EARTHBOUND

I've been resistant at the thought of buying this album and who can blame me? I've heard nothing but bad stuff about it through the years. When I first became aware of this album in the mid 1990s, I thought it was a bootleg, but was indeed an official release, released on Island's budget subsidiary HELP but Atlantic in the States totally rejected it due to poor quality. It was a real dumb idea to attempt to record an official live album on cassette. So you get that cassette bootleg quality listening to this. This was recorded by what many feel is the weakest Crimson lineup, Robert Fripp with Mel Collins, Boz Burrell, and Ian Wallace. Ok, make no mistake, the sound quality sucks. No one will argue that. If it were a homemade cassette bootleg it would be forgiven but this was an official vinyl release. No matter how you feel about the performance, you can't deny this lineup doing a wonderful version of "21 Century Schizoid Man". Sure Boz is no Greg Lake but I do get a kick off that Dalek voice they employed on his vocals. The band really soars. Then there's "A Sailor's Tale", certainly a highlight on Islands, which they do a great job here and there Mellotron use is great, but used nowhere else on the album. "Groon" was originally a B-side to "Cat Food", but I'm not familiar with the original but this version turned into a rather self-indulgent jam complete with needless drum solo. The other two cuts are originals not found on their regular studio efforts. A bit different from the usual King Crimson, a lot of this material is jazzy, but also frequently on the blues side. I never expected King Crimson to go bluesy like that but I can probably lay that blame on Boz, no wonder he defected to much more mainstream pastures with Bad Company. Blues and King Crimson don't go together. Still it's amusing to see them try that.

No surprise that Fripp didn't even want this released, not just because of the horrendous sound quality but definitely not a performance highlight. I'm happy to own the album and it didn't offend me and there were few spots I genuinely enjoy ("Schizoid Man" and "A Sailor's Tale" especially), but it's only a two star rating because the flaws are glaringly obvious. Of course USA from three years later is a FAR superior live document, but it involved the FAR superior subsequent lineup (Fripp, Bill Bruford, John Wetton) with far superior recording equipment.