It was a hive of industry this week as the wiring crew were on site fitting all the data cables and wall sockets. No expense has been spared in making sure there will never be a case of “I can’t find anywhere to plug in”, and that even extends to the toilet, which, as everyone knows, is where someone is going to find the best reverberant sound for their vocals or instrument. Well it worked for Jim Morrison on LA Woman, the internet reliably informs us, and Ian, who heads the electrical team, reminded David from his days working for Supertramp, that John Helliwell’s saxophone on The Logical Song was done in the bathroom at Village Recorders in Los Angeles. Hopefully there’s going to be some tiling in the DGM studio’s smallest room to make it really effective. 

Wired for sound: Ian (with David) and brother Kevin work on the main room, while Bob wires the studio toilet.

Electrical power and data sockets are going in along the baseboards in the live room.

Still to come are the fabric wall covering and, of course, the floor. But first, all the wiring must be completed.

In the tape store the search was on for a missing reel. This proved fruitless, but a lot of interesting things turned up along the way. Although Mr Stormy has extensively plundered the archive already, we think there are still some more hidden gems waiting to be discovered. 

A screenshot of NY3 Takes from reel 9 on January 31, 1978.

Stormy’s current work-in-progress includes the Exposure Sessions, which are being released in full ahead of the 50-year copyright expiry dates. While most of that is still a couple of years away, there is a wealth of material to work through. The second instalment has now been added to the site and is available here, featuring Robert Fripp, Tony Levin and Narada Michael Walden working on Breathless, alongside various versions of NY3 recorded at The Hit Factory in January 1978.

 David, when not managing the studio build, has found time to complete the next full set of Elemental mixes. No details are available yet, but we look forward to discovering more of the music within the music on familiar album tracks from the King Crimson catalogue. Anyone yet to sample those already available can find Larks' Tongues, and Red Elemental mixes to listen to here on the website.

From the archive this week:

RF collaborations: Daryl Hall's Sacred Songs, a quarter track of Bowie's Heroes and a Bryan Ferry B side.

All are from recordings made or released in 1977. The Daryl Hall Sacred Songs is a 1/4 inch master of Side A of the album recorded at The Hit Factory in New York in August 1977, produced by Robert, although the album did not come out until 1980. Bowie’s Heroes sessions had taken place at Hansa in Berlin in July. This is a quarter-track listening copy for playing on a domestic reel-to-reel tape machine. And the Bryan Ferry As The World Turns has Eddie Jobson on keyboards and a solo from Robert, and is the B side of the 7” single This Is Tomorrow released in February 1977, reaching number 9 in the UK charts.

A reference copy of tracks from the Flying Lizards' Fourth Wall album.

Robert plays alongside Patti Palladin, David Cunningham and saxophonist Peter Gordon on Glide/Spin and is also co-writer on Lost And Found. The album was released in 1981 on Virgin Records. 

Soundboard cassettes from the 1974 tour.

Recorded from the mixing desk by sound engineer Peter Walmsley. The Kennedy Centre tape is the source for the concert recording available on the website here: Washington DC, June 27, 1974. The Penn State concert was one of a number of concerts also recorded to 8 track tape by the Record Plant Mobile, so the cassette has not been used. The multitrack sourced recordings are available here: Penn State, June 29, 1974.  

The rhythm section of Tony Levin and Narada Michael Walden joins Robert at the Hit Factory in New York in January 1978 to work on Breathless, New York, New York, and I May Not Have Enough Of Me, But I’ve Had Enough Of You.

Robert’s diary indicates that the sessions were originally planned to have John Wetton on bass. For whatever reason, he was unable to make it, and Tony Levin, who was rehearsing and recording for Peter Gabriel’s second album at the Hit Factory at the time (with Robert Fripp producing), was pencilled in instead.  

Speaking to Bass Player magazine in 2021, about his time playing on Exposure, Tony recalled:

“It was strikingly different music, with compositions that I found very challenging, and I really think it’s one of the albums where I grew as a player, from being in that place even for a short time. I was playing my Fender Precision, which I had grown up playing.

I recorded with a mix of DI and also through my SVT Ampeg, with an 8x10 cabinet, which was my go-to in those days. The sound is a mix of the two, and when you really dig in, with the amp pretty loud, and almost overplay the P-Bass, there’s a crunch and distortion.”

Robert had met Michael Walden in 1974 when he was playing in the second lineup of the Mahavishnu Orchestra and on the same bill as King Crimson at the Cape Cod Coliseum. By the time of the Exposure sessions in New York, the multi-talented jazz fusion drummer had played on records by Weather Report, Jeff Beck, Tommy Bolin, Jaco Pastorius and Allan Holdsworth, as well as two solo albums of his own for Atlantic Records, where he also sang, played keyboards and produced.

Tony Levin and Narada Michael Walden play on the final versions of these tracks, eventually released on Exposure in 1979. Presented here are the complete takes and out-takes from the recordings.

Download here:  Exposure Sessions January 31, 1978.

David Cross joined King Crimson in 1972, having been first introduced to the band’s EG Management by Fulham Palace Cafe owner George Calotychos, when his band had used the now famous basement as a rehearsal room. He played on Larks’ Tongues in Aspic and Starless and Bible Black as well as numerous live albums, including the latest double-vinyl release 1974 Penn State University, a Record Store Day exclusive, out last weekend. 

David was recently spotted at his former bandmate Jamie Muir’s art exhibition in London on April 1, where he met up with the late percussionist’s brother George Muir. 

George Muir and Daivid Cross in London, 2026.

He currently plays a half-fretted Violectra electric violin with his own David Cross Band. With 5 strings and an octave drop pedal, it gives him a pitch range from the bottom of the cello to the top of the violin. Last year saw the band make a number of festival appearances, including A New Day Festival in Faversham, Kent, the Trasimeno Prog Rock Festival in Italy (joined by King Crimson drummer Jeremy Stacey) and David was a special guest with Polish band Lizard at the Prog Rock Fest in Legionowo. This year he will be appearing with his band as part of 5 days of love, peace & music at Woodstock Forever Festival on Friday 14th, August in Waffenrod, Germany.

https://woodstockforever.de/

David Cross and Peter Banks’ latest release The Other Horizon is available digitally 

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The second leg of the 1974 King Crimson tour of America began on June 4 in San Antonio, Texas. After traversing the Southern and Western States, the itinerary dipped briefly into Canada before returning down the East Coast, beginning in Cape Cod, with dates in DC, New Jersey, Rhode Island and New York. One slight deviation led the band into rural Pennsylvania, with an added stop at the Penn State University campus that had not originally been on the tour schedule. 

 The itinerary shows recording dates, support acts and the distance in miles from the previous venue.

Recreation Hall, known to all as Rec Hall, was the university's gymnasium, and though more usually dedicated to pursuits such as basketball, volleyball, wrestling and gymnastics, it also played host to visiting rock bands as well as being a venue for commencement ceremonies and college registrations, and on one notable occasion, a speech by civil rights leader Martin Luther King shortly after he had won the Nobel Peace Prize. After renovations, completed in 1963, an extension by 100 feet had brought the seating capacity to 7200, which would prove to be more than sufficient for those attending the King Crimson concert on June 29th. 

 King Crimson at Cape Cod Coliseum, June 26, 1974 (photos: Clint Bahr).

The subtext to the tour was Fripp’s dissatisfaction with the band and his wish to bring it to a conclusion by the year’s end. One plan was to replace David Cross with Wilf Gibson in order to complete a farewell tour. Neither John Wetton nor Bill Bruford were keen to see the band cease to exist, and unsurprisingly, neither were the fans, many of whom were getting to see this lineup for the first time. Clint Bahr, an American musician who had recently returned from a spell working in England, described the experience of seeing the band at Cape Cod Coliseum on June 26: “Crimson were an astounding high-octane live band, a real eye opener. At that point a fine-oiled music machine with superior dynamics, that were road tested and tight. It was a fabulous set, and very inspiring for these ears”. Also on the bill that night was the Mahavishnu Orchestra, whose guitarist John McLaughlin was similarly impressed with the band’s dynamics, expressing this to Fripp in an encounter at the airport the next day.

Watergate and the Kennedy Center.

The following night, the band were at the seat of Federal Government in Washington DC. The John F. Kennedy Center for The Performing Arts, located on the banks of the Potomac River, was less than 3 years old at the time King Crimson performed there on June 27 in 1974. As Fripp noted in his diary, it is situated next to the Watergate Complex, site of the infamous burglary committed by the White House Plumbers two years previously. The scandal was then still at its height with President Nixon clinging on to office, and Woodward and Bernstein’s best-selling exposé All The President’s Men published that same month. With the release of incriminating tapes recorded in the Oval Office that exposed his involvement in the cover-up, Nixon would resign to avoid impeachment on August 8.

Taping of a different kind was going on at select dates on the King Crimson tour. With the likely demise of the band also a short distance ahead, it was a chance to get a recording in the bag for a future live album. The Record Plant Mobile truck with engineer George Chkiantz at the helm had had a false start in Milwaukee on the 22nd, when the truck had broken down, but had already recorded the concert at Massey Hall in Toronto, and would do so again at the Casino in Asbury Park on the 28th, Penn State on the 29th, and Providence on the 30th. 

Reel 1 from Penn State University.

Recording brought its own set of problems. The Toronto Globe and Mail reported under the headline “Sound Men constrain King Crimson” that “The start of last night’s concert at Massey Hall was delayed until the aisles were cleared of loyal fans so that sound men could run around freely adjusting all the wierd gizmos required to record a live performance.”  Further remarking that the group’s performance seemed stilted “because of the restrictions placed on the group’s members by the discipline of recording.” At Asbury Park on the 28th, Robert recorded in his diary that drummer Bill Bruford was “uptight about late mikecheck for recording.” And at Penn State itself, Kathy Groll, reviewing the concert for the university newspaper, the Centre Daily Times, wrote: “The group was recording, and for this reason were not performing any of their older works. While this disap­pointed some, others were completely taken by their exotic and musical idiom.”

Microphones everywhere on Bill's kit in Asbury Park (photo Mike Dowd).

Asbury Park has of course entered Crim history as the source for the majority of USA, the eventual live album released in 1975 after the band had broken up, and it is also essential to understanding the mood within the band in the 24 hours leading up to their arrival at Rec Hall. Booked at the semi-derelict and soon-to-close-down Berkeley Carteret hotel, its glory days hosting Hollywood stars had long since passed, the band had refused to stay in their ‘newly renovated’ rooms with paint not yet dry and had decamped to a nearby motel. 

Hotel unacceptable: The Berkeley Carteret in Asbury Park.

Although tired and exhausted, the gig at the opening night for the Casino venue on the windswept Jersey shore boardwalk had gone unexpectedly well. It was the guitarist’s search for something to eat after the show when things took a turn for the worse. Finding everything shut with only a seafood vendor still serving, Fripp contracted a moderate case of food poisoning after eating some clams, “they had been dead a very long time,” he later wrote.

Rising at 8.15 the next morning in pain from the clams, he immediately went back to bed, before breakfasting on “double prunes and bad coffee”. The guitarist already felt numb, and a convoluted travel day lay ahead. With the crew and recording truck long since departed on the road trip from Asbury Park to Penn State, the band and management set off by road on the 50 miles to Newark Airport. From there, a flight took them to Pittsburgh, followed by a connecting flight on a small propeller-driven plane to the Mid-State Regional Airport, 20 miles from their destination at State College. Arriving at 4pm, Fripp immediately went to bed for an hour, noting in his diary that he felt unwell: “My body has been fighting hard to accommodate the clams”.

Recreation Hall at Penn State.

State College is a town in Centre County, Pennsylvania, surrounded by mountains in what is known locally as Happy Valley. The nearest big city is Pittsburgh, more than 130 miles away.  As its name suggests, the college town is dominated by the University Park, home to the state university campus, so large it even has its own University Park Airport, although at that time not yet served by scheduled airlines.

They were booked to play the last concert in what was billed as a ‘British series’ which the University’s Inter-Fraternity Council had been staging on consecutive Saturdays in June. The preceding week had seen Steeleye Span and the week before that Maggie Bell, both of whom had shared stages with King Crimson elsewhere on the 1974 tour.

At the 6.50 soundcheck Robert tells road manager Dik Fraser “no handshakes or autographs: adulation bad for others and me”, and later recorded in his diary: “Feeling: A total wreck. Feel physically & mentally ill.” 

An event inside Rec Hall (Penn State University Archives / Penn State. Creative Commons).

Eyewitness memories from audience members recalling seeing King Crimson after 40 years have elapsed have led to some conflicting reports regarding opening acts and audience size. All agree, though, that the numbers dwindled over the course of the evening. Joe Myers, attending his first concert by the band, noted: “I don't remember who opened, but I do remember the crowd that stayed didn't fill Rec Hall. There were disruptive people who weren't patient with the improv’s”. 

Peter Key, drawn to the concert after hearing a radio ad featuring Greg Lake singing The Court of the Crimson King, recorded “For this concert, the stage was put at one end of the gym floor, and people were allowed to sit on the floor, as well as in the grandstands around the floor. In those days, people sat if there were no chairs; now they stand. The place was nowhere near full and most of the people there had no idea what to expect. A standard rock/soul band opened. Whoever it was went down well, Crimson, however, weren’t as kindly received”.

The popular opening act.

The night’s opener was Cleveland, Ohio native Michael Stanley, whose radio-friendly sound, which included a slowed-down take on The Beatles' Help!, had been a hit with the audience. He was such a huge local act in Northeastern Ohio, setting a number of attendance records at the area’s arenas, that to this day in Cleveland, March 25 is ‘Michael Stanley Day’, marking the late musician and radio DJ’s birthday. Though also big in Pittsburgh, Penn State would have been considered outside his usual heartland. He never achieved national prominence but had received a recent boost from an appearance on the Don Kirschner’s Rock Concert TV show on March 4, billed as Michael Stanley Super Session backed by an all-star lineup that included Joe Walsh, Dan Fogelberg, David Sanborn and Joe Vitale.

Although in the words of one eyewitness, a lot of the frat boys and sorority girls left after his set concluded, those who remained, like John Krick, who was seated cross-legged on the gym floor, were transfixed by the sounds made by King Crimson. “It was utterly magical. Certainly among the best concerts I’ve ever seen and I’ve seen a LOT of good concerts.” 

Is There Life Out There?  Robert Fripp at the microphone on the 1974 tour (photo: Gerald Corbett).

The band took to the stage at 10.15 and played for an hour and seven minutes. Despite his own assessment of the set as “tired, lifeless, lacklustre,” Fripp was still able to step up to the microphone and deliver some trademark comic banter as an introduction to the improvised section, quoting a line from British psych band Elmer Gantry’s Velvet Opera, to the bafflement of some of the crowd. Peter Key, who had seen the band several times before, recalled “I remember Fripp talking to the audience and making no sense”. But the band impressed with album material including Fracture; “They ripped through its complexity with little trouble” and the yet-to-be-recorded set closer Starless “was stunning”. However, there would be no encore. “At its conclusion, the curtains closed, not to open again. I wasn’t surprised. Rec Hall was nowhere near full and many of the people in attendance were less than thrilled by Crimson”. 

Kathy Groll, in her review of the show, had a more positive assessment of the crowd: “When the show was over, the majority of the audience stood and cried for more, and waited even after all the lights had been turned on.”

King Crimson were normally contracted to play for 90 minutes. Fripp acknowledged that the truncated set had upset both crowd and promoter, but asked the latter if he would prefer “1.07 of good or 1.30 of bad music”. The band had done what they could under the circumstances.

As is often the case, the performer’s experience can differ greatly from the perceptions of those in the hall, and the recording tells a different story. The two improvisations Is There Life Out There? and It Is For You, But Not For Us, were among the highlights from the tour, first released in The Great Deceiver boxed set in 1992. Since then, the concert has been released in full on the 2013 The Road To Red, and now comes out on double LP, with, for those still cheering for an encore, the inclusion of 21st Century Schizoid Man from a concert two days later on the final date of the 1974 tour in New York City.  

For the exclusive Record Store Day 2LP 1974 Penn State University 

The concert is also available to download King Crimson, June 29, 1974

Read the full review from the Centre Daily Times:

A reminder that April 18 is Record Store Day and a chance to support your local independent record retailer.  King Crimson will be releasing the exclusive double album recorded live at Penn State University on June 29, 1974.

Check out the reviews in PROG: PressReader.com | KING CRIMSON

And UNCUT: PressReader.com | Penn State 1974

Record Store Day supports independent record shops with special exclusive vinyl releases. Find your nearest participating store.

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The earliest recordings included in this collection, however, predate the New York sessions and originate from Basing Street Studios in London at the end of 1977. Here, Fripp reunited with old friends John Wetton and Phil Collins to run over some ideas and work on initial sketches.

Some of this material has been available in different forms in the Exposures boxed set and elsewhere on this site. Here for the first time, newly mixed by Stormy, are the complete sessions featuring Fripp, Wetton and Collins.

Download here: 

Exposure Sessions - December 3, 1977

Exposure Sessions - December 4, 1977

It is amazing to think that the entire history of King Crimson to date has occurred in the time elapsed since the first crewed test flight to the moon, Apollo 8, December 21-27 1968, and the current Artemis II mission, returning to the moon ahead of a projected landing on the lunar surface in 2028. 

One world: a new view of our own island from the Orion spacecraft (photo: NASA/Reid Wiseman).

Giles Giles and Fripp was coming to an end in December 1968. Greg Lake had moved to London and would replace Peter Giles. A loan from Ian McDonald’s uncle had been secured to buy band equipment. By the time of the Apollo 11 moon landing the following year, King Crimson had already established themselves as a formidable live act and were in the middle of recording their album. Greg Lake announced news of the moon landing from the stage at the Marquee Club on their regular Sunday night residency on July 20 1969 at 9.15pm. Ian McDonald records in his diary going home and watching the men on the moon on TV as Neil Armstrong made his “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”. Eleven days later, the band recorded Moonchild in Wessex Studios.

Cosmic explorers: King Crimson at the Rainbow Theatre, December 13, 1972.

It is easy to forget that for a few years, from 1969 -1972, men walked on the moon. The last mission to land there was Apollo 17, December 7-19 1972. The astronauts spent a record 75 hours on the lunar surface. By that time, King Crimson were on a tour of the UK with the third lineup comprising Jamie Muir, Bill Bruford, John Wetton, David Cross and Robert Fripp. 

Earth’s nearest celestial neighbour continues to fascinate the occupants of planet Earth, as it has since the dawn of humanity, inspiring many musicians and artists along the way. Fergus Hall’s painting of Earth viewed from the surface of the moon (at the top of the page), appeared on the back cover of The Young Person’s Guide to King Crimson in 1975. Further afield in the universe, the photograph of the Trifid Nebula in Sagittarius taken by the Carnegie Institution for Science, was used for the cover of Islands. And more recently, on the 2019 tour, King Crimson’s resident stargazer, Tony Levin, took members of the touring party to visit the Paranal Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) array, 8600 feet above the Atacama Desert in Chile.

Crimsonoids on the surface of planet Earth.

Visiting the Paranal Observatory in 2019 (photos: Tony Levin).

Playlist:  A DGM Space Odyssey.

2001. Soundscape recorded in Argentina using Fripp’s ‘Lunar Module’. 

Moonchild. Recorded 11 days after the first moon landing in July 1969.

Space Groove II.  ProjeKct Two’s cosmic-themed debut.

A Voyage to the Centre of the Cosmos. King Crimson boldly goes... 

Islands. “Islands join hands 'Neathe heaven's sea”

Fragments of Skylab. Space debris from Fripp and the League of Crafty Guitarists.

Improv. Copy that, King Crimson live from Houston, 1974.

Evening Star. Fripp and Eno's homage to another celestial body. 

Mars. The red planet viewed from Plumpton Festival, 1969.

Moonchild. Travis and Fripp reprise the theme in Madrid, 2010.