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 #805 E L E P H A N T T A L K The Internet newsletter for Robert Fripp and King Crimson enthusiasts Number 805 Tuesday, 20 February 2001 Today's Topics: NEWS: Tony Levin Interview NEWS: Mellotron Clinic Announcement NEWS: New ET Survey Extra KCCC #14 Available New Lineup deja Vroom - Can't watch Tony's Road Movies Fripp/women KC music in The Maxx Q: Adrian Belew rig Plymouth,Islands, and the Islands Band Touring with Tool?? / KCCC #14 New Standard Tuning DEJA VROOM DVD #5.99 !!!! Collector's Club on E-bay No one knows the answer to this easy trivia question ITTTW ------------------ 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: Mon, 12 Feb 2001 10:27:48 -0800 From: John Hendow Subject: NEWS: Tony Levin Interview Greetings. I just wanted to let you know that I interviewed Tony Levin recently and have posted the interview on the Experience Music Project web site: http://www.emplive.com/archives/index.asp?section=intv&id=159&pg=1 Enjoy! John Hendow Developer / Web Team Experience Music Project 2901 Third Avenue, Suite 400 Seattle, WA 98121 www.emplive.com 206-262-3444 Desk 206-652-4015 Fax 206-991-3313 Pager JohnH at emplive dot com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2001 20:25:49 GMT From: crimson at blackcat dot demon dot co dot uk (Mike Dickson) Subject: NEWS: Mellotron Clinic Announcement John Bradley and Martin Smith of Streetly Electronics, the Mellotron restoration company (and keepers of the Crimso 'Trons) are holding two Mellotron Clinics during 2001 in North America. Come and learn everything you have ever wanted to know about the Mellotron in a very informal atmosphere!. There will be plenty of machines on hand. The details are as follows Mellotron Clinic, Concordsville, PA on the 19th and 20th of May. The contact for this event is JIMMY MOORE - JMoore6397 at aol dot com Telephone:610 459 8100 Ext. 233 or 610 358 5009 (evenings and weekends) Mellotron Clinic, Toronto, Canada on the 22nd and 23rd of September The contact for this event is RICK BLECHTA - rblechta at cuic dot ca Telephone:416 782 3116 (evenings and weekends) The price for both events is $95 including accomodation and food. Cheap!!!! Streetly Electronics - All Things Mellotronic members.aol.com/tronpage/streetly/streetly htm. eclipse.co.uk/vemia/mellotron ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2001 00:44:47 EST From: DanKirkd at aol dot com Subject: NEWS: New ET Survey Hello ETers, Just a quick word to say that I'm running a new ET Web survey. I've been meaning to re-run an ET demographics survey we did in 1998 that asked questions about ETers, and that's basically what this survey is, with a couple of additional questions. The original survey was #5, if you are interested in the responses we got back then. This survey will run until March 17th, so please stop by and take a second to answer the questions. Cheers, Dan ET Web ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2001 14:40:22 -0500 From: bruce higgins Subject: Extra KCCC #14 Available Hi y'all, DGM screwed up and sent me KCCC #14 Live In Plymouth 1971 2 CDs, even though I declined it. Given DGM's seeming utter inability to communicate clearly with its customers, I think it will be easier to just sell it to somebody on the list than to try and get my KCCC account credited back. Details on the recording can be found at: http://www.disciplineglobalmobile.com/news/club.htm Price? $16 (my cost) plus postage to you. This copy is unplayed, still sealed, still in the unopened DGM shipping box. B___ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001 12:27:54 -0800 From: "R. Jackson" Subject: New Lineup I actually spend a fair amount of time wishing that I'd seen that lineup supporting Sylvian. The promotional video of them all playing together was really something, IMO. And I love Sylvian's voice. I seem to recall something about Sylvian not being happy about that project, though. Or did I dream that? ;-) Ah, Fripp and Co. backing Sylvian again, Tony and Pat joining CGT full-time, Sylvian fronting the current Crimson lineup...we have so few requests, don't we? ;-) -Rob At 07:45 PM 02/13/2001 +0000, you wrote: >The present line up made its way on tour and gave great concerts but to >be honest it became more a matter of circumstances than a choice. >Bruford and Levin had other projeKcts so, we had to make it as a >foursome. I would keep this line up but only with Sylvian and we would >have a very different recipe. We know how hard they can rock, but they >could be geniously soft too, and anywhere between, there would be so >many zones to explore. > >So, let's dream..... > >Al. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001 15:11:16 -0600 From: "Rod LeCloux" Subject: deja Vroom - Can't watch Tony's Road Movies Hello, I can't watch Tony's Road Movies from the "deja Vroom" DVD. Everything else seems to work just fine including live music with P J crook paintings!! Is there a work around for this? My system is PC based Compaq Presario... Rod ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001 18:20:04 -0500 (EST) From: "Michael J. Bennett" Subject: Fripp/women Whenever my wife hears me playing any Frippertronics, she says it makes her feel "evil". She doesn't like any heavy, guitar-oriented material, and it just strikes me as odd, reading similar stories on ET... What is it about KC and Fripp's music that affects women this way? I like music with an emotional appeal, especially instrumental music, which is why Robert's music appeals to me so much. On an unrelated note, if anyone has any boots of Harry Chapin please email me privately. Thanks. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001 19:23:06 EST From: WaltonWJ at aol dot com Subject: KC music in The Maxx Howdy! I guess I'm sort of a "newbie" here - I've been browsing ET for a couple of years, but never really "dug in" until about a month ago, when I discovered the excellent FAQs. Lots of my age-old Crim questions got answered in there. Now, I feel I must contribute this miniscule nugget of Crim info: In the FAQ, I noticed a long list of shows, commercials, and movies in which KC music has appeared or the band has been mentioned, and one that I was sure would be in there wasn't. So, here you go: In the 1995 MTV-produced animated series "The Maxx", based on the Image comic book of the same name, there's a snippet of "Sartori In Tangier" for background music. It happens in the first episode of the series, when the Maxx is curled up in a fetal position and thinking to himself... there's a slow pan away from him, and you can hear the opening part. The music cuts out before it gets to the more "active" parts, but it's definitely Crim in there. Hope this helps, and that it hasn't been mentioned to death before... Bill The Escapist- Fighting for the rights of games and gamers since 1995: www.theescapist.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2001 12:24:36 +0100 From: Harald Milz Subject: Q: Adrian Belew rig Dear KC lovers, can anyone please point me to a web site which has some information on Adrian Belew's guitar rig? Robert Fripp's and Trey Gunn's are on guitargeek.com but... TIA! -- Quick, sing me the BUDAPEST NATIONAL ANTHEM!! ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2001 09:22:27 -0700 From: "Moshier, John T" Subject: Plymouth,Islands, and the Islands Band The new Plymouth album from the Collectors' Club is a missing link in the evolution of King Crimson. One listen to side two of the Plymouth album answered numerous questions about why this band was formed and what it was initially (at least) formed to do. I did a double take on hearing Get Thy Bearings on side two: it sounded like Greg Lake singing on Epitaph. The uncanny resemblance to Lake continued on the next cut, ITCOTKC. Indeed, the entire album, with a generous helping of material written or originally performed by the McDonald, Lake, Giles incarnation of the band (Schizoid, Bearings, ITCOTKC, Pictures of a City, Mars and The Letters which the original band was working on as "Drop In"), together with songs from Poseidon and Lizard (Cirkus, Lady of the Dancing Water, Cadence and Cascade) strongly indicates that this band was brought together to perform existing materials. So now I have an answer to my years' old question: Why Boz? It was his singing voice on ballad type materials which brought a Lake-like timbre to the band's sound. I had earlier felt that Boz's performance of Cadence on Summit Studios was an incredibly beautiful rendition of this song which made up in large part for my disappointment that Lake did not sing it on Poseidon. The summit performance, to me, easily tops Bellew's overdubbed vocal on Frame By Frame. Ironically, Ian Wallace's notes to Summit Studios say that he didn't find Boz's performance of Cadence convincing because Boz had more of a blues voice. Ian, of course knew Boz very well, and Fripp has described Boz as quite a partier. Maybe the crooning vocal of Cadence just didn't fit the personality of the man Wallace knew so well. If not, Boz is a hell of an actor. Ballades aside, Boz can't match Greg Lake as an overall singer. Back in the 70's I thought that Lake had the best voice in rock. No one else could match the beauty of songs like Lucky Man, From the Beginning, and Still....You Turn Me On with the power of songs like Karn Evil 9 (See the Show!!!!). And Boz's singing on "power" songs like Schizoid just doesn't pull it off. I used to cringe at Schizoid off Earthbound. It sounded horrible. Thanks to Ian Wallace's notes off Plymouth, I now know that this was largely due to Sinfield's processing of vocals through the VCS3 synthesizer. Much of what I didn't like about the Islands band's live sound was apparently due to this frightful distortion-generating device. Sinfield may well have wanted to feel a bigger part of what the group was doing on stage, but the VCS3 manipulations largely detracted from the musicians' performance. If this was what Sinfield wanted to do in the band, he clearly had to go. It has become de rigueur to malign both Ilsands and the Islands band. I think both criticisms suffer from a lack of appreciating what the band and Fripp were trying to do at the time. I for one have always liked Islands. This apparently puts me in a tiny minority of Crimson listeners. But I think Islands should be listened to for what it is: an essentially studio production, much of which was never conceived for live performance. Prelude-Song of the Gulls and the title track have never been performed live, and were probably not intended for live performance. Heck, Fripp doesn't even play guitar on Islands, he just plays a simple unchallenging part on the pedal harmonium. The drums and bass don't come in until the very end of the song. Islands is not a "rock song" for a "rock group" to play live to a large audience. It is a statement which emphasizes the beauty of simplicity. Beethoven, who could write a formidable virtuoso piano piece when he wanted to (e.g. the Waldstein Sonata) also left us with numerous examples of exquisitely and almost painfully beautiful simple melodies ( e.g. Moonlight and Pathetique Sonatas, Ode to Joy from the Ninth Symphony). Prelude from Islands is in this type of simplicity- is- beauty vein. It is hauntingly reminiscent of, and may have been inspired by Pachelbell's famous canon, although it is a completely original piece and not some knock off passed off as original work. Sailor's Tale did result in a performing version, but the studio rendition, wtih orchestral augmentation and soprano solo was never intended for live performance. The essentially studio nature of Islands should come as no surprise, following as it did, both Poseidon (which admittedly contained several works developed in live performance by the McDonald, Lake, Giles band) and Lizard which was wholly a studio undertaking. Listening to Islands for what it is, rather than comparing it to what it isn't (Larks' Tongues, ITCOTKC, Thrak, etc.) has given me great enjoyment over the last 30 years. With respect to the Islands band, its great shortcoming is apparently that Wallace and Burrell were not Bruford and Wetton. And clearly they weren't. The Crimson to come had a power and originality that has never been matched. But that didn't make Wallace and Burrell bad musicians. They were just musicians who, in the long run, were not suited to the Crimson idiom. They can't be faulted for trying. King Crimson, with three successful albums, a recording contract, and an audience that was dying to see them live was clearly the gig of their lives at the time. Fripp spent two years putting this band together, and he wouldn't have tolerated poor musicians. His continuing loyalty to this lineup, and the fact that Wallace and Burrell went on to long and distinguished careers playing more popular forms of rock is a testament to their musical competance. In the long run, they just didn't fit in this band. Mel Collins is a different story. Fripp found him early, and he played on Poseidon and Lizard as well as Islands. Everyone seems to recognize that Collins was an amazing talent. He strikes me as one of those musicians who can play almost any kind of music with almost any type of musicians. After recent listenings to Red, with the guest performances of Collins and Ian McDonald, and reflecting on the too-infrequent flute parts of David Cross (e.g. Exiles and The Rich Tapestry of Life) I wish sax and flute had been a bigger part of the Wetton/Bruford years. I literally shiver when dreaming of what might have been when McDonald was planning to rejoin the band after Red. Islands and the Islands band marked the end of the first tormented and erratic incarnation of the King. Fripp took the McDonald, Lake, Giles and Sinfield conception of the band as far as it could go without McDonald, Lake and Giles. While he could still pull together convincing studio creations in the ITCOTKC vein, the Islands band in the long run was not temperamentally suitable for the live performance of the then-existing Crimson oeuvre. It was time to abandon past nostalgia and proceed with Crimson's Red future. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2001 16:35:29 -0500 From: "GRAY ROBERT Y. (tel1byg)" Subject: Touring with Tool?? / KCCC #14 Hello fellow ETers...... I just wanted to chime in with a couple thoughts on the above subjects. Although a KC/Tool would be excellent, has anybody thought of the imbrobability of it actually happening (from an audience-behavior standpoint)? Basically, I believe, that if such a tour were to actually happen, the non-KC fans who will be drawn to such a concert would be significantly less informed of King Crimson's "rules" of the road (such as: no flashes/picture-taking, no smoking, no yelling out stupid comments, etc., etc.) than was even exhibeted on the last tour by KCs own fan-base (which should be fairly familiar with their policies) and therefore there will be (exponentially) more of a chance of "violations" occurring than could be withstood by KC. Has anyone else had any similar feelings? What a pleasent surprise KCCC # 14 is. Although the release is not as sonically pristine throughout as one would hope for (for those out there who are picky) there are more than enough highlights throughout to make this one of my top 3 KCCC releases. It is a document of this period of KC that I never thought would see the light of day and for this alone I am grateful no matter what the sound quality is. Given it's minor flaws (and there are only a scant few--but then again most gems do have flaws) it is still one of the best releases the KCCC has produced to-date. I love the work-in-progress status of "Sailor's Tale", the freshness of "The Letters" and the overall diversity in the choice of songs that are represented here. This release has really put the state of KC as it was in 1971 into perspective and shows just how good of a group of musicians they really were. This release only leaves me thirsting for more. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2001 00:13:11 -0000 From: "mike mclaughlin" Subject: New Standard Tuning Hi fellow ETers. I have a problem I have recently re-tuned my guitar to Fripp's New Standard Tuning but have come across the problem I don't know how to play anything anymore (I've worked out a few things and I've been trying the NST tab of FraKctured) I would like more information on the chords and scales in this tuning (and perhaps some more Crimson Tabs in NST too) I have worked out what I think is a basic Major chord and a basic minor chord but I would like to find out more. So if anyone has any information they could pass on (or even if they could just point me in the direction) could you please send me an e-mail. Yes I'm aware of how recently I asked about Belew's tuning on TCOL and I'm also indebted to those who could render assistance to me and I still have one of my guitars tuned that way. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2001 09:21:48 From: "Clive Lathrope" Subject: DEJA VROOM DVD #5.99 !!!! Get over to Encore/ or Encore Direct .co.uk (or something, do a search) who are selling the DVD for #5.99. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2001 12:30:58 -0600 From: Jordan Subject: Collector's Club on E-bay Given the somewhat unique nature of the club, is there any reason why I should feel any guilt or moral prohibition against selling some of by KCCC cds on Ebay? I just got the new one, and at the moment I would rather convert it (and a couple of others) to a jazz album or two. Jordan http://www.sit.wisc.edu/~jordancohen Music Reviews ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2001 18:26:18 -0000 From: "Danny Anderson" Subject: No one knows the answer to this easy trivia question Hey Dan Buxbaum. It's the Rimitti album which has the indian musicians on it...and Flea as well. Here's one for you. What obscure British folk singer does Bobby back up on a few tunes on acoustic guitar? If I remember right Peter Gabriel is on it as well. Big Daddy Dan "Do girls think less of boys who let themselves be kissed? Even though they go out with boys like me, don't they always marry the other kind?" Groucho Marx ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2001 13:38:00 EST From: JasJohns22 at aol dot com Subject: ITTTW Greetings: I recently heard a version of 'I Talk to the Wind' on the (yes) radio, featuring a female singer, and a guitarist doing an admirable job of mimicking RF's style. I was surprised---it was from 'Giles, Giles & Fripp'---or perhaps a recent release of archived material? I remain blissfully unaware... ------------------------------ End of Elephant Talk Digest #805 ********************************