Included with the extensive interview feature covering Fripp’s life after Crimson and the establishment of Guitar Craft, was an accompanying ‘Sound Page’ flexi disc with a new Frippertronics piece entitled Easter Sunday. The backing had been recorded three years earlier in Toronto on Easter Sunday, April 3, 1983, with Fripp using the Roland GR-700 guitar synthesiser and his twin Revox tape loop system. Later in the year, guitar solos were overdubbed at Arny’s Shack in Parkstone, Dorset, using a Takamine acoustic and a Les Paul through a Fender Princeton amp. For almost twenty years, Easter Sunday remained a rarity known only from its release on the flexi disc, until it was remastered and included on the CD Love Cannot Bear - Soundscapes Live in the USA in 2005. 

The Guitar Player magazine ‘Sound Page’.

Flexi discs had been around since the 60s, often seen as novelty items aimed at fan clubs - the Beatles had a regular series of such discs, including special recordings thanking their fans at Christmas time. In the mid 90s and later, cover-mounted CDs of music compilations became a commonplace, if not essential, part of magazine publishing. But before that, the inclusion of a flexi disc bound into the magazine’s pages was an infrequent bonus, especially exciting if, as in this case, it contained previously unreleased music. Playable on a regular record player, the thin vinyl sheet performed surprisingly well. It could even have music on both sides, with this release being backed with a track by Allan Holdsworth playing a Synthaxe. Guitar Player released a total of 67 flexi discs between the late 70s and early 90s, containing songs, lessons and demos. 

Listen to the track on Love Cannot Bear -Soundscapes Live in the USA.

Also available on the official YouTube channel:

Although not widely discussed before on this site, Fripp’s cameo appearance in the 1979 film of The Who’s rock opera has become the stuff of legend. Significant also as it was his first meeting with future wife Toyah on set, something that she has always kept quiet about in her interviews relating to the iconic movie. Here for the first time are some of the film’s outtakes featuring the Crimson ‘Ace Face’ with the Mods on location in Brighton. 

On Brighton promenade during filming.

Fripp wisely heads to the estate agents during the street riot scene.

A keen motorcyclist, it was the sharp-suited Fripp’s ability to handle a two-wheeler that clinched him the part. Frequently seen backstage in the 70s, his bike was a useful place to warm up before the show or make a quick getaway afterwards. But it was reportedly his insistence that he use his own 750cc Norton Commando that cost him a bigger role in the movie when it was discovered that the Mods exclusively rode Italian scooters. 

Fripp on his bike in 1971.

Next in the frame for the lead had been John Lydon, whom Toyah had helped to prepare for the part. But he was also rejected, with no one being willing to insure the former Sex Pistol for the role. Finally, Phil Daniels was cast to play Jimmy, the troubled, pill-popping Londoner who travels to Brighton for a bank holiday dust-up between Mods and Rockers.

Debbie Harry and Robert Fripp in Alphaville, 1978.

Like his fellow cast member Sting, this was a time when Fripp took a break from music to pivot into movies. He had co-starred with Debbie Harry in the remake of Alphaville the previous year. Although his acting career may have slowed after Quadrophenia, it was an experience that would serve him well in his later life as a YouTuber alongside Toyah. 

Quadrophenia Alley, Brighton.

Excited by the discovery of the photos, we jumped on the DGM speed-restricted moped and visited ‘Quadrophenia Alley’ to search for Fripp’s signature, visible above. 

The assembled cast on Brighton Beach.

What Pete Townshend said about it: “Oh well.” Or maybe that was Peter Green?

UPDATE:  This article was published on April 1st. Parts of the story may be completely untrue. 

We know it from both the 1974 studio album of the same name, and The Night Watch live album released in 1997. Here is the classic improv heard for the first time as a trio mix focusing on the playing of David Cross, John Wetton and Robert Fripp, recorded live at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw on November 23, 1973.

From Sid Smith’s notes: “Trio, well-known for Bill Bruford’s decision to sit in silence with his drumsticks crossed over his chest for the duration of the piece, earned him the now-legendary credit, “admirable restraint.” However, what if Bill had decided to play nothing on the improvisation that preceded Trio? It's a piece that features all kinds of percussion, along with some of Bruford's trademark grooves and dynamic punctuation, which really help shape it. How might it all have sounded if Bill had sat this one out?”

Download here: Starless and Bible Black (trio mix).

Or listen to a preview on the official YouTube channel:

To hear the improvisation as originally played, listen to the complete concert here: King Crimson live at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam - November 23, 1973

Saturday at 18:00 GMT...

Sunday at 12:00 GMT...

Now clad in natural wood, it’s all looking wonderfully Scandi, although any resemblance to a sauna ends there as work is ongoing to install the insulation and soundproofing. The studio is being constructed on the site of a building formerly known as The Dental Laboratory — we’re just hoping it’s not going to be called Denture Studios. 

Looking forward to knitting together more classics, David Singleton and Stormy welcome a delivery of Rockwool.

View from the live room looking through the newly installed partition door into the control room. 

The arrival of the catalogue for Jamie Muir’s retrospective exhibition sparked considerable interest, with members of the team scanning it for artworks that might have particular Crimson appeal — and possible future album cover use. There would appear to be many possible candidates. The body of work is quite remarkable, and it is fair to say that few of us had fully realised, or properly appreciated, what a magnificent and imaginative artist he was. There is still time to visit the Ab Anbar gallery until April 1. Check here for details: Gallery opening times.

Meanwhile, work continues at DGM HQ where the latest Elemental mixes are now beginning to be discovered by David, while Mr Stormy has been preparing the Exposure Sessions multitracks for release on dgmlive, full of previously unheard takes and sonic experiments. These will be released throughout the year, beginning very soon. 

Objects of interest in the archive:

A pair of posters from 2021, signed by the full band. It looks like they were expecting Mellotrons in St Augustine.  King Crimson were reunited with their old friends The California Guitar Trio as opening act on these dates.

A 1981 test pressing of Robert Fripp's Let The Power Fall, released on Editions EG with the catalogue number EGED 10. There was a problem with the last track on Side 2 on this test copy. 

A JVC HM-200E binaural headphone/microphone with foam head. Launched in 1978, this was designed to capture sound exactly as a human would hear it. There are two omnidirectional electret condenser microphones powered by AA batteries built into the headphone. Any long-term followers of DGM will remember Tony Levin’s From The Caves Of The Iron Mountain CD released in 1997, with Jerry Marotta on drums and Steve Gorn on flutes, which was recorded by engineer Tchad Blake using this kind of binaural microphone.

Items for carrying away to our friends at the FX Copy Room this week include two half-inch tapes containing Live I by Robert Fripp and the League of Crafty Guitarists, and a number of DATs, a format which has not proven to be good for archival storage, and are now best left to the specialists to recover the data. Hopefully the contents of some of the above will become available to listen to here on dgmlive later in the year.

. . .

On this day, 41st Guitar Craft Anniversary, word, sound, and vision:

A Still Point

The beginning of any process is from a Still Point. If a process begins where activity is already underway and in motion, the naturally-proceeding unfolding of the process, of the process discovering / discerning itself in manifestation, will be compromised.

If a person / group undertaking a process begins from movement, the process is undermined. Expressed cataphatically, for a process to move to a completion, it is necessary for those participating to be still before beginning.

A Still Point is where we are quiet in our body, thinking and feeling. This is the beginning point from which all action moves.

Robert Fripp
Friday 4^th. July, 2025
Bredonborough; Middle England.

. . .

Live performance in Castione della Presolana, Italy

Robert Fripp & The Orchestra of Crafty Guitarists: 70 guitarists from around the world, playing in movement.

Entrance free - registration necessary: eventbrite.it

. . .

A New Album

Just in from The League Of Crafty Guitarists:

LIVE VI is now available, a new live recording by The League of Crafty Guitarists in collaboration with the Mendoza Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Pablo Herrero Pondal.

The album captures a singular musical encounter, bringing together The League of Crafty Guitarists and the Orchestra in a performance featuring Soundscapes by Robert Fripp, orchestrated by Andrew Keeling, alongside Guitar Craft and King Crimson pieces. The acoustic guitar ensemble merges with orchestral writing, unfolding a language that balances precision and openness, structure and space.

Additional orchestral arrangements for The League of Crafty Guitarists were written by Juan Emilio Cucchiarelli and Joaquín Guevara.

Recorded live, LIVE VI reflects not only the Performance, but the process: a shared field shaped by attention, resonance and silence.

Available on Bandcamp:
https://thelcg.bandcamp.com/album/live-vi

. . .

A New Photo Gallery

Hundreds of photos have been uploaded to the 2025 Introduction To The Guitar Circle & The Orchestra Of Crafty Guitarists' event page... Click here.

. . .

Upcoming courses and projects with Robert Fripp:

An Introduction To Guitar Craft & The Guitar Circle

with Robert Fripp
Thursday 16 – Sunday 26, April 2026
Villa Sancelso, Castione della Presolana, Italy.

Upcoming events hosted by associated / affiliated / related initiatives:

Introduction to Guitar Craft & International Guitar Orchestra XI

Hosted by Música En Movimiento
Tuesday 23 – Sunday 28, June 2026
Villa Elisa, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Introduction to Guitar Craft & Workestra Tour

Hosted by Guitar Work
Saturday 4 – Sunday 12, July 2026
San José de Costa Rica, Costa Rica

Guitar Craft at Camp Caravan: Beginning and Continuing

Presented by Tony Geballe, Curt Golden, Brad Hogg, Victor McSurely, Chris Paquette, Dev Ray, Mikael Weichbrodt, and Erin Wigger.
Saturday 18 – Sunday 26, July 2026
Camp Caravan, Royalston, Massachusetts, USA

Silence in Music: A Guitar Craft Project

with Andrés Ceccarelli, Marian Hafenstein, Ignacio Gracián, Martin Schwutke, John Hicks, Mariana Scaravilli and a team of experienced guitar circlers.
Hosted by Silence in Music
Friday 31, July – Sunday 9, August 2026
Casal Sagrat Cor, Viladrau, Spain

The three-week tour supported the THRAK album, the first full studio album to be recorded in ten years. Featuring complex compositions as well as a return to live improvisation delivered by the newly configured band, the run is packed with unique moments all the way through to its concluding two-night residency at London's Royal Albert Hall. 

Also available to download from dgmlive: 

THRAK tour of Europe, 1995

In the 70s and 80s pre-recorded cassette was treated as a poor relation to vinyl; the insert usually gave only the most basic amount of information (the first Island Records cassette of In The Court didn’t even use the iconic cover image); the tape used by the record companies was the cheap Ferric kind, the sound was sometimes disappointing, thanks to the high-speed duplication process used in manufacture, and a lot depended on how well the equipment had been setup and maintained. It also came with the inconvenience of spooling forwards or backwards to find the track you wanted, regular cleaning of tape heads was required to remove the deposits of ferrous material shed by the tape, and there were the further problems of tapes stretching, becoming entangled, or even breaking. 

The first Island and Atlantic cassette editions of the debut album.

The Compact Cassette was developed by Philips, who introduced the first recorder for home use, the monaural EL3300, in August 1963, along with blank tape cassettes to record onto. In 1965, the technology was further developed for stereo, and the ‘Musicassette’ was launched, containing pre-recorded music. In-car cassette players and portable boom boxes suddenly took music to places a vinyl LP could not follow, but it would be the invention of the Sony Walkman in 1979 that really brought it into its own. With a pair of headphones, this was really music on the go, and between 1985 and 1992, cassette became the most popular format sold in America. 

It was for many of us how we curated our musical world back in the day, from recording concerts off FM radio, swapping mix tapes with our friends, or helping to kill music with a bit of home taping from each other’s LPs , using a C60, C90 or C120 cassette. For the more adventurous and creative, it also offered the chance to make one’s own recordings, be they musical or documentary. The introduction of cassette-based portastudios in 1979 and into the early 80s, expanded this to bring 4-track recording to the humble and eminently affordable cassette, even if this came with the downside result of hundreds of unlistenable ‘ideas’ tapes.

Despite its low fidelity status, the cassette format has delivered some significant finds in the DGM Archive. These fall into a number of categories: audience tapes/bootlegs, soundboard recordings, listening copies (usually dubbed from a studio master), running tapes that document a studio session or rehearsal, promotional/advance copies of an album.

Industrial cassette duplicating machines.

Perhaps most famous among these items are the cassette recordings taken from the mixing desk on the 1972 King Crimson tour of the USA, which were used to make the Earthbound live album. It has a claim to being the first official bootleg, something which passed the American record label by, as they were unhappy about the lo-fi quality and declined to release it. It achieved a legendary status of sorts for its poor sound, but few could fail to be impressed with the power of the opening track, 21st Century Schizoid Man, with a borderline unhinged vocal delivery from Boz, processed through the VCS3. The credits on the back of the album explained: “The recordings were captured live on an Ampex stereo cassette fed from a Kelsey Morris custom-built mixer operated by John Robson and Hunter Macdonald”, noting that in Jacksonville this was done “in the rain from the back of a Volkswagon truck”.

An Earthbound cassette master from the DGM tape store.

After the tour had completed in Birmingham, Alabama on April 1st, the band had permanently broken up, with Mel, Boz and Ian joining Alexis Korner to continue touring in America, while Fripp returned to Command Studios in England to sift through the tapes from the tour. These were first transferred from the original cassettes to 1/4 inch reel tape. If you were going to buy the album on cassette, the audio that you were going to hear would have been copied multiple times before it reached your player. After being compiled to make a master and then EQ’d to make a copy master specifically designed for cassette duplication, from this, a further tape loop would be run off for use in the duplicating bins to create the pancakes of tape copies of the album that were wound and spliced in the cassette loading machine. The result was by then 5 generations removed from the original recording. Quite a journey for those magnetised particles first coaxed into place at a venue on the American tour.

Michael Giles' Fillmore East cassette.

The significance of the original lineup, coupled with the scarcity of recordings made by the band, make the few cassette finds from 1969 highly prized indeed. It was the compilation of the Epitaph boxed set in 1997 that brought to light the Fillmore East tape. It had long been a part of legend that the band had been recorded to 8 track when they were appearing over two nights in November in New York City on a bill with Joe Cocker and Fleetwood Mac, but that those tapes had never been found. David Singleton, writing in the notes that accompanied the release: “These versions come not from those still undiscovered tapes, but from a cassette copy owned by Michael Giles. He was under the impression that his cassette was a widely available bootleg, little realising that he possessed the only known copy of these shows.”  It would be another five years, when compiling the Collectors Club edition of Live in Hyde Park, for Michael Giles to make another discovery in his collection, a cassette containing the only surviving record from the aborted sessions at Morgan Studios in June 1969 with producer Tony Clarke. An instrumental run-through of 21st Century Schizoid Man with guide solos overdubbed by Robert and Ian, from their first attempt at recording the album. This would have been a listening copy, run off from the studio master for the musician to take away and play at home or in their car. 

ITT SL73 cassette recorder of the kind used at Chesterfield.

The majority of the bootlegs in circulation on CD in recent decades will have begun as cassette recordings made by audience members or recorded at home from FM radio broadcasts. As David Singleton noted: “Where would the bootleg be without the cassette?!” One of these is the complete concert recorded at Chesterfield’s Victoria Ballroom in September 1969 by Robert Griffiths using an ITT SL73 recorder.

Robert Fripp  writing in 1998: 

“At the time, this would not have been considered bootlegging: this was a time of innocence, for a younger generation, and a time in which rock music could direct and shape the future of a world.

My own cassette of Hyde Park is somewhere, lost. The person who sent it to me didn't have the live Schizoid, so dubbed on the album version. And somewhere I have heard the tape of a New York show which contains the improv. Someday, I might find these in an unmarked box. Peter Sinfield's tape of the Kinetic Playground in Chicago, where we supported Poco and Iron Butterfly (and was burned out for non-payment of the insurance premium), was lost when some of Peter's effects were lost in transit from Spain to England during the 1980s.”

When compiling the Epitaph box, Get Thy Bearings, from a Top Gear radio session was missing from the BBC archive, but a bootleg cassette recording of the broadcast was found to document this rare studio performance. Likewise, a missing segment of the Fillmore West concert, occurring during a break in the music, was patched in from an audience bootleg to maintain continuity. 

Fripp in New York, 1978. He may be recording this. 

In 1978, Robert Fripp had acquired a portable recorder. Pre-dating the Walkman, this was designed as a dictation machine, but was put to work by the guitarist, capturing the field recordings and found sounds that he termed ‘Indiscretions’ that are heard on Exposure and The League of Gentlemen. Fragments of spoken word from friends and family, including the argument in the adjoining apartment in Hells Kitchen heard on NY3, or the Wimborne Minster bells on Under Heavy Manners, all collected on Fripp’s mono Sony cassette recorder. It was also used to jot down guitar ideas, no concern for fidelity on these; the scratchy twang of an unplugged Les Paul is what is heard, capturing an idea as it flew by. Some are recognisable as fragments that were later developed, others not. A number have been released on this website.

In May 1981, King Crimson were in Basing Street studios in Notting Hill, working on their album Disicpline, and a track about urban crime, Thela Hun Ginjeet. Far from being the fashionable neighbourhood it is today, though no longer the place of slums and riots that it had been a couple of decades earlier, it could still at times be ‘a dangerous place’. With Adrian declaiming words to that effect in front of the microphone, but in a manner that didn’t quite convince, Robert suggested: “Why don’t you take this pocket cassette machine and walk around the block and get a bit more of a feel for what it’s like to be on the streets?” This led to the now-famous run-in with the street gang, who grabbed the tape player and, turning it on, heard “He held a gun in his hand - This is a dangerous place”, leaving Adrian to talk his way out of that one. He returned to the studio “shaking like a leaf”, but was now equipped to add a more authentic ambience to the track.

Network casssette inlay card, 1985.

The Frippertronics loops from Robert’s solo tours were saved on 1/4 inch reels as part of the twin Revox tape system he had devised, but when he played these back at concerts and soloed over them, the solos were not recorded. Were it not for members of the audience and their cassette recorders, these would have been lost. In some cases they have now been painstakingly matched to the loops by DGM engineer Alex Mundy, and the performances restored.

In a diary entry from May 11, 1999, Robert records delving into one of the unmarked boxes mentioned earlier: “Three trays of cassette tapes for sorting. Included among the gems are a bootleg tape of Frippertronics in the US during 1979, now playing behind me as I sit and tap the IBM QUERTY. Wailing guitar screams away over the loops. A demo of Marillion, handed to me during the 1981 Crimson show in Friars, Aylesbury by Fish. This before they were signed to ‘a major record label’. A tape of Fripp with Blondie at the New York Palladium, November 12th. (1978?) on Sister Midnite & Heros (spelling on the inlay card). The second song presumably a commentary on forms of fast food. Several tapes of ‘Indiscretions’ - recorded conversations with friends in New York during the late 1970s.”

Elsewhere in the archive cassettes have been seen, tantalisingly marked ‘Robert Fripp & John McLaughlin’. A previously unheard super session perhaps? In actual fact, a taped conversation between the two guitarists for Musician magazine in Paris in 1982. And helpfully available in transcript here: When Bobby met Johnny. 

Cassette artwork for The Lady or the Tiger.

By the early 90s a lot more care was being put into cassette releases by the labels. Duplication was now coming directly from a digital copy, and there was a significant improvement in quality with the use of Chrome tape and Dolby noise reduction, and the inclusion of full artwork and sleeve notes. In certain cases the cassette could eclipse the recently introduced compact disc by including more content, an example being David Sylvian’s Gone To Earth where the CD had fewer tracks than the LP or cassette editions.

In the same way that the photographic archive saw an explosion in content after the year 2000, with the arrival of digital photography, the same had happened in audio recording in the 90s, when it became routine to record every concert digitally. It is only rarely that we would look to a bootleg recording to fill a gap in the archive after that period, with first DAT, then in the 2000s, direct to CD-R or hard drive recordings being made by the live sound engineer. 

THRAK Virgin America promo cassette, 1994.

But cassette was still a format in use in 1994. The advance copies of the Double Trio lineup’s album THRAK were dubbed onto cassette and sent out to reviewers. In the same year, a spoken word tape was released in Japan and available at the arts venue P3 beneath the Tochoji Zen Temple, where David Sylvian and Robert Fripp’s Redemption installation was taking place.

Redemption cassette (1994).

After that it would seem to be terminal decline for the once ubiquitous format, as compact disc took over, with in-car CD players and the portable Discman filling those niches it had once made its own. Except maybe not quite. If the resurgence in vinyl wasn’t surprise enough in the age of streaming, there is now a renewed interest in pre-recorded cassettes from a younger generation of digital natives looking for a retro means of connecting with music. A growing number of high-profile contemporary artists are including cassette among the many special editions that are part of the release process for new albums in the 2020s. Will you be seeing a new cassette edition of In the Court of the Crimson King?  Only time will tell.

Top Ten Highlights from Cassettes in the Archive:

Fillmore East - original cassette from Michael Giles

Chesterfield - original tape recorded by Robert Griffiths, which RF paid £2 for.

Earthbound tour - soundboards used to make the first official bootleg.

Newcastle 72 - soundboard from Crimson roadie Chris Kettle.

Adrian’s street recordings for Thela Hun Ginjeet on All Saints Road.

Summers & Fripp at Arny’s Shack - running cassettes from the recording sessions for I Advance Masked and Bewitched. 

Exposure rehearsals with Tony Levin and Narada Michael Walden at The Hit Factory, January 1978.

Morgan Studios Schizoid Man - also from Michael Giles. The masters were wiped. This copy is all that remains from the abandoned sessions in June 1969. 

Frippertronics and solos  - Audience recordings used to add the lost guitar solos to the original loops. 

Non Loop Ideas - Robert with an unplugged guitar and a Sony cassette recorder.