14.00 My weekend of personal work is directed towards memorising the two new "Larks'" pieces. They follow the Crimson model of having booby-traps placed for the unwary. Not only are my parts difficult to play, they are also difficult to remember and very confusing. These serve several purposes, one of which is to encourage the players to remain alert. It's not possible to play Crimson music on automatic without train wrecks, explosions and exposure to public ridicule. On one of the occasions that Tool came to see Crim "Larks' II" spectacularly disassembled itself.
E-mail received and sent - it's Hugh's birthday today, Guestbook visited, Diaries read.
Responses to the Guestbook:
Firstly, many thanks to Nashville locals J&J who have blown the whistle on eateries worth visiting.
Secondly, Orn of the Chilly Isle is taking part in the launch of a fat stonker of a broad band network. This sounds exciting. Orn plans to name an ATM management node, a Control Freak, after a jazz musician whose name conveys the essence of the node. Orn has chosen "Robert Fripp". Regular visitors to the Guestbook may recall various commentings on the power of naming, christening & baptising, so may not be surprised that I sense Orn is about to undermine part of his network.
Familiarity with a few "jazz chords" does not a jazz musician make. Improviser? Sometimes, and extemporiser more often. But not a jazz musician: that is a different way.
How accurate is the description (or definition) "control freak"? This is a recurrent comment in Orn's postings so, assuming as I do that Orn is an honest man, I accept he believes this to be so. (I ignore the possibility that Orn is stating the opposite of his case, so its transparent silliness may be rebutted. Many comments in ET and on the Guestbook are, to my eyes, dopey enough to be intentional).
Control, as I understand it, is personal, flexible and practised within a discipline. The degree of control (or capacity) one may draw (or rely) upon fluctuates, but tends to have a particular centre of gravity. Capacity is not simply functional, but involves personal integrity (or "beingness"), and the "willingness" to honour commitments.
If Orn is attributing this to the raging Fripp, I am flattered. But the word "freak", in an English connotation, implies personal rigidity and the extension of personal "control" to the domination of others, or at least the close monitoring and direction of their behaviour. I have known controlling persons, and commented upon this recently in the Diary (on the copyright issue). Briefly, control "freakery" is the Hand of Death to the creative life, quite apart from stifling human relationships and prejudicing courteous dealings in community.
A control freak is not going to have evolving personal relationships, a creative life, or developing career pattern. An excessively controlled life, & the living of it, will be typically fixed, limited, rigid. Relationships will be with people who do not challenge opinions, idees fixes, habits, likes & dislikes, established values and patterns of behaviour. Strategies of conduct will avoid risk, the unfamiliar, exposure to the new, novel ideas & ways of doing things; also criticism, challenge & disagreement. In sum, the control freak "doth bend to himself a joy" and "doth the winged life destroy".
So, how close a picture is this of the Venal (or should it be Anal?) Leader? I present a (brief) & hazardous resume --
Career Strategies:
Safe Operator, although he has left behind 3 careers:
A partnership in his Father's firm to go to London as aspirant musician (1967);
King Crimson for The IACE (1974);
King Crimson for The ASCE (1984) & Guitar Craft (1984-91).
Professional Relationships:
Seeks out the weak, pushover, lay-down-and-take-it collaborators such as David Bowie, Brian Eno, Peter Gabriel, David Sylvian, The Orb; and finds placid band members Bill Bruford, Tony Levin, Adrian Belew, Trey Gunn & Pat Mastelotto (and Greg Lake, Peter Sinfield, Ian McDonald, Michael Giles, John Wetton, etc.).
No disagreements or challenges likely from any of those.
Diane Aldahl (formerly of the Santa Fe Institute & PA to Nobel Laureate Murray Gell-Mann;
David Singleton (Cambridge Honours Graduate in Philosophy & Modern Languages).
Not likely to have ideas of their own, either.
Personal Relationships:
Toyah Willcox.
Well-known stay-at-home and obedient wifeling.
Music:
All composed, all written down, and played the same every night by pliant gigsters who obey He Who Must Be Obeyed.
Other Music Ventures:
DGM Records. A sure-fire success, guaranteed to make money, despite no contracts with artists or ownership of any copyrights.
Guitar Craft.
Every student a potential subject. He'll tell them what to do and they'll do it!
This regardless of the existence of several Guitar Circles, all autonomous, with self-operated websites.
Avoids:
Discussion Groups & Criticism.
Such as Elephant Talk, Kvetchbook, Q&As in public, 30 years of interviewers.
I've probably missed a few things here, but perhaps Orn will be kind enough to bring me up to speed?
21.24 Pat & Bill are completing their editing work for ProjeKct X in the garage and about to devibrate from The Late Shift. Hopefully, the various parts of "Larks" are closer to the insides of my hands than this morning.
From an e-mail to a friend yesterday, who wrote asking about sleeve notes to a Soundscapes album which referred to moving "over the threshold" (on the Bath ex-railway platform).
'"Over the threshold": well, maybe later...! Quickly, "music" is a form of active "living" intelligence which we can connect to and, more importantly, become part of. This whether we are performer or audient. But to effectively connect our involvement is active, and our state other than our typical daily doze. But you already know this! The point most people have with making the connection is that a price has to be paid, and this price is subtle. No "consumer rights" here!'.
There is a merit in the demand of brevity which e-mail exerts. No time to obfuscate: what is the point that you need to make? No caveats, preambles, escape routes of conditional clauses - state your position, and quickly. So there's mine.
"Life is often desperate, but never hopeless."
