Trey, Pat & Bill are in the studio working on LIV. Pat came out the back door as I arrived from shopping, booking & brunching. We discussed The Rhythm Buddies' approach to being the Crim rhythm section. This is very unusual for an American section which (conventionally) concentrates on laying down a groove and supporting the front line / singer.
The Crim innovation (as of 1969 and 1972/74) was essentially to move the Back Line to the Front Line. I would also argue that the Crim RT 1981/84 functioned in much the same way, albeit from a different angle (mainly as a result of T.Lev's American background & experience). This created what then might have been called a gestalt: the field and ground were interchangeable, much in the same way that the Grecian urns / Janus faces function. Is it a pair of urns? Is it a pair of faces?
Did Billy B. & the Wilton Carpet accompany Fripp & Cross? Or were Fripp & Cross an excuse for Bradley & The Carpet to "accompany" them?
Presently, the 15/16 terrible cruel lonely guitarist solo in LIV is obviously a guitar solo. How it could be anything else? Well, wait until you hear the "accompaniment": roaring, terrifying accented shots from P&T & Ade (who leaves his Frontal Buddy to hang out to dry). From this perspective, the guitar "solo" is an "excuse" for the accompaniment.
17.06
Trey has popped in for a break & to get some fruit bars for the studio, and continued the conversation. "Wait until you hear "Larks' V" says Trey. They are fine tuning and tweaking the sounds in detail, like Pat's new bass drum.
This is the beauty of electronic drums, I say, aware that a whole heap of animosity is waiting to focus on me for this. "That's what guys did in the '80s", says Trey. "They triggered samples". So you had acoustic drums triggering electronic samples, while purporting visually to be acoustic.
I remember a comparable debate raging when I was a young guitarist - how could you amplify a classical guitar? Heresy! Debasing the fine qualities of those sacred overtones & delicate timbres!
Well, how - you either put a microphone in front of it or used a bug of some kind on the body.
Well, why - so you could hear it.
An instrument designed for the chamber is not naturally suited for (eg) the Winter Gardens, Bournemouth or Wimborne Minster, accompanied by the Bournemouth Sinfonietta. Please don't try to persuade me of the classical guitar's sacred overtones when they are struggling to be heard in front of 12 string instruments in a "support" role. The face of that guitarist, mixing despair and hopelessness, as strained and occasionally audible notes gallantly, pitifully attempted to present themselves to the ears of the audience, is case enough for me. And I remember his face well.
Back to Crim: neither Trey nor Pat are really part of the convention / tradition of Crim rhythm sections, certainly in terms of their own working backgrounds. Yet the Crim RT archetype is expressing itself directly through them in their way of working. This is a strange event, to see & hear a strategy / approach from the beginning years of KC reappearing in a more developed and sophisticated fashion, seemingly of its own volition.
Factoids of the Day: internet usage is now 62-32% male-female; women over 50 are most experienced of that 32%.
"Act in accordance with time, place and person."
