Beginning reading for this morning: "Butterfly Economics" by Paul Ormerod (Pantheon 1999). I read his earlier book ("The Death Of Economics" 1995) at the Swiss Cottage Holiday Inn while in London for sessions with The Beloved.
10.57
A good telephone conversation with Ben Bennett regarding future distribution of JGB's recorded talks and meetings. Ben has moved from London and is now living in Massachusetts.
Also, from my e-mails to Andrew Keeling --
By the time we got to record the LTIA album the beginning and end were clear. The opening to the album might be compared to what in a GC performance is called "Tuning The Air". This is a transition period which enables the performer & audience to sense each other, the players to adjust their hearing, and everyone to accomodate themselves to the moment and place.In the context of the time (1972/3) this had the effect of tweaking expectations of how a rock group might begin its evening. There was also the very practical consideration that it gave the FOH mixer a short time to adjust sound levels from the soundcheck. Then, when the powerful riff kicks in (visually pictured as the skyscapers of Manhattan walking sideways), the sound balance in the house was sufficiently set to convey the power of the intention.
I have collected most of my music notebooks and they are at home in Dorset. I don't know how much help they will give you though - they are mainly sketches.
In a recent e-mail to Sid, whose diary entry noted that his book didn't include an account of KC's "good fairy", I suggested that "King Crimson's good fairy is King Crimson". My experience of the currents in play during 1969 (at the very least) leave me in no doubt that the "good fairy" was not a person in the group. The "good fairy" may act through any of the members, but is not itself one of them. I appreciate that (only) one of the characters from 1969 has publicly identified themself as being the GF: I view this as mistaken at best, moving towards illusional / delusional if taken seriously.
The "Good Fairy" is where life, and Crimson, gets interesting.
Sid is working on the ontology of the characters involved: this is more appealing to the fan base, and the Great Men (or Great Prats) theory of history. It has relevance, mostly to remind us that qualitative acts take place despite the people involved in them. This leaves us with the notion of the inexpressible benevolence of the creative impulse: music so wishes to be heard that it sometimes calls on unlikely characters to give it voice, and ears. We may submit to it, and place ourselves at its direction, and in this way become a bridge between the creative possible and the material actual. The "how to do this" is discipline.
You are examining the architecture of what became actual. That leads you back to the impulse / forms / ideation which gave rise to the architecture. In that way, your subject is probably on more solid ground than Sid's: you are approaching the archeology of Crimson, Sid is dealing with the sociology of particular individuals.
Together, you are a good pair. From a professional point of view, this should be complementary. I hope that Sid will be increasingly approached as an "expert" for his considered view, and something will also open for you, although I'm not sure yet where or how this will be.
I sympathise with you spending much of your life as a composer not composing - I have spent more of my life doing interviews about what I play than playing it!
"Right action moves from principle."
