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 #883 E L E P H A N T T A L K The Internet newsletter for Robert Fripp and King Crimson enthusiasts Number 883 Monday, 29 October 2001 Today's Topics: GIG BIZ: NYC 2 for 1 trade FW: SCI -- a public service announcement for adventurous ETers Re: The Decline of Prog 70s Crim video prog decline in the 80's; CLub 17 Re: Epitaph Recording 80s Prog? NOTE: Fw: larks tongues' video truncated DGM diaries RE: new Damage ongoing debate Bootlegs vroom vrooom Re: Prog Decline in the '80's ------------------ 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: Fri, 26 Oct 2001 18:28:48 -0400 From: "Michael Garnice" Subject: GIG BIZ: NYC 2 for 1 trade Regarding the 12/13 Beacon Theatre show in NYC: I have two very good tickets, in the center section of the orchestra (row U, seats 113 & 114). My brother was hoping to attend, but can't make it. (He has three children under the age of 2. I guess that's a Trio that didn't involve "admirable restraint".) I am willing to trade these two very good tickets for one great one. Anyone interested? If so, I'd prefer to make the swap prior to the day of the show. Thanks, Mike G NYC ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2001 09:09:58 -0700 From: "Moshier, John T" Subject: FW: SCI -- a public service announcement for adventurous ETers > -----Original Message----- > From: Moshier, John T > Sent: Friday, October 26, 2001 9:09 AM > To: 'newsletter at elephant-talk dot com' > Subject: SCI -- a public service announcement for adventurous ETers > > Hi ETers, > The connection is so stretched that I'll keep it brief in the hope > that Toby doesn't spamcan me. > The western USA tour tickets are being offered by SCI which is the > "house" distribution and recording company for a Boulder, Colorado - based > band called the String Cheese Incident (hence "SCI"). String Cheese > Incident is an excellent band that I think some of you would like. They > are a highly improvisational jamband in the mold of Phish and the Grateful > Dead. Their best stuff is live. Their influences are an interesting mix of > bluegrass and jazz, and they cover jazz classics like "Take Five," Weather > Report's "Birdland," and Miles Davis's "Footprints." They have an > excellent drummer and keyboard player and use an electric mandolin instead > of an electric guitar. They are not yet well known outside the Western US, > but they have a devoted following. Their sound has nothing in common with > Fripp or KC, but their sincere approach to good music may have appealed > to the folks at DGM. They are worth a listen. > John > Moshier, Phoenix, AZ. USA. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2001 10:01:17 -0700 (PDT) From: Jim Sheridan Subject: Re: The Decline of Prog - > > Tony COlina wrote a thoughtful piece about prog bands changing, lessening, and selling out. He noted that "How could we expect anything really new from Genesis, or Yes, or Pink Floyd, since the players were the same and hadn't had no break from their usual musical worlds, no chance to live what was goin on outside?" I may be thinking out of context, but the members of Yes and Genesis did keep changing, and also did do some exterior projects. Actually, the MORE the Genesis guys did outside projects, the more commercial/non-prog Genesis became!!!! You could say that the changes in Genesis - the departures of Gabe and Hack - did lead to the commercialization. I do not think Genesis stagnated (catch the pun) for a while, though; even their pop stuff was often rather clever and original. Or as my wife says of "Illegal Alien," who else could pull that one off?!?! (Actually has some tricky playing in it too) Jim S ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2001 13:20:05 EDT From: Inturmoil at aol dot com Subject: 70s Crim video I have a dvd of king crimson doing Larks' at the beat club in 1973. I don't know how to make it available, but I'm sure there's a way. I had to download a region killer in order to get it to play on my computer. Whoever ran the sound that day was dreadful. Anyone willing to help me make this available to all (as I know fripp and co make no dinero from this dvd anyway), e-mail me. inturmoil at aol dot com Thanks, Jason ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2001 13:25:33 -0400 From: David Vella Subject: prog decline in the 80's; CLub 17 Greetings all, I haven't posted in a while, but a lot things seem to be happening. First, great news about the tour. I hope to attend either the Boston or the New Haven show - if any other ETers are thinking of going to these shows and want to say hello (perhaps meet at the show?), or offer advice about the venues (where to park, etc.), contact me offlist at dvella at skidmore dot edu. Another bit of great news - Sid's book! Thanks for the snippets in a recent issue - I'll be scarfing this one up ASAP. Tony Colina had an interesting post on the decline of prog in the 80's in #881. Let me chime in on a few points - first, we totally agree on PF's Dark Side of the Moon. I've often had arguments about this with people (some even who subscribe to this list, ahem, MH, I won't mention any names!) There's no arguing about the quality of this album, nor its monster success! But Tony hit it right - this album ceases to be avant-garde or experimental, and begins their long descent into normalcy/commercialism. Although it would take several years/albums for the decline to be complete (The Wall was the first PF album I refused to buy - although I did accept a tape a buddy of mine made for me), it's a yin-yang thing - the seeds of their demise were planted already on DSOTM in the peak of their success. Second, in referring to the 80's Crim, Tony makes a number of interesting points, and some of those points may be boiled down to this: Tony seems to be advocating a cross-sectional approach to musical critique rather than longitudinal. That is, Tony suggests that it is fruitless to compare 80's Crim to 70's Crim, but makes more sense to compare 80's crim to what else was happening in the 80's. This point may be arguable, although I am not the one to take up the argument. [After all, on some level I will always like ITCOTKC, Lizard, LTIA & SABB better than Discipline, Beat & Thrak.] However, let us accept this point, provisionally. Well, then, having accepted it for King Crimson, why not apply the same standards for Yes and other prog acts of the 70's? In the case of Yes, in 1983, 90125 was one of the best albums one could hear. It's perhaps easy to take a poke at Yes and say 'Owner of a Lonely Heart' was penned only to earn airtime, however, I'd rather hear it than just about anything else the radio was playing in 1983. [To refer to the above, could it not be argued that the song "Money", from PF's DSOTM, was also written mainly to garner airtime? I really hated that song at the time, despite the ironies of that band singing that song on this particular album.] Furthermore, I think the entire album 90125, while a departure from previous Yes-sound, was a very vibrant release which stands up well against some of the late 70's efforts (like Tormato & Going for the One.) And it did include a couple of new members, which is one of the things Tony says was part of the Crimson 'formula'. But I do agree with Tony that nobody has kept as fresh as KC, and they are still doing it now, with TCoL being perhaps their greatest studio release since 'Discipline', or maybe even since 'Red'. On a different issue, Michael Hackett writes: > I will first say that I think the Northampton P2 CD sounds great and I > enjoyed the performance, but why in the world tease us by mentioning the > "exceptionally cool" Schizoid Man encore, and then not include it (or Dino > or VROOOM)? And then why leave nearly two minutes of audience noise > leading up to the encore only to cut it off before the music? My sentiments exactly. The Iron Horse is less than a two hour drive from here, and I remember when this performance took place. For some reason I decided not to go. After hearing the Club release, I am SEVERELY BUMMED that I missed it - both for what is on the disc as well as what was omitted... Peace (A Theme), David Vella ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2001 12:58:36 -0700 From: "Andy Gower" Subject: Re: Epitaph Recording >From: Kevin Holm-Hudson It's moments like this that you which Ian McDonald was reading ET. Too bad he doesn't have a email address, so we can go to the horse's mouth! CLUB 19: summer 2001 in Mexico City. Excellent. Is it just me or does it seem that KC loves to play in Mexico City? They always rate MC shows as great shows. ------------------------------ Date: 26 Oct 2001 20:24:36 -0000 From: "Brian Reynolds" Subject: 80s Prog? I disagree with the comments on Pink Floyd and Yes for the most part. I'll agree that Yes declined somewhere after the fine Relayer album, but Pink Floyd has their own style which I think they kept until the Wall where Waters held the reigns tightly. However, you may notice the hit songs from the Wall were cowritten by Gilmour ("Comfortably Numb" was written for his solo album). The final Cut, while weak musically is a message driven work. Supposedly the Final Cut is made up of some Wall leftovers. With Momentary Lapse of Reason and Division Bell, I feel the music became the forefront with the depature of Waters. Now, for the 80's, I think RUSH should not be forgotten. Moving Pictures, Signals, Grace Under Pressure...good stuff! The RUSH stuff was never really mainstream rock in the 80's, but I don't think it declined. All bands evolve and hopefully they do it for themselves first and their fans second. How would it feel to fell like you have to do a part 2 album or a part 3? ! Gosh forbid they'd want to write good songs! I'm just trying to say listen to what you like. Music shouldn't be viewed only as a movement through time. If your a Pink Floyd freak like me, you like it all. You're a fan. There's no point in dissecting the music that groups release as years go by. It makes music all the more interesting. Brian Sign-UP for your FREE Backpacker Email at http://www.backpacker.com/email * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * P.S. Click here to get a FREE trial issue of BACKPACKER: http://www.backpacker.com/subs/home.rhtml/I9KF001 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2001 17:43:49 -0400 From: "Smiths" Subject: NOTE: Fw: larks tongues' video truncated Regarding the Best of '73 Beat Club series DVD that includes a whole 6 minutes of Larks I: so what! I recorded this from TV's Night Flight in the '80s and tacked it on to the end of my ToaPP video. Every time I watch this blurb I am infuriated over the fact that obviously this whole song was taped (and possibly more), but some cretin edited the end off. It's like coitus interruptus. Why would I want to pay money to have this frustrating blue balls experience thrust upon me again on DVD? If someone wanted to do something of merit they'd find as much of this archived material in its complete form, put it on one DVD and give us something worth buying. For starters they could include the WHOLE Easy Money blurb on the Yesyears retrospective (noted as belonging to EG in the credits), and KC's appearance on The Midnight Special doing all of Easy Money and LTiA II (which incidentally prompted me to buy the album and begin true fandom). This Beat Club KC thing is simply a worthless tease (like much of the shit that appeared on that crap show Night Flight by the way). I'd actually like to see ALL of ELP's Knife Edge if some gave it to me however. Matthew K. Smith ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2001 23:26:34 +0800 From: David Bowler Subject: DGM diaries Just a thought for those who might have some influence to ponder - is it not possible for users to subscribe to the DGM diaries and then have them sent direct to our mailboxes each time the writer submits a new entry? As somebody who can't get online as much as I'd like but dos have regular email access, that would be a real help. Anybody want to start a petition? ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 27 Oct 2001 11:25:47 +0200 From: recremisi at excite dot it Subject: RE: new Damage I bought the new Damage last week, and I was surprised too about how much the mixes changed: it's not just a matter of volume, even the eq's are different .(i.e.:just compare the snare drum in God's Monkey...). As a matter of fact, I do notice that all the low frequencies dept. have been "tidied up", and I wonder if Mr. Fripp, in the first master , wanted to spotlight is discipulus talent....(Gunn IS Great, BTW). On the other hand, I found the package very poor: remembering the old one, it's just uncomparable! The added "Jean the Birdman" feels good to me,altough it hasn't the power showed on the studio record (Sylvian himself in the Milano gig this year presented it as "his favourite from that album"...is it the reason why he included it now? ) Rating the album, I would say 8/10: good sound, great music, different persepective, compare possibility, but NO booklet! Thanks for opening this discussion. Happy Krimsoning, EDL ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 27 Oct 2001 12:38:16 -0500 From: "Doug Abrell" Subject: ongoing debate Regarding the recent return to the question of what happened to the adventurous music of the late'60's/early '70's (some try to confine it by labeling it "prog"): A recent book I enjoyed by Robin Platts called "Genesis:Inside and Out" does a good job of looking at Genesis' music (leaving out the cumbersome "personal stories" that make rock books boring). The book discusses all eras of Genesis, and keeps to the music itself. The story the book paints is this: 1. Genesis made awesome music that people today still care about. 2. After Wind and Wuthering (1976-77), as Genesis went forward as a threesome and found the musical landscape changed by punk, they made a conscious effort to change their music so it no longer resembled their past (a noble gesture). However, this effort was soured by the fact that they wanted to make their audience larger, and sell more records. They defind their success by units moved and tickets sold. As they continued, their extra-curricular activities (solo projects) became more important to them than their band activities. For instance, if Phil had a musical idea he really liked, he wouldn't bring it to the band's table, preferring to keep it for his next solo record. So you started having records with some hits on them, as well as crap you have to skip through to get to the next good song. Maybe the used CD bins are a good indication of this. What do you see when you look up Genesis in the used CD bin? About 10 copies of Invisible Touch, several of the self-titled Genesis recording, and about as many of I Can't Dance. Personally, I couldn't stand Genesis in the '80's. Where was the adventure? Maybe these bands began seeing their numbers fall at their shows and in their wallets, and wanted to "keep current". Maybe they stopped looking at what they liked, and instead looked at what people wanted from them. Maybe that's why Fripp has said that Crimson has a tendency to break up as soon as there's an indication that the masses are starting to pay attention. Crimson has remained exciting. Genesis fizzled out, and Phil Collins went to work for Disney. Orange Egghead. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 27 Oct 2001 15:40:47 -0400 From: "Jordan Clifford" Subject: Bootlegs Not every band releases Bootlegs and then sells them. There are plenty of bands out there that encourage bootleggers to tape and trade their shows. No profit is made, except the enjoyment of the fans. I think its awesome that Fripp releases all these bootlegs, I am not in the club yet (not sure if I will be) so i dont recieve them, but i personally like the trading scene much more. I think if you want to be true to the music that is the only way to do things. Jordan ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 27 Oct 2001 19:42:13 EDT From: Doynuy at aol dot com Subject: vroom vrooom hi there, just received vroom vroom - whoa - supercalafragalisticxpealadoshas. in other words, highly recommended. k.c.c double trio in its prime. good humor via belew. thanks robert. j.m. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2001 09:27:41 EST From: Gtrman3811 at aol dot com Subject: Re: Prog Decline in the '80's I view it as more of a music decline in the 80's. With the emergence of MTV, it changed everything. It pushed the envelope toward, not how good is the music, to how good do you look. Not to mention, radio started shifting in the same direction, from AOR formats to more Top 40 oriented. There was no need for 10 minute songs or other lengthy songs, a Prog rock formula. Yet things were to get worse in the 90's through the present. I at least remember songs making on the radio off of Discipline, Beat and Three of a Perfect Pair, but nothing since. Commercial radio has become corporate, and now there's no room for anything off the beaten path. When was the last time you said, when listening to the radio "Gee I haven't heard that song in a while!" As far as I'm concerned, I don't have sour grapes because the music I love doesn't receive top billing; it draws a fandom that's more faithful and knowledgeable about music, opposed to a crowd that want's to be in the "in-crowd." Regards, Mike ------------------------------ End of Elephant Talk Digest #883 ********************************