Errors-To: toby at cs dot man dot ac dot uk 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: Elephant Talk Digest #279 E L E P H A N T T A L K The Internet newsletter for Robert Fripp and King Crimson enthusiasts Number 279 Thursday, 30 May 1996 Today's Topics: more please Re: Elephant-talk digest v95 #278 KC on Community Radio in Newcastle improv KC Marquee book Re: Elephant-talk digest v95 #278 Bruford w/ National Health Schizoid Man in Dunlop Ad THRaKaTTaCK gig Improv/solo ?! Crimson on the radio Boz Burrell resurfaces in NYC Re: B. Bruford KC Gigs and Improvisation THRaKaTTak "... I'm shaking like a leaf, and who should appear but two policemen!" Guitar Craft Course Announcement Tony's Tour Diary RE: Bruford guestings Re: HORDE in Rolling Stone Administrivia: POSTS: Please send all posts to toby at cs dot man dot ac dot uk UNSUB/ADDRESS CHANGES: The DIY List Machine is back! At www.cs.man.ac.uk/aig/staff/toby/et/list/ Visit the *new* ET on the web at www.cs.man.ac.uk/aig/staff/toby/et/ or the partial mirror at http://members.aol.com/etmirror/ For all administrative issues, such as change of address, withdrawal from the list, etc., send a message to the following address: toby at cs dot man dot ac dot uk ** If you want to opt for new 'ET BULLETIN' service, where instead of the whole digest you receive a short email announcing the latest edition is out, and where to read it on the web, email me, toby at cs dot man dot ac dot uk, saying: "ET BULLETIN -- YES". ** The views expressed herein are those of the individual authors. ET is produced using John Relph's Digest 3.0 package. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 28 May 1996 11:03:04 -0700 From: Karen Baumgart Subject: more please Hi there, We have most of the Thrak related CDs and are about to aquire Thrakattack. I am very happy to be able to hear different versions of things, you can do your own remixing in your sleep and wake up with another new version. Well anyway, the band charges my soul and I would like them to continue. So, I would much rather contribute to the band's funding than to somebody else's. If we can all fund their next recording by buying what they put out for us, they might be willing to produce more (please). See you at the show. -spike Life's a blast, let's explode! ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 May 1996 16:00:32 +0100 From: dshaw at tiac dot net (David G. Shaw) Subject: Re: Elephant-talk digest v95 #278 Bob Parducci writes: >I don't remember that Bill recorded with National Health, although the liner >notes for "D.S. al Coda" indicate his participation on live dates. Bruford was the original drummer for National Health, as explained in Dave Stewart's notes to "National Health Complete." That double CD has as its first track "Paracelsus (excerpt)," a live BBC session for John Peel. Bruford is the drummer on that excerpt. Stewart plans to release the entire Peel Session gig "real soon now." ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 May 1996 16:13:26 -0400 From: colin smith <106050 dot 2211 at compuserve dot com> Subject: KC on Community Radio in Newcastle Calling all Crimheads. I'll be presenting two hour long programmes on King Crimson on a Community Radio station called Network. It will be broadcasting throughout July with another follow up month during September. The broadcasts will be on FM but will be limited to the Newcastle on Tyne area of the North East of England. I'll post the wave band when it's been agreed. The shows will look at the history of the band and RF's contributions to other people's work. I'm looking to hear from anyone in the Newcastle area who might like to get involved. I also want to present a Crimson internet top ten in the second programme. The rules are simple. Nominate your favourite KC track from any period and your favourite RF contribution to somebody else's record. Perhaps a few words of explanation if you'd like to. I know it's hard and possibly ridiculous trying to boil KC down to one track but exercising discipline is never a bad thing in such matters. I'll send the results (if any to a future edition of ET for wider consumption). Looking forward to hearing from Crimheads across the globe ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 May 1996 19:21:30 -0700 From: Stickman Organization: Existentialist Presuppositionalist Monks of Passion & Music Subject: improv Jeremy P Lakatos wrote: >Now I LOVE improv. It can be very exciting. On Return to Forever's live >album, the first and last songs of the first disk are 30 minute >extensions >ofsongs that are about five minutes long originally. And they're >interesting. If you love improv, you should be listening to John Zorn, Derek Bailey, Fred Frith, Last Exit, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Painkiller, Joey Baron, Bill Frisell, and tons more. The 72-75 crimson improv was okay, but some of the above mentioned really expand the meaning of what "improvisation" means. I always was under the impression that the 72-75 Crimso was hard up for material, hence improv became there thing. It seems though that the post 80's Crimso has enough material, therefore they did not improvise to great extents. - STICKMAN ------------------------------ From: David Maclennan Subject: KC Marquee book Date: 29 May 1996 14:20:42 +1300 So THRaKaTTak and the LOG live set are out in the UK, eh? It'll be at least another month before they hit these shores so I'll save any comments until then. "Radiophonics" is just out here in New Zealand, but I haven't heard it yet. If you've got the latest catalog from Possible Productions you'll have noticed a thing in it called the King Crimson Marquee Book, which goes for around US$24, if memory serves. Well, it's really great! Lots of good pics (including a section of color plates, ads for bootlegs, and interviews with past and present members. Wanna know what David Cross and Jamie Muir look like today? This is your book. The one catch, of course, is that it's all written in Japanese!! If only someone fluent in that language would be crazy enough to translate it. My guess is there's a lot of useful info in it. So even if you can't read it, if you're a hardcore Crimhead I'd recommend it! David Maclennan ...still waiting for that announcement of antipodean tour dates for KC... :-) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 May 1996 23:37:04 -0400 (EDT) From: Ray Dittmeier Subject: Re: Elephant-talk digest v95 #278 Having provoked some discussion, both on ET and in e-mail, I think maybe I need to try to make it clear exactly what I meant by my posting about improvisation. It was a response to someone who suggested (I don't know how seriously) a 100% improv tour. To me, this meant that no material whatsoever would be composed or rehearsed. Just take the stage and start wailing away. I *DO* think the band would be able to get wonderful results in some of these. But I still stand by my claim that such a tour, as a whole, wouldn't be very satsfactory. I'm all in favor of more improv. But I think that having the guys play solos during songs would be the way to go. Even using a song as a "jumping-off point" for something that develops into a free-form improv would make a big difference. Doing that, I would expect a whole lot of killer stuff. Now, if I were in charge (and thank God I'm not), I wouldn't rule out the free-form improvs. I'd put'em in, but limit them to a couple of 10 minute pieces per night. And I'd have even more "song-based" improv. And I'd have them play "Dark Star." :-) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 28 May 1996 22:28:30 -0700 (PDT) From: harryhat at wco dot com (Jeffrey S. Kamil) Subject: Bruford w/ National Health ..."I don't remember that Bill recorded with National Health, although the liner notes for "D.S. al Coda" indicate his participation on live dates".... Bruford was the original drummer with N. Health. He was later replaced with Pip Pyle right before the sessions for the first album. I have some poor sounding copies of Health demos with Bruford. One of the tunes on this demo is "Brujo". Very interesting contrast between Pyle's and Bruford's work on this piece. Regards, Jeff ("H the H") ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Jeffrey S. Kamil and Harry the Hat Productions harryhat at wco dot com 75121 dot 2760 at compuserve dot com http://www.wco.com/~harryhat/ ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 May 1996 10:46:50 +0100 (BST) From: Richard Beck Subject: Schizoid Man in Dunlop Ad Greetings from London I was flicking through the channels on my TV last night, and happened upon the last 5 seconds of an arty advertisement for Dunlop tyres. The soundtrack for this was '21st Century Schizoid Man' !! (Lots of macho shots of cars driving through the rain and a final close-up on the tyres) Like I said, I only caught the last 5 seconds, so I don't know how much of the song was used, or how long the whole ad was, but it was pretty weird to hear it in this context. Hopefully, it'll be shown again, so I'll be able to fill in more details, if required. 'til next time rb London ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 May 1996 13:55:45 +0200 (MET DST) From: poisson at club-internet dot fr (Poisson Thomas) Subject: THRaKaTTaCK gig Concert in Le Krakatoa, Bordeaux on May, 28th, 1996 ********************************************************** Note: this is my first Crimso gig ever Settings: a small concert hall (1000 people, approx.) in Merignac, near Bordeaux (the clever observer would notice that Bordeaux is the name of a color in french, very similar to crimson). A third of the audience was seated on the first floor, the rest of us stood during the whole concert. I was 1m50 away from Tony Levin. Very good pre-concert atmosphere: sunny day, discussions with other fans while waiting to get in. A lot of them do not come from Bordeaux. Some like me came all the way from Paris. Amazed to see how young and cool those Crimheads are (I am 23). Some had spotted members of KC at a hotel in Bordeaux, and talked to TL and BB. Rumors about what they're going to play...sssshhhh! As we entered the hall, Mr Fripp sat at his stool playing his Soundscapes, and created a beautiful eerie atmosphere during thirty minutes. Very close to us, yet nobody dared approach him. A friend saw Bruford and had her picture taken with him. Another remark: there was a LOT of girls, many many more than I would have thought. A good surprise: fench girls like KC !!! The support act, the California Guitar Trio, were simply mind-blowing, as many of you know (I didn't). The audience was appreciative right from the start (after 30 seconds, we recognised "Discipline" !) I would talk a lot about them if I didn't know most Crimheads know them by now. Wild applause after a 30 minute set, encore wanted! The guys seemed very happy to be here. So did we. Then KC... The set first: The "Yeah!" section: Thela Hun Ginjeet, Red, Frame By Frame, Dinosaur, One Time, Waiting for the Man, The "Wow!" section: Vroom Vroom, B'Boom, Thrak + Improv, Neurotica, Three of A Perfect Pair, Matte Kudasai, The "Argh!" section SSEDD, Elephant talk, Indiscipline Encore 1: 21st Century Schizoid Man Encore 2: Vrooom, Marine 471 Encore 3: Lark's Tongues II First 6 songs were performed very well, but things only began to blow my mind at Vrooom Vrooom. Ultra-powerful, followed by an excellent B'Boom - a splendid Thrak +improv (I want to buy Thrakattack !!!).Nice to hear Neurotica and 3OAPP. The last 6 were however the highlight of the show. Yes you read it: THEY DID SCHIZOID MAN, and it fitted perfectly between Indiscipline and Vrooom. What can I say, it was the moment of the night when AB said "This song has not been performed in 22 years!!". They played it as wild as you can imagine. Evrybody was going crazy, it was superb. Very nice after-concert feeling, shared sensation of seeing something really powerful. Sound: excellent, not too loud, just perfect. Lighting: Fripp was (almost) as visible as the others. The lightshow was OK, at times very good (during B'Boom, especially). The audience was fantastic. All enjoyed the evening, as Bruford told us in french. Fripp smiled, especially on "21st". Adrian was very funny to watch, TL and TG were both impressive, Mastelotto and bruford were smiling all the time. One regret: no new songs, little improvisation. Still, a splendid night. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 May 1996 11:01:04 -0400 (EDT) From: "M. S. AtKisson" Subject: Improv/solo ?! > From: rexj at ix dot netcom dot com (Rex Jackson) >[re: the Dead] > > Intellectual component or not, they could still throw solos at each > other. Yes, they could. Frankly, I thank [insert deity] that KC *don't* "throw solos at each other"! I used to run sound for a two guitar band and *over* 50% of any given set was guitar solo. Bone-crushingly boring, especially when the solos change little from night to night. I find this to be very different from something like a soundscape. I quite appreciated the review posted recently. One thing the reviewer noted was that it didn't always work, that sometimes the music wandered into an unworkable space, and was allowed to fade and re-begin. This is a much different attitude and creation than the guitarist showing off how many notes s/he can fit in during a progression. This is not to say that I think all trading of solos is boring. It depends quite a bit on the players and the context. [warning: crass comment ahead] Some "soloists" are just masturbating on stage, and I'd rather not be subjected to it. Oh, but if the musicians they are listening to each other, if there is either a sense of play or of service to the music, wonderful things can happen. And you have to go into it with the attitude that sometimes it just won't work. Part of the joy of listening to a live improvisation is similar to the anticipation of the possible car crash in an auto race, or wondering whether the the soprano is going to make that high C -- the sense of possible doom and the release when success is proven. A friend of mine went to see Cage years ago. A young composition student, he was in the throws of hero-worship and got tickets to two performances in different cities nearby. One piece on the program was to be a spontaeous improvisation. In both cities it was nearly identical. Is Cage a charlatan or a genious? Each audience *thought* it was getting an original piece, although it was not. I wonder whether the opposite is somewhat true of the last KC tour -- most audiences *thought* they were getting a re-hash of the recording, although they were not. Maybe Thrak Attack is out to prove that. Peg. (back to work, you!) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 17 May 96 18:43:59 EDT From: mt067078 at sjuphil dot sju dot edu (Michael Tropiano) Subject: Crimson on the radio Greetings from the once blessed but currently benighted city of brotherly drudgery! I'm new to Elephant Talk, but am a long time Crimson junkie who used to get his fix daily from the radio! Yes, it's true. Mikael mentioned in ET 275 that he heard Crimson once or twice on Penn's radio station - WXPN. Until the summer of 1989 (starting in 1973) WXPN had a daily, 7:30 to 11 P.M. program of progressive, "structural", fusion-type whatever music called DIASPAR. This program and it's knowledgeable D.J.'s (one of whom was John Diliberto, the host of ECHOES) took a young, snot-nosed metal head punk and turned him on to the heavenly music of Fripp, Pinhas, Zappa, Tangerine Dream, Kate Bush, Van de Graff Generator, etc. This program is sorely missed, still, after seven years. Anyone who reads ET would have dug DIASPAR. As part of its fiftieth anniversary this past week, WXPN had a special three hour reprise of DIASPAR, hosted by John Diliberto. It had been seven years since I heard "Red" on the radio. Such music belongs on the air! I need it. We all do. By the way, do check out anything by Richard Pinhas and his group Heldon. The Crimson influence on these Frenchmen is strong, as it is with the Italian (?) band Sensation Fixe. That's all for now. I hope DIASPAR returns more than every seven years. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 May 1996 15:25:01 -0400 From: vanvalnc at is2 dot nyu dot edu (Chris Van Valen) Subject: Boz Burrell resurfaces in NYC Hi all >From an ad in the 5/29 issue of New York Press: Tues June 4 8PM $17.50 The Best of British Blues (In One Band) Alvin Lee Eric Burdon Aynsley Dunbar Micky Moody Boz Burrell Tim Hinckley For those interested, the show is at Tramps, 51 West 21st Street, NYC. Ticket info: (212)544-1666. BTW, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones are appearing the following night for only 50 cents more. If you have an unpleasant nature and dislike people this is no obstacle to work. --J.G. Bennett Catch "Forever Knight" on the Sci-Fi Channel every Monday at 8PM and midnight, EDT. --Lucien LaCroix ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 May 1996 22:27:59 +0300 From: zeppo at thrak dot pp dot fi (Arto Seppala) Subject: Re: B. Bruford Hi all, >I don't remember that Bill recorded with National Health, although >the liner notes for "D.S. al Coda" indicate his participation on >live dates. - On 2CD Complete (National Health) there's one track called Paracelsus (excerpt) which features Bill on drums. He is also featured on an album called "Peter And The Wolf" (Various), playing a snare drum with Jon Hiseman on a track called "Hunters". Also this I haven't seen mentioned (forgive me if I've been blind): Executive producer on Bill's video; MAX ROACH. Booom, Arto ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 May 1996 17:37:36 -0400 From: Daniel Di Paolo Subject: KC Gigs and Improvisation The various letters regarding the lack of jazz-like improvisation during KC tour dates strikes a very hard chord with me. I've been a Fripp/KC fan for about 15 years, and have seen several live KC shows as well as the String Quintet and Fripp's last Soundscapes tour with CGT and Los Gauchos Allemanes (sp?). Let's face it: Fripp needs precision timing for his masterly derrings-do (hence the plexiglas sound walls he uses with KC). Although it is possible for the improv to continue with the others (to the probable delight of the fans), I don't think Fripp wants that much chaos. I'd love to see them throw away the set list and do a 30-minute version of "The Talking Drum", but somehow doubt that it'll happen any time soon. The last KC show I saw in Philadelphia (June 1995) was good for most KC fans, but as a hard-core Crimhead I was disappointed. The set list was too long for the songs to be "fleshed out" with any new nuances. The best 2 songs of the night were a wild, mind-spinning version of "Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream" and the previously unreleased "The Talking Drum". If everyone around Fripp is playing predictably, Robert can go off yang-style, and vice versa. His Soundscapes can thrill and delight, tear one to pieces with visions of hell, or can degenerate into chaotic maelstroms of noise. Improvs a la the Grateful Dead and jazz music start and end with fairly basic tunes; KC has so many things going on at once, and with Bruford's style of percussion it's like trying to hang on to a life preserver in the ocean during a typhoon. It's sensory overload at its finest--groove on it. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 May 1996 15:43:16 -0700 From: rpeck at pure dot com (Ray Peck) Subject: THRaKaTTak >I picked up THRaKaTTak at lunchtime today > > >Contains nearly an hour of improvisations taken from >USA/Japan in Oct/Nov 1995. Interestingly Fripp says >that one of the reasons for putting out the CD was >discussions on the Elephant Talk Internet mailing list Strange. I said this back in January in private mail. Don't remember if I sent it to the list or not: >I have a dream about collecting a few dozen good concert tapes of the >later half of the tour, and cutting a CD of just the improv sections. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 May 1996 16:32:14 -0700 From: rpeck at pure dot com (Ray Peck) Subject: "... I'm shaking like a leaf, and who should appear but two policemen!" >From: Andrew Suber > >Hi ETers, > On May 12th I was watching one of my favorite programs, "Sesame >Street". "Sesame Street" has had a reputation for being a show with cool >guests. John Cage, Cab Calloway, Lily Tomlin, George Carlin, and Lou Reed >have all been on. > Well, on May 12th Mr. Brian Eno was on. I was very surprised. He played >a small Moog organ with Elmo. Their song was a song of learning, a song >of polite manners. I believe it was about being courteous to one's >parents. I thought Elmo and Eno harmonizing was a very endearing sight. I >felt so much respect for Eno. First U2, then James, now Elmo; he is >popping up everywhere. I left in this whole thing since I'm forwarding to the Eno list, too. If *anybody* comes across a tape of this, *please* let me know. I'll pay large sums (or large trades, or large vats of appreciation) for a copy. > Let's get the record straight about Ayn Rand. She is a bit of a >charlatan. Maybe so, but she spins a good yarn. >The only group of intellectuals who have really embraced >Objectivism are New Classical economists. Objectivsm was a fad of the >30s, a mass marketing of philosophy on par with Rush Limbaugh or Billy >Graham. Yes, sure. Let's all follow the ideaology of "intellectuals", Socialism. Rah, rah, let's all move to France. Sheesh. You have to realize: 1. Rand escaped communist Russia. 2. She came to the US, and encountered an "intellectual elite" who were all praising to high heavens what she had escaped. In the opinion of many students of history, the success of her novels played a large part in keeping the US at least partially capitalist. For that, I could never thank her enough. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 May 1996 21:28:54 -0500 From: mkopelbe at students dot wisc dot edu (Murray Kopelberg) Subject: Guitar Craft Course Announcement To the Elephant Talk list: The next Guitar Craft Level One course, led by Robert Fripp, will take place in Buenos Aires, Argentina during the first week of November, 1996. Those who are interested in attending the course can contact me at mkopelbe at students dot wisc dot edu for further information. Murray Kopelberg ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 May 1996 23:12:04 -0400 From: DanKirkd at aol dot com Subject: Tony's Tour Diary Heads Up! Tony Levin looks like he'll be keeping us up to date about KC's touring this summer. His first installment of his tour diary can be found at the Papa Bear site at http://papabear.com/tlev.htm In it he makes reference to the band working on the start of some new material. Whether this is a start to the start, or a continuation of the start is not made clear. Perhaps by the end of touring they'll have come to the end of the start and will be able to begin on the start of the end of the work on new material before starting to record it, perhaps for release late in the year or next year. But then I'm just starting to speculate. On another note, I'll be adding new gig review pages to ET Web as soon as we start accumulating them in the newsletter. It was mentioned that ETers may have influenced the release of THRaKaTTaCK (only the a's are lower case - little a's?). It could have in part been due to the fact that I sent Robert the entire set of gig reviews after both of last year's tours. I imagine I'll do the same again with this year's gig reviews. So watch what you wish for - it may just happen! And one last suggestion: if it is clear which gig you are reviewing, feel free to provide a more fancy subject heading than "KC in Bordeaux 5/28". It will enhance things just a little. Cheers! Dan DanKirkd at aol dot com ------------------------------ From: Grant Penton Subject: RE: Bruford guestings Hi- I'm also new to posting, and have been following the Bruford appreciation society with interest. As much as I enjoyed sitting at the very feet of the master during the '79 frippertronics show, I really enjoyed BB's playing with his band a few weeks earlier, and treasure the pictures and recordings captured. I query over Daevid Allen's recollection that BB told him "You have old hands!..."; well if that's true, what's his secret with his demonic energy? The '76 LP In Search of Ancient Gods (tribute to Daniken) by Absolute Elsewhere featured his playing- it's a 'nice' melodic mostly electronic LP recorded with others who've disappeared. The video of Genesis' '76 show with BB is out there- I have a mint copy, it's about 40 min total, with more than a few good shots of him. The best videos I've acquired are from a '73 performance of the first five minutes of LTIA (featuring JM's crazy antics), the japanese '83 show, and Yes videos from '69 (5 min), '71 (30 min) and '89 (130 min). Would anyone know of a Brand X perfromance with BB? He played along with PC in the early stages after the completion of Peter & the Wolf (which also merits mention), and there might be a tape out of it, although it may be another fruitless search as with National Health and Gong. Does anyone have any videos of UK with BB? ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 29 May 1996 22:11:31 -0700 From: lucius at linex dot com (Master of Entropy) Subject: Re: HORDE in Rolling Stone The reason Crimson was not mentioned in Rolling Stone is that RS is a stupid fashion magazine that promotes the idea that Nirvana is music and horizontal stripe shirts are cool. It would behoove you and the rest of the music loving people out there not to waste your money on that rag. Go to your local library and read the articles by P. J. O' Rourke and Hunter S. Thompson and ignore the rest. Have a nice day. "...Still one thing more fellow citizens - a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government." - Thomas Jefferson ------------------------------ End of Elephant-Talk Digest #279 ********************************