Errors-To: admin at elephant-talk dot com Reply-To: newsletter at elephant-talk dot com Sender: moderator at elephant-talk dot com Precedence: bulk From: moderator at elephant-talk dot com To: newsletter at elephant-talk dot com Subject: Elephant Talk #1001 E L E P H A N T T A L K The Internet newsletter for Robert Fripp and King Crimson enthusiasts Number 1001 Thursday, 1 August 2002 Today's Topics: Masque 3 'backmasquing' Re: CENTROZOON album Young Person's Guide with Booklet on Vinyl Found Guitar Craft and Level 5 (people paid for this..!) Ranking albums Tamm Fripp bio again punctuation? who needs it -for the 1000th issue A Musical Guide To King Crimson by Andrew Keeling Project ONE Re: IN THE COURT Re: e.e. cummings, Absolute Elsewhere Rock in Opposition ------------------ A D M I N I S T R I V I A --------------------- POSTS: Please send all posts to newsletter at elephant-talk dot com To UNSUBSCRIBE, or to CHANGE ADDRESS: Send a message with a body of HELP to admin at elephant-talk dot com or use the DIY list machine at http://www.elephant-talk.com/list/ To ASK FOR HELP about your ET subscription: Send a message to: help at elephant-talk dot com ET Web: http://www.elephant-talk.com/ Read the ET FAQ before you post a question at http://www.elephant-talk.com/faq.htm Current TOUR DATES info can always be found at http://www.elephant-talk.com/gigs/tourdates.shtml You can read the most recent seven editions of ET at http://www.elephant-talk.com/newsletter.htm THE ET TEAM: Toby Howard (Moderator), Dan Kirkdorffer (Webmaster) Mike Dickson (List Admin), and a cast of thousands. The views expressed herein are those of the individual authors. ET is produced using John Relph's Digest system v3.7b (relph at sgi dot com). ------------------ A I V I R T S I N I M D A --------------------- Date: Sat, 13 Jul 2002 21:30:06 -0700 (PDT) From: rone at ennui dot org (figmentality) Subject: Masque 3 'backmasquing' Is it just me, or does the first minute of Masque 3 sound just like the early part of Formentera Lady, backmasked? rone -- Constancy of the speed of light is a conclusion, yes it is a conclusion based on nonconvincing, irrational assumptions. WHAT IS LIGHT?! Whose light? From what sourse? Please do not mention electronagnetics - the same applies to them. - Alexander Abian ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Jul 2002 14:09:35 +0100 From: "D. Chinn" Subject: Re: CENTROZOON album Hi all, As regards "The Cult Of: Bibiboo" - the Centrozoon album enthusiastically plugged by Lee Fletcher in ET#998 - I've been lucky enough to get an advance press copy and here's my several cents worth (prior to writing a proper review). Yes, ProjeKCt fans are going to enjoy it - with the greatest appeal likely to be to the fans of ProjeKCt Three's more high-energy style. It takes the freedom of the music of that particular line-up and takes it a stage further. Though it's often fast and furious, it's less obviously rock-inspired - using a similar musical vocabulary but in a much more abstract way, with much more emphasis on programmed beats and rhythms (as they have no live drummer) and on unearthly harmonic explorations. It also has strong similarities to the BPM&M album - unsurprising, considering P@ and Bill M. are remixing Centrozoon tracks for the next release. And for other comparisons you could choose between techno (both the cerebral German variety and the so-called "tribal" kind), Joe Zawinul, darkwave, industrial musicians like Jim Thirlwell (of Foetus) and Stockhausen. But at all times it retains the bizarre galactic beauty of Soundscapes '90s-onward Soundscapes. Markus Reuter has a strong Fripp-and-Gunn aspect to his Warr Guitar playing, as you would expect from a former Crafty. But he concentrates far more on loops, textures and short note-bursts than on extended soloing or on that "touchboard gamelan" tradition. People talk about the possibilities of other people carrying on the King Crimson torch after Fripp and other current members retire. Whether or not Markus might be in or out of KC at that time, he's unquestionably one of the strongest contenders for continuing the Fripp tradition. One of his best qualifications is that he doesn't sound anywhere near as slavishly Crafty as many of the people who've released on DGM - he's his own musician. I think Fripp would approve. As regards the forthcoming "trio" album withTim Bowness added to the Centrozoon line-up as singer, I haven't heard the album yet so can't comment on it. But I did get to see the Bowness-augmented Centrozoon play two dates in the UK earlier this year, so I can offer you some feedback on that. They do dark, surreal and rapturously melancholy songs with haunting melodies. If you liked the "Exposure" version of "Here Comes The Flood" and imagined what it would sound like rearranged for ProjeKCt Three, that's a useful reference point. As is the title track to Sylvian/Fripp's "Damage", or Bowness' appearance on SPLaTTeRCeLL's "ReMiKSiS" EP. Or indeed some bits of No-Man's own "Wild Opera". Does anyone else have any Centrozoon comments? cheers, Dann Chinn np: Steve Lawson/Jez Carr - "Conversations" ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Jul 2002 11:19:28 -0400 From: "Randall G. Alley" Subject: Young Person's Guide with Booklet on Vinyl Found Let me know if anyone wants me to pick it up for them at a store near me. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 08:26:19 +0000 From: "lawrence moseley" Subject: Guitar Craft and Level 5 (people paid for this..!) Hi all, http://www.sdreader.com/ed/calendar/rv/MUSICREV.HTM Copy into your browser or read the work below. Just in case you missed it from your own sources. (I got this from the Gentle Giant digest.) Does Earthbound mean going from First floor or above (level 5 perhaps?) into the basement I wonder? Enjoy (if that is the right word...) regards Lawrence Squerd Riffs (A Frippism...I like it...) 'We have both kinds...Country and Western...' - from the Blues Brothers. ------- "He passes out ripe fruit to audiences." Feature by Ed Decker Photograph by Randy Hoffman (see link) Published July 11, 2002 Artist: Convergence (featuring Tom Griesgraber) Venue: Ruby G. Schulman Auditorium at the Carlsbad Library, 1775 Dove Lane, Carlsbad Time: Saturday, August 24, 2 p.m. Cost: $5 Phone: 760-942-1694 Robert Fripp -- founder/guitarist of King Crimson -- held a guitar clinic "at some ranch outside Santa Barbara.... I've been hearing stories about these courses for years," says Tom Griesgraber. Griesgraber plays guitar and Chapman Stick for the band Agent 22. The Stick is an instrument that combines six guitar strings and six bass strings onto an enlarged fretboard that is played with both hands to create bass chords and melodies simultaneously. Fripp rumors abound. "Things like he only lets you eat a bowl of oatmeal a day; you can only sleep four hours a day; he puts you in a room one-on-one with him and stares at you without saying anything. He passes out ripe fruit to audiences and encourages them to throw it at students onstage. I guess [some] people have dropped out." "Oh, and they insist that you tune your guitar low to high CGDAEG.... [The] guitar is normally EADGBE -- low to high. New standard tuning -- Fripp's term -- is almost an upside-down standard tuning." Griesgraber explains, "This tuning gives you more low notes and more high notes and a sound that, in general, is more 'open' since most of the strings are five notes apart as opposed to standard tuning, which has strings mainly four notes apart." "Guitar Craft," Fripp's seminar, costs $1050 and ran from February 11 to 17. "They said to bring a sleeping bag; warm, loose clothes; and rubber or plastic sandals. They described accommodations as 'adequate, but not necessarily comfortable.' " Having opened several times for the California Guitar Trio, a Los Angeles-based acoustic group, Griesgraber knew of the seminar through them. All three members of the trio -- Bert Lams, Hideyo Moriya, and Paul Richards -- are graduates of Guitar Craft and have attended Fripp's advanced seminars at his home in the British countryside. "The GC people say not to play your guitar for a week before the program starts.... I think it's just to get yourself away from your normal playing habits a bit. One of the hardest things in music is to unlearn a bad or old habit and try to replace it with a new one. I think that request is just a way of trying to give you a cleaner start once the program begins." Griesgraber was happy to discover that the one-bowl-of-oatmeal-a-day thing appeared to be a myth. "We did, however, only get vegetarian food. I ended up in a cabin full of 15 guys in bunk beds. On the first night, Fripp instructed us to 'stay in the program,' predicting that we'd be annoyed by the living arrangements. Between the snoring and the late-night aromas caused by 15 nonvegetarians living on beets, oatmeal, and beans, I thought seriously about sleeping in my car on a few nights." The seminar was held at St. Vincent de Paul -- a Catholic ranch for underprivileged children in the mountains outside of Santa Barbara. Two large buildings were used as a dining hall and meeting area, and four smaller cabins were for sleeping. The cabins were heated; the meeting room and dining hall were not. "I was freezing the whole time," says Griesgraber. "There was about a half-mile hike to the showers along an unlit, poorly paved road. I got into the habit of showering at midnight just to make sure I could get hot water." There were about 60 guitarists from all over North America in attendance. There were only nine female students. "We had to get up at 6:15 every morning for a 'sitting.' Fripp led us through it one afternoon. It was exactly 30 minutes of silence. He sat on the floor cross-legged and described how he was tracing his awareness through all the major parts of his body. He cautioned not to focus on organs, just flesh and bone.... We did it every morning in silence. It also happened randomly at dinner. The whole group might be sitting in the dining hall eating away, when you'd notice things getting quiet. A look up at Fripp -- who sat at his own table -- would show him not eating and staring quietly out at the room. That was the cue, I guess, and we would all stop eating and quiet down -- usually for exactly 30 minutes. It was so quiet that if you so much as swallowed, it seemed to reverberate around the room. As for the food, "Fripp coined a term for Guitar Craft food. It's called 'squerd.' He actually posted a page-long definition of it [on the dining room wall]." "There are currently two categories of squerd: savory and dessert. "The colors of 'savory squerd' tend toward brown and green, indicating the healthy origins of the fundamental ingredients: these must be vegetable. "Sometimes, however, the colors are brighter; for example, orange (swede) or scarlet-purple (beetroot). These more demonstrative colors may sometimes be compromised by the inclusion of less exciting vegetables...in which case, the default color tends towards brown." When I ask Griesgraber what "swede" is, he admits he doesn't know. As for actually playing the guitar -- what musicians come here for -- "He had about four pages of writing on the dining room wall just describing how to pick. I think it was a reprint of an old magazine article." Fripp used to write a column for Guitar Player magazine. "The gist was, you start with your hand straight out...then bend all four fingers back from the second knuckle till the tips are parallel to the arm. The thumb comes straight down onto the pick, with its knuckle flat. The pick is essentially held by the thumb and the entire first section of the first finger, not just the tip of the first finger, as is probably most common. "He doesn't even call picking 'down' and 'up,' but rather 'release' and 'return.' The idea being, you let gravity drop your wrist to pick. The 'up' pick is simply bringing your wrist back to its normal position (return)." Sometimes Fripp and the other instructors led the Crafties through an exercise they called "circulations." All 60 or so guitarists sat in a circle around the room and played one randomly picked note, then passed it from player to player around the room. Toward the end of the course, Fripp randomly set up groups of two to eight guitar players. Each group had to compose a piece and perform it that night. "At lunch, he cautioned us that, in the past, audiences had been equipped with overripe fruit. 'Great,' I thought, 'looks like that rumor is dead on.' " "At 9:00 p.m. we started the show. Sure enough, heckling from the veteran students, instructors, and staff was in full swing. It started with them removing a single chair from our stage setup. Just before my group started, somebody turned on a metronome near my feet. It totally unnerved me. "After four pretty serious groups and a ton of tension in the air, the fifth group sets up and this hefty guy announces their band by saying, 'We're Blast o' Crap. This song is called "Here Comes My Ass." ' "The place lost it.... From that point on, the hecklers were in full swing: They threw peanuts all over the place, set off alarm clocks, and shined flashlights on [the musicians'] hands and faces." Toward the end of the seminar, Fripp allowed each of the Crafties to meet with him individually for ten minutes. "I went to his little cabin, without a guitar, and asked about the music business. Fripp said being a professional musician sucks and never stops sucking.... He's had a hard time with a big lawsuit." When I press Griesgraber for details, he tells me, "Fripp went through major turmoil with an old record label he was on called EG Records, which started back in, like, 1969 with the original King Crimson. By the late '80s, however, Fripp was having major disputes with them, trying to get out of the relationship, trying to get his music back, royalties paid, etc. I don't think EG exists anymore, but he actually told me he spent about six years in litigation." According to Griesgraber, music critics have been rough on Fripp. "Paul Richards [of California Guitar Trio] told me about reviews with phrases like 'Who killed Bobby Fripp's puppy?' and another that described Fripp as a 'Fly that's been buzzing around the music industry for years.' " Paul Richards, who was on the staff at the Santa Barbara Guitar Craft, says, "The level-one and level-two courses are usually one or two weeks long. When I took level three in 1987, it lasted three months -- and almost a year for level four. The year-long level four, which I attended at Fripp's home, cost $3000. I think room and board was another $2000. "My level five was, for the most part, touring with Robert Fripp's League of Crafty Guitarists. We did a show at the Bacchanal in 1988. It was a critic at the Reader who wrote that quote about Robert being a fly buzzing around the music industry." The actual quote was: "Robert Fripp is an ingenious fly who's been buzzing about the ears of a dozing record industry for 20 years." Home Page | Matches | Classifieds | Movies | Restaurants | Menus Music | Events | Theater | City Lights | Comments? | Coupons c2002 San Diego Reader. All rights reserved. | Disclaimer | Privacy Policy Last modified: July 10, 2002 | 10:20 am ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 19:42:55 -0500 From: "DiMaso, Phil (Elk)" Subject: Ranking albums Hello to All, I'm a relative newcomer to ET, although I've been a Crimson fan since 1975. I almost always enjoy reading the various posts and love getting a true fan's perspective of the trials and tribulations of an ongoing musical journey that is KC. I don't know if this was done in any earlier ET's but from a fan's standpoint, has anyone ever ranked all of the studio released KC albums in order of preference? I'm not including any of the KCCC releases, just major label. I would be curious to see the many different perspectives the various lists would have. Long Live Crimso. Phil DiMaso ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 21:55:42 -0700 From: Kevin Cheli-Colando Subject: Tamm Fripp bio again Hello all, I have just posted my copy of the Eric Tamm biography of Robert Fripp for sale on Ebay. If you're interested, http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1550350250 or search for Fripp biography My apologies to all who had mailed me requesting this book from me the last time I tried to sell it. The person I thought wanted it never came through and my hardrive died and I lost all my old email in the rubble so I couldn't get back to the next in line. Thanks Kevin ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 02:17:36 -0400 From: "Jordan Clifford" Subject: punctuation? who needs it >In posts to a list such as this, >it merely shows: >a) laziness Yes, and that's all it shows. Please don't try to act superior because you have no mistakes in your spelling or punctuation. When I type I usually pay no mind to whether or not I use capitals, or construct sentances correctly, or even spell words correctly. And yes, it is out of pure laziness. I've been brought up with spell checks, and I use them when they are needed. I never considered it necessary to use spell check when sending informal emails, but if it really bothers people I will put a little more effort into it. However, it is certainly nothing to get bent out of shape about. [ I think most ETers would appreciate posts that are grammatical and written with care. It boils down to the writer wishing to show courtesy to the reader, I think. And on a purely practical note, in English terms, writing which does not obey the usual conventions of capitalisation, grammar and spelling, is simply harder for the reader to read. And that cannot be much fun for the reader. I shall keep an eye on this. -- Toby ] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 02:22:32 -0400 From: "Jordan Clifford" Subject: -for the 1000th issue For the 1000th issue, I just thought I'd take the time out to say how great this newsletter is. It is such a satisfying experiance to be able to come home and read what other fans from all around the globe have to say about one of your favorite bands of all time- more importantly one of your favorite bands but no one elses. Hardly anyone I know even knows KC, let alone has anything to say about them. It really is special that there is a fan newsletter like this that keeps everyone connected. Keep up the good work Thanks, Jordan [ Thank you. Much appreciated. Sorry that post did not appear in ET #1000 (my error). -- Toby ] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 19:35:33 +0100 From: "Webmaster at the FraKctured Zone" Subject: A Musical Guide To King Crimson by Andrew Keeling I'm delighted to inform one and all of the arrival of "A Musical Guide To King Crimson by Andrew Keeling". This is a projected series of multimedia CDs (one per album) that hopefully will become available through DGM in due course. The first, "Larks' Tongues In Aspic" is currently in the final stages of development. By way of introduction we have posted samples of this and a full version of "Prelude: Song Of The Gulls" for electronic download COMPLETELY FREE OF CHARGE at http://www.songofthegulls.ukf.net Go get it! ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 17:34:34 -0700 From: "Alec Sugar" Subject: Re: IN THE COURT I don't know anything about the CD error questions, but I am glad to see another teenager on ET. I'm 17 and have been a Crimson fan for about 10 months. I'd be curious to know the ages of others who post to ET. Alec ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 03:25:38 +0000 From: "Michel Champagne" Subject: Re: e.e. cummings, Absolute Elsewhere 1) If Gordon Taylor is (as he claims) "a devotee of the works of Joyce, Beckett and e.e.cummins [sic]," my guess is that he would do well to learn how to spell cummings' suranme. (that's a JOKE, Gordon . . . ) 2) Regarding the 'Absolute Elsewhere" LP, I had a friend who had a copy back then, and all I can remember is the opening track on side one, an incredibly insipid piece of drivel over which Bruford played in straight 4/4 time, dutifully tapping a closed hi-hat on every quarter note. If there were any fills at all, I don't remember them. I recall very vivdly us singing along with it over the span og two bars: "Gimme' my check . . . please." OK, maybe it wasnt really that bad, but it had to be a rent-paying gig, and for that I am grateful to whoever footed the bill for these sessions, or else Mr. B might not be in the position he is today. Lest we forget, "everything happens for a reason." Regards, Mike Champagne ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2002 23:03:49 -0700 (PDT) From: Teofilus Kierto Subject: Rock in Opposition I wholeheartedly agree with everyone who have recommended the so-called RIO groups on these pages, although I'd like to point out that "Rock in Opposition" is by no means a genre. Originally it was just a collective of five bands (Henry Cow, Stormy Six, Samla Mammas Manna, Univers Zero and Etron Fou Leloublan; later also Aqsak Maboul, Art Zoyd and Henry Cow offshoot Art Bears joined the ranks) with common aesthetic and musical principles, although later the term RIO has been widely used as if it was (or at least indicated) a certain musical style. Nevertheless, the original RIO spirit is still working among us and it has produced many outstanding recordings. My pick of the crop is the first U Totem album which is probably the only recording I've heard in the last twenty years that has completely changed my perception of what music is all about (especially the opening track "One Nail Draws Another" which is simply astounding). ------------------------------ End of Elephant Talk Digest #1001 *********************************