Don’t let the lo-fi origins of this audience recording put you off. Alex “Stormy” Mundy has refreshed and invigorated The League to such an astonishing degree that it’s on a par with the Official Bootleg. [endtease]Whereas that release was compiled from four performances in Toronto and one in Denver, what we have here is one gig complete with stage announcements that suggest that had KC not reformed, Fripp could have profitably explored an alternative career as a comedian. For those who’d prefer him to shut up and play his guitar, well you get plenty of that as well. Boy At The Piano is endowed with rhapsodic flourishes that flit somewhere between Exposure and bizarrely, The Nightwatch, whilst Christian Children sounds like it could be an out-take from Bowie’s Scary Monster sessions from earlier that year. Thrang Thrang Gozinbulx II (or Imminent as it was called it then) has that revved-up ending that calls upon the spirits of Sailor’s Tale and LTIA pt2 for their blessing. There’s a slightly stunned silence at the end of it, broken by a punter saying “Heavy!” He got that right. Simply put what you have here is the best part of an hour filled with killer riffs and extraordinary out-there guitar, nattily dressed up as pile-driving music for those who like to dance with a twist of dissonance.
Don’t let the lo-fi origins of this audience recording put you off. Alex “Stormy” Mundy has refreshed and invigorated The League to such an astonishing degree that it’s on a par with the Official Bootleg. [endtease]Whereas that release was compiled from four performances in Toronto and one in Denver, what we have here is one gig complete with stag...
I hitched down from Liverpool for this concert and it was totally worth it. Which was good as it took me 23 hours to hitch back home! I took a photograph of Robert as the band took to the stage and I was promptly told off by him! I still have the photo. I remember Barry Andrews wrestling with his keyboard for most of the gig, you couldn’t take your eyes off him. At the end of the gig you felt like you had been musically assaulted but in a good way. And now I have downloaded the concert I can f...
I hitched down from Liverpool for this concert and it was totally worth it. Which was good as it took me 23 hours to hitch back home! I took a photograph of Robert as the band took to the stage and I was promptly told off by him! I still have the photo. I remember Barry Andrews wrestling with his keyboard for most of the gig, you couldn’t take your eyes off him. At the end of the gig you felt like you had been musically assaulted but in a good way. And now I have downloaded the concert I can feel that assault all over again. Ha!
Written by Christopher Smith
a wave from the past
Since I was there at the time, it’s a strange experience to get to revisit yourself. In my memory, this was even stronger than what we can hear; the athmosphere very intense and the band (to quote one of my companions) ’hotter than Satan’s bollocks’. Whatever became of the Martian Schoolgirls? I remember the bass player as quite distinctive.
Written by Mark Finney
Glimpse of a Raging Performance
I just sat down to listen to the first track off this before going to bed. 50 minutes later the second wild performance of Inductive Resonance comes to a screaming conclusion and bed seems even more distant.The songs here have much more energy than the Thrang bootleg, and are of course fairly different beasts to the nice and tidy LOG studio album, especially the overpolished 1985 remixes.I would specially elevate "Christian Children...". This has never made much of an impression on me befo...
I just sat down to listen to the first track off this before going to bed. 50 minutes later the second wild performance of Inductive Resonance comes to a screaming conclusion and bed seems even more distant.The songs here have much more energy than the Thrang bootleg, and are of course fairly different beasts to the nice and tidy LOG studio album, especially the overpolished 1985 remixes.I would specially elevate "Christian Children...". This has never made much of an impression on me before, but here it kicks big time! Eye Needles also sticks out (sounds painful) with Fripp taking the lead in a few new directions - and they’re all good.The reason I’m giving this only 4 stars is the sound quality, which is pretty dire. Before listening to this tonight I spent nearly 3 hours remastering it to bring it up to snuff. The original FLACs lack any sensible bass below 110Hz. The treble is lost, especially above 8kHz. The whole program is compressed to blazes and I suspect it has also been a little over-zealously denoised. There are subtle channel drop outs (more audible if you lift the treble and decompress as I did), and a hint of wow & flutter on some of the longer notes. To cap off the list of woes, the sound from the band is nearly in mono (only noises closer to the mike reveal it is a stero recording). All this is completely understandable given the source, but unless you don’t care about sound quality, the untreated FLACs really need a pounding volume to engage.In short - a fantastic performance and I wish I could have been there!
Written by Matthu Stull
The Power of Gurdjieffian Metaphysics
First of all, I enjoy this recording immensely. Reading the posted notes about it got me very excited, so then I just had to put my pet parakeet aside and order the digital information. This gig is a bold statement and it is clear that Fripp took this band on a serious ride. He ’dropped in’ some complicatedly complexified concepts including important secrets of 7-ness, and, well, just the right amount of glistening wisdom on "Trap". Highlights: 1. "Boy at the Piano" is very r...
First of all, I enjoy this recording immensely. Reading the posted notes about it got me very excited, so then I just had to put my pet parakeet aside and order the digital information. This gig is a bold statement and it is clear that Fripp took this band on a serious ride. He ’dropped in’ some complicatedly complexified concepts including important secrets of 7-ness, and, well, just the right amount of glistening wisdom on "Trap". Highlights: 1. "Boy at the Piano" is very rad, compelling and more or less totally cool. I feel like it should have been, like, somewhat of a number 1 hit. 2. the menacing guitar on "Thrang...", I mean, it just crawls up my spine like a three-headed Cobra-Dragon!!! 3. Fripp speaking about Gurdjieffian Metaphysics. I can only laugh at hearing him saying ’fuck’. His ’dirty’ mouth always inspires me. I will continue with this review, but it will turn now toward the contemplation of Mr. Fripp’s mysterious activities after Crimson had temporarily forever dissolved in 1974. I have many questions about this time. The first one is: Did Fripp actually meet JG Bennett ’in the flesh’ (sorry, is that a Blondie reference?). One could easily be overtaken by Bennett’s knowledge and candor simply by listening to his taped lectures, much the same way as I have in listening to Fripp’s comments here and there during recorded concerts etc., but then actually being in the presence, breathing the same air, was much much more. I finally got to witness the master this past october in pittsburgh, even asking him a question that, in retrospect, could have been replaced by one that was more corruscating and hotly burning I’m not suggesting that I know what it would matter for someone else to have such an experience, but I do think it is very crucial for certain transmissions. Sure, many swine can swim through a lake of pearls and remain oblivious, but it seems to be abundantly evident that something massive and utterly necessary took place during Fripp’s retreat into real ’realness’. And then he goes to NYC, a place for which he must have felt a certain contempt(ie. Epitaph box,a man, a city) What a brillant move!!! I can only think that this manooover was guided-’from above’, but of course with severe strategy and contemplation. I believe this corresponds to the idea of intentional suffering because one can notice how the results of, let’s say for instance, ’infiltrating’ the punk scene, stimulating or adding to the creative pool in New York at the time, caused a certain ripple that was unknown to most people, the work of a true disciple. Now, it may be argued that the solo on ’Fade Away and Radiate’ doesn’t matter that much in the long run. I would say it’s just a small symptom of a larger, more perfected idea. I have lost my concentration and must not write any more. I hope to continue this thread when I share my thoughts on Robert Fripp’s "Love Cannot Bear"