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Thread: King Crimson viz-a-vis lack of live material from 1973

  1. #1

    King Crimson viz-a-vis lack of live material from 1973

    So I've been wondering lately why there is a relative lack of live material from 1973 available. The Larks Tongues box only has shows from 72. The Starless box has four shows from the autumn of 73 (Arlington, Glasgow, Amsterdam, and Zurich), plus one song from the summer of 73. I reckon there has to be one of several possible reasons for this:

    1. Whatever soundboard tapes that might have been made on those tours are "MIA and presumed lost"

    2. Fripp considers the audience tapes he's heard to be of insufficient quality for release

    3. Fripp considers the performances to be of insufficient quality for

    4. Fripp is an opportunistic turkey, fraud, and charlatan, and he's just waiting for "the right time" to make another grab for our wallets

    (and before anyone any complains about my choice of words on number 4, please look up the somewhat flippant press release that was issued in 1981, with the "possible explanations" for why Fripp was again using the King Crimson name)

    Or it could be any combinations of those possibilities.

    Has Chuckles ever given an official explanation for this matter, or are we once again left to (facetiously?) speculate why there's such a huge gap?

  2. #2
    Parrots Ripped My Flesh Dave (in MA)'s Avatar
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    There are downloads from Atlanta, Berkeley, Detroit, Frankfurt Paris, Rome, Turin and Waterbury available, but from listening to a quick preview of each, none of them sound good, so maybe he figured 2.

  3. #3
    It's a pretty well established fact that :

    - KC only began making recordings of their concert in the Autumn (Fall) of 1973, initially bringing a mobile studio on selected dates (Zurich, Glasgow, Amsterdam) for this purpose. The only recordings available from this period of pro quality, or something approaching pro, are those 4-5 gigs.

    There simply is NOTHING from before then, apart from partial soundboards of a couple of late 1972 performances, and a radio broadcast from June 1973.

    - By 1974, board recordings began to be made on a nightly basis, plus on occasion, again, a mobile studio was drafted in to record selected dates (Asbury Park, Providence, Pittsburgh etc.)

    No big mystery there if you've read the various booklets, and/or Sid Smith's book.
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    Canterbury & prog interviews - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdf...IUPxUMA/videos

  4. #4
    [QUOTE=calyx;768607]
    - KC only began making recordings of their concert in the Autumn (Fall) of 1973, initially bringing a mobile studio on selected dates (Zurich, Glasgow, Amsterdam) for this purpose. The only recordings available from this period of pro quality, or something approaching pro, are those 4-5 gigs.
    OK, that I did not know. But, what about the recordings of the Islands lineup? They seem to have recorded quite a few of those shows. I'm probably missing something, but it seems odd to me that they'd record the first show by the Islands lineup (Plymouth '71), a show on the first US tour they did (Detroit, just listened to it on Sunday, btw), then record at least some of the shows on the second US tour (from which Earthbound was derived), then suddenly stop. I mean, I understand why one couldn't/can't do multi-track recordings of every show, I get that. But it seems a simple matter to hook up at least a cassette player, if not a pro quality Studer or Nagra and record a 2 track tape for each show (the Grateful Dead that all through this same era, and they took it a step further by having a seperate soundboard that was set up to do a mix just for the tape).

    There simply is NOTHING from before then, apart from partial soundboards of a couple of late 1972 performances, and a radio broadcast from June 1973.
    OK, tell me about this radio broadcast, because that's news to me. GIven my former life as a tape trader, I should know about that, but somehow I don't.


    No big mystery there if you've read the various booklets, and/or Sid Smith's book.
    I've read the booklets, and I've never seen it being mentioned why there's such incomplete documentation of the Muir era and the year that followed.. Granted, I don't have all the Collector's Club releases (I own something like the first nine or ten, then a probably another of the ones that came after that, with the last one I got around to getting being I think number 22), but I simply don't remember seeing said information.

    As for the Sid SMith book, yeah, I guess I'm negligent by having not yet read that. I"ll have to see if I can remedy that.

  5. #5
    Member Steve F.'s Avatar
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    ^^^^^

    I believe the June 1973 radio broadcast is from Richard ‘s Nightclub in Atlanta.

    And, Chris, you’re coming off as pretty hostile in this thread to someone (Aymeric) who did their best to answer your question....
    Steve F.

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    Any time any one speaks to me about any musical project, the one absolute given is "it will not make big money". [tip of the hat to HK]

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    please add 'imo' wherever you like, to avoid offending those easily offended.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Steve F. View Post
    ^^^^^

    I believe the June 1973 radio broadcast is from Richard ‘s Nightclub in Atlanta.

    And, Chris, you’re coming off as pretty hostile in this thread to someone (Aymeric) who did their best to answer your question....
    I wasn' tmeaning to be hostile, I was just asking a couple follow up questions.
    Last edited by GuitarGeek; 01-09-2018 at 10:13 PM.

  7. #7
    GuitarGeek, you raise valid points about WHY there were changes in practices of documenting the band's activites from one line-up to another. While we know, factually, that this or that line-up's live work was well preserved for posterity, or not, we do not necessarily know WHY. Yes, for some reason, board tapes were made, on more than one occasion, of the 1971-72 line-up, and much of the early 1972 tour was documented on cassettes, thus the recent "Sailors' Tales" box. For some reason, that changed with the next line-up. And for some other (or similar) reason, no recordings were made of the 1981-84 band outside of a few shows in the Summer of 1982 and the Montréal and Tokyo shows in 1984. Which makes, appropriately in my view, the 1973-74 line-up by far the best documented in pro quality until the digital era, 1994 onwards, where shows were systematically recorded.
    Calyx (Canterbury Scene) - http://www.calyx-canterbury.fr
    Legends In Their Own Lunchtime (blog) - https://canterburyscene.wordpress.com/
    My latest books : "Yes" (2017) - https://lemotetlereste.com/musiques/yes/ + "L'Ecole de Canterbury" (2016) - http://lemotetlereste.com/musiques/lecoledecanterbury/ + "King Crimson" (2012/updated 2018) - http://lemotetlereste.com/musiques/kingcrimson/
    Canterbury & prog interviews - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdf...IUPxUMA/videos

  8. #8
    Yes, as Steve F. noted above, the June 1973 radio broadcast was of Atlanta. More info on DGMLive (plus an opportunity to download said show, which iirc is also in the Starless box) :

    https://www.dgmlive.com/albums/richa...-united-states
    Calyx (Canterbury Scene) - http://www.calyx-canterbury.fr
    Legends In Their Own Lunchtime (blog) - https://canterburyscene.wordpress.com/
    My latest books : "Yes" (2017) - https://lemotetlereste.com/musiques/yes/ + "L'Ecole de Canterbury" (2016) - http://lemotetlereste.com/musiques/lecoledecanterbury/ + "King Crimson" (2012/updated 2018) - http://lemotetlereste.com/musiques/kingcrimson/
    Canterbury & prog interviews - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdf...IUPxUMA/videos

  9. #9
    ^
    No, it's the Arlington concert.

    There may also have been issues with stolen tapes.

  10. #10
    Member Steve F.'s Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by unclemeat View Post
    ^
    No, it's the Arlington concert.
    .
    Arlington is an audience recording, not a radio broadcast.
    Steve F.

    www.waysidemusic.com
    www.cuneiformrecords.com

    - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

    “Remember, if it doesn't say "Cuneiform," it's not prog!” - THE Jed Levin

    Any time any one speaks to me about any musical project, the one absolute given is "it will not make big money". [tip of the hat to HK]

    "Death to false 'support the scene' prog!"

    please add 'imo' wherever you like, to avoid offending those easily offended.

  11. #11
    ^I am aware of that. I meant : the Arlington concert, not Atlanta, is included in the Starless box set.

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by unclemeat View Post
    ^I am aware of that. I meant : the Arlington concert, not Atlanta, is included in the Starless box set.
    You're right, only "Doctor Diamond" from Atlanta is included, as it had been on the "SABB" reissue. My confusion came from the fact that I had the complete Atlanta broadcast downloaded from DGMLive.
    Calyx (Canterbury Scene) - http://www.calyx-canterbury.fr
    Legends In Their Own Lunchtime (blog) - https://canterburyscene.wordpress.com/
    My latest books : "Yes" (2017) - https://lemotetlereste.com/musiques/yes/ + "L'Ecole de Canterbury" (2016) - http://lemotetlereste.com/musiques/lecoledecanterbury/ + "King Crimson" (2012/updated 2018) - http://lemotetlereste.com/musiques/kingcrimson/
    Canterbury & prog interviews - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdf...IUPxUMA/videos

  13. #13
    Member Lopez's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by GuitarGeek View Post
    Chuckles
    Thanks for the laugh. I was in the audience at the Providence show in 1974. After a couple of numbers Robert took the mike and said (something like), "Now here's the part of the show where I tell you jokes and make you laugh. Chuckles Fripp they call me in the business."
    Lou

    Looking forward to my day in court.

  14. #14
    If I recall right, Ian Wallace made the cassette recordings of the Islands band.

  15. #15
    Parrots Ripped My Flesh Dave (in MA)'s Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by pb2015 View Post
    If I recall right, Ian Wallace made the cassette recordings of the Islands band.
    I think they were his idea, but they were recorded from the soundboard by the guy running the live sound, Hunter MacDonald.

    https://www.dgmlive.com/news/Sailors...k%20by%20track

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by calyx View Post
    Yes, as Steve F. noted above, the June 1973 radio broadcast was of Atlanta. More info on DGMLive (plus an opportunity to download said show, which iirc is also in the Starless box) :

    https://www.dgmlive.com/albums/richa...-united-states
    Thank you. I'll have to check that out. I don't know why I didn't think to check the downloads on the website, now that I know how to work the search engine on the DGM site (I was able to find all five shows I saw circa 2000-2001).

    There may also have been issues with stolen tapes.
    That might explain the "missing tapes" mentioned in the Starless notes. I think it' sthe Udine show where they only have the last three songs from the soundboard, and I believe they have no recordings, period, not even an audience tape, of the Marseilles show.

    While we know, factually, that this or that line-up's live work was well preserved for posterity, or not, we do not necessarily know WHY
    I guess that's what I was asking about, whether this had been discussed in public, as to why certain things apparently don't exist on tape. Maybe there isn't a real answer, beyond "it just sort of happened that way".

    BTW, something I've always wondered about is the Guildford show from December '72, where the tape abruptly cuts off during Exiles, then you get like a minute of the second improv, and that's it. I always wondered what happened there. Did the tape machine malfunction, or what? Or is that someone hasn't been discussed (or maybe nobody remember what happened?)

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