On the desk next to this computer is a fax from an English author in Germany, who is "writing a book on the work of David Bowie". He would "very much to conduct a brief telephone interview" with me. By this last comment I have written: "Telephone interviews aren't interviews; & interviews aren't brief! I would rather not comment on other artists & their work, partiicularly where the contact is either professional or personal".
In the background plays yesterday's rehearsals on the running DAT, as P4 moves to explore and discover who it is.
17.12
Well, none of the prepared ideas work. And Tony's equipment should be on its way from Georgia. Speed Of Sound shippers' guaranteed delivery for Saturday is guaranteed to arrive this evening. P4's five days of rehearsals before our tour is now down to three days. So, look out Boulder and points west: audients at the debut shows of ProjeKct Four are going to see these guys thinking on their feet.
The TC G-Force has yielded up some good dirty sounds; better dirt than I anticipated, yet smoother and more controlled than down & dirty effects. The TC high-quality dirt is working well on the GR1 and GR30 synths - manic pianos, blowpipes and grinding organs now hammer, blow and grind before they reach the pair of Eventides.
Pat is finding a new place for a drummer in a Crimson context. All manner of triggered effects, flying shards of metal and bits of something-or-other whizz past at a faster tempo than I've ever been asked to play.
The sounds of Trey and I are both moving further from where they began. T. Lev. is producing astonishing playing from the Warr guitar: he has no idea of the tuning, and the strings go in the opposite direction to what's familiar to him. But hey! - this is T. Lev. He stood the Warr guitar upside down, resting its head on his left foot and played it that way. Tony's new development of Funk Fingers: wrapped in tin foil. I suggest perhaps allt he musicians should dress in tin foil as well. Not that's a concept.
There are other players as good as Tony (I have known two others in my musical life) but at that level it's not a question of better: just different. Players that good are simply who they are.
This morning I discovered some new voicings in the octotonic scale, with a very different colour sense to the ambiguous and unsettled chords I have been using so far, which were effective as string voicings against the pounding, smacking, driving power trio of T,T & P.
"What we hear is the quality of our listening."
