Having begun life in the basement of the Fulham Palace Road Cafe in the late summer of 1969 as part of a longer work entitled Trees, portions of these riffs received their live debut when the band supported The Nice at the Fairfield Hall in Croydon in October. By the time King Crimson arrived in New York the following month, further revisions had pruned back and dispensed with the other sections and were now presented at the Fillmore East as A Man, A City, with words directly inspired by the band's drive into the metropolis. After the split in December and back in the UK at Wessex Studios in the early months of 1970, the various sections were finalised. With these two isolated guitar tracks, we’re able to hear the parts up-close and in sharp focus. Fun trivia fact: when Robert added Pictures Of A City to the KC setlist in 2014, after an absence of over 40 years, this was the very edit from which he and Jakko learned the parts.
Having begun life in the basement of the Fulham Palace Road Cafe in the late summer of 1969 as part of a longer work entitled Trees, portions of these riffs received their live debut when the band supported The Nice at the Fairfield Hall in Croydon in October. By the time King Crimson arrived in New York the following month, further revisions had p...