01	Guitar Craft Theme I: Invocation						05:20
	02	Tight Muscle Party At Love Beach						01:21
	03	The Chords That Bind						01:42
	04	Guitar Craft Theme III: Eye Of the Needle						02:19
	05	All Or Nothing II						04:00
	06	Guitar Craft Theme II: Aspiration						03:59
	07	All Or Nothing I						04:44
	08	Circulation						03:55
	09	A Fearful Symmetry						03:25
	10	The New World						09:51
	11	Crafty March						03:15

ROBERT FRIPP/KING CRIMSON

PRESS CONFERENCE/INTERROGATION
Billy Bob Hargus (April 1997)
from left: Fripp, Giles, Lake, McDonald- photo by Matthew Martens
'We are, as I am, prog-rock pond scum. Our hopes for the future are to bum you out'



A little context first: this was arranged to announce a new record company Discipline Global Mobile along with the release of Epitath, unreleased live recordings of the original King Crimson line-up. Recently, a second volume, The Night Watch, recorded by Crimson in Amersterdam '73, was released. DGM will be release more Fripp/Crimson-related projects.

So... right off the bat let me say that for a long time, I've thought that art-rock was a goddamn curse that's left the world poorer for it. The question that my mischievous side wanted to pose to Robert Fripp and the rest of the original King Crimson line-up (Greg Lake, Ian McDonald, Michael Giles- Peter Sinfield was too ill to make the trip) for their New York press conference was 'are you sorry for what you've caused and how will you repent?' I had enough tact not to ask that but Lake was very unapologetic about it when the topic did come up. 'I'm really proud of what we've done,' he admitted. He even had enough honesty to roll his eyes when he remembered about recording with ELP: 'it only takes three minutes to play/record a three minute song and that should be it. Take it from someone who's spent countless amounts of money and time doing this.' Fair enough.

The other reason I wouldn't have asked my question is because I have a lot of respect for Robert and KC. I've liked most of their albums for years and it's not fair to blame them for all of the trash that followed in their wake. Robert even acknowledged this as he scolded someone from the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame who was there. 'I remember speaking of you,' he said pointedly. 'Tell everyone what I told you when you asked if you could have something from King Crimson to include in a exhibition for progressive rock,' he demanded. The guy was suitably embarassed. 'Well Robert,' he admittedly sheepishly, 'you told me that you didn't think it was appropriate because you didn't feel that King Crimson was really a part of this music.' Fripp went on to explain 'I passed on the idea because our raison d'etre was very different and so it would be inappropriate for Crimson.' Hey, you can call that arrogance but I'd call it pride- the man's done much better work than ELP or Yes so why the hell should he be lumped together with them? One company that didn't want to be associated with HIM was Island records: 'Did you know that they held up the release of No Pussyfooting (his collaboration with Brian Eno) for two years because they thought it would hurt his (Eno's) commercial standing and even then it was only available as an import here (in the States)?'

As much as I enjoyed hearing Robert theorize about music, he seems to have an unpleasant run-ins with critics. He pointedly went after Robert Christgau (who wasn't there) remembering saying that he was a 'jerk' (which is true) and meeting him later, asking him about this (which Christgau denies). Even worse, he chided a writer from a magazine whose editor had complained that Robert would sit on a stage, looking like he was waiting to take a crap. The writer had to spend a while apologizing and distancing himself from his boss. On a lighter note, we did get to share some drummer jokes with him, which he already knew. Q: what do you call a drummer who breaks up with his girlfriend? A: homeless. Q: how do you know if a drum riser is equally balanced? A: Because the drool comes out evenly of each side of his mouth. Q: Did Robert ever tell Bill Bruford these jokes? A: 'He already knows them.'

I gathered this is why Robert isn't too fond of interviews. He began the conference by saying 'You all know who I am but I don't know how you are. Let's go around the room and you'll introduce yourself and tell me why you're here.' 'I feel like I'm at an AA meeting,' the guy next to me grumbled. In truth, it took me three passes to finish a question with Robert because he didn't dig my semantics. He did answer everything thoughtful and sometimes passionately, even standing up and shouting. God, I thought, would I love to do a one-on-one with this guy. A one-on-one with Robert is more than a discussion of course. Robert reads A LOT and especially articles about himself. I won't be surprised if he says to me someday 'you're the one who wanted me to apologize for my music, aren't you?'

The way that the whole event was organized was interesting. Robert, along with series compiler David Singleton, battled with us for an hour or so then there were some photo op's with the whole Crimson line-up then Lake, McDonald and Giles came back in to answer questions without Robert. It almost seemed like it was a seperate meeting. 'First, we have a question for you,' Giles announced. 'What did Robert say about us?' They went on to talk about what they thought made the first Crimson so special/unique- Giles explained that 'we had no idea what we were doing, we were doing what we thought was right at the time' while Lake said that 'it was music made of the time and the music itself really did the talking: it had a force of its own. The live recordings especially captured the 'dangerous' side of King Crimson. It's really spontaneous.'

McDonald and Giles admitted that their leaving the band was foolish and premature. 'Crimson went from total obscurity, living off seed-money from a relative to world-wide fame in six months time,' McDonald explained. 'I was young then and it was too much for me. If I took some time to think about it and gather my thoughts, I would have done things differently.' With McDonald and Giles gone, Lake saw that the band was falling apart. 'If it was only one of them, I could have seen the group staying together but with both of them gone, the group really seemed like it was over,' he explained. Keith Emerson had the same idea about the Nice when they shared a bill with Crimson and the rest is history (sad to say).

As I said, Robert is a really interesting theorist/philosopher when it comes to music so it's worth quoting him at length. In any case, it wasn't half as funny when Robert asked a crowd at a signing party 'do you have any pertinent, burning questions?' A stoner asked 'Did you have any idea how many minds you were going to blow when you did "Devil's Triangle"? A: 'Well, the simple answer to that is blu-blu-blu-blu-blu!' Robert stated calmly as he ran his finger up and down his lips like a pre-schooler. Truly a great moment in rock history!





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


FRIPP: The question would be 'why release this box set of King Crimson material from 1969 now?' Firstly, there were preconditions. Some things had to be necessary. First of all was a suitable and appropriate record company. It's an absurdity that a musician has to start a record company in order to release music. The primary function of a musician surely should be playing the music. However, if the music business is as appalling as some would suggest it is then sometimes the industry conspires, directly or indirectly, to prevent music from being played. So the creation of Discipline Global Mobile is to enable recorded music to come into the world that otherwise wouldn't. So that's the first precondition.

The second (precondition) is technology. Within the past nine to twelve months, the technology has been available to actually present this on CD in such a way that it is an enjoyable experience to listen to.

Thirdly, the particular people were necessary. Particularly, David Singleton, who for four months, with unpromising sonic material to discover and reconstruct the music that lay very beneath conversation and extraneous noise.

And then fourthly, 'does the music stand up after a period of 27 years?' I don't speak for you but for my part, most of it does. Some of it is of the period but a lot of it seems to move and reside in a particular time. It's not music of my past- it's music of my ongoing present. So there are the four necessary preconditions. The company is available to do it. The technology is available to do it. David is available to utter rights and necromancy over the tapes. Finally, the music is sufficient to stand and sing on its own behalf.

So here is Epitath which is a recording of King Crimson from 1969 from thirty eight mintues (on the debut) to roughly four hours and thirty-eight minutes in one particular go. To give you an idea of some of the material such as 'Drop In,' with the BBC sessions, the BBC in 1969 didn't really like young musicians playing rock and roll. The engineers were hostile. And since the music was 'worthless' anyway, as soon as it's recorded, they proceed to record other people on top of it. The BBC doesn't have much of the 1969 material. We were able to find a recording of a broadcast recorded in Italy, recorded with a microphone held in front of a radio, with a conversation going off on the side. A common feature to all of these tapes, and may I say with my recording career generally, is that the recording stops when the guitar solo begins. So on this version of 'Drop In,' there isn't a guitar solo. You will find that with the final recordings at the Filmore West with our roadie, Richard Vickers, operating the recording machine, also the guitar solos to turn over the tape. As I said, this is an ongoing feature of my professional life so I accept it without being overly offended.

Q: What led to the decision to make CD's 3 and 4 mail-order only?

DAVID SINGLETON: The decision was actually made a while ago for two reasons. We felt the general quality of them wouldn't be good enough for the general marketplace. Also, because they are available already on bootleg, they would be of limited appeal to anyone who already owned these. We didn't wish to force anyone to buy two CD's to then buy four. Because if you actually put it together at a four-CD box price, people might feel ripped off that they were buying more than they wanted to buy. You can buy the first two and if you're a great fan, you can also buy the other two.

FRIPP: David is currently probably the finest necromancy merchant in England in terms of operating the savvy and sophisticated equipment to make unlistenable music listenable. For the CD 3 and 4, the sound quality was so appalling that we felt we just couldn't finish it. However after that, David's techniques improved. We actually found out that the playing was more probably better and more interesting and the sound quality was better on volumes 1 and 2. We held onto that for a period of time. But the beauty of being an independent company is that we had more leeway and mobility than if we were based with a major. So in Japan, volumes 3 and 4 will be released in shops because we really don't have an operation there. It may be that in time, volumes 3 and 4 are sold in shops in America.

Q: On the 10th cut on the first disk, is that a sample from The White Album ('Bungalo Bill')?

FRIPP: Yes, and you'll notice that there's a small witicism as Ian McDonald is playing the break on mellotron, the guitarist (me) is playing the same break. When they made tapes for the mellotron to be fitted originally, they ran into restrictions from the Musicians Union so they went to Holland and used Dutch players to record the original tapes.


Q: Do you still have a lot of other unreleased material collected?

FRIPP: Yes, I already have significant archives. On some of them, we're working on five different bootlegs. It depends on where the bootlegger is standing in the hall with a tape or the level the ambient conversation going around. Michael Shore for example, of MTV news, has a number of Crimson bootleg tapes where he's more interested in the conversations going on in the audience. One of the people there says 'hey man, these guys suck.' Someone responds 'why don't you quiet down and open your ears.' And so on. But David worked from several sources that were available. In some cases, (he) took some bars from one and some bars from the others.

For upcoming archive releases, which are mainly governed by time, we'll be accessing all the Crimson archives from '69 up to date. We're currently planning a boxed set, Vroom, Vroom, Vroom, which will rerelease Vroom and Vroom Vroom which is the audio track from the video plus Vroom Vroom Vroom which is the live recordings at the Wilshire. We have the Long Acre Theatre (recordings) as well. Plus we have live tracks from the last shows that Crimson did in 1984- two nights at a club in Montreal. Plus we have tracks of Crimson from '82 to '84. We have video material of Crimson live in '82 and '84 in Japan which will come to us when the final consent order on six years of litigation is stamped today or next week. All these archive materials are available but they're hugely time consuming. It may be that some bootleggers aren't prepared to put four months of time in and invest in very sophisticated, expensive equipment in order to sell a few thousand copies of the material. If we're going to do, then we're going to give it our best shot. Which means that David will be going home very late at night.

Q: After Frame by Frame came out, I heard that the idea was to release three live boxed sets. I'd heard of plans of material from the Wetton-Bruford era and the Belew era as well. Is the Boz Burrell era going to be part of this?

FRIPP: Oh yes, this has already begun.

DAVID: There proves to be more '69 material than we knew about at the time. We actually collected a lot of this material over the Internet. We put out a bootleg amnesty and we were basically interested in any 1969 material that people had. If they would send us their bootleg, we would just copy it to DAT and send it back again. In that way, we were able to significantly increase the amount of 1969 material that was available. So much so that a box of just the 1969 material became possible whereas previously...

FRIPP: This is part of an ongoing offer. Various people write into Elephant Talk and various newsgroups and say 'I have a wonderful show of Crimson that I've never heard anywhere' and sends the tape. If it can be of help to us, then we'll certainly work on the sound and when we have the time, we'll make it generally available.

Q: Of all the incarnations of Crimson, what stands out about the first one?

FRIPP: The utterly other nature of music. I don't know how many of you read books on the sociology of music, the psychology of music, music as social product, the philosophy of music. I read a good lot of them. If you're looking into studies on musicology, Indian studies on musicology are very different than Western studies on musicology. If you're looking at the anthropology of music, an awful lot of musicians and audience participants would say 'what?' in the cultural language of your choice. The earnest tones which seek to explain the meaning of music from a Western point of view, none of them have described or explained to me my own experience which is... (takes a deep breath). And then what do you do?

My sense is that a lot of professional musicians come into music because of this otherness. When music flies by and your life begins and then when that moment has passed, what happened? How can I get back to that moment when my life was alive. Many professional musicians, in my judgment and experience and conversations and so on, go into the life of the professional musician in order to re-experience that moment when music flew by as if it was a gift and involve themselves in a way of living which slams the door shut, puts the bolts on and nails up barriers where that experience can never be recaptured. My anecdotal expeience will endure the humiliation for several years and if that experience doesn't come by again, then generally they go into a different walk of life or take drugs or drink too much or get cynical. But if somehow music comes alive then they keep going.

(long pause)

And on May the 16th this year, I celebrate my 30th year as a professional musician. On December 24th of this year, I celebrate my 40th year as a guitarist. I am not yet cynical.

So we come into this query 'what was it about the first Crimson?' I've had the experience before them (of) music speaking to me, but always as a listener. When I was 20, I worked at a hotel in a dance orchestra, playing weddings, bar-mitzvahs, dancing, cabaret. I drove home and I was also at college at the time. Then I put on the radio (Radio Luxemborg) and I heard this music. It was terrifying. I had no idea what it was. Then it kept going. Then there was this enormous whine note of strings. Then there was this a collosal piano chord. I discovered later that I'd come in half-way through Sgt. Pepper, played continuously. My life was never the same again.

Then there was Hendrix, more or less the same time. 'Can you remember where you were when you heard the opening bars of "Purple Haze"? Then there were the Bartok string quartets. My experience was of the same musicians speaking to me in different dialects. One musician speaking in different voices.

The first King Crimson for me was the time when I had that experience but as a player. The members of the band at the time referred to 'our good fairy.' We couldn't do anything wrong- there was 'our good fairy.' As I heard it expressed later and even now, it was as if the music took over and took the musicians into its confidence. That is by no means the last time I felt in that position somewhere between heaven and earth. But that was the first time. As one loses one's expereince, loses one's innocence, and acquires experience, it becomes harder (from my point of view) to re-experience that instance again. How many times can you lose your viginity? You begin with innocence then when you lose your innocence, there's no competence to replace it. So how to get back to that point, where innocence is present? For me, this is the characteristic of the... I don't quite like the word but 'master musician.' I mean, what is the 'mistress musician'? Our language is so...

Q: It's neutral. It's the English language. There's nothing we can do about it.

FRIPP: Well, I'd like to think we could but here's the point... What enables us, I suggest, to recognize a master musician (Pablo Casals for example) is the capacity to assume innocence in a field of experience. When Casals played, you KNEW this was the first time Casals had played this. Why? Because they came to it fresh. It was discovery each time. This is why I find it very hard to work with a good professional musician. The characteristic of a good professional musician is that they know what they're doing. The disadvantage is that they don't do what they don't know that they're doing. So either have to accept that you are continually upsetting what a good professional musician knows what they can do or you work with musician of a sufficient committment that they are trying and perhaps succeeding in going beyond what they know they can do. In Crimson, this is referred to as 'train wrecks.' The music is littered with mines. Crimson music is a mine field. Even pieces that we may play on a regular basis are constructed in such a way that the slight lapse of concentration and when everyone begins on C#, Tony Levin begins on an F. This has its own interest and appeal. One of the archive plans for the future is... the sonic minefield that Crimson is re-discovering of challange.


Q: Would you recommend that other artists go back like Crimson has and put out their work from their first year?

FRIPP: I can think of some artists that I would ask not to. (everyone laughs) But generally I decline to comment on the work of other artists unless they specifically ask me for my advice. Then I would note that very, very few people who ask me for my advice really want it. So I can only reply by saying, to quote Keith Richards, 'dunno.' This answer was actually cited by Ian Hunter as being a pivotal learning experience in his own life. Very taken by this answer Richards gave in an interview so I quote it here.


Q: Could you talk about this sense of 'something other' that surrounded the band? What's the nature of this and how could you prepare for this?

FRIPP: Well, the answer to the second question is that you could sign on for one of my guitar craft courses. That's not because I wish for anymore guitar craft courses or students but that is my own personal and practical response to that question.

'He who binds himself to joy/Does the winged life destroy;/But he who kisses the joy as it flies/Lives in eternity's sun rise,' Blake ('Eternity'). If we grasp for it, we miss it. On the other hand, just wait around? Well, that might not happen either. If music is like the wind that blows, how do we raise the sound? For me as a young player/guitarist, tone death and with no sense of rhythm, I was nevertheless able to recognize other players that were musical. They had it and I didn't. I practiced my instrument and my aim later as a teenager was to become good enough that good musiciains would ask me to play with them if I hold my part of the field. My idea was that if I could get near enough to musicians, maybe I could learn how and what they were doing. I also figured at age 17, that I'd have to get to be about 23 before I had enough life experience and maturity to have something that might actually be worth saying. Though the young Fripp wasn't very musical, he had enough Dorset street sense to see what was good for him. So I practiced and practiced and practiced and when the wind blew by, I had my sail up and running.

Working with a musician like Michael Giles for example... Remarkable man. I mean, what a drummer! Phenomenonal! I learned huge amounts just by being near McDonald and Giles in Crimson. Very musical characters.

So in terms of the otherness of music, prepare to remain available. We could wear a hair shirt. We could sit on a pointed stick. But the problem with the hair shirt is that after a while, you get used to it, it becomes comfortable. Even a pointed stick... There are two prime techniques for dealing with that- keeping yourself alert so that if the music flys by, you're there with it. One is shock but the difficult with that is... if there's no shocks, maybe you sleep on. If you become reliant on external shocks anyway, you lose your own powers of initiative. The other one is to build in shocks to your own system, like a challange where you regularly set yourself some particular challenge which requires of you that you go beyond what you're able to reasonably respond to.

Q: If we talk about being in the presense of music as being in the presence of something other, it's reasonable to assume that there's ways to be able to make yourself 'available' to music like you'd be able to make yourself 'available' to ESP.

FRIPP: The books I've read on the sociology of music never quite get to the subtly that I'm interested in. The qualitative aspect of music is unconditioned. Music is a quality, organizing sound and time. In a sense, music is the cup that holds the wine of silence. Normally, we fill it with Coca Cola. So you always have this conjunction between the conditioned and the unconditioned, quality and quantity, the ineffable and the material. But one can train oneself to be in a position when the wind blows, you respond to it. Perhaps.

Q: Is there an abbreviated version of the story about your former manager other than the lengthy version that appears in Epitath?
FRIPP: THAT's the abbreviated one! That's the one that could stand up in a libel court and I wouldn't even have to twitch. The release of Epitath couldn't be held up by an injunction. If you think that a faint aroma, you should see the documents and get into the real stuff. The original relationship with E.G. Management established new standards in terms of relations between musicians and management. As my relationship ended, the artist served the manager. In the original construct, E.G. Records and E.G. Music the publishing house acted as a means of defence for the artist and a major. For example, King Crimson produced a record for E.G. Productions. The copyrights were owned 70-30 between the artists and the manager. This is released through E.G. Records who has a licensing deal in England with Island and Atlantic Records in America. If for any reason, there was a breakdown in relationship then Island or Atlantic would sue E.G. Records, not King Crimson who were free to record in some other fashion then rather than get mired down.

Reading in MUSICIAN about Metallica's out-of-court settlement, they, after selling 30-40 million records, GET TO OWN THE MASTERS THEMSELVES? Wow, what a novelty that might be! With Discipline Moblie Globile, the artists own the copyrights. David Geffen sold Geffen Records for 450 million dollars. Did he make a record? Alright then, the people who did make records- how much of the 450 million did they get? Is there something in this equation that doesn't quite convince? So the original relationship between Crimson and E.G. Management set up was of a quality and participation (where) there was equity between the artist and the managers and the record company and the publisher which protected them from outside predators. In the end, E.G. Mangement, in my argued presentation, controlled its assets so as to guarantee the supply of product for their publishing and record companies which owned the copyright.

The way that they (E.G. Management) represented their work to Crimson was as follows: they would do their work so they could protect my interests and also so that they could protect their copyrights, by law if necessary around the world. As advice given to anyone by an artist, this is inaccurate. As a piece of advice given to an artist by a manager, it becomes very suspect since it's not true. Particularly since the manager gains to materially benefit from that piece of advice. David Entoven wrote me a letter in 1991, apologizing for his involvement in this. I was very gratious with David and I accepted. Mister Alder on the other hand said 'what have we done? We have nothing to hide.' He suggested that his clients were renouned for their probity in said business practices, like giving the artists inaccurate advice to make over to the manager's companies the artists' property.


Q: As a young, tone-deaf player, with not much sense of rhythm...

FRIPP: I had NO sense of rhythm. Playing a note you can't hear in time and you don't know where it is. That's not talent!

Q: What did you do to get out of that?

FRIPP: I began with my hands and I moved from my hands, gradually up to my arms and my shoulders and then down the spine and torso, to my hips and then down my legs to my feet. At that point, is there something I missed? Ah, yes! From the back of the neck upwards. But I began with my hips.


Q: Do you feel like you started with your head or your heart?

FRIPP: When you try to find the beginning, it has this mysterious capacity that it moves backwards in time. Where you think you begin is actually some time after the beginning. So you move back and you (say) 'ah, that was the beginning.' Then you realize 'no, it wasn't. THAT was the beginning.' And then... So then you move backwards. You say 'do you have a beginning' and I say 'YES, I do.' On the other hand, I have one beginning from which I'm certain but before that, I'm not. But of that I am.


Q: Did you study scales or chords? How did you find your technique or were you following a traditional path?

FRIPP: Could both of those answers be true?

Q: Yes. Everyone learns differently. How did you begin?

FRIPP: I began with "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean." (singing) 'My bon-nie lies o-ver the o-cean.' Musically however, it didn't move me. This was part of realizing that music publishers who were selling instruction manuals to young players maybe didn't have the young players' best interests at heart. Maybe they would be happy to sell them the catalog rather than providing them practice materials that actually supported their learning. But then I moved on to "Spic and Spanish" which I played at Verwood Memorial Hall when I was 13. With that particular piece, I had only learned it the week before and it was set up on a music stand and I was reading while playing. However, I hadn't yet become familiar with blind shifting as I am now. A certain point there... (singing) 'dum dee dee dum dum dum dum' and a key change. 'Oh dear, only one fret away.' The members of the audience (heard a) sudden shift in tonality in the European tonal harmonics...

From there, I moved onto my second guitar teacher, Don Strike, who was my first PROPER guitar teacher. His musical background was really the banjo playing of the '20s and '30s. So I learned a few hot licks like "You're Nobody's Sweetheart Now." By then, I was about 14 and my guitar interest had been raised by Scotty Moore and Chuck Berry. But somehow in my guitar playing, I never got anywhere near Scotty Moore or Chuck Berry.

I'd need a lot more time but it really began for me when I was 20, 21. (That's) when the music and the guitar playing came together and I began to find my own personal dialect. Part of it is giving yourself permission to actually speak with your own voice. Part of this is an assumed arrogance which can be terrorfying. 'I'M GONNA PLAY MY OWN MUSIC!' 'Yes, my son...'

Q: Why did Crimson use the mellotron so much in in its work? The band kind of popularized it, didn't it?

FRIPP: I own six of them, five of which belong to King Crimson. I have two of the original double-manual mellotrons and two mellotrons from the '72/'74 Crimson. The Moody Blues also used mellotrons. I think Crimson used it in more abberant forms than previous users. By the time that Crimson ceased using them in September '74, you didn't have viable synthesizers. There was an impressionistic possibility from strings and flutes and brass that you couldn't get from a guitar, though you now can. The supposed mellotron use on Thrak is Adrian on my guitar synthesizer with some mellotron use as a homeopathic link from the past.

There is a version of "I Talk to the Wind" from the Chesterfield Jazz Club (not on Epitath) which was a 'bad hair night' for the mellotron. If it was a 'bad hair night' for the mellotron, which doesn't care anyway, it was AWFUL for the musician who had to play it. We had to make a decision- do we include this or not? Finally, we said no. Just to show how out of tune a mellotron can go while a musician is using it is not a reason to make it available throughout the world. At this point in the song, you can hear Greg Lake thinking 'do I pitch with the mellotron or the bass?' About a minute later, Greg has made up his mind- 'I'll go with the bass because it's closer to me.' However for the next two minutes, you can continue to hear Ian thinking 'shall I sing with the mellotron or with Greg while continuing to fine tune the pitch of the mellotron as the song begins?' This is 35-minutes into the gig, doing things we hadn't done at other gigs, just burning. Then our confidence is completely undermined. Their movement forward is brought to a halt by this AWFUL out of tune mellotron and the show never actually recovers from it, especially when the mellotron is used in any piece.

DAVID: There was another show where the mellotron was a semi-tone out of tune and this chord comes out that was delayed into the P.A.- the reason it went out of tune was because of the voltage so that if they played a loud chord, the mellotron went flat. Ian had to try to retune it as everyone else got quiet.

FRIPP: This we discovered particularly in Amercia, particularly working at the Boston Tea Party. In England, you work on 240 (volts) which is more reliable than the United States with 110 and much more than Sicily which is at 85. We were playing "In The Court of the Crimson King" and you heard D from the band and the tuned instruments, D flat from the mellotron strings and the voices horribly in between. We finally bought a voltage stabilizer after all of this.


Q: Since the first Crimson line-ups, there haven't been acoustic guitars used. Was that a conscious decision or just what the music dictated?

FRIPP: Could it be both of those? What music since that period has demanded the use of an acoustic guitar?

Q: I don't know.

FRIPP: AH!!!

Q: What music has demanded the exclusion of an acoustic guitar?

FRIPP: Just about everything we've played. However there is an exception to this which is on the coda of Three Of A Perfect Pair where you will hear me playing acoustic guitar.


Q: When you were going through the archive material and tweaking it, when do you decide to stop working on it?

DAVID: When the release date's arrived. About midnight of that day. You start with something that is obviously unlistenable and you hear a fault and say 'there is an obvious fault and I can improve it.' The next day, you hear the next fault and work on that. I listen to it now and hear faults and these are faults I can improve.

FRIPP: Because of the way that Discipline operates, we will be doing second editions where we improve them and even change the music on them. One thing that is waiting for us is to do a re-mastering of the entire King Crimson catalog. Digital technology is so much further than the Definitive Version(s) of '89 where the original audio buffs complained that the audio on the vinyl is better than the CD. The next Definitive edition will be markedly better than the last release.


Q: With the re-mastering process, is it tough to resist the temptation to re-mix as well?

FRIPP: It's very easy to re-mix. It's very easy to take the decision not to re-mix because the amount of work in that... I've tried it. I've tried remixing In the Court of the Crimson King in 1975. You had problems like someone stole the original track of "Schizoid Man." It's not possible to remix that. There are others like Lark's Tongue that I thought I could and I still believe that I could. But the amount of work involved in it is OVERWHELMING. So, improve the mastering format and leave it at that.


Q: Why did you leave off the orchestra at the end of Islands?

FRIPP: I left Tony Arnold the job of putting that on the master and he forgot to. He didn't wait a minute before the orchesetral wind-up came so I only discovered that when it was re-released.


Q: Why does the guitar on "Matte Kudasai" sound different on the original and the remix?

FRIPP: It's a different take. In the original version, there was no solo by me- it was Adrian Belew. We both felt something more was needed. He went back to America and I played a solo and it was released on Discipline. We both listened to it and it wasn't right. Although the version with Adrian doing the solo may not be 100% right, it was better than my attempt to do a solo. So on the Definitive Edition, we put the mix with Adrian doing the solo rather than me.


(a break in the action and then Fripp talks about the source of the Epitath recordings)

FRIPP: Some of the tapes are the original generations but we hunted through tapes in some instances and found the best generations we could find.


Q: You didn't pull in seperate elements though? You used the masters?

FRIPP: That's right.

(He asks one of the writers why his editor says unflattering things about him. The guy says that the editor doesn't like how Fripp behaves on stage- sitting still)

FRIPP: When a musician walks on stage for a public performance, everything you are is transparent. When you walk on stage, you cannot hide. Even the attempt at concealment is transparent. You know your limitations, your pomposity, arrogance and ignorance and display it for the public. But the musician realizes that is part of what is necessary to become a musician. What I don't understand is why trumpet your ignorance if you're the editor of a magazine? I don't pass comments on other musicians. On writers however...


Q: Other than "I Talk To The Wind" where there any other songs that you found weren't salvable?

DAVID: The shows are all complete except for "I Talk to the Wind" and "In The Court of the Crimson King" which followed it from Chesterfield. Everything else is complete and we used everything we could. There was a piece called "Trees" that was complete inaudible as if they played it in the building over there.

FRIPP: Crimson music which was more related to the European tonal harmonic tradition provided problems. The muscular music where it was more afro-American although filtered through Europe, it was less problematic.


Q: Could you talk about the time that you got your first guitar?

FRIPP: I went out shopping with my mother. Although all of my Christmas presents had already been purchased, for some reason, I wanted a guitar. We went out to the Bournemouth area to spend the day hunting for this. Finally at the end of the day, we went into a music shop to buy a 4 guinea guitar and they were all terrible. Plastic things where you pressed a button and a major chord came out. You push another button and you have a minor chord. What more do you need? Maybe wood... and strings too. We found a real guitar that was six guineas and it was being returned by this woman because she could afford a better guitar for her son. And there... was my guitar! It was a horrible bloody thing. It crippled my playing for at least ten years. You couldn't press a string above the seventh fret without pliers. The fret began to move after fifteen notes. I decided to give it to my cousin and he still has it. It was horrible! I had to develop muscularture to even press these strings down. And when I was really able to make a chord, you really didn't want to listen to it anyway.


Q: When the first Crimson album was done in '69, the vocabulary of the electric guitar was just being developed. Do you still feel or see the same creative promise of the electric guitar that you did in '69?

FRIPP: There's a number of ways into that. The quick answer in a general point of view is no. The quick answer from a personal point of view is yes. In 1969 or 1977, you chose one chord, hit it, picked another and then that was music. Nowadays, any of the guitar magazines in one month's issue have more information available to a young player than I did in any one year of my life or probably three years of my life when I began to play. You have performance standards which are enormous. In 1969, I used a Dorian node- hey, we're not even talking Lydian here! This was pretention that this young player of 22, 23 was using Dorian nodes. Who does he think he is? Nowadays, if any young player, say 21 to 23, turning up for work, if he didn't have levels of professional competence that included every key and chord you'd ever be asked to play, whammy bar technique, finger tapping, there's 12 other guitarists down the street waiting to take your chair or borrow your gig wig (for maturing heavy metal players). Hey, why go on stage bald and finger tap when you can have hair! Bill Forth, who's with me on the G3 tour, can spot a gig wig from a considerable distance.


Q: Since you're still doing a lot of archival work with Crimson, are you still moving forward with new projects for the latest line-up? Would you consider working with McDonald, Lake or Giles again?

FRIPP: The quick answer to that is I don't know. The long answer is 'do I envision the first King Crimson reforming and playing together ever playing again?' No, categorically. I am wonderfully happy to be in connection with all the guys together again. The Epitath play-back in London was an event, certainly. But to reform the original King Crimson, I'd have to say 'What is the aim or this? What is the intent?' If it's to have these guys together, that's fine- we can drink coffee and eat cake, we don't have to play. If the aim is to play that music again, there's other ways of playing it. For me, would those musicians play that music as well again? Probably not. Would they play it better? No. Would it be as fresh and powerful in this moment as it was then? No. Would I play with those musicians again in varying contexts? Yes, sure.


Q: Why would a reunion of the original band have to play the old material? The line-up could probably now produce something just as original and startling.

FRIPP: If I felt that were to be so, I'd be the first one to make the call. I think more 'what is it that I wish to do' more than 'why shouldn't I do that.' If I felt that was there in potential and waiting, I'd make the calls. So for me, it's not as cold or calculated as that. Very little in my life is arbitrary. I tend to take on particular challenges or pieces of work because they are resonating there. It's like it's there waiting to be played. It is SO uncomfortable when it's waiting there to be played and it hasn't been played. Something like maybe a mother in labor.

So how (to do this)? For example, with Crimson in '81, the music was there. I didn't know exactly how it would sound but it was there. Why? Because it FELT like that. It was a question of ranging the sonic materials played by those musicians. Then... that's it! But until then, acute discomfort at the least. Now, if you said 'do you feel like that about the members of the original King Crimson,' no. That's not a negative thing. I just don't feel a positive thing. If Ian said 'I'm making a record, would you like to come and play on it,' yes. Or 'I'd like to play with Mike again so he lives near by and we'll play together.' But that's just two musicians playing together. That's not the structure of an expectation that comes from it.

Working with King Crimson has become an increasingly uncomfortable and unsatifying event for me. Partly because of the nature of performance itself. 'Here is the RAISED PLATFORM on which the musicians sit. Here are we in the audience, played at, by them for which we have bought a ticket. Therefore, I have a right because I bought a ticket. I want them to play such-and-such. I want the guitarist to wave his arms. If he doesn't, I have been short-changed.' As a kind of performance mode, I find this appalling. Especially as a musician in King Crimson that goes to play in places he hadn't worked in before, like Eastern Europe last year, and coming into the tangible weight of expectation. It may be that the master musician can embrace music with this freshness as if for the first time.

You know Harold Becker's concept of 'art worlds'? My own notion is of 'music worlds' but it's somewhat different than Becker's. It's that there are different worlds of music in a sense in which musicians/audiences live and from which music emerges. For example, within the commercial culture, a trained professional musician knows how to make people jump on the seats and writes a jingle. It originates within the commercial world to serve a certain functional purpose within the rules of commerce. That is legitimate. BUT it cannot rise very much above that unless you happen to have Mozart or the modern equivalent writing the jingle, who uses that form of constraint in order to introduce something through the back door. If you accept that here is a musician that we recognize as a master like Casals or any man who can bring within the audible range music more real than life itself (Hendrix, Joni Mitchell, Charlie Parker), what is the audience equivalent who listens to the same quality?

Now what might we call this? In the commercial domain, you might call it the punter or the fan, which is not to insult a person who knows what they want and buys it. But what is the audience equivalent of the craftsman or craftswomen, the person who is able to play reliably on demand and with a certain level of competence? How many members of the audience can acutally hear what is being played? Some people are so defined in what they want and expect that they will not be able to hear or see beyond that point. Now, what is the audience equivalent of the master musician?

Q: It's a channel, a feedback process.

FRIPP: Yes, in the same way you can say that this musician is a journeyman, then you have a gigster, then you have the happy gigster, then this is a professional but we still haven't gotten to the genius yet. But what audience equivalent would there be for the master musician?

Q: It should be the critic?

FRIPP: This is interesting because the answer should be yes. A professional listener would be at the level of the professional musician. They hear what's going on but they might not understand it. They might KNOW what's going on as a professional musician who is playing the charts and knows what's going on but that doesn't mean they can make a judgment regarding it. You would have a connoisseur then. One aspect of the musician is the connoisseur in that they do understand their own processes. In other words, it confers the capacity to make a judgment. But in order to do that, you must be able to play music like Casals as if for the first time. This is the characteristic. There are others. And there are specific technical requirements necessary to enter that world and stay in it.

Q: But you really have to know your own process, like a master musician would.

FRIPP: Yes, and that familiarity. For each of these worlds have their own degree of self-realization. To be a professional musician and completely competent is a very big thing. To listen to someone play for 45 minutes whether you like it or not is a very big thing. But that will only buy you entrance into that world. If you like, you could go to the next world rather than that world visiting you, WHICH IT DOES AND THIS IS THE KEY TO IT! WHERE DOES IT COME FROM? HOW DO I KNOW THAT IT'S REAL? We couldn't go there but it came here.


(another break in the action- Fripp describes some serendipity from an exhausting event)

FRIPP: Four hours of playing at the Southbank in London, playing for maybe four hours a day and you walk off and play in. It's a challenge. It's a self-provided shock, which is part of the challenge of being a musician. And you will find that on the third day, which is a Saturday, four hours into a nine hours, I asked for a cappucino and I took a break. I asked 'what shall I play next?' Because after four hours, you will have played everything that you have ever known. The third day in, you have no idea what to play next. Someone said to play 'blue.' So then back to the next four hours and what happened then was that I played what I didn't know, through necessity. That is released on CD as "Sometimes God Hides" (from the 'Pie Jesu' single).


'I have a stranger relationship to this mythic beast called King Crimson than anyone else. None of the versions of Crimson replace the efforts of the other groups.'