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: Discipline #93 Discipline, Number 93 Wednesday, 19 May 1993 Today's Topics: David Cross this Saturday! Complaining -- the new lineup interplay Keith Tippett Re: "A cruel thrust" Bootleg CD STICK [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] A slim issue this time, put out in haste to include Ron's note about this week's David Cross gig. I hope some of you will be able to go along and meet Ron and tell us about the gig. Maybe buy David Cross a beer and have a chat? Send the bar tab to Discipline :-) -- Toby [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] Date: Wed, 19 May 93 16:29 BST From: ronc at cogs dot susx dot ac dot uk (Ron Chrisley) To: toby at cs dot man dot ac dot uk, ronc at cogs dot susx dot ac dot uk Subject: David Cross this Saturday! I was at the Orange, a club in west Kensington, last Sat to see Allan Holdsworth. I just happened to pick up a leaflet that announced that David Cross will be playing there this Saturday (May 22nd). Tel.: 071 371 4317. Other performers: John Dillon Bass & Vocals Sheila Maloney Keys Dan Maurer Drums Showcasing tracks from their new album "The Big Picture" Support: Dean Carter Tickets #6; Doors 8.30-12.00 (but gig should be over around 11.30) Perhaps you could send out a special issue to UK listmembers, and we could arrange to meet up? Ronald L. Chrisley (ronc at cogs dot susx dot ac dot uk) School of Cognitive & Computing Sciences University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton, BN1 9QH, UK Tel: +44 273 678581; Fax: +44 273 671 320 ==If I never replied to your message, chances are I never received it== [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] Date: 15 May 1993 14:05:12 -0500 From: MOONLIT KNIGHT Subject: Complaining -- the new lineup interplay Thanks to Malcom and Scott for their responses to my thoughts on the interplay in the new band. A minor note -- I was only complaining about the mystery of how it's going to happen, not complaining about what are very exciting possibilities! It's great to be awaiting a new version of the band in one's own time. Young folks like myself often feel like historians, wanting nothing more than a time machine to be able to see the old shows. I do think that Levin will be playing more bass and also doing more atmospheric things with both effects and the synthesizer (remember that?) When I think of him I remember so vividly in the Japan video strapping on the bass and stick and playing the synth all in one song ("Industry" or "Dig Me"? can't remember). Here's to Sartori in '93 and good conversation -- Jeff [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] Date: Fri, 14 May 93 11:54:50 PDT From: I heard the voice of a pork chop. 14-May-1993 1441 Subject: Keith Tippett >In his interview of Vernon Reid, Fripp mentions that he worked as a >"research and developement" musician (did something experimental) with >pianist Keith Tippett. Is this on record somewhere? You of course are aware (maybe not) that Tippett worked as studio pianist for Crimson on "Poseidon", "Lizard" and "Islands". He is primarily a jazz player and interested in free improv. Around 1971 Tippett formed a large band called Centipede (as it had about 50 members, thus 100 legs!) which recorded an album called "Septober Energy" for RCA. Some of the personnel included members of Crimson, Soft Machine, Patto, etc. Fripp played with the band live but *not* in the record, but he produced the album. q More recently, Tippett recorded some duet albums for Editions EG, one with his wife Julie (former Brian Auger vocalist Julie Driscoll) and one with saxophonist Andy Sheppard. Fripp mixed the former and produced the latter. As far as Fripp *playing* with Tippett, I'm not sure if anything outside of the three Crimson albums exists. Brian Rost rost at tecrus dot enet dot dec dot com 508-568-6115 DEC, Hudson, MA ******************************************************************************* In the words of famed composer Johann Sebastian Shwarzenegger, "I'll be Bach". ******************************************************************************* [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] From: beep at sybase dot com (William Puig) Subject: Re: "A cruel thrust" Date: Fri, 14 May 93 16:34:46 EDT Scott T. Anderson (sanderso at gacvx2 dot gac dot edu) wrote: >I'd like to correct something I wrote in the last Discipline, it's "a cruel >thrust" not "a vicious thrust." Anyone know when Fripp said it? (Yes, I >am such a pathetic Crimhead that I can recall such information.) Sure -- Fripp said this to Pete Sinfield, regarding his comment to Boz Burrell before a show that Boz was "ignorant". The scene was recorded in Fripp's journal; the excerpt in question can be found in the liner notes to both "Young Person's Guide" and "Frame by Frame". I must be a pathetic Crimhead, too ... ;-> Bill beep at sybase dot com [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] From: beep at sybase dot com (William Puig) Subject: Bootleg CD To: toby at cs dot man dot ac dot uk (Discipline - King Crimson/Fripp Mailing List) Date: Sun, 16 May 93 11:06:33 EDT X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL0] Content-Length: 0 Hello all, I had the good fortune to find a bootleg Crimson CD called "Pandemonium" in a local record store yesterday. It's of Italian origin, and contains the following tracks: Title Source Timing ----- ------ ------ In the Court of the BBC Top Gear radio 4:46 Crimson King(*) Broadcast, 5/6/69 21st Century Schizoid Man Plumpton Festival, 8/9/69 6:47 Get Thy Bearings(**) Plumpton Festival 10:26 The Devil's Triangle Plumpton Festival 6:55 Crimson Blues Plumpton Festival 15:29 In the Court of the Plumpton Festival 5:11 Crimson King (abbrev.) (*) VERY EARLY version, with different lyrics from the final studio track. Deliberately abbreviated, too -- maybe they were thinking about releasing the song as a single? (**) same performance as included on "Frame by Frame" disc 4, but of inferior sound quality (in fact, all the Plumpton tracks are a bit spotty, particularly the vocals. Nice for historical purposes, though.) I also have a boot from Crimson's '74 U.S. tour called "The Heretic". It was allegedly recorded in Fort Worth, TX on 6/6/74, and its sound is of VERY good quality throughout (one wonders whether the bootlegger had access to the mixing board, or perhaps stole the tapes from Fripp!). Contents of this one are: The Great Deceiver 3:50 Lament 4:00 Exiles 5:58 21st Century Schizoid Man 9:50 The Night Watch 4:45 Starless 11:59 Easy Money 6:16 I don't know how common these recordings are, but would be happy to trade dubs of them with other Disciplinarians in exchange for tapes of other Crimson performances. Drop me a line (beep at sybase dot com) if interested... Bill ----+---- Bill Puig, Principal Consultant "... getting fat on your lucky star." Sybase Professional Services -- R. W. Palmer-James 40 East 52nd Street New York, NY 10022 Tel.: (212) 755-6544 E-mail: beep at sybase dot com [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] From: mathias at elroy dot ocis dot temple dot edu (Matt Thallmayer) Subject: STICK Date: Wed, 19 May 93 4:28:46 EDT DISCLAIMER: These are MY comments as they relate to MY Stick (which is approx. 10 years old. I am NOT familiar with the current line of products made by Stick Enterprises. ________________________________________________________________________________ COMMENTS ON MY STICK (Matthew E. Thallmayer) ________________________________________________ My Stick dates from '82 or '83. I bought it used in Dec. of '83. I had wanted to buy a new one, but no one in Phila. carried them. There was one dealer in New York City who carried them and had two, but by the time I had the money, they were sold and the store was waited for more to come in. So, I decided to go with the used one and save time, money and a long trip. My Stick is the old style dark, heavy Brazilian ironwood. It has ten strings, two groups of five each, Bass and Melody. The Bass is tuned in fifths starting on C, the Melody is tuned in fourths starting on F#. The lowest strings are in the center. From the point of view of someone looking at the Stick player the layout looks like this: E A D G C F# B E A D high low low high BASS MELODY This appears to the player as if the Bass string are reversed from "normal". Chapman supposed did this so that you can hold a bass note and then fret chords on either side. My disagreement with this layout is that the left hand has to reach over five Melody strings to reach the low bass, while the right hand "floats" over the whole neck. I like the reversed strings of the Bass but I would change the sides that the Melody and Bass are on. For example: F# B E A D B E A D C low high high low MELODY BASS I understand that Stick now offers different tunings, such as: alto and baritone and possibly others. I think you can get custom tunings and they now have a "Grand Stick", which is normally set up 6/6, 5/7 or however you want. I also understand there are other woods and a synthetic available. They also used to offer a MIDI converter. On my stick you can set string height but not intonation. This supposedly has been changed. _______________________________________________________________________________ Now, on to my GRIPES. The main problem is with the pickups. They are mounted in a metal pickup housing which, after two screws are removed, slides out. This is cool as you don't have to remove the strings. Inside the housing is a different story. What you have is two single coils for each side (four total) about an inch apart. They are wired out of phase. The volume controls are mounted on the Bass side and the output (one) is on the Melody side. So what happens is the wires from the Melody pickups go next to the Bass coils to the volume pot, then wires from both pots run next to both coils to the combined output. Anybody care to guess what happens because of this? Can you say "cross-talk", boys and girls? Just having the two sets near each other is bad enough. There is no shielding of an kind between the two sets. This is especially bad as the Bass shows up in the Melody channel. Which makes the Bass sound tinny. The wiring is a rat's nest. No attempt is made to keep the wires away from the coils or to shield them. I don't care for the pickups too much to begin with. When I put the Melody side through a distortion box there's tremendous squealing and feedback (the bad kind) even at moderate volume levels. When I tried to purchase a new pickup housing from Stick, so that I could experiment with other pickups, wiring, etc. (oh, did I mention that the pickups are glued to the housing?) I was told on three occasions that they would not sell me one. What kind of company wont sell replacement parts? They also have a retrofit rubber shockmount that goes under the housing to isolate the pickups from vibrations. They told me that they send it but I never recieved it. You may have noticed earlier that I mentioned volume pots. There are no tone pots. And no switches. You cannot choose between single or double coil, or between in or out of phase. So, you might ask why I don't modify mine. Well, for one reason, I don't want to destroy its possible collectibility. The other is that you have this nice, removable pickup housing. I should be able to slot another in there is I want. Then, when I removed the p/u housing for the first time, what did I see? Large gouges from the router. It was never sanded properly. And the holes for the bolts that adjust the height of the housing were not where they are supposed to be. The frets were rough along the edges, and even though it was only about a year old were extremely worn. I have heard that they are now using different fret wire. When I bought mine ten years ago, a new one was going for just under $1000. You would think that for a low volume, high ticket instrument that was trying to gain market acceptance, they would put more effort into design and execution. My other big complaint is with strings. You have to buy from Stick. Which means you have to stock up. And, more importantly, you can't try out strings to find ones that you like. And, even if you could, you couldn't adjust the intonation for the new set. (Though, as I said before, this might have changed.) I wanted to have some work done on it. So I called Stick (They're in Los Angeles, California and I'm in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.) and asked them if they could recommend someone in my area. They said, "Oh, no. Send it to us." Yeah, right. Seven or eight days shipping. Each way. Two weeks in transit. And then what if it's not right. I can drop it off to a repairman on my way to work. And when I go pick it up if it's not right, I just tell him. Now, do you know that you can't use open strings on the Stick. When you take your finger off a string it rings, so they use a damper at the first fret. And, the string length at first fret is so short as to make it almost unusable. So the lowest usable note is D. But their damper doesn't work too well. Right now I'm using a woolen tie wrapped around the neck. Even that's not good. The best way I've found is using my left hand. Needless to say, I don't like this. One last point, where the ball end of the string goes is just slots cut into the end of the wood. If you were to bang into something and break a piece it's not like a regular bridge that you just replace. It would have to be glued and would never be the same. Another case of bad design. _______________________________________________________________________________ MY RECOMMENDATION _________________ For the same price or less, you can have a luthier assemble a Stick-like instrument from off the shelf components. The body would probably have to be custom made but that's no big deal. I'm still deciding on the configuration, hardware, etc., whether or not to go headless, and the angles for the necks. Since I am primarily a keyboardist, my Stick has to play second fiddle. I do like the way I can play a bass or lead on the Stick while playing keyboards with my other hand. I also lay the Stick flat on the top tier of my stand and play it like another keyboard. However, this inverts the left hand, and all the parts have to be relearned. Mathias (Matthew E. Thallmayer) mathias at elroy dot ocis dot temple dot edu [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] To join this mailing list 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 Discipline archives are available on ftp.uwp.edu, in /pub/music/lists/discipline. The views expressed in Discipline are those of the individual authors only.