Thanks to those nice people at Virgin/EMI we have a copy of the splendidly remastered McDonald & Giles album to giveaway to a good home. Recorded in May 1970 after their dramatic and unexpected split from King Crimson the previous year, the album is full of great melodies (especially the epic Birdman suite) and superb performances from the duo themselves and guest players that include Peter Giles on bass (who along with his brother was fresh from recording In The Wake of Poseidon) and Steve Winwood.
All you have to do is send an email to [email protected] and tell me the name of the album that Michael Giles wanted to rewrite as mentioned in the interview with Melody Maker’s Richard Williams.
To help you in the search for this pearl of wisdom I’ve reprinted the very article (with some extra pictures) which first appeared in the November 21st 1970 edition of the MM.
Don’t forget to include your postal address in the email. I’ll announce the winner on Monday 19th February.
Outside the Court of the Crimson King
There are, you understand, these two musicians, both having played in one of our very best bands, who’re sitting at home doing virtually nothing at all.
One of them is an excellent saxophonist, flautist, guitarist, and composer, and the other, a drummer, is arguably the freshest interpreter of rock rhythm in the country.
If you hadn’t already guessed, I’m referring to Ian McDonald and Michael Giles, former members of King Crimson. Their first album together, McDonald and Giles, has just come out on Island, and is apparently doing well.
So what’s the problem? Well, the same hang-ups which precipitated their departure from Crimson are still applying, and they’ve so far been unable to find any way out of their dilemma.
It’s not that they haven’t had any offers. Both Mike and Ian have been invited to join several bands, but none of them have measured up to the pair’s demands, even though some have been internationally known.
Their problem is that they need a context wide enough for the many kinds of music they want to play. Crimson couldn’t provide it – "although we thought it could, but gradually the variety got squeezed out. We stopped doing the folky things and the jazz things "– and they’re currently stuck for a context.
When you talk to them about it, they’re necessarily vague because they have little more idea than you have of what the future holds. Will they form a band together?
"Well, we’re waiting to see how the album goes," says Mike, a pleasantly eloquent man giving to wearing autumn-coloured suits and ties which look as if they were woven by Shetland crofters. He’s an extremely English sort of gentleman, and utterly charming.
And what happens if it goes well? "We don’t really know." Will they form a band themselves? "It’s possible. We’ve been thinking about it." Do they know who they’d like to play in their band? "I’ve got an idea." What’s the problem? "We don’t feel too inclined to involve ourselves in all the business pressures involved in leading a group."
Will they, then, make another album together, if the first is a success? "Maybe. We’d like to." Will it differ much from the first? "Yes, probably. We’d like to use more people, to cut down on the over-dubs because they take such a long time and it’s so expensive to do it that way. Anyway, when you do it all with overdubs you’re bound to lose a lot of the spirit. Probably next time we’ll record a lot of it playing together, maybe even with the vocals at the same time, and we’ll clean it up later. That would be more fun, because the first album took so long to complete that it got to be a drag – a job, rather than something we really wanted to do."
They both have reservations about the current album, but seemingly in different directions. Mike thinks it doesn’t show off their playing we’ll enough, and Ian appears to believe that the atmosphere was not warm and natural enough, but they do like a lot of it.
"Some people have likened it to middle-period Beatles," says Mike, "which is fine by me because that’s what we wanted to get, the sort of music which doesn’t come from technique but which works on a warmer level."
Mike as you may have guessed, is the talker, while Ian sits quietly nearby or goes off to make coffee. He will talk, when he’s by himself, but Mike’s presence seems to overshadow him slightly. He’s thin, rather nervous, and equally as courteous as his companion. Has he, I asked, got many compositions ready for the next album, if there is one?
"Yes, I’ve got quite a lot of bits and bobs, but I don’t have any words at all. I’m not a lyricist, and I need someone to work with in that department."
Ian is currently spending some of his time producing an album for Gay and Terry Woods, an Irish folk couple who resided for a while in the bosom of Steeleye Span. They don’t have a label for the album yet, but Ian is busy recording it (he played me the tape of a jig, on which he plays mandola), and together with the Grease Band they’ve recorded a Top Gear broadcast.
This project, connected with the fact that Mike is currently rehearsing with bass-guitarist Andy Powell and organist Robin Thompson, both of whom played Terry Reid’s ’Keyboard Studies’ with Tim Souster at the Proms this year, gives some idea of the range the pair have.
Mike told me some time ago that what he really wanted to do was rewrite Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew, but, he said, "properly," implying that Miles hadn’t quite got there.
"I still want to do that, but that’s not all I want to do, and there’s the problem. I went to see Lifetime at the Royal Court a few days ago, and although they were terrifyingly good, I still found them narrow. Would it hurt them to play a very soft passage, to change the texture at times?
"You see, I believe that musicians shouldn’t cut themselves right off from their audience. They should leave the door open, even if it’s only a crack, so
"I’m very grateful to Lifetime, mind you. There are so many groups around, progressive groups, trying to do it and failing, and then along comes this band and they climb up on the throne immediately and look down and say ’Well, here we are, we’ve done it.’ Just like that. But commercially speaking, they’re far too early."
At the end of the interview, Ian put on some tapes made during Crimson’s last gig in its first form, at the Fillmore West in San Francisco. The tunes included ’Court Of The Crimson King’, ’Mantra’, ’Drop In’, ’Mars’, and ’Epitaph’, and it was the first time Mike had heard them since he’d played them. I had the feeling that it was somehow, a very poignant moment.
