This is one of my favouritist towns, and smaller hotels. We were unable tobook a reservation but swung by on the off-chance that a room might havebecome available. Yes! although it's in the new wing with minimal light anda view to hang yourself for, it's within walking distance of all my favedestinations: Fitzwilly's, The Iron Rail, several coffee and book shops -where each morning pairs of women are locked into loud and earnestconversation, sufficient to away drive a feeble Gigster seeking to instillsentience into a dribbling psyche. But we drove here from Boston withoutgetting lost.
Last night on HBO Terton Rinpoche starred in "The Glimmer Man". There aresome good set pieces in this as all manner of overwhelmingly bad guys aredespatched with snapped limbs and crumpoed bodies. High cred plot? Even mySister would be convinced.
Yesterday John printed up several ETs which I read into the early hours atthe Swissotel.
Would Bruce Pike, the photographer who didn't receive credit for his photosused on The YPG Scrapbook in 1975, please contact me at DGM in England,perhaps with a zerox of his photos? Many of the archive photographs don'thave photographer credits. When possible, we'll correct this.
ET 554 has the latest contribution in the series: "My Encounter With TheHorrible Fripp". At least, the posting suggests that the encounter itselfwas not so horrible - it was Fripp's subsequent behaviour. He posted on theDGM Website Diary a comment on the rudeness of audients who imposethemselves upon personal conversations. All in all, it appears Fripp waseverything we have come to expect, anticipate and rely upon in hisdiscourteous and frictive exchanges between innocent enthusiasts and thehypocritical, mean and beastly Winburnian.
The "Close Encounters" reportage is always instructive. The posting fromPaul Murray ("Audient Retort" Friday 6th. November, 1998) has something incommon with all the other "Awful & Unfortunate Encounter" stories: one smalldetail is missed, or unreported, which provides a necessary key tounderstanding the encounter. Without this key detail the encounter is notquite what the posting purports to represent. If any Web visitor isinterested in the details, perhaps they might access the posting in ET 554.It is long, acrid, and impressively rude.
The background to the posting is this:
On two occasions on Friday 23rd. November at the Fox Theatre in Boulder,once before and once after the ProjeKct Four debut gig, a personalconversation between myself and personal friends was interrupted byaudients. My own frank and critical commentary on these two interruptions(and by extension, all of the many previous interruptions of personalconversations) is in the DGM Diary for Saturday 24th. October.
Frequently at performances polite and courteous enthusiasts approach mewith questions, requests for autographs, and other interests and concerns.Generally, I decline to engage. Sometimes, this appears brusque; to theenthusiast the appearance of brusqueness is in inverse proportion to theintensity of demand for my attention (it seems to me). This is the categoryof "Enthusiast Offers To Treat And Artist Declines To Engage". Often, thisis clean, straightforward and generally polite. Clearly, this is not theaggressive rudeness referred to above.
Paul would like my Diary posting "to be read by all, as I am one of theparties Mr. Fripp was quick to criticize" in that Diary posting. Paulcontinues: "For those of you wondering, I was the one after the show".
The one small detail missed which provides a necessary key to understandingthe encounter, and without which the encounter is not quite what the postingpurports to represent, is that Paul was not "one of the parties Mr. Frippwas quick to criticize"; and was not "the one after the show".
Paul's posting reports how he waited until Fripp's conversation withfriends (including sax supremo Bill Janssen) "had ended... That I said`Excuse me' to him is true, and that's where the truth of (Fripp's)statement ends".
Paul assumes he was the person I refer to as interrupting the conversation.In this he is mistaken. Paul's approach followed the interruption by severalminutes, and was in the category of "Enthusiast Offers To Treat And ArtistDeclines To Engage"; of which there were several that night, and the nightafter.
Why has Paul made this assumptive leap? In ET 555 Grant Colburn presents amoderate response. Eb takes Paul's assumptive leap on board, posting in highdudgeon to "Der Frippenstoofer" - "These comments make me want to vomit,frankly. I can't imagine who would even WANT to speak to Fripp, afterreading garbage like this". As in other of Eb's postings, Eb's comments areinstructive and informative, although not necessarily in the mannerintended, and Eb's got to vent some negativity onto the net. And Emory'spost is, well, idiosyncratically Emory.
Why did Eb and Emory take Paul's assumptive leap on board?
22.37
Back at The Hotel Northampton from a tasty meal at Fitzwilly's.
Who knows where the music went this evening at the Iron Rail? The audiencewere generous and patient, with several children present. And a slightlyhigher proportion of women than usual: enough for me to know there weren'tvery many, but sufficient to make their presence felt. And they askedquestions which were more interesting (to me) than the guy questions.
Last night Chris Murphy e-mailed the latest Diary to DGM World Central, andmy reply to Richard Chadwick re: P2 in Warsaw. Excerpt from my letter toRichard follows:
"Thanks for the e-mail re: Neil's offer of the P2 show in Warsaw in a 2500seater indoor venue, to be recorded in audio and video.
To recap:
1. Festivals appear to be the only available route for ProjeKcts (and KingCrimson) to play in Europe, given:
i) The level of expense;
ii) The burden of witholding tax, notably in Germany.
2. ProjeKct Two is a bouncing little outfit which is ideal for clubs with(primarily standing) room for 500 - 1200.
3. As a means of getting this (or any other) ProjeKct into Europe, open-airfestivals with a caravan of participating artists seems a good-heartedapproach to creating a situation for musical eventing.
4. The 2500 seat theatre Crimson played in Warsaw was a depressing venuewhich contributed (with several other factors) to fundamentally compromisingwhat was, only nominally, a musical event. I hated everything about ourvisit to Poland.
If the conditions in Warsaw overwhelmed even the Double Trio, what hope isthere for a single trio?
5. Any 2500 seat theatre is at least 500 seats too large.
6. This particular aspirant musician loathes recording, both visual andaudio. The Warsaw event is predicated upon it.
Your letter doesn't mention whether or not the P2 performance would be partof a larger festival event on the same day with other artists, or a P2performance within a longer-running festival.
Either way, Neil's offer is contrary to what I hope for in performanceconditions. To put it differently, the offer defines performance conditionswhich exclude my enthusiastic participation.
You suggest that "all the major festivals include these TV and radio rights... we would have to exclude festivals entirely if we refuse these rights".You also suggest that "we can probably restrict the rights to two or threesongs". Comments:
1. None of the ProjeKcts play "songs", or several short pieces of reliablypredictable duration. So how to inform and limit a video / recording crew?
2. Faith in the co-operation, even restraint, of recording or filmicengineers contradicts my own experience.
3. All it takes is one prick in the balloon.
4. In sum: to enter into this in part is to screw the whole.
So, taking together, firstly, festivals as the only way for ProjeKcts and /or Crim to enter Europe and, secondly, the performance within the festivalsbeing compromised by the venue and visual / audio recording, my conclusionsare these:
1. ProjeKcts / Crim without me can tour Europe in any way they wish, as Iam the only member of the team who has these reservations and feelings;
2. Any ProjeKt / Crim with me cannot currently tour Europe;
3. As I seem to be the only current initiator of Crim ProjeKcts (no oneelse is taking the initiative) it seems reasonable to conclude that we putno further energy into finding ways of playing in Europe.
This is a pity, but enough already!"
"Nothing is compulsory, but some things are necessary."
