10.33
Last night, our second at the Cactus: for me, a more measured performance. The volume was down, strangely a mixed blessing. Probably, because I'm used to listening through the body (rather than the ears as such). This visceral quality of rock has always spoken to me, even as I pack my ears with paper.
Terry Bozzio left a very generous and supportive message on Pat's answer machine yesterday: Terry was in for the Monday show.
Back at the hotel, I called Vic Garbarini. Vic is completing his piece on the 1969 Crimson and - joy of joys - I could talk to someone who hears, sees & understood what was going on with that remarkable outfit. Simply, the band was a site / vehicle / centre for a download / input of creative energy. The experience of this is so far removed from "normal" experience that typical questions about the group utterly fail to attract appropriate answers. Crimson's "good fairy" is the subject for debate here. Everything else - equipment, technique, talent, business - are part of the equation but not what determines the action. Crimson, for whatever reason, was the focus & pole of an exceptionally powerful musical action underway in 1969. That particular action didn't make it into 1970, which was experientially clear to me when visiting shows.
Vic appreciates why, rather than allow the band to break up, I offered to leave instead. This was in a car with Ian McDonald, driving into Big Sur from Los Angeles en route to San Francisco. At the end of the day, light fading, Ian had just told me that he & Michael had decided to leave. How could anyone be that irresponsible when music was directing its beam towards them? Well, the guitarist didn't have the right feel for Ian's music, among Ian's other concerns. And I have a lot of sympathy for that view: in recent Crim history it's known as "molestation". The prime writer presents a piece and has the other guys trash it, without sympathy, respect or consideration. Perhaps even play a detailed piece of writing for a week without settling anywhere near a basic part. This is an acute form of suffering for the initiator.
Today I am more experienced in the ways we fail to recognise what is available, freely on offer to us, if - we get ourselves out of the way. Such simple words. Such an ongoing tragedy of missed opportunities. And a direct way of partly explaining what I feel as my responsibility towards the ongoing Crim.
When I see, and hear, a player behaving as if the music is about them, or demanding / assuming themselves to be the focus of attention, I feel insulted & demeaned & short-changed. And, depending upon the level of arrogance & ignorance, I may still become enraged today. This whether I am watching a famous "musician" parading for the gallery, a fellow player destroying a piece for the sake of attracting attention from the first three rows, or a performance killed by photography (whether I am onstage or offstage). This is all pissing in the communion wine.
We are off to Dallas around noon.
"Offer no violence."
