Today Bill Bruford is visiting World Central.
The driving, werning, orchestral percussion of Pat Mastelotto drives P4's opening to the second night at The 7th. Note in San Francisco, 2nd. November; this as accompaniment to your Diarist's ruminations as to possible headlines in the Village Monthly Inquisitor.
ProjeKct Drummers?
Actually not: Bill is visiting to work with David on his current Earthworks II live recording, & Pat continues to process P4 with Chris.
21.50
The latest P4 mixes accompany this entry.
Young Willy Rieflin called this afternoon at 15.30. A very late-to-bed boy in Seattle. Bill had a creative download on December 2nd. and is continuing to reverberate. He has accepted the inevitable logic of players outside the mainstream - sooner, later, we become our own record company, however much we initially resist the idea. Bill's "Birth Of A Giant" and its sister record "The Repercussions Of Angelic Behaviour" (both featuring contributions from Trey Gunn & your Diarist) are likely to be released through / by a situation under construction in Seattle. More news on this in the fulness of time...
... and moving associatively along - Trey Gunn's birthday was yesterday. Trey is in New York at Tony Geballe's working on the next step for the TG band.
Today at World Central:
Bill's Earthworks album is lots of fun: good playing, good feel and up energy. The album release will accompany piles of live work next year, in America and Europe. Bill has October & December 1999 on hold in his calendar, should the Crimson Beast beckon, demanding acknowledgement and service.
Website News:
Our current server - Demon - doesn't provide secure facilities for online ordering. "Next year" is the official quote. So DGM has the choice of changing our server, and therefore our e-address, or waiting until the UK enters the information age. Meanwhile, for concerns of safety, probably fax is better for orders.
But please know, we are monitoring this.
Guestbook Responses:
1. "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 interract 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, that the accepted "listening" practice is fundamentally undermined by egotism, reification, fetishisation and a demand for personal attention.
Better, for an easier life, to smile & 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.
2. Sherborne House.
The history of Mr. Bennett's International Academy For Continuous Education at Sherborne House (1971-76) is being published by Bennett Books, PO Box 1553, Santa Fe, NM 87504 (505-986-1428 tel/fax) on January 21st. 1999. The title is "Sherborne", the author is Allen Roth.
3. "Sad" announcement in preparation for the sale of King Crimson mellotrons:
There are 6 mellotrons in all:
2 x original double manual Mark II mellotrons
4 x single manual M400s (these were lighter, more portable, and developed for groups to take on the road).
The two original Mark II mellotrons:
Serial No. 13 was used on the "In The Court Of The Crimson King" album (1969) and can be heard on the DGM archive "Epitaph" box set, and DGM Collectors' Club Release No.1.
Serial No. 113 was used for "In The Wake Of Poseidon" (1970), the second Crimson album.
The three King Crimson M400 mellotrons:
Two of them were on the road with KC 1971-74 (serial nos. 354 & 211) and can be heard on the studio albums "Islands" (1971), "Larks' Tongues In Aspic" (1973) and "Starless" (1973); and the DGM archive releases "The Great Deceiver" (re-release 1999) and "The Night Watch" (1997).
The third KC mellotron (serial no. 1199) was acquired in 1974 and joined the other two M400s on the road and for the "Red" album (1974).
The fourth M400:
The fourth M400 (serial no. 1627) was acquired by RF c.1993.
We are preparing to make press releases with a view to an auction / tender at the end of April.
22.27
ProjeKct Four is hot tonight. Well, hot on 2nd.November. I hate to have to report this, by Fripp has been playing very well in the past year. As a younger player he knew points of intensity; now he is within his Middle Period.
Many characters in The Front Line of rock touring burn out before they get to a Middle Period of natural maturity: perhaps through drugs, corrupt business, booze, helpless rutting, and / or being a focus for vicarious fantasies; perhaps they fall into the trap of reliving musical glories of their youth, for whatever reason - exhaustion, despair, cynicism, financial necessity, a demand for attention, or public clamourings & nostalgia.
Fripp's current playing has greater sustained presence and deeper insight (which you'd hope for from a overly-ripened character, n'est-ce pas?) than the guitarist who blasted through "Baby's On Fire" or flailed through "Sailor's Tale".
I also hate to have to report this, but I like it. I do think it's good. And I don't believe it has been recognised yet.
"Remember to play."
