Apparently there is a band meme going around. Years ago, this would have been an LJ thing, but now it’s on glorious FarceBørk. Nonetheless, I have decided to copy it here, too. For your enjoyment. (Ahem)
I feared that I should end up with a pop beat combo that I’d never heard of, but Mr Andrews (the quondam![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
pax_draconis) took pity and gave me King Crimson.
So, do I like them? Yes indeed I do. Very much so in fact, but not unreservedly: King Crimson is, in many ways, not a band, but a concept from the depths of Robert Fripp’s fevered imagination given form on an intermittent basis as a band. Not always the same band. In fact, in the 44 years of their on-off existence, there has only been one constant member - Fripp himself - and one constant idea: experimentation. Few of the line ups have lasted for more than an album and not all of the incarnations of the band have worked. After a six year hiatus, the name sprang back to life to encompass a quartet in 1980 and four three albums (ironically the longest span from one line up), they managed to sound like the Talking Heads listened to through a mirror, darkly. Interesting, but I’d sooner listen to the Heads.
The rest of their sporadic incarnations have placed them variously as the grandfathers of prog, hard jazz-rockers, math rock (slightly more listenable than John McLaughlin and the Mahavishnas, art rock and a fusion of it all. At the same time.
Their best period for me was 1974-75. Already on their 6th line up from 1969, the band slowly became a trio (with returning guest spots from previous members) and this slow contraction brought forth an unofficial trilogy that started with “Larks’ Tongues in Aspic”, moving through “Starless and Bible Black” and culminating in “Red”. This is a band shrinking in size and growing in power, slowly stripping away the whimsy and grasping the harder, louder and grungy edge of rock. There is barely a hint of jazz rock left by the time you hit Red, yet there are echoes of themes all the way through.
In the early 90s the name reappeared for a short period as a six-piece. But not any ordinary six-piece rock band. This was a band that played as two trios on stage at the same time, playing complex music around competing motifs that came together at intervals to combine into something greater before separating again.
It was a grand experiment and it proved too much after a couple of years and a gruelling tour or two. Listen to “Thrak” on headphones. You get one trio in each ear. It’s incredible and it must have been murder to achieve.
For all that, my favourite track is “Starless” from the Red album. Recorded live but with studio overdubs it is, like the best (and worst) of prog a good nine minutes long. A powerful rhythm section driven by Bill Bruford on percussion and John Wetton on bass. Fripp’s eerie, screaming and complex guitar winding the melody through it all. David Cross, returning as a guest in his own band squeezes an impressive violin between them all. Over it all, at the beginning are Wetton’s vocals. Not the greatest singer in the world, but he fits this and it is amongst his best singing performances. And there is THAT guitar solo. One note but spaced melodically. It shouldn’t work, but it does.
I have more copies of that track, by various incarnations, spin-offs and ex members of the band than any other (and I have a tolerably large collection). I like them all, but this is my favourite. And it’s my favourite rock choon.
Have I seen them live? Sadly not. In earlier incarnations I was too young and in later ones they have concentrated on the Americas, where there is more and wider tolerance of and for rock musicianship than there is in the UK. I have seen the next best thing, though. Not a tribute band, but a band made up exclusively of ex-members of King Crimson playing music from King Crimson’s early catalogue, music they wrote.
And now, after a few years of the continuing ‘ProjeKCts’ (various line ups of portions of the expanding membership of Crimso), Fripp has announced a new core line up.
2014 could be an interesting year.
You know the drill, but I'm not sure I know any bands that you like...
I feared that I should end up with a pop beat combo that I’d never heard of, but Mr Andrews (the quondam
pax_draconis) took pity and gave me King Crimson.So, do I like them? Yes indeed I do. Very much so in fact, but not unreservedly: King Crimson is, in many ways, not a band, but a concept from the depths of Robert Fripp’s fevered imagination given form on an intermittent basis as a band. Not always the same band. In fact, in the 44 years of their on-off existence, there has only been one constant member - Fripp himself - and one constant idea: experimentation. Few of the line ups have lasted for more than an album and not all of the incarnations of the band have worked. After a six year hiatus, the name sprang back to life to encompass a quartet in 1980 and four three albums (ironically the longest span from one line up), they managed to sound like the Talking Heads listened to through a mirror, darkly. Interesting, but I’d sooner listen to the Heads.
The rest of their sporadic incarnations have placed them variously as the grandfathers of prog, hard jazz-rockers, math rock (slightly more listenable than John McLaughlin and the Mahavishnas, art rock and a fusion of it all. At the same time.
Their best period for me was 1974-75. Already on their 6th line up from 1969, the band slowly became a trio (with returning guest spots from previous members) and this slow contraction brought forth an unofficial trilogy that started with “Larks’ Tongues in Aspic”, moving through “Starless and Bible Black” and culminating in “Red”. This is a band shrinking in size and growing in power, slowly stripping away the whimsy and grasping the harder, louder and grungy edge of rock. There is barely a hint of jazz rock left by the time you hit Red, yet there are echoes of themes all the way through.
In the early 90s the name reappeared for a short period as a six-piece. But not any ordinary six-piece rock band. This was a band that played as two trios on stage at the same time, playing complex music around competing motifs that came together at intervals to combine into something greater before separating again.
It was a grand experiment and it proved too much after a couple of years and a gruelling tour or two. Listen to “Thrak” on headphones. You get one trio in each ear. It’s incredible and it must have been murder to achieve.
For all that, my favourite track is “Starless” from the Red album. Recorded live but with studio overdubs it is, like the best (and worst) of prog a good nine minutes long. A powerful rhythm section driven by Bill Bruford on percussion and John Wetton on bass. Fripp’s eerie, screaming and complex guitar winding the melody through it all. David Cross, returning as a guest in his own band squeezes an impressive violin between them all. Over it all, at the beginning are Wetton’s vocals. Not the greatest singer in the world, but he fits this and it is amongst his best singing performances. And there is THAT guitar solo. One note but spaced melodically. It shouldn’t work, but it does.
I have more copies of that track, by various incarnations, spin-offs and ex members of the band than any other (and I have a tolerably large collection). I like them all, but this is my favourite. And it’s my favourite rock choon.
Have I seen them live? Sadly not. In earlier incarnations I was too young and in later ones they have concentrated on the Americas, where there is more and wider tolerance of and for rock musicianship than there is in the UK. I have seen the next best thing, though. Not a tribute band, but a band made up exclusively of ex-members of King Crimson playing music from King Crimson’s early catalogue, music they wrote.
And now, after a few years of the continuing ‘ProjeKCts’ (various line ups of portions of the expanding membership of Crimso), Fripp has announced a new core line up.
2014 could be an interesting year.
You know the drill, but I'm not sure I know any bands that you like...