Robert Fripp

Robert Fripp's Diary

Thursday 01 April 2010

London Rising at Maisonette Minx

09.42

London.

Rising at Maisonette Minx in Chiswick I…

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II...

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… at 06.25 from an exciting night of adventuring. The last excitement before rising was an understanding of how we travel throughout the universe: our journeying is governed by the degree of our Being. Well. Good to know.

In the bath: a growing sense of what was making itself available in last week’s The Orchestra Of Crafty Guitarists III course.

Taxi call at 07.30. The driver was listening to BBC Radio Four & at 07.45 today’s contributor to Thought Of The Day was an Anglican vicar. The good man’s thought for Maundy Thursday was: how to turn a mass of individuals into a community? Immediately in response, this flew by: well, The OCG is one approach.

Certainly, there are structural situations in society that support, to greater & lesser extents, the vicar’s hope. The increasing micro-management by a centralised, controlling authority (even with the bestest of all possible intentions) is not, IMO, of much use in supporting community initiatives. An integrated, functioning community is primarily a phenomenal expression of an inner condition & reality: we are already one, after all, yet we appear to be a mass of individuals. So, how to reconcile the two seeming incompatibles? The OCG is one simple, easily available example in my own experience; and now perhaps also for c. 200 others from the three formations of The OCG that have manifested: in Sant Cugat, Seattle & Sassoferrato. Soon, a fourth, in Rosario, Argentina.

E-furying at the place of the Minx’s project.

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18.56    On the Guestbook…

question for RF
:: Posted by abhitaranath on April 01, 2010
Hi Robert,

What are your criteria in deciding which Crimson albums get a stereo remix (i.e., In The Court, Lizard) and which do not (i.e., Red)?

Where Steven & myself decide that we can significantly improve on what is already available. 

Baby's On Fire solo?
:: Posted by mipoch on April 01, 2010
So, that’s NOT RF soloing on "Baby’s On Fire"?
http://headheritage.co.uk/headtohead/unsung/topic/1193/threaded/7804
Thoughts on this?

It is April the First, after all. And Sid fooled me, too.

authors need to do thorough research
:: Posted by davidfsnyder on March 06, 2010
Of course, it would be nice to hear a definitive word from Robert: to add to his biography (the section entitled "The best non-guitar solo I never played")?

RF / Bush of Ghosts
:: Posted by rkipp683 on March 06, 2010

From the recently published Eno biography "On Some Faraway Beach: The Life & Times of Brian Eno," p. 331-332:

"...Yusin’s importuning, transcendent voice was threaded into a lean deconstruction job known as ’Regiment’ (salvaged from the RPM sessions), a lavish, mid-paced funk workout based squarely on a monolithic Chris Frantz / Busta Jones groove and garnished with the frenzied, legato guitar figures of an uncredited Robert Fripp."
Perhaps some record company intercessions prevented a player’s credit for RF on this track?  I’d love to hear Robert settle the mystery himself!

The session came from the time when both Brian & myself were living in NYC. I played on the track, but my part was not used in the released version; although there was a bootleg doing the rounds some time later, probably a rough mix run off by someone who worked in the studio.

Why was the RF guitar not used? I have never been told, and never asked. My working relationship with Brian is exceptionally straight forward: I turn up & blast, then leave Brian to decide & choose & do anything he likes with the materials. Brian has my full support & confidence in using some, all or nothing, and treating / sampling my contribution in any way at all. Holding an overview of a total project, it’s possible to see what fits in. There may be good material that doesn’t / didn’t sit inside the (then) 40 minutes available. Today, there might be additional tracks, not quite part of the whole conception, but included as footnotes to the project. Similarly, on the Talking Heads Fear Of Music, I played on two tracks in the studio, but only I Zimbra had my parts on the album. (The other track may have been included in a TH box set?).

There is another possibility: at the end of the session an EG employee arrived with money & copyright-waivers to be signed. This was then a little over two years since SG Alder Esq., the philanthropist & music lover, had ejected David Enthoven from EG (c. July 1977) and was re-shaping EG according to his own vision. This included session musicians signing copyright-waivers for the record they’d just played on.

CF this diary and scroll down for how assigning copyrights to your managers, for no consideration in return, is necessary for them to “collect your royalties, protect the copyrights at law around the world, and protect your interests” (to quote SG Alder Esq. on February 22nd. 1976).

Since playing with Brian is always a privilege, opportunity & lotsa fun, I declined to take the money & therefore didn’t sign the waiver. It may be that an EG Creature decided that, without the copyright waiver, to include my playing on the album was a risk. But, that’s speculation.

The subject of EG “copyright ownership” is a much longer one. Fair to say, when Mr. Alder sold the phonographic copyrights to Virgin & the publishing rights to BMG (1991), he may well have genuinely believed that he had bona fide rights (this is also part of a longer & interesting story); although Mr. Alder did accept that “there were problems with paying royalties”. But the KC copyrights were assigned to EG on a lie, subject to undue influence, in unsound conditions; all of which taken together, vitiated the assignments.

19.12    A day of computing & e-flurrying.

Enough. Soon back to Chiswick.


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