Robert Fripp's Diary

Red Carpet Club east Denver

The rest of the team will arrive in a little while for our 11.25 flight to Seattle, and then onto a turbo prop to carry us to Vancouver. The direct flight cost an addtional $600 per ticket: we chose "cheap is good".

I have `phoned home and spoken to The Little Horse who is enjoying a quiet day before travelling to Cheltenham tomorrow for the final week of The Live Bed Show. Last night she visited the Salisbury Playhouse to see "Moll Flanders" which she reports is magnificent. Jonathan Church, the theatre's director, is establishing Salisbury as a leading light in English provincial theatre.

Beaton the Wonder Bun is outside today because he has the squits. Once he has returned to the firm, he will doubtless be invited in. One of my favourite personal photos, on the hall table for all guests to see, is my wife in a Phish t-shirt and Beaton, magnificent and regnant, sitting / standing on her shoulder as she reclines on our large bed-end sofa. The shirt was given to me personally by John, the Phishes' manager, when P2 were visiting Burlington, Vermont, earlier this year. This is my particular favourite of "One Hundred Uses Of A Phish T-Shirt".

The large bedroom sofa oozes Fripp and Wimborne history: it originally belonged to The King's Head Hotel in Wimborne Square. For many years it was a valuable part of the entrance lounge, and regular Winburnians arriving for coffee morning and / or afternoon tea, would sit on this sofa. My mother, and her coffee morning friends, would have sat on this over a period of many years. When the King's Head went up-market in the early 1980s and invested in a large number of newer & brighter sofas and chairs, I did a deal with the manager to acquire a three piece suite from their no longer posh, but superbly comfortable, redundant stock. For 50. (Dear /web visitor, please remember that I was brought up in trade).

This suite is now in our bedroom, and perhaps one day I shall have new covers made which will last another 50 years or more. The furniture is solid (bar one castor which has fallen of the front of the sofa) and will last me out. One of the two armchairs is used for laying our clothes over. The other is dressed in woollen ponchos and blankets knitted for me by my Mother, and all my Mother's toys sit there upon each other. Most of these toys were given to her by my Sister at Christmastime over many years. My Mother put them in a front window of the small Wimborne townhouse where she lived as widow, and local children would walk down off East Street to look and marvel at these toys on display. Of these toys, one would say: "You can get what you want!", "Be what you want to be!" and other affirmatives on the pull of a cord. This, quite obviously, a gift from my Sister.

Among the generous pile of my Mother's toys nestling together on the ex-King's Head armchair, is my own childhood teddy bear still wearing the small striped pajamas made by my Mother over fifty years ago. My sister Patricia and I both had a teddy bear. Mine had, and has, a loose leg. This has always (even as a child) reminded me of my Father: Arthur Henry Fripp had a game leg, from contracting polio in the womb. Grandma told my Mother, when she and Arthur were courting, that she had known something was wrong with her about-to-be firstborn - the child in her womb only kicked with one leg.

This family history never leaves me: one telephone call to my Wife, my partner in this life, and I am once more present to what is, in any case, never apart. These are the small things; these are the large things. How rich our lives, communities and societies might without the utter disruption of this century.

Several of my American Jewish friends have a Russian background: they know nothing beyond their grandparents arriving in America escaping pogroms and persecution. The damage and suffering visited on this one community in Europe is increasingly well documented; but growing information, and discussion, fails to diminish the continuing sense of horror, fails to instruct the understanding.

But back to the life of working musicians: the first set last night was the one for me, but the second had its own merits; and I enjoyed them both. Steve Martin, our booking agent from The Agency in New York, flew in and came to hear & see his latest act.

Robert Cervero came from San Francisco and caught me in the bar before the show. Robert is on fire to acquire the "ITCOTKC" mellotron and was eager to discuss this. I declined, that I might keep my mind focused on the music of the evening. But Robert was insistent, and drew my attention from the music to the concerns of mellotron acquisition. And then Sid Smith, visiting Geordie and hero of the merchandising table, was keen to attract my attention to the house's merchandising percentage. In these small ways is the sharp edge of music blunted, even by intelligent and supportive friends.

I'm not sure that Tony Levin gets (can get) better, but he gets funnier. And sillier. Without ever losing his fundamental knowing of the low end. And increasingly the high end, and what lies in between. Probably the appeal of Crim / ProjeKcts to Tony is the open book upon which he is invited to inscribe his mark.

Trey does get better, and on every tour the difference is marked. His Guitar Craft background nominally puts him in the position of (former) student, but this is misleading and far from the actuality. Trey is very much his own person, and I continue to learn more from him than he has ever learnt from me. And both of us continue to learn from our Guitar Craft experience.

Pat Mastelotto is impressively underestimated. Pat's acknowledged and established position as a succesful rock drummer allowed for little growth, development and becoming. He was already what the job demanded and required. Accomplished within his field, Pat would never have been invited, encouraged or persuaded to be the player waiting within, awaiting an invitation to move without - unless...

Pat arrived at the Sylvian - Fripp - Gunn audition with the decision taken that this was his job. All that was required was for SFG to recognise what was already obvious to Pat. Pat arrived at Peter Gabriel's Real World, Box, having learnt the entire album in a weekend and cashed in a pile of frequent flyer miles to be there. Michael Giles, who lives nearby, also arrived to audition, but for Michael this was a visit on spec. For Pat, he had arrived to claim his seat.

It galls me to read pratty comments in ET which suggest that Pat is not the drummer that Bill is. Firstly, this is an answer to the wrong question. Secondly, I trust my perception and insight into the quality and potential of players of close acquaintance to a greater degree than I trust the discernment of ET posters. Thirdly, Pat is the drummer that Pat is; Bill is the drummer that Bill is.

It was very hard for an established drummer to come into Crimson as a junior to Bill, whose seniority accompanies his years and commitment to Crimson as well as his outstanding qualities as a player. Not many players I have known possess the magnaminity to accept and respect Bill's seniority within Crimson, without diminishing their own stature and contribution.

And the same is true, in a different way, for Bill.

Somehow, the spirit of King Crimson is emerging in a more telling fashion within the ProjeKt fractals than it could (presently) within the nominal, defined and formally presented "King Crimson". But, this is also not the full picture. This is also not the full Crimson. This is process.

Historically, when Crimson appears it appears without the stages in between presenting themselves on full display. What is now happening is a King Crimson thinking out loud, thinking on its feets, and making it up as it goes along - in full public view. With hindsight, this process will be clear. With foresight, it's clear and confusing.

But hey! this is King Crimson. If any of us, audients or Crims, want an easier life, well that's simply not Crimson. This is the way that it is. It is that way. In that it is that way, it is the way that it is.