10.23
DGM HQ.
A grey day in the Chalke Valley. Reassuring whistling came through the wall from the Village Store at 08.31.
New folder: BBP&M. The Purcell Fantasias are in included in a folder of wonderment, werning & delight.
It seems the rehabilitation of King Crimson 1969-74 is not complete. Durrants’ Press Cuttings sent this as a paper file (November 10th.)…
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=35668
Martin Veitch writes…
Allchin reckons that the Vista startup sound alone "is made of dual ascending ’glassy’ melodies played on top of a gentle fading Fripp ’AERO’ Soundscape … has two parallel melodies played in an intentional ‘Win-dows Vis-ta’ rhythm … consists of 4 chords, one for each color in the Windows flag … is ~4 seconds long, end-to-end … [and] is a collaboration between contributors Robert Fripp (primary melody + Soundscape), Tucker Martine (rhythm) and Steve Ball (harmony and final orchestration)."
Four seconds? Maybe Fripp is feeling bad for all the 20-minute epics he and his peers put us through in the Seventies.
I don’t recall any KC 20-minute epic. Perhaps Mr. Veitch might suggest one that he has in mind?
And several items from the Guestbook…
10 Worst Songs To Have Sex To - KC at No 9: Posted by FraKcman on December 13, 2006
At 24 minutes into tonight’s BBC Radio 4 arts magazine programme "Front Row"...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/radio4_aod.shtml?radio4/frontrow
....there is an item by writer Andrew Collins: "The Top Ten Worst Songs To Have Sex To". Andrew reports...
"At nine: "Larks’ Tongues In Aspic" Parts 1 and 2 by King Crimson. To think many people born in the early 70’s will have been conceived to progressive rock like this. Their bones must be made of joss sticks!"
I believe this comment perfectly summarises the issue and obstacles confronting and opposing the rehabilitation of King Crimson (in the UK).
While, it seems to me, it might be perfectly valid to propose LTIA Pt 1 for this poll, to select LTIA Pt 2 is absurd and only reveals the writer’s ignorance.
The first time I heard LTIA Pt 2, it was introduced as "Vista of Sweaty Bodies Under Arc Lighting". It seems to me to be (and be intended to be) supremely, explicitly sexual - indeed blatantly orgasmic. This was the music that was was purloined for use as soundtrack to the sex scenes in the movie "Emmanuelle" for heavens sake!!!
So come on Andrew Collins... stop this sloppy journalism because it misleads.
The producers of Emmanuelle were clearly more in touch with the music of LTIA II than Mr. Collins; and the bones of anyone conceived to Part One have a large proportion of apprehension, terror, inevitability & metal in addition to joss sticks within their DNA.
Extra H?:: Posted by gregjames on December 13, 2006
Of late, I’ve noticed an extra "H" in RF’s self-descriptive acronym. At first I thought it may be jet-lag induced typing, but it popped up again in today’s diary entry. I’m just wondering what it stands for. I thought I was up to speed on this stuff and had him pegged merely as the "Raging, Heartless and Venal Leader" of DGM. Is he also "Horrible" on top of this? "Harrowing"? "Heinous"? I’d hate to be thinking of him as just "Horrible", when something more specific may be intended. Please clear up this mystery for me - pretty please!!!
This refers to a Guestbook entry on November 7th…
Halloween Diary entry: Posted by rrukrigl on November 07, 2006
So why do we have RF taking a photographs of children (presumably not his own kin)?
It being Halloween should be irrelevant.
I wouldn’t ask this of 99.99% of the populace, but after having read untold RF interviews where he has decried having his photo taken by strangers (presumably fans and not during a performance/meal-understood that those are taboo), I’m sensing a wee bit of hypocrisy.
My response was… Interesting: why the assumption of hypocrisy by Mr. Rrukrigi? Why assume the negative? I’m not aware of Mr. Rrukrigi replying to this question.
So, the H is for Hypocritical.
YES...but...:: Posted by lotusspray on December 12, 2006
Yes it was always a mistake to lump KC in with ELP, Genesis, or YES.
But in extinguishing once cliche let’s not enable another shall we?
Never cared much for ELP. Never cared much for Genesis except for LAMB LIES DOWN...which I really really like.
But I’m willing to engage in verbal combat with Mr Fripp, anybody to argue for the proposition that between 1972 & early 1973 YES were a righteous kick-ass band.
I am lacking in courage sufficient to engage in any form of combat with Mr. Spray.
In 1968 Michael Giles returned to Chez GG&F, Brondesbury Road, from the Cream farewell show at the RAH. He was quietly raving about the support band: Yes. I first saw Yes at the Marquee on Wardour Street, Soho, in the Autumn of 1968 & the young Crims & Yeses became pals, sometimes sharing vans & stages.
King Crimson had the juice in 1969. Yes had the juice in 1971.
18.24 Returned from Witchampton & Wimborne.
Met Sister in Witchampton Churchyard where we were visiting Parents. Sister was already waiting for her Brother when he arrived…
… and had arranged the wreath…
… and dressed as Mother would have wished…
Looking down to the church where Toyah & I married on May 16th. 1986…
… and right to Fernhill House…
… look a little bit further…
Fernhill House was my home from 1980-87 & recently acquired new owners.
Then into Wimborne & The Blue Fig a restaurant el fabbo which is Dorset Restaurant of the Year 2006
See the For Sale sign on the premises adjoining The Blue Fig: it says Alan Cosgrove
Sister & I are having lunch with Alan & Susie Wyatt, both old Winburnian pals…
Two doors to the left of the Blue fig is the former sweetshop…
… where my sister & I would spend our 12 pence, one whole shilling, on a Saturday morning 51 years ago, before getting some fish & chips in the chippy which became Smith’s Fish & Chip Shop and, most recently, The Blue Fig.
Cozzer took over my job as a junior negotiator in Welch & Lock, Estate Agents, my Father’s firm, when I became a professional musician in 1967. Alan’s business premises are the former Fripp World HQ, and which I sold him in 1987.
A hundred yards east along Leigh Road is the former site of Welch & Lock, where the Fripp family lived above the office I...
II...
III...
This was my home between the age of 8 and 21. My bedroom was the first floor (2nd. Floor US) on the right, in the cream extension. This extension was a thin (no cavity) brick wall, and very very cold in winter. My bedroom heating was a small, old-form gas fire with a heat-broadcasting range of about one foot.
The ground floor office, to the left of the front door, was where Greg Lake would visit on a late Friday evening with his guitar, and we would rock out together.
Rear…
Next door is Turnpike Cottage…
Mr. Horobin lived here in my youth, followed by Lys de Bray, the author
http://www.addall.com/detail/046004513X.html
Rare to find a thatched cottage in the middle of a town? There is another in Wimborne, not far from the Tivoli, and which Susie Wyatt rented a few years ago when returning from London.
Looking west along Leigh Road, back towards The Blue Fig…
… and from Poole Corner towards the town centre & Minster…
Driving-around-Dorset music, continuing listening to Gurdjieff’’s Oriental Suite
Now, back at DGM HQ, listening is Fripp & Eno - Live at the Paris Olympia in May 1975.
19.40 F&E - wow!
DGM were sent the bootleg of this. I listened & thought it sucked. Pitiful. As if there aren’t enough reasonable bases for despondency already, why add this to a long list? The team at DGM were, however, excited. They’ve done some work on the sound: despondency & pity are no longer in my repertoire of responses. I am able to re-enter that moment, and this was quite an event. The juxtapositions and shifts between moods are quite something. The Gallic audients also cough & chatter, occasionally applauding while kicking the microphone surreptitiously recording the event.
The guitar I used on this gig, the black 1959 Les Paul, is presently six feet from these typing hands, the instrument used on all 1969-75 albums.
20.01 More yow! These two young men are going for it.
20.22 Continuing with Long Terror as the final piece.
20.34 Well. This one has taken me places. Most likely to be filed under classic gig.
20.38 In response to an e-mail from the ambassador of the Estonian Republic to the UK I have put on Evensong from Tallinn. Immediately it has me in. The distance between F&E in Paris & Evensong is 31 years & 3 months.
21.41 Now, a further response to Dr. Laidre: Soundscapes in Tartu on August 26th. 2006. This is a performance that somehow positions itself outside the time stream, while gently unfolding. The last piece, the encore, drops out at 3’52”: the memory-time available on John’s recording-computer expired. Great pity. But the performance overall held me. Partly, because I had forgotten what was involved & heard the music as it is/was, to the extent that a recording might convey this to someone who was there.
The inbox down to 247.
22.45 Soundscapes from the Tartu Jaani Kirik are orienting me towards the floor. They suggest to me that, whatever the press of mundane concerns, there is a timelessness where the mundane has no purchase & is unable to make a demand.
So, the floor is waiting.
"Right action moves from principle."
