Townspeople:
Other than an early, head-scratching introduction to the band through periodic spins of my Dad’s copy of “Lark’s Tongues In Aspic” (not bad for a guy born in 1930!), my experience with King Crimson is limited, and I am wary. A recent flyer at a used copy of “Beat” didn’t do much to make me like the band more — but I did spin 30 seconds of the title track from “In the Court Of the Crimson King” on iTunes and liked it well enough. Oh, and lest ye think I’m a knee-jerk prog hata, I can also put a check-mark next to the “saw Robert Fripp deliver lecture on Frippertronics at Georgetown University and liked it okay” box.
What I really want to know is: are King Crimson really Great, and — well, if so, why?
I look forward to your responses.
HVB
i know that all those all those incarnations you just named go under the same moniker, but they only have fripp in common (not even bruford, who wasn’t there for the first couple).
the “court of the crimson king” era stuff is as different from “larks tongues” era stuff as it is from the “discipline” era stuff.
i’m hot and cold with king crimson. i haven’t gone back to the last era since i saw them on the “three of a perfect pair” tour.
i like some songs from the middle period (marked by Bruford’s entry…the albums are Larks Tongues, Starless and Bible Black, Red, and the live album “USA”, which is really a good album: no doctoring, no overdubs, and it may be one of the best played live albums of the 70s). the grinding sound of john wetton’s bass, some of extremely vicious guitar by fripp, and bruford’s drumming (which i always find pleasurable) make this period tolerable. the songwriting is meandering, however. often, however, there’s a riff in there that’s wicked tough sounding, which makes it somewhat worthwhile.
the first album, though, i truly enjoy. “21st century Schizoid man” may be the most kick ass, heaviest song a group of nerds ever put together. the rest of that album may be a bit of a snore, but it really is beautiful grey sky / winter music. the use of the mellotron on that first album is a primer on how to deploy that temperamental wheezebag of an instrument the right way. that album is equal parts rock, jazz, and classical without EVER making me cringe. it even has a sense of humor. listening to it makes me understand why people were so excited by the “possibilities” of art rock (which largely went unfulfilled).
ps: those overalls on bruford: a rock crime?
I don’t go much for the early stuff. Red is t.rhe best, especially the title song, which has to be one of the heaviest songs ever. The Belew era was good, as long as Levin and Bruford were in the band. Once they started splitting into double trios and so forth, the power dissipated a bit.
I saw the Fripp, Belew, Levin, Bruford lineup, and it was pretty hot shit. I have a feeling that seeing any version of the band live would be at the very least interesting, but studio, I don’t know.
KC has also made a mess of their back catalogue, with too many rerepackages and endless live albums. But there’s plenty to choose from, and I’ve never heard them out and out suck.
Where’s bresnan? Doesn’t he know about all this stuff.
Saturnismine… *that* was a kick-ass, insightful, downright *useful* post. Thanks!
hvb, i’m glad you found it useful!
remember, it’s only an overview by one man (with whom you don’t always see eye-to-eye!). for all we know, you may hear differently as you listen. although i advocate for that first album, it is, as i say, a bit of a cloud in many places, but also obtuse and dryly humorous in others.
if you buy anything and hate it, send the invoice to my TA (along with the materials): no naked pictures like the last time, please. I think you scarred that poor girl for life, and i had quite a bit of explaining to do. you’re lucky you’re not posting from the clink. don’t you remember what it’s like to be 19? you should be ashamed, and you owe me a solid.
but back to all things crimson and king: bigsteve is right: they really have messed up their back catalog, which is not surpring given fripp’s, awkward relationship to the concept of selling his music, which he pompously described as “campaigns on the marketplace” … was he making fun of himself? who knows. i remember reading a set of “commandments” or “rules” that he scribed and the last one was “fripp is a charlatan”. good lord…who has time for such a morass of self-consciousness: luckily the music’s not so bad.
you may also like the album called “exposure” a solo fripp album that i think might be my second favorite fripp-related thing of all (late 70s, early 80s, post punk damaged, with help from Peter Gabriel, and even Darryl Hall, who turns in a fine soulful vocal on a song that has hendrix-ish “wind cries mary” overtones).
it would’ve been much more interesting if King Crimson had evolved along the lines of “exposure” instead of making adrian belew’s whine, tony levin’s extremely tedious chapman stick, and a set of cymbal-less electronic drums formerly known as bill bruford the main features of their act.
When that first KC boxed set came out in the early ’90s, it was reviewed in Musician Magazine by… Robert Fripp.
Discipline is one of my favorite all time albums. Too bad you spent time with Beat, a K-Mart Discipline to be sure. When I saw them, twice, on the Three of a Perfect Pair tour, they didn’t perform a single song from Beat. And wasn’t Neal & Jack & Me almost sort of a hit for them?
Anyhoo. Discipline is one of the most original sounding and crafted albums that I’ve ever heard. That they can make that sound within “pop” songs, is truly amazing.
This era of KC is a Prock artist’s Prock artist.
Big thumbs-up too for Exposure, my second favorite Fripp based experience.
I really like the period of KC that’s documented in this YouTube. At times they were blazing a trail that had no business being blazed. The best of that stuff is really cold and menacing, and it’s recorded in a way that sounds plausible (unlike Yes, fr instance, which never sounds like music that could be made by humans – not that this is a necessarily good or bad thing, either way).
Starless and Bible Black may be my favorite by them. The first album may be the only one I don’t own by them. I have no idea why other than it seemed cooler to buy the other ones that would follow. The earlier Islands has a few good tracks, and Lark’s Tongue in Aspic is another favorite from that era. Red refines all that was cool about their take on prog rock in a way that pointed to some kind of futuristic heavy rock. They would not take it that one step further, however. Discipline has its moments, but Adrian Belew’s David Byrne-isms got old fast for me.
A note: I hated prog rock in high school. It’s still not a genre I gravitate toward, but King Crimson made it interesting for me; it’s very physical music at its best. It’s also kind of funny, at its best, probably unintentionally.
King Crimson is one of the greatest of the art rock bands. I’m sure you’ll hear the double edged sword in that statement. I like Roxy Music and solo Eno better, I think, but I’ll second most of the opinions here: In the Court, Lark’s Tongues, Starless, Red, and Discipline contain as much Crimson as I’ll ever need.
Now, I’m going to be a dick. A friend gave me a copy of the live 4-Cd Great Deceiver set, material from the band’s “great” mid 70s period. It helped define for me what’s limited about King Crimson.
Even on Larks, which has some excellent instrumental passages, I’m always thinking of any number of jazz musicians who could play better. And while the Great Deceiver has some “powerful” moments, I’m struck by how boring the playing is in the more low key passages. These dudes barely have any kind of groove, and they can only sustain it briefly before falling back on the dullest of meditative tinkering. Play a note or two every 15 or 30 seconds and listen to the echoing silence. Heavy, man.
So here’s my asshole question: why would anybody get heavily into this kind of 70s music when they could be listening to any number of far superior electric jazz records from the same era: work by Miles, or Stan Getz, or Elvin Jones, Liebman and Beirach, Joe Farrell, Pete Christlieb, even fer chrissakes that Santana Caravanserai record?
So while I like King Crimson well enough, I remain relatively mystified at the illusion that they’re virtuosos, or how anybody could really slobber all over their genius. On some basic level, they can’t really play.
Townsman Mwall asks:
Well, without knowing all that stuff – or the ’70s works of the likes of Elvin Jones and Stan Getz – how about, “Because it rocks!” I know your point is that some of these other artists at this point rock as well as have superior chops, or so we’re to believe, but beside Jack Johnson, the half dozen “electric Miles” albums I own don’t feature undiluted guitar hero passages. Also, one thing distinctive about King Crimson that I think has barely been touched on is that they have an almost Sabbath-like metal side to them. I like that about them. Miles has a rock side, but I’m not recalling any metal licks in his music. This whole “art rock”/”prog rock” thing regarding King Crimson is fine, but I doubt anyone’s really paying attention to the noodling, quiet passages. I suspect, like me, they’re waiting for the explosive, metallic parts.
That’s what I listen for too. But too often, there’s too long a wait. There’s a reason Sabbath has only one or two chill downs a record, and sometimes they’re only a minute long, and that’s because any longer would be boring. Crimson really does very little in many of these more extended quiet passages. I guess it gives you plenty of time to take a piss, exit the club, smoke a joint, and come back in.
There’s plenty of guitar oomph in other John McLaughlin records, as one for instance, but the oomph isn’t usually guitar on the records I’m talking about. My point was more than you have to do something at least marginally interesting in the cooled down passages, and Crimson just doesn’t have the chops to pull that off.
Of what “Byrne-isms” do you speak? Surely not his trademark guitar sound, that although tiresome on his solo outings, is super cool on Discipline and Remain In Light? Byrne in his wildest dreams wishes he could make a guitar howl like that.
Is it his vocals? On the 2 or maybe 3 songs that you could compare him to Byrne (Elephant Talk, Indiscipline, and I’ll reluntantly give you the I Zibra-ish Thela Hun Gingeet)I always felt he actually outdid Byrne for Byrne, sounding as if Byrne would have sounded if he could carry a tune.
On the remaining 4 songs, 2 are incredibly magnificent instrumentals and 2 (Matte Kudasia and Frame by Frame) have Belew singing in a soulful way that Byrne never even attempted.
The dude could sing.
I think you’re writing him off too fast for participating, on 3 of 7 songs, in a currently hip “singing” style that say, your buddy David Thomas and many others also dabbled in.
But even if you do condemn him for exploring this trend, you should give it a re-listen as he does it pretty damn good.
Mwall sez:
Crimson just doesn’t have the chops to pull that off.
I say:
Huh? That’s practically all Crimson *has*. Please explain!
Sammy, don’t get your knickers in a bunch over my comments on Belew. I own a number of his solo albums and like them well enough. When I put on a Crimson record, I DON’T want to hear singing and I DON’T even want to hear songs. I want to hear the passages with the huge, crunching, Fripp riffs. That Disipline-era KC has its moments, but I liken the singing on those records to my beefs with vocals in jazz. I simply find the human voice to interrupt my enjoyment of the musicians. And yes, in this case, I am not considering singers musicians:)
As for Hrrundi, you’ve set this question on the table as if you had an open mind. Now you seem to suggest otherwise. I can’t say I’m shocked, but how is one’s liking $1 used copies of ’70s King Crimson albums for what they are any different than one’s liking a Peter Green-era Fleetwood Mac album for what it is? Let’s agree that KC is not “Great,” as I think you put it. Are they not at least worthwhile, in your opinion?
Well, I’m a huge fan of electric Miles and I’m not seeing the connection, really. King Crimson are much more influenced by classical music, whereas Miles was following a free jazz direction. I think KC had as much chps as they needed; the problem was that all rock songs get sort of boring if they go on for too long. Eventually Fripp figured this out with Frippertronics, abandoning any idea of a rock beat.
Mod accuses:
As for Hrrundi, you’ve set this question on the table as if you had an open mind. Now you seem to suggest otherwise.
I say:
Huh? How? Why? ‘Cuz I suggested the band was all chops and no songs? Isn’t that exactly what you say you *like* about them? Has the world gone MAD?
No, Hrrundi, it’s because typically I know you to be an open-minded guy!
What I like about them is not the “chops” aspect. Again, I’m trying to make the point that this “prog rock”/classically influenced stuff is much less essential to whatever’s good about them than the one, monstrous half-step riff (god, I’m blanking on the musical term for Fripp’s style of riffing!) that Fripp pulls out for just about everything he’s kicked out the jams over on any version of King Crimson and his solo recordings. The other great style of Fripp soloing that I love, the melodic one he does with Eno and The Roches, rarely appears on King Crimson records, so I’m really only focusing on that Monster Riff of his. I’m sure it involves a a high degree of chops and discipline, but listening to a King Crimson record for chops alone does not, I think, pay off the way it might to listen to a Mahavishnu Orchestra album or even a Yes album. Again, I think it’s the physicality of their music that makes it in any way worthwhile and that sets it apart from their elfin prog-rock contemporaries. The little bit I’ve heard of Van Der Graaf Generator also seems to include a more primal element to their noodling. The elfin stuff has its place, too. I’m not trying to say KC is “better than” Yes because I’m not sure I believe this.
Hrunndi, my point was that they have very little variation in the quality of their “chops.” I agree with Mr. Mod that what I like most about them is the moments of power riffing, but too often they can’t do much other than that. What the live records make clear is that they simply can’t consistently play all that interestingly in a variety of moods and tempos. They have heavy and discordant (they do it well) and slow and ominously moody (and they do that often wretchedly). If you can’t play in a variety of moods and tempos, then I think that means you’re not really so much of a virtuoso.
I’m totally unconvinced, by the way, that KC has very much to do with classical music, other than the sense of long suites and a few instrumental choices. They’re about as close to classical music as Steely Dan is to jazz.