Bruford: Life for me is a series of asses...

[itserik]

From a 1994 interview as Bill was touring with Earthworks. He offers the drummers perspective.

SECONDS: Is it fun for you to be up front?

BRUFORD: It’s absolutely great. It’s fun to get out and about. I love seeing the whites of an audience’s eyes instead of being stuck in back and seeing John Wetton’ s ass. Life for me is a series of asses that I’m behind. Adrian’s got a very nice ass, slim. John Weston’s is fat. Jon Anderson’s is very small. Nice legs, lousy ass. It’ s a series of asses.

http://www.stevencerio.com/2010/05/i...rd-seconds-28/

[Dave (in MA)]

So he quits KC and Fripp ends up putting 3 drummers out front.

[Zeuhlmate]

Its always a pleasure to read interviews with Bruford. Amusingly clever in perception and expression, fun, intelligent, perhaps even wise.

SECONDS: With Fripp, he’s always come across as the dictator of the band. How does he express his ideas?

BRUFORD: It’ s a lot less than you think. In common with Miles Davis, Robert picks interesting guys. That’ s the entire art of bandleading — picking the right people. If you pick merely interesting people, they’ll make one good album and break up. If you pick the interesting and right people, they’ll make several albums. All Robert does is pick four guys and shut the door and let them figure out their own problems. You’re in the room together and you just have to find a way to make it work. You just forget any ideas you may have had about how it should be or how it was in the past or how it could be. You come with a pair of sticks and an empty brain. He doesn’t in any way give orders, although a certain amount of the current music is written from his guitar. Again, it’ s not the type of band you write a tune for. You find the music in the rehearsal room.

[Progatron]

Bruford is my favourite interviewee. I just love the guy's humour, and I think he is a very clever man with a lot of knowledge of the music business, and he's very honest about it all. I've posted this before, but this is my favourite quote from his excellent autobiography (that HE wrote, no ghostwriter there)....

"Adrian Belew is a father; Robert Fripp is not. When my children were small, there was always a cookie monster in Adrian's suitcase when he came to visit. When Robert came to visit, his idea of fun was to tell the same children at the same age that their necks were so pretty and appealing that he'd like to sink his teeth into them and lick their blood. Their mother was speechless for days."

[No Pride]

BRUFORD: It’ s a lot less than you think. In common with Miles Davis, Robert picks interesting guys. That’ s the entire art of bandleading — picking the right people. If you pick merely interesting people, they’ll make one good album and break up. If you pick the interesting and right people, they’ll make several albums. All Robert does is pick four guys and shut the door and let them figure out their own problems. You’re in the room together and you just have to find a way to make it work. You just forget any ideas you may have had about how it should be or how it was in the past or how it could be. You come with a pair of sticks and an empty brain. He doesn’t in any way give orders, although a certain amount of the current music is written from his guitar. Again, it’ s not the type of band you write a tune for. You find the music in the rehearsal room.

Having recently read Herbie Hancock's autobiography, that's very much the way Miles did it. About the only direction he'd give was to not play anything they were accustomed to playing (i.e. tried and true licks the players might've practiced) and to live in the moment. If they had any questions, Miles always gave cryptic answers that were basically designed to make the guys figure it out for themselves.

I'll have to read that interview when I have more time. I loved Bruf's autobiography and actually, I've recently been rereading excerpts from it while eating my breakfast. The chapter on progressive rock was particularly amusing.

[Zeuhlmate]

Having recently read Herbie Hancock's autobiography, that's very much the way Miles did it.

Untill a certain point this was his method (perhaps up to Tutu / Amandla).
Then he and others instead choose welltrained youngsters from the music schools, that can read & play anything at twice the speed, but is too full of respect to fight for deviating ideas or to disagree with the masters. Cheaper, and requires less rehearsing & time in the studio? (and creates less interesting music)
Zappa, Miles, Fripp, a.o.

That was definetely a derail... sorry - back to Bruford.

[2steves]

Love Bruford---such a smart talented guy---he's right about picking the right guys for a band. It makes all the difference in the world....at least for the music I want to hear.

[Phlakaton]

Bruford is the man.

[N_Singh]

Untill a certain point this was his method (pe
rhaps up to Tutu / Amandla).
Then he and others instead choose welltrained youngsters from the music schools, that can read & play anything at twice the speed, but is too full of respect to fight for deviating ideas or to disagree with the masters. Cheaper, and requires less rehearsing & time in the studio? (and creates less interesting music)
Zappa, Miles, Fripp, a.o.

That was definetely a derail... sorry - back to Bruford.

Marcus Miller took over in part for publishing reasons I think

[jeffo621]

I love the Bruford "ass" quote. I also like the one that goes something like, "King Crimson is the only band that you can play in 17/8 and still stay in a decent hotel."

One of these days I'll pick up his autobiography since he seems to have a great sense of humour and any interviews I've read with him have always been very interesting.

[Werbinox]

Im reading his bio now, and it is SO worth getting. Eminently quotable as always. Some of the Fripp stories are just...damn! And he has an interesting analysis of Brit Progressive Rock as, ultimately, a very positive, affirmative thing (and heavily influenced by the C of E background of many of its innovators; like American roots music it comes from the Church!) One of my recent favorite quotes: "letting the record company dictate the music is like letting the musicians be in charge of the money."

[ItalProgRules]

Love his bio. You can just pick it up, flip to any chapter and read. Since it's a non-linear bio, it doesn't matter.