Page 3 of 5 FirstFirst 12345 LastLast
Results 51 to 75 of 114

Thread: FEATURED CD - King Crimson : In The Court Of The Crimson King

  1. #51
    Member Jerjo's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    small town in ND
    Posts
    6,432
    I came to KC quite late. For some odd reason I didn't get much exposure to them in college so they really didn't blip onto my music radar. In the late 80s I worked at an audio store. The manager was a real prog head who loved KC but was always drawn to their 80s stuff, not to mention side projects. So anything he played in the store sounded remote and rather mathematical. Plus he was a major asshole. So I stayed away. Cut to whenever I started hanging out on PE and stumbling across these long obsessive KC threads (none of which were as insane or drama-soaked as Yes threads) got me to wondering. Then a post on a mellotron thread of one of the early songs made me realize that KC was not all about dissonant minor key 80s music. And I got started with this album.

    Since then I've got most of the catalog through the Red/Starless era. I did give Discipline a try but it does nothing for me. But the music between the debut and Red makes me wish I had paid more attention to them back in the day. But at least it's all still fresh and full of revelations. I have to be in the right state of mind for that improv section of Moonchild, gets a little too tinkly sometimes. But the debut is still one of the best debut albums in rock history, a bolt of thunder from out of nowhere, opening the genre wide open.
    I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart

  2. #52
    Member Jerjo's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    small town in ND
    Posts
    6,432
    Quote Originally Posted by MYSTERIOUS TRAVELLER View Post
    any time I see this album cover now, I think
    JIF


    I just threw up in my own mouth.
    I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart

  3. #53
    All right, I'll admit it ... I like "Moonchild" as it is...
    Cobra handling and cocaine use are a bad mix.

  4. #54
    Progga mogrooves's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2003
    Location
    The Past
    Posts
    1,900
    Quote Originally Posted by zombywoof View Post
    Moonchild, to me, is a great track when you want to zone out and quiet your mind.
    Pretty much the point back in '69; it wasn't called "head music" for nothing . Personally I dig it, straight or chemically-enhanced.
    Hell, they ain't even old-timey ! - Homer Stokes

  5. #55
    Member interbellum's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2014
    Location
    Xymphonia-city
    Posts
    4,603
    Quote Originally Posted by rael74 View Post
    Timeless as the album. The first time I saw this I had goose-flesh all over and then I hadn't even come to the "Animals"-cover live scene...

  6. #56
    Quote Originally Posted by MYSTERIOUS TRAVELLER View Post
    but... surely Moonchild is NOT a shining example of free improv, is it?
    Well, that depends; like others have said just here, this specific improv is first and foremost a statement - by way of artistic performance. KC were already doing more or less free improvs live (parts of "Get thy Bearings", "Travel Weary Capricorn", mid-section of "Schizoid Man" et al.), but the "Moonchild" improv came about as an idea right there in the studio, IIRC. Giles and Fripp had both been to performances with the SME (Spontaneous Music Ensemble) and others from that rather outrageous scene, and were probably as eager (yet supposedly hesitant) to recreate their impressions from there as Pink Floyd had been after witnessing performances by AMM.

    Like I said previously; some of it works nicely, other parts are less rewarding - but in the end it remains what it is, and no matter how you twist it, those 10 minutes form a significant component of the total statement that the album purveys.
    "Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
    "[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM

  7. #57
    Dang it, I'm too late to make a snarky "it sucks" comment

    Honestly though, the first time I heard it, on vinyl no less, in probably 1990 or so, I thought it was pretty boring. I WANTED to like it because I had become a total 70's prog freak at that point. I guess I just wasn't ready for it or something, which is weird because I was completely smitten with PG Genesis who owed a LOT to that album. Anyway, a few years later I finally picked it up on CD and fell in love with it. I think maybe the quiet mellowness of a lot of it may have been what put me off the first time (Rush was my entry point to prog, so I wasn't exactly keyed into musical subtlety yet ), though you'd think my love of Genesis would have taken care of that. Maybe it just seemed to "old", since it was released the year I was born. Who knows. In any case, it quickly because a prog touchstone for me when I finally did get into it, along with much of the rest of Crimson's discography. I imagine it made quite an impact at the time it was released, though it's certainly drenched in the same kind of atmosphere as The Moody Blues had been doing for a while at that point. Of course, I don't think the Moodies ever had anything remotely like Schizoid Man, and the Court album was much darker overall than any Moodies album up to that point for sure.

    Anyway, a stone cold classic and probably the beginning of what we now think of as "70's prog".

  8. #58
    Member Since: 3/27/2002 MYSTERIOUS TRAVELLER's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    The Kingdom of YHVH
    Posts
    2,770
    but it really is not a good example of free improv

    it is pretty boring and unfocused and safe... like they were afraid of going for it
    Why is it whenever someone mentions an artist that was clearly progressive (yet not the Symph weenie definition of Prog) do certain people feel compelled to snort "thats not Prog" like a whiny 5th grader?

  9. #59
    Boo! walt's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    Oakland Gardens NY
    Posts
    5,626
    Quote Originally Posted by MYSTERIOUS TRAVELLER View Post
    but it really is not a good example of free improv

    it is pretty boring and unfocused and safe... like they were afraid of going for it
    Lots of people feel that way.I'm not one of them.I don't think it's an outstanding improv, but it works for me.Rather audacious for Fripp to include an improv on their debut recording.Over the following years, Fripp certainly walked the walk as far as including risk and improvisation as part of the Crimson sound world.
    "please do not understand me too quickly"-andre gide

  10. #60
    Quote Originally Posted by MYSTERIOUS TRAVELLER View Post
    but it really is not a good example of free improv

    it is pretty boring and unfocused and safe... like they were afraid of going for it

    I guess that's one way of looking at it. I quite like it myself, though it's certainly not a GREAT improv and far from the best I've heard. It was 1969 for crying out loud. On a rock album. Who was doing that? No one.

  11. #61
    Best version of Moonchild I've ever seen...
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j84Cfd8rlq0

  12. #62
    Member Since: 3/27/2002 MYSTERIOUS TRAVELLER's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    The Kingdom of YHVH
    Posts
    2,770
    Quote Originally Posted by walt View Post
    Over the following years, Fripp certainly walked the walk as far as including risk and improvisation as part of the Crimson sound world.
    absolutely... and that, for me, is what makes them the most interesting of the Brit Symph bands... along with Camel
    Why is it whenever someone mentions an artist that was clearly progressive (yet not the Symph weenie definition of Prog) do certain people feel compelled to snort "thats not Prog" like a whiny 5th grader?

  13. #63
    Quote Originally Posted by walt View Post
    Over the following years, Fripp certainly walked the walk as far as including risk and improvisation as part of the Crimson sound world.
    Yes, I think so. I mean, "The Devil's Triangle" took the principle even further in the following year; that's one of the first "proto-industrial" works on a British rock album (together with Egg's "Boilk" and parts of Floyd's "Interstellar Overdrive") - admittedly the Americans had already been there with stuff like "Sister Ray" by the Velvets), and the "Lizard" suite was nothing if not completely different from the other epics being made by alleged "symph" bands.

    I still think this decidedly experimental approach to their own medium was the component which somehow saved KC (and VdGG and partly even GGiant) from the later pariah status of the other "symph" artists; they were more in line with the Softs, Hatfield, Henry Cow and others in doing that - although the music as such was of a different kind altogether.
    "Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
    "[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM

  14. #64
    Jazzbo manqué Mister Triscuits's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    Utopia
    Posts
    5,390
    "Moonchild" may not be the last word in free improv, but I dig it and feel that ITCOTCK would be a lesser album with another "normal" song in its place. I think "Moonchild" serves a purpose in giving the album its identity and structure. It's a spaced-out dream interlude where time stops--or at least timekeeping stops. It's also a bold first step along the path that led to the epic improvs of the Wetton-Bruford-Cross band.

    Now if only Fripp hadn't goofed it up with that stupid "Surrey with the Fringe on Top" lick...

  15. #65
    Boo! walt's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    Oakland Gardens NY
    Posts
    5,626
    Going back a year to the Giles Giles & Fripp record,the track "Erudite Eyes" sounds(to me,i could be mistaken) like the trio starts improvising about halfway in. Erudite Eyes is a Fripp composition.Perhaps he(Fripp) wouldn't have thought to try an improvisation on a track written by his bandmates.(speculation on my part).
    "please do not understand me too quickly"-andre gide

  16. #66
    Quote Originally Posted by walt View Post
    Going back a year to the Giles Giles & Fripp record,the track "Erudite Eyes" sounds(to me,i could be mistaken) like the trio starts improvising about halfway in.
    You are NOT mistaken. I drew that parallell once myself in an article I wrote about improvisation in "classic" progressive rock, as it's a quite obvious one. Great tune, btw - and arguably the finest vocal performance of Mike Giles. He should have sung more, that dude!
    "Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
    "[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM

  17. #67
    Quote Originally Posted by Scrotum Scissor View Post
    this specific improv is first and foremost a statement - by way of artistic performance.
    IIRC (from Sid's Toxic Tome) it was more a last resort than anything else. They'd recorded all the originals they had and they either couldn't or didn't want to include a cover like "Get Thy Bearings." So it was either put out a pretty short LP, wait a while to write more and book another session, or try to come up with something else fast. (I think they also decided it would be fitting to represent their free side since it was already a part of what they did onstage.)

    Maybe that's just being picky since the thing does make a statement--just look at the discussions it still sparks after all this time--but it's a statement that was sort of dragged out of them all the same.

    Quote Originally Posted by walt View Post
    Rather audacious for Fripp to include an improv on their debut recording.
    Rather audacious for the band, I'd say, just to be picky again. At this point McDonald and Giles were arguably the leaders (to the extent anyone was actually filling that role at all) just as much as RF, if not more.

  18. #68
    Quote Originally Posted by Spiral View Post
    IIRC (from Sid's Toxic Tome) it was more a last resort than anything else.
    Yes, I know; that's why I mentioned it as being a "studio idea". But let's face it; other than KC and perhaps a band like the Softs, who else - at THIS point - would have even had the guts (or hubris ) to commit to such a "last resort"? When Henry Cow lacked written material for Unrest some five years later, they practically invented a whole conceptual base for technical post-processing of studio improvisations, rendering most of side 2 a set of "imprositions" instead. But the "Moonchild" improv survives due to its status of artistic transcendence, although it may as easily have been 10 minutes of dubbed spoken voice or a sound collage of any sort. I still think it DOES constitute a quite forceful statement.
    "Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
    "[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM

  19. #69
    Member Since: 3/27/2002 MYSTERIOUS TRAVELLER's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    The Kingdom of YHVH
    Posts
    2,770
    Quote Originally Posted by Scrotum Scissor View Post
    let's face it; other than KC and perhaps a band like the Softs, who else - at THIS point - would have even had the guts (or hubris ) to commit to such a "last resort"?
    I'm guessing you are speaking only of Symph Rock bands. The Jazz Rock bands (few that they were in 1969) could certainly pull it off. Tony Williams' Lifetime with Jonny Mac had also exploded onto the scene in 1969 and were just as progressive in their approach to Rock music as Crimso.
    Why is it whenever someone mentions an artist that was clearly progressive (yet not the Symph weenie definition of Prog) do certain people feel compelled to snort "thats not Prog" like a whiny 5th grader?

  20. #70
    Sounds like Genesis .. meh.

    ...

    But seriously, it took me about 15 years to come around on this one. I became a fan of prog rock in the late 90s, and this one never grabbed me (though I loved Red and Discipline). I guess I never much dug the saxes, and the overall, uh, "dated"-sounded recording was a stumbling block. I totally get the influence it had on the genre, but it was more interesting to me as a historical artifact than actual music to listen to and enjoy.

    In the last few years, I've been rediscovering stuff I didn't get the first time around, and this album is one that finally clicked with me. Holy crap is this some serious music. Ferocious, desperate, wailing, etc. And that's middle-aged me in the year 2015, after years of listening to all kinds of heavy serious music. I can't even imagine what it must have been like hearing this for the first time in 1969. Mind blowing.
    flute juice

  21. #71
    Quote Originally Posted by Mister Triscuits View Post
    "Moonchild" may not be the last word in free improv, but I dig it and feel that ITCOTCK would be a lesser album with another "normal" song in its place. I think "Moonchild" serves a purpose in giving the album its identity and structure. It's a spaced-out dream interlude where time stops--or at least timekeeping stops. It's also a bold first step along the path that led to the epic improvs of the Wetton-Bruford-Cross band.
    I like this analysis. It's kind of a placeholder, but it's a placeholder that serves a very important purpose .. setting up the bombasticity of the title track. And I like the "time stopping" thing. Like being in a dreamy field and then, *plink* ... surrounded by faeries and stardust and everything else is frozen in time. And then ... the fire witch and stuff. :/
    flute juice

  22. #72
    Member bill g's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    Near Mount Rainier
    Posts
    2,646
    I like this album. Kind of my intro to prog. First time I heard it '21st Century Schizoid Man' blew my socks off. I'd never heard anything like it. In time 'I Talk To The Wind' and 'Epitaph' became favorites, although I enjoy every track. I do like Lizard and Islands, and even 'Larks Tongues' and 'Posiedon' more, but still a nice debut.

  23. #73
    Member Digital_Man's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Location
    Philly burbs PA
    Posts
    5,395
    I actually heard "Islands" and "lark's tongues in aspic" before this one(Islands being my very first KC purchase....yeah I know it almost scared me off permanently from the band). I also heard " A young persons guide to King Crimson" on cassette tape before hearing this one although some of the tracks from that were on here.

  24. #74
    Member
    Join Date
    Nov 2013
    Location
    Moscow, RF
    Posts
    317
    Moonchild, including Dream & Illusion - my favorite. The instrumental part mostly. It has Webernian subtlety, and a free jazz vibe. The moment of rare beauty.

  25. #75
    Member
    Join Date
    Nov 2013
    Location
    Moscow, RF
    Posts
    317
    Quote Originally Posted by arise_shine View Post
    I like this analysis. It's kind of a placeholder, but it's a placeholder that serves a very important purpose .. setting up the bombasticity of the title track. And I like the "time stopping" thing. Like being in a dreamy field and then, *plink* ... surrounded by faeries and stardust and everything else is frozen in time. And then ... the fire witch and stuff. :/
    For me 21st CSM is a placeholder. I usualy skip this track, for me it's obviously discord with all the rest.

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •