From toby at cs dot man dot ac dot uk Thu Jun 18 09:28:55 1992 Return-Path: Date: Thu, 24 Oct 91 16:57:34 BST 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 Subject: discipline #11 discipline, Number 11 Thursday, 24 October 1991 Today's Topics: Re: S&BB tape (none) Bruford and Gong Moogs Typography Dave Holland/King Crimson similarity Essential King Crimson: Review Indisciple Mining Rocks [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] Your friendly moderator says... Hi everyone. It's great to see so much interesting traffic on the list. I've got various old bits of mail floating around my system (well, the computer system, not mine :-)) so I thought I'd dig them out and share them with you all now and again. One, included here, is nice review by Larry Spence of a 1990 LOCG concert some time ago. If you have any interesting stuff like this, send it on over! And special thanks to Brian Patrick Arnold for his in-depth review of the new boxed set. Anyone know if it's here in the UK yet? And the price? And now, on with the digest... [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] Date: Mon, 21 Oct 1991 12:18:25 -0400 (EDT) From: Brian Patrick Arnold Subject: Re: S&BB tape The Mincer's wavering abrupt ending on the old CD as well. I think the "knacker" if I use the term correctly, is on the original, not on your tape. The "definitive" remix of S&BB has this song suddenly fade out before the sound wavers, so the gaffe is less pronounced. - Brian [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] Date: Tue, 22 Oct 91 17:55:22 BST From: Toby Howard From: larry at csccat dot cs dot com (Larry Spence) Subject: REVIEW: Fripp & Crafties, Arcadia Theater, Dallas 11/5 (LONG) Date: 6 Nov 90 23:07:29 GMT Reply-To: larry at csccat dot cs dot com (Larry Spence) Organization: Computer Support Corporation. Dallas,Texas There have already been several reviews posted for recent Fripp shows, so I'll just add a few details. The show was at the Arcadia Theater, capacity 897, and I'd estimate the crowd numbered around 500-600. Very interesting crowd, lots of hard-core Fripp/ Crimso fans. many from waaay back. Our seats were dead-center, second row. At 8:35, the Crafties' "roadie" took the stage and made the usual "no cameras, no tapes, no smoking" announcement. At about 8:45, a door in the "pit" between the front row and the stage opened and Fripp & Co. emerged. They made a full circuit of the theater, finally returning to their seats on stage. Fripp pulled a tuning fork out from _between_his_legs_ (I'm sure that there's a story here!), tapped it on his knee, and held it to his Ovation guitar. I noticed that the PA setup was very small, two JBL cabinets on each side of the stage, and two EV monitors behind the guitarists. I didn't expect it to be very loud. Wrong! The Crafties (10 plus Fripp and the female vocalist) paused very dramatically and then started to play. The volume, clarity, and intensity of the sound from the PA was perfect! Fripp was seated at far right, turned toward the group so that you could never really see his playing except in profile. It was clear who the "senior" Crafties were: a tall, blond guy in the center chair (played many of the more difficult "solos" and a lot of high-register stuff), the two leftmost players (often played absolutely perfect unison parts and some interlocking parts), and the guy next to Fripp (who I suspect might have been Trey Gunn -- he played a lot of rhythmic figures, chunkier sounding bits on the low strings). There was also an Oriental guy who got a lot of parts. But everyone had a key role at some point or another. There was a lot of material played that I didn't recognize. They did play what I'm fairly sure was "Larks Tongues Part IV," (the intro was nearly the same as Part III on the last Crimso album), and another that may have been "Fracture Part II." There were also some of the "GC Theme" numbers. The Crafties did the "circulation" technique, where notes are passed from one guitarist to the next, several times during the show. Each guitarist would turn and look at the next (counterclockwise around the semicircle), and Fripp would intently watch the opposite guitarist to see when the run had gone all the way around. The execution of this was really polished. The sound was in stereo, so it sounded like one big guitar being slowly appegi- ated. A variation on this had the circulation speeding up gradually, which doubtless made it even more difficult to play. Very impressive. One of the cool things about the show was the use of silence and pauses. There would be a brief pause between songs, during which time my eyes were completely riveted, waiting for the first note. Fripp & Co. seemed to very carefully gauge the exact moment when they would begin. A couple of times, an asshole would dive into the silence and yell "Whooooo!!!" after which Fripp would make no reaction, simply waiting until dead silence appeared. On one or two occasions, Fripp counted into a song, in a rather jaunty sort of way that I thought was funny (hey, it's that Dorset accent!). During the instrumentals, the roadie and the female vocalist sat to the right of Fripp and the left of the leftmost guitarist respectively (outside of the semicircle). I noticed that both were sitting in the same posture, forearms on legs with both hands open and palm up. At no time did the vocalist depart >from this pose. In fact, all the Crafties had absolutely perfect posture, sitting on backless folding stools with a block of foam rubber or something on each. But no one looked restrained or uncomfortable. The vocalist (what is this person's NAME?) was stunning. Her style reminded me very much of the Roches, with an added ability to drop from a high note to a _very_ low note instantly. She came to the mic after every three or four numbers, and sang for perhaps a minute or two each time. Some of the singing involved lyrics (very interesting, everything from "God's sorrow" to "shit happens"), other parts emulated the Crafties' percolating interlocking guitar work. She could sing interlocking high/low parts effortlessly: "Boo beeDAHdoodooDEEdooBAHdooEEdoodooEEdoodooDAHHHH..." %) At the conclusion of each vocal number, she would stand at the mic for a few seconds, looking intently at the audience. Several of us locked eyes with her for a few seconds, and we later agreed that it was almost hypnotic. Then, at just the right moment, she would abruptly turn and walk back to her seat. Lest I give the wrong impression, she was smiling, beaming almost, the whole time she sang and during the intense pauses. The crowd loved it. I should mention that although much of the show consisted of the delicate, interlocking guitar lines, there were a few times when the entire group would play _massive_, minor chords super-marcato at full volume (e.g., the start of "Larks Tongues IV"). The timing was incredibly well-rehearsed -- there would be a giant 11-guitarist chord, and a split-second pause in which the chord resonated through the hall, followed by another giant slab of chord. The contrast with the lighter-sounding stuff was just great. The Crafty I spoke to a few years ago said that during the "heavy" parts, they would typically feel a huge surge of energy, as if they were going to lift up off the stage. Well, I can see why! These segments probably came closest to a Crimso level of energy. But the rest of the show certainly didn't lack for intensity, not necessarily the same thing as raw energy. I would like to hear from other netters who have seen this show, regarding the length of the performance. Although the theater was only 2/3 full or less, the crowd response was so great that the group came back for _several_ encores -- I literally lost count of how many times! I know Fripp doesn't do four (?) encores as a habit, so I think it's safe to say that this was an unusually good show. For one of the encores, the Crafties marched up the side aisle and into the lobby/bar, where they played an unplugged version of "Calliope" from the "Get Crafty I" tape. This seemed to be partly for the benefit of people who had seats in the back -- we were down in front, and the aisle back to the bar was jammed, so half the audience was looking out the exit toward the bar, going "what're they doing? what're they doing??" They finally came back and played another encore and then went backstage. But the audience kept clapping for a long time. After several minutes of applause, we started to leave. Maybe half the audience was in the aisles, heading for the door, when the group came back on stage! I've never seen so many people running for their seats... it was really funny. One of the last encore numbers was a sort of swing-jazz number that seemed like "time to loosen up the collar and have fun" compared to the more formal stuff earlier. When they finished, Fripp _smiled_ and kind of bobbed his head and tilted his hand back and forth at waist level as if to say, "Ahhh... ok, not bad." Since Fripp hadn't been excatly expressive prior to this, everyone cracked up. The very last number, two full hours after the start of the show, appeared completely improvised, as Fripp was nodding to various Crafties to take parts, and all of them were.... smiling! As were the rest of us.... %) OK, enough foaming at the mouth. As you can tell, I thought this was a great show! Hey, when Fripp walked down the aisle past me, I nodded at him and he nodded back, so maybe the guy is mellowing in his old age. %) There was lots of GC literature and promo stuff for sale in the lobby, includ- ing "The Act of Music," wherein Fripp blasts American audiences, talks about MTV, the craft and the business of music, and a lot more. Allegedly, the Crafties are going to release an album of their current repertoire, but no release date was mentioned. -- Larry Spence larry at csccat dot cs dot com ...{uunet,texsun,cs.utexas.edu,decwrl}!csccat!larry [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] Date: Tue, 22 Oct 91 09:39:03 PDT From: malcolm%yuba at wrs dot uucp (Malcolm Humes) Subject: Bruford and Gong Bruford was with Gong for a short period somewhere during the time of 1973-75. I know of a boot/live recording from Lemans France from 1974 that has Bill on it and that's all I've ever heard. The quality of this recording was pretty degenerated though the original tape was probably pretty good. Since I know Daevid Allen of Gong and have been trading with some Gongheads I'll try to find out more or track down other recordings if there are any. The Gong collection mentioned is really "Pierre Moerlen's Gong" which was what was left of Gong after Daevid Allen and Tim Blake split. Moerlen was the drummer that Bruford was replacing. They also had Laurie Allan, Rob Tait, Di Bond, and Brian Davidson replacing Moerlen for brief periods of time during the same period that Bruford played for them. Holdsworth joined up after Bruford was gone and was on 2 lps by Pierre Moerlen's Gong, "Gazeuse" (also released as "Expresso"), and "Expresso II". It's a shame that "Wingful of Eyes: Retrospective '74-'77" and so many other cds nowadays don't even bother to credit the musicians. I'm not familiar with this compilation but I'm surprised about the dates because if it really does have anything from 1974 on it it's a very different band than it was from 1975-77. >From trying to decipher family tree notes on Gong from Soft Machine's TRIPLE ECHO lp liner notes it looks like: Pierre split sometime after 11/73 after recording "Angels Egg" and came back for recording of "You" around 11/74, then left again to later return in 6/75 to take over the band. Based on what I can piece together I'm guessing Bruford was drumming for them sometime during 1974, and may have only played a few gigs with them. I'm almost positive that no albums by Gong feature Bruford. The tree says he left to work with National Health. I think the liner notes of the recent National Health "Retrospective" cd talk a bit about his relatively short stay with National Health, some of which was recorded and released. Bruford also sat in with Genesis for a brief time after Gabriel left. -Malcolm (malcolm at wrs dot com) [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] Date: Tue, 22 Oct 91 10:46:26 EDT From: David Kuznick Subject: Moogs Okay, how about moog and/or mini-moog? Obviously, Walter Carlos. The Beatles used it and so did George Harrison on that first solo album by any Beatle, Electronic Sounds. The Turtles on You Showed Me, The Byrds on Moog Raga, The Who on Baba O'Riley, ELP, King Crimson. And Spanky And Our Gang used it in the 60's sometime too I might add... :^) I don't think KC ever used a Moog. I know they used a VCS3 (one of the first synths to come with a sequencer) to do some processing of sounds. The VCS3 was one of those synths where you could take an input signal from a line-in as well as an internal oscillator. Some of the wind type effects could be a Moog, but the VCS3 could produce the same white/pink noise stuff and was a bit cheaper I think. Moogs were really best for soloing and some sound effects (but remember you could get a lot of the sound effects from cheaper synths). On Baba O'Reiley I would again guess that it is a VCS3 doing the famous sequenced parts. More likely the Moog was used on Bargain. BTW Bob P., thanks for the tapes if I forgot to send you mail. David Kuznick david at ait dot com [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] Date: Tue, 22 Oct 1991 15:21:18 EDT From: Phong Co Subject: Typography Hmm, I just took a close look at the words "King Crimson" on the _Larks'_Tongues_ and _Starless_ albums. They are both in the same typeface, but I think the reason the dots of the i's seem slightly raised on _Starless_ is that the lowercase characters seem to be higher relative to the capitals. Take a look at the "Ki" combination on both and see. As for "this night wounds time", the typeface is roman, which is nothing if not common. It is in the same family as that used on the cover, but I don't think they are identical. Compare the descenders on the "g"s. By now some of you probably think I've got too much free time, but when you spend a year doing TeX, it's actually hard to read anything without wondering about fonts. Anyhow, I'd like to know what you guys think of this. -- ========================================================================= Phong T. Co | chryses at xurilka dot UUCP | Battleships confide in me and dada Indugu Inc. | tell me where you are Montreal, CANADA | -- Yes [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] From: joey at eden dot Berkeley dot EDU (Joe Hellerstein) Subject: Dave Holland/King Crimson similarity Date: 23 Oct 91 02:46:29 GMT Don't know if anybody is likely to own both of these albums, but I just noticed a strange similarity between Dave Holland's "Walk-a-way" (off the _Seeds of Time_ album, ECM 1985, recorded November 1984) and King Crimson's "The Sheltering Sky" (off of _Discipline_, EG 1981.) Anybody agree with me as to the similarity of these two recordings? Care to speculate on influences, composition dates, etc? I'm not suggesting complete plagiarism, but they *are* similar tunes, both unusual. Any grand conspiracy theories for this? Maybe it has to do with BCCI and the murder of Danny Casalero... Joe Hellerstein -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Joe Hellerstein | "Laziness in doing stupid things joey at postgres dot berkeley dot edu | can be a great virtue" -- James Hilton [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] Date: Wed, 23 Oct 1991 22:20:52 -0400 (EDT) From: Brian Patrick Arnold Subject: Essential King Crimson: Review The "Essential King Crimson: Frame by Frame", KC Box 1, Virgin E'G Records UK/Europe, Caroline Records US, is a new 4 CD boxed set with a 64 page booklet and a family tree. This is my initial review, which means I'll give too much surface description, biased opinion, and probably too many factual errors. I'm sure we will soon see better-informed reviews and opinions in the coming weeks, all of which I'd love to see, but for now, I figure some people will appreciate this. Overall, this package is far superior to the previous 2 LP/2 CD compilation "The Young Person's Guide to King Crimson" and the 2 LP/1 CD compilation "Compact King Crimson", from the music to the documentation. The package is designed by Bill Smith Studio, and is decent. The cover and artwork smacks of great brilliance and humor, but doesn't look heavy. What is heavy are the color choices: dark dark red, dark dark yellow and dark dark green. Crimson has a new logo. The first three 60+ min CDs represent studio works from the 1969-71, 1972-74, and 1981-1984 periods respectively. The fourth 60+ min CD contains live and some previously unreleased material from performances dating from 1969 to 1984. One important thing to note is that most of the first three CDs contain "definitive edition" remixes--the exact same mixes as found on the Definitive Edition King Crimson CDs available to most since 1989. King Crimson 1969-71: contains the all of the songs from In the Court of the Crimson King (sans the boring part of Moonchild), plus: Peace a Theme, Cat Food, Groon and Cadence and Cascade--all but Groon from In the Wake of Poseidon; an abridged Sailor's Tale (from where the cymbals kick in until the end) and Ladies of the Road--both from Islands; and finally Bolero--from Lizard. The b-side to the Cat Food single in 1970 was Groon, which also appeared on Young Person's Guide. Cat Food sounds even more energetic than before for some reason, with a slight remixing of the guitar part. Adrian Belew replaces Gordon Haskell's vocals on Cadence and Cascade, and Tony Levin replaces Gordon's bass on Bolero. Adrian's voice on Cadence and Cascade blows Gordon's away; it is a pleasant suprise to see him participating in this remix. Similarly, Tony does justice and sounds cool. The rest is "definitive". King Crimson 1972-74: the first third contains an abridged Larks' Tongues in Aspic Part One (missing is the short violin/piano-pick duet right before the coda, still 11 mins long), Book of Saturday, Easy Money, and Larks' Tongues in Aspic Part Two--all from Larks' Tongues in Aspic. They are all "definitive"; I should note that I love the way Easy Money was remixed, it sounds a bit spacier. On the second third of the CD are The Night Watch, The Great Deceiver and an abridged Fracture--all from Starless and Bible Black. I love the "definitive" Great Deceiver, which has a bigger wallop than pre-definitive versions. Fracture has the whole "Suite #1-esque" middle part taken out, which is disappointing. The last third of the CD contains an abridged Starless, Red, Fallen Angel and One More Red Nightmare--all from Red. They cut out the whole second and third thirds of Starless, rendering the song a 4 minute "single" with no dramatic ending; I did this once in making a "compilation" tape for a friend who wasn't heavily into Crimson, so I understand the desire to cut out the "difficult" sections, but it still leaves me mildly unsettled (so much for a "blast into the cozmoss"). Fortunately it leaps right into Red. I was glad to see One More Red Nightmare included in this compilation; I think it's a really intense song and well-remixed. King Crimson 1981-84: contains Elephant Talk, Frame by Frame, Matte Kudasai, Thela Hun Ginjeet, Heartbeat, Waiting Man, Neurotica, Requiem, Three of a Perfect Pair, Sleepless, Discipline, The Sheltering Sky, and The King Crimson Barber Shop (previously unreleased). All save the last are "definitive" from Discipline, Beat and Three of a Perfect Pair--enough said. I don't want to let the cat out of the bag regarding The King Crimson Barber Shop, except that it is 1-1/2 mins of pure Tony Levin and I'll leave the rest to your imagination (uh, "excuse me", it's "Tony, Billy, Bobby and Belew"). Originally recorded in 1983. Live King Crimson 1969-84: for those who own all of the "definitive" Crimson CDs already, this CD is probably your determining factor in buying this boxed set. It contains Get Thy Bearings and Travel Weary Capricorn from the Plumpton Festival in England, Aug 1969. Both are sonically in the toilet, but Get Thy Bearings really kicks with raw energy, notably in Greg Lake's voice. Travel Weary Capricorn has Mike Giles singing and is a bit 60's-jazzy--it seems like Fripp could have made a better choice than to include this. Then comes Mars from the Fillmore West, San Francisco, Dec 1969, which is right after Michael Giles and Ian McDonald decided to leave the band after the tour. Mars is exceptional and the sound survived. The Talking Drum and 21st Century Schizoid Man come next, from the Amsterdam Concertgebow, Nov 1973. This Talking Drum fits very well after Mars, and is quite devastatingly good (NB bogus track time). A different 21st Century Schizoid Man could have been used--it's good but not as great as the USA live version. Then comes Asbury Park from The Casino, Asbury Park in June 1974--thank God this was included, my old USA LP is really scratched up. This remix sounds much better, you can now hear David Cross attempting to participate. It kicks. For the 80's come an excerpt of Larks' Tongues in Aspic Part Three (from the interweaving two-guitar bridge until the end), splicing Le Spectrum, Montreal, July 1984 with Tokyo Kani Hoken Hall, April 1984. The whole band is great and Fripp is particularly phenomenal on this, but it sounds stupid without the first half of the song, or an appropriate ending (usually segues into Thela Hun Ginjeet). Then comes Sartori in Tangier from Le Spectrum, Montreal, July 1984, with Belew on drums and Bruford on percussives. I've always felt uncomfortable with Belew playing drums, and you can barely hear Bruford's contributions, but Fripp is really good, as is Tony Levin. Lastly, there is Indiscipline >from The Arena, Frejus, Aug 1982, which if you've seen The Noise video, you already know this kicks. "Controlled anarchy" has finally been achieved and captured on CD? The only songs I think sorely missing from this collection are any version of Lament and the live Larks' Tongues in Aspic Part Two from the Frejus concert. As for the booklet, it contains selected Young Person's Guide photos, and selected Tony Levin "Road Photos" (yeah! I could never find this in bookstores). Like the Young Person's Guide, it is a "scrapbook" of reviews, interviews and discussions dating from 1968 through 1991, as well as recording information and a complete tour listing. Mucho typos but fun reading. Some of the British music press continued their Crimson-and-Fripp-bashing as well as providing demonstrations of complete ignorance through the 80's. Fripp decided to include his opinion on the matter at the end of the journal, summed up in "We [the music world] deserve better than this [the British music press]". The selection of discussions after 1984 mold a concept that the band never really disbanded in 1984 despite having over 7 years elapse. Suprisingly, Fripp's negative comments on the band circa 1984-6 didn't appear, to the effect of "it was a good band, but it could have been great, which made it even worse." Maybe inclusions of opinions from Adrian Belew to the effect of "Robert likes to do things in three album sets", "Personally I'd like to see it take a break for a while", and "you've got four very headstrong individuals and probably five approaches to the music" supplanted this need. I suppose the presence of Adrian Belew and Tony Levin on the re-remixes done in June and July of 1991 indicate a distinct possibility of the Discipline band reforming this fall (or is Bill Bruford too busy?). But this is sheer speculation, albeit based on rumors. Finally, there's the Family Tree sheet. It is a bit too complete, making it appear busy and okay maybe some twenty-odd people have played with the band, but this sheet makes it look as if several thousand people participated in the band. I've seen sparser. Well, do ya think it's worth 50ish bucks? What's that, 90ish pounds in England or are CD prices still inflated, making it regrettably around 150ish pounds? I think it is worth it, for listeners old and new alike. - Brian [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] Date: Fri, 31 May 91 00:16:56 -0400 From: Andrew Russ Subject: Indisciple Mining Rocks Indisciple Mining Rocks contains stuff from the 1981 Discipline tour. Two songs from the Fridays TV show--"Elephant Talk" and "Thela Hun Ginjeet" plus five or so live instrumental pieces from a show at Stony Brook NY-- "The Sheltering Sky", "Red", "Larks Tongues In Aspic, Part Two", "Turkish Tea" (Not released), and an untitled piece that was one of the intrumentals >from Beat (possibly "Sartori in Tangier"). The album concludes with a brief bit of audience--Fripp dialogue: "Louder" "Yeah" "I believe the gentleman here would like us to play a little louder" "Yeah" "May I suggest that you should listen more attentively" plus a bsnippet from a radio interview, on the same topic. The cover looks like the Discipline cover, with the different title, and a syringe stuck into the discipline emblem and hooked up to a cassette recorder. Photos of each band member appear at the bottom. The back cover has warner brothers and EG logos on it, plus a reprint of Fripp's "Bootlegging, Royalties, and the Moment" article (complete with address for Guitar player magazine) and some data about the music (song titles, venues). Overall, the sound is very good, and i'd recommend it if you're a King Crimson fan. andrew russ [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] To join this group 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 views expressed in discipline are those of the individual authors only.