Crimson ProjeKCt @ The Hi-Fi - Sydney 27/Jun/2014

21st Century Touring Band

King Crimson have had so many member changes there have even been off-shoot bands that play King Crimson material but in a different vernacular such as the Crimson Jazz Trio. It shouldn't be surprising to see Adrian Belew fronting a band that features Tony Levin and Pat Mastelotto playing King Crimson numbers. Rumour has it that founding patriarch Robert Fripp never wants to tour Australia so this is about as close to seeing King Crimson live in Australia we're ever going to get. The other 3 members Julie Slick, Tobias Ralph and Markus Reuter round out the formidable sextet and the rest is prog rock, loud and raw. Beware the dinosaurs.

This is the first time I know of that some incarnation of King Crimson are playing their numbers in Australia. I have waited for this for over 30years. Kind of goes to show Australia is still a cultural backwater.

What's Good About It

King Crimson have so many different phases to match the number of personnel who have come and gone. This band does not feature any of the members from the the pre-1974 bust up that prompted Robert Fripp to leave the business for 2 years and then move to New York, and yet their renditions of the 70s classic numbers such as 'Larks Tongues in Aspic Part I' and 'Red' are played immaculately. The post 90s double-trio numbers get a good working out as well, but the real meat and potatoes of the King Crimson material lies in the tricolour albums 'Discipline', 'Beat' and 'Three of a Perfect Pair'. Having missed all of King Crimson's live phases and career,  this is about as good as it gets, and it's pretty damn good fare.

What's amazing about this incarnation of Crimson and its repertoire is that they play it with such gusto and for something like 3 hours, you certainly get your money's worth. You come to realise that the recorded version of the music is just a shadow of this roaring red-blooded rock act. The music played live is far less mannered and much more rudely energetic and in your face. The performance bristles with energy.

The jaw dropping chops, the astounding array of sound and technology, the astonishing artistic choices, the tight control that gives way to sonic abandon, the abstraction, the integration of arrangements, is all entirely mesmerising. You sure don't notice the three hours fly by.

What's Bad About It

Musically, nothing.

The venue lighting guys were terrible. They didn't light the front of the stage properly so we watched Adrian Belew in silhouette, back lit from the stage lights above and back, all night long. It was ridiculous. It was like some high school revue effort and I'm pretty sure there are some high school revues that are lit better than that.

What's Interesting About It

The twin drumming by Pat Mastelotto and Toby Ralph was a revelation. It made me wonder what it might have been like with the B'boom era double trio setup with Bill Bruford, but in most part Mr. Bruford wasn't missed. The polyrhythms, the syncopation, the dialogic interaction, the experimentation with sounds and extended spaces all built to a tremendous sonic punch. You don't see bands with two drummers often but when you do, it changes the perception of rock music. It's a testament to their musical nous and intelligence that the drum interactions come over so well.

The night had a few surprising moments. Tony Levin and the Stick Men half of the double trio played 'Breathless' off Robert Fripp's solo album 'Exposure' (a touch stone for gonzo guitar as well as punk metal, musique concrete and Frippertronics). Amazingly, it sounded very much like the recorded version. Tony Levin was doing the Robert Fripp bits on the Stick and Markus Reuter was doing the Tony Levin bits from the album. Pat Mastelotto was doing a great interpretation of Jerry Marotta.

The encore decidedly wasn't '21st Century Schizoid Man'. The band opted to go with 'Elephant Talk', and 'Thela Hun Ginjeet'.

Adrian Belew - Guitar Rhinoceros, Twang-bar King

I had the exquisite pleasure of standing right in front of Adrian Belew all night long, so I got a close quarter look at how he goes about doing his thing. The most extraordinary thing - amongst many extraordinary things - is how well his guitar keeps tune because he rides the whammy bar hard. He rides it with his palm, he taps it with his ring finger and pinky, he gently shimmies with it and dives right down so the knob hits the neck pickup. It's like what you imagine Hendrix to have been like with the whammy, but it's more. More of everything, all rolled into his musical expression and style. He elicits overtones and harmonics from very different places to where other more conventional players elicit them and he bangs and whallops and bends the body and to get the whole guitar to resonate. It's avant-garde guitar. It's what Pete Townshend probably wanted to do but couldn't so he opted to smash his guitars instead.

It's not just the whammy bar thing. It's the loops, the effects, the abstracted shards of noise, the piano sounds off the guitar synth, the brutal distortion tone that comes and goes with a tap of his foot, the seemingly infinite array of tones coming from the Parker Fly, and then there's the actual playing technique that has to be seen to be believed. It's like he's the jester in the Court of the Crimson King as he foot taps and finger taps and twiddle knobs in between playing complicated phrases, all with gusto and panache. He's one of those people who just invent things and it's perfect. It's like how only John McEnroe plays tennis like John McEnroe. Only Adrian Belew plays guitar like this. I've seen Andy Summers at equally close quarters and Adrian left Andy for dead.

...and he sounds just like on the records. People use the word 'awesome' way too lightly to the point it has lost deeper meaning, and that's a shame. Adrian Belew live on stage is the proper true definition of 'awesome'.

Tony Levin - Stick Monster

I have a personal pantheon of bass heroes. A lot of them are prog rock guys from England that I natter on and on about - Squire, Entwistle, Wetton, Karn... The big exception is Tony Levin who is just about dead centre in my pantheon but I don't talk about him much because I can't begin to emulate what he does. I can come at the other guys because they play bass guitar as a lower register extension of guitars. Tony Levin plays the Chapman Stick - tapping away furiously - and when he plays a normal(-ish) bass, he plays the strings with percussive extensions on his index and middle fingers. I'm not sure what those extensions are made of, and how he goes about getting that tone he gets, but it's a monster tone.

Seeing him live is a revelation. Especially because I've been reading his name on my fave album covers for most of my listening-collecting life starting at 'Double Fantasy' by John Lennon. Yes, he's the bass player there. He's on Peter Gabriel's solo albums; Pink Floyd's 'Momentary Lapse of Reason';  and he's even on 'Anderson Wakeman Bruford Howe' - if you can't wrangle Chris Squire, you get Tony Levin! - not to mention the 1980 onwards King Crimson albums; and he sounds different every time out on all those records. There is no particular Tony Levin sound you can nail him to (unlike say Chris Squire who can be honed in on with a Rickenbacker 4001 bass) or a Tony Levin style except the aesthetic surprise you get when you hear his sound. And all the while, you can sort of play his bass lines on a normal bass guitar to a point but it's just not like anything anybody else does. It's completely original and unique.

So yeah, I finally got to see Tony Levin live, got totally blown away, and walked away with very few hints on how to do that stuff.

The Adrian Belew Power Trio

Which brings me to Julie Slick on bass over on stage right; She seems to know exactly what to do to emulate Tony Levin. At one point Tony got his Stick caught in his belt and so he sort of stopped playing and adjusted his belt mid-song while Julie Slick kept the bottom end engine room going. It was seamless.

Adrian Belew's half of the double trio played a few non-Crimson numbers and were wild.  They are ecstatic players. But if you can play like that you'd be ecstatic too.

Random Thoughts

Adrian Belew is a gentleman. They say "never meet your heroes", but every gonzo guitar player should have the joy and pleasure of meeting Adrian Belew.

Tony Levin looks like Walter White. Just much nicer and more approachable.

Julie Slick wore these really funky shoes with one foot blue and the other yellow, adorned by dogs.  They were cool.

No Robert Fripp? No Problem. Markus Reuter had those chops down. He even looked a little like Robert Fripp with the glasses.

Pat Mastelotto looked a lot more imposing in person than in photos. He has a lot of power.

Thing Crimson

Crimson Chic
Two people posted this to me in the mailbag almost simultaneously.
After all these years, The Sydney Morning Herald has published a review on USA by King Crimson. The SMH reviewing King Crimson is a bit like the Oprah show reviewing 'Fight Club', but do hang on. It isn't exactly a trashing:

King Crimson came to represent the apogee of virtuosic prog-rock grandiloquence, which is odd when at heart - or at least live - it was often a blowing band.

USA captured the fourth Crimson incarnation - guitarist Robert Fripp, violinist David Cross, bassist/singer John Wetton and drummer Bill Bruford - on its 1974, and last, American visit. Every gig in the endless touring brought at least one free improvisation and extensive blowing on some of the composed pieces.

There is Wetton's bruising, rather dominant fuzz bass and the squalls of Fripp's guitar that constitute the wildly energised Asbury Park, as well as the sustained magic of the serene, other-worldly guitar solo on a reinvented Easy Money, which steadily builds to the violence of a malicious armed robbery.

The original LP is augmented with readings of the menacing Fracture and the anthemic Starless, so that you have the equivalent of a complete concert. Everything in Fripp's gawkily named Discipline Global Mobile catalogue is available through Didgeridoo Records.

So there. Crimso don't completely swing and miss down under after all these years. Must be all the angst in the air as I've been giving my old King Crimson CDs quite a thrashing lately. Frankly I've not felt this much angst since I was at high School.
Turns out I got another piece of inetresting info from Walkoff-HBP:

Funnily enough, I met this reviewer (John Shands) 2 weeks ago at a Jazz gig, completely unbeknownst to me that he is the SMH Jazz reviewer. We got to talking about music, as you do... (sidebar: As you know, Its what you like, not what you are like that matters - High Fidelity) ...anyhow he asked how I got into Jazz, and of course I said that is was through prog-rock, then to Jazz Fusion then to straight jazz. So we got talking about King Crimson and all the Jazz elements, like Mel Collins & Keith Tippet. So perhaps this got him thinking, six degrees and all that.

Hilarious.
By the way, I've also created this funny little tune about a Mickey Rourke anecdote I heard from Mr. Murphy.


I've posted it up at iCompositions. You can get there by clicking the badge in the right column.
Do check it out. :)

Blue Jays Get BJ


Okay, that looks rude, but this is a rude shock indeed. The Toronto Blue Jays bagged BJ Ryan for 5 years and 47million dollars. Not everybody thinks this is wise.

Ryan's contract would be the largest ever given to a reliever in total dollars — yes, bigger than anything the Yankees ever awarded Mariano Rivera, a future Hall of Famer. The last reliever to secure a commitment of five years or more is believed to be Bruce Sutter, who received a six-year deal from the Braves after the 1984 season. Sutter's total package was worth $10 million — slightly more than Ryan will earn per year.

Granted, the Jays must overpay to lure U.S.-born players to Canada. Granted, the team plans to spend $160 million in payroll over the next two seasons. And granted, the competition for Ryan was considerable; the Indians were willing to go four years and possibly five for the closer, though not at the average annual value the Jays reportedly will pay.

The Jays know they must add dominant pitching to compete with the Yankees and Red Sox in the AL East. Still, it would make little sense for Toronto, a franchise with relatively modest resources, to invest so heavily in a 70-inning closer when it also needs two hitters and a starting pitcher.

Three years, $27 million would be a more sensible price for Ryan, and frankly, even that sounds high — all but the best relievers fluctuate in performance from year-to-year. Then again, Ryan wouldn't be the last free agent who gets ridiculously overpaid this off-season. The industry is awash in revenue, and the owners are following their historical pattern, spending as mindlessly as Paris Hilton and making players wealthy enough to date her.

That's Ken Rosenthal there, so it's kind of iffy but you get the sentiment. so it'ss bacck to the drawing board there too. Meanwhile that deafening silence you hear out of Tampa isn't the sound of George's one hand clapping. It's the fact that it may be hard to even get a trade for Michaels out of Philly, as 'Stand Pat' Gillick reverts to form after his blockbuster trade that sent Jim Thome away.

According to Gillick, both Jason Michaels and Shane Victorino - both considered possible starters before the Rowand deal - are still in the Phillies plans. Gillick even floated the idea of playing Burrell at first on certain days against left-handers to get Michaels playing time and give Ryan Howard a break.

The priorities after the Wagner decision appear to be for a starting pitcher. Gillick said on Friday that would likely come from a trade and not the free agency market.

Well, unless it's Carl Pavano and cash for Jason Michaels, it's increasingly looking like a Crosby and Thompson platoon in CF next year.

Today's Belated Review

"Happy With What You Have To Be Happy With"?

A long time ago, I was an avid King Crimson fan. That's not to say I am no longer a great fan of their music; it's just that at some point I reached Crimso-Fatigue. It's really interesting. You hit a point where you just can't bear to listen to them any more even though you love them. That's a long way different to most people who simply don't like them and therefore don't listen t them; which is understandable, but from a discerning listener point of view, flat out wrong. And I mean it. If you can't like King Crimson, you understand nothing about The Power of Rock Music. Seriously.

The album that inflicted 'Crimso-Fatigue' on me was their previous offering' Construcktion In Light'. If ever there was an album full of anxiety-inducing dissonant, organised cacophany, 'CofL' was it. I think I listened to it all of ten times and felt, "You know what? These guys are going in a direction I'm not so sure I want to follow down." And so I would often gingerly pull out 'CofL', wince and put it back on the shelf. In some ways I'd rather listen to the improvised piece 'Peoria' off "Earthbound' than listen to such anxiety-inducing stuff.

So once again, my fingers were straying over the King Crimson portion of my collection and of course I found this album 'Happy With What You Have To Be Happy With' right next to 'Construcktion of Light'. I think I bought it even though I wasn't sure I wanted to go down the direction. It's an awful title for an album, but there you have it; I had a CD I'd hardly listened to. That's why I thought I'd review it.

What's Good About It
First up, it's King Crimson 'a la mode', if you get my drift. While they've always been accomplished musicians, this album has enough surprises and subtle moments to make you really notice. After the sonic-death-monkey-assaults of their 1990s albums, this one is almost delicate. It still has another stab at 'Larks Tongues in Aspic Part IV' with its customary shards of guitaristic hubris and mannerist display, but in amongst it all is a really muscular music, divorced from production fashions or styles. indeed, thee performance of 'Larks Tongues IV' is better on this album than on 'CofL'.

Why is this good you ask? It's good because it's a rare album that lets you just listen to the musicianship unfold; and unfold it does on this album. Gone are the stalwarts Bill Bruford and Tony Levin, which is not that surprising given the band history of personnel swaps. Playing in their stead are Pat Mostalleto Trey Gunn who were the left wheel of the double rhythm section featured in 'CoL' and they sound young. Welll, young-ER anyway, and what they provide is a very solid rhythm section upon which Robert Fripp and Adrian belew totally go to town upon.

Oh yes, the 'towering sheets of immensely unbeautiful music' is still there, throbbing away, but this tim you get a close up feel of the beastie that is King Crimson. In stark contrast to the digital angularity of 'CofL', there is an almost analogue rubbery resilience to the tone. Damn, don't you miss analogue sound sometimes? The compression isn't shoving icepicks into your eardrums at the high frequencies unlike the previous album. And the playing is as always superlative.

What's Bad About it
Some of these tracks are just fillers or etudes. As a fan you get used to going through the interesting (and less interesting)studies they make, but some of the lighter weight stuff would have been better just put up at iCompositions under a pseudonym. There's just not much meat to them. The tracks where the arrangement is deep and convoluted offer great value but these little 30 second segments should just be parts of another track.

The title. Did I mention how stupid this title is? Combined with the artwork, it's just depressing for its un-wittiness. They used to be witty, this band.

The cover. It's just repugnant. I know the first album featured a guy screaming in agony in close up, but it's not like it was there to make a dumb statement; it was expressing the emotion contained in 'Twenty-first Century Schizoid Man'. The cover painting on this one shows a complacent looking family, and Mommy with a lottery ticket on her lap. All of them watching television in the sad glow from the CRT. Well, it might be the job of King Crimson to point fingers at Middle Class mores, but I can't think of a more bourgeois sentiment coming from a bunch of rock stars. You get to be a touring rock musician, you've won a lottery already. Don't go judging people who otherwise have no shot. It's kind of hypocritical, guys.

There is however an audio 'cutup track' at the end which is totally Zappa-esque and delightful; it's as if they saved up all their witticism for one track and just sort of let the art department go fascist.

Other Thoughts
Why am I still listening to Crimso?
Here's the thing: There' so much to listen to on a King Crimson record. I'd forgotten. Maybe 'Construcktion of Light' was just one album that just wasn't exactly to my taste. Maybe I've still got a lot of King Crimson tolerance in me yet. Maybe I'll get 'Power to Dream' instead of just roll my eyes at it as I've been doing every time I've spotted it at Borders.