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 #95 Discipline, Number 95 Friday, 28 May 1993 Today's Topics: a most Fierce String Quintet Towards issue 100 ... but HELP! [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] A slim issue this time, but I thought you wouldn't want to wait to read Casey's report of the recent gig. -- Toby [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] Date: Tue, 25 May 93 12:28:14 PDT From: dunn@saffron (Casey Dunn) Subject: a most Fierce String Quintet well, after surviving 2 sets of Mr. Fripp & Crew I must attempt to report to this august "gathering"...but I fear that words may fail me here...as well as spelling...and occasionally hearing...such is the veil of maya... the Robert Fripp String Quintent: RF well, it was a black guitar ;) Trey Gunn (sp) Grand Stick, I think (12-string) the California Guitar Trio matching acoustic guitars, funky backs...plastic, rounded...Oh, and a stienberger I think RF & Trey: pretty good sized racks'o'gear. E-Bow for trey. plenty of pedals. Mr. Fripp has some on top of his rack... CGT: simple effects, E-Bows. Appearing at "The Great American Music Hall" in S.F. Once the stage of a bordello, this small hall is great for focused, energetic music. There is a small raised stage in front, an open dance floor this eve strewn with tables on two sides, and a balcony around all. Everything is painted deep red with golden highlights...the lights are those candle-shaped thingies that burn orange...there are deep red curtains everywhere... Applause starts as RF, TG, and CGT stride through the croud, RF slyly establishing eye contact. They mount the stage, and RF peers around at the seated (& standing...) floor croud, and then leans back to truly inspect the balcony. silence slowly descends. The others, after plugging in their gear, stand at attention... TG CGT#1 RF CGT#2 CGT#3 as RF gathers himself. there is a moment of silence, finally, it is savoured, and RF nods. The musicans then modify their stances a bit, relaxing into postures suitable for the production of music. RF pinches off a few notes (he plucks, raises the volume via a pedal after each pluck...the notes are fuzzed...and trapped in some digital reverb/echo unit...) and up soars some vintage Frippertronics. Trey joins in after a few moments, and shivers start arcing my spine. Now, mind you, not a word was spoken. no introductions, no explanations, no titles, no excuses. so I don't have names for any "new" peices. In the first show there seemed to be more F`tronic peices than in the second but I may be mistaken. the songs I thought I recognized were a couple off the crafties album, some Ventures (surf music!), Bach, Albinoni...and there I may well be wrong. there was a cool-jazz thingy in there as well... the music ranged, as you can see, from F'tronic walls of sound (more like Requiem...F'tronics "with the solos") to shredding to Crafty Hands work to jazz standards to baroque to classical...I'll let others describe it in more detail. some points: Trey is hot. most of the traditional Fripp blistering was done by Trey on the Grand Stick. his role seems to cover a frequency range below RF but above the Stick tonalities we're familier with from Levin (sp). Guitar Gamelan - RF often accompanied the CGT weaving with chords in a role which reminded me of the large gongs in gamelan music; marking changes. this was truely guitar gamelan. those of you down in LA, or whereever the CGT are from, are quite lucky. Discipline. this was clearly a case of the master and the disciples. when not playing the other musicians were clearly engaged in listening. not doing _anything_ else. when the disciples played the master was listening. My GF thought RF looked like a preying mantis, waiting to strike and striking to play. The only time RF cut loose was in an encore for the second set. This wasn't played in the first show. He asked "Are you shure your're ready for this?" of Trey and proceded to blind us... Trey ripped in and off they soared. Reminded me of FR and Belew, but it mayof been better! the only other words I heard from RF were in closing the first show; after building the crowd into a frenzy of high focused energy the band returned for another encore. all carried acoustic guitars. they walked up to a table in the front row, the crowd hushed, straining to hear anything. RF seemed to say "This song is dedicated to Mrs. Christopher", nodded at the band and they swung into an unamplified crafty exercise. The audience turned all their attention to that table, and the band turned that energy to "Mrs. Christopher". This was quite amazing, and the most "humble" way I've ever seen a show ended. (If I remember correctly, Mrs. Christopher is a teacher from the Bennet (sp) school...I may well be wrong, as the second show close in a similar fashon, but this time in the back of the hall.) This was a great show. I have high hopes for KC93. ob tech note: no idea what the reverb units where. the show was dumped to Alesis ADAT _and_ DAT. (we may well get new product from RF yet) [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] Date: Wed, 26 May 93 18:25:24 BST From: Toby Howard Subject: Towards issue 100 ... but HELP! Incredibly, I see we're working up towards Discipline #100. It's come around quickly! Anyway, I thought it would be good to aim to have something 'special' in the 100th issue. Maybe we can, maybe we can't. But I'd like to hear from you all, in two ways: 1. What special item would you really like to see in Discipline? It could be an interview, or a survey, or something jokey, or... 2. Can YOU actually offer something special for issue 100? Can you actually set an interview up? It's not impossible! Here's hoping... it's really up to you. If it looks like fun I'll summarise your ideas. Otherwise, I'll keep things under wraps as a surprise. Thanks to you all again for you enthusiasm. Like Mr F says, "I respond to enthusiasm". :-) Toby [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] 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.