Ampex tape used whale oil in its manufacture until around 1983. Played today, the tape sheds piles of guck onto the playback heads, damaging the tape & messing up the heads. So the procedure is to bake the tape not long before playing, which stabilises the oil. DGM has a baking oven, acquired for us by Tony Arnold: he found it advertised in "Farmers' Weekly" I believe.
11.20
Checking a reel of rough mixes from the TOAPP sessions, we've discovered 2 additional improvs at the top of the reel. "No Warning" is the third on this reel and, for the album, was the right choice. Today, with different expectations & time constraints on a CD, we are able to include them on the remastered TOAPP. The different mixes of "Sleepless" are off for baking, and we'll include at least one of those. So, TOAPP will come with several bonus tracks.
Now, a backing track for a ballad which went no further in acquiring a vocal. And the mix of Tony's Barbershop Quartet, released on "Frame By Frame". Moving associatively along, we are planning to release a second edition of "Frame By Frame", replacing those tracks with the recently remastered equivalents; plus reworking the fourth volume of live performances, taking advantage of DGM's archiving of the past decade. But Guestbook posters: please don't ask when will this happen. The "when" is when it's possible for us. Maintaining the past is balanced with maintaining the future.
In 1991 there was almost no public interest in King Crimson. In the media the name continued to provoke abuse, often linked to the words "dinosaur" & "excess". "Frame By Frame" was my attempt to develop a dialogue with Virgin, protect the catalogue within the new control structure, and present an overview of the history.
In 1992 "The Great Deceiver" began to rewrite the knee-jerk school of prog history by presenting primary materials for a new generation to come to its own opinion on Crimson's place in that history. This as an alternative to the secondary materials of received opinion then available, witless critical commentary. One of the frequent blanket insults thrown at Crim is of "endless guitar solos". One example from Crimson, please?
11.44
We're on to "USA". "Asbury Park" features a wonderful crumping Bass Beast of Terror. Now "Easy Money". The guitarist is soloing: he longs for home, closer & farther than Dorset.
13.05
Salad a la smoke for lunch in the Sanctuary Restaurant & Smokers' Palace. The fumes yesterday & today have been awful. "Exiles".
13.18
"Larks' II". If I heard a young group today playing this, I'd be impressed.
14.18
Glueage underway. A wonderful comment, shouted from a young woman in the audience: "Who made your violin?" A man calls out "Easy Money!" as the guitarist begins "Lament".
16.44
Wernoed, squernoed & stomped flat.
"Any fool can play something difficult."
