David Singleton's Diary

Question Time

When exactly did I ask for this? There I was innocently enjoying life as a music producer/writer and then, wham, I fail to duck fast enough when the management of King Crimson comes flying past or when some bright spark (yes, Iona Singleton you know who you are) suggests that we need a new website.  Those within the music business need to take the business as seriously as the music (otherwise unscrupulous deeds are done, as well chronicled on these diary pages), but we also need to fight to retain a balance. This canoeist is still upside down strugglng to complete his eskimo roll.

Yes, dear readers, today I have been doing tour accounts - an accountant and consequently too boring to be of interest.

But what of the activity in cyber world...the burning questions filling the guestbook. Answers as promised:

Greg Keyes : Hi, just wondering why King Crimson VI isn't on the landing page among the rest of the incarnations?

Alex Gomoet : Where is 2008? Is that MK VI.5? Has it been retconned from the Crimsonverse?

Both of these were simply due to space and design constraints. King Crimson VI (The Construkction of Light) appears both as a photo link and a menu item on the main King Crimson page. The "inter-regnum" Crimsons are more complex. We wanted a menu layout on the King Crimson page which led easily to the major touring incarnations of the band. The "interregnum" bands of Poseidon and Lizard and the briefly lived 2008 touring line-up have therefore been omitted from the top-line menus. If, over time, we gather sufficient information to create videos, essays, and all the items that will fill the pages of those incarnations, then this does not mean that we will not create a page for each of them. Indeed, far from removed from history, the archiving of the 2008 band has recently been on Mr Stormy's radar.

Francois Bussiere : Hi there! I dowloaded Volume 8 of Mr.Stormy's selections this morning as I had missed 5 of the pieces offered this year and noticed that the filenames have been "reset" to a 2016 date of release. My problem here is: as the details of the tracks are not on the volumes page or in the downloaded file but on the page of the release of the track, I find it a bit hard to navigate to each of these track's details.

I think I can pass the buck to Mr Stormy for that one. Do not go home. Stay at work and add the details to the download page (this is not as simple as it might appear given the volume of tracks - but we shall see).

Steven Smith : Are these forum comments moderated? 

Yes, but that does not account for the disappearance of your no doubt excellent reply about the size of Bill Bruford and Kenny Jones whotnots. I have searched the submitted posts - and reply, there is none. Hmmm!

Michael Dennis : Any chance posts can be dated?

Great and lesser minds can occasionally think alike. This has already been added to the next update.

Connor Hammett : 1971 Zoom Club bundle was corrupted.

Corrupted?! These were the young men who brought you "Ladies of the Road"! There does seem to be a problem at present with bundle downloads. Mike and Ajay at Fabric are heroically seeking the problem and solution.

Mark Gardner : Will BitTorrent downloads be returning anytime soon?

As I understand it, the jury was out on BitTorrent (partly, I think, because it was clumsy for new users and because there were often not enough contemporaneous downloaders). But there is no reason why not. Possibly we could run the two side by side. Up for discussion come version 2.

And finally, now that I have no energy with which to properly address the question:

Harold Wilhelm's Great Disappointment

I was in Stuttgart, and Harold and I heard different concerts. Mel Collins was never "ridiculous", the rearrangements are astonishing, and amongst the new compositions (dismissed as "pffff!) Radical Action is an absolute Crimson classic. So why such a different experience. I discussed this very thing with Robert Fripp over breakfast in Monaco (hence his video on the homepage). There was a double point of seeing. Those who come to the concert wanting one that sounds just like the old ones will be disappointed. This is a new band, and the material is new (whenever it was written). If you view this band through a prism of the past, you will inevitably be unsatisfied. My own point of seeing that morning was that the reverse is also true. I had been following the current band, watching "Easy Money" every night, and found myself (because of this website) needing to embed a 1974 video of Easy Money. And what did I discover? It was almost unwatchable. In the same way, that viewing this band through a prism of the past will only cause "the great disappointment" - once you have embraced this band, you cannot easily go back.