Tag Archives: Robert Fripp

613. cat food

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmRbSFvh_90

King Crimson were a mess come 1970. A year earlier, they were tearing up the zeitgeist with their debut album, re-framing the very definition of so-called rock music. But one North American tour later, almost everybody had bailed – for reasons of love, sanity or, in the case of singer Greg Lake, greater fame (and riches) with the outfit that would come to be known as ELP. Though he did stick around long enough to deliver a few vocals for the second King Crimson album, including the oddly cut-up attempt at pop glory Cat Food, which, of course, failed in the unit-shifting department, but only because it was (and likely still is) at least half a century ahead of its time.

KingCrimson-FrippLake

47. The Solid Time Of Change

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Installment #47 of the Solid Time of Change aired on Saturday September 23rd (c/o CiTR.FM.101.9).

Youtube playlist – not entirely accurate.

The Solid Time of Change is our overlong yet incomplete history of the so-called Prog Rock era – 661 selections from 1965 through 1979 with which we hope to do justice to a strange and ambitious time indeed, musically speaking.

solid-crop-47

Part Forty-Seven of the journey went as follows (selections 28-23):

  • King Crimson – Red
  • Genesis – the carpet crawlers
  • Genesis – Firth of Fifth
  • Yes – The Revealing Science of God
  • Yes – The Gates of Delirium
  • Pink Floyd – shine on you crazy diamond [I-IX]

Fresh episodes air pretty much every Saturday night, starting 11 pm (Pacific time) c/o CiTR.FM.101.9, with streaming and download options available within twenty-four hours via our Facebook page.

659. Asbury Park

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To clarify. King Crimson first performed as a unit in early 1969, quickly knocked the world onto its head by more or less inventing so-called progressive rock, then proceeded to do just that for the next five years. They progressed. The line-up was ever mutating, as were the sounds. Only one thing remained unchanged. Robert Fripp remained seated as he played his mellotron and planet fracturing guitar. Asbury Park is a live improv from a show at the Asbury Park Casino on June 28, 1974, one of the last shows from the last King Crimson tour of the 1970s after which Mr. Fripp would shut the whole outfit down because he’d come to despise the industry he was in, and what it was doing to him. Not that he and King Crimson brand wouldn’t return half a decade later.  But that is a whole other discipline.

KingCrimson-1974-2

700. exposure

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Exposure is a song (for lack of a better word) that Peter Gabriel and Robert Fripp conceived for Gabriel’s rather unsettled second album. Bleak, abrasive, creepy, prophetic – it was determined (it seems) to drive a wedge between what each had been up to in the past with their previous outfits, and the brave new future on the verge of boiling over as the 1980s dawned. Then, to drive the point home, Fripp made it the title track of his 1979 debut solo album, although now a different singer (a woman named Terre Roche) was tearing up the atmosphere, taking things to the point of genuine pain. Because, to quote Mr. Fripp, ” … the old world, characterized by large, unwieldy and vampiric organizations, was dead.” And what did the new one sound like? Small, independent, mobile, intelligent. And up for a fight, no question.

PeterGabrielRobertFripp-exposure

44. The Solid Time Of Change

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Installment #44 of the Solid Time of Change aired on Saturday July-15-2017 (c/o CiTR.FM.101.9).

Podcast (Solid Time begins a few minutes in). Youtube playlist (not entirely accurate).

The Solid Time of Change is our overlong yet incomplete history of the so-called Prog Rock era – 661 selections from 1965 through 1979 with which we hope to do justice to a strange and ambitious time indeed, musically speaking.

solid-crop-44

Part Forty-Four of the journey went as follows:

  1. Alice Cooper – halo of flies
  2. David Bowie – sweet thing
  3. David Bowie – candidate
  4. David Bowie – sweet thing [reprise]
  5. Yes – Siberian Khatru
  6. Jethro Tull – Passion Play [edit]
  7. Emerson Lake + Palmer – Toccata [edit]
  8. Yes – starship trooper
  9. Robert Fripp – water music
  10. Robert Fripp [with Peter Gabriel] – here comes the flood

Fresh episodes typically air every Saturday night, starting 11 pm (Pacific time) c/o CiTR.FM.101.9. However, Randophonic will be taking a break from new programming for a while starting next week (July-29). Our Facebook page will stay active.

834. Lion of Symmetry

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“Tony Banks (keyboard guy and founding member of Genesis) partners with Toyah Willcox (actress, proto punk, emergent pop songstress, and in 1986, only recently married to Robert Fripp) to deliver the definitive Genesis track of 1980s. Sort of. Because it was definitely the track that made me realize it wasn’t my former favourite band that I’d become allergic to, but their front man. Because given a big, ambitious Banks composition to work with, she sent things out of the stratosphere. At least that’s how it hit me late one night, alone, a little high, headphones on, listening to a mixtape a friend had left in my car. Suddenly I was that lion, free and savage and symmetrical (whatever that was supposed to mean). Epic stuff.” (Philip Random)

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