09.44
DGM HQ & Composting Unit.
A greyish morning…
… and unable to get onto AOL, either directly or through the AOL website. Maybe this is a function of the Chalke Valley?
In the DGM Park the omens are good…
11.12 Other stuff replaces e-stuff.
18.16 Connection to AOL after lunch & a resulting an afternoon of e-frenzy. Now, AOL are hiding again, even though the Minx has access in Bredonborough. Maybe it’s traffic along the valley. However, broadband remains up, so I am in a position to access complaints & enquries from innocent audients seeking to dispose of their hard-earned pay…
Robert Fripp’s 2007 Spanish Tour:: Posted by Dogame on March 15, 2007
I am very disappointed. When I read that Mr. Fripp would come to Spain this year, I thought he could come to Valencia, the main city of Comunidad Valenciana. But he hasn’t. In fact, he’s going to visit Zaragoza, Barcelona, Sevilla... but not Valencia! I don’t understand why artists don’t come to this place.
Perhaps, because their tour promoter hasn’t booked them there? The question the becomes, stated positively, why would they? and negatively, why would they not?
Booking any tour is a balancing act of considerable intricacy & interlocking complication. This is true of a short tour, and even more of an extended tour; for example of 17 European countries in a space of 6 weeks. Perhaps the non-visit to Valencia is the result of a combination of factors: the competing demands of time, place, persons & money?
Hernan Nunez has overall responsibility for acting on behalf of RF & The LCG for this tour. Hernan has been clear about the players’ requirements; for example, the length of traveling time between one town & the next; the quality of venue; the quality of accommodation. This is a result of our experience last year in Italy, where lessons were learnt. One such lesson is: carry your own security. This is the positive form of: the local promoter will tell you their security is reliable until your microphones are stolen from the stage before the encore & then tell it’s not their fault / responsibility so when they smile & lie to you smile back while telling them there will be no show tomorrow & plan to bring your own security next time.
Some Crafties have found my road-requirements seemingly too self-protective, including a level of self-organization that - surely the promoters & agents can arrange for you? This until the skeptical Crafty gets into the van & sets off to the front line…
Well, of course an agent can arrange traveling plans. But the agent doesn’t sit in the back of a van, or on a tourbus, for 8-12 hours, climb out & do their job. That is, their plans are fine for the artist, but not the agent. The promoter doesn’t stay in the cheap, crap motel they’ve booked for you, on a motorway within driving distance of the city where you’re playing today/tomorrow. That is, the promoter’s plans are fine for the artist, but not the promoter. Remind me to relate the story of the Shangri-La motel “in” Rome.
So, why are we not playing Valencia? Well, we’re not booked to play there. So, this is a question for the promoter, if the question is burning. Would I like to visit Valencia?
One more, for the road!:: Posted by London on March 15, 2007
L: Hi, I’ve been a member of this site since the beginning, and not until now have I ever made a post! I guess judging by comments posted on the board that I’m one of the younger KC fans. Unfortunately, I was just discovering KC as they wrapped up their Power to Believe tour. I’m surprised at how many people have found it appropriate that KC should cease from touring. I just wanted to say that I find myself saddened and disappointed by the threat of a KC unit no longer touring.
RHVHL: Threat? What threat?
L: I think I’m paraphrasing someone when I say that music is best communicated live, through interaction between musician(s) and audience, is it no longer?
VHRHL: In principle, this someone’s quick answer is yes. The longer answer is, if the audience is prepared & able to interact with the musician/s.
Last time I looked in, the debate involved consumer rights, and whether recording, photography, viddying, a demand for autography & personal attention of varying kinds, constitute appropriate forms of interaction; and the right of consumers to attend performances in altered states due to various substances, notably dope & alcohol. Most audiences, in my experience, behave as if these tights are a given. My own views on this have been stated, interminably, to little practical effect. I note that the posters to KC related sites have, historically, been divided on this; and are a tiny proportion of those who actually attend performances.
The “performance” has broad margins, for example, arriving at the hotel from the tourbus, leaving the hotel to the venue, entering the venue, leaving the venue for the hotel, arriving at the hotel, leaving the hotel. At any of these points, those with rights have the right to exert them.
Perhaps someone reading this may feel I am exaggerating?
L: If the new KC unit is ever to actually materialize why not share it with the rest of the world?
HHRVL: Then this is a question best asked when the new KC unit has actually materialized.
A better question is: why materialize? Or, formally defined, what aim does that materialization serve?
Why did I do this? Why do I do this?
L: Every live unit thus far has been fantastic in their own unique way constantly bringing something new and different to its audience.
RHHVL: And I note, most audiences preferred to hear the music of earlier lineups.
L: Bottom line, the music is always good.
VHHRL: A generous, global assessment; and wish you’d been at all the shows.
L: I can only imagine the strains, mentally and physically, that life on the road must impose on musicians.
HRHVL: No way. Alternatively, to the degree that your imagination is boundless, unconstrained by experience & actuality, no way.
L: Does it now outweigh the feeling of love for the music that comes from the rewarding experience of its execution?
VRHHL: When music was as much as 5% of my professional life, I toured in the front line. When music became (at most) 1% of my professional life’s energy, activities & concerns, full-on touring finished.
So, the quick answer is, yes.
To the question: is my feeling of love for music in any way diminished? the long answer is, no.
L: If the sun has begun to set on KC, then it deserves to be brought to a final closure.
RHHVL: The sun has gone down already on one particular & exceptionally limited approach to Crimsonising: that of the conventional strategy handed to the artist as the only available: record > tour endlessly > record > tour endlessly > record > tour endlessly in a perpetual loop mediated by commerce & driven by commercial interests. Whose interests is this cycle serving?
What is, essentially, a creative process is constrained & fixed within an existential worldview & value system of production and consumption. The final KC tour of Europe in 2003 was, for me, a joyless exercise in futility; made me ill & did me damage. Did it have highspots? Probably, and occasionally. Did it have low spots? Yes, beginning with the first flight to Europe & continuing to the last flight back.
The KC US manager, Charlie Hewitt, died unexpectedly after the last batch of KC touring, while future-plans were being discussed. In the weeks immediately before Charlie flew away, as a contribution to discussion I e-wrote to Charlie that there were two things I was not prepared to accept:
1. A major record advance;
2. Major touring.
Ie record > tour endlessly.
Charlie wrote back with the recommendations that KC accept:
1. A major record advance;
2. Major touring.
So, final closure to that particular way, deserving or otherwise, has already been achieved.
L: C’mon Mr. Fripp, I know you can find it within yourself to go for one more!
RF: If that were so, it would already be happening.
What Jon has not taken into account, neither can he because most of it is outside public view, is what else I do because I am able to do it because I am not touring. In other words, why am I not touring in KC? Because I am doing other things.
L: All the best guys, - Jon
I thank Jon for his well-intentioned post. The little picture is: music & business. I don’t currently have the time, nor inclination, to give the big picture of what falls to me to make KC fully activated. The little picture: after 1999, RF effectively became the “bandleader” figure often attributed to him, a role denied, repudiated & disowned. Put slightly differently, the functions of the conventional bandleader figure / role had fallen to me, perhaps inevitably, after the collapse of EG in 1991; the role developed, and the Crims increasingly came to look on me as The Man.
One example: on a tourbus ride to a gig (in California), I became the subject of detailed business enquiries from 3 experienced professional players, who wanted business answers to their business questions, then & there. Another example: why aren’t our records in Paris record stores when we’re playing here? These are legitimate questions, questions that nail me to the earth & remove all enthusiasm from strapping on a guitar. If you are perceived to be The Man, then those who are not The Man stick it to him.
Do I give thought to a re-activated KC? Yes, and seriously. But I have been hustled to do so on three occasions in the past 18 months. The effect has been to remind me why I don’t act until there is a necessity to do so.
These are only small aspects of a larger picture; one which, of itself, is already too much.
Yes, and I’d love to take my Wife with me. Would I like to play there? Yes, subject to certain requirements that honour the integrity of the performance; ie music, musicians & audience. Where the performance is mediated by commerce, as in this case, a fourth term is added: music, musician, audience & industry. The move, from triad to this particular tetrad, is now fraught with complication.
"We'll never get rich by hard work.
But, we'll never get rich without it."
