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 #666 E L E P H A N T T A L K The Internet newsletter for Robert Fripp and King Crimson enthusiasts Number 666 Monday, 8 May 2000 Today's Topics: King Crimson in The Onion (Trey Anastasio) re: ConstruKction Comments Introductions to KC/Levin to play w/KC again? Tony Levin and King Crimson Re: Elephant Talk #665 This Remarkable Record: TCOL Ebow retraction...and "Sometimes God ..." question Indisciple etc Re: ebow and quasi-ebow techniques Happy 666 to all! not sure on the first listen? Pricing/Capitalism - John Galt Re: Demo tapes E-Bow demonstration Yet More on TCoL RE: To Introduce KC To The Uninitiated... Damage Real Men Don't Find Zeroes... Gaslighting the Turd ------------------ 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.htm 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: Thu, 04 May 2000 14:54:16 -0500 From: Jordan Subject: King Crimson in The Onion (Trey Anastasio) Here's a little unexpected KC blurb found in Madison's favorite satirical newspaper, countained in an interview with Phish's guitarist Trey Anastasio: O: "So it seems like you're kind of seperate from the group that's percieved as your fans. You don't seem like guys who would follow a band around. TA: No, I've never followed a band around. Well, maybe for short periods, like five shows. When I was in high school, I followed King Crimson around for a while, when they came through on the Discipline Tour, which just blew my mind. I didn't follow them around, but I went to New York and Philadelphia. Pretty cool...I'm not a Phish fan as such, but I knew that those guys really knew their stuff musically. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 May 2000 14:44:36 -0500 From: "Grant Colburn" Subject: re: ConstruKction Comments Thus proclaimed Ron Chrisely: >The melody also has that boring bluesy interval with repetition like on >Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream, People, and Dinosaur. What? You mean a minor third? Boy with a critique like THAT you must not be able to enjoy 85% of the rock songs ever written! ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 May 2000 12:46:51 -0700 (PDT) From: Sum WhiteGuy Subject: Introductions to KC/Levin to play w/KC again? In ET 665, Greg Jones said: >Having recently had the invitation >to make a mix tape up for 2 open-minded friends of what I considered >essential Crimson, I thought it would be fun to hear what songs other ET >folk have used to proselytize the musical heathen and what sort of results, >glorious or otherwise, they achieved. By the way, my tapes both included >The Great Deceiver, Three Of A Perfect Pair, Indiscipline, Red, Dinosaur >and Fallen Angel among others. my reply: A friend of mine's intro to KC came about last October when California Guitar Trio included "Disicpline" in their set when we saw them at Orion Studios. She was quite impressed. I subsequently lent her the Live in Tokyo (1995) video, which I feel to be a terrific intro to the band. and then Markus Alexander Gnad said: > Once again, Hi there! >For I am obviously a victim of too much information I >forgot why Bruford & >Levin aren't in the current incarnation of King >Crimson. >Can anybody tell me? > >[ Private email only please. Thanks -- Toby ] my reply: [no I'm not ignoring Toby's request, as I am not explaining why BB and TL are not in the current lineup, just using this post as a segue.....] I was reading Tony Levin's road diary of his current tour with California Guitar Trio and ran across this: ** Funny coindidence; at the Seattle airport I ran into my bandmate Trey Gunn, who is heading out, indirectly, to do the Crimson tour! What a strange feeling, not flying with him, but off in another direction to continue this tour! I'm told they'll play in Nashville, and then an extensive tour of Europe. I haven't heard the new cd yet, but like any fan, I'm excited to hear it. (and, next year, to do more playing with the group! ** Perhaps KC will be a 5 piece next year? Jon. pokgaitsai at yahoo dot com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 May 2000 12:45:51 -0700 From: "Erwin Bush" Subject: Tony Levin and King Crimson I'm surprised no one else has mentioned it yet, but in Tony Levin's Diary for the current tour he's on with the California Guitar Trio he mentions running into Trey Gunn on his way out for the King Crimson tour at the Seattle Airport on April 30th. Tony says: "...I haven't heard the new cd yet, but like any fan, I'm excited to hear it. (and, next year, to do more playing with the group!" That should settle the question of whether or not Tony's still interested in playing with King Crimson. His diary for this tour can be found at: http://www.papabear.com/cgtdiary2.htm Erwin Bush Livermore, CA ebush at hooked dot net ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 May 2000 16:01:05 -0400 (EDT) From: Steven Sullivan Subject: Re: Elephant Talk #665 > Date: Wed, 03 May 2000 01:49:33 -0400 > From: Andrew Karlin > Subject: Unrecorded tracks > > "Turkish Tea" has always seemed to me a working out of the pre-vocal themes > of "Neil and Jack and Me". It's followed by the (nameless) track I call > "Stonybrook". This is a jam loosely based on some preset patterns. I > remember the Stonybrook U. show pretty well as I went to of all the New > York area shows during that tour. I particularly remember a good show at > the Rutgers Athletic Center (NJ) right before Stonybrook, followed by an > outstanding show at Princeton in a medieval castle-like theater. The > energy level was very high, and Adrian had us up and rocking! Robert > continued to remain mostly in the background as he had since the 1981 > relaunch. Remember all of this music came out in the context of the > early-80's afro/tribal beat rage (see Talking Heads, Eno, et al). The instrumental jam that becamse 'Neurotica' was originally called 'Manhattan', and was *much* more powerful, IIRC, than what ended up on Beat. Either 'Stonybrook' or 'Turkish Tea' is probably 'Manhattan'. -S. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 May 2000 23:05:33 +0200 From: Gnad Markus Subject: This Remarkable Record: TCOL Hi there! I bought this remarkable record exactly at 3 o'clock p.m., CET, this Friday, on May 5th, 2000. In an Austrian CD store which gets its articles from a German distributor. The official European release. Remember the date: May 5th, 2000. Just a note on how reliable DGM's business partners are. PS. To me it was a joy to get it today - but, it has to be said. I have already posted to ET that I do not wish too much reviews on this record on ET. But... I changed my mind. My view. This remarkable record once again - like every of Robert Fripp or Adrian Belew - reaches more than everything else deeper and deeper into a point of my personality that is hidden somewhere where even love can't reach. What a great outburst of emotions. What a sensitive way of musiKcing. It touches me, and it moves me so much, it takes me to places that I've locked away and intended not to open again. But as I listen, and as I listen again, these doors open and at the same time I open to experience parts of me, to feel, to breathe. To my fragile and torn heart this is a healing. It reaches more and more down into my heart, as the music plays and reaches its climax at the end of Larks' Tongues IV and its Coda. And as an encore: Heaven and Hell. It tells me who I am. It tells me what becomes of me. And it once again reminds me of people who do something good to me. People like Robert Fripp and Adrian Belew. Yet one thing should not be forgotten: It's a sad circumstance that this is not a DGM record. This remarkable record is distributed by a Major, and it looks like that. No PJ Crook, no liner notes, no catalogue... it took time to realize what was wrong then I remembered. This fact is not easy to realize when you have been exclusively buying DGM outputs for almost a year. Sorry for the Majors. Everything they do is wrong. These are excerpts from my today's postings to the DGM guestbook. I would like to part them with fellow ET readers, and - by this way: A call to Malcolm Xerxes - mail me! Yours, Markus Alexander Gnad ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 05 May 2000 16:48:55 -0400 From: Joseph Shelby Subject: Ebow retraction...and "Sometimes God ..." question I've been corrected by someone...close to the source...shall we say, about the Ebow (lack thereof, actually) on the Heroes sessions. Apologies to all for the mistake. > Mick Ronson played a ebow on the song at the Freddie Mercury tribute. This much I do remember. I can't recall (I've not seen those tapes in a while) whether or not Carlos Alomar used it or some other technique in the Serious Moonlight and Glass Spider tours (the only ones i've seen on tape, and not for quite a few years...). I recall he was rather versatile. I personally felt (no offense to Peter Frampton or Earl Slick) that Alomar could have held the entire guitar for the shows on his own. time to let the topic fade :) On a new topic, what is the source of the "Sometime God Hides" passage, from a diary entry in '98? He quotes them as coming out of a notebook he kept years before, but doesn't source them beyond that point. Are they Fripp's own words, or something he read/heard from someone else and jotted down? I'd like to use them in a speech at some point, and I'd like to be able to properly credit their origin. Joe ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 May 2000 17:32:27 -0400 (EDT) From: Art Cohen Subject: Indisciple etc Andrew wrote: >The title "Indisciple Mining Rocks" is a pun about how hard it was to get >decent Krimson bootlegs (like "mining rocks"). I probably won't be the only person to point out that it's also an anagram of "King Crimson; Discipline". Oh, those jolly bootleggers! >This semi-official Warner Bros./EG release I strongly doubt that Warner's or EG had anything to do with this release in spite of their logos' appearances on the back cover. I always chalked that up to cojones grande on the part of the bootleggers. This was the first Crim boot I ever bought. The sound quality was so awful that I was extremely gun-shy about buying any more after this (the free market in action! Although I did at one point buy a cassette tape of the two concerts that have since been released as "The Night Watch" and "Absent Lovers"). But I happened upon it the other day while rummaging through my Crimson LPs (I also gave "Earthbound" another listen, and decided that I really like Side 1 and don't like Side 2 at all). I found it extremely ironic that right next to Fripp's essay on "the moment" were some comments from the bootleggers themselves that showed that, while they may not have been achieving the ultimate condition of audience attention to which Fripp aspires (since they *were* taping the show, after all), they seemed significantly more "tuned in" to the band, and the concert itself as an event, than the average audient. In a similar light, I find it even more ironic that the Central Park show just released -- the first time since 1969 that Fripp had "that feeling" in his spine (or however he put it) -- was at a concert that was almost the antithesis of the state of "pure attention" that Fripp desires at his performances. Here they were, playing in the park for (presumably) whomever walked by and wondered what the rumpus was. No tickets bought, no contracts (explicit or implicit) entered into, just some people enjoying some music in the park on a summer's day. You can even hear some faint audience chatter on the CD. Yet, in spite of these supposedly far-from-ideal conditions, the band achieved something that they hadn't in the previous 3 1/2 years (or, for this specific band, the length of their entire existence). Just some food for thought... BTW, does anyone know (has it been stated publicly?) whether the audience tape that was released as KCCC #10 was an authorized or unauthorized recording? Finally, Macahan wrote: >Frying pan instead of Heartbeat, ProzaKc Blues instead of >21th Century Schizoid Man and even Larks IV instead of Starless I think you have the right attitude, and I wish I had some King Crimson concerts in my immediate future to look forward to (too soon after a trip to N.C. for me to make the trek to Nashville). But I just gotta ask... have you been seeing a *lot* of versions of "Schizoid Man" and "Starless" at recent KC concerts? :) --Art ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 05 May 2000 18:42:28 -0400 From: Ignacio Gomez Subject: Re: ebow and quasi-ebow techniques >>Fripp was of course the guitarist on the original version of "Heroes," and >>I've never seen any evidence that he's ever used a Ebow. I've always >>assumed the guitar sound came about simply thru Fripp's well known >>excellent control of sustain and feedback, perhaps aided by processing from >>Brian Eno's Synthi AKS. He didn't need an Ebow before that so I doubt he >>used on then. Sorry to break this out to you like this, but "Fripp's well know excellent control of sustain and feedback" mainly comes from... surprise, surprise: a bit of help from a Fernandes sustainer installed in his Gibson guitar. For those of you who may ask "what the heck is a Fernandes sustainer?", it is similar to an e-bow, but installed in the guitar, and can work on all strings at the same time. Al these things are like a reverse guitar pick-up: i.e., a guitar string, when plucked it vibrates, and disturbs the magnetic field generated by the magnets that are part of the guitar pick-up(s). This change of magnetic field generates the electricity that makes the amplifier sound. VIBRATION GENERATES ELECTRICITY. On the other hand, the battery in the e-bow/sustainer generates a much stronger magnetic field and the disturbances similar to those induced (read above) by the string, but these disturbances are now stronger, and powerful enough to make the string resonate and vibrate with them. ELECTRICITY GENERATES VIBRATION. The pick-ups are still there to collect that induced vibration and transform it into sound again, of course. More tech stuff regarding e-bow sound: it can be emulated using a very simple device, the volume pedal/volume knob on your guitar. You pluck the string(s) at volume 0 and then release the pedal to gain more volume gradually. It takes more effort and coordination than the e-bow, but it is there and it's relatively easy. If your effect board has a noise gate, you may want to turn it off while trying to emulate e-bow, or you'll get unexpected results... This makes up for the e-bow tone/voice. The infinite sustain can be easily accomplished (as somebody else mentioned here before) playing close to a cranked up amp. By the way, did anybody mentioned the e-bow Meister that is Steven Rothery, from Marillion? Cheers, I ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 May 2000 18:52:13 EDT From: JMRosen at aol dot com Subject: Happy 666 to all! Hi All, Just thought I'd pop in and wish everyone on ET a happy spring - not to mention happy issue 666. If you think the traffic here is heavy for this auspicious issue, you should have seen the Black Sabbath digest issue 666! All the best, J. Rosen 668-The neighbor of the beast! ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 May 2000 19:39:27 -0400 From: "Mark Stansbery" Subject: not sure on the first listen? Just a thought on those who are less than enthused with their first listen to TCoL. Over my many years of music listening I have made the following observation repeatedly: Those albums with which I am totally, completely, blown away at first listen tend to fade rapidly from my 'favorite's list'. On the other hand, albums which I find interesting, but which do not 'blow me away' on first go 'round have proven to be those that over time become long term favorites. King Crimson works, more often than not, tend to fall in the second category & become victims of frequent listening. So, if you're not happy the first time around the 'webring', give it a couple more tries, Mark Stansbery ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 May 2000 16:24:02 -0400 (EDT) From: stickman at arcticmail dot com Subject: Pricing/Capitalism - John Galt I read the "cost of CD's" thread and almost fell out of my chair when somebody suggested the government should regulate CD prices . I probably wouldn't have been shocked if one of those "normal" people who wear Planet Hollywood sweatshirts in the mall said something about wanting the government to reach farther into the capitalist process, but to hear it in a forum like this really surprised me. I am not condemning anybody's right to express that opinion, but given the way the US government has decided that Microsoft should be broken up because they make too much money (read successful in a free-market economy), or that the FCC should compel Time-Warner to carry content (ABC) that they had decided against carrying, the idea of more government regulation is kind of scary. Why complain about monopolies or high prices? If buyers think the product is worth the price they will buy. If not they won't. So it is with the Collectors' series - people will buy it or they won't. The unspoken illusion we seem to be laboring under is that capitalism is fair. It is not. If it were fair we would be saying, "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" and that is not capitalism. If DGM says the CDs cost 100, 120, 150, 200 USD then they do. Buy it or don't, but please don't ask the USSA's ministry of culture to set prices. (USSA is not a typo) Stickman P.S. Anybody ever read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand? If you want to experience something eerie, change the name Hank Rearden to Bill Gates and Rearden Metal to Microsoft. It is kind of spooky - especially when you consider that the book was written in 1957. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 May 2000 19:41:38 -0700 From: Lewis Southers Subject: Re: Demo tapes This is what Herman Ringer said >time I was a young musician". Great thoughts. Just a month ago, I write to >Bill, via his web-page, and they told me that Bill "doesn't currently have >the 2 or 3 hours my record deserves". So what do he puts an address at all! >I just wanted to have a brief commentary about it. It would be too >pretensious to hope to get a recording contract. But just a few words of THE >drummer would have been a blessing. I would never presume to speak for Billy boy, but I'm sure there are thousands o people around the world that are making REALLY good music that they would like him to hear. How does he choose which bands to listen to? He could spend all day just listening to peoples demos. I think it is a good policy for professional musicians to not listen to peoples demos, personally. >I hope someone will ever listen to our material. They could be surprised! I was reading an interview with Ian Mackeye from the band Fugazi once. Ian started his own record label, Dischord records back in the early 80's (late 70's?) in order to put out albums for the band he had then, Minor Threat. Well, Minor Threat became a legendary punk band, Dischord started putting out other bands and turned into a full fledged indie label and it is still around to this day. He receives tons of demos, but put's out album's by very few bands. Sometimes the band members complain that Dischord was their last chance, no other label is adventurous enough to release their music. He tells them to do what he did. Start your own label, to put out your bands music. You have complete control and you know that your band will succeed or fail based upon your own efforts. Of course that's much easier said than done, and I don't see myself starting a record label for my band, but it is probably an easier route than trying to send your music to a busy professional musician in the hopes of getting signed, and if you are just looking for feedback, well, just because Bruford is a great musician doesn't mean he has any better taste in music than I d or you do, or the guy down the street does. Get feedback from everyone. That's who your potential audience is. Most of all, good luck. I hope you and your band are very successful. Just my $2 (inflation) > >Herman -Lewis Where we're going is how we get there. -Robert Fripp ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 May 2000 22:48:47 -0500 From: "Tracy Family" Subject: E-Bow demonstration Hey ETers, While the subject of Frip and the e-bow may be mute there was a report that you can access through the National Public Radio web site on the Sacred Steel Band, featuring Chuck Cambpell on the steel guitar. He demonstrates the e-bow for the interviewer and plays a few great guitar licks in the process. You can find it archived for the May 5th Morning Edition headed Sacred Steel Band. Listen and enjoy. Curt. p.s. We North Dakota Crim fans(the 2 of us ;) are also looking forward to seeing crimson tour, hope you can get within oh i don't know 900-1000 mi. of here ;o) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 6 May 2000 01:15:06 -0400 From: "Josh Chasin" Subject: Yet More on TCoL I too listened to each of the tracks once or twice through the web ring-- my cable modem renders them quite listenable in this fashion. As the album will be out soon enough, I didn't bother to capture and burn to cd. So what do I think of this new music? Well-- damned if I know! This is a King Crimson record after all, not the latest Brittany Spears disc, where you bob your head a few times to the opening song and proclaim "I like it!" This is dense, complex, and (hopefully) rewarding music that requires far more than a cursory listen or two or three for the listener to decode all that the artist has embedded. It is almost insulting to the artist to make such a snap decision. I will admit, there was one Crimson record that knocked me back in my chair the first time I played it, and I knew instantly it was a classic-- and that, of course, was Discipline. (I remember buying Beat in a small shop on a side street in Greenwich Village and sheepishly asking the clerk, "Does it-- does it sound like tha last one?") It is interesting to read all these first impressions of TCoL... but let's recognize that that is what they are, after all. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 6 May 2000 04:15:56 -0400 (EDT) From: flohansson at hockeymail dot com Subject: RE: To Introduce KC To The Uninitiated... I know that it's not easy to introduce someone to KC (especially if he is one of those guys that enjoy downloading mp3s of the top100 music charts... ). To open my friend's mind, I chose to show him the video tape of the KC-tour in Japan 1995. I thought that KC is even more impressing (to a "disbeliever") when one can actually "see" what they play, instead of just listening to some wild and uncommercial music. We stopped the tape after "THRAK" (which caused some REALLY bewildered expressions on the face of my buddy) and I asked him, what he thought about it. Well, he didn't jump up and down in ecstacy, shouting "I LIKE IT!!!", but he said that he liked "Red" and especially "Frame by Frame". He even considered joining me on the KC-show in Nuremberg in June! I think there is still a lot of work to do, but KC can welcome another enthusiast. (I'm also putting together a tape of "essential" KC-stuff, including "Starless", "Fracture", "Discipline", "EZ $", "VROOM", etc.) flo ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 6 May 2000 12:44:43 +0200 From: Gnad Markus Subject: Damage Who can tell me any online-shop which offers Sylvian/Fripps Damage (any version will do)? Thanks a lot Markus Alexander Gnad ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 6 May 2000 12:48:10 EDT From: Ctao at aol dot com Subject: Real Men Don't Find Zeroes... I was baffled by Andres Cruz' assertion that "these days the choices for the REAL MUSIC fan are none". I can only interpret this in several ways: 1. Fans of REAL MUSIC make no choices, but accept whatever fate chooses for them. 2. Andres truly believes King Crimson is the only band in the world making REAL MUSIC(!). 3. Andres is rightfully disgusted with the current air of contempt toward true creativity that the major labels currently exhibit, in this era of corporate conolidation and downsizing. He may bemoan the fact that these labels no longer nurture talent (if they ever did) and drop the majority of new signings after one or two releases, releases the said label may have done little, if anything, to support and promote, functioning primarily as a lending institution with horrid terms. If Andres believes the first two, he may indeed be a nutcake, lazy, or both. If he meens something akin to #3 above, I completely agree. Which is it, Andre, or did I miss the point altogether? - C Dowling ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 6 May 2000 12:52:59 EDT From: Ctao at aol dot com Subject: Gaslighting the Turd The Hooter Jones trick was a great way for the boys to have a laff at the absurdly fetishistic, rumormongering fishwives that we ETers obviously are. A funny stunt, indeed. CD ------------------------------ End of Elephant Talk Digest #666 ********************************