Robert Fripp's Diary

Home brainless and feebly slack

I have been up since 03.15 when I woke. The smell of Wonder Bun (sleeping directly beneath me under the bed) was so foul that I couldn't get back to sleep. In all fairness to the Guffing Creature of Adoration, I probably wouldn't have got back to sleep anyway.

Yesterday night, so tired that I stood a half-way chance of getting through the night intact, the House Mouse (who has returned to the bedroom in this cold season) was making a huge pile of noise. This moved from bedroom to bathroom: eventually I discovered that it had been eating a walnut. The ongoing noise was the rodent eating its way through half the shell.

In the long, faraway days when Fripp was only a Travelling Gigster and arrived home exhausted, suffering terribly from jet-lag, this could be addressed by at least three days of relative ease, rest and sleeping. Now, as soon as I get back I have an immediate meeting in DGM World Central to address major issues arising and decisions to be taken.

The noon meeting with David & Diane yesterday addressed (inter alia) the manner of releasing ProjeKct recordings, and my status as a working (and aspirant) musician on call for work of short duration. David's current key word, when calls upon our time and energies appear, is "focus".

1. ProjeKcts: perhaps any visitor to this site, or anyone familiar with KC's history, has by now been half-way persuaded that our way of doing things doesn't always sit easily within the mainstream music industry.

One of the difficulties in releasing records of the ProjeKct fractals is that industry cohorts find the concept very confusing. The concern is, if we release the P-albums simultaneously, "consumers" will be as confused as sections of the industry. The releases may then undermine each other, rather than (as is the intention) provide mutual support & reinforcement.

We have P2's "Live Groove" ready to go, P1 being currently completed by David & (now) Robert, and P4 about to be prepared.

David's radical suggestion is to release all three ProjeKcts together in a box set. My suggestion in response is to present the box set as:

The King Crimson ProjeKcts

Nos. 1, 2 & 4

Then, instead of having a pile of strange albums from bits of a strange band, we have a new "generic" comparable to (perhaps) a composer's string quartets. Each different, but each part of the same family of works. This enables us to present further P-albums as part of a developing body of music.

Probably, we would also compile a concise single-volume P-release to address a more general audience than dedicated Crim enthusiasts.

2. Guitarist on call: I have been offered 2-3 days of soundscaping in Italy by Claudio de Rocca, the only Italian promoter whose aesthetic decisions I trust.

But, 2-3 days in Italy still means that I have to fly in my rig and two engineers, and transport all of this / these to Italy. In which case I'd probably lose money. But worse than this, it disturbs my rhythm. Even a session in London is now a major disruption, and distraction, from my work both as player (in KC, ProjeKcts & soundscapes) and my responsibilities to DGM (which are various). One day's live performance requires almost as much preparation and set-up expenses as 10 days' work.

This implies that in the immediate future I shall have to take "Have Guitar - Will Travel" off my resume, for at least a period.

Last night - Tuesday night & Wednesday morning - awake and dealing, I began working through the considerable amount of post waiting for me, piled horizontally in an expanding file. This includes a "fan & enthusiast" section which is larger upon each return, and most of which I was able to address last night.

The section included a letter from ET-poster Paul Murray of Colorado, offended firstly by his non-encounter with Fripp in Boulder, and secondly by Fripp's response in the DGM Diary to his reporting of the non-encounter in ET. Paul takes me to task for not addressing his logical deconstruction of my assumptive Diary comments and, he suggests, attacking him personally instead.

I am not sure if Paul has yet posted his latest commentary to ET, or if he intends to. If he has not, I would encourage him to do so.

"Encounter" postings are always instructive and informative. If, in the small areas in which I am well informed (and I am expert in my life and its living), the postings of intelligent & fundamentally well-meaning people can be clueless as to fact and actualities, we should all have our confidence in larger accounts, of (for example) contemporary public affairs & cultural activities, thoroughly undermined.

Let us be sceptical of all commentary unless we are able to test it. How may we establish criteria by which we may make judgements? How may we develop discrimination? What worth are our opinions? How may we recognise a suspect posting, or "assumptive leaps"? For me:

1. The smell of high dudgeon;
2. The strength ("heat") of reaction;
3. The power invested in justification;
4. The assertion of "rights";
5. The making of demands.

In a word, egotism. This has a very different flavour to mature debate between (even strongly held) opposing positions: which is clean, straightforward.

There is an educative value in reading ET, but I'm not sure how many read it for the learning I have in mind.

15.03

General comment: I don't feel convinced by the sincerity of many of those who hover at performances "only wanting to say `Thank you'". My experience is that my life diminshes. When genuine and sincere thanks are offered (whether personally or by letter) I sense, and feel, my life become more. This is a quite different flavour to flattery, which is insincere, & which provokes a very different sensation. In encounters of only nominal "thanking", my experience is of having a demand made on my attention, and in a dishonest fashion.

In response to the question: "How do you know?" I can only address my many (and growing) experiences of this over 29 years. When someone thanks me, it carries a charge which I recognise: I become more. When someone places a demand on my attention, I sense something else happening: I am being lessened. This is not cerebration: this is sensing and feeling.

There are degrees and intensities of being sucked upon, of being the subject of a feeding frenzy, and of being drained, which I have come to recognise. As I become older and my maturity deepens, the subtleties involved become more distinct.

Some performers are superb at reversing the flow, and feeding upon the audience. Mutual vampirism. Mutual polishing of egotism. But the quality of attention involved in this reciprocity is low. When the engagement between performer and audience becomes real - utterly impersonal, yet intimate - everyone gains; and music enters our lives through clear channels.