound out of it, as I rarely hear the Stick with a good full bass sound which can compete with the bass guitar. My aim with the instrument is to bring the sound of it up to the professional level, so that it plays in tune and it sounds good enough so if Adrian Belew's not playing the guitar part I can play it on Stick and it's going to sound just as good. If Tony's in the group it's going to be the Stick or Tony playing bass, so I aim to have a good sound and I haven't really found that before in Stick music. Stick solo on its own, you don't have the association with any sound, and you just accept it for what it is but when you put it in to a rock context, the bass should sound really full and kick you in the stomach. On the latest record that I've done with David Sylvian and Robert Fripp to my ears it's one of the best bass sounds I've ever heard. M: Coming back to the fact you and Tony are playing in King Crimson, are you going to play Stick at the same time? T: I've only played with Tony for about two hours, and that was with Robert, Jerry Marotta, Tony and I, and Adrian wasn't there. It was just a jam, we weren't working on materials specifically. I'm sure we're going to do some double Stick stuff, and with bass because he really enjoys playing the bass. I think the Stick for him was an alternate instrument, for me it's my main instrument. For him it's bass, then stick and keyboards probably. I'm looking to a lead role and texture role and also what I think will be a baritone role, and I haven't the faintest idea what that's going to be yet. M: What advice would you offer a Stick player who like yourself has decided to take the stick as his sole instrument? T: Depends on what they want to do. Maybe a more specific question than that? M: Particularly because so few people play the Stick, and there is no formal method or standard repetoire, or teaching, or even role in the band for the Stick player. What avenues do you think people are missing? When you see other Stick players play, how could they improve? T: Okay, there's a couple of questions. I'll answer the last one first, but don't let me lose the first one. The first thing I noticed about Stick players, myself included, is the posture they play with totally disrupts any chance of music happening. They always bend their head way, way forward and are crouched entirely closed on the instrument. It's almost unanimous. Jim Lampi is probably the only person I've seen who doesn't do this. I don't really know what I look like - I try to stand with my chest open and my face forward. I think it really suffers. The posture you adopt while playing and the way that you breathe is transmitted through the music to the audience and that pretty much says it clearly, they're going to breathe the way you breathe. Whether you know how you're breathing or not, if your breathing's constricted they pick it up without looking at you. It's in the sound - it's true. So I think just physically, there's a lot to be discovered that nobody knows yet and that's actually how to the play the instrument. When I first picked it up, the first thing that struck me aside from the two handedness of it, that splits your body in half, is that you should learn to play this instrument without looking at the fretboard. What a great opportunity if somebody picked it up and said "I don't have any gigs for two years, I'm going to learn to play this instrument without looking at the fretboard." M: But, because of the way Emmett teaches the Stick graphically in Free Hands, looking at the fretboard is probably the first intuitive way that most players learn to play. T: Yeah, I don't really know his approach. The book didn't have any particular use for me and I never took a lesson with Emmett. I've spoken to him on the phone, but I've never studied with Emmett. To make that leap in to not looking is a pretty big one because you have to put your fingers right in the right spot and you want to get on with it and play so that's probably why nobody has done it yet. I don't do it, but I'm working towards that now. Your hands are smarter than you think. And what was the first part of the question? What would I suggest? I would suggest the same things I'm continually trying to suggest to myself, when I have the time I will do it. I only have pockets of time to practice. The instrument is so primitive right now, as far as not so much the construction although the construction will undoubtly improve over the years but just the relationship of the players to the instrument is at a primitive, neanderthal stage. In a hundred years, more players will come to the instrument and there will be an appropriate body of technique. Right now players need to do what is considered by some people the really boring work but actually it's not, it's essential work of looking at how the hands play the instrument and dissecting all the combinations of the fingers on the instrument to get a really good pure tone which stays in tune. As far as music goes, I think people should learn to play Bach and whatever people can find what he's written which works on the instrument, so far everything I've tried acts as if it was written for the Stick. M: The trouble I've had with approaching Bach, is I'm using a fifths and fourth tuning, so if there's a unison line the hands are moving in opposite directions. Your using a varition on the Crafty tuning ... T: Yeah, it's a mirror tuning M: So it's in fifths on the melody side, except for a minor third between strings two and three and a whole tone between stings one and two? T: Yeah, let me just back up on your question, there's another question in there. The tuning that Emmett set the instrument up on doesn't work for me and my feeling is it's only half way there. Putting fifths on the bass, you have a totally new instrument, so I don't know what inspired him to do that but it was obviously a leap of genius. Keeping the fourths on the top side, it doesn't work for me. As I understand it, althought I've never used that tuning, there's a logic in terms of geometry between the sides but in my opinion the sides need to be tuned in a mirror fashion because the body is a mirror. I can't really describe it apart from it splits you down the middle in a really satisfying way. It seperates you internally and you don't have to use your brain. I haven't used the other tuning so I'm not sure, but you probably have to use the intellect a bit more. And for what you're saying, it just feels right to me to play those unison lines or to play in thirds or it just makes sense inner to outer, outer to inner. M: But one of the problems of playing in the fifths tuning is you have to make a change in position just to play a scale on the bass and there are different approaches, such as Bob Culbertson with his thumb technique to overcome this. I just wonder whether fifths on the melody might constrict melody ideas because of the bigger stretch. How big are your hands? T: No bigger than yours! Any change is going to appear to be a restriction but it also brings a whole new world. You can't play blues licks anymore, which is exactly what I wanted to eliminate from my repertoire. But if you want to do something, you can do it. On the Grand Stick, the range is so wide, so instead of your position being a minor third position it's just a fourth across. You have to use all your fingers, and as my understanding is, a lot of people don't do that. The bass side, it's tough though! (Trey laughs) M: So you don't use your thumbs ... T: No, I don't use my thumbs. I keep my hands on the back of the neck at all times. I think the main problem is inherent on the instrument, not the fingering, is you can't play a note on the string below the one you're currently on without letting go of the top one whereas pianists can play legato between two adjacent notes. You can trick your way around it, particularly on the Grand Stick because there's so much overlap between the sides, but it's inherent to the instrument, and the bass is like that. It's true not all Bach pieces will work. The Bach pieces we're doing tonight, with the exception of the Chromatic Fantasy which I play on the top side of the instrument, I playing just a bass part with both hands, which reminds me of the other thing I was going to mention about what Stick players should do is that they should play with other musicians. I don't see it as a solo instrument, although you can do that, I have done that and I will do it again, I think essentially Stick players have the possibility of becoming as detatched as keyboard players as far as being in time with other musicians and sounding good with other musicians. I don't know that many Stick players, I'm not really an authority on Stick players... M: Most of the Stick players I know either play bass and play stick a little bit with a band or play stick solo, so I think it's very good to have somebody in your position who a commitment to the Stick, but is playing with a band, and in particular that's why I looking forward to seeing you play tonight... T: Well, I've been playing five years so my technique really isn't that great but it's pretty good and what I've found is some things which I can do with my left hand alone always sound better if I use two hands on them. The feel is one of the most important things. If you don't get it right, somebody else has got the gig! Somebody else will get to play it! +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ TREY GUNN DISCOGRAPHY : Toyah Willcox - Ophelia's Shadow Sunday All Other The World - Kneeling At The Shrine Trey also played on Brian Eno's new album, Nerve Net, but the tracks he played on didn't make it on to the record but a video has been made to accompany one of the tracks so it should be coming out at a later date. (Cassette only) Soundtrack for Raw Power (Wind Surfing film) David Sylvian/Robert Fripp - The First Day "It's got stick all over it, and maybe even Stick players wouldn't know it..., a lot with the melody side, a lot with the Whammy Pedal. That's really great, especially for an octave up. It sounds better than an Eventide harmoniser at $3000. There's a lot of that on the record, and a lot of backwards stick playing, and I co-wrote all tunes" - Trey. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Many thanks to Trey for letting me interview him. It's the first time I've done an interview and I wasn't brillant at it - note how many questions I started with "but" - I think probably even hinting disagreement is a big mistake to make in an interview - which I must admit I was wincing about as I transcribed the tape. I thanked him profusely, so hopefully it will be okay. Maybe some other people on the list will get something from this, and maybe even try interviewing somebody else ... Mark Butler mhb at uk dot ac dot bham dot cs PS I think I need to buy a dictionary ..... [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] To join this mailing list or have your thoughts in the next issue, please send electronic mail to Toby Howard at the following address: toby at cs dot man dot ac dot uk The Discipline archives are available on ftp.uwp.edu, in /pub/music/lists/discipline. The views expressed in Discipline are those of the individual authors only.