Robert Fripp, Adrian Belew and Tony Levin on stage in 1982 (photo: Tony Levin).

When I posted the garden pix I anticipated some responses such as those below.

I am not sure to what extent good people abroad, or what the English call “foreigners”, appreciate the depth of resentments which permeate this society. As one of two children born to working class parents, I grew up with a keen sense of social strata and how class difference and privilege quietly, invisibly, exerted power over the trajectory of one’s life. To open one’s mouth, to give voice to an accent or dialect, provided all the information needed to inform another of one’s originating background, education and therefore income level. 

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When I posted the garden pix I anticipated some responses such as those below.

I am not sure to what extent good people abroad, or what the English call “foreigners”, appreciate the depth of resentments which permeate this society. As one of two children born to working class parents, I grew up with a keen sense of social strata and how class difference and privilege quietly, invisibly, exerted power over the trajectory of one’s life. To open one’s mouth, to give voice to an accent or dialect, provided all the information needed to inform another of one’s originating background, education and therefore income level. 

Both Fripp kids learnt from our Parents - if you work hard enough for long enough, you will succeed. As the girl, Sister Patricia realised that this did not apply to one of her generation and she moved to America, worked hard enough for long enough and is an outstanding success in her field. As the boy I had greater opportunities, left home, went to London and met unexpected and rapid “success” with King Crimson. May we note, this “success” was not accompanied by sudden riches, such as accompanied EG Management’s sudden success. 

Factoid of King Crimson’s rock star lives: none of the players received payment for their (extensive) touring between 1969 and 1974. We were given £30 per week which, if we exceeded, any addition was deducted from our royalties. EG explained this to us: “Your live work promotes record sales and you’ll get paid from your record and publishing royalties”. This logic did not exclude EG Management from receiving their management percentage from KC tour income, in addition to their percentages from EG Records and EG Publishing. 

Our royalties were not necessarily paid either. I do not recall being given detailed royalty statements until 1980. Non-payment of KC royalties provided EG with the funding that established the EG Group of companies and constituted interest-free forced loans. My technique for extracting royalty income from EG was to buy property, beginning with Thornhill Cottage, Holt in 1971, some two miles from my Parents’ home in Wimborne, Dorset. It was one thing to delay royalty payment, quite another to refuse handing it over when I presented the case:  “I’m buying a property, please give me my royalites”. This is also a longer story.

Moving to Fernhill House in the Fripp family village of Witchampton (1980) and then Reddish House in Broad Chalke (1987), the former home of Cecil Beaton, I dealt with a measure of middle class displeasure at the arrival of this arriviste, vulgar rock star, a view confirmed by his marriage to Punk Princess, Willcox T. in 1986.

Given a life increasingly lived in public view since 1969, with accompanying publicity and interviews, it became evident that mine is not a voice for England. Only one reason why NYC brought me to life after 1977. I gave myself permission, facing the antipathy which seemed to accompany aspects of my life, to not censor my intelligence. Perhaps even on occasion to put my head above the parapet, such as posting these pix of my wonderful little Wife in our garden, both of which give me joy. Similarly, today, why should my choices of action be negated / perverted / diverted by the comments of others? I accept the responsibilities and obligations which accompany my choices, as others have the responsibility and obligation of addressing the results of their choices.

Iain Hunter: Wow! How the other half live, just to think what a arse ive been over the years buying all his albums to help him live like that.

RF: Firstly, thank you to Mr. Hunter for taking an interest in the music. And if he bought those albums with the intention of enabling me to continue a life as a working player, my gratitude.

Secondly, there are several assumptions in Mr. Hunter’s post which I have addressed before, on several / many occasions, and which Mr. Hunter may investigate if he has sufficient interest.

1. The foundation of my personal wealth is not the music industry. It is an outcome of distortion and inflation in the English property market since 1971. Simply, I have moved several times and, with an early background and upbringing in estate agency (real estate in US Speak), buying and selling property holds no fear for me. 

2. Mr. Hunter assumes that, as a result of him buying albums, the money reaches me. This is regrettably, a deeply flawed assumption.

The increasingly controlling and dishonest practices of EG Management, escalating markedly under the direction of Mr. SG Alder from the Isle Of Man, Chartered Accountant and Worker Of Good Works, who joined EG towards the end of 1970. “The first thing they taught us was – control the artists” (EG employee with direct responsibility for RF and King Crimson).

Mr. Alder had direct control of my affairs, including Power Of Attorney, until 1991. When he used that POA to negotiate a large loan, to cover him re-directing my royalties into his own accounts, I withdrew his POA in writing to Coutts’. This was embarrassing for Mr. Alder as it questioned his honesty in front of his bank manager. “You made me look like a common criminal”. The effects of his management continue to repercuss today.

With EG’s collapse in 1991 and the sale of its record and publishing catalogues, the KC record catalogue moved to Virgin and then to EMI, with similarly unhappy effects while  not disastrously so. When the catalogue moved to independent Panegyric, run by bona fide Good Guy Declan Colgan c. 1993, royalties were paid accurately, honestly and with transparency for the first time. What reaches me today is also a percentage of Mr. Hunter’s contribution to my financial well-being, mainly because of the KC income-sharing principle. 

Does Mr. Hunter intend to also criticise how other Crims spend his hard-earned pay? Equal nations, after all.

And problems with the distribution of Mr. Hunter’s hard-earned continue, for example the licensing of three seconds of 21CSM to Kanye and UMG c. 2010. This resulted in four years of full-on legal fees 2021-24 for the UMG dispute, resolved on our terms 10 hours before the court doors opened. 

The question Mr. Hunter, and any other innocent seeking to understand where their money goes when directed towards an artist, might ask: What is the size of the contingency fund necessary for an independent artist / record company to be able to protect their interests, and the interests of their artists, against that of a major in order that they may receive their contracted royalties?

Cf the advice McKinsey gives to its clients: Exploit the economic advantages of law. Alternatively, do what you want without regard for your commitments, legal and personal, knowing that you can step on the little guys, threaten them, bully them, and use your own legal departments to obfuscate, evade and perhaps eventually squash them.

The answer: £1,000,000 gets you a beginning seat at the table. Without this, there is little chance of proceeding. With this, you are taken more seriously. I am not litigious, as is the now bankrupt Mr. SG Alder. But it needs to be known that, if necessary, I am prepared to act. I am pacific, but not a pacifist. In the industry, I have a bad reputation. For example, from internal MCPS correspondence (2012 shortly following critical comments about UMG in a Financial Times interview with Mr. Ludo): “Fripp is industry unfriendly”. 

3. Mr. Hunter assumes that, having bought the albums, it gives him the right to predicate how I choose to spend the trickle of his hard-earned pay which escaped (for example) the EG Artist Income Extraction Pump.

When Mr. Hunter has bought an album, he has acquired the right to listen to it. How does he extend this to claiming the right to direct what I do with what may eventually reach me (perhaps after years of litigation)?

Does this give me the reciprocal right to set conditions for how Mr. Hunter listens to the albums? Or to direct how he spends his leisure time? His choices in music and what to buy? How to use his disposable income?

4. If Mr. Hunter had made it known to me, that in buying the albums it gave him rights over what I did with the trickle-down, I would have suggested he refrain from acquiring the albums. Which, given Mr. Hunter’s post, is my recommendation to him today. Please take no further interest in any of my work and give your patronage to others, while advising those other artists that in accepting your support you have rights over how they live their lives.

Thirdly, Mr. Hunter faces disappointment in at least three areas…

1. His money didn’t reach me.

2. He has no consequent “right” to direct my choices.

3. How I choose to live my life.

Which leaves the music to speak for itself. In presenting uninformed criticism of others, we run the risk of evidencing a parsimony of the spirit. What is Mr. Hunter’s intention in posting this, please?

Tony Millward: It’s what you can do with money.

RF:  So, how do we engage with money, its uses, opportunities and responsibilities? As Mr. Millward rightly comments, to take an interest in our garden is one example of how we spend our hard-earned pay, noting my own pay has been very hard-earned.

I have addressed my approach to using money at greater length, and David Singleton has also commented on the manner in which I engage with money and the lack of it. If Mr. Millward has an interest, he may use his initiative and find those comments.

Briefly, and as an answer to Hellboy Tom Redmond in 1985, on a Guitar Craft course at Claymont Mansion in West Virginia: Money gives you choices.

A practical example: I put my professional life pretty much aside between the middle of 1984 and early 1991 to engage with Guitar Craft.  In 1991 I had to give my attention to Mr. SG Alder of EG Management having diverting my income to support his cash calls as a Lloyd’s Name: Endless Grief, of which much information is available online. The attenuated income from my “successful” professional life prior to 1984 enabled me to choose to give my time to Guitar Craft. As it also does today, noting I am currently paid honestly, fairly and transparently (for 13 years of 59 as a professional player).

A wider comment, directed mainly towards those who are not English - I have noticed over many years of professional “success” that (what seems to me) resentment, envy and hostility are often directed towards those who appear to be living a privileged life. One example, from the perspective of an Englishman visiting the USA from 1969… 

In England, if you have an expensive motor it may get scratched. This is called “envy-scratching”. In the US, if you have an expensive car, it means I also have a chance at getting an expensive car. In the UK, your good fortune means my good fortune is constrained. In the US, your good fortune means good fortune is also available to me. The cultural distinction and assumption is notable and remarkable.

So, my choices in respect of our garden… The directing principle I engage, in all areas of my life, is this: Do the best with what you have.  

I have never been interested in whizzy motors, a flash lifestyle, a jet-setting social life, whizzy holidays et al. That’s the apophatic. The cataphatic: I have always aspired to have a home which refreshes my spirit. AKA a “nice hice”. I am attracted to period houses, which have a character of their own.

A period property always needs maintenance, and in our homes I have accepted the responsibility which accompanies this. I’m not sure to what extent we “own” a property, rather it owns us for the period we live in it. Given my age, my approach to our home and my office is wildly non-commercial. What goes out in refurbing / renovating / repairing hopefully will benefit following generations. 

In our wonderful town, we live in the centre. This carries a responsibility to present a welcoming face to visitors, also our neighbours. That is, the fronts require regular (and expensive) painting. Mr. Hunter may feel this to be a mis-spending of his hard-earned readies, but it is not his choice which is primary here. I feel a responsibility to the property, town and community.

We inherited a garden, modest but acceptable. Over the past c. 12 years we have taken an interest in doing the best we can with it. It’s pretty good and is maturing nicely.

I am a reader since the age of c. 10 years old. I have an expansive library. Zappa didn’t put money up his nose, he put it in his ears. I put it in my mind.

Andy Rocky Pyatt: God loves a show off.

RF: While not disputing Fripp’s egregious exhibitionism, constant showboating and relentless self-aggrandisement, might there be any other possible motivation in presenting personal pictures of my home life? 

Martin Sladdin: Your world is the right side up.

RF: Words beginning with D and C this time: dispute and choice. As a working player whose life has been characterised by personal and professional dispute, legal dispute since 1991 and currently ongoing, criticism publicly and privately and now online, perhaps I choose to see my world that way?

John Barrell: Exquisitely beautiful. I wish you'd open your home to the public. 

RF: There are complications in opening any area of our lives to the public, both practically and in principle. For example the posts which gave rise to this reply, One very simple response here: we are two very busy people whose lives are lived mostly in public view. The garden is the one place where my Wife can be private.

Bo Andersen: You have more than one full-time gardener, don't you?

RF: I’m not sure what gives rise to Mr. Andersen’s assertion. No. We have two superb gardeners, Head Gardener Matthew and assistant Cara, who come in part-time on Mondays.

Tony Nikolic: Beautiful garden. You're lucky you don't seem to have a hosepipe ban.

RF: We have an irrigation system, installed two years ago, with water drawn from the River Avon. This is permissible for domestic use.

Jessica Lee Morgan: Beautiful! 

RF: Yep!

Bredonborough, Middle England

Tuesday 21^st. July, 2026

King Crimson’s manager and record producer, David Singleton, will be hosting, with his trusty assistant Alex ‘Stormy’ Mundy also in attendance.

So join with like-minded Crimson and DGM fans from around the world for an exclusive live look behind the scenes at what’s going on at DGM Soundworld.

If you are not already a member, there are a few places available. https://www.dgmlive.com/1000-club . The 1000 Club offers incredible value, providing streaming of all the music on the site, $750 worth of downloads per year, a year's free subscription to audio and video streaming at Nugs.net, an aphorism of the day sent to your email box, special user profile, create and share your own playlists, all for an annual fee of $150 (amount varies slightly by territory), and knowledge that your membership supports the ongoing work of the DGM Archive. 

Beginning on May 30 1978, these were put down in the smaller Studio 2 on the second floor of the Hit Factory. Additional parts were added over the following weeks.

Building upon the backing tracks recorded in January with Tony Levin on bass, and drummers Jerry Marotta (Chicago) and Narada Michael Walden (Breathless and NY3), here is an up-close look at the overdubbed parts, not all of which made it to the final mix of the album.

Breathless track sheet.

These include vocals and piano by Daryl Hall, keyboards by Barry Andrews, flute parts added to Breathless by Ian McDonald, who was by then living in New York and riding the wave of success with Foreigner, and Brian Eno, also then living in New York, who dropped by to play some Mini Moog with tape echo. Also featured are the later vocal takes by Peter Hammill and Terre Roche, brought in to replace the embargoed Daryl vocals. The selection concludes with the Hallophone vocal choir that appears on Preface.

Remembering his time working with Daryl Hall in the Exposure Diaries that accompany the 2006 CD reissue, Robert Fripp wrote:

This, the first and only (proper) RF solo album, was made in the open creative way that characterised our work process on Sacred Songs, the first Daryl Hall solo album. Neither albums attracted the unreserved approval of Tommy Mottola, Daryl’s manager at the time, nor his record company, RCA. The release of Daryl’s solo album was delayed for nearly 3 years, reportedly because of fears that it would damage Daryl’s commercial persona. Also, it was suggested to me that Exposure was, in fact, not a Robert Fripp solo album but a Fripp & Hall album. 

An operant guiding principle, not yet articulated as formal proposition, was turn a seeming disadvantage to your advantage. I was allowed to use two songs with Daryl singing and chose You Burn Me Up I’m A Cigarette and North Star. The remaining 5 songs (as might be said today but would not have been then) were re-voiced and, with more time for reflection and re-organising and re-mixing, the released Exposure in 1979 a better album than otherwise.

Inter alia, I have noticed that the more powerful the creative process, the more likely the resistance of controlling business interests. The creative impulse involves hazard: there are no guarantees. Business demands guarantees and rewards certainties, even though certainty is often unfulfilling and unsatisfying. An artist who follows the Muse is perceived by business as dangerous. In 1978 Daryl was open to the new musical influences that were emerging; his manager and record company less so. Daryl’s pipes were a wonder: I have never worked with a more able singer, and one with a far greater musical range and potential than his career advisers allowed him to explore and develop. 

Working with Daryl on Sacred Songs and Exposure were a privilege for me, a joy, and lotsa fun; working with Daryl’s manager and record company part of a continuing liberal education. All-in-all, an interesting juxtaposition of aspiration, artistic collaboration and the interests of commerce.

Download: Exposure Sessions: Breathless, NY3 and Chicago overdubs.

In week 10, Robert and David discuss The Roches, as we feature an alternate take of Chicago from Exposure, with vocals shared by Terre Roche and Peter Hammill, and add Hammond Song from The Roches’ first album to the Spotify playlist.

The three singing sisters from New Jersey, Maggie, Terre and Suzzy, had moved to New York City in the 70s and were making a name for themselves playing the Greenwich Village folk clubs. 

April 16, 1978, Robert Fripp sees The Roches.

Robert first went to see them play at The Bottom Line on the recommendation of New York Times critic John Rockwell, who would later rate their Fripp-produced first album, The Roches, the best release of 1979.

Once again recording at the Hit Factory with engineer Ed Sprigg, Terre Roche was one of the vocalists brought in by Fripp to sing on Exposure after Daryl Hall’s manager, Tommy Motolla, had prevented Hall from featuring on more than two tracks. This setback proved fortuitous as the incoming singers turned in some spectacular performances. 

Before the Roches became a trio, Maggie and Terre had famously crashed an NYU songwriting class with Paul Simon, which led to the two sisters singing backing vocals on There Goes Rhymin’ Simon and getting their own record deal. However, disillusioned by the record industry, they suddenly left it all behind and went to Hammond, Louisiana, a story that forms the subject matter for Hammond Song. Recorded towards the end of an incredibly productive year for Fripp in New York, the album is striking for its restraint. Aside from Robert's lyrical guitar solo on Hammond Song, the performances are largely unadorned, allowing the sisters' close vocal harmonies and acoustic guitars to shine. Their songs of truth are delivered without artifice - but with a good deal of humour - using Fripp’s audio vérité production style.

Suzzy, Maggie and Terre on the cover of their debut album.

Listen to this week’s commentary for the full story.

Download Robert Fripp @ 80 Vol.10  Chicago (Terre Roche and Peter Hammill alt take).   

Listen to Hammond Song on the Spotify playlist: Robert Fripp @ 80  

Also available on the official YouTube channel:

Your chance to vote for Pat and Deb Mastelotto, who are currently in the running to become America’s new first couple, as they raise funds for hunger relief and ocean conservation. There’s a top prize of $20,000 for their chosen charity and a dinner date with Jeff and Emilie Goldblum waiting for them if they win.

You can take our word for it that Pat and Deb are two of the nicest people you could ever meet. They remain each other’s biggest fans, best friends, and favourite travel buddies, and, as regular visitors to this site will already know, have collaborated on the 2021 Valentine’s Day CD release, A Romantic’s Guide To King Crimson, and were both members of the Exposure band that toured in 2025. 

Vote for The Mastelottos to be America's Favourite Couple while supporting two great causes! There are two days left to cast your daily vote here:  https://americasfavcouple.org/2026/the-mastelottos

Recorded in June 1990 at Manhattan Center Studios in New York. It was released on what would be Fripp’s final recording for EG Records.

A version of Eye Of The Needle had first appeared in 1985 on the League of Crafty Guitarists - Live album, where it is subtitled Guitar Craft Theme III.  As Robert reveals in this week’s commentary, it remains for him one of the most powerful pieces of music to come out of Guitar Craft. Its evolution came as part of the movement from playing the calisthenic exercises for left and right hands that are foundational to the courses, towards playing music. 

The composition came to life on a Guitar Craft course at Claymont Mansion in West Virginia in 1985 after Robert presented the themes to the piece to the assembled students. 

Working in the guitar circle in the ballroom with the full group of course attendees was a daily part of each course, where Robert would typically present parts to individual players while building up a complete piece of music played by the whole group. 

A typical day in Guitar Craft in 1985. 

The League of Crafty Guitarists are represented on this recording by Steve Ball, Tobin Buttram, Guido Ernst, Nigel Gavin, Tony Geballe, Curt Golden, Ralph Gorga, Trey Gunn, Steve Jolemore, Bert Lams, Victor McSurely, Hideyo Moriya, Hernán Núñez, David Pittaway, Paul Richards, Pietro Russino. 

Download Robert Fripp @ 80 Vol.9  Eye Of The Needle.   

Follow the Spotify playlist: Robert Fripp @ 80  

Also available on the official YouTube channel:

A black ’59 Les Paul, bought in London in 1968, is the guitar most associated with Robert Fripp from his time playing with King Crimson from 1969 to 1974, the 1977 Heroes session for Bowie, his New York years recording Exposure and making records with Daryl Hall, Peter Gabriel and Blondie, and the extensive tours playing Frippertronics or trying to coax punters onto the dance floor with his new wave dance band The League of Gentlemen. Here we look at what might then be considered a lesser instrument, a Japanese copy of a black Les Paul made by Tokai, but it was a favourite of the guitarist and his primary instrument for the best part of a decade and used for the majority of his professional work in the years 1985-1994. 

Robert's Tokai photographed at DGM in 2020.

In fact, Robert has favoured a number of Japanese Les Paul copies ever since. Renowned for their exceptional build quality and meticulous attention to detail, these guitars lack the historical baggage of the Gibson originals, which exist in only limited numbers - the Les Paul Custom was discontinued way back in 1961 (in favour of the more modern-looking SG body shape) and not reintroduced until 1968. The early ones are the holy grail for players and collectors, and the ’59 is just about as good as it gets. The advantage of a Japanese replica, though, was it could be customised to the owner’s specification with the addition of a guitar synth pickup, floating bridge tremolo system, string locking and other modifications, all of which require a certain amount of drilling and/or routing of the guitar body. Something no self-respecting luthier would want to do to a vintage ’59 Black Beauty Gibson. For the player, this made for a more versatile instrument, and for a working player who might be called upon to play sessions, it was one guitar that could do many things. Speaking about his choice of instrument to Sound on Sound magazine’s Mark Prendergast in 1988, he said, “It depends on what the brief is. If I've been asked to go into a session - for example, David Sylvian - and work in a very broad way, then I'll take a Tokai Les Paul copy which has been modified for me,” adding that “ It's the best guitar I have for being able to tackle anything, but it's not the best guitar for a specific task.”

The guitar was a one-of-a-kind instrument, a gift from Tokai in 1984, a year that had seen King Crimson complete a high-profile tour of Japan in April & May. “It was given to me at Arny’s Shack via Tony Arnold by the man who imported them to the UK. He told me that the Tokai LP copies were not as successful as the Fender copies, and he sent them all back – except the one he gave me”. It was a copy of a Les Paul Standard with DiMarzio PAF pickups, and the initials RF inlaid in the headstock, and similar to the TLS100 offered in the 1984 catalogue. 

A range of Gibson knock-offs from the 1984 Tokai catalogue.

The Tokai Gakki Company was founded in 1947 in the coastal city of Hammametsu, known as Japan’s ‘Music City’, famous for instrument makers and home to headquarters of major music brands Roland and Yamaha. Tokai initially made harmonicas and pianos, moving into acoustic guitars in 1965 and electric guitars in 1968. The company had something of a golden era in the late 70s and early 80s, producing exceptionally well-crafted replicas of instruments by Gibson and Fender at a time when those American companies were experiencing a decline in their own production quality. Other Japanese brands, including Aria, Ibanez, Yamaha, Fernandes and Burny, also put out similar instruments in what became known as ‘the lawsuit era’ when the American companies threatened to sue the Japanese makers for infringing their design rights. This often hinged upon the shape of the headstock; Gibson had trademarked its classic ‘open book’ shape and put pressure on manufacturers who were producing exact replicas. The early Tokais had even carried the Les Paul name on the headstock in the same script used by Gibson, with the additional word Reborn in much smaller size. Getting around these bones of contention was simply a matter of adding a dimple to the headstock outline and renaming the model the Love Rock instead of Les Paul, (their Fender Strat and Tele replicas became the Springy Sound and Breezy Sound), but for a long time, Tokai models were not allowed to be sold in the USA. More recently, with increasing competition coming from Korean and Chinese manufacturers who could produce instruments at lower cost, Tokai began making guitars outside Japan, but its Made in Japan line remains highly sought after. Robert’s Tokai comes from the classic period and has the Gibson-style headstock.

Tokai or not Tokai? Headstock comparison from Robert's 1959 Les Paul and 1984 Tokai.

Throughout his career, Robert has embraced new guitar technology and the Tokai provided the perfect blank canvas for his preferred modifications. He had been an early adopter of the Roland GR300 analogue guitar synthesiser, working with it since the time of its release in 1980. It was used extensively with the 80s lineup of King Crimson and, ever since, a guitar synthesiser has remained an integral part of the Fripp sound. On tour with the band during the 1980s, Robert played the Roland GR-303 guitar, which at the time was the only dedicated controller for the distinctive blue synth unit. In the final year of what Fripp termed the Incline to 1984, the band’s three-year campaign in the marketplace, his Roland guitar had been modified with the addition of a Kahler floating bridge. This innovative cam-operated tremolo system had just launched and had been used to great effect by bandmate Adrian Belew on his 1983 solo album Twang Bar King. Roland's release of the GK-1 hexaphonic pickup as a standalone unit in 1987 marked another important development, allowing virtually any guitar to be converted into a synthesiser controller. Consequently, the Tokai received both the GK-1 and the Kahler as Fripp sought to build an instrument tailored to his needs.

It would also be Fripp’s first electric guitar set up to use the radical new tuning he adopted in 1985. After the 1984 tour had completed in Montreal (documented on the Absent Lovers album), King Crimson once again ceased to exist, having fulfilled the three-year commitment that brought about the albums Discipline, Beat and Three Of A Perfect Pair. Robert went into retreat at the American Society for Continuous Education (ASCE) in Claymont, West Virginia, where the work begun at J.G Bennett's Sherborne House continued. The next step for him would be Guitar Craft, and the adoption of the New Standard Tuning (NST), where the guitar’s strings are tuned (from low to high) C, G, D, A, E, G. 

The Claymont mansion in 1984.

Elected president of the ASCE at the end of the year, he was asked by the committee to deliver a guitar seminar as part of the following season’s educational program at Claymont. Initially declining, “I said that I'd been giving guitar lessons since I was 13, and I had no wish to give any more,” but when later asked a second time, it was the new tuning which had flown by in 1983, as he famously sweated in a sauna in New York, that came to mind and changed his decision. After trying it out during the King Crimson writing rehearsals with Adrian Belew in Champaign-Urbana in 1983, it had not borne fruit, but now it finally found its place as the new standard tuning for Guitar Craft, a way of levelling all the students, whether they were beginners or seasoned players, all would be beginning again without access to any of their familiar licks and likely with a few broken strings as they adapted to the higher tension on the top string. For Fripp too, there was a steep learning curve after he made the commitment to work exclusively in the new tuning. He only began exploring it a short time before the first guitar course, “when I figured, hey, I best figure out what's going on with this tuning. That would be March 1985.”

Fripp Fripp: Robert plays the Tokai at a gig with Toyah at Moles Club in 1988.

Guitar Craft became the focus of Robert’s work for the next seven years. The recommended guitar for those attending the courses was the Ovation Shallow Body Cutaway, an electro-acoustic model, which became the instrument he was most often seen playing at that time. He did however still have use for an electric guitar. Following his marriage to Toyah in 1986, Fripp also formed an electric band with his wife, with the Tokai being the chosen guitar for that situation. 

Sessions for other artists were infrequent at this time, but two that were concurrent with the founding of Guitar Craft stand out. As Fripp was wrestling with the new tuning ahead of the first course in March 1985, his old friend Eno invited him to play on the Scott Walker record he and Daniel Lanois were producing at Phil Manzanera’s studio in Chertsey. Presented with complex written chord charts the guitarist had to make the decision that it was too soon to try to play these in NST and he reverted to the old tuning.  For reasons unrelated, the sessions were ultimately abandoned and have never been released.

A little while later, now better acquainted with tuning his guitar in intervals of a fifth, Robert played on former Japan frontman David Sylvian’s album Gone To Earth.

Speaking to Tony Bacon in 1991 he recalled:

“I was a little more familiar with it, but I had no parts to read as such, no really dense extended chords that would make the eyes boggle, let alone the hands. So, nevertheless, I opted to brave it out, and there's nothing like exposure to public ridicule to galvanize the attention. So I'm afraid David had to duck a little in the studio as one or two bold notes flew by. But that was really the no-turning-back point. Though I'm not what I would understand as fluent in the tuning—I'm still learning the tuning.”

The session paved the way for a future collaboration, but Fripp's return to playing electric guitar as a full-time working player would come in response to necessity. A dispute with his former managers at EG for nonpayment of royalties over a two-year period drew him back to the professional life, firstly a tour with David Sylvian in 1992, with an album the following year, and then with a revived King Crimson in 1994. There would also be some overlap with Guitar Craft as the guitarist performed solo Soundscapes supported by several acoustic guitar groups from among his students. Session work for others also became more frequent. Front and centre to all of this was Robert’s Tokai. 

The Tokai in use during the VROOOM sessions at Applehead in Woodstock, NY, in 1994 (photo: Tony Levin).

The guitar was customised to Robert’s specification by his Yorkshire-based guitar tech Ted Lee. A legendary figure on the Manchester and Merseyside music scene in the 60s, Ted was bass player with The Olympics, and while working at Barratts music store in Manchester, he became renowned as a refinisher of guitars, colour matching the newly imported sunburst Stratocasters and Precisions to a range of Fender colours. He went on to start his own guitar business and later taught a course in instrument building at the City of Leeds College of Music, where he nurtured the talents of many future luthiers. More than one DGM-er has found themselves dispatched to the North to ferry a Fripp guitar to Ted for some work to be done or to pick one up when the job was completed.

The modifications to the Tokai:

Roland hexaphonic pickup, installed between the bridge and the bridge Humbucker, sending an individual signal from each string.

Kahler tremolo system.

Behind the nut string clamp.

Recessed plug for the Roland 24 pin connector. 

Phase reversal and coil tap switches for each pickup, providing a plethora of sound options, including simulating a single-coil pickup.

Later (post-1994), a Fernandes Sustainer pickup replaced the neck position PAF humbucker and the scratch plate was removed to facilitate the modifications.

Robert Fripp playing the Tokai in 1993 (photo: Kevin Westenberg).

Main uses:

1985 David Sylvian session Gone To Earth. First use of the New Standard Tuning at a recording session.

1988/89/90  Sunday All Over The World, UK and European tours,  Recording Kneeling At The Shrine.

1992 World Financial Centre Soundscapes, Robert Fripp String Quintet tour, Sylvian / Fripp The First Day tour.

1993 Sylvian / Fripp The First Day album; The Road To Graceland tour and Damage live album; Robert Fripp String Quintet The Bridge Between.

1994 King Crimson VROOOM; Argentina tour and B'Boom live album; 1999 Soundscapes Live in Argentina; FFWD collaboration with Thomas Fehlmann, Kris Weston, and Dr Alex Paterson.

Sessions:

Inga Humpe (Planet Oz, 1991), The Grid (456, 1992, Evolver, 1994), Brian Eno (My Squelchy Life/Nerve Net, 1992), David Cunningham (Water, 1992), Toni Childs (The Woman’s Boat, 1994), John Wetton (Battle Lines, 1994), No-Man (Flowermouth, 1994), Future Sound Of London (Lifeforms, 1994, ISDN, 1994), Rimitti (Sidi Mansour, 1994, Cheikha, 1995).

With the arrival of two Fernandes guitars in 1995, complete with built-in Sustainer system, as well as a 48th Street custom Les Paul copy acquired in 1993, the Tokai was retired from frontline duty and became a practice instrument for home use. It was seen in the DGM studio during preparations for the 2005 soundscapes touring in England, but was not used live. At some point during the intervening decade, and in line with his other current guitars, it had been fitted with a Sustainer pickup in the neck position. It was revibrated by Ben Crowe of Crimson Guitars in November 2013. It remains in Robert’s possession and was photographed at the DGM Archive in 2020.

Listen to the Tokai in action on:

1999 Soundscapes - Live in Argentina

The Robert Fripp String Quintet - The Bridge Between

King Crimson - The VROOOM Sessions

King Crimson - B'Boom (Live in Argentina)

David Sylvian and Robert Fripp can also be heard on the official YouTube channel:

For an earlier Fripp guitar Deep Dive check out:  The Gibson Stereo

In December of 1977, Robert had already been in the studio with Phil Collins to work on early ideas for what would become his solo album Exposure. That time, bass-playing duties were fulfilled by erstwhile Crimson colleague, John Wetton and the session took place at Basing Street in West London.

Come the new year and Robert was back in New York, the city he had made home following his sabbatical at Sherborne House, which saw him make a complete withdrawal from the music industry. He was now returning to the fray on his own terms as a self-described ‘small mobile unit'. As sessions began in earnest in January at the Hit Factory with rhythm sections consisting of Tony Levin with drummers Jerry Marotta and Narada Michael Walden, a further date was pencilled into Fripp’s diary on March 26, Easter Sunday, with Levin being joined by Phil Collins to work on the backing tracks for Disengage and North Star.

Phil had been an admirer of King Crimson since the band's breakout year in 1969, telling Prog magazine’s Dave Everley in 2024:, “They were absolutely phenomenal. Like nothing else I’d ever seen. This was before progressive rock was even called ‘progressive rock,’ but it was clear they were doing something that was completely new and fairly astounding. And while everyone else was wearing capes and flouncing about, there he was in his suit, sitting on a stool.”

Tony Levin, Phil Collins and Robert Fripp in 1978.

Reflecting on the Exposure sessions, Collins remembered: “That was an interesting experience. Robert doesn’t work like anyone else. He’s very professorial and very focused – there’s no messing around. That’s not to say he’s not a warm person, because he is, but he knows what he wants from himself, and from you.”

At that point, Phil had spent most of the year preparing for a huge tour with Genesis, the band he now fronted, with 88 dates in North America, Europe and Japan lined up in support of a new album, And Then There Were Three, and with new guitarist Daryl Stuermer. He arrived from Dallas, where production rehearsals had taken place and was able to fit in a session for his old friend before the tour began two days later in Binghamton, in upstate New York. 

Listen as the trio tears it up on a series of takes of Disengage, before turning their attention to the calmer and more reflective North Star, a song which Phil Collins recently described as “one of my favourite pieces of music that I’ve ever played on.”

Download: Exposure Sessions - March 26, 1978.

A small furore – perhaps just a little rainfall in a teacup – has apparently broken out online about the cover for the limited edition Penn State Record Store day vinyl release – a cover based on a drawing of Robert Fripp by my son Ben. The first part of that is easily resolved. There is absolutely nothing AI about that image. Ben is as obsessed with drawing as his father is with music. He has founded a very successful company, Bearhand Design Limited, and all of its artwork is hand-drawn. I have seen him sitting in front of his tablet until the early hours day after day constantly drawing. So, on his behalf, I find the accusation of “AI” somewhat hurtful, belittling long hours of skilled, loving work.

While not AI, his work is, however, “digital”, which may be part of the confusion. The first work that I persuaded him to do for me – the artwork for the Billy G graphic novel – was drawn “analogue” on paper, (and those original drawings are amongst my more treasured possessions). Those line drawings were then scanned into a computer in order to be coloured with added text. With the advent of computer tablets, he now draws straight into a computer, just as most musicians record digitally rather than analogue. But every stroke remains hand-drawn. He is a “digital artist”. But certainly not an AI drone.

A better conversation might be “Why this cover?” and “Why Ben?”. Ben’s involvement with King Crimson has largely been because his father has abused his parental rights and persuaded him on more than one occasion to break away from his far more lucrative clients and help out in a crisis. The first came in 2014, a time when I had little involvement with the prospective new King Crimson. I was contacted by the then-manager Andy Leff who said that they were announcing a tour, and that the promoters needed artwork. That very evening, as I recall it. And there was nothing. No artwork, not even any photographs of a band that had barely begun rehearsals. So I grabbed my son, the one person who would find it hard to refuse such a plea, and said – “we need an artwork concept, right now!” And that same day, he handed me the “Elements of King Crimson” with a chemical symbol for each band member - a much-admired concept that endured throughout the life of that band. I know many fans created their own symbols. Later that year, I attended the King Crimson concert in Seattle, sitting beside a senior management figure from Starbucks, who seeing the symbols said “That is some of the best branding I have seen by any major rock band”.  So kudos, Ben.

Over the years, when similar shit has hit the fan, I have called in similar favours, and he has always responded. Rather than being the case of a father helping his son, this has much more been the case of a very busy son digging his father out of a hole.

And so to the latest release. We had accepted the idea of a series of Record Store Day vinyl releases, and also the idea that these should have their own aesthetic. I met with Robert in early January and we discussed the options.  The likely route would have been to choose a new painter from Robert’s wonderful artwork collection, as PJ Crook was used for many years, and Francesca Sundsten was used for the most recent line-up, beginning with the Cyclops. And Hugh O’Donnell is expert at using such imagery once we have it. Unfortunately, Robert’s cupboard was finally bare, and we would not have had time to source and license in from elsewhere.

On the office wall, I have a drawing of Jimi Hendrix that Ben did for a skateboard company – and, lacking other immediate routes, I suggested to Robert that, if a different aesthetic was needed, we could perhaps ask Ben if he would do a series of drawings of the band members, based on period-correct photographs which we could send him. The second stage of that plan involved me once again prevailing upon my son to temporarily set aside his other work to draw a picture that could become part of an ongoing series.  There is an old adage that “if you want something done, find a very busy person”, and it certainly seems true in his case. I am happy to pin my colours to the mast and predict it will make a wonderful series.  But, as ever, the market will decide. I assume the inaccurate accusation that the cover seems “AI” is another way of some saying that they don’t like it. Which is, of course, everyone’s prerogative. Personally, I look forward to the moment when I can make a poster of each of the drawings themselves, without the text that is added for the vinyl, to add to the walls of our office. With everlasting thanks to my very talented son, for being willing to heed my call.

On Saturday, I went to see Bruce Springsteen in Manchester: the concerts that have been making the news due to his polemic against the current state of America, and Trump’s ‘dried out prune’ response.  Jon, who accompanied me, has seen Springsteen about thirty times. It was my first. Unlike my trip to see McCartney a short while ago, where I knew intimately every note he would play, I know very little of Springsteen’s music. Probably about five hits. And while I love “Because the Night” and “Born To Run”, “Born in The USA” leaves me largely cold, as did much of his recorded catalogue the few times I have tried. Jon – reasonably mega fan – joked that it would not be too cruel to describe them as the best bar band in the world. And to this lover of the perfectly crafted song, melody and particularly harmony, (Rodgers and Hammerstein, The Beatles, Paul Simon, The Beach Boys), much of Springsteen’s music has never spoken to me. In the same way that when the modern church replaces a wonderful hymn like “Dear Lord and Father of Mankind” with someone strumming on an E major chord, although I am sure the music is just as spiritual, it leaves me cold.

I have chosen that comparison for a reason. Because Springsteen live is simply awesome. One of the best shows I have ever attended. And it was like an evangelical event. In fact, the closest analogy I can give is to listening to Billy Graham preach. It touches the parts that other beers cannot reach. A roughly three-hour concert, eighteen people on stage. Each song often following a similar pattern. A verse, a chorus, and then bang everyone kicks in. A saxophone solo. Sometimes you think it’s the end, but no, on it goes again. And as the final chord is played, there is a shout of “one, two, three, four” – often in exactly the same tempo – and another song begins without a moment’s pause. On and on and on. A rising fervour that is rarely allowed to dissipate, conducted by a supreme master performer. Where someone of 75 finds the energy, I have no idea.  A modern-day troubadour describing the America that he knows and loves –“land of hopes and dreams”. And, along with his hope, retaining a youthful anger. “My City of Ruins” sings on in my head.

Quite a night. Jon is returning tomorrow to do it all again.

We touched on this on the “Cruise to the Edge”, in discussing the notion that "Music plays the musician" – the music has a force of its own, and the musician is a vehicle for its expression rather than the other way round. And I tried, and failed I think, to express what I have written above. It may be no clearer this time.

As mentioned in the previous posts, I have recorded a very quick, somewhat embarrassing, demo of a song “Life’s a Boat”, and am seeking mass participation in the recording process. Here is the video. The sales pitch goes as follows:

Life’s a Boat. And we are all in the same boat together. So, in a world that seems determined to build walls, what better than a song where we all come together to contribute whatever we can. Robert Fripp described THRAK as the sound of 117 guitars almost hitting the same chord simultaneously. So how about 117 guitars playing the simple backing chords. Or maybe 1,117 guitars. Or 117 people, from 117 different countries or states. Some of the parts are so simple that a one note/one finger performance is all that is needed. Others are more complex. And there is always adding your voice to the chorus.

Anyone interested should please contact lifesaboat@thevicar.com. Let’s see if we can “get the thing to float”

I am sure that virtually everyone following online must be a musician of some kind, so please get in touch. And maybe, like an old-fashioned chain letter, if you are interested you can share it with some else who might also contribute. Whether the boat floats or sinks is now in your hands.

The third part of the cruise experience is the holiday. It’s a huge privilege to be paid to go on a cruise, with completely free days on the two days when the ship docks to let you ashore.

The first stop was at the Dominican Republic. When we arrived, another Norwegian Cruise liner was already there, somewhat unfortunately as the small island therefore suffered a veritable deluge of cruisers.

As you first make your way ashore, they have built their own small resort, complete with shops, a “beach” and a “lazy river”. When we first walked through, I couldn’t escape fast enough (but watch this space!). We went in search of the historic castle which Indeg had noted online (without the help of the numerous locals offering to guide us). And from there to the centre of town, to hopefully be followed by a real beach for a swim.

The first two went very well. And we did find a beach, but we could see a man standing less than knee deep a long way out, so not a place for swimming.

So after a pleasant walk, we made our way back, and enjoyed several hours sunbathing and floating round…the afore-mentioned lazy river.

The second stop was Great Stirrup Cay, a very small island owned by the cruise liner. This stop had the added excitement that it was accessed by launches from the side of the ship.

Again, it was perhaps not a resort that we would have chosen – but here I was, with my lovely wife swimming together in the Caribbean, and being paid for the privilege. One of those moments when you just have to say “thank you”.

Following the day at Great Stirrup Cay, the ship made its way back to Miami overnight, and began disembarking at the slightly ungodly hour of 7 o’clock in the morning. All cabins to be vacated by 8am and by 9 o’clock, they are keen that everyone has disembarked, so that they can prepare for the next departure. 

There was an impressive gathering of taxis lined up ashore, waiting to carry the crowds, several thousand large, away.

Tony Levin had mentioned that disembarking, caught in endless queues might be particularly tiresome, and an unfortunate end to a good trip. Fortunately, Robert’s cabin came with priority disembarkation and we were personally escorted from the ship. So spoilt to the end.

On the flight home, returning to reality and a political climate which seems to be determined to fragment and divide us, I compared this with the camaraderie on board. In life, we are all in the same boat together. And in the case of the cruise, it was a real boat with people from many different countries and different walks of life working together. So what better than a song called “Life’s a Boat” with mass participation and co-operation from as many people from as many countries as possible. I have considered this before, but a real ship, with such a varied range of artists, “sealed the deal”. I would be running scared if I did not commit to it. And I should be scared because the first necessary and inevitable stage will be exposure to public ridicule by making a quick demo of the track available. And the guide vocal goes an octave beyond my natural range (and it’s not too good even while I am within my range).

So part four, the legacy of the cruise, will be EXPOSURE TO PUBLIC RIDICULE.

Robert and I were contracted to do two shows on the cruise, on days two and four. The promoters also asked to show the King Crimson movie on the cruise- which seemed an excellent idea, with a perfect audience. For some reason, however, it was never scheduled - although Shawn of the Dead, good movie though it is, did get a showing. Go figure.  

More pertinently, and worryingly, a few days before departure, I received an email about an additional obligation: the hour-long fan “photo experience” – something we knew nothing about, and which, as one might imagine, set numerous alarm bells ringing.  I queried the email and was assured that such a photo experience was demanded “in all of the contracts”. Not in ours, it wasn’t. Nor indeed had our agent heard any prior mention. And a good thing too, because had it been in the contract, I might well have encouraged Robert in his likely desire to avoid it. When you are locked into something you dislike, you instinctively look for a way out. Once we had established that there was, in fact, no contractual requirement, the question was then a different one - whether in a spirt of goodwill and involvement, we should embrace the fan photo experience. Which we did – taking the advice of the organizers who recommended sunglasses, as there would be an hour of constant camera flashes. Sadly, even with sunglasses, I think I would make a very poor stand-in for the Blues Brothers.

For the shows themselves, my main concern once on board was to ascertain that the technical crew could definitely show the various clips stored on my computer on a large screen behind us. In the numerous technical emails before our arrival, I had been assured that this would “probably be alright”. Not quite the reassurance you need when it is a major part of what we do.

That hurdle safely negotiated, bar stools, although somewhat taller than our norm, were acquired, leaving just the shows themselves. These had a strange seating arrangement, where everyone with an orange or a green badge had a pre-arranged seat. One for our “orange show”, the other for our “green show”. The rules stipulated that even if there were unused seats (because someone didn’t fancy meeting “that awful man and his manager”,) the seats had to remain empty for the entire show. You thus perform to a hall with some empty seats, while I would regularly meet other cruise-goers saying that they would love to have seen us if they could. And some of the filled seats were inevitably up the gods, where geographically it was difficult for them to ask a question. I had already noticed on the Cruise to the Edge website that some of the less expensive internal cabins (no seaview) also came with restricted viewing at shows (can’t see the artists either).

The other ramification of the seating plan was that fans, knowing they had a pre-arranged seat, tended to turn up absolutely on time or indeed slightly late for shows. In the ten minutes before the show starts, we play outtakes from the Crimson movie (including one gem where Bill Rieflin compares his role in King Crimson to the unliked, unwanted, but nevertheless necessary kidney bean in the three bean salad). And both times, that movie played to an essentially empty hall with most people only catching the last few minutes,as they came in almost as we walked on stage.

I will leave comments on the shows themselves to those who attended. From my perspective from the stage, I enjoyed both, even though on the second show Robert was feeling increasingly unwell. A very good venue for what we do.

Which just leaves PART THREE leading to PART FOUR : EXPOSURE TO PUBLIC RIDICULE.

I finally have a moment to report about The Cruise to The Edge from the beginning of the month. A very good experience – probably easiest covered in three bits – which means that I can leave the terrifying consequences to the third part.

PART ONE : Going on a Cruise.

What’s not to like? I spent two pleasant days with my wife, Indeg, and Robert at the Intercontinental Hotel in Miami, right on the seafront, so that my morning jog took me round the bay (complete with stranded boat)...

...followed by a much less energetic meander up and down the swimming pool.

On the Thursday morning, we were collected and driven a couple of miles to the ship. They had an excellently arranged quick boarding priority for artists - except - crucial mistake - that they dropped us at the completely crowded Atrium, thronging with what seemed to be the majority of the two thousand music fans on board, while we needed to be one door further long at the lifts, which would then whisk Robert away to the sanity of his suite on the fourteenth floor. The room for my wife and I, on the eleventh floor, was somewhat less palatial, but nevertheless a good home-from-home...

...complete with a balcony from which we could see Miami gently disappear and the ocean come into view. The sounds and view of the sea remain as beguiling as ever.

The ship began by very slowly working its way past the houses and squillion dollar yachts on the waterway. In a world with an ever-larger wealth divide, here it was writ large -watching those multi-million dollar homes float past from the balcony of a luxury cruise liner.

We left port at about 5pm, and I think the opening act, Rick Wakeman, took the stage at 6pm. These cruises are conceived such that the performances occur in international waters (meaning that performance visas and taxes are not needed), but I suspect that he must have been close to being firmly within US waters. Indeg and I had dinner with Robert in the “artists’ dining room” on the 6th floor, taking advantage of the lull while Rick was in stage. We then made the rookie mistake of leaving the dining room at about 7.30, just as Rick's concert ended, with the entire audience of a thousand people heading to the same small five lifts that we needed to take us up eight floors. If Robert was going to be eaten alive by all the fans on the ship, this was the moment. Happy to report that he survived, outwardly unscathed.

Fellow cruise passengers do feel that they have the right to your attention and a shared intimacy that they wouldn’t under other circumstances. Part of the appeal, I am sure. And under circumstances, Robert and I wouldn’t have stood for an hour’s photo-session, being photographed by a seemingly endless stream of people, all of whom began by saying “I’m sorry” as they walked towards us for their photo-opp.

The Cruise can best be described as a water-based music festival – with performances happening continuously on about five different stages., including the outside "pool stage".

We had two performances scheduled, one in the afternoon of the 5th April our first full day at sea, and one in the evening of the 7th – in PART TWO.

I

Q: What is a question?
RF: An answer seeking to be known. More accurately, the answer seeks to be known by, to and within itself, by presenting itself as a question.

From one point of view, question and answer are inseparable.
Essentially, the question is its answer.

From another point of view, the answer is in the future, reaching back and pulling the question towards it.
The answer already is, and becomes a question so we may ask it.
We are invited to engage the question, and participate in its process of becoming.

The question seeks an orientation, a direction, and a movement towards the answer. Simultaneously, the answer sets the trajectory of the question.

For question and answer to be brought together, there is a creative element.
As with any creative action, the action is outside time while unfolding within the time stream.

II
The questions we ask direct the course of our lives.

A question expresses a search; more accurately, a searching.

A question is singular. It cannot take the form of either / or.

The right question attracts the right answer, accepting that the right answer is leaning back and guiding the right question towards it.

There are different qualities of question.
The quality of the question determines the quality of the answer.
Necessary questions have heat: they may even be on fire - these are burning questions.
Necessary questions are practical.

There are also different kinds of question.

So, what is the question?

III
To ask a question sets a process in motion.

As with any process, there are three main stages: the beginning, the middle and the end.

The first main stage:  Determining the question.
The second main stage: Holding the question.
The third main stage: Asking the question.

Each of these stages also have three stages: the beginning of the beginning, the middle of the beginning, the end of the beginning, and so on.

The beginning of the beginning, is the question.

Determining the question:

What is my question? I articulate the question.

Why is this my question? I weigh the necessity of the question: is it real, useful, necessary? What is my aim in asking this question? What purpose does an answer serve?

Holding the question:

How may I address this question? I engage, enter into, and examine the question. What is involved? Do I wish to have an answer? 

To whom may I address this question? I seek a higher authority than my own, either within or without.

Asking the question: I ask the question.

I surrender to the question.
I surrender to the answer.

The question is answered:

I honour the answer – I act on it.
This action may be internal, external, more likely both.

Always, we act on the answer. Without this, the question withers.
If we are not prepared to act on the answer, better not to ask the question.

III

The right answer changes something on the inside.
Change on the inside makes possible a change on the outside.
Change on the outside is not inevitable.
A change has taken place in potential, while not yet expressed in form and time.
So, something has become possible, and may become actual.

IV
The question holds the answer.

Sometimes, as a gift, we are given an answer to the question we should have asked, not the question that we did ask.
Injunction: Clarify.
Sometimes, we are given the gift of no answer at all.
Injunction: Persist.
Sometimes, we get silly answers.
Injunction: Discriminate.

If we have been present within an action, it is within our experience.
If we are present within our experience, our experience is present within us.
If this is so, we may re-enter and interrogate our experience.

The answer holds the question.

Bredonborough, Middle England;
Sunday 23^rd. March, 2025.

Fans
A series of Questions for Robert from a Pesty Questionier VII

PQ: You’ve made lots of comments, for decades, about fan relationships. Why?
R: The main aim is to understand my life as a working player.

PQ: How does that relate to fans?

R: To understand any situation, activity, or undertaking, you have to see the whole picture of the operation. For the working player, the four primary areas to investigate are music, musicians, audiences and the industry. Then, look at the mechanics of how they relate to each other, how they work together, and how they work individually within their own limited spheres of interest.

For example, you have the relationship – music, musicians, audience. What happens when that relationship is mediated by commerce? Does money changing hands alter how musicians and audients engage with each other? Does the relationship between musicians alter when money is involved? And, does the music change when money becomes part of playing music?

If we’re looking at the tetrad of the Music System, we get the dyads…

Music – Musician
Music – Audient
Music – Industry
Musician - Audient
Audient – Industry
Industry - Musician

The triads…

Music – Musician - Audient
Music – Musician – Industry
Music – Audient - Industry
Musician – Audient – Industry

If we apply triadic analysis, each of the four triads have six ways of relating to each other. That is, six kinds of relationship within each triad.

PQ: That’s a bit intellectual.
R: Kinda. Each of the triads have a kind of feel, a kind of flavour. This comes from experience. It’s impossible to get a handle on them unless we move out of the head, get our hands dirty in the “real” world. When we are in “real” world situations, the confusion in situations become clearer, we get a better sense of the mechanics when things bang together.

The relationships get more sophisticated when we look at the different qualities of each of the terms. For example, with a musician…

Genius

Professional                      Master Musician

Happy Gigster

The same with qualities and degrees of audients, music, and business persons. Such as managers. The history of some groups and artists are inexplicable unless you know the management and business history.

When we take all these factors into account, and there is no final answer to any of it IMO, the mechanics of our subject of interest become clearer.

PQ: Alright. Back to fans. Surely fans have the right to be recognised and acknowledged?

R: Complex question. In their role as audients, honourably addressing the responsibilities and obligations that go with being Mother to the Music, the performer honours the role of audient, respecting the person accepting and discharging that role, knowing and embracing the impersonal yet intimate nature of coming-together within the performance as an act of music, or act of musicking acknowledging Christopher Small’s use of the verb.

The Act of Music is the Music.

PQ: That is a bit complex.
R: The difficulties begin when the roles, filled by performer and audient, move outside the defined performance space. Then the roles move from the impersonal to the individual and become personal.

PQ: What’s wrong with that?
R: If that’s your question, you might equally ask - what’s right with that? The form of your question makes it difficult for me to answer the question within your question, which you didn’t ask.

PQ: OK. So what do you think my “inner question” is?
R: “Surely the common humanity between fans and the subject of their interest is worthy of being recognised and acknowledged?”.

PQ: If I did ask that question, how would you answer?
R: Yes.

PQ:That’s straightforward.
R: When the question is straightforward, a little space opens between the question and its answer, so less barrier to an answer being given.

PQ: Well, running with this. You have a terrible reputation for how you deal with fans. Have you ever put yourself out to meet the fans? To “recognise and acknowledge their common humanity with you?”.
R: Quick answer, yes.  This was a personal aim for the Frippertronics touring, in Europe and North America, of 1979. A very demanding four months, and commensurately rewarding. A little historical background…

In 1969 I felt that audients and players, punters and performers, we were all on the same side. This was the last gasp of the counter culture, of 1960s idealism, which didn’t quite make it into 1970. We were all there to support Music, knowing that “Music can change the world”. What surprised me then, with King Crimson’s sudden success, was the degree of hostility that KC seemed to trigger. Today, I take it as a commonplace that any positive generates a negative reaction of equal force. The practical concern then moves to: how do we bring the two opposing forces together? Perhaps for another day.

The huge money-flow success of the record and music industry between 1968-78 attracted the attention of ambitious business persons. In the 1980s ambitious business persons went into property. (As an aside: Mr. SG Alder used the EG Music Group’s success 1969-76 to move into property 1977-78, until the collapse of the property market in the Autumn of 1988 compounded his disastrous problems as a Lloyd’s Name).

In the 1970s, records and stadium rock were growth areas. Performances moved out of clubs, into theatres, into stadia. The physical distancing of punters and performers went with that. Physical distancing, physical barriers, security staff to “protect” the performers - I didn’t feel the “we’re on the same side” vibe anymore.

And good to bear in mind that not every performer was looking to explore the “common humanity” between audients and performers. Some just wanted to be stars. In which case, the distance in attitude widened beyond the purely physical. “Common” humanity became a little more uncommon. Well, that’s my experience on the ground.

The 1979 Frippertronics tour was set up to down barriers between audients and, in this case, Fripp as performer. Record stores, small performance places, and some offices in record companies. The assumption within this: we do have a common humanity to be mutually recognised, accepted and trusted. Trusted, for example, in terms of personal interactions, where politeness is a given. EG Management didn’t like this approach. Mark Fenwick managed ELP within the EG Office, then Roxy Music and Bryan Ferry, and Mr. Fenwick’s response to the proposed small, mobile and (aspiring to) intelligent unit touring, was negative.

Mark Fenwick: They’ll see the emperor has no clothes!

RF: The emperor has no clothes.

Mr. Fenwick’s approach to management distanced performer from audient, to maintain / develop the mystique of the artist / star. My intention was otherwise.

PQ: How did that work for you?
R: Quick answer:  very well, particularly in the US and Canada.

PQ: Why North America?
R: Firstly, language. Secondly, a more unified culture/s and national border/s. Europe has a lot of borders, many cultures. Thirdly, the US had more public spaces, such as record stores and clubs. Europe had more industry spaces, less public spaces, available to me.

And it helped that performances were mostly free. In record stores it was - come along, see a free presentation, music and Q&A, buy an Exposure album. Or not.

PQ: When punters buy tickets, the atmosphere changes?
R: Yes. My experience of engaging personally with audients changed in 1980.

PQ: Why?
R: How and why did the world change? Lotsa answers to that one. Politically, Reagan became the US president and Margaret Thatcher was the British prime minister. I am not commenting on their broader policies including the economic, other than to say something like: there was a shift in the wider cultural imperative.

Immediately, my experience face-to-face, was that members of the public made demands on me. Regardless of whatever I felt, fan rights were more important, more deserving, had greater weight than me if I declined to engage. With autography, photography, singing things, being allowed to sit in an auditorium and watch / listen to other bands on the bill with interruption. Increasingly the justification used – we give you money! I quote an actual situation in the Rockefeller Center, NYC, shouted down and along the ground floor corridor, January 1982.

PQ: What changed?
R: This was a process underway, where a market economy became a market society.

It is an illegitimate construal that buying a ticket confers rights, even rights over the person of the performer, outside the performance and performance space. Essentially, it is defining “our common humanity” in material terms.

Where there is mutual agreement, fine. Like the development of VIP eventing. This is now a key part of any touring group’s financial planning. Streaming has siphoned off what would once have been a royalty stream, so live work is now the primary income stream for most working players.

At King Crimson shows, David Singleton created the Royal Package. David and a member of the band would speak to the VIP Eventers and answer questions. Usually I’d welcome the RP participants, which I enjoyed a lot. VIP events are a defined and consensual professional undertaking that extends beyond the defined audient / performer roles. Not quite impersonal, not quite personal. A liminal zone.

PQ: Why “illegitimate construal”? Fans have bought your stuff, gone to shows.
R: I give my dentist money. He doesn’t expect me to hang with him, he doesn’t expect to hang with me, just because we’re up to speed on my dental hygiene. Although if I asked politely, he’d probably autograph my false tooth. But, since he didn’t actually make it, maybe not.

PQ: But fans are people. Don’t they have the right to be recognised and acknowledged?
R: Along the lines of, acknowledging our common humanity?

PQ: Yes.
R: Alright. At certain point, where we are present to ourself we become present to another. In the conventional formula: I am Thee and Thee is me. There is mutual recognition. And may we note: when we are present to ourselves there is no demand for recognition / acknowledgement by another. It is sufficient to be present. Firstly, to myself. Secondly, to be present to another. Thirdly, to recognise ourselves within each other. I see you. You see me. We are One. All is good.

PQ: You’re on a roll. So where does fan demand for recognition come from?
R: It’s their dragon that wants to be tickled.

https://www.dgmlive.com/diaries/Robert%20Fripp/2025-02-26-rf-diary

PQ: Back to St. George’s pet.
R: I doubt that our pal George would look on his dragon as a pet, more a continual reminder that if he fell asleep on his horse, Georgie’s backside would get well-toasted with fiery breath.

PQ: You see fans as dragons?
R: No. But when I get pitched – you’re a creepy and failed person because you won’t sign my stuff when I gave you my hard-earned pay and I only wanted to say hello and while I’m only saying hello put my arm around you for a selfie and a squeeze, there’s nothing wrong with that anyway, it’s only a small thing it’s not like I’m doing anything wrong, in any case I have the right to be recognised and acknowledged by you so why are you walking backwards and away from me, I feed you and pay your household bills  – the part of that good person demanding my limited attention is their dragon. In a word, their egotism.

In Sufi practice, acknowledging a person’s dragon would be considered unethical.

PQ: How so?
R: Western ethics differentiates between right and wrong. Sufi ethical practice differentiates between the real and the imaginary / illusory, the “higher” and “lower” parts of our common humanity.

Attention is a power. When I give my attention to a person, it strengthens that person. More accurately, it strengthens that part of the person which receives my attention. Fan demand for recognition doesn’t allow for me to choose, to give attention or not. So for me to give their dragon attention, is to strengthen their egotism. In any practice, this is the inverse of the aim: to free ourselves to serve what is highest in us. As is said - what is highest in us, is not far from what is highest in us all. And what is highest in us all, is not far from what is Highest.

PQ: That’s a bit cosmic.
R: Alright. A practical example from the life of a working player. The musician serves the Music. Would you agree?

PQ: Yeah. That sounds right.
R: Where the musician uses music to attract attention to themself, things begin to get out of tune, out of time. If that musician becomes popular, with simpering adulants and accompanying fame, if the musician allows themselves to believe the crap, the channel for Music to work through them gets blocked. If the musician is full of themselves, there’s little room for Music. Music has to work way harder to get into our world.

Conventionally expressed, we have to get out of the way. Even, to get out of our own way.

PQ: How do you deal with success?
R: There’s nothing like humiliation to galvanise the attention.

Music from the 1979 Frippertronics touring...