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 #955 E L E P H A N T T A L K The Internet newsletter for Robert Fripp and King Crimson enthusiasts Number 955 Tuesday, 12 March 2002 Today's Topics: Another listtopic.... Ozzy Osbourne on Tool / KC and more PJ Crook in Paris 7 march - 27 april 5/4 time signatures 5/4 labels Weird time signatures Who hears KC? Not directly related to Crimson, but... Sucky Songs Bad KC recordings? Bill Bruford fans take note Re: lyrics of The Letters more 5/4 Crim-influenced Bay Area Gigs Worst Songs, Ali Janab? Ali's Rant 5/4 Re: Oh Yeah? Yeah! Re: Oh Yeah? Yeah! prog fans GIG REVIEW: The Bears @ Club Cafe, 2/26/02 ------------------ 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, 8 Mar 2002 10:43:17 +0100 From: George Koopman Subject: Another listtopic.... I only keep one list: => Favourite list of posters to ET who do not understand the sarcasm of other posters. New entry, at number one, with a bullet: Darin!!!! Congratulations Darin, from all of us at TongueInCheeck.com Greetings, George ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2002 11:33:41 +0100 From: "Schopf" Subject: Ozzy Osbourne on Tool / KC and more http://www.mtv.com/onair/osbournes/family/ozzyosbourne.jhtml Cool! :o) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 08 Mar 2002 12:01:08 +0100 From: "Marcus Enochsson" Subject: PJ Crook in Paris 7 march - 27 april Hi all, I haven't listened nor talked to elephants a lot lately. So beware, there's a risk I may repeat something here. But I'd guess not. Yesterday I had the fortune to walk on a Parisian street (leading from Centre George Pompidou to Les Halles for those familiar with the city), spotting a very familiar kind of painting on my right. Coincidence had led me to a gallery where PJ Crook, famous KC CD cover artist (Epitaph, Vrooom Vrooom, Deja Vrooom, Cirkus etc) had her first day of an exposition lasting until the 27th april. As it was the first evening, she was there, being polite to visitors, drinking wine, and receiving offers of dinners sometime from art critics. And even offering me a few minutes of chat. She told me of her amusement by the fact that her collaboration with the Krim boys draws attention to her, from many people who otherwise wouldn't have heard of her. At the end of our little conversation, her principles allowed her to kindly sign a book I bought. Ahem... Cough, cough... Besides the Krim link, I find her paintings very interesting and recommend anyone who happens to be in Paris to check out the exhibitions. It's in Galerie Alain Blondel, 4, rue Aubry le Boucher, check out info on http://www.pjcrook.com/ No, there were no Crim covers exhibited, but she told me that the Cirkus cover had been exposed at that very gallery before. Another interesting thing she mentioned was that Robert and she had talked about a collaboration on soundscapes <-> PJ expositions. A nice thought. We'll see what happens. Over and out from Paris, Yours truly, Marcus ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2002 11:32:32 -0000 From: "Mike" Subject: 5/4 time signatures Discipline starts in 5/4 (easy to hear), switches to 4/4 (sounds busier) at approx 45 seconds, switches back to 5/4 at approx 1 minute 3 seconds, then 4/4 (busy again) at 1 minute 25 seconds. It swaps back to 5/4 again at 1 minute 44 seconds (this time retaining the busy feel) but the beat is blurred and you may find it harder to hear this one. The alternating 5/4 and 4/4 sections at the beginning have similarly alternating key signatures, so you'll probably hear the 'sound' change as well as the pulse. You might want to listen to 'Mars' from the Planets Suite by Gustav Holst to hear a dark and stunning piece of 5/4. It might already sound familiar to you if you're a fan of early King Crimson. Mike Hutchinson ps What does INCHCOCK mean anyway? 'I wouldn't want to join a club that would have me as a member.' ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2002 23:48:13 +1100 (EST) From: Will Dayble Subject: 5/4 Guh! Fractured!! This is SUCH a damn good example of 5/4 it's easy to overlook... Thing is, it's not only in 5/4, it's like the big _5_ song! This is from memory so it's prolly wrong, but you get the basic idea... The first bit is whole tonal, and the second guitar comes in playing a 5th above, and then again a bit later a 5th above .5 a beat later (all in 5/4). The psycho bits are in 15/16 (I think), which I know isn't _totally_ in the theme, but meh, multiples are cool enough. :D The song is structured ABCBCBCDBEA or so, with the first clean slow bit, then the fast clean bit, then the _other_ clean bit, with repeats an stuff, then the psycho bit (also in LTIA IV pt 2) and then an extra bit, then the first bit again. In laymans terms: An arrangement of 5 different bits. (A-E) And check your CD cover... What track number is it? (no prizes for guessing :p) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2002 00:19:13 +1100 (EST) From: Will Dayble Subject: labels Sorry, I should've put this in the 5/4 post: Bizzare Joe says "Most people born in the late seventies or later have no idea what progressive rock is." As a person born in the eighties, I think defining 'prog', especially for us youngins has changed somewhat... "they used to use the word progressive to describe bands like Depeche Mode, Nitzer Ebb and The Smiths. Go figure." That might be 'cause music has broadened, even in it's sub-classes, and there is this elusive 'prog' label coming up in almost every one of them. I know people who call some forms of electronica as 'prog', and most of the heavier type modern style music I listen to consider themselves, or are considered, 'prog'. (Devin Townsend, Dillinger etc.) 'Prog' in it's unbaised sense means 'progressive' right? Well starting in the 70s the style they were exploring involved progressing, through stepping outside the usual bounds of music, for one with the help of all manner of electrical doodads and delay widgets... Some people have progressed with more modern music too, and stepped outside the box in their own way. This time it may involve samplers and mixers and (god I hate rappy stuff) all that, but the base point is that they still have the same aim - to progress. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be much as much thought put into it as there once was, but we're getting there. If it's any consolation, when I think prog I still think KC, Tull etc, even though there are other people out there are doing it their own way. :) But hey - prog rock, prog metal, prog electronica, prog this prog that... Anyway, I must admit the main point of what you were getting at is most definitely right. All my friends wince when I put on KC, and to them it's not 'prog', it's "music for smart-arses". Go figure. :) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2002 08:51:39 -0600 From: "Christian Hess Araya" Subject: Weird time signatures As a musically illiterate fan, I find the current 5/4 time signature thread fascinating. Specially regarding the examples of "LTIA, Part II" and "Living in the past". For another weird signature, you may want to check out the 9/8 section of "Supper's Ready", in the "Foxtrot" album by Genesis. I find it mind-boggling, and never really understood how they could record it, let alone play it live. Christian Hess San Jose, Costa Rica --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.323 / Virus Database: 180 - Release Date: 08/02/2002 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 08 Mar 2002 16:14:01 From: "Carlos Eduardo Rodrigues Alves" Subject: Who hears KC? Hi, everyone. The recent discussion about time signatures has made me think about what kind of people enjoys KC music. I live in Brazil, and here KC is very little known. Only people with access to musical information of some sort seems to know King Crimson, and most of the people that actually like Crimson are musicians (to some extent, and I am an exception). Lots of them are also engineers (including me). Almost all of them are male, and this may not be surprising for you. This is very unfortunate, because RF already said that KC would not make gigs in countries where Crimson presence is nihil. This doesn't seem to be the case with Argentina (and that's the only thing I am envious about Argentina nowadays...) or Mexico. Just to join the discussion about the worst KC tunes, I would like to say that I disliked several of the "pop" tunes from the eighties, just because they were not what I was looking for in a Crimson record. Now I use them to try to lure more people to Crimson music, and I think they're quite interesting when we think about the current state of the music industry. Again, remember that I'm in Brazil and, although we have great musicians, our music industry is abysmal. It also took me some time to like TCoL, but I do like it a lot now. I don't care about lyrical contents, because even though I understand the lyrics they don't really "hit me". If they were in portuguese, I might have some complains. Bye! Carlos E. R. Alves - Sao Paulo, Brazil ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2002 15:02:52 -0800 (PST) From: mike delaruelle Subject: Not directly related to Crimson, but... To the Moderator or the Readership at large, I'm hoping to tap into the combined expertise of this unique group that is this newsletter's readership regarding an equipment question I have. For the sake of relevance, should it be necessary, I actually am a Crimson fan and have been a reader for quite a while... Anyway, without getting into too much detail, I have a bass guitar and love the tone I get from the combination of the stock (magnetic) pickups. I also like the sonic freedom and control of running with a pair of different amps/speakers (high and low frequencies, not "stereo), as I do with a different bass--which, sadly, does not give me the "magic" sound of my other one. I've been considering adding a piezoelectric bridge to allow the bass (mentioned first) to maintain the unique sonic characteristics the magnetic pickups. I also didn't want to cut it up any more than I had to to get the additional signal, nor did I want to simply split the single output to the separate amps/speakers. My question? I'm leaning toward a piezo pickup because it seems like the avant garde thing is to have one of these on a bass. All the six and seven string customs seem to have them... Although I've both heard and played heard electric guitars with the piezo pickup, I've never had the fortune of trying out a piezo-equipped bass, nor have I heard one (to my knowledge). Any thoughts? Anecdotes? That said, I have to compliment Elephant Talk on the organization of the wealth of information which is available, both on this site and via the forum of the newsletter, and as an open letter to Mr. Fripp--I do read it all for fun! Thanks to all/any of you in advance for whatever information/suggestions you have. TJBaxter ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2002 22:18:44 EST From: Hocow at aol dot com Subject: Sucky Songs I have been surprised to see so many songs I like listed as KC's worst. I think there is a tendency to write off anything that is not "total heaviosity" when you are a hirsute young man with a guitar fetish. The thing about Crimson that is truly remarkable is that they have created such a wide variety of music. This may also be their curse as many people tend to chuck an album for one song they hate rather than put up with a dog to get to a song they love. I find that when I dust off one of the early albums it is the material I didn't like initially that surprises me. It is not that I didn't "get it". This is the weaker material, not stuff that is "over my head". (Very condescending attitude we often display on these pages) I guess I just really absorbed my favorites and so there are new charms to be discovered in the songs I neglected the first time. While I never had any use for "Two Hands" originally, I have truely enjoyed the textures of the guitar on recent listens. Go figure. Most of the derision of the pop material says more about the mind set of Crim fans than the quality of the music. A good pop song is an elusive art form. Just ask John Wetton. He's been slogging at it unsuccesfully ever since he tried to go commercial. The Crim audience often does not appreciate the greatness that can be found in the simple tune. Brad Wilmot ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2002 15:11:48 +1100 From: "Igor Avramovski Aleksandrov" Subject: Bad KC recordings? It is quite fascinating to find so much of KC's material being put down by 'keen' followers of the band. I was just wondering whether the reason for this is that each of the critics has become so attached to a particular facet of the band that it has impeded her/his ability to comprehend the many other wonderful facets? It has only been about three months since I discovered KC and in that time I have purchased their live DVD and all of their studio albums except for Larks Tongues in Aspic, Three of A Perfect Pair and In The Wake of Poisendon (they are all on order). I find it difficult to comprehend how anybody can say that KC has ever recorded bad music. There are a couple of tracks on Beat that I don't care for too much, but I will not name them because I do not want to discourage others (including myself at some future time) from giving those tracks a fair chance and quite possibly falling in love with them i.e. I try to distinguish between taste and quality. I find every KC release in my collection to be absolutely invaluable and would never want to be foced to choose between them. Having said that, I do have my personal favourites (for the time being). They just happen to be three of the albums that suffer the most unfair criticism: Lizard, Thrak & The ConstruKtion of Light (they are also the three albums that I thought were complete nonsense upon the first few spins). Perhaps I am fortunate to have obtained almost all of KC's albums at around the same time, thereby avoiding attachment to any particular 'era' to the extent of having my judgement severely distorted. What geniuses these confident critics of the quality standards of Robert Fripp et al must be. I could only dream of being so entlightened. If this novice among KC listeners has offended any of you more experienced fans please excuse him. After all, only you know that it takes an expert fan to be less of a fan. Regards A Grumpy King Crimson Fan Not!!! ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 09 Mar 2002 13:25:38 -0500 From: Martin Miron Subject: Bill Bruford fans take note I just acquired Rick Wakeman's 1972 alum, "The Six Wives of Henry the VIII". Bru plays on tracks 1 and 5; "Catherine of Aragon" and "Anne Boleyn". Alan White does the rest, with one by Barry de Souza (?). Helpfully yours, Marty Miron "Insert pithy epigram here." ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2002 13:15:32 -0500 From: "Jordan Clifford" Subject: Re: lyrics of The Letters > >I have > to disagree with you about The Letters though. The first time I heard the > >song I thought that Boz (or Sinfield) was admitting to a homosexual act (I > thought that was pretty ballsy for 1971. It wouldn't make a blip on today's > >pop culture radar). well, to me the lyrics are clearly from the point of view of a woman who is sleeping with a married man. the lyrics are: With quill and silver knife She carved a poison pen Wrote to her lover's wife: "Your husband's seed has fed my flesh." SHE carved a poison pen and wrote to HER lovers wife.... ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Mar 2002 19:07:31 -0800 (PST) From: Edgar Kausel Subject: more 5/4 ... The final part of Larks 1, after that scary woman's voice saying "he's over there..." ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Mar 2002 11:41:34 -0800 (PST) From: adrian at cockcroft dot net Subject: Crim-influenced Bay Area Gigs Fractal are back at the Quarternote in Sunnyvale Sat March 16th with a mixture of KC influenced music and covers of Red, Breathless and FraKCtured. This will also be the debut gig for some new compositions. We are joined by Headshear from San Francisco, another band with a strong KC influence, who play complex interlocking guitar parts and who have also been working on new material. In the interlude there will be a one-man performance by Rick Walker of Loop.pooL who builds compositions by making strange noises into a delay loop. More info is available at http://www.frakctal.com Fractal and Headshear are also playing together at the Octopus Club in Pacifica on thursday March 28th. Also - mark your calendars for Mushroom, playing with Fractal on April 20th at the Quarternote. Cheers Adrian, Paul, Nic and Jim of Fractal ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Mar 2002 14:22:05 -0600 From: "Brandon S." Subject: Worst Songs, Ali Janab? Is that post a joke? That's the whole EP.....why would he skip to track 2 if he hates track 2? Oh well, I must either be lacking in wits or I don't see the humor as well as I should. BRandon Stanley ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Mar 2002 15:57:30 -0500 From: "D'Amour, Andrew" Subject: Ali's Rant First off- Kudos to you for speaking your mind. Far too many bootlickers around. I have to agree In The Court is a bad album, as is Wake, Islands, Lizard, LTIA and SABB (except Fracture). Now with Red, KC becomes the amazing band I know and love. Its funny how much anger and retaliation your post, and mine, will generate. But I guess we must remember, some opinions just arent allowed. Probably the same people who bash Adrian will be after those who dare to reveal their opinions. Well, just to piss off the nascent rightwing censor culture in America, I want to state my divergent opinion, and so whould we all. Andrew D'Amour ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Mar 2002 15:57:03 -0500 From: BARLETB at Nationwide dot com Subject: 5/4 Actually I think the Mission Impossible theme would be considered 10/8 (counted 123-123-12-12) not 5/4 (as is the part of Tarkus that I think you are thinking of, which is subdivided as 1234-123-123, 1234-123-123 which would probably also make it 10/8. (theory majors any comments???) The easiest 5/4 I can figure would be the beginning of Mars, that has to be the "straightest" 5/4 I've ever heard HANDS DOWN!! Anyway...I have to concur with Animals as being one of the Floyd's FINEST! Ben Jaminbenb at aol dot com < wrote: >> If you're trying to understand 5/4 or get a feel for what it sounds like (with a strong beat/pulse) the best example I can think of isn't a KC song but Dave Brubeck's "Take Five." (I think any serious music fan knows this song.) >> Another non-KC song in 5/4 that I'd think a lot of people might recognize would be the theme to the TV series "Mission: Impossible". (I always thought that Tull's "Living In The Past" resembled that rhythm, moreso than the one used in "Take Five".) It seems to me that the 2nd section of ELP's song "Trilogy" is in 5/4, as well as one of the instrumental movements in "Tarkus"? (can't name the section off the top of my head... sorry) And hey, how about the 2nd movement of Tchaikovsky's 6th Symphony ("Pathetique")?! 'YesELPkCrimson' (MarkF) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Mar 2002 16:22:47 -0500 From: Mfortfam at aol dot com Subject: Re: Oh Yeah? Yeah! Josh You're right, everyone should skip the bullshit, have a few cold ones and relax! And remember, if you do get into a scrap, it's always less painful for both parties if they're drunk! Martin ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 11 Mar 2002 16:25:08 -0500 From: Steve Rewa Subject: prog fans Hey, I want to thank all of the people who stood up to defend prog fans recently. I don't consider myself one as much as I used to, because being a prog band is no longer as much of factor in what I like as it used to be. But even when it was, it had little to do with musical complexity or virtuosity. The music I like is the music that moves me. Often it is the complexity or uniqueness that moves me. Often, I find it in prog. I do get out and I experience life. Maybe that's what pop is about, but for that reason I don't feel like I need pop. I'd like to write a pop song, but I've tried and I can't write my way out of a paper bag. Somebody else already wrote that and already sang that. Pop musicians sing what people want to hear. If they do it well, they may go down in history as great musicians. It seems to me that all writers write what they WANT people to hear. Pop musicians and pop fans get together easily and happily. Prog musicians feel the need to bring "something else" to the table, either lyrically or musically. People who turn their noses up at Pop, or listen to prog, or both are looking for "something else." Neither prog writers nor prog fans should be disdained for wanting to fill a different niche. Anon, -Steve ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 10 Mar 2002 21:58:25 -0500 From: "Judge Rob McMonigal" Subject: GIG REVIEW: The Bears @ Club Cafe, 2/26/02 (A bit belated, I admit, but I wanted to share my thoughts.) The nicest thing about shows that don't start until 9:30PM is that I can take my girlfriend without us being late. The bad side is that when they're over, it's both cold (if held in February) and late to finish (if held during the week). Both of those things were true, but neither were enough to dampen the fun of an evening with the Bears. My first impression of this band is: Why the hell aren't they more popular?? Almost all of the songs are catchy 3-5 minute tunes with energy reminiscent of Talking Heads or maybe the Cars. But that, I think, is the problem--this is band that makes good pop music, as opposed to the boy band/girl band/R&B stuff that seems to blend together more than VROOOM and VROOOM VROOOM. While I'm happy to report that they're doing very well, at least with the indie set here in Pittsburgh where WYEP plays them, I can't help but feel like they should be playing to bigger crowds and venues. Perhaps that just has to do with the fact that the Club Cafe was packed to the gills, a standing room only audience (which, I'm happy to say, was skewed younger and more mixed in gender than I'd anticipated) in a place designed to hold only about a hundred people or so. The bad side was that I could hear more of others' conversations than I wanted, but a packed joint added to the energy of the show and more than made up for hearing about inebriated peoples' lives. Not even a couple of camera-users could slow the band down (a well-trained Frippite, I stopped one of them but missed the other) from ripping through a set that included Bears songs from years past and their excellent "Car Caught Fire." The show started a little early, due to the fact that we were all here and there wasn't any room for more people, let alone late-comers. (A lot of people learned from the first Bears show here--which sold out--to get tickets in advance!) They opened with an older song, which threw the audience off their game just a bit. The Bears' CDs have been out of print for some time, and I think it would be better to open with something people know. Still, once the show got into a good mix of the old and new, the house was rocking along with Adrian (who looked more energized than he did when I last saw him with Crimson) and Robert whilst I got into a nice groove with the bass player, who was closest to me. (That upright bass of his is WAY cool.) The vocals (which were split primarily between Ade and Robert, with a few supplied by the drummer) are what I refer to as "intelli-pop" with links closer to the indie rock scene than progressive music. However, they aren't trite and their origins vary from Ade's Beetles and wordplay style to literary references. ("This is from the best book you've never read.") I was pretty happy with the sound mixing, as we were able to hear just about all of the words. Musically, there is a lot of trick guitar work, as you might expect, blended with rhythm guitar, a strong bass groove (which I attribute to the upright electric bass, of which I am a huge fan), and a drummer that was able to vary from heavy beat-moving to simple percussion for the slower material. It was a lot of fun trying to figure out who was playing which parts when during some of the solos! The highlights of the show for me were "Car Caught Fire", the soulful "Dave" (the studio recording with the Fripp solo is a thing of beauty), "Mr. Bonaparte", and a kick-butt cover of RED. It was fun to hear it translated into an 80s power-rock song, with a bowed middle section that was about the most evil thing I've heard in awhile. Their drummer did a great job of capturing the song without trying to make himself into Bill Bruford. Over the course of the evening, all of the band members joked around, enjoying the crowd participation ("I'll take the bust") and the fact that for them this is more about having a good time than breaking the top 40. All in all, the show ran for just under two hours, a refreshing change from the 90 minutes or less I've been used to seeing lately. The band gave us a top-notch performance on the last night of the tour, and I hope we gave them the best response possible. If they tour again over the summer (PLEASE!), I highly recommend you go see them if you're in the area, even if you're not usually a fan of their style of music. One last note: Everything was recorded for a possible DVD, so keep your eyes peeled for that. You might see me rocking near the bassist, and I guarantee you'll hear my girlfriend shouting during the guitar solos. :) --RBM-- NP: Ian Anderson, The Secret Language of Birds ------------------------------ End of Elephant Talk Digest #955 ********************************