king crimson

It was strange hearing King Crimson in 1971 at age 15. Actually..there were lots of "off the wall" underground bands THEN..but being age 15 and hearing In The Wake Of Poseidon in those times separated myself from people greatly...as if feeling like a misfit around friends. Suddenly there's this mysterious sounding band and I stopped collecting other band's albums just to focus completely on King Crimson. Their album covers were intriguing to me.

It was rare for me to meet another person that listened to King Crimson. In my lifetime not many people did. ...though you must consider even then...that K.C. we're popular in different sections of the United States and maybe because South Jersey had a kind of "Back In The Woods " mentality that Crimheads were scarce.

I ended up buying McDonald And Giles on Cotillion Records...Gordon Haskell It Is And It Isnt...Pete Sinfield Still and Centipede Septober Energy just to see if any of it came close to sounding like King Crimson. I used to record direct from the radio onto cassette and I ended up with the Amsterdam 73' performance that way. Unfortunately...Fracture and Starless And Bible Black were not included. Not until the Nightwatch CD in the 90s.

I recall being in situations with teenage girls complaining about the music of King Crimson...how it scared them...or how they thought the music sucked and how it was ruining everybody's high . How it was bringing people down at gatherings and questionable as to what I found good about their music.

Several decades later the album RED was more accepted. It was supposedly influential to certain Alternative Rock bands. It seemed in the early 70s I had experienced people reacting negatively towards King Crimson but in the 90s it was quite the opposite. ...but then again...it could have been the area where I lived.

Valdez wrote: ... I agree, and this comment sums up my thoughts about Belew era Crimson. LIVE is the way to go . And Adrian is a LIVE performer. That says a lot about real talent. ...

Hi,

During that time, I was too busy running a couple of restaurants. And I did not have the time to listen to a lot of new music, until a bit later.

Adrian Belew fell into that era that I had not heard, and did not have a feel for, but rest assured that by 2010, I had already caught up with it, and I like the stuff with Adrian as good as any other time in KC, though my special moment of KC's will always be watching Jamie Muir give us a lesson in improvisation that is incredible ... watching him on that clip on the net, is better than watching Marcel Marceau and that places the band way up there in terms of quality, work and music.

I remember watching the NATIONAL THEATER OF THE DEAF, and those two hours were special, and it probably would be a place where Jamie Muir would be quite at home. The little stories and visuals were exceptional and you came away ... wow ... that was awesome. I felt the same watching Jamie Muir, and I can not name a single rock show that would place above that ... I would TFTO at the Long Beach Arena, had the fans not fallen asleep and wait 2 hours for Roundabout to wake up! That was sad for me, and all it said was that the audience could not give a damn about the music ... it already was about the hits!

No wonder KMET was taken down later! Fans didn't care, and they weren't there either! A big company gave the public listeners a huge finger and we just ... died and went to heaven!

Valdez wrote: Themistocles wrote: My problem with the after 70's Crimson albums is the studio technology got good enough to allow for endless pursuits of perfection and in the process made them stale and lifeless... especially compared to live. I love live late Crimson, My favorite Crimson album is Larks' Tongues in Aspic as the sense of ambition and discovery is in full flower and it isnt overly sanitized, overproduced. You hear a group sitting down to change music and surprising themselves. I agree, and this comment sums up my thoughts about Belew era Crimson. LIVE is the way to go . And Adrian is a LIVE performer. That says a lot about real talent. I saw the TcoL show live at HOB and it made the studio album feel very weak. Even Oyster Soup shined! That said… 60’s 70’s and 80’s upwards…. Three different bands with the same name. All good. PTB was a lackluster end to a brilliant run IMO. ( Not horrible, just lackluster) And later the new songs with Jacko did little for me. But he did a fantastic job with all of the older material. The CHicago LIVE set is fantastic. Especially the LIZARD stuff with Mel.

I thought Power to Believe was the best they released since the 70's.

Dellinger wrote: Valdez wrote: Themistocles wrote: My problem with the after 70's Crimson albums is the studio technology got good enough to allow for endless pursuits of perfection and in the process made them stale and lifeless... especially compared to live. I love live late Crimson, My favorite Crimson album is Larks' Tongues in Aspic as the sense of ambition and discovery is in full flower and it isnt overly sanitized, overproduced. You hear a group sitting down to change music and surprising themselves. I agree, and this comment sums up my thoughts about Belew era Crimson. LIVE is the way to go . And Adrian is a LIVE performer. That says a lot about real talent. I saw the TcoL show live at HOB and it made the studio album feel very weak. Even Oyster Soup shined! That said… 60’s 70’s and 80’s upwards…. Three different bands with the same name. All good. PTB was a lackluster end to a brilliant run IMO. ( Not horrible, just lackluster) And later the new songs with Jacko did little for me. But he did a fantastic job with all of the older material. The CHicago LIVE set is fantastic. Especially the LIZARD stuff with Mel. I thought Power to Believe was the best they released since the 70's.

I still havent listened to that. Next on my list now. Its funny but I first heard Fripp's music through his collab with Andy Summers though I read about him a lot in Guitar Player Magazine, which had some limited transcriptions.   I only heard King Crimson for the first time in the late 80's years after I got into Zappa. I need to revisit the entire catalog, Ive already started by digging into the 70's, which is my favorite so far.