Studio Diary – September 17, 2016

Aka   Eventide Heaven for ambient guitarists…

September 2016: mad flurrying to Aylesbury on the train for the Return Of The Crimson King (please see my previous three blogs – 3/9, 4/9, 5/9) …a day at the truly remarkable Bletchley Park, taking in an evening play at the Old Globe, and the guilty pleasure of a Warner Brothers tour of the Harry Potter sound stages…then, chaotic problems with trains over-packed with frustrated commuters, only, we were just trying to get home to Scotland from Aylesbury…

Then – finally, back home again, later than anticipated but intact – and trying to assess what already recorded music needed to be dealt with – and the answer, as always, was “quite a lot”.

A spur of the moment decision to attend the live Eight Days A Week screening at the Vue Theatre, a very enjoyable three hour plus evening of Beatles music – absolutely fab. The boys were playing their hearts out, George played some excellent solos, and I really enjoyed seeing “The Touring Years” – and as Giles Martin did the music, this meant that murky bits of Beatle history such as the now ancient-looking “Beatles At Shea Stadium” suddenly now rock hard, you can HEAR the music now and what Giles did here, and throughout the project, is nothing short of amazing. I am sure George M. is smiling, grinning actually, somewhere…

Meanwhile, I’ve been quietly working on a number of new pieces, or new pieces a number of I’ve worked quietly on meanwhile, I am not quite sure which.

Most of the past year and a half, has been filled with the large amount of work required to complete just three lengthy pieces of (progressive rock) work: “the complete unknown”, “planet obelisk” and more recently, “day seventeen”. 

These creations required a lot of painstaking work, and since they are all built from scratch as I went…it takes time. I think the first one took the longest, “the complete unknown” but by the time I got to “day seventeen” something had affected me, and it took me far, far too long to create this most difficult of pieces.  I struggled, which is unusual, normally, I just move along apace, it takes time, but I keep going.  But this time, I had to re-play guitar parts multiple times, some of the parts just wouldn’t reconcile…it took weeks, maybe months, longer than it should have, and I was so, so pleased when it was finally done!  A huge sigh of relief.

In the end, though, I managed to complete all three, and have since decided that I will be taking a break from progressive rock and very long songs, and will be revisiting my first love: the electric guitar.

To that end, I recently created one of a very few new “eternal albums” planned for this year: “electric guitars – an eternal album”. Which then meant that I could begin to work on shorter, live pieces and use some of the great new guitar tones I have available as well.  

Thus began a couple of different work streams, one looking back and the other, looking forward. It also meant that the relatively “new” eternal album has suddenly grown to about 50 tracks – or rather, it will once I upload the outputs of the past one week of work on mixing and mastering.

Beginning with the “looking back”; sometimes, in the middle of a project say, when I might be feeling frustrated by a lack of progress or frustrated by simply not knowing what sounds to make next in a piece in progress, I will “take a break” and just play some guitar for fun.  

June 15, 2016 was one such day, smack dab in the middle of the sessions for “planet obelisk”, one afternoon or evening, I sat down, plugged my guitar in, and played for some 60 minutes plus, doing an extraordinary, non-stop 26 takes in a row, using various sounds from the (then brand new) Eventide “SpaceTime” algorithm..

If you haven’t yet heard what SpaceTime can do – you should! It’s a remarkable amalgam of echo, delay, reverb, shimmer, reverse and I don’t know what else, and I had only just received the update when I decided to embark on a sort of “SpaceTime Jam 1” exploration of the sounds that the H9 pedal could make with this brand new algorithm..

Over the past few week, I reviewed and assessed these tracks, and a remarkable 25 of the 26 takes from the 20160615 session, were viable. So I decided I would do a sort of arbitrary “grouping” of these very live takes, into short song cycles of 3 or 4 takes per “song” (and in one case, just 2 takes making up the final song of the cycle).

So I ended up then, with eight quite interesting songs, mixed and mastered – and as I was working on them I thought…I could add some drums to these, and then release them, explaining that they were sort of made up of the same musical DNA as “planet obelisk” is. In some cases, in many cases in fact, I used drums leftover from the “planet obelisk” sessions.

In other cases, I would create new bespoke drum parts, or adapt existing parts to fit the improvised electric guitars. Adding the drum parts in ended up taking quite a bit of time, off and on, but when all eight tracks were complete, I was glad I’d made the effort. I also did one bespoke tabla part, which utilised Native Instruments “India” and that was a blast – I played one take, live, along with the three guitar tracks, including not playing in between the takes…and coming in at the right time. I managed to hit it all on take one, and “playing” the tabla is an absolute blast – I love this instrument (India).

The guitar takes are all improvised, on the spot, and in almost every case, the natural spaces between them, as it happened, have been preserved – because the session was rapid-fire, and the 26 pieces were played in surprisingly quick succession, with very little time between takes – in some cases just a few seconds, long enough for me to change the patch, and then dive into the unknown again.

Every take used the same basic preamp sound, which is my >Frippy patch from the new Sculpt algorithm – that’s the constant. A plate reverb was also used, and I then changed SpaceTime patches on one device as I played. Being able to use the H9 Control application on my tablet really was a life saver, I could change the patches manually with almost no effort, so you do get to hear a broad, broad variety of the SpaceTime algorithm’s many amazing patches.

More than the sum of songs, because in some cases, i would change the patch mid-song, sometimes multiple times within one song. Also, where I was able and it felt appropriate, I also used expression pedal on some of the patches, which then gives you deep and wild control over many variable aspects of any SpaceTime patch you are using.

The expression pedal implementation in the Eventide H9 is remarkable right out of the box, and every one of the patches features a range of possible expression pedal values, carefully chosen for the best effect – for rotary sounds, obviously, it’s the speed that the pedal controls, but the range of expressions possible with the H9 is simply staggering – what a brilliantly designed device.

I was mesmerised by the beautiful sounds that SpaceTime gave me, and I play a fairly joyous hour of happy and heavy lead and rhythm guitar. And that hour of music, took me 65 minutes to do – so no faffing about between the takes – I really just got on with it, trialling dozens of SpaceTime patches and taking many, many expression pedal excursions too. A wonderful session that I really enjoyed, which does contain quite a lot of “planet obelisk” DNA – without really sounding anything like it.

The 25 viable tracks then, were edited into these eight new “songs”; which vary in length from perhaps, five and a half minutes long, to over ten minutes in length in one instance. The total running time actually becoming about 55 minutes of music in total, mostly because of the fact that take one was unusable, it was a great take, but the levels were far too hot, and it suffered from multiple wounds of digital distortion, and nothing I could do would have saved it – a sad loss, but I was very happy that I turned everything DOWN after that and captured nice clean versions of the remaining 25 tracks.

The resulting eight tracks are:

building the obelisk

all good children go to heaven

beautiful metallic noise

the occasional chord (to remind us)

it’s echo soup in here

the heavens unfold

since the dawn of time

reaching catharsis (bridge)

A possible ninth track may be uploaded:

the road to obelisk – 55 minute track compiled from the above listed eight tracks – this recreates the continuous nature of the original session – if successful, it will be added to the upload list as well.

It is my hope to upload the above eight (or nine) tracks over the coming week if all goes well. Along with the appropriate outputs from the forward-looking project, which came from a session that I had somewhat arbitrarily named “brief session” – and it was, if compared to the “planet obelisk” 25 takes – the new “brief session” contained just 10 takes, although take 7 was an extended take with something like six individual parts on it.

The first six takes are very, very ambient, indeed, and are really a highlight of the session – the remaining four, used distorted guitars instead of clean, and although interesting, they did not come out nearly as well as the first six, which used clean guitars and more Eventide H9 wizardry.

I am very, very excited about these six tracks, which represent the bulk of the session time-wise, because for the first time in my memory, I was able to play ambient guitar, without the use of either a looper or of an ebow (energy bow) – I can now create very, very ambient guitar, just using the stock algorithms from the Eventide H9.

That is an incredibly freeing experience – yes, you do still have to play the guitar, but, the beautiful sounds that come out, whether produced by SpaceTime, Resonator, or MultiTap (such as “UltraTap”….heavenly patch) it matters not – there is not just one ambient sound available, but in fact, droves of them, and I can see myself playing a lot of clean, careful guitar into an H9 (or two) that can translate that input directly into the kind of soundscape I’ve always wished I could produce.

My best method of creating that atmosphere has always previously been, running an ebow guitar into a looper and then into a good reverb unit. And of course, I will always, always still do that, because I love to do it – but, the H9 gives me an alternative to that, where I don’t need to rely on the ebow or the looper (however, I have retained and have used the ebow on several of the eight tracks above), because that made them sound even better, so ebow + SpaceTime is a winning combination for me. Ambient guitar made…a little bit easier than it used to be.

For the six tracks below however, I did not use the ebow – I didn’t need to, the pure ambient output from the H9 was all I needed.  What a brilliant device!

The resulting six tracks are:

exogenesis

exoskeletal

exospheric

exothermal

exocyclic

exonumia

I cannot express how wonderful it was to be able to create these pieces, and I sat there in awe of the sound design that has gone into the Eventide algorithms – especially those that I would call “totally ambient” – and there are many, many of these sprinkled here and there within the algorithms.

I see this then, this set of six songs, to be very future oriented, very forward-looking, and I will very probably be exploring much, much more along these lines, in hopefully some longer-form improvs, just what I can achieve for ambient guitar, without resorting to ebow + looper + good reverb – although, that is still a great formula for ambient music!

I feel like a man who has been given the actual sound of heaven, and by gosh, I am going to use that sound – those sounds – as often as I can, because they are truly remarkable. Even one of the oldest of Eventide’s algorithms, “Space” – their do-all reverb magic box – is an incredible tool, and contains reverbs that can also act as ambient guitar creators – it’s all in there, in that little white box…

“exogenesis” was the starting point for me, I could just close my eyes and hear those ethereal sounds, and realising that I was just playing clean guitar notes, slowly, carefully – and this river or ocean of beautiful, ethereal, reverberant sound just flowed all around me – as it should do. I could really get used to this – I really could.

The six super ambient tracks from the “exo” series will also be uploaded in the near future – as soon as possible.  

So, I haven’t been absent at all – I’ve been busy!

love peace and order

🙂  dave

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King Crimson – September 5th, 2016, Friar’s / Waterside Theatre, Aylesbury, UK

Monday night, and it is the last of three (in a row, no less!) King Crimson concerts for us, and for the band, the last show on British soil for a while, after tonight; it’s off to Europe for the rest of the tour. But before they go, there is the remaining matter of the last of the three Aylesbury gigs, on a cool, cloudy Monday night at the Riverside Theatre.

Being the third show in as many nights, the kinks in the performances are starting to work out now, and the band is settling in to the routine of playing, the dealing with of cues and counts and stops and starts, pedals and programs, guitars and basses; allowing the players to relax just that little bit more, which made it possible for some interesting improvements and a bit more improvisation when compared to the previous two concerts.

Speaking of basses, we observed something last night that was interesting: Tony Levin has too many instruments! Mel Collins has no choice but to bring several instruments, for example, he plays baritone, tenor and soprano saxophones, so that’s three right there that he has no choice over – he has to have those, to be able to replicate all those very different sax parts from those early albums in particular. A selection of flutes is inevitable too, and I would not say a word if Mel turned up wth seventeen instruments…because each one would have a specific purpose for a specific song or songs.

Tony I think, could actually get by with fewer instruments, because his function nominally, is bass player. Robert has one or possibly two, guitars. Jakko gets by with just one guitar, his beautifully painted PRS electric. But Tony has a veritable arsenal of bass-related weaponry:

Stand-up fretless

Chapman Stick

Yellow Three Of A Perfect Pair 5-String Bass

Pink 6-String Bass

…and maybe a fifth bass

Note too that except for the fretless,they all have more than four strings!! This makes me believe that over time, Tony has become more of a frustrated guitarist to some degree (as you would do in the company of Jakko and Robert) than an ordinary “bassist”. He’s now graduated from 5-string to 6-string basses, which sound great, but aren’t actually “basses” by strict definition.

It may be more a matter of orchestrating the changes to minimise the number of changes required, but sometimes it seems like every time I look towards the centre of the stage, I see Tony Levin changing basses yet again, and again. It’s a tiny bit distracting if I am honest. OK, to be fair, Mel is changing instruments multiple times during many songs, but he has no choice, he can’t play a flute line with a baritone sax. And when he changes instruments, it’s subtle, quiet, you barely notice that he is doing it.

Tony, being Very Tall and also, standing basically at Centre Stage – cannot in any way disguise or downplay the swapping of one bass for another….over and over again.

Tony however, can get bass notes out of any of the basses in my slightly incomplete list of his basses, so why all the fuss and constant back and forth from Stick to Fretless to Yellow to Pink and back to Stick again? I get that songs that require Stick, require Stick, but songs that require bass, do they require 5- and 6- string basses? Not really, in my humble opinion. I love Tony and the way he plays, I just wonder if he can minimise the visually distracting bass changeovers by reducing the number of instruments. If he has any spare basses, I could sure use a good bass 🙂

But that is just an observation made over three days and an observation that first started really gelling on night two, last night, and tonight I’m happy to report that the bass-changing has settled down a bit, thanks in part to changes in the set list, but overall, I didn’t seem to notice it as much – so that is a win.

Also noted on the previous two nights, were instances where it appeared that Robert was playing something, but zero sound came out, so we could see him playing but not hear it, and in one case we got complete silence for a moment before the sound kicked back in and the audio then supported the visual, instead of RF strumming away with no sound emerging until he got things under control.

But these observations really just prove that this band of superhuman players, are really human after all, and in the main, the sound you hear from those seven instruments, whatever combination they are in, is 99.8 percent perfect if you compare it to just about any other band.  

Each player knows their space, knows what has to be played, while still leaving open what might be played…and it’s in those moments, when one or more of the players just grab the bull by the horns and move out into previously uncharted territory, that’s when the live “Crimson magic” begins.  

It happens with Mel in almost every song, sure, he plays his parts, but then, he loses himself in the moment and is soon soaring on a high-flying improv that proves that he was and still is, the most innovative horn player in rock music (and you can’t forget his history either, of working with the Stones and being in Camel and of course, being in King Crimson for albums two, three, four and five), if you count “Earthbound” as the fifth album (I do). Mel has been around the block in terms of playing experience.

It happens to all the players in the band at some point, although the better the improviser they are, the better their ability to transcend an ordinary “part” and play something truly extraordinary instead. Mel and Robert do this almost constantly, while Tony and Jakko must stick to the script more, so opportunities to improvise are fewer, and for the drummers, probably only they themselves or the members of the band are aware when they do something amazing, although I feel that the drum section have produced both rehearsed and slightly improvised music each and every night – they are so well co-ordinated, but each also has his own style and their own series of wildly improvised and very astonishing percussion moments.  

What a trio they are, and when you combine that three-man percussive prowess with Mssrs. Fripp, Collins, Jakszyk and Levin…you get the “Crimson magic” – and every night, you will hear this, to a greater or lesser degree, if you listen with your ears open. Sure, they are “playing” the songs; but there is also opportunity for the occasional amazing riff or chord or entire solo or other Amazing Accidental Musical Moment In Time (AAMMIT).

By the way – in one of the silences someone shouted out “Happy Birthday Mel!!” which got an enormous cheer from the whole audience as well as a huge grin and sweeping wave of thanks from the man himself.

Before I go any further, here is the full set list:

Soundscapes

The Battle Of Glass Tears

Unknown / New Song (Instrumental – featuring two guitars) 

Pictures Of A City

Cirkus

Fracture

Hellhounds Of Krim or Devil Dogs Of Tesselation Row (Drum Trio)

Easy Money

Meltdown

Epitaph

Red

[INTERMISSION]

Devil Dogs Of Tesselation Row or Hellhounds Of Krim (Drum Trio) 

Level Five

Suitable Grounds For The Blues

The ConstruKction Of Light

Vrooom

The Letters

Sailor’s Tale

One More Red Nightmare

Starless

[ENCORE]

Banshee Legs Bell Hassle

Heroes

21st Century Schizoid Man

The only band I’ve seen recently that can even come close to King Crimson 2016, was King Crimson 2015 – who we were fortunate enough to see three times in three different cities last year – and those shows were brilliant.

This time around, after a little time, I would say that the first of the three shows was overall winner, because the band was more relaxed, and the setlist was amazing – and despite some technical teething problems, it was a superb performance that I will not soon forget.

The second night was sort of in the middle for me, it was nice to have “The Talking Drum / Larks’ Tongues In Aspic, Part 2” back in the set, but not really at the expense of “Sailor’s Tale” which made a very welcome return tonight.

Tonight, the band opened with the eerie and beautiful “Battle of Glass Tears” my personal favourite new / old track, which was just sublime, so atmospheric, and you could hear a pin drop at this point – followed immediately by that new song, minus it’s 2 chord intro, and of course, the audience had NO idea what was going on at this point…  That came to a slightly uncertain stop, and finally they launched into “Pictures Of A City” and all was well again.

While I have awarded the “Friends & Family” show as my personal favourite, there are of course, one or two exceptions I should note. Tonight’s show got off to a bit of a shaky start in that, the audience didn’t know whether to applaud or not after the second piece – so out of politeness, they didn’t applaud, so it wasn’t until the end of “Pictures Of A City” that they could let their hair down and scream and shout for the return of the Crimson King. The show only got better from there, and some particular highlights for me were, in no particular order:

“Fracture”, which was fantastic, and in my opinion, by far the best version over the three nights (so, as far as this song is concerned, THIS was the best version – even better than night one’s version). Robert and Mel were right on form, Jakko’s “mock violin” was incredible to watch and listen to – and the rhythm section simply smashed it along with Tony – a rocking version, and really tight – I loved it. Out of all of the new / old songs, I welcome “Fracture” back into the setlist with the most joy – it’s been a long time since KC tackled this twelve minute musical monstrosity – what a great tune, and the new arrangement is fantastical – really beautifully done.

It was great to hear “Cirkus” for the third time, it was consistently good each night, and in some ways, Mel’s solo in this is probably one of the best solos he has ever done, so to get to hear and see him play that beautiful, beautiful horn solo, for three nights running, is an incredible privilege – and, the saxes on “Cirkus” are amongst the most beautiful I have ever, ever heard, in any context or in any song – it’s an absolutely sublime, lovely solo – and I got to hear it three times in a row – so beautiful!

“One More Red Nightmare” – “Red” was great, every night, but this was better, and another “welcome return” to the setlist. A brilliant vocal from Jakko, indescribable ensemble work from the drum team, and just a blast of fun, all about a cool riff, with sinister saxophones and Jakko’s distorted auto-Wah sounded absolutely astonishing at the end – a great guitar sound! This track totally rocked tonight…in fact, the whole second half of the show was really exciting, and the section containing “Vrooom”, “The Letters”, “Sailor’s Tale” and finally “One More Red Nightmare” very nearly changed my mind about which concert was my favourite. Very nearly, but not quite 🙂

A stunningly beautiful “Starless” followed, which did bring the temperature down quite a bit – but then, we get to that amazing end section, with the fabulous guitars sliding up and down and the bass ripping a la John Wetton (Tony did really well on this version of “Starless”, I have to say – and it’s not an easy bass part to play!).

“Heroes” was pretty much a carbon copy each of the three nights, I still think night one has the edge, although tonight’s version got a very very good reaction from the audience, as did the final number, “21st Century Schizoid Man” including the aforementioned New Standard Tuning tasty jazz chords from Mr. Robert Fripp.

I noticed that sometimes during one of Mel’s longer tenor or soprano sax solos (and since we are talking about this song already, one prime example of this tonight was the final encore, “21st Century Schizoid Man”, which is possibly Mel’s longest solo of the night); that as soon as Mel settling into his solo, wherein he will absolutely be screaming away at speed – that Robert starts comping along to the solo, playing what he might call “particularly tasty inversions” of jazz chords, and that’s been an interesting thing to hear – Mel is soloing his heart out, and Robert starts slipping these fantastically lovely “jazz chords” into the tiny spaces that Mel leaves open in his solo – and how RF can select and play a series of interesting, jazzy chords to comp along to Mel’s insanely good sax solos is actually, beyond my musical understanding.

I wish I even knew those chords, and then I would worry about when to play them. And of course, they are all now in the new standard tuning, so over time Robert has relearned his 11th and 13th and 9th/b5th chords, and knows them well enough in NST now, to confidently insert them into the spaces left by one of rock’s master musicians, the extraordinary Mel Collins.  

The resulting sound, with the whole band in full on jazz swing mode, is nothing short of extraordinary. Mel is the not-so-secret weapon, who can be called upon almost on demand to produce a honking or screaming or deadly smooth slinky sleazy sax solo, with Rock’s best jazz guitarist Robert Fripp comping along with the tastiest of chords. What a sound that is. He may also have been doing this during Mel’s soloing in “Pictures Of A City” – but I am not sure about that, I can’t actually remember if “Schizoid Man” was the only time Fripp did this astonishing, clean jazz chord work – it blew me away.

Prior to Mel’s selfsame long solo in “Schizoid Man”, Robert took his solo, but it was different this time, to any of the previous shows – including the three shows we saw last year – I’ve only seen / heard this happen one time out of six shows, and that was during this guitar solo – he started it out with one of those impossible high-speed three-note trills (a la “St. Elmo’s Fire” by Brian Eno, where Fripp plays impossibly fast three-note trills over and over again) and also, the solo was quite a bit longer than on the other nights, and it included some more brief “exhibitions of reckless speed” in the lead guitar arena – he was really going at it, and it was a great little solo – and then, he handed it over to Mel as he always does – who then proceeded to attempt to out-do what Robert did – and that is when Robert changed over to a lovely clean sounding guitar, and did the chord comping I described previously.  

What a great, great version of “Schizoid Man” – I loved it, if only just for the little extra bits of stunning Fripp guitar – that really added a lot to the experience for me – so again, of the three nights, that’s my favourite version of this particular song – but overall, I still think I preferred the first show out of the three – except for “Fracture” and “21st Century Schizoid Man” which were both definitely better tonight – they were absolutely brilliant, and along with the two tracks from “Islands” plus the two tracks from “Red” – there was a lot of very hot music going on this evening!

Here and now, in September 2016, for us, having the absolutely unique experience of seeing King Crimson play three gigs over three nights in the same elegant, beautiful theatre – and, each of those shows had its own individual “feel”, while at the same time, the three taken as a whole, gets you a really good overview of just exactly what this band is capable of…all I can say about that, is:

Europe, be ready – the great Crimson Beast is lumbering towards you (in an odd time signature, of course) so I hope you are ready, this band is going to change the way you see (and hear) live music forever, with its amazing “front line” of three incredible drummers, and it’s impossibly talented and experienced “back line” full of virtuoso strings and horns – and just 30 seconds worth of “Level Five” will melt you right into your seat! 🙂

Thanks for listening!

Dave

King Crimson Live – September 3rd, 2016, Friar’s / Waterside Theatre, Aylesbury, UK

King Crimson, “Friends & Family” Event,  Friar’s, Waterside Theatre

Aylesbury, UK – September 3rd, 2016

The first unofficial show by the “new” King Crimson ended just a few short hours ago, and with the sound of the final selection of the night, “21st Century Schizoid Man” (complete with the original introduction mind you!) still ringing in my ears, I want to very quickly give my impressions of the show.

First of all, it was a “secret” show, a warm-up gig to the warm-up gigs tomorrow and Monday night (both at the same venue, on the 4th and 5th of September respectively). Attendance was by invitation only.

Second, I would very briefly mention that it really *was* friends and families, while we were waiting for the show to begin; in the foyer, and then later, in our seats – I kept seeing familiar faces and I kept getting greeted by many Crafty friends who had travelled from far and wide to see this special concert. I spoke to a couple of Crafties that had flown from the United States, and I was told that one Crafty had even travelled from Australia to see the show- now that made our own 7 hour journey from Scotland, by train and taxi, seem pretty tame – but it was a lovely, low-key way to travel, I can tell you for free. So I must have known 20 or 30 people in the audience, and spoke with a handful of them, or shook hands as I went by…it was very unusual and very nice to see and speak with a lot of people you know – mostly fellow Crafty guitarists.

But I digress…I return now, to the performance itself.

When I said the “new” King Crimson, I did mean King Crimson, 2016 version as compared to King Crimson, 2015 – the difference being, a swap of drummers – Bill Rieflin departing the band in March, 2016 and then being promptly replaced by new member Jeremy Stacey. So this “warm-up” gig would have been his first ever live performance with the band.  

I’ll take just a moment to say what a welcome and capable replacement Jeremy is: he sits in the same position (centre) of the three “front line” drummers, and like Rieflin before him, plays lots of piano, Mellotron and synthesizer parts as well as being an ace drummer. It’s a very, very seamless integration, and in fact, I would say that due to some excellent changes to the band’s repertoire, that Stacey actually played quite a bit more Mellotron especially, than Bill R. ever did. And he played it with complete confidence, as if he’d been doing it all along. He is a fully integrated member of the drum front line, and then by extension, since the drum front line works so well – of the band, too, the more string and horn oriented “back line”.

In short, Jeremy is an excellent, almost fit for fit / fit for purpose replacement for the departed Rieflin – and excellent choice, and his playing, both on the drums as well as on the keyboards, was basically flawless. A brilliant night for the front line, then.
In the back line – there were some opening night issues. Robert’s guitar was sometimes too low in the mix, as was Jakko’s, and there was a fairly disastrous tuning issue in the slow “relentless” section of “Starless” – which after about two minutes, was finally corrected by Jakko, which then put the song back on track.  Mel’s soprano sax on this song was sublime,  Beautiful playing.

Robert’s solo in “Easy Money” for me, was at first, so overly-reverbed, that I couldn’t distinguish the notes he was obviously playing, those notes, literally lost in space by a slightly too ambient patch on his effects unit. Then, as the solo progressed, he switched to the treble pickup, and finally I could start to hear the solo. It was almost inaudible for almost a minute – I could see him playing, but I couldn’t hear him playing. A few minor adjustments on the fly, and the solo finally took wing and flew – consummate professionalism every time.

Beyond those issues, there wasn’t much I could really find fault with, as we found with the 2015 band, the performances were well-rehearsed, well-polished, and the songs were filled with virtuoso moments from every player on the stage, from Tony Levin’s incredibly delicate fretless electric string bass solo on “Vrooom” to Robert Fripp’s impossible ascending / descending moving scales on “Fracture” (yes, I said “Fracture”!!!) this is a band of seasoned professionals, and the band’s collective ability to create virtually perfect renderings of material old or new is simply astonishing.

For me, having the incredibly capable Mel Collins back in the band, who then gets to re-create a series of basically impossible horn and flute solos, that he ad-libbed (probably) in the studio on albums made in 1970 (Lizard) and 1971 (Islands) and Red (1974)…

He also got to play horn parts originally performed by original King Crimson horn man Ian McDonald, and he got to replace Adrian Belew vocal parts with amazing flute solos or baritone saxes or soprano sax – and he is constantly switching between the flute and one of those saxes, and it’s fantastic, too, to hear him playing along with Fripp on pieces like “Starless”. The two sounded good together in 1970, 71 and 72, but they sound absolutely amazing together in King Crimson 2016.

I can’t of course, not say something about the redoubtable trio of drummers, Pat Mastelotto, new man Jeremy Stacey, and now-veteran (almost) Gavin Harrison – who is the “leader” of the drum team. Their unique approach to re-arranging some of the Crimson repertoire, for example, the song “Red” gets a whole new treatment from the trio, with a strange but wonderful slipping / synchronised tribal beat, that takes the song to a completely new place – it’s brilliant.

They also take quite a few solos, and have a couple of their own pieces which I can never keep straight, which one is which, so Crimson-drum-aficionados must forgive me if I guess the name of one of their drum numbers wrong. I probably WILL get it wrong…

Now – before I forget, I want to give you the set list, and I might then say one or two things about some of my personal favourite moments. As the 2015 band brought back and re-vitalised two tracks from the fourth Crimson studio album, 1971’s “Islands” in the form of “The Letters” and “Sailor’s Tale”, the decision was apparently taken that the oft-maligned third Crimson album, 1970’s “Lizard, now deserved some air time as well, so as I sat there tonight, I got a couple of real shocks to my system in terms of, ‘oh my God, I know what THIS is…’   …in fact, that happened three times: twice for two tracks taken from 1970’s “Lizard” and probably the most surprising of all – a track from “Starless And Bible Black” (1974) entitled “Fracture”.  

I was startled when Robert started playing this familiar riff, and his guitar was giving him a little bit of trouble during the first couple of bars, but he managed to straighten out whatever was wrong, and then dived into a nearly-faultless version of “Fracture” which of course contains long passages of his patented “perpetual vertical and horizontal picking” which to hear and see live, was absolutely amazing – he somehow managed to work out this entire, extremely complex piece of music in the New Standard Tuning, and with ace violin-emulation from Jakko Jakszyk – the band pulled off a pretty ripping version of the tune.

But I am getting ahead of myself here – here is the set list:

Soundscapes

Hellhound Of Krim or Devil Dogs Of Tesselation Row (Drum Trio)

Larks’ Tongues In Aspic, Part 1

Pictures Of A City

Cirkus

Fracture

The Battle Of Glass Tears

Meltdown

Red

The Letters

Sailor’s Tale

Epitaph

[INTERMISSION]

Devil Dogs Of Tesselation Row or Hellhounds Of Krim (Drum Trio) 

The ConstruKction Of Light

Level Five

Suitable Grounds For The Blues

Unknown / New Song (Instrumental – featuring two guitars)

Vrooom

Easy Money

Starless

[ENCORE]

Banshee Legs Bell Hassle

Heroes

21st Century Schizoid Man

Finally, some very memorable moments for me…during the last section of “Pictures Of A City” Robert suddenly played an incredibly beautiful, long jazzy lick on his guitar that just shocked me – it was that good, and it just sounded so, so perfect in that moment, it really blew me away – brilliant!

When “Cirkus” started, I knew I was going to be bowled over by it, and it did not disappoint in any way. A powerful vocal from Jakko, and Mel had clearly spent many hours studying the original recording, has taken his already impossible, sleazy, beautiful, jazzy sax riffs and he’s gone and IMPROVED on them – meanwhile, new member Jeremy Stacey was playing the ominous Mellotron riff, as well as the piano introduction, switching between piano and Mellotron and drums effortlessly – an amazing performance, while Robert played the same riff on guitar, and would occasionally add additional Mellotrons to parts that required more than one – and in “Cirkus” you get this requirement.

Mel was absolutely spot on, and to hear this song performed live is a dream I never dared dream – and a few hours ago – I watched and listened to King Crimson playing one of my favourite tracks from “Lizard” – the dramatic and strange “Cirkus” with perfect Gordon Haskell bass lines from Tony Levin and a great Jakko vocal (not to mention, Jakko playing the famous very rapid classical sounding acoustic guitar parts that occur twice in the song – at an incredible tempo) – brilliant!

But strangely enough, what really, really blew my socks away, was a near perfect rendition of “The Battle Of Glass Tears” (which was originally the third section of the side long so-called “Lizard Suite” which originally ran as):

1. Prince Rupert Awakes

2. Bolero

3. The Battle Of Glass Tears

4. Big Top

So removing it from the context of that, and playing it as a single, live piece of music, was an inspired move, the lyrics are absolutely beautiful, and Jakko did a fantastic job of rendering original singer Gordon Haskell’s somewhat strange melodic vocal – and in doing so, made it into an even better vocal performance than the original – and the band, were in complete jazz stealth mode, all playing super quietly while Jakko sang this strange tale of a sort of dream battle with it’s amazing Peter Sinfield lyrics – it was the most surprising of all – and I had just heard both “Cirkus” followed by “Fracture” – both of which had blown me away,,,but when new member Jeremy Stacey started playing the eerie, strange mellotrons from “The Battle Of Glass Tears” I knew what it was instantly, or rather, where it came from, I knew every word, and I actually sang along quietly because it’s such a beautiful lyric.

The whole band just excelled on this short, very odd piece of music, which was literally snatched out of the middle of a much larger work, but, for me, it draws attention to a single song that I always felt was one of the best moments on the whole album – it’s certainly my favourite lyric on the album, and it’s also the first time you hear singer Gordon Haskell’s voice after the sort of fairy-tale voice of guest singer Jon Anderson on the first part, “Prince Rupert Awakes”. Haskell’s voice is an acquired taste, but I absolutely love his bass playing (perfectly emulated thanks to the good Mr. Levin) and his singing on “Lizard” – I think he is top notch, especially at interpreting the rather tricky Peter Sinfield lyrics.

“Lizard” has taken a lot of abuse over the years, sort of the unwanted jazz child of “In The Court” and “In The Wake” but I love all four of those earliest records, each in their own way – the fourth one being “Islands” of course – and I was SO very happy that they have retained the two tracks from “Islands” in the setlist, the show wouldn’t have been the same without them!

I know this won’t be a popular opinion, but I really tend to enjoy the tracks from “Lizard” and “Islands” more than the tracks from “In The Court” or “In The Wake”. That’s just me. Don’t get me wrong; I love “Epitaph” and “Schizoid Man” and “Pictures Of A City” but I just prefer hearing the rarer (and somewhat more eccentric) tracks from “Lizard” and “Islands”.

They introduced then, new for this tour, three “old” King Crimson songs, that King Crimson 2015 did NOT play – and those three songs, two from “Lizard” and one from “Starless And Bible Black” we’re probably my favourite moments of this concert. 
They also played what I believe was a new song, a sort of menacing two guitars piece that was quite short, but quite enjoyable, it had a slightly strange beginning featuring Robert Fripp playing a major chord up a half step, so something like F sharp major to G major, not unlike the beginning of “Jailhouse Rock” but then it immediately mutated into twin guitar Krimson territory – I don’t know what the name of it was, but it was pleasant enough.

Just prior to a roaring final encore of “21st Century Schizoid Man” (which was firing on all cylinders tonight my friends!) they did something else a bit unexpected – they played David Bowie’s song “Heroes”, with Jakko doing his best David Bowie vocal imitation, while Robert Fripp reprised his beautiful, soaring long guitar riff that has made the song so famous, that he originally recorded on the original version of the song from the David Bowie album of the same name, way back in 1980 – when it was Eno, Bowie and Fripp all working together in Berlin.

So that felt like a really nice send-off for David – Robert Fripp reminding us that it was his guitar on that song, but also offering up a really bright, poppy almost, version of the song with an excellent vocal and great supporting guitar from Jakko – while the rhythm section and Tony were just having the time of their lives – it sounded (and looked) really fun to play, and hearing Robert keeping that one note sustained for so long, over and over again, you forget that he is the absolute master of the long, sustained guitar note – and he doesn’t depend on a gadget (like the energy bows that I favour so much) – he just keeps that note going, somehow.

It was an impressive performance, when it ended, the familiar steam organ type sounds that are the recorded “prelude” or short intro piece that precedes “21st Century Schizoid Man” were playing through the speakers, and with a huge crashing chord sequence, we were off on the final track of the evening – it simply couldn’t be anything else, could it?

I loved every minute of this show, the skill and the musicianship and the professionalism on show, the virtuoso playing on show, is almost too much to take. I was alternately fascinated by the interplay between Jakko and Robert, and sometimes absolutely gobsmacked by riffs or ideas or techniques that both would employ, and some amazing guitar tones were also to be heard during this concert – great guitar sounds, including acoustic emulation from Jakko during Epitaph, the only other number we got tonight from the classic first album, “In the Court Of The Crimson King”.

But I am willing to give up the title track of that album, in exchange for “Cirkus”, “Fracture” and “The Battle Of Glass Tears” – especially the last one, whose lyrics are still rattling around my brain…

Burnt with dream and taut with fear

Dawn’s misty shawl upon them.

Three hills apart great armies stir

Spit oath and curse as day breaks.

Forming lines of horse and steel

By even yards, march forward.

I could not have dreamed in a billion years, that one day I would see and hear King Crimson play “The Battle Of Glass Tears” – It’s simply not possible. But – earlier this evening – I did just that – and it was gorgeous, too!

By all accounts, besides a very few technical issues, an excellent first foray for King Crimson 2016!

Now I can sleep happy!!

Peace and love

Somewhere near Aylesbury, waiting for night 2
Dave & Dawn

King Crimson Live – September 4th, 2016, Friar’s / Waterside Theatre, Aylesbury, UK

Tonight, the second of three King Crimson gigs for us on this, the 2016 tour, was the first “official” gig of the tour, and even though the set was fairly similar to that of the “invitation only friends and family gig” of the previous night, this show had a quite different feel about it in a number of ways.

For one thing, we were this time sat to the right of the stage, slightly above the first floor section of audience on the side, whereas last night, we were near the sound board on the left of the stage. In some ways, tonight’s position was better, for one thing, I could actually see both of Robert’s hands, so that was a bonus.  Being slightly above, we could probably see and hear quite a bit better than the previous night – also, I very much noticed Gavin’s drumming much more tonight (and it was fantastic!!) whereas last night, I mostly noticed Pat and Jeremy – so where you sit, definitely makes a difference to the sound.  And it sounded good!

This fortuitous event of being just a tiny bit higher up  enabled me to see some small details that I missed last night, for example, in my favourite new – old tune, “The Battle Of Glass Tears”, it turns out that it is Robert Fripp playing the eerie, beautiful Mellotron melodies – and that’s all he plays on the song – supporting Jakko’s remarkable vocal. Again – this short, short song, with it’s incredible visionary lyric, is the high point of the show for me – with one possible exception – which is the re-vitalised “Fracture”. This started off better this evening, although there was one single high note that Robert missed, during the introductory part of the song – much to his chagrin, but hey – it’s opening night, and that’s a tiny, tiny mishap.

However, the performance was otherwise unmarred, and reached a remarkable climax where all of the stringed instruments are just going mad, where a guitar solo triggers a mock violin solo which triggers a bass solo which triggers some interplay between mock violin and guitar, or horns and guitar – and “Fracture”, after about 12 minutes of one of the most complex pieces of music ever penned for a modern rock band – actually ended up getting a standing ovation from part of the crowd – so the crowd loved it.  

In a way, this band can do no wrong – you should hear the audience, every time Robert takes one of those solos with the long whip up to a sustained note, they just start yelling and screaming – they absolutely love Fripp; and when Fripp plays something that is extremely innovative or extremely quick or even just something loud and beautiful, like the ever-sustaining lead guitar note in “Heroes” – the audience just go wild for the Fripp lead guitar.

It was a good version of “Fracture” overall, and I was especially impressed with Jakko’s incredibly accurate rendering of the original David Cross violin part. That was very well done, and I could see what Jakko was having to do to emulate those violins much more clearly than the night before – and it was impressively weird.   

Jakko is literally a bit of a musical magpie, and he wants every detail to be perfect…as evidenced by the fact that even though he has to sing the vocal on “Cirkus” (and let’s face it, on every song that has lyrics!!) he still takes the time to learn all of those impossible, high speed acoustic guitar runs in “Cirkus” and rip through them as if they were nothing, all the while singing – I am as always, really impressed with the quality of Jakko’s guitar playing, and I wanted to point that out in particular.

I was very pleased to get to hear “Cirkus” for a second time, and it did not disappoint, a great vocal, but the star of this show is undoubtedly the remarkable Mel Collins, whose playing on this song is just so, so beautiful – flowing, powerful, free, melodic – perfect. I really love this strange, strange song !

“Worship!” cried the clown, “I am a T.V.”

Making bandsmen go clockwork,

See the slinky seal Cirkus policeman;

Bareback ladies have fish.

Strongmen by his feet, plate-spinning statesman,

Acrobatically juggling-

Bids his tamers go quiet the tumblers

Lest the mirror stop turning…

Robert and Mel tend to steal the show a bit when it comes to taking solos, but all of the members of the band get to take solos, including Jakko and Tony.

One highlight for me tonight was the ever-powerful “Level Five” which featured a stunning dual pick scraping down the low E string by Jakko and Robert as the song came literally to a screeching halt – that was pretty fantastic after being treated to a top-notch version of the song; it had an even better ending!

The unexpected tracks tonight, were two additional tracks from the “Larks’ Tongues In Aspic” album, namely the shortest version of “The Talking Drum” I have ever heard, followed by a pretty satisfying “Larks’ Tongues In Aspic, Part II” – with Robert’s guitar tones sounding pretty much exactly like they do on the USA album – they have dialled in a wicked tone for his distorted rhythm guitar parts. The same wicked rhythm guitar is on display in the first long track the band plays, where Robert fades in his choppy high-speed chords for the coda of “Larks’ Tongues In Aspic, Part 1” – it sounds perfect – just like the record.

That kind of attention to detail, getting the exactly correct guitar sound, for iconic riffs or iconic chord sequences like the coda of LTIA Part 1, are what make this band so, so special – right down to the laughing box at the end of “Easy Money”, which was strangely omitted from tonight’s set. In fact, while we did get two “new” tracks in the form of “The Talking Drum / Larks’ Tongues In Aspic, Part 2” the price we paid for that was the loss of both “Easy Money” and “Sailor’s Tale” – and a show without “Sailor’s Tale”….well, I am not as sure about that.

But if I forget about the fact that I did get to see those two songs during last night’s show, and concentrate on tonight’s set list only, it still a very powerful and very representative set of fine King Crimson material. Here is the full set list:

Soundscapes

Hellhound Of Krim or Devil Dogs Of Tesselation Row (Drum Trio)

Larks’ Tongues In Aspic, Part 1

Pictures Of A City

Cirkus

Fracture

The Letters

Meltdown

Red

Epitaph

The Talking Drum /

Larks’ Tongues In Aspic, Part II

[INTERMISSION]

Devil Dogs Of Tesselation Row or Hellhounds Of Krim (Drum Trio) 

The ConstruKction Of Light

The Battle Of Glass Tears

Vrooom

Suitable Grounds For The Blues

Unknown / New Song (Instrumental – featuring two guitars) /

Level Five

Starless

[ENCORE]

Banshee Legs Bell Hassle

Heroes

21st Century Schizoid Man

So I would say really, more similarities than differences, although interestingly, a couple of songs, mostly notably my personal favourite “The Battle Of Glass Tears” ended up being moved as compared to the previous night’s set – for reasons unknown.

Certainly, the arrival of “Talking Drum / LTIA Pt. 2” meant that a few things had to change, so I assume that it’s mainly due to that more than for any other musical reason. It was curious though, hearing the dead stop end of “The Battle Of Glass Tears” dive directly into “Vrooom” without hardly having time to draw a breath, whereas last night, “Glass Tears” was followed by “Meltdown” instead – a very different sounding sequence there.

I did enjoy “Meltdown” on both nights, I still prefer it to “Suitable Grounds For The Blues” and I have to admit I am quite starting to actually really like “Meltdown” – at least, the music, if not the somewhat overthought lyrics (sorry Jakko – only Peter Hammill is allowed to use the word “lexicon” in a song) – but I do really like the tune, and especially the almost Crafty-like dual guitar part – which is truly beautiful.

The encore was identical to the previous night, with the very upbeat “Heroes” getting the crowd very excited and then “21st Century Schizoid Man” to remind the audience just exactly which band this is they are listening to – a great, biting vocal from Jakko, and fantastic ensemble playing of a classic of progressive rock and the perfect final track for another great night of King Crimson music.

The feeling was a little bit different in that I think the band were a bit more on edge or nervous than they had been at the “Friends & Family” show, so maybe that was why there were a few tiny issues, but once again, the performing power and the virtuoso playing from all seven musicians, cannot be denied, is unparalleled, and was evident in spades again tonight – another great show as always.

There is no other band like King Crimson in the world today, partially because of the absolutely unique playing styles of Robert Fripp and Mel Collins, and to a slightly lesser degree, Tony, Jakko, and the front line of fantastic percussionists – those virtuoso playing styles just set this band apart, and having that amazing back line of incredibly talented musicians is why King Crimson 2016, sounds so astonishingly good!  

Beautiful music, made by the best progressive rock musicians on earth – spanning two generations, too – a band that is utterly unique with a remarkable canon of incredibly difficult and wonderful songs – long may they play those songs and allow us to hear – what a fantastic privilege listening to this band really is.

Another great night.

See you tomorrow !!!!

Peace & Love

Dave 🙂