I'm fascinated by the first King Crimson (aka Discipline) gig on April 30th, 1981 at the Moles Club in Bath, England. I have the DGM release of this gig and have seen the few T Levin pictures, but wondered if anyone has ever stumbled on any video or other audience photo's from that initial outing.
"I want to be someone, who someone would want to be." Marillion
It easily has to be the "fastest" the four piece ever played Discipline - rocket fueled with adrenaline and laser focused tight
Death inspires me like a dog inspires a rabbit
I have not heard of any photo/video evidence of Moles club beyond what DGM has released. But IIRC the band "Discipline" did a mini-tour of the UK. Does anything survive from other Discipline shows? Is there any additional Discipline material on the 80s box set maybe? Any boots out there?
07 May 1981, Polytechnic, Manchester - available to download from DGM Live (restored from a boot source):Originally Posted by arturs
https://dgmlive.com/tour-dates/377
You do know that Curt Smith from Tears for Fears was at that show, and can be seen in the photo of the crowd by the stage?
I somehow doubt any video exists, for the same reasons video doesn't exist of much of our favorite bands and performers from before 1985. I suspect if proshot footage existed, we'd have seen it by now. In fact, given the expense of such a project, I'd imagine anything that would have been shot would have been seen at the time. Keep in mind, the purpose of the initial Discipline shows was to road test and "play in" the material, before committing it to tape for the album. So one imagines Fripp wasn't thinking "This is something that needs to be seen on TV" or whatever.
Given the primitive state of home video at the time, I don't think there's any audience shot footage either. Maybe you might have some 8mm home movie footage, but my experience is that stuff usually is pretty unwatchable.
Stateside, it was commonplace for the local news to cover a "big" concert, as if it was any other kind of major event that was happening in town. You'd get a little bit of a news story, maybe a couple interviews, and a minute or two of music, and maybe you'd get another minute or so at the end of the broadcast. But I'm talking about something like The Stones, Paul McCartney, The Who, maybe Genesis, etc. I don't know if they did similar things in the UK, and even if they did, I somehow imagine that "Robert Fripp's new band playing in a dingy little club" (remember, they weren't yet calling themselves King Crimson) wouldn't qualify in most people's minds as "a major news event". But who knows, maybe out in the sticks, whichever ITV or BBC affiliate was desperate for stuff to fill up their news broadcasts, and did a piece on it. But that's about the best you're gonna get, vis-a-viz video of the Discipline gigs, and who knows if that material even still exists.
I was at college in Manchester at the time, and had seen Fripp's League of Gentlemen the year before, but Discipline completely passed me by at the time, much to my distress when I found out it was KC under a pseudonym. In those days I was hardly ever out of the University and Polytechnic concert halls. Checking back, this date was a Thursday, so I should have been around at the time.
DGM have released the Moles Bath recording twice. Once as a 'club' CD, and another re-mastered version in more recent years, but like the Manchester recording it remains a bootleg audience recording. Given the importance DGM have placed on this phase of the KC story, I believe it's unlikely that any quality audio, video or photo record of Discipline exists other than what has been made available to date.
I SO nearly went to this bloody gig!
Not quite. The band was known as Discipline, because that was the original name. It was only later that Fripp realized that "Hey, we're playing a 1980's version of King Crimson music, so let's call it King Crimson". I'm not entirely sure when that decision was made, if it was before any of the gigs had been played or what, but there was no attempt to obfuscate the group's identity when the Discipline name was used for advertising, unlike when, say, the Rolling Stones would use a pseudonym when playing club dates to warm up for an arena/stadium tour.
Fripp has even said as much, that virtually nothing exists from the first year of the 80's quartet existence, beyond audience tapes. That really only changes when you get to the Beat cycle.DGM have released the Moles Bath recording twice. Once as a 'club' CD, and another re-mastered version in more recent years, but like the Manchester recording it remains a bootleg audience recording. Given the importance DGM have placed on this phase of the KC story, I believe it's unlikely that any quality audio, video or photo record of Discipline exists other than what has been made available to date.
Working my way through the 80's box and listened to this show on the weekend.
There are a few bits that didn't make it into the final recorded versions (an extended middle bit in Thela, a different ending to Elephant Talk) but the fascinating thing is how much they had their sound right out of the gate.
Mediocre sound quality but energy to burn - as an 80's fan it's a great show to have.
Fripp makes it sound like he had a sudden revelation at some point that Discipline was actually King Crimson. But the way Paddy Spinks tells it (in Sid Smith's book), Fripp had the King Crimson identity in mind for this band all along, but wasn't sure whether they truly were KC. So he used the Discipline name until he was convinced. Fripp would probably say that both versions of the story are true.
Hurtleturtled Out of Heaven - an electronic music composition, on CD and vinyl
https://michaelpdawson.bandcamp.com
http://www.waysidemusic.com/Music-Pr...MCD-spc-7.aspx
Man, I wish I had bought a copy of that book when it was available. I went looking for it awhile back, and it's going for ridiculous money these days.
I own a hardbound version with several past band member's signatures - except Fripp. I wonder what it's worth.
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