9november2024
The League Of Gentlemen…
1980
The League Of Gentleman were a second-division touring new wave instrumental dance band. A cooking live band, which failed to make a record.
The recording, at Arny’s Shack in Parkstone, was compromised by Johnny Toobad’s health problems. After three days in the studio, Johnny returned to London to see his dealer, leaving the album about 70% finished.
Indiscretions, voices recorded in informal situations, and a vocal by Danielle Dax were added to make up the difference. Indiscretions and the DD vocal on Minor Man had nothing to do with The LofG. Some critical comments were made at the time within the band and also by respected commentators.
In 2022, for the Exposures box set, I chose to accept the original recordings from Arny’s Shack and remove all the non-LofG elements. Simply, it is what it is.
My primary criterion for judgement: does this convince me, now in 2022?
Mark Mushet: Minor Man was a favourite track with the Dax vox and I could not understand why, in a box set with so many outtakes and alternate versions tacked on, there was not a version where the original (as released) was included…
RF: I listened to Minor Man (in 2022) and was unconvinced. Discussing my choice at the time, I noted that nothing goes away: anyone sufficiently interested would be able to access the original LofG + Indiscretions + DD version, as I have today.
Mark Mushet: I like that you are willing to entertain unpopular positions…like remaining silent on genuine questions about why Danielle Dax’s vocals were axed from the otherwise exhaustive and excellent Exposures box set. Whatever you do, don’t answer that!
RF: As above, I listened to Minor Man in 2022 and was unconvinced.
Mark Mushet: I prefer the studio recording because I wasn't there for the concerts.
Chris Smith: At the time, the LoG album was the closest one could get to being at one of their gigs when there wasn't one - which was far too often for my taste, since the band could blister paint at live shows. The original vocals remain like the original Blade Runner voice-over to me; perhaps not right with hindsight, perhaps (with Blade Runner) done for compromised reasons - but it's what we fell in love with, and that doesn't change.
RF: I agree with Mr. Smith: our first experience of anything tends to be defining.
David Beardsley
I can hear the band better with instrumental versions…
Mark Mushet
I also love the new clean, unadorned mix.
David Lewis
…because it placed the focus back on to the music.
RF: My view in 2022.
Peter Giaquinta: So glad this record is getting some discussion here...
RF: This interest in The LofG is a surprise to me, and the greatest expression of interest in The League Of Gentleman album that I recall.
Jim McManus: It struck me as odd, that Ms Dax's vocals were removed but the lyrics she sang were printed in the book.
RF: I agree. I didn’t catch this.
Mark Mushet: My feeling was that there might have been some circumstantial / personal regret around the time of creating the music that may have coloured the decisions around including things…
Christopher Keep: Most plausible explanation: "… one thing absolutely missing were these Indescretions. I suspect that it may have something to do with Ms. Walton’s death in the Lockerbie bombing incident in 1988 and Fripp’s ill ease at having these cavalier snatches of conversation representing her memory." (https://postpunkmonk.com/.../record-review-robert.../...)
RF: There were personal elements involved, and two of the Indescreeters are no longer with us, but Ms. Walton is not involved here.
Primarily, my choice to return to The LofG elements, unadorned, was directed by my dissatisfaction with the original.
Mark Mushet: Partly, for me, it's also nostalgia, which I'm mostly suspicious of.
RF: Agreed. I don’t do nostalgia.
Walter Rovere: ...but I would say that from the point of view of both fans of the League of Gentlemen LP (to me one of new wave's masterpieces)…
RF: A generous assessment, and one that I don’t recall reading before.
Walter Rovere: …that could have happened for a number of reasons:
1. the artist not being happy with the record and wishing to change it:
RF: That resonates with me.
Walter Rovere: very problematic I would say from a music history point of view...
RF: Highly problematic. Fortunately for me I’m not a music historian.
Mark Mushet: …but the Exposures box offered such a great sounding and complete-ish collection (at an absurdly low price considering the effort) that having it not included obviously remains glaring for a smallish number of us.
RF: The Exposures box, as with all DGM / Panegyric box sets, failed miserably to keep to any conventional commercial criteria for compiling boxes.
Mark Mushet: The autograph thing is an odd one. I only ask if there is a meaningful interaction of some kind.
RF: There can be meaningful interactions where autography brings together the parties IMO. But that discussion is not for this post.
David Beardsley: accountability demanded!
RF: How could it be otherwise?
Eric Tamm’s Chapter Eight has informative comments on The LofG, and my thinking at the time, for anyone interested…
https://web.archive.org/web/20120303085040/http://www.progressiveears.com/frippbook/ch08.htm
https://web.archive.org/web/20120404061258/http://www.progressiveears.com/frippbook/ch09.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_League_of_Gentlemen_(band)
https://www.dgmlive.com/news/johnny-toobad-is-dead
10november2024
All that we properly have in life is the quality of our attention…
The beginning of seeing others, is to see them. This is on the ground floor. Little Me, the egotism, only sees itself. This is in the Basement. This is a lonely place, because Little Me is all there is, bumping blindly around. We are apart from the world, and the world is only our projection of what we think it might be: a larger Basement than ours.
To escape this loneliness, Little Me demands recognition and acknowledgment. But the demand, from what is lower in us, sets up a process which prevents this. The appropriate action is to climb the stairs to the ground floor (first floor US). But Little Me is blind and fails to see the staircase. If Little Me is lucky, a light might be shone to show the way to the staircase. And, if I move up a floor, I might see a world I had somewhere in me always hoped to see, but which appeared to be hiding. Perhaps I sense: this world – with other people in it! – is as available to me as I am myself available to it. I see people as they are, not who I thought they were. Seeing them clearly, perhaps they also see me.
So how to shine a light?
Michael Dornbier: Had you been at least, 'acknowledging' that I existed...even looked me in the eye...when I approached you as you were sitting alone out in the venue (Ballard, WA LoCG) before the show...
RF: Being “looked in the eye” is an act of direct attention. Attention requires a quality of energy which is in short supply. Simply, we have a limited amount of volitional attention available to us. So, to engage our supply of attention requires discrimination. To give our attention, willingly, to others takes a lot from us which, otherwise, may serve our own more immediate aims.
Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity (Simone Weil).
IMO all that we properly have in life is the quality of our attention. The younger Mr. Dornbier perhaps believed he had the right to attract/demand my attention, from my precarious hold, as I was preparing for the performance. Maybe seeking a real contact between what is higher in each of us, with an instinctive sense recognising that what is highest in each of us is not far from what is highest in another; even, at a certain point, that we are the same person. But when we are immature, it’s more about Me.
The practical question, is how to bring about a real contact? IMO by strengthening what is higher in us, so that the Who guides and instructs the What. When I Am, and so are you, then we meet each other. A high form of this is Encounter: where what is highest in each of us recognises itself in the Other: I am Thee and Thee is me. Where this is so, an accompanying sense is present: what is highest in us all is not far from what is Highest.
The good news: this is an entirely practical matter.
The bad news: the price to be paid for seeing ourself in the Other, knowing ourself in that direct and immediate contact, is to leave our egotism in the Basement. We drop all the demands for attention by Little Me.
More good news: the means to develop presence and engagement with others are readily available from many schools and ways, providing we go looking for them with Wish and open eyes.
Even more good news: although we don’t know it, those schools and ways are already calling to us. If only we might listen, if only we can listen.
So, what is required for Encounter?
Innocence, which takes two primary forms:
How not to bring this about this Encounter?
Where what is lower in us demands acknowledgement. In a word, egotism. Egotism only recognises itself. When the lower demands recognition and acknowledgement, it sets up an action which limits the exchange, such that the higher is not seen and has little room to engage. Barriers are put in place which prevent us from being available to reach each other: our attitude of entitlement, the right to be acknowledged!
Worse than this IMO – I have right to be acknowledged because I give you money! At which point our simple human contact is governed by commerce.
What is a high form of acknowledging an audient? By being present. Being present, for the musician, enables a space/place where music can move through/past them and into the performance space. When this takes place the action is utterly impersonal, yet experienced as intimate.
To be present is a lifetime’s work and in a moment. There are degrees and qualities of presence, and qualities of presence which are more/less enduring and ongoing.
Fine words. What is our own experience?
11november2024
I am no longer prepared to absorb the desires of others, particularly where this undermines my integrity and compromises my aim.
Responses to the DGM Guestbook:
1. The Award for Dopiest Post of Recent Weeks goes to Joe Anstett.
In reference to the illicit taper at a ProjeKct Four performance in Boulder, Joe moves to defend the right of bootleggers to spittle-free footwear when challenged in the midst of their illicit acts, and indicates the Venal Leader's clear hypocrisy when he involves himself in the editing and duplication of Mr. Bennett's recorded talks. What a creep, that Fripp!
However, Joe's argument is somewhat undermined when we consider the differing conditions of recording.
i) The recording of Mr. Bennett was with his explicit permission (if not at his initiative). Some of these recordings were sold publicly before Mr. Bennett's death. All the recordings of Mr. Bennett to which I have access were / are legitimate, and with his approval.
ii) The recording of P4 in Boulder was in flagrant violation of a clear injunction and request to refrain. The posters on display to that effect did not appear in the theatre by accident: they were prominently and deliberately posted, at my direct instruction, so that no-one would be able to spuriously claim in public argument or discussion that they were unaware of the non-consensual nature of their act.
As a non-consensual act, the recording was illegitimate and a violation of the performers, the performance, and (I suggest) the audience.
This is a debate / discussion in which I have been publicly engaging in print since (at least) 1980. No bootlegger, or bootlegger's apologist, has yet presented a convincing argument as to why and how any non-consensual act might be considered legitimate. As an illegitimate act, it is indefensible.
The taper's acknowledgement is surely: I wanted to do this, so I did it without regard for the feelings and concerns of those I am violating; and I don't care.
iii) A further argument, for advocates of spittle-free footwear, might be: "But DGM releases bootleg recordings of King Crimson!". My responses to this possible (and feeble) argument:
a) DGM honours the injunction: turn a seeming disadvantage to your advantage.
b) An action, any action, bears the intent of its agent. "Bootlegging" in 1969 was an act of relative innocence. There was (in my view), no intention to steal from the air; although inevitably the performance would have been affected in the subtler dimensions, where performances reflect / mirror the "real" world.
c) Contemporary recording is accepted by some performers, rejected by others. In performances of which I am a part, if anyone feels they have "the right" to record, you don't. If you feel "the need" to record a performance which you attend, please go to someone else's performance.
d) I am no longer prepared to absorb the desires of others, particularly where this undermines my integrity and compromises my aim.
2. Problems for the Lacanian friend of the poster:
What is "real"? and "There is / are no absolute/s".
My sympathy is with anyone who has difficulties in discussing / debating what might be "real" or "objective". How to define "reality" in sufficiently satisfactory terms to undertake a dialogue (a debate is inevitably adversarial) with anyone who rejects concepts / notions / ideas of the "real world"? What are the possibilities of empirically verifying the "real"? Surely the "real" smacks too much of a vagueness and "mysticism" which isn't / aren't open to clear discussion between thoughtful people? Comments:
i) My personal approach is to begin with the experiential. Like, childbirth and dying. Both are universal and, to me, utterly mysterious while practically verifiable. Each birth and death is unique, and universal. Both processes, once accepted and underway, are inevitable. This leads to questions regarding the quality with which we live and die. Whatever opinions we hold while living, eventually, necessarily, we experience dying.
So, my own simple answer to the question "what is real?" begins with this: "Anything to do with the necessities of living and dying". This addresses degrees of necessity or, alternatively expressed, the quality and intensity with which we embrace our living and dying. Practically, this moves the focus of our enquiry to the more and less necessary.
ii) "Mystical" experiences (alternatively, perceptions of more and less subtlety) ARE open to reasoned debate - but only between those who are practised to a sufficient degree of proficiency / competence in the particular area of endeavour being discussed.
Religions present "truths" to their congregations / communities: the "what-to-do" of living. Living traditions present to the seeker / enquiring sceptic / student what needs to be done to test these "truths"; that is, the "how-to-do" the "what-to-do". Why bother to "debate" meditation with someone who hasn't sat on the mat for at least ten years? Otherwise, they have an insufficient experiential background. Even after ten years, the penny will only be about-to-be-beginning to drop. After 21 years, then a dialogue may have value.
If I were a research scientist, I would undertake a sufficient period of training in that particular discipline, fulfilling the instructions and injunctions to meet the consensus view as to what constitutes competence in that field. Then, I would present the results of my research to a community of peers and elders for their adjudication and consideration. Otherwise, my opinions are only degrees of tosh, and a relativity of dribble. (Cf. Ken Wilber, particularly "The Eye of Spirit").
We may go to concerts but we don't assume to be sufficiently qualified to authoritatively engage with a concert soloist on the "realities" of what they do, how they do it, why they do it, and (more particularly in this context) their experiencing of what they do. Although a "connoisseur" would be able to engage in dialogue up to a point.
iii) One of the characteristics of sound is that it carries / bears the intent (non-intent, and degrees of intent) which inform / direct / initiate that sound. Non-intentional sound is best described as noise. One form of intentional sounding is music.
On occasions, I know the music being presented to me is real. If you were to ask me -"How can you know this is real?" - I would answer: "I have been in this place; it is where music arises; I know this perfume". Then, you would gauge the merit of my judgement/opinion by examining/assessing my life and living of it, my work, and my way of working. The listening community would then form a consensus as to the authority of (in this example) Fripp, or whichever person is presenting a judgement. The judgement may be accepted as authoritative, rejected as speculative/unformed, immature/plain wrong, and/or somewhere on the continuum between the two.
The aim which directs the striking/sounding of a note is born on/carried within the note; the note also bears the impress of the personal state and condition of the player sending that note out into the world (their physical health, intensity of presence, capacity for feeling, quality of knowing and understanding). That is, the action of sending the note outwards into the world is directed by the player's intent, and qualified by their being.
You won't find this referred to in textbooks on music, but it is "real" nevertheless. If the enquiring sceptic, engaging in a spirit of critical goodwill, were to ask me to substantiate this claim, they would ask me to present a repeatable "scientific" experiment to "objectively" verify the truth of the proposition.
One of the "repeatable experiments" in Guitar Craft which demonstrates the proposition above is known as "circulations". The full form of this particular "experiment" is called "The Exercise of the Transmission of Qualities". Each "circulation" is different, yet all are the same. The exercise is very practical, exceptionally subtle, and open to all levels of playing experience and qualities of perception.
iv) The intellect is a poor key to open a door to the "real world". Doors closed to the mind sometimes swing open in front of a hungry heart, and sometimes even to those who follow their feet while walking.
v) The statement "there are no absolutes" is itself an absolute statement. If I accept this statement as true, then:
a) There are no absolutes, because this statement is true.
b) There is an (at least one) absolute, because this statement is absolute.
So, if both these statements are true, may there be a continuum between the two extremes, of degrees of absoluteness and degrees of relativity (non-absoluteness?). This would give relativity as a bottom line, the absolute as a top line, with the absolutely relative and the relatively absolute in between:
the absolute
the absolutely relative
the relatively absolute
the relative
Experientially, I would ask myself: what do I know of the "the" absolute? the relative? In a post-modern world, we may be prepared to accept that contradictory impulses might be equally true, as the original statement rather implies. If statements are true, both relatively and absolutely, we may be prepared to accept shades of grey - like, the truly relative and the relatively true.
Is the "true" capable of bearing differing degrees of quality, quantity and intensity? May I experience contradictory impulses simultaneously, like weeping with remorse while laughing with joy?
The twentieth century has been a century (at least partly) governed by the notion of relativity. In my own life and living, points along the continuum tend to be at the forefront of my experience. So, approaching the absolute statement that there are no absolutes, I note that notions of relativity are easily applied to questions of quantity, but more difficult when we consider questions of quality.
For example, the fragrance of a rose. Is this absolutely the scent of a rose, or relatively the scent of a rose? If the fragrance is weak, is this no longer the scent of a rose? I accept that the fragrance may be more or less intense, more or less blended with adjoining fragrances, but incline to the view that, if a rose is a rose is a rose, then a fragrance is a fragrance is a fragrance, regardless of how much of it there is available to my nose.
23.05 On the way home I popped in to visit Pierre and Vivien Elliot, off to London tomorrow, to bid them the best of the season. Reports of Mr. Gurdjieff, first hand from people who were with him, arrive with directness and power. Tonight, I was happy to view Pierre's orchid, which he proudly led me to inspect in the kitchen, and visit with two post-mature friends.
12november2024
My life as a professional musician changed irrevocably from that point…
Wednesday 23rd. December, 1998; 15.50
I met Karin Durbin when she was writing an article on The Roches for the Village Voice. Karen was interested in interviewing the producer of their debut record on Warner Bros., and through Karen I met M. Mark. These two sharp, sophisticated and articulate women, and living in the city of New York, were a liberating and catalysing experience for an unsophisticated guitarist in their early thirties, recalibrating a course through life.
New York freed me from the stultifying external pressures of England and Englishness: a requisite affectation of mediocrity; a culture of envy, negativity and passivity; stinginess as an art form; the demand to apologise for my / our work - "getting above ourselves a bit, aren't we?"; cliched perceptions and trite commentaries to fix me / us in a (perceived) orbit and place in life - "who do you think you are?"; these manifestations of Englishness had no currency or necessity in New York City.
One defining moment: a Saturday afternoon in March 1978, during brunch at M.'s small apartment in the Village with Karen and M., and a visiting writer / editor from the West Coast, I took a decision: I was no longer prepared to censor my intelligence.
New York provided the geographical cure. The personal cure, reconciling and freeing myself from the internalised and archaic forms of Englishness, took longer. But this decision, one Saturday afternoon at M.'s, was crucial.
Karen had an apartment on West 20th. Street, which provided a home for her and for Fripp & Eno. That is, Karen's two cats, Fripp & Eno. And Eno eat his brother's food (Karen). Sometimes, when visiting New York (I returned to Wimborne and acquired Fripp World HQ in December 1979), this Fripp slept on Karen's Chelsea couch. As daylight came into the apartment would Fripp & Eno become frisky, hurtling in brotherly play around the lounge. Sometimes they ran over my head, as on one morning in July 1981 about 08.05. I sat up, seeing how it was that music comes into our lives; and, accompanying this seeing, a brief sense / glimpse of what lies behind music. My life as a professional musician changed irrevocably from that point.
13november2024
Perceptions of more and less subtlety, such as creative insight and decision making, are open to reasoned debate, but only between those who are practised to a sufficient degree of proficiency / competence in the particular area of endeavour being debated. These are conventionally referred to as adult conversations.
How can I be a professional musician?...
Wednesday 23rd. December, 1998.
An ongoing question asked by many students in Guitar Craft: "How can I be a professional musician?". The quick answer is this: why? and you probably can't.
To earn a living as a professional musician means that people give you money. If anyone is going to part with their hard-earned pay, it's likely to be on the basis that:
1. The musician gives them something that they want; or:
2. The musician gives them something that they need.
The only possible alternative I can conceive is that of permitting the outbreak of charitable acts, which has precedents in several traditions (the Zen monk's begging bowl, for example). But this is not an intent I have recognised in the GC students and aspirant pros that have come to me for advice.
The two Argentinian Guitar Craft students referred to above: both are professional; that is, they are prepared to accept money for playing guitar and giving guitar lessons. Both of them are broke. Last year I advised them to go to GIT in Los Angeles, which provides an excellent education in the what-to-do expected / required of contemporary professional guitarists. Neither went.
On a personal level, I don't blame them: leaving home, family and friends is hard. I know. I haven't been at home much since 1967. So, what personal price is the aspirant professional musician prepared to pay? What limitations is the player going to set on the demands made of them by music and / or the professional life?
My advice remains the same, to nearly every aspirant player: have a richly enjoyable, sustaining and nourishing hobby. You need make no compromises with the music you play. If you become successful as a semi-pro, then you can move full-time if you wish. But if you have rent to pay, a wife and children who would like occasionally to be fed, you may well discover that you are prepared to lie (musically) for money. This is the shadow side of being a professional musician (cf Laurie Lee's poem "The Bird").
14november2024
Any right is accompanied by a corresponding obligation…
A primary characteristic of being present is that, in “seeing” ourselves, we see others. If we are present to ourselves, we make no demand on others for acknowledgement: acknowledging myself is sufficient. If there are others in the room who are present, they also see me: no demand from me upon them is necessary.
If we are not present, we are blind to others. And, not seeing others, we are blind to ourselves. If others are not present to themselves, they will not see me either. Likely we will bump into each other – It’s not my fault - you bumped into me!!! I have the right to wander around, head placed where sunshine never falls! It’s your fault – I have no responsibility in the matter! The squawking begins.
I place no demand upon others for acknowledgement. If they are present, they see me. If they are not present, in a sense, they are not there. Why do I need the attention of someone who isn’t there?
Any right is accompanied by a corresponding obligation. When I claim the right to acknowledgment and recognition by others, I accept a corresponding obligation: to be present. When I am present, I have no need to exert this right.
When I feel the need to be acknowledged, I know that I am not here very much: I am more absent than present. If I wish to change the situation, to see and be seen, this becomes a practical matter. What to do? To strengthen the intensity, the substantiality, the direct knowing and experiencing of my presence, which has recognisable characteristics. If these recognisable characteristics are not apparent, I know I am not.
Are those with a developed sense of personal presence “better” people? Hardly. A characteristic of a mature practice is that we see our failings shining way more brightly than when we began. This is no obstacle to work.
On we go…
If we could understand performance, we’d know how the world works…
The comments below are taken from my response to a discussion between several members of The Guitar Circle who attended the course in Argentina, Monday 15th. – Sunday 21st., April 2024 https://guitarcraft.com/event/the-world-needs-us-right-now-2024.
The online discussion took place on the Ground Floor (First Floor US), that is, we see each other, recognise each other, acknowledge each other, and then begin the conversation. The comments are based in, and move from, direct personal experience. Conventionally this is referred to as adult conversation.
If all of life might begin this well.
COLLECTIVE ENGAGEMENT
Within The Performance Event
I
How to bring about an inclusive, equitable and loving society?
A finer quality of functioning, or frequency level (conscious, creative, loving), generates new forms of social organisation, supportive of an ideal society.
Some forms of organisation are more conducive than others in raising the quality of society’s functioning.
So how to go about this?
To shape and model the external forms of society from the outside requires power in the world – wealth, position, influence.
To model a culture from the inside requires that we develop our inner lives, a personal harmony of heart, head and hands, to an intensity of being that has effect on the outside world. This requires a personal practice.
The process is of an increasing approximation to the ideal. Cf Let The Power Fall (below).
Our discussion points seem to be:
approaches to performance practice;
audience engagement within performance;
forms of social organisation apparent within performance;
heckling.
Within a performance, where does the authority/power lie? In conventional discussion: The event is negotiated between the participants. The terms are musician/performer, audient, director/music industry.
The intrinsic/implicate power within the event itself – the performance’s own wish to be - does not factor in conventional/academic discussion.
II
Performance
If we could understand performance, we’d know how the world works. Something like, the Creation as performance.
How does an impulse of inexpressible loving benevolence, that wishes to give itself away, enter our world and move directly into our experience? Moving from the noumenal to the phenomenal, the unconditioned to the conditioned?
The Creation is a big thing. Performance is accessible, available to our participation and experiencing.
II
Heuristics Of Performance
A performance is dynamic.
A performance is impossible to control.
You cannot tell an audience how to behave.
A performance can take on a life of its own.
A performance wishes to be.
A performance event is a negotiation between all parties to the performance.
A performance is constrained by the practicalities of the event: time, place, person and circumstance.
Music has its own contributory power, but its presence in a performance may be constrained and disrupted.
There are different qualities of performance.
A performance of genius has global effect and persists in time.
A genius audient enables the performance to be.
A performance may present a model of an ideal society.
A performance has the potential for the participants to directly experience what is highest in them, by analogy what is highest in us all, and so what is Highest.
The primary responsibility of the performer is to be true.
The audience has the right, perhaps even a responsibility, to remind the performer that they serve the music.
III
Overall Criteria For Judgement
Time, place, person, circumstance.
Different cultures have different performance traditions, forms and conventions.
Performance spaces bring their own spirit and characteristics, eg in the European concert tradition the auditoria modelled social class. Performances in churches, clubs, bars, amphitheatres, sports stadia, burlesque theatres, open air music festivals have varying feels specific to the spaces.
Audiences reflect their wider culture. Latin and predominantly Catholic cultures – eg Spain, Italy, Mexico, Argentina and Chile – have very different performance cultures to those of the US, UK, Europe, Scandinavia and Japan. Currently under discussion is how the role, position and treatment of women varies within different cultures, and the effect and relevance of this for gender equality within GC. Cf an initiative by a pal of mine, Tahir Shah… https://scheherazadefoundation.org/aims/
The outer forms of social organisation ideally support our inner lives.
Our inner lives influence the outer forms of society and the overall culture, a reflection of our inner harmony.
15november2024
The comments below continue on from my response to a discussion between several members of The Guitar Circle attending the course in Argentina, Monday 15th. – Sunday 21st., April 2024 https://guitarcraft.com/event/the-world-needs-us-right-now-2024.
IV
The Guitar Circle
Nothing is compulsory, but some things are necessary.
A primary aim for me on courses is to support conditions where attendees can explore who and what they are, their responsibilities to what is right in their lives, within a space that allows for experimenting with varying personal approaches to their work. This assumes a commonality of aim and goodwill, implies that the space is open and safe, and the explorations of others are mutually supported.
The bottom line is tolerance. A higher line is to place ourselves in the position of others.
As Guitar Craft developed from local to regional, national and international, and into the Guitar Circle, with over four thousand attendees historically and several hundred currently active, our forms of organisation have developed to deal with the practicalities. These include the setting up of courses and projects, communicating, financing and planning, now on three continents.
The Guitar Circle is not an organisation, but to act in the normal-abnormal world the Circle needs organising. There are different kinds and qualities of organisation, with conventional models available. Loving models are yet to be more widely established. One specific model, which does not fit GC well, is that of the professional organisation. The primary aim of a professional organisation is to maintain itself and the interests of the Power Possessors within it. The Guitar Circle, when its work is completed, will disappear. But although the Circle not a business, it must be businesslike.
Some forms of organisation are more supportive of an ideal society. A group or community, acting in goodwill to serve a common aim, will modify and adapt its form of organisation to increasingly approximate to the ideal.
Where people come together, inevitably there is disagreement. Political action is the craft and art of managing and reconciling disagreement. Inevitably, within GC there will be political arisings. In political life in the normal-abnormal world, the final step in managing disagreement is compulsion: legal, economic and military.
Within GC nothing is compulsory, although some things are necessary. The GC House Rules are the closest we get to setting norms of behaviour. The Rules present guidelines necessary for participation, define the limits of behaviour, and introduce GC culture to courses. If there were no Guitar Craft House Rules, there would be no Guitar Craft.
Cf the Elizabethan Settlement of late 16th. Century England: believe whatever you like, but behave according to the polity’s norms of orthodox conduct. In GC, we are not asked to accept what seems to be GC orthodoxy. Rather, we are asked not to believe anything unless questioned and tested within our own experience. So, even the House Rules are open for discussion and modification as the GC environment changes through time, place, person and circumstance.
Conflicting beliefs and worldviews are inevitable and contribute to GC vibrancy and dynamic, subject to politeness, courtesy and goodwill. The different cultures interacting within GC bring a rich diversity of opportunities to broaden our own worldview, and possible disagreement when the worldviews appear incompatible.
If we share an aim and engage with goodwill, the possible becomes possible. Sometimes the impossible becomes possible.
V
Robert says…
Since the beginning of Guitar Craft, I have stood in front of God (whatever God may be for me) and accepted responsibility for GC activities. This has given me the freedom to act in the confidence that, if a tab arrives, I pay it. And if not paid in life, then upon my death.
I accept that the person at the top (even in a flat hierarchy) sets the tone for the culture of the undertaking.
There has been a change in the nature of my role, between Guitar Craft and the Guitar Circle. Guitar Craft was a way of craft, with an instructor directing the work of the students, some of whom in an earlier time would have been considered apprentices. The courses were small, localised, and I was directly involved with all attendees, pretty much full-on.
I do not control the activities of The Guitar Circle.
It is necessary that this is so.
It is not my aim to tell people what to do.
Although I could.
Very few who ask for my advice want to hear it.
If they do, they get my best shot.
This hasn’t made me friends.
And I have real friends.
If you have something to say in the moment, say it.
Don’t wait for Robert to say what you think he should say.
He might be waiting for you.
I have a high tolerance for dissent.
One of my prime functions in GC is to hold the space open.
A second prime function is to hold the forces together.
A third prime function is to keep the process in motion: to unfix things when they’re getting stuck.
A fourth prime function is to see and hear people.
Whatever we think is going on, probably isn’t.
I cultivate the attitude that what is in front of me is an opportunity.
When my feet go walking, I follow.
16november2024
Arguments, agreements, advice, answers…
Chris Fleming: It’s unclear to me why Robert Fripp is posting this…
Djogo Patrão: Why Fripp answers internet trolls? He is around since ET so he should know better.
RF: Two or three clicks away… https://www.dgmlive.com/news/why-publish-negative-posts
Why Publish Negative Posts?
I
To refine my personal practice
1. To develop equanimity, to find a Still Point within the swirlingness of a life mostly conducted in public view.
In traditional practices, such as Buddhism, this Still Point tends to be cultivated through meditation. In my practice, may I find equanimity within the (frequently hostile) conditions of my professional life? These are “three winds” of musicians, audients and industry players.
2. To see myself more clearly.
This by monitoring my affective-response to whether any comment “lands” in my feelings. If so, what does this tell me? If not, what does this tell me?
A real Friend will tell us what we need to know about ourselves. Conventionally, few friends will risk their friendship by being honest about our shortcomings and achievements. So, it is easier to receive clear feedback from our “enemies” than our “friends”, wishing and hoping that both enemies and friends are impartial.
3. To see ourselves as others see us.
4. A pointed stick.
There have been times when Fripp has been fashionable: these are times of danger.
As a young man in his twenties, going home to Wimborne, Dorset served as a useful reminder of status. As a young man in his thirties, living in NYC, the three criteria were:
i) ride on public transport wherever possible;
ii) do your own grocery shopping;
iii) do your own laundry.
5. To extend to others the courtesy required of human beings in dialogue; and where this is beyond me, to be polite.
6. To know directly the poverty of my being.
7. To remind myself: at a certain point, we are all the same person.
What is highest in me is not far from what is highest in you. What is highest is you, is not far from what is highest is us all. What is highest is us all, is close to what is Highest.
Whatever we understand by Highest.
II
To refine my professional practice
1. To develop an ethics of musical engagement where the relationship between music, musicians and audience is mediated by commerce; ie to negotiate the terms of Performance Practice in a market culture.
2. To develop criteria for interaction between musicians and audients where the relationship is mediated by music; ie to negotiate the terms of Performance Practice in a musical culture.
3. To engage with those who have taken a specific interest in my work.
4. To report on the professional life.
5. To hold up a mirror.
6. To hold to account. We are all accountable for our actions; and publicly accountable for our actions in public.
7. To demonstrate that our actions have effect; even where these appear to be small; even where we believe these will make no difference.
III
What have I learnt?
(inter alia)…
1. What we see in others is what we know most deeply in ourselves.
2. If our head is placed where sunshine never falls, better not to go out in public and comment on the weather.
3. Nothing is possible in The Basement.
4. A reasonable person might despair.
5. Goodwill is not enough.
But it is a very good beginning.
6. Act with courtesy.
Otherwise, be polite.
7. The centre of discipline: the level at which we are able to maintain control in the face of a challenge.
So, all in all, part of an excellent liberal education for that young man who set off from Dorset to London in 1967.
Thursday 16th. April, 2020;
Bredonborough, Middle England.
Djogo Patrão: I am too well versed on the interwebz but could not find the answer in two or three clicks as promised…
Robert Fripp… has been known to respond to internet trolls in a way that’s thoughtful, witty, and sometimes cutting. There are a few reasons why he might choose to do this:
1. Protecting His Legacy: Fripp is deeply passionate about his music and the artistic integrity of his work. Trolls often spread misinformation or disparage him, and responding allows him to set the record straight and defend his legacy.
2. Engaging with Humor and Wit: Fripp has a sharp intellect and a dry sense of humor, which he often uses to turn trolling into an opportunity for clever engagement. By doing this, he can defuse negativity and show the absurdity of some comments.
3. Respect for Dialogue: Fripp has often spoken about the importance of discourse and authenticity. Responding to trolls might be his way of participating in the conversation, even when it's critical, as long as it’s done respectfully.
4. A Philosophy of Interaction: Fripp has a philosophical approach to many things, including how he engages with the world. He might view trolls as an opportunity to teach or provoke thought, rather than merely ignoring them.
5. Playfulness: Fripp and his wife, Toyah Willcox, have a playful relationship with their online personas, as seen in their quirky YouTube videos. Engaging with trolls could be another outlet for this playfulness, turning negativity into a creative act.
His approach exemplifies how someone can handle criticism and negativity with grace, intelligence, and sometimes humor, without sinking to the level of the trolls themselves.
RF: An excellent summation, and generously so. Thank you. Also two or three clicks away…
APOLOGIA PRO VITA SUA
3november2024
To engage with others requires that we are available to engage.
How to deal with Basement engagements?
From my own experience…
Run away.
Decline to engage.
Block.
Seek to raise the frequency level…
One technique is to present a shock to the person making a demand, to “loosen up” the fix on what they believe they want (when something far more valuable may be available).
The application of reason: to present arguments as to why the demand is inappropriate.
To behave otherwise.
To make a gesture.
To give a look.
To make a joke.
To make an unexpected comment.
To challenge the reason for the demand.
To call out the assumption.
Sometime this has had (what I would subjectively judge as) a beneficial effect: human contact became available, if only for a moment.
Is inappropriate conduct “forgivable”? Every hour of the day, every day of the week.
Is inappropriate conduct excusable? Rarely IMO.
Is inappropriate conduct defensible? Rarely IMO. Although frequent in my professional life. There seems to be a process:
1. Seeking acknowledgement in various inappropriate forms which militate against engagement.
2. The form of acknowledgement is declined.
3. Outrage accompanied by self-justification. Fripp dissed me! The creep.
Outrage may persist for years, in recent online examples, even some for 35 years.
An alternative viewpoint…
Erik Neuteboom Prog Reviewer Posted: July 26 2006 at 05:59
Robert Fripp is a passive-agressive, very demanding personality. If things doesn't work as he wants he starts to behave very rude like disqualifying, ignoring, provoking and often making rude of humiliating comments. For example, he annoyed people around him by playing scales on his guitar for hours or didn't speak to the other band members on tour for days because he was upset about a small thing ...
I suggest to read In The Court Of King Crimson by Sid Smith (I have reviewed it on this site), you will be astonished how rude Robert Fripp can be …
RF: Not astonished at all.
Chris Fleming:… A Progress Report: In line with the suggestion, I used my initiative and clicked the recommended number of times and found Robert Fripp Declaiming in Capitals. It was very enjoyable.
However - and it’s a dreadful thing to admit - but there are some things a long, dull, formal education will ruin in a person well beyond anaphylaxis in the face of typographical idiosyncrasies.
As such, I chose then Option B, the music, and found here a satisfactory reply - which shouldn’t be surprising. (Some might even say that looking to Mr Fripp for conceptual precision or philosophical sophistication might be akin to looking to Kant for an outrageous guitar solo - or one which would at least sound good to a musician, and not just other philosophers. (I, of course, would *never* say such a thing.)
In short, I appreciate the reply and consider my curiosity both well-chided and well-satisfied. I am in Mr Fripp’s debt. (I am indebted here not just for his initial reply, but for the generous provision of entirely unexpected fun.)
RF: Gratitude to Dr. Fleming https://chrisfleming.academia.edu/research#books for his interest and comments. Thank you also for Why Did Slavoj Zizek Become So Popular?
Option B, always the best way IMO and only one click away. This ripped my guts when I played the guitar line in 1975, and it ripped my guts, powerfully, beginning in my heart and moving out through my torso, when it loaded two minutes ago…
17november2024
Better to sign autographs and posture for photography…
Monday 14th. December, 1998; DGM World Central, Broad Chalke, Wiltshire; 21.50
Guestbook Responses:
"Professional" philosophising is not for me.
Although seeking to understand my life and living of it, and therefore life and the living of it by others, is ongoing.
"Professional" musicianship is not for me.
Although seeking to understand the nature and the power of the creative impulse expressed through music is also ongoing.
This leads me repeatedly to experience, and recognise, that basically decent people continually seek to undermine what is of value in their musical lives; and defend loudly their rights to do do so.
Any performer of wit and intelligence declines to interact in any meaningful fashion with their public, knowing full well they are doomed to be overwhelmed by a clamour of dissentient voices.
There is no way one performer can debate with a public, or listening community, where the accepted "listening" practice is fundamentally undermined by egotism, reification, fetishisation and a demand for personal attention.
Better, for an easier life, to smile and humour the audience: sign autographs, posture for photography, deliver humorous anecdotes of famous friends and exciting adventures.
A philosophy is not a practice.
A practice contains / enshrines a value system, a code of ethics, and is a way of living one's life.
That is, a practice contains a "philosophy" but is not restricted by it.
A philosophy devoid of a practice, generated only through cerebral processes, is a frightening construct.
18november2024
Fixed attitudes, prejudices, beliefs and performance practices limit the possibilities for the performance taking on a life of its own…
Some further comments taken from my response to a discussion between several members of The Guitar Circle who attended the course in Argentina, Monday 15th. – Sunday 21st., April 2024 https://guitarcraft.com/event/the-world-needs-us-right-now-2024.
VII
Lunlunta Performances
There were two performances: the Beginners’ performance within the course (Friday 19th. April, 2024) and The OCG performance inside the church (Saturday 20th. April, 2024).
Both were in sacred space, outside the sphere of commerce, within the environment of a course held in a Catholic retreat house and its church; one private and one publicly-calibrated: private-private and private-public.
Conventionally, in normal/abnormal life of performance mediated by commerce, four terms are needed:
Music
Audience Industry
Musician
In this particular performance, without the direction of a commercial interest, we have…
Music
Audience Director
Musician
The “director” here is the person/s fulfilling the role of organising the performance.
Qualities of engagement
Creative
Sensitive Conscious
Automatic
These qualities apply to performers, audience and organiser/director.
“The higher blends with the lower to actualise the middle”: the presence of fixed attitudes, prejudices, beliefs and fixed performance practices limit the possibilities for the performance taking on a life of its own - they hold down the “frequency level”.
The presence of conscious and creative contributors raises the frequency level, and provides opportunities for those fixed in their attitudes/actions to directly experience a very different way of doing things; eg where an undertaking comes to life in and from itself, where the performance realises itself.
To know this as reality, not merely fine words and a worthwhile aspiration, may even redirect the course of a performer’s life, perhaps also those of audients. Our station, immediately, remains the same. But our higher-frequency experience, our change of state, gives us the taste of what a real performance might be. How we approach and engage in performing changes our experiencing of the event; eg for me, performance is worship, regardless of the conditions.
NB academic enquiry and commentary on audiences and performance does not (in my reading) differentiate between qualities of engagement, experiencing and being.
Four qualities of Audient
Creative / Genius
Enables the performance to realise its potential
bringing the performanceto a higher level
simply by being present in the event
| Sensitive Present / Engaged / Connected / Responsive to and in the moment |
Conscious Connoisseur, informed and experienced in international traditions of performance, cultural expectations in various territories, world musics. |
Automatic
habitual/conventional/ established
performance norms and behaviour
Four qualities of Audience
Community
Collective Group
Crowd
19november2024
You can never tell an audience how to behave…
Qualities Of Heckling
Bottom line: you can never tell an audience how to behave. If you try, in a performance culture mediated by commerce, duck. In many GC courses, look out for peanuts and pieces of ripe fruit flying your way, disappearing chairs, metronomes set to unlikely tempi, a failure of electricity and lighting, flashlights, Thumbjam and other apps, singing and clapping unreliably, joining the performance in various ways, helpful comments and suggestions, et al.
Creative
Showing the performer who they are
| Sensitive Reminding the performer of their responsibility to the performance |
Conscious Reminding the performer of who and what they are |
Automatic
Performance conventions:
Self-referential
Distrust anyone who claims to be contributing to your spiritual life by heckling.
However, if we are refining our personal practice, we may turn this to our advantage. If a person, with a little experience, claims to be “waking us up” by jumping on us with “Are you working on yourself?” we may use this opportunity to strengthen our presence, while forgiving them their presumption.
Very little audience “heckling” in GC is what I recognise as heckling. I do not recall any GC audience participation to be malicious (in my professional life, ill-will is constant).
An example of “genius heckling”: in the Gurdjieff literature, especially at Mr. Gurdjieff’s table in Paris 1946-49, there are accounts of comments directed towards specific people. Also wider comments, seemingly to the room while specifically directed, often followed by gusts of laughter. How might this be in performance?
As an example of conscious heckling: the feel is something like a Zen master “playing” with a novice. A good guide to intentional heckling is available in the records of European court jesters. The jester’s high role was speaking truth to power, this with humour and an implicit trust that the jester/fool was seeking the best for the Power Possessor they served; eg to tell them what others were afraid to say. Historically there are also jesters and holy fools in the Middle and Far East, notably Mulla Nasruddin.
An example of reminding the performer of their responsibility to the performance: Beacon Theatre NYC c. 1978. I booed the star guitarist in an Allstar jazz trio who was clearly impressed with himself.
Quality heckling, undertaken as a piece of work, is intentional and requires:
1. Implicit within the heckling: I Wish for you what I Wish for me.
2. As abottom line, goodwill and, if possible, compassion.
3. The heckler puts themselves in the position of the hecklee.
4. Supports the work of the performer.
5. The heckling is directed and specific, although the direction and specificity may not be what it seems.
6. May be recognised by its seemingly playful, humorous and surprising nature.
7. A wide and broad performance experience, at least two levels above that of the performer. The seven performance levels: domestic, local, regional, national, international, global and interplanetary.
NB Forms of heckling include the gestural.
"The only contribution we make is the quality of our work."
